by James Oswald
‘No? How so?’
‘Perhaps easier if I show you.’ Harrison sat down again, swivelled the chair back around and started to work the mouse. McLean stepped closer as Blane made room for him, and saw a screen split into images from four cameras. The pictures weren’t all that good; mostly dark shadows and the occasional bright point of a car headlight sweeping past.
‘Coverage isn’t that brilliant around the mews itself, sir, and there seems to be an intermittent glitch with the recording, see?’ Harrison pointed at one of the four images just as it turned into a flickering mass of grey and white. The timestamp stayed solid, seconds ticking away, and then the image came back unchanged from before. A moment later, one of the other images did the same.
‘Are they all like that?’
‘All the ones I’ve looked at so far, yes. They’ve been upgrading the whole system across the city. Higher resolution cameras and all-digital recording. That’s the only reason we can access it here at all. There’s still a few glitches though.’
‘And no sign of a big black car coming or going between eight and nine last night?’
‘Nothing conclusive, no.’
McLean straightened up, feeling the stretch in his spine. ‘Ah well, it was always a long shot. There’s still the door to doors to do. Someone might have seen something a bit more clearly than Mrs Spencer last night. See Detective Inspector Ritchie when she gets in. She’s going to be lead on this part of the case.’
As if on cue, a voice carried over the soft hubbub of the major incident room. ‘Did I hear my name being taken in vain?’
McLean turned to see Ritchie and Grumpy Bob, both holding mugs of coffee and looking like they were getting ready for a long day of not doing very much at all.
‘Only if you’ve not brought me one of those, too.’
He’d meant it as a joke, but DC Harrison was on her feet in an instant. ‘I can get you a coffee, sir. No bother.’
‘At ease, Constable. The day I start ordering junior officers to fetch drinks for me is the day they have my express permission to tell me to fuck off.’ McLean noted the horrified expression on DC Blane’s face at the swearing and wondered how the big lad had managed three years in uniform if he was so sensitive. ‘Having said which, if you three wanted to nip off to the canteen and just happened to bring back a coffee when you’re done there, I’d not complain.’
Harrison nodded her understanding, and the three detective constables headed off for the door.
‘That the CCTV footage?’ Ritchie nodded at the screen they had left behind, still showing images from four camera angles intermittently blanking out and reappearing.
‘Yes. For all the good it’s worth. What’s next on the list of things to do?’
‘We’re waiting for Mrs Johnston and her boy to come in and give a formal statement. PC McRae from Family Liaison’s bringing them over in about an hour. Should be fun, given that she blames us for telling the press all about them.’
McLean grimaced. ‘Can’t say as I blame her, really. Way I heard it, some journalist pretended to be from Social Services and blagged his way into an interview, but he had to have found out where to go from someone. High-profile case like this, the press’ll be pestering every police contact they’ve got.’
‘Tell me about it. Christ, even I’ve had to fend off a few calls.’ Ritchie pulled out her mobile phone, swiped the screen and held it up to reveal half a dozen text messages received in the past hour.
‘Whereas nobody’s called me at all.’ McLean hadn’t thought about it before, but there was one person whose silence was deafening. ‘Don’t you think that’s odd?’
‘Dalgliesh?’
‘Aye. She was at the press conference, asking awkward questions. Being paranoid even for her, now I think about it. I’ve been trying to call her, but her old number doesn’t seem to work any more.’
‘You think she’s gone off you?’
‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’ He pulled out his phone, checked it for messages and found none. ‘Still, it’s not like her. Think I’ll maybe see what she’s up to. Journalists are like kids, you know. If there’s noise, it’s fine. It’s when there’s nothing but silence you know you have to worry.’
Ritchie raised an eyebrow. ‘Thought you said she wasn’t speaking to you. How’re you going to see what she’s up to?’
‘How do you think?’ McLean grinned. ‘I’m a detective, aren’t I?’
The offices of the Edinburgh Tribune took up one floor of what had once been a tenement block down near the parliament building in Holyrood. As it wasn’t far from the station, McLean had thought the walk would do him good after a morning spent stuck inside. He had changed his mind after the first couple of hundred yards, the air so cold it rasped his throat and lungs. Stepping into the warm reception area was blessed relief.
