What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  40

  It had been a while since McLean had visited Madame Rose at her house on Leith Walk. It wasn’t as if he had been consciously avoiding her, or at least that was what he told himself. He didn’t mind her company, if in small doses. But more often than not he preferred solitude to being swept into her powerful orbit.

  The house seemed unchanged, much as it had probably been unchanged in over a century. A parking space became available opposite her front gate as he pulled into the street and approached it. No charging stations here, but Emma’s little Renault still had enough electricity in it to take him to Fife, should madness possess him. Plenty to get home later.

  As he crossed the small courtyard and climbed the stone steps to the door, he felt a cold stare on his neck. Turning, he saw a black cat sitting on the wall, motionless as a statue until it realised it had been seen, at which point it started to lick a nonchalant paw. When he turned back, the door was already open.

  ‘Tony, how lovely to see you. Do come in, come in.’ Madame Rose beckoned him inside. McLean allowed himself to be led through the large hall and then up the stairs to the first floor. The last time he’d been in the living room here it had been to see an old gypsy woman and a young Syrian refugee. He briefly wondered what had become of them. Good things, he hoped.

  ‘Settle yourself in, why don’t you? I’ll see about some tea.’ Rose barely did more than open the living room door before hurrying off, leaving McLean to his own devices.

  The room was large, with an extravagantly high ceiling, but like everywhere else in Madame Rose’s house, it was cluttered with a bizarre collection of what he could only describe as stuff. Her business card described her as a fortune teller and tarot reader, but also a dealer in occult curios, and this was clearly where most of them ended up being stored until some equally eccentric buyer could be found for them. Glass-fronted bookcases lined three walls, some filled with books, others with things McLean had no ready name for. At least the middle of the room was only filled with overlarge furniture. Two figures sat on a sofa with their backs to him; a third emerged from the depths of a large, leather, wing-backed chair that had been angled towards the fire.

  ‘Tony. Wondered when you were going to show up.’ Unexpected, but not unwelcome, Amanda Parsons came up and gave him a hug. By the time she released him, the other two people had stood up to greet him too. One he’d been working with until quite late in the day already, which meant the other one must be Izzy DeVilliers.

  McLean hadn’t really known what to expect, but the woman who stared at him through narrowed eyes was not it. She was young, he knew. Not yet nineteen if the dossier he’d scanned was up to date. A child of the twenty-first century. And yet those eyes had seen far more than her short life should have allowed. She was dressed in a mess of loose-fitting casual gear that made her look like a refugee from the Greenham Common protest camps. Her hair was a vivid shade of red, and if she’d paid to have it cut she should probably be looking for a refund. He guessed she’d probably done it herself with the first pair of kitchen scissors she’d managed to get her hands on. Either that or she’d shaved her head a month past and was now letting it grow out. The only thing missing from her uniform was any sign of tattoos, which was hardly surprising given how little of her skin was uncovered. Neither did she have any piercings, which was the thing he found most surprising. A nose stud seemed to be almost compulsory these days.

  ‘Izzy, this is the boss. Detective Inspector McLean.’ Harrison confirmed his suspicion of her identity, not that there had been any uncertainty.

  ‘Ms DeVilliers. Thank you for agreeing to meet.’ He held out a hand to shake, but she made no move to reciprocate so he let it drop back down again.

  ‘Tea, anyone? Or would you prefer something a little stronger?’ Madame Rose bustled in through the door at precisely the right moment to defuse the awkwardness. Izzy’s intense and uncomfortable stare slid off McLean like a bucket of cold water and latched on to the medium. Its unfriendliness softened a little, but didn’t disappear entirely.

  ‘I’m driving, so tea’s fine for me, thanks,’ McLean said. Madame Rose stepped past him, carrying an enormous tray laden with teapot, cups, a jug of milk, bowl of sugar, plate heaped high with home-baked biscuits, and an enormous chocolate cake. Despite what must have been a considerable weight, she hefted the whole thing with little obvious effort, weaving an intricate path through the furniture until she reached a suitably clear table and set the tray down.

