by James Oswald
Alive.
He crawled on all fours over to where Heather Marchmont lay. The pool of blood on the floor beside her was darkest red. He felt its warmth as it soaked into the knees of his trousers, far too much of it to be healthy. The knife was buried deep, no way he was even going to try getting it out. But the hilt quivered rhythmically, a slow, shallow breath.
‘We need an ambulance. Quick.’ McLean croaked out the words, not really expecting them to be answered, but then he heard the tones of a mobile phone being dialled, Duguid’s wheezing one-sided conversation as he put a call in to Control. McLean eased Marchmont over on to her side, raised her up towards him as gently as he could and tried to check for a pulse. She stirred at the movement, eyes flickering open. As she saw him, the faintest of smiles ghosted across her face and she reached up a bloodstained hand to his cheek.
‘You came back for me.’ It wasn’t the voice of the woman he had met just a few weeks earlier, but the frightened little girl in a cage in a dusty attic twenty years before. With the words came blood, bubbling out through her lips in bright, vivid contrast. Her last coughed ‘Thank you’ was little more than a whisper as the light faded from her eyes and she fell limp in his arms.
Behind him, McLean heard a commotion at the kitchen door, the familiar voice of Acting Detective Inspector Ritchie exclaiming ‘Oh fuck!’ But all he could see was Heather Marchmont’s black, dead eyes staring back at him.
55
‘Have you any idea how bad this looks? What it means for the force? For Police Scotland?’
McLean hadn’t often sat on the wrong side of the table in an interview room. Once or twice during training, of course. And there’d been that time when he’d been hauled in front of Professional Standards accused of taking bribes and having a bad drug habit. But never in front of the deputy chief constable. Never straight from a crime scene. Never with the smell of blood still in his nose, the stain of it still on his fingers and in his clothes. Never with the image of the light fading from someone’s eyes still fresh in his memory.
He didn’t think he would ever be able to forget that.
‘Nothing like as bad as it is for Heather Marchmont.’
Her dying eyes haunted him. That final, whispered ‘Thank you’.
‘Of course, if you’d left well alone when you were told to, then chances are she’d still be alive.’
McLean clenched his fists under the table, aware that leaping to his feet and attacking the deputy chief constable would probably not do his career prospects much good. If he had a career at all. It hadn’t escaped his notice that this interview was taking place without any witness to the proceedings, though. No one from Professional Standards was anywhere to be seen, and as far as he knew the cameras were disconnected, the voice recorder switched off. So perhaps there was hope.
‘If you hadn’t shut down the brothel raid investigation she’d probably still be alive too. What are you doing about catching the woman who attacked her?’
The deputy chief constable stopped mid-stride, turned to face McLean. ‘What woman would that be? This mysterious woman who somehow managed to overpower Charles Duguid and you? Who managed not only to survive being stabbed in the chest herself, but also to then extract the knife used on her and turn it on her alleged attacker? Have you any idea how far-fetched that sounds?’
‘Duguid was there. He saw it all.’ McLean knew this was a lie, but he was clutching at straws. This wasn’t how things were supposed to have panned out. There should have been a city-wide search for Alice and her brother Iain, but every time he had tried to mention them people had looked at him in that horrible, sympathetic way. That same look he remembered all too well from when he had found his fiancée’s dead body. It wasn’t accusatory, at least not fully. More pitying, and perhaps a little fearful. He was tainted with death and no one wanted to be associated with that.
‘As I understand it, Charles had a bad allergic reaction, probably something he ate while you and this Marchmont woman were chatting to each other. Lucky you had an EpiPen on you, really. Not quite sure exactly why you were carrying one, though.’
‘A friend of mine almost died from anaphylactic shock recently. The nurse in the ICU ward gave it to me to pass on when she’s recovered.’ McLean wasn’t sure why he was justifying his actions, except that reason seemed to have been locked out of this room along with any witnesses to the proceedings.
‘The point is, Tony, Charles was unconscious or as good as. Just you and Miss Marchmont and a knife. That’s what it looks like to anyone coming in from the outside.’
McLean froze. The implications were horribly clear. ‘You can’t honestly believe I—?’
‘Murdered her?’ Call-me-Stevie smiled like a cartoon shark. ‘No. You’re not a murderer. To be honest, I don’t think you’d even kill in self-defence. But let’s face it, the woman was obsessed with you. I know her boss. She’s been shunning her work, digging up every last piece of information she can find about you these past couple of months, constantly calling you, arranging meetings and then running out on you when you turn up. She’s a classic stalker, and she couldn’t cope when you didn’t react the way she wanted you to. I’m willing to bet the coffee she served you and Charles was drugged; that’s what knocked you both for six. She probably tried to seduce you, then got violent when you rejected her. Drugged, you can hardly be blamed if the knife she attacked you with ended up in her chest. I’ve seen it all too often. It’s why we try to stop people carrying knives in the first place. Nine times out of ten it’s the one carrying the damn thing gets hurt.’
McLean looked down at his lap, his hands balled into fists. Smears of dried blood still caked his skin in places. His fingers shook as he tried to relax the tension and spread them wide. He was dimly aware that the DCC had stopped speaking.
