Authors: James Oswald
60
'You're late, Tony. That's not like you.'
'Sorry Angus. Something came up. Did you start without me?' McLean stepped into the post mortem examination room without much of a jaunt. This wasn't his favourite place to be, and lately he'd been spending rather too much time here.
'We did indeed,' Cadwallader said. He was hunched over the naked corpse, examining one of its hands. 'Did you X-ray these, Tracy?' he asked.
'Yes, doctor. They're up on the viewer.'
Cadwallader walked over to the wall, where a bank of lights shone through posted X-rays. McLean followed him, grateful not to have to look at the body anymore.
'See these?' The doctor pointed at various light and dark shades on the X-rays. 'Multiple fractures to the finger bones. To get that normally you'd expect the hands to be a bloody pulp. Run over by a steam roller or something like that. But he's only got bruises. OK, they're nasty bruises, but not life-threatening. Then there's this.' He pulled down the first lot of X-rays and put up some fresh ones. 'Both his femurs are cracked in several places. His tibia and fibula too. And here.' Another set of prints. 'Ribs are a mess, I think I counted one that hasn't got a fracture in it.'
McLean winced, feeling the pain. 'So he was in a fight?'
'No, not a fight. That would imply some degree of fairness. He was attacked, but he wouldn't have been in any position to fight back. Advanced osteoporosis. His bones are like porcelain. They shatter at the lightest touch. It wouldn't have taken much to kill him. I'm guessing a rib shard punctured his lungs and he drowned in his own blood.'
McLean looked back at the dead man lying on the table. 'But he was a train driver. How could he do a job like that with his bones in that condition?'
'I suspect very carefully,' Cadwallader said. 'Though I doubt he'd have been able to keep it secret for much longer.'
The pathologist returned to his subject, and McLean took up his least favourite position as he watched the post mortem being undertaken. Tracy succeeded in lifting some partial fingerprints from the bruising around the man's neck, and then together they opened him up.
'Ah, as I suspected,' Cadwallader said after too many long minutes of unpleasant squelching noises. 'The fourth rib, oh and the fifth too. Both on the right, straight into the lung. And on the left, just the fifth. His heart's not in very good shape either. It might well have given out before he had time to drown.'
Once it was all over, and Tracey was busy sewing David Brown back together again, McLean followed Cadwallader back to his little office.
'So what's the verdict, Angus?'
'He was beaten up, probably by someone large; those prints suggest fat fingers. Normally you'd expect a man of his age and weight to survive, but with his weak bones and heart, well he could have just collapsed at any time. And he was a train driver, you say?' McLean nodded. 'Then I think we've had a lucky break.'
'But not lucky for him.'
'No.' Cadwallader fell silent for a moment, then seemed to remember something. 'Oh, you were right, by the way.'
'I was? What about?'
'That suicide case, Andrews. I went over the body again, and found minute traces of blood and skin under his fingernails. He'd scrubbed them pretty thoroughly, rubbed the skin raw in places, but his father told me he was always fastidious about his cleanliness. Which makes it rather odd that he should choose such a messy way to commit suicide.'
'Any idea whose blood and skin it was?'
'There was scarcely enough for a basic analysis, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't his own. I can send it off to the labs for a DNA test if you want. I assume you think you already know whose it is.'
McLean nodded, but he didn't much like the idea of being right.
*
Evening was falling fast by the time he made it back to the station. Another day gone in a flurry of confusing events. Another day and no closer to finding Chloe, or Alison's killer. Or the mysterious sixth man. At least McReadie was locked up and going nowhere; that was something
'Ah, inspector. The chief super wants a word.' Bill, the duty sergeant buzzed him through to the back of the station.
'Did she say what it was about?'
'No, just that it was urgent.'
McLean hurried along the winding corridors, wondering what was up. He knocked on the doorframe of the superintendent's office with a slightly anxious feeling. McIntyre looked up from whatever it was she was doing and beckoned him in.
'I've just had Detective Chief Superintendent Jamieson from Glasgow Central and West Division on the phone, Tony. It seems your young protégé DC MacBride sent him some pretty pictures to look at, and he was rather anxious to know where they'd come from.'
Glasgow, not Aberdeen. McLean heaved a sigh of relief. 'I take it he recognised them, ma'am.'
'Yes, he did. They were from a number of cases spread back over the past three years. You might remember reading about the latest round of ice cream wars.'
McLean did, only it wasn't ice cream that the hard men of Glasgow were killing each other over. 'How many different crime scenes were there?'
'He didn't say, but I think we can safely assume that whoever posted those pictures to the internet had access to the Glasgow SOC offices during that period. And since a certain Emma Baird was in training in Aberdeen then, Chief Inspector Duguid has been forced to release her, with a grovelling apology.'
Oh shit. He'd done it again. Trampling over another detective's case and solving it for them.
'He's only partly mollified by the fact that the real culprit is now sitting in the cell Miss Baird so recently vacated.'
'I'm sorry, ma'am. I owed it to her to investigate the matter thoroughly.'
