The Damage Done: Inspector McLean 6 (Inspector Mclean Mystery)

by James Oswald

  ‘Just a move from one department to another. It’s not like I’m being fired.’

  ‘Is it no’?’ Dalgliesh cocked her head to one side. ‘Coz it sure looks like it from where I’m standing.’

  ‘Were you after something? Only I’ve got to head across town. Lots to do.’

  ‘Aye, setting up Dagwood’s cold case squad. How’s that working for you?’

  ‘Look, Dalgliesh. I get it. You’ve heard the news and you’ve dropped round to let me know how well informed you are. Great. I’m happy for you. Now I’ve got better things to do than stand around in a car park trading insults. Especially when that car park’s overlooked by most of the senior police officers in Edinburgh.’

  ‘All right, all right. No need to get yersel’ all wound up.’ Dalgliesh looked up at the glass facade of the building, gave a little wave. ‘I wanted to have a wee chat about something of mutual interest, if you get my meaning. The wee stooshie that’s got you in all this bother.’

  ‘The case is closed. I signed off the final report just a half-hour ago. We raided a house thinking it was being used as a brothel. Turned out we were wrong. Egg on face, apologies all round, end of story.’

  ‘You sayin’ that coz you believe it, or for them up there?’ Dalgliesh flicked her head in the direction of the building.

  ‘Can they not be the same thing?’

  ‘Ha. You don’t mean that, Tony. Not if you’re half the detective I’ve heard people say you are.’ Dalgliesh shoved her hands in the pockets of her faded leather coat, scuffed her foot against the cracked tarmac as if trying to make her mind up about something. Like a teenager summoning the courage to ask someone she fancied out on a date. ‘Tell you what. I ken you can’t talk here. No’ to me anyways. But if you want to know something might be important to you, then I’m going to be getting myself a coffee in half an hour or so. You know the place. You’ve been there a lot recently.’

  And without another word, she turned and sauntered off.

  McLean half expected to see Heather Marchmont at her usual table as he entered the cafe a half-hour later. Failing that, perhaps Dalgliesh would be sitting in the same place. As it was, neither of them were anywhere to be seen. It wouldn’t be the first time the reporter had played a practical joke on him, so he reckoned he might as well make the most of it.

  ‘Coffee and a slice of that chocolate cake, please.’ He pointed through the glass counter to the first in a row of fine-looking cakes and pastries. The cafe wasn’t busy; late-morning would be the lull after the rush of takeouts as people headed to their work and before the rush of customers looking for some lunch. He picked a table by the window, watching the traffic and people walking by, until a light cough distracted him.

  ‘Oh, thanks.’ He leaned back in his chair as the waitress placed coffee and cake on the table. He didn’t recognise her, but then he was hardly a regular. The trail of whatever perfume she was wearing sparked a memory, but before he could place it the front door clattered open and Dalgliesh stumbled in, looked around until she saw him and slouched over.

  ‘Bloody hell, I needed this.’ She slumped down in the chair opposite, reached over and helped herself to McLean’s coffee. Grimaced. ‘Christ, do you no’ take sugar?’

  ‘I thought you said half an hour.’ McLean looked back to the serving counter where the waitress was staring at Dalgliesh with an oddly hostile expression on her face. He indicated as best he could for her to bring more coffee, then turned back just in time to see the reporter tucking into his cake.

  ‘Sorry. Had an important phone call I couldnae ignore.’

  ‘Someone high up, then.’

  ‘Aye. No’ quite the big boss man, but I was left in no doubt as to where the message was coming from.’

  ‘And the message itself?’

  Dalgliesh shovelled more cake into her mouth, crumbs sticking to her bristly moustache and in her cracked lips. ‘What makes you think that’s any of your business?’

  ‘I’m a policeman, remember? Everything is my business.’

  Dalgliesh swallowed, washed the cake down with an unladylike slurp of coffee before speaking again. ‘Aye, fair point. It’s sort of to do with you anyway.’

