by James Oswald
‘Oh, you’re looking for mad Amy. You should have said.’
McLean twisted round too quickly, sending a twinge of pain through his neck and shoulders. The librarian had managed somehow to stalk silently back across the room and was peering over his shoulder.’
‘Mad Amy?’
‘Oh, aye. Everyone knows about her. Well, everyone my age or older, I guess. She was a character, I can tell you.’
‘You knew her?’
‘Back in the late sixties, mebbe early seventies, aye. She lived in yon big old house with her brother. She was an old lady by then, of course. We used to go guiseing up there on All Hallows and she’d give us biscuits that were well past their sell-by date. Then her brother went missing, and she went a bit mad. They ended up taking her to Rosskettle, out by Loanhead, you know?’
McLean nodded. He knew Rosskettle psychiatric hospital all too well.
‘Still, the stories they used to tell. The parties they got up to in that house back in the war, before then, even. There were orgies that went on for days. Stuff you wouldn’t believe.’
McLean only half listened as the librarian relayed the gossip, embellished and exaggerated by decades of retelling. He had managed to find a record of Amy Calton’s birth, in 1912. Her age wasn’t all that surprising, nor the fact that her parents were clearly well-to-do Edinburgh socialites. What sent a chill to the pit of his stomach was the single line stating where she had been born. Not the big house just up the road from the library where he was sitting, but another sizeable mansion across town towards the Forth in Newhaven.
Headland House.
48
‘Did you know this? Is that why we’re looking into the Pentland Mummy case? Because you knew all along where it would lead us?’
McLean had driven back to the station with perhaps undue speed, barely thought twice about where he parked his car, and scattered constables left and right in his haste to get down to the gloomy room set up for the Cold Case Unit, all in the hope of finding Duguid still there. He needn’t have rushed. The ex-detective superintendent was hunched over his desk, peering at a dusty handful of papers recently lifted from an even dustier archive storage box. He looked up at the question, his eyes taking a while to focus.
‘You’ll have to be a bit more specific, McLean. Did I know what?’
‘Did you know that your man Daniel Calton had a sister who was born at Headland House? A sister who was involved in orgies and all sorts of similar stuff in the nineteen thirties and forties?’
Duguid narrowed his eyes, shaking his head almost imperceptibly before replying just a little too slowly to be believable. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Amy Calton. Check her name on your computer if you want. I don’t think you need to, though.’
Duguid leaned back in his seat, clasping his long-fingered hands together like a man at prayer. Like McLean’s old and much-hated prep-school headmaster, now he thought about it.
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘What am I suggesting?’ McLean paused, looked around, noticing Grumpy Bob at his desk on the opposite side of the room from Duguid. Unlike his normal resting position, with feet up and face draped by a decorous newspaper, he was alert, and even awake, eyes flicking between the two of them. Face almost impossible to read.
‘I’m suggesting that no one knew the Headland House case better than you. Even if most of the paperwork’s been conveniently lost, it’s all still up there in your head. The report said that the owners of the house couldn’t be found, but I think that was just another part of the cover-up. They were well enough known, just protected. You knew the name Calton, probably tried to track down any living members of the family. What I can’t work out is how you thought coming at the investigation by the back door would help. Or did you just want to see how far I got before they shut me down like they did you?’
Duguid had been looking at McLean while he spoke. Now he steepled his fingers under his chin, swivelled his head slowly in Grumpy Bob’s direction. ‘What do you reckon, Bob? Lost it completely?’
‘Don’t get me involved in all this, sir. I’m just killing time ’til my retirement.’
‘Coward.’ Duguid turned back to McLean. ‘You know what your problem is? You see patterns everywhere. Connections between people that most would just consider coincidence. And when you get something in your head you just won’t leave it alone. It’s right fucking annoying sometimes.’
McLean slumped against the door frame, the adrenaline that had propelled him all the way from Eileen Prendergast’s GP and the library computer leaching out of him like the warmth from a forgotten mug of tea.
‘On the other hand, you’ve a gut instinct that’s more reliable than most. Probably the only reason I’ve tolerated you all these years. That and the fact you found that wee girl when everyone else on the investigation had been either told not to bother with the attic or were distracted from looking up there.’
‘So you did know?’
Duguid let out a low grunt of a laugh. ‘Oh, give yourself a big pat on the back. Of course I fucking well knew. Danny Calton owned Headland House up until he went missing in the early seventies. After that it went to a trust fund set up for his nieces. His sister married Bill Prendergast before the war and they lived in that massive pile of a place in Duddingston. Judging by the way you came storming in here, I guess you know the rest. Twin daughters, Esme and Eileen, both bearing an uncanny resemblance to their Uncle Danny, if the old black-and-white photos I saw twenty years ago were anything to go by. Not much of old Bill in them, but then by all accounts old Bill didn’t get much of himself in Amy. He was more interested in young midshipmen.’
