The Book of Souls (The Inspector McLean Mysteries) (40 page)

McLean looked at the clock above the door. Quarter to three already. Where had the day gone?

'He won't read it anyway, trust me. Just put all your notes in chronological order and bind the whole thing so it looks pretty. Sue in admin will do it for you if you promise her some chocolate. I need that list now. It's much more important than Dagwood's bloody filing.'

*

'Christ what a day.'

McLean slumped into the window seat and reached for the untouched pint on the table in front of him. It was cold, wet and the first pleasurable thing that had happened to him since waking that morning. He drank deep, sinking fully a third of the beer before coming up for breath.

'Looks like you needed that.' Phil sat on the other side of the table, a half-grin on his face. His own pint was barely touched.

'God save me from journalists,' McLean said. 'A pox on all of them. And bloody profilers, too.'

'Let me guess. They've been writing unhelpful things about the police again.'

'Worse, I've got to work with them.' McLean told his friend about the press conference, the DCC and Matt Hilton. He'd spent the whole afternoon closeted in a stuffy room with the psychologist, feeling like it was him being analysed, not the man who they were trying to catch.

'I swear, if I hear someone say 'conflict resolution' once more I'm going to hit them.' He took the pint down to the half-way line. 'That or 'Oedipus complex.' Can you believe that someone actually suggested Donald Anderson killed all those people because he was trying to come to terms with being abandoned as a child? The little tit actually said he chose women that represented some idealised notion of his mother, then raped and killed them to get his revenge. Jesus.' And the rest of the pint was gone.

'You must be stressed,' Phil said. 'I've never seen a drink disappear so fast. And you don't normally talk about your cases until they're closed.'

McLean rubbed at his face, picked up the empty glass and looked at the foamy suds in the bottom. Put it back down on the table.

'Sorry, Phil. It's just picking at the scab, you know. Everyone's gabbing away about motives and planning and the symbolic importance of this and that, and there I am thinking about Kirsty. What that bastard did to her.'

'D'you really think you should be working this case, then?' Phil reached for the glass but McLean beat him to it.

'No, my turn Phil. You know the rules.' He stood up and shuffled around the table. 'And I asked for the case. I pleaded for it. There's no way I was going to let anyone else fuck it up.'

The pub was busy, with only one harassed barmaid serving the throng of thirsty students. McLean waited his turn in a parody of a queue and tried to forget the job, just for a moment. Forget Hilton's increasingly wild speculation. Forget the frustration of waiting for Aberdeen to get back with their list. Forget that he now had to waste valuable hours writing up reports for Dagwood that would never be read. Forget... ah fuck it, who was he kidding.

Clutching two fresh pints and with a packet of chilli flavour crisps between his teeth, McLean made it back to the table after what seemed like only a week or so. Phil was still nursing the first half of his beer, so maybe it hadn't been that long.

'How was your Christmas then? How's Rae?' he asked after he had split open the bag for them to share.

'Fraught,' Phil said, then after a little consideration added: 'both of them.'

'Oh? Did she not get on with your parents, then?'

'I guess so. Sort of. But you know what my mum's like. Give her a drama and she'll make a crisis out of it. Rae's gone completely mad about the wedding anyway. Put the two of them together and, well, it's light the blue touch paper and stand back.'

'Ah well. At least they're a long way away. You only need to see them every once in a while.'

'Don't you believe it. They're talking about coming up here for a few weeks to help get things sorted out. A few weeks!' Phil took a long drink, then looked at McLean with a conspiratorial air. 'You're rattling around in that old place of your Gran's, Tony. You could put them up.'

'Rattling around? Says who? I'll have you know I've had plenty of people come to see me since I moved in.'

'Aye, Grumpy Bob and that lad MacBride I'll bet. Drinking your whisky. I know what they're like.'

'Actually they're probably the only ones who haven't been round yet. I had the carol singers in before Christmas. Emma's been a couple of times.'

'Oh yes?' Phil nudged McLean in the ribs. 'Tell Uncle Phil all the details.'

'In your dreams, Jenkins. A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell.'

'So there was kissing involved. Better and better. At least tell me you've asked her to the wedding. Rae's going to go mental if you haven't.'

McLean looked at his watch, then around the bar. 'She's supposed to be meeting me here tonight, as it happens. I didn't think she'd be this late. Maybe she's still mad at me.'

'Mad at you? What've you been up to, Tony?'

McLean did his best to explain, though for the life of him he couldn't see what the problem had been. 'She was in the station this morning though, delivering stuff to the evidence store. Said she'd meet here at eight. Everything seemed fine.'

'Well that's women for you. Right now she's probably sitting with her feet up on the sofa, watching a soppy movie on the telly. She's got a litre carton of ice cream and just the one spoon. And that's all the company she needs right now. Tomorrow she'll phone you with some excuse about a crap day and falling asleep in the armchair. Mark my words.'

