What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  The chief superintendent narrowed her gaze for a moment, as if trying to work out whether or not he was taking the piss. McLean kept his best poker face on, and she finally relented.

  ‘Well, this has been fun, hasn’t it?’ She put her barely touched mug of coffee down and stood up in one fluid motion, bending perhaps a little closer to McLean than would be considered polite at his end of town. One hand briefly flirted with touching his knee, but then she pulled away, giving him space to stand as well.

  ‘I’ll get the Slater investigation into shape by the end of the day,’ he said, receiving a brief nod before Elmwood retreated to her desk. McLean let himself out, the tension falling from his shoulders as he walked the short route back to his own office. He wasn’t so foolish as to believe he was off the hook though; the leopard didn’t change its spots that easily, and neither did the tiger. Should he have confronted her about Fielding there and then? No, it was too soon. There was too much of their past history he hadn’t uncovered yet, most of all the reason the chief superintendent seemed keen to keep it a secret.

  He paused at his door, pulled his phone out and navigated through the screens until he found the text from Dalgliesh. A name, a number, answers. But he couldn’t make that call here, in the building and not more than a dozen swift strides from the woman he wanted to talk about. Shoving the phone away again, he set off, unsure exactly how much distance would ever be safe.

  In the end, the station car park had to suffice. McLean sat in Emma’s little Renault ZOE, stared sightlessly out of the windscreen, the chief superintendent’s words going round and round in his mind. He could understand them shutting down the Cecily Slater case; it was going nowhere after all, and showed little sign of any sudden breakthrough. No, it was the excuse of budgetary reasons that still rang false with him. It was stupid, really. If Elmwood had simply said close it down, he’d have reluctantly complied. But she had to go and over-explain it, that was how he knew it was a lie, and he couldn’t help but see the invisible hand behind the order. He’d spooked Lord Bairnfather at the reception and annoyed Tommy Fielding earlier that same day, then added to his tally by upsetting Elmwood as well. Hardly surprising he was being punished. A black mark against his record of successful investigations, and a ninety-year-old woman whose killers would walk free.

  Or was there something more sinister at play? A thread that turned a series of unlikely coincidences into something more deliberate?

  He retrieved his phone from his pocket and flicked through the screens until he found what he was looking for. He’d been expecting to have to copy the number over, perhaps even writing it down on a scrap of paper first, but the phone seemed to know what it was doing better than he did, highlighting the line in the text from Jo Dalgliesh. Clever little thing. He tapped it, and the ring tone echoed through the empty car even as he held the handset up to his ear.

  ‘Martin residence, who’s speaking?’ A woman’s voice, sounding a little tired if he was any judge. Although that might have been the echo effect of the hands-free system.

  ‘Oh, hello. This is Detective Inspector Tony McLean, from Edinburgh CID. I was wondering if I might speak to Mr Simon Martin?’

  A moment’s silence, followed by the scratchy crumpling noise of a handset being pressed against material to mute what was being said. Presumably a woolly jumper, since it wasn’t particularly effective. McLean could distinctly hear the woman’s voice shout ‘Simon? It’s the police. Some detective from local CID? I don’t know, do I?’ The scratchy noise ceased, and the woman’s voice came back clear again. ‘He’s on his way.’ Then silence.

  McLean stared out the windscreen at the empty car park. He should probably switch off hands free just in case. He’d barely tapped the screen before a voice sounded, only in the handset this time.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Martin? I’m sorry to bother you. It’s Detective Inspector McLean here. From Edinburgh CID. Well, Specialist Crime, but that’s just another name for the same thing.’

  ‘Hah. It’s nice to hear some things never change. They do love messing around the department names, don’t they? Was there something you wanted, Detective Inspector? Only I don’t know if you realised, but I left the force a couple of decades ago. Retired completely last year.’

  ‘I do know that, sir. And I’m sorry to disturb you. I was just wondering if I might be able to ask you a few questions about Gail Elmwood.’

