Natural Causes

by James Oswald

  ~~~~

  59

  The post mortem on David Brown was scheduled for later that afternoon. McLean filled the time by wading through the mountain of paperwork on his desk. It didn't matter that he had been told to take a week's leave, the overtime sheets, requisition orders and a thousand and one other useless bits and pieces had still continued to mount up. What would happen if he disappeared for a whole month? Would the office eventually choke up with paper? Or would someone else finally roll up their sleeves and get on with it?

  A knock at the door distracted him. Looking up, he saw DC MacBride staring wide-eyed at the chaos.

  'Come in, constable. If you can find some room.'

  'It's all right, sir. I just thought you ought to know. They're going to charge Emma this afternoon.'

  'What with?' McLean clenched his fists in embarrassment and anger. In all the rushing about with brown, she'd slipped his mind.

  'Dagwood wants to go the whole hog with accessory to murder, but I think the super's persuaded him to go with perverting the course.'

  'Shit. Do you think she did it, Stuart?'

  'Do you, sir?'

  'No. But if they're charging her, then they must have some evidence.'

  'You've been into the SOC lab, sir. You know they all share their computers and passwords. Security's a joke.'

  McLean had a thought. 'That site where you found the pictures. Is it still up?'

  MacBride nodded. 'It's hosted on an overseas server. Could take us months to get it pulled.'

  'And the crime scenes aren't identified, are they. There's just the pictures.'

  'And dates, sir. But no location descriptions. Just stuff like 'crushed torso' and 'cut throat'.'

  'Lovely. Have we been able to identify the other scenes posted by MB, whoever she, or he, is?'

  'I don't think anyone's tried, sir. The photos from Smythe's and Stewart's crime scenes were enough. Emma was SOC photographer at both.'

  'But everyone had access to her computer. And we spread those photos around our incident rooms like it was Christmas. Do me a favour, Stuart. Emma was based in Aberdeen before she came down here. Get a sample of the earlier photos and send them up to Queen Street. See if anyone recognises them as coming from their patch. And find out who else has transferred into our SOC team recently. Do the same for their old areas.'

  'I'm on it, sir.' MacBride's eyes filled with enthusiasm as he hurried off to complete his task. McLean wished he could borrow some of it; he'd hardly made any progress on the paperwork. He reached forward for the next folder full of meaningless numbers, knocking the whole pile to the floor by mistake.

  'Bollocks!' He squeezed out from behind the desk and bent down to pick up the papers. There were a few case files in with them, and one had fallen open. The dead face of Jonathan Okolo stared up at him with accusing eyes. He picked it up, and was about to put it back in the folder when he noticed the case file for Peter Andrews' suicide lying close by. He flicked it open, seeing another dead face. That same reproachful stare, as if they were criticising him for not caring enough. But what had the two of them got in common, apart from being dead?

  'Well, they both slit their throats in a public place.' McLean barely recognised the voice as his own. It was a wild thought, but easily-enough checked. And far more interesting than wading through the monthly crime-report statistics. He grabbed both photographs, shoved them in his jacket pocket and headed out the door.

  *

  The Feasting Fox was quiet in the afternoon; just a few late lunchtime drinkers cooling their throats before braving the shops once more. A chip-fat fug hung in the air, almost but not quite overpowering the smell of coffee from an underused espresso machine behind the bar. Fewer than half the tables were occupied, and the barman looked bored as he polished glasses, his eyes focussed on something far away.

  'Pint of Deuchars,' McLean said, noticing the hand pump.

  'Deuchars's off.' The barman twisted the clip-on label around the handle so it faced away from the punters.

