by James Oswald
‘You sure about that, Tony?’ Dexter asked, an edge to her voice he hadn’t often heard.
‘For us, yes. We’ve been played, Jo. Looks like we might still be. I want to know why, if only so I can keep one step ahead of the game.’
The phone call came as he was heading back to his office after the briefing. McLean looked at the name on the screen for three rings, trying to decide whether to answer or not. He thumbed accept just before the fourth would have sent the call to voicemail.
‘Miss Marchmont, what an unexpected pleasure.’ He ducked into an empty room, closing the door behind him.
‘I didn’t know you felt that way, Inspector.’ Marchmont let out a little laugh, bordering on the edge of hysteria.
‘A turn of phrase. Is there something I can do for you?’
‘I heard the news this morning. The woman in Muirhouse?’
McLean leaned against a table, trying not to squeeze the phone too hard against his ear. ‘You know her?’
Marchmont’s voice wavered with uncertainty. ‘She’s still alive?’
‘It’s touch and go. Lucky we were there when it happened or she’d certainly be dead. How do you know her, Miss Marchmont? Muirhouse isn’t exactly your patch.’
There was a pause, and for a moment McLean wondered whether she had hung up. But the line was still open, a gentle hiss in his ear confirming it for him. He looked around the room, only just noticing the whiteboards scribbled with notes from an old investigation, the desks pushed into one corner waiting for the next major incident, the banks of elderly computers stacked up against the far wall. For an instant he thought there was someone else in the room, spun around to see who it was, but he was alone.
‘Are you still there, Miss Marchmont?’ he asked finally.
‘Sorry. Yes.’ Marchmont’s voice came across slightly muffled, as if she were trying not to be overheard. ‘Look, I can’t really speak on the phone. Could we maybe meet again? The same place as before? I’ll buy you lunch.’
McLean’s stomach took that moment to remind him with a loud grumble that he’d fed it only coffee and a couple of stale biscuits since getting up that morning. He’d not exactly managed to eat much the night before either, which might have explained his light head and the difficulty he was having concentrating.
‘OK. Same place as last time.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Half-twelve?’
‘I’ll be there,’ Marchmont said, and hung up.
‘There you are, sir. Thought you’d gone to your office.’
McLean almost dropped his phone as he stepped out of the empty incident room to find DS Ritchie heading up the corridor towards him.
‘Just got a call, needed somewhere quiet to answer it.’ He juggled the handset, all too aware that the corridor was empty apart from the two of them, and tucked away in a quiet part of the building as well. Ritchie raised a hairless eyebrow but said nothing else.
‘Were you looking for me for anything in particular, or just missing my company?’
‘Ha. No.’ Ritchie’s face creased into a broad smile at his terrible joke, which brightened the room. Not enough smiling these days. ‘I just got off the phone myself, actually. With the hospital.’ The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. ‘Prognosis isn’t good for Craig. The seizure cut off the oxygen supply to part of her brain. Basically she’s had a massive stroke and they’ll be surprised if she ever wakes up again.’
‘Any idea what caused it?’
‘Not drugs. Well, not anything they’d normally screen for. She’d certainly not injected anything anywhere they could find. Still waiting on some blood tests, but I think she just got unlucky.’
‘And us too, it would seem.’ McLean saw the frown begin to form on Ritchie’s face. ‘Was that too harsh? I know she doesn’t deserve what’s happened to her, it’s just I really don’t like coincidences.’
‘You think someone got to her before she could speak to us? Is that not just a little paranoid?’ Ritchie paused a moment, then added ‘Sir?’ for good measure.
‘Probably. Doesn’t help that I’m tired and hungry. Didn’t get much sleep last night, or food for that matter.’
‘I heard, yes. How’s Rachel doing? Phil too for that matter?’
‘I’m not sure, really. They were fine last night. I guess I’ll get an update when I get home.’
‘They’re still at your place then?’ Ritchie did the thing with her hairless eyebrow again. ‘That’s going to be interesting, bringing a baby into the house.’
‘Hadn’t given it much thought, to be honest. Shouldn’t be for too long, though. Phil’s looking for a job, and he only rented out his old place. They’ve just got to give the tenants a couple of months’ notice to move back in.’ Even as he said it McLean could see the future mapped out in screaming babies, dirty nappies and tired, grumpy parents. And all happening under his roof. Well, it wasn’t as if he spent much time at home anyway.
‘You’re too nice, you know that? People take advantage of you.’
‘Ach, it’s only Phil and Rachel. I was best man at their wedding. Couldn’t see them on the street.’
‘I rest my case.’ Ritchie pulled out her phone, checked the time. ‘Reckon I’m going to grab a bite to eat and then get cracking on this report for the DCC. You want to try the delights of the canteen again? That lasagne you had last time looked delicious.’
McLean laughed at the joke. ‘Think I’ll give it a miss, thanks. And anyway I’ve got a lunch meeting scheduled.’
‘You have? Who with?’
