Cold as the Grave

by James Oswald

  ‘At the moment, very little.’ McLean was going to leave it at that, but the questioning eyes of the other detectives around the table prompted him to fill the silence. ‘We’ve no ID on the girl yet. She wasn’t carrying anything with her, and her clothes are a mix of cheap and old. That suggests to me charity shop or possibly even handouts. At the moment we’re working on the theory she got into the basement through a small hole in the floor of the charity offices above. They deal with refugees, so it’s possible she’s foreign. That would explain why Missing Persons haven’t got any matches.’

  ‘The charity.’ Ritchie flicked through a copy of the very basic summary DC Harrison had prepared for everyone. ‘House the Refugees. We know anything about them?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to the woman who runs it, name of Sheila Begbie. We’ll be getting her in for a full statement, but the office was closed over the weekend. We’re checking her out, but she seems legitimate.’

  ‘And her clients? The folk she was finding homes for? Any of them missing a child?’

  McLean rubbed at his temples, head aching after a poor night’s sleep.

  ‘Not the ones we’ve managed to track down so far. The addresses we’ve got aren’t exactly permanent, and a lot of them have moved on recently. It’s a hostile environment for immigrants and refugees out there. And they’re not the sort of people who leave paper trails.’

  ‘You want to shake down this Begbie a bit harder? We found a body in the room under her office. It’s not going to be hard justifying a warrant to go through all her records.’ McIntyre opened her hands wide as if the paperwork was already there to hand over.

  ‘I thought it would be more productive to work with her, Jayne. The people she’s dealing with, they don’t have a very good relationship with the police. Not here, and certainly not in the countries they’ve fled from. We go in heavy-handed and everyone we need to talk to will just disappear.’

  McIntyre’s scepticism was written all over her face, but she kept quiet.

  ‘What about children, then?’ Ritchie asked. ‘Do we know if any of her refugees had kids with them?’

  ‘Lots of them, and all different ages. It’s not like we could show her a picture of the girl though.’ McLean reached out across the table and picked up one of the photographs he’d brought to the meeting. A head and shoulders shot of the dead body as it was laid out on the examination table, it showed all too clearly the strange damage that had been done to the girl’s skin. She looked almost like a body taken from a bog after thousands of years’ slow pickling, except that she wasn’t the dark leather colour that peat tanning gave. Her pallor was more orange, her features waxy. Her thick black hair reminded him of nothing so much as an elderly sofa, its stuffing burst from some tear in the fabric. There was an artificiality to it, more like a wig than real, which was why he’d thought her a doll to start with.

  McIntyre’s heavy sigh broke through his musing. ‘What do we know, then? How did she die?’

  McLean put the picture back down on the table, face up so that he could still see it. ‘What we know from the post-mortem so far is that she died two or three days ago, from what appears to be massive and rapid organ failure. The basement where we found her hasn’t been used for anything in years. It’s full of rubbish, old chairs, tables, pretty much a lifetime’s worth of forgotten things. According to Winterthorne a lot of the stuff was in there when he bought the place at the end of the sixties, and, having seen it, I can believe him.’

  ‘Winterthorne?’ Grumpy Bob had been doing a good impression of a man not paying attention up until that point, but he leaned forward. ‘Pete Winterthorne? As in Loopy Doo?’

  ‘The same. Apparently he’s not been home for almost a month, didn’t get in until Sunday night. We’re checking that, of course, but he’s an old man. No way he’d be able to break down that door, let alone move any of the furniture in the room. Right now I don’t think either Begbie or Winterthorne are likely suspects, although it’s possible Begbie inadvertently let the girl in.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’ McIntyre asked.

  ‘Forensics found a small toy underneath some of the discarded furniture, and a carrier bag with food in it. My guess is she was trying to escape something, went there to hide until it stopped looking for her. The only way she could have got in was from the offices above, and they were locked when we got there.’

