Dead Men's Bones

by James Oswald

  ‘This was all munitions factories, back in the war.’ He swept an arm over the expanse of car park, empty save for the ticking hulk of his car. His breath misted in the frigid morning air, hanging like the ghost of an idea. MacBride said nothing, perhaps unwilling to open his mouth and thus lose valuable heat.

  ‘They made gunpowder here in the eighteen hundreds. Built the material stores into the cliffside to contain any accidental explosions.’ McLean led the way as they crossed a modern bridge over the North Esk. The water was deep and fast moving. Enough to wash a body down to the rocks further along? Looking downstream it was impossible to get to the banks on both sides without cutting a path through the thick undergrowth and weed saplings. A water team with dinghies would get a better view; there was certainly no way Penicuik’s uniforms could have done anything more than a very cursory inspection. If they’d done even that much. A single snowflake tumbled lazily down to the rushing black water, no doubt soon to be followed by very many more. McLean found it hard to blame them for taking the lazy option.

  At a sharp bend in the road, two heavy stone gateposts formed an entrance into what a sign proudly declared to be Roslin Glen Country Park. That was new to him; it had never had a name before. The old dirt track had been replaced with a wheelchair-friendly path as well, but the scenery was otherwise much as he remembered. They walked upstream, but even though the trees were leafless it was all but impossible to see the river. This wasn’t somewhere you might stumble in by accident.

  Further up, and the track ended by a series of ruined buildings. The stump of an old chimney stood to one side, the narrow shape of a wheelhouse nearby evidence of an earlier form of power. The river here was choked by a weir, diverting water to the wheel that was no longer there. McLean clumped down to the water’s edge.

  ‘If he’d fallen in further upstream this would have stopped him.’ He turned to where MacBride was standing up the slope. ‘I’d forgotten this was here. Could’ve saved us all a bit of time, really.’

  ‘You think Penicuik might’ve mentioned it.’

  ‘Yes, well.’ McLean looked across the river to the trees on the other side. The bank rose steeply, a hundred feet or more, a narrow gully formed by a smaller stream almost directly opposite. Sheltered from the worst of the wind, the ancient oaks and beeches had grown tall and thin. Here and there the earth had given way under their weight, toppling them down to the water. The undergrowth grew thick in the gaps, brambles and gorse fighting for the light. A little further downstream the slope became a cliff of dark yellow sandstone, rhododendrons billowing over the top like spume, cascading down the cracks in the rock.

  ‘His neck was broken, which would suggest a fall.’

  ‘You think he fell down there?’ MacBride had followed McLean’s gaze across to the cliff, and now the constable shuddered somewhere in the depths of his overlarge jacket.

  ‘Micro-lacerations to the front of the body. Like he’d pushed his way through a gorse bush.’

  ‘With no clothes on? Jesus. What would make someone do that?’

  ‘Being in fear of your life, perhaps?’ McLean tapped MacBride on the shoulder, pointed back in the direction they had come. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Where’re we going?’

  He pointed to the cliff top. ‘Up there. Only I don’t fancy trying to climb it from this side.’

  It took a lot longer to walk than McLean had anticipated. Strange how memory changed a place over time, shortening distances and tidying up reality. Perhaps it would have been easier driving rather than struggling up the narrow lane to Roslin Castle station and then down on to the old railway line. The snow was coming in heavier flurries as they walked along the footpath that was the only good thing to come from Dr Beeching’s axe. There were dozens of abandoned railway lines around here, mostly old freight routes for the mines and factories, taking coal and goods to the port at Leith. This one was mostly sunk into a cutting, making it almost impossible to gauge where they were in relation to the ruined gunpowder factory on the other side of the river. The undergrowth to either side was thick, covered with snow and mostly so full of thorns it would have been impossible to get through no matter how terrified or desperate you were, but there were some stands of broom that might give way to someone determined enough.

  ‘When did this snow start to settle?’ McLean pushed at a likely spot and was rewarded with a heavy dump of cold powder in the gap between his coat and glove. Flapping his hand to get rid of it only forced more snow up his sleeve.

