Prayer for the Dead

by James Oswald

  ‘How long has Whitely lived here?’ Ritchie asked. Durran’s eyes flicked away from McLean and back to her again.

  ‘I dunno. Three, mebbe four years?’

  ‘And you knew him well?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say well. Keeps to hisself mostly. Pays his rent on time. Quiet. Can’t ask for much more.’ Durran paused a moment, then added. ‘You said knew him well. He’s no’ dead is he?’

  ‘Pays his rent?’ McLean ignored the fat man’s question. ‘You’re his landlord?’

  Durran rubbed a finger over his top lip, sniffed so loudly that for a moment McLean thought he was going to spit on the floor. ‘Aye.’

  ‘You’ll have a key to his flat then.’

  ‘You got a warrant?’

  ‘I can get a warrant, if you insist.’ McLean made a big show of pulling his phone out of his pocket, tapping at the screen. ‘It’ll take a while though, and I’ll have to station a couple of uniform officers here while we wait. No one in or out until we’re done. Not you, not any of the other people living in this block.’

  ‘You can’t do that. I—’

  ‘I can do that, Mr Durran. If I have to. You’re right, Mr Whitely is dead, and under very suspicious circumstances. You can’t begin to understand the powers that gives me.’ He stared at the fat man, locking eyes with him until he backed down.

  ‘I’ll just get the keys then.’

  The smell was the first thing he noticed. It reminded McLean of his university days, those times when the pile of clothes in the corner of the bedroom was twice as big as the pile spilling out of the chest of drawers, and a trip to the laundry couldn’t really be put off any longer. Unlike his student flat though, Dr Jim Whitely’s tiny top-floor apartment was relatively tidy. It just hadn’t been aired recently, and the clothes spilling from the top of the laundry basket in the corner of the shower room had been accumulating for a long while. Either that or they’d been breeding.

  ‘You think he ever opened a window?’ Ritchie peered through an open doorway, swiftly stepping back into the hall and shaking her head as if to get rid of some particularly unpleasant odour.

  ‘Probably not.’ McLean looked around the shower room. It was small, like so many of its kind in these blocks. Being top floor, it had a skylight over the shower. Most of the remaining space was taken up by the overflowing laundry bin, a tiny basin and a toilet you’d not be able to stand at and close the door. There was enough floor to turn around in if you had a child’s feet, but only if you didn’t mind trampling over all the papers strewn about the place.

  Bending down, he picked one up between latex-gloved fingers. It was a scientific paper from a medical journal, that much McLean could tell. Most of the words in the title he could only hazard a guess at, though. He crouched down, shuffling the rest of them towards him. All scientific papers, all well thumbed, all about as easy to understand as the offside rule.

  ‘You might want to come and look at this, sir.’

  McLean stood up, locating DS Ritchie by the one open door off the hallway. It led into a sitting room that overlooked the street, mostly giving a fine view of the living rooms opposite. The floor in this room was strewn with more papers, expensive-looking textbooks and several lined A4 pads with scrawly handwritten notes all over them. A sofa had been pushed into the bay window, but it was covered in books. Only a single armchair offered anywhere to sit, and this was obviously Whitely’s preferred place of repose, judging by the coffee mugs, empty plates and surrounding circle of yet more papers. Some of these appeared to have been organised into separate piles, though by what filing criteria he couldn’t begin to guess.

  ‘Seems Dr Whitely had a bit of a bee in his bonnet.’ McLean stepped carefully over one pile of papers, finding a space of carpet just about big enough to stand in. Ritchie must have used it to stepping-stone her way to the middle of the room. She nodded at the wall beside the door through which he had just come.

  ‘That remind you of anything?’

  McLean turned carefully, aware that a misstep would result in a cascade of paperwork that might bury them, and would certainly annoy the forensics team who would surely have to go over the place. A cheap desk had been shoved in behind the door, an elderly laptop computer and printer taking up what area of its surface wasn’t heaped with yet more papers. But it was the wall that was of most interest.

