by James Oswald
31
‘Wasn’t sure I’d got the right place. It’s a bit off the beaten track, isn’t it?’
I’ve been waiting for five minutes longer than I expected, was beginning to wonder if I’d made a mistake with this one. But no, here he is, and only a little late.
‘It has to be. The work we do here is … close to the edge. We can’t do it at the hospital, never get it past the ethics committee for one thing.’
The building is a faceless modern warehouse on the outskirts of town, part of a development of twenty or so identical units. Most house small start-ups, builders, storage units for internet shops. This one’s been empty for several months now, all but forgotten by the letting agents. It’s been a challenge to prepare, cleaned down and dressed as the set for the final act in this passion play. The effort will be rewarded, I am sure. He is so close to perfection, this one. Just needs to accept what God has ordained for him.
‘I almost didn’t come,’ he says as I usher him in through the door. ‘Jon’s death, well, it hit me hard, you know. Then the police were round asking questions about Maureen. You know Maureen?’
‘I’m not sure I do,’ I say as I continue to walk down the corridor. He has to half run to keep up.
‘Thought everyone knew her. She’s a nurse at the hospital. Specialises in chemo.’
‘So many hospitals, so many nurses. It’s hard to keep track of them all.’ I push open the door into the main room at the back of the building, moving to one side to let him pass by. He takes two steps in, then stops. I can’t see his face from where I’m standing, but I’m sure his mouth is hanging open.
‘What are you hoping to trial here?’ He walks slowly into the centre of the room, runs a hand along the edge of one of the ICU beds, peers at the monitors, all switched off and silent for now. His eyes are everywhere, soaking up the detail. He is weighing the possibilities, considering the implications. I shudder at the thought of what is to come, drink in the tension as he turns back towards me. ‘Is this even legal?’
‘This isn’t a licensed research facility, if that’s what you mean. But then I think you already knew that.’
‘I don’t get it. Who do you work for? This isn’t the university or the NHS. Big pharma?’
‘Come. Let me show you something.’ I head to the anteroom, confident he will follow. There are microscopes, centrifuges, machines that look like they might somehow read your DNA, though in truth they’re nothing more than glorified ice-cream makers. The benches are spotlessly clean, the racks of glassware, pipettes and other paraphernalia shiny and new. Arranged along the back wall is a line of tall freezer units, humming gently to themselves. I sense him behind me as I stop at the first.
‘In here are the cell lines that could revolutionise the treatment of at least a dozen different cancers. They’ve all worked well in animal studies, but they need trialling in humans.’ I turn and face him, see the questions written large across his face. So very easy to read.
‘Your young patient Jon might have benefited, had we been able to get him here. A therapy tailored to the specific DNA of his cancer. Pluck out the faulty genes and replace them with good copies. Self-replicating too. Our goal is a one-shot treatment that basically would’ve cured him.’
‘You can do that? But I thought … I mean … That’s years away, surely?’
‘If you play by the rules, yes. But you and I, we know better, don’t we?’ I step to the side, feeling the moment build. ‘You want to look?’
He hesitates, at the last. It’s almost as if he knows that to open the door is to cross a line. As if coming here hasn’t been. As if the endless nights of research, the furious quest for knowledge that will help him save those barely worth a second glance, wasn’t a long slippery slope he’d been sliding down towards this point for years. But in the end he reaches for the handle, twists it, pulls the door open. Just as I knew he would when I first started to tug gently at his puppet strings. In that act he is committed. In that act he is pure.
‘Wha—?’ His last word is unfinished, the needle slides into his exposed neck, poisons pumping into his bloodstream and shutting him down like a child’s toy with its batteries removed. I time it so my hand, shoved into the small of his back, tips him forward as his knees buckle. He kneels into the empty fridge like a man at prayer, weak hands struggling to slow himself as he plunges into the darkness within.