  ‘Friday, I think. It’s not been properly cold enough to hang around until this week.’

  ‘And best estimate is our man went into the river on Saturday.’ McLean pushed deeper into the undergrowth. Somewhere down below, he could hear the water cascading over the weir. They had to be fairly close to the spot he’d seen from the other bank.

  ‘I think that was pretty much blizzard all day. I was processing actions on the Danby case for DI Spence for the whole afternoon and I don’t think it let up.’

  McLean brushed more snow from the top of the broom, then pushed the branches aside, placing a boot carefully where he thought he’d be able to get a good footing. The edge was nearby somewhere and he really didn’t fancy taking a tumble over that cliff.

  ‘So what we’re looking at is a naked man, covered from head to toe in fresh tattoos, running through a blizzard and so terrified of whatever’s chasing him that he doesn’t notice, well, anything.’

  ‘And you think he went over the cliff—’

  With hindsight, he should have noticed that the broom’s thin, whippy fronds had given way to the bulbous leaves of the rhododendron bushes. Maybe he had, but it just hadn’t clicked in his head as to what that actually meant. All McLean knew was that one moment he was standing on firm ground, and the next the bushes had leapt up to consume him. He flailed about, grabbing at the branches with gloves slick with snow. Their padding had been great for keeping out the cold, but now they made it almost impossible to get a decent grip. He twisted around, feeling nothing under his feet now, certain that he’d just stepped into air and a one-hundred-and-fifty-foot drop. He was just beginning to curse himself for such gross stupidity when something clamped hard around one wrist and he jarred to a stop.

  ‘Jesus, fuck!’

  McLean whipped his free hand round, used his teeth to pull the glove off. It fell away from him in a lazy arc, bouncing off thin branches before disappearing into the grey. The cold was instant, but at least now he could reach for something a bit more substantial. He looked back, seeing what it was that had saved his life. A gloved hand clamped around his wrist and the pale, worried face of DC MacBride peered through the snow-covered foliage.

  ‘Can’t hold on much longer, sir. Can you reach that branch?’

  McLean saw what MacBride was nodding at, hooked his free arm around the thick stem and took some of the weight. His feet still hung over nothing, and he suppressed the urge to look down. Concentrated on getting back up the ways.

  ‘Just to your left. There’s a rock jutting out. Should be able to get a foot on it.’

  McLean inched his left foot over, feeling the boot connect with something solid. He slowly transferred his weight on to it, conscious that the rock might give at any moment. Christ, but he could be stupid sometimes.

  ‘That’s it. A little more.’

  He felt his back press against the clifftop, brought his right foot over to join the left one. The scramble from there back over the edge, up a short steep slope and then down to the safety of the footpath was inelegant, but McLean really didn’t care. It wasn’t until he’d collapsed on to his backside on the snowy ground that he realized he was breathing hard, his heart racing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  ‘Please don’t do that again, sir.’ MacBride rested his hands on his knees. He too was panting like a man who’s just run a marathon with a fridge tied to his back. His face was white, only the tip of his nose still red from the cold.

  McLean looked past
him, seeing the railway line curve gently in either direction. True, there was a bank to climb before you got to the bushes, but it was worn away here, not as steep as elsewhere along the route. And that apex in the bend of the line obviously kissed the clifftop. There should have been a fence, or at the very least a sign giving warning.

  He pushed himself to his feet, wobbly, dusting the snow and dirt from his coat. One hand was still gloved, but the other was bare. He held it up to his face and watched it shake for a moment.

  ‘I think I know where our man went over.’

  11

  The trip back to the station had been conducted in total silence. McLean had never been more grateful to the inventor of the heated car seat as the adrenalin from his near-death experience wore off, leaving him with an unenviable set of aches and pains, not the least of which was the bone-deep throbbing in his hip where it had been broken months earlier. He had visions of being torn off a strip by Esmerelda the physiotherapist at his next session, but frankly he was too happy just being alive to care all that much.

