Cold as the Grave

by James Oswald

  ‘Aye? Who’s this?’

  Only three words, but McLean recognised the voice he was expecting. ‘Billy? It’s Detective Chief Inspector McLean here. Please don’t hang up, OK?’

  A long silence followed, but no dull tone of the call having been ended. Finally the voice at the other end spoke again. ‘She’s no’ here. I don’t know where she is, aye?’

  Something about the way he said it convinced McLean he was lying, but also that he wasn’t the first person the lie had been told to. ‘Has anyone else been asking about her? Today maybe? Just recently?’

  Again a long silence. Normally McLean would have left it to run its course, but sometimes you needed to reassure. ‘She was staying somewhere safe. Nala too. I could guarantee her safety here, but I can’t if I don’t know where she’s gone.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. Where she’s gone, that is. If I did, I’d probably tell youse. You’re right though, I had someone else ask me about her not an hour ago.’

  ‘Can you tell me who?’ McLean noticed movement in the corner of his eye, looked around to see Harrison at the door with a very modern-looking tablet computer in her hands. He held his hand up for silence.

  ‘Aye. Not sure what his name is. He helps oot here at the tower sometimes though. Posh voice a bit like yours, no offence.’

  ‘Does he drive a stretch limousine by any chance? Work for Jane Louise Dee?’

  ‘I really couldnae say, ken?’ McLean understood well enough that it wasn’t a no. McKenzie was well aware who paid for his halfway-house flat, who his ultimate benefactor was.

  ‘That’s OK, Billy. Thanks. And if Rahel gets in touch, please ask her to call me. She and Nala are in considerable danger. I can help them.’

  ‘Aye. I ken that noo. If I hear from them I’ll let youse know.’

  McLean ended the call, folded the sheet of paper and slipped it into his pocket before turning back to Harrison. ‘You find something, Constable?’

  ‘Not sure, sir. I was going through the browser history like I said. There’s a few kiddies’ videos that must have been Nala, but someone’s been searching for information about the Dee Trust too, and it wasn’t your unusual friend downstairs.’

  ‘You’ve asked her, I take it.’

  Harrison gave him a pained expression by way of an answer. ‘She’s . . . Well, if I’m being honest, sir, I’m not really sure what she is. How on earth do you know her?’

  ‘That’s a long story for another time, but Superintendent McIntyre’s mostly to blame.’ He walked out of the bathroom, across the two bedrooms and back out onto the landing, Harrison trailing behind him. Madame Rose was nowhere to be seen again, but that was hardly unexpected. He’d long since given up trying to understand her ways. ‘Come on. Let’s get back to the station. We’re not going to find any more answers here.’

  57

  ‘Been trying to track you down for the past couple of hours, sir. Think I understand why the high heidyins get so pissed off when you’re not in your office now.’

  Grumpy Bob grinned as he made the joke, but there was a hint of worry in his eyes too. McLean could sympathise. There were more than enough things to worry about. He’d sent Harrison off to organise getting pictures of Rahel and Nala out to all patrols in and around the city, so that was at least one of them dealt with. For now. He glanced briefly at his phone, lying face up on his desk. No call from Billy McKenzie yet, although he was certain the young man would be in touch soon. Either him or Rahel herself.

  ‘What’s up, Bob?’

  ‘Those runes or sigils or whatever they are, carved into the stone wall down in the Hermitage. You asked me to see if I could find out what they meant.’

  McLean leaned back in his chair carefully, aware that it might tip him backwards and onto the floor if he treated it with disrespect. ‘And since you gave me the bad news first, can I assume you’ve found something?’

  ‘Indeed I have.’ Grumpy Bob reached into his jacket and pulled out a few sheets of paper, folded down the middle. He spread them out on the table, revealing photographs of what McLean had thought was some kind of shrine, along with pencil drawings of the strange swirls and lines that had been carved into the rock.

  ‘I spoke to a professor up at the university just this morning. Said he knew you and was helping out with something else. He got very excited when I showed him these.’