  ‘Tea it is, then.’ Madame Rose smiled at everyone in the room, quite deliberately choosing to ignore the tension boiling off Izzy. ‘Let’s all sit down and have a nice wee chat.’

  It didn’t take McLean long to realise that he was the problem. Izzy sat on the smaller of the two sofas, close to DC Harrison, her entire posture defensive. Manda Parsons had retreated back to her comfortable armchair by the fire, leaving him and Madame Rose the larger sofa. He’d tried a little small talk to reduce the tension, but that clearly wasn’t going to work on the young woman. Having heard her story from others, he could understand why.

  ‘Did Janie explain why I wanted to talk to you?’ he asked, after his comments on the Edinburgh music scene had been met with stony silence. Harrison started to open her mouth to reply, but stopped herself just in time.

  ‘Something about the two twats who tried to jump me on the Royal Mile?’ Izzy smiled at the memory, an improvement over her habitual scowl, albeit short-lived.

  ‘You reckon they’d been sent by Tommy Fielding. Why did you think that?’

  ‘Duh. Because nobody else would try and drag me into a side street for a laugh, would they?’

  McLean noticed she said ‘side street’ and not ‘close’. Izzy’s accent was English, and while she was trying to sound like she’d lived her life on the wrong side of the tracks, the posh slipped through occasionally.

  ‘Did they say anything when they grabbed you?’

  ‘Don’t really remember, do I? Too busy fighting for my life.’

  ‘Seems you made quite a good accounting for yourself. The way I hear it, Christopher Allan will likely always walk with a limp, and the other one, Brian Galloway? Well, he won’t be walking anywhere ever again.’

  Izzy tensed at the insinuation she might have been responsible for his death, and McLean mentally kicked himself for being knocked off course by her attitude. Had this been a formal interview at the station, he would have been much better prepared and the setting would have kept him on track.

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything other than defending yourself. There’s no suggestion that Galloway’s death had anything to do with his injuries. Of the two of them, he had the least damage. Although I’d have thought the broken fingers would have made the reunion tour a bit tricky.’

  That got Izzy’s attention, so clearly Harrison hadn’t told her everything. ‘Reunion tour?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye, did you not know? Brian Galloway was lead singer in a band called the Idle Lunatics. You’re probably a bit young to remember them.’

  ‘Idle . . . ?’ Izzy’s eyes widened. ‘That was Mad Bastard? No fucking way.’

  ‘Isobel, dear.’ Madame Rose sat up straighter as the young woman swore. Izzy half shrugged by way of apology.

  ‘For real? I got jumped by an ageing rock star? That’s so cool.’

  McLean could think of other words to describe it, but he decided not to say so. ‘Putting that to one side, there’s nothing that happened that directly links them to Fielding, right?’

  Izzy’s eyes narrowed again, her lips pursing. McLean could see the angry tirade coming, raised both hands to stop it before it could start.

  ‘I’m not trying to defend him, Izzy. Quite the opposite. But I need facts, not conjecture, however well founded it is.’

  That seemed to mollify her, at least a little. She crossed her arms and hunched forward like a sulking teenager.
Which, McLean supposed, was what she was.

  ‘OK. Perhaps we can go back a bit further. You were part of the group of women who started protesting outside the Scotston Hotel a while back, right?’

  Izzy waggled her head from side to side a little. ‘Part of’s maybe a bit strong. I only went to give my old roomie Jen a bit of moral support. Edinburgh’s a nicer place to be than London these days and I’m trying to get a place at the uni.’

  As far as McLean was aware, and judging by the number of fresh-faced young students wandering around the city centre gawping at the sights, the new year had already started. He let it go for now. Izzy didn’t really have to justify why she was in town.

  ‘How did you find out about Fielding, then? Did this . . . Jen call you?’

  ‘Christ, what planet are you living on? Janie said you were a bit old-fashioned, but I had no idea.’

  McLean couldn’t help looking at Harrison, as she was sitting on the sofa right beside Izzy. She wouldn’t meet his eye. On the other hand, it was probably fair comment.

