by James Oswald
‘What do you even need to see the body for? Didn’t your ghoul of a friend Cadwallader take enough photographs?’
Objections voiced, now Duguid was getting into the detail. McLean considered it safe to answer.
‘The injuries to the dead man we pulled out of the Forth yesterday evening are too similar to those we found on Weatherly just to be coincidence, sir. Angus wants to get a sample for tests. He’s not even sure what caused the damage in the first place.’
‘And you only bother telling me this now.’ Duguid ran spidery fingers over his face, pulling down his lower lip as they went past to reveal yellowing teeth with large gaps between them, the legacy of a long and dedicated career as a heavy smoker.
‘It was in …’ McLean began to say, then shut up. No point telling Duguid what he already knew. ‘Look, we can probably do the exam in situ. The coffin’s in a crypt. We just need a Sheriff Court order. Get the timing right and no one need know we were even there.’
Duguid looked at him like he was an idiot, which McLean reckoned was probably fair that time. ‘I should never have given you the bloody Weatherly case in the first place. Spence would’ve done what he was told and left it at that.’
‘I thought you wanted justice for his two girls, sir.’
‘Justice? That’s a fucking laugh. They’re past justice, McLean. Can’t you let them rest?’ Duguid slumped back in his seat, his initial burst of anger at the request worn out. ‘What’s this all leading to, anyway? Who is this man you found last night, and what’s he got to do with Weatherly?’
‘His name’s Barry Timbrel, sir. He’s the tattoo artist we were looking for about the body we found in Roslin Glen. Only, soon as we start looking for him, he turns up dead, and with injuries very similar to those Weatherly had. Well, apart from the gunshot wound, obviously. There might be nothing to it. Christ, I really hope there’s nothing to it. But the last thing we want is someone else turning up dead with blistered lips and everyone screaming at us for not doing our jobs.’
‘You’re going to keep on at me until I say yes, aren’t you, McLean?’ Duguid rubbed at his eye with the palm of one hand, leaned forward and grabbed a notepad, scribbled something down. ‘OK. I’ll back your request. But if the Sheriff Court throws it out, that’s it. We’re not going to fight it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ McLean knew he couldn’t ask for more, was surprised he’d got as much. ‘I’ll keep you in the loop.’
‘Please don’t. It’s bad enough as it is with the DCIs bleating at me every day. But you know that already, or you’d have gone to one of them first.’ Duguid gave McLean the briefest of smiles, an expression so alien he thought the detective superintendent might be ill. It didn’t last, though.
‘Go on. Get out. Some of us have got better things to do than going off on wild goose chases.’
‘Got those plans you were looking for, sir.’
McLean stopped on his way past the large incident room, still unoccupied since the Weatherly investigation had been wound up. How long that state of affairs would continue was anyone’s guess, although he had a hunch it wouldn’t be quite the enquiry it had started out as. Across the corridor, DC MacBride must have seen him through the door to the smaller room set aside for the tattooed man investigation, and bustled out to stop him.
‘Plans?’ McLean scrambled around in the mess of thoughts and things he was supposed to be remembering until he finally got it. ‘Oh yes. Plans. Rosskettle. What’ve you got then?’
He followed MacBride back into the tiny room. The constable went to his desk, now sporting the largest flat-screen computer monitor McLean had ever seen. He tapped a few keys and clicked the mouse, bringing up a grainy image.
‘One of these days you’re going to have to tell me how you get all this kit, Constable,’ McLean said.
‘This old thing?’ MacBride tapped the side of the monitor. ‘They were going to throw it out. I persuaded Zoe in the IT department to let me have it. The interface is several generations out of date, but then so’s half the kit we’re running it on. I found something that fitted, and this is easier than trying to blag a projector and screen.’
McLean ignored the technospeak. ‘Zoe? Have I met her?’
MacBride’s ears reddened at the lobes. ‘She’s new, sir. Probably not. Bright red hair? About so high?’
