Natural Causes (21 page)

37

McLean watched the car pull away, then went in search of the manager. Moments later he was walking away from the crematorium building and into the grounds that surrounded it, clutching a tiny, plain terracotta urn. It didn't take long to reach the spot he was looking for. He felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn't visited it in at least three years. The headstone had developed a lean, probably from the action of tree roots. It bore his grandfather's name and dates, then a wide gap had been left. Beneath that his mother and father's names. Two years separated their birth dates, but their deaths had occurred on the same day. At the same instant when the aeroplane they had been flying in had hit the side of a mountain south of Inverness. He liked to think they might have been holding hands when it happened, but in truth he hardly knew them at all.

Someone had dug a neat, small hole at the base of the headstone, and for a moment, he felt a sense of outrage that his parent's final resting place could be desecrated so. Then he realised why he was here. What he had to come to do. He looked at the urn. It was simple, functional and unadorned by decoration or embellishment. Much like the woman whose remains it contained. He suppressed the urge to pull open the top and peer at the contents within. This was his grandmother. Reduced to a tiny pile of ash, but it was still his grandmother. The woman who had raised him, fed him, nurtured him, loved him. He had thought that he'd come to terms with her death a long time ago, when he had accepted that she would never recover from her stroke. But seeing the family grave, the names on the headstone and that space waiting for hers to be added, he finally understood that she was gone.

The ground was dry under the trees as he knelt and placed the jar in the hole. The removed earth had been piled up alongside, covered over with a sheet of green tarpaulin lest the sight of bare soil offend or upset the bereaved. No doubt someone would come along later and fill in the hole, but that felt wrong somehow. Disrespectful. McLean looked around for a shovel, but whoever had dug the hole had taken his tools away with him. So he carefully removed the tarpaulin, then, kneeling on the ashes of his dead parents, he shifted the soft, dry earth back into the hole with his bare hands.

'She was a fine woman, Esther Morrison.'

McLean stood and turned in one swift motion that sent a tweak of pain up his spine into his neck. An elderly gentleman stood behind him, dressed in a long black coat despite the August heat. He held a dark, wide-brimmed hat in one gnarled hand, and leant heavily on a walking stick. His head was topped with a profusion of thick white hair, but it was his face that caught McLean's attention. Once proud, strong features had been marred by some terrible accident, and now it was a mess of scar tissue and ill-matched skin-graft. It was a face you wouldn't have thought it possible to forget, those piercing eyes as much as the scarring. But though it was hauntingly familiar, for the life of him, McLean couldn't put a name to it.

'Did you know her, Mr...?' He asked.

'Wemyss,' the man pulled off a leather glove and offered his hand. 'Gavin Wemyss. Yes, I knew Esther. A long time ago. I even asked her to marry me, but Bill beat me to that prize.'

'In all my life I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to my grandfather as "Bill",' McLean wiped his palms on his suit, then took the proffered hand. 'Anthony McLean.' He added.

'The policeman, yes, I've heard about you.'

'You weren't at the funeral.'

'No, no. I've been living abroad for years now. America mostly. I only heard the news the day before yesterday.'

'So how'd you know my gran?'

'We met at University in, oh, it must have been '33. Esther was the brilliant young medical student everyone wanted to be with. It quite broke my heart when she chose Bill over me, but that's ancient history.'

'And yet you came all this way to pay your respects?'

'Ah yes, of course. The detective. 'Wemyss smiled, his scarred face creasing in all the wrong ways. 'Actually I had some business that needs tidying up. You know how it is when you delegate; you always spend twice as much time sorting out the mess left behind.'

'I've known some people like that, but mostly my colleagues are quite reliable.'

'Well, you're a lucky man, inspector. I seem to spend most of my time correcting other people's mistakes these days.' Wemyss chuckled. He reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a slim silver case. Inside it were some business cards and he handed one to McLean. 'This is my home in Edinburgh. I should be around for a week or two. Look me up and we can have a chat about your... grandmother, eh? Who'd have thought it.'

'I'd like that, sir,' McLean said, shaking the man's hand again.

'Well, I'll be off now,' Wemyss said, shifting his hat back onto his head. 'Business to attend to. You'll be wanting some time alone here anyway.' He walked off with surprising swiftness and agility for a man of his years, swinging his cane in time to a tuneless whistle.

*

McLean hitched a ride into town in a squad car out of Howdenhall nick. The PC driving offered to take him all the way to the city centre, but he knew there would be nothing but a big pile of overtime sheets to be dealt with. Fallout from closing Waverley Station for a morning. He needed time to think, needed a bit of space, so he had the squad car drop him off in Grange and walked the rest of the way to his grandmother's house. With his mobile still refusing to hold a charge for more than half an hour, there was a chance he might have some peace and quiet for a while. He'd pay for it later, of course, but wasn't that always the way?

