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

details. ‘Mr Stephen Whitaker. Lives alone, neighbours don’t see much of him, don’t really know anything about him, but then he lives in the basement with its own entrance, so it’s no’ like he’s chatting wi’ folk in the hallway.’

‘Who found him?’

‘That was a neighbour. Old wifey lives on the ground floor, above his flat. Went to complain about the smell and found him . . . well, you’ll see. Pathologist’s down there just now if you’re wanting to talk to him.’

McLean turned to DC Blane, a full head taller than both him and PS Gatford. Most Edinburgh tenements had high ceilings, but not in the basement flats. ‘Why don’t you two go and get a statement from the neighbour, OK? I’ll see if I can find a boiler suit that fits, and go see what all the fuss is about.’

The smell had been foul ever since he had begun the climb down the stone steps outside, a horrible fug of burned meat and rancid fat that brought to mind bad house fires and worse barbecues. As he stepped through the door, McLean gagged at the reek of it, so powerful it was almost impossible to breathe.

Nothing about the basement flat was big, and the front room was no exception. The back wall was taken up by the most minimalist of galley kitchens; a sink, single electric ring cooker and microwave. Shoved against the side wall, a narrow table was covered in empty pizza and kebab boxes, half-crushed beer cans and other detritus. A single wooden chair had been pushed underneath the table, and the only other place to sit beside the floor was an elderly armchair next to the window. It hadn’t been put there to make the most of the view, which was made up entirely of rubbish that had blown or been thrown into the gulley between the pavement and the tenement.

‘I had a feeling you’d be along soon. Tell me what you think about this, then.’

McLean had been concentrating on the peripheral details and somehow had managed to miss the white boiler-suited figure of the city pathologist. There was no sign of his assistant, which was just as well since there was barely room for the both of them.

‘No Doctor Sharp?’

‘Alas, no. Tracy’s gone to help Tom MacPhail with another case on the other side of town. They told me this was a house fire, so I thought I’d be safe enough coming on my own. Wasn’t exactly expecting this.’

McLean edged closer until he could see the figure sitting in the chair. As he did so, he noticed a pair of discarded work boots placed in front of a low table. A laptop computer sat open and facing the chair, as if whoever had been sitting in it had been watching something on the screen. Given that there was no telly in the tiny living room, this was most likely the case.

Other details came to him as he scanned the scene. The chair was upholstered in some dirty brown cloth material, clearly treated with fire retardant as it hadn’t burned much. Directly above it, a greasy black smear of soot looked like the kind of mark a candle makes when placed under a shelf without thought. Only this spot was much larger than any candle could leave. Something lay on the arms of the chair, and then, as McLean took another step closer, it all resolved into a horrific whole.

‘Dear God. What happened to him?’

Stephen Whitaker had not discarded his work boots when he had sat down to watch something on his laptop computer. He was still wearing them. The misshapen somethings lying on the arms of the chair were, in fact, his arms, hands clenched around the soft fabric as if he was hanging on for dear life. If that had been the case, it hadn’t worked, as he was very dead. That was, if he was indeed Stephen Whitaker. Apart from short stumps of legs and shorter stumps of forearms, there wasn’t really much of him left to identify.

‘I really don’t know, Tony. It looks like spontaneous human combustion, but in all my years in the job I’ve never encountered an actual case of it. Never had a colleague mention they’d seen it either. I’d thought it was just an urban myth. Something from the Fortean Times.’ Cadwallader waved an open hand at the blackened and grisly remains. ‘Not real.’

‘Could it have been staged?’ McLean knew the answer before he even asked the question, but it needed to be voiced anyway.

‘That’s your department. And the forensics team. I’d say no, though. Everything about the body points to it being burned here. I just don’t understand how it can be like this, but no damage anywhere else in the room.’

McLean crouched down to peer under the chair. A dark circle of burning matched the one on the ceiling above, as if a bolt of pure energy had descended from on high, spearing through Mr Whitaker on its way down into the earth. That couldn’t be what had happened, of course. Otherwise the neighbour who’d called it in would have had a different story to tell.

‘You’ll let me know when the PM’s going to be?’ He backed away from the burned remains, taking one last look at the minimalist living room.

‘Of course. Probably won’t take long, though. There’s not much of him left to examine.’

McLean found DC Blane back out on the street, chatting with Amanda Parsons, the senior forensic technician who also happened to be DS Harrison’s flatmate. Of Sergeant Gatford there was no sign, but a fresh-faced uniformed PC had taken over manning the cordon, so it was possible the old copper had sloped off for a cup of tea.

‘You get anything useful from the neighbour?’ he asked after he’d struggled out of the white overalls. The air was cool in the shade of the tenements, a brisk wind blowing in off the Forth and thankfully taking the stench of burned meat away with it. Down