by James Oswald
‘Two?’ Hilton raised a surprised eyebrow, leaned forward and scribbled something on a pad lying open on the desk.
‘Yes, two. So can we wrap this up?’ McLean refused to rise to the bait.
‘You know I’m cleared to discuss ongoing cases, Tony. You’ve not been back at work long since the … incident.’
‘You mean since you lot all think I tried to hang myself?’
Hilton pinched the bridge of his nose and stared out the window. He’d had his ponytail cut off, trying out a DCI Brooks-style shaven head to disguise the receding hairline and encroaching grey. It didn’t really work; he looked more like a eunuch than anything else, and an old eunuch at that.
‘You still cling to your denial? You know we can’t begin to progress until you accept what you did.’
‘I am aware of the Four Stages theory, Hilton. I even happen to think it’s quite useful. We have a bit of a problem with the denial stage, though. If you won’t accept my version of events, if you insist on believing the rumours spread by people who weren’t even there, then I can never progress, can I? Unless I lie, of course.’
‘Which would be counter-productive, in the end.’
‘Exactly so.’
Hilton paused a while before speaking again. It gave McLean a chance to flex his leg. It really was quite sore today. Must be a change in the weather coming.
‘You’ve had a troubled past, Tony. First your parents dying when you were very young. Your fiancée—’
‘Look, rehashing the past really doesn’t help, you know. You’re talking about things that happened years ago. What’s the point of picking at the scars?’
‘Scabs. You pick at scabs.’
‘Yes, and scabs heal in time. If you let them. Old wounds become scars. Since you’re so keen on your metaphors, the mark is there but we’re able to function well enough. What you’re doing isn’t a finger rubbing at an itch until it starts bleeding again. You’re taking a scalpel and cutting deep to see what’s in there. It’s not helpful.’
McLean realized he had tensed up as he spoke, and forced himself to relax back into the armchair. He knew all too well what was coming next, but at least if it ticked another of the boxes on Hilton’s list then the session could be brought to a close and he could get on with some proper work.
‘Anger is good, Tony.’ Yes. Right again.
‘Is it? I’ve always found it gets in the way of thinking. Makes you do stupid things.’
‘Like trying to hang yourself?’
‘I’d say trying to hang yourself was a pretty stupid thing to do, yes.’
‘And yet—’
‘Gods, it’s like listening to a broken record. How many times do I have to tell you, Hilton?’
Hilton gave the smallest of shrugs. ‘OK. We’ll leave that for now. So these two new cases.’ He emphasized the number. ‘Anything special?’
‘We found a body in the River North Esk in Roslin Glen last week. Still no ID, unless something’s come up while I’ve been stuck in here with you.’
‘I see you’re eager to get your teeth stuck into that one. That’s good, Tony, but don’t think throwing yourself into solving cases is the solution to your problems. That didn’t work out so well before.’
‘The other case, since you’re so obviously desperate to know, is Andrew Weatherly and his family. You’ve seen the news, I’m sure.’
For once, Hilton said nothing. It was almost amusing to see the thoughts flitting across his face, the questions stumbling into each other in their rush to his mouth. McLean waited until he thought the psychiatrist was going to speak, then pushed himself up out of his chair. A shock of pain lanced through his leg, and he covered up the grimace by shaking out the sleeves of his jacket.
‘That must be very … difficult.’ Hilton made no attempt to stop McLean as he headed for the door.
‘Very. So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get back to it.’
‘Yes. Yes. Of course. We’ll reschedule for tomorrow. Same time.’ The psychiatrist stared at him, the thought processes writ large across his face. He’d never make a good criminal: too easy to read. ‘You know you can always come to me for help, Tony. Any time. Any thing.’