‘Heather Marchmont, of all people. That was her on the phone just now.’ He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the door into the empty incident room. Ritchie’s hairless eyebrow shot up again.
‘Marchmont? Isn’t she …? Is that wise?’
‘Probably not. It’s not the first time she’s contacted me since we interviewed her, though. I get the feeling she’s trying to tell me something, but every time she starts, she loses her nerve.’
‘You sure she doesn’t just fancy you?’
McLean felt the tips of his ears burn, and for some reason the image of Ritchie expertly handling the erotic clothing they’d found in the spare bedroom in Stacey Craig’s Muirhouse flat sprang into his mind, making them burn even hotter.
‘Why don’t you come along?’ The suggestion was out of his mouth before his tired brain caught up with the implications. But then, why shouldn’t she come along? If anything, another officer should have been present at all their meetings.
Ritchie hesitated for all of two seconds. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll just go and grab my coat.’
‘You brought your partner, Inspector. I’m not sure that was part of the deal.’
Miss Marchmont had taken her favourite table to the back of the cafe and was reading a printed sheaf of papers, making notes on a spiral-bound notebook, when he and Ritchie arrived. Her startled look on seeing the detective sergeant softened as they approached, a rare smile spreading over her face.
‘It’s all right. I won’t make you pay for her lunch. We just both need to be somewhere afterwards. Thought it would be easier if she came along. You’ve met before.’
‘It’s Detective Sergeant Ritchie, isn’t it?’ Marchmont held out a slim hand, and Ritchie shook it, holding on perhaps a little longer than was necessary. McLean watched the two of them, not quite sure what it was he was seeing pass between them. Eventually Marchmont broke the contact.
‘Come, have a seat. They do a very good salad here, if that’s your thing. Would you like some wine? I’m not drinking at the moment myself.’ Her hand moved almost involuntarily to her flat
stomach. ‘Health reasons.’
McLean couldn’t help but notice that Marchmont’s behaviour was different to their previous meetings. She was more like the partner in a prestigious law firm, not the slightly nervous young woman struggling to come to terms with something he couldn’t quite understand. And yet even with the veneer of professionalism, she was still worried. He could see by the way she constantly looked to the window. The seat she had chosen was perhaps the best in the whole cafe for watching everyone come and go without being seen herself. They ordered salad, declined the offer of a glass of wine, and chatted of inconsequential things in a manner that might have been pleasant in any other circumstances. And all the while they skirted around the real reason they were here. Finally, when the coffee came and the waitress had gone off to serve another customer, McLean could wait no longer.
‘You told me on the phone you knew Stacey Craig.’
Marchmont had been joking with Ritchie about the ridiculousness of something called Hipsters, which McLean thought were a kind of trouser but which seemed to be something to do with young men who grew very bushy beards and took themselves too seriously. She stiffened at his words, as if they were a rebuke. Ritchie looked at him askance too, her scowl clearly signalling her annoyance at the interruption.
‘I asked about her,’ Marchmont said after a moment’s pause. Her eyes darted once more to the window.
‘But you wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t met her. Or at least knew of her. You do know what she did for a living?’
‘Oh my dear Inspector. You have no idea.’
‘She was part of your circle, though, Heather?’ Ritchie asked the question; the two women had been on first-name terms almost from the start of the lunch. McLean assumed the detective sergeant was just playing good cop, but the ease with which she navigated the conversation suggested something more.
Marchmont picked up her tiny espresso cup, went to take a sip only to discover it was empty. Sighing, she put it back down again.
‘Sort of. I mean, yes, she came to one or two parties.’ Marchmont stared off into the distance, lost in memories. ‘I met her a couple of years back, when that brute of a boyfriend of hers was sentenced. We were both going through difficult patches then, discovered we weren’t all that different, really. She’s been my friend ever since.’
‘You know she—’
‘Was a sex worker?’ Marchmont cut across McLean’s question. ‘Yes. With the emphasis on was. Past tense. She was a drug addict too. Once, when she was younger. But she got over it. Not many do. Maybe that’s what attracted me to her. We’re both survivors.’
McLean almost saw her then, the person he was certain he’d met sometime in the distant past. An inkling at least. Before he could pin it down, though, Ritchie spoke and the moment was gone.
‘I saw some of her clothes. Beautiful. They must have cost a fortune.’
‘She always did have an eye for quality. And she had the figure to carry them off, too.’
‘Where did she get her money from, if she wasn’t working?’
‘I don’t really know. I guess Big Tam might have left some around. I bought her some of those outfits myself.’
‘You think she might have been doing a bit of high-class escort work?’ Ritchie asked. ‘Only that doesn’t square up with us finding her working the streets down Leith way.’
‘She was on the streets? When?’ Marchmont snapped up straight again, eyes bright with surprise and a hint of anger. ‘She’d given up that life. She wasn’t doing that any more. She promised me …’
‘We picked her up a couple of months ago,’ McLean said.
