‘I don’t really need to tell you that everything said in this room is classified, but I will anyway.’ He cleared his throat, not quite sure what to do with his hands since he had no papers to rustle.
‘This investigation is extremely sensitive. Word gets out about what we’re doing and not only will the whole operation collapse, we’ll be in a very sticky diplomatic situation. So speak about it to no one. Not your colleagues in the canteen or locker room, not your significant other at home, and certainly not any of our friends in the press. If any of this gets out without authorisation, we will find the leak, trust me. And it won’t just be a sacking offence. You could end up in jail.’
He paused to let that sink in, took the opportunity to survey the crowd. As well as DC Blane, he could see DC Harrison in the small team, and Grumpy Bob had found himself both a comfortable chair to sit in and a mug of coffee.
‘As you’ll know, we raided the offices of Smail and Associates yesterday morning on the pretext that they’ve been laundering drug money.’
‘That’s actually true, sir.’ DC Blane spoke softly, but the room was quiet enough and empty enough for his words to be heard.
‘It is?’ McLean asked.
‘Preliminary analysis of the records we confiscated show they’ve been putting drug money through a number of small businesses in the region. Pop-up shops, nail salons and a couple of online stores. It’s quite sophisticated.’
‘Really?’ McLean knew it wasn’t what the operation was looking for, but once you got DC Blane started it wasn’t easy to stop him.
‘Aye, they sell stuff through the major online retailers. Amazon, eBay, a couple others. Only it’s not real. Second-hand books for a thousand quid, but they’re just old paperbacks no’ worth pennies. Sale goes through, no goods change hands, but the cash comes out clean enough. They even pay tax on it. Well, some.’
‘That’s fascinating. But it’s not what we’re here for, is it?’
Lofty’s head drooped, bringing it down to the same level as most of the other people in the room. ‘Aye, well, no.’
‘Don’t worry. I don’t expect you to close the whole operation before it’s run a week. It’s good that you’ve found something though. Helps to keep our real targets in the dark.’
‘Are we allowed to know what the real target is, sir?’ Another question, this time from one of the support officers.
‘When it’s all done, the objective will become clear. That’s all you need to know right now. You’ve got your jobs, people, so get to them. The fact that you’ve been selected for this operation means you’re the best of the best in this station. I’d like to think we’re the best of the many teams working this operation across Scotland. Let’s prove me right on that one, eh?’
3
McLean watched the assembled officers and admin set to their tasks like a well-choreographed dance troupe. This was the part of any investigation that he liked the best. Right at the beginning, before all the problems had started to surface. People knew what they had to do and got on with doing it.
‘Think that went OK.’ DI Ritchie cradled a mug of coffee in both hands as she approached. McLean raised an eyebrow, then noticed Grumpy Bob following on behind. Wherever Detective Sergeant Laird was, fine coffee would not be far away. How they’d all cope when he retired at the end of the month was anyone’s guess.
‘It’s a good team.’ McLean nodded his head towards the bustling room. ‘Surprised not to see any of our NCA colleagues at the briefing though. Didn’t think they trusted us enough to fly solo yet.’
‘They’re coordinating with Aberdeen at the moment. Need to tread a lot more carefully up there for now.’
‘I guess so.’ He looked past Ritchie to where one of the admin support staff was waiting patiently to ask a question, a young man with a pale, freckled face and wiry ginger hair. For a moment McLean struggled to remember his name, but Ritchie came to his aid.
‘You needing something, Ben?’
‘Aye, ma’am, sorry to bother you. We’ve no’ had the Holmes 2 terminal access sorted yet.’ He turned slightly, indicating the line of computers arranged along one wall of the room, all their screens blank.
Ritchie frowned. ‘Can’t you ask Anya? She’s usually on top of that sort of thing.’
‘Aye, I would, but she’s no’ here.’ Ben shrugged.
‘Anya? Not . . .’ Ritchie looked at her sheaf of papers, but didn’t flick through them. ‘She should be. She’s on the list. Couldn’t not be. For something like this.’