  ‘Why is it I find that both unsurprising and alarming at the same time?’

  ‘Ha ha. You’re all heart, Inspector. Or should I say Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Not yet. Not ever if I have any say in the matter.’

  ‘Oh aye? I’d’ve thought you’d prefer it being higher up the pole.’

  ‘Not really. The more senior you get, the more time you spend managing people and the less time solving cases. I really can’t be arsed with the bureaucracy, if I’m being honest.’

  ‘A man after my own scaly heart.’ Dalgliesh finished McLean’s coffee just as the waitress appeared with another cup and a second slice of cake. ‘Couldn’t get a refill, could I, love?’

  The waitress scowled, but went away for more.

  ‘What is it you wanted to say to me, Dalgliesh?’ McLean asked as soon as they were alone again. He took up his own coffee before she could grab it, savoured the aroma and sipped delicately. Watching the reporter devour the first slice of cake like a hyena at a rotting carcass had quite spoiled his appetite, though.

  ‘Your new girlfriend, the dominatrix lawyer, and her band of kinky pals. Soon as I start looking into them and my editor’s giving me ridiculous assignments. Whale sighting off Aberdeen? Off you go. Gangs of illegal immigrants being used as berry pickers in Tayside? Oh, that’s right up Dalgliesh’s street. Art installation in Inverness? Fuck off. They even sent me to the fucking football. Oh, ’scuse my language.’ Dalgliesh almost blushed as the waitress returned with a coffee pot, refilled her mug and offered milk from a jug in her other hand. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re not just being paranoid?’ McLean asked.

  ‘Of course I’m being bloody paranoid. I’m a journalist. It’s part of the job description. Sure, I might get sent to look into something outside my usual field from time to time. Money’s tight in this business, so you do everything you can. And even a byline on the sports page is a byline. But every time I make a call about Marchmont? Even when I started asking about the tip-off for your raid? No, I know when I’m being steered away from something. Then I get a call from senior management asking me about my pension arrangements? Aye, too right.’

  ‘So you’ve not got anywhere? Still chasing after your secret society angle?’

  Dalgliesh grimaced. ‘You know how to rub it in, aye? What a fucking waste of time that’s been.’

  ‘No secret society, then? No sinister band of dirty old men pulling the strings, making people disappear without trace, turning perfectly innocent brothels into free-for-all swingers’ parties?’

  ‘You going to eat that cake?’ Dalgliesh didn’t wait for an answer before grabbing the plate and sliding it noisily over to her side of the table. Any hope that eating would have slowed her answer to his questions was forlorn.

  ‘See. I thought I was on to something wi’ the Benison. Stuff like that never really goes away.’

  She shoved a heavy forkful of cake into her mouth, chewed a little, then started talking again, waving the fork around for emphasis. ‘And there’s remnants of it all around, if you just look. Those swingers you get so excited about, aye? There’s a wee secret society if ever I saw one. There’s connections, favours given, misdemeanours overlooked. Your mate Dagwood’s beloved Masons’re another. You scratch my back I’ll scratch yours, you know the form. Hell, there may even be some overlap between the two, but there’s nothing systematic about it. There’s no great organisation sitting beh
ind the scenes, pulling all the strings. Every time I found a link, it only went so far before I hit a dead end. Everything’s connected, sure, but no’ in any meaningful way.’

  Dalgliesh swallowed heavily, then took a long swig of coffee to wash it all down.

  ‘How do you mean, everything’s connected?’

