'Kirsty.' His voice is little more than a whisper, and now he can hear a great roaring wind, feel it gusting on his face, searing off the skin. It sweeps up the people all around him, whipping them into the air like a tornado. They go willingly, their arms spread wide, their faces upturned and rapturous. Too late he realises that she must go too. He reaches for her arm, taking her hand. It is cool to the touch, so smooth. He'd forgotten what she felt like. He misses her so much.
'Don't go.'
'I have to go,' she answers with that slow patient way of hers. 'You have to let me go. It's time to move on.'
Her fingers are slipping away from his. She is floating up into the air, her hair whipping round her face. She stares down at him and smiles, fading away from his sight.
'I love you Kirsty,' he says. And then she is gone.
*
'What did you say, sir?'
McLean's eyes snapped open and he found himself staring up at the sweat-streaked face of DS Ritchie. He felt like someone had shoved him into an oven at gas mark nine, and it wasn't hard to see why. All around was flame.
'We've got to get out. Now.' Ritchie stooped down and hauled McLean upright. He dimly recalled that she'd been injured herself. What was she doing coming here endangering herself? He'd tell her off later, he decided.
Everything hurt, but his legs seemed stronger than they had any right to be. Once he was up, he was able to stagger towards the nearest doorway, back into the admin block. Smoke billowed around the lower ceiling, flames eating at the wooden desks and shelving. They half walked, half fell down the spiral stone steps to the tunnel. The air was slightly better down here, a steady draft being dragged through by the fire up above. Still it was difficult to breathe.
McLean paused as they crossed the chapel. 'We need to secure this. It's a crime scene.' His voice was little more than a croak. DS Ritchie leant against the wall by the door back to the house, panting.
'With respect, sir. Fuck the crime scene. We need to get out of here before the whole place explodes.'
As if to underline her point, a dull thwump sound echoed from the tunnel, followed by a roar that rose in tone as it rose in volume. Brain addled by lack of oxygen, it took McLean long moments to realise what was happening. Then the hidden door in the wood panelling disintegrated in a ball of flame. Splinters stung his face and the force of the blast knocked him to the ground. He crawled over to the doorway as flames started to eat away at the wooden plaques and the eagle lectern.
'You're right, sergeant. Fuck the crime scene.'
They leant on each other for support, struggling up the stone stairs, first to the basement and then to the hall. The acrid smell of smoke was everywhere, even in the hallway. And overlaid on top of it was that horrible rotten egg gaseous smell. McLean tried to place it, but his brain was too addled to make any sense. Marsh gas? Broken sewers?
The air outside was a blessed relief, cold and sweet and pure. The two of them struggled across the gravel to the car, still no sign of the promised back up, or the air ambulance. They'd only gone half way when a huge explosion shattered the calm. McLean half turned, seeing a great black cloud rising from the site of the ironworks. Then there was an odd whistling noise, like a train coming out of a tunnel at full speed, and the whole front entrance to Needy's house blew open in a gout of flame. Windows shattered, firing razor shards of glass out across the driveway.
Both of them were knocked to the ground. McLean ended up face down in the gravel, clinging on as if he were about to fall off the world. His head rang with the explosions, the heat, the onset of concussion. But slowly, as the winter chill eased his burns and the vertigo ebbed away, he began to hear the wail of distant sirens.
~~~~
66
He walks down the street the same as he did almost every day for two years. It was part of his beat, part of the regular rhythm of the job. But today is different. He hasn't worn the uniform for a while now, and in his absence this part of the city has changed. At first he's worried as he sees the new coffee bars and expensive fashion boutiques. Perhaps the shop he seeks is no longer there. So much is different now that the parliament is being built; the old order demolished to make way for the new.
But it is there still, the little shop with its neat green paint and tinted windows. Some things will always hold out against the march of progress, and that is good. He pushes open the door, hears the tinkle of the bell and glances up at the movement of it jangling on its little spring. Nods in approval, the shop has the right feel to it.
Not all the books are old, but none of them are new. He runs his fingers down their spines as he walks through the line of shelves towards the little counter at the back. The shopkeeper greets him with a friendly smile. He's an old man, with a trustworthy face.
'Can I help you sir?' A trustworthy voice, too. Warm and relaxing.
'I'm looking for a gift, actually.' He's embarrassed a little, but the old man's smile wins him over. 'It's for my fiancée. We're getting married in the spring.'
'My congratulations, sir. And did you have anything particular in mind?'
'Well, this might seem a little stupid. But she's a junior doctor. Just graduated. And I thought maybe some old medical text. You know, something from a time when they used leeches and cupping and stuff. I thought it would be...' He tails off. Spoken aloud, the idea seems almost insulting. These are valuable books, after all. They need to be cherished and protected. Not the sort of thing you give on a whim.
'But what a splendid gift.' The shopkeeper's smile notches up another inch. 'And so appropriate. Of course, there are doctors today who still subscribe to both cupping and leeches. But a memento of a time when medicine was raw and experimental. Yes, splendid.'