  'Never mind then.' McLean reached into his pocket and drew out the two photographs. He put the first one down on the bar, Peter Andrews. 'This man ever come in here?'

  'Who's asking?'

  McLean sighed, reaching for his warrant card. 'I am. And it's a murder investigation, so being helpful would be your best course of action right now.'

  The barman peered at the photo for all of two seconds, then said: 'Yeah, he drinks here most evenings. Works round the block somewhere. Not seen him recently, mind.'

  'Did you ever see him talking to this man?' McLean put down the photograph of Jonathan Okolo. The barman's eyes widened.

  'That's the man... You know.'

  'Yes, I do know,' McLean said. 'But did you ever see him talking to Peter Andrews here?'

  'I don't think so. Can't say as I ever saw him before the night he came in here.'

  'And exactly what did you see then?'

  'Well, like I told the other officers. I was here at the bar. It was crazy busy, know what it's like, with the fringe and all. But I noticed when this guy comes in, right. Coz he's filthy, acting a bit strange, but he heads straight for the gents before I can get to him. I went after him; we don't want his type in here. But he was bleeding all over the floor. Christ it was a mess.'

  'Was there anyone else in the toilets when he killed himself?'

  'I dunno. I don't think so.' The barman scratched at his stubble. 'No, hang on. I tell a lie. There was someone came out of there just before I went in. Could've been this man, now you shown me his picture.' He pointed at Peter Andrews.

  'I don't suppose you've got CCTV.'

  'In the bogs? Nah, that'd be disgusting.'

  'What about the rest of the bar?'

  'Yeah, there's a couple of cameras, one on the front door, one on the back.'

  'How long do you keep the tapes?'

  'A week, maybe ten days. Depends.'

  'So do you have the tape for the night these two were in here?' McLean pointed to the photographs.

  'Nah, sorry. You lot took that one away. Ain't brought it back yet.'

  *

  'Back it up a bit. That's right. There.'

  The quality was worse than the CCTV on Princes Street, one frame every two seconds making the people jump and disappear like insane wizards. Grainy colour and dim lighting didn't help, either, but at least the camera covering the back door to the pub also covered the entrance to the gents toilet.

  It hadn't been easy, getting the tape from Duguid. McLean knew he could expect no goodwill from the man; he was an arse, after all. But he wished once in a while that the chief inspector wouldn't be quite so obstructive. Still, he had it now, and in the darkened confines of the video viewing room, otherwise known as interview room four with the blinds drawn, they could watch the drinkers in the Feasting Fox as they clustered tightly together almost two weeks ago.

  'Health and safety'd love to see this tape,' MacBride said as a pile of drinkers cluttered up the narrow passageway past the gents towards the back door. From the other camera angle it was easy to see why; the main area of the bar was sardine-packed standing room only. Then the door opened and Jonathan Okolo came in.

  He was filthy; you could see that even on the poor quality picture. As he made his way past the camera area in a series of small jumps, the crowd seemed to part around him, like the red sea in front of Moses. McLean had read the witness statement taken at the time, and wondered how it was that no-one had been able to remember seeing much of the man. He must have stunk to high heaven to get them to move like that. But then they were all drinking like booze was going to be banned, and who wanted to talk to the police these days?

  A few seconds after disappearing off the first camera, Okolo reappeared on the second one. The crowd in the passageway shifted away from him as he pushed into the gents. There was a pause for a few seconds, and then the door opened again.

  'Freeze that,' McLean said. MacBride hit the pause button. It was a str
ange angle, looking down from the ceiling. And the fish-eye lens distorted features. But for some reason, the man coming out of the gents had looked up as he left, as if he had known that this was his moment in the limelight.

  And he was unmistakably Peter Andrews.

