by James Oswald
‘What’s happened? Reckon you’ll be long?’
McLean pushed back his chair, stood up and walked around to Emma’s side of the table. She smelled of wine and sleep, of comfort and warmth. He should just call Control and get them to assign someone else, maybe ask them why they’d called him in the first place and not someone on the night shift. But he couldn’t do that. Not now he knew what had happened. He bent down, kissed Emma on the top of her head, then set off for the back door.
‘I wouldn’t bother waiting up. Some bugger’s gone and broken into Bill Chalmers’ house.’
In the dark and late at night, Rothesay Mews was a far less welcoming place than when McLean had first visited. He was for once grateful that the Alfa was so small compared to modern cars as he manoeuvred it into a space between a massive Mercedes off-roader and some sleek-looking black thing he didn’t immediately recognize. Only when he got out, saw the T-shaped emblem on the bonnet and the electric cable snaking away from it and in through a catflap in the front door of the nearest house did he realize that it must be one of those new Teslas he’d heard some of the constables chatting about in the canteen. He’d have given it a bit more of a once-over, always on the lookout for something better for day-to-day driving than an Alfa Romeo that was approaching its fiftieth birthday, but there were more pressing reasons for him being here.
Ice slicked the cobbles as he walked down the mews towards the front door to Bill Chalmers’ house. A squad car was parked outside, its blue light spinning a lazy strobe over the street. Pity the poor bastards trying to get some sleep tonight. Closer in, he could see a couple of policemen at the front door, itself hanging open. One of them looked up as he approached, and McLean recognized Constable Carter again.
‘Who called it in?’ he asked. No point wasting time on pleasantries. At his words, the other officer turned to face him, one of the young lads from the Chalmers crime scene.
‘They set off the silent alarm, sir. Penstemmin called us. It was like this when we got here. No one inside.’
‘You’ve been in?’ McLean looked at the constable’s hands, clad in black leather gloves against the cold. Well, that was something at least.
‘Only to the top of the stairs, sir. Didn’t want to upset anything, but we needed to be sure there was nobody still inside. Just the one door in and out of these mews houses, and nobody’s been through it in the hour we’ve been here.’
‘Good work. Anyone call Forensics?’
‘Aye, they’re on their way.’ Constable Carter’s voice grated on McLean’s nerves, even though he wasn’t being particularly offensive. There was just something about the man. Still, at least he knew how to manage a crime scene. Or he should have done.
‘OK.’ McLean racked his brain for a moment. ‘Wallace, isn’t it? You stay here. Carter, you’re with me.’
‘You what?’ Carter asked.
‘Come with me. You’ve more experience of crime scenes and what not to do in them. I was the last person in there besides whoever set the alarm off, so I’m going in to have a look. I need someone to come with me. Understand?’
Carter’s face was a war zone of conflicting emotions, not helped by the lazy flashing blue light of the squad car. Whereas earlier in the day he had held McLean’s gaze with unconcealed contempt, now he seemed reluctant to meet the inspector’s eye.
‘Fine. Stay here. I’ll go on my own.’
He slipped past the open door carefully, anxious to touch as little as possible. This might just have been an opportunistic burglary, but McLean had been around long enough to know better than to rely on that. Inside, the flashing blue light was muted somewhat, the shadows hiding any clue as to how the lock might have been forced. For a moment he wondered if Carter had actually locked up after the alarm technician had been, shook his head at the thought. Useless though he was, even the constable wouldn’t be that stupid.
Pulling a slim torch from his jacket pocket, McLean played it around the tiny hallway. There were no obvious marks on the mat, no tell-tale footprints up the stairs. If the two constables hadn’t made any marks on the coconut-fibre stair runner, then it was unlikely the burglar had either. Still, he trod carefully, keeping his feet as close to the edges as he could as he climbed to the top.
All the doors leading off the landing were open, even though McLean distinctly remembered he and Constable Harrison closing them as they left. He ran the torchlight over the two bedrooms and the bathroom, seeing nothing immediately different from before. Peering into the main living room showed a different picture altogether.
