The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(3)
3
An icy rain whips around the cemetery, turning the winter snow into salt-grey slush. The sky is leaden, clouds settling down over the small party like a drowning wave. He stands at the edge of the grave, staring down into blackness as nearby a minister mutters meaningless platitudes.
Movement now, and strong men grasp the sash cords slipped under the coffin. She is inside it, lying still and cold in his mother’s favourite dress. Her favourite dress. No good to anyone now. He wants to break open the lid and look on her face just one more time. He wants to cradle her in his arms and will the past to melt away. For the bad things to have never happened. What would he give to go back just a couple of months? His soul? Of course. Bring on the contract and the blood-tipped quill. He has no need of a soul now that she’s gone.
But he doesn’t move. Can’t move. He should be helping the strong men lower her into the earth, but he can’t. It’s all he can do to stay standing.
A hand on his arm. He turns to see a woman dressed all in black. Tears run down her white-painted face, but her eyes are full of an angry hatred. They stare at him full of accusation. It’s his fault that all this has happened. His fault that her baby girl, her only joy, is slowly being covered with shovels of earth. Food for the worms. Dead.
He can’t deny those eyes. They’re right. He is to blame. Better she push him in the grave now. He won’t stop her. He’d be happy to lie on that coffin while they threw the dirt on top of him. Anything would be better than trying to live without her.
But he knows that’s what he will do.
4
Noon had scarcely passed and the late autumn sun was already heading for bed. McLean stared up at the clouds hanging in mackerel strips high above Salisbury Crags and shivered at the thought of impending winter. The concrete hulk of the station would swallow him into a world of artificial light and tinted windows soon enough. For now he just wanted to feel the wind on his face. Be anywhere but inside.
‘You going to stand out here all day, sir? Only there’s a cup of tea with my name on it in there.’ Grumpy Bob slammed shut the door of the pool car and set across the car park towards the back door of the station. He’d not gone more than a half dozen paces when a blaring of horns made him jump back in alarm. Brakes squealed and a shiny new Jaguar estate ground to a halt on the ramp that led down to the secure storage under the station. A tall figure pushed open the driver’s door before struggling out and limping around the front of the car.
‘Sorry about that, Bob. Didn’t see you in the sunlight.’
‘Jesus, Needy. You nearly had me there.’ Grumpy Bob put a theatrical hand over his chest, the other patting the car’s bonnet. ‘Nice motor, mind. I must have missed the news about sergeants’ pay.’
‘Now, now, Bob. Just because you spend all your money on beer and loose women.’ McLean looked over at Needy, Sergeant John Needham to those who didn’t know him well. King of the subterranean depths of the station, the evidence locker and labyrinthine warren of archives and stores. Normally he could be relied on to bring a touch of humour to any situation. Now though, he looked strained, grey-faced and tired.
‘Afternoon, sir.’ Needy moved stiffly to address McLean, his damaged leg obviously giving him more gyp than usual. McLean remembered the athletic detective sergeant who’d taken him under his wing all those years ago. If not for an unfortunate encounter with a drunken, bottle-wielding thug, it would have more likely been Needy running the investigation and McLean calling him sir.
‘Afternoon, Needy.’ McLean nodded at Grumpy Bob. ‘He’s right though. It’s a nice motor. You decided to treat yourself to a retirement present? Can’t be long now.’
‘February.’ Needy didn’t look altogether happy about the prospect. ‘Just need to get Christmas and Hogmanay behind us, then it’s goodbye to all this.’ He held up his hands as if praying to the courtyard and looming walls. Or taking applause from the silent windows. ‘There were Needhams working out of the old station before they even built this place. Reckon about a hundred years of service, all told. And I’m the last.’
‘How is the old man, by the way?’ McLean asked. Tom Needham, beat copper for forty years, man and boy. It’d been a while since he’d last visited the station, wandering around as if he owned the place and poking his knobbly walking stick into everyone’s business. No matter that he was long retired and didn’t have clearance; there wasn’t a senior officer in the district would dare tell him to go home.
A shadow passed over Needy’s face and he began the laborious process of lowering himself back into his car.
‘He’s in the hospital again. I was on my way over to see him.’
‘Well give him my best,’ McLean said. ‘And don’t let us keep you.’
‘Aye, I’ll not at that,’ Needy said. ‘I want to be as far away from here as possible when Dagwood hears about your raid this morning.’
‘How could you possibly know anything about that?’ McLean asked, but Needy just smiled, pulled the door closed and drove off.
The tension grew as you climbed the stairs from the back foyer towards the dark heart of the station. McLean could feel it as a stillness in the air, a heavy weight on his shoulders, a pressure in his sinuses. And then there was the smell of fear that pervaded the corridors. Either that or some of the junior constables were in need of a wash.