  ‘OK, so you know about Fielding because he’s a misogynist creep who runs fathers’ rights campaigns and regularly defends men accused of all manner of horrible crimes against women. That close?’

  ‘Not even by a whisker. You make him sound like some kind of naughty schoolboy when he’s responsible for most of the far right radicalisation of the past decade. You think he’s just a sexist pig, but he’s far worse than that. White supremacist trash. He’s a domestic terrorist in a smart suit. Part of a group of people systematically undermining our society, and people like you let him.’

  Put like that, McLean could understand why Izzy didn’t trust him. But her allegations went a lot further than what he knew of Tommy Fielding, tipping over into the realms of fantasy, perhaps.

  ‘What makes you think he’s that much of an extremist?’

  Izzy rolled her eyes and slumped back into the sofa. ‘Oh, come on. Please. You don’t know about his online hate mobs? His gangs of enforcers? He even calls himself a modern-age Witch Finder General, for fuck’s sake. That’s his user ID, Witchfinder underscore General.’

  Madame Rose tutted gently under her breath at the coarse language, but McLean was more concerned with the allegations. ‘Are we talking about the same man here? Tommy Fielding, QC. One of the country’s leading lawyers specialising in divorce and family law?’

  ‘Is there an echo in here?’ Izzy threw her hands up. ‘Course I’m talking about him. That’s his pretty face for the papers. Dig a little deeper into 8kun and some of the dark web forums, why don’t you? Haven’t you got a department of teenagers who sniff all this alt-right shit out for you? He’s literal slime. Incel-king. I’d throw away my boots if I stepped in him by accident.’

  ‘You have evidence of this?’ McLean knew it was the wrong thing to say even before the question slipped out.

  ‘Sure. He’s that open about it you’ve arrested him already and broken up his entire organisation. Oh, hang on. No. You’re too busy arresting us when we try to do something about him and his kind.’

  ‘You were let go with a caution, but I take your point. The problem is, for all you say Fielding’s a nasty piece of work who sets grown men on to young women who cross him, we don’t have any actual evidence to arrest him.’ McLean leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs in an attempt to appear less intimidating. ‘I’d suggest you lodge a formal complaint against the two who attacked you, but given they both claimed to have fallen down some stairs, and then one of them died shortly afterwards, that might be a bit counterproductive. If you can give us something better to link Fielding with the kind of crimes you’ve mentioned, then at least I can pass that information on to the NCA.’

  Izzy was still defensive, but she seemed to consider his words.

  ‘I don’t have anything, but you could talk to Mirriam. She’ll know more. That’s why the Burntwoods crowd were protesting Fielding’s conference, after all.’

  An eerie silence fell on the room. Harrison’s head snapped up at Izzy’s last words and she stared at McLean for confirmation of what they had both heard.

  ‘Did you say Burntwoods?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. Mirriam Downham and her merry band of witches. You know them?’

  ‘I know them,’ Madame Rose said. ‘But I doubt many others do. The Downham Trust, of course. Their refuges are all over the place. And such an indictment of society that they are needed so much. But Burntwoods? I don’t think there’s many know it now.’

  ‘Actually, it’s come up in one of our recent investigations. So anything you can tell me about the place would be very helpful indeed. I was hoping maybe to pay it a visit soon.’

  ‘Good luck with that. You’d never even find the front gates.’ Izzy smirked as she spoke, making the words sound overly sarcastic. She tipped her head at Harrison. ‘She might, though. And they’ll probably let me back in if I ask nicely.’

  McLean looked at Madame Rose for an explanation, aware that he wasn’t going to get any sense out of Izzy. The medium shrugged. ‘I’m afraid Lady Isobel is quite correct. No man can enter the grounds of Burntwoods House uninvited.’

  It sounded like the mystic mumbo jumbo McLean had become used to from Rose, and he knew better than to press the point. ‘I would like to speak to this Mirriam Downham if I can.’

  ‘Of course. I will reach out to her.’ Madame Rose made it sound like some arcane ritual. ‘And if she’s in Edinburgh anyway, then I’m sure she will come to you.’