  ~~~~

  60

  'You're late, Tony. That's not like you.'

  'Sorry Angus. Something came up. Did you start without me?' McLean stepped into the post mortem examination room without much of a jaunt. This wasn't his favourite place to be, and lately he'd been spending rather too much time here.

  'We did indeed,' Cadwallader said. He was hunched over the naked corpse, examining one of its hands. 'Did you X-ray these, Tracy?' he asked.

  'Yes, doctor. They're up on the viewer.'

  Cadwallader walked over to the wall, where a bank of lights shone through posted X-rays. McLean followed him, grateful not to have to look at the body anymore.

  'See these?' The doctor pointed at various light and dark shades on the X-rays. 'Multiple fractures to the finger bones. To get that normally you'd expect the hands to be a bloody pulp. Run over by a steam roller or something like that. But he's only got bruises. OK, they're nasty bruises, but not life-threatening. Then there's this.' He pulled down the first lot of X-rays and put up some fresh ones. 'Both his femurs are cracked in several places. His tibia and fibula too. And here.' Another set of prints. 'Ribs are a mess, I think I counted one that hasn't got a fracture in it.'

  McLean winced, feeling the pain. 'So he was in a fight?'

  'No, not a fight. That would imply some degree of fairness. He was attacked, but he wouldn't have been in any position to fight back. Advanced osteoporosis. His bones are like porcelain. They shatter at the lightest touch. It wouldn't have taken much to kill him. I'm guessing a rib shard punctured his lungs and he drowned in his own blood.'

  McLean looked back at the dead man lying on the table. 'But he was a train driver. How could he do a job like that with his bones in that condition?'

  'I suspect very carefully,' Cadwallader said. 'Though I doubt he'd have been able to keep it secret for much longer.'

  The pathologist returned to his subject, and McLean took up his least favourite position as he watched the post mortem being undertaken. Tracy succeeded in lifting some partial fingerprints from the bruising around the man's neck, and then together they opened him up.

  'Ah, as I suspected,' Cadwallader said after too many long minutes of unpleasant squelching noises. 'The fourth rib, oh and the fifth too. Both on the right, straight into the lung. And on the left, just the fifth. His heart's not in very good shape either. It might well have given out before he had time to drown.'

  Once it was all over, and Tracey was busy sewing David Brown back together again, McLean followed Cadwallader back to his little office.

  'So what's the verdict, Angus?'

  'He was beaten up, probably by someone large; those prints suggest fat fingers. Normally you'd expect a man of his age and weight to survive, but with his weak bones and heart, well he could have just collapsed at any time. And he was a train driver, you say?' McLean nodded. 'Then I think we've had a lucky break.'

  'But not lucky for him.'

  'No.' Cadwallader fell silent for a moment, then seemed to remember something. 'Oh, you were right, by the way.'

  'I was? What about?'

  'That suicide case, Andrews. I went over the body again, and found minute traces of blood and skin under his fingernails. He'd scrubbed them pretty thoroughly, rubbed the skin raw in places, but his father told me he was always fastidious about his cleanliness. Which makes it rather odd that he should choose such a messy way to commit suicide.'

  'Any idea whose blood and skin it was?'

  'There was scarcely enough for a basic analysis, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't his own. I can send it off to the labs for a DNA test if you want. I assume you think you already know whose it is.'

  McLean nodded, but he didn't much like the idea of being right.

  *

  Evening was falling fast by the time he made it back to the station. Another day gone in a flurry of confusing events. Another day and no closer to finding Chloe, or Alison's killer. Or the mysterious sixth man. At least McReadie was locked up and going nowhere; that was something

  'Ah, inspector. The chief super wants a word.' Bill, the duty sergeant buzzed him through to the back of the station.

  'Did she say what it was about?'

  'No, just that it was urgent.'

  McLean hurried along the winding corridors, wondering what was up. He knocked on the doorframe of the superintendent's office with a slightly anxious feeling. McIntyre looked up from whatever it was she was doing and beckoned him in.

  'I've just had Detective Chief Superintendent Jamieson from Glasgow Central and West Division on the phone, Tony. It seems your young protégé DC MacBride sent him some pretty pictures to look at, and he was rather anxious to know where they'd come from.'

  Glasgow, not Aberdeen. McLean heaved a sigh of relief. 'I take it he recognised them, ma'am.'

  'Yes, he did. They were from a number of cases spread back over the past three years. You might remember reading about the latest round of ice cream wars.'

  McLean did, only it wasn't ice cream that the hard men of Glasgow were killing each other over. 'How many different crime scenes were there?'

