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

maybe.’ Scobie drummed his fingers on the table. ‘There’s a point. Who was he meeting? Have you spoken to them yet?’

‘Was it just the two of you in the bar, then?’ Janie asked, again ignoring the question put to her.

‘No, there was that young lad Tommy’d taken a shine to,’ Swale said. ‘Got kicked out by his girlfriend on some made-up assault charge. What’s his name again? Harry, Barry. No, Gary, that’s it.’

Janie raised an eyebrow. ‘Gary who?’

Scobie pulled out his phone and swiped the screen awake. Tapped at it a moment, then turned it so Janie could see. ‘Gary Tomlinson. Aye, he’s a good lad gone through a rough few weeks. Tommy was going to see about getting him visiting rights for his wee girl.’

Swale looked sideways at his colleague as if surprised that he knew so much about the man. Janie took down Tomlinson’s number, frustrated that there was no address to go with it.

‘Thank you.’ She smiled again, but only because she knew it unsettled the two men. ‘Now, have you any idea who it was Mr Fielding was meeting?’

Swale shrugged. ‘He only said it was an old London contact recently moved up to Edinburgh. It was obviously very short notice, but important. And he didn’t want us there. We both walked up to the Lothian Road. I got a taxi home. Jeremy was going to do the same.’

Janie nodded, as if this information was important and useful even though she’d only really wanted to speak to these two to find out the identity of the third man. She pushed her seat back and stood up.

‘Well, thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very helpful. And I’m sorry to be the one to break the news about your friend. As I said before, we don’t think his death is suspicious, but we need to trace his movements and speak to anyone who saw him yesterday. I’ll make sure you get an update as soon as we can confirm cause of death. And if you think of anything that might be helpful, please do let me or my colleague know.’

DC Stringer understood the prompt, pulling a business card out of his jacket pocket and sliding it across the table. These two were far more likely to call a male officer than a female one. Not that Janie would have put much money on them calling anyone other than the most senior member of the Police Authority that they played golf with. Or possibly a friendly MSP. Well, she’d deal with the fallout from that when it happened. For now, she’d got what she wanted.

‘We need an address for this Gary Tomlinson,’ Janie said as they left the offices of MacFarlane and Dodds. Outside, the light was fading fast, even though it was barely mid-afternoon. Edinburgh was a lovely city in the summer, with its seemingly endless soft evening light and crisp, bright early mornings, but you paid for that in the winter when sometimes the sun hardly seemed to bother rising at all.

‘On it, boss,’ Stringer said, without a trace of irony. He had his phone out and was already tapping at the screen as they walked to the pool car.

‘Knock it off, Jay.’ Janie stopped mid-stride, forcing the detective constable to turn and face her.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Enough of the “on it boss” nonsense. Just because I got promoted. I’m a DS, not your boss.’

Stringer paused a moment. ‘OK, Sarge.’ He couldn’t quite keep the grin off his face this time.

‘I give up.’ Janie unlocked the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘You got anything yet?’

‘Control centre are running the name. Not too common so we should hopefully get lucky.’ As he pulled his seat belt on, Stringer’s phone buzzed and he peered at the screen. ‘Here we go. Gareth Tomlinson. Twenty-six years old. Arrested for domestic violence three months ago, but the charges were later dropped. Sounds like our man. Address listed in West Pilton.’

‘Stick it in the Sat-Nav then. We’ll go see if he’s home yet.’ Janie started the car, shoved it in gear and pulled out of the parking space.

‘Shouldn’t we call him first? See if he’s home right now?’

‘And spoil the surprise?’ Janie shook her head. ‘Don’t think so.’

The drive from the lawyers’ West End offices didn’t take long, and would have been even quicker had they not been diverted around roadworks at the Western General Hospital. Soon enough, Janie was cruising slowly along a potholed road, lined on both sides with council housing blocks, searching for the right number. Slightly better than Muirhouse to the north west, this part of the city was still not somewhere you would want to leave your car parked for long if you liked its wheels attached.

‘There we go. Number fifteen.’ Stringer pointed, and Janie pulled to the kerb.

‘We’ll not be long,’ she said as they both climbed out, looking around for signs of life. The street lights had come on, and a gentle wetness hung in the air that might have been rain or might have been haar drifting in off the Forth. Most of the windows glowed with light too, so there was a good chance somebody would be at home even if Gary Tomlinson wasn’t. She locked the car, hoping it would still be there when they got back, and then the two of them ventured up the short path to the building.

Janie remembered growing up in a council block not dissimilar to this one. An open corridor ran from the front of the building through to a patch of drying green at the back, two flats leading off it on the ground floor and a stone staircase climbing to another pair upstairs. It was always a bit of a lottery as to which flat was the one you were looking for, although these ones seemed to have passed out of council ownership some time ago. There were no signs to indicate who lived on the ground floor, but upstairs one door had a buzzer