Prayer for the Dead: A Detective Inspector McLean Mystery (15 page)

He had to wind the window down to keep cool; there was no air-conditioning in the little Alfa, of course. Even so McLean reckoned he must have had an idiot grin plastered all over his face as they drove south from the city centre. Traffic was mercifully
light and they made good speed, the temperature gauge on the dashboard rising swiftly to the middle and then sticking there.

‘Don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that noise,’ DS Ritchie said, as they pulled out of a side turning and McLean put his foot down. The exhaust crackled and popped and the car surged forward like a terrier after a rat. Whatever Alan Roberts and his mechanics had done to
the thing, it was a different beast indeed from the car he’d found tucked away in his grandmother’s garage after her death.

A chuckle from the passenger seat brought him out of his musing. He glanced sideways to where DS Ritchie was sitting, a smile on her face as the breeze from her open window played with her short red hair. ‘What?’

‘I’ve not seen you look this happy in …’ Ritchie paused a
moment, her smile turning to a thoughtful frown. ‘Can’t really say I’ve ever seen you so happy, actually.’

‘Thanks,’ McLean said. ‘I think.’ He wrapped his fingers around the thin steering wheel, suddenly self-conscious. The moment’s simple enjoyment had gone, the bubble
burst. It was still a damn fine day though, and a great way to be spending it driving a classic sports car.

‘Where we going,
anyway?’

‘Nearly there.’ McLean dropped a gear and sped forward to make it through a set of lights before they changed. The Alfa did exactly what he asked of it, chirping its rear wheels with a little spin. He had to admit he’d missed the thing. A couple of hundred yards further on and they slowed for another crossing.

‘Gilmerton Cove?’ Ritchie peered through the windscreen as the lights turned
green. McLean indicated right, then dropped the clutch and spun the wheels trying to get across the turning before the car coming towards him. He didn’t care about the blaring horn and rude hand gesture the manoeuvre got him. The car brought out the long-suppressed adolescent hooligan in him.

Parking in the lot behind the library at least meant they were off the street and largely out of sight.
It still left him with a dilemma. Part of him wanted to make DS Ritchie stay and act as a guard. It would be too terrible to come back and find key marks in that lovely gloss-red paintwork. But that was just paranoia, and besides, she was a trained detective, not some junior uniform constable to be set menial tasks.

McLean still turned back and gave the car one last long look before he walked
round the corner and out of sight.

‘She’ll be fine, sir. Don’t worry.’

‘You’re right. I’m just being stupid.’

‘Mind you, I don’t think I’d dare leave something like that in a public place. Who knows what some little toerag’ll do to her?’

‘Not helping, you know.’ McLean looked across at the detective sergeant, saw the smile on her face. She was recovering well from her brush with death, her
cheekbones less prominent, eyes less sunken, but she still had a way to go.

‘We going to the crime scene then, sir? Only I thought forensics were all packed up and away now. Place is meant to be opening to the public again soon.’

McLean stopped at the edge of the road. Somewhere under his feet, give or take, Ben Stevenson had met his gruesome, violent end. He had gone willingly into the caverns,
perhaps in search of higher truths, lured by someone with motives he couldn’t begin to understand. At least not yet. Going down there again himself would serve no purpose.

‘There’s only one way into those caves, right?’

‘Pretty much. Well, there’s two, but they both exit on to the road up there.’ Ritchie pointed up towards the entrance to the visitor centre. ‘There may be others, but they’ve
been filled up with rocks for centuries. Stevenson and his killer had to have come past here at some point before he died.’

‘And yet we got nothing off any cameras.’ McLean pointed at the CCTV on a nearby pole. They’d already spoken to all the shops in the area, trawling the footage for the slightest glimpse of anyone who might have looked like the dead reporter. For a backwater suburb, Gilmerton
was surprisingly well covered by cameras, but they’d found nothing.

‘Half of them had been scrubbed by the time we got to them. Some weren’t even working, just for show.’ It was
nothing McLean didn’t know. That wasn’t why he’d come out here.

‘You can’t always trust the cameras, anyway. But someone will have seen our man on his way here.’ McLean turned away from the road, walked the short distance
to the door to the betting shop on the corner. ‘You just need to know how to ask.’

