What Will Burn

by James Oswald

  Unlike the front door, the back door opened at ground level to a paved area. In the pitch black McLean stumbled on an uneven flagstone, almost falling arse over tit. He reached out to steady himself on the frame, and felt the door itself give slightly. Not just open, but ajar. Had the chief superintendent fled? Left even her phone behind so that she couldn’t be traced? Gone in such a hurry she’d not even remembered to close the back door?

  Taking his phone out again, McLean tried Harrison’s number. Once more, straight to voicemail. Inside, he tried the light switch, but nothing happened. Not good. He knew he should go back, wait for the squad car that was surely on its way by now, but there was that faintest scent of smoke, and could he hear something? He trained the soft LED glow of his phone’s torch ahead of him so that he could step inside without fear of tripping over again.

  The laundry room felt cold, the fog from outside having seeped in through the slightly open door. As he moved further into the house, so the temperature rose and the air began to feel dry. McLean stepped into the kitchen and played the torch around, revealing a large room with modern fittings that somehow looked bare. He almost dismissed it as being the minimalist work of some grossly overpaid interior designer, and then he noticed that there were no chairs around the table.

  A noise from the doorway distracted him, something creaking in the narrow passage that led from the kitchen to the hall. McLean pointed the torch that way, but its beam cast too little light to see much. He crossed the room on light feet, tense as he listened for any more sounds, but there seemed to be only the general creaking expected of an old building.

  The light switch by the door didn’t work, and now he thought about it, McLean couldn’t hear any telltale hum from the large American-style fridge across the room. Someone had cut the power. Was it Elmwood herself? Had she done a runner? But why leave the back door unlocked, then? Why switch off the power?

  McLean shook the thoughts away. There was nothing to be gained from playing the hero; the events of the summer and all the idiotic blame-spreading fallout from them had taught him that. He tapped off the torch light, slid his phone in his pocket and started to retrace his steps.

  A low moan echoed in through the other door. The one that led to the front hall. McLean froze, tensed, straining his ears to hear. The noise came again, human, suffering. What the hell was going on?

  Moving slowly, fingers brushing the wall to help him navigate the almost total darkness, he stepped silently out of the kitchen and along the corridor. There should have been a couple of antique side tables, memory told him, but his hand passed through empty space. There should have been old paintings hanging on the walls, but they were not there. Someone had cleared everything out of the corridor, along with the chairs from the kitchen.

  Another door stood ajar, blackness beyond it almost complete. McLean knew it led to the basement, but in the darkness he could sense nothing. Then that low moan came again, wounded and woozy. He edged past the open door, carried on until the corridor opened out into the hall. There was a little more light in here, the reflected glow of the city coming in through the glass cupola three stories up. Even so, the scene made no sense.

  Furniture had been dragged from every room, pictures ripped from the walls, chairs heaped one atop another in a huge pile that reached almost to the edges of the hall. Even if it hadn’t been fast approaching Guy Fawkes night, McLean would have recognised the stack for the pyre that it was. And there, at the top of it, in the place of the infamous would-be regicide, gagged and bound to a sturdy bed frame, was the chief superintendent.

  ‘The actual fuck?’

  McLean mouthed the curse, even as he was moving towards the stack, searching for a way to get to the chief superintendent and cut her down. She still wore her work clothes, but her face was a mess, black around her nose that was almost certainly blood, and dark bruising under her eyes. Judging by the size of the pyre, she must have been out cold for hours, but now she was slowly coming around.

  Another low moan forced its way past the gag in her mouth. Her head swayed as she tried to take the weight of it, and as she raised her chin, McLean saw a thin strip of something tight around her neck. A recent conversation came back to him then, taking tea with Madame Rose and Mirriam Downham. The tradition in Scotland to throttle the accused so that they were unconscious before burning them to death for the crime of witchcraft. Whoever had seen to Elmwood was not practised in the art, then.

