Torch

by Lin Anderson

  ‘Where’s Amy?’

  ‘Ward seven. She’ll be alright.’ The sob of relief was turning to anger. ‘I knew this would happen but you would never believe the threats. The job always came first.’

  MacRae’s knuckles were clenched white.

  ‘This isn’t the time to discuss my job.’

  ‘Your job almost killed our daughter.’

  MacRae looked stricken.

  ‘Why don’t you and Amy come back and stay with me in the flat?’

  Gillian was staring at Rhona.

  ‘Wouldn’t that be a little crowded?’

  MacRae looked weary. ‘Dr MacLeod is covering Gallagher’s job. She’s staying at a friend’s flat, not mine.’

  Gillian was unconvinced.

  ‘You threw me out, Gillian. Remember?’

  ‘It seems throwing you out wasn’t enough.’

  MacRae turned to Rhona. ‘I’m going to see Amy. Can you take a taxi back?’

  She nodded. ‘Of course.’

  Gillian threw Rhona a look as entered the lift. Rhona wondered if Gillian’s suggestion of infidelity came from past experience or a sense that she could never come before the job in Severino’s life.

  Chapter 9

  Jaz couldn’t sleep. He rolled out of bed and went to stand at the window. The lights of Edinburgh stared back at him. He had been in this flat for three months and he still loved it with a passion he would have found difficult to describe to anyone willing to listen. The only people who could understand were ones who had been homeless themselves.

  He left the window and went into the tiny kitchenette, filled the kettle and popped a teabag into a cup. He didn’t bother with milk. Without a fridge it went off too quickly. He scooped two teaspoonfuls of sugar into the cup and poured in the boiling water.

  The dog was awake and when Jaz sat down it came and laid its head in his lap. Emperor was missing Karen. Every time he heard a female voice on the stairs, he was up and at the door.

  Jaz was the same, even though Karen had never been in the flat. He’d offered her a bed one night when it was really cold, but she’d refused.

  ‘Emps keeps me warm,’ she’d told him.

  He’d gone back with the dog and the policeman had taken a note of his address and told him he could hang on to Emps for now. Jaz had offered to look at the body, check if it was Karen. They’d agreed because they knew it would take time to locate a relative, if they managed at all. Kids like Karen were running from someone or something and it wasn't usually concerned families.

  The blast had hit her back, so her face was recognisable. It only took a second but the smell of burnt flesh stayed in his nostrils. That and a terrible feeling of anger.

  It wouldn’t be light for another hour. Jaz rinsed his cup at the sink. It was a good time to find the people he needed to talk to. The ones who might have noticed someone hanging about the empty building. The people nobody noticed or if they did they looked straight ahead and pretended they hadn’t. The people who were an embarrassment to the good folks of Edinburgh. A bit like himself.

  Outside the streets were glistening in a light frost. Jaz stuck his hands in his pockets, whistled lightly to Emps to follow and set off for the Grassmarket.

  To the tourists, the Grassmarket meant pubs and eateries. Jaz knew it better than that. To Jaz, the down and outs who sat begging from passers by, gave the place its character. At night, they clogged the alleys and jammed the doorways. These were the long stay patrons of Edinburgh’s underbelly; the ex-servicemen whose lives had fallen apart, the drunks and the addicts.

  Traffic was beginning to flow along Chambers Street as he passed the Museum of Scotland and headed down by Greyfriars churchyard to the Cowgate. The men’s hostel on the corner was closed but there was an old guy coughing up spit on the front steps. Jaz recognised him.

  The Bruce wasn’t one to miss a chance. He had his hand out right away.

  ‘Any change Mister?’

  Jaz dropped a pound coin plus fifty pence in the dirty palm and the face lit up. The price of a can of extra strong lager. Breakfast had arrived.

  ‘Ah, you’re alright son.’

  ‘It’s me. Jaz.’

  The old guy’s face worked hard on focusing.

  ‘I’m looking for Mary,’ Jaz explained.

  The face changed to suspicion. ‘What d’you want the Queen for?’

