The Hangman's Song (Inspector Mclean 3) (41 page)

Pulling out the chair, he sat down and started to tap out a text message instead.

42

‘We’re going to get fired. I just know it.’

DS Ritchie hunched her shoulders and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her long overcoat, shuddering against the chill wind whistling in off the Firth of Forth. Early morning and the noise of the city waking up echoed around the car park at the base of the tower block. Broken glass still glittered on the cracked tarmac where McLean’s Alfa had been parked. Just as soon as forensics had finished with it, he’d send it off to the garage in Loanhead for assessment. He had a horrible feeling the insurance company would declare it uneconomical to repair, which meant that he would be digging deep. It was just as well Johnny Fairbairn had come up with a more modern alternative. Even so, he’d parked a way up the street. He didn’t want to chance anything to the place now.

‘There’s worse things than being fired.’ He looked up the street for the hundredth time, waiting for the ambling form of Grumpy Bob to appear.

‘That’s OK for you to say. You’re loaded. Me, I’ve got a new mortgage to worry about.’ Ritchie stamped her feet against the cold. ‘Can’t we wait inside anyway?’

‘And you’re the one worrying about getting fired? Neither of us should be here, by rights. Professional Standards and Dagwood have both said as much. At least if Bob’s doing the looking we’ve got some small deniability.’

‘That’s crap, sir. And you know it.’

‘You’re right. It’s crap. But he’s got the photos. No point going in without him.’

Ritchie’s reply was lost by the arrival of a shiny new pool car. DC MacBride piloted it into the space where McLean’s Alfa had met its grisly fate. He and Grumpy Bob both looked up as soon as they got out, rather than greeting McLean and Ritchie. Transfixed by the spot where DS Buchanan had met his end

‘You sure you want to do this, sir?’ Grumpy Bob asked as he handed over a thick folder. ‘Me’n the lad can go over the flat without you.’

It was tempting. He knew that disobeying Dagwood would get him in trouble, but crossing Callard was even riskier. And Ritchie was right. It was fine for him to get himself fired, but her too?

‘Well, I’ve not done anything wrong yet.’ He pulled the crime scene photos out of their envelope and leafed through them once again. There was something that had been bugging him since the first time he’d seen the place and it had finally occurred to him last night. A pity he was so bloody slow, really.

‘Damn. Nothing here that’s any help.’

‘What’re you looking for, sir?’ MacBride peered over his shoulder at the photos as if he hadn’t already committed every single one to memory.

‘The ceiling. People never look up. Even trained detectives sometimes. Especially when they’ve got something else on their minds. The floors of these tower blocks are all poured concrete. Nowhere to run services, so they put in false ceilings. Like in offices. Whoever beat Magda
Evans half to death was looking for something, and they were back looking for it again afterwards. I thought it was money, the way the cushions were all cut open. Maybe it was, but what if there was something else? And where would you hide something bulky in a place like that anyway?’ McLean nodded in the direction of the fourth storey and its precariously low parapet.

‘Come on then, lad. Latex gloves, I think.’ Grumpy Bob set off for the stairs, closely followed by MacBride. McLean shoved the photographs back in their envelope and stuck them into the report folder. He got two steps in before a hand on his arm stopped him.

‘We don’t need to go up there, sir.’ Ritchie was the voice of reason, only more irritating.

‘But what if they find something?’

‘My point exactly. What if they find something and we’re there? Whatever it is will be useless as evidence. I don’t know about you, sir, but I don’t want to be some smart-arse lawyer’s reasonable doubt.’

McLean had to admit that she was right, even though he hated the thought of someone else going through Magda’s flat. Of them missing some crucial detail that only he would be able to see. He shook his head at his own stupidity. How many times had he been told that being an inspector was all about delegation and management?

‘OK. I’ll leave it to them.’ He looked around the windswept car park, feeling the morning chill. Summer was most definitely on the way out. ‘I don’t suppose MacBride left the car unlocked.’

‘I doubt it,’ Ritchie said. ‘But there’s a coffee shop up
the road a ways. Figure you owe me at least a latte and a muffin.’

‘I do? What for?’

‘How about texting me at half one in the morning? Or dragging me down to Restalrig on my day off?’

‘They found Pete Buchanan’s prints all over it. Blood matches Malky Jennings. Pretty much a hundred per cent it’s the murder weapon.’

McLean sat in the canteen, nursing a coffee and a bacon butty. He’d managed to find a spot in the corner, more or less out of sight of the beat constables coming and going. Afternoon shift time, it was a good place to listen and find out what was going on.

‘Reckon he and the whore had a thing going. Jennings hit on her one time too often, so Buchanan beat him to death.’

It wasn’t anything he didn’t know, of course. It had taken MacBride all of ten minutes to find the loose ceiling tile and the booty stashed behind it. One baseball bat, finest hickory, wrapped in a plastic bag from Matalan. The shape and weight of the bat matched the weapon used to beat Malky Jennings to death and the blood type was his too. DNA analysis would take a while longer to come through, but nobody in the station doubted it was the murder weapon. Several of the senior officers were less pleased about the fingerprints all over it, mostly in blood. It was probably as well Pete Buchanan had hanged himself, however inadvertently. The embarrassment of a detective sergeant of long standing beating a man to death was not something the Chief Constable needed this close
to the launch of Police Scotland. It probably helped that Malky Jennings deserved everything that happened to him, but not much.

