by James Oswald
He took the photograph down from the wall, flicked it over to see if there was anything written on the back of the frame. Only a neat stencilled mark showing the photo gallery who had done the work, their address a street long since bulldozed. It was a professional job, the back sealed with heavy tape. He could cut the photograph out, see if anything had been written on the back of that, but he couldn't really be bothered.
Turning the frame back over, he looked closely at the picture. In her twenties, his grandmother had been quite the looker. She sat between the two men, an arm draped around each shoulder, but she clearly had eyes only for William McLean. The other man was smiling, but there was a coldness in his eyes, a longing for something he couldn't have. Something he might be prepared to take by force. Or was that just being fanciful? McLean shrugged the thought away, pulled open the bin bag and dropped the picture in.
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Coming soon. Book Two of the Inspector McLean series: The Book of Souls.
Scroll down further for a sample chapter.
You can also read a series of short stories featuring McLean. Visit the DevilDog Publishing website for free downloads
About the Author
James began writing comic scripts because he couldn’t think of anything better to do. He has written Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thrillers and Crime novels, as well as a travel book about bicycling and innumerable short stories. Down the years he has held a bewildering number of jobs to support his writing habit, from building courses for international carriage driving competitions to creating web applications for agricultural research. Currently he farms 350 acres of North-East Fife, raising Highland Cattle and Romney Sheep. Writing now happens in the evenings. Or when it’s raining old ladies and sticks.
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Also by James Oswald
The Inspector McLean Novels
Natural Causes
The Book of Souls
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The Ballad of Sir Benfro
Dreamwalker
The Rose Cord
The Golden Cage
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Other Novels
Running Away
Jacob
Head
Abundance
One Good Deed
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Travel Writing
Pedalling Uphill Slowly
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The Book of Souls
1
Waves of pain smash through the nausea as she struggles awake. For a moment she can’t remember anything, not even her own name. She tries to move and instantly regrets it. Her arms and legs burn with cold fire. She would curl up against the agony, but something holds her back, her arms tied above her head, her legs stretched wide. Naked.
Realisation dawns slow, her brain waking from utter blackness. She was walking to the south town. Going to see Jo and the wild girls. Like she does every week. Stupid, stupid. She’d kick herself if her feet weren’t shackled. She’s so damned careful, so bloody clever most of the time. Streetwise, that’s her. Moving around the underworld like she was born to it. So how come some bastard pervert in a flash car can jump her like she’s some scared college kid on her first week away from home?
His face comes to her in an instant. Idiot smile and crooked, fag-stained teeth. Why can’t she remember his eyes? Just his mouth, half open, drool stringing down from the edges like that ugly dog daddy used to have. Falling in slow motion strings to pool on her exposed breasts.
The scream is weak in her dry throat as the memories burst through her pain. Struggling. Heavy weight pinning her down. The smiling man on top of her. Forcing himself into her. Toothy, mad grin but nothing in his eyes. Oh, she can remember then now. And helpless, so helpless. He has her completely in his control. Like daddy before she ran away.
Oh Christ, he’s going to come now, isn’t he. She tries to look away, hide inside herself like she did with daddy, but he grabs her face, pulls it round He has something with him, clenched in one hand. Perfume explodes in her face. A smell of pear drops and the little old lady in the sweet shop. Blackness numbing the pain and the terror. Waking to find him still there. Or was that a different time? The grin. Silent, painful thrusting. Thirst. Stupid, stupid. How long has she hidden, to be caught like this. How long has she been here? How many times has he raped her?
She whimpers, pulling against the chains. The pain is unbearable, like hot wires sawing through her brain. What has the bastard done to her? She tries to focus on the shiny new handcuffs around her wrists, the cast iron bedstead, the white painted brickwork that curves overhead.
‘Ah. You’re awake. Good.’
His voice cuts through the mess in her head, striking at a single point of pure fear. He even sounds like daddy now. Her eyes can hardly focus as he walks towards her, holding something heavy in one hand. A book? Has he been reading, watching her, waiting to have another go?
He leans over, a smiling, friendly face. The bedsprings creak as he sits beside her. Like a parent worrying over a sick child. Like daddy come to read her one of his special bedtime stories.
‘You slept a long time. This time.’ He reaches for her face, caresses her forehead and cheeks. She can’t drag her gaze away from his face, his smile, and his mad, dead eyes. She tries to recoil, but the chains hold her fast. Helpless. Vulnerable. Like a little child, too scared to fight against the wandering, pressing, intimate hands.