As soon as he opened the back door, he knew something was different. The hairs on the back of his neck stiffened. There was a smell he couldn't identify; perhaps the merest whiff of a perfume, or just a hole in the air where someone had passed through it recently. Nobody should have been in here since the team who had arrived to take McReadie to the station. He'd locked up after them, and there hadn't been time to come back since. Hadn't been time to arrange to get the locks changed, either. And McReadie was a free man right now. A free man with a grievance. Damn. McLean stood silent and still, listening for the faintest sign that someone might be in the house, but there wasn't a sound to be heard.

He followed his nose, gently sniffing that almost imperceptible odour. It was stronger in the hall, but he couldn't smell anything in the library or the dining room. Upstairs, he moved quietly around the empty house, looking into rooms that were unchanged since the last time he had visited them, and yet utterly different. His own bedroom, the place where he had grown up, was exactly the same as he remembered it. That bed seemed too narrow for comfortable sleep, and those faded posters on the wall were an embarrassment, even if they were in large glass clip-frames. The solid furniture, dresser, chest of drawers, large hanging cupboard, all took up the spaces he expected them to, but the wooden chair that should have been neatly tucked in under his desk was pulled away at a slight angle. Had he really left it that way? Come to that matter, when had he last been in here?

The bathroom smelled strongest, still faint, but enough of an odour to stir a vague memory. Reflexively, he went to his jacket pockets, looking for a pair of latex gloves to pull on before he touched anything. Finding none, he used his handkerchief and careful fingertips to avoid disturbing any potential prints. The bathroom cabinet held everything he might need for an overnight stay, though he couldn't be sure quite how old the toothbrush was. A bottle of painkillers from a few years back when he'd stayed with his gran whilst recuperating from the gunshot wound that had got him promoted to sergeant, but otherwise nothing worth mention. Just that smell.

McLean lifted the toilet seat, but there was nothing in the bowl except stale water, limescale rings showing where it had evaporated down over the months. Instinctively, he went to flush the handle, then stopped, a horrid certainty creeping into his mind. A thin layer of dust coated the edge of the bath and the toilet seat, but the lid of the cistern was clean and shiny. He went back into the bedroom and fished another handkerchief out of the drawers, the reek of cedar and mothballs obliterating the other more subtle smell completely. Using both handkerchiefs to protect his fingers, he carefully lifted the lid off the cistern and placed it on the floor, then looked inside.

Nothing. What had he been thinking? That someone would go to the trouble of planting something incriminating in his grandmother's house? Try to frame him? It was just the pressure of work getting to him. Paranoia born of tiredness.

Only when he went to pick up the porcelain lid did he notice that it didn't sit squarely on the floor. He turned it over slowly.

