Written in Bones: Inspector McLean 7

by James Oswald

  ‘Gru– DS Laird, sir. And Janie. DC Harrison, I should say. Think they’re in the canteen.’

  ‘Harrison? I thought she was on the day shift.’

  ‘Aye, she was, but we’ve had to shuffle everything about since the DCI called in sick.’

  ‘Spence?’ McLean asked the question even though he knew there weren’t any other detective chief inspectors involved in the case. The man hadn’t looked well earlier in the day, but he’d never known him to take time off for anything. ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Not sure, sir. Sometime this afternoon. They found him collapsed at his desk. Whisked him off to the Royal. The detective superintendent went through all the rosters himself, offered overtime to anyone who was prepared to help.’ The young constable yawned, only remembering to cover her mouth with the back of her hand when it was really too late. ‘A few of us have pulled a double shift, but you can’t say no to the money, aye?’

  McLean nodded his agreement, thanked the constable and headed to the canteen. At this time of night the counter was closed, but the vending machines still supplied coffee, tea and something that claimed to be hot chocolate but lied. It was a sanctuary in the heart of the station, a place where you could go to escape the hurly-burly. Or catch forty winks on the late shift.

  ‘Sir. I thought you’d gone home.’ DC Harrison stumbled to her feet as she saw McLean enter the room. Across the table from her, Grumpy Bob merely raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Bit of a change of plan. Emma’s in the hospital and I didn’t much feel like sitting in an empty house all night.’

  ‘Emma?’ Harrison asked, but Grumpy Bob spoke over her. ‘She all right?’ He shoved his seat back and struggled upright.

  ‘To be honest, Bob, I don’t know. But she’s in the best hands right now, and I need to follow up on a hunch.’ McLean pulled out a chair, pointed at the table for his colleagues to sit down. ‘Look, I just heard about Mike Spence. Did either of you see him earlier today?’

  ‘Didn’t get in until after he’d been taken off to hospital,’ Grumpy Bob said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Harrison?’ McLean asked.

  ‘He was in the incident room this morning. Not sure I saw him after that.’

  ‘How did he look? Was he sweating? Feverish?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I didn’t really notice.’

  McLean shook his head, tried to bring himself back on track. It might just have been a coincidence that Spence was sick too, but there had been too many coincidences already, as far as he was concerned.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Harrison, did you set up the visit to Morningstar tomorrow?’

  Harrison looked surprised for a moment, a combination of tiredness and non-sequitur flummoxing her.

  ‘How’s that …?’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry, not important. Yes, sir. It’s all set up. Mrs Tennant is expecting us at nine.’

  ‘Good. We’ll head over there as soon as we can find a car better suited to this weather.’

  ‘What, now?’ Harrison glanced at her watch. ‘But it’s one in the morning.’

  Grumpy Bob stood up again, reached over the table and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Best do as he says, lass. There’s no stopping this one when he’s got a bee in his bunnet.’

  It took less time to find a pool car than McLean had thought, but then the late shift rarely had need to leave the station. They even managed to find one with four-wheel drive, which proved a godsend as they negotiated the ever more treacherous streets across the city to the New Town. He sat in the passenger seat, Grumpy Bob in the back, as DC Harrison drove. It was obvious she had been on the advanced driver training course more recently than either of them.

  ‘So how are we going to get in, then?’ Grumpy Bob leaned forward between the two front seats like an impatient child as they parked in front of the imposing building. The snow showed no sign of easing off yet, piling up on the pavement at least a foot deep now.

  ‘I really have no idea.’ McLean pushed open his door and climbed out into the night. It was surprisingly quiet, the snow dampening all the noise the city had left to give. There was no wind here either, cut off by the high buildings all around. At this time of the night the street was deserted too, as if the city had survived some terrible apocalypse that had wiped out all the people. The orange of the streetlamps reflecting bright off every surface only added to the feeling that they had somehow stumbled into hell just at the moment it had frozen over.

