by James Oswald
'Phil, it was meant to be a secret until I got my PhD.' Rachel's face turned a furious red and she thumped him across the shoulders.
'Don't worry, Rachel. My lips are sealed until you make an official announcement.' McLean grinned, feeling cheerful for the first time in twenty-four hours. 'Now let's go and burn some drugs.'
~~~~
39
Dawn had been greying the sky for some time when McLean let himself in through the front door to the Newington tenement. His eyes were dry with a lack of sleep that had left him drained and cranky. Burning a kilo of cocaine, even in an incinerator designed for the safe disposal of bio-hazardous waste, took a surprisingly long time. Along with finding somewhere suitable to hide the cash until he could run a trace on it, he'd managed exactly no sleep. He'd hoped the walk across town would perk him up, but instead he just felt even worse.
'Did your friend find you all right?'
McLean started at the voice, turning to see old Mrs McCutcheon standing in her half-opened doorway at the bottom of the stone stairs leading to the other apartments. He wasn't really in the mood for idle chit-chat with the tenement gossip, just wanted a shower and then perhaps a couple of hours kip before heading in to work. He smiled at her automatically, nodding and feeling guilty as he made for the steps. Then what she had said finally sank in.
'My friend?'
'What was it, night before last I think. Quite late, but you policemen are always coming and going at odd hours.'
The night before last. When someone had planted evidence in his grandmother's house. Not long after Fergus McReadie had been released on bail. Not long after Jonas Carstairs had been murdered.
'Did you speak to him, Mrs McCutcheon? Did he tell you his name?'
'Oh no, dear. I was just sitting in the front room doing my knitting. You know how it is when you get old. Sleep's something young people do. I don't know what time it was, but the busses had stopped, so it must have been well past midnight. This young man comes up the path and rings your buzzer.'
'How'd you know it was my buzzer?'
'Och, they all sound different you know. Anyway, he came straight in and headed up the stairs. I thought it was odd because I didn't hear you open the door. Then I remembered the students leave it wedged open when they go out to the pub. But they'd come home already, and I'm sure they'd shut it properly. But, oh, I don't know.'
'Did he stay long?'
'Oh no. He only got halfway up the stairs when one of them students came out and started shouting at him. Ye ken what they're like when they've been at the drink, aye?'
McLean did. Many was the time he'd had to remind unruly tenants that there was a policeman living on the top floor who took unkindly to having his sleep disturbed.
'He came scuttling back doon the stairs sharpish. I don't think he saw me, he was going that fast. I was putting one of the cats out. Gave me quite a turn.
McLean looked at the old woman. She'd been living in the ground floor flat when he'd moved in. She'd probably been there all her life. He'd never met Mr McCutcheon, and assumed the man had died some years earlier. Truth was, he didn't really know very much about her other than she was old, liked to know what was going on, and was beginning to look very frail indeed.
'Don't worry about it, Mrs M,' he said, trying to calm her down. 'All that's really important is that someone came round in the early hours of yesterday morning. That's what you're saying, right?'
The old lady nodded.
'And you saw him? You saw his face?'
She nodded again.
'Do you think you might recognise him from a photograph?'
Mrs McCutcheon paused, her normally cheerful and positive self replaced by an older, more uncertain one.
'I'm no' sure I could leave the hoose for very long,' she said after a while. 'The cats...'
McLean knew that the cats were perfectly capable of looking after themselves, but he wasn't about to say so.
'Perhaps I can bring the photographs to you, Mrs M. But it would be really helpful if you could identify this man for me.'
*
'I can't let you bring McReadie in again. Not unless you've got something specific you can charge him with.'
McLean stood just inside Superintendent MacIntyre's office, not trusting himself to get any closer. His first action on arriving at the station had been to ask the duty sergeant to arrange for McReadie to be brought in for questioning. He probably shouldn't have shouted a Pete when he'd refused, the poor man was only following orders from the boss, after all.
'He stole Bertie Farquhar's cuff-link. I need to know what else he took from there.'