A brown plastic wrapped package was taped securely to the underside.

~~~~

38

'Woa, sir. This is some palace you've got here.'

Detective Constable MacBride stood in the hallway, looking up the wide stairwell at the glass dome in the ceiling two storeys above. McLean let him goggle for a while, turning to Grumpy Bob with a low whisper.

'Are you sure it's a good idea involving him in this?'

'You think he can't be trusted, sir? He's a good lad.'

'It's not that,' McLean said, though he had his reservations. He should really have been involving the drugs squad, the chief superintendent and anyone else he could think of. But if he let the official channels take over, then he'd be at the very least suspended from active cases for the foreseeable future. Until his name was cleared. And even then it would hang around his neck for the rest of his career - the detective inspector with a kilo of cocaine hidden in his toilet cistern. Far better if as few people knew about this as possible, and he'd investigate it himself though he had a shrewd idea exactly who was behind it.

'I'm more concerned about his future as a detective if it gets out he's been here.'

'Oh, and I don't count any more.' Grumpy Bob feigned an affronted look. 'Don't worry about the lad. He volunteered.'

McLean looked back to the young detective constable, wondering what it was he'd done to earn such loyalty.

'I'll make it up to him, if I can. To both of you,' McLean said. Grumpy Bob just laughed and nudged him in the ribs.

'OK, sir. Where is it then? We're missing valuable drinking time here.'

'Upstairs.' McLean lead the way. They all trooped through his bedroom and into the bathroom beyond. The cistern lid with its suspicious package attached lay on the floor untouched.

'Did you manage to get a fingerprint kit?' McLean asked as Grumpy Bob handed out latex gloves.

'Should be here any minute,' Bob answered. As if on cue, the doorbell rang.

'Who?'

'That'll be Em,' Grumpy Bob said.

'Em? Emma Baird? You told her about this?'

'She's a trained fingerprint expert and she can get her hands on the kit without anyone being suspicious. What's more, if she finds something she can run it through the database, too. And she's new. No axes to grind, no allegiance to anyone in particular. Well, not yet anyway.'

The doorbell rang again, and though the chime was exactly the same as before, it sounded somehow more insistent, as if demanding an answer. McLean liked having her involved even less than DC MacBride, but he trusted Grumpy Bob. Apart from the obvious mistake that was Mrs Bob, his judgement was generally sound. And it was true they needed someone with forensic expertise. He levered himself up again and went to answer the door.

'Didn't realise inspectors got paid so well. All right if I come in?' Emma was dressed in street clothes; faded denim jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt. Slung over one shoulder was her camera bag, not quite managing to counteract the weight of the heavy battered aluminium fingerprint case.

'Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it. Here, let me give you a hand with that.' McLean took the case and lead her across the hall towards the stairs. As she followed, her footsteps clacked noisily on the floor tiles. Turning, he saw that she was wearing black tooled-leather cowboy boots; not exactly regulation crime-scene attire.

'Bob said it was urgent. Should I have changed?'

'No, you're OK like that. Just didn't peg you as the line-dancing type.' McLean felt the tips of his ears flush with heat. 'It's this way.' He started up the stairs.

'Straight to the bedroom. I like a man who's direct.' Emma looked at the bed as they passed through. 'A bit narrow for my tastes, though.' In the bathroom, Grumpy Bob had the packet open and was peering at the contents with a puzzled frown on his face.

'It looks like cocaine, sir. Can't be sure without a tester kit, but unless you've a habit of keeping your talc in the cistern, that's what it's most likely to be. But this is a lot of money here. Tens of thousands of pounds worth. Who'd waste that just to set you up?'

'I'm keeping an open mind, but someone who can afford a luxury warehouse conversion in Leith is high on my suspect list.'

'Good point. Well we're going to need to find out where this has come from, and that means it's going to have to be found somewhere.'

'Maybe not,' Emma said. 'I should be able to get a sample tested without being registered on the system. There's people in the labs owe me more than a few favours, and we can run it through as a calibration test.'

'You'd do that for me?' McLean wasn't quite sure why she had chosen to side with him, but he was grateful nonetheless.

'Sure, but it'll cost you.'

'Did you have anything in mind?' He looked down at the tight-wrapped package on the floor beside the cistern. There were some things he wouldn't do, even if his job was on the line. Even if his liberty were at stake. Emma followed his gaze, then laughed.

'How about dinner?'

McLean was so relieved that she wasn't after the drugs, it took him a while to realise what she'd asked instead. Beside him, Grumpy Bob stifled a titter, and DC MacBride looked distinctly uncomfortable. This probably wasn't how he had imagined detective work was done.

'OK. But not tonight, I'm afraid. Unless you count pizza and beer shared with these two reprobates as dinner.'

'That wasn't quite what I had in mind.'

'No, I didn't think it would be.'

*

It was after midnight before they had finished going over the house from top to bottom. Not content with hiding cocaine in his cistern, McLean's unknown benefactor had also hidden a bag of cash in the cold water tank in the attic; used twenties and tens amounting to several thousands of pounds, their waterproof packaging unmarked.

Emma had found half a dozen partial fingerprints, mostly around the back door and up in the bathroom. One promising half-smear came off the gloss white surround to the door leading up to the attic, close by a protruding nail head that might have ripped a latex glove. It looked like someone had tried to wipe it away with a rough cloth, which roused suspicions. Otherwise, the house was full of prints, mostly McLean's.

'This place is alarmed, right?' Emma asked as they sat around the kitchen table, munching on pizza and drinking the last bottles of beer from the cellar. Like pretty much everything else in the house, they were eighteen months out of date, but nobody seemed to care much.