  ‘Might as well try the front door.’ Grumpy Bob clumped up stone steps, his footfalls muffled, and reached for the heavy brass doorknob in the centre of the twin outer doors. McLean squinted through the steadily falling flakes to see what he was doing, but the detective sergeant soon turned and stomped back down again, shaking his bobble-hatted head.

  ‘What about the guest house?’ DC Harrison set off along the pavement towards the next terrace house along. McLean followed her, looking to see any sign of life in the dark building. He’d have expected at least a light in the front room, perhaps even a welcoming reception area, but it was as closed and dark as its neighbour.

  ‘Can’t see anything in the basement either, sir. Oh, hang on.’ Harrison was peering over the iron railings into the narrow light well between pavement and house. She took a few steps further away and pushed at a section. A gate swung inwards and as it did, McLean could see the slight dip in the snow at its base where the tracks of many feet had been almost covered up. Stone steps led to a basement door, sheltered from the worst of the weather. A few crates were piled beside it, but they didn’t look like they had been moved any time recently.

  ‘Hold on.’ McLean grabbed Harrison by the shoulder as she headed for the door. There was considerably less snow on the ground here, but he could see that the shallow depression made by passing feet didn’t go the way they might have expected. ‘You got a torch, Constable?’

  ‘Sorry, sir. I wasn’t expecting to come out tonight.’

  ‘Never mind.’ McLean fumbled around in his pockets until he found his pencil light, twisted it on and shone it over the darkness. Sure enough, opposite the door leading into the building was another, smaller door that seemed to suggest a room under the pavement, or perhaps even under the road. The scuff marks in the snow led that way.

  ‘You two all right down there?’

  McLean looked up to see Grumpy Bob peering down from street level. The white flakes tumbling down around him caught the light from the streetlamps and gave everything a Christmassy air. Bob Laird would have made a fine Santa, too, were he not a couple of months too late.

  ‘Someone’s been down here recently. Might still be inside. Get us some back up, will you, Bob? Me and Harrison here are going to have a wee nosey.’

  ‘On it, sir.’ Grumpy Bob’s face disappeared and McLean turned his attention back to the door. It was a little shorter than he was, once gloss black paint flaking and peeling off the wooden surface. Back in the days when this building had been a private residence, it would most likely have opened on to a coal hole or cold store for foodstuffs. It had an old iron handle, round and smooth with use, and beneath that a simple keyhole.

  ‘Let’s see if this is open, shall we?’ McLean took hold of the handle, twisted it with surprising ease and no noise. The lightest of clicks, and the door swung inwards on to darkness beyond.

  40

  The first thing he noticed was the smell. A sweet, cloying scent that went straight to his head and fuddled his thoughts. McLean peered into darkness for long, stupid moments before remembering the torch in his hand. He twisted it on to reveal a low, arched ceiling and a passage stretching away under the street. Alcoves in the brickwork held shoes, and on the other side a series of hooks were draped with coats. He reached out, felt the material of one. It was synthetic, cheap, and as he moved it a rank odour blotted out the heavier aroma that seemed to be coming from the far end of the passage.

  ‘Follow me.’ He whispered the words to DC Harrison, unsure quite why he felt the need for subterfuge. He
could hear nothing except the almost silent shushing of snowflakes as they drifted down outside. And then it came to him: a low moaning, a gentle susurrus of voices from the end of the passage. As his eyes began to adjust to the poor illumination from his failing torch, so he could see another door and the faintest of red glows at its base.

  The cloying smell grew ever stronger as he moved down the passage. The ceiling was high enough to clear his head, but still McLean felt himself stooping at the oppressive weight of bricks above him. Something about the place seemed to push him down, mess with his head. He shook it off, standing up straight as he reached the inner door.

  ‘Stay back,’ he whispered to Harrison, who had crowded in behind him as if the darkness terrified her. Then he turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  Beyond it lay an old cellar that looked like nothing so much as the crypt of some ancient church. A heavy rug had been laid out over the central aisle, covering the uneven flagstone floor, and at the far end stood a plain wooden table, piled with boxes and other rubbish. Small alcoves led off the main area, and in each was a low bed. Some were empty, but most were occupied by what at first looked like bundles of rags. Closer inspection of the nearest revealed it to be a man, asleep or comatose McLean couldn’t tell. He smelled unwashed, his dirty face and unkempt beard suggesting someone more familiar with park benches than clean sheets.

