Cold as the Grave

by James Oswald

  ‘I do love a man in tartan trews. You look very fetching, my dear.’

  McLean opened his mouth to protest that he wasn’t her dear and that if he had any say in the matter he’d arrest her on the spot. Before he could get any words out, Saifre had turned her attention back to Emma.

  ‘Darling, I’m so dreadfully busy right now, with this charity do and everything. But I would so like to get to know you better. Tony’s told me absolutely nothing about you. How like him to want to keep you all to himself.’

  ‘Umm . . . OK?’ Emma took a step back as she spoke, but Saifre closed the space between them without appearing to move.

  ‘Good, good. We’ll have tea some time soon then. When the menfolk are at work.’

  It was such an unexpected expression, especially coming from someone who had built her own international business from nothing, that McLean almost laughed. Instead he turned his disbelief to a question that had been nagging him for days now.

  ‘The Dee Trust. How long’s that been a thing?’

  Saifre cocked her head to one side, as if searching his face for any hint of sarcasm. McLean was well practised at hiding it.

  ‘The charity’s been in existence for decades, Tony. My involvement goes back a few years. We rebranded recently, refocused our efforts.’

  ‘And what is it exactly that you do?’ McLean indicated the room full of partying people with a shrug and a dismissive wave of his hands. ‘Apart from raffling off lunch dates with film stars?’

  ‘The money goes to good causes. You’ve seen us in action out at Inchmalcolm Tower, I understand. That’s a halfway house, for youngsters coming out of care and heading into the wide world. So many damaged lives. We do what we can to help them mend.’

  ‘Very laudable.’ It was McLean’s turn to search Saifre’s face for any sign of disingenuity, but if anything she’d had even more practice than him.

  ‘So can we rely on you for a bid? Maybe a lunch with the delectable Miss Adamson. I saw you two chatting earlier.’

  ‘We’ll see. I’m always happy to support a good cause. Just like to know where my money’s going.’

  ‘Don’t we all, Tony. Don’t we all.’ Mrs Saifre reached out and touched his arm, gently. A shock ran through him so sharp and so sudden he could scarcely hide it. Like static from a cheap polyester rug, he twitched involuntarily. And in that moment the room changed. It was no longer an elegant ballroom filled with wealthy people drinking and eating and shouting at each other. Now it was more like a Hieronymus Bosch painting, an image straight out of hell. A blink, perhaps a short gasp of surprise, and everything was back to normal.

  Everything except Mrs Saifre, whose expression was wary now.

  ‘Well, this affair won’t run itself. I must be away.’ She nodded towards McLean’s glass of champagne, still full. ‘Drink, eat. Enjoy the party. And if you feel the urge to bid on something, don’t be shy.’

  And then she strode away, perfectly balanced on ridiculous high heels, disappearing into the appreciative crowd.

  ‘Well. She was . . . strange.’

  ‘Don’t be fooled. She is the most evil person I’ve ever met. If she’s fronting this charity then there has to be something in it for her.’ McLean caught the eye of a passing waiter, who proffered his tray still holding a dozen full champagne glasses. Adding the one he’d still not drunk anything from made a nice round thirteen.

  ‘You not feeling well?’ Emma took another gulp of her own drink, emptying her glass just as the waiter disappeared into the crowd.

  ‘I’m fine. Just don’t want anything she’s paid for.’ McLean saw the quizzical frown Emma gave him. ‘Call me old-fashioned if you like.’

  ‘Well, it’s a shame. If I’d known you weren’t going to drink we could have saved on the taxi.’

  ‘And found somewhere round here to park? At this time of night?’ McLean grabbed another glass from the next passing waiter, handing it to Emma and relieving her of her empty one. ‘Come on. Let’s go and see what they’re flogging to raise funds.’

  They pushed through the crowd until they reached the front, where a couple of large boards bore the logo of the Dee Trust. Printed beneath was a list of fairly predictable experiences and prizes, each with a lot number beside it. A weekend in a famous golfing hotel sounded like something they’d have to pay him to do, rather than the other way around. If he was tempted by anything it was the day of race training with a Formula One star up at Knockhill, but the only really notable offering in the auction was the lunch with the Hollywood couple, and a chance to visit them on the set of their latest blockbuster movie, currently filming in Aberdeenshire. A couple of phone calls and McLean reckoned he could have that for free, although that wasn’t the point, of course.

  ‘Anything take your fancy?’ he asked after Emma had spent five minutes gazing at the boards.

  ‘Not really.’ She drained her glass and plonked it down on the dais. ‘And this champagne’s shite. I’ve had better Cava from M&S. What are we doing here?’

  McLean suppressed the urge to say that it was her idea to come. That might be true, but even he knew that saying so wouldn’t win him any favours. He looked out over the crowd, expensively dressed and ready to spend ridiculous sums of money on rubbish just because it was for a good cause. A salve to their consciences so they could sleep at night in their warm beds and million-pound homes. What would they make of the camp out in the Hermitage, people living outdoors in sub-zero temperatures because they had nowhere else to go? Because they’d been bombed out of their homes by a war none of them had asked for. What would they all think about a little girl lying dead in a city basement, another curled up in the snow? The answer was obvious enough: they wouldn’t think about them at all except to tut and look for someone other than themselves to blame.