It looked like someone had thrown a grenade into the room and stood back while it exploded. The furniture was all ripped apart, turned upside down, piled against the walls. Pictures hung askew or lay smashed on the floor. Flashing his torch over the kitchen area revealed the contents of all the cabinets strewn over the tile floor, pots and pans tossed into the sink and up against the window. The bowl he had emptied before was nowhere to be seen, although most of its contents were scattered over the countertop. Looking through them, he recognized the keyring with the ‘Welcome to Fife’ fob on it and four keys, mashed up against a cracked jar of mayonnaise taken from the fridge. McLean stuck the end of the torch in his mouth while he fished around in his pocket for some latex gloves, cursing silently as he realized he’d given his last pair to Harrison. There were a couple of clear plastic evidence bags in there though. He pulled one out along with a pen, lifted the keyring carefully into the bag and sealed it up before putting everything back in his pocket.
‘Jesus, this is some mess.’
The voice was so sudden, so unexpected, McLean almost tripped over his feet spinning around to see who it was. A much more powerful torch than his own swept over the room, then into his face, dazzling him, before it swung out of the way.
‘Sorry about that.’ The beam pointed upwards to reveal in underlit profile the face of Dr Jemima Cairns. Unlike McLean, she was dressed in the full white paper bodysuit, overboots and hood. The play of the light on her features made it hard to tell whether or not she was scowling, but McLean was prepared to bet she was.
‘Could you no’ have waited five minutes before charging in here in your fancy suit and those grubby shoes?’ Cairns played the torch over him again.
‘If it’s any consolation, I was the last person in here before whoever stopped by and did this.’ McLean indicated the devastation wrought upon the room.
‘Bloody hell. Looks like someone took a sledgehammer to the place.’ Cairns grinned, and this time McLean was sure of it. ‘Should keep us busy for days.’
A friendly face greeted McLean as he stepped back out of the mews house and into the cold dark street. Acting DI Ritchie was wrapped up warm for the occasion, the cold, chapped glow of her cheeks obvious even in the blue flashing light.
‘What brings you over, Kirsty?’ he asked, eliciting an instant furrow of the forehead where her eyebrows had never quite grown back after she’d lost them pulling him out of a burning building. ‘Not that it isn’t always good to see you,’ he added hastily.
‘Aye, well. Could do without being woken up and dragged off to a crime scene only to find there’s already a senior officer present.’
‘Control sent you?’
Ritchie pulled her phone out of her pocket and waved it in the air. ‘Brooks.’
‘Why the hell did he get in touch with you? Control had already assigned it to me. They knew I was on my way.’ McLean shook his head at the stupidity of it.
‘Well, I’m here now. What’s the story?’ Ritchie looked up at the houses, lights on in almost all of them now. ‘Apart from a lot of pissed-off people?’
‘Looks like a burglary, only far as I can tell nothing’s been taken. Whoever went in there just trashed the place.’
‘Burglary? Why the hell are we involved, then? I’d have thought there’d at least be a couple of bodies to drag two DIs out of their beds on a cold night.’
‘It’s a bit early for bed, i
sn’t it?’ McLean raised an eyebrow, the expression lost in the dark. ‘Though I guess that depends on who’s already in there waiting for you.’
‘You know me and Daniel split up, right?’ Ritchie said.
McLean felt his ears burn. ‘Sorry. No. I didn’t.’ He stepped off the cobbles and on to the narrow pavement as a forensics van backed down the mews, its reversing siren adding to the already disturbing noise levels.
‘It’s no biggie.’ Ritchie shrugged, then looked up at the window where the lights had just come on. ‘So why are we here then?’
‘Nice of Brooks to tell you. This is Bill Chalmers’ house. One of them, at least.’
Ritchie’s scowl returned. ‘Chalmers? Fucking marvellous. Guess that explains why the world and his wife are here. Why Brooks has got his panties up his crack, too. No expense spared for the DCC’s old pal. Anything we can actually do? I mean, Forensics are here, and they could be all night if there’s a whiff of overtime. They’ll not want either of us getting in the way.’