  ‘Charnley? I’m guessing he doesn’t get out much. Seems to know his Middle Eastern history though. What did he have to say about these?’

  ‘Mostly that he was surprised to see something like it over here. Apparently it’s an almost exact copy of a wee shrine in some temple far out in the desert. The bit where Syria, Iran and Iraq all run into each other. Not that I’m much of an expert on these things, but isn’t that where your wee girl and her aunt come from?’

  ‘Technically, it’s Turkey that shares borders with Iran and Iraq. Syria’s further west. But yes, Rahel and Akka Nour come from that area. Nala’s a bit more of a local, seeing as she was born here in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Aye, well. Anyway. The markings are identical, near as doesn’t matter. He even showed me some photos in an old book he had, see?’ Grumpy Bob wrestled with his jacket pocket for a moment before pulling out an enormous smartphone, which he proceeded to tap and swipe at with alarming swiftness for a detective sergeant on the eve of retirement. After a suspiciously short time he held the device up for McLean to see. The picture was clear enough, a small alcove hewn into sandstone, symbols carved all around it. The similarity to what they had found in the Hermitage was hard to deny.

  ‘So what’s it mean, then? I take it Gobbo told you.’

  Grumpy Bob raised a grey and bushy eyebrow at the name, but made no comment. ‘Aye, he did. The temple’s a ruin if it’s even still there and not been blown up. It’s pre-Christian. Can’t remember who he said it was dedicated to. Atar-something or other.’

  ‘Atargatis? Goddess of fertility.’ McLean had heard the name too recently to forget.

  ‘Well, he said protector of the faithful, but I guess a goddess can do what she likes.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Like having a detective chief inspector abducted and brought before her. ‘Did Gob— . . . Professor Charnley say what the symbols represent? Are they meant to do anything special?’

  ‘Oh, aye. They ward away evil spirits. Particularly aff-somethings. I knew I should have written it down, but the professor said he’d bung it all in an email. Not come in yet, mind.’ Grumpy Bob lifted up his ridiculous phone and stared forlornly at the screen.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ McLean picked up his own phone, also blank, and stood up. ‘Grab your coat, Bob. We’re going on a wee trip.’

  The fading light of afternoon had long since given up trying to get down into the depths of the Hermitage. McLean led a silently complaining Grumpy Bob along the path towards the spot where they’d found the second young girl. Not the second young girl, he corrected himself, her name was Elia, after her grandmother. And the other girl had been Mara. Scant consolation to be able to give them names now they were dead; it seemed as if nobody had cared much for them when they were alive.

  ‘Should be in here. You didn’t bring a torch, did you?’ Crime scene tape marked off the area even though forensics had long since been and gone and the park had reopened to the public. Not that there were many people using it in this weather, and none as the darkness fell among the trees. McLean found the slim penlight he always tried to remember to put into whichever jacket he wore each day, and Grumpy Bob lit up the torch function on his huge phone, casting the snow-dropped leaves in LED white. They pushed through the rhododendron bushes, up a track longer than McLean remembered, until it opened up onto the old walled garden where the makeshift campsite had been.

  ‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s been back since our lot were here.’ Grumpy Bob held up the middle of a loop of ye
t more police crime scene tape, and McLean ducked under it into the walled garden proper.

  The Hermitage was always a haven of quiet, sheltered from all but the dull roar of the city. Stepping into the trees had damped that down yet further. Inside the walled garden might have been the surface of the moon for all the noise he could hear. McLean played his torchlight over the ground, the patchy snow reflecting back in a million crystal sparks. There were footprints, but they had been smoothed off into vague impressions by later falls of powder filtering in from the leafless branches overhead. All sign of the makeshift camp had gone, packed up and taken away by the forensics team. When he found the alcove in the stone wall, the tiny pair of shoes were missing, but the carved sigils still surrounded the space where they had been.

  ‘This it, then?’ Grumpy Bob asked. The flatter glare of his phone torch chased away the shadows that had helped define the symbols and letters carved into the stone.

  ‘This is it.’ McLean leaned in close for a better look, then ran a finger over the indentations. ‘Hold your light over at an angle, can you, Bob? I need to see this better.’