  ‘You want to go?’ he asked, all too aware that his failure to mingle and press the flesh would not go unnoticed by the deputy chief constable. McLean found it hard to care.

  ‘Yeah.’ Emma took a step closer to him and slid her arm through his. ‘Let’s get out of here before they all start braying.’

  29

  The taxi took them through a city quietened by the bad weather. McLean still wasn’t sure of Emma’s mood, although she’d seemed closer to him that evening than in all the months since her miscarriage. She stared out the window, wrapped up warm in a fur coat that had belonged to his mother and which was about as far from politically correct as it was possible to get. He was happy to relax into his seat and just watch her, grateful their driver wasn’t the chatty kind.

  ‘Thank you.’ Emma spoke to the glass first, then lazily turned her head to face him. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but she looked happy for a change. Tired, too.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For agreeing to accept the invitation. For taking me to something I never thought I’d experience, even if most of it was dire. Meeting a film star though, that was pretty special.’

  ‘Would you have preferred it if I’d bid for that lunch with her and the other fellow? What was his name again? Hadrian something?’

  ‘Nero Genovese, as well you know. And no, he’s not my type. Vanessa seemed nice though. Down to earth.’

  ‘Oh, Vanessa, is it? And here’s me thinking you were star-struck.’

  Emma thumped him on the arm, but only playfully. Then she leaned in and shared her warmth with him. She smelled of champagne and shampoo and some very expensive perfume. It made a change from white-paper overalls and whatever unpleasant stench the latest crime scene brought them.

  ‘I was surprised she remembered me, to be honest.’ He slid an arm around her shoulders and enjoyed the moment of peace.

  ‘You have that effect on people, Tony. Your problem is you don’t realise it.’

  They sat together in companionable silence as the taxi drove down Clerk Street. When it turned on
to Summerhall and approached the Meadows, McLean was surprised to see the circus still lit up, the car park full.

  ‘Took my wee girl to see that yesterday afternoon. Brilliant show, it was.’ The driver took that moment to start a conversation.

  ‘Don’t think I’ve ever been to a proper circus. One with performing animals and all that. We used to go to the funfair when it came to town, but that’s not the same.’ Emma pulled away from McLean the better to peer through the car window.

  ‘They’ll not have any animals. Not any more. They brought in rules last year, remember?’

  ‘Aye, I do now. Probably for the best.’

  ‘Still, we could go and have a look.’ McLean glanced at his watch, surprised at how early it was. But then they’d hardly stayed at the charity fundraiser any longer than was strictly necessary. Probably not even that. ‘If you want.’

  ‘Yeah. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘Drop us off here, can you?’ McLean asked the driver, and he and Emma climbed out into the cold night air. He envied her the coat, and even more so the decidedly unladylike boots she’d been hiding under her long dress. Tartan trews were smart, not exactly warm, and the shoes that went with his outfit weren’t really designed for walking on frosty, snow-rimed grass.

  The ticket office was still open when they approached, and the young woman behind the glass seemed to recognise McLean.

  ‘You come back then? I knew that you would.’

  ‘Really?’ He cast his mind back to the last time he’d been here. The enthusiastic young local lad had served him, and this one had been more interested in her fingernails.

  ‘It’s Irena, isn’t it?’ McLean made a fuss of getting his wallet out of his jacket pocket. ‘Roy not working tonight?’

  The young woman’s gaze tightened for a moment, peering at him as if she were trying to read his thoughts. McLean simply smiled back until she relented.

  ‘He is working the ropes. No, how you say it? Learning the ropes? Some day maybe he be great acrobat.’ Irena smiled at some joke only she knew. ‘If he loses his fear of falling.’

  ‘I’m sure he will.’ McLean glanced around the ticket office, looking for a programme of events, or even a board with show times on it. Judging by the crowd of people milling around, there was still plenty to see. ‘Is there a performance this evening?’

  ‘Is started already, but this is no matter. You will enjoy.’ Irena pressed buttons on a machine of the kind McLean had last seen in a cinema when he was five years old, producing two narrow tickets cut neatly from a roll.

  ‘How much?’ He pulled out a twenty-pound note, but the young woman simply waved it away.

  ‘You came back,’ she said enigmatically. ‘For you is free.’

  In sharp contrast to the charity fundraiser, the circus felt like a place at ease with itself. McLean took his unexpectedly free tickets and together he and Emma walked through the crowds towards the big top. He recognised the young man and would-be acrobat, Roy, standing at the entrance, deep in conversation with an older woman who looked like she had come from central casting to act the part of a witch in a children’s pantomime.

  ‘Sorry, sir, ma’am. Show’s already started.’ The young lad stood straighter than many of his contemporaries out beyond the confines of the circus. He couldn’t have been working here long, probably came looking for a job as soon as it arrived. Run away to join the circus. Somehow the phrase felt more familiar than the obvious cliché, as if McLean had heard it used recently. If he had, he couldn’t think where or when. It showed some initiative on the part of the lad anyway. And a certain amount of trust on the part of the circus to take him on too. Judging by the way his companion tutted and pushed him gently to one side as she stepped forward, he still had much to learn.

