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

‘Let’s just get back to the station. I’ll ask a constable to have a more thorough look at that box, but my best guess is it’s a red herring. Reckon we’ll get further following the money, which means we really need to speak with the current Lord Bairnfather. Given my past history with the rich and famous, that should be fun.’

Harrison gave him a look that was half knowing, half incredulous. ‘You think he’d have anything to do with this?’

‘Maybe not him directly. Families can be weird that way though, and rich families tend to be the worst. I don’t know what the set-up with the hotel is, how the Bairnfather Estate trust works. Could be any number of reasons why one beneficiary might want to get rid of another, great-aunt or no.’

‘I’ll get Lofty to look into it. He’s the best when it comes to numbers.’ Harrison folded her coat neatly and placed it in the boot so it wouldn’t stain the leather seats. ‘You want me to drive, sir?’

McLean handed her the keys, not quite sure when it was he’d decided he preferred being chauffeured to driving himself. Perhaps it was the car, with its ridiculously over-powered engine. He found himself unaccountably yearning for the simplicity of his old GTV. Or maybe he was yearning for the past it represented.

Shaking his head at the stray thought, he closed the boot and walked round to the passenger door. Inside, the car was warm and dry, the seat welcome after being on his feet for a while. He pulled the door closed, strapped on the seat belt, and only then noticed that Harrison hadn’t climbed in behind the wheel. She’d opened the door, just a crack, and then stopped.

‘You’re letting the cold air in, Sergeant,’ he said, half joking. Harrison didn’t respond, so he craned his neck forward to see where she was looking, then followed her gaze to a point a few yards off, beside the path that climbed up from the forestry track to the clearing. And then he saw it, sitting still as a statue, staring with that intense gaze that went right through to your soul. A black cat. Not large like Mrs McCutcheon’s cat, who had grown portly on an exercise regime that consisted mainly of sleeping in front of the Aga. It had sheltered as best it could from the rain under a frond of bracken, but even so its coat was slick with wet. As he watched, it lifted a front paw, licked it, and then wiped its face a couple of times.

Not quite knowing why he did so, McLean unclasped his seat belt and opened the car door. As if it had been waiting for his invitation, the cat stopped cleaning itself, stood up and trotted over. It had the decency to shake the worst of the water off its back, then leapt gracefully into his lap. He held out a suspicious hand, but the cat only nudged it once, marking him with its scent, before curling up into a neat black ball.

‘Umm . . .’ Harrison peered in through the now fully open driver’s side door, her uncertainty as evident as McLean’s own.

‘It’s not the first time this has happened to me,’ McLean said. ‘Guess we’ll need to stop off at a vet on the way back to the station.’

14

‘Boss wants to see you, Gaz.’

Big John’s words are the last thing he needs to hear. He’s only just got in, still bleary eyed and sore from another sleepless night on Bazza’s couch. Gary knows he can’t stay there much longer, but finding anywhere in this city’s a nightmare these days. When did it all get so expensive? And the council couldn’t give two fucks he’s been kicked out of his own home. Still got to pay the rent, mind. Fucking child support for a kid he’s not even allowed to see any more.

‘He say what it was about?’ Gary thumps the corner of his locker with the heel of his hand to get the door opened. Who needs a padlock when the fucking thing’s almost welded itself shut? Cheap piece of foreign shit.

‘No’ Stevie. He’s away up at the new site. It’s Sheila in charge now.’

As if Gary’s day couldn’t get any worse. He pulls the door open, shoves his bag inside on top of the pile of hi-vis gear and his steel-capped boots, then slams the door hard shut again.

‘Fuckin’ marvellous. What genius puts a woman in charge of a site like this, aye?’ He’s not expecting an answer, and doesn’t get one. As Big John trudges off towards the building site, Gary rolls the stiffness out of his shoulders, runs a hand through his hair and heads for the admin block.

They’ve been on this site a couple of years now, and everyone knows the project’s winding up. The heavy concrete work for the foundations and main structure is done. Now it’s the turn of the sparkies and plumbers, the glass boys and those mad bastards who do the tiling. Detail work to make the new St James’s Centre all shiny for the public. Gary doesn’t do detail. Rebar, concrete pumps and hard graft, that’s his thing.

‘Come in.’ The voice from the other side of the frosted glass door is all wrong when Gary knocks. He’s known Stevie Tanner the best part of a decade now, since he started work out of school. They’ve been on the same jobs that whole time, so how come Stevie’s away and Gary’s still here? He knows he’s not the sharpest pencil in the box, but he’s not stupid either. With a sigh, he pushes open the door.

Sheila’s sitting at Stevie’s desk. She’s old. At least forty, with a face like she’s sucking a lemon while someone pulls her hair. Not that she’s got much of that, mind. Cut short on top, shaved around the sides. She reminds Gary of those uppity lesbian bitches camped outside the hotel where he met Mr Fielding.

‘Ah, Mr Tomlinson. You’re