Cold as the Grave

by James Oswald

  He had almost finished a plate of congealed lasagne that had obviously not appealed to any other officers earlier in the day when a familiar figure appeared at the door. DC Harrison wore the expression of someone not sure whether or not they should disturb the boss at his very late lunch.

  ‘Looking for me again, Constable? Or were you after a cup of tea?’

  ‘Umm . . . Both?’ Harrison looked at McLean’s unappetising plate. ‘Neither?’

  ‘It was probably nice at midday. Gone a bit rubbery now.’ McLean pushed the remains of his meal to one side and lined up his knife and fork. At least he’d eaten a few mouthfuls. Enough to stop his stomach rumbling, but not so much that he’d feel like having a snooze later.

  ‘We found something else in the CCTV footage that might be interesting. Not sure though.’

  ‘I’m intrigued.’ McLean took a final gulp of cold coffee, then shoved plate and mug back onto the tray and took them to the serving hatch. Harrison didn’t exactly fidget as he moved, but he could tell she was keen to get on. He waved an arm at the door, then followed her out.

  The station appeared relatively empty as they climbed the stairs and walked back to the CCTV viewing room. A brief glimpse in the major-incident room revealed a small crowd of mostly admin staff moving bits of paper about, but no detective sergeants or inspectors.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ McLean asked, then remembered Ritchie was going to be coordinating door-to-doors down Broughton Street. He didn’t want to think what that was going to cost in man-hours, but he’d sanctioned it. ‘All out conducting interviews, I suppose.’

  ‘Aye, sir. Kirsty reckoned it’d be quicker if we got more people out there.’

  McLean had noticed before the way all the female members of the team referred to Ritchie by her first name, often even to her face. He doubted very much that any of the junior detectives would call him Tony when they were talking about him behind his back, and even Grumpy Bob had started calling him ‘sir’ the moment he’d been promoted to inspector. It worked for him, so who was to say Kirsty didn’t prefer the informal approach?

  The viewing room was dark when they stepped inside, the only illumination coming from the large screen. Harrison must have left it on pause, as it showed a still image of Broughton Street in the dark. It wasn’t the same camera as before, judging by the angle.

  ‘Is this better footage?’ McLean asked peering at the blurry image and wondering whether he ought to get his eyes tested.

  ‘It’s a better angle, but not as clear.’ Harrison pulled out a chair and sat down in front of the control console. ‘There’s plenty of cameras in the street, but most of them point the wrong way. A couple of them are pretty much live feed only. They record about an hour at a go, then write over it. Only any good if someone notices an incident and backs up the initial recording. We didn’t find the body until quite a few hours after he died.’

  While she was speaking, Harrison worked the controls so that the image rewound swiftly. McLean searched the screen until he found the timestamp. It was counting backwards rapidly, but he couldn’t help noticing it had started at around half past one in the morning. Long after the attack on Jennings that they’d seen on the other camera.

  ‘Why so late?’ he asked, but Harrison had stopped the recording again. This time the timestamp was saying it was only nine o’clock in the evening.

  ‘See here, sir?’ She pointed at the screen with a finger much daintier than DC Blane’s. ‘It’s not easy to make out, but this looks like a small person working their way along the street. Keeping to the shadows.’

  McLean pulled out the other chair in front of the screen and sat down, leaning forward until he could see what Harrison was pointing at. She put the video into slow motion, and sure enough something, or someone, crept along the street. Every so often it would stop, and if you accepted that it was a person, they must have been looking around to see whether or not they were being followed. Finally the shape reached the entrance to the alleyway, looked around one last time, then disappeared into its dark maw.

  ‘That’s about the time Jennings was phoning his old man, from what I’ve heard.’ Harrison pointed to the timestamp, now reading nine forty. ‘Nothing much happens until just before eleven. I think you’ve seen this bit, from the other camera.’

  She fast-forwarded the video until the point where a man less easily identifiable as Jennings walked down the street. The cloaked figure was standing at the entrance to the alley as before. From this new angle it was even more evident how he appeared to be sniffing the air, searching for something. McLean thought he was prepared for what came next, but even so he gasped when the figure turned on Jennings, grabbed him by the neck and dragged him into the alley. It was so brutal, so unprovoked.

