Prayer for the Dead

by James Oswald

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Grumpy Bob backed up the words with a low whistle of surprise. It wasn’t hard to see why. McLean knew a bit about cars, and he was fairly certain this had been a 5 series BMW. It didn’t look much like the manufacturer had intended though. There was no glass, for one thing, and the roof had been balanced precariously back in place, upside down, after being cut off to remove the bodies. The front end had folded in on itself so completely it was hard to tell where it had all gone.

  ‘Do we know how it happened?’ he asked, walking slowly around the wreck and trying not to imagine the horror of the crash. Had the McClymonts known they were going to die? Or had it all happened so quickly they’d not had time to consider it?

  ‘Idiot was driving too fast, wasn’t he.’ Tanner’s normally cheerful voice dropped to an angry growl. ‘They all do it. Buy these stupid powerful cars and think they’re Jim Clark or Stirling Moss. And we’re the ones have to pick up the pieces. Least this bloke didn’t take anyone else with him. Apart from his dad, of course.’

  McLean crouched down and studied the back end of the car. It was new, not more than a few months going by the registration number. BMW M5, so very powerful indeed if he had his facts straight. DC MacBride would be able to find him the exact specifications, but it wasn’t all that important.

  ‘You think he just lost it going too fast, then? No evidence of foul play?’

  ‘Nothing obvious at the scene, no.’ Tanner turned back to the mechanic. ‘You see anything obvious, Tam?’

  ‘Not looked at it, have I. Told us not to. This one’s for your big city forensics boys.’ There was perhaps an edge of bitterness in the old mechanic’s words, as if he felt the job of teasing out the car’s secrets should have been left to him.

  ‘I think they’re more interested in the interior.’ McLean studied the shut line, trying to work out if the boot had been opened. The rear end of the car was almost completely undamaged, but the release mechanism would be somewhere in the mangled remains of the front, so chances were that it hadn’t been.

  ‘Not much we can tell from here anyway.’ He straightened up, feeling a twinge in his back that told him he would probably not enjoy the four-hour drive back to Edinburgh. ‘Apart from the fact that he was driving too fast and met something that wasn’t going anywhere. RIP Joe and Jock McClymont. Don’t suppose you’ll be much missed.’

  ‘What were they doing up Inverness way?’

  Cruising back down the road they had driven up that morning, McLean realised he’d been keeping his speed slow, not more than sixty even on the dual carriageway, slower when it dropped to single lane even though traffic was mercifully light. They’d dropped Sergeant Tanner off at his station, declined the offer of lunch in the canteen, and headed south as soon as was politely possible.

  ‘What?’ McLean risked a sideways glance, taking his eyes off the road for long enough to see that Grumpy Bob was searching his paper for anything he’d not already read.

  ‘The McClymonts. They’re Edinburgh property developers. Seems a bit odd the two of them heading up this way.’

  ‘Maybe they were thinking of branching out. Property’s expensive in Edinburgh these days. Might have thought it’d be easier to make money up here.’

  ‘You don’t believe that, do you sir.’ Grumpy Bob didn’t phrase it as a question.

  ‘Nope. And neither do the NCA.’

  ‘So what was young Joe doing hooning up the A9 then?’

  ‘That’s the big question. There’s a lot of drugs come in through the west coast ports. All those old wee villages and hidden bays. Could be they were going to meet up with some of their suppliers. If they were running drugs at all, of course. No one’s managed to pin anything on them so far.’

  ‘That why you were so interested in the car boot then?’

  ‘You noticed that?’ McLean raised an eyebrow but kept his gaze on the road. ‘Didn’t think I was being so obvious.’

  ‘That’s my sharply honed detective skills at work.’

  ‘Yes, well. That chief superintendent from the NCA, Chambers, wanted me to make sure the car was OK. It’ll be interesting to see what forensics get from it. My guess is not much.’

  ‘Should we have stayed with it until the truck turned up?’

  McLean paused before answering, let another mile of road disappear under his wheels. ‘Reckon that’s what Chambers wanted me to do. Probably would have had me in the truck all the way back, just in case something went missing. Not sure where he gets his paranoia from.’