  ‘You. You shouldn’t be here.’

  McLean looked up swiftly, unsurprised to hear the voice. A short, round, middle-aged woman stood in the middle of the aisle. She must have been in one of the alcoves when he and Harrison had first entered.

  ‘This is your programme, isn’t it, Mrs Tennant? This is what you and Bill Chalmers have been doing all the time.’ McLean made a swift count of the occupied beds. Fourteen people, all drugged out of their minds.

  Tennant’s shoulders slumped in defeat, head bowed. ‘It’s not what you think.’

  ‘It never is.’ Looking past her, McLean could see the top of the table more clearly now. There were needles and syringes piled up alongside some of the boxes, jars of pale liquid and all manner of apparatus he had last seen in chemistry O-level classes. And there in the middle of it all, like the communion wine on the altar, a glass medicine bottle with a plain white label. A stylized image that might or might not have been a dragon. McLean turned to DC Harrison, still standing in the doorway with her mouth hanging open. ‘Got your airwave set on you, Constable? I think we might need a few ambulances here sharpish.’

  ‘It’s worst when the weather’s bad. These people, they’ve nowhere to go. They don’t trust the shelters, don’t trust anyone, really. Life’s kicked all of that out of them.’

  Interview Room One was warm, a muggy scent of something exotic hanging in the air: the last remnants of the opium den still clinging to her clothes. Ruth Tennant looked tiny, sitting in the plastic chair on the other side of the table from McLean and DC Harrison. She had turned down their offer of a lawyer, which gave him high hopes for a full confession. He stifled a yawn, all too aware that he’d not slept in almost twenty-four hours. He really should have gone home, let Tennant stew in the cells until a more decent hour of the morning, but he knew he’d get no sleep.

  ‘What exactly is it that you give them?’ he asked. ‘Not heroin. Certainly not methadone.’

  Tennant shuddered. ‘Methadone? That’s more trouble than anything. No, this is something Bill stumbled across. No idea when or where; he’s been using it since before I joined Morningstar.’

  ‘So what does it actually do, this something?’

  ‘It helps people cope with their shit lives. Takes away their pain.’

  ‘Sounds a lot like heroin to me and last time I looked that was still illegal.’

  ‘Everything’s illegal, Inspector. We wouldn’t be working out of an old coal cellar if it was all above board, would we?’ Tennant leaned forward and rested her arms on the table. She looked as tired as McLean felt. ‘Look, you know as well as I do it’s not easy for people to kick the habit once they’re hooked. Sure, some just need a little help getting back on track, but most people do drugs because they need an escape from a life that’s frankly not worth living. Weaning them off the chemical is one thing, but nobody tries all that hard to address the cause of their addiction in the first place.’

  ‘Like rats in hell.’ McLean rubbed grit from his eyes, seeing DC Harrison stifle a yawn as he did so.

  ‘Exactly. Wish I could make it heaven for them, but I can’t. So I give them a place where they can get their fix safely. A warm room with basic medical facilities on hand. A supply of a narcotic that takes away their pain for a while without the worry it might be cut with poison. Or worse yet, actually pure.’

  ‘Laudanum? It’s hardly benign, is it?’

  ‘Is that what you think we give them, laudanum?’ Tennant almost laughed, but she clearly didn’t have the energy for it. ‘Trust me, Tony. It’s a much safer drug than that. Don’t ask me what’s in it. I know it’s opium based, but I’m no chemist. I just know that it’s safe.’

  ‘Because Chalmers told you so?’

  ‘Because I’ve been helping people with their addictions for ten years now, and not one of them has died on the programme. A lot of them have cleaned themselves up completely through it, too. The drug lets them quit without withdrawal. If they want to. If not, then they’re safe and they’re not breaking into people’s houses to get their fix.’

