What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  McLean grimaced, not wanting to be the one to break bad news. ‘Actually, that might not be true.’

  ‘Oh?’ Elmwood tilted her head in an accusatory manner, which given what McLean was about to say was probably fair.

  ‘The press already know Fielding’s dead. And they also know about your history with him.’ He held up a hand to stop the chief superintendent before she could complain. ‘Not about last night, but about your history. London, all that stuff.’

  Elmwood narrowed her eyes at him. ‘How is it you know this?’

  ‘Because one of Edinburgh’s finest muckrakers told me. The press have been digging into your past ever since you arrived. It’s what they do.’

  ‘Dalgliesh?’ McIntyre asked.

  ‘The same.’

  ‘And you’re one of this hack’s sources, are you?’ The ice in Elmwood’s voice would have chilled a perfect Martini.

  ‘We have history, but I don’t talk to the press without official sanction. I’ve not told Dalgliesh anything about you.’ McLean heard the defensiveness in his voice and hoped neither Elmwood nor McIntyre noticed it.

  ‘Go home, Gail. Let us do our job, aye?’ McIntyre said, and finally the chief superintendent relented.

  ‘Fine. But I want to be kept up to speed on developments, OK?’ She turned on McLean. ‘And if this Dalgliesh fellow so much as breathes any rumour, you can tell him I’m not afraid of suing, right?’

  McLean nodded, feeling it unnecessary to point out that Dalgliesh was a woman. ‘We’ll need to post an officer outside your door.’

  Now the heat came back into the chief superintendent’s face. ‘What? You think I’m a flight risk? Where the fuck would I go?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary, Tony.’ McIntyre stepped in to calm things down. ‘I’m sure Gail will be happy to call in regularly. Won’t you, Gail?’

  Elmwood glared at both of them, but McLean could see her considering the options. She was trapped and she knew it, but she also knew he and McIntyre were her best hope. Standing tall, she adjusted her uniform jacket, squared her shoulders, then without a further word, she strode to the door and left.

  McLean was still waiting for the call from Elmwood’s driver to say that she had been delivered safely home when he heard a knock at his open office door. Glancing up, he saw DS Harrison standing half in, half out of the room.

  ‘I heard about the chief super, sir,’ she said. ‘Did you really threaten to throw her in a cell?’

  ‘One of these days I’ll find out who’s behind all the station gossip and kick them so hard they’ll not be able to sit down for a month.’ McLean shook his head. ‘And no, I did no such thing. We all agreed it was best if she went home, took a bit of leave while we sort things out.’

  ‘House arrest then,’ Harrison said. McLean was going to object, but then he remembered that after Elmwood had left McIntyre’s office he’d persuaded the detective superintendent to assign a uniformed officer to guard duty outside the Stockbridge house anyway.

  He shrugged. ‘If that’s what we have to say to keep the papers happy, I’ll go with it.’

  ‘Just as well there’s someone on the door, anyway. I think we might have a problem.’

  ‘Oh?’ McLean sat up a little straighter.

  ‘Fellow by the name of Gary Tomlinson. He was in the bar with Fielding last night, and the day Izzy and her mates broke into the seminar. I spoke to his ex, and it seems Gary’s a bit free with his fists around women. Which is why she’s his ex and he doesn’t get to see their wee girl any more.’

  McLean felt a tingle of something unpleasant on the back of his neck. ‘Go on.’

  ‘According to the other two who were in the pub, Fielding had got right pally with Gary these past couple of months. Spending a lot of time with him, promising to help him get access to his kid.’

  ‘Isn’t that what Fielding does? It’s kind of his thing. Was his thing, I should say.’

  ‘Aye, right enough. But this is where it gets weird. Apparently Gary got stiffed by the lawyer his ex used. Threatened he’d go to jail, then got him to sign away everything to have the charges dropped. But here’s the thing. There weren’t any charges. It never got that far. And the ex’s lawyer? He works for DCF Law.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense. Why would Fielding’s firm screw this bloke over, then Fielding . . .’ McLean stopped talking as the pieces began to fall into place.