  ‘How long have they been after the McClymonts, then?’

  ‘No idea, but probably years. You know what they’re like when they get an idea stuck in their little heads. Hadn’t found anything enough to pin on either of them, though. That’s why I didn’t think there was any point staying with the car. Even if the suggestion that Inverness can’t be trusted is a bit shitty.’

  ‘Aye. Shitty. And a waste of time.’

  McLean looked out at the scenery as they sped past Pitlochry and south towards Perth. Back at the station was a tiny office filled to bursting with paperwork, a major incident room going nowhere fast. A detective constable he couldn’t afford to lose on the brink of quitting due to overwork. A boss who was getting demob happy. ‘I don’t know. There’s worse ways to spend the day, Bob.’

  46

  The night air was warm and heavy as McLean climbed out of his car, then reached back in to fetch out the bag of takeaway curry he’d picked up on the way home. He ached from the long drive to Inverness and back, a wasted day. It wasn’t until he reached the door, saw the light pouring from the kitchen window, that he remembered his house guest. Well, there was probably enough Rogan Josh to go around.

  He needn’t have worried. Madame Rose was leaning against the Aga when he came in, wearing the apron once again. He could tell just by the smell of the room that she’d been cooking.

  ‘You don’t need to feed me, you know,’ he said by way of greeting. The medium merely nodded her head at the carrier bag.

  ‘I can see that. You’re quite the chef, it would seem.’

  McLean put his carry-out on the table and went to the fridge for a beer. It took a while to find, hidden behind bags of vegetables and other unfamiliar produce. He was fairly certain it hadn’t been that full the last time he’d looked.

  ‘You went shopping.’

  ‘Ah, the detective inspector’s keen observation.’ Madame Rose pulled a large saucepan out of the oven and put it on the hotplate. Steam billowed past her head as she pulled off the lid, letting it go with a clatter and a ‘bugger’ as the realisation dawned that its handle would be very hot. McLean suppressed a smirk, but obviously not well enough.

  ‘It’s not funny.’ She blew on her fingers, flapping them past her lips in a fanning motion. ‘I could have burnt myself.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He fetched a glass from the cupboard, poured the beer in, took a deep draught. ‘But really, you don’t need to go to all this effort. I’m used to looking after myself.’

  Madame Rose fetched a plate from the warming oven, ladled what looked like a mountain of stew on to it, then juggled a baked potato bare-handed to the table.

  ‘The least I can do, really.’ She lifted the potato on to the plate with one final deft move, then slid the whole thing over to where a place had been set. The butter dish, salt and pepper were already waiting in the middle of the table.

  ‘Well, thank you.’ McLean sat down and contemplated a somewhat more substantial meal than the curry he’d thought would do him a couple of nights and maybe breakfast as well, if he had time for breakfast. ‘This looks … interesting.’

  ‘It’s a recipe I picked up on my travels in North Africa. Mutton stew. Of course the Berbers would have served it with couscous, but I couldn’t find any in your cupboards.’ Madame Rose gave him a look that suggested this was perhaps the most egregious of his many failings. As he looked at her, McLean realised that she was fully back to her old self now. Perfectly prese
nted, even with the apron around her waist. The dark stubble and darker eyes were gone, her hair still grey, but recently washed and neatly arranged about her head. And she held herself upright, not stooped under some impossible weight like she had been directly after the fire. Clearly her fortunes had taken a turn for the better; he just hoped that his would follow suit.

  He speared a piece of meat, smeared thick sauce over it with his knife and popped the whole thing in his mouth. The flavour was rich, with subtle hints of something flowery. Then he bit into the meat and tasted something that took him straight back to childhood.

  ‘Where’d you get mutton from?’

  A worried frown spread across Madame Rose’s face. ‘Do you not like it?’

  ‘Actually, it’s a lot better than I thought it would be. A lot better than I remember it being from my schooldays, anyway. I suspect this isn’t scrag end of neck from a toothless old wether, though.’

  ‘Everyone wants lamb these days, but you can’t beat a good bit of mutton for flavour.’ Madame Rose pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. McLean took another forkful and shoved it in his face.