Humour him, why not? After all, Hilton’s signature on a sheet of paper in Duguid’s office was the only reason he was back on active cases anyway. McLean nodded his head in understanding. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Time was he’d hated the Western General Hospital. It was where his grandmother had spent the last eighteen months of her life, slowly shrivelling away like a balloon left over after the party’s finished and everyone’s gone home. He’d visited every day, then once or twice a week, guilty when he forgot, guilty when he came and only spent a few minutes staring at her. Then she had died and he’d hoped to put the place behind him. But Emma had kept him coming back in the dark days when she’d been unconscious. And then he’d been here himself.
As a patient he’d been dreadful, he knew. The nurses were nice to him, of course. Some thought he’d been close to the edge, and maybe he had been. Their sympathy wasn’t really what he’d needed, though. Others just did their job, cheerful around him or simply there, and that had been better. But he’d longed to get out of the place, had discharged himself far earlier than the doctors wanted, earlier even than was wise.
That much he realized now, with the ache in his leg a constant companion. And that was why he’d come to look upon his visits to the hospital with eager anticipation. If nothing else, this was where the really good painkillers came from.
‘You’ve been doing the exercises I set you.’ The physiotherapist looked McLean in the eye as she spoke, voicing the words as a statement, not a question.
‘When I can.’ Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie. He had the badly photocopied sheet pinned to the fridge door with a magnet, and sometimes he did some of the stretches while he was waiting for the Aga to reheat his takeaway.
‘I can only help you so much, Inspector. The rest you have to do for yourself.’ As if to emphasize her point, the physiotherapist manipulated his leg, bending it so that a sharp twist of pain shot through his hip. It was short-lived though, blessed relief coming as she lowered his leg back down on to the bed.
She was called Esmerelda, some cruel trick on the part of her parents. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, but she seemed to know her stuff. McLean had started his physiotherapy with a burly man called Steve, but Steve had gone off to work with the Scottish rugby team, leaving him to the tender ministrations of Esmerelda. At first he’d thought she might have been a bit less brutal, but their first session together had put the lie to that one.
‘You can put your trousers back on now. We’re done. For today.’
‘I don’t suppose you know what the problem is?’
Esmerelda gave him a look far older than her years. ‘Which one? You had a double fracture in your right femur. That’s a difficult bone to heal properly at the best of times, but you insisted on going back to work before you were ready. You won’t rest it properly, you sit poorly and you don’t do the exercises I gave you. If you were twenty and fit, you might just get away with it. You’re not twenty, though. And you’re not fit.’
McLean felt like Constable MacBride, a deep red blush heating his cheeks, the tops of his ears burning. It was a long time since he’d had a good telling off like that, and the fact that the person telling him off was half his age didn’t detract one bit from the fact that she was absolutely right.
‘I’ll try harder,’ he muttered, aware of just how much he sounded like himself as a boy in that horrible English boarding school. Terrified of Matron and her withering stare. At least Esmerelda didn’t look like a harridan.
‘You do that, Inspector. I look forward to seeing evidence of it next week.’
9
The walk down to the city mortuary was cold, a bitter wind blowing in from the Firth of Forth. McLean tried to stretch his leg as he walked, stung by the physiotherapist’s
words about his fitness. He couldn’t argue with her about his age. Overhead, the clouds had that purple tinge to them that promised more snow. At least it was still daylight, though that wouldn’t last long.
Angus had already started on the body, ably assisted by the long-suffering Dr Sharp. Sitting at the back of the examination theatre, Dr Peachey looked bored, most likely because his presence was a legal requirement as witness to the proceedings. McLean thought he’d slipped into the observation area without being seen, but Cadwallader was never easy to fool.
‘Nice of you to join us, Tony,’ he said without taking his eyes off the cadaver. ‘I was beginning to wonder where you’d got to.’
‘I was told half past.’ McLean looked at his watch, saw that it was a quarter to. ‘Sorry. It’s been a busy day.’
‘No gently easing back into the flow after your enforced leave, I take it.’ Cadwallader pulled something dark and slippery out through the large incision in the dead man’s chest. Plopped it down on the stainless steel tray that Dr Sharp was already holding out for him. They were a well-rehearsed team.
‘What, you don’t think Weatherly’s an easy case?’
