What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  McLean found himself warming to the cleaner. It could have been an act, but her no-nonsense attitude felt sincere. ‘Could you go over this morning’s routine for me, please? What time did you start?’

  ‘I was in the building at six. The Simpsons live on the top floor and I had to do them first. Dolly’s off sick. She’s one of the other cleaners, Dolores O’Brien, if you can believe that. So I was covering for her too. Mr Fielding’s gone to his work by half eight. Well, normally he would be. So I was probably in there around then.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice anything unusual?’

  ‘Aye, well. He’s normally quite tidy. Puts stuff away and loads the dishwasher. He must’ve had a visitor round ’cause there was two wine glasses on the coffee table, and the bottle was lying on the floor empty. The sofa cushions was all over the place, too. If you asked me I’d’ve said he’d had a woman up there. Only if that was the case, why would he . . .’ Naismith trailed off, her imagination finally catching up with her.

  ‘But you tidied up anyway,’ McLean said.

  ‘Aye, that’s my job. I usually start in the kitchen and work my way round the living space. Y’know how it’s all open plan ’cept the bedroom.’

  McLean nodded that he did, even though it hadn’t really been a question.

  ‘Well, that’s what I did. Left the stuff on his desk ’cause that’s no business o’ mine. Straightened up the living room, put the cushions back, loaded the dishwasher and put it on. That’s when I went into the bedroom, and, well, you know what happened next.’

  ‘Did you notice anything unusual in the room?’ McLean asked. ‘Aside from the obvious, that is.’

  ‘Don’t ask much, do you, Inspector? A grown man, naked as the day and lying dead on his bed with a tie around his neck? I really don’t think I saw anything else at all. Could have been a brass band playing in the corner and I’d probably have missed it.’

  McLean had to concede that. She was a cleaner, and even if she’d seen and dealt with dead bodies before, it would still have been a shock. ‘So what did you do next? I mean, did you call 999 straight away? Did you use your own phone or the house phone?’

  Naismith narrowed her eyes in thought for a moment. ‘I used my own phone. Called 999 like you say. Then I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water. My heart was going a hundred mile an hour.’

  ‘And you waited there, in the kitchen, until the first police officer arrived? You didn’t go back for another look?’

  This time Naismith’s face took on a pained expression for a moment, as if some momentous internal struggle were ongoing. McLean left her the time she needed.

  ‘Aye, well. You know how it is. I’d seen him, like I said. Knew he was dead. But what if he wasn’t, aye? What if he was just unconscious? Maybe I could help him. I mean, I was a care nurse, I know what to do, right? So, aye. I went back in. But soon as I saw him there, I knew. Like, I’d known before but your mind kind of goes blank and then your brain starts filling in the pieces. And you wonder, did I really see that? And what if this? Aye?’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Ms Naismith. You haven’t done anything wrong. All I’m trying to do is put the pieces together and work out what happened to Mr Fielding.’

  ‘Well if you ask me he tried to wank while choking himself and it all went wrong. Stupid sod. That’s two flats in that building I’ll no’ be cleaning again.’

  ‘Two? You cleaned the flat across the hall?’

  ‘Aye. No’ as often as Mr Fielding’s place, but he’d ask me to do it every once in a while. When he had new tenants in.’

  McLean considered the information and whether he should pass it on to the NCA. Chances were they already knew, and hadn’t thought to tell him. So much for all this liaison work Elmwood was supposedly doing.

  ‘Shame really,’ Ms Naismith continued, talking to herself as much as McLean. ‘Neither of them were all that much work, and the pay was good.’

  ‘Not much work?’

  ‘Aye, the rented flat was empty most of the time, and Mr Fielding was very tidy himself.’ The cleaner frowned, recalling something. ‘There was that mess a few weeks back, though. Took some cleaning, I can tell you.’

  ‘Really? What was that?’

  ‘Well, Mr Fielding usually left all his clothes in the laundry basket to be washed. Only this one time he’d shoved everything in himself and overloaded the machine. Men, eh?’ She flicked her head back in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. ‘Took me ages to sort it all out, and some of the clothes were fair ruined. No idea what he’d been doing, but they reeked of smoke and stuff. Must’ve been at some bonfire or something, only it smelled horrible, y’ken? Like when someone sets fire to a carpet.’

