The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(66)

Voices. No, one voice. A man calling to her. From the car. Ignore him, he’ll go away. Fucking kerb-crawler. What’s he think she is, a whore? She just wants to walk around the block. Maybe make it two blocks. Clear her head and try to calm down.

‘I said d’you want a lift?’

Don’t turn around, don’t look ... ah, shite.

‘I’m fine, OK?’ She can’t really see his face in the dark of the car. Is he smiling, or leering? Well, he can try something on if he likes.

‘Fine. Just offering.’ He winds up the window. Posh wanker with electric buttons and shite. Posh car. It’s even got two exhaust pipes, spluttering steam into the night air as he pulls away. The snow swirls around a bit, then settles back into its rhythm. Christ but it’s cold. She should have put a thicker coat on.

She hates the winter, and not just because Christmas always brings Harry’s mum over. The short days and the freezing rain, they don’t help. Makes it so you can’t get out of the house and that great blob of a beached whale staring at his huge telly. What did she ever see in him? She could have done much better, surely.

A line of cars parked along the side of the road. White snow starting to settle on the tops of them. She likes the snow, really, even if she hates the winter. Maybe tomorrow she’ll phone Shelley and they can go out to the park, if the sun comes out. Leave Harry and his mum behind. Maybe never bother going back.

One car, at the end of the line. No snow on it, just melted water dripping down the sides. Isn’t that the one just slowed down? Oh f*ck. Last thing she needs is hassle from some wanker out looking for prozzies. This isn’t a red-light zone, you arsehole. And I’m nobody’s whore.

She stoops to see if the man’s still sitting in the driver’s seat, but the car’s empty. Maybe he’s not an arsehole after all. Maybe he lives round here. Aye, right. Then why’d he offer her a lift? He’s probably hiding in the bushes right now, jerking himself off, dirty bastard. Well, fine. She’ll go home then. Just turn around and—

A man right behind her. Jesus Christ how did he ... ? Where’d he ... ? His hand reaches up, holding something. Spray hits her face, cold and wet like the snow. It smells of marzipan. She hates f*cking marzipan.

And then the lights go out.





43





McLean always felt that winter hadn’t truly arrived until there was a good dusting of snow on the ground. It soon turned to slush in the city centre, but you could always look south to the Pentlands, or across to Arthur’s Seat and see the white in all its purity. And the air always tasted cleaner, too. Though maybe that was just the cold.

The city was running at half speed in the week between Christmas and Hogmanay, which suited him fine. There was plenty to be getting on with as it was. His initial interviews of the admin staff at Carstairs Weddell hadn’t really come up with anything more positive than Mike Ayre and his goth girlfriend. SOC had found their prints in the shop, but not the office beyond, which suggested they’d only made it over the threshold before running. McLean couldn’t blame them; the place gave him the creeps too.

He flicked through the pages of interviews that the rest of his team had carried out on Christmas Day. They all said pretty much the same thing, and he was quickly coming to the conclusion that their killer wasn’t going to be found there. Likewise the staff from the auction house, though he hadn’t been able to interview all of them. It was unlikely that whoever had used Anderson’s basement would be so stupid as to be easily linked to the place. But then whoever it was would have had to’ve got hold of the keys from somewhere. None of the locks had been forced.

‘You got a minute, sir?’ The knock on the open door to his office came at the same time as the question. McLean looked up to see DC MacBride waiting to be invited over the threshold like some unconvincing vampire. He had a slim folder clutched to his breast. More paperwork. Brilliant.

‘What is it, constable?’

‘Initial fire report for the old factory over in Slateford.’ MacBride took the question as permission to enter, handing over the folder as he looked quickly around the small office. If he was hoping for somewhere to sit, he’d be disappointed.

‘You’ve read it?’ McLean flicked open the file and scanned the densely typed report within. A few technical words popped out, hurting his brain.

‘There’s a summary at the back. Basically it’s the same as the others. No obvious sign of arson, no way it could have happened by accident.’

It just caught fire, like it wanted to burn. No, that was the crazy talk of an old man gone senile. Like I’d died and gone straight to hell; the ramblings of a drunken tramp about to hit the DTs. McLean poked around the piles of folders on his desk until he came up with the other arson reports, neatly stacked, tucked away under a mountain of more pressing things to do. Somehow he managed to extricate them without everything toppling off onto the floor. He added the new fire report to the top and handed the whole lot back to MacBride.

‘I’ve heard you’re a whiz with the internet and stuff like that, Stuart,’ he said.

The detective constable took the bundle of folders and looked at it with the expression of a man who thought he was offloading his troubles, only to find them multiplied tenfold.

‘Um, I guess so, sir.’

‘Well, I want you to do a bit of digging into all of these buildings.’