Natural Causes (28 page)

52

'Phone still not working, I take it?'

Pete the Duty Sergeant greeted him with a grin as he hurried back into the station. McLean patted his pockets until he found the device, but couldn't remember whether he'd even bothered trying to charge it the night before. He'd been distracted, so the chances weren't good. True enough the phone was dead when he tried pressing any of its buttons.

'What do you do to the poor things, curse them?' Pete shoved a thick pile of papers in his direction, nodding to the far side of the reception area as he did. 'Here's a stack of messages need dealing with, and that bloke over there's been asking for you by name. Says he's from Hoggett Scotia Asset Management. Looks like a banker to me.'

Puzzled, McLean looked around, trying to remember where he'd heard the name before. Seeing Mr Masters sitting on one of the plain plastic benches didn't help. He looked like any of a thousand faceless suited businessmen: early forties greying hair; slight paunch that two games of squash a week was no longer enough to burn off; expensive leather briefcase full of electronic gadgets; wife and kids in the suburbs; mistress in an old town tenement.

'Inspector McLean? Thankyou for seeing me.' Masters leapt to his feet before McLean was even halfway across the floor. Only then did the pieces of memory begin to slot into place.

'Mr Masters. You were one of the witnesses to Peter Andrews' suicide.'

Jonathan Masters winced at the mention of his former colleague's name. 'It's been a hard week at Hoggett Scotia, inspector. Andy was one of our top analysts. He'll be sorely missed.'

A top analyst. Not A Great Guy, or The Life And Soul Of The Party. Not a friend.

'I spoke to his father, Mr Masters. It seemed like he was a man with everything to live for until he discovered he had terminal cancer.'

'That was a complete surprise. He never told any of us. Maybe if he had...' Mr Masters trailed off.

'But I'm guessing you didn't come here to tell me about Peter Andrews, sir.'

'Yes, of course. I'm sorry, inspector. It's been a hard week. But we seem to have lost a secretary. Sally Dent.'

'Dent. Wasn't she a witnesses too?'

'Yes, she was on reception. We gave her the rest of the day off. Well, it was the least we could do. We overlooked her not coming in the next day, and then it was the weekend. But she's not been back since the, well, since Andy... you know.'

'You've tried to get in contact, I take it.' McLean felt a horrible sense of dejà vu crawling up from the back of his mind, like the shadow of a spider.

'Of course. We phoned her home, but her mother thought she'd gone on a foreign trip. It's stupid really, she was meant to be going to Tokyo with one of our fund managers, but the whole thing was cancelled after...'

'So you thought she was at home, and her mother thought she was abroad, and between the two of you, no-one knows where she's been since the day Peter Andrews killed himself.'

'That's pretty much it, inspector.'

Tell me about Sally Dent, Mr Masters,' McLean said. 'What does she look like?'

'Oh, I can do better than that. Here.' Masters put his briefcase down on the plastic bench, flicking open the twin latches. McLean saw a tiny laptop computer, a palm handheld organiser, a GPS navigator and a slim mobile phone nestling in the soft leather interior before Masters pulled out an A4 sheet and closed the case back down again. 'Her personnel file.'

He took the sheet, holding it up to the light so that he could get a better look at the printed photograph that stared uncomfortably out at him. What surprised him most when he saw the photograph was not that he recognised the woman, but that he had been expecting to see her face there. It was a prettier face in the picture, smiling and full of hope for the future. The last time he had seen her, she had been laid out on a stainless steel examination table in Angus Cadwallader's mortuary; the first time, broken and twisted, hair matted with blood, as she lay in the rubbish-strewn oil and gravel of the rail-bed in Waverly station.

*

'You really can't keep away Tony, can you? You know, you could re-train as a pathologist's assistant and then we could give up all this pretence.'

Angus Cadwallader grinned from his office chair as McLean knocked on the open door. He'd left Masters in the public reception area fretting and looking at his watch. The quicker they got this done, the better.

'It's tempting, Angus, but I know you've only got eyes for Tracy.'

The grin wavered ever so slightly, and did the pathologist stiffen slightly? Interesting.

'Yes, well. What can I do for you?'

'The Jane Doe who jumped off Waverley Bridge last week. I think she might be a Sally Dent. Can we prep her for ID? I've got her boss upstairs.'

'No problem. I'll get her wheeled out and give you a shout when she's ready.' The pathologist bustled out into the theatre and towards the bank of storage drawers, grabbing a stainless steel gurney as he went. McLean followed.

'Did you send in the report on her yet?'

'What? Oh, yes. I think so. Tracy usually emails them across as soon as they're done. Why?'

'I haven't seen it, that's all.'

