Prayer for the Dead

by James Oswald

  ‘I don’t think it, Detective Sergeant, I know it.’

  ‘You have proof? A paper trail?’

  Sanderson’s gaze dropped momentarily to the table. His hands were clasped together in front of him as if in prayer, and he fidgeted with them for a moment.

  ‘It’s not … They’re very clever these people, you know. Companies within companies. Always hiding from view. I don’t really know why they do it. Tax avoidance, probably.’

  ‘So you don’t have any proof.’ McLean dragged the man’s attention back to himself.

  ‘Not as such, no.’

  ‘Well what do you have then? What exactly is this development you so desperately want to stop?’

  ‘It’s there in the plans, Detective Inspector. If you just know how to look at them properly.’ Sanderson’s hands clasped together again as he warmed to his theme. ‘Oh, they look like simple flats, splitting up the houses floor by floor, but you can see that’s not what they want to do. Not really. It’s just a ruse to keep the council happy.’

  ‘And what is it they really want to do, Mr Sanderson?’

  ‘Why, knock the whole terrace down and build a block of flats in its place, Detective Inspector. Somewhere they can fill with immigrants getting their rent paid by hard-working tax payers like you and I.’

  With hindsight, McLean could see that the signs had been there all along. The more excited Mr Sanderson became, the redder his face grew. Little flecks of spittle arced from his mouth, spattering the table so that DS Ritchie had to lean back or suffer an involuntary shower.

  ‘Where exactly do you live, Mr Sanderson?’ It was a question he should have asked at the start of the interview, really.

  ‘I’m not sure how—’

  ‘Jock’s Lodge? Restalrig maybe?’

  ‘Newhaven, actually.’

  ‘But not Leith Walk. Not, in fact, Leith at all.’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Then why are you so concerned about what happens there?’

  ‘They can’t be allowed to get away with it. Knocking down all the best bits of the city and throwing up cheap boxes filled with foreigners stealing our jobs and prostitutes giving us their exotic diseases.’ Sanderson lingered on the last two words as if the thought excited him somehow.

  ‘Of course not. That would be terrible. But surely you should be looking out for your own patch? Let the people of Leith Walk decide what happens there.’

  ‘Ah, but how can they do that if they don’t know it’s happening, Detective Inspector?’ Sanderson dragged his gaze from Ritchie’s bosom.

  ‘And that’s what you were doing with these leaflets, I take it.’ McLean pushed the offending article across the table towards Sanderson, who picked it up and studied it closely, a triumphant smile spreading across his face as he did so.

  ‘Exactly. Looks like it worked, too.’

  43

  McLean watched DS Ritchie escort Dudley Sanderson from the interview room and back towards the reception area at the front of the station. His head hurt from too little sleep and trying to get into the mindset of someone who saw evil intent in the most simple of things.

  ‘Get anything useful from him?’ Grumpy Bob sidled up with a mug of coffee in one hand, a newspaper rolled up and shoved under his arm.

  ‘Rather too many nutters around these days, Bob.’ McLean eyed the detective sergeant’s spoils. ‘You heading for an empty room and some quality time, then?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’ Grumpy Bob gave his best deadpan face, then took a slurp of coffee, swallowing loudly before adding, ‘Was just heading back up to the fire incident room, actually. Figured if you and Ritchie were interviewing, it’d be as quiet as anywhere else in the station.’

  They set off for the stairs together, McLean filling in the details of the interview as they walked. It always helped to go over these things, but the more he spoke about it, the more he came to the conclusion that Dudley Sanderson was a deeply troubled man.

  ‘So he’s got no evidence. In fact he’s got evidence to the contrary, and yet he still believes someone is trying to knock down an entire block of Leith Walk and redevelop it on the sly?’

  ‘Exactly, and he doesn’t even live there. Doesn’t even live in Leith for that matter. I’m not sure I ever quite worked out what his interest in it was, if I’m being honest. Maybe Ritchie will have a better idea.’

  ‘Still, it’s a bit odd,’ Grumpy Bob said. ‘Even if your man isn’t dealing from a full deck.’