  McLean hardly dared breathe, let alone ask the next question. ‘You wouldn’t know exactly when this was, would you?’

  Naismith scrunched her forehead into a frown, trying to think. ‘It was a while back. Before the bad weather set in, but I couldn’t say for sure.’

  ‘And the clothes?’

  ‘Och, they were ruined. I put them in a bin liner and chucked them out.’

  56

  Sitting in a cramped meeting room at the offices of MacFarlane and Dodds, Solicitors and Notaries Public, Harrison was beginning to wish she’d sent DC Stringer on his own to interview Anthony Swale and Jeremy Scobie. Admittedly her attitude to them was biased by their association with the men’s rights movement their dead friend ran, but their attitude towards her was condescending, verging on outright rude.

  ‘I’m not entirely sure how you came by the information, Detective Sergeant, but it’s hardly a crime to have a drink with someone in a bar, you know?’ Swale peered down his nose at her, head raised slightly as if being in the same room as a woman caused him physical pain.

  ‘Frankly I’m appalled that you would have someone of the standing of Tommy Fielding under surveillance at all. When did we become a police state?’ Scobie’s mock-affronted tone put Janie’s teeth on edge, but she swallowed her annoyance and plastered a fake smile on her face.

  ‘Do you deny being in the Walter Scott bar at the Scotston Hotel last night, Mr Swale?’ Janie didn’t let the man answer before turning her attention on his colleague. ‘And Mr Scobie, I can assure you Mr Fielding was not “under surveillance” as you put it. He is dead, though, and we need to trace his last movements.’

  Both men startled at her words, which suggested to her the news hadn’t reached them yet. Well, she didn’t feel sorry for breaking it to them this way. If they’d offered coffee she might have been in a better mood. Biscuits would have helped, too.

  ‘Dead?’ Scobie regained his composure quickest. ‘When?’

  ‘How?’ Swale asked.

  ‘He was found dead in his bed by the cleaner this morning. It appears not to be suspicious, but we’ll know for sure once the post-mortem has been done.’

  ‘How did he die?’ Swale asked again.

  Harrison put on her sweetest smile but didn’t answer. ‘So, gentlemen. We know that you both attended one of Mr Fielding’s little get-togethers at the Scotston yesterday evening. We know you both joined him for a drink in the bar afterwards. What time did you leave?’

  Scobie looked at Swale, something like worry passing between the two of them. ‘You know he had a lot of enemies?’ Swale said. ‘Those women who protested outside the hotel, for one thing. Heard you let them go after a bunch of them broke in and disturbed the peace. What if it was one of them did him in, eh? How will that look?’

  ‘Mr Swale, I can assure you that none of the women in question were anywhere near Mr Fielding at the time of his death. We don’t even think it was suspicious, but as you so rightly point out, he was a man who courted controversy and had, as you say, a lot of enemies. We would be remiss in our duties if we didn’t investigate, even if it turns out to have been nothing but natural causes. So again, p
lease. What time did you leave him?’ Janie wasn’t quite sure why she asked the question, given that she already knew the answer. Perhaps because it was making them uncomfortable.

  ‘I guess it must have been the back of nine? Quarter past maybe?’ Swale finally relented. He had begun playing with his fingers like a smoker in need of his fix, although Janie got no scent of either tobacco or vape off him.

  ‘Aye, Tommy got a text from someone. Said it was important and he needed to cut the evening short. Otherwise we’d have been there another hour, maybe.’ Scobie drummed his fingers on the table. ‘There’s a point. Who was he meeting? Have you spoken to them yet?’

  ‘Was it just the two of you in the bar, then?’ Janie asked, again ignoring the question put to her.

  ‘No, there was that young lad Tommy’d taken a shine to,’ Swale said. ‘Got kicked out by his girlfriend on some made-up assault charge. What’s his name again? Harry, Barry. No, Gary, that’s it.’

