by James Oswald
‘You’ll have sent a sample off for DNA testing already, I assume. Chalmers will be in the database, just like every other Saughton inmate. Shouldn’t be hard to match him.’ Duguid tapped the page with a heavy forefinger. ‘It’s him, though. I’ll give you good odds.’
‘Aye, that’s what I thought, too.’
‘So why’d you bring this to me, then? I mean, it’s not exactly a cold case, is it? The man was jabbering on about his charity on the news just a couple of nights ago.’
McLean leaned against one of the other desks in the room. ‘I guess I just wanted a second opinion. You know, before I go to the DCC with that.’ He nodded at the photograph.
‘And you can’t wait for the DNA? Case like this, they’ll turn it around in twenty-four hours. I’ve seen the way you sweet talk the forensics girls. You’d probably get it quicker than that even.’
‘No.’ McLean shook his head. ‘Dalgliesh has seen this, so others will have, too. You know what coppers are like. The older sergeants will be rubbernecking even if they’re not on this case. Won’t be long before a few more start to recognize him, start letting their chums in the press know. Only a matter of time before it goes public.’ He pushed himself up from the desk, snatched up the photograph and folded it into his pocket. ‘I’m only putting off the inevitable. Probably best if he hears it from me rather than some gossip website.’
Duguid looked at him with an expression McLean couldn’t quite read. He held the gaze for a moment, then picked up the nearest report and went back to reading it without a word. Knowing when he was dismissed, McLean turned and left the room, confused more than anything else. Retirement and the chance to work on old cases had mellowed the detective superintendent somewhat, but it was still hard to forget the decades of animosity between the two of them. So it was with some surprise he realized that what Duguid had been showing him was sympathy.
7
‘Bloody hell. Must be something important if you felt you had to come all the way over here to tell me in person. Come in, Tony.’
The deputy chief constable beckoned McLean into his office, pulling the door closed behind him. The last time he’d been in here, McLean had been covered in blood, traumatized by the death of a young woman. The DCC had protected him from the fallout of that tragedy; by all accounts, McLean should probably have been fired. But he had also made him complicit in something much darker, dragged McLean part way into something that wasn’t so much a conspiracy as a network of favours owed and blind eyes turned that had grown so complex as to be almost sentient. Three months’ suspension while the story went away hadn’t been nearly enough to process the implications of that, and now here he was, straight back in at the weird end.
‘It’s the body we found in the tree this morning, sir. Think we might have an ID.’
‘Come now, Tony. No need for this “sir” nonsense. Call me Stevie.’ The DCC pointed to a chair on one side of the wide, polished desk. McLean stayed standing.
‘I’m not sure I can, sir.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Call-me-Stevie shrugged, then dropped into his own chair on the far side of the desk. ‘So you’ve got an ID, but you didn’t want to tell me on the phone and it couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning’s briefing. I’m intrigued. Who could possibly warrant such unusual procedure?’
‘Bill Chalmers, sir. And I’ve a suspicion it’ll be all over tomorrow’s press, so I thought everyone needed to be prepared.’
The DCC said nothing, and for a moment McLean thought he might already know. And then, slowly, the full import of what he had said began to slide over Call-me-Stevie’s features.
‘Chalmers? Dear God. Are you sure?’
‘I’ve asked the mortuary to fast-track the DNA sample and cross-check it against what we’ve got on the database. We should have a definite answer first thing tomorrow. For now, it’s just someone thinking they recognize him from the crime scene photos, and the fact that nobody knows where he is.’
‘And you think the press are going to go with it anyway?’
‘You know what they’re like. It was Jo Dalgliesh who suggested that was who the dead man might be. The more I look at the photographs, the more I’m inclined to agree. She can’t be the only journalist to have made the connection.’
‘And you think they’ll run with it tomorrow, even if it’s not confirmed?’ The DCC leaned forward to where an expensive-looking laptop sat on his desk, tapped his fingers on the desktop beside it.
‘I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t already doing the rounds on social media. Nobody waits for the print press these days.’