'Ah, then you won't know about the plaques that were eating holes in her brain.'

'The... What?' A cold shiver grew in the pit of McLean's stomach. Complications. There were always complications.

'Creutzfeldt-Jakobs. Quite advanced. I suspect she'd been having fairly vivid hallucinations before she jumped. That was probably why she did it.' Cadwallader opened the drawer, revealing the pale, cleaned body of Sally Dent, the cuts on her face neatly sewn up, but still horribly disfiguring. He slid her across onto the gurney and covered her with a long white sheet. Together, they wheeled her to the identification room, where an anxious looking Jonathan Masters leapt to his feet as if someone had shouted at him.

'Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr Masters. I should warn you she was quite badly injured before she died.'

Masters went a green shade of white, nodding silently as he looked at the shrouded figure. Cadwallader turned back the sheet to reveal just the face. The banker looked down, and McLean could see the horror of recognition on his face. It was a look he'd seen all too many times before.

'What happened to her?' Masters' voice was both high-pitched and croaking, but he hadn't collapsed like some men did. McLean had to give him that much.

'She jumped off North Bridge.'

'The suicide? I heard about that. But Sally... No... Sally wouldn't...'

'She was suffering from a damaging neurological condition.' Cadwallader covered the battered face up again. 'The chances are she didn't even know what she was doing.'

'What about her mother?' Masters looked at McLean with pleading in his eyes. 'Who's going to explain this to her?'

'It's all right, Mr Masters. I'll speak with Mrs Dent.' He took the businessman's arm, steered him out of the room. 'Are you going to be OK? Would you like me to arrange for someone to take you back to the office?'

Masters seemed to recover his composure away from the dead body. He straightened his shoulders and looked at his watch again. 'No, I'm fine inspector, thank you. I'd better be getting back to the office. Oh God. Sally.' He shook his head.

'This might seem like an insensitive question, Mr Masters, but was there anything going on between Miss Dent and Mr Andrews?'

Masters looked at McLean with an expression that quite plainly said he thought the inspector insane. 'What do you mean?'

'I just wondered if they had a relationship that went beyond the professional, sir. The two suicides in such quick succession.'

Peter Andrews was gay, inspector. Didn't you know that?'

*

By the time McLean had escorted Jonathan Masters from the building and returned to the main examination theatre, Cadwallader had put the dead woman away in her cold cell and returned to his office. McLean looked in, realising for the first time that the ever-cheerful assistant was nowhere to be seen.

'What've you done with Tracy?' he asked.

'You keep your hands off my assistant, Tony.'

McLean held his hands up as if surrendering. 'She's not my type, Angus.'

'No, I heard you preferred SOC officers. Still, nobody's perfect.' Cadwallader laughed. 'Tracy's taken some samples to the lab. I let her out every once in a while. When you're not busy filling up my mortuary with bodies.'

'Sorry about that.' McLean shrugged an apology. 'Tell me more about Sally Dent. There was something about her blood, I seem to remember.'

'Not her blood. She was covered in someone else's.'

'Did you find out whose?'

Cadwallader shook his head. 'We've typed it, but it's fairly common. O Rhesus D Pos. I've sent a sample off for DNA analysis, but unless you know of someone who's lost a lot recently it could take us a while to find a match.'

Someone who's lost a lot recently. A horrible, impossible thought crossed McLean's mind. 'What about Jonas Carstairs?'

'You what? You think that slight woman in there,' Cadwallader pointed towards the rows of cold storage. 'You think she restrained and cut open a strong, healthy man like Carstairs?'

'He was an old man, he couldn't have been that strong.' As he spoke, McLean realised he hadn't seen the report into Carstairs' death either.

'He was as fit as a fiddle. Must have been into all that yoga and muesli that's so fashionable these days.' The pathologist turned back to his computer, tapped at a few keys to bring up the relevant report and scanned down the page. 'Here we are. Analysis of the blood found on Sally Dent's hair and hands.' He clicked again, bringing up another window. 'Blood sample from Jonas Carstairs... Good God.'

McLean looked over Cadwallader's shoulder at the report, not really taking in what it said. The Pathologist swivelled his chair round slowly. 'They're the same.'

'The same type?'

'No, the same blood. Near as dammit. I'll run the DNA profile to be sure, but all the markers are the same.'

'Do it anyway, please.' McLean leant back against the counter trying to work out where all the conflicting pieces of information were taking him. Opus Diabuli. The devil's work. It wasn't to a very comfortable place.

'Have you still got Peter Andrews in here?' he asked.

Cadwallader nodded. 'Bloody nuisance. He was meant to be shipped down to London last week, but that break-in buggered up all the schedules. I'm still waiting for them to come and get him.'

