Dead Men's Bones (Inspector Mclean 4)

by James Oswald

  In a small nod to his predecessor, or perhaps because he had a pathological need to know what was going on, Duguid had taken to leaving his office door open some of the time. McLean stood outside, half-listening to the phone conversation, trying to judge when it would be best to interrupt.

  ‘You know what this is all about?’ he asked of the secretary sitting at the desk just outside the office door.

  ‘Something to do with that MSP shooting his family, I think. Horrible, horrible case.’ She shook her head and went back to whatever she had been typing at her screen.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there chatting up the secretaries, McLean. Get in here. And shut the door behind you.’ Duguid stood just inside the doorway, impatient as ever. He had his phone in one hand and raised it back to his ear as McLean did as he was told.

  ‘No. He’s here now. I’ll get it sorted, don’t you worry about that, sir.’

  McLean raised an eyebrow, not really expecting Duguid to explain himself. He wasn’t disappointed; the superintendent rang off and dropped the phone on to his desk, slumping into the large leather seat with its back to the window before finally looking at him.

  ‘How’s the leg?’

  McLean shifted his weight slightly. His hip still ached where he’d broken the bone several months earlier, but it was mending. The cold weather didn’t help, though.

  ‘Better, thank you. Still seeing the physio once a week, but it’s not a problem.’

  Duguid’s eyes narrowed. He pulled a sheet of paper towards him, didn’t look at it.

  ‘Your initial psych evaluation says you’re fit for work.’ Almost as if the fact were a personal insult to him.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, sir. I’ve been back at work long enough.’

  ‘Don’t get all sarky with me, McLean. You heard about Andrew Weatherly, I take it?’

  ‘The MSP? There was something on the radio this morning, but I didn’t think it had been confirmed—’

  ‘Oh, it’s him right enough. Stupid wee bugger.’ Duguid rubbed at his face with prehensile fingers, long and thin and with seemingly far too many joints. ‘Looks like he’s shot his wife and kids, then turned the gun on himself. Why the fuck would anyone do that?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea, sir. Was he under a lot of stress?’

  Duguid looked up at him like he was mad. ‘What am I, his therapist? How the fuck should I know?’

  McLean didn’t answer. It was always best just to stand there and let whatever Duguid had to say roll over you. Deal with the fallout later.

  ‘He was very well connected, was our Mr Weatherly. Sat on the Police Liaison Committee for one thing. His fingerprints are all over our beloved Police Scotland, too, so you can imagine how well this is all going down with our overlords. They want it tidied away as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Is it not Fife’s investigation? It happened on their patch.’

  Duguid gave him a contemptuous glare. ‘There’s no “patches” any more. We’re all one big fucking happy family, remember?’

  McLean flexed his feet, tried not to bounce up and down impatiently. Of course he knew about the new structures, but the old regions still existed within the Specialist Crime Division. There was no need for someone to go up to Fife and upset the locals, surely.

  Duguid did the finger thing again, then slumped back in his chair. It squeaked alarmingly, tilting back as if it was going to tumble him to the floor.

  ‘Look. Fife are on scene right now. Yes, it’s their patch as you put it. But Weatherly’s an MSP. He has a house here in Edinburgh, his business is based here. So whether Fife like it or not, we’re involved.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’d have thought that was obvious, McLean. Do what you always do. Dig deeper than is really necessary. Complicate things.’

  McLean frowned. This wasn’t what he expected to be told. Not by Duguid.

  ‘But I thought you said HQ—’

  Duguid leaned forward, placed his elbows on the desk in front of him. ‘Oh, this goes higher than HQ, McLean. Right up to the top. They want it tidied up nice and quickly. Tidied away like it never happened. Well, fuck that. An innocent woman and two young girls are dead. I don’t care if their murderer killed himself. I want to know why he did it, and if that means putting a few noses out of joint, then so be it.’

