Authors: James Oswald
Natural Causes (35 page)
Epilogue
Christopher Roberts sat at the table with his head drooped low. He smelled of too many nights in the cells, and his once-fine suit was quite ruined. McLean stood with his back to the wall of the interview room and considered him for a moment, trying to dredge up some sympathy for the man. Failing.
'Gavin Wemyss is dead, and Jethro Callum too.'
Roberts looked up as the words sank in, a gleam of hope in his eyes. But before he could say anything, McLean spoke again.
'The thing is, Mr Roberts, I'm almost certain that you were coerced into your actions, and we could well have taken that into consideration. Chloe's safe, though I doubt she'll ever forget being locked in a cellar for days with a mutilated corpse. I could almost see my way to persuading her not to press charges against you.'
'You'd do that?' Roberts looked up at him like a beaten puppy. McLean stepped forward, pulled out the seat and dropped himself down into it.
'No. I won't. Not now. You had your chance, Mr Roberts, when we brought your wife in for her protection. You could have helped us then, and we might have been able to catch Callum before he killed Wemyss. As it is, all the people I want to charge with abduction and murder are dead. Except you.'
'But... but... I was forced. They made me...'
'No they didn't, Mr Roberts. You made yourself. You had it all and you wanted more. And now you're going to go to jail for a very long time.'
*
A grey, windswept cemetery overlooking the Forth. Summer had finally broken; now squalls of rain rushed down the far side of the firth, leaving the little party dry, but cold. McLean was pleasantly surprised at the number of people who'd turned out for the burial. DC MacBride and Grumpy Bob were there, as was Emma Baird. Chief Superintendent McIntyre had found time from her busy schedule to come too, though she fretted a bit and kept looking at her watch. Angus Cadwallader had scandalously brought his assistant, Tracy with him. But perhaps most surprising was that Chloe Spiers had insisted on coming. She clung to her mother at the graveside, looking down at the plain coffin as the dirt was thrown on top. It had taken some detective work, but he had managed to track down the graves of John and Elspeth Donaldson, and now McLean was making sure that their daughter Maggie was buried alongside them. He hoped no-one would ever find out he'd paid for the service himself.
'I still don't understand how you were finally able to identify her,' McIntyre said as they all walked away from the grave.
'We managed to trace a Sighthill builder who went missing in forty-five. That gave us a better idea of the time of death. Mis Per records are a bit patchy from then, so DC MacBride waded through the Scotsman archives. He found a small article about a missing girl. Turns out her mother was a housemaid at Farquhar House. We tracked down a living relative in Canada. DNA profiling did the rest.' It was a slight distortion of the truth, but not much. He'd given MacBride what hints he could, told him to look into it. And McLean could hardly admit where he'd really got the dead girl's name from.
'Most detectives would've been content to have found the killers.'
'You know me, ma'am. I don't like leaving a job half done.'
'Do you think it worked? Do you think they really trapped some demon and used its power to prolong their lives?'
'You should listen to yourself, Jayne. Of course it didn't work. They're all dead, aren't they?' McLean shook his head as if that might dislodge the truth. 'There's no such things as demons.'
'But they were all so fit for their age.'
'Well, except Bertie Farquhar and Toby Johnson. They both died young. No, they lived long because they believed they would. Christ, they couldn't do what they did and not believe it. And they were successful men because they were born into money, had the best education.'
'Let's hope you're right, Tony. This city's bad enough as it is without the supernatural making life a misery for us poor coppers.'
'Gavin Wemyss died intestate.' It was a snippet of news that McLean had picked up from the news and which had stuck with him for various uncomfortable reasons. 'He never married, had no family. The lawyers are going mad looking for someone to inherit his fortune. Anyone with a half-decent claim stands to inherit billions. It's a mess. But that's how certain he was he would live forever.'
'Perhaps there are demons after all. But they're just up here.' McIntyre tapped at her temple with a finger, then twirled it round in little circles.
They reached the cemetery gates and the short line of parked cars waiting to take them all back to their various different lives. A uniformed sergeant stood to attention beside the chief superintendent's car, sandwiched between Phil's elderly rust-coloured Volvo estate and Cadwallader's muddy green Jaguar. McLean's bright red Alfa Romeo was parked off to one side. McIntyre watched in horror as he unlocked it and opened the passenger door for Emma to clamber in.
'Good God, Tony. Is that yours?' she asked.
For a moment, McLean wondered whether she meant the car or Emma. Deciding that even Macintyre couldn't be that rude, he shook his head, trying hard to suppress a grin.
'Not mine, no,' he said. 'It's my dad's.'
*
He stood in his grandmother's bedroom, looking down at the dressing table with its collection of hairbrushes, make-up tools and photographs. The black bin liner weighed heavy in his hand, already half-filled with rubbish; the disposable detritus of a life long gone. He should have done this months ago, when it was obvious his grandmother was never going to regain consciousness, never return to her home. She had no need of lipstick, disposable hankies, a half-finished roll of extra strong mints, and he had no need of the contents of her wardrobe. Or most of the old photographs that dotted the room, and one in particular.
