The Hangman's Song (Inspector Mclean 3) (34 page)

‘Have you got any of the front door?’

‘Should have.’ Click, click, click. ‘Here you go.’

And there it was, the front door. A dirty great boot print just by the handle.

‘Do you know if anyone took any samples from this?’ McLean pointed at the photo.

‘I’d’ve thought so. That’s outside. More difficult to secure for later examination. I can check for you, but it’ll take a while.’

‘Thanks. You’re a star.’ McLean would have kissed her, but that might have given her ideas.

‘I’m doing it for Emma, OK? Not you.’

‘Well, I’ll be sure and tell her. And thanks anyway.’ McLean left her to her work, headed back to the door, then stopped.

‘Actually, could I ask one more favour?’

‘You can ask.’ Miss Cairns didn’t turn to face him, just spoke to her monitor.

‘Can you send a copy of all the photos to Grumpy … Sorry, DS Laird. Not the SCU. The analysis on that boot print, too. When you’ve time.’

Miss Cairns turned this time, raised a quizzical eyebrow
and then smiled. It suited her better than the scowl or the frown. ‘Aye, I’ll send it all to Grumpy Bob.’

‘Thanks. I owe you.’ McLean ducked out of the room and headed back towards his car, pulled out his phone to call Grumpy Bob. It was just possible that this was all a giant cock-up, but it felt like something a lot more deliberate to him. It would be hard enough to prove, though And as SIO, he was going to have a hell of a job convincing anyone he wasn’t just trying to cover his arse.

‘My office, Tony. Now.’

McLean had barely walked in through the SCU door and Jo Dexter was shouting at him. He knew what it was about, took a quick look around to see if his chief suspect was in. A small gaggle of constables sat in the far corner, heads down and nattering about something. No sign of DS Buchanan though.

‘Now, Tony.’

It wasn’t wise to make Jo Dexter ask for something twice. He followed her along the corridor and into her office. The mess on her desk hadn’t improved much since their morning meeting.

‘I’ve just had a call from SEB about the Magda Evans crime scene. Seems someone forgot to make sure it was secure before everyone left.’

‘I …’ McLean started, but Dexter waved him silent.

‘I know it wasn’t you, Tony. How the fuck could you have? You were at the hospital, not running the crime scene. Who was SIO?’

‘That’s the whole point, Jo. I was. I am. I should have made sure everyone was doing their jobs properly.’

‘That’s bollocks, Tony, and you know it. You delegate, that’s how it works. You must have left someone in charge when you went to the hospital.’

‘Aye, I did. DS Buchanan. Remember? I told you.’

Dexter must have read his expression. Certainly McLean didn’t make any effort to hide it. ‘What, you think he did this on purpose? Why the fuck would he do that?’

McLean told her about his visit to Magda’s flat, the slashed cushions, the missing boot print. He didn’t tell her he’d asked for what little forensic evidence there was to be sent to Grumpy Bob for safe keeping.

‘I rang Buchanan when I got Magda’s call. Said he was over in Sighthill, but he confirmed it was her number. I asked him to put a request in to control, get a squad car over ASAP, but it didn’t turn up until I’d been there twenty minutes myself.’

‘That’s hardly damning. You know what patrols can be like.’

‘Pretty much what I thought. But Buchanan told me on the phone the Sighthill call-out was a false alarm. When I asked him about it this morning, he spun me a completely different story.’

‘You don’t think he was there at all.’ Jo Dexter slumped back into her seat.

‘No, I don’t. I think he was at Magda’s flat beating the shit out of her.’ McLean recalled the conversation, how Buchanan had sounded out of breath. Like he’d been walking uphill. Or smashing up someone’s flat. ‘He got out of there sharpish, called control when he was far enough away.’

Dexter said nothing for a while, the thoughts flickering
across her face in a series of frowns. ‘I still think it’s a hell of an assumption. I mean, why? What possible reason could he have?’

‘I don’t know, but whoever beat Magda up was looking for something. Drugs, money, who knows? They turned the place upside down, cut open all the cushions. It wasn’t just random.’

‘Still. I mean, Pete’s methods aren’t always strictly legit, but that’s a hell of a leap to make. We’re talking attempted murder here, not GBH. It’s a miracle she survived at all.’

