by James Oswald
‘You think she was entertaining clients here?’ He looked around the rest of the room. Not the sort of place for that kind of business.
Ritchie put the outfits back in the wardrobe, smoothing them down carefully before closing the door again. ‘Not here, no. And these aren’t street clothes either. This is for a much more select clientele. Much more upmarket.’
Home was a welcome sight, but far later into the evening than he had anticipated. McLean found himself silently relieved that Jenny’s little black car wasn’t parked on the driveway, but that still meant he had to deal with Phil and Rachel. He could no more have turned either of them away than chop off his own foot, but that didn’t mean the small kernel of resentment wasn’t there, deep down. And just occasionally it was preferable to spend the evening alone and let the stress of the day wash away in the silence.
Mrs McCutcheon’s cat looked up at him from her place in front of the Aga as he stepped into the kitchen and dumped his case down on a chair. A teapot, mugs and a couple of dirty plates lay on the table where someone had eaten a meal and not cleared up afterwards. Trying hard not to sigh, he carried them over to the dishwasher, noticing as he did so that the sink was filled with unwashed pots and pans. Flashbacks to the years he’d spent living with Phil in the flat in Newington, first as a student, then as a trainee police officer. No wonder Rachel had walked out.
‘Going to have to lay down some house rules, I think,’ he muttered to no one in particular. Mrs McCutcheon’s cat just looked at him with an expression that clearly said ‘aye, right’.
Noise from the television spilled out of the library into the hall as he went to the front door in search of post. It had been picked up and placed on the wooden chest, the usual round of fliers, offers of loans at extortionate interest rates and catalogues addressed to his grandmother. He flicked through them all, hoping for a postcard from Emma, but finding none.
‘You’re back. I’d forgotten the ridiculous hours you work, Tony. Makes being a scientist look sane.’
McLean turned around to see Phil standing in the library doorway. He was dressed in pretty much the same clothes he’d been wearing when he arrived, scruffy jeans torn at one knee, T-shirt for a band who had split up almost twenty years ago, bare feet. He hadn’t shaved, but he looked a lot more relaxed. Amazing what a good night’s sleep and a couple of meals could do.
‘We had a bit of an emergency. I wasn’t planning on being this late.’
‘Nah, this is early for me. I’m still on California time.’ Phil scratched at his stubbly chin. ‘Think Rae’s over the jet lag, though. She spent most of the day talking babies with Jen.’
‘Jenny was here?’ McLean scooped up the pile of mail, headed back towards the kitchen and the paper recycling bin. Phil followed him, leaving the library door ajar.
‘Yup. She was asking after you. Reckon the two of you would make a sweet couple.’
McLean felt the tips of his ears redden and wondered why. He’d missed Phil’s bluntness, but normally his crude suggestions had no effect.
‘Surprised you haven’t found the beer yet.’ He changed the subject perhaps a little too obviously, dumped the unwanted mail in the bin and then extracted two bottles from the fridge.
‘What makes you think I haven’t?’ Phil accepted one of the bottles, taking a moment to study the label.
‘Well, there’s the same number in here as there was yesterday, for one thing.’ McLean found glasses and a bottle opener. He should probably have looked for something to eat as well, but it was late and all he really wanted was a beer and his bed.
‘Good point. I guess I’m just losing my touch. Old age and all that.’
‘Or maybe it’s the responsibilities of parenthood finally sinking in.’
Phil said nothing to that, opened his beer and poured it into his glass. He took a thoughtful sip.
‘She doing OK, Rachel?’ McLean asked, nodding his head in the direction of the hall and the library beyond.
‘Yeah. Sort of.’ Phil pulled out a chair and slumped into it. ‘She still scowls at me whenever I come into the room, but I think she’s more or less forgiven me for being completely useless. Don’t think I’ll be joining her in your gran’s old bed any time soon, but then that’s probably a good thing.’