32
There were no cats to be seen anywhere when he drove the car into the old coach house that served as a garage. Nor could McLean see any lurking in the bushes or stalking across the lawn as he walked the short distance to the back door. The reason soon became apparent; they were all in the kitchen, clustered nervously around the figure of Madame Rose. Only Mrs McCutcheon’s cat looked unperturbed, glancing up at him with an expression at once unreadable and obvious in its meaning.
‘Rose—’
‘Inspector. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know where to turn.’ The medium looked up from her seat at the table, and McLean almost didn’t recognise her. The stubble he was just about prepared for, after their last encounter. What he hadn’t expected was the heavy bags under the eyes, the tired creases dragging down the corners of her mouth, the lifeless greasy curls of greying hair and the general air of despondency. Even her clothes looked somehow as if she’d slept in them for a day or two.
‘I gave you a key, remember? That kind of suggests it’s OK for you to drop in when you want.’ He went over to the Aga, heaved the kettle on to the hob. If ever there was a time he needed a beer, this was it, but tea would have to do.
‘I thought that was just so I could look after the cats.’ Madame Rose stroked one particularly fluffy creature that had curled up in her lap.
‘ They don’t need much looking after, really. Keep to themselves. Barely eat any food. I reckon most of the neighbours are getting through a lot more than usual, mind you.’
That brought the ghost of a smile to Madame Rose’s face, but the effort of maintaining it for any length of time was clearly too much.
‘You’re too kind. You know that?’
‘People mention it, from time to time.’ McLean dropped teabags into mugs, poured boiling water over them. ‘Tell me what’s happened. We might as well start from the beginning.’
Madame Rose gathered herself together. She was tall, at least six foot two, maybe more, and sitting up straight she presented a formidable figure. Still, McLean couldn’t help but notice the cracked nail varnish as she raised a hand to tidy her lank hair around her shoulder.
‘They set fire to the fish and chip shop downstairs. Gianni’s been there since the war, you know.’
McLean didn’t, but he assumed Madame Rose meant the Second World War. Although knowing her, it could always have been the Boer War, or maybe even the aftermath of Bannockburn.
‘Worse, they’d deliberately parked trucks all along the road so the firemen couldn’t get easy access. It wouldn’t have helped. By the time they arrived the place was going like a …’
‘House on fire?’
Madame Rose scowled at him, but there was a spark in her eyes that hadn’t been there before.
‘I tried to get into my house, but they wouldn’t let me. The street’s cordoned off. It’s chaos.’
‘Hang on.’ McLean tried to remember the last time he’d been to visit Madame Rose at her place in Leith Walk. The entrance was a single door opening on to stairs, sandwiched between a bookmaker’s and a chip shop. He could see it now. ‘If the chip shop’s on fire?’
‘My home is safe, Inspector. It will take more than a bully with a Molotov cocktail to burn me out.’
There was something in the way she said it that left McLean in no doubt as to the truth of her words. There were things about Madame Rose he didn’t begin to understand; things he didn’t want to understand, if he was being honest.
‘What’s going on here? What’s really going on?’
‘I don’t know who’s behind this, or why they’
re attacking me. And that’s the worry, Tony. I really don’t know.’
McLean resisted the urge to toot the horn outside the church, instead climbing out of the car and leaning on the roof in the vain hope that would make things happen more quickly. He’d phoned Ritchie, asked if she could help him with Madame Rose’s problem. She’d asked for fifteen minutes and he was early, so technically she had another five before she needed to be out on the pavement waiting for him.
When she appeared it wasn’t from the church itself, but from the gate further up the road that led to the rectory. That made sense, he supposed. The church only had half a roof at the moment, the rest covered by tarpaulin that snapped in the breeze like gunshots. Maybe tooting the horn wouldn’t have been so bad after all.
She wasn’t alone, that was the first thing McLean noticed. A young man, dressed in sober black, accompanied her to the gate. He looked like he was going to leave her there, but then saw McLean’s car. The two of them came up together. McLean had been trained to be observant, but he didn’t need that to notice they were arm in arm.