  ‘So you reckon what? She snuck in during office hours, hid somewhere until Begbie locked up, then found her way down into the basement?’ Ritchie arched a non-existent eyebrow. ‘Sounds a bit far-fetched, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’m working with what I’ve got, Kirsty, which isn’t much if I’m being honest.’ McLean shrugged. ‘The point is, someone found her, somehow. They broke down the door and shifted heavy furniture out of the way to get her.’

  ‘Why go to all that trouble and then just leave her body behind?’ McIntyre asked.

  ‘I have no idea, Jayne. Right now, none of this makes any sense at all.’

  ‘I’ve got that information on the missing girl you were after, sir.’

  McLean looked up from his desk to see DC Sandy Gregg standing in the open doorway and clutching a report folder in one hand. He’d gone straight back to his office from the senior officers’ meeting, figuring that he could at least make a start on the paperwork while waiting for more information to come in. He’d found it almost impossible to concentrate, and for a moment all he could think of was the dead girl in the basement, but Gregg would have been more specific if something important had come up. And that girl wasn’t missing. She was in the mortuary.

  ‘You asked me to speak to someone in Immigration, remember? Couple of days back?’

  McLean’s expression must have still been blank, as Gregg added ‘Before the march? Lad by the name of McKenzie?’ And that finally tripped the memory.

  ‘Sandwiches. Got you.’ He shook his head to hide the embarrassment of being so forgetful. He’d meant to follow up on McKenzie when they found out the girl had died recently, rather than decades ago. Somehow it had slipped his mind. Almost as if he was getting old or something.

  ‘Aye, well. Your man McKenzie’s on the level, and so’s the place he works. They employ a lot of immigrants, but it’s all above board.’

  ‘What about the missing girl? You don’t think it could be her we found in the basement?’

  ‘I don’t know. Dougie – DS Naismith – said it was bit of a sensitive area. Didn’t want to poke his nose in too deep in case they all got scared off. That was before yon wee lassie in the basement, mind.’

  McLean checked his watch. Not much of the morning left. ‘You have your lunch yet?’ he asked.

  Gregg shook her head. ‘Shift ends soon. I’ll be heading off home for a bit of peace and quiet. Need to do some more boning up for the exam.’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll find someone else.’

  ‘For lunch?’

  ‘To visit the sandwich factory and have a chat with the owner, maybe Mr McKenzie and the other workers if they’ll speak to us.’

  ‘But Dougie said . . .’ Gregg stopped speaking before she finished the sentence, so McLean didn’t have to interrupt her.

  ‘That was before we had a murder investigation on our hands. And, besides, we need to identify this girl if we’ve any hope of finding out why she died and who killed her. Or what.’

  Gregg nodded her understanding. ‘You want me to find DS Naismith for you, sir?’

  ‘He in?’ McLean wasn’t sure he’d know the man if he saw him. So many new faces, so many old ones moved on or retired.

  ‘Aye. He was just going to the canteen for a coffee.’

  McLean stood up, abandoning the piles of paperwork strewn across his desk. ‘I’ll come with you. Could do with a leg stretch.’

  If Gregg knew the real reason was his uncertainty over who DS Naismith actually wa
s, she didn’t mention it, simply stood aside to let him exit the room, then fell into step as they both walked up the corridor towards the stairs. He waited until they were almost at the canteen before speaking again, pitching his voice low so as not to be overheard even though there weren’t many officers around.

  ‘About that exam. Way I hear it, you just need to turn up and spell your name right and you’ll be fine.’

  As it turned out, McLean did know Detective Sergeant Naismith. He’d worked with DCI Dexter in the Sexual Crimes Unit, or Vice as everyone jokingly called it. Given that more than half of the city’s sex workers were trafficked illegal immigrants, the move to CID liaison with the Immigration office wasn’t hard to understand. Naismith didn’t look all that much younger than him, his face lean and lined as if he’d spent most of his career walking the streets on the beat rather than in plain clothes.

  ‘It’s like I said to Sandy, sir. You have to tread carefully with these people. Pretty much all of them have had a hard time getting here. Most of them look on the police as the enemy, and given some of the stories I’ve heard, you can hardly blame them.’