‘Midshipmen?’
‘Ah, the famous McLean echo. Knew there was something else I’d missed. Do I need to spell it out? He was gay. Liked barely pubescent young men, by all accounts. Of course a career naval officer between the wars would have been expected to have a wife and family, so someone found young Amy for him. She was already shagging half of Edinburgh high society, her own twin brother Danny included, so it wasn’t as if anyone was going to mind old Bill not joining in. He died in the sixties, leaving everything to her. She went a bit mad when her brother disappeared, died a few years later. The two sisters lived in the old house, kept afloat by their trust fund money and taking in the occasional lodger. You can shut your mouth now.’
McLean did as he was told, opened it to ask a question, then shut it again. He walked across to his own desk and slumped down into the chair, aware that unlike Grumpy Bob and Duguid’s desks, his was clear of files and paperwork, the computer switched off.
‘So how did you expect this to play out, then? We ID the body as Danny Calton, start looking into his affairs around the time of his death and bam! Suddenly the files on Headland House reappear? The people who shut down that investigation relent and let us reopen it?’
‘To be honest I never thought we’d get this far. It’s not the first time I’ve tried. Usually they’re quicker off the mark.’ Duguid picked up his sheaf of dusty papers and went back to reading.
‘They?’ McLean swivelled his chair around until he was facing Grumpy Bob. ‘You knew about this, Bob?’
The detective sergeant looked at his hands and muttered something under his breath that might have been ‘Maybe, a bit.’
‘Fine. Well. Where do you want to take it next? Assuming your hunch is right and the Pentland Mummy is indeed Daniel Calton. I mean, even if we get a positive identification from the DNA, that’s as far as we can take it, right? Everyone connected to the case is long dead.’
‘But they’d know we knew.’ Duguid’s voice was lo
w, like the rumble of distant thunder. ‘They’d know we’ve not given up. Know they can’t have everyone dancing to their tune.’
McLean looked across at the ex-detective superintendent. A man he’d despised most of his working life, but whom he had at least thought he knew well enough. And yet there was something about Duguid now that was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Or maybe he had, way back when he’d first encountered him as a young detective sergeant gaining a reputation. It was clear that he had changed after Headland House, almost as if bowing to authority had broken him. Had he harboured a grudge all of those years, nursed his grievance, working away at it like a sore tooth until the pain was far worse than the initial injury? Was this the real reason for Duguid’s animosity, because McLean refused to yield to the same kind of pressure?
‘We can’t beat them. You do realise that, sir? Not sure there’s even a “them” to beat.’
Duguid leaned forward, his balding pate shining in the light from his computer screen, eyes shaded and dark.
‘Oh I know that, McLean. But that’s no reason why we shouldn’t try.’
‘Looks like there’s nobody home, sir.’
McLean peered in through the front door of Miss Prendergast’s house, looking for any sign of the lodger DI Carter was supposed to have spoken to. He’d tried the door already, finding it locked. Multiple rings of the doorbell hadn’t been answered either. Someone, somewhere had a key, but asking for it would have attracted the wrong kind of attention, which wasn’t what he needed right now.
‘Top marks for observation, Sergeant.’ He dropped down the stone steps to where DS MacBride was standing, head tilted back as he stared at the sightless windows. ‘Let’s try round the back, shall we?’
The house would once have sat in expansive grounds, probably backing on to Arthur’s Seat itself given the location. Over time it had been whittled away by housing developments but it boasted a sizeable front and back garden. The latter still had a coach house, set a bit back from the main house. Looking at the condition of it, McLean wouldn’t have been surprised to find an actual coach parked inside. There wasn’t enough grass to graze a team of horses, though.
‘Locked, sir.’ MacBride rattled the back door. A pair of French doors opening on to a patio at the side had been similarly reluctant to let them in, the drawing room beyond them empty of anything but ancient furniture.
‘Must be a key somewhere.’ McLean looked around the courtyard, trying to decide which unlikely hiding place the late Miss Prendergast might have used. There was nothing under the bins, neatly lined up along one stone wall, nothing hanging from the rusty hook screwed in under the eaves of the little porch overhanging the back door. Even the upturned flower pot next to the boot scraper concealed only a snail. He was about to give up, call in a locksmith, when MacBride gave a little triumphant shout. Looking round, McLean saw him emerging from the coach house, clutching a heavy iron key in one hand.
‘There’s a wee key cupboard in there. Everything’s labelled up. This should let us in, unless it’s all some elaborate hoax.’
It wasn’t, and soon they were standing in the back hall of the old house, listening to its empty silence.
‘Can you smell that?’ McLean sniffed at the air, trying to place the scent. It was faint, almost impossible to make out over the dust and furniture polish, the stale air of a house where nothing moved around much.
