The Damage Done: Inspector McLean 6 (Inspector Mclean Mystery)
Page 38
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Jenny. It’s Tony here. Tony McLean.’
‘Hey, Tony. How’s things? I’ve just literally walked in from helping Rae and Phil get themselves organised. I swear I don’t know who’s the biggest kid of the two of them. Pity their poor child.’
‘Sounds like Phil. Some hope that fatherhood would have made him start behaving like an adult.’ McLean tried a laugh but it sounded hollow even to him.
‘You OK, Tony? You sound kind of down.’
‘Sorry. I really shouldn’t be bothering you. Just came home to an empty house, and it’s not been the best of days.’
‘Hey, what are friends for if not to call when you need cheering up?’
‘Aye, well, I don’t like to impose.’
Jenny laughed, her voice a welcome ray of light in the darkness. ‘My sister’s been imposing on you for the last two months, Tony. I think you’re due a little payback.’
‘Thanks. I guess I’m just not good at asking for anything. Too used to looking after myself.’
‘Badly. I’ve seen the state of your fridge.’ Jenny laughed again. ‘Here, have you eaten yet? There’s a new place on Clerk Street just opened up. Really good Thai food. I think you’d like it.’
‘I … Yes. Maybe. That would be nice.’ McLean wasn’t sure what he felt, wasn’t sure why he had called Jenny except that he’d not been able to think of anyone else. Or was he kidding himself, just the same way the deputy chief constable seemed to make a lie the truth just by repetition?
‘Sounds like you really shouldn’t be left on your own. Tell you what. If you’re not keen on Thai then I’ll come over. You can order something from one of your favourite takeaways. Fair?’
He looked up from the phone, seeing the empty kitchen table, Mrs McCutcheon’s cat sitting beside her food bowl and cleaning one foot with her tongue, the corkboard by the house phone with the menus pinned to it.
‘Sure. Why not?’
He spent twenty minutes after hanging up wandering from kitchen to library to drawing room to hallway, half-heartedly tidying a house that hadn’t really been untidy to start with. It was true that Phil and Rae weren’t the most house-proud of parents, and McLean knew too that children were little vortices of chaos that no amount of self-discipline could tame, but someone with a bit more world experience had made sure the madness didn’t spread too far.
It didn’t take a genius to guess who.
He kept his phone with him as he paced the house, expecting it to ring at any time, for Jenny to have found some excuse not to come and share his misery. He could hardly blame her if she did. Every so often the image of Heather Marchmont’s dying eyes stopped him in his tracks. He could have sworn he could hear her voice in the empty silence of the big old house.
And then a more concrete sound broke the stillness, the unmistakable crunch of car tyres on gravel. He was back in the kitchen now, and saw the spray of headlights across the blackened glass of the window. Somehow night had fallen while he wasn’t looking. Somehow winter had arrived.
He flicked on lights as he set across the hall, only then noticing the pile of mail lying on the doormat unchecked. He scooped it up, thoughts of postcards long forgotten, and dumped it all on the wooden chest. The car was pulling away as he unlocked the front door, reached for the switch that would flood light over the porch, threw open the door to welcome Jenny in. It was only as he was doing so that he realised Jenny would most likely have come to the back door, would not have needed to be let in to a house she’d visited many times before in the past few weeks. Jenny would have driven over in her own car, too. It would be parked here in front of the door.
And then he saw that it wasn’t Jenny at all.
‘Hey, Tony. Did you get my postcard?’
She had changed in two years. Was it really two years already? Her hair had once been short, spiky and black as the night. She’d let it grow long before she left, but now it was short again, and shot with grey. Travel had hardened her features, but not cruelly. Rather they gave her a distinguished look, someone with a story to tell. She wore clothes that were practical, a long leather coat covering jeans, walking boots, baggy jumper that had seen better days. A large canvas bag was slung over one shoulder, and behind her McLean could see the taxi driver had left one even larger still. All of these details he only registered on some subconscious level, his attention fixed entirely on her face.
‘Em?’ He took a step forward, the light from the hallway spilling out from behind him, adding to the illumination. ‘You came back.’
57
A light dusting of snow carpets the hallway, blown in through the broken windows either side of the door. She doesn’t notice it, nor the cold seeping in through her boots, the chill wind whistling around her legs. The dull ache where the knife wound puckers her skin is the only thing she feels. That and the sadness.
‘It’s good to be home.’
Her brother says nothing. He has said nothing since they left the city, his mood surly. Almost as if the blow to his head has turned him back into the little boy she knew so many years before. He moves past her, heavy feet leaving dark imprints in the white. She follows him to the bottom of the staircase then stops, watches him climb slowly up the wooden spiral and disappear into the darkness above. His footsteps echo on the floorboards, fading away to nothing, leaving only the sighing of the wind in the trees that surround the house.
She lets him go, then sets off through the house. She’s not ready to sleep yet, still buzzing from the city, the life that surges through its streets.
Her footsteps take her through rooms long abandoned, but she doesn’t see the decay, the plaster fallen from the ceilings, the curtains furry with mildew, the fireplaces filled with twigs left by birds long dead. This has always been home, she was born here. It can never change.
Beyond the tumbled-in patio doors, the snow has begun to settle on the lawn. Thick flakes float down in the near-darkness, settling on her head, her shoulders. She ignores them as she walks to the edge of the trees, follows the short path to the clearing she has visited so many times before. The gravestones poke from the ground like rotten teeth, small and simple as the bodies whose last resting place they mark.
Kneeling before one, she presses a finger against the scar on her chest. Softly at first, but then harder, parting the flesh where it has begun to heal. The pain surges through her whole body, making her shudder, and a low moan escapes from between her lips as the blood begins to ooze sluggishly from the cut. She draws a name on the headstone in childish letters, scarlet and sticky. Adds some dates.
Heather
1984–2015
‘Girl’
The job done, she stands, barely able to see the words in the failing light. Behind her the house is dark, silent, brooding. The trees that surround it seem to close in tight, a protective wall from the world outside. She turns away from the graves, walks back through the snow to the open door. Up the stairs to the room she has always shared with her brother. He lies in the one bed, eyes closed, still as a corpse. The bag sits on a table at the end, open, and she feels inside it until she finds the dress. The fabric is strange beneath her fingers, soft and dangerous. Swiftly she undresses, then pulls it on, smoothing the rubber over her scarred skin. Her fingers follow the curves, delighting in the sensation for long moments. Then she gently pulls back the covers, climbs in beside her brother. She will sleep now. They will both sleep now.
Until they are needed again.
Acknowledgements
For all that it’s my name on the cover, producing a book is a team effort. I may spend months alone in a dark room with my thoughts a
nd a typewriter, but others then take my fevered imaginations and soothe them into something you can actually read. A huge thank you to Alex, Tim, Viola and all the team at Michael Joseph for all their hard work they have put in over the years. The success of these books has been in no small part down to your efforts.
I am forever indebted to my agent, the indomitable Juliet Mushens, and her ultra-efficient sidekick Sarah Manning. Without them Tony McLean would probably still be a beat constable.
Thank you to Barbara, who keeps me sane and has put up with me for far longer than I deserve, and thanks too to Stuart MacBride, whose advice all those years ago to give up writing dragon fantasy and to have a go at crime fiction has turned out to be very wise indeed. Even if I only half followed it.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN BOOKS
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published 2016
Copyright © James Oswald, 2016
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Front cover © Nikolina Petolas/Arcangel Images. Tree © Susana Almeida/EyeEm/Getty
ISBN: 978-1-405-91714-8