‘I know. Already got it in the neck from Cairns for going in without a bunny suit on, but I needed to see the place before anyone touched anything. Looks like a bomb went off in there.’
‘A bomb? Must’ve been noisy.’ Ritchie turned on one heel as she looked around at the brightly lit windows, the flashing blue lights and the general bustle in the street. ‘You think we should ask if anyone heard it?’
‘Do you think they’ll be out there long? Only I’ve got to get up at six and it’s getting on.’
Perhaps inevitably, there had been no answer at the house immediately to one side of Chalmers’ and, of the upper windows in the street, it was the only one that had remained unlit. To the other side, the door had been answered by a young woman in saggy jogging bottoms, an Aberdeen University hoodie and bare feet. Her face was slightly puffy, eyes rimed with sleep and hair all skewed to one side, but she invited McLean and Ritchie in with only a cursory glance at their warrant cards. She had introduced herself as Lesley Spencer, then led them upstairs into a house laid out similarly to its neighbour, if decorated in a completely different style.
‘I really can’t say. Sorry.’ McLean cradled a cup of instant coffee that wasn’t as bad as he had feared when offered it. ‘Your neighbour, Mr Chalmers. You know he was killed the day before yesterday?’
‘The body in the tree. Yes, I’d heard. We’re an insular bunch here, don’t talk to each other much, but two of my neighbours have popped round to tell me.’
‘Did you know Mr Chalmers at all, Miss Spencer?’ Ritchie asked.
‘It’s Mrs, actually, but Lesley’s fine. And no, I didn’t know him. I mean, I knew who he was, yes. I’d say hello if we passed. He’d nod if he was going into his place as I was coming out of mine. But like I said, we’re an insular bunch here. Keep to ourselves. Probably something to do with being in these glorified converted lofts. Most of the garages downstairs are either rented out or belong to someone else. I work in the city. No need for a car.’
‘What about this evening? Have you been in? Did you hear anything?’
‘Can’t say that I have, no. But then I’ve had the telly on since I got in at six, and I was in bed by nine.’ Mrs Spencer glanced across at the mantelpiece, where a surprisingly ornate carriage clock said that it was a quarter to eleven. McLean had got the call at about half past eight and Penstemmin Alarms had notified Control no more than fifteen minutes before then. For once, someone had done their job properly, it would seem.
‘Do you get much noise from next door?’ Ritchie stood up, put her coffee mug down on the small table in the middle of the room and stepped over to the party wall. McLean strained his ears to hear anything of the forensics team on the other side.
‘You don’t get much through those walls. There’s a good two foot of sandstone there, with the fireplace. Plus the dry lining. I hear more on the other side, in the bedroom,’ Mrs Spencer said.
‘So someone could have been turning the place over and you’d not have heard?’ McLean asked.
‘Sorry. No. And if it happened after nine, well, then I’d have been asleep. There was the car, mind you. But that was earlier.’
‘Car?’ Ritchie and McLean both spoke together, like an old couple.
‘Aye, that’s right. Would have been just before nine. I heard a noise through the window as I was getting into bed. Had a peek out the window and there was this big, shiny car trying to turn around at the end of the mews. Difficult enough doing that with a push bike, let alone something as long as that. It ended up backing all the way up the hill. Skidding its wheels on the cobbles and all. They’re lethal with a bit of ice, you know.’
‘You OK taking the lead on this, Kirsty? Only I’ve got quite a lot on my plate already as it is.’
They stood in the mews, McLean shivering slightly as the cold seeped up through the thin soles of his shoes and into his bones. Ritchie seemed unaffected, but then she was wearing something that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the side of Cairngorm in a blizzard.
‘Aye, I’ve got this. Not a lot we can do mind, not till the forensics guys are finished anyway. I’ll get a few constables to go door to door and talk to the rest of the houses, but if the neighbour didn’t hear anything …’ She looked up at the window of the house they had just left, where Mrs Spencer was most likely trying to get back to sleep now.
