Prayer for the Dead: A Detective Inspector McLean Mystery (21 page)

‘Is that Detective Inspector McLean?’

Late evening, and he really should have gone home a long time ago. McLean had been wading his way through a particularly badly written report, not helped by a complete inability to stop his mind from wandering. The
telephone was a welcome distraction.

‘It is. Who’s speaking?’

‘Oh, yes. You won’t remember me. I’m from the forensic services. Amanda Parsons. Dr Cairns said I should call you.’

McLean raised an eyebrow even though there was no one about to see it. ‘She did? Why?’

‘I’ve been running the DNA analysis on that … um … sample of yours. Not yours yours, obviously, but—’

‘Sample?’ McLean interrupted
before the caller went off at a complete tangent. He couldn’t recall sending any samples off for DNA analysis, but his brain was full of too many other things.

‘The … the stool sample? Human excrement? From the bushes outside your house?’ The voice on the other end of the phone sounded young, no doubt a junior technician given the task no one else wanted. At least McLean remembered now. The man
in the bushes at the end of his drive. Of course. And the young forensic scientist who had come in the wee small hours to collect it.

‘You’ve got a match?’ he asked, knowing it was never as easy as that.

‘Umm … no. Nothing on the database at all. A couple of close ones, but they didn’t work out when I ran the full analysis.’

McLean stared sightlessly at the opposite wall of his office. It wasn’t
very far away. ‘And you felt the need to call at this hour to let me know? Couldn’t it have gone in an email?’

The technician didn’t reply immediately, the static silence on the phone making McLean feel bad for his outburst. If it had been an outburst.

‘Sorry, it’s been a long day,’ he said. ‘I take it there’s more?’

‘Yes, there is. See, there’s no match on the database, but, well, I get given
a lot of … that’s to say—’

‘You get all the shit jobs, is that it?’ McLean couldn’t help but smile as he said it.

‘Exactly so. Shit, mucus, skin samples, semen. Christ, you wouldn’t believe what people leave behind at a crime scene.’

‘Trust me, Amanda. I would.’

‘I … Yes, I suppose you would. Sorry. I get a little distracted sometimes. But your sample. It wasn’t on the database, like I said.
Would have written it up and emailed you the results, but something bothered me about it and I couldn’t work out what.’

‘I take it you did work it out though, eventually?’

‘Oh yes. Quite pleased with myself, really. You see, it wasn’t on the database, but I recognised the profile. Ran a couple of close matches, no joy. But then I remembered
we’d had another shit sample in recently. Hadn’t got
a match on that one either, and it hadn’t made it on to the database either. Ran the two side by side and bingo. A perfect match. Well, as close to perfect as you’ll get in this game. Whoever shat in your bushes did this one as well.’

McLean found he had leaned forward, hunched over his desk with the phone clamped to his ear, interest finally piqued. ‘So where did this other sample come from,
then?’

‘Nasty one, that. It was shoved through a letterbox down Leith Walk about a month back.’

The drive home was quick, traffic light at what was really a very late hour to be still at work. McLean wondered what the young forensic scientist was doing at her lab, but it was always possible they had shifts to cope with the endless demands put on them. He’d have to thank Jemima Cairns the next
time he saw her at a crime scene. Thank Amanda Parsons too.

He hadn’t needed to ask any more details about the earlier sample. Leith Walk might be a mile long, but he couldn’t imagine that many letterboxes along its length having excrement shoved through them in the past month. He should probably have brought it up as part of the fire investigation, but that had barely started, and if he was
being honest with himself he’d forgotten. With the Stevenson case at an advanced stage of going nowhere, it was nice to have something he could get his teeth stuck into. A puzzle it might actually be possible to solve.

A couple of cats scurried off the drive and into the bushes as he arrived home. Light spilled out from the
kitchen window, and as he pushed his way in through the back door he
could smell something spicy cooking.

‘I thought you were never coming home. It’s not healthy, you know. Working such long hours.’

Madame Rose was back to her normal self. Face immaculately made up, hair arranged on top of her head in a greying bun, she had found an apron somewhere and was leaning over the Aga stirring a pot of something that bubbled and steamed. A couple of her cats were curled
up at her feet, basking in the heat from the oven even though it wasn’t exactly cold outside. Mrs McCutcheon’s cat was nowhere to be seen.

‘I find it easier to get stuff done at night. Not so many people distracting me. I can actually get some thinking done.’

‘Well park your seat in a chair and get some eating done.’ Madame Rose pulled a plate out of the warming oven. It was already heaped with
rice, and she ladled a hefty portion of something that looked suspiciously like chilli con carne on top before sliding the heavy load on to the table. ‘There’s grated cheese in the bowl, sour cream in that wee jug.’

