The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(41)

‘Nonna died when Katie was just ten.’ Debbie looked up at McLean, her eyes red-rimmed and filled with tears. ‘How’s that fair, inspector? To lose someone like that and be left with your drunken bastard of a father to raise you?’

‘Did she ... did Kate have any other family?’

‘I’m her family. We were going to get married.’ Debbie held up a shaking hand to show a slim silver band on her ring finger. ‘We needed to save up for the wedding. That’s why I was so angry with her throwing out her dad’s stuff. He had some valuable things, but she just gave them away.’

McLean supposed he should have seen it. One-bedroom flat, no sign of a fold-down bed anywhere. But what did he know about modern relationships? Nothing at all, it would seem. He sighed, pulling the other photograph out of his pocket.

‘Listen, Debbie. I know this is hard. But could I ask you to look at something?’ He handed the picture over, all too aware of how similar Audrey Carpenter was to Kate McKenzie. And how different. ‘Do you know this woman at all?’

Debbie sniffed loudly, wiping her nose with the back of her hand whilst she looked at the photograph. Her eyes were already red and puffy, and now new tears filled them to overflowing. But McLean saw no glint of recognition in them. She shook her head once, before handing the picture back.

‘She’s ... she’s dead too?’

McLean nodded.

‘Oh my God. Was it the same person? Oh God. Katie.’ Then DS Ritchie arrived with tea and Debbie burst into tears.

An orange-red gloaming had filled the sky by the time a family liaison officer arrived to escort a white-faced Debbie Wright to the mortuary for a formal identification. Rush-hour traffic already clogged the roads, and McLean could only watch in frustration as the temperature gauge on the Alfa Romeo climbed past the one hundred mark and on towards the red. So much for the romantic image of the detective in the classic sports car. A line of unmoving vehicles snaked away from them towards the gates to Holyrood Park, brake lights blazing angrily.

‘What do you reckon to Debbie Wright then, sergeant?’

Beside him, uncomfortably upright in the passenger seat and looking like she was terrified she might break something, Ritchie didn’t answer at once.

‘She’s either genuinely distraught or a very good actress,’ she said after a while. ‘But she does have a copy of Dalgliesh’s book.’

‘You had a snoop around while you were making the tea?’

‘No. Well, yes. But it was in the living room. She had quite a collection of true-crime books, and some novels, too.’

‘So you reckon it was a crime of passion covered up to look like the return of a famous monster?’

‘It’s always possible.’ Ritchie didn’t sound as if she meant it.

‘No, not really. Kate McKenzie was raped. That kind of rules out Debbie. And there’s no sign she was accidentally pushed down the stairs, or even stabbed in a fight. Whoever abducted her planned the whole thing in minute detail. He knew what he was going to do, and how he was going to get rid of the body afterwards.’

‘So we’re not much further along with the investigation than we were first thing this morning.’

‘On the contrary,’ McLean said. ‘We know our victim’s name and we know the address where she was most likely staying. We’ve got a timeframe for her abduction. Now all we have to do is work out where it happened and who did it.’

‘You make it sound easy, sir.’ Ritchie’s voice dripped sarcasm.

‘It’s never easy, sergeant. But we have to keep trying. And we know more about Kate McKenzie than we’ve managed to find out about Audrey Carpenter in over two weeks.’

The traffic freed up as they entered the park. McLean increased his speed a little, hoping some airflow over the radiator would stop the engine from blowing up.

‘This isn’t the way back to the station,’ DS Ritchie said after a while.

‘Top marks for observation. We’re not finished yet.’ McLean negotiated a set of double miniature roundabouts outside Holyrood Palace, and then ground to a halt in the next snaking queue of traffic.

‘Where’re we going, then?’

‘Gracemount,’ McLean said. ‘Just off the top of Liberton Brae, if memory serves. That’s where Kate McKenzie’s father lived, and that’s where she most likely went after she ran out on her girlfriend.’

‘Don’t we need a warrant to get in?’

‘Who’re we going to serve it against? Father and daughter are both dead.’

‘Well then? How’re we going to get in?’

McLean smiled, keeping his eyes on the road as the traffic lurched forward again. ‘I really have no idea.’





29





Lifford Road was a fairly nondescript suburban street, perched on the east side of Liberton Brae; a rat run for commuter traffic making its way to Moredun and Gilmerton. No. 31, home of the late Donald McKenzie, had the look of neglect empty houses soon acquire. The front lawn was little more than a few square yards of overgrown scrubby grass and dead bedding plants, strewn with litter blown in on the constant wind that howled off the Firth of Forth across the city. McLean parked over the road from it, next to a wet patch of parkland, empty save for an old man walking an arthritic Westie.