‘Anya?’ The question was out of his mouth before McLean realised he knew the answer already. ‘Oh, Renfrew. Yes.’ He shouted to DC Harrison as she walked past. ‘You seen Renfrew, Constable?’
Harrison stopped in her tracks, began to do the same meerkat routine, then shook her head. ‘No, sir. Is she part of the team?’
‘Should be.’ Ritchie finally gave in and leafed through the stack of papers until she found her list. ‘Anya’s probably got better security clearance than any of us.’
‘Bet she’s been poached by one of the other investigations,’ McLean said. ‘I’ll have a word with McIntyre and see if we can’t get her back. This is exactly her sort of thing.’
‘You want me to speak to the duty sergeant, sir?’ Harrison asked, all eagerness to help, as ever. ‘She’s maybe just off sick.’
‘Anya? Sick?’ Ritchie’s laugh startled a couple of junior constables nearby. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever known her take a day off.’
‘May as well ask anyway,’ McLean said. ‘And if she’s not, find out where she is, OK? I’ll be in my office.’
Harrison nodded once, then scurried off like a busy mouse. He watched her go, then turned back to Ritchie and Grumpy Bob.
‘You got everything under control here?’
‘Reckon so. Anything comes up, we know where to find you. More likely to be a problem out there than in here though.’ Ritchie waved a hand at the window, indicating the wider world beyond the walls of the station. McLean had to admit she was right; inside the investigation room the most that could go wrong was them missing some link in the paper trail. He had to hope that her mention of problems wasn’t an omen of things to come.
The coffee machine at the far side of his office yielded something rather less appealing than the fine brew Grumpy Bob usually managed to rustle up. Nevertheless, it was warm and wet and the drinkable side of disgusting. McLean refilled his mug, splashed too much milk in it, and retreated to his desk. The visit to the operation room and his short pep talk to the team had been no more than a brief, welcome break from the grind. He had no choice now but to get on with the budget reconciliations and staff allocations. At least until something else came up to provide a legitimate distraction.
It arrived sooner than he was expecting, in the form of his mobile phone vibrating away in his pocket. He pulled it out and stared at the screen, a number he didn’t recognise. Normally he’d let it ring through to voicemail; if it was important they’d leave a message and he could call them back. On the other hand, if he answered it, then he didn’t have to worry about the meaningless spreadsheet in front of him for at least the duration of the conversation. Thumbing the green button, he lifted the handset to his ear.
‘Detective Insp— . . . Detective Chief Inspector McLean.’
‘Oh, ah. Hello.’ A woman’s voice on the other end. Young, if he was any judge. Edinburgh accent, even though the call hadn’t come from a city number. She clearly hadn’t been expecting him to answer.
‘Who is this?’
‘Oh, yes. Sorry. My name’s Millicent. Millicent Graham. Doctor Millicent Graham.’
A pause, which McLean found himself uncharacteristically compelled to fill. ‘And what can I do for you, Doctor Millicent Graham?’
Another pause, and he considered hanging up. Although as crank calls went, this didn’t rea
lly fit the bill.
‘It’s . . . well. It’s a bit complicated. I work at Bestingfield? The secure psychiatric hospital?’
A chill ran down McLean’s back. He hunched forward, phone pressed harder to his ear now. There weren’t many reasons why someone from Bestingfield would be calling. Even fewer good ones. ‘Go on.’
‘I work with some of the long-term patients. Those with the most well-formed delusions. We can’t hope to cure them, as such, but we can stabilise them, make their lives a bit easier. And ours.’
‘I’m sure you do your best for your patients, Doctor. I’m not exactly sure what it’s got to do with me though.’ Except that he was sure. He just didn’t want to have to face the fact of it. All the paperwork in the world would be preferable.
‘Well, one of my patients is here because of you.’ Dr Graham paused again, then started up before McLean could reply. ‘I’m sorry, that came out wrong. He’s here because of what he did of course. But you were the one who caught him.’
