The Hangman's Song (Inspector Mclean 3) (42 page)

McLean remembered his conversation with Miss Cairns and her fascination with all knotty things. It didn’t help, though. Fascinating and unlikely though it was, the identical nature of the three knots was not in itself enough to hang an expensive investigation on. Not when Duguid was trying to control budgets and failing badly.

‘So we have three deaths, all with similarities that scream one cause, but nothing that can be proven. That about right?’

‘Pretty much, sir.’

‘So how are we getting on finding any more solid link between these three?’

Silence filled the room.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘It’s been kind of busy, sir. And this investigation was considered low priority.’ MacBride looked embarrassed, even though it wasn’t really the constable’s fault. He should have been keeping on top of this himself, managing his team properly. Except of course it hadn’t been a team, had it. They’d been all over the place and he’d taken his eye off the ball. McLean tried to stop himself from doing the Dagwood response of running his fingers over his face, from forehead down to chin. Failed. A horrible thought crept unbidden into his mind.

‘Have we got independent confirmation of each of these victims’ identities? Do we actually know these are the people we think they are?’

‘Fenton’s a positive ID,’ MacBride said. ‘I got a statement from Constable Stephen. He’d known him for years.’

‘What about Sands? He had no immediate family.’

‘To be fair, I don’t think anyone would be able to identify Sands from his remains. If you recall, he was a bit squishy.’ Grumpy Bob reminded them all of something they’d rather have forgotten.

‘And Mikhailevic? We get anything back from the embassy? Anyone show his photo to the landlord of the Bond Bar? Or maybe his professor at the college? Did we check his passport with immigration?’ All basic steps any detective should have known to do. Maybe Duguid was right to view him with such disdain. McLean couldn’t really say he’d conducted any of his investigations well recently. Just when was it he’d started fucking everything up so badly? And why?

DC MacBride stood up, went to his desk and booted up his computer. McLean watched in silence as the detective constable tapped away at keys and scrolled with his mouse. No point asking what he was doing; it would be relevant to the question. It only took a couple of minutes anyway, then he looked up with a worried expression writ large across his round face. ‘I think we might have a bit of a problem, sir.’

McLean walked around to the desk and peered at the screen. MacBride had brought up a website for Fulcholme College and somehow managed to find a page detailing the students enrolled in the current year. The thumbnail photographs weren’t the most flattering, but it didn’t take an ID specialist to see that the Grigori Mikhailevic on the screen was not the Grigori Mikhailevic whose face adorned the whiteboard.

Professor Bain met them in the reception hall with a worried smile. He looked a little more tired than McLean remembered, his thinning white hair unkempt, glasses slightly askew.

‘Thank you for seeing us at such short notice.’ McLean shook the proffered hand and introduced DC MacBride.

‘Not at all. Not at all. Anything for the police.’ Professor Bain’s face didn’t quite match his words. ‘You said there had been developments, about Grigori?’

‘Could we maybe talk somewhere a bit more private?’ McLean nodded at a group of students loitering on the far side of the hall. Another class was obviously just finishing as yet more people streamed out of one of the doors.

‘Yes, of course. Please.’ Professor Bain didn’t lead them to his study, instead directing the two of them down a corridor to the back of the building and an empty classroom. McLean waited until the door was closed before bringing out the photographs he had brought with him.

‘I have to admit this is all rather embarrassing. Something we should have checked right at the start of the investigation. Could you just confirm that this is Grigori Mikhailevic?’ He handed the first photograph to the professor, who pulled a pair of half-moon spectacles out of the top pocket of his tweed jacket and swapped them with the wonky pair already on his nose before peering closely at the picture.

‘Yes. That’s him.’ He looked again, head bobbing like a nodding dog in the back of a car. ‘This is from the college alumni web page, is it not?’

‘It is indeed, sir.’ McLean took back the photograph and handed over the next one. ‘And can you tell me who this is?’

From his expression, Professor Bain recognized the face instantly. True enough, it was a dead man’s mug shot, but the reaction was not one of horror so much as resignation.

‘Oh dear me. He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘You don’t sound surprised.’

‘Poor old Duncan.’ Professor Bain handed back the photograph and removed his glasses. ‘When you asked me about Grigori being depressed, I thought about him.’ He pointed with one spectacle arm at the picture now in McLean’s hand. ‘Duncan George. Used to be one of Grigori’s classmates. You might almost have called them
friends. But Duncan … Duncan was difficult. I’m no great expert, you’d need to talk to Eleanor about that, but I suspect he was bipolar. Brilliant for a couple of weeks, then he’d not show up for a month. Or he’d come in late, sit at the back, not contribute anything.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘When did I last see him? Now there’s a question.’ Professor Bain tapped the side of his cheek with a finger, an introspective expression on his face. ‘Where are we now, September? Must have been back in the spring, I’d guess.’

‘So he’d finished his studies, then? Do you know where he went after graduation?’

‘Oh, he never graduated. Never finished. No, like I said, he’d have his moments of brilliance and then drop out. We kept his place open for as long as we could, but when he missed final exams, well, we had to strike him off the register.’

‘Didn’t you get in touch with his family?’

‘The state is his family. Was, I should say. He came here on a scholarship, out of a care home. If I remember right, his parents died when he was four. No other family, and a series of disastrous foster-carers. Poor old Duncan. Life didn’t give him much, did it? Tell me. How did he die?’

McLean shuffled the photographs together and put them back in their envelope. Losing his parents at four years old was too close to home to be comfortable.

‘Thank you for your time, professor. You’ve been very helpful.’ He held out his hand, and Professor Bain took it automatically, didn’t ask the question again.

