Natural Causes

by James Oswald

  'Ah, McLean. Good. Glad to see you're in early. You can help with the tidying up.'

  'Tidying up, sir?' McLean looked around the room and saw constables busy packing things into boxes, pulling photographs from the walls and rubbing down the whiteboards.

  'Yes, Tony. We got him last night. No doubting his guilt, his prints were all over Smythe's library.'

  'You caught the killer?' McLean was finding it hard to reconcile the point they had reached in the investigation yesterday evening with what he was being told. He hoped his mouth wasn't gaping open. 'How?'

  'Well, I wouldn't say exactly caught,' Duguid said. 'This man walked into a pub just off St Andrews square about half eleven last night. Went into the gents and cut his own throat. It was even the same knife he used on Smythe.'

  'Is he all right?'

  'No of course he's not all right, you idiot. He's dead. Do you think we'd be taking this all down if we had him in the cells waiting for interrogation?'

  'No, sir. Of course not.' McLean watched the dismantling of the incident room proceed apace. 'Who was he?'

  'Illegal immigrant. Name of Akimbo or something. I can never tell how you're supposed to pronounce these foreign names.'

  'Who ID'd him?'

  'Some wifey from SOCO, Baird, I think she's called. The fingerprint search came up blank, but then she had the bright idea to try the illegal immigrants register. This chap should have been locked up. He was due to be shipped back to Fuzzistan or wherever it is he came from.'

  McLean tried to ignore Duguid's casual racism. The Chief Inspector was a walking reminder of all that was wrong with the force. The sooner the man retired, the better.

  'I guess the chief super will be happy, no doubt the Chief Constable too. I know there was a lot of pressure for a quick result.'

  'Quite right. Which is why we need the report typed up and on Jayne's desk by the end of the day. I don't think the procurator fiscal will want to take it any further, but we've got to go through the motions. You'll need to attend the post mortem, just to make sure there's no nasty surprises. But the evidence is pretty compelling. He had Smythe's blood type on his clothes. DNA results will confirm it, I'm sure. He's our man.'

  Oh great. Another chance to watch a dead body being cut up. 'What time's the PM, sir?' McLean looked at his watch. Seven o'clock in the morning.

  'Ten, I think. You'd better phone and check.'

  'Ten. I'm supposed to be meeting...' But McLean stopped. He knew there was no point in complaining to Duguid. It would only provoke the man into one of his tirades. 'I'll reschedule.'

  'You do that, McLean.'

  *

  The small incident room was empty when McLean finally managed to escape from Duguid and make his way to the back of the station. Grumpy Bob's newspaper lay on one of the two tables; Constable MacBride had piled a neat stack of files on the other. He flicked through them quickly, burglary reports stretching back five years. Post-it notes with questions on them poked out between the pages. Well, at least someone had been busy.

  The photographs of the organs and other artefacts from the dead girl crime scene were pinned to one wall, arranged in a circle just as they had been found. A full-on A3 printed photograph of her twisted, violated body hung in the middle of the circle. He was staring at it still some minutes later when the door nudged open.

  'Morning sir. Hear the news?' Detective Constable MacBride looked like he had scrubbed himself pink. His hair was still slightly damp from showering and his smooth, round face held an expression of innocent hope and excitement.

  'News? Oh, Smythe's killer. Don't you think it's a bit odd?'

  'How so, sir?'

  'Well, why'd he do it? Why did he break into some old man's house and cut him open? Why shove his spleen in his mouth? And why kill himself just days later?'

  'Well, he was an illegal immigrant, wasn't he?'

  McLean bristled. 'Don't start on that, please. They're not all coming to rape our women and steal our jobs you know. It's bad enough hearing that nonsense from Dagwood.'

  'That's not what I meant, sir.' MacBride's face went pinker still, the lobes of his ears turning almost blood red. 'I meant he might have had a grudge against Smythe because he was chair of the Immigration Appeals board.'

  'Was he? How'd you know that?'

  'Alison... Er, Constable Kydd told me, sir.'

  It was McLean's turn to feel the warmth of embarrassment.