'But she said...' McLean stopped as his brain caught up with his mouth. Phil was right, of course. This was just a little light revenge for a missed lunch.

'Mind you, she's cutting off her nose to spite her face. I mean, she could have had my delightful company, fine ale and the distinct possibility of kebabs. Instead she's got Meg Ryan, Sleepless in Seattle and a quart of Hagen Daaz. A poor deal, I reckon.'

McLean looked at his empty glass, then up to the bar with its line of hand pumps waiting to be sampled. Thought about the shitty day that had just passed and the one that was going to come tomorrow.

'Did you say kebabs?'

~~~~

57

He knows it is a dream before he even sees anything. The fear is there, lurking like an old friend in the back of his mind. Like a murderer. Like a rapist.

The fog swirls around him, thick as tar and just as black. For a moment it is difficult to breathe, and then breathing isn't important anymore. Just the fear.

A lamp-post appears ahead of him, chasing away some of the darkness. It's old-fashioned, cast-iron, with a heavy glass head on the top of it, sputtering as it burns the poor-quality gas. He can smell the rotten-eggs sulphur of the smoke, thick like the fog. Alive.

Onwards, and the street opens up to him like a corpse on the mortuary table. Incised, peeled back to reveal the sick secrets behind each new façade. His feet are cold. The sensation causes him to look down, moist cobbles glistening like the round coils of spilled entrails. And when he looks back up again, he is here already.

No time passes between opening the door and standing in the oddly bright office, but he remembers the shop he must surely have crossed. Dark, dusty shelves, long emptied of the books that gave this place reason. All are gone save one. It lies open in front of him.

Kirsty stares up at him from the open page. Her eyes are dead, her hair splayed out around her head like a halo of dark, rippling softly as the Water of Leith tries to carry it away to the sea.

He turns the page.

Audrey Carpenter scowls at him, angry at the world, her father, her stupid death. She struggles against the bonds that tie her, then tumbles away in the flow as they snap.

He turns the page.

Kate McKenzie sobs for her lost love as she floats face up in the cold, cold burn. Tears trickle from her eyes, sliding down the sides of her face in a never-ending stream. The water is deep now, his shoes ruined, his trousers soaked. He can feel it rising up to his chin, threatening to overwhelm him. Drowned in a sea of tears.

Grasping for a lifeline, he turns the page again.

Trisha Lubkin fights against invisible shackles, shouting and screaming silent curses. Her head snaps back and forward as she tries to head-butt an invisible, faceless foe. Then her eyes catch his and he can hear her chastising him, in the voice of the Deputy Chief Constable. 'Why didn't you look for me sooner? Why did you let him kill me?'

Ashamed, he turns the page once more.

It is blank; plain parchment scraped smooth, ready for the next soul. But as he watches, lines start to appear, bubbling up from nowhere. They form a rectangle at the top of the page, the border of a new picture as yet indistinct. The fear grips him harder now, sinking its talons into him so that he can't escape. Can't turn the page. Can't turn his head or close his eyes. Only watch as the image slowly forms, like a photograph being developed. And like a darkroom, everything is bathed in hellish red.

He knows what he is seeing long before the image has set. A woman lies spread-eagled on a blood-stained mattress, her arms and legs chained to the metal frame of an ancient bed. She is naked, motionless, he cannot tell if she is dead or alive. He strains to see her face, knowing full well who she is. He has seen that body before.

And beneath the picture, a word begins to form, beginning with a large, drop-cap letter E.

~~~~

58

The ringing phone woke him for the second time in as many days. For a moment he was confused; he'd set the alarm, he was sure of it. Then he noticed the time: five in the morning. Never a good time to get a call.

'McLean.' He winced at the dryness of his throat. The voice on the other end was not one he recognised.

'Inspector McLean? Lothian and Borders?'

'Yes. Who is this?' A female voice, but beyond that he had no clue.

'Oh, yes. Sorry. I'm Alison, Alison Connell. I work with Emma Baird on the SOC team. I think we've probably met a few times actually. Umm. Is she there? Emma?'

A chill gripped McLean's body that had nothing to do with the lack of central heating. He scrabbled out of bed and went to the window, staring out at the frosty darkness beyond. 'No, she's not. I've not seen her since yesterday morning. Why?'

'We've been trying to page her for the last hour. She's meant to be on call. I tried her home number but it just went to message. And, well... She mentioned something about seeing you, so I thought... sorry.'

'No, don't be.' McLean rubbed at his eyes, trying to clear his muddled thoughts from the outside. 'When did you last see her?'

'I've been on a different shift since Monday, but I asked around here and no-one's seen her since she left yesterday morning. I had a quick check of her computer and she's not logged on since then either.'

'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 streetlight 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 robin 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 the 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.