by James Oswald
McLean thought of Ben Stevenson’s daughters and how pleased they would be to hear that the police were doing their utmost to bring their father’s killer to justice. He bit back the retort he wanted to give, just nodded an acceptance of his superior’s crassness. Sometimes that was all you could do.
‘You got a moment, Bob?’
It was a stupid question, really. McLean had spent ten minutes searching the empty offices and unused incident rooms until he’d found the detective sergeant. Grumpy Bob was sitting in the corner of the CID room, feet up on his desk, head wedged against the wall and giving his newspaper very close attention indeed. He slowly lifted it off his face, folded it and placed it on the desk before answering.
‘I could probably find some space in my hectic schedule, sir. What did you have in mind?’
McLean cast an eye over the rest of the CID room, looking for other officers lurking in the corners. It was empty, but this early in the morning that was hardly a surprise. Even so, he felt uncomfortable letting too many people in on this particular piece of business.
‘You still on speaking terms with the duty sergeants down in Leith station?’
‘Some of them, aye. You looking for something in particular.’
‘Madame Rose. You remember her?’
‘Him, if I’m not mistaken. But yes. Has that shop down the Walk. Peddles fortunes and deals in old books.’
‘That’s the one. She helped out with Emma last year. Came to me yesterday asking if I could look into a little local problem she’s been having.’ McLean told Grumpy Bob the whole story, noting as he did that the old sergeant took his feet off his desk, sat upright and started to pay attention.
‘They killed a cat?’
‘Left the poor thing just inside the front door. Gave one of her regular customers a terrible fright when he turned up for his weekly tarot.’
‘So what do you want me to do?’
‘Well, I know she’s spoken to someone at Leith a couple of times, but whoever’s doing this is being very cunning about it. Seems it’s never the same faces twice. Difficult for us to take it seriously.’
‘You sure he’s not just being paranoid. I mean, he’s not exactly dealing from a full deck, right?’
McLean slumped against the wall, the weariness of too little sleep fighting with his patience.
‘She, Bob. You’ve been on the equality and diversity training, right? Madame Rose might’ve been born a man, but she’s happier being a woman. She wants to be a she, who am I to tell her she can’t?’
Grumpy Bob paused a moment before answering. ‘Aye, you’re right. I was meaning more about the whole fortune-telling thing, mind. Unless you’re telling me you believe in all that stuff too, now?’
‘You know me and belief, Bob. But this isn’t about me. It’s about Rose. She’s helped me more than once now, the least I can do is return the favour.’
‘You mean the least I can do?’ Grumpy Bob grinned. ‘You want me to have a word with someone at Leith?’
‘My guess is no one takes her seriously because of what she does, how she dresses. Sure they’ll have taken down her complaint, it’ll be in someone’s PDA. But no one will have done anything about it. See if you can’t change that, will you?’
‘Consider it done.’ Grumpy Bob picked up his paper, and for a moment McLean thought he was going to drape it over his face and go back to sleep. ‘Tomorrow soon enough? I’ll be seeing old Tam Sykes then anyway.’
‘Tam’s still working? Surely they put him out to pasture years ago.’
‘Aye, they did. But you know what us old coppers are like. He’s been helping out with some cold case reviews. Tam’ll have a word if I ask him, and it’ll be better coming from him.’
McLean recalled his strange meeting with the medium a few nights earlier. The more he thought about it, the more her secondary request – the almost afterthought that he might be able to give a home to her cats for a while – seemed to be the thing she really wanted from him. Chances were the attacks on her house were not something the police would have much luck looking into.
‘Tomorrow’s fine. Just returning a favour really. And I get the feeling Rose can look after herself anyway.’
22
‘Got an address for that conspiracy nutter of yours, sir.’
McLean looked up from his desk to see the thin but smiling face of DS Ritchie peering around the door jamb. The bags under her eyes had faded a bit, her pale complexion perhaps a little more coloured than it had been a few days earlier.
