Prayer for the Dead

by James Oswald

  Not many with us now, and those last few are often reluctant to go. It’s getting easier though. Spent some months in a monastery here. You should visit it some day. Can’t get much further away, so I must start coming home soon.

  It was signed with that familiar looping E, so stylised it could almost be a K. McLean propped it up against the other, unopened mail and set about spooning some food on to a plate. Mrs McCutcheon’s cat looked up as the smell of sausage casserole filled the room, but she didn’t leap on to the table to help herself. No doubt confident there would be plenty going spare later.

  The fridge yielded a cold beer and as he poured it, McLean felt a little twinge of guilt at the mug of tea he’d left behind in the rectory. He pushed it aside, instead savouring the bitter flavour of the ale. Butter melting in his baked potato, a couple of mouthfuls of delicious stew, and then he reached for the plain white envelope.

  Inside, a single sheet of paper was almost covered in dense, neatly written script. It didn’t surprise him to find that Madame Rose was a fountain pen and ink person, or possibly even a freshly cut quill and ink one.

  My Dear Tony, it began.

  It is with a sense of deep shame that I feel I must confess to having abused your most generous hospitality. It is true that I turned to you when I felt there was no one else to whom I could turn, and it is true that I was recently attacked in a most grievous and personal manner. The danger to myself was, however, never quite so severe as I might have intimated, certainly not physically. My familiars were threatened, this is true. One poor soul was lost, as you know. My gratitude to you for giving the others safe haven knows no bounds.

  But I myself was never in great danger. The fire was of course an inconvenience, a difficulty that took a little time to overcome. And that is all I really needed, time to bring my own resources to bear on the problem. It has been many years since I have been challenged in the manner I have recently been challenged – I will not name it directly as I know you yet have difficulty admitting to the existence of such things; our conversation the other night reminded me of that. Suffice to say I am not without my own resources and these have now been brought to bear. I am confident both that the threat has been neutralised, and that your generosity has been rewarded in the process.

  The physical face of my troubles was a development company, run by a father and son with whom I believe you are acquainted. You will know too the fate that has befallen them. In the grand scheme of things, they were but petty criminals dabbling in affairs far greater than they could possibly have comprehended. The unravelling of their little empire will reflect well on you should you so desire, though knowing the boy your grandmother raised, I suspect you will pass any glory on to those around you.

  There is one more player in this sorry tale, the one who engineered this situation in a bid to oust me from my position in this great and ancient city. I have taken steps to neutralise this usurper and life will soon return to normal.

  I thank you for my time under your roof and your protection. You do not know it, but you have powerful friends. Should you ever require my assistance, you need only ask and it will be freely given.

  Yours in gratitude,

  Rose

  McLean stared at the letter, trying to make sense of it. One fact kept coming back as he stirred his half-forgotten cassoulet around the plate. It was the McClymonts who had been trying to get Madame Rose out of her house, develop the whole block into cheap flats. They’d killed the cat, set fire to the chippy and betting shop. Probably even shoved the shit through her letterbox, and then later his.

  And now they were dead.

  He pulled out his phone, tapped away at the screen until he found what he was looking for. Keyed in a message and sent it off to all the officers on his team. He’d told them the morning briefing would be at seven sharp. He hoped Grumpy Bob’s head wasn’t too sore to make it in for six.

  54

  ‘Doesn’t look like there’s anyone in, sir.’

  DC MacBride stood on tiptoe, peering in through the grubby window of the offices of McClymont Developments. At seven in the morning it was hardly surprising, though there were signs of life at some of the other businesses on the industrial estate. The car park that had been more than half full when last they had come here had barely any cars in it at the moment, and most of those were police.

  ‘Break down the door.’

  ‘Umm … we don’t have a warrant, sir.’ Worry painted itself clearly over MacBride’s face.

  ‘I can smell fire. Sure of it. Can’t you?’

  The worry didn’t go away, but the detective constable nodded, scurrying off to instruct a couple of uniforms. It was only a moment’s work to smash the lock and force their way in.

  The first thing McLean noticed was the smell. Not burning, but something rotten and mouldering. It hadn’t been there the last time, he was sure of that, but now the air tasted as if it had been trapped in a bin.

  ‘What is that?’ Beside him, MacBride covered his mouth with the back of his hand, squinting as if the fetid stench was attacking his eyes.

  ‘No idea, but it’s not good. Come on.’

  They went through to the offices, and McLean stopped at Ms Grainger’s desk. The elderly computer was still there, and the fax machine. When he pulled open the drawers though, they were all empty. Glancing around the room he couldn’t see much different, but then it had never struck him as a place actually used to conduct business. Not building development, at least.

  ‘Go check those computer boxes, Constable.’ McLean watched as MacBride scurried out of the room, then went over to the table where the plans for his tenement had been laid out. They were still there and he leafed through them, wondering again how the planning department had ever passed them. Another puzzle to add to the mix, though proving that any bribe had either been offered or accepted would be tricky. Something for Serious and Organised to worry about, not him.

