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

know me, Jayne. Hate women in powerful positions. Can’t stand working with them at all.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it’s the other stuff we found on his laptop that’s going to cause a few sleepless nights. There’s a lot of email correspondence with Lord Bairnfather about Cecily Slater’s will. At the very least they conspired to suppress her most recent changes, particularly her nomination of a successor to her role as trustee of the Bairnfather Trust. The name Mirriam Downham comes up quite a few times. Can’t imagine that being terribly popular with a man like Lord Reggie. He might even have been complicit in his aunt’s murder, though I doubt we’d ever make that stick.’

It didn’t take McIntyre long to see the problem. ‘And he’s filthy rich, with a lot of powerful and influential friends. You do know how to pick them, don’t you?’

‘Almost makes me wish the chief superintendent were still here,’ McLean said. ‘She was always good at navigating those choppy waters. And soothing ruffled feathers.’

‘Any news on her condition?’ McIntyre asked.

‘She’ll live, I’m told. Burns take a long time to heal, though, and they leave nasty scars. Her clothes protected her in the main, but her hands and face are badly damaged. Mentally, who knows how she’ll cope? And there’s the small matter of her and Tommy Fielding still to address.’

‘You still think she killed him?’

‘I think she had motive and opportunity. But that’s not enough to prove it.’

‘I don’t get it, though.’ McIntyre shook her head slowly. ‘I mean, I understand they had history, but from what everyone says they both loathed each other. Why would she . . . ? She seems so . . . ?’

‘It’s about power, Jayne. I’d have thought you’d understand that. Elmwood – Gail – can be charming. God knows she turned it on me from the first we met. But it was always about power. And manipulation. Fielding’s just the same. Using that horrible charisma of his to mould like-minded people to his will. Preying on their insecurities and stoking their hate. The two of them were almost perfectly suited. Sure, they hated each other, but hate can be just as intoxicating as love. Why else do exes so often end up screwing each other’s brains out then regretting it the morning after?’

‘I always forget you have a degree in psychology, Tony.’ McIntyre glanced away from him as she spoke, her attention drawn by the nothing that was unfolding in the interview room. ‘So you think Gail and Fielding were just having a hate fuck, nothing else?’

‘No, it’s more than that. They were using each other, must have been for years. He contacted her about Galloway, for starters. There’s no other explanation for how she could have known. What are the chances it was Fielding having a word in the chief constable’s ear that got her the job up here in the first place? Problem is, she stood to lose more than him if it ever became public knowledge.’

‘Sounds like a motive to me. Something like that wouldn’t just destroy her career; it could land her in jail.’

It was McLean’s turn to shake his head. He considered the writing on Fielding’s bathroom mirror, and the things Madame Rose had told him while he was still in shock the night before. ‘Motive doesn’t equal guilt, and forensics leave us with reasonable doubt. I can’t see it going to prosecution. No, as far as the world’s concerned, Tommy Fielding’s death was misadventure. A wanker to the end.’

McIntyre laughed out loud, then covered her mouth lest the sound travel through to the interview room beyond. If it had done, Gary Tomlinson gave no indication he had heard.

Neither of his two rescued cats were in the kitchen when McLean let himself in and dumped his briefcase on the table. He didn’t recall having left the light on either, but it had been a very long day, beginning with aches and pains well before dawn, so there was every possibility he’d forgotten. He filled the kettle and hefted it on to the hotplate, then set about fetching teapot and tea for a much needed cuppa. Beer and something from the takeaway could come later.

It was about the same time he realised the teapot was missing that he heard the voices filtering through the closed kitchen door from the hall beyond. Something about the sound, the cadence of the words he couldn’t make out, relaxed him at the same time as it lifted his weary heart. He hurried through to the library, certain of what he would find there and not disappointed.

‘Surprise!’ Emma leapt out of her chair to greet him as he entered the room. He barely had time to make out that there were other people present before she had wrapped him in a tight hug. McLean held on as if his life depended on it, both to Emma and the moment. He didn’t want to let her go, lest all the horror of the past few weeks come crashing back. And was that a dampness he could feel pricking the corners of his eyes, a lump threatening to form in his throat? Christ, but he’d missed her.

‘Well look at you,’ he said, once the embrace had finally been broken. Africa seemed to have suited Emma. Her face was tanned, a smear of freckles cresting the top of her cheeks. She’d cut her hair even shorter than he remembered, the spikiness of it making him think she’d maybe done it herself, with blunt scissors. Despite the heat coming from the lit fire, she wore several layers of shapeless clothes as if she was freezing. But she glowed with an excitement he’d not seen in her for a long time.

‘I don’t know, Tony. I leave you alone for what? Two months? And look at you.’ A frown creased her forehead and she took a slower step towards him, one hand reaching out to gently touch his face. He’d not really noticed how taut and burned his skin was, but