Natural Causes (33 page)

62

The evening sky burned an angry red as they sped through the gates to Farquhar House. Tommy McAllister had wasted no time in removing his machinery from the site, but the house itself was still boarded up, broken blue and white police tape fluttering in the breeze. The lower windows looked like they'd not been touched since the last time he had been there, and the door was securely fixed with a large hasp and padlock.

'Crowbar, I think. Can't hang around waiting for the keys.' McLean sent DC MacBride off to the car in search of a suitable jimmy whilst he and Grumpy Bob looked around for clues that anything was amiss. The ground was so churned up with the mess of a building site it was impossible to tell.

The constable returned with a long tyre iron, and after a few moments of frantic levering, the hasp peeled away from the wooden door with a satisfying rip. Inside, the building smelled musty and unused, completely silent and dark as a grave. McLean switched on his torch and crossed the empty, cavernous hallway to the stairs leading down to the basement. The door had been closed and locked. He gave it a hearty kick and the woodworm-infested frame buckled in. Dust billowed up all around, making them cough, but he pressed on, down the stairs, moved by a terrible sense of urgency.

The lights had gone from the basement, but the dark hole in the wall was still there. McLean shone his torch through it, and for an instant his heart stopped. A body lay spread-eagled in the centre of the hidden room, her hands and feet nailed to the wooden floor with shiny new nails. Her head was tilted back in an endless scream of agony and her stomach had been cut open, ribs glistening white in the torchlight. He flicked the beam up to the walls, and there were the six alcoves, their precious organs tucked away in preserving jars.

Then a muffled sob reached his ears. He looked around, bringing the torch to bear on a second figure, huddled against the wall, chains around her ankles and wrists, twisting up to a shiny new hook in the plaster. She was still wearing her nineteen twenties flapper girl outfit, though somewhere along the line she had lost her cloche hat. Tears had run rivers of dark mascara down her cheeks and her wrists were red raw with struggling against her restraints. But she was alive. Chloe Spiers was alive.

McLean clambered into the hidden room, feeling the temperature drop like it was a fridge. He shone the torch at his own face, letting her see who he was, then bent down to remove the duct tape that had been gagging her.

'It's all right, Chloe. I'm a policeman. We're going to take you home.' She hugged her knees close to her chest, not saying anything as he undid her bonds. Every so often her eyes would sweep the dark room and the ill-defined hump in the middle. How long had she been locked up in here with that body? How much of it had she seen before they'd turned the lights off and left her alone with it?

'Come on. Here.' He pulled her up, half carrying her out of the room to where the others were waiting.

'He was going to cut me open. Like he did to her all those years ago. She told me. In the dark.' Chloe's voice was a pale simulacrum of her mother's, quietly trembling as she clung to him. The put-on South Fife accent driven away by fear.

'It's all right, Chloe. No-one's going to hurt you now. You're safe.' McLean tried to think of soothing things to say as her words began to sink in. 'Who was going to hurt you, Chloe?'

'The scarred man. He killed her. He wants to kill me.'