  Grumpy Bob did as he was told, but even as the light shifted and the shadows brought out the lines, McLean knew that he was wasting his time. Or perhaps killing it until the inevitable call came through. It wasn’t as if they were going to find Rahel and Nala camping out here.

  The snap of a twig a distance off rang out like a gunshot in the quiet. McLean looked up, over the crumbling wall, as he tried to work out where it had come from. His eyes were poorly adjusted to the gloom after the light from Grumpy Bob’s phone and his own torch, but he thought he could see something moving, over towards the small clearing where they had found the young girl.

  Working on memory as much as sight, he forged a path through the bushes towards the spot. The tiny point of his pen torch picked out details in stark light, thin tree trunks rimed with ice, low branches dropped in snow. The ground crunched underfoot and his breath misted the air as the dark woodland pulled in around him.

  He almost missed the clearing; only a dangling piece of crime scene tape caught in the light to show him that he was there. It looked different as he played the torch beam across it. The lumbering noise of Grumpy Bob cursing his way through the undergrowth to join him would certainly have scared off any wild animal, even if their combined flickering torch and glaring smartphone hadn’t done so already. McLean held up an arm to stop him as the detective sergeant made to step into the clearing.

  ‘A moment, Bob. There’s something. I can’t quite . . .’ And then he caught it, the scent on the almost completely still air. A mixture of a perfume he’d smelled before and a deeper, dryer musk. ‘Can you smell that?’

  ‘Can’t smell any— . . . oh, aye. I can now. What is that?’

  ‘Not sure. But I’ve smelled it before, and recently.’ McLean played his torch out over the ground of the clearing, towards where the young girl’s body had lain. The snow had covered up much of the mess left by forensics and police teams traipsing back and forth, but a fresh line of prints darkened the white.

  ‘Stay here. And shine that great lighthouse beacon of yours over the clearing, aye?’ McLean stepped lightly over to the nearest set of footprints, squinting to work out which way the person who had made them had been walking. They appeared at the edge of the clearing closest to the path down below, then meandered across to the spot where the young girl’s body had been, circled around it a couple of times. The snow had been brushed away from part of that spot, the ground beneath cleared right back to frosted earth. He crouched down, the light from his torch insufficient to see whether someone had been scraping away at it. Down close, the musky smell was much stronger, the perfume barely a memory.

  ‘See anything?’ Grumpy Bob half whispered from the edge of the clearing. McLean could hear the anxiety in the detective sergeant’s voice and couldn’t blame him. He flashed the torchlight over the retreating footprints, taking a far straighter line back than the way they had come. In the middle of one close by, a dry branch snapped clean in two must have made the noise. Holding his hand out, he measured the length and width of the print against his fingers. The base of the footprint showed the underside pattern of a pair of trainers stamped into the snow.

  ‘Someone’s been here.’ He retraced his steps to where Grumpy Bob stood. ‘Not a child, but small feet. Wearing trainers or something like it. Very interested in the spot where the wee girl was found.’

  And then it hit him, both where he’d smelled that scent before and seen someone with small feet wearing trainers. Pink Converse, quite inappropriate for the weather. But that made no sense at all.

  ‘I think I know who it was,’ he said. ‘But what the hell was Sheila Begbie doing here?’

  58

  The call came through while they were driving back to the station. For a moment, McLean couldn’t quite work out how to answer it, but Grumpy Bob reached over and tapped something on the dashboard. The ringing stopped, there was a brief burst of static and then a voice rang out: ‘Hello?’

  ‘Insp— . . . Chief Inspector McLean.’ He felt rather self-conscious speaking out loud as he drove. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Aye, it’s me. Billy McKenzie. Line sounds awful weird like?’

  ‘I’m on hands-free, Billy. What can I help you with? Has Rahel been in touch?’ McLean glanced in his mirror, scanned the road ahead, looking for a place and a chance to pull in. Late-afternoon traffic had blended seamlessly into rush hour, the road too busy to concentrate on driving and talking both at the same time.