  ‘Edinburgh’s a small wee place. See, if I tried hard enough I’d be able to find links between you and Miss Marchmont that neither of you know anything about. Friends of friends of friends, that sort of thing. Imagine if you could tap into that, know all that without having to do all the digging. That’d give you some power, eh?’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘You wouldn’t need to blackmail people, just find out which of their friends owes you a favour. Or maybe who they owe a favour to. Who’s seen someone doing something they’d be embarrassed about, maybe when they were younger and more stupid, aye? A word here, a nudge there. Or if things got really bad then maybe a threat. You might even use people to recruit their friends to your cause without them even knowing there was a cause.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘See, something like Marchmont’s wee sex club, now that’s going to be embarrassing if it comes out. You’ve got obvious leverage there. But what if it went further than that? Maybe catering to less harmless desires? What if there were people out there who got off on hurting wee kids? Or killing tramps? Or, I don’t know.’ Dalgliesh was in her element now, the fork stabbing dangerously in McLean’s direction as she emphasised each possibility.

  ‘But how would you do that? Who could do that? Why would anyone do that?’

  She shook her head. ‘That’s the point, right? No one could. No one does. It’s just patterns forming out of complexity. Stare at the dots for long enough and you’ll see whatever’s on your mind. Mix in a healthy dose of journalist’s paranoia and boom! You’ve got a conspiracy theory. One born every day.’ She put the fork down on the empty plate, pushed it away from her. ‘Thanks for the cake.’

  ‘So what you’re telling me is there’s no conspiracy at all?’

  Dalgliesh wiped her face with a napkin, smearing chocolatey cream across her cheek in the process. ‘That’s no’ what I’m saying at all, Inspector. Quite the reverse. It’s all one big conspiracy. Just there’s naebody pulling all the strings.’

  35

  ‘Afternoon, sir. Didn’t think you’d be showing up today. Thought you might have some time off between jobs.’

  Grumpy Bob greeted McLean from his familiar feet-up-on-the-desk position, newspaper spread across his legs. The room given over to the new Cold Case Unit was surprisingly large, considering the size of the team occupying it. Even on a late autumn afternoon it was dark, though, tucked away in a back corner of the building, below street level and with windows that looked out on to concrete light wells. This was the remains of the old station knocked down to allow the construction of the seventies concrete monstrosity above them. Down below the polished wooden floorboards were more dungeon-like levels where the archives were stored in old windowless cells.

  ‘Not sure I’d know what to do with time off, Bob. And I rather got the feeling HQ would be pleased to see the back of me. Not sure what I’ve done wrong, but that never stopped them before.’

  ‘Ah well. Their loss is our gain.’ Grumpy Bob lifted his paper off his lap and his feet off the desk in one swift move that showed remarkable agility for a man of his advancing years. Or at least a great deal of practice. He stood up and walked over to a desk on the other side of the room, where a stack of official-looking brown folders awaited. ‘Our first batch of cases. I was going to give them to Duguid to review, but he’s not in today.’

  ‘I’d better get stuck in then. Anything interesting?’

  ‘If you mean Headland House, then no. The Procurator Fiscal’s office didn’t think there was enough evidence to make it worthwhile. Least, I assume that’s why they rejected it. Said as much about a couple dozen others I put their way, too.’

  McLean picked up the first folder in the pile, opened it up and read the front page of the report. Nineteen seventy-six. A desiccated body found up on the Pentland Hills. Initially thought to be a prank by students at the university, stealing an Egyptian mummy from the National Museum and staking it out on the moors during the summer heatwave. Only the museum found its missing mummy soon afterwards, and a post-mortem on the body showed it had died much more recently than the last of the pharaohs.

  ‘Christ, I was barely out of nappies when this happened.’

  ‘Now there’s an image to savour in my retirement.’

  McLean spun round to see Detective Superintendent Duguid standing in the doorway. Ex-Superintendent, if he was being correct. He was dressed in the same tweed suit McLean had seen him wearing at the golf club, and carried a heavy leather briefcase which he clunked down on the nearest desk.

  ‘Heard a rumour you’d been reassigned to this team, McLean. Thought it was someone’s idea of a joke. Or maybe an attempt to get me to stick to retirement. Who’ve they put in charge of this dead-end place anyway?’

  McLean dropped the Pentland Mummy case file back on to the desk. ‘That would be me.’