‘My what? Oh. Right.’ His brain caught up with his mouth just too late. Poking out from underneath a series of reports that appeared to have been written by someone with English as very much a second language, he could just see a corner of the book taken from Ben Stevenson’s study. McLean fished it out, staring once more at the cover.
‘That’s the chap.’ Ritchie committed herself fully to the office as she saw the book. ‘Douglas Ballantyne the third. He’s been away in the US, apparently. Travelling since May, so I guess he’s not a key suspect. Happy to see us any time we’re passing. Soon as he’s back.’
McLean flipped it over and scanned the blurb again. He’d been meaning to read the actual book, but there was never enough time. Or maybe it was just that he didn’t want to have to wade through what would inevitably be a load of old rubbish dressed up as historical fact.
‘You want to read it?’ He held it up for Ritchie to take, but she backed away, hands raised to ward it off as if the words might somehow corrupt her soul.
‘No thanks. My head’s messed up enough as it is.’
McLean said nothing, although he may have raised a quizzical eyebrow. Ritchie took it as an invitation to shut the door, only then realising that there was no other chair for her to sit on. She leaned back against the wall opposite the desk, gathering her thoughts before she spoke.
‘I know what happened to me, sir. Back …’ Her words tailed off.
‘You got sick. A nasty flu bug. People die of the flu you know.’
‘Old people maybe. Babies, invalids. I’m thirty-two, fit. Well, I was fit.’ She gave a little cough. ‘Now I’m a fucking wreck. You saw what I was like after climbing three flights of stairs.’
‘Give it time, Kirsty. You nearly died. Takes a while to come back from that.’
Ritchie wiped at a forehead suddenly damp with sweat. ‘You make it sound like you’ve got experience.’
‘In a way, I guess I have. Not like you, of course, but I’ve been there. Down so far you never think you’ll make it back up again.’
‘How did you? Make it back up again, that is?’
‘Friends, mostly. And time.’ McLean shifted in his seat, trying not to make it look like he was uncomfortable with the conversation. He was, of course. Just a little. But in a way it was his fault Ritchie was the way she was; he owed it to her to do his best to help her. Would have done even if it hadn’t been.
‘You have many friends out of the job?’ It was an innocent question, he could see that, but it was also barbed.
‘A few. Maybe not as many as I’d like.’ And the closest, the one who really helped him out through the bad days, was half a world away in California. McLean remembered the quick and unexpected call from Phil just the other evening, the memories it had sparked. He made a mental note to give his old flatmate a call back some time soon, filed it away with the large pile of mental notes he’d already made to the same effect.
‘Didn’t have many friends in Aberdeen anyway.’ Ritchie continued as if she hadn’t heard his answer. ‘None of them have bothered coming to visit in the – what is it? Two years since I transferred down?’
‘Christ, is it that long?’
It was a small thing, the slightest wince at the word. Unless he was being over-sensitive. Or maybe remembering the conversation he’d had with the minister.
‘You’d think a city this size it’d be easy to make new friends, but when does a detective have the time, eh?’
‘Well, policemen aren’t all that bad.’
Ritchie laughed, which was a nice thing to see. ‘You know what they say about doctor and nurse relationships, right?’
‘There’ll be all sorts at your evening meetings, though. Up at the church?’
Ritchie’s face coloured slightly, the blush of a child caught doing something that wasn’t strictly wrong, but might not be right either.
‘You know about that?’
‘Bumped into the minister the other night. She’s been trying to get me to come along for months now. Might have let slip that I’d maybe see a familiar face there if I did.’
‘You should come. It’s – well, it’s helped me come to terms with what happened. I know who that woman really is now, what she did to me.’
McLean leaned back in his chair, said nothing. He didn’t need to ask who ‘that woman’ was or what she had done to Ritchie. It was just hard to tally that knowledge with being a rational, logical person.
‘Never really been one for sharing,’ he said eventually. ‘You know that. And I’m not that comfortable with belief, either. It’s too lazy. Thanks for the invitation, but I’m fine with the friends I’ve got.’