  ‘Irena has given you her blessing. You can go in.’ She held her hand out and McLean stared at it stupidly before remembering the two thin strips of cheap pulp paper the young woman in the ticket office had given him. He passed them over, noting the dark henna tattoos all over the old woman’s skin, swirls and dots and patterns that must have had some meaning, although what that might be he had no idea.

  ‘All our hands tell a story, if you know how to read them.’ She reached out and grabbed him with a swiftness and strength that took McLean by surprise, holding both of his palms upwards as the two tickets tumbled forgotten to the ground. Then, as quickly as she had taken hold, she released her grip and turned to the young man.

  ‘Roy, show our guests to their seats.’

  The young man snapped to attention like a scolded cadet. He pulled back a heavy canvas flap and motioned for McLean and Emma to go inside. The bright lights of the ring made the dark entranceway like a cave, an uncomfortable feeling not helped by the soft ground underfoot. There was a warmth to the air like breath, too, and the noise of the show grew ever louder as they neared the edge of the ring.

  McLean knew it was just an illusion, his senses playing tricks on him, but the tent felt much bigger inside than out. Rows of benches surrounded a circle big enough to fit his entire house into. Overhead, wires had been strung between two tent poles, each as thick as a stout man at their base. Ropes disappeared into darkness overhead, and a pair of acrobats in matching outfits performed a routine that had the entire capacity audience on the edge of their seats. There was no safety net, he noticed. How had that got past health and safety? For that matter how had any of this ancient-looking setup been approved by anyone, least of all the council? And yet here it was. The only concession to modernity he could see was the lack of caged animals.

  They took seats at the back, high up and yet still with a perfect view of the action. There were clowns and tumblers, yet more acrobats on the high wire, displays of skill that were hard to believe even though he watched them with his own eyes. McLean hadn’t realised quite how tense he’d been, but as the show built to its climax, so he found his shoulders relaxing. Emma’s closeness and warmth were something he’d missed too. Just being with her, sharing this experience. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d done anything like it.

  He wanted it to go on for ever, to be trapped in that strange place of wonder. The moment was such a perfect release from the stress of the job, the anguish over Emma’s miscarriage and his own feelings of guilt about it all. He wanted to forget the still nameless little girls, forget Maurice Jennings and all the other endless worries that assailed him. Just to be here, lost in a spectacle he’d not seen since he was a boy, made him wish that he were still that boy. Before the world turned ugly and complicated and mean.

  But he wasn’t a boy any more. The world moved on, and so did the show. It might have been forty minutes, it might have been an hour, but all too soon it was over.

  30

  A subdued calm filled the audience as they filed peacefully out of the big top, show over. McLean felt it like a warm but refreshing breeze, and a tiny, cynical part at the back of his brain wondered what the circus master might have been pumping out through the air conditioning. Except that there was no air conditioning as far as he could tell. The whole circus looked like something that had been stuck in a time warp since . . . when? He could only think of childhood; before his parents had died they’d taken him to the circus, and maybe his grandmother had too. But even then it had been more funfair and less show. The memories that this place brought him were of things he had read about in his childhood rather than things he had actually experienced.

  ‘That was quite magical,’ Emma said as they sat and waited patiently for the rest of the audience to file out. She leaned in close and kissed him gently on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Thank me? You were the one who suggested it.’ McLean stared up into the murky shadows high up in the marquee, more visible now that the house lights had been raised. ‘It’s really not what I was expecting.’

  ‘No, me neither. It was, I don’t know, like some kind of
dream. An idea of a circus. Nothing like what I remember as a kid, but then I guess that was all dodgems and shoot-’em-ups and trying to impress boys by drinking cider round the back of the freak show tent.’ Emma rubbed at her eyes with a thumb and forefinger as if she was trying to ease a 25-year-old hangover. ‘Must have had a glass or two too much of that cheap champagne. How’re you feeling?’

  ‘I didn’t drink any, remember?’ McLean stood, offering a hand to help Emma to her feet. She swayed a little, leaned into him again, then caught her balance before setting off down the steep narrow steps to the ground.

  Outside, there was far more to the circus than the main show in the big top. The tents and caravans had been arranged in a wide arc, forming an alleyway of sorts with attractions on either side. People took their time ambling between the stalls, buying food and trinkets, trying their hand at the sort of sideshow games that McLean had only seen in museums. A couple of times he started to glance at his watch or reach for his phone, but something stopped him. As if the circus represented a bubble of calm and it wouldn’t allow the world to intrude until it was ready.

  ‘Well if it isn’t my two favourite lovebirds.’

  They had been walking in silence, hand in hand, just enjoying each other’s company and the strange sights of the circus. As he heard the words, McLean almost felt a shudder of annoyance that someone had broken their perfect moment. At the same time, he recognised the voice and was unsurprised when Emma broke away from him, turned and ran towards the figure a few paces behind them.