  It looked a little like an incident room for a particularly complicated and unusual crime. A half-dozen photographs were pinned up in a line, about a foot apart. Each showed a child or young man, each quite clearly taken whilst the subject was in hospital undergoing some kind of treatment. A couple were smiling despite their bald heads and nasal tubes. One was giving a thumbs-up to the camera, though the hope in the gesture didn’t spread as far as his eyes. Around each photograph were pinned front pages and abstracts from more medical journals, Post-it notes with question marks scribbled on them, the occasional barely legible word. And running over it all and the glimpse of clear wallpaper behind, thick black lines were drawn with a heavy marker pen linking seemingly disparate ideas together.

  McLean stared at it all a long time before realising that he’d been holding his breath. He let it out in a long sigh.

  ‘I think it’s fair to say Jim Whitely was a troubled man.’

  ‘Troubled enough to kill that nurse then stage his own suicide?’ Ritchie asked.

  It was an interesting idea, but life was never that easy.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ McLean took a step closer to the desk, brushing a pile of papers with his leg as he went. It slid sideways, fanning out on the floor. He ignored it, leaning over the desk until he could begin to decipher the scrawled words. He followed a line from a paper that appeared to be about cell-line therapy, whatever that was, through a single word ‘blastocysts?’, across to another paper about transfusions and then on up to the photograph of the young man with his thumbs up. He stepped back again, more carefully this time, shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone. ‘No, this isn’t the work of someone thinking of killing themselves any time soon. Quite the opposite.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He’s been trying to save these kids. Looking for any way possible. He’s obsessed with this. It’s what drives him. He couldn’t give this up even if he wanted to.’

  59

  ‘Well look at you, all grown up and smart.’

  Gran stands behind me, hands on my shoulders as we both look in the mirror. It’s the first time I’ve tried on my new school uniform and it feels very grown-up. The jacket was my father’s; it smells of mothballs and it’s too long in the arms. But it was his. He wore it just like me, years ago when he was a young boy. I can’t quite get my head around that, but I feel very proud to be following in his footsteps.

  ‘Take it off now. I’ll show you how to fold it properly.’

  Gran takes my jacket from me, checks the pockets even though I’ve only been wearing it for five minutes. Then she does something I can’t quite follow, turning it inside out, folding and tucking until it’s a neat little square of shiny fabric. She puts it down on my bed alongside all the other clothes, some old, some new, that I’ll be taking with me to school tomorrow. The old leather travelling trunk lies open on the floor. It has my grandfather’s initials stencilled on the lid and paper tags tied to the handles, foreign-sounding destinations inked on to them in fading, ancient script.

  We spend most of the afternoon packing, or at least that’s what it feels like. Outside the summer is fading to autumn, but it’s still warm and sunny. Ideal weather for climbing trees. Instead I learn the art of fitting things into a tiny space, as shirts, socks, underpants, trousers, jackets, towels, flannels, ties, handkerchiefs and a dozen other things I never thought I’d need are all neatly stowed away. Everything has been labelled with my name, red letters on little cloth tags. I’ve never needed my name on things before. It makes me feel important, but also a little scared. Is everyone else going to have exactly the same
clothes?

  ‘There. That’s perfect.’ Gran closes the lid of the trunk, only having to kneel on it slightly to get the clasps to fit. I try to lift one end, but it’s far too heavy.

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’ She laughs, and tousles my hair the way I really don’t like. ‘I’ll get Jenkins to take it to the station. It’ll go on ahead of you.’

  Finished with the packing, I sense my opportunity. ‘Can I go see Norman? Won’t have a chance to again. Not till Christmas.’

  I’ve not seen Norman since he fell out of the tree and cut himself. It seems a lifetime ago even though it’s probably only a couple of days. His mum was so angry that time, I didn’t dare go back. Not until now, at least.

  ‘Norman’s not well, Tony. He had to go to the hospital.’ I can see the worry in Gran’s face, but she hides it with a smile. ‘Don’t worry though. He’ll be fine in a week or two. You can write to him from school, tell him all about it. And you’ll see him in a few months.’