  If it hadn’t been for the icon on the dashboard screen indicating that a call was still in progress, McLean might have assumed Martin had hung up, such was the silence that followed. He waited it out, knowing that the longer the man stayed on the line, the greater the chance of his agreeing to talk.

  ‘That’s a name I’ve not heard in a while,’ Martin said finally. ‘A name I’d hoped never to hear again, if I’m being honest.’

  ‘I take it you’re not aware that she’s currently serving as chief superintendent based in Edinburgh, then.’

  Another silence, but shorter this time. ‘And let me guess, she’s making trouble? You a drinking man, McLean?’

  ‘I’m a detective inspector with twenty-five years’ experience, sir. What do you think?’

  Something like a chuckle echoed down the line at that, which was an improvement on the silence. ‘I like to go to my local of an evening. Gets me out of the house, gives Jean a bit of free time now she can’t send me off to work every day. Can’t manage it tonight, but this is your number, right? I’ll drop you a text in the next day or so. Buy me a drink, and you can explain to me why a time-served detective inspector wants to know about his boss’s past, and if you’re really lucky I might tell you what I know about her.’

  47

  Low grey clouds threatened rain and the wind whipped at the tops of the narrow conifer trees as McLean drove Emma’s little electric Renault through the gates of Mortonhall Crematorium. Beside him in the passenger seat, DS Harrison had spent the short journey from the police station furiously sending and receiving texts, presumably in an attempt to explain to DCI Ritchie why she wasn’t available for the next couple of hours. Kirsty would accept it, of course. Harrison had been the first plain clothes officer on the scene, and had led the early stages of the investigation. If anyone should be there to pay her last respects and apologies to the dead woman for their failure to bring her killers to justice, it was her.

  It had surprised him to learn that Cecily Slater was to be cremated; McLean had assumed there would be a large Bairnfather family crypt somewhere for her to be laid to rest alongside her illustrious ancestors, and a long drawn out funeral service in St Giles’s Cathedral. But then he remembered how she had lived her life, and the most likely reason she had fled Bairnfather Hall in the first place, as a seven-year-old girl. Perhaps ashes scattered somewhere peaceful would be preferable to an eternity in the company of her abusive father.

  Not many people had turned out to see the old lady off. Lord Bairnfather was there, of course, avoiding McLean’s eye. His estate manager, Charlie McPherson, had accompanied him, along with Tam Uist and his wife. A few other people waited in the cold car park for the previous funeral to finish, the large figure of Madame Rose among them.

  ‘Good morning, Tony. Janie,’ she said as she approached the car. ‘Thought you two might be here for this.’

  ‘I was senior investigating officer. Still am, technically, since the case hasn’t been closed. We try to show face at these things when it seems like the right thing to do. I have to admit I’m surprised to see you here. Did you know Cecily Slater well?’

  Rose shook her head. ‘Not well, no. She shunned society, didn’t much care for people really. I think the last time I spoke to her at any great length must have been in the sixties.’

  ‘But you’ve come to her funeral?’

  ‘Some ceremonies must be borne witness to. This is one. Will you accompany me inside?’ Madame Rose gestured toward
s the building, its doors now being opened for the mourners who had begun filing in like well-trained ants. On the other side, a different group would be making their way out, their short time slot over. Such was the business of death.

  Inside the crematorium was much as McLean remembered it from his last visit. How many years was it now since he’d said a final goodbye to his grandmother? The room was far too large for the congregation, which at least meant he could avoid Lord Bairnfather. There had been an ominous silence from that quarter since their brief conversation at the chief superintendent’s house, but McLean knew a reckoning was on the cards sooner or later.

  ‘I don’t think the Cecily Slater I knew would have liked such an ostentatious coffin,’ Madame Rose said, as they sat near the back and waited for the ceremony to start. ‘She was never one to make a fuss. That’s what made her so powerful.’

