Natural Causes

by James Oswald

  'I didn't say that, inspector.' Madame Rose reached for a book that looked like it had only recently been fetched from the shelves to her desk. She flicked it open at a page already marked. 'Six organs, six artefacts, six names. Arranged at the cardinal points around the body. Tell me, were there markings on the floor? A circle of protection, perhaps?'

  She spun the book around, showing the page to McLean. It was a crude black and white line drawing, done in a medieval style, showing a female figure lying with her arms and legs splayed. A slit opened up her torso with nothing but black ink inside. All around her, a twining circle of vines twisted together, clumping in knots at her hands, feet, head and the space between her legs. Beneath the picture were etched the words 'Opus Diabvli'. McLean pulled the book towards him, but Madame Rose tweaked it away.

  'That's seventeenth century. Probably worth more than your young constable here earns in a year.'

  'Where did you get it?' McLean asked.

  'Interesting choice of question, inspector.' Madame Rose ran a careful finger across the page. 'I bought it from an antiquarian book dealer down on the Royal Mile. Many, many years ago. I believe he acquired it and several others from the estate of the late Albert Farquhar. Quite the occult enthusiast was Bertie Farquhar, or so I've heard.'

  Another piece in the puzzle. 'And what is the ritual supposed to do?'

  'That's where it gets interesting.' Madame Rose slid her finger under the page, turning it carefully over before handing the book back. McLean looked at a new chapter, momentarily confused by the elegantly illuminated dropped capital. Then he noticed the ragged edge of a page torn out. The frayed edges were not fresh.

  'It was like that when I bought it, in case you were wondering.' Madame Rose took the book back, carefully closed it and laid it back down on the desk, patting the cover like a good pet. 'I've spent the last twenty years looking for another copy.'

  'So you've no idea what that...' McLean waved a hand at the book and the grisly image it contained. 'What it was supposed to achieve.'

  'Opus Diabuli, inspector. The work of the devil.'

  *

  It wasn't until he stepped out onto the street that McLean realised it had been cold in Madame Rose's study. Shade from being on the north side of the building, perhaps, but it felt more than that. As if the place lived in its own dimension. He looked back at the door, but the sign still said 'Palms read, Tarots, fortunes told.' The stonework was still dirty, the windowsill rotting away for want of a lick of paint. He shook his head, a judder passing through his body as it adjusted to the warmth of the sun.

  'She was a bit weird.' DC MacBride stated the obvious.

  'And some.' McLean shoved his hands in his trouser pockets as they started the walk back to the station. 'But I think it would probably be fairer to say he.'

  'He?' MacBride took three more strides. Possibly four. Turned to face McLean. 'You mean she was a... He was a...'

  'You don't often see an Adams Apple like that on a woman, Stuart. Or hands that big. I'd wager that ample bosom owed more to padding than nature, too.'

  'So Madame Rose really is a charlatan. In more ways than one.'

  'Oh, I wouldn't knock the old fortune telling. Anyone fool enough to part with their money for that sort of thing deserves to be poorer, if you want my opinion. And she... he has helped us, after all.'

  MacBride cradled in his arms the package in which Madame Rose had carefully placed the book. She had insisted on getting a receipt for it when McLean had asked if he could take it as evidence. The five figure sum mentioned as its value might have been an exaggeration but the constable wasn't taking any chances.

  'We already have the cuff-link though,' he said. 'Do we really need the book as well? We know Bertie Farquhar did it.'

  'It's always nice to have confirmation.' And besides, there was something about that book. He wanted a chance to study it some more, even if the really crucial page was missing.

  'There's one thing that bothers me, sir.'

  'Only one?'

  'Aye, well.' MacBride paused a while, collecting his thoughts or unsure of himself. 'This book. Madame Rose back there. She, he, whatever, had it lying there on the desk. She'd even marked the page.'

  'I had noticed.'