‘Jo Dalgliesh in?’ he asked the receptionist before blowing on to his hands and rubbing them together.
‘Not sure. Can I ask who’s looking for her?’ The receptionist picked up the phone on her desk and tapped out a number without even glancing at the keys, her eyes fixed on him.
‘Tony McLean. Detective Inspector,’ he added for good measure, although he didn’t bother to show his warrant card. He hadn’t visited the newspaper all that often, tended to avoid it if he was being honest, and he certainly didn’t expect the receptionist to know who he was.
‘Take a seat please, Inspector.’ The receptionist smiled at him as she pointed to the slightly grubby sofa squeezed into one corner of the room. A low table in front of it held a half-dozen fresh copies of that morning’s Tribune, artfully fanned out in a manner that suggested both that the newspaper didn’t have many visitors and that someone had a lot of time on their hands.
‘Is she coming down?’ McLean asked, but before the receptionist could reply the door to the office clicked open. It wasn’t Dalgliesh who emerged.
‘Inspector. Good to see you. I hear you’re looking for Jo.’ Johnny Bairstow, editor-in-chief and Jo Dalgliesh’s boss, was a young man prematurely aged. He had the gaunt frame of an ultra-marathon runner, close-cropped hair receding swiftly from his shiny forehead. He held out one hand as he spoke, the other firmly closing the door behind him.
‘Mr Bairstow.’ McLean shook the proffered hand without much enthusiasm. ‘I take it Jo’s not here then.’
‘No, she’s not. Actually, I was half minded to call you and ask if you’d spoken to her recently. I’ve not heard from her in days, and she’s not answering her phone either.’
‘Have you been round to her house?’ As he asked the question, it occurred to McLean that he had no idea where the reporter lived.
‘I may be little more than a glorified office manager these days, but I was a journalist for ten years. Of course I’ve been to her house. No one there, and her neighbour’s not seen her in a couple of days. Says it’s not unusual, though. And to be honest, I’ve long since given up trying to keep track of what she’s doing. Long as she keeps on filing the stories, I’m happy.’
McLean looked past Bairstow to the closed door. It was possible Dalgliesh was behind it, hiding from him, but he couldn’t imagine why. There was something the senior editor wasn’t telling him, though.
‘You know what she’s working on right now?’
Bairstow gave him a look more old-fashioned than his years. ‘What’s everyone working on right now? Chalmers, I’d have thought.’
‘She knew him, right?’
‘Knew him? Whatever gave you that idea?’
McLean studied the senior editor’s face for signs of lying, but he looked genuinely surprised. ‘I don’t know. Something she said, maybe. Sure I saw a photo of them together somewhere.’
‘First I’ve heard of it. Don’t remember her mentioning him ever before this whole sorry business started.’ Bairstow shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea how he got up into that tree?’
McLean paused a while before answering. Bairstow ha
d been, and probably always would be, a journalist first. ‘We’ve a couple of theories. Pretty sure it wasn’t a dragon, though.’ The expected smile at his joke didn’t appear, so he continued. ‘The how would be useful to know, of course. But I’m far more interested in the why.’
That got Bairstow’s attention. ‘How do you mean?’
McLean smiled. ‘Ask Dalgliesh, why don’t you? And while you’re at it, tell her to answer her bloody phone, too.’
15
The massive concrete towers of the new Queensferry Crossing rose out of a heavy fog to his left, the squat iron cantilevers of the rail bridge to his right, as McLean drove across the Forth Road Bridge and on into Fife. In the passenger seat beside him, Acting Detective Constable Janie Harrison sat upright, nervous and excited at the same time. He wasn’t quite sure why he had asked her to come with him and not Grumpy Bob, except that Detective Sergeant Laird was spending most of his time in the Cold Case Unit these days, tucked away from sight and the demands of the Chalmers investigation. He could have asked Ritchie along, but then that would have meant two detective inspectors turning up on another force’s patch, which would almost certainly have put someone’s nose out of joint. Except that there weren’t other forces any more; they were all one big, happy Police Scotland.
