The Book of Souls (The Inspector McLean Mysteries) (8 page)

'There were nae lights in there. Took the 'lectrics out a week past. That's why I didnae much like staying there after dark.'

McLean sniffed the air, then wished he hadn't. There were many unpleasant aromas best left unidentified in the flat, but tobacco smoke wasn't one of them. 'You don't smoke, do you, Mr McGregor.'

'No' since Esme died. Was the cancer that took her.'

'I'm sorry to hear that, sir. What about Mr Randolph? Or the electricians?'

'There's no smoking on site. It's a workplace, see. That's the law. Had yon fire chappie round about a few days past, tellin' us all aboot it.'

'So there was no electricity in the place, and no stray cigarettes.' McLean look around at DC Robertson. This case was starting to bear an uncomfortable similarity to the nine other fires, with equally little hope of ever being solved. 'Christ, how does an empty warehouse, locked up like a bank and with no wiring in it spontaneously catch on fire?'

'I told you. The building did it tae itself.' McGregor leant forward in his saggy armchair, gnarled hands clenching the faded and ripped covers on the arms as if he were about to have a heart attack. McLean rocked back on his heels, bashing against a box that clinked as if it were full of china.

'I'm afraid I don't understand you, Mr McGregor.'

'No, I don't suppose you do. You young lads're all the same. No idea of place, you dinnae ken whit history's all aboot. It's no' kings and queens an' dates and shite like that. It's folk living an' working an' dying. That's what the Woodbury was. A place of work, a factory for all those years. Centre of the community like the Kirk and the pubs. Then they went and turned it into a warehouse. That was bad enough, but this, expensive flats for rich folk. A swimming pool. Jings, the building couldnae take that. All those memories. All those lives. The sweat and blood. I could feel it coming. Feel something coming. I wasnae surprised when they telt me it had gone. It wanted to die, y'see. It burned itself.'

*

The cold air outside Mr McGregor's flat was a welcome relief when they finally escaped ten minutes later. DC Robertson started to walk back to the car, but McLean stopped him.

'Leave it where it is, constable. You don't want to lose a parking space round here. They're like gold dust.'

'Are we no' going back to the station?' Robertson looked at his watch.

'Not just now, no. We're only a few minutes walk from the fire. Might as well drop by. See if the fire investigation team have had a chance to look at it yet.'

A temporary traffic light system was doing its best to ease the congestion when they reached the burnt out hulk of the Woodbury Building. A large fire investigation truck took up the southbound lane, and high metal barriers had been erected all around the front to protect idiots from falling masonry. The street wasn't a major thoroughfare, but it was busy. Chances were it was going to be blocked for quite some time. Judging by the sounding of horns, and the air of barely constrained rage, the city's travelling public weren't very happy about that.

The fire investigation truck housed all manner of arcane equipment, but most of it was turned over to a temporary command centre. A harassed-looking fireman greeted them with what might have been a smile but looked more like a grimace. He had a phone tucked between his head and hunched shoulder and was juggling with several sheets of paper.

'Aye?'

'DI McLean.' McLean held out his warrant card but didn't say any more.

'You'll need to speak to Jim. Jim Burrows. He's inside. Follow the path and you'll find him.'

'Thanks.' McLean made to leave but before he reached the door the man shouted back.

'Wait a mo. You'll need these.' He held up a couple of hard hats which McLean took, handing one on to DC Robertson.

'Not that they'll do you much good,' the fireman added. 'If a wall comes down or summat.'

Suitably hatted, the two detectives ventured through the front doors of the building, into an image from World War Two London. The fire had been completely extinguished, but it hadn't left much behind. Most of the detritus was made up of broken roof tiles, with here and there a charred piece of roof truss or floorboard.  A path had been cleared in a wide circle, picking its way past the biggest piles of rubble towards the middle of the vast space. Looking up, McLean could see the cold grey clouds rushing past with the wind. For a moment, framed against the stark, blackened stone walls, it felt as if the whole building were hurtling along at great speed. He quickly looked back down again, staggering slightly as his sense of motion caught up with him. Ahead, DC Robertson didn't seem to have noticed.

They found two fire investigators busy conferring over a folded paper floor plan in a small patch of clear ground at the heart of the old building. One of them looked up at their approach, eyes narrowing.

'Jim Burrows?' McLean asked.

'Aye. And you'd be?'

McLean made the introductions. 'I was just talking to the caretaker. Thought I'd check in and see how you're getting on. I know you won't have much for me yet.'

'Well, you're right enough there. We're still trying to work out where the damn thing started. I'm thinking it's somewhere round about where we're standing, but that doesn't explain why she went up the way she did.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, by the look of the floor here, this is where the fire burned hottest.' Burrows pointed at the charred and blackened concrete. 'But according to these plans, we're nowhere near a pillar or anything. Even if there'd been a big pile of pallets or something here, it shouldn't have set the whole building off like that.'

'Any sign of accelerants?'

'Not the usual, anyway. You'd smell it even after all this. Careful laddie. You don't want that lot coming down on top of you.'