Cadwallader stopped, his hand poised over the body ready to delve in again, and turned to face McLean.
‘I would’ve thought they’d want it all squared away neat and tidy.’ Cadwallader shook his head, turned back to the task in hand. ‘That’s not really your style.’
‘Yes, well whoever “they” are, they’ve pissed off Duguid somewhere along the line. I could’ve told them that wasn’t a good idea. Now he’s decided I’m a spanner and he’s going to throw me into the works.’
Cadwallader straightened up, handing yet another organ to his assistant. ‘You know, that’s so cynical it’s almost brilliant.’
‘You don’t have to deal with the consequences though, Angus. I’m the one who’s going to get all the shit when it doesn’t go to their script. I’ve already had Jo Dalgliesh bending my ear. Christ alone knows what’s going to turn up next.’
‘Yes. The term “poisoned chalice” springs to mind.’
McLean saw the CCTV video spool through his mind’s eye. The twin girls drinking the milk given them by their father. A shiver ran through him at the thought.
‘What about our mysterious tattooed man? Didn’t just accidentally fall in and drown?’
‘After taking all his clothes off first? If only it were that simple.’ Cadwallader stood away from the body, swept his arms wide to take in its full length. ‘This, I’m afraid, quite literally has suspicious death written all over it.’
‘Literally?’
‘Sometimes I wonder how you ever made it to sergeant, let alone detective inspector.’ Cadwallader waved his hand at the body, blackened by the intricate web of designs covering every inch of skin.
‘The tattoos?’
‘Yes, Tony. The tattoos. Unusual enough that someone would go to such lengths. I’ve read a few stories of full body tattooing, but it’s very rare.’
‘So this was an unusual person. Should make identification a lot easier.’
‘Oh I very much doubt that. Quite the opposite.’
‘How so? Surely—’
‘These tattoos are all fresh. Some of them are barely healed. I doubt a single one’s more than a month old.’
‘We’re going to need a room. Somewhere not too far from the Weatherly case.’
Back at the station and McLean was feeling the effects of his walk to the mortuary. His thigh ached deep in the bone. He wanted to lie down somewhere comfortable until the painkillers kicked in, but he’d stupidly left them at home. The thought of running two murder investigations side by side was bad enough; it would be unbearable if he had to spend half his time walking up and down stairs between different incident rooms.
‘Room five’s free I think, sir. It’s not very big, but it’s just across the corridor.’ DC MacBride had a thick wedge of brown manila folders under one arm, his tablet computer clasped firmly in the opposite hand. Not letting such a prize out of his grasp was probably the only way of ensuring it didn’t disappear. McLean wondered if he took it home and slept with it.
‘Set it up please, Constable.’ He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out under his desk in the hope that it might ease off some of the pain. ‘I take it we’ve not had any hits back from Missing Persons about our tattooed man.’
MacBride shook his head. ‘Nothing yet. Fingerprints turned up a blank. Still waiting on a DNA profile so we can run that.’
‘Angus’ll have that by the end of the day, hopefully. You’ll need to do the Mis Per all over again, though.’ McLean explained about the tattoos being fresh.
‘The whole body? In a month?’ MacBride’s normally pink face went very pale.
‘I don’t suppose Penicuik turned up anything useful?’
‘Said they walked the banks for a mile upstream and down. Nothing obvious, but then the weather’s hardly helping. Everything’s covered in fresh snow out there.’
McLean tried to remember the area from when he’d mountain biked out that way in his misspent youth. There were a couple of disused railway lines that had been turned into bridleways, if he recalled correctly. Lots of old ruined buildings, and a tunnel.
‘You got a map of the river?’
MacBride looked flustered for a moment, then juggled his tablet computer and the folders until he could access the touch screen. ‘I can call up Google Maps, sir. There’s satellite imagery, too.’
McLean shook his head. ‘No. I’m old-fashioned. Give me paper and lines any day. Get something sorted for the incident room. I’ll be up as soon as I’ve managed to find some bodies to fill it with.’