  ‘I got that impression from McKenzie. That’s why he came to see me. None of the women working in the factory would have dared.’

  ‘Aye, they don’t want to draw attention. No’ from us, and no’ from the folk who brought them here neither.’

  McLean cradled a mug of coffee he didn’t really need. The canteen was just beginning to get busy with lunch and shift change, but his seniority meant most of the officers were giving him a wide berth. Either that or his reputation.

  ‘How much did you actually find out, then?’ he asked.

  ‘The company’s called Fresh Food Solutions. They’ve a couple other places down in England, apparently. I’ve spoken to the manager of the Newcraighall site before. Rab Boag. He’s OK. Takes on folk others might not want the bother with. Treats them fair, for the kind of work they’re in.’

  ‘Making sandwiches.’ McLean looked up at the canteen serving hatch and the food on display in the glass cabinets. Were those sandwiches made on site? Or did they buy them in as some kind of cost-cutting measure?

  ‘Among other things. There’s a bakery across town too, and some big packing and processing factory out in Fife. The scale of it fair boggles the mind. All for a humble sarnie.’

  The way he said it made McLean wonder whether Naismith had eaten his lunch yet. The detective sergeant had only a mug of coffee in front of him, but it was possible his plate had been cleared away already.

  ‘What about McKenzie? He’s not exactly from foreign parts.’

  ‘Billy?’ Naismith raised an eyebrow. ‘No. Local lad. And good on him. There’s no’ many stick out that kind of job for long.’

  ‘Too much like hard work?’

  ‘A bit of that, aye. But when you’re the only one speaking English in a line of folk jabbering away in Polish or Syrian or whatever, well, it’s hard to find a way to fit in.’

  ‘Why do you think he does, then?’

  ‘I’d have thought that’d be obvious, sir. He’s got the hots for one of his co-workers.’

  ‘The one who’s sister’s missing her child?’

  Naismith shrugged. ‘Seems the logical explanation.’

  McLean took a drink from his mug, then grimaced at the lukewarm, bitter liquid. He put it down on the table and stood up. ‘We need to go and talk to them anyway. Maybe I can persuade McKenzie to act as an intermediary. Come on. I’ll drive.’

  ‘We?’ Naismith’s face suggested he’d been expecting to spend rather more time in the canteen and less out in the cold. ‘But I’ve no’ had my lunch yet.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sergeant. Where better to get fed than a sandwich factory?’

  12

  Fresh Food Solutions occupied a modern warehouse building on the edge of an industrial estate in Newcraighall. Whoever had come up with the name for the company had clearly never spent any time on the internet, as the large company logo spelled out FFS in big blue letters. It hadn’t taken long to drive from the station, DS Naismith just as nervous a passenger in McLean’s expensive and shiny Alfa Romeo as any junior constable. He’d been too agitated to place a call to the manager, so their visit was unannounced. Even so, Rab Boag had met them within minutes of their arrival. With a florid face and constantly moving hands, the manager looked like he probably enjoyed sampling his product a little too much. He spoke constantly, with all the intensity and conviction of a double-glazing salesman.

  ‘We operate to the highest health and safety hygiene standards. All our equipment is inspected on a regular basis and our staff undergo rigorous and continuous training.’

  McLean tuned out the corporate spiel as he followed the manager through a noisy warehouse area and up clattering metal stairs to the company offices. A bored secretary looked at the three of them as they entered, but made no effort to move from her desk.

  ‘Coffee, please, Eileen.’ Boag opened a door into a large office with a glass wall overlooking what McLean could only think of as the factory floor. He wandered over for a better look, peering down on a wavy line of conveyer belt, white-overalled people hunched over it like legs on a centipede tipped upside down by an inquisitive child. They all wore hairnets, and some of the men sported beard nets too. Other workers wheeled about trolleys of what he assumed were ingredients, feeding the machine that fed the nation.

  ‘Please, have a seat, gentlemen. Or should I say “detectives”?’