  ‘Aye. What better way to radicalise someone? Just like Izzy said.’

  ‘Did you speak to him? This Gary . . . ?’

  ‘Tomlinson, sir. And no. We went to his place. His new place. But he wasn’t there. According to the landlady he just upped and walked out. Left his front door open, lights on, laptop on the table showing a news bulletin about Fielding’s death.’

  ‘So he knows. I guess he’ll be upset. Maybe gone out to get pissed?’

  ‘And leave his flat unlocked? Door open? He was in the pub with Fielding last night, sir. Him and two lawyers Izzy identified for us. They all left before Gai— the chief superintendent arrived, but what if he’d not gone home? What if he was hanging around and saw her with him? With Fielding?’

  McLean frowned, trying to squeeze all the different snippets of information into something resembling a sensible whole. ‘How would he know who she was, though? I mean, she’s not exactly high profile. You and I know her, but the average man on the street?’

  Except that she was high profile. The English copper come to Edinburgh. Elmwood might not have known who Jo Dalgliesh was, but Dalgliesh sure as hell knew the chief superintendent. He picked up his phone, meaning to call her, then instead stood up and slipped it in his pocket.

  ‘Come on then. Let’s go pay our boss a visit.’

  59

  It’s almost as if he’s a different person.

  Gary hadn’t understood before quite how much he had been suppressing his rage. Controlling it. Keeping it inside. All to stop the poor feartie women from feeling threatened. Well he’s done with that shite now. No more laughing at his weakness. They’ve pushed him too far, and now they’re going to pay.

  She’s going to pay.

  There’s a freeness in him as he walks the city streets, heedless of the damp haar that fills the air, the drops of water that glisten on every surface, reflecting the street lights and the glow spilling out of shop windows. He feels more alive than he has in days, months, years even. Without knowing why, he bursts out laughing, and the sound only spurs him on.

  It is dark when he reaches her lair, although he has no memory of the journey. He doesn’t think about how he knew where she would be hiding; those kinds of questions are unimportant now. The street is quiet, as these rich streets always are. A few of the other houses have lights on, barely showing behind thick curtains or closed shutters, but hers is dark. She is in there, though. The uniformed police officer standing at the front door confirms it.

  ‘Wait,’ the voice in his head whispers. So he moves back into the shadows beneath the dripping branches of the trees, shoves his hands deep into his pockets, and waits.

  It doesn’t take long. Or maybe it’s hours. Gary neither knows nor cares. The voice has given him purpose, and now he understands what it was that drove Fielding. These witches have become too powerful, infiltrated right to the heart of things. Like a cancer spreading through a body, unseen and deadly. And like a cancer it needs to be cut out before it spreads even further.

  Burned out.

  The barest sound reaches him in the shadows, a chirp as the police officer receives some message. Gary watches the man bend his head to his shoulder, speaking into a handset. Moments later, the officer glances once at the door he has been guarding, then hurries down the steps and along the street.

  Gary waits until the officer has disappeared before emerging from the shadows. He skirts around the parked cars, across t
he road and then down the narrow mews entrance that will take him around the back of the terrace. There are gardens here, more trees for cover, high stone walls keeping neighbours apart. He counts back until he identifies her building. An old coach house takes up most of the space, with a wooden access gate set into the wall beside it. There is no reason it should be unlocked, and yet when he turns the handle it clicks smoothly, opens to reveal a neat path up to the back door, lit only by the glow of the city refracted through the thickening haar.

  Closing the gate behind him, Gary walks up the path as if this is his own home. And why shouldn’t it be? Why should this woman, this murderous harlot, this witch, have such a place when he’s forced to live in a pigsty bedsit? He has as much right to be here as any man. More right than her.

  It doesn’t strike him as odd that the back door opens to his touch. Gary is beyond noticing these things. He steps into a utility room that is small by the standards of these terrace houses, but still twice the size of his single room across town. Beyond it, the kitchen is bigger still, kitted out with sleek stainless-steel fittings, granite worktops, no expense spared. He eyes the block of knives on the counter, but he has no need of such weapons. Moves on further into the house.