  ‘I need to talk to her.’

  ‘The Queen doesn’t talk. Not sense anyway.’

  The old guy was shuffling off towards a High Street newsagent and off licence open early enough for breakfast. Jaz walked beside him.

  ‘I heard Mary had a little trouble.’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  They were nearing the shop. There was anticipation in the old man’s step. In his head, he was already swallowing the lager, feeling the surge as the alcohol met his brain. He might be a drunk, but he was shrewd. If Jaz wanted information, he would pay for it.

  The owner was pulling up the safety grill, lifting the big bags of delivered rolls from the shop doorway.

  ‘We could buy four cans and a couple of rolls,’ Jaz said. ‘Keep you going for a while.’

  The old guy was summing up the offer. ‘Forget the fuckin rolls and make it half a dozen cans.’

  Jaz nodded. It would skin him but he needed to talk to Mary. If what he’d heard was true, she might know who lit the fire.

  The Bruce waited till the money was across the counter and the pack of lager in his hands.

  ‘The Queen’s in the Infirmary. Some bastard tried to get her out of a squat. She wouldn’t go so he set her hair alight.’

  ‘Was it the same guy she told The Wallace about?’

  ‘The same one.’ The Bruce laughed. ‘Stupid bitch is cracking up. No drink allowed in the hospital.’ His laugh sounded like dirty water going down a blocked drain. ‘She wants The Wallace and me to rescue her.’

  Then he was off across the road to a wooden bench. Breakfast was served.

  There was no point turning up at the hospital until nearer official visiting time. If Queen Mary knew anything, he would find out soon enough. Jaz headed for his pitch outside Waverley, his mind turning over what he should do after that. All he knew was Karen shouldn’t have died. Whoever lit that fire was responsible for her death. If the police didn’t find him, he would do it himself.

  Chapter 10

  ‘We found a leather pouch round her waist. The pocket was at the front so it escaped much of the heat. It held some coins, and this.’

  Dr MacKenzie handed Rhona a photograph. The bright young face stared out at her, side by side with the Alsatian. Rhona wondered how the girl had persuaded the dog into the booth, then made it sit in such a way they were both visible for the flash. The dog’s tongue hung out, long and pink and dripping. It had a grin on to match its mistress’s.

  ‘She had just about enough money for her next meal, a penny whistle and a change of clothing, plus the remains of the tartan blanket.’ The pathologist nodded to the bagged items behind him.

  ‘According to eyewitnesses, the blast from the backdraft was extensive. From the state of the body, she must have been facing away from the fire, but directly in its path. The lacerations to the back of the skull suggest intense heat. Her front is relatively unmarked except for the genital area.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He motioned her forward.

  ‘The pubic hair is burned away, the genitals blistered, yet this area would have been shielded from the blast.’

  ‘These burns were inflicted before the explosion?’

  He nodded. If that was true, it was the first link between the Glasgow fire and this one.

  ‘I take it you want to stay while we open her up?’

  Rhona nodded.

  The doctor reached for an array of instruments beside him. Each pathologist had his own systematic procedure for post-mortem. Rhona watched as Dr MacKenzie chose the favoured way, making a simple incision down the midd
le of the body from the neck to the pubis making a detour round the tougher skin of the navel.

  ‘The usual samples have already gone to the lab,’ he said. ‘You may speak to my assistant about those if you wish. Apart from the genital burns, there is no suggestion of violent injury prior to death. However, there was evidence of recent sexual contact which may or may not have been consensual.’ He paused as he lifted the stomach clear of the body and manoeuvred it over a container, ‘And if I’m not mistaken, nothing to eat for some time.’

  The scissors bit through the stomach wall, releasing the meagre contents with a soft plop into the container.

  The girl had been living on fresh air. Whatever she had earned from playing the whistle had not been spent on food.

  ‘Maybe she was feeding a habit?’ Rhona suggested.

  ‘More likely feeding the dog. A dog that size needs copious amounts of food and seeing it tied up outside the tent, it was well looked after. Anyway, we’ll know about drugs once we get the results of the urine tests.’