And then everything is fine. The shopkeeper knows the very thing, and it's reasonably priced too. Not in the shop at the moment, but if he could take some details, he'll be in touch just as soon as he's retrieved it from his store.
He leaves the shop with a spring in his step. She's normally so difficult to buy presents for, but she'll love this. He just knows it.
~~~~
67
It was going to take more than twenty-four hours rest and a change of clothing to make McLean feel fully human again. For a start his face and hands felt like he'd been on holiday in the Costa del Sol for a fortnight and forgotten to pack the sun cream. And there was the nagging sense of unreality about it all, too. He'd heard about anoxia and the strange hallucinations it could bring on, but knowing that didn't make it any easier to accept.
'You were in here when it started? Jesus, inspector. What the hell happened?'
McLean snapped out of his reverie, remembering where he was, and with whom. Jim Burrows, the fire investigator, was surveying the steaming remains of what had once been the McMerry Ironworks. There wasn't much left of the vast building; the roof had burned out completely, and half of the walls had collapsed. From where they stood on the edge of the debris field, McLean could see the stumps of the great iron pillars that had held up the wooden rafters, black with soot and piled all around with rubble. To the rear of the building, a team of firemen were slowly clearing a path, searching for bodies.
'I was meant to be coming here to do a fire risk assessment next week,' Burrows said. 'Looks like they could have done with it a bit earlier. How'd it start, did you say?'
McLean muttered something about candle flames and sweepings.
'Christ, what kind of idiot would bring a candle into a place like this?'
McLean coughed, grimacing as pain spread across his chest. He'd barely recovered from the fire at his tenement, and now all this. 'There was more to it, though. It went up way too quickly. And there were odd blue flames running up the walls. Never seen anything like it before.'
'Blue flames? Tinged with yellow?' Burrows had a thoughtful look on his face. 'And you say it was hot before it started?'
McLean nodded. '
What about a sulphur smell?'
McLean
wasn't sure what there had been. His memory was a mess. He really shouldn't have been here at all; should have taken the day off. Maybe the month. Should have gone to the hospital, except that held more fears for him than this.
'Aye, I think there might have been,' he said. 'Rotting eggs.'
Burrows looked around the ruined building, then turned and walked out into the wide compound surrounding it. McLean followed as the fireman strode over to the nearest patch of scrubland and began hacking away at the soil with his heel. After a while, he pulled up a lump of shiny black rock and sniffed it.
'This whole area's been mined for coal since Roman times. Probably before.' He handed the lump to McLean. It was warm to the touch; hardly surprising given its proximity to the fire. When he lifted it to his nose, the unmistakable reek of sulphur caught his already sore throat. He dropped the rock and descended into a fit of coughing, culminating in a big wet ball of phlegm.
'Sorry, I should have thought,' Burrows said. 'Smoke inhalation's a wee bugger.'
'What's this got to do with anything?' McLean asked once he'd managed to get his voice back. He kicked the dropped lump of coal.
'Well, the ground round here's riddled with old mine workings. Shafts, tunnels, you name it. And there's a lot of coal still down there. Up Bilston way there's a great store of it, filled in half the glen. But sometimes you get other stuff mixed up. Might be an old landfill tip, might just be gas pockets. Firedamp, you know? My guess is that's what we had here. And an underground fire, too. Could have been burning for years and no-one noticed. Heated everything up nicely, gas escapes up through cracks in the soil, hits the floor of the factory. The only place it can escape's where the concrete meets the walls. Something sets it off, and there you have it, sheets of pale blue flame running up the walls. Must've been like being stuck in a huge gas cooker.'
'And that would account for all the other old factory fires?' McLean knew what the answer was going to be, but he asked anyway.
'Err, no. Maybe worth having a look at the old geological maps and mine works surveys. But... no. Here, I can see it. In the city? No. And we don't know what started any of those fires.'
'The tramps lit a fire in the office of that factory over in Slateford,' McLean said. 'Strange you never mentioned it in your report.'
'Didn't I?' Burrows pulled off his hard hat and scratched at his forehead. 'To be honest, it could've slipped my mind. Winter's not a good time for a fire investigator you know.'
'What, you don't like the cold?'
'No inspector. There's a lot of fires.'
McLean managed a smile, then an odd thought popped into his head.
'It's Burrows, isn't it?' he asked. 'The way you spell your name. B.U.R.R.O.W.S?'
The fire investigator looked a little confused, then said 'Aye, that's right.'
'Never been spelled Burroughs, you know, like Edgar Rice?'
The look on Burrows' face was a mixture of confusion and concern. 'Not as far as I know. Why?'
'Oh, nothing,' McLean said. 'Just a hunch.'
*
They found the remains of Sergeant John Needham about an hour later. At least, McLean suspected it was Needy; formal identification would have to be through DNA analysis of the charred bones. He was lying on his front, arms clutched around a pile of ash that was all that remained of his precious book. Most of his uniform had burned to nothing, melting into the mess that had been skin and fat and muscle. Even the gold chain he had been wearing around his neck was broken, links melted away to precious slag. But the heavy, round medallion that had been in the middle lay on the floor beside him.
