The Hangman's Song (Inspector Mclean 3) (32 page)

Not that he was going to buy it, of course. Although sinking into the comfortable and supportive leather seat and seeing the obvious craftsmanship that had gone into making the thing, he was tempted. The thunk of the door closing was echoed by the salesman as he climbed in on the other side. McLean hadn’t really been aware of the noise outside but, sealed in, he was aware of the silence. It was a release of a pressure he hadn’t realized was there. He would have been happy to have just sat back and breathed in the smell of leather and walnut veneer for a while; forget that he was a detective with a heavy caseload and a bunch of colleagues he wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire.

‘It gets me like that every time.’ Johnny Fairbairn managed to ruin the moment by speaking. ‘It’s like a little oasis away from life’s worries and stress.’

McLean looked at the salesman. How much of a line had he been spun to believe that a DI could afford a car like this? OK, so technically he could afford a car like this, and he was a DI, but that wasn’t the point. ‘Mr Fairbairn …’

‘Please, call me Johnny.’

‘Mr Fairbairn. I feel I need to get something straight
here before I even start the engine. I have no intention of buying this car.’

‘Ah, you say that, sir, but just wait until you start her up.’

Well, he’d tried. McLean studied the fob, finding out how to extract the key from it. The engine fired up with a satisfyingly deep rumble, accompanied by a complicated sequence of lights flashing across the dashboard. There were controls and levers everywhere, unlike the nice and simple gear stick and indicator stalk in his Alfa. He’d driven plenty of cars in his time, though. This couldn’t be all that difficult. It was an automatic, after all.

The Bentley garage was out on the Niddrie road, heading towards Musselburgh. He’d noted the address on the discreet dealer badge in the rear window. McLean thought it best to take the car straight back, rather than waste too much of Johnny Fairbairn’s time. Or his, for that matter. It was true, this was a most pleasant distraction from a particularly boring report, but this wasn’t really something he should be doing during working hours. Wasn’t really something he should be doing at all, if he was being honest.

‘You might want to head for the bypass. Open her up a bit.’

McLean ignored the suggestion. ‘Like I said, Mr Fairbairn. I’m not going to buy this car.’

‘If you’re worried about the finances, we have some very good offers on.’

‘I could write you a cheque for the full amount right now. The money’s not the problem, and the car is superb.’ McLean snatched a sideways glance at his passenger, seeing the ever-cheerful face form into a confused frown.

‘I don’t understand, Inspector. Why did you ask me to bring her out for you to see if you weren’t interested in buying her?’

‘I have to apologize to you, Mr Fairbairn. And frankly that makes me quite angry. I never called you, never asked about a test drive. My colleagues at the station have recently taken to playing pranks on me, and like all pranksters they see only the amusement of making a fool of me, not the inconvenience they cause to everyone else involved.’ McLean suddenly noticed the little flappy paddles behind the steering wheel. He flipped one, and the car magically changed down a gear, the engine note deepening to a fruity bellow as they shot forward. Fortunately the road was clear.

‘I’m sorry,’ he continued. ‘You were never the brunt of this joke, but you’re the one who’s lost a couple of hours work. I’m happy to pay for your time, and for the chance to have a go in this car. It’s great. Better than anything I’ve driven before. I do need a car, can’t keep using the old Alfa. But this isn’t exactly inconspicuous. Not the sort of thing I could park up at the side of the road and watch a suspect from.’ McLean blipped the throttle again, feeling a bit like a schoolboy. ‘Dare say if he did a runner I’d be able to catch him though.’

Johnny Fairbairn smiled. ‘That you would. Nought to sixty in four point eight. Ah well. We don’t sell them every day anyway. No harm done, and I maybe should’ve done a few more checks before hurrying out. But like you say, she’s great. Any excuse to get out, really.’ He patted the dashboard with a light hand, fell silent for a while. McLean piloted the car down the narrow lanes that were a feature
of this part of Edinburgh, where the city gave reluctant way to the countryside. They were almost at the garage before the salesman spoke again.

‘So you need something a bit less conspicuous, considerably less expensive, I’m guessing. And you’re an Alfa fan.’ He had a schoolboy grin on his face, back in full salesman mode. ‘You know I might just have something you’d be interested in. And as it happens, it’s also a GT.’

Six grand lighter of pocket, but with a nearly new car being given a service before delivery, McLean was hurrying back to his office when a voice he really didn’t want to hear bellowed out down the corridor.

‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to find you all bloody afternoon.’

Constables scattered like extras in a war movie as Acting Superintendent Duguid advanced. His face was its usual florid red, blotchy around his forehead where no doubt he’d been kneading it with his thumbs to try and force out a coherent thought. McLean pulled out his phone, checked the time. He’d not been out of the station more than two hours.

‘I had to go out, sir. You could have called.’

‘Aye, road testing some flash sports car. That’s what I heard. Exactly how does that fit in with the working day?’

‘I wasn’t road testing anything, sir.’

‘No? And what about arranging for a tailor to come and measure you up for a suit? That didn’t happen either, I suppose. And you know you’re not supposed to have personal items delivered here. We don’t let the constables do it, so what the hell makes you think it’s OK for inspectors?’

Duguid’s head looked like it might explode any minute, which would at least have made life a bit easier for everyone. McLean glanced past him at the surprisingly large number of officers, uniform and plain clothes, who just happened to be passing that very spot at that very moment. Well, if they wanted a show, who was he to deny them?

‘About that delivery, sir. I wasn’t going to mention it, but since you brought up the subject, here in this rather public place, were you aware that there’s a thief here in the station?’