  ‘Not having any yourself?’ he asked perhaps a little too soon for politeness.

  ‘I’m more of a six o’clock supper person.’ Madame Rose glanced up at the clock and McLean couldn’t help but follow her gaze. It was well past ten, even though the sky wasn’t really dark outside.

  ‘Can’t remember the last time I had supper at six. Probably back when I was at school.’ McLean cut open his potato and shoved a generous wedge of butter in it. He could, he realised, get used to having someone cook for him. But then it occurred to him that he always had someone cook for him; the chef at whichever takeaway he chose to dine from that evening.

  ‘You hear anything from the building control people?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s like dealing with children.’ Madame Rose’s frown deepened. ‘The engineers won’t go in until the frontage is secured, the scaffold crews won’t do anything until they know who’s going to pay them, and I can’t go home until the others are secured. Round and round in circles. It’s not even as if my house is unsafe.’

  ‘I’m not even going to ask how you did that, by the way.’

  ‘Did what?’ Madame Rose’s face was a mask of feigned innocence. Or it might just have been the heavy layers of foundation.

  McLean shook his head, scooped up another forkful of stew. ‘Well, you’re welcome to stay here until it’s sorted. Not as if I’m ever here myself.’

  ‘Thank you, Tony. It’s not everyone would be so kind. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

  ‘About that. The hate campaign. You’ve still no idea who might be behind it?’

  Madame Rose kept silent perhaps slightly longer than was wise when answering a policeman. She had a look on her face that suggested she thought the question double-edged. It hadn’t been, not when he’d asked it. But it occurred to McLean in that slight hesitation that Madame Rose had always appeared in control of any situation when he’d met her in the past. She gave an impression of having hidden knowledge, perhaps even power. That was part of her act, of course, but he couldn’t quite convince himself there wasn’t more to it than that.

  ‘It left me very puzzled,’ she said eventually. ‘And that in itself was a worry.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Can I be frank with you, Tony?’

  McLean hesitated, another forkful of food halfway to his mouth. ‘Have you ever not?’

  That got him a pout that looked rather ridiculous on Madame Rose’s face. ‘There are forces at work in the world most people are not prepared to accept.’ She paused.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Mostly that’s fine. The sort of things I’m talking about rarely interact with the mundane lives of everyday people. They don’t care if they’re not believed in. But some of us are more sensitive to them. Some of us attract their attention, and some of us are charged with mediating. We keep the balance in check.’

  McLean chewed and swallowed as Madame Rose fell silent once more. A part of him had been expecting this conversation for quite some time. Another, larger and more rational part of him had been wondering how he would react. A couple of years earlier and he would have scoffed, told the medium to stop trying to scare him with ghost stories. Now he’d met some of those ghosts, and they weren’t all pranksters under white sheets.

  ‘You’re sceptical, and that’s to be understood. You were raised by your grandmother to question everything. Don’t stop on account of me. Just entertain the possibility that the answers to those questions won’t always necessarily fit into her beloved science. There’s far more to the world than that.’

  ‘And what happened to you, the attacks, the fire, they’re all part of some …’ McLean searched for a word that didn’t sound silly. Failed.

  ‘Call it a power grab, if that helps. A very subtle one at that or I’d have seen it coming a mile off.’ Madame Rose considered her chubby hands for a minute, as if she too were searching for the right words. ‘You and me. We try to maintain a balance. In our different ways. But there are others out there. Other sensitives who look to use that to their advantage. I believe such a one was behind what has been happening.’

  ‘Do you have a name? I can get them brought in for questioning. If there’s any possible evidence of a link to the fire—’

  ‘Ah, Tony. Ever the White Knight.’ Madame Rose leaned back in her chair, clasping a hand to her ample bust. ‘There won’t be any evidence. Not that your forensic scientists would be able to gather, anyway. But it doesn’t matter. I am not without my own resources, and they have been brought to bear on the problem. I only needed time and a refuge to recover from the initial ambuscade. This house and your generosity have renewed me, given me the space to marshal my forces. The battle is already joined and my enemy is on the run.’

