Cold as the Grave

by James Oswald

  ‘Did you have a point? Or are you just being kind?’

  Dalgliesh coasted towards some traffic lights, then stood on her brakes when the car in front stopped the second they switched to amber. ‘What the fuck’re you playing at, idiot? Could have got a bus through there.’ She made a rude gesture through the windscreen at the oblivious driver, then turned to McLean. ‘Omar Mared. Some ghost chase you sent me on there, Detective Chief Inspector.’

  ‘You didn’t manage to find anything, then? Not even Ozzy Jones?’

  ‘Sweet Fanny Adams.’ Dalgliesh pulled out her electronic cigarette and shoved it into her mouth, chewing at the plastic for a noisy few seconds before taking it out and shoving it in her pocket again. ‘But in an interesting way.’

  ‘How so?’ McLean asked, but then the lights changed back to green and for a while Dalgliesh was too busy driving right up the bumper of the car in front to answer.

  ‘Most folk I asked, the answer was always the same. A shrug, a “fuck knows” maybe. Some of them told me to piss off and mind my own business, but they didn’t act like they knew and weren’t telling.’

  ‘So the name’s a bust then. I got fed bad intel.’

  ‘No, no, no. Not so fast, Tony. I don’t give up that easy. Especially not if you’ve been given the name by my boss.’

  ‘Your boss?’ McLean frowned. ‘I thought the Tribune Group was owned by that Arab sheik. Mohammed Bin something or other.’

  ‘Old news. He sold out to the Saifre Corporation last year.’ Dalgliesh swore under her breath, then overtook the car in front as it put its indicator on in the hope a parking space might materialise. She gave the horn a long blast and raised an angry single finger as she shot past, narrowly missing a taxi coming the other way.

  ‘Remind me not to accept a lift from you ever again.’

  ‘Och, you’re a wee feartie.’

  ‘Maybe, but I was also in a nasty car crash a year ago. Don’t want to be making a habit of it. So, Omar Mared then?’

  ‘Aye, fair enough. It wasn’t easy, and your pals in Vice raiding every knocking shop in toon isn’t going to help me follow it up either.’ Dalgliesh slowed down as she turned the car onto the cobbles of the Royal Mile. They weren’t more than a hundred yards from House the Refugees now. ‘From what I’ve found out so far he’s a cypher, your man Ozzy. Ha! Cypher, Saifre. See, I only just thought of that.’

  ‘How do you mean, a cypher? He doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Well, aye, he exists. But he’s more than one man. And no one. You seen that film The Usual Suspects, aye?’

  McLean couldn’t help noticing how Dalgliesh managed to give the word “film” at least two syllables, but he got the reference too. ‘Keyser Söze?’

  ‘That’s the chappie. Reputation for being a ruthless bastard, but doesn’t actually exist. Just stories to keep the local criminals in line.’

  ‘Only it’s not criminals with Omar Mared. It’s immigrants. Illegal or otherwise.’

  ‘Oh, definitely illegal. Desperate, poor like a Glasgow slum in the fifties, exploited to fuck and back. These people are broken, Tony. They’ve fallen through the cracks into some dark and shitty underworld and we just go about our lives in blissful ignorance.’

  Dalgliesh had pulled into the side of the road, just a few paces up the hill from their destination, but she kept the engine running, indicator clicking away quietly in the background. She stared out of the window as she spoke.

  ‘Seriously, Tony. The stuff I dug up chasing down that name until I found someone who really reacted to it. That’s some story. Might even be my retirement fund.’

  ‘But Omar Mared doesn’t exist. He’s a made-up person used to scare these refugees into doing what they’re told.’

  ‘That and more. He’s a stone-cold killer according to some. Runs the sort of brothels where you can get anything you want provided your money’s good enough. There was this one old Armenian bloke told me Mared runs boats from Libya across the Med. Sank a couple on purpose when the Italian navy was closing in, so they’d go after the survivors and he could escape. Pretty much every shitty thing that’s happened to anyone who’s fled a war and ended up here? It’s all Omar fucking Mared’s doing.’

