What Will Burn by James Oswald (ebook reader web .txt) 📕

it seemed far too clinical and modern for that. Both had their own entrances, leaving a wide foyer for the residents to access their apartments on the upper floors. At the far end, windows looked out on to a small plaza hemmed in by more tall glass buildings. A door with a security keypad beside it opened on to stairs, and opposite that another door was marked ‘Security’. McLean tried the handle, but it was locked. He thumbed the button to call down the lift, but before it arrived, the door to the stairwell clicked open and DS Harrison appeared.

‘Jay told me he’d dropped you off, sir.’ She held the door open for him. ‘We’re keeping the place locked down for the moment. At least until the pathologist’s had a chance to see whether it’s suspicious or not.’

‘How is it not suspicious?’ McLean asked. ‘He’s dead, didn’t you say?’

Harrison half shrugged, half shook her head. ‘It’s . . . weird, sir. And there’s more. She . . .’ She stopped talking as a paramedic came down the stairs towards them. ‘Best if I tell you after you’ve seen.’

‘How was he found? I didn’t think there was a Mrs Fielding.’

‘There’s no’,’ Harrison said. ‘But he has a cleaner come in every morning after he’s gone to work. She’d already done most of the flat before she found him in the bedroom.’

‘That’s going to please forensics if it comes to it. Nothing like a nice, freshly cleaned crime scene to work with. The cleaner still here?’

Harrison shook her head. ‘She took a bit of a turn. Kirsty— DCI Ritchie said to send her home with a constable after I’d spoken to her. We’ll follow it up once the doctor’s given her the OK.’

‘Is Ritchie in charge then?’

‘Aye, sir. She’s upstairs wi’ the pathologist. Think they’re waiting for you to show up, actually.’

Intrigued, McLean followed the detective sergeant up the next two flights of stairs and out on to a wide hallway. There were only two apartments on this level, Fielding’s being the one with its door wide and a couple of uniformed officers standing outside. One of them held a clipboard, and the other handed him some paper overshoes and a pair of latex gloves ‘just to be on the safe side’.

‘I’ll wait out here, sir,’ Harrison said as McLean signed himself in. He pulled on the overshoes and snapped on the gloves, glad not to have to go for the full paper overalls, hood and mask. Then with a last glance over the hallway, he stepped inside.

From his encounters with the lawyer before, McLean had come away with the impression of a man who spent money to show that he had it, rather than from any innate sense of taste. The apartment only served to reinforce that appraisal. It was expensive, largely open-plan and filled with sleek, modernist furnishings that were a vulgar expression of wealth over comfort. The wall opposite the entrance was glass from floor to ceiling, looking out on to the street through vertical blinds. Across the road, an old church stood empty, its windows boarded up, its walls scrawled with graffiti. From this height, he could see down into the remains of a graveyard, which perhaps wasn’t the nicest of views, but at least meant the neighbours were quiet.

Noises from an open door reminded him of why he was here. McLean turned slowly, taking in the room, looking for anything that might have been out of place. Then he remembered that the cleaner had already been through this main space, so it was unlikely there would be any clues to be found. It certainly looked like a room that nobody really lived in.

The bedroom would have been large by modern city apartment standards, but with several people in it including the deceased, it felt small. Sharing the same glass wall as the main room, the blinds on this side of the divider had been closed, leaving only the light from an overhead fitting and a couple of bedside lamps. All attention was on the king size bed and the figure lying sprawled on it. As McLean took in the scene, it wasn’t hard to understand why.

Tommy Fielding lay naked on top of his sheets, one hand spread limply over his crotch, as if covering his modesty even in death. The other hand reached up behind his head, where a silk tie had been fastened round his neck, then looped over the bed frame, the free end draped over his half-curled fingers. His dead eyes stared at the ceiling.

‘Well that’s not exactly how I imagined starting my day,’ McLean said. All eyes turned towards him, except for the pathologist, who was bending over the body, peering at Fielding’s head.

‘You got the message then, Tony.’ DCI Ritchie stood on the other side of the bed, arms folded, face sombre.

‘Aye, I was out talking to this one’s boss.’ He nodded at the body. ‘Was going to be speaking with him next, but I guess that’s not happening now. What’s the story? He do this to himself?’

Cadwallader stood upright with a great deal of groaning, then turned slowly to face McLean. ‘Hard to say without having a more detailed look at him in the mortuary. Certainly looks like a bit of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong. I think Kirsty has other ideas, though.’

McLean looked to the DCI for clarification. ‘How so?’

‘There’s just a couple of problems. Here.’ Ritchie led him to a half-open door, beyond which was an en-suite bathroom. The large mirror above the basin was clear until she reached a latex-gloved hand for the tap and turned it on. Steam billowed up from the scalding hot water, misting the glass and revealing letters, words.

‘. . . ying breath I cur . . .’ McLean turned his head to one side as if that would make more of the message readable.

‘With my dying breath I curse thee.’ Ritchie switched off the tap. ‘Don’t want to upset the forensic techs any more than necessary. We’ll get them to analyse that. Maybe pull some prints