‘You’re talking about the man who claims to be Norman Bale.’
‘Claims to be . . . Oh, yes.’ McLean heard a shuffling of papers over the line that suggested Dr Graham’s desk was every bit as chaotic as his own. ‘That’s right. You said he couldn’t be Norman Bale because Norman Bale died when he was six years old. Leukaemia, wasn’t it?’
McLean remembered the case all too well. How many years ago was it? Not that many. Not nearly enough for it to be coming back to haunt him now. ‘It was, and he did. I knew him when he was a boy. The man you’re treating is not him, whatever he might claim. That’s a delusion you really should be tackling right now.’
‘Ah.’
There was something about the way Dr Graham said that one, short word that made McLean shiver all over again.
‘Ah?’ he asked. ‘I don’t much like the sound of “ah”.’
‘You’ll recall Norman’s parents were found in his . . . their house?’
The faintest hint of a question at the end of her words, but McLean did indeed recall. The dining room where he’d shared meals with the young Norman, watched over by the boy’s stern mother. That same woman many decades older, and many years dead, sitting in that same dining room across the table from her equally dead and equally well-preserved husband. Not a thing a person could forget easily, even after a blow to the head with a short scaffolding pole.
‘I thought you’d have seen the report, what with you being the arresting officer and everything.’ Dr Graham’s voice banished the image from McLean’s mind.
‘Report?’ He looked over his desk. There were so many.
‘Yes, the pathologist took DNA samples from the two bodies in the house. They match Norman’s. They’re his parents.’ The doctor paused a moment, and this time McLean left the silence hanging.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually. ‘I assumed you knew.’
‘No. I didn’t.’ He stared blankly across the office, out through the window wall to where a beautiful morning had just turned hellish. But then it occurred to him it didn’t matter if Bale was who he said he was. The man was insane and had murdered at least five people. There was no way he was ever leaving the secure psychiatric unit alive.
‘So why are you calling me?’ he asked. ‘Not to tell me about DNA tests, I’m sure.’
‘No. Not at all. I’m sorry. I had no idea you didn’t know that.’
‘What then?’ McLean asked, even though he knew.
‘Norman has issues, as you well know. But he’s much improved over the past year. He’s far more lucid, and he acknowledges that what he did was wrong. He talks a lot about his childhood, about his only real friend when he was a boy. He wants to talk to you.’
And there it was. What he’d known it would be all about the moment the doctor had told him where she worked. Well, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.
‘I’m sorry, Doctor Graham. I can’t help you. There’s nothing I want to say to that man, and nothing I need to hear from him.’
McLean stared at the blank screen of his phone, reflecting the square ceiling lights back at him as it lay on top of the paperwork he’d been reading. Trouble always had a way of finding him, but he’d never have expected it to come in quite such a form. Norman Bale. He’d not thought about that case in a while, not followed it up once the man himself had been committed indefinitely to the secure psychiatric unit. That was the end of it, or at least it should have been. There was no cure for the sickness that festered in his head. No doctor would ever pronounce him sane enough to stand trial for his crimes. He’d murdered at least five people, probably many more. There was no way he’d ever not be a danger to the public.
But the news about his DNA results, the confirmation of the identity he claimed, that was a shock. Norman Bale had taken ill that last summer before McLean was sent away to his hated boarding school down in England, not yet seven years old. Norman Bale had died from childhood leukaemia some time during that first term away from home. Norman Bale was buried in the graveyard of McLean’s local church, the headstone smoothed by more than forty years of Edinburgh weather. Was that a lie? Was that grave empty?
The graves of his parents were, so why not his? It was a disquieting thought, that graveyard filled with empty coffins. The dead still wandering the streets. It brought to mind another case, another unidentified body, a shadow in a dead man’s house, and something McLean tried very hard not to think about.
A knock on the open door helped. He looked up to see DC Harrison standing there, a worried frown on her face.