The DCC paused for a moment, a frown creasing his forehead as he stared at the laptop. Then he shook his head, closed the machine and stood up. ‘I’ll make some calls. There’s people who need to be warned and a hell of a lot of prep work to do. We’ll have a briefing at six tomorrow morning.’ He gave McLean a hopeless smile. ‘Too much to hope it’s not him, I suppose.’
‘My grandmother always told me to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Stood me well so far, sir.’
‘She was wise, your grandmother. Didn’t think much of Bill Chalmers either. And that was before his little problem came to light.’ The DCC picked up the laptop and shoved it under his arm, shuffling around the desk to leave. Clearly the meeting was over. McLean crossed the room and opened the door.
‘I’ll double check on those DNA results. Make sure we can say definitely that it’s him tomorrow. Or that it isn’t.’
‘You do that.’ The DCC strode out like a man used to having underlings open doors for him, then stopped mid-stride. ‘Oh, and Tony?’
‘Sir?’
‘Thanks for bringing this to me first. I appreciate the forewarning. Chalmers … well, he destroyed the careers of many fine officers, but he’d gone a long way to making up for that with his charity work. This isn’t going to be an easy case to manage from a public relations point of view. Looks like some interesting times up ahead.’
Darkness enveloped the front of the house as McLean pulled up the driveway, parking next to the back door beside Emma’s battered old rust-brown and blue Peugeot. He was still buzzing slightly from the late evening meeting with the DCC and hardly noticed that the kitchen light was off until he reached for the switch. Mrs McCutcheon’s cat blinked at him from the middle of the table, her head bobbing gently as she tasted the air to make sure it was him.
‘Just you and me again, eh?’ He glanced up at the clock, surprised to see that it was past ten already. Given how early he’d left that morning, he should have been more tired. Instead, he had a restless need to move around. No, to get out there and start asking questions – that was what he really wanted to be doing.
He pulled out his phone, checked the screen for messages. Nothing. Hardly surprising, really; he’d only spoken to Amanda Parsons at the forensics labs a couple of hours earlier. She was a miracle worker, true, and she’d promised to get the sample from the mortuary sequenced for DNA matching as quickly as possible. But it would still take time to compare it with Chalmers’ records. First thing in the morning they’d know for certain. Until then he could only speculate; no point heading off on that path until they knew.
Frustrated, McLean opened the fridge in search of something to eat. There was food aplenty: leftovers from past meals; an assortment of cheeses; salad; vegetables. Over on the counter, fresh fruit piled high in a polished wooden bowl he’d given his grandmother for her birthday ten years ago. Beside it, the bread bin would doubtless contain a freshly baked seed loaf or sourdough. All good, healthy stuff, and a welcome change from the reheated curry or cold pizza that had been his diet for too long. He pulled out the last bottle of beer, found a clean glass on the draining board where he’d left it the night before, poured the one into the other and slumped down in a chair. All the while, Mrs McCutcheon’s cat stared at him with her shiny black eyes.
‘Gone to bed early again, has she?’ He reached out and scratched the cat behind her ears. She rewarded him w
ith a deep, rumbling purr, something she had only started doing recently. Possibly because there was someone else around to make sure her food bowl was kept filled.
Taking a long sip of his beer, McLean looked at his phone again. Still no confirmation from Forensics. Damn, but it was going to be hard getting to sleep with that question still hanging. He thumbed the screen until it brought up a news feed, scanned it for stories about the body found on the Meadows. There was plenty about the traffic chaos caused by closing one of the city’s main arteries for half the day, a bit about the discovery of the body, even some lurid speculation as to how it might have ended up high in the branches of a tree. How the hell had the body got up there? Dropped, clearly, but why? There had to be easier ways to kill a man. Unless it was a freak accident. But then someone would have come forward, surely.
‘Thought I heard noise. Long old day, then.’
McLean looked around to the kitchen door, where a pale-faced Emma Baird leaned against the frame. Her long hair was tangled and askew, as if she had slept on it awhile, and she wore a mismatched set of jogging pants and hoodie that looked like they might have been stolen from a teenager. She stretched like an arthritic cat, yawned and then padded across to the table on bare feet. She wrapped McLean in a warm hug and planted a kiss on the top of his head before recoiling in mock horror.