'No, Tony. You don't.' MacIntyre remained seated behind her desk. Annoyingly calm and logical, damn her. 'You know where he got it from, and besides, as I understand it you'd identified who the cuff-link belonged to anyway. That was good work, going to the jewellers.'
'He's been hanging around my flat.'
'You don't know that. You've just the word of a confused old woman that someone who may or may not have been McReadie came looking for you.'
'But I need...' I need to ask him if he planted a kilo of cocaine in my grandmother's house. What he left at my flat that I've not been able to find.
'You need to leave him alone, is what you need.' McIntyre pulled off her reading spectacles and rubbed at her eyes. Perhaps she'd had no sleep either. 'We've got him bang to rights now. Caught red handed and with a stash of stolen goods in his home. But he's already filed an official complaint against you for using undue force, and his lawyer's been picking at the terms of the search warrant, too.'
'He.' McLean's brain caught up with his mouth. 'He's what?'
'If he can make either stick then we've got a very thin case indeed. The PF might even decide to go with receiving stolen goods. Bloke like him, that's a suspended sentence.'
'But he can't do that. The little bastard broke into my gran's house.'
'I know Tony. And if I could have my way, he'd be stewing in remand until he came to trial. But he's got a lot of money for the best lawyer, and worse he's got connections. You wouldn't believe how high up the pressure's coming from.'
'He's not getting away with this. You're not going to cut a deal.'
MacIntyre grimaced. 'Not a bloody chance. I do not like being dictated to by suits. But I can't have you riding roughshod over this one just because McReadie's pissed you off. That's precisely what he wants and I'm not going to give him the satisfaction.'
'But...'
'No buts, Tony. It's not even your case anymore. You're the victim, for God's sake. You can't be involved. Get on with your other cases why don't you? You've not even been to see that occult expert I told you about yet, have you.'
Bugger. And the worst of it was she was right. McLean knew damned well he shouldn't even have interviewed McReadie the first time. It should have been handed over to someone not directly involved.
'Please tell me you're not going to give it to Duguid.' It sounded like a pitiful, spiteful whinge.
'Actually I thought Bob Laird would be better suited.' MacIntyre slid her spectacles back up her nose with a little smirk. 'You can tell him yourself.'
*
McLean met Constable Kydd on his way down to the tiny incident room. She had a heavy load of box files and a heavier expression of dread on her face. Headed in the direction of the incident room recently cleared of the Barnaby Smythe investigation and now being hastily re-filled as Detective Chief Inspector Charles Duguid rose once more to the challenge of royally fucking things up.
'Let me guess, Dagwood's got every able-bodied person in the station seconded to his team?'
Constable Kydd bobbed her head in unhappy agreement. 'There's a lot of pressure from high up.'
'There's always a lot of pressure from high up.' But of course there really would be for someone like Carstairs. Same as Smythe. Important men had important friends. It was just a shame the little people couldn't get such support. Little like the poor girl mutilated in the
basement of some rich and influential man, part of some sick fantasy ritual.
'You're photo-fit trained, aren't you, constable?' McLean asked, dredging up the information from a conversation half remembered.
'Umm, aye.' Constable Kydd offered the confirmation with great reluctance.
'How would you fancy doing a bit of detective work then? I heard you were studying for the exams.' Well, MacIntyre wouldn't let him interrogate McReadie without good reason. What could be better than proving the man had been sniffing around McLean's tenement just hours after being released on bail?
'I'm a wee bit busy sir.' Kydd hefted the box files, an unhappy gloom settling on her features.
'Don't worry. I'll square it with Dagwood. I've got some other stuff to do this morning anyway, but if you can sign out a laptop with photo-id software on it, maybe rustle up some random mugshots too. And chuck in the ones we took of Fergus McReadie when he came in the other night. I'll get a car sorted for two.'
'I...'
'I know the chief super said I wasn't to hassle him.' Christ, had she told everyone in the station? How impetuous did she think she was? 'I'm not going anywhere near him. Trust me.'