  Skirting around the edges of the pyre, he pulled out his phone and hit the screen to call Harrison again. It went straight to voicemail. What the hell was she playing at? McLean killed the call and turned towards the front door. He could unlock it, let her in along with the back-up that must surely be here by now.

  A man stood directly behind him, face sheened with sweat, hair matted with it. His wide eyes were mad and bloodshot, and he carried a bottle of what looked like white spirit in one hand. McLean barely had time to react before the punch came out of nowhere, a jab to the face boxer-style. It caught him on the turn, snapping his head back and spinning him around to sprawl on the ground among the broken picture frames and smashed chairs. His phone slipped out of his grasp, skittering away into the darkness. Before he could even begin to rise, before he could even shout for help, the air whooshed out of him as the man kicked him hard in the stomach. McLean rolled away as best he could, trying not to vomit as he gasped for air. He needed to shout, alert Harrison to what was happening, but it was all he could do to even breathe.

  He sensed the next kick more than saw it, twisting away so that it grazed his shoulder. Had he been less dazed, he might have grabbed the foot in passing and sent the man tumbling. Instead, he pushed himself away, weak legs refusing to let him stand. The man was a shadow, almost invisible in the gloom, but instead of coming in for a killing blow he seemed to recede. There was a scraping noise that penetrated even the ringing in McLean’s punch-drunk ears, and then a powerful reek of paint thinners filled the air.

  ‘No.’ McLean pushed himself to his feet, fighting the urge to throw up, and the dizzying whirl that threatened to have him tumbling to the floor again. He could barely see anything over the spinning stars in his eyes, and the reek of white spirit only made things worse. He was still gasping for air, still not able to muster much more than a hoarse whisper.

  Another noise, and with it a bright flare of light that wasn’t anything to do with the blow he’d taken to the head. McLean squinted against the glare as it illuminated the man’s face. He stood close to the pyre, almost in it, and stared up at the lolling form of the chief superintendent.

  ‘All the witches must burn.’ His voice wavered as the match in his fingers flickered in anticipation of greater things. McLean was already moving, the last of his strength carrying him across the hall in what he hoped was a straight line. Even though his lungs felt empty, he forced out an angry roar, reaching for the hand that held the match as he smashed into the man. But his fingers closed on empty space. The two of them fell together, rolling away from the pyre in a tangle of limbs as the room lit up bright with fire.

  ‘No!’ McLean lashed out with a weak fist, catching the man in the side of the head. Almost casually, his attacker swatted him away, pushing himself to his feet with an ease McLean envied. Gary Tomlinson. It had to be him. McLean was all too aware that his attacker was half his age, strong from a decade of working on building sites, stronger still from whatever mad rage was coursing through him. There was no way to win this fight fairly. Where the hell was Harrison and that back-up?

  Pivoting on his elbow, McLean lashed out with a foot. His hip screamed in pain, but somehow he managed to connect with Gary’s leg as he brought it in for another heavy kick. The man fell backwards with an angry yell, but the move brought McLean’s head round to the fire that was greedily climbing up the pyre towards the chief superintendent. He heard the crackle of his own hair catching, and instinct pulled him back. H
e brushed away the flames with one hand as the other one found the floor, levered himself into a crouch just in time to see Gary coming for him again. He launched himself upwards with all his remaining strength, catching his attacker in the midriff. The two of them fell to the floor once more, tangled together, and McLean used his momentum to smack his forehead into Tomlinson’s face. He felt the crunch of nose breaking, and then his attacker fell still.

  No time to rest, the air was choking bad, the flames leaping eagerly at the dry wood. McLean thought his ears were ringing with the blows he had taken in his brief fight, but as he focused he realised it was screaming. He scrambled to his feet, swaying from the exertion. Stumbling to the nearest window, he grabbed a long, heavy curtain and heaved. For an agonising few moments nothing happened, then the whole curtain rail pulled away from the wall and he fell backwards, momentarily smothered by the heavy velvet.