And so it all began to make sense. If insanity could ever make sense.

~~~~

63

Back-up had arrived by the time they emerged from the house, McLean carrying Chloe, who clung to him as if her very life depended on it. It took some time to convince her to go with the paramedics; she only relented when he told her he was going to get the scarred man. They left Grumpy Bob behind to do the clear-up and take the credit when the superintendent arrived, since it was his investigation after all. DC MacBride drove, and it took long minutes to negotiate their way out of the narrow driveway as more and more police cars arrived.

'Where're we going sir?' he asked as they finally made it onto the Dalry Road. McLean told him the address of the house not far from where his grandmother had lived. Where he'd been taken in a car chauffeured by a suited Jethro Callum. Not far from where the dead body of David Brown had been found. Did the property not even back onto that forgotten lane?

'Head towards Grange. Better put the blue lights on.' He gave MacBride the directions then slumped back in the passenger seat and watched the evening traffic getting out of the way.

'How did you guess, sir? That she'd be there?'

'I had a letter from Jonas Carstairs. He confessed to the murder and named all the others we suspected. And he said there was a sixth man, just as we thought. He didn't name him though, which wasn't very helpful. But he did say that he was back in Edinburgh and would be trying to perform the ritual again. Where else would he do it?'

'That's a bit of a leap, isn't it, sir?'

'Not really. I should've seen it earlier. As soon as we ID'd Roberts as the man who picked Chloe up. He was acting for someone wanting to buy the old house. Someone prepared to pay over the odds for it. I just didn't know who. I concentrated on that, when I should have been asking why.'

'And you know who now?'

'The scarred man, Chloe said. I met a scarred man a few days ago. An old friend of my gran's. Said he was in town to sort out some unfinished business. Christ I can be thick at times. Gavin Wemyss. Jethro Callum is his chauffeur; more than that, I'd guess. And Roberts was acting for Wemyss Industries. I saw their logo on his papers at McAllister's. Just didn't recognise it until now.'

They drove the rest of the way in tense silence. Closer to the house, MacBride turned off the flashing lights to avoid raising the alarm. McLean directed him towards the address down streets he had known all his life, past houses that had always been familiar to him, but which were now alien and menacing.

'Pull over here.' He pointed to an open gateway. Light spilled out from several downstairs windows over the shiny Bentley parked by the porch. Approaching the house, McLean felt an uncharacteristic shudder of fear run through him, and then he saw that the front door was wide open. He stepped into the house, wanting to hurry, all his years of training urging him to be careful. The hall was dominated by a dark oak staircase that rose up towards the back of the house. Ornate panelled doors led off to either side, all closed except one.

'Shouldn't we..?' MacBride started to say. McLean stopped him with a raised hand, then pointed towards the back of the house, indicating for him to look there first. He stepped quietly across the hall towards the open door, imagined he could hear the faintest of noises from the room beyond. Wet, unpleasant noises. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door wide and stepped in.

The private study was filled with surprisingly modern office furniture. A small desk near the door would have been where a secretary would work, but its typists chair was empty. Beyond it there was an open space with a couple of functional couches, a low table between them, and beyond that a large desk. Behind which sat Gavin Wemyss.

He was naked from the waist up, his clothes neatly folded and placed over a low filing cabinet to one side. Lazy flies crawled over pale flesh and buzzed around the thick blood that hung from his fingertips, dry and dull. His scarred face was white, blind eyes staring in a final expression of terror. He'd been dead a while, his chest ripped open. If he had to guess, McLean would have said someone had removed his heart.

A shadow of movement, and instinct kicked in. He ducked, twisting around as a huge man lunged at him. Jethro Callum held a hunting knife in one hand, and moved with a fluid grace quite at odds with his bulk. Never assume a big man will be slow. That was what they'd taught him in self-defence. McLean dodged the blade, moving in to parry the expected thrust. But instead of trying to fight, Callum stepped back, reaching up with the knife to his own neck.

'Oh no you don't!' McLean leapt forward, knocked the knife out of Callum's hand. Together they crashed to the floor. McLean had the advantage of being on top, but his attacker was a good foot taller and probably half as heavy again. The muscles beneath his leather jacket were like rock, taut and straining. He didn't so much push McLean off as fling him bodily away before rolling over and reaching out for the knife.

McLean pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket, twisting them open as he sprung forward. He slipped on something squelchy on the carpet, losing his balance and pitching onto Callum's back. They both crashed to the floor again, but this time McLean managed to get one cuff on. Callum reached out for the knife, fat fingers scraping at the bloody carpet in desperation. Using the cuff as leverage, McLean twisted the restrained hand up hard into the point between Callum's shoulder blades, kneeling on his neck and grinding his face into the carpet. And still the big man stretched for the knife, thrashing his legs and torso to try and dislodge the heavy weight of detective inspector on his back.

There was no way that he could get control of Callum's other arm, and neither could he get to the knife before him. McLean looked around for something else to use as a weapon, eyes lighting on a china vase sitting on a small oak occasional table just in reach. He grabbed it, feeling an instant's regret as he recognised it as a very valuable Clarice Cliff, and brought it smashing down on Callum's head. The big man grunted, then relaxed onto the floor, unconscious. Footsteps clattered across the hall outside and McLean looked around to see DC MacBride appear in the doorway.

'Thanks for the help,' he said.