It hung on the wall, close to the door to the bathroom. Black and white, it showed two men and a woman, Bill McLean, Esther Morrison and A.N.Other. When he'd first noticed it, he'd been intrigued at how little he looked like his grandfather yet how much his own father resembled the other man. How much he himself looked like him. Was this the sordid little secret that his grandmother had kept, not to be revealed until after she died? Something that she felt she could tell her lawyer but not her grandson? What had the letter said? You are plainly not the man she feared you might become. And then there was Jethro Callum: His blood flows through your veins. The words of a madman, or maybe a demon, but somehow impossible to ignore. Well, it wasn't really difficult to work out what was going on. What had gone on.
He took the photograph down from the wall, flicked it over to see if there was anything written on the back of the frame. Only a neat stencilled mark showing the photo gallery who had done the work, their address a street long since bulldozed. It was a professional job, the back sealed with heavy tape. He could cut the photograph out, see if anything had been written on the back of that, but he couldn't really be bothered.
Turning the frame back over, he looked closely at the picture. In her twenties, his grandmother had been quite the looker. She sat between the two men, an arm draped around each shoulder, but she clearly had eyes only for William McLean. The other man was smiling, but there was a coldness in his eyes, a longing for something he couldn't have. Something he might be prepared to take by force. Or was that just being fanciful? McLean shrugged the thought away, pulled open the bin bag and dropped the picture in.
###
Coming soon. Book Two of the Inspector McLean series: The Book of Souls.
Scroll down further for a sample chapter.
You can also read a series of short stories featuring McLean. Visit the
DevilDog Publishing website
for free downloads
About the Author
James began writing comic scripts because he couldn’t think of anything better to do. He has written Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thrillers and Crime novels, as well as a travel book about bicycling and innumerable short stories. Down the years he has held a bewildering number of jobs to support his writing habit, from building courses for international carriage driving competitions to creating web applications for agricultural research. Currently he farms 350 acres of North-East Fife, raising Highland Cattle and Romney Sheep. Writing now happens in the evenings. Or when it’s raining old ladies and sticks.
http://www.facebook.com/jamesdjoswald
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~~~~
Also by James Oswald
The Inspector McLean Novels
Natural Causes
The Book of Souls
~~~
The Ballad of Sir Benfro
Dreamwalker
The Rose Cord
The Golden Cage
~~~
Other Novels
Running Away
Jacob
Head
Abundance
One Good Deed
~~~
Travel Writing
Pedalling Uphill Slowly
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The Book of Souls
1
Waves of pain smash through the nausea as she struggles awake. For a moment she can’t remember anything, not even her own name. She tries to move and instantly regrets it. Her arms and legs burn with cold fire. She would curl up against the agony, but something holds her back, her arms tied above her head, her legs stretched wide. Naked.
Realisation dawns slow, her brain waking from utter blackness. She was walking to the south town. Going to see Jo and the wild girls. Like she does every week. Stupid, stupid. She’d kick herself if her feet weren’t shackled. She’s so damned careful, so bloody clever most of the time. Streetwise, that’s her. Moving around the underworld like she was born to it. So how come some bastard pervert in a flash car can jump her like she’s some scared college kid on her first week away from home?
His face comes to her in an instant. Idiot smile and crooked, fag-stained teeth. Why can’t she remember his eyes? Just his mouth, half open, drool stringing down from the edges like that ugly dog daddy used to have. Falling in slow motion strings to pool on her exposed breasts.
The scream is weak in her dry throat as the memories burst through her pain. Struggling. Heavy weight pinning her down. The smiling man on top of her. Forcing himself into her. Toothy, mad grin but nothing in his eyes. Oh, she can remember then now. And helpless, so helpless. He has her completely in his control. Like daddy before she ran away.
Oh Christ, he’s going to come now, isn’t he. She tries to look away, hide inside herself like she did with daddy, but he grabs her face, pulls it round He has something with him, clenched in one hand. Perfume explodes in her face. A smell of pear drops and the little old lady in the sweet shop. Blackness numbing the pain and the terror. Waking to find him still there. Or was that a different time? The grin. Silent, painful thrusting. Thirst. Stupid, stupid. How long has she hidden, to be caught like this. How long has she been here? How many times has he raped her?
She whimpers, pulling against the chains. The pain is unbearable, like hot wires sawing through her brain. What has the bastard done to her? She tries to focus on the shiny new handcuffs around her wrists, the cast iron bedstead, the white painted brickwork that curves overhead.
‘Ah. You’re awake. Good.’
His voice cuts through the mess in her head, striking at a single point of pure fear. He even sounds like daddy now. Her eyes can hardly focus as he walks towards her, holding something heavy in one hand. A book? Has he been reading, watching her, waiting to have another go?