  McLean looked down at his plate of mutton stew, half eaten and still delicious, and yet his appetite had deserted him. ‘Sounds rather like you’re taking the law into your own hands. Not sure how I feel about that. At least about being used to help it.’

  Madame Rose let out a heavy, theatrical sigh. ‘I am sorry you feel that way. It’s not how I view it at all, and I wouldn’t dream of so abusing your hospitality. Ours is a different law, an older law than the one you uphold as a policeman, but it respects society’s rules. I won’t be getting my collar felt any time soon.’

  ‘Then why tell me at all?’ McLean put his knife and fork down side by side at the edge of the plate, reached for his beer in the hope that it would help the sour taste that had appeared so suddenly in his mouth.

  ‘Because it’s only fair you know. Because things will happen soon that will seem to make no sense. Things may already have begun to happen. I feel a shift in the currents. The tide is turning once more in our favour.’

  McLean looked again at the medium and saw that she was completely back to her old self now. In total control and weaving an aura of mysterious otherness around her like a fog. On balance, he thought he preferred the older, more vulnerable version.

  47

  ‘You ever get the feeling you’re being pulled in too many different directions, Constable?’

  DC MacBride looked sideways from the driving seat as he navigated through the endless rush hour traffic. ‘You really want me to answer that, sir?’

  ‘Stupid question, sorry,’ McLean said. ‘You probably do twice as much work as I do, and sometimes I wonder why I even bother having a home to go to.’

  MacBride said nothing, but it wasn’t an awkward silence. McLean let him concentrate on getting them to their destination, a fairly modern industrial estate in the arse end of Sighthill. McClymont Developments had its offices and stores in an identikit brick and steel warehouse, the same as eleven others clustered around a large tarmac parking area. Most of the units bore large, shiny signs, names of companies McLean had never heard of. A couple had estate agents’ ‘To let’ boards nailed to their doors, the few
front-facing windows boarded up, heavy iron roller doors closed with rusty padlocks.

  ‘We know which one we’re looking for?’ McLean peered through the windscreen as MacBride drove slowly around the car park. ‘Ah, there we are.’

  It wasn’t quite the most run-down of the units, but it wasn’t far off. A small plaque screwed into the wall beside the main entrance read ‘McClymont and Son’ in flaking paint. MacBride parked right outside the large warehouse door, rolled down and padlocked like most of the others on the estate.

  ‘Is there anyone here?’ he asked, leaning forward, hands draped over the steering wheel as he stared at the building.

  ‘Should be. Ritchie phoned ahead. The secretary should be here to let us in.’ McLean popped open the door, heaved himself out of the car seat and into the heavy heat of the afternoon.

  ‘What are we hoping to find?’ MacBride slammed his door closed behind him, plipped the key-fob to lock the car.

  ‘I’m not really sure. Was hoping we might know it when we saw it.’

  If the outside of the building was unprepossessing, it was nothing compared to the inside. They were met by Ms Grainger. McLean remembered the time she’d approached him in the street, asked him to sell his flat, called him unkind. If she remembered it too, she didn’t mention it. Her greying hair was swept up into a tight, conical bun and her pinched mouth gave her the look of someone who’s run out of lemons to suck. She had a spinster’s air and a Morningside twang to her accent, which made McLean suspect that a lifetime of not quite living up to expectations had worn her to this sharp point.

  ‘It’s a terrible business. Terrible.’ Ms Grainger shook her head as if that might dislodge the fact of her employers’ demise and so make it not have happened.

  ‘It can be a treacherous road. I’m very sorry.’ McLean allowed himself to be led down a narrow passageway and into what must have been the nerve centre for McClymont Developments. A sizeable open-plan office, it had two large desks facing each other at one end, a smaller reception desk by the door. A couple of drawing tables stood side by side in the opposite corner, paper plans laid out on them, their corners curling slightly. Everything smelled of dust and mildew, the heat outside only just beginning to penetrate the walls. Ms Grainger crossed the room to a small kitchen area, filled a kettle and switched it on to boil.