'What about blood on him?'

'He cut his throat, Tony. He was covered in the stuff.'

'Yes, but was it all his?'

'I'd say so. We cleaned him up. Well, Tracey cleaned him up. She didn't say anything about layers. Where are you going with this Tony?'

'I'm not sure. At least, I don't think I want to be sure. Look, Angus, could you do me a huge favour?'

'That depends on what it is. If you want me to stand in for you at another of the Chief Constables little soirees, then I'm afraid not.'

'No, nothing like that. I was wondering if you could have another look at Peter Andrews.'

'I examined him pretty thoroughly.' The pathologist looked slightly hurt, but McLean knew he was putting it on.

'I know, Angus, but you were looking at a suicide. I want you to go over him like you would if he were a murder victim.'

~~~~

53

Chief Inspector Duguid was waiting in the tiny incident room, sitting on Grumpy Bob's chair and perusing the photos pinned to the wall. McLean almost ducked back through the door, but some boils you just have to lance straight away.

'Can I help you with anything, sir?'

'Thought you were meant to be having some time off.'

'And I thought my time would be better spent catching criminals, sir. You remember catching criminals, don't you?'

'I don't like your tone, McLean.'

'Not too happy about people trying to kill me, but we all have our crosses to bear. Now what did you want to see me about?'

Duguid levered himself out of the chair, his face darkening. 'I didn't even know you were in the station. I was looking for that young constable of yours, Mac-something. He said you'd got a lead on our leak. Something about some internet site?'

'What about it, sir?'

'Well what is it, McLean? How do you expect me to investigate Carstair's murder if you don't pull your end? Tracing that leak is a major string of our enquiry.'

The only string, if you're down here bullying my team for answers. McLean didn't have the nerve to tell the man that the murderer was lying dead in the mortuary. Let Cadwallader run the DNA tests first, make certain and pass those results on himself. He wanted no credit for the discovery if it meant Duguid would be even more antagonistic towards him. He'd made the mistake of solving the chief inspector's cases for him before.

'Detective Constable MacBride found a secure site on the internet where people display and trade gruesome images, including forensic crime scene photographs, sir. It seems there's quite a collection of ghouls out there in cyberspace. I recognised pictures from Barnaby Smythe's study posted there.'

'So whoever killed Carstairs might be a regular viewer. And what? They've decided to start acting out their sick fantasies? Christ, that's all we need.' Duguid massaged his forehead with his fingers. 'So who is it? Who's posting these pictures and feeding this sicko ideas?'

'I don't know, sir.'

'But you've got an idea, haven't you McLean. I know the way your mind works.'

'I need to make a few checks first, sir. Before...'

'Bollocks, inspector. You've got a suspicion, then share it. We can't waste time pussyfooting about here. There's a killer out there probably sizing up their next victim.'

No there isn't. They're all dead now. He's cleared up his dirty little secret, though Christ alone knows how he did it. The site's just a red herring.

'I don't think there's a need to rush at all, sir.' McLean tried to choose his words carefully. If he was right, and Emma really had been responsible for posting those crime scene photographs, he wanted to be the one to catch her. What he did once his suspicions were confirmed, he just didn't know.

'You're protecting them, aren't you inspector. Hoping to get all the glory of the collar to yourself?' Duguid levered himself out of Grumpy Bob's chair and pushed past, heading out of the incident room. 'Or is it something else entirely?'

McLean watched Duguid go, then picked up the phone and tried to dial out. It was dead. He fished his mobile out of his pocket, shook it and pressed the 'on' button. Nothing. Damn. If Cadwallader knew about his dinner with Emma, it was a sure thing that Dagwood did too, and it wouldn't take the chief inspector that long to put two and two together; he was a detective after all, even if it was sometimes hard to believe. He looked at the phone again. Should he really be warning her that she was under suspicion? Yes, he should. If she was guilty, they'd try to pin an accessory to murder charge on her. Even if they couldn't make it stick, they'd drag her name through the media. And if he was being really honest, he didn't want to be blackened by association just as much as he didn't want to see that done to a friend.

Cursing, he stomped out of the room in search of a phone, almost crashing into DC MacBride running down the corridor outside.

'Bloody hell. What's got into you?'

'They've found it, sir.' MacBride's face was flushed with excitement.

'Found what?'

'The van, sir. The one that killed Alison.'

*

The winds of change had swept through Edinburgh over recent years, clearing out the tired old tenements, the bonded warehouses, goods marshalling yards and sink estates; replacing them with new developments, leisure centres, luxury apartments and malls. But there were some places that resisted gentrification with all the grace of a raised middle finger. Newhaven still hung out against the forces of improvement, holding on where Leith and Trinity had succumbed. The windswept south shore of the Firth of Forth was just too bleak to welcome incomers, its reclaimed land too blighted by industry.