  Running a hand over the printed paper moved it slightly, revealing other plans underneath. He rolled away the fate that would now no longer befall his old home and peered at what the McClymonts had been planning for somewhere else. Except that it wasn’t a building plan. The sheet pinned to the drawing board was a city street map, black and white, showing an area centred on Waverley station and spreading out to Leith Docks in the north-east, Cramond Brig in the north-west, Sighthill and Craigmillar in the south-west and south-east. Points on the map marked his tenement block in Newington, Madame Rose’s terrace house on Leith Walk, but they weren’t the only sites. Others dotted the map, and peering close McLean saw his grandmother’s house among them. Faint lines traced from one point to another, scarcely visible in the poor light filtering into the office through the grubby window. He ran a finger along them, trying to make some sense out of the pattern. There was something circular about it, but jagged too. One point stood out, ringed in pencil. To the west of the city, but just inside the bypass. McLean was peering at it, trying to remember what was there, when MacBride returned.

  ‘The boxes are still there, sir. One of the vans has gone, though.’

  ‘Have we got an address for Ms Grainger?’ McLean asked the question even though he knew that she wouldn’t be there. Before the detective constable could answer, his phone rang. A glance at the screen showed a number only recently added to his address book. He took the call knowing what it would be about even before he was told. The conversation was mercifully short.

  ‘That was DCS Chambers. I’ve got to go and meet him in Newington.’

  MacBride didn’t question, just nodded his acceptance. ‘I’ll get this processed, sir. Don’t imagine we’ll find anything, mind you.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we will. But get some of those uniforms to go door to door round the other businesses, OK? See if anyone saw the van leaving. Better yet if they’ve got any security cameras.’

  MacBride nodded, tapping notes into his tablet computer. McLean was about to leave, when he remembered the map. He pull
ed it off the drawing board, spread it out between them and tapped on the point that had caught his attention before. ‘One other thing. Get someone to go and have a look here. Might be nothing, but it was important to someone.’

  ‘You really know how to complicate things, don’t you McLean.’

  Detective Chief Superintendent Tim Chambers of the National Crime Agency was less friendly at eight in the morning than he had been the first time McLean had met him. Perhaps being dragged along to a six o’clock briefing wasn’t how he’d intended starting his day, but he’d seemed interested in the information both about Joe McClymont’s stolen car and the computers. They’d agreed to hit the offices and the building site at the same time. Unlike the offices across town, the building site appeared not to have been touched since McLean had visited it the evening before.

  ‘Not sure what’s complicated about it, sir. I told you there were computers here, and here they are.’

  They were standing in the middle of the Portakabin, perhaps a little closer together than was comfortable for two men who didn’t know each other well. There wasn’t much choice in the matter, as the rest of the room was filled with large flat-screen monitors, sleek modern computer boxes and mile upon mile of cabling. The lights McLean had seen flashing the night before were dead now, but the rack of servers that had been producing them looked very expensive. More the kind of thing you’d find in the basement of a multinational technology firm than a building site lock-up in Newington.

  ‘You any idea what these are all for?’ McLean watched as an NCA technician inspected the nearest computer. Another was going through a pile of mobile phones, all plugged in to the server array and forming some kind of wireless network link, if he understood these things correctly. Maybe he should have stayed at the company offices and sent MacBride over here. It seemed more suited to the detective constable’s expertise, somehow.

  ‘We won’t know until we’ve got them powered up. Whole thing’s dead as a doornail at the moment.’ The nearest technician turned in his seat to answer the question.

  ‘Everything? Even that server thingy over there?’ McLean nodded in its direction.

  ‘Yup. There’s power to the sockets, but nothing’s plugged in.’

  ‘There was last night. There were lights flickering.’

  ‘How did you even know they were in here?’ Chambers shook his head before McLean could answer. ‘No, don’t tell me. I can guess.’

  ‘I have a key to the front door, sir. I’m probably the only person alive who owns a share of this site. I’ve every right to come in here.’

  ‘Not in here, you don’t.’ Chambers nodded in the general direction of the Portakabin wall. ‘We’ll gloss over that for now. We’ve enough from the stolen car to get a backdated search warrant. Just need to find out what’s on these computers now.’

  ‘Umm … that might not be easy, sir.’ The technician sitting at the monitor had turned his attention to the computer itself, pulled something out of the tiny metal box that looked more like it should have come out of a catering academy stove at the end of the first lesson. A faint whiff of singeing filled the air.

  ‘I take it they’re not meant to be like that,’ McLean said.

  ‘Nope. It’s fried. Someone’s got to these, and recently judging by the smell. They’re all solid-state memory too. Don’t expect we’ll get anything off them.’

  ‘Shit. And you didn’t find anything at the offices?’ Chambers turned to McLean, his anger low and threatening.

  ‘There wasn’t much there to start with. One of the vans and the company secretary’s cleaned out her desk. I’m sorry, sir. This wasn’t exactly high priority. If you’d wanted us to secure these places when the McClymonts died, you should have said.’