‘Something on your mind, Constable?’ McLean had been trying not to laugh all the way across the city and out to the bridge. Harrison kept trying to say something and then stopping herself. She had asked about the case, about where they were going and why, but there was something else. He reckoned he knew what it was, too, and was quite happy to let her sweat for a while, summoning up the courage.
‘Your car, sir. It’s very … old.’
‘First registered in 1970, so yes, it is. Built before I was born, for one thing.’
‘Why do you have it? Why do you use it? I mean, wouldn’t it be better to have something a bit more modern?’
‘Believe me, that’s a question I ask myself every day.’ McLean dabbed the brakes gently as he pulled off the motorway just past the massive Amazon distribution hub. Not quite the original intended use of the industrial site: Dunfermline had expected a massive boost in technology with the arrival of a vast semiconductor plant. Instead, it had got service jobs for box-packers, but then, these things rarely went to plan.
‘I did have a modern car, another Alfa Romeo. Couple of years back.’ He hadn’t thought about it for a while, but the only long journeys he’d ever made in it had been out on this road to Fife. ‘Some of your colleagues thought it was amusing to play little jokes on me. One was phoning up the local Bentley garage and arranging for them to bring a very expensive Continental Coupé to the station for me to test drive. Fortunately the salesman saw the funny side, and he had something a bit less pricey he’d taken in as part exchange.’
‘So what happened? You didn’t get on with it?’
‘Oh, I liked it just fine. It just ended up underneath part of Rosskettle Psychiatric Hospital.’
Harrison fell silent for a while, eyes straight ahead as they pushed on past Cowdenbeath and Lochgelly. ‘That was my first assignment after I passed out from Tulliallan, sir. All those bodies.’ She shivered theatrically. ‘But that was ages ago. And you’ve still not got a new car? Surely you can afford … I’m sorry. None of my business.’
‘Don’t worry. I can guess what the junior officers say about me. It’s probably true, too. Most of it, anyway. I could have bought the Bentley when the salesman brought it round, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.’ McLean slapped the steering wheel gently with one hand. ‘As if this old girl doesn’t do that.’
A few more miles disappeared under the wheels in as close an approximation to silence as was possible at seventy miles an hour in a car over forty years old. It was only as they were approaching Glenrothes that Harrison spoke again.
‘If you were looking for a new car, sir? Well, I might be able to help you. My uncle works in corporate sales for one of the big franchises. They sell all sorts. And he can get you the best price.’
McLean laughed out loud. He couldn’t stop himself, at least not until he turned to see Harrison’s face. She looked like a puppy that’s just been kicked.
‘Sorry. I’m not laughing at you. Well, not directly anyway. It’s just the reaction I get whenever someone’s a passenger in this car. You, DS – sorry, Acting DI Ritchie, Emma Baird and Amanda Parsons from Forensics. You all come up with helpful suggestions about her, recommendations for an alternative, that sort of thing. Grumpy Bob just complains the seats are too hard for his back, and don’t get me started about Dagwood.’ McLean shook his head, smiling despite himself. ‘No, I’m not laughing at you. Thank you. I may well take you up on that offer. I just need to find the time to look into what would be suitable.’
Harrison said nothing, but she settled back into her seat a little more comfortably as they left the dual carriageway and headed out on the ever-narrowing roads into darkest Fife.
McLean had been expecting Bill Chalmers’ Fife retreat to be close to Elie itself, but the satnav on his phone took him through the picturesque fishing village and on out into the wilds of the East Neuk. He knew the area vaguely from trips to St Andrews with his grandmother back in the day, but even so he was glad of the map when he finally turned the little Alfa up an unmarked gravel track seemingly to nowhere. It led through mature trees, past an old stone cottage and finally to a sleek, modern, single-storey building set in open parkland. A squad car sat to one side of the wide gravel turning area, and as he pulled to a halt a couple of uniform officers stepped out. One stretched like a man unworried by the new arrival; the other strode over to the car.