‘You OK, sir? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Probably not the best choice of words.’ McLean shook away the strange feeling that had settled over him. ‘Sorry. I’m fine. Just had an interesting phone call. Not sure what to make of it.’
‘Wasn’t Anya Renfrew, was it?’ A little light of hope flickered in her eyes.
‘Ah, no. I take it you’ve not tracked her down.’
‘She’s not phoned in sick, no. And she’s no’ answering her phones. Home just rings and mobile’s going to voicemail.’
McLean picked up his own phone and slid it back into his pocket. ‘Get a squad car round to her place, aye? And while they’re doing that, have a word with anyone here who’s friends with her. It’s irregular and unexpected, but I’ll not panic yet. Probably a perfectly good reason we can’t find her.’
Harrison looked unconvinced, and McLean couldn’t blame her. His internal alarm was ringing now, and not just because of his conversation with Dr Graham. That call and the missing admin support were two completely different things, after all.
‘I’ll ask around, see who knows her best. Should have next-of-kin contacts on her personnel file too.’
‘Let’s not go phoning her folks before we have to, OK? Don’t want to cause any undue alarm.’
‘Aye, sir.’ Harrison nodded once, then turned and left. McLean went back to staring out the window, over the rooftops to Salisbury Crags. People moved about Holyrood Park like tiny ants, unaware they were observed. Edinburgh was in its fourth week of sunny weather, much to the delight of both the tourist board and the ice cream industry. And yet for all the heat and light, he couldn’t help feeling a horrible, dark chill of foreboding, deep in his gut.
4
The quiet buzz as he entered the room told McLean that things were ticking along nicely. It was way too early for any great breakthroughs, and anyway this whole investigation would be a piecing together of many small nuggets of information. A puzzle with no reference picture and no idea how many pieces there were. It beat running around after a psychopathic serial killer with a God fixation though. And for now he’d take quiet busyness over growing panic.
Ritchie approached from the far corner, where the row of computer screens still stood unattended and blank. ‘We’re hoping to have a senior-officers meeting later this aft
ernoon if you’re free. Go over initial results.’
‘Not sure we’ve got any, have we?’
‘There’s Lofty’s money laundering stuff. And the Aberdeen team have emailed us everything they dug up too. The trick will be working out how to use it without tipping someone off as to what we’re doing.’
‘I’m happy to let the NCA team deal with that side of things. It’s their baby, after all.’
‘Aye, and you know who’ll get the blame if it’s dropped.’ Ritchie’s retort had a hard edge to it that gave McLean pause. She had a point of course. Edinburgh CID were a small cog in a big machine with this operation, but he was old enough and wise enough to see how they might get the blame should anything go wrong.
‘So cynical for one so young.’
‘Flattery will get you everywhere.’
‘Yes, well. Don’t get too used to it. I had an interesting phone call this morning you might want to hear about.’ McLean told her about Dr Graham and Norman Bale.
‘The actual fuck?’ Ritchie’s face might have heralded a coming storm, and her outburst sent a ripple of anxious quiet across the room. Eyes turned from whatever it was they had been concentrating on, fixed on her and McLean.
‘Pretty much my reaction too. The DNA results have got me puzzled, I’ll agree. No way I’m going to get an exhumation order for any of the graves though. Not now. Not sure I’d want to either.’
‘So, what? You’re just going to leave it? Walk away?’
‘Don’t see what else I can do. He can ask to speak to me all he likes, but I’m not about to go down there. No. As far as I’m concerned, the man claiming to be Norman Bale can stay where he is. And the longer the better.’
‘Amen to that.’ Ritchie began to reach up to her neck, but the silver crucifix she had worn for a few years wasn’t there. McLean watched as she disguised the movement by rubbing her thumb against her fingers and changing the subject. ‘Any word about Anya?’
‘Not answering her phone. I told Harrison to send a squad car round to her place. Knock on her door. I don’t think there’s any need to panic just because she’s late.’
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