  'But how did she know what we were looking for?'

  ~~~~

  41

  'That looks a bit like him, but maybe a bit darker? No, this one. Or maybe this?'

  McLean had never been in Mrs McCutcheon's inner sanctum before, even though he'd lived in the same tenement block as her for more than fifteen years. As it was, nothing in the room surprised him; it was exactly how he might have imagined. The layout of the living room was not unlike his own, three floors up, but there the similarity ended. She had trinkets everywhere, mostly of the twee, Victorian chocolate box and Tartan Tat variety, and the large room was made small by the sheer amount of stuff. That and the cats. He'd given up counting after ten, unsure whether he had doubled up on some. They stared down from shelves, peered up from chairs, twisted around his legs until he didn't dare move. Sitting down was out of the question.

  'I don't know dear. They all look a bit grim, don't they? Haven't you got anyone smiling? The chap I saw had a wide grin on his face.'

  Constable Kydd sat alongside the old woman on a sofa that may well have pre-dated both of them. The back had been covered in a delicate lace antimacassar, with similar on the two matching high-back armchairs currently occupied by suspicious eyes and quivering whiskers. Despite the cats, everything about the cluttered room was neat and tidy; there was just too much of it. Surprisingly it smelled only of wood polish and age. But then judging by the smell in the main landing, outside the apartment, Mrs McCutcheon had trained her cats to go elsewhere.

  'This one. Now I think it could be him.' The old lady in question was peering through half-moon spectacles at the laptop Constable Kydd had brought with her. It was loaded with mugshots as well as photo-fit software. So far it had been just an exercise in looking through pictures, McReadie's strategically placed amongst them, and trying to remember not to drink the tea. McLean had seen it being made when they arrived. A bag each and one for the pot, as Mrs McCutcheon had said. A shame the pot was only big enough for about a pint of water.

  'Yes. I'm certain of it. He had those funny eyes. Too close together. Made him look a bit, well, glaikit.'

  McLean smiled at the word, stooped forward to see the screen for himself. Kydd angled it up, her own face a picture of triumph.

  'It's him,' she said, but McLean didn't need telling. Gurning up from the laptop was the image he'd been wanting to see. Fergus McReadie.

  *

  'We need to get on to the station. I want McReadie picked up as soon as possible. The little bastard's not getting out on bail this time.'

  They were walking down towards the Pleasance, heading back to the city centre. It had taken longer than McLean liked to get out of Mrs McCutcheon's apartment, and all the while he'd been trying to suppress the thought of Fergus McReadie in his BMW, doing a runner to somewhere with too much sun and an unhelpful attitude towards extradition of known felons.

  'You want me to call it in, sir?' Constable Kydd fumbled with the laptop bag slung over her shoulder, trying to get it out of the way so she could reach her airwave set. McLean stopped, turned to face her.

  'Here, give me that. No, the laptop. I haven't got a clue how to work the other one.' He took the bag and slung it over his own shoulder. Kydd pulled her airwave set out, thumbed a few buttons and raised it to her ear.

  'Yeah, Control? This is two three nine... Oh my god. Look out!'

  It happened too fast to even think. Kydd let go of the airwave set, launched herself at McLean, catching him in the stomach with her shoulder and knocking him sideways. He fell backwards, feet tripping over the stone steps leading up to an open tenement doorway. His knees buckled as he windmilled his arms in a futile attempt to stay upright. He hit the flagstone floor with enough force to jar his
spine and drive the wind out of his lungs. The question formed on his lips. 'What?' But it was answered before he could finish thinking it.

  A white transit van mounted the pavement, sending a street bin flying into the road. Constable Kydd was caught in its path like a rabbit in the headlights. For an instant that was forever, she stood there, half bent as she tried to recover her balance, eyes wide in astonishment more than fear. And then the truck hit her, lifted her off her feet, threw her into the air like a child's discarded doll. Only then did McLean hear the tortured roar of an engine at full throttle, the thud of a body hitting the ground, glass shattering. Screeching brakes.

  Fighting for breath, he forced himself to his feet, back out the doorway that had offered him protection. The van careened back onto the street, fighting a way through the traffic like a drunk boxer. He couldn't see any number plate on the back of it and in seconds it was gone around a corner, off in the direction of Hollyrood Park.

  Constable Kydd lay twenty feet away from the doorway, her body twisted cruelly. McLean looked around for the airwave set, seeing only pieces of broken electronics spilled into the road. His own mobile was useless. Why the fuck wouldn't it hold a charge? He pulled out his warrant card, ran into the path of the nearest car, slammed his hands down on the bonnet.

  'You've got a phone?'

  The startled driver pointed at something in a holder suction-mounted to the windscreen.

  'I wasnae using it. Honest.'

  'I don't give a fuck. Hand it over.' McLean grabbed the phone even before the driver had it out of the window. He keyed in the number for the station. Didn't wait for the preamble that he knew would be coming.

  'Pete? McLean. I'm just opposite the Pleasance. There's been a hit and run. Constable Kydd's down. I need an ambulance five minutes ago. And put out an APB on a white transit, plate unknown. It's going to have a bloody great dent in its bonnet though. Probably broken windscreen too. Last seen heading down the Canongate towards Hollyrood.'

  Still clutching the phone, McLean ran to where Constable Kydd was lying. Blood was leaking from her mouth and nose, bright and bubbly. Her hips shouldn't have been able to twist the way they were, and he didn't want to know about her legs. Her eyes were still open though, glazed over with shock.

  'Stay with me Alison. There's an ambulance on the way.' McLean took one cut hand in his, unwilling to move her any more than necessary, even though he doubted she would ever walk again. If she even made it the next five minutes.

  Somewhere in the distance, a siren started to wail.