‘Can’t be long now. Reckon you can cope not being the centre of attention?’
Phil smiled at the joke. ‘Sure it won’t cramp my style. And I can always rely on Uncle Tony to help out in a crisis.’
‘Sounds about right. Winding up other people’s kids and then giving them back is about all I’m fit for. The amount of shit I deal with on the average day, I don’t think I could bear to bring a child into the world.’
Phil leaned forward, elbows on the table, glass held lightly between both hands. For a moment it could have been any time in the past twenty years, the two of them chatting over a beer.
‘Work that bad, is it?’
‘I try to leave it at the office, but working at the SCU, well, I thought the murderers and drug dealers were the worst humanity had to give, but throw sex into the mix …’
The silence hung heavy for a while, just the muted strains of the television coming in through the open kitchen door. McLean was grateful to his old friend for not pushing the subject; Phil had always been good at that.
‘I’ve a meeting with my old head of department at the uni tomorrow,’ he said after a while.
‘You have?’
‘Yeah. Gave him a call when I woke up this morning. This afternoon, I should say. Hoping he’s got a job for me.’
‘You’re coming back? To Edinburgh?’
‘Ah, the sharply honed detective skills at play.’ Phil laughed. ‘Yeah, I’m coming back. California was fun, but it’s no place to raise a kid. And we’ve no network out there, no friends to call on in an emergency. Back here Rae’s got Jen and all her old chums. I’ve still got a few I’ve not burned my bridges with completely.’
McLean leaned back in his chair, slowly beginning to relax. It wasn’t until Phil started recounting his plans that he realised how on edge he’d been not knowing what his old friend was going to do.
‘Well, I hope it goes well tomorrow. It’ll be good having someone I can go to the pub with who isn’t a copper for a change.’
Phil opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment, as he always did when McLean mentioned his lack of drinking buddies, but the silence was shattered by a piercing scream. McLean was on his feet and heading for the kitchen door almost instantly, but Phil was way ahead of him. Together they rushed to the library as another wail rent the air.
Rachel lay on the sofa, doubled up and clutching at her belly. Her face was contorted in agony and she let out another powerful scream as Phil dashed across the room to be by her side. At his touch, she grabbed him hard around the wrist, pulling him close, shouting in his ear.
‘Jesus, it hurts. It’s not supposed to hurt yet. Why does it hurt? What’s happening?’
Transfixed, Phil could only look around, a curious, helpless pleading in his eyes. McLean already had his phone out, calling the second ambulance of the evening. So much for a quiet night to rest and unwind.
28
‘She’s going to be fine. The baby should be OK too. Doctor’s just induced her, so hopefully it won’t be long now.’
McLean stood in the waiting area at the Royal Infirmary, only half listening to the nurse in charge of the maternity ward. It was fully dark outside, heading towards midnight, and he had an early start tomorrow.
‘It’s unusual to miss, though. Normally we’d expect the GP to pick up high blood pressure, any other indicators. An
d they go over it at prenatal.’
There was no mistaking the hectoring tones, but his slow brain had a hard time working out why he should be told off.
‘She’s only just got back from the US. Maybe they covered it there, I don’t know. What’s wrong with her?’
‘Pre-eclampsia. What did you think it was?’ The nurse shook her head as if he was the biggest idiot in the world. ‘Never mind. You can go and be with her for the birth, if you want. I know some fathers like to, others don’t.’
Realisation dawned. ‘I’m not the father. Sorry. She’s just staying with me. You’ll need to talk to him.’ McLean turned and pointed to where Phil was laid out across three plastic chairs, sleeping like a baby.
The nurse looked at him as if he’d just spat in her eye, then stalked off to wake Phil. McLean pulled out his phone to check the time, sensed a commotion off to one side before he heard the noise.
‘Oh my God! Tony! Is she all right?’