  The silence is so total he wonders if she has left through the front door while he’s been coming in the back. He stands in the middle of the vast central hall and listens. Even the city cannot make it inside, its never-ending murmur held back by thick stone walls and secondary glazing, muted by the mature trees that grow all around this exclusive enclave.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  The voice doesn’t startle him. Nothing can startle him any more. Gary turns slowly and sees her on the stairs, halfway down from the landing above. He moves swiftly, but not at a run. She can’t escape him and they both know it.

  ‘Get out.’ The words are a command, but her voice betrays her. Her gaze darts to the hall below, and he knows she has left her phone there. He smiles, says nothing as he climbs the stairs.

  ‘What do you want?’ And there’s the pleading, the attempt to bargain as if he couldn’t take whatever he wanted anyway. She backs away, heels uncertain against the stairs. He keeps coming, never taking his eyes off her, never giving her a moment. Flustered, she trips and falls heavily, a cry of pain as she turns an ankle. Gary can smell the fear on her now and it is wonderful.

  ‘You won’t get away with this.’ She lashes out at him, but he catches her by the wrist, jerks her upright so that they are close.

  ‘Tommy says hello,’ he says. Then punches her hard in the face.

  60

  ‘Isn’t there supposed to be a constable on the door?’

  McLean stared up at the dark facade of the terraced house, searching for any sign of life. It was late enough that most people would be home by now, but not so late they’d be in their beds. On the other hand, a lot of these big houses were empty, bought as investments or tax boltholes by wealthy bankers and foreign plutocrats. Even so, the street felt unnaturally quiet as he parked the car and climbed out, not helped by the thick haar that drifted eerily past the street lights.

  ‘Should be, sir. You want me to get on to Control about it?’ Harrison asked.

  McLean nodded, leaving the detective sergeant to make the call as he crossed the road and approached the front door. He could see only the reflected street lamps in the glass of the windows, no lights on inside. Only the incongruously modern doorbell and intercom at the front door was illuminated. He climbed the short flight of stone steps, peering down into the light well of the basement level. Nothing obvious in the shadows below, so he pushed the button.

  No answer, and no sound from within. Given the thickness of the door, and the fact there was an inner porch to further insulate any sound, it wasn’t surprising he could hear nothing, but McLean pressed the button again, straining his ears for any sound just in case.

  ‘Apparently there’s been a bit of a barney at one of the pubs on Brunton Street, sir. Constable Peters was on duty here, got called off to help out. Somebody must have OK’d that, I guess. Apparently patrols have been coming down here regularly just to keep an eye on things.’

  That would explain it, although McLean wasn’t happy about the situation. He pressed the button again, and still there was no response.

  ‘Heavy sleeper?’ Harrison suggested. McLean doubted it. He pulled out his phone, found the number and dialled. A moment’s pause, and then he heard the tone through his handset.

  ‘Is that ringing inside?’ Harrison leaned forward, pressing her ear to the door. ‘I think I can hear a mobile ringing in the hall.’

  McLean thumbed the screen to end the call.

  ‘Stopped now,’ Harrison confirmed. ‘That’s not good, is it?’

  ‘Not really, no.’ McLean tried the door, but it was locked. ‘Get on to Control again, can you? This is a rented property, so the agency should have a spare key. If they can’t get it here in fifteen minutes, we’ll use one of our own big red ones.’

  ‘It’s a bit late, isn’t it?’ Harrison said, but made the call anyway.

  McLean pressed the doorbell again, then called Elmwood’s phone. Now that Harrison had pointed it out, he too could hear it ringing, the tinny noise echoing in the large hall. He let it carry on until it kicked into voicemail, then hung up. A few metres along the pavement, a gate in the iron railings opened on to steps leading down to the basement. It reminded him curiously of the tiny flat where Steve Whitaker had met his grisly end, only the light well here was considerably larger. There was no entrance to the house, only three windows all with shutters closed. Dead leaves littered the flagstones as he walked from one end to the other, and as he trod through them the rustling noise brought to mind winters past, heavy coats, woolly hats and bonfires.