  McLean unclipped his seatbelt, but didn’t open the door. That Mared wasn’t an actual person didn’t really surprise him; if he had been then Saifre would just have made him disappear. Or handed him over to the police if that suited her twisted agenda. He was in no doubt that either action was well within her power. But she had sent him in search of the man, so she must have wanted something to come out of his investigations. The question was what?

  ‘You going to speak to Begbie then?’ he asked.

  Dalgliesh frowned at him. ‘I thought you were.’

  ‘I was, but it can wait. I mostly wanted to speak to Peter Winterthorne.’ He nodded in the vague direction of the building.

  ‘Winterthorne?’ Dalgliesh’s frown turned to an expression of puzzlement. ‘As in Loopy Doo and the Swinging Sixties?’

  ‘That’s the chap. You know him?’

  ‘Aye, well, no. Thought he was deid.’

  McLean tried the door before buzzing the intercom, surprised to find it unlocked. The hall beyond was empty, and a note taped to the glass door to House the Refugees read ‘Back in five minutes’. Given that he and Dalgliesh had stared at the building for longer than that without seeing anyone come out, McLean suspected it was an optimistic estimate at best.

  ‘You still want to speak to Begbie?’ he asked as the reporter pushed in behind him and dragged her feet over the doormat. ‘Only it looks like she’s not here.’

  ‘She can wait. I’d no mind a wee chat wi’ Winterthorne though. Might be a story there to make the trip worth my while.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to wait. This is police business. I can’t have you tagging along and making life awkward.’

  ‘Aye, right. He’s up here, is he?’ Dalgliesh stepped across the narrow hallway and pushed at the door that opened onto the stairs. McLean expected it to be locked, but it swung open as readily as the one onto the street. Before he could stop her, the reporter was thumping up to the first floor.

  ‘Mr Winterthorne? Are you there?’ She stopped on the landing, breathing more heavily than McLean would have expected. Her hand went to her jacket pocket and the electronic cigarette she never seemed to actually smoke. When she saw him looking, she stopped.

  ‘First floor’s office space for the charity. Least, that’s what I was told.’ McLean tried the first of two doors that led off the landing, opening it up onto a dusty, empty room lit only by the light filtering in through the grubby window to the front of the building. He could tell just by sniffing that nobody had been in there for a while. Closing it up, he tried the next door, revealing a small bathroom to the rear. Again, it was empty and smelled of disuse. Lifting the toilet seat revealed a series of rings in the bowl where the water had slowly evaporated away. Nobody had flushed any time recently.

  ‘Winterthorne lives on the top two floors,’ McLean said as he stepped past Dalgliesh and onto the next flight of stairs. She looked at him as if he’d insulted her entire family, still wheezing slightly.

  ‘Aye, go on then. I’ll be up in a minute.’

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Not been the same since that bloody cake.’ She thumped at her chest with a weak fist, coughed a little, making an unpleasantly wet and gurgling sound. ‘Serve me right for being so greedy.’

  A few years ago, McLean might have made a crude joke about her misfortune, but that was before she’d saved his life from a knife-wielding religious maniac. And, of course, the cake that had poisoned her had been meant for him. It was a wonder she still stuck around.

  ‘Well, take your time, OK? I’ll warn him you’re coming.’

  He didn’t bother stopping on the next two landings. I
t was most likely Winterthorne would be on the top floor, and if he wasn’t, then he’d meet Dalgliesh going down. McLean couldn’t help noticing the slightly damp and musty smell to the air as he climbed though. It hadn’t been there the last time he’d visited, with DC Harrison, but now the whole building felt unused, empty. It was as if it had been closed up and left many years ago, like the basement with its collection of long-discarded furniture.

  ‘Mr Winterthorne? Are you in there?’ He knocked on the door that opened onto the large living room. Slightly ajar, it nudged further open at his touch. Straining his ears, McLean could hear nothing from inside, just the omnipresent dull roar of the city beyond the grimy windows. He pushed the door open and stepped in.