He leans over, a smiling, friendly face. The bedsprings creak as he sits beside her. Like a parent worrying over a sick child. Like daddy come to read her one of his special bedtime stories.
‘You slept a long time. This time.’ He reaches for her face, caresses her forehead and cheeks. She can’t drag her gaze away from his face, his smile, and his mad, dead eyes. She tries to recoil, but the chains hold her fast. Helpless. Vulnerable. Like a little child, too scared to fight against the wandering, pressing, intimate hands.
‘Wh… why?’ It is barely a whisper in her tight, dry throat. Christ but she’s thirsty. What she wouldn’t do for a drink.
‘Shhh.’ He puts one finger over her lips, presses down so that her head sinks into the pillow.
‘I want to read you a story.’
*
‘In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?’
Detective Inspector Anthony McLean stared out over the ranks of headstones towards a small knot of people clustered around a grave in the spattering rain. A sharp November wind blew off the North Sea, tugging at the thin grey hair of the priest, his head down in his prayer book. A brace of uniformed police officers shifted uncomfortably, like they would rather be anywhere else. A slim, red-haired woman struggled with her useless umbrella. Two scowling men dressed in the dirty green overalls of Aberdeen City Parks Department waited impatiently to one side. No family, of course. Not much of a turn-out for the deceased at all.
‘Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.’
McLean dug his hands deep into the pockets of his heavy overcoat and huddled against the cold that seeped into his bones. Low clouds scudded across the sky, blanking out what little weak afternoon sun could hope to reach this far north. Dreich was the word. It matched his mood.
‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer.’
He tuned out the words, looking around the cemetery. Flowers dotted here and there, even the odd photograph. The headstones glistened wetly, granite grey like the city that spawned them. Just the occasional angel to break the monotony. What the hell was he doing here?
‘Suffer us not, at our last hour, through any pains of death, to fall from thee.’
The council workers hoisted the cheap wooden coffin up on thick canvas straps, kicking aside the scaffold planks it had been resting on before dropping it heavily into the hole. No elegant sashes and six young men to lower the bastard to his last resting place. He deserved nothing more than he was getting.
‘In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our brother…’ The priest paused, then scrabbled around in his prayer book, coming up with a small scrap of paper. He peered at it myopically before the wind whipped it from his arthritic fingers and away over the graveyard. ‘…Our brother Donald Anderson and we commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
McLean couldn’t suppress the smile that slid across his face at the priest’s mistake, but it was short-lived. He felt no satisfaction, no closure. Turning away from the scene, he walked to his car. It was a long drive back to Edinburgh; might as well get started. Not like there was going to be a wake or anything.
‘Might I ask what your interest in Anderson is?’
McLean turned at the voice, seeing the woman with the useless umbrella standing a couple of paces away. She was slightly shorter than him, her face pale and freckled, its elfin shape exaggerated by the way the rain had plastered her short hair across her scalp.
‘Might I ask yours?’
‘Detective Sergeant Ritchie, Grampian Police.’ She fumbled in the large bag slung over one shoulder and pulled out her warrant card. McLean didn’t even bother looking at it. He probably should have told Aberdeen Headquarters he was coming, but then they’d have escorted him everywhere, dragged him down the pub to celebrate Anderson’s death.
‘McLean,’ he said. ‘Lothian and Borders.’
‘You’re a fair bit off your patch, Inspector.’ So she knew of him, even if she didn’t recognise his face.
‘I put Anderson away. Just wanted to make sure he was gone for good.’
‘Aye, well. I can understand that.’
The two uniformed officers trudged past, the collars of their black fleeces turned up, yellow fluorescent jackets pulled tight against the wind. Behind them, the priest looked as if he was going to hang around and say something, then thought better of it. McLean stared back towards the grave where a mini digger was dumping heavy earth onto the coffin. ‘How does a piece of shit like Anderson end up being buried in a place like this?’
‘Plot was bought and paid for, apparently. Some solicitor from Edinburgh sorted it all out. Seems Anderson had money. Plots here aren’t cheap.’
‘What about the man who killed him?’
Ritchie didn’t answer straight away. McLean didn’t know her, couldn’t read the expression on her face. She looked young for a DS, boyish even with her short-cropped hair and businesslike suit, but she held his gaze as if to say his seniority didn’t intimidate her.
‘Harry Rugg. Anderson’s cell-mate in Peterhead. They were both on kitchen duty. Rugg took a carving knife and stabbed Anderson in the heart.’
‘So I heard. Any chance of having a word with him?’
Ritchie wiped wet hair out of her eyes. ‘I could talk to DCI Reid for you. He’s in charge. But I doubt he’d let another force anywhere near. What do you want to ask him anyway?’
‘Ask? Nothing. I just wanted to say thanks.’
~~~~
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