There were bookies and there were bookies. Some places you wouldn’t go into without a stab vest and a fully armed back-up team. Some places you’d get a hard eye and a cold shoulder but certainly no answers to any questions, however civilly you put them. And then there were bookies that were simply businesses trying
to keep afloat in the face of twenty-four-hour online poker, smartphone apps that made it even easier to lose your shirt, and a population increasingly too simple-minded to manage anything as difficult as studying form. McLean had noticed this one, part of a national chain, the first time he’d come to Gilmerton Cove. He had no doubt that some detective constable had been in, armed with his PDA
and some questions, to quiz the owner about the night Ben Stevenson had died. There would be a transcription of the answers on file somewhere in the major incident room, and probably backed up to the cloud too, wherever that was. They weren’t the sort of questions he was interested in now, and certainly not the right answers. It was always better to do these things yourself, anyway. And besides,
he’d needed an excuse for taking the car out.

Inside, the bookies showed just as much promise as expected. The smoking ban had long since cleared the air,
but a yellow nicotine stain still clung to the ceiling and walls. Burning tobacco would probably have been preferable to the medley of aromas that assailed his nose as McLean stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene. It wasn’t exactly a
hive of activity, just a couple of old men in opposite corners staring up at old-style bulky television screens screwed to the walls, a spotty-faced youth behind the counter. One other punter stood at a table in the middle of the room, tongue protruding from the side of his mouth as he concentrated on the tiny print in his
Racing Times
.

‘What’re we …?’ Ritchie began to ask, but McLean quieted
her with a wave of his arm as he stepped fully into the room. One of the old men looked at him with a distrustful glare, but the other one didn’t take his eyes off the television. He walked up to the punter at the table.

‘Got any tips?’

‘Eh?’ The man looked up, surprise widening his eyes.

‘What’s on this afternoon? Ayr?’

The man’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then his gaze softened. ‘Ayr, aye.
Not much of a turnout, mind.’ He folded up his paper so McLean couldn’t see the horses he’d picked, then turned and walked away.

‘Friendly,’ Ritchie whispered.

‘Doesn’t want to chance his luck, does he?’ McLean smiled at his own joke, headed for the counter and the spotty youth.

‘The boss in?’ he asked before the lad could speak. The youth looked up at him, startled, then saw the warrant card
McLean had pulled out of his pocket.

‘I … I’ll just get him.’

He scurried off, disappearing through a door at the back just as McLean felt a presence by his side.

‘He going to be long?’ It was the punter with the
Racing Times
, now rolled up into a tight tube and clasped in a nervous hand. ‘Only the race starts in five.’

McLean looked at his watch. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem. You got your runners
all picked out then?’

‘Yeah. Reckon.’ The punter tapped his rolled up paper against his arm. He was short, wiry. A face like a shaven ferret. Malnourished might be the right word. It wasn’t hard to see where most of his money went.

‘Can I help you?’ The manager had arrived, shadowed by the spotty youth. ‘Only I already spoke to youse lot last week.’

‘Take the man’s bet first, aye?’ McLean stood
to one side, letting the punter in with his slip. Money changed hands, and then the man sidled off, the faintest nod of thanks as he went to find a stool from where he could see his luck run out on the racecourse. McLean watched him go, then turned back to the manager.

‘Anywhere quiet I might have a word?’

The manager’s office had the dubious honour of making the run-down betting shop beyond it look well kept. There was a desk, not large, and covered with a stack of paperwork that could give McLean’s own one back at the station a run for its money. A couple
of tall filing cabinets filled the back wall, a broken printer balanced precariously on top. Boxes cluttered most of the available space. There was certainly nowhere to sit other than the chair behind the desk, which the manager dropped himself into like a man whose legs have had enough. Given his size, McLean could only sympathise with them.

‘Don’t really know how I can help you, Inspector.
It is Inspector, isn’t it?’

‘It is, yes. Mr …?’

‘Ballard. Johnny Ballard.’ The manager made the most minimal of efforts to get up, almost raised a hand to shake, then collapsed again into his chair.

‘Well, Mr Ballard. I know you’re a busy man, so I won’t waste too much of your time. Like you said, you’ve already spoken to one of my constables.’

‘Aye, young lad, scar on his forehead like that
chap in the film.’

‘You’re not that busy today.’

‘Today, every day.’ Ballard rocked back in his chair,
making room for his gut behind the desk. ‘Who needs a bookies when you’ve got the internet, eh?’

