The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(30)

‘They’re going to have to get this sorted soon.’ DC MacBride showed his warrant card to a uniform standing at the blue and white tape, then inched slowly forward into the street. Two fire engines were still in attendance, though their hoses were stored away. The fire investigation team’s truck was there too, across the street where McLean had laid Mr Sheen down on the pavement the night before. A half a dozen cars sat more abandoned than parked. Closer in, the battered old white Transit van of the SOC team stood with its rear doors wide open. Beside it, a large flatbed truck was slowly being denuded of its load of scaffolding.

They parked as far away from the action as possible, and as McLean got out of the car, he looked up at what had, for the past fifteen years, been his home. The fa?ade of the building was still intact, but none of the windows remained. Black streaks of soot ran from each opening like upside-down tears. From a distance, he could see that the roof had partly collapsed in, the stark shapes of the chimney stacks silhouetted against the darkening evening sky.

‘Fuck me. I mean ... Sorry, sir.’ DC MacBride looked down at his shoes.

‘No, I think you’re right, Stuart. Fuck me just about sums it up.’ McLean stared up at what had been his living-room window as an aeroplane flew over in the distance, sinking down on its way to Ingliston. For a surreal moment, he could see it through the window and the missing ceiling beyond. Then it passed out of view.

‘What’re we here for then, sir?’ Grumpy Bob had come out without a coat, and paced around, rubbing his hands together and occasionally stamping his feet. Of the three of them, he hadn’t looked up at the building, and seemed to be avoiding doing so.

‘I’m not really sure, Bob,’ McLean said. ‘I just wanted to see what had survived. Looks like not much.’

He walked over to the SOC van, looking for a familiar face. It appeared in a rush of squealing that sounded almost like a pig being strangled. Before he could tell what was happening, he had been enveloped in a huge, crushing hug that made his lungs burn, his throat scream.

‘Please, Emma. I can’t breathe.’ McLean extricated himself from the SOC officer’s embrace and she stepped back, suddenly self-conscious.

‘When I heard ... the address ... I thought ...’

McLean took her hands in his. ‘It’s OK, Emma. I wasn’t in there when it started.’

‘But they said you were in the hospital.’

‘I got a bit of smoke in my lungs trying to get someone out.’ He coughed as if to emphasise the point. ‘Look, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. Tell me what’s going on. Have you found anything yet?’

‘We can’t get inside. They’re still trying to stabilise the building.’

McLean walked past the SOC van and picked his way through the detritus lying about the street until he reached the pavement. A crew had begun assembling scaffolding up the entire front of the building, working with much greater delicacy than he had ever seen it done before. Looking up, it felt like the whole sandstone wall was swaying outwards, but it was just the clouds passing by high above. The front door was strangely still intact, propped open with a bit of broken pavement the way the previous students had always left it, and beyond, lit by powerful arc lights, all he could see was a narrow tunnel.

Something brushed past his legs. McLean almost jumped, then looked down to see a black cat nuzzling his trousers with the side of its soot-smeared face. He bent down and offered his hand, then scratched the animal behind its ears. Turning back to the tenement, he could see through the bay window at the front where old Mrs McCutcheon had used to sit of an evening, watching the world go by. Looking around for someone to ask, he spotted a fireman coming out of the front door tunnel.

‘The old lady who lived downstairs,’ he said, getting the fireman’s attention. ‘Did she get out all right?’

‘Couldn’t tell you, pal. Nobody in there now, mind. Have a word wi’ Jim. He’ll know.’

McLean thanked the man then headed off for the fire investigation truck, trailed by the cat. Jim Burrows looked up from his desk as he knocked on the door.

‘Inspector. Good to see you up and about. You didn’t look in such good shape last night.’

‘A bit too much smoke. I don’t know how you guys cope with it.’

‘We wear breathing apparatus. And we don’t generally go running into a burning building without working out a plan first. You know you’re lucky to be alive.’

‘I know.’ McLean suppressed a shudder. ‘And I should’ve known better. I’ve had basic training in fires.’

‘What were you doing in there anyway? Just walking past and decided to play hero?’

‘Nobody told you?’ McLean was surprised. But then there was probably no reason why anybody would have done. ‘I live there. Top flat on the end. Well, I used to live there, I suppose.’

Burrows looked at him with an unreadable expression. ‘Ach, I’m sorry. So the old man—’

‘Mr Sheen. He’d been there more than fifteen years. I never did know what his first name was.’

‘We found other bodies. Four in the right-hand side, second floor. All badly burned. Two in each of the first-floor flats. And there was one in the main door. Small, that one was, buried under a lot of stuff, so probably the ground floor, maybe the first.’