~~~~

64

'Wemyss recruited him from a street gang over ten years ago, took him on as a personal bodyguard. He's been working for the old man in America all that time, which is how he dropped off our radar. And you'll never guess who one of his known associates was, back in the day.'

'Donnie Murdo?'

'In one. My guess is Murdo was working for Wemyss when he ran down Alison. Probably trying to take the heat off the search for Chloe until he'd finished with her. Christ, what a stupid, petty reason to kill someone.' Grumpy Bob kicked out at an innocent wastepaper basket, sending it and its contents flying in different directions.

'Any reason why he'd suddenly decide to murder his boss?' McLean nodded towards the hulking form of Jethro Callum. They were watching him through the one-way mirror that looked into the interview room. He had a good idea why, but it wasn't a happy place to go.

'I guess we'd better ask him.'

'OK, Bob. Let's get this over with.' McLean grimaced out of the chair; he'd managed to crack three ribs and had picked up a bruise the size and shape of Poland in the fight. He began to have some inkling of just how David Brown might have felt before he died.

Callum didn't move when they pushed open the door, neither did he register their presence when McLean settled himself down gingerly into the chair opposite. Grumpy Bob unwrapped two tapes and slipped them into the machine, setting it to record their interview, and still the burly chauffeur said nothing. McLean went through the formalities, then finally leant forward, resting his elbows on the table between him and the murderer.

'Why did you kill Gavin Wemyss, Mr Callum?'

Slowly, the bodyguard lifted his head. He seemed to have difficulty focussing his eyes, and his expression was one of shock, as if he had only just noticed where he was.

'Who're you?' he asked.

'We've been through all that, Mr Callum. I'm Detective Inspector McLean, and this is my colleague Detective Sergeant Laird.'

'Where am I?' Callum pulled at his cuffs. 'Why am I here?'

'Are you seriously expecting me to believe you don't know, Mr Callum?' McLean studied the bodyguard's face. It was something only a mother could love, scarred from numerous fights, nose flat and squint, eyes just slightly too close together to have any hope of conveying intelligence. But there was something in there, lurking behind the bewilderment. He could sense it, and in that instant, McLean knew that it sensed him too. Callum stopped straining against his handcuffs, instead slumping forward as his whole body relaxed.

'I know you. I've smelled you before. You drew the circle around yourself but it won't protect you from me. We're destined to be together, you and I. It's in your blood. His blood.' Where Callum's earlier words had been slurred and hesitant, now he spoke clearly, clipped. It was a voice of control and power, used to being obeyed. Another person entirely.

'Why did you kill Gavin Wemyss?' McLean repeated his earlier question.

'He was their leader. The last one. I killed him to be free.'

'The last one? You've killed others?'

'You know who I've killed, inspector. And you know they all deserved to die.'

'No, I don't. Who did you kill? What were their names? Why did they deserve to die?'

Callum stared straight at him, face set like stone. And then his features softened again, as if he were remembering something highly emotive. His eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. He looked left and right, around the small interview room with panicked twists of the head. He pulled at his restraints once, twice, then realising it was hopeless, slumped forwards. Tears filled his eyes, rolling over the scars on his cheeks as he started to mumble in a frightened, childlike voice.

'OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod.'

McLean looked at the big man, rocking gently in his chair. Had his hands not been in cuffs, he was sure Callum would have curled up in a ball in the corner of the room. There had been something there, briefly, but now whatever mad instinct had driven the man to commit such a brutal murder was gone, and he was left alone with the memory of what he had done.