  41

  ‘Not sleeping again, Tony?’

  McLean looked up from his desk to see Detective Superintendent McIntyre standing in the open doorway. A couple of days on from his meeting with Izzy DeVilliers and he was still waiting for an update. He’d come in early, dawn still little but a threat, in order to get some quiet time to plough through the ever-growing paperwork and let his thoughts come together. So far he’d succeeded at the first, but the second eluded him. Too many different cases all banging up against one another, and still a frustrating lack of progress in tracking down the killers of Cecily Slater.

  ‘There’s a post-mortem I need to attend later this morning to keep our illustrious leader happy. Thought I’d get ahead with the paperwork before heading down to the mortuary.’

  McIntyre cocked her head to one side. ‘What have you done to upset Gail? More to the point, what’s she done to upset you? “Illustrious leader” indeed.’

  ‘I’m maybe being a bit unfair. Guess I don’t much like being the centre of attention.’ McLean pointed to the small conference table and the coffee maker in the corner. ‘You want a coffee?’

  ‘Aye. Thanks.’ McIntyre followed him across the room, pulled out a chair and sat down. McLean set a mug in front of her and took a seat himself.

  ‘Sorry. Someone ate all the biscuits.’

  ‘Someone?’ McIntyre raised an eyebrow. She was going quite grey now, McLean couldn’t help but notice. Not trying to hide her age.

  ‘OK. There never were any biscuits. I take it this isn’t a social call, or you’d have brought some with you.’

  ‘No, it’s not, sadly. There’s never time for simply chatting, catching up on what everyone’s doing, bringing insights to other people’s cases. We’re all too busy running just to stand still these days.’

  ‘I like to tell myself it was always like this, but we only remember the few times it wasn’t.’ McLean paused to take a sip from his mug. This early in the day the coffee was fresh, although still not as good as the stuff Grumpy Bob brewed down in the basement. ‘When do they want the investigation wrapped up by?’

  ‘Am I that transparent?’ McIntyre gave him a half-smile, too weary for a whole one. ‘End of the week. If there’s nothing new by then, it gets written up and sent for review. We need to reallocate staff, especially all these fresh-faced new DCs. They need to get a bit more exper
ience in the field. Don’t want them disillusioned before they’ve even started.’

  ‘True enough. I’m just glad to see some new faces at all. Think they’ll work out OK. Even if the ratio’s getting a bit skewed now.’

  ‘Ratio . . . ?’ McIntyre frowned for a moment, then understood. ‘Ah, yes. Is it a problem?’

  ‘Why would it be? Male or female makes no difference to me. It’s how they do the job that matters. Just need to keep an eye on things. Be aware of the potential, as it were.’

  ‘Indeed.’ McIntyre savoured her coffee for a moment, clearly steeling herself to some unpleasant task. Given she’d already delivered the news about the murder investigation being put on ice, McLean had a suspicion he knew what it would be.

  ‘They’re going to give the vacant DCI post to Kirsty,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Congratulations to her. She deserves it. Does she want this office, too? It’s way too big for me.’ And horribly close to the chief superintendent down the corridor.

  ‘You’re not angry about it, then?’

  McLean looked at the detective superintendent in genuine bafflement. ‘Why would I be? You know I never wanted to be DCI, Jayne. I was bumped into it when we had that nonsense with Forrester and his son. Detective Inspector is fine for me. It’s not like I need the pay rise.’

  That got a wry smile from McIntyre, albeit short-lived. ‘That’s good, because none of us are getting one. Kirsty’s promotion hasn’t been announced yet, so keep it to yourself for now. Gail’s having a reception at her house in Stockbridge. She’ll tell everyone there. All the senior officers are . . . I was going to say invited, but that’s not going to work with you, is it?’

  McLean shrugged, but said nothing.

  ‘Call it a three-line whip, then. Everyone ranked Inspector or above will be there, plain clothes and uniform. I know it’s a bit unorthodox, but apparently it’s how she used to do things in the Met. Helen will send you the details, but I need you to promise me you’ll be there. Can you manage that?’