  ‘Can we get any more detail on the attacker?’ he asked, but Harrison just shook her head.

  ‘Not from any of the cameras I’ve looked at so far, sir. Kirsty’s team are going to be asking all the pubs and shops, but I doubt we’ll get anything clearer than the first footage.’

  The video spooled forward a while longer, and the cloaked figure emerged, striding up the hill and out of shot. McLean slumped back in his chair. ‘So we’ve not really got any more to work with then.’

  ‘Not for Jennings, sir, no. But there’s this.’ Harrison tapped a button and the image jumped. For a moment McLean thought nothing much had changed, but then he saw the timestamp had moved to half past one in the morning again. At first nothing moved, the street as quiet then as it would ever be. And then something emerged from the alleyway.

  ‘Is that the same thing we saw going in at half nine?’ McLean peered at the screen again. Definitely going to need an eye test soon.

  ‘Not a thing, sir. A person. I’m sure of it. See?’ Harrison switched screens, the image reverting to the one McLean had first seen earlier in the day. It was much clearer, but set further back from the action. Even so, he could see the tiny figure as it scurried up the road, stopping frequently to look back.

  ‘I think it’s a child, sir,’ Harrison said, and at the suggestion McLean could see what she meant. There was only one way in and out of that alley, which meant whoever it was had hidden in there while Jennings was killed. Stayed with his dead body for hours in terror of being found.

  ‘I think it might be the girl we found at the charity place.’ Harrison tapped at the console and zoomed the image in. Not clear enough to make out any features, but enough to see the shape and type of clothes, the unkempt mop of dirty hair. ‘I think it might be wee Nala.’

  28

  ‘Tony. You’re late.’

  As welcomes home went, it wasn’t particularly warm. McLean would have been happy to have been shouted at, given how little communication he and Emma had managed over the past few months. She stood in the kitchen, clearly anxious, and it was only as he noticed how well she was dressed that the penny dropped.

  ‘The charity thing? That’s tonight? Shit. I’d forgotten.’ It was true enough, although a little voice at the back of his mind told him that he’d probably wanted to forget in the hope it would just go away.

  ‘That much is obvious.’ Emma glanced up at the clock above the door. ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes to get changed. Taxi will be here at half six.’

  ‘Taxi?’ McLean still held his car keys in one hand, and rattled them between his fingers.

  ‘Well I’m not driving there, and I can’t imagine you’ll cope without a drink.’ Emma bustled across the kitchen and took his briefcase from his unprotesting grip, turned him around and pulled off his overcoat, then pushed him towards the door through to the main hallway. ‘Come on. Chop chop.’

  McLean did as he was told, surprised when Emma followed him through the house, up the stairs to the bedroom. He felt tired and sticky after a long day at work, but there wasn’t really time for a shower if the taxi really was booked.

&nbs
p; ‘Why are you so keen to go?’ he asked after he’d splashed water on his face and done what he could with his hair. Emma had already been through his wardrobe, and for a horrified moment he thought she was going to make him wear the full kilt and Prince Charlie. Relief at the simple dinner jacket and bow tie was tinged with a degree of horror at the thought of having to be sociable. Would anyone there know who he was?

  ‘Well, for one thing I’ve never been invited to something quite so grand before. Gives me an opportunity to get dressed up in something a bit more fashionable than forensic-technician white, don’t you think?’ Emma twirled, and the hem of her ankle-length dress splayed to reveal splashes of brighter colour in the pleats of the dark red material. She’d done something with her hair, too, although McLean couldn’t have said exactly what. And she was wearing make-up, which he couldn’t remember her doing in a while. More than all of these things though, she was almost giddy with excitement.

  It reminded him of when she had been recovering from a head injury, a few years earlier. For a while she’d regressed to something like a teenager, which had been utterly exhausting. Although his tiredness might have had as much to do with the case he’d been working on at the time.