‘People looking to be paid in cash, I’d guess.’

‘Now look here …’ Ballard would have sprung to his feet, McLean was sure of it. Had his belly not been in the way.

‘Calm down, Mr Ballard. I’m
not here to make life difficult for you. Quite the opposite. I imagine business has been even slower since our lot set up in the caves downstairs. Not much of a betting man myself, but I’d wager the two old blokes don’t spend more than a fiver at a time, and the lad whose brew money you just took probably doesn’t bring in any more.’

‘Keith’s all right. Even wins a bit now and then. Just enough
to keep him going.’ Ballard slumped back into his seat again. ‘And you’re right enough. Business isn’t exactly booming here, but that stuff with the journalist? Well, let’s just say it’s not helping.’

‘Sooner we’re gone, the better?’

‘Wouldn’t hurt, aye.’

‘So tell me then, Mr Ballard. In the month up to the body turning up in the caves. You notice any new people through the door?’

‘What d’ye
mean? We get new customers every day.’

‘You sure of that? Every day?’

‘Well, maybe not—’

‘You have a core of regulars. Don’t worry, I’m not interested in them. I’m looking for anyone who might’ve come in more than once over the last month or two. Maybe asking questions, maybe just looking around the place.’

Ballard furrowed his brow in a good impression of a man who found thinking hard. McLean
knew it was an act, even if just a subconscious one. You didn’t get to run a bookies in this part of town without having an above-average intelligence and a way with people.

‘Kind’ve hard to remember it all. What, two months back? That’d be when they were working on the drains, digging up the road down the hill a bit. Had a few of the workmen come in. Not big spenders, and one of them cleaned
up on a three-way accumulator if I remember right.’

‘Roadworks down the hill?’ McLean looked across at DS Ritchie, who was leaning against the wall by the door. ‘Why’ve I not heard about this before?’

‘No idea, sir. I’ll find out.’ She pulled her phone out of her pocket and started tapping at the screen.

‘There was a bloke, now I think about it,’ Ballard said, dragging McLean’s attention back.
‘Strange little fellow. Came in with the road crew sometimes. On his own others. Not sure he ever placed a bet though.’

‘He speak to anyone? Meet anyone? Bookies is a good place to arrange to meet someone if you don’t want to go to the pub.’

‘Aye, could have been that, I guess. Bit bloody cheeky, mind.’ Ballard furrowed his brow again, his eyes almost disappearing in the folds of skin around
his face. ‘No. Thought I could remember what he looked like, but it’s gone. Just got an idea of a person, nothing more.’

‘Well, it’s better than nothing. We can speak to the road crew, see if any of them remember.’ It wasn’t much – probably wouldn’t come to anything – but it was more
than anyone else investigating the case had managed so far. ‘I’ll send an e-fit specialist up to see you too,
if you can spare a half-hour from your busy schedule.’

‘Never had you as a betting man, sir.’

‘Can’t remember the last time I put money on anything. And my knowledge of horse racing could be summarised neatly by the phrase “bugger all”.’

‘But …’ Ritchie half-turned towards the now-closed door to the bookies.

‘Bullshit with confidence, Sergeant. That’s the trick.’ McLean set off in the direction
of the car park, anxious to get back to his precious Alfa before someone could drop something on it from a great height.

‘No way that was bullshit. How’d you know all that stuff about Ayr racecourse? Not exactly your home turf, is it?’

McLean stopped mid-stride. Turned back to face Ritchie. ‘I was three years on the beat, Sergeant. Not like some of you fast-track youngsters these days. Most
of that time I spent with old Guthrie McManus. No one else had the time of day for him, but he was OK once you got to know him. Helped if you weren’t completely useless at the job too, I guess.

‘Thing is, Guthrie was fond of a flutter. I must have followed him into pretty much every betting shop in the city back then, watching while he placed his bets, claimed his occasional winnings. You don’t
do this job if you’re no good at noticing things, so I picked up enough to get me by. Learned another useful thing, too. See Guthrie liked a bet now and then, but he also knew a good source of information. Wasn’t a bookie out there he couldn’t tap for
answers if he needed. And he was good enough to more or less make it pay.’

Ritchie stared at him, jaw slightly slack, but McLean’s attention was
caught by the man exiting the bookmaker’s, head down with the despondent weight of someone who’s just lost the weekly food money on a horse that was a dead cert to win.