Jenny Spiers looked like she’d scrambled out of bed half-asleep, thrown on the first clothes she could find, and dashed out the door without a thought for anything else. Given that McLean had phoned her from his car as he followed the ambulance from his house to the hospital, this was very likely the case.
‘She’s going to be fine, Jen.’ He repeated what had been just told to him, without the scolding. Watched as her face dropped in horror.
‘Oh my God! Mum had that with Rae. It almost killed her.’ She started towards the corridor behind him, no doubt determined to find her sister and check for herself. McLean stopped her, holding on to her arms as gently as he could. She stiffened at his touch, then relaxed a little.
‘Let’s leave her to the professionals, shall we?’ He looked around, saw that Phil was no longer on his chairs or indeed anywhere to be seen. ‘She’ll be good. Phil’s going to be with her all the way.’
‘That’s supposed to reassure me, is it?’
‘Well, he is a biologist.’ McLean let go, dropped his hands to his sides. ‘Here, let’s see if we can’t find some coffee in this place. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a long night.’
The canteen was closed, along with all the little gift shops and the newsagents in the main foyer of the hospital. They ended up back at the maternity ward waiting room with little plastic cups of foul-tasting vending machine coffee, but at least the walk around the hospital had calmed Jenny’s nerves. By the time they settled into the hard plastic seats, McLean had learned more than he ever really wanted to know about childbirth, and in particular both Rachel’s and Chloe Spiers’. He had spent enough time in hospitals to know that Rachel was going to be fine; there was a way nurses talked to you when they wanted to prepare you for the worst, and McLean’s earlier conversation hadn’t been one of those ones he dreaded. The fact that Phil was still missing was a good sign too, but Jenny was a worrier and the best way to help her cope with it was to let her talk.
‘It’s normally a problem with older mums, though oddly enough teenage mums can get it too. Rae’s at the young end of old, if you see what I mean.’
McLean nodded, but only because it seemed the right moment in the conversation to do so. Weariness was dragging at him, making his thoughts sluggish. There had been another vending machine, next to the one dispensing coffee, filled with chocolate bars, packets of crisps and all manner of other healthy treats. He was beginning to wish he’d bought a couple, beginning to wish he hadn’t skipped supper.
‘You’re not really listening to me any more, are you, Tony?’ Jenny’s change in tone alerted him to the question, otherwise he might simply have nodded in agreement.
‘What? Oh. Sorry. Sort of listening. It’s been a long day, though, and I’ve got to be up in—’ He looked at his watch. ‘—About four hours.’
‘So why are you even here? You didn’t need to come. I mean, it’s very good of you and everything, but you don’t have to be the world’s dad.’
McLean leaned his head back until it hit the wall behind him, fiddled with his now-empty coffee cup, stared at the notices pinned up everywhere giving advice, reminding people not to smoke or use their mobile phones. Finally he looked at Jenny, sitting beside him. She was attractive, attracted to him, almost an older version of her sister, only her hair was blonde shot with grey where Rachel was a redhead. Crow’s feet wrinkled away from the edges of her eyes, giving her the air of someone who had spent most of her life smiling. Without her mask of make-up he could see the tiny imperfections in her skin: a mole on one cheek, a thin scar close to one eye that doubtless had an interesting story behind it.
‘I guess I just feel like I have to be doing things, helping people, always on the go. If I stop, then I start having to think.’
‘Is that why you always bring your work home?’ Jenny must have seen his frown. ‘Rae told me, but I’ve seen the case files on your desk sometimes, or tidied away in the kitchen.’
‘Just don’t look inside any of them, OK? And please don’t tell my boss.’
‘Confidential, are they?’
‘Kind of. Sensitive information and that kind of thing. Mostly though you’re likely to come across a photograph you won’t be able to forget in a while. Especially the work I’m doing at the moment.’
Jenny put a hand on his arm, her touch warm through the thin fabric of his jacket. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what that must be like. Don’t want to, if I’m being honest.’