  ‘You look stunning,’ he said, aware that an answer had been required. It was true too. There was a glow to her he’d not seen in far too long. The smile she gave him suggested that he’d said the right thing. It was true this evening’s event was everything he disliked about Edinburgh society, and it was hosted by someone he’d less like to spend time with than a convicted child abuser, but if it was a way to bridge the gap between him and Emma, then he’d give it his best.

  ‘Not these, I think.’ He held up the shiny black trousers that went with the dinner jacket. He hadn’t worn them in at least a decade, and there was every chance they’d be much tighter around the waist than he remembered.

  ‘No?’ Emma frowned, her stillness muting the colour of her dress once more. ‘What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘Too boring.’ McLean dropped them back onto the bed and rummaged through the wardrobe until he found what he was looking for. His grandfather’s old tartan trews had a bit more space in them, and were far better suited to the occasion than some stuffy old evening wear.

  ‘Much better.’ Emma laughed, then turned serious again. ‘Now hurry up and get dressed. We don’t want to be the last to arrive.’

  It wasn’t too bad, at least to start with. McLean felt a bit self-conscious as an officious-looking man in a too-tight black suit and tails announced Emma and him to the crowd swelling the largest ballroom of one of the city’s most prestigious hotels, but when it was clear none of them were paying any attention, he began to relax a little. It had been many a year since last he’d been to any formal event like this, but at least he had some experience. Judging by the way she clung limpet-like to his arm, a rictus grin fixed on her face, Emma did not, and neither had her initial enthusiasm and excitement for the evening survived the harsh reality.

  ‘Who are all these people?’ she kept on asking as they cut a slow path through the great and the good, or at least people who considered themselves great and good.

  ‘I really have no idea,’ McLean said, and then almost immediately spotted the deputy chief constable listening intently to something being shouted into his ear by one of the country’s senior members of parliament. Seeing both men seemed to trip some switch in his brain, and he soon started recognising other people, either from their appearances on the news or from the kind of police briefings they would be very surprised to find themselves included in.

  ‘Oh my God. Isn’t that . . . ?’ Emma tugged on his arm and pointed at a young man standing over by the dais that had been set up at the front of the room.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea who that is,’ he said.

  ‘Sure you do. He was in all those films.’ Emma took a step towards the man, then stopped herself. ‘He’s much shorter in real life.’

  McLean couldn’t help laughing, and after a moment’s frowning, Emma joined in.

  ‘It’s Tony, isn’t it? Detective Inspector? I never forget a face.’

  The woman who approached them was hauntingly familiar, but McLean couldn’t place her. Judging by the way Emma choked on her laugher, her eyes widening in surprise, she could.

  ‘It’s chief inspector now, but I try not to make anything of it.’ McLean held out a hand and the woman shook it gently. There was something other-worldly about her, and he knew he’d met her before, but still that name eluded him.

  ‘You don’t remember, do you?’ She smiled, and then he did. Must have been five years ago, at least.

  ‘Miss Adamson. Sorry, it took me a while.’

  Her smile broadened, lighting up her face. ‘Vanessa, please. You know, it’s such a rare thing these days, to meet someone who doesn’t know who I am. Or at least who they think I am.’ She turned to Emma. ‘He’s clearly not going to introduce us. I’m Vanessa.’

  ‘I . . . I know.’ Emma shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m Emma. Emma Baird. I had no idea you knew Tony though. He never said.’

  ‘He interviewed me about my neighbour. They’d just arrested him for burglary or something. It was all very exciting.’ Adamson turned her attention back to McLean. ‘Are you here bidding, or are you one of the lots?’

  ‘I’m here under sufferance, if I’m being honest. My boss told me I had to represent Police Scotland or something. But he seems to be doing that all by himself anyway. I don’t even know what’s being auctioned, so I doubt I’ll be buying anything.’

  Adamson pouted at him. ‘Not even me?’ She must have read the look of confused horror on his face as she added: ‘You can bid for the chance to have lunch with me and young Nero over there.’ She waved a hand in the direction of the man Emma had pointed at earlier. ‘And a visit to the set where we’re filming.’

  McLean was about to ask, ‘Filming what?’, but stopped himself when he realised he should already know.

