The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(79)
‘I told you before, it was a burial; they’re not the same thing. Like I said the last time, perhaps I was looking for closure.’ McLean managed a smile.
‘And did you find it?’
‘Not really, no. What’s done is done. I can’t change the past.’
‘That must be very frustrating for you.’
‘Not half as frustrating as being stuck here being asked the same stupid questions over and over again when I should be trying to track down a murderer. So if you don’t mind, Hilton, I really think I ought to be getting back to that.’
McLean stood up, half expecting the psychiatrist to try and stop him. They’d been talking less than ten minutes; nothing like the forty he’d been expecting to have to endure. But Hilton simply nodded, clicking his pen top and smiling that irritating, knowing smirk.
‘Of course. But I want to have another chat with you soon, Tony. I’ll be the one to decide when these sessions can stop. There are still unresolved issues you need to address.’
Unresolved issues, McLean thought as he slammed open the superintendent’s door, scaring her secretary, Janice. Too bloody right.
52
Father Anton was waiting at the gates when McLean walked up the street to his grandmother’s house, still fuming at the short counselling session with Hilton. He couldn’t really blame the superintendent for the way she’d bounced him into it. He knew damned well that if she’d told him beforehand he’d have found an excuse not to be there. Well, he’d have plenty of opportunities to stand the good doctor up in the future, no doubt.
‘There’s been another murder,’ the old man said by way of greeting. McLean wasn’t surprised when he fell into step beside him, heading up the long gravel drive to the house.
‘How’d you know?’
‘It was on the television news. The reporter said a body had been found in a millpond. They showed Anderson’s picture. He looked much older than I remember him.’
They reached the back door and McLean went in, beckoning the old man to follow him. Mrs McCutcheon’s cat was sitting in its usual spot on the counter next to the stove and eyed both of them warily as they entered the kitchen.
‘If you’re looking for answers then I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation with the public.’ McLean filled the kettle then put it on the stove to boil. Father Anton meanwhile took his usual chair at the kitchen table. It seemed almost as if the old man had moved in, and McLean couldn’t quite remember the number of times he’d been to visit.
‘I’m not the one looking to have questions answered, inspector.’
McLean stopped mid-way from taking the teabags out of the cupboard, his hand still in the air as he turned to face the monk. ‘Is there something you want to tell me? Something you know about the case?’
‘I’ve already told you, inspector. It’s the book. Someone has it. No, that’s not the right way of putting it. It has someone in its grip. Just like it had Donald Anderson in its grip. Once it had taken his soul.’
Groping blindly for the tea, McLean knocked a couple of boxes out of the cupboard and had to spin around to catch them. ‘Look, I know Anderson was a nasty piece of work. I know someone’s mad enough and evil enough to copy what he did. And I know there’s a book involved. But it’s not some magical medieval text. It’s a shitty little piece of tabloid journalism by a hack called Joanne Dalgliesh.’
He slammed the tea-tin down on the counter with enough force to startle the cat. It was the first time in a couple of days that he’d thought about Dalgliesh and her bloody book. But that was the cause of it, surely. That was how the man who had killed Audrey Carpenter, Kate McKenzie and Trisha Lubkin had started his sick fantasy. If Matt Hilton wanted a reason for McLean’s lack of closure it was there, hardbound and with a glossy photograph of a dead murderer on its cover. Just a pity that there was a copy of it in almost every house in the country.
‘And that’s what you truly believe? That someone can do something as evil as this man has done, just because he’s read about it in a book?’
‘Isn’t that what you’re suggesting happened anyway?’ McLean poured boiling water into the pot and wondered why he’d made tea. It was easily late enough for a beer, and after the day he’d just worked, he deserved one.
‘No. That’s not what I said at all, inspector. Weren’t you listening?’ Father Anton wrung his hands together in agitation. ‘You don’t read the Liber animorum. It reads you. It weighs up your soul, and if it finds you wanting, then it devours you. What it leaves behind is evil in its purest sense; a person without remorse. That’s what happened to Donald. He let the book read him, and it seared away everything in him that was good. What was left behind had no conscience, no pity, no empathy. Nothing.’
The old monk had risen half out of his seat as he spoke, and slumped back down as if his words had drained him of energy. In the silence that followed, McLean poured tea and thought it seemed a very trite thing to do. Finally, as he pushed a mug across the table, he said: ‘There is no book. I’ve checked the records. I told you before. One of my sergeants even went through the stores to see if we’d accidentally missed a box. It’s not there. It never was. I don’t know why I even listen to you going on about it, except that you knew Anderson. I hoped that maybe you’d have been able to give me a few insights into how he became what he was.’