McLean shook his head as much to stop himself from laughing as to suggest that he hadn’t met the diminutive Zoe yet. He leaned forward to the screen, trying to make sense of the slightly blurred lines and indecipherable text. ‘What’s all this about, then?’
‘Plans of Rosskettle. Scans of the originals. Best we could do at short notice. They’re something like A-nought or bigger. Huge rolled-up things. The NHS Buildings Department keep everything, it seems. Even plans of buildings they’ve sold.’
‘Can we zoom out a bit? Get an idea of what I’m looking at?’
MacBride clicked the mouse a couple more times, coming up with a site plan that only took a couple of minutes of squinting and head twisting until McLean could work out what was what. ‘These buildings here.’ He pointed at the plans where the modern units he’d seen being demolished were outlined in a neat arc. ‘Can we zoom in on them?’
MacBride squinted at the screen, then with a couple of clicks the first image was gone, replaced by a clearer outline showing just the buildings he wanted. ‘First picture’s just an index. There’s individual plans for everything.’
McLean stared at the shapes until he could work out the layout. He identified the room he’d climbed into, the corridor separating it from the dormitory rooms opposite. The buildings were all the same, all self-contained units that were presumably some sort of sheltered housing for patients not yet ready to be trusted to Care in the Community, but neither needing the sort of twenty-four-hour attention they’d get in the larger, main building.
‘Have we got any plans of the lower level?’
MacBride frowned. ‘Lower level, sir?’
‘There was a basement level in at least one of these buildings. I saw it myself.’
MacBride clicked and scrolled, finding a box of text that would have been at the bottom right of the original plan. ‘No mention of a lower level here, sir. I’ve looked through all the files they sent over, and I don’t remember seeing anything.’ He clicked back to the original image of the building. ‘There’s no mention of any stairwell or trapdoor on here either.’
‘Strange. It was definitely there. Won’t be any more, mind you. The whole site will have been razed by now.’ Which was, he suspected, the whole point.
‘I found out about Price Developments too, sir. Well, as much as I could.’
‘Let me guess. They’re a new outfit only recently registered.’
‘Pretty much. But they’re based at the same address as a couple of other developers who’ve been around a bit. There’s an outfit called Saifre Holdings. It’s a shell corporation. Fingers in a lot of pies all over the place. Not just Scotland.’
McLean wasn’t at all surprised to hear the name. ‘What about the other one?’
‘That’s more interesting, sir. Or maybe not, depending on who you are.’ MacBride tried to raise his eyebrows towards the ceiling in a suggestive manner. At least that’s what McLean thought he was doing. He might just have had an itchy nose.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, the site’s being developed by Price, which is basically owned by Saifre. But it was originally bought by another company, owned by Weatherly Asset Management.’
42
‘Any chance I could have a word, Tony?’
McLean looked up from his desk, confused by the voice. He was used to DC MacBride, DS Ritchie and Grumpy Bob coming to see him in his office. Occasionally a lost PC would find their way there too, and in the good old days Jayne McIntyre had sometimes wandered down for a chat. Everyone else seemed to expect him to go to them, which suited him fine. The sight of Matt Hilton standing uncertainly at the threshold was a new on
e for him.
‘Sure. Come on in.’ McLean closed the file he’d been trying to read without much success, leaned back in his seat and tried not to grimace at the stab of pain that shot through his thigh. ‘Have a seat if you can find one.’
Hilton took a couple of steps into the space, looked at the chaos within. In theory there was a chair for him to sit in, but it would be a day’s archaeological dig to find it. ‘I think I’ll stand.’
‘Fair enough. What can I do for you?’
Hilton didn’t immediately respond; he seemed to be worried about something. He stared back down the corridor outside, then firmly closed the door before leaning against it. No chance of being interrupted.
‘How’ve you been getting on lately? I hear your workload’s been increased, what with the Weatherly investigation, and now two bodies, is it?’