  McLean paused mid-step. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the fire’s been set deliberately. There’s no doubt about that. Unlikely it’s Gianni the chip shop owner, and the rest of the block was uninhabited. The two houses that burnt down were empty. Just Madame Rose’s place there in the middle. And yet he was the one being targeted for abuse beforehand.’

  ‘She, Bob.’ McLean couldn’t help himself correcting the detective sergeant. He wondered when it had become important to him. And why. Grumpy Bob raised a quizzical eyebrow, but said nothing else.

  ‘We interviewed them all though? Gianni? The builders in numbers ten and fourteen?’

  ‘Spoke to Gianni myself. He’s either a bloody good actor or he genuinely has no idea how the fire started.’

  ‘You ask him if anyone had offered to buy the place off him?’

  ‘One of the first questions. He’s a proud old bugger, make no mistake. Told me he’d been working there since his old man first set it up just after the war. Apparently he was a POW, Gianni’s old man. Decided he liked Scotland so much he wanted to stay.’

  ‘And he owned the shop outright?’ McLean shook his head. ‘No, I knew that already. Rose told me. What about the builders? Developers, whatever. The other two houses that burned down?’

  ‘Still waiting for the lad to get back to me on that, sir.’

  ‘MacBride? I thought he was busy with the Stevenson enquiry.’

  ‘Aye, he is at that. But there’s no one else here I’d trust to ferret out the information. Not in less than six weeks, anyway.’

  ‘So we’ve not actually spoken to them yet.’ They had reached the incident room and found it empty.

  ‘Not as such, no.’

  McLean rubbed at his forehead, found it didn’t really do much to relieve the pressure. He could feel the case slipping away from him. Too many things to concentrate on and not enough time.

  ‘OK. Speak to Ritchie when she gets back. Dudley Sanderson gave us the names of the developers. Should save us a bit of time searching them out. Set up some interviews, find out if they stand to gain anything from the fire.’

  ‘Believe it or not, sir, I have done this before.’ Grumpy Bob grinned as he spoke, and McLean realised just how annoying he was being.

  ‘Sorry, Bob. Force of habit. I’ll let you get on with it and keep well out of the way. Not as if I haven’t got anything else to do, after all.’

  ‘Stevenson?’

  ‘For one thing, yes. Trying to coordinate with Spence on the Maureen Shenks case too, and you know how well he plays with others.’

  Grumpy Bob placed his coffee mug carefully down on the nearest desk, laid the paper alongside it. ‘Don’t much envy you that.’

  ‘Aye, well it’ll be even more fun when he gets made up to DCI. Think I might put in for a transfer then. I’ve heard Vice is nice and quiet these days.’

  ‘The whole thing’s a fucking mess if you ask me.’

  DCI Brooks paced back and forth in the Ben Stevenson murder enquiry room, creating a small clear patch in an otherwise crowded space. All around, the uniforms, detectives and support staff were keeping themselves studiously busy, keen not to be drawn into the impromptu meeting. McLean could only sympathise with them; he too had better things to be doing than pointing out the obvious to people who should have known better.

  ‘I’m not going to disagree with you there, sir. But that’s not helped by everyone having to run up and down the stairs between two different incident roo
ms.’ McLean didn’t add that it wasn’t helped by one enquiry constantly poaching staff from the other.

  ‘Oh good Christ, you’re not still suggesting these two are linked are you? They’ve absolutely nothing in common.’ Brooks stopped his pacing for a moment, just long enough to give McLean his best ‘you’re an idiot’ glare.

  ‘Nothing? You mean apart from the fact that both had their throats cut from behind, left to right with a sharp, narrow-bladed knife? Apart from the complete lack of any forensic evidence? Apart from the fact that the likelihood of two Category A murders within weeks of one another not being connected is so vanishingly small it’s hardly worth considering?’

  McLean watched the detective chief inspector’s reaction to his words, his fat face reddening with each new suggestion. It was easy to guess when Brooks was going to interject; he stopped pacing just an instant before opening his mouth.