  It was an odd thing to say, even for Madame Rose. McLean hadn’t thought much about the coffin, sitting at the front of the chapel waiting for them. Sometimes coffins were brought in after everyone else, sometimes they were already there, and one looked pretty much the same as another, didn’t it? There was no time to ask what the medium had meant by her words, though. As the community celebrant stepped up to the lectern to speak, a last group of people hurried in and squeezed into the row beside them both.

  ‘Oh good. You made it,’ Rose whispered, and when McLean looked around to see who her friends were, the nearest one waved. Izzy DeVilliers had tidied herself up considerably since they’d spoken a few days earlier. Her hair was still a short-cropped, spiky red mess, but she wore a loose-fitting black cotton jacket over a simple, dark, ankle-length dress and plain white blouse. The transformation from the surly teenager was quite impressive.

  ‘Hi, Tony. Hey, Janie.’ She even smiled as if she were pleased to see him, although that might have been meant for Harrison. Then she was shushed by the person sitting beyond her. McLean nodded a quiet greeting and turned to face the front again, but not before seeing a tall, thin woman with straight grey hair that fell well past her shoulders. If he hadn’t seen her in photographs already, he would have known Mirriam Downham at once. The only thing that troubled him was that those photographs had been taken more than half a century earlier and she looked exactly the same.

  The service was mercifully short, overseen as it was by a community celebrant who had clearly only heard the name Cecily Slater a day or two before. McLean felt that familiar mix of horror and dread as the curtains drew together to hide the coffin on its way to the furnace. Was it really fifty years now since he’d watched his parents go that same way? Near enough as didn’t matter.

  Outside, the promised rain had arrived, albeit half-heartedly. Few people hung around to chat, heading straight to cars as swiftly as they could. Tam Uist came up and told them there was to be a wake at Bairnfather Hall.

  ‘His Lordship said to tell you. All who knew his late aunt are welcome,’ the farmer said, eyeing Madame Rose, Izzy DeVilliers and Mirriam Downham with a certain trepidation. To DS Harrison he gave a warm smile of recognition before trotting back to his lord and master.

  ‘I wouldn’t set foot in that house in a hundred years,’ Mirriam Downham said, the first words McLean had heard her speak. Quite unusually, Madame Rose had not yet introduced her.

  ‘Ms Downham, I presume?’ McLean said.

  ‘Doctor Downham, but it will do. And you are Anthony McLean, if I am not much mistaken. You have your grandmother’s eyes.’

  ‘I . . .’ There wasn’t much he could say to that. As far as he was aware, nobody had ever made the comparison before. ‘You knew her?’

  ‘Not well. We corresponded from time to time. And she supported the trust, for which I remain grateful. I understand you wanted to talk to me?’

  ‘I did, yes. About Cecily Slater, in fact.’ McLean held out his hands to catch the rain, growing ever more persistent. Behind them, the crematorium was already filling up for the next service. ‘This isn’t maybe the best place.’

  ‘Agreed. I need to arrange to collect Sissy’s ashes, first. They are to be scattered at Burntwoods, not placed in the Bairnfather mausoleum. She made that abundantly clear.’

  ‘Perhaps we could meet back at my place,’ Madame Rose suggested. ‘I’m sure you all have much to talk about.’

  Downham turned to look at the medium, her face utterly unreadable. The rain had damped her hair, making it hang even straighter, but she seemed quite unperturbed at getting wet.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Rose. Perhaps you could take young Isobel with you and I’ll meet you all there.’

  Tea at Madame Rose’s house was never much of a chore, especially if you didn’t mind being stared at by cats and surrounded by esoteric clutter. McLean couldn’t help thinking it was infinitely preferable to expensive canapés and booze at Bairnfather Hall. The medium had produced an enormous cake, and enough tea to drown in. After a damp drive across town, being in the warm and dry was a welcome change, too.

  They were all in the living room where McLean had first met Izzy DeVilliers. The young woman sat on the sofa next to Harrison as if they were old friends, and she seemed like a completely different person. It wasn’t just the funeral clothes, but her entire deportment, and it wasn’t hard to see the reason why she was behaving herself.