  The tinny beep of his smartphone had brought the euphoria to a swift end. Great that you could programme the thing to make different noises for different appointments; he didn’t even have to take it out of his pocket to know what it meant. And so here he was, having sent MacBride off to warm himself up with a coffee and a muffin, settling into the chair in Matt Hilton’s office for yet another counselling waste of time.

  ‘Are you feeling OK, Tony? You look a bit pale.’ Hilton leaned back in his own chair, a look of almost genuine concern plastered across his chubby face.

  ‘Very nearly died this morning. It shakes you up a little.’

  ‘Again?’ Hilton raised an eyebrow. ‘I hope you’re not going to make a habit of it.’

  ‘It was an accident. Stupid mistake. Luckily DC MacBride was to hand and has quick reflexes. I’m fine.’

  Hilton paused a moment before answering. ‘No. I don’t think you are.’

  It wasn’t a question, so McLean didn’t answer. The chair was just the right angle for relieving the strain on his hip; he could quite happily sit there and say nothing for an hour or so. If it weren’t for the bruise starting to make itself heard above the other aches and pains in his back …

  ‘Tell me what happened. From the beginning.’ Hilton took a sip of coffee. His mug looked exactly like one of those large styrofoam cups you get at the expensive coffee chains, but it was made from china. Made in China too, probably. A gimmicky gift for a shallow man.

  ‘Must I?’ McLean knew the answer before he’d even posed the question. He tried not to make his sigh too theatrical, probably failed, then told Hilton all about the visit to Roslin Glen, the walk along the riverbank, finding the weir and the cliff. The psychiatrist listened, as he had no doubt been trained to do, nodding his head from time to time and maintaining a disconcerting amount of eye contact. Going over the details helped turn the disquiet at his close shave into anger at his own idiocy, but McLean also found himself thinking about his reasons for going out there in the first place. It would have made far more sense to organize a boat team to scour the river bank for any clues, something he was going to have to do anyway. Yet more expensive man-hours to keep Duguid happy.

  ‘You have a self-destructive streak, you know that, Tony?’

  ‘It was an accident. Could’ve happened to anyone. I’ve already phoned the council about getting a fence put up.’ Well, he’d asked MacBride to call them, but that was the best way to guarantee it would be done.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it was an accident. Throwing yourself off a cliff isn’t your style.’

  ‘That’s right. You think I’m more of the hanging myself type.’

  Hilton stifled a smile. ‘Actually I’ve been coming around to your version of events on that one. I’m beginning to think you maybe did fall off that chair accidentally and never meant to hang yourself at all. What you’ve just told me about the cliff actually helps.’ Hilton shrugged. ‘Well, in a way.’

  ‘Does that mean we can stop having these bloody meetings? Only I’ve plenty better things to do with my time.’

  ‘Yes. Like taking Detective Constable MacBride into a dangerous situation without thinking through the consequences. Like going off to visit a crime scene on your own, without back-up, without even telling anyone where you’re going. Like …’ Hilton leaned forward, flipped open a thick folder and began leafing through sheets of paper. ‘Like oh-so-many examples dotted through your career as a plain clothes detective.’ He gave up, flipped the folder closed again and slumped back into his chair.

  ‘Your point being?’

  ‘Accidents happen around you, Tony. Sometimes they happen to you, but just as often, more often even, they happen to other people.’

  ‘Are you suggesting I’m dangerous? That I shouldn’t be allowed out? Maybe shouldn’t be a policeman at all?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say.’

  ‘You sure about that? I thought that was exactly for you to say. If I’m fit to be a policeman or not.’

  Hilton pressed his fingers together into a pyramid, jammed it up under his chin. Started to speak, then realized it wasn’t easy with a bunch of fingers shoved in his face.

  ‘Look. I get it,’ McLean said. ‘I’m not the most brilliant at sticking to procedure all the time. But you know what? Sometimes procedure is more of a hindrance than a help. Sometimes you have to cut corners to get the job done. Sometimes—’

  ‘How are you getting on with the Andrew Weatherly case?’