‘Thought I might find you down here.’

McLean looked up into the rotund face of DCI John Brooks. He was in need of a shave, on top at least. A thin fuzz of grey-white hair furred his scalp like an advertisement for hair-restoring pills. McLean started to stand, but Brooks waved his hand for him to stay, pulled out a chair and sat down.

‘Spence getting the biscuits in, is he?’ McLean glanced over at the serving counter and sure enough a thin detective inspector was chatting with the girl at the till. Brooks scowled that constipated scowl of his.

‘A little respect wouldn’t go amiss you know.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’ McLean threw back the last of his coffee with a grimace; it was never as nice cold. The grease on the remains of his butty didn’t look all that appetizing any more, either. ‘Was there anything you wanted, sir? Only I’m a bit busy.’

‘Strange how Bob Laird took it upon himself to go and check out that apartment, don’t you think? And taking young MacBride with him, too.’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about that, sir. Not my investigation.’

‘Don’t be so bloody clever, McLean. You know as well as I do Grumpy Bob doesn’t do anything unless he’s told to. Even then chances are he’ll have a nap first.’

‘I think you’re underestimating Detective Sergeant Laird’s investigative prowess, sir. He might not move quickly, but his brain’s always working away.’ McLean was
winding Brooks up, but there was a truth in his words too. Grumpy Bob never lifted a finger if he didn’t have to, but there were two ways to look for something. You could spend a lot of time and energy turning everything over until you found it, or you could sit and think about it until the obvious hiding place presented itself. OK, so it wasn’t Bob who’d done that this time, but he’d taught McLean the importance of not always rushing in head first.

Brooks shook his head, his disbelief all too apparent. ‘I know it was your idea, McLean. I just hope to God you weren’t stupid enough to actually go there and look for the bloody thing yourself. We might not be able to arrest Pete Buchanan, but I’m sure as hell going to put Magda Evans away. Last thing I want is someone suggesting evidence was tampered with by someone connected to the case.’

‘She awake then?’ McLean realized he’d not heard anything about the ex-prostitute in days.

‘Not yet. She’s still sedated, but the doctors reckon they’ll bring her out of it soon. Her prints are on that bat too. She’ll not get away with this.’ Brooks eyed McLean suspiciously as he said this last bit, as if he still harboured suspicions about McLean’s relationship with Magda.

‘No reason she should. She’ll try and play you, though. She played me pretty well.’

‘Oh aye?’ Brooks raised a single pale eyebrow.

‘Yup. We picked her up off that ship, remember. She spun us a yarn about people trafficking, being mistaken for one of the Eastern European pros. I reckon she was doing a runner. Got herself on that boat on purpose. Bang her up for murder; that’s the least she deserves. But
you might want to ask yourself what was in it all for Pete Buchanan before you send her down.’

‘You what?’ Brooks made his constipated baby face again.

‘I never knew DS Buchanan well, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of officer to fall for a prostitute’s charms. Sure, he sampled the wares, but this isn’t a tragic love story, is it? He was round her flat looking for something. I don’t think it was that baseball bat. Or at least not just that baseball bat.’

‘What are you suggesting, McLean?’

‘My bet’s on money. Quite a lot of it, I’d guess. Probably Malky Jennings’ stash as well.’ McLean stood up, shuffled around the table as DI Spence arrived, carefully carrying a tray piled high with food. ‘You might want to ask Magda about that when she can speak. I’d’ve thought it’d look good on your record if you manage to find a pile of drugs before they get back on the streets.’

43

‘Right then, now I’ve got your attention, let’s have a bit of a recap.’

The CID room, early morning. McLean had insisted everyone get in first thing, as chances were good they could have a meeting without being interrupted by anyone more senior than an inspector. Grumpy Bob had grumbled about it, but McLean knew the old sergeant was just playing the part. He might spend the day catching forty winks at every opportunity, but he was always up with the lark.

‘Three suicides. All deaths by hanging. All unusual in that the subjects used a method that would break their necks, rather than asphyxiation, and they all used the same knot in the same type of rope. All three were in their mid-twenties, single, white, lived alone. Anything else?’

‘All three of them left suicide notes. Textual analysis throws up some similarities, but not enough to prove they were all written by the same person.’ DC MacBride was still pink and shiny from his morning shower, but he’d done all his prep work. Pictures of the three victims were taped to the large whiteboard running down one wall of the room, with details for each one neatly written alongside. There were even a few questions highlighted, and lines drawn to indicate where there might have been some connection between the three. It looked a bit like an investigation; just a shame it had taken so long to bring it all
together. More so now that they were going to have to wrap it all up.

‘Textual analysis?’ This from Grumpy Bob, who wasn’t pink and probably hadn’t showered since yesterday.

‘It’s technical,’ McLean said. ‘What about other similarities?’

‘Well, you know about the rope. There’s the odd blood profiles for Mikhailevic and Fenton.’

‘What about Sands? I thought there was something in his blood, too.’

‘Initial analysis suggested it, but he’d been dead too long for a decent sample. Doctor Sharp couldn’t be a hundred per cent.’ MacBride didn’t need to consult the report, McLean noticed.

‘Same with the knots, I suppose,’ he said.

‘Actually the forensic expert reckons all three were tied by the same person. Or possibly machine. She’s never seen three knots so closely matched, especially given that they’ve all been, well, used.’