  I never do write to him, of course. Never see him again at all.

  60

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Angus. I take it you started without me.’

  ‘Nearly done, actually. Take a pew and I’ll give you the potted history in a minute.’

  McLean had left DS Ritchie in charge of sorting out forensics at Whitely’s flat and questioning the neighbours about his movements over the previous weeks. He’d set out across the Meadows, past the university and down into the Cowgate where the city mortuary carried out its grisly unseen business, hoping that the walk would give him a chance to think things through. He needed headspace to try and rationalise the alarming similarities between Ben Stevenson and Jim Whitely. Not in their deaths, but in their lives, their single-minded obsession. But the heat had made it difficult to breathe, and the noise was far worse than he remembered from his days in uniform. His thoughts had been stuck in a loop, missing some crucial piece that would unlock the puzzle. The cool interior of the mortuary had come as a welcome relief, the distraction of Dr Whitely’s post-mortem doubly so. Now he sat in a hard plastic chair with his back to the wall of the examination theatre, watching silently as Angus Cadwallader examined the dead man.

  ‘Not a nice case, this one.’

  McLean looked around to see Dr MacPhail, no doubt here as witness to the proceedings should corroboration be required at any inquest into the death.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be …?’ McLean nodded his head in the direction of the examination table. ‘You know, witnessing?’

  ‘I probably shouldn’t be here at all, actually. Since I was the one identified him.’

  McLean remembered then, the conversation with DC MacBride earlier that morning. ‘Of course. You knew him. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t a friend or anything. Just so happens we both went through med school at the same time. I’d see him around from time to time if I was up at the hospital. We’d nod, say hello. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘Med school? I thought Whitely was older than that.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Inspector.’ Dr MacPhail gave him a lopsided grin and slumped into the next chair along. He smelled of dead people, with an underlying sharp scent that was familiar from somewhere McLean couldn’t quite place. ‘I’m older than I look, really. And what happened to Jim there. Well …’

  ‘Do you remember much about him? When he was a student?’

  ‘Now you’re asking.’ MacPhail puffed out his cheeks and scratched at his head. ‘He was always quite intense, I guess. Bright. He never seemed to struggle with exams. Didn’t talk to him much. We moved in different circles, had different friends. He went into paediatrics, too, which is kind of the opposite of my speciality. At least most of the time.’

  ‘If you two lovebirds have got a moment to spare.’ Angus Cadwallader’s loud voice echoed across the examination theatre. McLean looked up to see him staring in their direction.

  ‘You all finished?’ He stood up, feeling the sweat on his back where it had soaked his shirt and then cooled down.

  ‘As much as I can do here. The lab results will take a little longer, but I think I can comfortably say Dr Whitely didn’t take his own life.’

  ‘Didn’t?’ McLean felt that familiar cold sensation in the pit of his stomach. He’d not been overly keen on the murder/suicide hypothesis, but it at least had the merit of being simple. And it would have solved two cases at the same time. ‘What killed him, then?’

  ‘Oh, that bit’s easy. His heart gave out when his blood pressure dropped too low. He’d have been unconscious by then, which I guess is a blessing.’

  ‘And you’re sure he couldn’t have done it to himself?’ McLean crossed the room and stared at the violated, naked body.

  ‘He could have done it to himself. Technically. It’s a bit of a gruesome way to die though, and far too elaborate. So many things could have gone wrong, and then there’s all that kit to lug into that warehouse. In my experience people wanting to kill themselves don’t go in for that kind of spectacle.’

  ‘No. You’re right. Would just have been neater.’

  ‘Death is never neat, Tony.’ Cadwallader’s scolding was friendly, but there nevertheless.

  ‘I know, Angus. This one even less than most.’