  McLean turned away from the fascinating view to see Boag already seated at his desk. Naismith stood uncertain by the door, then had to move as Eileen pushed it open with a foot, her hands occupied by a tray.

  ‘I must say, I’m surprised to see you again so soon, Detective Sergeant,’ Boag said as the secretary placed three mugs on the desk. She’d not asked whether anyone took milk, just made them that way. McLean hoped she’d not put any sugar in them.

  ‘DS Naismith was making enquiries on my behalf, Mr Boag.’ He approached the desk but didn’t sit down, forcing the manager to look up at him. ‘One of your employees approached me with a story I couldn’t ignore.’

  ‘The missing child? I know. But her mother doesn’t work here. I don’t know how I can help.’

  ‘You employ her sister though.’ McLean nodded his head in the direction of the window. ‘Out there on the production line.’

  ‘Aye, Rahel. She’s been here more than eighteen months now. Good worker. Nimble fingers.’

  ‘Is she in today? I need to speak to her.’

  Something like fear flitted across Boag’s face, and his gaze darted from McLean to Naismith as if asking the DS to help.

  ‘It’s like I said before, sir. They’re very wary of the police. Chances are she won’t speak to either of us, even if her English is up to it.’

  ‘I don’t want you scaring them off. You any idea how long it takes to train up a skilled sandwich maker? How hard it is to get them to stay?’

  McLean wasn’t quite sure what to make of Boag. Granted, the man seemed happy enough to give work to immigrants and refugees, but something in his tone suggested his philanthropy came more from a desire to cut costs than to help the needy. There was no point going in heavy-handed though. That was the only certain way to make everyone unhappy and ensure he didn’t get the information he needed. Time to take a different tack.

  ‘McKenzie. He working today?’

  Boag’s worried face turned to puzzlement. ‘Aye, I think so.’

  ‘Well get him and this Rahel up here. Or better yet, have you got a canteen? Maybe somewhere the staff can take a break?’

  It wasn’t exactly a comfortable space to catch a few minutes’ break from the grind of sandwich preparation. The workers had made themselves a small area in one corner of the warehouse, upside down crates for chairs, a heavy wooden packing case for a table. T
he stainless-steel industrial-size sink was more designed for cleaning out mop buckets than mugs, but it had been pressed into use for making tea. McLean stared at the handwritten notices taped to the wall for a while before realising the reason he couldn’t understand them was that they were written in a variety of foreign languages. It came as a bit of a relief; he’d thought maybe he needed to get his eyes tested.

  A quiet commotion at the far side of the cleared space dragged his attention away from the strange, curling script, and he saw Billy McKenzie gently encouraging a young woman to follow him. The two of them were dressed in production-line chic: white plastic wellington boots, white aprons and hairnets, but the woman also wore a headscarf. It made the hairnet seem somewhat redundant.

  McLean stood up, but didn’t approach. He’d asked Naismith to stay with Boag, up in the office. The fewer people involved, the better. And they knew Naismith was a policeman, whereas he was just a middle-aged man in a suit.

  ‘Thanks for agreeing to speak to me,’ he said as they came closer. ‘I’m Tony.’

  The young woman’s eyes widened at his words, but the wariness never left her. Closer up, McLean saw spatters of margarine, mayonnaise and other sauces on her apron.

  ‘You’re Rahel, I believe? Please. Have a seat. Billy, you too.’ He gestured towards two upturned crates, then sat on a third, making sure there was nothing in between them.

  ‘It is not time for my break.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure Mr Boag doesn’t dock your pay.’

  The young woman frowned, looked first at Billy, then at McLean ‘What is “dock”? Is where boats come and go, no?’

  ‘It means the man’ll no’ take it out of your wages, aye? You being here and talking to the in—’ Billy stopped himself before going any further. Brighter than McLean had given him credit for.

  ‘Tony. Or Mr McLean if you prefer.’

  ‘What is it you want?’ Rahel’s expression spoke eloquently of how little she trusted McLean. She knew perfectly well he was police, and she wasn’t at all happy being here.