  'I'm sorry, Stuart. I didn't mean to snap at you. What else do you know about Smythe that I missed?'

  'Well sir. He was eighty-four but still worked every day. He sat on the boards of a dozen different companies and owned controlling interests in at least two biotech start-ups. He took over his father's merchant bank just after the war and built it into one of the largest financial institutions in the city before selling out just before the dotcom bubble burst. Since then he's been mostly setting up charitable trusts for various good causes. He had a permanent staff of three at his city house, all of whom had been given the night off when he was killed. Apparently that wasn't unusual; he quite often sent them away for the evening so he could be alone.'

  McLean listened to more potted history, noting as he did that the constable seemed to have committed the detail to memory. Apart from the tenuous connection with the illegal immigration and repatriation, there was absolutely nothing to connect Smythe with the man who had murdered him.

  'What was the killer's name again?'

  This time MacBride pulled out his notebook, licking the tip of his finger before leafing through the pages.

  'Jonathan Okolo. Apparently he came from Nigeria. Applied for asylum three years ago but was turned down. He was being held in a secure facility until April, "awaiting repatriation" the records say. No-one's quite sure how he escaped, but there's been a few others disappear from there in the last year or so.'

  'Do you have their names?'

  'No, sir. But I'm sure I could find them out. Why?'

  'I don't know, really. Duguid's going to want to wash his hands of this whole thing as soon as possible. Quite likely the chief constable and all the top brass will be happy to let it lie too. If I had half a brain I'd do the same. But I've a nasty feeling we haven't heard the last of Jonathan Okolo yet. I wouldn't mind being one step ahead of the game when his name pops up again.'

  'I'll do some digging sir.' MacBride made a note in his book, putting it carefully away. McLean wondered what he had done with his own notebook; it was probably upstairs in his office. Along with all that paperwork which wouldn't do itself.

  'What have you got lined up for today then, constable?'

  'Detective Sergeant Laird and I are meant to be interviewing some of these burglary victims, sir. Just as soon as he gets in.'

  'Well, Grumpy Bob always was more of a night shift person.' From the look on MacBride's face McLean reckoned he'd never heard the sergeant referred to as Grumpy Bob before. 'I tell you what, constable. You tell him when he gets in that he can do those interviews on his own. He can take a uniform with him if he feels lonely. I want you to spend the next hour tracking down what you can about Okolo and his friends. Then you and me're going to take a trip down to the Cowgate and watch Dr Cadwallader cut him open.'

  'Umm. Do I have to sir?' MacBride's ruddy complexion paled to a pasty green.

  'You've been to post mortems before haven't you constable?'

  'Yes sir, I have. A couple. That's why I'd rather be somewhere else.'

  *

  He found his notebook where he had last left it, sitting under the evidence bag containing the dead girl's floral dress, on his desk. McLean slipped it into his pocket, reminding himself to take the dress back down to the incident room. The scrap of paper with Carstairs' number on it was still lying beside the phone. He rang through, rearranging their meeting for later in the afternoon, then switched on his computer and pulled the pile of papers towards him. He understood the need for full accounting and proper procedure; he just wished someone el
se could do it for him.

  It was mind-numbing work, requiring just too much concentration for him to mull things over in his mind whilst he was doing it. And all the while, out of the corner of his eye, he could see the dress. Finally when he had reached a point optimistically halfway down the pile, he took out his notebook, pushed his chair back from the desk and flicked through the pages.

  He came almost immediately to the strange swirling patterns he had seen in the basement room, or at least had thought he had seen. They had suggested that the murder was some form of ritual sacrifice, but the hidden alcoves had revealed far more obvious and tempting clues. So he had concentrated on the names, the preserved organs and the personal items. But as his old mentor had always told him, it was usually the least obvious things that were the key. McLean glanced at his watch; it was half past nine. He logged off the computer, grabbed the dress and headed back down to the tiny incident room. Grumpy Bob was there, reading the paper again. Constable MacBride concentrated on the screen of his laptop computer, tapping furiously at the keys.