‘Wh… why?’ It is barely a whisper in her tight, dry throat. Christ but she’s thirsty. What she wouldn’t do for a drink.
‘Shhh.’ He puts one finger over her lips, presses down so that her head sinks into the pillow.
‘I want to read you a story.’
*
‘In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?’
Detective Inspector Anthony McLean stared out over the ranks of headstones towards a small knot of people clustered around a grave in the spattering rain. A sharp November wind blew off the North Sea, tugging at the thin grey hair of the priest, his head down in his prayer book. A brace of uniformed police officers shifted uncomfortably, like they would rather be anywhere else. A slim, red-haired woman struggled with her useless umbrella. Two scowling men dressed in the dirty green overalls of Aberdeen City Parks Department waited impatiently to one side. No family, of course. Not much of a turn-out for the deceased at all.
‘Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.’
McLean dug his hands deep into the pockets of his heavy overcoat and huddled against the cold that seeped into his bones. Low clouds scudded across the sky, blanking out what little weak afternoon sun could hope to reach this far north. Dreich was the word. It matched his mood.
‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer.’
He tuned out the words, looking around the cemetery. Flowers dotted here and there, even the odd photograph. The headstones glistened wetly, granite grey like the city that spawned them. Just the occasional angel to break the monotony. What the hell was he doing here?
‘Suffer us not, at our last hour, through any pains of death, to fall from thee.’
The council workers hoisted the cheap wooden coffin up on thick canvas straps, kicking aside the scaffold planks it had been resting on before dropping it heavily into the hole. No elegant sashes and six young men to lower the bastard to his last resting place. He deserved nothing more than he was getting.
‘In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother…’ The priest paused, then scrabbled around in his prayer book, coming up with a small scrap of paper. He peered at it myopic
ally before the wind whipped it from his arthritic fingers and away over the graveyard. ‘…Our brother Donald Anderson and we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
McLean couldn’t suppress the smile that slid across his face at the priest’s mistake, but it was short-lived. He felt no satisfaction, no closure. Turning away from the scene, he walked to his car. It was a long drive back to Edinburgh; might as well get started. Not like there was going to be a wake or anything.
‘Might I ask what your interest in Anderson is?’
McLean turned at the voice, seeing the woman with the useless umbrella standing a couple of paces away. She was slightly shorter than him, her face pale and freckled, its elfin shape exaggerated by the way the rain had plastered her short hair across her scalp.
‘Might I ask yours?’
‘Detective Sergeant Ritchie, Grampian Police.’ She fumbled in the large bag slung over one shoulder and pulled out her warrant card. McLean didn’t even bother looking at it. He probably should have told Aberdeen Headquarters he was coming, but then they’d have escorted him everywhere, dragged him down the pub to celebrate Anderson’s death.
‘McLean,’ he said. ‘Lothian and Borders.’
‘You’re a fair bit off your patch, Inspector.’ So she knew of him, even if she didn’t recognise his face.
‘I put Anderson away. Just wanted to make sure he was gone for good.’
‘Aye, well. I can understand that.’
The two uniformed officers trudged past, the collars of their black fleeces turned up, yellow fluorescent jackets pulled tight against the wind. Behind them, the priest looked as if he was going to hang around and say something, then thought better of it. McLean stared back towards the grave where a mini digger was dumping heavy earth onto the coffin. ‘How does a piece of shit like Anderson end up being buried in a place like this?’
‘Plot was bought and paid for, apparently. Some solicitor from Edinburgh sorted it all out. Seems Anderson had money. Plots here aren’t cheap.’
‘What about the man who killed him?’
Ritchie didn’t answer straight away. McLean didn’t know her, couldn’t read the expression on her face. She looked young for a DS, boyish even with her short-cropped hair and businesslike suit, but she held his gaze as if to say his seniority didn’t intimidate her.
‘Harry Rugg. Anderson’s cell-mate in Peterhead. They were both on kitchen duty. Rugg took a carving knife and stabbed Anderson in the heart.’
‘So I heard. Any chance of having a word with him?’
Ritchie wiped wet hair out of her eyes. ‘I could talk to DCI Reid for you. He’s in charge. But I doubt he’d let another force anywhere near. What do you want to ask him anyway?’
‘Ask? Nothing. I just wanted to say thanks.’
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The Book of Souls will be published soon. If you would like to be notified when it is available, please sign up for my newsletter at http://www.devildog.co.uk
Table of Contents
Title Page
Cover
Natural Causes
Published by DevilDog Publishing, 2012
Table of Contents
Beginning
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Middle
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
End
About the Author
Free sample of The Book of Souls