~~~~
40
The sign on the door said 'Palms read, Tarots, Fortunes told.' McLean had always figured the place as a front for something else, prostitution most likely, but this was the address McIntyre had given him. He'd asked around too, and word was that Madame Rose was as honest as the day, in as much as she did exactly what she said she did. Everything else was a lie, of course, a pandering to the gullible. There wasn't a large market in Edinburgh for this particular brand of fool-and-his-money enterprise, but enough people wanted to believe that an enterprising soul could make a crust at it.
'Why are we here, sir?' Detective Constable MacBride had drawn the short straw and was tagging along on this particular dead end in the ever-growing list of cases. Grumpy Bob had the even more fun task of trying to identify the Waverley Jumper whilst gathering together all the evidence against Fergus McReadie for the Procurator Fiscal. That just left the investigation into the potential leak of crime scene information that was the most obvious explanation for the disturbing similarities between the murders of Jonas Carstairs and Barnaby Smythe. And the dead girl, of course. All in a day's work, really.
'We're here to find out about human sacrifice and demonic ritual. Apparently Madame Rose is something of an expert on the occult. All this magic show stuff is just a front. Or so I'm told.' McLean pushed open the door to reveal a narrow hallway with stairs leading straight up. Threadbare carpet, more stain than pattern, released an aroma of chip-fat and mould into the air; a curious smell of hopelessness. Up the stairs, through a once-sparkly bead curtain turned dull with grease and discarded skin, they found themselves in a small room that desperately wanted to be described as a boudoir but really couldn't even merit reception room. The same carpet as the stairs ran wall to wall, more stains spreading out like mushroom fairy rings. In places they had even begun to colonise the walls, competing with nasty flock wallpaper and cheap prints of vaguely oriental and mystic scenes. Looking up, McLean wasn't at all surprised to see spots marking the ceiling too. The heat of the day wasn't helping either, that cooking smell and damp fug made mouth-breathing preferable, though only slightly. And people came here of their own volition?
A low sofa leant against the outside wall, under the only window in the room. Sitting on it was probably not a good idea. Two rickety wooden chairs flanked a low table covered in elderly copies of Reader's Digest and Tarot Monthly. In the opposite corner to the stairwell, someone not very good at DIY had built a narrow counter, behind which stood a closed door. A scruffy piece of paper tacked to the wall showed a menu of prices for services rendered. Ten pounds for a basic palm reading, twenty for consulting the cards. Some mad punters might even fork out over a hundred for something called a 'Full Karmic Workout.'
'Oh I thought I felt something in the aether. Magnificent.' A deep, husky voice, the product of too many cigarettes, too much whisky. The words were out even before McLean had registered the door opening. An enormous woman swept through, halving the size of the reception room with her presence. She wore what appeared to be a red velvet tent, pulled around her body like the swaddling on a once-fat mummy. Her hands were like gold-studded tired pink balloons, fleshy fingers squeezed into cheap, ornate rings, nails painted a slightly different shade of red to her dress.
'I simply must see your palms.' Madame Rose grabbed McLean's hand with surprising speed, flipping one over and tracing the lines with a soft caress. He tried to pull away but the woman's grip was like iron.
'Oh, such a tragic life already. And, dear me, so much more to come. You poor, poor boy. And what's this?' She let go as suddenly as she had grabbed him. Took a theatrical step back, one hand to her ample breast, splayed fingers reaching up to her wattle-skin throat. 'You've been marked out for things. Great things. Terrible things.'
'Enough of the show.' McLean held up his warrant card. 'I'm not here for any mumbo-jumbo.'
'I assure you, detective inspector. I do not deal in mumbo jumbo. Why, I felt your aura the moment you stepped through the front door.'
'And do you know why we've come calling then?' It was MacBride who asked the question, but only because he beat McLean to it.
'Of course, of course. You want to know about ritual killing. Nasty business. Never works, at least not in my experience, but it's worse than alcohol for bringing out the devil in people, if you know what I mean.'