  'Morning sir,' Grumpy Bob folded his paper and stuck it in a box under the table.

  'Morning Bob. You got the photos from the murder scene?'

  Grumpy Bob looked over at MacBride but got no response, and so had to fetch the box from the corner himself. He sat it down on the table and pulled out a handful of glossy prints.

  'What were you looking for, sir?'

  'There should be a series of pictures of the floor about a foot or so in from the wall.'

  'Aye, I wondered why the photographer took those.' Grumpy Bob guddled around some more, coming out with a handful of sheets. He started to lay them out on the table, occasionally referring to numbers printed on the backs.

  'I asked him to.' McLean studied the first of the photos, then the next and the next. They all looked the same; washed out with the flash, the floor was smooth, featureless wood with absolutely no markings on it at all. He pulled out his notebook and looked at the shapes he had drawn. The shapes he was certain he had seen.

  'Is this all of them?' he asked Bob when he had studied every picture and come up with nothing.

  'Far as I know.'

  'Well get onto the SOC team and double check will you, Bob? I'm looking for pictures of the floor that show markings like this.' He showed the images in his notebook to the sergeant.

  'Can't Constable MacBride do it?' Bob complained. 'You know he's much better at all this technical stuff than me.'

  'Sorry, Bob. He's coming with me.' He turned to the constable. 'You finished there?'

  'Just about, sir. One moment.' MacBride tapped a couple of keys, then folded the notebook flat. 'I'll run past the printer and pick that up on our way out. Unless you'd prefer Sergeant Laird to go with you to the post mortem, sir?' There was hope in his voice.

  McLean smiled. 'I suspect Bob's only just had his breakfast, constable. And I for one have no desire to know what it was.'

  ~~~~

  14

  'That's three times in forty-eight hours, inspector. If I didn't know better I'd say you were stalking me.' Dr Cadwallader's assistant, Tracy, waited for them as they walked into the mortuary. 'Who's your handsome sidekick?'

  'This is Detective Constable MacBride. Go easy on him, it's his first time.' McLean ignored MacBride's reddening face. 'Is the doctor in?' he asked.

  'Just getting prepped,' Tracy said. 'Go right ahead.'

  The examination room was not much changed from the day before. Only the body laid out on the slab was different. The pathologist greeted them as they walked in.

  'Ah, Tony. I can see you've not got the hang of delegation yet. Normally when you send a junior officer to do something for you, it's because you're not intending to come along yourself. Why'd you think Dagwood sent you in the first place.'

  'Because this place reminds him too much of home?'

  'Well, quite.' Cadwallader smirked. 'Shall we get down to business?'

  As if she had been waiting for the cue, Tracy appeared from the little room that served as their office. She had donned a set of scrubs and long rubber gloves and wheeled a steel trolley on which had been laid out various instruments of torture. McLean could feel Constable MacBride tense beside him, rocking slightly on his heels.

  'Subject is male, African, six foot two. At a guess I'd say late fifties.'

  Forty-four.' MacBride's voice was slightly higher than usual, and there'd been no cutting yet.

  'I'm sorry?' Cadwallader put his hand over the microphone hanging above the table.

  'He was forty-four, sir. It says so in his file.' MacBride held up the sheaf of papers he had retrieved from the printer on their way out.

  'Well, he doesn't look it. Tracy, have we got the right body?'

  The assistant checked her paperwork, looked at the tag on the dead man's foot, then went over to the racks of cold cabinets, opening a couple and peering inside before coming back.

  'Yup,' she said. 'Jonathan Okolo. Brought in late last night. Identified by fingerprints from his immigration services file.'

  'Well, that is odd.' Cadwallader turned back to his patient. 'If he's only forty-four, I hate to think what kind of life he's had. OK, let's continue.' He went on, examining the body minutely.

  'His hands are rough, fingernails chipped and short. He has a couple of recent scars consistent with splinters in his palms and fingers. Manual labourer of some kind, though I can't imagine he'd be much good at it, given his health. Ah, here we go.' The pathologist turned his attention to the dead man's head, reaching into his thinning, tight-curled, grey hair with a pair of forceps. 'Specimen jar, please, Tracy. If I'm not mistaken, that's plaster. His hair's full of it.'

  McLean noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Constable MacBride furiously scribbling down notes. He smiled; all of this would be typed up and presented to them within the day, but a little enthusiasm never hurt. And besides, it might distract the constable from what was coming next.

  There was a certain elegance to the way a skilled pathologist opened up a body. Cadwallader was perhaps the best McLean had ever watched. His deft touch and quiet banter with his assistant went some way towards making the whole process bearable. Even so, he was glad when it was all over and the job of stitching up began. It meant they could get out of the examination room, which in turn meant they could soon leave the building.

  'What's the verdict, Angus? Can you save him?' McLean saw the joke raise a flicker of a smile, but it was soon replaced with a worried frown.

  'I'm surprised he lived long enough to kill Smythe, let alone himself,' Cadwallader said.

  'What do you mean?'

  'He has advanced emphysema, acute cirrhosis of the liver, his kidneys are diseased. Christ alone knows how a heart with so much scar tissue on it could possibly beat regularly enough to let him walk.'

  'Are you suggesting he didn't kill Smythe?' A cold shiver ran down McLean's spine.

  'Oh, he killed him all right. His clothes were soaked in Smythe's blood and there are traces of it under his fingernails. That Stanley knife is a perfect fit for the notches in his neck vertebrae. He's definitely your man.'

  'Could he have had an accomplice?' McLean had that dull sensation in the pit of his stomach. He knew he'd be unpopular for even mentioning the possibility, but he couldn't ignore it.

  'You're the detective, Tony. You tell me.'