  It took too long to fight his way out of the fabric’s embrace, his strength almost gone. The room was unpleasantly hot now, and somewhere over the roar of flames McLean could hear a rhythmic pulsing sound. Unimportant, he could deal with that later. He gathered up the curtain and flung it over the pyre. Flames licked at the edges, finding something new to feast upon. There was no time to spare.

  Taking his life in his hands, he stepped on to the curtain, finding a balance in amongst the burning stack. The chief superintendent had fallen silent now, head bowed, hair almost all gone. Was she still alive? McLean put his arms around her and heaved. He’d expected resistance from the ropes that tied her to the bedpost, but the flames had already weakened them. She fell against him and, unbalanced, he tumbled backwards. He landed on his back, the fall and the weight of the chief superintendent both driving the air from his lungs. The back of his head clattered against tile and the flames seemed to dim around him. Elmwood’s face rested on his shoulder, her skin blackened and blistering. What a stupid way to go, burned to death in the embrace of a woman he wanted nothing to do with.

  And then the weight lifted off him as someone carried the chief superintendent away. Another face loomed over his, upside down, as other figures swarmed in his peripheral vision. DS Harrison looked both worried and livid.

  ‘Thought you said you weren’t going in on your own, sir.’

  61

  Fire engines blocked the no-longer quiet street, the crews going about their skilled work as they attempted to contain the blaze. Watching from the back of an ambulance, McLean wondered whether Lord Bairnfather was adequately insured, and if the owners of the properties either side would sue.

  ‘Apart from the hair, I reckon you’re fine.’ The paramedic who had been checking him over stepped back and pulled off his blue plastic gloves. ‘Probably going to be coughing for a day or two, but I don’t think you got too much smoke. Might have been a better idea if you’d not gone into a burning building in the first place.’

  McLean took his admonishment, aware that it was justified. ‘Not the first time I’ve been told that, though in my defence this time it wasn’t on fire when I went inside.’

  He stood up carefully, aware of the many bruises that were going to make life fun for the next few days. At least he’d have a next few days to moan about them in, so that was something. The chief superintendent had been whisked away to hospital, and all anyone would tell him was that her burns were horrific.

  ‘You OK, sir?’ DS Harrison stood up straight as McLean approached Emma’s little Renault ZOE. It was boxed in by two fire engines, so there wasn’t much chance of them going anywhere in it any time soon.

  ‘Should see the other guy,’ he answered.

  ‘I did. From the look of him you had a few anger issues.’

  ‘They got him out OK, then?’

  ‘Aye, we dragged him out soon as we knew we couldn’t control the fire. These old places don’t half go up quickly.’ Harrison glanced at the building, then back at McLean.

  ‘It was Tomlinson, right?’ he asked.

  ‘Looked like him, from what I could see. Finding out about Fielding’s death must have tipped him over the edge. No idea how he knew where the chief super lived, mind.’

  ‘Nor why he fixated on her. You know he was trying to burn her as a witch, right?’

  ‘Just like poor Cecily Slater.’ Harrison stood up straight. ‘Here, you don’t think he . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think any more, Janie. I just want to go home.’ McLean looked down at the car, then up at the nearest fire engine. ‘Looks like I might have to find a taxi to take me, though.’

  In the end, Harrison managed to persuade a squad car to give McLean a lift home, while she stayed at the scene. But as the car headed uphill towards Queen Street, he changed his mind and pointed the driver in a different direction. Traffic was mercifully light, and the thick haar made it feel like they were moving through orange glowing clouds, which only added to the sense that he had temporarily stepped out of reality and into some other realm. In short order the car pulled up outside a large house in Leith, but as he walked the short distance from the lane to the front door, the feeling only intensified.

  ‘Tony, come in, come in.’ Madame Rose greeted him at the door as if she’d been expecting him for hours. Stepping over the threshold was like waking up. The dull throb of his burned face, the ache of his bruises and the hundred other little pinpricks of pain reminded him that he had been in a fight for his life, in a burning building.