  The change of subject was so unexpected it left McLean momentarily dumbstruck.

  ‘It’s … It’s early days.’

  ‘And is it as horrible as I’ve heard?’

  ‘That depends entirely on what you’ve heard.’ McLean studied Hilton’s face, imagined him asking around the station, digging here and there, trying to wheedle his way into another high-profile investigation. No doubt he saw a book in it, or at the very least a lecture tour.

  ‘Fair enough. I can understand you not wanting to talk about it.’ Hilton paused a moment, as if trying to decide whether or not to ask the question he so desperately wanted to ask. ‘I can help, you know.’

  ‘Me? Or Weatherly? Only I think he’s past helping now. His wife and kids, too.’ McLean pushed himself up out of his chair, successfully anticipating the twinge of pain in his hip early enough to stop the grimace from showing. He leaned forward, both hands on the edge of Hilton’s desk as much for support as intimidation. Hilton leaned back reflexively.

  ‘I’ve been coming to you for months now. Months of wasted afternoons when I could be doing my job. And why? You said it yourself, you believe me when I say I didn’t try to kill myself. So I’m accident-prone. Show me a detective in this station who hasn’t had the occasional mishap. It’s a dangerous profession. How many of them are you seeing on a weekly basis?’

  ‘That’s hardly the point—’

  ‘None. Just me. And you’ve not been doing much profiling of late either. So here’s my thoughts on the matter. You’ve been stringing this out, keeping me going so you can have your nice office and a fat retainer out of our budget.’

  ‘I … How dare you suggest—?’

  ‘I don’t like you, Hilton. Never have. Don’t rate you much as a profiler or a counsellor either, for that matter. I’m only here because I was ordered to be, but like you say, I’m not one for following procedure so I won’t be coming back.’ McLean turned slowly, all too aware of how falling to the ground screaming in agony might ruin his little speech. It wasn’t far to the door, but it seemed to take for ever to reach it. When he looked back, Hilton was still staring from his chair, mouth slightly open in astonishment. It was worth the trouble he knew he was going to get, just to see that face.

  She’s not done a lot of this sort of thing; interviewing the friends and business associates. There’s something very unsettling about this case, too. It’s not as unusual as she wishes it was, for a man to kill his famil
y and then himself, but she’s never had to deal with it before. And those children … She rubs at her eyes to try to dispel the image, never far from her mind. The boss thinks she didn’t see. He was too wrapped up in it himself, and how could she blame him? But she saw them, lying side by side like she used to with her own sister back when they were small.

  ‘It’s really a terrible business. And such a shock.’

  The woman is immaculately dressed, her face almost too perfect to be real. And there’s something about her eyes that puts Ritchie on edge. But she’s polite, trying to be helpful and friendly.

  ‘You and Mr Weatherly were business associates, I understand.’

  ‘Oh, that and more. Andrew was my friend for many years. I introduced him to his wife, you know.’

  ‘Were you aware of any unusual pressure Mr Weatherly might have been under? He was a very busy man.’

  ‘Oh yes. Constantly busy. But Andrew loved that. I’d be more concerned for his mental state if he weren’t running around like a mad thing. Being cooped up for a few months would probably drive him potty.’

  They’re sitting at an elegant table in a reception room decorated by someone with both taste and an unlimited budget. The chairs are not arranged opposite one another; the woman sits at ninety degrees to her, and perhaps a little closer than Ritchie is comfortable with. As she talks, her hands paint invisible pictures in the air.

  ‘So there was nothing in the business that might have driven him to …’

  ‘To kill those poor little girls, Morag, and then himself?’ The woman lays one hand lightly on Ritchie’s thigh. It seems at once overly familiar and surprisingly reassuring. ‘I cannot begin to fathom what would drive a man to do such a thing. Any man. Least of all one I knew well.’ She pauses. ‘Or at least I thought I knew well.’

  A gentle tap at the door, a click as the handle drops and then a secretary pushes in bearing a tray. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee fills the room.