‘The tattooed man, and now the tattoo artist we thought might have done it to him.’
‘The tattooed man. That would be the one you thought might have been out at Rosskettle.’
‘That’s him. William Beaumont. Ex-SAS. He was living on the streets in the city centre when someone took him, but he ended up in the river at Roslin Glen. Somewhere in between he was covered from head to toe in tattoos. Black, strange swirls and patterns. Nothing recognizable. The thing is, whoever did it to him must have worked flat out; he was only missing about three weeks.’
Hilton ran a chubby hand over his shiny bald pate, rubbed a finger under his nose. For a psychiatrist, he wasn’t very good at hiding his unease. There was something he wanted to say, but he couldn’t quite find the way to say it. McLean would have found it amusing were it not eating into his already precious time.
‘Look, I don’t—’
‘If you’ve got—’
Both of them spoke at the same time, then fell silent. McLean waited a second before motioning Hilton to continue. The psychiatrist paused briefly, then decided to jump right in.
‘I’ve been getting a few calls recently. From people higher up the food chain. Asking specifically about you and your mental state.’
‘And what have you been telling them?’
‘You don’t want to know who they are?’ Hilton wore his incredulity like a fine actor.
‘Come on, Hilton. You wouldn’t tell me if I asked.’
‘No, no. But still …’
‘Of course I want to know, but there’s lots of things I want that I can’t have. More pertinently, why are you telling me this?’
‘Well.’ Hilton pushed himself from the door as if he were going to sit down, then realized there was no seat and slumped against the wall directly opposite McLean’s desk instead. ‘You’ll probably find this hard to believe, but I do have a code of ethics.’
McLean kept silent. He wanted to laugh out loud, but doing so wouldn’t really help. Not with Hilton coming over all confessional.
‘So when someone tells me to do something that goes against that code. Well, it kind of pisses me off as much as anything else. Abuse of power, and all that.’
‘Someone’s been leaning on you to get at me?’
‘Pretty much. I’ve had more than one senior officer casting doubt on your fitness for work. It’s fairly obvious they want me to back that up.’
‘Are you going to?’
Hilton looked hurt by the question. ‘Of course not. I wouldn’t say you were a poster boy for good mental health in the police service. You have deep-seated problems that you need to address, but in many ways they inform your character and make you the detective you are. There are other officers in this station much less fit for work than you. Besides, I don’t like being told what to do.’
‘What if they take away your office?’ McLean nodded towards the door. ‘This gig must be worth a bit to you.’
‘Yes and no. It’s good money for not too much stress. At least it was until recently.’ Hilton fished around in his inside jacket pocket, pulled out a folded slip of paper. He didn’t hand it over. ‘I’ve plenty of work elsewhere to keep the wolf from the door. And there’s always the books.’
The books. McLean had almost been warming to the man. At the very least he’d had some sympathy for his current dilemma, having been there all too often himself. But the mention of books brought back all the old rage. He might be older now, but this was still the same Matt Hilton who had made his name and fortune on the back of Donald Anderson and his victims. The same Matt Hilton who had co-authored the book that told the world in gory, intimate detail how Kirsty had died.
On the other hand, he was putting himself on the line. Maybe not exactly risking his career, but certainly making life unnecessarily harder for himself. Not enough for redemption, perhaps, but at least a start.
‘Look. I appreciate you telling me this. But what are you really after, Hilton?’
‘After?’ Hilton tapped the folded paper against his arm. ‘I suppose that’s a fair enough question. I wouldn’t believe me capable of altruism either. Here.’ He pushed himself away from the wall, took a step to the desk and handed the paper to McLean. ‘This is what I’ve managed to dig up about Rosskettle. What’s been going on there since it was closed down and sold. A bit before then, too. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I started getting calls from on high as soon as I started asking questions about that place. There’s a name. Don’t think you’ll be all that surprised it keeps coming up.’
McLean took the paper, but didn’t open it up. He held Hilton’s stare, trying to read the chubby face and failing. ‘Thanks,’ he said finally.