  'He didn't say, but I think we can safely assume that whoever posted those pictures to the internet had access to the Glasgow SOC offices during that period. And since a certain Emma Baird was in training in Aberdeen then, Chief Inspector Duguid has been forced to release her, with a grovelling apology.'

  Oh shit. He'd done it again. Trampling over another detective's case and solving it for them.

  'He's only partly mollified by the fact that the real culprit is now sitting in the cell Miss Baird so recently vacated.'

  'I'm sorry, ma'am. I owed it to her to investigate the matter thoroughly.'

  'Even after taking her out to dinner?' McIntyre raised an eyebrow. 'Don't get me wrong, Tony. I think you're a very good detective, but if you keep on treading on people's toes, then you'll stay an inspector for the rest of your career.'

  There were worse things that could happen. He wasn't one for scrabbling up the greasy pole over the backs and heads of others. All he really wanted was to catch the bad guys.

  'I'll bear that in mind, ma'am.'

  'You do that, Tony. And keep out of Charles Duguid's way for a day or two, eh? He's hopping mad.'

  *

  McLean hurried through the station to his office, hoping to avoid anyone who would distract him. He needed to get the latest information out of his head and down onto some paper before it all seeped out and was lost. There was a line of connection running between Okolo, Andrews, Dent and Brown. Each one had witnessed the previous one's death. He didn't want to think about how that tied in with what Madame Rose had said. There had to be a rational explanation, but the best he could come up with was that someone had manipulated these people, first to kill and then to kill themselves. Was that even possible? And if so, who had killed Brown and dumped him in the cul-de-sac, and where were they now? And who had Brown killed?

  A letter waited for him, placed atop the latest pile of paperwork on his desk. He picked it up, noticing the handwritten address, the logo and name of Carstairs Weddell, Solicitors and Notaries Public. It contained a single sheet of paper, thick and covered with spidery writing, hasty and difficult to read. Turning it over, he saw a signature, and below it, the printed name Jonas Carstairs QC. He squeezed in behind his desk and turned on the lamp the better to read.

  My Dear Anthony,

  If you are reading this letter, then I am dead, and the sins of my youth have finally caught up with me. I cannot excuse what I did; it was an execrable crime for which I will no doubt burn in hell. But I can try to explain, and perhaps do something to try and make amends.

  I knew Barny Smythe well. We were at school together and both
went up to Edinburgh at the same time. That is where I met Buchan Stewart, Bertie Farquhar and Toby Johnson. Then when the war started we all signed up together, and ended up being posted out to West Africa. We were an intelligence outfit, tasked with preventing Hitler from gaining information that would be useful to him, and we were quite successful in that. But war changes a man, and we saw things in Africa that no one should ever have to witness.

  I am making excuses for myself, but there can be no excusing what we did when we returned home in forty-five. That poor young girl took so long to die; I still hear her screams at night. And now her remains have been discovered, poor Barny is murdered and Buchan too. The beast will come for me next. I can feel it drawing ever closer. Once I am gone, there will only be one of us left, the one who started it all.

  I cannot name him; that would betray an oath that binds far more than my honour. But you know him, Tony. And he knows you, the man we all looked up to, who saved our lives more than once during the war and who seduced us all into carrying out our folly. He will gather younger fools around him and try his mad ritual again. It is the only way he can protect himself. I fear another innocent soul will be lost in the process. But if he fails, then that which we trapped will be free to roam, free to kill. It lives in violence, that is all it knows.

  There were a number of messages your grandmother asked me to pass on to you. Things she didn't want you to know whilst she was still alive. Things she found deeply embarrassing, hurtful, even shaming, although in truth she was never to blame. This letter is not the place for them; I will speak to you of them face to face, or they will go with me to my grave. They seemed important once, but in truth they are of small consequence. You are plainly not the man she feared you might become, so it may be best if I leave it at that.

  Today I have changed my will, leaving all my personal wealth to you. Please understand this is not an attempt to salve my conscience. I am damned and I know it. But you can undo what myself, Barny and the others did and this is the only thing I can do from beyond the grave to help.