  ‘Oops. Gotta go. Can’t keep my director waiting.’ Vanessa waved back at an elderly man who was motioning with his hand for her to join a group of people close by the dais. ‘Good to see you again, Insp— . . . Chief Inspector. And you too, Emma. Ask him about the time he interviewed me in my nightie.’

  And before McLean could say anything more, she was gone.

  ‘Is there something you want to tell me, Anthony McLean?’ Emma glared at him as they stood in the middle of the crowded ballroom. For all the chatter of conversation, the muddle of people in too-fancy dress drinking champagne and eating canapes, they could have been alone.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’ Even as he said it, he knew it was a weak protest.

  ‘How is it that you don’t recognise Nero Genovese but are on first-name terms with Vanessa Adamson?’

  ‘I’d hardly say we’re on first-name terms. And as for the bloke, I’ve never even heard of him.’

  Emma glowered at him for a while, but then relented. ‘That much I can believe. But Adamson? She’s Hollywood royalty. How on earth do you know her at all?’

  ‘Must have been, what? Five years ago? She was next-door neighbour to Fergus McReadie. Remember him? IT guy and part-time cat burglar. I seem to recall you were the one who proved the bank statements he’d planted in my flat were forgeries.’

  Emma’s face went blank for a moment as she cast her mind back. ‘Oh. Him. The Obituary Man.’

  ‘The same. She lived next door, so we spoke to her when we were searching his apartment. And, yes, she was only wearing a nightdress at the time. I wasn’t alone though. Grumpy Bob was there, if I remember right, and MacBride. And Detective Constable Kydd . . .’

  McLean stopped talking. He’d not thought about Alison Kydd in years. She’d pushed him out of the way of an oncoming truck, saved his life even as she’d lost hers. What a stupid waste of a life. And what a stupid
waste of time being in this room with all these people who couldn’t give a damn.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ he asked. ‘I mean, really?’

  A waiter passed, bearing a tray laden with glasses of champagne. Emma took two, handed one to McLean and lifted hers high.

  ‘We’re here to enjoy someone else’s hospitality. And to get out of the house for a change. Cheers.’ She clinked her glass against his, then took a long sip, spluttering slightly as the bubbles went up her nose. McLean held his own glass up to the light as if it were a fine vintage needing close scrutiny before drinking, but truth was he didn’t much feel like champagne. Didn’t much feel like enjoying any of the hospitality paid for by the Dee Trust, however much good work they might do.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector. I’m so glad you came.’

  McLean didn’t need to turn to know who was speaking this time. The voice cut through him like a rusty saw, bringing with it snippets of garbled memory. The last time he had seen this woman, she had drugged him, shoved him in a helicopter and told the pilot to drop him somewhere out in the Firth of Forth. Except that memory had the quality of a dream, a nightmare. In that memory Jane Louise Dee had died, but here she was as alive and untouched by the long arm of the law as ever.

  ‘And this must be Emma. Tony, you really should introduce us.’

  As she swept past him, McLean felt a blast of cold air and the faintest whiff of something bad. Rotten eggs, perhaps. Or a blocked drain somewhere in the basement. Jane Louise Dee, otherwise known as Mrs Saifre, grasped Emma’s hand in both of hers, as if it were the most precious of gifts. She held on for just long enough to be uncomfortable before finally relinquishing it and turning to McLean himself.

  ‘It’s such a pleasure to see you again. How long has it been now? Three years? All that unpleasantness with poor old Andrew out at Rosskettle.’

  McLean had no intention of shaking Mrs Saifre’s hand, but she had much more ambitious ideas anyway, sweeping in and planting kisses in the air beside both his cheeks. Her youthful looks were all artifice, he knew. She had to be nearer sixty than fifty. And yet placing her alongside Emma it would be easy to assume Mrs Saifre was the younger woman. Her flawless pale skin was framed by straight black hair that fell past her shoulders. She wore a dress of red so vibrant it was almost vulgar, perfectly matched by her lipstick, and carried a small patent-leather bag looped over the elbow of one long-gloved arm. Unwelcome air-kiss over, she stepped back and eyed McLean up like a side of beef hanging in a butcher’s shop.