‘Very wise.’ McLean was about to say more, but the doors at the far end of the waiting area swung open and Phil staggered through. His face was white and he looked about as lively as a reanimated corpse. For a moment McLean thought something must have gone wrong, that Rachel was in trouble. Jenny must have sensed it too, as he felt her hand tighten around his arm, her other hand join it as she leaned in close to him. Then he saw the idiot grin on his old friend’s face.
‘Bloody hell, Tony. It’s a boy!’
29
‘You never were all that good at keeping things low key, were you, Tony?’
He’d managed to get the morning briefing put back a couple of hours, but McLean still felt like he hadn’t slept in a week. It had taken an hour to get out of the hospital, leaving the increasingly bubbly Phil behind with his wife and their newborn son. Jenny had promised to deliver Phil home just as soon as he was ready to leave and McLean had managed to get to his bed a little before four in the morning, only to be woken by the alarm at six. Driving across town to the SCU offices had been a nightmare of near misses, and not for the first time he remembered his police training and the advice about never driving while tired.
‘That’s a bit unfair, isn’t it? We’ve not exactly splashed the news across the front page.’ He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand, feeling itchy stubble on his cheeks where the razor had missed.
‘No’ the nationals, but the local rag’s picked it up.’ Jo Dexter tossed a folded tabloid across the table to him. McLean opened it, seeing the article halfway down page three beneath a smiling young woman with bared breasts. ‘Muirhouse Call Girl In Drug Coma Shock!’ Not the snappiest of headlines, and neither was the reporter anyone he’d heard of. Scanning the article, they seemed to be well enough informed, though, if a bit lurid in their speculation. At least his and Ritchie’s names were missing from the report. Clarice Saunders got a mention, along with her charity, so maybe she’d been speaking to the press.
‘It’s hardly the Daily Record. And this stuff about heroin cut with rat poison is bollocks. We don’t know what she was on yet, or if she was on anything. Could just as easily have been a seizure.’
‘Aye, well, you’ll need to speak to the doctors about that. And have a word wi
th your wee friend Clarice.’ Dexter managed to put a sneer into the name that would have done Hannibal Lecter proud. ‘I’ve had the DCC in my office twice this morning asking what’s going on. You did know he wanted this tidied away nice and quiet, aye?’
‘He came to your office? Didn’t summon you to the third floor?’
Dexter smiled. ‘Aye, I noticed that too.’
‘You think he has something to do with this?’ Ritchie asked.
‘I don’t even know what “this” is, but he’s being leaned on by someone. I know Stevie of old; he’s not bent. Well, no’ that bent.’
‘But he was the one who wanted a report into the brothel raid.’
‘A report, Tony. Not an investigation. Going off to talk to this wifey.’ Dexter peered down at the sheaf of papers in front of her. ‘Stacey Craig? That wasn’t part of the deal.’
McLean opened his mouth to complain, then his sleep-deprived brain caught up with him and he closed it again.
‘Look, I know you were just being thorough. Check the sources, see where the mistake was made. I get that. But it’s not what the high heidyins want. They’re prepared to take this one on the chin. Don’t push that.’
‘I’ll have the report done by the end of the week.’ McLean looked across to Ritchie, sitting alongside him. ‘That OK?’
‘Have it done by the end of the day if all you want’s a whitewash.’
‘See, I knew you were smart.’ Dexter smiled again, less like a shark this time.
‘We’ll still need to talk to the doctors, though, about Craig.’ McLean rubbed at his eyes, but that only seemed to make the grittiness worse.
‘We do?’ Ritchie asked.
‘It doesn’t need to go in the report. I’d not name Craig at all if we can get away with it. Just put in enough detail to keep the top brass happy. If we’re bandying about names, let’s put John Smith front and centre. He’s the only positive to come out of the whole fiasco, so might as well make the most of him. But we do need to know about Craig. Who she is, where she worked, what’s caused this.’ He pointed at the newspaper, still lying in the middle of the table.