'Yeah, but I'm not exactly convinced it's any good. The last I heard, Penstemmin's in a bit of a muddle trying to sort out what McReadie did to their system. I'm beginning to wish I'd never caught the bastard.'

Grumpy Bob slumped back in his chair, letting his breath out in a long sigh. 'You think he hates you that much he'd do all this? Christ, the man's not poor, but that's taking it a bit far isn't it?'

'Can you think of anyone else?'

The silence that descended on the table was answer enough.

'Well, I'll check those partials against him first thing tomorrow.' Emma looked at her watch. 'That's to say today. I really should be going.' She pushed back her chair and stood up. McLean followed her to the door.

'Thanks for this, Emma. I know you've put yourself on the line to help me.'

'Too right I have, but I know coke addicts and you're not the type. And as for the cash, you've got this place, what d'you need it for?'

'Yeah, well hopefully I won't have to prove that to anyone else. I'm sure you understand how awkward this could be if it got out. For all of us.'

She smiled, the corners of her eyes creasing slightly. 'Don't worry, my lips are sealed. But you owe me dinner, and there'd better be candles.'

Grumpy Bob and DC MacBride joined him at the front door as she drove off.

'You'd best be careful with that one,' Bob said. 'She's got a reputation, you know.'

'You're the one who brought her here,' McLean began to say, but he could see the smile breaking out on Grumpy Bob's face and stopped himself. 'Go on, both of you. Get yourselves home.'

*

He watched them drive off into the night, then went back to the kitchen. The cocaine and the money sat on the table with the leftover pizza. The one would probably be OK cold for breakfast, but the other was more of a problem. McLean looked at the clock on the kitchen wall; it was late, but not too late. Not for this. And besides, what were friends for if you couldn't wake them up by calling in the wee small hours?

The phone rang three times before answering. Phil sounded slightly out of breath; McLean didn't want to speculate given his ex-flatmate's legendary dislike of exercise.

'Phil. Sorry for calling so late. I've got a favour to ask.' McLean hefted the cling-film wrapped brick of cocaine in one hand. 'I was wondering if I might borrow that incinerator you've got in your state-of-the-art lab.'

*

Rachel was with Phil when they met outside the back door to the lab complex, which surprised McLean. He'd no doubt she'd been there when he'd called his friend, but there was no need for her to come along, surely? At this time of the morning she'd have been comfier tucked up in bed, even alone.

'Thanks for this, Phil.' McLean hefted the bag over his shoulder. It was surprising just how much a kilo of cocaine and fifty thousand pounds in unmarked bills could weigh. Particularly when you were carrying them through the city's streets in the wee small hours. He'd thought about getting a taxi, then decided it was better if there were as few witnesses as possible.

'Not even sure what it is,' Phil said. 'You've got us both on tenterhooks here Tony.'

'Aye, well. Can we go in?' He nodded at the door, anxious to be away from the ever-present glare of the security cameras.

'Yes, of course.' Phil tapped a code into the keypad by the door, which obligingly clicked open. Inside, the back end and store rooms for the lab were in semi-darkness. They walked in silence, up two flights of stairs, across a room filled with expensive machinery humming and whirring to itself and finally into Phil's office. Only once the door was closed did McLean begin to relax a little. He dumped the bag down on the desk and told them the tale.

'Umm, shouldn't you be reporting this to the police?' Rachel broke the uncomfortable silence that fell once he was finished.

'Best case scenario, I'd be suspended for six months while professional standards looks into everything about me. Even if they don't find anything untoward, I'll be known for the rest of my career as the copper with a kilo of coke and fifty grand in cash stashed away.'

'It's not that bad, surely?' Phil asked.

'You don't know coppers, Phil. And this sort of thing goes on your permanent record no matter the outcome. I don't have any dirty secrets to hide either, but that doesn't mean PF won't find some. If this was left at Gran's, then there'll be other stuff at my flat. Probably any number of snitches willing to waste a bit of police time claiming I've done all manner of things that'll turn out to be lies in the end.'

'But... why?' Rachel pushed herself away from the wall where she'd been leaning, opened the bag and hefted the wad of money.

'I haven't got a bastard clue.' McLean shrugged, perhaps a little too theatrically. 'I must have pissed someone off, though.'

'So you want to burn it?' Phil asked. 'You want to burn fifty thousand pounds of untraceable cash?'

'I want to destroy the drugs. That's for certain. I'd rather the cash was gone, too. To be honest, I've no idea whether it's stolen or what. It's not marked, but other than that?'

'It just seems such a waste. I mean, what if it really is untraceable? That would really piss off whoever planted it if it was never found and used to incriminate you.'

McLean looked at the money in Rachel's hands. He'd come here intending to destroy everything, didn't really need the money himself. But then it might be put to good use somewhere else, and there'd be a certain irony if he managed to get away with it.

'OK. Give me a handful.' The bundle of money was tightly wrapped, and still peppered with grey dust where Emma had searched it for fingerprints. He carefully unwrapped it and pulled out the first paper-bound wad. 'Rachel, can you write down a few serial numbers if I read them out?'

It took them ten minutes before McLean was certain he had enough. He pulled out a random wad of notes to have checked for forgery, then wrapped the whole bundle up again and handed it to Phil. Rachel handed him the sheet of serial numbers.

'I'll get these checked as soon as possible against any known robberies,' he said. 'Also make sure they're real. Until then, no-one's to touch any of those notes. Hide them somewhere you know they won't be accidentally found. You really don't want to be caught in possession of dodgy money. If they turn out to be clean, then use them to pay for your wedding.'

'Don't you want them?' Phil asked.

'Not really, no. And congratulations, by the way.'

'What?'

'On your engagement. I notice you didn't deny it when I mentioned your wedding.'

'Phil, it was meant to be a secret until I got my PhD.' Rachel's face turned a furious red and she thumped him across the shoulders.