‘I never touched the knife, so it won’t have my fingerprints on it. There will be prints, though. Marchmont’s and those of a second person.’ McLean looked slowly up into the bland face of his boss as he spoke. ‘A simple forensic analysis of the blood found at the scene will confirm there was at least one other person present, sir. A more detailed DNA analysis of that blood will confirm it to be the same as was found in the attic bedroom of Eileen Prendergast’s house in Duddingston. It will also match saliva found on the bodies of Eric Parker and John Smith. I believe DNA profiling can also confirm the gender of the person in question, but I’ll save them the time. It was a woman. She was there, and if you try to pin the blame for Marchmont’s death on me, I’ll make damned sure everything comes out in court.’
Call-me-Stevie flinched slightly. ‘Court? You misunderstand me, Tony. This isn’t a matter for court. Nobody really thinks you had anything to do with Marchmont’s death. I’m just pointing out how it looks to those of us who weren’t there.’
‘So what are you doing to catch the person who did it, then?’
The DCC acted as if he hadn’t even heard the question. ‘There’ll have to be an enquiry, of course. A woman’s died in violent circumstances and that will need thorough investigation. Think I’ll put DCI McIntyre on the case, she needs something to take her mind off her situation at home. You’ll have to be suspended while we clear things up, I’m afraid. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of weeks. Month tops. And it’ll be paid. Not that it matters to you, eh? Can’t really spare you for longer than that, though, if I’m being honest. Far too few good detectives these days. Too many DI Carters. Well, PC Carter, perhaps I should say. No idea how he managed to persuade the promotions board he was capable. Mike Spence speaks very highly of him, of course.’
McLean slumped back in his seat as the DCC wittered on, clearly rehearsing a
story for the inevitable press conference. Another couple of run-throughs and Call-me-Stevie would have it down pat, maybe even actually start to believe it. So that was how it worked, when all was said and done. Not some sinister shadowy organisation manipulating people with blackmail and promises; more everyone acting in their own self-interest, protecting what was theirs at the expense of what was right.
He knew what had happened, and Duguid knew some of it too, but it was their word against the deputy chief constable’s. And their word had the whiff of something inexplicable about it. He could try to call them out, shout to the world how Heather Marchmont had really died, but he knew it would be pointless. Nothing could ever be proved. If he so much as mentioned Dalgliesh’s theories they would call him mad, pension him off, sideline him.
He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.
Dimly aware that the DCC was still talking, McLean pushed back his chair, scraping the legs noisily on the concrete floor as he stood up.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Call-me-Stevie asked, interrupted mid-flow.
McLean straightened his jacket, spots of red blood darkening the material. He’d not seen himself in a mirror, but if there was that much on his cuffs, his face was probably covered in it too. Why had nobody taken his clothes from him for analysis? So much for procedure; the investigation was dead before it had even started. ‘You’re not going to arrest me, sir. You said as much already. Sounds like you don’t want to fire me either. So I’m going to go home and have a shower to clean off all this blood and the stench of corruption. Then I’m going to find a bottle of good whisky and see if that helps to wash away the bitter taste in my mouth.’
He’d meant to go home. Walked out of the interview room hardly hearing the deputy chief constable’s protestations, through a station full of staring faces, accusing faces, worried faces. Out into the car park where his little red Alfa Romeo had been carefully parked in a reserved space. Someone else must have brought it back from Marchmont’s house, probably Ritchie. He vaguely recalled giving her the keys, her handing them back to him later. He’d been in no fit state to drive then, still wasn’t, if he was being honest with himself. And for all he’d told Robinson he wanted to go home and wash away the day’s horror with whisky, the idea of being alone with a bottle grew less appealing with each footstep.
So he walked. He’d always enjoyed walking; the rhythm of his feet on the pavement helped him think, helped him puzzle out exactly what was going on. What had happened.
He had spent a long time in Marchmont’s house, sitting quietly in the corner of the kitchen while Ritchie and Grumpy Bob had secured and processed the crime scene. Duguid had left in an ambulance, shaky from whatever drug Alice had used on him. Alice and Iain. The twins. He had no idea who they were, where they had come from or where they had gone. Thinking too hard about them, about what they represented, just made his head hurt.
So he walked. Walking helped clear his mind, movement the antidote to the toxins fizzing in his bloodstream. The memories started sorting themselves into proper order, even if nothing really made any sense. He had stared at Heather Marchmont’s dead body, lying in a drying pool of her blood, until a paramedic had covered her over with a sheet. He had wanted to uncover her face then. To see her just one last time. To tell her he was sorry.
Which was probably why his feet had brought him here.
‘Tony. Good God, man, you look like you’ve gone ten rounds with Cassius Clay.’ Angus Cadwallader was dressed in a fresh pair of green scrubs, ready to perform yet another post-mortem. Too early for it to be Heather, of course; she’d only just have arrived at the city mortuary. McLean looked over to the wall of cold-store cabinets, wondering which one she was lying behind.
