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

‘That’s not really any of your business, Tony.’ Elmwood had sat on the business side of the desk the moment they had both entered the room, tidying up a couple of open folders McLean wasn’t at all interested in sneaking a look at. Now she stood up, smoothed her uniform. ‘Why don’t we sit down and discuss this like grown-ups, eh?’

She indicated the corner of the room, where a couple of comfortable chairs and a sofa were arranged around a low table. Behind them a shelf unit held a more expensive coffee machine than the one McLean had inherited with his office. As he sat down, Elmwood busied herself with it, not having bothered to ask him if he wanted a cup. It would have been a stupid question, of course. But she wasn’t to know that.

‘Milk?’ The chief superintendent bent to a small fridge wedged under the counter, and McLean was reminded uncomfortably of some of the more risqué films he’d rented as a teenager. The woman wasn’t exactly subtle, although she was better at dialogue than the actresses in police uniforms he’d seen on those old VHS tapes.

‘There you go.’ She handed him a cup. McLean took it, ignoring the touch of her finger on his hand. He’d chosen one of the chairs to sit in, and Elmwood looked at him slightly askance for a moment before seating herself on the sofa opposite.

‘Well, this is all very nice, isn’t it?’ she said after a moment, and McLean began to reappraise her skill with dialogue. ‘So tell me what you saw at Brian Galloway’s place.’

The chief superintendent didn’t seem overly upset at the death of someone she knew, so that suggested they hadn’t been close friends. There was a connection, though, and that in itself should have excluded her from having anything to do with the investigation. Even if it turned out Galloway’s death was entirely natural.

‘I spoke to his mother,’ McLean said, watching Elmwood’s face for any hint of a reaction. ‘She was the one who found him and called it in. She said he’d not been living in that house long. The state of the place backed that up. It wasn’t what you’d call a home.’

‘What about Galloway himself? I take it the pathologist saw him?’

McLean nodded. ‘He’ll schedule the PM as soon as possible, but his initial thoughts were something interfered with Galloway’s breathing. No signs of strangulation, though, so his best guess is some allergic reaction. He was on painkillers, you know? He’d broken his nose and several of his fingers.’

Elmwood seemed unsurprised by this knowledge, which set McLean’s internal alarms to a gentle ringing. It hadn’t been that long since Galloway had either fallen down the stairs as he’d claimed, or been soundly beaten by a young woman still in her teens. The former incident had been logged and filed away as needing no further investigation; the latter was knowledge not shared among a great many people. And yet the chief superintendent knew.

‘How did you find out about his death, ma’am?’ McLean tried again.

‘You really have to stop calling me that, Tony.’ Elmwood smiled that predatory smile at him. ‘Even Kirsty calls me Gail.’

McLean put down his coffee cup, still as full as when the chief superintendent had handed it to him. He stood up, edged around the low table. ‘I’ll be going now, ma’am. Please don’t ask me to run errands for you when I’m in the middle of a murder investigation again.’

He didn’t make it as far as the door before she called out, but he had gone further than he expected.

‘Detective Inspector McLean. I expect my officers to obey orders when they are given. Now come back here and report.’

He fought against clenching his fists, began a quick, silent count to ten in his head, made it as far as five before turning swiftly to face the chief superintendent. The smug expression on her face only made things worse, which he knew perfectly well was why she had pasted it there.

‘With all due respect, Chief Superintendent, I am a detective inspector with over twenty years’ experience. A detective constable could have – should have – been despatched to that scene to make a preliminary examination. That order should have come from Control, not from one of my detective sergeants on instruction from you. And there was no reason to do everything so swiftly. It’s not like he was going anywhere. So I’ll ask you again. How did you know about Galloway’s death? Who brought it to your attention and why?’

‘Are you angry with me, Tony?’ Elmwood actually fluttered her eyelashes at him, which wasn’t a good idea when he’d been up way too early and only had the one coffee.

‘This is a waste of time, ma’am. I’ll email you a report once the post-mortem’s done.’

McLean had his hand on the door handle before the chief superintendent spoke again. ‘Detective Sergeant Harrison shows a lot of promise, wouldn’t you say?’

He grasped the cold metal but didn’t turn the handle. It was easy enough to see the threat for what it was. The chief superintendent knew she had no power over him; he could walk out of this office, down the stairs, get into Emma’s car and never come back. They could sack him, even find a way to deny him his pension, and it wouldn’t make a difference other than being petty. But Harrison was at the bottom of the ladder, just beginning to climb. She had a bright future ahead of her, and Elmwood would crush it if he didn’t do exactly what she told him to. Damn her, and damn all the bloody politicians getting in the way of just doing the job properly.

McLean slowly released his grip on the door handle, let his shoulders slump in an overly theatrical show of defeat. Let her think she’d won – she had, after all. This time.

‘Galloway died of asphyxiation, most likely due to a