by James Oswald
Back in the kitchen, Mrs McCutcheon’s cat had abandoned the Aga and was up on the table, sniffing at the bag of curry.
‘There’s plenty for everyone. Just be patient.’ McLean found a plate and a beer, scooped half of the food on to the one and poured the other into a glass. The kitchen was warm but the rest of the house had a chill about it. Soon he’d have to venture down into the basement and fire up the old boiler. Not that it actually heated the place, but the gurgling noises it made through the ancient cast-iron radiators reminded him of his childhood and happier times.
Normally after eating he would have gone through to the library. Perhaps listened to some music while he read through the work that had followed him home. Knowing Rachel was asleep in there, McLean lingered over his meal instead, listening to the quiet tock of the clock on the kitchen wall, the soft noises of the Aga and the hum of the fridge. The quiet was something he savoured, a chance to think. He might have done some work, but it was late and it would still be there in the morning.
‘There you go. Just don’t be sick like the last time.’ He scraped some curry and rice into the cat’s bowl, keeping enough back for Rachel should she wake hungry. It was unlikely; she hardly seemed to eat anything and always complained that the baby left her no room for food anyway. A couple of months, she had said, but McLean didn’t believe that any more now than he had when she’d first arrived. It was surprising the airline had let her fly home.
The light was still on and the library door hanging half-open as he climbed the stairs to bed, so the voice behind him as he opened his bedroom door gave McLean more of a fright than was reasonable.
‘You turned off the telly.’ Rachel appeared from the shadows like a ghost, still draped in her blanket.
‘Thought you were asleep.’
‘I was. Sorry. Just get so tired sometimes.’ Rachel winced, a hand going to her stomach. ‘Little bugger never gives me much peace. I can’t remember the last time I slept more than an hour straight.’
‘Not long now, I guess. You hear from Phil yet?’
Rachel’s expression was answer enough.
‘He’ll be in touch, Rae. Just give him time. I can’t imagine this is easy for either of you.’ McLean stifled a yawn, risked a glance at his bed in the room beyond the open door.
‘You have the smallest room in the house.’ Rachel leaned past him, not quite crossing the threshold, but peering in nonetheless. ‘I’d have thought you’d have the biggest.’
‘This is where I grew up. It was always my room. Seems, I don’t know, a bit weird moving into my gran’s room or one of the spare rooms. Comfy enough where I am.’
Rachel stepped back, a fleeting smile on her face. ‘You’re a strange man, Tony. A good man, but strange.’ She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Sleep well.’
And then she turned away, the darkness swallowing her as if she were no more than a dream.
11
‘I don’t rent out rooms to just anyone, you know.’
She eyes the pair of them suspiciously. Turning up on her doorstep first thing is not good, even if they have the reference. True, they’re well dressed, but that doesn’t mean as much as it used to. Look at the luggage, that’s more of an indication if she’s any judge. Too much and they’re staying longer than they’ve any right to. Not enough and they’re up to no good. These two don’t have much, but it errs on the right side. And they’re well dressed. And they have a reference from … Well, she knows better than to question them.
‘I’m sure you run a very proper establishment, Mrs …’
‘Prendergast. And it’s Miss. There are rules if you want to stay here. I’m not running a bawdy house, you know.’
The girl smiles slightly at this. It’s not an unkind smile, but something in it prickles the back of Miss Prendergast’s neck.
‘We won’t be staying long. Just a little unfinished business to attend to in the capital.’
‘And you just want the one room?’
‘As long as it has two beds. I love my brother dearly, but it’s a long time since last we had to share.’
The young woman smiles again, fixing Miss Prendergast with a stare that is pure innocence. There is no harm in her at all, it says. She can be trusted, as can her brother.
‘Of course, of course. I have just the room, if you’ll follow me.’
She leads them up the stairs, pausing at the first floor. The front room here has two single beds in it, a good view out over the road. They’ll be comfortable in there, this strange brother and sister. But before she can take out the key, a hand touches hers, stops her.
‘Higher up?’ It is the young man, the first time she has heard him speak. His accent is like his sister’s, cultured, polite, a lilt of Western Highlands about it.
‘You don’t mind the stairs?’
‘We are both of us young, Miss Prendergast. We’ll manage. And I like to be able to look down.’
She considers a moment, then takes them up two more flights of stairs. The room is in the roof, walls sloping down to the floor. Two narrow beds have their heads to the gable, a single shaft of sunlight lying across them from the narrow roof window. It smells of stale air and dust; no one has been up here in a while.
‘This is perfect.’ The young woman pushes past her, boots clumping noisily on the bare wooden floorboards. It is not a big room, so the inspection doesn’t take long, ending with her sitting heavily on the end of one of the beds. If she notices the cloud of dust billowing up from the covers, she doesn’t mention it.
Miss Prendergast clears her throat. ‘There’s no visitors after nine p.m., no food to be consumed in the room. The bathroom is across the landing there; please do not use all the hot water. And I’ll need a week’s rent in advance.’