  The room was much the same as he remembered it from before. Up this high, the neighbouring buildings didn’t cast so much of a shadow as they did for the lower floors, which meant the room was light and airy. It was also as cold as the grave. The gas fire was unlit, damp glistening on the fire surround and hearthstone. The saggy old leather armchair Winterthorne had sat in was empty, as indeed was the whole room. McLean cast his eyes over the collection of ancient artefacts, but he couldn’t see any difference from when he and Harrison had visited before. He walked over to the window and looked down onto the Royal Mile, half expecting to see the old man legging it up the road. There were few enough people out in the cold weather, and none of them fitted his description.

  He met Dalgliesh coming up the stairs as he went down. ‘Nobody home.’

  The reporter nodded. ‘Not upstairs?’

  ‘No. And the place feels . . . I don’t know. Empty. Almost like nobody’s been here for years. But I was here just a few days ago.’

  ‘He’s no’ in either of these two rooms.’ Dalgliesh pointed at one of the doors on the landing. ‘No’ downstairs either. Odd that, leaving the doors unlocked for anyone to wander in.’

  ‘What about the office? Did you try the door?’ McLean trotted back down the stairs to the main entrance hall, leaving the breathless Dalgliesh behind him. The note was still taped to the glass, and when he tried the handle, the door was locked. Peering in, he couldn’t see any sign of life. Although the door at the back that led through to the room where they’d found Nala hiding stood slightly open, no lights were on.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.’

  McLean turned to find Dalgliesh standing just behind him and almost jumped in alarm. He’d not heard her on the stairs, hadn’t heard anything as he’d strained to see through the glass. And then a noise at the front door had them both looking round like guilty schoolkids. It swung open, and two figures stumbled in from the cold outside, one supporting the other.

  Of all the people who might have entered the building, these two had the most right. It was still a surprise to see Sheila Begbie struggling to hold up Peter Winterthorne.

  46

  ‘Chief Inspector? Thank God. Help me, please.’ Begbie took a step forward, and McLean saw that the man she was holding upright was unconscious, his head lolling to one side. He took a quick couple of steps across the hall and grabbed Peter Winterthorne under the other arm. He was as light as a feather, his face as pale as the snow still pasted across the Pentland Hills to the south of the city. For a moment, McLean thought he might even be dead, but then he let out a low moan of pain.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, as Begbie shoved keys in the lock and opened the door to the office.

  ‘Bring him in, quickly.’ She waved him towards her, then pointed at one of the low reception chairs in the bay window. ‘I found him outside in the street. Looks like he collapsed, poor dear.’

  McLean set the old man down in the chair. Winterthorne was dressed in a long, dark overcoat, slightly threadbare and buttoned up to his neck against the weather. His lank grey hair made him look like a scarecrow. McLean put a finger to the pale skin under his jaw, feeling for a pulse. Faint, but steady, he would still need medical attention and fast.

  ‘Call an ambulance, will you? We need to get him to hospital.’

  There was no response. McLean turned to see why, and found Begbie standing halfway between the door and the large desk towards the back of the room. It was almost as if someone had flicked a switch and turned her off, so total was her paralysis. He’d seen it before when people reacted on instinct to a crisis, then the world caught up with them.

  ‘Ms Begbie.’ He left Winterthorne sprawled on the chair and crossed over to the woman, taking his mobile phone out at the same time.

  ‘I . . . I found him out there.’ She shook her head slowly, as if trying to remember what she’d been doing. ‘He was . . .’

  ‘It’s fine. I’ve got this.’ McLean reached out and placed a hand gently on her arm. The contact sent a shudder through her, but Begbie seemed to rally. She stood a little straighter, looked around as if unsure exactly how she’d ended up in the room, then saw Dalgliesh standing in the doorway.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The reporter extended a hand and put on her best fake smile. The thought flitted across McLean’s mind that she might have been a vampire, unable to enter until invited.

  ‘Jo Dalgliesh. I work for the Edinburgh Tribune.’

  If Sheila Begbie had been shell-shocked from finding Winterthorne outside, she rallied quickly at the mention of the city’s less reputable daily newspaper. McLean could almost feel the heat radiating off her.

  ‘What do you want?’ Four short words, each loaded with anger.