'Even after taking her out to dinner?' McIntyre raised an eyebrow. 'Don't get me wrong, Tony. I think you're a very good detective, but if you keep on treading on people's toes, then you'll stay an inspector for the rest of your career.'
There were worse things that could happen. He wasn't one for scrabbling up the greasy pole over the backs and heads of others. All he really wanted was to catch the bad guys.
'I'll bear that in mind, ma'am.'
'You do that, Tony. And keep out of Charles Duguid's way for a day or two, eh? He's hopping mad.'
*
McLean hurried through the station to his office, hoping to avoid anyone who would distract him. He needed to get the latest information out of his head and down onto some paper before it all seeped out and was lost. There was a line of connection running between Okolo, Andrews, Dent and Brown. Each one had witnessed the previous one's death. He didn't want to think about how that tied in with what Madame Rose had said. There had to be a rational explanation, but the best he could come up with was that someone had manipulated these people, first to kill and then to kill themselves. Was that even possible? And if so, who had killed Brown and dumped him in the cul-de-sac, and where were they now? And who had Brown killed?
A letter waited for him, placed atop the latest pile of paperwork on his desk. He picked it up, noticing the handwritten address, the logo and name of Carstairs Weddell, Solicitors and Notaries Public. It contained a single sheet of paper, thick and covered with spidery writing, hasty and difficult to read. Turning it over, he saw a signature, and below it, the printed name Jonas Carstairs QC. He squeezed in behind his desk and turned on the lamp the better to read.
My Dear Anthony,
If you are reading this letter, then I am dead, and the sins of my youth have finally caught up with me. I cannot excuse what I did; it was an execrable crime for which I will no doubt burn in hell. But I can try to explain, and perhaps do something to try and make amends.
I knew Barny Smythe well. We were at school together and both went up to Edinburgh at the same time. That is where I met Buchan Stewart, Bertie Farquhar and Toby Johnson. Then when the war started we all signed up together, and ended up being posted out to West Africa. We were an intelligence outfit, tasked with preventing Hitler from gaining information that would be useful to him, and we were quite successful in that. But war changes a man, and we saw things in Africa that no one should ever have to witness.
I am making excuses for myself, but there can be no excusing what we did when we returned home in forty-five. That poor young girl took so long to die; I still hear her screams at night. And now her remains have been discovered, poor Barny is murdered and Buchan too. The beast will come for me next. I can feel it drawing ever closer. Once I am gone, there will only be one of us left, the one who started it all.
I cannot name him; that would betray an oath that binds far more than my honour. But you know him, Tony. And he knows you, the man we all looked up to, who saved our lives more than once during the war and who seduced us all into carrying out our folly. He will gather younger fools around him and try his mad ritual again. It is the only way he can protect himself. I fear another innocent soul will be lost in the process. But if he fails, then that which we trapped will be free to roam, free to kill. It lives in violence, that is all it knows.
There were a number of messages your grandmother asked me to pass on to you. Things she didn't want you to know whilst she was still alive. Things she found deeply embarrassing, hurtful, even shaming, although in truth she was never to blame. This letter is not the place for them; I will speak to you of them face to face, or they will go with me to my grave. They seemed important once, but in truth they are of small consequence. You are plainly not the man she feared you might become, so it may be best if I leave it at that.
Today I have changed my will, leaving all my personal wealth to you. Please understand this is not an attempt to salve my conscience. I am damned and I know it. But you can undo what myself, Barny and the others did and this is the only thing I can do from beyond the grave to help.
Yours in repentance,
Jonas Carstairs.
McLean stared at the sprawling handwriting for long minutes, occasionally turning the sheet over as if the information he needed might be on the other side. But Carstairs had not said what he really needed to know, had not named their commander. And what was that paragraph about his grandmother supposed to mean? How like a lawyer never to actually commit. Everything was hedged. It was almost more frustrating than if the letter hadn't existed at all. Here there was nothing more than vague hints, and the threat of another brutal murder.
And then something clicked in his brain. Another murder. Doing the ritual again. A young girl just on the cusp of reaching womanhood. He knew why they had abducted Chloe Spiers. It was so obvious he could only kick himself for not seeing it before. Reaching for the phone, he was about to dial out when it rang in his hand.
'McLean.' He barked the words impatiently, wanting to get the conversation over and done with. Time was running out. He needed answers and no vulture-faced lawyer was going to get in his way this time..
'DC MacBride here, sir. I've just had a call from Saughton.'
'Oh aye? I was just about to call them. We need to speak to McReadie urgently, Stuart. He knows who's taken Chloe Spiers, and I know what they're going to do to her.'
'Ah. That might be difficult sir.'
McLean's breath caught in his throat. 'Why?'
'McReadie hanged himself in his cell this evening. He's dead.'
~~~~
61
McLean sat in the darkened video surveillance centre at Saughton prison, watched the video as a huge man entered the visitors room and sat down at the lone table. He was dressed casually; dark leather jacket and faded jeans, a T-shirt with some indecipherable logo on it. Out of context, McLean couldn't place him, but there was something very familiar about him.