McLean looked to where Burrows had directed his warning, seeing DC Robertson staring up at a precariously balanced roof beam sitting on a heap of broken tiles as tall as him. Then there was a sudden crack, and the constable disappeared.

~~~~

13

"January 27th 2000 saw the close of a dark chapter in Edinburgh history. For that was the day Lothian and Borders Police raided the house and shop of Donald Anderson, an antiquarian book dealer. It wasn't dogged investigation that brought them to this place; not the application of sound procedure; but more the random hand of fate. It was by chance that Anderson had chosen the fiancée of a young detective constable as his victim. It was by chance that same detective came to his shop looking for a book, and found instead a memento of his murdered bride-to-be. That single, simple clue, that strip torn from the hem of a hand-me-down dress, was enough to bring to an end the longest manhunt in the history of the city. For when they entered the basement of that innocuous-looking bookshop, the true identity of the Christmas Killer was finally revealed."

A tutting noise brings him to his senses, and he notices the shop-assistant standing by the stack that has such prominence at the front of the shop. He looks at his hands and realises that he has dropped the book to the floor.

He should have known this would happen. Part of him did. He's changed his phone number twice to try and stop the calls, the endless requests for interviews and banal questions about how he feels. He feels nothing. He feels everything.

And then there is this.

The table holds hundreds of copies of the book, each bearing that hated face on its cover. The windows of the bookshop are filled with posters, each six foot high and showing the same dreadful figure. Donald Anderson is famous; the monster who has terrorised the winter city streets for a decade, now made flesh. Immortalised by this book, this bestseller he can't even bear to hold. The Christmas Killer is in every bookshop in town. It's plastered on the side of buses trawling up and down Princes Street, thrust upon the poor unwary traveller in a thousand different hoardings, bus stops, magazines and newspapers. The number one bestseller, its author will be doing the circuit, pressing the flesh, appearing on daytime TV, raking in the cash. Donald Anderson has been good to Joanne Dalgliesh. Very good indeed.

There are ten grieving families who can't say the same.

He turns away from the stand, blind to the shop assistant as she picks up the fallen book, wipes it with her hand as if it is a thing of beauty, puts it back with all the others. He cannot see the world around him, the seething masses seeking titillation in the sensationalist deeds of terrible evil. All he can see is the cold dirt shovelled onto a dark wooden coffin in the icy rain.

~~~~

14

'What the hell were you doing in there anyway? Shouldn't you be trying to identify your dead body? '

Chief Superintendent McIntyre stood with her hands on her hips. Head thrust slightly forward and legs apart as she shouted, she looked like a fishwife berating her drunken husband. McLean had barely managed to stand up from the uncomfortable plastic chair in the hospital waiting room before she had started to tear him off a strip.

'The PM wasn't till half four.' He glanced at his watch, shifted uncomfortably, wanting to take a step back, knowing that if he did so she would just move closer again until he was pinned against the far wall. 'Guess I'm going to miss it now.'

'Oh?' McIntyre's eyebrows arched. 'Why's that? It's not as if you're doing any good here.'

'Well... I...' McLean stopped talking. There was nothing he could usefully do from a hospital waiting room but assuage his guilt at almost getting one of his junior officers killed.

'How's Robertson, anyway?' The chief superintendent leaned back, her angry expression softening.

'He's in surgery right now. They reckon he's fractured his pelvis and broken his back. His spinal chord's not severed though; they're hoping he'll be able to walk again.'

'Thank Christ for small mercies. What the hell happened?' McIntyre sat down, the bollocking over at least for now. McLean took the chair next to her.

'He fell through the floor. Well, it collapsed underneath him. The fire investigator said the concrete had probably all blown away from the underside with the heat. It's so bloody stupid. McGregor told us they'd built the place on top of an old Close, but the plans didn't say anything about a cellar. I guess they must have just forgotten all about it. Poor bloody Peter. He's only just started. This'll kill his career; even if he does make a full recovery it's going to take months. Years even.'

'He'll be all right, Tony.' McIntyre put her hand on McLean's, a brief, comforting contact. 'We look after our own.'

'Shit, I'm sorry Ma'am. It's not as if we can spare the manpower, is it.'

'No.' McIntyre looked thoughtful for a moment, a half smile coming to her face as she thought of something. 'We'll just have to see about promoting someone to CID on a temporary basis. Same as happened to you, if I remember right. That turned out more or less OK, I suppose.'

'Inspector McLean?' A woman, too young surely to be a doctor, stood before them wearing a long white coat, a stethoscope and a weary expression.

'Any news?' McLean stood up.

'They've just finished working on him. It's, well, it could have been a lot worse.'

'He'll be able to walk again?'

'There's hope. He's got some inflammation around the break in his back. That's putting pressure on the nerve right now, but it's still intact. We won't know for sure until he comes round, and we're keeping him sedated for now.'

'How long, before you know?'

'Tomorrow. Maybe.'

'Please, doctor, keep me informed.' McIntyre stood up and handed over her card. The doctor looked at it, her eyes widening with surprise as she read. 'There's work and private numbers on there. Call any time. Day or night. As soon as you have any news.' Then she turned on McLean. 'And you can get over to the mortuary. We need an ID on this dead girl. And fast.'