  Chambers kicked his foot hard against a stained carpet tile. ‘I know. That’s why I’m so pissed off, really. It’s not your fault, it’s ours. We’ve been treating Joe and old Jock like a couple of country bumpkins, when they were much more sophisticated than that.’

  McLean recalled Madame Rose’s letter, still lying on his kitchen table. The more he considered its contents, the more he wished he’d paid more attention to the acerbic Ms Grainger. Jock and Joe McClymont were perhaps not quite country bumpkins, but they weren’t as sophisticated as their operation might have suggested. Something, or perhaps someone, had been protecting them, maybe directing them, and just possibly using them to an end the NCA and Police Scotland would neither understand nor believe. He wasn’t sure he believed it himself, and certainly didn’t understand.

  ‘What have you got on the company secretary, Ms Grainger?’

  ‘Grainger?’ Chambers stopped destroying the carpet tile with his foot for a moment. ‘She’s not a part of this. We profiled her at the start of the investigation. Pegged her as just an employee on the legitimate side of the business.’

  ‘Do you know where she is now?’

  Chambers pulled out his phone and tapped the screen a couple of times, lifted it to his ear. It looked very impressive; McLean had a hard enough time trying to find the number pad on his so he could dial out at all. On the other hand, there was probably only one number Chambers ever had to call. He had minions to do everything else for him.

  ‘Grainger. Where is she now?’ That he didn’t introduce himself or ask who had answered reinforced the idea. Chambers was a man used to being obeyed without question, and if the frown wrinkling across his forehead was anything to go by, a man not used to having things go awry.

  ‘You’re sure of that?’ A short pause. ‘Empty? Nothing at all?’ He tapped the screen to end the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

  ‘Let me guess. She’s disappeared.’

  ‘Without a trace.’ Chambers scratched his head like a cartoon character baffled by the sudden appearance of a wall. ‘And I mean without a trace. It’s like she never existed. Computer records, surveillance photos, tax records. I’ve got my IT guys double-checking it’s not a glitch, but …’

  The detective chief superintendent fell silent. McLean suppressed the urge to clap him on the back and say ‘welcome to my world’. He had a suspicion it wouldn’t have helped.

  His own phone broke the slightly awkward silence. McLean pulled it out, peered at the screen. DC MacBride calling.

  ‘Constable?’

  ‘Can you spare a moment, sir? It’s about that site on the map you asked me to look into.’

  McLean glanced around the Portakabin. ‘Reckon we’re about done here. Why?’

  ‘I’m there at the moment. Think you might want to see what we found.’

  He’d seen the building site many times before. You could hardly miss it, sitting behind a rotting security fence just off the city bypass. Weeds had begun to reclaim the parking area, pushing up through the tarmac like triffids. The main building itself was an unfinished mess of concrete pillars and boarded-up windows, reinforcement bars poking out at odd angles like rusty broken bones through grey-green skin. The only sign advertised a security firm, the image below the logo suggesting both cameras and dogs, although McLean could see no evidence of either as they pulled up at the gates. A uniform constable approached, peered uncertainly at DCS Chambers in the driving seat, then nodded as he saw McLean.

  ‘I’ll get the gate, sir. You want to go round the back, where the deliveries would’ve been made.’

  The rough ground and horrible crunching noises as unidentified objects hit the underside made McLean glad they’d come in Chambers’ car and not his little Alfa. They parked up in the shade of the vast building, alongside a couple of squad cars and what appeared to be a newly arrived forensic services van.

  ‘What’s going on?’ McLean asked as soon as he tracked down DC MacBride. The constable was standing by a small service door let into one of the much larger roller doors that lined the loading area.

  ‘Worked out what the mark on the map was, sir. This place was supposed to be the biggest shopping mall in Scotland, but the developers went bust in
the crash and it’s been like this ever since.’

  ‘You got a warrant to search this building, Detective Constable?’ Chambers asked.

  ‘Would you believe it wasn’t locked, sir? Not even the gates back there.’ MacBride nodded in the direction of the perimeter fence. ‘There was a chain looped round, but no padlock. And this door opened when I tried it.’

  Chambers looked unconvinced, but McLean could well believe it. If this was something to do with the McClymonts’ operation, then chances were it had been hidden away by something much more effective than locks and chains.

  ‘What exactly have we got here?’ he asked.

  ‘Best look for yourselves. Just don’t touch anything, aye? Dr Cairns is on her way.’ MacBride stood aside to let them in. Chambers led the way, ducking his head to avoid braining himself on the low doorway. McLean followed and almost walked into the back of the detective chief superintendent, who had stopped still just a pace inside. Half-skipping to one side, McLean’s eyes focused on the room, and he understood why.

  It was a vast area, designed so that articulated lorries could drive in, reverse up to loading bays, unload and then drive straight out again. The roof high overhead was a lattice of beams, with clear windows in the steel roofing sheets the only source of illumination. It was enough light to see a collection of cars that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the most expensive garage forecourts in the city.