A horrible thought crept into McLean’s mind. ‘Where’s Buchanan now?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Dexter pushed herself out of her chair, swept past McLean on her way to the door. He had to rush to catch up as she went back to the main SCU room and its cluster of constables.

‘You lot, any idea where Pete is?’

They looked at each other, then around. One or two of them even got up. Eventually a spokesman was elected by silent consensus. ‘Not sure, ma’am. He went out about an hour ago. Said something about the hospital?’

‘Shit.’ Dexter stopped a moment. ‘Find him. Call him. Track his Airwave. I want him in my office right away.’

With a scraping of chairs, the constables hurried about their new task. McLean already had his phone out. ‘Who’s guarding Magda right now?’

Dexter looked at him with horror. ‘You can’t think …’

‘I’m not taking any chances.’ He spooled through the contacts list on his phone, looking for the hospital switchboard. Magda was in intensive care, and you couldn’t have
mobile phones or Airwave sets anywhere near. ‘Bollocks. It’ll be quicker if I go there myself.’

He sped down the corridors, skirting around startled nurses and slow-moving patients. In the back of his head he could hear his headmistress shouting at him to stop running, but she was long dead and he never much cared about those rules anyway. At least enough of the staff here knew who he was and had the sense not to try and stop him.

Through the final set of double doors, McLean saw the reassuring sight of PC Jones sitting on his uncomfortable plastic chair by the door to Magda’s room. The constable looked up at the noise, folding his paper and setting it down on the floor when he saw who it was, then standing when he realized that McLean was running.

‘You all right, sir?’

‘Magda. She OK?’ McLean sucked in air in big gulps, wondering when it was he had become so unfit.

‘Fine, I think.’ PC Jones shrugged. ‘Pete Buchanan was in a half hour or so ago. No one else been since.’

McLean said nothing, just pushed past the constable and through the door. He already knew it was too late.

Magda stirred as he entered, but didn’t wake. Someone had put a vase of flowers on the bedside table. Otherwise the scene was pretty much the same as the last time he’d been in. It might even have been the same television programme playing.

‘She’s OK.’ McLean shifted uncomfortably, not sure what to do with his hands. Constable Jones poked his head through the doorway.

‘Is there a problem, sir? Only I was told no one on their own.’ PC Jones hovered in the doorway.

‘You said Sergeant Buchanan was here. He see her alone?’

‘No, sir. I know the rules. I was in here with him at all times.’

‘Was she awake then?’

‘I think so, maybe. Difficult to tell with the amount of morphine they keep pumping into her. He didn’t say anything, mind. Just stood there, where you are. Looked at her for a couple minutes and then went.’

‘He bring the flowers?’ McLean pointed at the vase and its gaudy contents.

‘That was Ms Saunders, sir. She came not long after you were here. One of the SCU detective constables was with her. Patterson, I think. They come and go so quickly I find it hard to keep track of their names.’

‘I know what you mean, Reg.’ McLean took one last look at Magda as a nurse came in. She gave them both a disapproving scowl, then went to check the monitors. A couple of clicks to a button just out of the patient’s reach and Magda relaxed back into her pillows. Intravenous morphine could cure a multitude of ills.

‘What are you doing in here disturbing the patient?’ The nurse rounded on McLean as soon as she had finished. For once, he didn’t know her name, but he could tell she wasn’t one to be messed with.

‘Sorry. Emergency. We thought someone was trying to kill her.’ McLean backed out of the room as the nurse held up a finger to her mouth.

‘Quiet. She may be drugged, but she can still hear you.’

Outside, with the door firmly closed, McLean let out a long breath and collapsed against the wall. Had he been wrong about Buchanan?

‘You all right, sir?’ PC Jones asked. McLean turned to face the old constable. Solid Copper, one of the old school. But then so was DS Buchanan.

‘Fine, Reg. Thanks.’ He pushed himself off the wall. ‘I think I may have made a huge cock-up though.’

As if to underline the point, his mobile phone started to ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, looking for the off switch. The ‘no mobile phones’ posters taped at ten-foot intervals all along the corridor left little to the imagination. And for those who couldn’t take a hint, the scowl he received from the nurse, who had stopped mid-stride halfway to the swing doors, should have hammered the point home. The screen told him it was DCI Dexter calling, though.

‘Just don’t let anyone in there unsupervised until I get back to you, OK, Reg?’ McLean pointed back at the door to Magda’s room as he hit ‘answer’ and hefted the phone to his ear, jogging away from the ICU as fast as he could.