‘You smell like a police station. Go take a shower.’
‘In a while. Just need to get my head straight first.’
‘And beer helps?’ Emma nodded at the glass. ‘When was the last time you ate something? You know, actual food?’
McLean frowned, not really quite sure. There’d been some biscuits with his coffee in the morning, and he’d probably had some lunch at some point, though he couldn’t exactly remember what or when.
‘You’re hopeless, you know, Tony McLean?’ Emma went to the fridge and pulled a few things out, fetched bread, a plate, a knife. Soon she was busy making cheese sandwiches. McLean’s stomach grumbled in anticipation. Maybe he’d missed lunch after all.
‘How was your day?’ he asked through a mouthful of sourdough and Brie, peppered up with something green he suspected might be rocket.
‘Busy enough. Dusted down a couple of burglary scenes, photographed some broken glass. You know, glamorous stuff. Mostly, it’s filling in bloody forms. And I thought it was bad before they hived off half the forensics jobs to private industry.’
McLean smiled, which probably wasn’t the right response. It was good to hear someone else’s woes for a change though, and Emma had been put through enough hoops just to get her old job back.
‘Likely to be pulling a few long days for a stretch. This is a weird case, and you know how they can end up.’
Emma sat down opposite him, pushing her hair out of her eyes as she did so. When first they had met it had been short, spiky and black as the night. Now it hung past her shoulders in a great, tangled swoop, streaked with grey despite her youthfulness.
‘Well, maybe I’ll be able to help out with that. I finally got signed off on the retraining, even though I’ve not learned anything I didn’t already know. Should be letting me loose on the more serious stuff next week.’
‘That’s great news, Em.’
‘Aye, well. It’s not the same as it was. Still can’t get my head around the extra admin. I mean, I thought it was the public sector who were meant to be all about red tape, but this new lot monitor everything. You need a work recording code to go and have a pee.’
‘You don’t have to work for them, you know.’ McLean found it hard to wipe the smile off his face for some reason. ‘Don’t have to work at all if you don’t want to.’
‘It’s no’ so bad, really. Just used to doing things my own way, I guess. And I can’t be a kept woman all my life.’ Emma yawned again, then rubbed at her forehead, shoved the heel of her hand into one eye socket with a grimace.
‘You OK?’ McLean asked, aware that it was a stupid question even as he said it.
‘Ach, it’ll pass. Stupid headache. Probably should have got out for a bit of fresh air today rather than staring at a computer screen.’ Emma swept hair out of her eyes and looked straight at him. ‘You going to be long with that sandwich?’
McLean shoved the last bite into his mouth, savouring the salty goodness of the cheese, washed it down with the last of his pint of beer. ‘All done.’ He suppressed the belch that until a few months earlier he wouldn’t have thought twice about sharing with the kitchen. ‘Thanks.’
‘In which case, come with me.’ Emma stood up, reached across the table and took McLean’s hand, dragging him towards the door. ‘Time to wash that police station stench off of you.’
8
‘… unconfirmed reports that the body discovered on the Meadows yesterday is noted philanthropist and recovered drug addict Bill Chalmers. Mr Chalmers, founder of the drug rehabilitation charity Morningstar and campaigner for drug-law reform, could not be contacted …’
McLean switched off the radio as he pulled his car into a narrow space between two riot vans, reasonably confident that neither of them would be going anywhere that morning. One of the few benefits of driving the Alfa was that its 1960s styling meant it could fit in spaces most modern cars wouldn’t even look at, but he still felt a twist of unease in his gut every time he left it parked somewhere. Quite why he’d not bought himself a new car during his three months off McLean couldn’t really say either, but now they had started salting the roads in earnest again he was beginning to wish he had used that time a bit more wisely.
The station was buzzing as he pushed in through the back door, despite the ungodly hour. The night shift wasn’t over yet, but a lot of day-shift officers were in early. Nothing like a good bit of gossip to get things going. Not that any of the uniforms and plain clothes milling around knew what he knew. The email had pinged on his phone at half two that morning; Amanda Parsons burning past the midnight oil to process the DNA and run the comparison with the sample on the database. A good enough match to confirm what the press were still only hinting.