  McLean saw the flicker of fire in Tennant’s eyes as she spoke, the energy briefly squaring her shoulders and straightening her back. He had no idea if what she was saying was true but clearly she believed it was.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway.’ Tennant shook her head wearily. ‘I’ve no idea where Bill got the stuff from. Malky did, but that’s my last bottle. There’s enough left for a few months more. Then our wonderful programme would have come to an end anyway. Ten years of working to help those who can’t help themselves. And all for nothing.’

  She wiped a tear from the corner of one eye, sniffed and ran her fingers through her greying hair. It was all very convincing, but there was the small matter of the reason McLean had gone out to the offices in the first place.

  ‘So what about the others, then? The wealthy professionals. Are their lives so shit they need your programme, too?’

  Tennant switched from tired to confused in the blink of an eye. ‘Others? I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Six lawyers and a judge in the Western General, suffering from something that looks remarkably like cold turkey. Fifteen people in a private hospital in Corstorphine. A couple of senior consultants in the Royal Infirmary. All admitted since Bill Chalmers took his unfortunate tumble. That doesn’t sound like a programme to help homeless drug addicts with their withdrawal to me.’

  The confusion deepened. ‘I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  McLean studied Tennant’s face as she spoke. He was too tired to think properly, but she was tired as well, and not very good at hiding her true feelings. He’d seen her energy and enthusiasm for helping the needy, and understood that she truly believed in that cause. His talk of affluent addicts had clearly baffled her. If she knew something, she wasn’t trying to hold it from him. And if she didn’t, then his hunch had been wrong, for all the unexpected result it had brought them.

  ‘Where else do you run your programme? Apart from the basement where we found you?’

  ‘We operate from several outreach centres in the more deprived parts of the city, but you have to understand, Ton … Inspector. Most of the programme is exactly what I told you it was the last time we spoke. All above board and perfectly legitimate. The drug … We don’t give that out to just anyone.’

  ‘How do you select who’s going to be the lucky ones, then?’

  Tennant shook her head. ‘That was Bill’s decision. He had a way with people. Talked to them. I don’t know, he just seemed to size them up and make a decision.’

  ‘And you’
d no idea that he was doing the same with paying customers. Did you never wonder where the money for it all came from? Where the drugs came from?’

  ‘You want this, sir? Don’t think I need it now.’

  DC Harrison held a steaming mug of coffee in a weak grip. She looked exhausted, but then, they all were. Ruth Tennant at least had the benefit of a warm cell to sleep in; the rest of them needed to get to their own beds. McLean hated to think how this was going to look on the overtime and duty rosters.

  ‘How many sugars did you put in it?’ He reached out for the proffered mug, never one to turn down a free coffee.

  ‘None. One of the night-shift constables made it for me. Think he’s got a crush on me.’

  ‘Well as long as he didn’t put a love potion in it.’ McLean smiled, then took a swig. It wasn’t the best in the world, a slightly bitter note on the finish that suggested cheap instant granules scraped from the bottom of a long-open jar, but it was warm and wet and might just wake him up enough to drive home safely.

  ‘OK. Reckon it’s near enough your shift end. Go home, get some kip and I’ll see you back here in the evening.’ He took another, longer swig of the coffee, the bitterness less noticeable now. ‘You moved into your new place yet?’

  Harrison looked a little startled at the question. ‘Aye, just about.’

  ‘Well, you’re probably OK discussing the case with Manda if you see her, but keep it under wraps if you can. Reckon there’s far more to this than meets the eye, so the fewer people who know we’re on to it, the better.’

  Harrison nodded her understanding, stifling a yawn at the same time. McLean watched her shuffle out of the room, then pulled out his phone, checked to see if there were any messages from the hospital. Should he head over there now? Hang around for the day shift to arrive and bring them all up to speed? He should probably go home and feed the cat, or maybe call Phil and Rachel and ask them to. Or maybe head back to New Town and check that the team of frozen constables he’d left guarding the crime scene were all under control.