Several hours later, with another bruising encounter with Duguid under his belt, McLean entered incident room five, hoping for some peace and quiet. The whiteboard on one wall held a few questions, a photograph of the tattooed man’s dead face and a hastily scribbled list of detectives’ names – those few who would still work with him and the unlucky ones who’d not managed to find a better excuse in time. It was a very short list; he’d have to draft in some uniforms to help out.
At first he thought the room was empty, but a quiet muttering from behind a stack of folders piled up on a desk at the far end turned out to be DC MacBride.
‘Problem?’ McLean peered over the folders. MacBride was fiddling with the cables at the back of an elderly computer.
‘Oh, sir. Sorry. I didn’t see you come in.’
‘Too busy fighting technology. Did someone pinch your tablet?’
A second’s worry flitted across MacBride’s face. He spun around, taking a length of cable with him that probably shouldn’t have gone. McLean saw the tablet lying on the desk behind him at the same time as the constable, who grabbed it like a jealous lover.
‘Don’t even joke about it, sir. You’ve no idea how many people have tried to nick it. You’d think policemen would be less … I don’t know …’
‘Thieving?’ McLean offered.
‘Yes,’ MacBride agreed. ‘I’ve never known so many light fingers as there are in this place. Can’t put something down for five minutes.’
‘Shouldn’t IT be doing that?’ McLean pointed at the cable still in the constable’s hands. There wasn’t a lot of space for anything in the room, but somehow he had managed to get four desks and four computers wedged into one corner.
‘Depends on whether you want it done today or next month. Figured it’d be quicker if I did it myself. Just as soon as I can get everything hooked up to the network we can start sorting out those actions.’ He nodded at the whiteboard. It wasn’t much, but those questions would only multiply.
‘You reckon you’ll be done by shift end?’
‘Should be.’ MacBride looked at his watch, then back at McLean. ‘No overtime on this one, I take it.’
‘Not yet. No. If we’re lucky we might get some more help, though.’
MacBride said nothing, but his raised eyeb
row showed he was developing the necessary levels of cynicism to survive as a detective. McLean looked back at the whiteboard, reading off the actions quickly. There was one thing missing.
‘Penicuik walked the river edge, didn’t they?’ He searched around for a marker pen before writing ‘point of entry?’ on the board.
‘Mile each way, at least that’s what they said.’ MacBride flicked a wall switch and the computers clunked into life. ‘I was going to get you that map. Sorry, sir, slipped my mind.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve got some old Landrangers at home. I’ll dig them out. You’ll want to wear something warm tomorrow though.’
‘I will?’
‘Yup. Good boots, too. You and me are going for a walk along the riverbank.’
10
Cold grey light filtered through the bare tree limbs, reflecting off the thin powdering of snow on the black earth and picking out fringes of frost around the piles of dead leaves. The wind had died down, or turned to a sufficiently different direction to be less noticeable deep in the glen. McLean stamped his feet against the chill, feeling the unfamiliar weight of his walking boots. They were new, like the ski gloves he had bought the evening before. The hat was one of his grandfather’s, though, an old tweed deerstalker his grandmother had found in a cupboard somewhere and presented to him when he first made detective. The Meerschaum pipe to go with it had long since disappeared.
‘What exactly are we looking for, sir?’
DC MacBride appeared to have kitted himself out from the stores back at the station. His yellow fluorescent jacket was hardly subtle, and it had been built for a constable twice his size. He had what looked like a balaclava nicked from the Armed Response Unit rolled up into a makeshift woolly hat. It was undoubtedly cosy, but nothing could stop the end of his nose from turning red.
‘I’m hoping we’ll know it when we see it.’ McLean slapped his hands together as he turned on the spot, surveying the scene around him. Many years ago, back in his student days, he had bicycled out this way from time to time. The old railway followed the line of the river for a bit, dropping eventually into Penicuik, but first he wanted to walk the other bank.