'Interview suspended at twenty-one fifty-two.' McLean stood up, gasping as his ribs protested, and clicked off the tape recorder. 'Have him escorted back to the cells. We'll try again in the morning.'

Grumpy Bob opened the interview room door and called in a couple of uniformed constables. They flanked Callum before one of them reached down and began to undo the cuffs.

It happened in an instant. The bodyguard roared a great scream of rage, exploded out of his chair and lashed out with his fists. The two constables went flying, crashing into the walls. Behind him, McLean could hear Grumpy Bob move to block the doorway, but far from making a break for it, Callum turned to the large mirror that hung on the wall, behind which was the viewing room. He lurched towards it, pulling his head back as he did, and butted it with all his might. Cracks speared up from the point of impact, but it didn't smash. Enraged, Callum pulled his head back again and hammered it once more into the fractured glass. This time the mirror gave, breaking into long shards of lethally sharp glass. One poked up from the bottom of the frame, fully a foot long and needle-sharp. A glistening bead of Callum's blood balanced on the point of it. The bodyguard turned, facing McLean with that powerful, controlled stare. Not scared, not mad, but knowing. Not the prey here, but the predator.

'You'll understand soon,' he said in that voice that wasn't his. Then pulled his head up, arching his back ready to smash forwards and plunge the glass shard deep into his brain. But the two constables were on him, grabbing his arms and wrestling them behind him. Suddenly the room was full of bodies, swarming over Callum like ants. The big man writhed and screamed, but was slowly pushed to the ground, his hands cuffed tightly behind him. When they finally pulled him to his feet and turned him back around, McLean could see ugly cuts in his forehead and nose. A glass splinter had pierced his left eye, leaking aqueous humour down his cheek in a parody of tears.

'Jesus Christ,' he swore. 'Get him to hospital, quick. And keep him restrained. I don't want him having another chance to do that.'

*

Out in the corridor, McLean leant against the wall and tried to suppress the shaking that had taken hold of him. Grumpy Bob stood by his side, silent for a while.

'He wasn't trying to escape, was he,' the sergeant said finally.

'No. He was trying to kill himself. Like all the others.'

'Others? What do you mean?'

McLean looked up at his old friend. 'Forget it, Bob. I think I need a drink.'

'I second that. It's hours past the end of my shift, and we've at least one success to celebrate.'

'Where's MacBride?' McLean asked. 'He could do with one too.'

'Probably down in the incident room feverishly typing up reports. You know what he's like. Keen as mustard.'

'Don't knock it, Bob.'

'Far from it, sir.' The old sergeant grinned, throwing off some of the shock of recent events. 'If he wants to do the work of two detectives, that's just fine by me. I'm quite happy to be the other one.'

They set off into the bowels of the station, finally arriving at their destination after fending off many congratulations. News of Chloe's safe discovery had spread quickly, unlike the more recent events. The door to the tiny incident room was propped open with a metal chair to let the heat out. Low voices murmured in conversation from within. McLean stepped inside and saw DC MacBride sitting behind his table, the laptop in front of him. Another figure stood talking to him, and she turned as she saw his eyes flick up to meet the inspector's. Emma Baird took two steps towards McLean and then slapped him hard across the face.

'That's for even thinking I could do something so perverse as post crime scene photos on the internet.'

He lifted his hand to his face, accepting that he probably deserved it. But before he could reach his stinging cheek, she had grabbed him, pulled him towards her and planted a long, wet kiss on his lips.

'And that's for finding a way to prove me innocent,' she added once she had broken away. McLean felt his ears turning bright red. He looked to DC MacBride, but the constable was suddenly very interested in his report. Grumpy Bob was staring off down the corridor in a purposeful manner.

'Ah, sod it, Stuart. You can write that tomorrow,' McLean said. 'Let's go to the pub.'

~~~~