‘Can I ask what you’re doing here?’ The officer was young and wore the uniform of a constable. McLean didn’t recognize him, but that was hardly surprising. They were a long way from Edinburgh.
‘That you, Keithy?’ Harrison piped up from the passenger seat, causing the constable to bend down lower and knock his head against the edge of the car door.
‘Ow.’ He rubbed at his temple, peering into the gloomy interior, past McLean. ‘Janie? Janie Harrison?’
‘Perhaps this would make things clearer, Constable.’ McLean pulled out his warrant card and held it up for the young officer to see. There was a moment’s pause, and then he straightened up, stepping backwards so swiftly he almost tripped and fell on his arse.
‘I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t … No one said …’
‘No harm done.’ McLean opened the door and stepped out, feeling the chill in the air. He’d brought a coat, but it was on the back seat.
‘You found the place all right then, Inspector?’
McLean turned to see the other officer approaching at a more leisurely pace. This man he did recognize. Sergeant James Logan was a contemporary of Grumpy Bob and had worked in Lothian and Borders for most of his career before transferring to Fife just before Police Scotland had come into being.
‘Aye, in the end.’ He looked around the gravelled area, walled in by the house on one side, a garage block beside it and thick trees to the back. ‘Not an easy place to get to, mind.’
‘Reckon that’s why Bill would’ve bought it. He always was one for his privacy.’
McLean frowned. Someone else had mentioned that about Chalmers recently. Then he remembered his chat with Ruth Tennant in the offices of Morningstar.
‘You knew him then, Jim?’
‘No’ really. We came up through the ranks together, but he was CID and I was Traffic. Then the daft bugger got himself hooked on drugs and, well, you know the rest.’
‘Don’t think anyone really knows the rest. That’s why we’re here.’ McLean turned back to where Harrison and the young PC were chatting away like old friends. ‘You been watching the place, I take it?’
‘Aye, since before dawn. Night shift were here before then. No one’s come or gone since we got the call day before yesterday. Took your time getting here.’
‘Sorr
y about that, Jim. We’re short-staffed, same as everyone. I’d’ve sent Grumpy Bob, but he’s always had a knack for being somewhere else when the assignments are being given out.’
‘Aye, that sounds like Bob.’ Logan nodded in the direction of the two constables. ‘That you breaking in his replacement? She’s kinder on the eyes, I’ll give you that much.’
McLean ignored the comment. Sure, Logan was old school, but there was only so much age could excuse.
‘Anyone been inside yet?’
‘Not as far as I know. I’ve had a wee shuftie in through the windows on the other side, but you can’t see much wi’ the blinds down. The door’s locked and I’ve no’ got any keys. We’ve been waiting for your lot to come out before trying to break the door open.’
McLean pulled the ‘Welcome to Fife’ keyring out of his pocket. ‘That might not be necessary. As long as he doesn’t have an alarm.’ He shouted over at Harrison. ‘You done chatting yet, Constable? Only there’s work to do.’
The acting DC stopped her talking instantly, snapped to attention like an infantryman on parade and then hurried over. ‘Sorry, sir. It’s just, Keithy … Constable Petrie and I came through Tulliallan together. Didn’t know he’d moved to Fife.’
‘Well there’ll be plenty of time for reminiscing later, I’m sure. For now we’ve got a house to search. You remember your gloves?’
Harrison nodded her head, extracting a pair of white latex gloves from her jacket pocket.
‘Right then, let’s see if we can’t get in.’
16
The house was a modernist design, all tall, narrow windows and raised-seam zinc roofing. The front door, if that was the right name for an entrance at what was clearly the back of the property, was almost as wide as it was high, heavy wood in angled planks with a thin strip of wire-reinforced glass running vertically down the middle and a long stainless-steel bar in place of a handle. At least the holes for the keys matched those on the keyring. The mortice had been left unlocked, and for a moment as McLean turned the key he thought he had been wrong about it. Turning it the other way gave a satisfying clunk, and he let out a sigh of relief before unlocking it again.