The young woman’s smile flickers momentarily, then she rises to her feet, walks back to where Miss Prendergast stands just inside the doorway. Before she knows what’s happening, the young woman has taken both her hands, holding them together as if in prayer. She brings them up to her breast slowly, all the while staring deep into Miss Prendergast’s eyes. There is a scent about her that is hard to place. It evokes spring, memories of childhood.
‘Are you sure that’s really necessary?’
She has run this guest house for years, along with her sister before Esme died. Now it’s just her, but she knows the rules. She has never let a lodger stay without the first week’s rent in advance. And yet these two seem so trustworthy; they are surely honest people. She doesn’t need to bother about money just now. And besides, they’re taking a room she’s not rented out in a decade. More. And they have that reference. Almost family. What harm can come of it?
‘I’ll just give you your key then.’ Miss Prendergast extricates her hands from the young woman’s hold, pulls a single heavy key from the pocket of her cardigan and hands it over.
‘I lock the front door at eleven sharp. If you’re not back by then you’ll have to take your chances I’m still awake.’
The young woman takes the key from her unresisting fingers, and there’s that smile again. ‘Don’t you worry about us. We’ll be as quiet as church mice. You won’t even know we’re here.’
12
‘Hope you don’t mind me calling you in on this one, Tony. Thought you might be a bit more use than that idiot Carter.’
McLean climbed out of his car as Detective Chief Inspector Jayne McIntyre approached. It was perhaps the only silver lining in the shuffling of seats that had followed Detective Superintendent Duguid’s retirement that McIntyre had been promoted to DCI. She should have been Deputy Chief Constable by now, but that particular career
path had been cut short by an incident involving an investigative journalist and a punch on the nose. It only made McLean respect her more.
‘What’s the situation? You said something about a body? Reckon there’s foul play?’
‘That’s kind of what I wanted you here to help with. It’s unusual, I’ll give you that much. Probably best if you see for yourself first.’
They were on the top storey of the car park at the back of the St James Centre, looked down upon by the empty windows of New St Andrew’s House. The only other cars here were either police or forensics, except for the familiar British racing green and mud Jaguar of the City Pathologist, McLean’s own rather incongruous red Alfa Romeo GTV and an anonymous silver-grey repmobile that seemed to be the centre of attention.
‘It’s all private parking up here.’ McIntyre led him over towards the throng of white-suited Scene of Crime and medical staff. ‘Doesn’t get used much now the offices are closed.’
McLean looked up at the brutalist concrete architecture surrounding him. If memory served it was all due to be knocked down soon, replaced with expensive apartments, designer shops and a boutique hotel. But for now it was clad in what looked like giant chicken-wire mesh, the empty windows reflecting grey clouds and the threat of rain.
‘Who found the body?’
‘Security guard was doing the rounds first thing. Noticed the car had been parked up for a while and went to see if everything was OK. He called it in.’
‘Guess I’d better have a look then. Do I need to get suited up?’
‘Probably for the best. You know what forensics are like. And if it does turn out to be suspicious …’ McIntyre left the sentence hanging as McLean found first the correct SOC van, then a spare boiler suit and overshoes. He struggled into them, taking the opportunity to observe the scene. A spiral concrete ramp brought the cars up from the street below, and judging by the arrows painted on the cracked tarmac, that was the only way they could get out again, too. Pedestrians could either fight their way through traffic or use a doorway at the opposite end of the car park that he expected would lead on to ill-lit stairs smelling strongly of vomit and piss. There were CCTV cameras at both ends, which meant a slightly greater chance of there being some video footage than if they’d not been there. But only slightly. Up this high, there should have been grand views over the city’s rooftops towards the Firth of Forth and Fife beyond, but a high parapet cut off most of them. The looming bulk of the empty office block dominated everything, staring down on the scene in silent judgement. It had been empty for years now, which was a pity. Otherwise someone might have seen something.
The registration plate of the car suggested that it was nearly new, the road grime down its sides that it had covered a fair few miles in its short life. A Peugeot estate, it was exactly the sort of vehicle a travelling salesman might use. McLean approached from the back, peering in through the glass to see a load space filled with a jumble of cardboard boxes, back seats empty save for a dark suit jacket. The driver’s door was open, two white-suited figures kneeling beside it as they studied the body inside. One looked around as he approached, his frown morphing into a smile of recognition.
‘Tony. It’s been a while. I thought you were chasing down prostitutes these days.’ Angus Cadwallader let out a low groan as he clambered to his feet. Beside him, his assistant Tracy just looked over her shoulder and nodded a greeting.
‘It’s always good to diversify, Angus. What have we got here?’