‘Stacey? Are you sure? But I—’ Marchmont seemed genuinely surprised. ‘But that makes no sense. Why would she? She hated that …’ She picked up the glass of water, looked at it and then from Ritchie to McLean. ‘Oh.’
‘Miss Marchmont … Heather. We’re not here to arrest you. We’re not even suggesting you had anything to do with this.’ McLean put his hand flat on the table top in a gesture of conciliation. ‘You called me, remember? You’ve been trying to tell me something for a while now. I’m guessing it’s something to do with the raid, what was really going on in your house that night. More than that, probably. I’d really like to know what it is.’
Marchmont looked at him, her head cocked slightly to one side in a manner McLean found disturbingly familiar. Where had he seen that quizzical expression before?
‘You really don’t remember me, do you?’ She shook her head. ‘Of course not. Why would you?’
‘I don’t understand. Have we met before? I mean, you look familiar, but—’
McLean was cut off by the trilling of Marchmont’s phone, lying on the table in front of her. Once more she looked at the screen, tapped to reject the call. ‘I’m sorry. I have to go.’
She stood up quickly, her chair scraping back on the floor with a horrible screech. McLean struggled to stand more quietly, but Ritchie just stayed where she was.
‘It was nice meeting you again, perhaps another time,’ Marchmont said, placing a hand lightly on Ritchie’s shoulder, then turned to McLean. ‘I’m sorry to keep running out on you like this, Inspector … Tony. I really was shocked to hear about Stacey. Even more so to hear she was working the streets. That’s not the woman I know.’
McLean finally extricated himself from his chair, catching it before it toppled backwards on to the floor, but Marchmont had already gone, striding swiftly across the cafe and out through the door without a backwards glance. He looked down at Ritchie, who just shrugged, then back to the window and the street outside.
‘Guess I’m paying for lunch then.’
30
‘I don’t want to even try and work out what’s going on in her head.’
McLean drove his Alfa slowly through the city centre, navigating the route out towards Little France and the Royal Infirmary. DS Ritchie sat in the passenger seat, staring at nothing in particular. They had left the cafe soon after Marchmont, saying nothing about the lunch and its abrupt ending until they were in the relative privacy of the car.
‘She’s a troubled soul. I’ll give you that much. I can’t help thinking she’s playing me like a fish, though.’ McLean braked sharply to avoid being hit by a bus that had pulled out without indicating. The driver stuck his hand out the window and gave a thumbs up of thanks.
‘Why do you put up with it then, sir? If you know that’s what she’s doing?’
He said nothing for a while. Partly because he needed to think about the answer, partly because the roundabout at the top of Leith Walk was something of a free-for-all and needed all his concentration to negotiate safely.
‘You heard what she said about me not remembering her?’
Ritchie nodded, McLean barely catching the movement out of the corner of his eye as he dropped a couple of gears and accelerated briskly past a dawdling truck.
‘Well, it’s true. Ever since I first saw her, when we raided her house, I’ve not been able to shake the feeling I know her from somewhere. I just can’t think where.’
‘Well, she’s a regular on the Edinburgh swingers’ scene. You could have met her there, if there’s something you’re not telling the rest of us.’
It was as well McLean knew Ritchie was teasing, otherwise he might have crashed the car.
‘You seem particularly well informed about these things, Sergeant. Is there something I should know?’
It was Ritchie’s turn for an embarrassed silence, but only a short one. ‘Do you know who it was phoned her?’ She changed the subject rather awkwardly.
‘No. Same thing happened the last time. We were chatting
away quite happily, then a call comes in, Edinburgh number, and she ups and leaves. You saw how she was looking out the window too, as if she thought she was being watched.’
Ritchie nodded. ‘Classic paranoid behaviour, though they do say just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean you’re not being watched.’ She pulled out her phone, tapped the screen for a speed dial number and leafed through her paper notebook while the call connected. McLean concentrated on the road as they crossed North Bridge.
‘Control? Aye, Detective Sergeant Ritchie here. Can you run me a phone number?’ Ritchie rattled off a string of digits scribbled down in her notebook. The traffic opened up a bit, and McLean was able to speed up, a rare line of green lights keeping things moving. They passed Jenny Spiers’ shop and he craned his neck to see if it was open. Chances were Jenny herself would be at the hospital with her sister. Unless they’d discharged Rachel already? How long did they keep new mothers in these days? He had to admit he had no idea.
‘You sure?’ Ritchie noted something down on her pad. ‘Sorry, of course you are. Aye. Thanks.’ She ended the call, slipped the phone back into her pocket.
‘That was the number on Marchmont’s phone? I never managed to see all of it.’
‘I’ve always been good at reading things upside down. And remembering numbers too. Not something people do much now, with everything stored on their phones.’
‘So whose is it then?’
‘It’s one of a sequence assigned to her office, MacFarlane and Dodds. Not the main switchboard number, mind, but it’s not so unusual to be getting a call from them, I suppose.’ Ritchie drew a line across the page of her notebook, folded it closed and shoved it back in her bag.
