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

‘Why didn’t you?’ It was the question that had been bothering him since he’d found out.

‘It’s . . . complicated?’

‘Well we’ve got at least ten minutes.’ He waved a hand at the windscreen, beyond which traffic choked the road in an unmoving smog of exhaust fumes. ‘Try me.’

‘You know how I said Izzy was one of the protesters at Tommy Fielding’s conference?’

McLean nodded, fairly sure he already knew where this was going.

‘Well, she was actually one of the half dozen who broke into the hotel and got themselves arrested.’

McLean hadn’t been involved in that, but he’d read the daily station briefing email. ‘I thought there were only five of them. And they were let go with a caution.’

‘Exactly. I found out Izzy was in a holding cell and sort of persuaded Tam to forget she’d ever been in there?’

‘Persuaded?’ McLean knew the custody sergeant of old. Not exactly one to give out favours, unless he’d mellowed as he approached retirement. ‘No, I don’t think I want to know.’

‘It’s nothing like that, sir. Honestly.’ Harrison shook her head. ‘I could have told him what Izzy had been through, but I thought she’d rather not have that mentioned. You know about that, aye? Her step-father, Roger DeVilliers?’

‘Not the full details. She was abused, though, I know that much.’

‘He sexually assaulted her from the age of six, sir. He shared her with his sick friends, and when she tried to run away he used his money and influence to track her down. It’s amazing she’s not a total gibbering wreck. I don’t think I’d have survived if something like that had happened to me.’

McLean risked a sideways glance at the detective sergeant. There was an anger in her voice he wasn’t used to hearing, even if it was entirely justified.

‘That would explain how she was able to defend herself. How she managed to inflict quite so much damage on her attackers.’

‘Actually I think she learned that at her posh boarding school. Wish they’d taught us that sort of thing at Broxburn Academy.’

‘All the same. What you did was wrong, you know?’ McLean pre-empted the inevitable, interrupting Harrison before she could answer him. ‘And yes, I do get that it’s a bit rich coming from me of all people. But someone’s got to point it out. Helping a friend’s sister out with the duty sergeant is one thing, but tracking down her attackers? Taking a detective constable with you to interview one of them? Who sanctioned that? Nobody, because there wasn’t a complaint filed, no official investigation, no paper trail. And now one of those attackers is dead, circumstances as yet unexplained. This could all come back to bite you big time, Janie.’

‘I . . .’ Harrison started to say, then fell silent.

‘Look, I know why you did it. I’d most likely have done exactly the same myself. This isn’t a formal warning or a dressing-down. It’s a be careful. If what you’ve found out about Galloway proves useful to any of our ongoing investigations, there won’t be any problems. I can see to that. But you need to be aware that the chief superintendent is very interested in him, and as yet I’ve no idea why.’

‘The chief superintendent?’ Harrison’s voice went up a squeaky octave in surprise. ‘But how would she even know about him?’

‘That’s a mystery I’d very much like to get to the bottom of. And trust me, I’m working on it. There’s something else that’s been bothering me, though. What you said about Galloway and the other man.’

‘Christopher Allan?’

‘Aye, him. You said they’d been sent by Tommy Fielding to shut the DeVilliers girl up. What was it you called them? His goons? Are you sure it was him?’

‘Why else would they do that?’

McLean glanced at the Sat-Nav, unhelpfully suggesting he take a turn down a street currently closed for roadworks. ‘Young women get attacked all the time, Janie. You know that as well as I do. It seems a bit . . . far-fetched? I know Fielding’s not a nice person, but getting people to beat up a young woman? He’s one of the city’s top lawyers, you know. You start throwing around accusations and he’ll end your career before you can even log off your shift.’

‘So what? You think they were just trying to rape her, then? Nothing else?’ Harrison’s tone was a warning.

‘I don’t know. That’s the whole problem. But Galloway’s dead, his death is unusual, and someone brought it to the attention of our new chief superintendent. She got me to take over the investigation so that she can keep an eye on things, keep it under control. I need to know why, and who tipped her off. Throwing Tommy Fielding into the mix just makes things more complicated than they already are.’

They fell silent for a few minutes, the unnerving quiet of the car only adding to McLean’s unease. There was too much going on, too many half-connections and coincidences. And all the while it was distracting him from the investigation into Cecily Slater’s murder, her killers slipping ever further out of reach.

‘What if Fielding knows her, sir?’ Harrison said out of nowhere. ‘The chief super, that is. What if he was the one tipped her off about Galloway? Asked her to keep it quiet so nothing comes back to him?’

McLean shook his head slowly. He could see their destination a hundred metres up the road now, checked his mirror, indicated and began to slow. ‘You’ll be telling me he killed Cecily Slater next. Let’s stop speculating and start trying to find out some actual facts, eh?’

38

Brian Galloway’s former house was not as big as McLean’s own home on the other side of the city, but it was still a sizeable mansion by anyone’s reckoning. Late Victorian, if his scant knowledge of architecture was anything to go by, it was well maintained, but had a gaudiness about it that jarred. By the time he’d parked and he and Harrison had climbed out of the car and taken