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

What if he was just unconscious? Maybe I could help him. I mean, I was a care nurse, I know what to do, right? So, aye. I went back in. But soon as I saw him there, I knew. Like, I’d known before but your mind kind of goes blank and then your brain starts filling in the pieces. And you wonder, did I really see that? And what if this? Aye?’

‘It’s quite all right, Ms Naismith. You haven’t done anything wrong. All I’m trying to do is put the pieces together and work out what happened to Mr Fielding.’

‘Well if you ask me he tried to wank while choking himself and it all went wrong. Stupid sod. That’s two flats in that building I’ll no’ be cleaning again.’

‘Two? You cleaned the flat across the hall?’

‘Aye. No’ as often as Mr Fielding’s place, but he’d ask me to do it every once in a while. When he had new tenants in.’

McLean considered the information and whether he should pass it on to the NCA. Chances were they already knew, and hadn’t thought to tell him. So much for all this liaison work Elmwood was supposedly doing.

‘Shame really,’ Ms Naismith continued, talking to herself as much as McLean. ‘Neither of them were all that much work, and the pay was good.’

‘Not much work?’

‘Aye, the rented flat was empty most of the time, and Mr Fielding was very tidy himself.’ The cleaner frowned, recalling something. ‘There was that mess a few weeks back, though. Took some cleaning, I can tell you.’

‘Really? What was that?’

‘Well, Mr Fielding usually left all his clothes in the laundry basket to be washed. Only this one time he’d shoved everything in himself and overloaded the machine. Men, eh?’ She flicked her head back in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. ‘Took me ages to sort it all out, and some of the clothes were fair ruined. No idea what he’d been doing, but they reeked of smoke and stuff. Must’ve been at some bonfire or something, only it smelled horrible, y’ken? Like when someone sets fire to a carpet.’

McLean hardly dared breathe, let alone ask the next question. ‘You wouldn’t know exactly when this was, would you?’

Naismith scrunched her forehead into a frown, trying to think. ‘It was a while back. Before the bad weather set in, but I couldn’t say for sure.’

‘And the clothes?’

‘Och, they were ruined. I put them in a bin liner and chucked them out.’

56

Sitting in a cramped meeting room at the offices of MacFarlane and Dodds, Solicitors and Notaries Public, Harrison was beginning to wish she’d sent DC Stringer on his own to interview Anthony Swale and Jeremy Scobie. Admittedly her attitude to them was biased by their association with the men’s rights movement their dead friend ran, but their attitude towards her was condescending, verging on outright rude.

‘I’m not entirely sure how you came by the information, Detective Sergeant, but it’s hardly a crime to have a drink with someone in a bar, you know?’ Swale peered down his nose at her, head raised slightly as if being in the same room as a woman caused him physical pain.

‘Frankly I’m appalled that you would have someone of the standing of Tommy Fielding under surveillance at all. When did we become a police state?’ Scobie’s mock-affronted tone put Janie’s teeth on edge, but she swallowed her annoyance and plastered a fake smile on her face.

‘Do you deny being in the Walter Scott bar at the Scotston Hotel last night, Mr Swale?’ Janie didn’t let the man answer before turning her attention on his colleague. ‘And Mr Scobie, I can assure you Mr Fielding was not “under surveillance” as you put it. He is dead, though, and we need to trace his last movements.’

Both men startled at her words, which suggested to her the news hadn’t reached them yet. Well, she didn’t feel sorry for breaking it to them this way. If they’d offered coffee she might have been in a better mood. Biscuits would have helped, too.

‘Dead?’ Scobie regained his composure quickest. ‘When?’

‘How?’ Swale asked.

‘He was found dead in his bed by the cleaner this morning. It appears not to be suspicious, but we’ll know for sure once the post-mortem has been done.’

‘How did he die?’ Swale asked again.

Harrison put on her sweetest smile but didn’t answer. ‘So, gentlemen. We know that you both attended one of Mr Fielding’s little get-togethers at the Scotston yesterday evening. We know you both joined him for a drink in the bar afterwards. What time did you leave?’

Scobie looked at Swale, something like worry passing between the two of them. ‘You know he had a lot of enemies?’ Swale said. ‘Those women who protested outside the hotel, for one thing. Heard you let them go after a bunch of them broke in and disturbed the peace. What if it was one of them did him in, eh? How will that look?’

‘Mr Swale, I can assure you that none of the women in question were anywhere near Mr Fielding at the time of his death. We don’t even think it was suspicious, but as you so rightly point out, he was a man who courted controversy and had, as you say, a lot of enemies. We would be remiss in our duties if we didn’t investigate, even if it turns out to have been nothing but natural causes. So again, please. What time did you leave him?’ Janie wasn’t quite sure why she asked the question, given that she already knew the answer. Perhaps because it was making them uncomfortable.

‘I guess it must have been the back of nine? Quarter past maybe?’ Swale finally relented. He had begun playing with his fingers like a smoker in need of his fix, although Janie got no scent of either tobacco or vape off him.

‘Aye, Tommy got a text from someone. Said it was important and he needed to cut the evening short. Otherwise we’d have been there another hour,