‘OK.’ Ritchie nodded her acceptance. ‘But I think you’re ducking the issue. There are things that don’t easily fit a rational explanation. Sometimes you have to believe something will work, otherwise it won’t.’
‘I prefer to look at it as thinking outside of the box. If I can’t find a rational explanation, then I’m using the wrong definition of rational. And talking of work—’ McLean peered at the book where he’d dropped it on to his desk. ‘Douglas Ballantyne the third? Where’s he live?’
‘Down in the Borders. Near Peebles.’ Ritchie stood up straight, once more the businesslike detective sergeant. She unpeeled a Post-it note from the top of the pad she’d been playing with throughout their conversation, stuck it down over the Santa Claus lookalike author image. McLean picked up the book and note together, glanced at the address. It sounded expensive, which suggested there was a ready market for idiot conspiracy theories.
‘Give him a call, will you? Arrange a time. We’re all one big happy Police Scotland now, so it’s not as if Borders can complain if we spend an afternoon on their patch.’
‘I’ll get on it.’ Ritchie pushed herself away from the wall, opened the door. ‘And thanks.’
‘For what?’
‘For listening, I guess.’
‘Any time.’ McLean pulled the reports he’d been deciphering out from underneath the book. Held them up for Ritchie to see. ‘It’s got to be better than all this rubbish.’
Lunch in the station canteen was something of a novelty for McLean. He rarely had time for anything more sophisticated than a sandwich at his desk, and lately going into any place where a lot of junior officers congregated was uncomfortable. Probably more so for them than him; he didn’t really care all that much what they thought about him as long as they did what they were told. Nevertheless, the speed with which any table he sat at emptied itself was at best impressive, at worst rude. It was true there were some officers who didn’t mind sharing a coffee, muffin and blether, but then if McLean wanted to eat quickly it was best not to get caught in a conversation with DC Gregg.
Mercifully she was nowhere to be seen, and the few faces that looked up at him as he entered didn’t immediately radiate hostility. Conversation continued its muted buzz unabated. Better yet, the canteen itself yielded a plate of ham sandwiches that looked like they might have been made sometime that week.
He’d barely sat down when the canteen doors burst open, and DC MacBride came rushing in. At almost the same moment, McLean’s phone buzzed in his pocket, the harsh klaxon ring tone announcing that the control centre in Bilston Glen had need of his services. From the look on the detective constable’s face as he scanned the room, it didn’t take a genius to tell that the news was likely to be the same from both sources. McLean ignored the phone; they’d send him a text message anyway.
‘I take it from your lack of breath that something important’s happened?’ He picked up his limp sandwich and eyed it ruefully. To bite, or not to bite?
‘Call just came through, sir. They’ve found a dead body. A young woman. Out by Fairmilehead.’
McLean dropped the sandwich back on to the plate, pushed it away as he stood up. Probably for the best; he’d only end up with indigestion.
The lane had already been cordoned off by the time he arrived, which at least meant someone with half a brain was in charge. McLean had hoped DC MacBride would have commandeered a pool car, but the detective constable had been called away to another case. In the end, he had cadged a lift from the nearest squad car. The moment he’d clunked the passenger door shut the driver had executed a perfect reversing J-turn and sped off, which rather begged the question of how he was going to get back to the station once he was done. Not for the first time he realised he couldn’t put off getting himself a new car much longer. If only people would stop dropping things on them.
‘What are we looking at, Constable?’ He showed his warrant card to the fresh-faced uniform who had been tasked with keeping the public on the right side of the blue-and-white tape. It wasn’t a difficult job, really. Not this far out of town. Fairmilehead didn’t exactly attract passers-by. Not on foot, anyway.
‘Dead body, sir. That’s all anyone’s told me.’ The constable lifted the tape to let him on to the site.
‘Forensics here yet?’
‘Over there.’
