The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(53)
‘You OK with this, Bob?’
‘Shouldn’t I be the one asking?’
‘Yeah, well. Wait up here until I’ve got to the bottom. We don’t want these stairs collapsing under both of us.’
The stairs creaked under his tread, but no more than might be expected. He reached the bottom without accident, then motioned for Grumpy Bob to follow. The memories were flooding back now. Here was the small space, flagstone floors and the low, white-painted, brick arch ceiling; then, through a wide opening, a bigger vault that ran the length of the shop above and out a ways under the courtyard behind. This was the room were Anderson had brought his victims, where he had done unspeakable things to them before finally killing them. One a year, every Christmas, for ten terrible years.
Like the flat upstairs, the room was largely unchanged from how it had been left by the forensic team all those years ago. They had removed the tin bath, but the taps and drain were still there. A stiff brush on a long pole leaned up against the wall beside them, a bucket with a plastic bottle of cheap supermarket floor cleaner in it nearby. The bed frame still sat across the room, lit by the single bare bulb fixed close to the apex of the central brick arch, but there was something wrong. Ten years ago, the mattress had been taken away for forensic analysis, but now there was another in its place, covered up with a thick, coarse blanket, dark brown and stained. A coil of rope looped over the bedstead, one end fallen to the floor. It dragged McLean’s attention down to the flagstones, which was when he saw the blood. And as his perceptions adjusted to take in the scene, he realised that the blanket wasn’t dark brown at all. Or at least it hadn’t started out that way.
‘Out!’ he said to Grumpy Bob, his hand still clamped over his mouth and pointing with his other to the stairs they had just come down. The sergeant didn’t need to be told twice. They both retraced their steps, all worries about the stairs forgotten in their anxiety to get away without disturbing any crucial evidence. Only when they were back in the hallway and the relatively fresh air, did McLean take his hand from over his nose and mouth.
‘We need a SOC team here as soon as possible.’ He pulled out his mobile phone as a fat, lazy bluebottle buzzed up the stairs from the hidden depths below and bumbled out into the hall.
36
‘You do realise they all hate you, Tony.’
‘Eh? What?’ McLean woke from his stupor to see the diminutive form of Emma Baird standing in front of him. She at least didn’t seem to be suffering from the ill-effects of the previous night in the pub. Her white paper overalls, overboots and hat contrasted strongly with the black and expensive-looking camera hanging from her neck on a thick strap.
They were standing in Anderson’s shop, where a couple of similarly pale technicians were dusting for fingerprints and finding loads. Hopefully DS Ritchie was even now speaking to the firm of auctioneers to get a list of all their employees who had been involved in moving Anderson’s books. He doubted any of them would turn out to be his murderer; that would have been far too easy. But they needed to be eliminated from enquiries anyway. As did the lawyers who had been in charge of the place whilst Anderson was in prison. And anyone else who might have had access in the past decade.
‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Sorry, Em. I’m just trying to get my head around this.’ He thought back to what she’d said. ‘Why do they hate me?’
‘Because it’s Christmas Eve. You’re not supposed to uncover any crimes over Christmas. It’s an unwritten rule.’
‘Yeah, well. Sorry about that. But just think about the overtime.’
Emma let out a small harrumph and headed towards the door.
‘You done upstairs already?’ McLean asked.
‘Upstairs?’ The question echoed between Emma and the senior SOC officer, who had just emerged from the basement door, his feet clacking on the metal walkway his team had laid down to avoid disturbing McLean and Grumpy Bob’s footprints. The two fingerprint technicians stopped their dusting and stared at him too. No one was smiling.
‘What? You think someone was using the basement as their torture chamber and never went upstairs?’
The SOC officer gave a weary sigh and trudged back down into the basement, shouting instructions to his team. Emma stalked past him, fuming.
‘Now I hate you, too,’ she said. He hoped she was only joking.
A last-minute frenzy had the city in its grip, as if the previous three months of advertising had been just practise for the main event. People bustled around like ants disturbed by some giant, invisible echidna, each carrying their own body weight in bags, some also leading small, screaming children. It was as close to a vision of hell as he could imagine. Even coming from the carnage of Anderson’s basement.
McLean had arranged to meet DS Ritchie outside the offices of Carstairs Weddell, Solicitors and Notaries Public. She was waiting for him at the door, five minutes early, long overcoat drawn tight against the cold.
‘Afternoon, sir.’ She stamped her feet. ‘And I thought Aberdeen was cold.’
‘You think this is bad? Wait til there’s snow in the Pentlands, then you’ll know what cold is. How’d you get on with the auctioneer’s?’
‘Most of them are off for the fortnight, but I’ve got a list of names and addresses for the team that cleared the shop out. Spoke to their antiquarian book guy. He was with them most of the time, says he didn’t see anyone go into the house. They pretty much cleared the shop into a truck and left.’