‘… fucking right I’ll shout. Accuse me of deliberately sabotaging an investigation …’ McLean pulled the phone from his ear, checked the number and name on the screen. Definitely Jo Dexter. Not her voice he was hearing. He put the phone back to his ear again.

‘Jo? You there?’

‘Ah, Tony. Sorry about that.’ The sound muffled, but McLean thought he heard Dexter shout: ‘Just get out. If you can’t act like a police officer, then don’t expect me to treat you like one.’ Then the voice came back clear. ‘Where are you now?’ In the background he heard a door slam.

‘The hospital. Magda’s OK. Buchanan was here seeing her though.’

‘I know. That was him just now. Seems he’s got wind of your accusations and isn’t all that happy about them.’

‘Well, tough shit. If he wasn’t such a prize arse then people might give him the benefit of the doubt. I seem to recall you thought he was our man too.’

‘Yes, well. That was before he had a decent excuse for pretty much everything you accused him of. He may be a prize arse, Tony, but he’s a well-connected prize arse. You need to tread carefully.’

‘With respect, Jo, fuck that. If I suspect an officer of misconduct I’ll bloody well investigate it. And if I find anything suspicious I’ll have Professional Standards on it like a ton of bricks.’

‘Even after what they did to you last year?’

That gave him pause, but only for a while. ‘They did what they had to given the circumstances.’

‘Oh don’t sound so fucking pompous. They fucked you over, Tony. Rab Callard and his cronies. If it hadn’t been for that forensics girlfriend of yours you’d be in Saughton right now.’

‘I was innocent. I have to believe that would have come out eventually.’

‘Aye, in eight to ten years. Look, I know you don’t get on with Pete, but a lot of the senior detectives like him. He’s one of them, came up through the ranks with them, except he got stuck at sergeant. And he gets results. The high heidyins see that and turn a blind eye to everything else.’

McLean had been pacing all the while and was now in
the public waiting area at reception. The walking had calmed him down a little, but his nerves were still fizzing.

‘I still think it’s him, Jo. Or there’s something in it for him. It’s too bloody convenient to put it down to incompetence.’

‘Yeah, well. You’d better be damned sure about that before you start making accusations again. And don’t be at all surprised if Duguid tries to rip you a new one when he hears about this.’

Duguid. Of course. Brilliant.

‘I’ve coped with worse.’

‘Of course you have, but you can cope with it tomorrow. It’s been a long day. Go home, get some rest and we’ll pick up the pieces in the morning.’

Mrs McCutcheon’s cat paused, halfway through the routine of cleaning its arse, and gave him an old-fashioned stare that would have done his grandmother proud. McLean sighed as he closed the back door and dropped the bundle of papers he’d brought home with him onto a chair. He could have put them on the kitchen table, except for that look from the cat, sitting there right in the middle, next to the uncovered sugar bowl and the salt and pepper pots.

‘I ought to tell you to bugger off, but what would be the point?’ He pulled off his jacket and draped it over the chair back. The constant heat from the Aga made the kitchen by far the most welcoming and warm place in the house. At this time of year it could even get a bit stifling. He knew people who let their ranges go out over the summer months, but that felt wrong. There was something dead about a kitchen with a cold Aga in it.

Bored of him, or perhaps of cleaning its back end, Mrs McCutcheon’s cat stood up, stretched and then leapt off the table, walking swiftly towards the door that led to the rest of the house. As it passed through, McLean noticed the sound of music. He glanced at the clock, wondering if Emma was still up. He’d left her asleep in his bed, curled up in her fleecy pyjamas with the cow print on, far too early in the morning and only scant hours after she’d woken him by crawling in. He headed through to see, hoping for a glimpse of her cheerful smile to lift his mood after a weary day. The papers could wait another hour, surely.

Wafts of smoky scent hung in the hallway air, the half-open door to the library spilling out the muted tones of Liz Fraser as she wailed her way through ‘Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops’. He’d not replaced very many of his old records yet, turned to so much vinyl slag by the fire that had destroyed his Newington tenement flat, but McLean had managed to find a set of early Cocteau Twins albums in a charity shop on Clerk Street one rare afternoon off. They crackled a bit, but the music still held its magic, even thirty years on. Thirty years. Christ, but that made him feel old.