  ‘You—’

  ‘Of course, I’m not jumping to conclusions.’ McLean interrupted before Brooks could get his objection in. ‘I think it’s wise to treat the two as separate cases, even if they do end up being the same killer. I just think we can save a lot of time, and money, if we merge the admin and data processing of both enquiries. And if we’re all working from the same incident room we’re in a good place to spot any obvious connections should they appear.’

  ‘If the press get hold of the idea we’re linking the two cases …’ Brooks left the obvious conclusion hanging. The idea of a serial killer would have the tabloids salivating, but it was unlikely they’d care much about the reputation of the police in pursuit of a juicy story.

  ‘Quite frankly I’m more concerned with catching Ben Stevenson’s murderer, and Maureen Shenks’ too, than what the tabloids want to write about me,’ McLean said.

  ‘All right for some. You don’t have to worry about getting sacked, do you?’ DI Spence muttered the words under his breath, but it was easy enough to hear them.

  ‘Neither would you, if you actually did your job, Mike.’ McLean didn’t bother to hide his scorn.

  ‘What the fuck do you—’

  ‘Enough.’ Detective Superintendent Duguid had been silent up to this point. McLean wanted to think he was acting swiftly to avoid the demoralising effect on the investigation team of seeing two senior officers bicker in public, but it was more likely that he just wanted to get back to his comfortable, quiet office.

  ‘McLean is right, difficult though that is to admit. There are too many similarities to ignore, and the cost of running two major incident enquiries side by side doesn’t bear thinking about. Spence, I want you to bring your team in here. Any spillover can go into the smaller rooms across the corridor.’

  ‘Would it not be easier to—’

  ‘Up here, Spence. This enquiry has been going on longer. And it’s less far for me to walk.’

  McLean almost smiled at the joke, though it would have been funnier if Duguid had ever actually been in the incident room before. But the thunderous faces of DI Spence and DCI Brooks, Little and Large, were enough to kill any humour in the situation.

  ‘Grumpy Bob’s running the room at the moment, ably assisted by DC MacBride. They’ll get you sorted for desk space and workstations.’ McLean checked his watch, even though he knew exactly what time it was. ‘I’ve got to run.’

  ‘What?’ Brooks rumbled the single word out in a low growl.

  ‘Interviewing a possible witness. I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.’

  ‘How long have you been working on the Leith Walk site?’

  If the offices of Wendle Stevens were anything to go by, the razing to the ground of their building by fire could only be a good thing. McLean sat in a room that was too small for the three desks squeezed into it. Too small for the three sweaty bodies too, judging by the smell. Still, it was a new company, with fresh hopes and making the best of what little it had. And anything was better than being stuck with Brooks and Spence.

  ‘The building was auctioned in January. We probably paid a little more for it than we should, but that’s the nature of the game, right?’

  Jonathan Wendle was an infectiously enthusiastic man. Probably still in the first half of his twenties, he made McLean feel old and tired just by the energy bubbling off him. Stevens, the other half of the partnership, was out visiting another potential site, which was probably for the best. McLean didn’t think he could have coped otherwise.

  ‘And you’d started on the work a couple of months ago? What were you doing to the place?’

  ‘Gutting it and starting again, Inspector. Not much else we could do, really. Place was a disaster. Some idiot had split it up into flats in the seventies, and we all know that’s the decade taste forgot.’

  McLean bit back the retort that he had fond childhood memories of the time. Wendle wouldn’t even have been born much before the end of the eighties anyway.

  ‘But things were going OK?’ he asked. ‘You were on schedule with the renovations, keeping to budget?’

  Wendle waggled a large hand back and forth in an easily understood gesture. ‘More or less. But it’s the biggest project we’ve taken on so far, so we’ve got quite a lot of leeway built in.’

  ‘What about the other buildings, number ten and number twelve?’

  ‘What of them?’

  ‘You weren’t trying to buy them, then? Knock them all down and put up some cheap flats in their place?’

  Wendle paused before answering, the thoughts writ clear across his young face as they knitted together. McLean had already decided the young man wasn’t involved in the arson; his enthusiasm was still too great. Someone driven to burning their assets to claim the insurance money would have been far more desperate.