  The CID room was its usual hive of inactivity when McLean pushed his way through the door half an hour later. His brain was still reeling from the conversation with the superintendent; the sheer neck of the man never ceased to amaze. There was the small matter of who would take the blame when it all went to buggery, too. As it inevitably would. Not the first time he’d been set up for a fall; probably not the last.

  ‘Morning, sir.’ The voice that piped up from behind the opened door was fresh and eager, much like the chubby, scrubbed pink face that went with it. Detective Constable Stuart MacBride looked up from his desk.

  ‘Morning, Constable. You the only one in?’

  ‘Briefing in the main incident room, sir. DCI Brooks is bringing all the DIs and sergeants up to speed on current investigations.’ Even as he said it, the constable’s face furrowed into a frown that probably matched McLean’s own.

  ‘I must have missed the memo.’ Still, it would explain Duguid’s earlier confusion. ‘Never mind, I’ve better things to spend my time on than listening to Brooks prattle on. You get anywhere with our mysterious tattooed man yet?’

  MacBride shuffled briefly among the ordered folders on his desk, coming up with one that looked distressingly empty. At least it had the official code stencilled on the outside.

  ‘Nothing yet. Body’s at the mortuary waiting for a PM. I’ve had a word with Missing Persons. No one fitting the description. Can’t really do much more until we know if it’s suspicious or not.’

  ‘He was naked, Constable. That seems pretty suspicious to me. If he’d just fallen in upstream, I’d have expected at least a few clothes.’

  ‘He might’ve taken them off, sir. Isn’t that what people do sometimes, when they get really cold? The brain goes all weird and they think they’re overheating. Think I read something somewhere …’

  ‘Hypothermia madness. Yes, I suppose it could have been.’ McLean shook his head. ‘Well, we’ll find out soon enough. You got a time for the PM yet?’

  ‘No sir. I can call and find out.’ MacBride reached for his phone.

  ‘It can wait. I’ve another errand to attend to first. Is Ritchie about?’

  ‘In Brooks’s briefing along with everyone else. Anything I can help with?’ The look of hope on the young constable’s face was a sight to behold. Like a puppy desperate to be chosen from the basket. McLean could hardly bring himself to disappoint him.

  ‘I need her special skills,’ he said, searching for a diplomatic way of saying he’d rather not spend a couple of hours stuck in the car with MacBride when there was less eager company to be had. ‘And she’s friends with some of CID in Fife Constabulary, which might come in useful.’

  ‘Fife?’ MacBride’s expression went from momentary confusion to wide-eyed understanding. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes. Oh. Duguid wants me to look into that bloody mess. If you’ve any sense you’ll keep your head down here.’

  4

  In the end it would probably have been just as easy taking MacBride. Detective Sergeant Ritchie was clearly grateful when McLean dragged her from the useless morning briefing, but she looked tired and said very little as they drove across the city towards the bridge.

  ‘Brooks really that bad to work for?’ he tried, as they slowed to a crawl through the endless road works at the north end, where the new crossing landed in Fife.

  ‘You have no idea.’ Ritchie shook her head.

  ‘Well, you’re back on my team now. Might come to regret that, mind.’ McLean dropped a gear and revved the engine, surging forward as the traffic finally freed up on the approach to Halbeath. There was a simple pleasure to be had in being
pressed back into the seat by the power of the big V6. It sounded good, too, even if it was almost as inappropriate for his line of work as the classic that was being expensively rebuilt in a specialist workshop down in England. And quite literally a pain to get in and out of with his leg only recently out of its stookie.

  Snow piled at the side of the road, grey with salt and grime; they sped past in silence. It was a long time since last he’d been out this way, but nothing much seemed to have changed. A few more modern warehouses on the outskirts of Kinross, perhaps, but what little money leached out of the capital evaporated the further north you went into the old Kingdom. Past Auchtermuchty and even the potholes felt like they’d been growing for decades.