Hilton nodded, turned to leave. As he opened the door, McLean spoke again.
‘Look, Hilton. We don’t see eye to eye. Don’t suppose we ever will. But this?’ He held up the paper, even though he didn’t know yet what was written on it. ‘Well, thanks.’
Hilton smiled, and for an instant he looked less like a bald old fat man and more like a mischievous schoolboy. ‘Don’t worry about next week’s session. Or any after that. I’ve just sent in your final evaluation report. Far as I’m concerned you’re as fit for duty as anyone in this madhouse.’
McLean sat and stared at the door after Hilton had left, unsure whether he was waiting for a crowd of people to burst in and start laughing at some complicated prank or just rendered speechless by the psychiatrist’s strange behaviour. It was only after a few minutes had passed, and the echo of the conversation had died away, leaving just the tick, tick, ticking of the wall clock and the distant city roar, that he realized he was still holding the folded sheet of paper.
It was handwritten, notes squeezed on to the page in densely packed but neat script. McLean couldn’t remember having seen Hilton’s handwriting before, just his bloated ego of a signature on medical notes and in the front of his bloody books. It made sense that someone as self-obsessed and anally retentive would try to cram everything into one side of one page. Or maybe he just wanted something that would be easy to get rid of should the need arise. Whatever it was, it made for difficult reading. McLean had to squint, then pull the desk light over. Finally he began to piece it together and his squint turned to a frown.
Rosskettle Hospital was closed because it was too far away from centres of population – the same reason why it was built there in the first place. Times change, and with them attitudes to mental illness. I only spent a couple of years there, and I was never a permanent member of staff, but I ate in the canteen and got to know a lot of the orderlies well. By then they’d pretty much stopped using the sixties prefabs to the west of the main house, although there were one or two elderly patients who were left in the nearest, number six, mostly because they became agitated and difficult to manage every time they were moved.
The other five units were empty, but only number three had a padlock on the front door. Every so often groups of important people would come out to view the hospital. Sometimes one or two, sometimes a dozen at a time. Mostly they’d get a tour of the place and then go back home, but I do remember one time when I was wor
king late seeing that about ten of them had gone into number three. The padlock was open and I could see lights at the back. I didn’t think all that much of it, to be honest, but I do remember Andrew Weatherly was one of that particular group. He was one of the most regular visitors during my time there, which made sense as a company he owned was responsible for managing all non-clinical aspects of the site. I didn’t leave the hospital until near enough midnight that night, but the cars were still there then. I was at the university the next day, so I don’t know when they left. I do know that when I mentioned it to one of the older orderlies, he told me that if I knew what was good for me I’d forget I’d ever seen anything. I got the impression from him that it wasn’t that unusual an occurrence
There were stories among the orderlies of parties during the sixties and seventies, where some of the long-term patients were taken to one of the remote residential units and sexually abused. Individual cases of sexual abuse by hospital staff are, alas, not uncommon. The gossip, however, was of what might loosely be termed ‘swinging’ parties, attended by some of Edinburgh High Society’s more notorious members. There is every possibility that the stories were, in some small part, true.
The hospital was earmarked for closure in the nineties, and patients were moved to other facilities as and when they became available. It finally closed in ’02, and was left derelict for a couple of years before being sold to a development company. No development happened, of course. The rumour was that it was another of Andrew Weatherly’s companies that had bought the place, and he was simply keeping it as it had been when he was growing up there as a child.
Of the dozen or so psychiatrists I knew from the place who are still alive, most were very reluctant to talk about it at all. One was quite blunt in his refusal. Many told me just to forget about it. I may be a fan of conspiracy theories, but I don’t think it too much to assume that something untoward was going on there, had been for quite a long time, and that Andrew Weatherly was involved. It’s no coincidence that as soon as I began asking questions, questions began being asked of me. And of you. There is no smoke without fire, as the saying goes.