‘Smell what?’ MacBride raised his head. ‘Can’t smell anything much.’
McLean tried to pin it down, but the more he sniffed, the less he could smell. It sparked a memory, though; fleeting and difficult to place. More a feeling of unease. He looked around the hall, seeing a door to the kitchen, another to a boot room and a third that most likely opened on to a downstairs toilet. It wasn’t all that different in layout from his own house, across the other side of the city.
‘This way, I think.’
A butler’s pantry opened out on to a long corridor, leading to the front of the house and the main entrance hall. Not much light filtered in from the kitchen, but it was enough to make out a series of doors. The one nearest the pantry opened on to a flight of narrow stairs, uncarpeted and hidden in the thickness of the wall. They led up to a passageway at the back of the house that opened on to the main landing and a half-dozen sizeable bedrooms. All were empty, and looked like they’d not been slept in for a while. It wasn’t until they went through to the back of the house, above the kitchen and where the children would originally have slept, that they found Miss Prendergast’s room.
McLean moved carefully through the tiny space between the single bed and the ancient wooden wardrobe, across to the window. A lace curtain provided privacy from the neighbours peering in, although all the nearby houses were bungalows, looked down upon from this lofty position. The bed was made, an old woollen cardigan draped over the back of a simple wooden chair beside a small dressing table. A couple of hairbrushes, glass scent bottle, nothing unusual for a woman in her seventies to have in her bedroom. On the floor, tucked half under the bed, a pair of sensible flat shoes lay side by side. Were these the ones she had forgotten to put on?
‘We looking for anything in particular, sir?’ MacBride asked.
‘Not really. I’d have liked to have talked to the lodgers if they were still here. Easier than getting their contact details from Carter. Otherwise this was just a chance to see how she lived, if there was anything that might have triggered … You know … It.’
‘I can’t see anything suspicious in here. Looks a lot like my gran’s room. Smells a bit like it too.’
McLean sniffed, catching that scent he’d noticed as they walked into the kitchen. It was almost overpowered by lavender and mothballs, old person’s smell, but it was there. He went back to the corridor, following his nose until it brought him to a second set of servants’ stairs, leading up into the eaves and the attic rooms. They creaked under his tread as he climbed slowly upwards, the light from a dusty window illuminating a narrow landing at the top. With each step the scent became more powerful, like the musk of some wild animal. It came from a small bedroom, the door standing slightly ajar, and for the first time since they had entered the house, McLean heard noise. Stepping into the room made his eyes water, but it was the sight that made him wince.
Two narrow beds had been arranged side by side, with a small bedside table between them. At some point they may have had blankets on them, but now there were only sheets, ripped and torn and covered in splashes of red. Flecks of it speckled the walls where they sloped with the roof. A pile of blood-soaked towels had been thrown into a corner and now they shimmered and shifted with the movement of a thousand happy flies.
Behind him, McLean sensed DS MacBride about to step into the room. He dragged his gaze from the charnel scene, turned just in time to see the detective sergeant’s eyes widen with surprise.
‘Back up, Stuart.’ He held up a hand even though MacBride was already retracing his steps. ‘Get on to Control. We’re going to need a forensic team in here. Fast.’
49
‘It’s human blood all right. Quite a lot of it. Not sure it’s enough to have killed someone, mind.’
Late afternoon, possibly evening if you liked a drink after work, and McLean was standing in the courtyard around the back of Miss Prendergast’s house. The Scene of Crime vans had managed to take up most of the available space; everyone else kept to the front. A team of white-suited technicians were working their way through the room. He and DS MacBride had searched the rest of the house whilst waiting for them to arrive, finding nothing particularly out of place. Of course, given the size of it, there might have been bodies hidden anywhere.
; ‘It looked like an awful lot,’ he said.
‘Aye, but it’s not all been shed at once. There’s dried stuff going back at least a couple of weeks. Some more recent and the latest probably from yesterday or even this morning. We’ve done a simple analysis and so far it all seems to be from the same person.’ Amanda Parsons looked like she was in her element, dressed in the full white paper overalls, overboots and hairnet. McLean might not have recognised her, had she not accosted him with a cheery grin and a clear plastic bag filled with bloodstained towels.
‘Any idea what’s gone on in there? If it’s not a murder scene, that is.’
‘Not really. Not yet anyway. Looks like someone just liked cutting themselves. Or cutting other people maybe, but not fatally. It’s fair creepy, in a big old house like this too.’ She looked upwards towards the overhanging eaves, the lengthening shadows not helping to dispel the sense of unease.
‘Well, keep on it. We really need to know what happened in there, and if it had anything to do with the dead woman we found out on the hill.’
‘We’ll get a blood match against the database as soon as we can. DNA’ll take longer.’ Parsons hefted her bag and a faint echo of the smell from upstairs floated on the air. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see what other bodily fluids might be lurking at the scene.’