  Bonfires. McLean sniffed the air, catching the faintest whiff of smoke. Or was he imagining it? He kicked up a few of the leaves, in case it was their decay that he could smell. But that was a different scent. He walked to the nearest window, felt the glass for warmth. An old wooden sash, it wobbled slightly as he pressed against it, but it was firmly locked against intruders. As he turned away, he thought he heard a noise, faint as a whisper, like the cracking of dry branches underfoot. He stopped, straining to hear anything over the omnipresent dull roar of the city. Even muffled by the haar, it still made focusing on any particular sound all but impossible. Had he imagined it? The night was certainly one for playing on his fears.

  ‘Twenty minutes is the best they can do,’ Harrison said as McLean emerged from the steps back out on to pavement level. ‘Lucky one of the secretaries was working late.’

  ‘Call in a squad car with a big red key anyway.’ McLean climbed the steps to the front door again, bent to the letter box and pushed it open. Beyond, he could see only the dark shapes in the unlit front porch. The inner door was closed, only blackness beyond. Once more he thought he heard something, turned his head to listen through the opening. His fingers slipped and with a clatter, the flap sprung shut. The noise rang loud, blotting out anything else.

  ‘Can you hear movement inside?’

  Harrison pressed her head to the door, paused for a few seconds as McLean’s hearing slowly came back. When she stood up again, she shook her head.

  ‘Quiet as the grave. But this place gives me the creeps anyway. Of all the houses in the city she could have chosen to live in, why pick this one?’

  McLean knew what the detective sergeant meant. Harrison had almost died in this house, touched by something neither of them were quite prepared to accept could exist. What other trouble awaited them within its forbidding stone walls?

  ‘Here.’ He pulled out his car keys and handed them over. ‘You go wait for back-up or this late working secretary to turn up.’

  Harrison looked at him suspiciously, but took the keys anyway. ‘What are you going to do, sir?’

  ‘There
’s a mews entrance up the way.’ McLean pointed to a gap in the terrace further along the street. ‘I’m going to have a quick look around the back.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we both wait?’ Harrison’s tone wasn’t exactly hectoring, but for some reason it put McLean in mind of his grandmother when she’d been less than impressed with something he’d done. He knew he should heed her advice.

  ‘Just going to have a quick look,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  The haar that had drifted in off the Firth of Forth thickened as McLean made his way along the street and down the narrow entrance to the mews. There were no street lamps here, and the few lit windows at the backs of the houses added an ethereal glow that only served to deepen the shadows. The air hung heavy with the scent of damp stone, oily cobbles and leaf mould, and somewhere on the edge of it all, he caught the smell of wood smoke. Most likely someone nearby had a wood burning stove in their house. This part of the city was meant to be a smoke free zone, but that didn’t necessarily mean the local residents all followed the rules. These were wealthy people, and experience had taught him they were the ones most likely to ignore petty things like not burning logs brought down from their second home in the countryside. Unless it was someone else doing it, in which case they would complain loudly to the authorities.

  It was hard to tell from the back lane which of the houses was which. The upper storeys were lost in the swirling fog, and the squat coach houses of the mews further obscured the view. McLean counted garage doors until he thought he had the right one for the chief superintendent’s address. Alongside the incongruously modern garage door, a wooden door was set into the garden wall. It should have been locked, and yet when he tried the handle, it clicked and the door swung open. Mist billowed through the opening like smoke, and brought with it that tantalising scent again.

  He pulled out his phone, brought up Harrison’s number, and dialled as he walked through the back garden towards the house itself. The call went straight to voicemail, which probably meant the detective sergeant was talking to someone else. It should have logged his attempt, possibly even notified her he had called, so he rang off and put his phone away. She’d ring him back as soon as she was done.