The Book of Souls (Inspector McLean #2)(91)
‘Listen, she’s probably had to go home to Aberdeen in a hurry or something. Probably forgot to charge her mobile.’
‘Yeah, you’re right. Em can be a bit scatty at times. Sorry to have rung so early, only the boss can be a bit ... well ... I probably shouldn’t say.’
‘It’s OK, I was awake anyway.’ McLean said goodbye and hung up. Outside on the lawn, Mrs McCutcheon’s cat stalked across a patch of lawn painted orange by the street light filtering through the trees. It crouched and slunk, every inch the hunter, creeping ever closer to its prey. He was about to tap on the window when the cat pounced, landing on an unsuspecting bird in an explosion of feathers. A swipe with a paw, a grab with its mouth and the whole thing was over. It padded off towards the dark bushes with its kill.
Light flickered in the stained glass of the church window as McLean slowed his car at the end of the street. He’d never really paid the place much attention; it was there, a solid centre to the local community, but his grandmother had scoffed at religion and he had learnt her scepticism at an early age. Someone was up at this early hour, and busy about their devotions. Alongside the church, the manse was as black as all the other houses nearby. People wouldn’t be stirring from their warm beds for hours yet.
Not quite sure why, he pulled over. When he pushed against the heavy oak doors, it was with little expectation that they would be unlocked, but they swung open on cold and almost dark. Stepping over the threshold felt like entering a new world.
The light he had seen came from a pair of stubby red candles flickering on the altar at the far end of the nave. Rows of wooden pews flanked the aisle, a narrow red carpet partially covering the stone floor. The ceiling vaulted high overhead, supported by reassuringly heavy columns, but the shadow of the carved stone buttresses swallowed the flickering light like a hungry monster. The tall stained-glass windows were black, dead eyes. No dawn for hours yet.
McLean walked slowly down the aisle, grateful for the soft carpet that silenced his footsteps. Nothing should be allowed to spoil the echoing silence that filled the cold space. Nothing save the low susurrus of prayer rising up from a point somewhere in the darkness in front of the altar.
‘You came. I knew you would.’ Father Anton’s voice sounded tired, as if the old monk hadn’t slept in weeks. He didn’t turn at first, though he clambered onto unsteady feet and bowed his head once more to the altar.
‘I had a dream,’ McLean said. ‘About the book.’
Only then did Father Anton turn away from his prayers. ‘I know.’
In the flickering half-light, he looked paler than before. Even his coat seemed faded to a slate grey. Only his eyes gleamed, catching the candle flame and reflecting it back.
‘What does it mean?’ McLean asked.
‘Come, sit.’ Anton pointed to the nearest pew and shuffled over to it, settling himself down on the hard wooden bench with a dreadful creaking of joints. ‘Tell me what you saw, in your dream.’
McLean sat down beside the old man and tried to gather his thoughts. The images, feelings and half memories were swirling around in his head, not helped either by the atmosphere of this cold church with its echoing silence, or by the five pints of beer and a kebab he had consumed scant hours earlier.
‘It started round about the time Anderson died,’ he said after a while, then realised that this wasn’t true. ‘Actually, it’s been going on ever since I found my fiancée’s dead body in the Water of Leith. Every year, come Christmas time, I dream of her. But this year it was different. This year I started to dream of Anderson’s shop, and the book. Last night I saw inside it, the dead women. They each had a page. And I saw a new one being written. I think there might be another victim. Someone I know.’
‘Tell me, how did you find Donald, inspector?’
The question took McLean by surprise. ‘I thought you knew the story. He had a strip of cloth, was using it as a bookmark. I recognised it as part of Kirsty’s dress.’
‘No, you misunderstand me. I meant how did you know to go looking in that shop? What were you doing there? You specifically. The only person who would know the significance of what you saw?’
‘I ... I don’t really know. We were profiling. Anderson must have fit something.’ But that didn’t ring true. The profiles had been rubbish.
‘You weren’t on the case, though, were you. The minute your fiancée was identified as a victim, you would have been taken off the team. I’d have expected compassionate leave too.’
McLean said nothing. Anton was right. There was no way he could have stayed on the investigating team once Kirsty was confirmed as a victim. And yet for all these years he’d been telling himself that he’d caught Anderson by chance, following up a random action spewed out by the computers.
‘You went there, I think. To his shop. Before he took your fiancée. Maybe you wanted to buy a book, maybe you were just asking questions. It’s not important. What is important is that you saw the book then. It read you and you survived.’
‘I don’t remember.’ And he didn’t, truly. The more he tried to focus on the events leading up to that terrible time, the less he could be sure of what was real and what was nightmare. The old monk’s mad tales were getting to him, that and the setting. What had he been thinking, coming into a church in the wee small hours? Why did he even listen to this madman?