  ~~~~

  42

  The cheap plastic chair was uncomfortable, but McLean hardly noticed the numbing in his buttocks as he stared across the empty waiting room at the noticeboard and its unseen leaflets. Even now the journey across town in the ambulance was jumbling into a confused series of flash-images. A paramedic talking to him in a voice he couldn't hear; kind but firm hands prising his grip from Constable Kydd's; trained professionals working what scant miracles they could, fitting neck brace, back brace; lifting the twisted figure into the ambulance, so small, so young; a journey across town to a hospital he'd hoped never to see again; serious faces with serious words like operation, emergency surgery, quadriplegic. And now the slow wait for the news he knew could only be some shade of dreadful.

  A soft rustling in the air as someone sat down beside him. McLean didn't need to turn to know who it was, he'd know that perfume anywhere. A mixture of paperwork, worry and just the tiniest dab of Chanel.

  'How is she?' Chief Superintendent McIntyre sounded tired. He knew how she felt.

  'The doctor's aren't quite sure how she was still alive when she got here. She's in surgery right now.'

  'What happened, Tony?'

  'It was a hit-and-run. Deliberate. I think they were trying to get me.' There. He'd said it. Given voice to his paranoia.

  McIntyre took a deep breathe, held it a moment as if daring herself to go on. 'Are you sure of that?'

  'Sure? No. I don't think I'm sure of anything anymore.' McLean scrubbed at the dryness in his eyes. Wondered if tears would be misconstrued. 'She saw it coming. Constable Kydd. She pushed me out of the way. Could have saved herself, but her first instinct was to save me.'

  'She's a good copper.' McLean noticed that McIntyre didn't add 'she'll go far.' Chances were she wasn't going anywhere ever again. Not without wheels.

  'What were you doing there, anyway?'

  And now the difficult part. 'We were on our way back to the station. Constable Kydd was helping to ID someone who came to my apartment the other night when I was out. My neighbour saw him acting suspiciously.' God, he sounded pathetic.

  'McReadie?' There was the slightest hint of question in McIntyre's voice, but McLean could tell she wasn't expecting an answer. He nodded anyway.

  'So why wasn't Sergeant Laird carrying out the investigation? I told you, Tony. Steer clear of McReadie. He's playing with you.'

  'He's trying to kill me is what he's doing.'

  'Are you sure of that? Don't you think it's a bit extreme?'

  No, because the bastard planted fifty grand and a kilo of cocaine to try and set me up, but I didn't do what he expected me to, so now he's taken the direct option.

  'It'd be very hard for me to testify against him in court if I was dead.'