‘You must be Inspector McLean.’ The young man held out his free hand. ‘Daniel Jones. Dan. Kirsty’s told me a fair bit about you.’
‘Has she indeed? All good, I’m sure.’ McLean took in the dark-coloured shirt under a loose fitting jacket, white clerical collar just visible in the fading light of the evening.
‘Daniel’s working with Mary at the moment,’ Ritchie said. ‘He helps out with the discussion group.’
‘Won’t keep you. Just wanted to say hi.’ Dan let go of Ritchie’s hand. She nodded, then stepped off the pavement and went round to the passenger door.
‘Nice to meet you,’ McLean said, slightly confused as to what was going on.
Dan just smiled. ‘I’ll give you a call in the morning,’ he said to Ritchie, then he turned and walked back towards the church.
‘So that’s why you’ve been looking so much chirpier lately,’ McLean said as they both climbed into the car. He was rewarded by a flush of colour to her freckled cheeks.
‘Sorry. None of my business.’ He started the engine, pulled away from the kerb.
‘It’s OK. I don’t mind.’ Ritchie struggled with her seatbelt for a moment, head down so McLean couldn’t see whether she was lying or not. By the time she’d sorted it out they were at the end of the road.
‘Daniel’s not long been ordained. He’s working with Mary at the moment, looking for a parish of his own.’
‘A minister?’ McLean tried to hide the surprise in his voice.
‘Is that a problem?’ Ritchie didn’t try to hide the defensiveness in hers.
‘Not with me, no. None of my business, like I said.’
The evening streets were relatively clear of traffic as they drove back across town in the direction of Leith Walk. McLean told Ritchie about Madame Rose, the harassment she’d been receiving and now the fire. The detective sergeant listened, but didn’t say much, and he began to wonder why he’d not come on his own. If it was serious there’d be plenty of police presence, and plain clothes would be called in once the fire was out. No real need to see what was going on just now.
He had to pull over to let a couple of fire engines pass, and when they hit North Bridge the extent of the chaos became apparent. It was mostly buses and taxis, but they still managed to block the northbound carriageway. At the end of the bridge, by the North British Hotel, he could see a cordon set up and a couple of traffic cops in hi-vis jackets trying to impose a semblance of order. No point driving to the scene, then. McLean made a quick U-turn and headed for the station.
‘Think it’ll be easier if we walk,’ he said.
Alongside him Ritchie nodded her agreement. ‘Not sure how much help we’ll be, if it’s that serious.’
It took half an hour to get the car parked and then walk to Madame Rose’s place. They needn’t have rushed; there were still plenty of fire engines at the scene, and ominous black smoke billowing from windows to either side of the medium’s terrace house.
‘Who’s in charge?’ McLean flashed his warrant card at the first uniform he found, a dour-faced constable given the unenviable task of keeping the smartphone-waving gawkers at bay. No doubt the fire was being live-tweeted and posted to all manner of unsavoury websites.
‘Sergeant Bain’s senior officer at the moment, sir. But it’s the fire service in charge for now.’
Service, of course. No brigades or forces any more. McLean thanked the constable and left him to his hopeless task.
‘See if you can’t find Bain. Find out what happened.’
DS Ritchie nodded her understanding and headed off into the melee. McLean turned up his collar as he picked a route past fire trucks. Night was falling in that half-hearted way it did in the city at this time of year, the street lights only really deepening the shadows. Half a dozen fire trucks were lined up on the street, blocked from the pavement by a number of badly parked cars and elderly Transit vans. They were a nuisance to the firemen rather than a difficult obstacle to overcome, but McLean could tell just from looking at them that the number plates would be clones, the vehicle identification numbers filed off. If they could be matched to any database, it would almost certainly be a list of stolen motors, all missing at least a couple of months.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked the first fireman he found who wasn’t obviously busy. The young man looked at him as if he were mad, or perhaps a hallucination, until McLean showed his warrant card again.