  ‘Here.’ Rose took his arm just in time to prevent him collapsing to the floor. Delayed shock, a part of his brain told him, even though it felt unlike any shock he’d experienced before. McLean was grateful for the support, and let himself be led through to the ground-floor kitchen. Izzy DeVilliers was in there, doing the washing-up, a sight so incongruous McLean almost collapsed again. She took one look at him and grabbed a dishcloth to dry her hands.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’

  ‘Thank you, Isobel dear.’ Rose pulled out a chair and only let go of McLean’s arm once he was safely seated. He didn’t feel quite as bad as she was treating him, but it was nice to be pampered for a change.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said eventually. His voice suggested the opposite, but it was only dehydration. Nothing a hot, sweet drink couldn’t fix.

  ‘Aye, I reckon you will.’ Rose sat down on the opposite side of the big table that dominated the centre of the room, while Izzy busied herself making a pot of tea. ‘You want to tell me what happened?’

  McLean managed a smile. ‘And here’s me going to ask the same question.’ He paused a moment, gathering his thoughts as best he could. It was a bit like herding cats.

  ‘Tommy Fielding died last night, not long after he left the hotel where young Isobel here saw him, with our own chief superintendent hanging on his arm like a lover.’

  Izzy brought the pot to the table and set it down. ‘Did he suffer? He deserved it, the scumbag.’

  ‘Isobel.’ Madame Rose used her scolding voice, but it washed off the young woman like rain.

  ‘He was strangled, best we can tell. Possibly by the chief superintendent, although that’s a puzzle I’ve still to work out. I imagine the end was quite frightening for him. Not as frightening as it was for poor Cecily Slater, though. Certainly not as painful.’

  McLean held Rose’s gaze as she carefully poured three mugs of tea. He’d already seen from her expression that nothing he’d said was surprising to her.

  ‘I don’t know this man, Fielding, but I know his type. He claims – claimed – to be a Witchfinder, which makes me think there was maybe more to him than you understand, Tony. Or should I say, more to him than you’re likely to accept?’

  McLean knew what was coming next, knew he’d rationalise it by the morning. For now he was content to drink tea and relax in this warm kitchen.

  ‘Cecily Slater was a witch. A very powerful one. You know this. Mirriam told you as much.
’ Madame Rose leaned forward, arms on the table, massive hands cradling her mug. ‘When such as her die violently, things rarely go well for those who have done the foul deed. A witch’s dying curse cannot be stopped. At least, not until its work is done.’

  Brian Galloway, Don Purefoy, Steve Whitaker. Another name appended itself to the list almost as if someone else was thinking McLean’s thoughts for him. James McAllister. All of them disciples of Tommy Fielding. All of them so warped by his words, his twisted logic, their own hate and anger, that they would help him murder a defenceless ninety-year-old woman. All of them dead, their ends baffling. Weird. And then the words on the mirror, written by Fielding’s own hand.

  ‘With my dying breath I curse thee.’

  Madame Rose dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement. ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘But why go after the chief superintendent?’ McLean asked. ‘Why try to burn her as a witch?’

  ‘That was not Cecily.’ Rose paused a moment, taking a drink of tea. McLean found himself mimicking her action, and the warm, milky liquid soothed both his throat and his mind.

  ‘Then who?’ he asked, before the unwanted implications began to fall into place. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Told you he was a bastard, didn’t I?’ Izzy said.

  ‘Isobel dear. What have I told you about bad language?’ Madame Rose tutted her displeasure, then turned her attention back to McLean. ‘But she isn’t wrong. Men such as him gather around them the power to control and influence the weak-minded. That power does not die with them, no more than Cecily’s died with her.’

  ‘So you’re saying Gary Tomlinson was possessed?’ Well, it made as much sense as anything, although McLean doubted it would stand up in court.