DC MacBride had stood at the door for the whole interview, and opened it as McLean approached, leaving
the professor behind. It was only as he was halfway through that something the doctor had said trickled through. Stopped him in his tracks.

‘Your expert on bipolar disorders. Eleanor.’ McLean turned as he spoke. ‘That wouldn’t be Eleanor Austin, would it? The hypnotherapist?’

Professor Bain looked a little nonplussed at the question, as if he couldn’t quite work out what connection it had to anything. McLean could hardly blame him.

‘Yes. She runs a couple of alternative-therapy courses. Very popular with the students. Do you know her?’

44

‘So, we know now that Grigori Mikhailevic didn’t kill himself, but Duncan George did. And in Mikhailevic’s flat. Any ideas, Constable?’

MacBride was driving, face set in concentration as he tried to get through a snarl of traffic at the bottom end of Leith Walk. The trams had been meant to come all the way down here, so the civil servants in Victoria Quay could get all the way to the airport without stopping. Incompetence that would make Dagwood look like a professional now meant that they stopped a good mile short of Leith, and got nowhere near Ingliston. Even so the roads around the old docks had been dug up and refilled and dug up again. Christ alone knew why. It made any journey fraught.

‘Your man back there, Professor Bain, reckoned the two of them were friends. Maybe they were sharing the flat?’

McLean tried to remember the scene. His overall impression was of a space barely large enough for one person.

‘It’s not far from here, is it. I think I’d like another look.’

A U-turn was out of the question, but MacBride managed to negotiate the side streets in a zigzag route that eventually brought them to the old warehouse development where Duncan George had died. There was no sign of any police presence at the front door, but then it was many weeks on, and the scene had long since been released.
Had Mikhailevic owned the place or rented? McLean realized he knew very little about the case at all.

‘I don’t suppose we’ve got a key or anything?’

‘I’ll find out.’ MacBride pulled out his Airwave set and started making calls. McLean got out of the car, walked around the small courtyard. The front door to the development was locked, a series of buzzers for the different flats bearing the names of their occupants. None said Mikhailevic, or even George. He picked one at random and pressed it. No response. Pressed the one below it. Still no response. He was just about to press a third when there was a buzz and the lock clicked open. So much for security.

He pushed through into the dark hallway, breathing in a smell of mould and damp quite at odds with such a new development. Up two flights of stairs, the top landing was high in the roof space, a single, small window letting in too little light from the leaden grey sky outside. He tried to remember which was the right apartment of the two available, settled for the one on his left. The front door had no nameplate or buzzer, just a fanlight above showing an unlit bulb hanging from the open ceiling, and if he took a step back, stood on tiptoes and craned his neck until it hurt, the beam over which the rope had been tied.

McLean stepped up to the door and knocked, then listened hard for any sound of movement within. There was nothing for a while, then a voice behind him said: ‘Can I help?’

He almost jumped out of his skin. Turned to see a young woman standing in the doorway of the flat opposite. She had a heavy dressing gown pulled around her and eyes bleary from disrupted sleep.

‘Detective Inspector McLean. Lothian and Borders Police.’ He showed her his warrant card.

‘This about Grigori hanging himself?’ The woman nodded her head at the door McLean had just knocked on. ‘Only they cleared the place out, what, two weeks ago now? Decorator’s been in and all. There’s been at least two couples round looking. Reckon it’ll be rented out by the end of the month. S’creepy though. I wouldn’t live there. Not after, you know.’

‘You knew him? Mikhailevic?’

‘No’ well. Enough to say hi to. I work nights, so I didnae see much of him, to be honest.’

‘Anyone else stay with him?’

‘There was a bloke, aye. Not all the time, mind, and I’d not seen him in a while. Used to think maybe they were gay, you know. Not that I’ve a problem with that.’

McLean pulled the envelope with the photos out of his pocket. The picture of Duncan George was quite obviously that of a dead man. Perhaps not the thing you wanted to see just after waking up. On the other hand, it would be confirmation.

‘Was it you who reported it?’ He nodded his head in the direction of the other flat. The young woman blinked, nodded.

‘You saw him, then.’

‘Just a glimpse. Didn’t notice the door was open until I got inside. I was shutting my own door and I looked across.’ She gulped. ‘He was just hanging there, like, not moving or anything.’

‘Did you see his face?’ McLean saw the look of horror passing over the young woman’s own face as she relived
the moment. ‘Look, I’m really sorry to bring this all up again.’

‘No, you’re all right. It’s just … No, I didnae see his face. He was hanging wi’ his back to the door, like. Gave me such a shock. I phoned you lot and went and hid in my bedroom.’

Downstairs, McLean heard the sound of the buzzer going again. No doubt DC MacBride trying to get in. He selected the photograph of Duncan George and held it up.

‘One last thing. The other bloke who came round. Is this him?’

The young woman peered at it like someone who’s forgotten to put their contact lenses in. ‘Aye, that’s him. He deid as well? You think it was a suicide pact?’

‘Something like that, aye.’ McLean thanked her and let her go back to bed. He doubted she’d get much sleep now.

They were stuck in the traffic jam that was Leith Walk again, this time headed uphill, back towards the city centre and the station. DC MacBride was silent, though it was unclear whether he was deep in thought or sulking because McLean had left him chasing loose ends on the phone. It didn’t really matter either way; the quiet gave McLean time to try and marshal his own thoughts.

It was, as his gran had been fond of saying, something of a bugger’s muddle. Three deaths by hanging, possibly suicide but increasingly looking like some kind of elaborate pact. Quite how you could force someone to hang themselves without leaving any traces that you’d done so, McLean couldn’t begin to fathom. So each of them had to
have been willing participants. But only one person had tied the knots, which effectively made it murder.