  McLean had printed out directions, but even so it took a couple of wrong turns and the helpful advice from a ruddy-faced farmer for them to finally find the place. Andrew Weatherly had not started life wealthy, if the sparse history of the man were true and not some media-spun fabrication, but he’d embraced the life of the country gentleman with great enthusiasm. His Fife residence was a large mansion, set far from the main road in a natural hollow at the end of a gentle valley. Rising up above it to the west, the largest hill in the area was swathed in deep snow, dark conifers marking out its flanks in angular blocks. It was undeniably a beautiful spot, a fact made harrowing by the terrible events that had taken place there.

  A pair of uniform constables flagged him down before he could turn off the main road on to the drive. It was impossible to miss the journalists’ cars parked all around; the outside broadcast vans and television crews. McLean’s warrant card saw him through with nothing more than a raised eyebrow, but as he reached the end of the driveway, where it opened up to the front of the house, he was stopped again, this time by blue and white police tape.

  ‘No point pissing them off any more than we have already.’ He parked as close to the edge of the drive as he dared. Out of the warm car, the winter air hit like a slap to the face, a chill wind whistling down from the hill and going straight through him. McLean reached back into the car, dragged out his heavy woollen overcoat and pulled it on as another uniform approached.

  ‘You the DI from Edinburgh, aye?’

  McLean nodded, showed his warrant card again. Ritchie had climbed out of the car and was checking out the scene as she pulled on a pair of black leather gloves.

  ‘SIO’s over in the tent.’ The officer nodded in the direction of a squat white construction a few yards away from the front door. McLean was about to head towards it, but a hand on his arm restrained him.

  ‘I’ll let him know you’re here. Wouldn’t want to muck up things for the forensics boys.’

  McLean held the uniform’s gaze for perhaps a little longer than was polite. He was an older man, a sergeant. Perhaps the same age as Grumpy Bob. Maybe it would have been wiser to have brought him along; there weren’t many serving officers in the central region that Grumpy Bob didn’t know at least in passing.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said eventually. ‘No point us getting in the way. Just give us a shout when you’re ready.’

  The old sergeant nodded, and wandered off at a leisurely stroll before disappearing into the tent.

  ‘A bit bloody rude, wasn’t he?’

  McLean turned to see Ritchie leaning on the roof of the car, a scowl plastered over her freckled face. The effects of the cold wind didn’t sit well with her short-cropped red hair.

  ‘I seem to remember you being less than welcoming when I turned up at Donald Anderson’s burial. No one likes another force sticking their nose in.’

  ‘Isn’t that what Police Scotland’s meant to be all about, though? No more petty rivalries between regions. All in it together and all the other motivational bollocks I spent half of last year trying to understand.’

  ‘Give it time. And try not to take it too personally.’ McLean gave her what he thought was a friendly smile, got a weary one back in return. Then Ritchie’s gaze shifted to something behind him, and she pushed herself upright as if coming to attention.

  ‘Detective Inspector Tony McLean. Didn’t think I’d be seeing you in these parts any time soon.’

  McLean turned, recognizing the voice but taking a moment to place it. A tall, thin man approached, flanked by the uniform sergeant and a white-boiler-suit-clad crime scene photographer. He was wearing a white boiler suit as well, but had undone the top half, tying the arms around his waist in a loose knot.

  ‘Jack?’ McLean couldn’t hide the question in his voice, even though he knew it must have sounded strange. He should have realized that a high-profile case in Fife would have had a high-ranking senior investigating officer. Detective Superintendent Jack Tennant was certainly that. And of all the people McLean could have hoped to find in charge, this was certainly his preferred option.

  ‘I’ve not changed that much, have I?’ The superintendent ran a hand over his forehead, chasing his receding hairline. It had been like that when McLean had first met him, must be nearly eighteen years ago. His face was a bit more lined now, thin, maybe unhealthily so. But he was undeniably the same man who’d taken a young constable on the fast track and taught him how to be a detective.

  ‘Sorry,’ McLean said. ‘Just didn’t expect to see you out here. I thought you were desk-bound these days.’

  ‘You make it sound like a painful disease, Tony. Which I suppose it is, in a way. You know as well as I do that a case like this …’ Tennant waved an arm in the general direction of the house. ‘… is way too important to be left to the people who know what they’re doing.’