  ‘A little bird’s been tweeting at you, hasn’t it, Inspector?’ Wendle made little beak-closing motions with his fingers. ‘I can’t tell a lie, we’ve been approached about selling the site. But Bill and me bought it with our own money. We had a plan and we mean to stick to it. Of course, I’m not sure exactly what we’re going to do now. Have to wait and see what the insurance assessor has to say. The engineers too.’

  ‘But someone did try to buy the place off you? Before the fire?’

  ‘Quite a few developers, actually. You’d be surprised how often sites change hands before someone rolls up their sleeves and actually does the work.’

  ‘Anyone put pressure on you to sell? Get any threats?’

  Wendle frowned as if the question surprised him. ‘Not really, no. I mean, you get some unpleasant characters who don’t like being told no, but … no, can’t say as I have.’

  44

  ‘Gods. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who’ve asked me that.’

  Basil Temperly was perhaps the exact opposite of Jonathan Wendle, despite them both having chosen the same profession. Where Wendle was young and enthusiastic, Temperly stooped low as if the weight of the world was on him. What little hair he had left was grey and thin, the skin on the top of his head spotted here and there with brown. It looked like he’d spent too much time under the flight paths of Edinburgh’s seagulls and forgotten to wear a hat.

  ‘Has anyone been particularly insistent? Have you had any threats?’

  ‘Threats?’ Temperly scratched at his chin and leaned back in the rickety chair on the other side of the table in interview room one. McLean had thought to visit the man at his offices, the same as he’d done with Wendle, but Ritchie’s phone call had found Temperly visiting one of his other sites, just around the corner from the station. Ten minutes was perhaps not ideal for preparing the interview, but you couldn’t have everything.

  ‘There’s a rumour going around someone wanted to buy up that whole block, numbers ten, twelve and fourteen. Knock them down and build cheap flats in their place. I imagine you could probably double the accommodation if you did that?’

  At her question, Temperly moved his head slowly in the direction of DS Ritchie. It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed her already; she’d
escorted him from the front desk on his arrival, after all. But there was no mistaking the look of distaste on his face. For a moment McLean thought that she might have hit on something, perhaps come close to some truth. Maybe he was the one who’d been trying to take over the whole block, and had torched it when he found himself thwarted. Then he realised it was just simple misogyny. A man like Temperly might agree to be shown around by a woman, but he certainly didn’t expect her to ask him questions.

  ‘Have you been talking to that dreadful man Sanderson?’

  ‘We’ve been talking to everyone involved in the sites. This is a very serious case of arson, Mr Temperly.’

  ‘Well Sanderson’s a pain in the arse and nothing to do with my building site, or those upstart teenagers over the other side. You’ll have spoken to that nonce at number twelve too, I expect. He’d not sell up even if everyone else would.’ Temperly shifted his gaze back to McLean, where he was obviously more comfortable. ‘And no, I wasn’t about to sell up. Prime spot like that? Sure, I might make some easy money passing it on, but the real profit’s in renting these days.’

  ‘What about now? If someone were to offer you a good sum for the plot?’

  ‘You mean soften me up first, then make an offer?’ Temperly narrowed his eyes. ‘Sneaky.’

  ‘Very. But you didn’t answer the question. What are you planning on doing with the site now it’s just a burnt-out shell? There’s a lot more work involved now. Might just be easier to cut and run. Take the insurance money, leave the heavy work to someone else?’

  ‘I see where you’re coming from, Inspector. And it’s a tempting prospect. But no, I wouldn’t sell up now. Who knows, the job might even be easier without planning making everything difficult.’

  ‘Which, of course, would be a good motive for torching the place. That and the insurance money.’

  ‘Oh come on!’ This time Temperly rounded swiftly on Ritchie. ‘I came in here of my own volition. Would I do that if I’d torched my own building? Am I a suspect? Because if that’s the case I probably ought to call my lawyer.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, just in case they weren’t sure how he was going to do that.