McLean watched from the passenger seat of the pool car as DC MacBride drove in through the jimmied open wire gates to an abandoned compound. Two squad cars were already in attendance. They parked alongside the SOC van, and McLean felt a sudden surge of hope that Emma would be there. If he could just get a moment to talk to her away from everyone else, he could find out the truth behind the photographs; warn her if necessary. It surprised him that he was also hoping she would be there for purely personal reasons. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that way about anyone.

The warehouse had probably stored something valuable once, but now its roof was gone, its cast iron girders home to pigeons and rust. Even in the summer, after days of dry heat, the concrete floor was puddled with filthy water. In the winter when the east wind blew in sleet from the North Sea, it must have been a really welcoming place. A foul stench filled the area; rotting carcasses and smoke mixed with bird shit and the salt tang of the sea. In the centre, surrounded by SOC officers like ants around a dead bird, stood a blackened Transit van.

They all looked the same, McLean said to himself as he walked closer. But something about this van made him certain it was the one that he'd last seen screeching around the corner at the bottom of The Pleasance, heading towards Holyrood. The plates were missing, but they had been before. Chances were the chassis numbers had been ground off too. There was one identifying mark though; a long, fresh dent in the burnt metalwork of the bonnet, exactly where a promising young life had been cut short.

He walked around the van, keeping well back to avoid contaminating the scene. A white-suited SOC officer crouched close, picking at the blistered and bubbled paint with a pair of tweezers. A flash blinked behind him and he turned, expecting to see Emma. Another technician was behind the lens this time. Malky, McLean remembered, the photographer from the Farquhar House murder scene. The chap who smelled of soap and reckoned negative thoughts could leach the power from mobile phone batteries. Well, it made a kind of perverse sense. As much sense as this.

'Emma Baird not here?'

'She's on another case.' The accent was Glaswegian, but more cultured than Fergus McReadie's.

'You must be Malky,' McLean said. No sooner were the words out than he realised it was a mistake. The man's features hardened in a mask of distaste that made DCI Duguid seem easy-going.

'It's Malcolm, actually. Malcolm Buchanan Watt.'

'I'm sorry, Malcolm. I was just...'

'I know what the other SOC officers call me, inspector. They show the same carelessness with detail in other aspects of their work. You'd do well to remember that the next time you're working with the likes of Ms Baird.'

'Come off it, Malcolm. Emma's a professional just the same as you.'

The photographer didn't bother responding to this, choosing instead to hide behind his camera and take more photographs. McLean shook his head. Why did people have to be so touchy? He was about to head around to the other side of the van, where the sliding door was wide open to face the sea, but a familiar voice hailed him.

'Thank Christ for that. A detective inspector at last.' Big Andy Houseman grinned. 'Glad they gave it to you, sir. We all want a good result on this one.'

'Actually, I'm not here, Andy. You never saw me, OK?'

'What? Don't tell me they're going to give this to Dagwood.'

'I'm one of the victims, Andy. Can't be involved.' McLean held his hands out in supplication, even though he shared the sergeant's frustration. 'What's the story here?'

'Chap walking his dog down on the shore saw it, thought he'd phone it in. I've a couple of constables asking questions in the units over the road, but my guess is nobody saw anything. Even if they saw something.'

'What about the van. Got an ID on it yet?.'

'We're working on it, sir. But from what we can see here it's been professionally cleaned. No plates, no VIN stamp.'

'How'd you know it's the van that hit Alison?'

'We don't. Not for sure. But it's likely. The front end's smashed in like it hit something. You're probably the best witness, but we know it was a Transit. SOC are working on it, but I'd bet my holiday pay it's the same one.'

'Any chance we can get prints? Find out who was driving it?'

'We can do better than that. We've got a body. This way.' Big Andy lead McLean around to the other side of the van. A familiar figure hunched over something black and burned inside, the obvious epicentre of the blaze. Angus Cadwallader stood up, his back creaking as he stretched.

'If we keep meeting like this, Tony, I'm going to have to introduce you to my mother.'

'You already did, Angus. That party at Holyrood, remember? What've you got here.'

Cadwallader turned back to the subject of his investigation, pointing with a gloved finger at the pale flecks in what looked like a half-burned roll of carpet. The white latex was smeared with greasy ash. He didn't need to say anything at that point; McLean's nose had already told him what was really there.

'Not so much a what,' the pathologist said, 'as a who.'

~~~~