McLean noticed the two sitting in the middle of the scrubbed kitchen table, where Mrs McCutcheon’s cat usually slept during the day.

‘You don’t need to do this for me,’ he said,
as the medium pushed the plate towards a place already laid out with cutlery.

‘Nonsense, it’s the least I can do. You helped me in my hour of need.’

He had done, McLean had to admit. But then she had helped him and Emma both. He pulled out the chair, slipped his jacket off to hang it over the back, then remembered what he’d been meaning to do all along.

‘Well, it smells delicious but it’ll
have to wait two minutes.’

Madame Rose gave him something halfway between a scowl and a questioning look as he headed swiftly out of the kitchen. McLean had put on a clean jacket that morning, the previous one smelling rather too much of the Leith Walk fire. What he’d forgotten to do in the rush was transfer the contents of his pockets. It wasn’t usually a problem; he had a few pairs of latex
gloves and some small plastic evidence bags in all his jacket and coat pockets, except when they were fresh back from the cleaners.

This one hadn’t made it that far yet, and he hauled it out of the growing pile in the corner of his bedroom, fishing in the pocket for what he wanted before returning to the kitchen and the unexpected meal. When he arrived, it was to find a glass of beer poured and
waiting beside his plate, Madame Rose seated across the table with her back to the Aga.

‘Not having any yourself?’ McLean asked as he tucked in to one of the best chillis he had tasted since Phil had finally moved out of the flat in Newington.

‘Had mine earlier.’ Madame Rose glanced up at the clock on the kitchen wall, but said no more. There followed a silence while McLean ate for a while,
then he unfolded the sheet of paper he had fetched, smoothing out the creases.

‘What do you know about this?’ He pushed the paper across the table. Madame Rose picked it up, read it through.

‘First I’ve heard of it,’ she said after a while. ‘Where’d you get it from?’

‘The door to your shop. It managed to survive the heat of the fire, too. Somehow I don’t think that’s on account of the paper.’

‘I tried to get back in today but they wouldn’t let me. Said it needed to be signed off by Health and Safety. It’s my house and they won’t let me in.’

‘Standard procedure after a fire. I’m sorry.’ McLean took back the flyer whilst spooning another mouthful of chilli into his face. It was cheaply produced, a line drawing of a shouting man with an exclamation mark in a speech bubble above him.
Below it, the words ‘!!!Stop the Developement!!!’. Bad spelling apart, it was easy enough to see what it was about. Plans had been lodged to knock down the empty shops and redevelop some of the tenement blocks. Remembering the general air of run-down seediness about the place, McLean couldn’t help thinking it would only be an improvement, but obviously enough of the locals disagreed.

‘Your place
on Leith Walk. You own that, right?’

Madame Rose nodded.

‘And has anyone approached you about buying it?’

‘Buying it?’ The look of horror on the medium’s face was enough of an answer.

‘So you’ve not had any offers recently.’

‘No. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked. And I wouldn’t sell even if they did. It’s my home. No, it’s more than that.’

An image of the house, untouched by the fire and
yet surrounded on all sides by destruction, swam unbidden into McLean’s mind. Much more than a home, it would seem.

‘Well, I’ve an idea I might know why you’ve been getting grief recently. Why they shoved shit through your letterbox and killed one of your cats.’

‘You do?’ Madame Rose clasped a large be-ringed hand to her ample chest.

‘I don’t know who. Not just yet. But I suspect the why is
a rather crude attempt to soften you up. Someone’s waiting for you to get the hint and put the place on the market. Then they’ll swoop in and buy it at a knockdown price.’

‘But who would do such a thing?’

McLean picked up the flyer again. At the bottom was a name, a contact email address and a mobile phone number. ‘Right now I don’t know. But I’ve a suspicion there’s someone who might.’

The
needle crackled quietly on the vinyl as it spiralled into the centre of the record. McLean sat in his favourite high-backed armchair, a glass of whisky on the table by his side, and let the repetitive hiss-thunk hiss-thunk wash over him. It wasn’t often he had a chance to sit and think these days, even less so with a stomach pleasantly full of good food. A shame really that he had to go back to work
the next day.

‘Your grandmother had a keen eye.’

McLean opened his, only then aware that he’d closed them and was drifting off. Madame Rose had come in silently to peruse the bookshelves. She reached up and
pulled out a hefty leather volume, one large finger caressing the spine like a lover.