‘Might be worth having a look at CCTV in the area. Follow up on that big car that thought this was a two-way street.’
‘I’ll give Control a call, get a copy of everything made and sent to the station. We can look over it in the morning.’ Ritchie forced the last of her words out through a wide yawn and McLean couldn’t help sympathizing with her.
‘Look, there’s nothing we can usefully do here tonight. The place isn’t going to get any more burgled with this many uniforms swanning around. We can pick it all up in the morning when there’s a few detective constables to delegate the heavy lifting to.’
‘We’ve got Mrs Johnston coming in first thing tomorrow, remember?’ Ritchie shoved her hands deep into her pockets. The cold air hadn’t seemed to bother her, but the thought of interviewing Tommy Johnston’s widow clearly did. Probably something to do with the way her cosy anonymity had been blown away by her son’s discovery of Bill Chalmers.
‘I know. Don’t imagine that’s going to be much fun. She blames us for telling the press about her, after all.’
‘Did we?’ Ritchie’s eyes glinted in the reflected lights of the buildings. At least the squad car had turned off its flashing light now. ‘I mean, they had to have found out from someone.’
‘I don’t know. It’s possible. Not much we can do about it but apologize.’ McLean shook his head, partly to cover up the shiver that ran right through him. ‘Come on, Kirsty. Let’s both of us go home. Get some kip. Things’ll look better in the morning.’
14
A huddle of newly plain clothes detective constables clustered around a computer workstation at the far end of the major incident room as McLean walked in the next morning. He’d slept surprisingly well, despite the extra complication to the investigation added by the previous night’s burglary. That was something he’d still have to get his head around. Or at least let Ritchie get her head around.
‘Morning, sir. Wasn’t expecting to see you for a while, what with last night and all.’ Detective Constable Gregg bustled over from the big whiteboard that dominated one wall of the room. It was beginning to fill up with writing, most of it followed by question marks. A few photos had been pinned up as well, so that any senior officer entering the room would think work was progressing.
‘Ah, you know me. Can’t keep away from all this.’ McLean opened his arms wide to encompass the almost empty room. ‘There’s nothing gets me fired up so much as a busy investigation.’
‘Aye, well. It’s early days yet. Still mostly calls from well-meaning idiots with too much time on their hands.’ Gregg nodded towards the banks of computers and phones
where uniform constables were busy taking down details of every strange thing that might possibly have happened in the city over the past few days. Pleas to the public for information tended to bring out the crazy in people.
‘Ja– DCI McIntyre about?’ he asked, noticing that there were no senior officers in the room apart from himself.
‘She’s away to Glasgow, or so I heard. Something to do with Organized Crime and Counter Terrorism. No idea when she’ll be back.’
‘Brooks?’ McLean asked. Too much to hope that the detective superintendent would have shown any interest, and Gregg’s minimalist shake of the head confirmed as much.
‘What about that lot? They settling in?’ McLean nodded in the direction of the new detective constables.
‘They’ll work out OK, I reckon. Just need a bit of hand-holding to get started. I’ve got them working through the CCTV footage from the West End last night.’
‘In here? Don’t they have to go over to the media centre for that?’
‘If we want the full image, yes. But we can get a lower resolution playback through the network. All part of the upgrades going through. Makes our lives a lot easier, I can tell you.’
McLean had to agree, even if the technology made him a little queasy at times. He walked over to the workstation, peering over the heads of the three constables. Unfortunately, Blane’s head was so big it blocked any view of the screen.
‘Any luck?’ he asked, and was rewarded with all three officers flinching. Stringer and Blane were both standing, and turned around so swiftly he thought they were going to fall over. DC Harrison had managed to commandeer the only seat, and swivelled around at a more leisurely pace before getting to her feet.
‘Sorry, sir. Didn’t know you were there,’ she said. ‘We’re still getting the hang of the new system, but it doesn’t look very promising.’