‘Morning, sir. Ready for the firing squad?’
McLean looked up to see Grumpy Bob approaching. He had a crumpled brown-paper bag shoved under one arm and carried a paper cup of coffee in each hand. From the smell, it was his own secret supply, not the boiled burn-water they served in the canteen.
‘Morning, Bob. I hope one of those is for me.’
Grumpy Bob started to hand over one of the cups, then realized he’d drop the bag if he did. A quick shuffle and he handed the other one over, catching the bag with his freed hand before it slipped any further. ‘Don’t want to break the pastries.’
‘Pastries? There something going on I don’t know about?’ McLean followed the detective sergeant down the corridor to the major incident room. Grumpy Bob paused before pushing open the door.
‘You tell me, sir. This place was empty yesterday. Now look at it.’
A sea of uniforms filled what was one of the largest spaces in the building. Dozens of hushed conversations amplified into a buzz that must have made life very difficult for the officers trying to use the phones banked along the far wall. At the top of the room by the whiteboards, McLean saw Detective Superintendent Brooks, Detective Chief Inspectors Mike Spence and Jayne McIntyre, Acting Detective Inspector Kirsty Ritchie and a half-dozen detective sergeants. DC Gregg was shuttling between them all, handing out sheafs of paper.
‘You’re here, Tony. Good.’
He swung round to see the DCC come through the door behind him. The city’s two ACCs were deep in conversation in the corridor outside, and it occurred to him that a well-placed bomb would effectively wipe out Edinburgh’s policing capability in one messy bang. Everyone was here.
‘Morning, sir. Thought the briefing wasn’t till six.’
‘It’s not. And most of these officers aren’t even assigned to the investigation. Wish I could get them to be half as enthusiastic every day.’
‘I’ve got the DN
A results. It’s a confirmation, I’m afraid.’
‘I know. Got the email, too.’ Call-me-Stevie squeezed out a painful smile. ‘Knew before then, actually. I made a few calls last night. Bill’s not been seen in the last forty-eight hours, and there were places he was supposed to be, people he wouldn’t have stood up unless he was dead. Important people.’
‘I’ll need to speak to them myself, sir. Probably have to interview you too, if I’m still in charge of the investigation, that is.’
The DCC’s smile hardened into something more sinister for a moment, then softened. ‘There’ll be time for that in due course. For now, I think we’d better get this briefing started. Make sure everyone’s on point before the press really get their teeth into us.’
‘You think that’s likely? I mean, it’s not as if we’ve done anything wrong yet.’
‘Yet?’ Call-me-Stevie slapped McLean on the back in what might have been a friendly gesture from anyone else. ‘I admire your confidence, McLean. Come on. Time to address the troops.’
‘Some of you will have met Bill Chalmers. Some of you might even have served with him; he was a detective constable with Lothian and Borders until twenty-five years ago, after all. There’s at least one of us here who was present at his arrest, too. But most of you probably know him as the man who looks after the drug addicts and gives the politicians a hard time. Gives us a hard time too, if I’m being honest. None of that is important right now.’
The deputy chief constable addressing a morning briefing for a suspicious death enquiry was unusual enough. Seeing the ranks of uniform and plain clothes police standing silently while he spoke was even more surprising. McLean had suffered enough talks from the top brass to know that most of it was either arse covering or management bollocks. This was different, though. You could hear it in Call-me-Stevie’s tone, and the whole room was caught up in it.
‘I’d say that what Chalmers did, the thing that got him thrown off the force and into an eight-year stretch in Saughton, I’d say that was all water under the bridge. Long since past. Hell, it’s been nearly twenty years since they let him out. But that doesn’t mean the press won’t dig it all up again and shove it in our faces. Even if he’d died in his bed after a long and uneventful life, they’d dig it all up again and shove it in our faces. That’s what the press do. But this is different. Bill Chalmers died violently and his body has been discovered in a manner that is both unusual and sensational. It’s a gift to the tabloids.’