‘Can’t be sure that wasn’t one my grandfather bought. Might have been in the family for generations.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Madame Rose extracted a pair of half-moon spectacles from her ample bosom, where they were dangling on a fine silver chain. She slid them on before opening up the book. McLean reckoned it must have weighed at least a couple of kilos, and yet she held it as if it were no more substantial than a slim paperback collection of poetry.

‘Did you ever get around to cataloguing them
all?’ he asked. He knew Madame Rose had begun the task, with Emma helping, but events had conspired to put a stop to that. And then Emma had left.

‘I barely scratched the surface.’ Madame Rose laughed as she closed the book and put it back where it had come from, lining it up perfectly with the others on the shelf. ‘We made a start on this room, but there’s plenty more in the old study, and boxes
up in the attic that look like they’ve not been touched in a century. This whole house is a treasure trove.’

‘It’s too big and costs a fortune to heat in the winter. I really would be better off selling it and moving someplace smaller. Maybe more central.’

A look of horror spread across Madame Rose’s face. ‘Sell? Surely you can’t mean …’

‘Don’t worry. I’m not serious. Selling and moving would
be far more disruptive than staying here. And it’s not as if I can’t afford the bills.’

‘It’s more than that, though. Isn’t it? This is your home,
same as it was your grandmother’s before you. It would have been your father’s too, had he not …’ Madame Rose hesitated.

‘Died? Abandoned me? It’s OK. I don’t mind talking about it. It was a long time ago.’

‘And yet a part of you is still back there.
Stuck in the past.’

‘Isn’t a part of all of us?’ McLean took up his whisky, needing the fortification if this was going to turn philosophical. There wasn’t much left in the glass, but pouring another one might not be wise.

‘We are all defined by our past. That’s not the same as living in it. You can move on if you want to. There’s nothing holding you back.’

McLean downed the last of the whisky,
hauled himself out of the chair and went to the record player. ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said as he lifted the needle carefully back into its rest and switched everything off. ‘But now I think I’d better get some sleep. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a busy one tomorrow.’

Madame Rose took another book from the shelf, caressing it as she had the first. ‘They always are, Inspector. They
always are.’

‘I’m going to my dad’s old school soon. It’s gonnae be cool.’

We’re sitting under the old cedar tree in his garden, Norman and me. I like his garden better than Gran’s. It’s smaller and the trees are older, like the house I suppose.

‘You’re not coming
back to our school then? Next term?’

‘Nah. Going down to some place in England. Near London, I think.’

‘England? Wow.’ Norman says it like it’s someplace far, far away, and for the first time since Gran told me the news I realise that it is. It’s further than I’ve ever been before. Further than I can really imagine.

‘Come on. Let’s go see if we can get to the top of the tree again.’ Always
easier to be doing things than thinking about them. And the view from the top’s brilliant.

‘Race you.’ Norman scrambles to his feet, but I’m quicker. Stronger too, he’s always been a bit weedy for his age. He goes for the lowest branch while I try to shimmy up the thick trunk. The trick to climbing the old cedar is getting to the first fork. Then it’s easy. You can get there along a branch if
you can jump up and pull one down far enough. Or you can shove your hands in the cracks and haul yourself up the trunk like those men Gran let me watch on the telly, climbing the Old Man of Hoy.

I’m almost at the fork when I hear a loud crack. Norman doesn’t scream, but then maybe the solid thud of him hitting the ground has winded him. I’m not that high up, really. Looking round I can see a
thick branch, a pale hand poking out from under a thick blanket of dark green needles. I jump down and hurry over, terrified that he might have broken his neck.

‘Norman, you OK?’ The branch is heavy, thick as my thigh where it’s broken under his weight. It’s a silly detail to notice, but I can see where something has attacked the wood, sticky sap oozing around a deep wound. That’ll be why it’s
broken; Norman’s not that heavy, after all.

He groans as I haul the branch off him, reaches up to his head. For a moment I think he’s fine, and then I see the cut on his hand. It’s deep, dark red blood flowing freely, smearing on his face as he pushes needles out of his hair.

‘Shit. That looks bad.’ He winces at the rude word, same as he always has. It gives me a thrill saying it though. Even
if I know Gran would clip me round the ear if she heard me. I reach out and take his other hand, haul him to his feet. He sways, stunned by the fall or my cursing, it’s hard to tell with Norman.

‘Come on. Better get you back to the house. Get that cleaned up.’

‘Mum’s gonnae kill me.’ Norman looks at his clothes, bloodstained and torn. His face is very pale, more so even than usual.

‘No she
won’t.’ I try to sound reassuring, even though I know how different Mr and Mrs Bale are to my Gran, to how I remember my own mum and dad. ‘Well, maybe a little bit.’