  'Give it a rest, Tony. Melodrama really doesn't suit you. And anyway, according to the duty sergeant, at four o'clock this afternoon when you called in the accident, Fergus McReadie was being interviewed at the station, along with a lawyer so sharp he probably cuts himself getting dressed in the morning.'

  'He wouldn't have done something like this himself. He'd've paid someone. I bet you he volunteered to come in this afternoon, too. Make himself the perfect alibi.'

  McIntyre let out a long, slow breath, slumped her head against the wall.

  'You're not making this easy for me, Tony.'

  'I'm not making it easy?' He turned to face his boss but she wouldn't return his stare. Talked instead to the empty waiting room.

  'Go home. Get some sleep. You can't do anything here.'

  'But I need...'

  'You need to go home. If you're not in shock already it's going to hit soon enough. Do I need to make it an order?'

  McLean slumped back in his chair, defeated. He hated it when the Chief Superintendent was right. 'No.'

  'Good, because this next bit is an order. I don't want you coming in to work until next week.'

  'What? But it's only Wednesday.'

  'Next week, Tony.' McIntyre finally looked at him. 'You can write me a statement detailing exactly what happened this afternoon. Then I don't want to hear a squeak out of you until Monday.'

  'But what about McReadie?'

  'Don't worry about him. You've got a witness says he was round your place, that sounds like a clear breach of his bail conditions.' McIntyre pulled out her phone but didn't dial. 'He won't be bothering anyone for a while.'

  'Thank you.' McLean let the back of his head bang lightly against the wall. 'Are you sure there's...'

  'You keep out of this. If you're right and someone's out to get you, then I can't have you investigating. Same as I can't have you hassling McReadie at every turn. Due process, Tony. Leave it alone. I'll be leading this investigation myself, so I'll know if you start poking your nose where it's not welcome.'

  'I...'

  'Home, inspector. Not a word more.' McIntyre stood up, her hands automatically smoothing out the creases on her uniform as she turned and walked away. McLean watched her go, then went back to staring at the wall.

  *

  Police Constable Alison Kydd was moved from surgery into intensive care at a quarter past one in the morning. Eight hours of surgery might have saved her life, but the doctors were keeping her in a medical coma just in case. It was a certainty she would never walk again, unless someone came up with a way to re-grow severed spinal chord. Only time would tell if she had the use of her arms, or even control of her bladder. An
d there was always the chance that she might never wake up.

  The doctor who had told McLean all this looked too young to have been long out of medical college, but she seemed to know what she was doing. She was cautiously optimistic; better than fifty-fifty had been her words. Said as if that was a good thing, with a tired smile to back it up. They haunted him all the way home in the rain-swept taxi, smile and words both. Stayed with him as he got started on his report for the chief superintendent and a bottle of single malt whisky. It was dawn before he had finished the one, realised the other wasn't really helping. Getting blind drunk on his own just wasn't his style; he needed a few good friends to do that with. And all the while he kept telling himself it wasn't his fault. Say it enough, he might even start believing it.

  He called the hospital at six to be told there hadn't been any change, nor was there likely to be for the foreseeable future. The nurse at the other end of the line hadn't said as much, but McLean could tell from her tone that she wouldn't be as polite if he phoned again soon. He should have been tired, hadn't slept in twenty-four hours, but the guilt and the anger wouldn't let him sleep. Instead he showered, read through the report and made a couple of changes before emailing it off. Not his fault. No way he could have anticipated what happened.

  But it was his fault, after a fashion. Like McIntyre had said, it should have been Grumpy Bob who took a constable round to visit Mrs McCutcheon. McReadie could have had his hired goon run down McLean somewhere entirely different, where there was no-one about to sacrifice themselves so that he might live. Jesus, what the fuck was that about? Why had that stupid little...?

  The fist was nearly at the pane of glass before McLean realised he'd even clenched it. Pulling the punch, he slammed his palm into the window frame instead, feeling a hot sting of tears in his eyes that had nothing to do with the pain. Not the physical pain, anyway. That faded away in moments. If only the other kind would too.