  ‘Yes, well. There’s other reasons why I can say with a fair degree of certainty that it wasn’t suicide. This, for instance. Cadwallader moved away from the head, down one arm, then picked up a hand, showing the thin, pale wrist to McLean. ‘There’s ligature marks here. There were straps on the table where we found him, but they were undone. He lost so much blood it was hard to see at the scene, but here it’s fairly obvious he was tied down to start with.’

  ‘He was strapped down until after he fell unconscious?’

  ‘Or at least until he was too weak to do anything about it, yes.’

  ‘So whoever did this would have watched him die.’

  ‘That or gone away and then come back. But given the method of killing, the lengths he went to, I’d have to say he most probably watched.’

  McLean shuddered at the thought of it, but before he could comment, Cadwallader had moved around the table to the dead man’s neck.

  ‘Oh, and there’s this of course.’ He pointed to a tiny mark just below the ear.

  ‘Injection site?’

  ‘See, you do learn things occasionally. Yes, indeed, it’s an injection site. He didn’t have much blood left in him, poor fellow, but we’ve sent some off for screening. I suspect a fast-acting sedative, something to knock him out so that whoever did this to him could get him hooked up to that infernal machine.’

  McLean took a step back, staring once more at the whole body laid out on its back. After the cruel incisions of the post-mortem, and Dr Sharp’s expert stitching to put him back together again, he couldn’t really think of Whitely as a person any more. Or maybe it was just that he hadn’t had time to build a picture of the man yet, could only think of him as this bloodless corpse.

  ‘There’s one question I notice you haven’t asked me yet,’ Cadwallader said.

  ‘Time of death. I know. I was getting there.’

  ‘Me too. The blood thing makes it difficult to be accurate, so I’ve sent off some samples for testing. My best estimate though is that he was in that place no more than a week.’

  ‘That fits with when he was last seen at the hospital. Gives us something to work on.’ McLean touched Cadwallader gently on the arm. ‘Thanks, Angus. I’ll see myself out.’

  He was halfway to the door when he remembered something, turned back. ‘Actually, there was one other thing.’

  Cadwallader raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Just one?’

  ‘Well, yes. That heart, you know, the one we found at Ben Stevenson’s place. Did you get round to examining that yet?’

  ‘The heart? I think that was one of Tom’s.’ Cadwallader turned his attention to his fellow pathologist. ‘That right, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Did it a couple of days
back. You should have had the report by now.’

  McLean pictured his office, tucked away at the back of the station. The image swam easily to his mind, a stack of paperwork covering his desk, more spilled out over the floor. What he couldn’t remember was if he’d actually been in it any time in the past week.

  ‘You couldn’t give me the executive summary, could you?’

  ‘It’s human. Quite healthy, really. Belonged to someone in their late thirties, early forties. Male, given the size.’

  Dr MacPhail bent over a bench in a small laboratory off the main examination theatre. McLean stood behind him and just enough to the side to be able to see the object laid out on a metal tray. The heart had been cleaned up, the strange green foliage removed from it and sent away for analysis. Now it looked unpleasantly like the kind of thing you might find in one of the more esoteric butchers’ shops. The kind where you could buy all the parts of the animal never intended for eating unless they’d been finely minced, mixed with oatmeal and spices, shoved in a sheep’s stomach and boiled first.

  ‘Any idea whose it is?’

  ‘Not a hundred per cent sure. Still waiting for the DNA match to come back. But I’ve narrowed it down.’ MacPhail consulted the top sheet of the report he’d printed out before leading McLean into the lab. ‘Judging by its condition, and the place we found it, I’d estimate it’s been out of its owner’s body a month.’

  ‘Forcibly removed?’ McLean stared at the organ, looking for signs of violence. It just looked like a piece of meat, the veins and arteries neatly cut a decent length from the bulb of the four chambers. He really didn’t need another murder to add to the growing list.

  ‘Depends what you mean by forcibly.’ MacPhail picked up the heart as if it were nothing of great importance, turned it this way and that as he pointed out markings only he could see. ‘It’s been cut out, of course, but whoever it belonged to was dead before that happened.’

  ‘How do you mean?’