  Janie raised an eyebrow. ‘Gary who?’

  Scobie pulled out his phone and swiped the screen awake. Tapped at it a moment, then turned it so Janie could see. ‘Gary Tomlinson. Aye, he’s a good lad gone through a rough few weeks. Tommy was going to see about getting him visiting rights for his wee girl.’

  Swale looked sideways at his colleague as if surprised that he knew so much about the man. Janie took down Tomlinson’s number, frustrated that there was no address to go with it.

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled again, but only because she knew it unsettled the two men. ‘Now, have you any idea who it was Mr Fielding was meeting?’

  Swale shrugged. ‘He only said it was an old London contact recently moved up to Edinburgh. It was obviously very short notice, but important. And he didn’t want us there. We both walked up to the Lothian Road. I got a taxi home. Jeremy was going to do the same.’

  Janie nodded, as if this information was important and useful even though she’d only really wanted to speak to these two to find out the identity of the third man. She pushed her seat back and stood up.

  ‘Well, thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very helpful. And I’m sorry to be the one to break the news about your friend. As I said before, we don’t think his death is suspicious, but we need to trace his movements and speak to anyone who saw him yesterday. I’ll make sure you get an update as soon as we can confirm cause of death. And if you think of anything that might be helpful, please do let me or my colleague know.’

  DC Stringer understood the prompt, pulling a business card out of his jacket pocket and sliding it across the table. These two were far more likely to call a male officer than a female one. Not that Janie would have put much money on them calling anyone other than the most senior member of the Police Authority that they played golf with. Or possibly a friendly MSP. Well, she’d deal with the fallout from that when it happened. For now, she’d got what she wanted.

  ‘We need an address for this Gary Tomlinson,’ Janie said as they left the offices of MacFarlane and Dodds. Outside, the light was fading fast, even though it was barely mid-afternoon. Edinburgh was a lovely city in the summer, with its seemingly endless soft evening light and crisp, bright early mornings, but you paid for that in the winter when sometimes the sun hardly seemed to bother rising at all.

  ‘On it, boss,’ Stringer said, without a trace of irony. He had his phone out and was already tapping at the screen as they walked to the pool car.

  ‘Knock it off, Jay.’ Janie stopped mid-stride, forcing the detective constable to turn and face her.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Enough of the “on it boss” nonsense. Just because I got promoted. I’m a DS, not your boss.’

  Stringer paused a moment. ‘OK, Sarge.’ He couldn’t quite keep the grin off his face this time.

  ‘I give up.’ Janie unlocked the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘You got anything yet?’

  ‘Control centre are running the name. Not too common so we should hopefully get lucky.’ As he pulled his seat belt on, Stringer’s phone buzzed and he peered at the screen. ‘Here we go. Gareth Tomlinson. Twenty-six years old. Arrested for domestic violence three months ago, but the charges were later dropped. Sounds like our man. Address listed in West Pilton.’

  ‘Stick it in the Sat-Nav then. We’ll go see if he’s home yet.’ Janie started the car, shoved it in gear and pulled out of the parking space.

  ‘Shouldn’t we call him first? See if he’s home right now?’

  ‘And spoil the surprise?’ Janie shook her head. ‘Don’t think so.’

  The drive from the lawyers’ West End offices didn’t take long, and would have been even quicker had they not been diverted around roadworks at the Western General Hospital. Soon enough, Janie was cruising slowly along a potholed road, lined on both sides with council housing blocks, searching for the right number. Slightly better than Muirhouse to the north west, this part of the city was still not somewhere you would want to leave your car parked for long if you liked its wheels attached.

  ‘There we go. Number fifteen.’ Stringer pointed, and Janie pulled to the kerb.

  ‘We’ll not be long,’ she said as they both climbed out, looking around for signs of life. The street lights had come on, and a gentle wetness hung in the air that might have been rain or might have been haar drifting in off the Forth. Most of the windows glowed with light too, so there was a good chance somebody would be at home even if Gary Tomlinson wasn’t. She locked the car, hoping it would still be there when they got back, and then the two of them ventured up the short path to the building.