McLean headed in the direction he had been pointed, arriving at a cluster of white Transit vans and a couple of squad cars pulled up in a courtyard formed by three semi-derelict stone buildings: part of a farm that had long since succumbed to the ever-expanding housing estates that grew like cankers alongside the main roads branching out of the city. Through trees lining the lane, he could see a green field dotted with horses and then the seething mass of the city bypass. How long before the horses were evicted too, their grazing given over to yet more semi-detached boxes?
‘Tony. You’re here. Excellent.’
McLean didn’t need to look to know who was speaking. He’d known Angus Cadwallader at least half his life. The city pathologist was already wearing a full-body forensic suit, the hood pulled down to reveal thinning grey hair. Judging by the gore smeared across the front of it, he’d examined the body, too.
‘You’ve had a look, I see. Any thoughts?’
‘Probably best if you see for yourself,’ Cadwallader said. ‘Wouldn’t want to colour your judgement.’
McLean gave his friend a quizzical look, but the pathologist was obviously giving nothing away.
‘I guess I’d better go and find myself a romper suit then.’
His initial impression was of something that had been thrown away because it had ceased to be useful. At first it was difficult even to tell that it was a body he was looking at, let alone a woman.
She had been dumped naked into a large metal bin, the sort of thing used to store horse feed and other items you didn’t want the rats and mice to get at on a livery yard. Dumped was the word, too. This was no careful placing, so much as a body simply tipped in. She lay awkwardly, head staring sightlessly upwards from where it was squashed into the corner. She looked almost like a discarded mannequin, only one with real blood. And she was young. That much he could see despite the damage to her neck and the mess all over her face.
‘Judging by the relative lack of bleeding, I’m going to guess she was killed elsewhere and brought here.’ McLean dragged his eyes away from the grisly sight to Cadwallader standing beside him.
‘Cause of death?’
‘You have to ask, don’t you Tony?’ The pathologist ventured a grin, but it was a humourless effort. ‘You’ll be wanting a time too, I’ve no doubt.’
‘When you can.’ McLean gave his old friend a light slap on the arm. ‘I’ll go speak to the forensics team. See what they’ve got.’
&n
bsp; He left Cadwallader with the body, and followed the marked-out pathway back to the forensics van where he’d borrowed his white overalls. They didn’t fit, bunching up in his crotch and under his armpits in a manner that made walking difficult if you didn’t want to look like a sumo wrestler. The scene of crime officers seemed to be able to move unhindered in theirs, which suggested they kept a special batch of ill-fitting ones just for detectives.
‘Inspector McLean. We meet again.’ The short, round figure of Jemima Cairns appeared around the corner of the nearest van. She wore the expression of a genius surrounded by fools, a near-permanent scowl on her face as she constantly scanned the scene for evidence of anyone doing things they shouldn’t. Her quick up-down appraisal of his overalls suggested that he’d at least got that much right.
‘Dr Cairns.’ McLean nodded a greeting. ‘How’s the crime scene?’
‘In a word, bloody impossible. No, that’s two words.’ Dr Cairns didn’t seem to really mind. ‘You couldn’t have picked a worse place to leave forensic evidence if you’d tried. There’s horses, goats, pigs, chickens, humans.’ She said this last one as if she felt that was where humans should come in the pecking order. ‘Christ only knows what else. The place is dusty as hell, and that wind isn’t helping.’
McLean followed the forensic scientist’s gaze across the small courtyard. A group of scene of crime officers were inching their way over towards the central building, studying the ground with commendable intensity, but every so often the wind dropping down off the nearby Pentland Hills would whip the dust up into eddies, covering up anything that might be a clue, or worse, moving it back to a place they’d already looked at.
‘All we need now is some rain and we’ll be buggered sideways till Tuesday.’ Cairns looked up at the sky, pale blue and cloudless at the moment, but you never knew.
‘So you don’t hold out much hope of getting anything from here, then,’ McLean said. ‘Apart from the body, of course.’
‘Chance’d be a find thing. This place is too contaminated by far. We might get something and never even realise. Or there might be nothing to find.’