  ‘Well, I’ve been looking into the plight of refugees and asylum seekers in the city and further afield. Planning on writing up a series of articles about how badly they’re being exploited. Not just the folk who bring them over, but the dodgy employers who use them as virtual slave labour. You know some of them are so poor they’re living rough outside in makeshift camps? In this winter?’

  McLean tuned out. He’d heard Dalgliesh when she was turning on the charm before. From the way Begbie’s face softened, the reporter knew exactly the right buttons to press. He was more concerned with Winterthorne. Staring at his phone, he began to tap at the screen to call up Control and arrange an ambulance, but he was stopped by a weak hand on his arm.

  ‘No . . . No doctors. Please.’

  McLean stared at the hand, then along the arm and into the face of Peter Winterthorne. He looked close to death, a sallow texture to his skin and clammy sweat matting his hair, beading his forehead. And yet his eyes burned with an urgency hard to ignore.

  ‘You need medical help.’

  ‘I’m OK. Just took a wee turn, is all.’ Winterthorne tried to sit up, his grip on McLean’s arm tightening for a moment before it relaxed and he fell back into the chair exhausted, his words fading to a whisper as he passed out again. ‘Sheila can look after me. She always does. Just, no doctors, aye? They won’t understand.’

  ‘Ambulance is on its way, shouldn’t be long.’ McLean slipped his phone back into his pocket and checked Winterthorne’s pulse for the second time in as many minutes. Beside him, Sheila Begbie wrung her hands together like a fishwife.

  ‘He doesn’t like doctors. Always been very insistent about that.’

  ‘Ms Begbie, he’s a man approaching, if not already, eighty years old. He’s had a nasty fall, and it’s not the first time recently either. Someone has to look at him or he could very easily die. Where would you be if that happens?’

  Begbie tensed, as if she’d been slapped, then turned away from him to address Dalgliesh. ‘Can we maybe talk another time? This is sort of important.’

  ‘Quite understand.’ Dalgliesh guddled around in her coat pocket, pulling out a slightly tatty business card which she handed over. ‘It’s shocking the way we’re treating refugees right now, and that’s before you even get started on why they’re coming here in the first place. I’d like to write a longer piece about it some time.’

  ‘Of course. Ha
ppy to help.’ Begbie took the card, holding it in both hands as if it might explode.

  ‘You fine walking home, Tony? Only I’m gonnae get a ticket if I leave my car there any longer.’ Dalgliesh hooked a thumb in the direction of the road.

  ‘I’ll be fine. Thanks.’ McLean stood up, tensed for a tweak of pain from his hip that never came. ‘And thanks for the info too. Let me know if you find anything else.’

  ‘Make it worth my while, aye?’ Dalgliesh gave him a half-hearted wave of the arm, then turned and left.

  The door had hardly banged shut behind her when the short ‘whoop’ of an alarm signalled the arrival of the ambulance. McLean was startled both at how close it was and how quickly it had come. Looking past the unconscious old man, he saw the flashing blue light right outside the window, and a paramedic already climbing the stairs to the front door. In moments, the office was full of activity as Winterthorne was checked once again by more professional hands. He stood back out of the way, all too aware of how small the office was once it began to fill up with paramedics and a stretcher.

  At the back of the room, the door through to the kitchen-cum-storage room stood slightly ajar. He’d noticed before, and now McLean took the opportunity of everyone else’s distraction to nudge it a bit further and slip inside. It wasn’t much changed from the last time he’d seen it, when he and DC Harrison had found Nala here. That was a question he’d still not had a satisfactory answer to: why had she come here? How had she known about the place? It couldn’t be a coincidence that the other wee girl, still unclaimed and nameless, had come here too. Both had been fleeing something. Was it too fanciful to think that they were being hunted? That some man was playing the part of an ancient evil spirit in a sick game designed to keep Rahel and her people in line? But why had they come here? What was it about this place that had made them think of it as a sanctuary?

  The obvious answer was the charity run by Sheila Begbie. And yet she had claimed never to have seen Nala before, let alone the dead girl found in the basement. And then there was Nala’s childish crayon drawing.