  ‘She was very young,’ Rhona said, thinking about the face in the picture.

  ‘I would suggest a little over fifteen. The breasts are small and not, I think, fully formed. We’ll be able to tell from the hair samples but I’m fairly sure she hadn’t reached late teens.’

  ‘Jaz, the boy who took her dog, said she had no family.’ It hardly seemed possible that a fifteen-year-old girl could be sleeping rough on the streets of their capital city and no one had reported her missing.

  Dr MacKenzie’s tone was tart. ‘I take it there are no homeless girls on the streets of Glasgow?’

  ‘They don’t usually make their living playing the penny whistle,’ Rhona said.

  ‘This one may not have either if the semen is anything to go by.’

  ‘I’d like to check your DNA findings against a seminal fluid sample we have already.’

  ‘Of course.

  Rhona was glad to leave the sterile atmosphere of the Pathology Lab and breathe in Edinburgh’s pollution instead. She stood on the steps outside, clearing her head of the scent of death. The police car was waiting at the kerb. She would pick up her things and head back to Glasgow. The message from her lab via MacFarlane had simply stated she was needed.

  She thought briefly about calling the hospital to check on Amy then decided against it. If Gillian was there, it might make things worse. Judging by Gillian’s reaction the previous night, it was time for MacRae to choose between his family and his work.

  When or if she returned to Edinburgh, the chances were she would find herself working with someone other than Severino MacRae. Rhona was surprised by her sudden feeling of disappointment and quickly dismissed it. She didn’t like working with MacRae and he didn’t like working with her. It would be easier for both of them if the investigation passed to someone else. But if the warning on the windscreen was for real?

  In the weak December sunshine, the Gardens looked back innocently at her. Gathering Hogmanay tourists thronged the north side of Princes Street, in and out of the souvenir shops, stopping to take pictures of the castle. Traffic was flowing again, the tent was down. To her left the shattered building was a hive of activity. The scaffolding was up and a team at work inside. A white suit emerged as the police car passed, face encased in a cartridge respirator. MacRae wasn’t taking any chances. Buildings like these were often lined with asbestos. Sifting through the debris disturbed this. Then there were the noxious gases trapped under deposits which might be released during excavation.

  The car rolled down the ramp into Waverley station.

  ‘Mr MacRae said he’ll call you later,’ the driver told her.

  ‘I didn’t tell Mr MacRae I had to go back to Glasgow,’ she said, puzzled.

  ‘He asked me to give you this.’

  The driver handed Rhona a brown envelope, ‘for the Lady Scientist’ scrawled roughly across the front.

  Rhona settled herself in a window seat. The train was quiet. It wasn’t a peak time for travelling between the two cities. She placed the envelope face up on the table in front of her and for once the title ‘Lady’ didn’t irritate her. She wondered what effect the contents of the envelope would have.

  After returning from the hospital, she’d read through the bundle of letters from MacRae’s filing cabinet. When Greg arrived back around two she was still up. She’d separated the letters into two piles. The larger pile consisted of general complaints and acts of God. The four on the right she thought were from the wanker, as MacRae called him. The front door opening and the sound of muffled laughter from the hall had broken into her thoughts. Greg stuck his head round her bedroom door, his eyes hazy with drink.

  ‘Didn’t think you’d be awake. I’ve brought someone back with me. Hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘We won’t make a noise,’ he promised.

  He was true to his word. Either the walls were soundproof or it was the quietest lovemaking on the planet. Rhona turned up the stereo to stop herself thinking about sex.

  It was the sight and smell of death that did it. Rhona had experienced it many times before. People had to prove themselves alive to shake off the presence of death.

  She picked up the four separate letters and laid them one by one across the bed.

  The fire aroused the arsonist. Made him feel alive, when nothing else could. But this wasn’t a roll on the rug in front of a log fire. His fires had caused devastation on a grand scale and now death.

  The traffic had dwindled to an occasional hum. Rhona rose and stood at the window wishing Sean would call her. She desperately wanted to hear his voice. No. She wanted his weight on her, his breath in her hair. She wanted the smell of sex to wipe out the scent of death.