  ‘I guess that’s why they sent me out to get in the way then.’

  Tennant cocked his head to one side at the remark, then turned his attention to Ritchie. ‘And who is your new sidekick? Grumpy Bob getting too old?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Kirsty Ritchie, this is Detective Superintendent Jack Tennant. It is still just superintendent, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ritchie. You were in Aberdeen before, weren’t you. Worked with DCI Reid.’ Tennant talked in statements, not questions, as if he were reading a résumé from inside his head.

  ‘Yes, sir. I transferred down about eighteen months ago.’

  ‘Aye. Well.’ The superintendent paused for a moment, then seemed to remember why they were all here. He turned to the uniform sergeant who had been eyeing McLean suspiciously throughout the conversation. ‘See if you can’t find us a couple more of these romper suits will you, Ben? I think it’s time we showed our Edinburgh friends the bodies.’

  5

  They went into the house first. Whether that was on purpose, McLean wasn’t sure. He was grateful nonetheless, as the cold had begun seeping into his bones. Heavy wool might keep the worst of the wind off, but it was useless if you were wearing flimsy leather shoes and had forgotten to bring a hat.

  Inside, high-powered floodlights chased away even the most tenacious of shadows. Old wooden panelling lined the walls of the hallway from floor to ceiling, shiny under the harsh glare. In the centre, an ornate chandelier hung from a beautifully moulded ceiling rose. It glittered like a starlet’s diamonds.

  McLean stood in the doorway, taking in the scene as an army of white-suited forensic experts bustled around collecting evidence. Of what, he wasn’t entirely sure; there didn’t appear to be any mystery to the incident. On the other hand, Andrew Weatherly had been an important man, and other important men would be watching to see he got the treatment they felt he deserved.

  ‘Can we go in?’ He directed his attention to Detective Superintendent Tennant, but was answered by the nearest scene-of-crime officer, only her eyes and a stray tuft of auburn hair visible through her coveralls.

  ‘Stick to the marked walkways. Touch nothing.’ Brusque, and to the point.

  McLean looked at the floor, a black and white chessboard of tiles scuffed by centuries of passing feet. A narrow path had been marked out with silver duct tape, leading straight towards the dark oak staircase. It was plenty wide enough to walk along
without trouble, but he still felt that he might overbalance and tumble into the throng of SOC officers as he went.

  Upstairs was a wide, carpeted landing not unlike the one in his own home back in Edinburgh. Doors led off to bedrooms; probably a shared bathroom as well. A couple of low dressers were piled up with the detritus of family life: a stack of clean towels waiting to go into the airing cupboard; some children’s books in a haphazard heap; a moth-eaten old teddy bear with one eye missing. There were pictures on the walls between the doors, too – modern portraits of Andrew Weatherly’s wife, mostly. She’d been a model, if memory served.

  The duct-tape walkway continued, narrower up here, leading to an open door at the end of the landing. McLean sensed DS Ritchie a little too close behind him as he approached the room, almost as if she didn’t want to be left behind in the gloom. He stepped further into the room than he would have liked, in order to give her space. Then wished he really hadn’t.

  It was the master bedroom; that much was obvious. Comfortably large, with two windows looking out over the front drive and the temporary forensic tent. Another pair of doors led off to the rear, probably an en-suite bathroom and dressing room. There was antique furniture, but McLean didn’t really take it in. Dominating the wall opposite the door through which he’d stepped, a vast four-poster bed held a single occupant, sitting upright, propped up by pillows once white but now stained dark crimson.

  Morag Weatherly had been in bed reading when her husband had shot her; the book was still clasped lightly in her hands, nestling in her lap. He must have used a rifle, because apart from the small hole in her forehead, there was no damage to her features at all. The same could not be said for the back of her skull. By the look of the wall behind her, it had exploded, painting blood and brain matter over the flock wallpaper in a dreadful halo. At least she would have died instantly, although if the expression on her pale face was anything to go by, she’d had enough time to realize what was happening.