'I know that man. What's his name?'
The prison officer who had escorted him through the building consulted a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard.
'Signed in as Callum, J. Address in Joppa.'
'Has anyone checked it out?' Alarm bells were going off in McLean's head, but the shrug he received by way of an answer was clear enough. He made a note of the name and address, then turned back to the screen in time to see McReadie ushered into the room. The burglar's reaction on seeing the big man was guarded, but not the terror McLean might have expected.
'D'you get any audio with this?' he asked.
The guard shook his head. 'Nah. There was a big stooshie about human rights a few years back. I'm surprised we're still allowed to lock them up.'
McLean shook his head in agreement at the madness of it all, then returned to watching the screen. The two men talked for a few minutes, McReadie's body language getting increasingly agitated. Then all of a sudden he stopped still, dropped his hands calmly to his sides and stared at his visitor with an almost hypnotised gaze. After about thirty seconds, the big man got up and left. A guard came over and lead a very pliant McReadie away, then the tape ended.
'About half an hour after that we were doing the usual round of cell checks and found him dead. He'd ripped his shirt into strips and used it to strangle himself.'
'Strange. He didn't seem the suicidal type.'
'No. We didn't have him on special monitoring or anything.' The guard looked anxious. Perhaps worried he might get into trouble. As far as McLean was concerned, McReadie had done the world a huge favour. But it would have been better if he'd spoken to them about Chloe's whereabouts and his mysterious employer beforehand. That left only one other person to talk to.
*
'I know what they're going to do to her, Mr Roberts. Do you?'
Another hour had passed, another sixty minutes ticking down the time until it would be too late. If it wasn't already. McLean was back in the station, trying to sweat some answers out of a plainly terrified Christopher Roberts.
'They're going to nail her hands and feet to the floor. They're going to rape her. Then they're going to take a knife and cut open her belly. Whilst she's still alive, they'll start removing her internal organs, one by one. There'll be six of them, and each one will get an organ for himself. Were you meant to be one of the six, Mr Roberts? Was Fergus McReadie? Only both of you are going to miss out on your chance at immortality, or whatever it was you sick bastards thought you could get out of it. You're in here with me, and Fergus is dead.'
Roberts let out a small squeak of alarm at this news, but said nothing more.
'Forensic results have come in. We know Chloe was in your car.' McLean lied. SOC and forensics were still working slow, even though Emma had been cleared. It would be a while before Dagwood could be persuaded to apologise, especially given that there really had been a leak. Longer still before someone got around to checking over Roberts' BMW. 'Where did you take her? Who did you take her to? Was it Callum?'
That elicited some small response. Roberts' eye ticked nervously. 'How did he die?' he asked in a small, shaky voice.
'What?'
'Fergus. How did he die?'
McLean leant on the table, his face close to Roberts'. 'He tore his shirt into strips, tied them round his neck in a noose, tied the other end to the top of the bunk in his cell and then used his own bodyweight to choke himself to death.'
A light knock on the door interrupted them. McLean pushed himself away from the table. 'Come in.'
DC MacBride poked his head through the open doorway. 'Some test results just in that I thought you might be interested in, sir.'
'What is it, Stuart?'
'Fingerprints from David Brown's neck, sir. They've got a fairly good match with your man Callum. Seems he's got form. Used to run with a gang of street thugs out of Trinity. But he dropped off the radar about ten years back. Nobody's seen him since.'
'Well, he's back now. Thanks, constable.' McLean turned back to Roberts. It was time to try a different tack.
'Look, Mr Roberts. We know you did this under duress. You're a lawyer, not a murderer. We can protect you, and we're already protecting your wife. But you've got to help us. If we don't find Chloe soon it'll be too late.'
Roberts sat in his uncomfortable plastic chair and stared at the wall opposite. He wouldn't meet McLean's gaze and his face had turned a deathly white.
'They got to Fergus. They must have done. I can't say anything. They'll know, and they'll kill me.'
And Christopher Roberts would say no more.
*
'Put an APB out on Callum.'
McLean sat in the tiny incident room with DC MacBride and Grumpy Bob, trying not to let his frustration at Roberts get the better of him. It bothered him that he couldn't place the big man, either. The name was familiar, but the prison CCTV footage didn't give a good enough view of his face. 'See if we can't get a decent photo of him too, eh?'
It occurred to him that he was not meant to be part of the ongoing investigation into Chloe's disappearance. It was Grumpy Bob's case. But the old sergeant seemed quite happy to defer to him. Beside him, DC MacBride picked up his airwave set and started making calls, his soft voice filling the silence as McLean stared at the photographs pinned to the wall. The missing dead body and her preserved organs. Why would somebody steal those? What could they possibly want them for?
'Christ I'm stupid.' McLean shot to his feet.
'What?' Grumpy Bob looked up and DC MacBride ended his call.
'It's so bloody obvious. I should have thought of it days ago.'
'Thought of what?'
'Where they've taken the dead body.' McLean pointed at the photos on the wall. 'Where they're going to kill Chloe.'
~~~~