  Mirriam Downham sat close to the fire, as if she needed its elemental heat to survive. She held her cup and saucer in long-fingered hands, balanced elegantly in her lap, but had politely declined Madame Rose’s offer of cake. Beside her, on a low table, a small cardboard box contained the ashes of Cecily Slater. McLean had the impression that she wouldn’t let them out of her sight until they had been scattered in the grounds of Burntwoods. Possibly not even then.

  ‘I’m surprised that Lord Bairnfather didn’t object.’ He indicated the ashes with a slight nod of his head.

  Downham stared at him for a moment down her long, straight nose. It was like being back at his hated boarding school and facing up to Matron.

  ‘What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him,’ she said, then took a sip of her tea that was clearly intended to signal the end of that subject. McLean let it slide; there were more important questions to answer.

  ‘You said that Ms Slater made it clear she didn’t want to be buried in the family mausoleum. Might I ask when she told you this?’

  ‘I’ve known Sissy Slater almost all of her life. From the very first, she always said she wanted to be brought back to Burntwoods when she died. I suspect however that you mean to ask when last we spoke of such things.’ Downham made it sound like a foreign concept, as if she were more used to communicating through telepathy, or the reading of cards. ‘She called me about six months ago, I’d say. We didn’t speak often, but Sissy knew she didn’t have long left. She was anxious to put her affairs in order before the end. All of her affairs.’

  ‘There was no mention of it in her will.’ McLean tried to recall the salient details, buried deep in the case notes somewhere. There hadn’t been any instructions for dealing with her mortal remains, but then often those sorts of things weren’t covered.

  ‘You’ve seen it then, I take it?’ Downham’s face, not exactly filled with good cheer to begin with, took on a sour look.

  ‘It was reviewed as part of the investigation into her death. If anything had seemed amiss it would have been followed up, I’m sure.’ McLean made a mental note to dig out the relevant notes and go over them himself, and damn the chief superintendent’s order that the investigation be mothballed. ‘Is there something about the will that we might have overlooked, Dr Downham?’

  ‘I cannot say. I was never party to it. I only know Sissy meant to put things in order. Whether she managed or not, I have no idea, although the fact I had to personally intervene to obtain these . . .’ Downham gently patted the box of ashes ‘. . . might suggest that she was thwarted.’

  ‘A shame
then that her end came sooner than expected, and in such a horrible fashion,’ Madame Rose said.

  Downham turned her imperious stare on the medium. ‘Not at all, Rose. Sissy knew exactly when, where and how she would die. That was always part of her covenant. I would have thought you of all people would know that.’

  Madame Rose looked suitably chastised, something McLean wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before. From his brief encounter, he had already come to the conclusion that Mirriam Downham was not someone given to idle talk. She thought about what she was saying and who might hear before speaking her mind.

  ‘Her . . . covenant?’ he asked, ready to be told to mind his own business. Instead, Downham leaned forward in her seat and fixed him with a stare it would be difficult to break.

  ‘What do you know of the persecution of witches, Detective Inspector?’

  It was McLean’s turn to pause before answering.

  ‘I have to confess perhaps not as much as I should do. King James the Sixth and First had a bit of a thing for witchcraft when he came to power at the end of the sixteenth century, didn’t he? Witches coming from Denmark in sieves, stuff like that? We . . . by which I mean men and the establishment . . . spent the next hundred years or so persecuting perfectly innocent women, torturing confessions out of them and burning a fair few at the stake. Think I read somewhere that in Scotland we tended to strangle the witches first before burning them, unlike down south where they like to burn them alive. Could be wrong there, though.’

  Downham stared at him for a moment with those piercing black eyes that drilled right into his thoughts, her face blank until the faintest whisper of a smile ghosted across it.

  ‘A little cold and heartless, but actually that’s pretty much the gist of it. Always a power play, always the men keeping those uppity women in their place.’ She paused, placed her cup and saucer on the table beside Cecily Slater’s ashes. ‘Those uncounted poor innocents. Tortured, murdered, butchered, and all because they had the temerity to stand up to men. To be different.’