'How did you...?' MacBride's mouth hung open as the words escaped.
Madame Rose let out a snort of most unlady-like laughter. 'The spirit world talks to me, detective sergeant. And Jayne McIntyre from time to time.'
'I don't have a lot of time, and even less patience.' McLean shoved his warrant card back in his pocket. 'I was lead to believe you knew something about occult practices. If that's not the case then I'll not waste any more of your time.'
'Touchy, isn't he.' Madame Rose winked at MacBride, who reddened about the face and ears. She turned back to McLean. 'Come on through to the office then. It's a slow day anyway.'
*
The office turned out to be a sizable room at the back of the building, one tall window looking out onto a grey courtyard filled with limp washing on sagging lines. The contrast with the front reception area, and the receiving room through which they had passed to get here, could not have been more marked. Where they were seedy and loaded with kitsch trinkets of the sort you would expect an old Gypsy fortune teller to collect, the few artefacts on show in this room looked both genuine and unsettling.
All four walls were lined with bookshelves reaching up to the high ceiling, most packed with a seemingly random assortment of ancient and modern books. Two shelves, either side of the large antique desk, held glass cabinets housing a Wildcat and a Snowy Owl. Both had been given the full benefit of the taxidermist's art, posed in the act of killing their respective preys. On the top of the desk, mounted on a dark wooden shield, what looked suspiciously like a withered human hand had been pressed into service as a book stand. Other things lurked in dark corners. Sinister when glimpsed through the corner of your eye, they turned out to be perfectly innocent items when given full attention: a coat stand with a bowler hat, greatcoat and umbrella had been a dark assassin; the artfully discarded stole on the back of the moth-eaten high-back leather armchair had been a living fox, a witches familiar fixing him with an evil eye. McLean blinked, and the stole blinked back, then yawned a great fang-baring snarl, stretched and leapt from the chair onto the floor. Not a fox, but a cat, thin as a toast rack and with a tail that curved like a great shaggy question mark as it stalked across the room to inspect the new intruders.
'So, Detective Inspector McLean, Detective Constable MacBride. You want to know about human sacrifice, why people might try to do it, that sort of thing?' Madame Rose pulled a pince-nez out of her décolletage, where it had been hanging from a silver c
hain, and pushed it onto her nose.
'Pretty much. I'm trying to get a handle on a particular ritual. We think there was probably more than one person involved.'
'Oh there usually is. Otherwise it's just attention-seeking.'
'I meant more than one killer, actually. Six, possibly.' McLean outlined what they had found in the walled-up basement, keeping he details as sparse as possible.
'Six?' Madame Rose leant forward in her chair. 'That's... unusual. Mostly it's a solitary affair. Two people if you include the victim. The kind of people who go in for ritual killing don't socialise well, you understand.'
'Why do they do it?' MacBride asked. McLean hadn't actually told the constable not to say anything, so he tried not to let his annoyance show.
'A very pertinent question, young man,' Madame Rose said. 'Some have speculated that it gives them a sense of importance lacking in their everyday lives. Others suggest that childhood experiences, usually violent and at the hands of close family members, cause the individual to conflate attention with love and thus mete out their own love accordingly. Many come from a strict religious upbringing where the child has not been spared for lack of the rod. Ritual is important to them, as is its subversion. For myself I think they mostly do it because they're bonkers.'
'You don't believe it works, I take it,' McLean said.
'Oh, but of course I do. And so did your six madmen. Well, they must have done or they wouldn't have killed the girl. Or at least one of them must have believed, and had the other five completely in his thrall.'
'You think that's possible? That people would kill like that just because someone told them to?'
'Of course. If the leader's charismatic enough. Look at Waco, Jonestown, Al Qaeda. Most cult followers don't really believe what they're being peddled. They just want to be told what to do. It's easier that way.'
Okay. Not quite what he'd been expecting when he'd come here. 'So this ritual isn't anything special, then. It could just be any random nutter with a god delusion.'