  ‘No. Well, aye. Sort of.’

  ‘Billy, I’m trying to help her. I can’t do that if you hold back.’

  ‘It’s no’ that. It’s just, she trusts me, ken?’

  ‘She likes you, Billy. But she’s young, you know? And she’s been hurt badly. We both want to make sure that doesn’t happen again, aye?’

  There was a long pause, which gave McLean the chance to indicate and turn into a side street. There was nowhere to stop, and two other cars followed him, both sounding their horns as they overtook.

  ‘I don’t know where she is right now. But she said she’d come here. Both of them. Just for a while until they can work out what to do next. All the others, the folk that worked at the sandwich factory, the ones in the hostel, none of them will speak to her, see? Not after that thing came for wee Nala. Not after Akka died. They’re all afraid.’ McKenzie fell silent for a second. ‘No, not afraid. Petrified, ken?’

  McLean reached for his phone, then realised it was easier to continue with the hands-free. ‘After what happened to the other two girls, I can understand.’ He looked across at Grumpy Bob, who was keeping perfectly still as well as silent, raised a single eyebrow and got a shrug by way of an answer. So much for that help.

  ‘I’m coming over, Billy,’ McLean said after a few moments of silence had passed. ‘I may bring DC Harrison with me. Nala’s met her, seems to like her. Tell Rahel, and if she wants to leave, then let her, but call me back. I’ll be there within the hour.’

  More silence, and for a moment McLean thought McKenzie might have hung up. Only the screen on the dashboard showed the call was still connected.

  ‘Aye. OK. I’ll see youse in an hour.’

  This time the call went dead. McLean gripped the steering wheel as if he were driving a racing car, tensed his shoulders and then tried to relax it away.

  ‘You think it’s a good idea going there on your own?’ Grumpy Bob asked.

  ‘Not really, no. But I don’t see much option. We turn up heavy-handed, she’ll just melt away into the darkness and then whatever snapped that branch in the woods back there will get her.’

  To his credit, Grumpy Bob didn’t immediately call him mad. The old detective sergeant had seen enough to know better than that. Still, McLean could feel the disagreement in his tense silence.

 
‘I’ll see if Harrison’s still on shift, OK? It’s either her or Emma, and I don’t think we’ve time to go and fetch her.’ He hit the indicator, glanced in the mirror and pulled away from the line of parked cars, trying to think of the best way to get back to the station.

  ‘What do you want me to do, then?’ Grumpy Bob asked after they had negotiated a maze of side streets and merged back into the almost stationary traffic on Newington Road. McLean had been working out a very vague plan in his head, based on supposition and guesswork. It was that kind of day.

  ‘I need you to get in touch with someone for me.’

  Flurries of snow spattered against the windscreen as McLean drove out across Holyrood Park towards Jock’s Lodge. Night had fallen completely now, the darkness enveloping his car like a heavy blanket. DC Harrison sat beside him in the passenger seat, fidgeting.

  ‘Something on your mind?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. It’s this whole case, I guess. It’s . . .’ She was about to say more, but the loud buzzing of a phone call blared out through the car’s speakers. The screen on the dashboard read ‘Caroline Wheeler’, and this time McLean was able to locate the correct switch to accept the call without having to take his eye off the road for too long.

  ‘Doctor Wheeler. Caroline.’ He spoke louder than normal, still uncomfortable with the technology.

  ‘Ah, you’re driving, Tony. I’ll make this quick then. Peter Winterthorne is dead.’

  The snow grew thicker, smearing against the glass as a gust of wind blew up out of nowhere. McLean had to brake harder than he would have liked, the line of cars ahead of him suddenly slowing as if they too had just heard the news.

  ‘How did he die?’ he asked once he’d got the car back under control, ruing the choice of something quite so powerful now that the weather was against him. Fat tyres and five hundred horses didn’t mix well with slushy snow.

  ‘From what I can tell, he went into cardiac arrest. Blood pressure dropped through the floor. We tried to resuscitate, but he didn’t respond. He was an old man, and very frail.’