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

dead, their ends baffling. Weird. And then the words on the mirror, written by Fielding’s own hand.

‘With my dying breath I curse thee.’

Madame Rose dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement. ‘Something like that, yes.’

‘But why go after the chief superintendent?’ McLean asked. ‘Why try to burn her as a witch?’

‘That was not Cecily.’ Rose paused a moment, taking a drink of tea. McLean found himself mimicking her action, and the warm, milky liquid soothed both his throat and his mind.

‘Then who?’ he asked, before the unwanted implications began to fall into place. ‘Oh.’

‘Told you he was a bastard, didn’t I?’ Izzy said.

‘Isobel dear. What have I told you about bad language?’ Madame Rose tutted her displeasure, then turned her attention back to McLean. ‘But she isn’t wrong. Men such as him gather around them the power to control and influence the weak-minded. That power does not die with them, no more than Cecily’s died with her.’

‘So you’re saying Gary Tomlinson was possessed?’ Well, it made as much sense as anything, although McLean doubted it would stand up in court.

‘If you must use such a crude term.’ Rose smiled, lifted her mug again but didn’t drink this time. ‘I’d say more that he gave himself totally to the hatred, and now it has consumed him.’

‘So what about Cecily?’ McLean asked. ‘You know I’m sceptical about all of this, Rose, but if she, her spirit, whatever, killed all those men, where is it now? Has she gone? Has it gone?’

The old medium didn’t answer straight away. Her gaze had been on him throughout their strange conversation, but now McLean saw her focus fade for a while, as if she was searching for something deep in her memory. Or listening for something beyond the range of normal hearing.

‘Cecily is at peace now,’ she said finally, her eyes flicking momentarily in Izzy’s direction before coming back to him. ‘And now the spirit seeks a new vessel.’

McLean took another drink, surprised to find that his mug was nearly empty. The tea had been exactly what he needed, but he wasn’t sure he could remember the last time he had felt so tired. He had come here because he knew that being alone with his thoughts was not a good idea immediately after the events at the chief superintendent’s house. He’d also hoped for a few answers, even while knowing they’d be neither straightforward nor satisfactory. On that score at least he hadn’t been disappointed, but now it was time to return to something resembling reality.

‘I’ll call you a taxi,’ Madame Rose said, as if she could read his thoughts. Perhaps she could.

62

‘You look like shit, Tony. You know that?’

McLean turned away from the one-way mirror separating the observation booth from interview room two. Detective Superintendent McIntyre stood in the doorway, shoulders slumped, looking every bit as tired as he felt.

‘It’s only a bit of singeing. The hair will grow back.’ He lifted a hand and lightly brushed the frizzy patch on the back of his head where he had come too close to the flames. Given the circumstances, it was a miracle that was all that had burned. Well, that and yet another suit fit only for the bin.

‘He saying anything?’ McIntyre gestured towards the glass. Beyond it, Detective Sergeant Harrison and Detective Chief Inspector Ritchie were attempting to interview Gary Tomlinson. If McLean and McIntyre were frazzled, then the young man looked even worse. His face glowed red where the heat of the flames had burned his skin, and dark black bruises circled his bloodshot eyes, the result of McLean’s own Glasgow Kiss.

‘Not a squeak, but then I don’t think he will.’ McLean gently touched his forehead, feeling the slight bump that was all the bruising he’d earned for his troubles. His cheeks were ruddy from the heat, too, but he couldn’t see them.

‘What was he doing there?’ McIntyre asked.

‘Aside from the obvious? Who knows?’

‘I heard Fielding had taken him under his wing, so I guess he figured he owed him payback.’

‘There’s more to it than that, though. Fielding was radicalising him. Same as he did for the goons who helped him kill Cecily Slater. Steve Whitaker, Don Purefoy, Brian Galloway. Probably Jimmy McAllister too. They all fell under his spell, and he twisted them until they’d do anything he asked them to. Our Gary in there was just the latest in a long line.’

‘That’s . . .’ McIntyre paused for a moment as if searching for the right words. ‘That’s quite an allegation, Tony. Do you have any proof?’

‘About them killing Slater? No. Not that could be used in a court of law, at least. And it hardly matters either, since they’re all dead. That poor bastard though?’ He nodded at the figure staring sightlessly at the wall. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up in a secure psych unit for the rest of his life. He’s been twisted so thoroughly he probably thinks he was doing God’s righteous work.’

McIntyre stared for a while, so close to the glass that her breath misted its surface gently as she breathed. ‘You sound like Rose,’ she said eventually.

‘Well you’re the one introduced me to her, remember?’

‘Touché.’ McIntyre conceded the point with a smile.

‘The other point, though, about Fielding radicalising men for his fight against the rising tides of feminism? We’ve got him fair and square there. Not that it matters, since he’s dead.’

McIntyre turned to face him, her back to the glass as she raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Oh yes?’

‘Mike Simpson down in IT cracked the security on his laptop, and there’s all sorts of interesting stuff on it. Seems he really was a leading light in the more militant wing of the men’s rights movement. Our friends at the NCA are just itching to get stuck in to it all.’

‘Why is it you don’t sound as happy about that as you should, Tony? You’re not a closet misogynist, are you?’

McLean smiled at the joke, even though the movement made the skin on his face ache. ‘You