  Janie remembered growing up in a council block not dissimilar to this one. An open corridor ran from the front of the building through to a patch of drying green at the back, two flats leading off it on the ground floor and a stone staircase climbing to another pair upstairs. It was always a bit of a lottery as to which flat was the one you were looking for, although these ones seemed to have passed out of council ownership some time ago. There were no signs to indicate who lived on the ground floor, but upstairs one door had a buzzer beside it with a name scrawled underneath. Peering closely, Janie saw that Tomlinson had been scrawled out, and MacDonald written underneath in black biro.

  ‘We know what Tomlinson’s bidey-in’s called?’ she asked, as she pressed the bell and heard a loud ‘ding-dong’ from inside.

  Stringer shook his head, and before Janie could say anything else, the door popped open a fraction, held in place by a stout chain.

  ‘Whut youse want?’ A young woman peered through the gap at them, her brow furrowed in suspicion. Janie pulled out her warrant card and held it up.

  ‘DS Harrison. This is my colleague, DC Stringer. We’re looking for Gareth Tomlinson?’

  The name turned the suspicious frown into a furious one. ‘He’s no’ here, is he. Fucker should be in jail for what he did to me, only that weasel lawyer said it’d be better if I just told him to go an’ never come back. Near enough broke my jaw, the bastard.’ She lifted a hand to the side of her face as if even though there was no obvious bruising any more the injury still pained her. Three months on, there was every possibility it still did, and the mental scars would take even longer to heal.

  ‘I’m sorry. We have his address still registered here.’

  ‘Aye, useless fucker can’t even get that sorted. What youse want him for? Gonnae lock him up this time?’

  Janie shrugged. ‘Maybe. Depends what he got up to last night. You wouldn’t happen to know where he’s living now, would you?’

  ‘What am I? His fucking secretary?’ The young woman closed the door, and for a moment Janie thought she’d blown it. Then she heard the sound of the chain being unlatched, and the door opened wider.

  ‘Here.’ The young woman had fetched a pad from a table just inside the door and was scribbling something down on it. She tore the top page off and handed it to Janie. An address in Gor
gie, and the same mobile number that she’d got from the lawyer, Scobie.

  ‘Thanks. And I’m sorry we disturbed you, Miss . . . MacDonald?’

  The young woman’s gaze flicked in the direction of the doorbell, then back up to Janie. ‘Aye,’ she said, and then a small child’s wail began to echo through the flat. ‘Gotta go. That’s my Wee Mary wanting her feed.’

  She made to close the door, then stopped at the last moment, bent down and picked something up off the floor. When she stood up again, she was clutching a small pile of letters, which she shoved in Janie’s direction. ‘Gi’ him those when you see him, aye? And tell him the next lot’s getting burned.’

  57

  ‘Subject is male, Caucasian, fifty-four years old. One hundred and seventy-eight centimetres tall, eighty-three and a half kilograms in weight. Initial examination shows the body to be in reasonably healthy condition. Subject’s neck shows bruising and abrasion consistent with the silk necktie found tied around it at the scene of death. Petechial haemorrhages in both eyes are another indicator of asphyxiation by strangulation.’

  McLean barely listened as his old friend worked diligently around Tommy Fielding’s body. Laid out on the cold examination table he didn’t look all that different to how they had found him in his bedroom, except that the tie had been carefully removed and taken away for analysis. What they might be able to determine from it was anyone’s guess, but his gut feeling was it would be inconclusive.

  He kept on coming back to Melanie Naismith’s words. A team was even now raking through the store at the back of Tommy Fielding’s apartment block, in the vain hope the bags that the cleaner had dumped in the maintenance area had not made it as far as the industrial wheelie bins for collection. Or that nobody had emptied the bins in the past couple of months. Given the amount of rubbish piled up, it was just possible they might find the smoke-damaged clothes, even if McLean would have to buy Manda Parsons a case of whisky to make up for her having to rake through all that foetid waste. But even if they did find something, then what? He had a hypothesis, but it was far-fetched even by his normal standards.