  Below her the street was deserted save for a man and his dog. The figure paused and looked up and Rhona strained to make out the face in the orange glow of the street light. The dog lifted its leg and marked the lamp post, then with a small yelp urged its master on.

  Chapter 11

  ‘What the hell is going on MacFarlane?’

  ‘Take it easy Sev. We’re on it. All known punks...’

  MacFarlane didn’t get to finish. Severino threw the electric razor on the desk. Shaving hadn’t made him look any better. Bed and sleep were both an illusive dream.

  ‘Cut the crap. You and I both know who did it.’

  ‘We don’t know for certain,’ MacFarlane tried.

  ‘Correction. This arrived this morning.’ Severino threw an envelope across the desk. ‘The bastard knows everything about me and our lady forensic. Gillian’s talking about taking Amy north to her mother’s. As far away from me as possible.’

  MacFarlane said: ‘I’m sorry.’

  Severino paused before the next barb. It wasn’t MacFarlane’s fault. He was doing his best. But it wasn’t enough. If it were just himself it would be different. But not Amy.

  ‘Look. I investigate fires. I’m not responsible for finding the people who set them. That’s your job.’

  ‘If he hits during the street party we have to be ready for him.’

  Severino stared at the quiet persistence of the man.

  ‘You’re talking to the wrong man MacFarlane,’ he said firmly. ‘You want fire prevention.’

  The DI wasn’t giving up. ‘There will be a lot of people about.’

  MacFarlane was putting words to the pictures in Sev’s own head.

  ‘Cancel the celebrations. You would cancel for a terrorist threat. Edinburgh’s become fireworks city. It thinks it’s fucking Disney Land.’

  ‘You know we can’t do that. Not on what we have.’ MacFarlane looked apologetic. ‘The three days are a sell-out. Sky’s covering the whole event.’

  Severino shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Suit yourself. It’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘But you know how he thinks.’ MacFarlane was like a dog with a bone.

  ‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ Sev said, ‘I alway
s get there after the event.’

  ‘But he’s never warned us before.’

  Sev ran his hand through his hair. It didn’t help his brain. He had gone over the same idea a hundred times. It still didn’t fit.

  ‘Has it never occurred to you that’s what’s wrong?’

  In the distance the castle dominated the skyline, Union Jack fluttering in the breeze. Her Majesty’s garrison in Scotland. If the bastard had his mind set on the city centre, the castle might be the only safe place this weekend.

  ‘While we all run round trying to figure out if, where and when during the Hogmanay party he’s going to perform,’ he went on grimly, ‘the bastard will be somewhere else.’

  ‘We have to take that chance.’

  Sev turned, his face decided.

  ‘No. You have to take that chance.’ He picked up a buff folder. ‘Here’s my report.’ He shoved it in MacFarlane’s face. ‘The last four fires in the city centre have been started deliberately, I believe by the same person or persons. All the details are there.’

  Sev headed for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ MacFarlane sounded resigned.

  ‘For a drink, home and bed. In that order.’

  His jacket was behind the door. MacRae pulled it off the hook and slung it over his shoulder. He turned back. He wanted to be sure of one thing before he left.

  ‘She got the message?’

  ‘She was on the 12 o’clock to Glasgow. I’ll make sure she doesn’t come back.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  MacFarlane looked resigned: ‘She’ll be safer in Glasgow.’

  ‘We’d all be safer in Glasgow.’

  Chapter 12

  Sev didn’t look up when Jaz entered the bar. Instead he drained his whisky glass and waved it for a refill. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, least of all him.

  When he left the office, he’d headed for the centre of town rather than the flat. There was no need to visit the fire scene again. He had signed off this one. He’d kept his promise to Gillian. But it wasn’t Gillian’s frightened demands the night before that had made up his mind. It was standing in the ward looking at Amy’s pale face, the dark deep shadows for eyes. His wee girl. She was okay, they told him. She was being kept in overnight only as a precaution. It hadn’t made him feel any better.