‘Stay there a minute,’ he said to the sergeant, then raised his voice to the ferrety little man. ‘It’s Keith, isn’t it?’

At the sound of his voice, Keith stopped walking, looked up with that familiar guilty expression, mixed
with confusion.

‘It’s OK. You don’t owe me anything.’ That seemed to relax the man, at least a little.

‘What then? Only I’m—’

‘Busy? Aye, I noticed that. So I’ll not keep you long. You go in there a lot, I reckon. Make a bit, lose a bit?’ McLean had positioned himself so it was difficult for the young man to move on without being obvious about it. Now he spoke more quickly than normal, giving
him little room to get a word in.

‘What’s it to—?’

‘Reckon you notice stuff, too.’ McLean nodded at the tightly rolled-up
Racing Times
Keith was clutching as if it still held the secrets to all happiness. ‘You look for the patterns, am I right?’

‘I … yeah. Do my best.’

‘And you like that. Noticing stuff, aye? Like when the road crews were in a few weeks back. When the police came round after
they found that body in the caves.’

‘Who are you?’ Keith finally looked up at McLean’s face,
took in his dark suit and began to reach a conclusion. Maybe not as observant as he thought he was.

‘I’m Tony,’ McLean said. ‘And I’m trying to find out who killed that reporter.’

‘You’re polis.’ It wasn’t a question, and Keith finally seemed to understand something of his situation. As he moved to
step past, McLean took a hold of his arm, as lightly as he dared.

‘I’m not here to bother you, Keith. I’m looking for help, and if you can help me maybe I can help you in return.’ He looked up, past the young man’s head towards the door to the betting shop. Keith’s head twitched involuntarily as his eyes started to follow, a haunted look on his face.

‘What you want then?’ he asked eventually.

McLean let go of the arm. ‘Like I said, I reckon you notice things. See the patterns. You’ll have noticed the road crews coming in and placing bets from time to time, and I reckon you’ll have noticed someone else come in over the past couple of months. Someone who didn’t quite fit in. Maybe didn’t even place any bets.’

‘Like someone casing the joint?’

‘That’s the one. Maybe even just hanging
around to see who comes and goes and when.’

Keith shook his head. ‘I dunno. Can’t really think of anyone, right enough. I mean, there’s always folk coming and going.’

‘Well, give it some thought, OK?’ McLean dug into his jacket pocket for a business card. There was a folded ten pound note in there too, another of Guthrie McManus’s tips. He pulled both out together, hiding the money under
the
card as he handed it over like a magician. ‘Give us a call if anything sparks a memory.’

‘You think that was wise, giving him cash like that? He’ll only lose it on the horses. Come back for more.’

They were making slow progress back towards the station, traffic backed up along Clerk Street by an accident, or just too many buses. McLean found it hard not to keep his eye on the temperature gauge,
waiting for it to tip into the red like it always used to, but so far it had held perfectly steady in the centre of the dial.

‘It’s a risk, but you never know. If I were a betting man, I’d lay you a tenner he calls me in the next couple of days saying he thinks he remembers someone. I’ll get him to do an e-fit, same as the manager. If we get two different people, we’ve just lost a bit of time
and ten pounds. If they both come up with something similar …’ It was thin, and McLean knew it. But then the whole investigation was thin. The harder they looked, the less evidence there was that anyone at all had killed Ben Stevenson. No forensics in the cave, nothing at his home but the all-too-obvious signs of his obsession, no motive, not even the slightest hint of a suspect.

‘We’re really
clutching at straws, aren’t we, sir?’ Ritchie summed up the hopelessness in a simple cliché.

‘Still one or two to go.’

‘There are?’

‘Oh yes. There’s Douglas Ballantyne for one.’

‘Douglas … oh, aye. I’d forgotten about him. The conspiracy theorist.’

‘The same. He should be back from the US by now. Think we should pay him a wee visit tomorrow.’

‘And you really think he’ll be able to help us?’

‘He was in contact with Stevenson. At the least he should be able to tell us what he was working on. Jo Dalgliesh has been looking into that, too. If we can piece together Stevenson’s movements and motives leading up to his death, then maybe we can have a guess at why someone might want to kill him.’

The traffic started moving again, and McLean eased the car forward to keep with the flow.

‘Straws,’
Ritchie said as the acceleration pushed her gently back into her seat. ‘Clutching.’