  ~~~~

  15

  Carstairs Weddell occupied the entirety of a large Georgian terraced house in the west end of the city. Where the more modern and progressive law firms had moved into purpose-built offices on the Lothian Road or further out towards Gogarburn, this one small partnership had held out against the tides of change. McLean remembered a time, not so long ago, when all the old Edinburgh family firms, the lawyers and stockbrokers, merchant bankers and importers of fine wares had their offices in the grand old houses of the west end. Now most of them had moved out and the streets were full of basement restaurants, bout
ique shops, health clubs and expensive apartments. Times changed, but the city always adapted.

  He was an hour early for his appointment, but the secretary told him that she didn't think it would be a problem. She left him waiting in an elegant reception room, lined with portraits of stern-faced men and furnished with comfortable leather armchairs. It was more like a gentleman's club than anything else, but at least it was cool compared with the ever rising heat outside.

  'Inspector McLean. It's good to see you again.' McLean looked around at the voice. He'd not heard the door open, but now a white-haired man with thin round metal-rimmed spectacles stood with his hand outstretched. McLean shook it.

  'Mr Carstairs. Have we met before?' There was something familiar about him. It was always possible that he had been in court whilst McLean was giving evidence, of course. Perhaps he had been cross-examined by the lawyer.

  'I should think so. It's been quite a few years, though. Esther used to hold such wonderful parties, but she stopped around the time you went off to University. I never did find out why.'

  McLean pictured the string of people who had frequently turned up at his grandmother's house. The only thing he could remember about most of them was that they had been very old. But then, so had his grandmother so that was hardly surprising. Jonas Carstairs was old now, but he would have been too young surely to have been part of that set.

  'I think she always wanted to be a recluse, Mr Carstairs. She just thought it would be good for me to meet people. When I left home and moved to Newington, she stopped.'

  Carstairs nodded, as if that made perfect sense to him. 'Please, call me Jonas.' He pulled a pocket watch from his waistcoat, flipped it open to see the time, then carefully slid it back again in a fluid, practised motion.

  'What would you say to a spot of lunch? There's a new place opened up just around the corner from here and I've heard it's very good.'

  McLean thought about the pile of papers on his desk waiting to be sorted; the girl dead so long that a few more hours would make no difference. Grumpy Bob had the burglary investigation in hand, and MacBride would be busy ferreting out whatever information on Jonathan Okolo he could find. He'd really only be getting in the way.