‘Something you don’t see every day. I’ll give you that much.’ Cadwallader stepped aside to give McLean room. As he approached, he could see the back of a man’s head, short-cropped greying hair, white shirt. He appeared to be sitting with the car seat tilted back too far to be comfortable for driving, and he was staring straight ahead through the windscreen as if the empty office block was the most fascinating thing in the world. He didn’t recognise the man’s face; hadn’t expected to. It was slack, eyes open, mouth too. A thin smear of drool glistened on his stubble-flecked chin and McLean followed it down with his gaze until he finally noticed the man’s lap.
‘Dear God. Is that …?’
‘Yes, Tony. It is. Like I said, not something you see every day.’ Cadwallader leaned in, one arm on the open car door for support. Beside him, Tracy was busy with a swab taking samples. Not a task she could have been relishing much. McLean really didn’t want to get any closer than he already was.
One of the driver’s arms lay between his thigh and the gearstick, the other fallen down no doubt when the door had been opened. His crotch was exposed, trousers unbuttoned, flies zipped down to reveal a painfully swollen erection, black with clotted blood.
‘Should that not, you know, go down? I mean, he is dead, right?’
‘Very dead, yes.’ Cadwallader stood up again, allowing Tracy space to back away. ‘And it’s unusual but not impossible. The position he’s lying in is probably restricting blood flow, plus we don’t know exactly where his right hand was before the door was opened. I’ll know more once we’ve got him back to the mortuary, but right now I can’t even tell you what killed him.’
McLean looked up at the faceless buildings, across the car park to the cityscape beyond, over to his little red Alfa parked a good distance away from the bustle of the investigation, anywhere but down at the dead man and his unfortunate condition. There was an obvious joke that no one had made. No grizzled old sergeant who’d seen it all, saying the unsayable to break the tension. He forced himself to look back down at the dead man, see the scene beyond the most obvious, distracting, detail.
The inside of the car was clean, the passenger seat empty. He could see no sign of rubbish, no scrumpled up chip pokes or greasy burger bags. The car had its own Sat-Nav inbuilt, probably a hands-free set-up for a mobile too. Looking around, McLean could see no sign of a phone and there were no round sucker-rings on the inside of the windscreen.
‘I know that look. What are you thinking?’ McIntyre approached from the other side of the car. She had pulled on her own white suit, dark hair spilling out around the hood.
‘I’m not sure. Has anyone looked at his jacket or been through the glove box?’
‘Don’t think anyone’s opened any of the other doors. Why?’
‘Well, I’m no expert, but I’d have said if you were going to …’ McLean nodded downwards. ‘You know. Pull one off. You’d need some kind of stimulation. But there’s nothing here. No magazines, no photographs, no phone. He hasn’t even got a handkerchief or anything to wipe up the mess.’
‘Maybe he gets off on abandoned concrete buildings?’
McLean smiled briefly, said nothing.
‘What are you suggesting then?’ McIntyre asked after a moment’s pause. ‘He wasn’t alone?’
‘Well, it makes sense, sort of. If he picked up a hitchhiker, maybe. And she was …’
‘I never had you down as a prude, Tony. Working Vice I’d have thought you’d seen it all.’
‘Ha. Yes. It just doesn’t feel right, not with him lying here. Sorry. The whole set-up’s just too complex for my liking.’
‘What’s complex about it?’ McIntyre leaned on the car roof, her hands conducting the conversation. ‘He picks someone up. Maybe a hitchhiker like you said, maybe a prozzie for sex. Brings them up here – could be a she, could be a he, I try not to be judgemental. He’s getting a blowjob when his heart gives out. She, or he, realises what’s happened, panics, runs off. End of story.’
McLean wasn’t so sure. Something didn’t add up; he just couldn’t put his finger on it.
‘You done here, sir? Only we’d like to, you know, get him out of there.’
He
stood aside to let the technicians move the body. It took a moment to work out the best way to shift him, but eventually they had him laid out on a folding gurney, ready to be wheeled to the waiting ambulance. His condition was all the more apparent, causing a moment’s awkwardness as a technician tried to close the body bag. Cadwallader leaned forward, pressing the tumescence down with gloved fingers as he pulled up the zipper.
‘Well, at least he died happy.’
‘His name’s Eric Parker. Fifty-six years old. Works for a packaging company called Boxing Clever. His card says Senior Marketing Director, but he’s basically a sales rep.’
McLean leaned against a desk in the CID room, listening as Detective Sergeant Stuart MacBride brought their small team up to speed. Promotion had gone some way towards easing MacBride’s irritation at the job. He was more relaxed than McLean had seen him in months, and he’d also given up trying to conceal the jagged scar on his forehead. Where once he’d grown his hair long at the front like a throwback to the early eighties, now it was cut military short.
‘Do we know what he was doing in that car park?’
‘You mean apart from wanking himself to death?’
A nervous ripple of laughter spread out around the small team. Apart from MacBride, and McIntyre herself, they were all new to McLean. Strange how things could change in a few short months, how the old hierarchies could be thrown into disarray by a couple of retirements and a few choice promotions.