Careful not to disturb the body before the pathologist arrived, McLean fished in his pockets for an evidence bag or latex gloves to pick it up with. It was then that he realised he had lost the thin strip of fabric, torn from Kirsty's dress. He cast his mind back, trying to remember. He'd had it with him in the chapel, but what had he done with it after that? He remembered holding it in his fist, wrapped around his fingers. Then it was gone. Burned up in the fire. The last piece of her. Time to let her go?
Tears burned in his dry eyes then and he was forced to look away. Shoving his hands back into his pockets, McLean pushed himself upright, stepped back from the curiously peaceful body. The medallion lay where he had left it, undisturbed. There was still no sign of the pathologist. But as he walked away from the scene, he realised that he no longer cared about the investigation. Someone else could deal with all that. He'd had enough.
*
'Parcel for you, sir. Courier just delivered it.'
PC Gregg stood in the doorway to McLean's office and tried not to look like she was staring. He couldn't blame her, really. He must look a state. Six stitches in a gash on his right temple, black eyes, singed hair, burnt-red cheeks like he'd been boozing all his life. And he still couldn't get rid of the horrible smell of smoke that seemed to follow him everywhere he went.
'Thank you constable. Just put it on the desk. If you can find a space.'
She did as she was told, then hovered as if waiting to be dismissed.
'Was there something else?'
'I didn't know if you heard, sir, but that lad we were looking for just walked into the station and gave himself up.'
'Lad, what lad?'
'You know. We interviewed his brother at Christmas.'
'Peter Ayre?'
'Aye, that's his name. He's down in interview room three talking like he don't know how to stop. I've never seen Dag... er, Chief Inspector Duguid look so happy, sir.'
'I'll have to go and have a word with him.' McLean pictured the destruction done to his tenement. Saw the pale dead face of his neighbour. 'Thanks for letting me know, constable.'
PC Gregg nodded and scurried out of the room, leaving McLean with his parcel. It sloshed like a bottle of something and was about the right shape and size for a good malt. He slit the brown paper with a careful knife, and opened it up to reveal a twenty-five year old Springbank, nestling in a wooden display box. There was a note attached, written in surprisingly childish handwriting.
My wee girl can rest in peace now. You have my thanks for that. I won't forget. This and the other present are a token of my gratitude.
It wasn't signed, but McLean knew exactly who it was from. He slid the bottle out of its box and held it up to the light. Liquid gold. By rights he should take it straight to the chief superintendent; accepting gifts from a Glasgow gangster could get him into all manner of trouble. And there was also the question of how MacDougal could possibly know what had happened. On the other hand, McLean reckoned he'd earned it. And it would probably be a month before his throat was healed enough to drink it. Slipping it back into the case, he shoved the whole lot in a drawer and headed off for interview room three.
*
Peter Ayre looked as bad as McLean felt. Quite apart from the obvious signs of withdrawal, his face was a mess of bruises and he held one arm like it might well have been broken. His right hand was wrapped up in a grubby, bloodstained bandage that looked suspiciously like it hid too few fingers. He should have been in a hospital, not an interview room, but McLean wasn't going to be the one to tell Dagwood that. Not this time.
The chief inspector had a look of insufferable glee on his face, and it wasn't hard to work out why. From the observation room, McLean could hear Ayre's dull monotone junkie voice listing names and addresses as if he'd had them drilled into him. Even given Dagwood's track record, the gang responsible for the cannabis farms dotted around the city were going to be finding it very hard to operate.
'Can you believe he just walked in.' DI Langley stared at the interview being carried out on the other side of the glass. 'He pretty much begged us to lock him up. He's terrified.'
'What about his information. Any good?' McLean wasn't sure why he asked. He knew what the answer would be.
'What we can tell so far. It's pretty early days. But he seems to have been a key player. He knows all the sites, all the people. And he's said he'll tes
tify if we can help him get cleaned up. Someone's due a promotion out of this.'
Aye, and we all know who that'll be. And he's not standing in this room.
'So who do you think will move in on the patch. Once you've put this lot away?'
Langley looked at McLean with a quizzical expression.
'What do you mean?'
'My money's on Glasgow. East side.' McLean pulled open the observation room door to leave. 'Those weegie bastards have been trying to get a foothold over here for years.'
*
Outside the station, the cold air soothed his face, but tickled his throat. McLean put his head down against the wind and started the long walk across town. His Grandmother's car was safely tucked up in its garage, away from road salt and exploding buildings. He'd give it a really good wash just as soon as the weather turned a bit warmer. Then maybe take it to that garage in Loanhead he'd heard about, get them to do some serious rust proofing. He wondered if the electrics were up to powering an airwave set.
Despite the credit crunch, Christmas being over, most of the banks going bust and unemployment rising faster than Dagwood's blood pressure, Princes Street was as full of shoppers as ever. He dodged between teenage mothers wheeling pushchairs, old biddies with lethal umbrellas unfolded despite the clear skies, teenagers in clothes several sizes too large and a hundred and one other variations on humanity.
The Book of Souls (The Inspector McLean Mysteries) Page 31