‘Sorry, Angus. I shouldn’t be bothering you while you’re at work. It’s been a bit of a shitty day.’
Cadwallader pulled out a chair from a nearby desk. ‘Sit down, man. You look ready to drop.’
McLean sunk into the chair gratefully, watched as his old friend skirted around the desk and opened a drawer, came out with a bottle and two fine crystal tumblers.
‘Haven’t you got work to do?’ he asked.
‘It can wait. Not as if my customers are going to complain.’ Cadwallader poured two stiff measures, handed one over. McLean sniffed the powerful, peaty aroma of Islay malt.
‘I probably shouldn’t. Going to have to drive home soon.’ He tipped the glass back and took a long sip, letting the unwatered spirit burn away some of the bad taste in his mouth.
‘I heard what happened,’ Cadwallader said after a while. McLean noticed he’d not drunk from his own glass, just held it in one hand.
‘You’ll not have had a look at her yet, though.’
‘Actually, we’ve had the X-rays through already. She’s scheduled for tomorrow morning, but I can bring that forward if you want. Not sure you should be here when I do it, though. Not given the circumstances.’
McLean shook his head, feeling the whisky already. The bottle had no label on it, he noticed. Something from Cadwallader’s private supply. ‘I don’t want to, Angus. I know what killed her. Who killed her. I saw it happen. I was there.’
‘And did you know she was pregnant?’
The question hit him like a punch in the gut. McLean put his empty glass down slowly on the desktop, his mind suddenly very clear as the final piece of the puzzle slotted into place.
‘Pregnant?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure? How long? Would she have known?’
‘Obstetrics isn’t really my area of expertise, Tony. I tend towards the other end of medicine.’ Cadwallader smiled at his joke, but it was as thin and weary as McLean felt. ‘That said, I’d imagine she knew. She’d be about four months in. Just starting to show.’
‘Four months,’ McLean echoed, his mind racing through the calendar. Long before they even knew about the brothel. Round about the time Stacey Craig was picked up in Leith and let off with a caution.
‘A double tragedy, really.’ Cadwallader finally raised his own glass, knocked back the whisky in one. ‘She was carrying twins.’
56
He still had her blood on his hands. It was underneath his fingernails, caked around the cuffs of his shirt, soaked into the front of his jacket. Christ, it was probably all over the steering wheel of the car, maybe the seats too. So much blood. So much wasted life.
McLean wasn’t entirely sure how he’d made it home. He knew he shouldn’t have done, not after drinking Cadwallader’s whisky, but he’d walked back to the station and then driven. He wasn’t drunk, just shell-shocked. He had a vague memory of changing gears, turning corners, indicating. How he’d managed not to crash he had no idea. Maybe someone up there was watching him, making sure he came to no harm. Just everyone around him. Everyone who ever got close.
He was sitting at his kitchen table, the scrubbed wooden surface almost completely bare. He didn’t remember opening the back door, walking through here, pulling out the chair and sinking slowly into it. He didn’t remember sinking his head into his hands and sobbing uncontrollably. Or maybe he did. Maybe that was all part of the dream.
Something nudged at his hand, distracting him. He looked up to see Mrs McCutcheon’s cat standing in the middle of the table, head bowed and bobbing slightly as it – she – tried to get his attention. Instinctively he reached out, scratched her behind the ears. His reward was a deep rumbling purr that for once was not judgemental in any way.
But he still had Heather’s blood on his hands.
‘I did my best, you know?’
The cat said nothing, just turned her arse towards him, arched her back. He stroked her a couple of times,
and then she stalked off across the table, jumped lithely to the floor before setting about her food bowl with determined enthusiasm. It occurred to McLean that her newfound affection had nothing to do with his current state of mind and everything to do with the fact that all the noisy house guests had gone.
‘Fine. Be like that then.’
His legs and arms ached as he left the kitchen and uncaring cat behind, slowly climbed the stairs. He stripped off bloodstained jacket, trousers and shirt, dumping them in the bin rather than the laundry basket. Even if they could be cleaned he never wanted to wear them again. The shower was hot, the first swirls of water red with Heather Marchmont’s blood, spiralling down the drain like so much wasted life. Soap and shampoo washed him clean, but he stood under the water until it started to go cold, his fingers and toes wrinkled like flabby white prunes. The drumming sound on his head helped to blot out the memories, but it couldn’t last. Those dying eyes still haunted him, that whispered almost silent ‘Thank you’.
Dressed, McLean went back down to the kitchen, looked into the fridge out of reflex even though he wasn’t really hungry. The evening had barely begun, a time when he would more normally be looking forward to a couple of hours’ peace and quiet at work. Now he was at a loose end. Nothing to distract him when he sorely needed distraction. He went to put the kettle on and saw that his hand was shaking. Christ, but he didn’t need to be alone right now.
It took a while to find the number, buried in the arcane filing system of his phone’s address book. He hesitated before hitting dial, partly out of uncertainty, partly because the shakes made it hard to tap the right patch on the screen. The phone rang four agonising times before it was answered, and a part of him prayed it would go to voicemail.