You could almost see the cogs whirling in Duguid’s brain. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘That delivery, sir. The one that shouldn’t have come here?’ McLean pitched his voice just a little too loud not to be overheard. ‘You’re right. I know the rules as well as the next man. Which is why I never made the order in the first place.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, McLean. It was a delivery for you. Bloody great luxury hamper. Sergeant Murray signed for it at reception. It was logged in.’

‘I’m aware of that, sir. What I don’t know is why it then took three hours for someone to bring it to me. I don’t know why it was given to a constable, who found me in the CID room. I don’t know who pretended to be me and ordered the bloody thing in the first place. And most of all, I don’t know who opened it and took out a very expensive bottle of brandy, thus ensuring that I couldn’t return the whole package. Strange that, the way everything’s logged and noted and checked through the system, and yet nobody knows who opened up a parcel that wasn’t addressed to them and took something out of it.’

A puzzled frown wrote itself across Duguid’s brow. ‘I don’t –’

‘It was a prank, sir. An expensive one at that. Someone phoned in that order, persuaded a very reputable city business to deliver two grand’s worth of goods here on invoice rather than demanding payment up front, then made sure I wouldn’t be able to return the goods once I received them. I paid up because I didn’t want to tarnish the reputation of the police.’

‘Don’t you dare suggest –’

‘I’m also getting a pair of new suits, thanks to whoever it was phoned up Garibaldi and Sons pretending to be me. And yes, I’ve been out for the last two hours placating a car salesman who thought he might make a one hundred and twenty-five thousand pound sale. That one I wasn’t prepared to take on the chin. Sir.’

Duguid was sweating now, his anger mixed with confusion and not a little worry. He glanced around at the collected officers as if unsure whether to shout at them or not. McLean had thought he was complicit in the pranks, but now he wasn’t so sure. It was a shame; a blustering Duguid who nevertheless knew he was really in the wrong was easy enough to deal with, but a Duguid realizing that serious misconduct had happened without his knowledge was another matter entirely.

‘So you’re telling me you’re not responsible for any of these … things?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then why the fuck didn’t you come to me?’

Really? ‘I didn’t think it was important, sir. Figured if I
acted like it wasn’t happening, then whoever was doing it would get bored and stop soon enough.’

Wrong thing to say. Duguid advanced on him, visibly shaking as he tried to control his rage. He stabbed McLean repeatedly in the chest with a finger as he spoke. ‘That’s precisely why you’ll never be more than an inspector, McLean. Christ, it’s amazing you even made it this far. You don’t cover up this sort of thing and hope it goes away. These miscreants are wasting police time. We arrest people for that.’

‘Sir, I hardly think –’

‘My point precisely. Think, McLean. That’s what you’re paid to do. Even if you don’t actually need the money. I want a list of all of these so-called little incidents on my desk by the end of the day. OK? And if you’ve any suspicion who might be behind them, then don’t be shy about saying so. We’re professionals, not fucking schoolboys. I expect my senior officers to behave as such.’ And with that, Duguid turned and marched off in the direction of his office.

McLean let out a sigh of relief, then realized that the corridor was still half full of constables and sergeants. He caught the eye of one in particular. DS Carter, favoured lackey of DCI Brooks and DI Spence, Little and Large. He had a haunted, guilty look on his face, and quite probably a bottle of expensive brandy in his locker.

‘It ends. Now.’ McLean waited for the sergeant to respond, took the tiniest of nods as all the confirmation he needed.

34

No one paid him much attention as he climbed the stairs to the fourth-storey walkway, although McLean noticed one or two sideways glances. It was an open secret that prostitutes worked out of some of these flats; no doubt they thought he was just another John, here for a bit of executive relief.

The window to Magda’s flat was broken, a torn flutter of blue and white police tape the only thing stopping the locals from climbing in and helping themselves to anything they wanted. Tape also covered the door, and this at least didn’t look like it had been disturbed. McLean tried the handle, unsurprised but nonetheless angry to find that the door pushed open to his touch. Buchanan said the council had been round to seal the flat up, so either he was lying or someone had cocked up big time.

Inside, it was obvious that Scene Evaluation Branch had been and gone. Every surface that might have held a fingerprint had been dusted, faint grey powder everywhere, at least in the hallway. Through into the living room and it was less clear that anything had been touched. The place still looked like a small explosion had ripped through it. The window wall opposite was still cracked, that horrible smear of blood now turned black as it dried. A stench hung in the air, part rot, part something more human. McLean pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his
jacket pocket and snapped them on. More concerned with inadvertently touching something unpleasant than with contaminating a crime scene. If SEB had decided there was nothing more to be found here, then moving things around was hardly going to be a problem.

He’d been the first on the scene, and as he stood in the middle of the living room he tried to picture it as he’d seen it then. The sofa and armchairs had been turned the right way up, pushed against one wall with the broken television piled on top of them. The coffee table’s glass top had been cleared away completely; fragments taken back to the lab to test for fibres and fingerprints no doubt.

The floor had been swept too, some poor bugger would have had to go through that lot with a magnifying glass. Cleared of debris, it was possible to see the blood stains though. McLean crouched down, imagining the scene played out. The door had been kicked hard enough to break the security chain, but the latch wasn’t broken. That meant Magda must have answered a knock at the door. He glanced back from the living room. Yes, there was a security spy hole, and the window, of course. So she would have known who was outside. Someone she knew well enough to open the door and talk, but not trust to let in? Or someone she didn’t know at all, but had no reason to feel threatened by? Impossible to tell, but either way they’d kicked the door down anyway. Hauled her across the hall to the living room. Picked her up and thrown her across the table, shattering it. Dragged her up and smashed her against the window, her head cracking the glass and leaving that bloody smear. Thrown her back down onto the floor, catching the television as she went. Two parallel
smears of blood showed where she’d tried to break her fall. And then, what?