‘Two empty flats on fire. We’re keeping it under control best we can, but it’s not like any fire I’ve seen.’
‘How so?’ McLean looked past the trucks and abandoned vans to the shop fronts, cracked and blackened. There was nothing recognisable left of the chip shop, and the bookies on the other side of Madame Rose’s door was a mess of billowing black smoke.
‘It’s spreading all wrong.’ The fireman pointed to the tall houses set back from the shops that had been built in what would once have been front gardens. McLean could see what the fireman was on about. Hoses pumped water at the sandstone walls to either side of Madame Rose’s place, beating back the smoke that poured from cracked windows, but the middle house had not caught fire at all.
‘How’s that even possible?’ McLean asked.
‘Beats me. Not complaining, mind.’ The fireman rubbed at his face with a black-gloved hand, transferring soot to his chin and nose. ‘Makes our job a bit easier.’
‘You any idea how it started?’
‘Best bet’s the chip shop. Reeks of accelerant, so I doubt it was an accident. Let’s put it out first, aye? Then you can go poking your nose in.’
McLean found Sergeant Bain at the back of one of the fire trucks, cradling a mug of tea and chatting to DS Ritchie. Alongside them was perhaps the last person he expected to see.
‘Ms Dalgliesh? How did you get past the security barrier?’
‘Nice to see you too, Tony.’ Jo Dalgliesh scribbled something down in her notebook, closed it and slipped it into the large bag hung over her shoulder. ‘Arson at the local chip shop. Just doing my job.’
‘Didn’t get the senior reporter’s position then? Sorry to hear that.’
Dalgliesh pouted. ‘Actually, I did. Doesn’t mean I’m above a little local news. Besides, the mess you lot are making of the traffic, this’ll probably be in all the nationals tomorrow. I’m surprised the telly crews aren’t here already.’
‘Oh, they are,’ Sergeant Bain said. ‘I managed to keep them to the other side of the street though.’
‘Well, I guess that’s something. And since you’ve obviously got everything under control, perhaps you can bring us all up to speed.’ McLean remembered Bain from his early days as a beat constable. He’d be about the same age as Grumpy Bob, looking to his retirement and probably coasting a bit. He’d been a good copper, so maybe he deserved it. The sergeant looked somewhat sheepishly at his tea, searching for somewhere to put it down. He didn’t quite have Grumpy Bob’s
nonchalance.
‘Fire was reported a couple of hours ago, sir. Control sent me out to supervise the traffic and coordinate with the fire service. Didn’t realise they’d assigned any plain clothes yet.’
‘They haven’t. I heard from one of the residents.’
‘Madame Rose?’ Dalgliesh asked.
‘Who is none of your concern, Ms Dalgliesh.’
‘Aye, but he lives there, don’t he?’ The reporter pointed at the unburnt house, sandwiched between the two still merrily ablaze.
‘Do we know what started the fire, Sergeant?’ McLean wanted to tell Dalgliesh to piss off, but he needed her on his side, needed information from her about Ben Stevenson. So he decided the easiest thing for now was to pretend she wasn’t there.
‘Not sure yet, sir. Looks like it’s probably arson though. These cars and vans …’ Bain pointed at the abandoned vehicles. ‘And there’s a reek of petrol round the door now they’ve got that bit out. But who’d want to burn down a chippy?’
‘That’s assuming it was the target, of course,’ Ritchie said. ‘Madame Rose was getting harassment. Maybe this was meant for her.’
‘Why’d anyone have it in for a barmy old transvestite fortune teller?’ Dalgliesh asked. So much for ignoring her.
‘I don’t know. Maybe because the tabloids keep on drumming up hatred for people like her?’
Dalgliesh gave him an old-fashioned look, but didn’t press the matter. No doubt she knew when she was outnumbered and could be marched off the scene at any moment. McLean turned his attention back to Sergeant Bain.