  It was worth it just to see the look on Duguid’s face. A mixture of surprise and despair and anger in equal proportions. He reached out a long-fingered hand towards his briefcase, and for a moment McLean thought he was going to pick it up, turn around and leave. Instead he just let out a heavy sigh, popped the catches and pulled out a stack of yet more files.

  ‘Well, it could have been worse, I suppose. At least your knack for causing trouble won’t be too much bother down here. There’s a few more cases I thought might be worth considering.’ Duguid took a moment to look around the room. ‘If we’ve got anyone to help us, that is.’

  McLean picked up the stack of folders and leafed through them.

  ‘You won’t find Headland House in there either. More’s the pity. Seems there’s still people with enough influence alive who’re worried what might happen if we open that particular can of worms. Besides, no one was killed on that one. Our remit’s unsolved murders, is it not?’

  McLean put the folders back down again, felt the heat spread through the edges of his ears. Was he that easily read? Duguid was right, though.

  ‘Very well.’ He went back to the first file he’d opened. ‘The Pentland Mummy it is.’

  ‘Jesus. How much more of this stuff is there?’

  Late afternoon and McLean was beginning to reappraise his estimation of the size of the room they’d been given. Where once it had been a nice airy open space, albeit a little on the gloomy side, now it was piled high with damp-smelling cardboard boxes newly arrived from the archives and evidence stores down below them. The Pentland Mummy case might have been put on ice almost forty years earlier, but nothing had been thrown away. Neither had it been digitised or, apparently, indexed. The stark contrast with the lack of records for the Headland House investigation hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  ‘You’re the one who chose it, McLean. Could have told you going for something pre-eighties would be a mistake but I suspect you wouldn’t have listened.’ Despite his words, McLean couldn’t help but hear an unexpected note of glee in Duguid’s voice. He’d spent most of the afternoon going through boxes of dusty notebooks, occasionally snorting in surprise or laughter, or asking either McLean or Grumpy Bob if they remembered such-and-such a sergeant or Chief Inspector somebody. Grumpy Bob would occasionally nod, laugh or grimace, but McLean felt like the new kid at school who knows nobody and doesn’t have a clue what they’re all talking about.

  ‘That’s the last load, sir.’ The uniform constable who h
ad been ferrying back and forth from the evidence stores in the deep basement handed McLean a clipboard with a manifest attached. He scribbled his signature on the bottom sheet before handing it back.

  ‘What about forensics? Did they keep any samples for DNA analysis?’

  ‘Not sure, sir. I can check. They’d be over at the city mortuary, I’d guess.’

  ‘Thanks. Do that, will you?’ McLean checked his watch, past shift change for those who worked shifts. ‘It can wait until tomorrow, though.’

  The constable nodded once, then scuttled off. McLean opened up the last box to be delivered, seeing a stack of Blue Peters neatly tied up with string. Each would be filled with notes typed on old-fashioned mechanical typewriters. He could smell the carbon paper used to make copies, imagined he could see the banks of typists – all young women, of course – hammering away at their keyboards, the air heavy with smoke from the detectives’ cigarettes.

  ‘You do realise that pretty much anyone who had anything to do with this case is dead, right?’ Duguid dropped a thick folder back into the box he’d been rifling through, picked up another and then discarded it again. ‘Including the murderer.’

  ‘Do you want to tell that poor constable he’s to take all this lot back again?’ McLean indicated the stacks of boxes, tempted to do just that.

  ‘It’s your call, McLean. I’m just here to give you the benefit of my many years’ experience. Most of which is telling me this is a waste of time, even if I am getting paid.’

  ‘Well, we can waste some more time on it tomorrow. Reckon we should call it a day now.’

  The number on his phone screen wasn’t one he recognised, although the code showed that whoever was dialling was in Edinburgh. McLean paused on his way to the car, wondering whether to take it or not. If it was important they’d leave a message, and it was probably only someone trying to sell him something. He thumbed the screen to accept the call anyway, guddling in his pocket for his car keys.