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

too much time at senior officers’ strategy meetings, availing himself of the free coffee, biscuits and sandwiches for lunch while there. Word was the chief inspector had been a rugby player in his younger years, almost but not quite making it to the national squad. If so, his rugby playing days were long gone. And like many a man active in his youth, old age had seen the muscle turn rather more to fat.

‘I’ve never been much of an administrator. You know that.’ McLean waved a hand in the direction of the folder Chief Inspector Crane had arranged on the table in front of them like a shield wall. It was, he knew, a summary of all his failings since first joining what had been Lothian and Borders Police, the best part of a quarter century ago. Crane had brought it to all of their interviews, and never opened it once.

‘Sooner or later you’re going to have to come to a decision.’ McLean unfolded his arms, leaned forward and laid his hands on the table in what he hoped was a gesture of conciliation. ‘You know what the top brass want. Or at least the people putting the squeeze on them, anyway. My head on a plate. Maybe something suitably vindictive to go along with it. I imagine that pisses you off almost as much as my lack of respect for procedure. More, maybe, or you’d have recommended my being sacked long ago.’

Crane stared at him through eyes narrowed by the folds of spare flesh on his face. The silence sat between them like the haar that sometimes rolled off the North Sea to blanket the city for days on end. Impenetrable and smothering. McLean waited; it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do. Finally the chief inspector broke.

‘You’re a menace, McLean.’ He shook his head as he spoke. ‘But your actions saved a woman’s life and opened the lid on something foul and rotten that had been going on far too long. You’re right. Plenty of powerful people dislike you almost as much as I do. But there’s a few seem to think you’re worth protecting too. Christ only knows why.’

McLean shrugged, smiled, sat back in his chair and suppressed the wince of pain as his hip protested.

‘My recommendation was you be demoted to sergeant and sent on retraining, but apparently there’s a shortage of detectives right now, even more so ones with decent experience in the field. Sticking you back in uniform would put people off applying for CID, I’m told. So you get to stay in plain clothes.’

Now, finally, Chief Inspector Crane opened up his folder and removed a single sheet from the top of the pile neatly stacked inside. Had it been there this whole time? Were these past months of endless interviews, debriefings, suspension from active duty, all a sham? McLean wouldn’t have put it past them to be so petty.

‘The new chief superintendent has also decided that filling a detective sergeant position will be much cheaper than finding a seasoned detective inspector who knows this patch. She’s not so concerned about a replacement DCI having local experience, since that’s really more of a managerial role anyway.’ Crane’s emphasis on the word ‘managerial’ felt like it was meant as an insult, but if so it missed its mark. He turned the sheet of paper around and slid it across the table. A letter on official Police Scotland headed paper. McLean didn’t reach for it; he was fairly sure he knew what it said.

‘Effective immediately, you are demoted to the rank of detective inspector, working within Specialist Crime Division and based in Edinburgh. Until such time as the post of detective chief inspector is filled, you will report to Detective Superintendent McIntyre. You will also be required to attend a series of reorientation sessions, focusing on procedure. You can appeal this decision, should you wish, but should you choose to do so you will remain suspended without pay pending the outcome of that appeal.’ Crane paused for a moment, perhaps waiting for some kind of protest, or even any kind of response at all. ‘Do you wish to appeal?’

McLean leaned forward slowly, not so much to annoy the chief inspector as to avoid any further pain from his hip. He reached out and took the letter, held it up for just long enough to show that he hadn’t read it, then put it back down on the table again before fixing Crane with a pleasant smile.

‘No. I don’t think that will be necessary,’ he said.

Nobody had told him that he couldn’t keep on using his old office on the third floor, so McLean let himself in then sat at his desk and stared out the glass wall at the city beyond. Someone had tidied up in his absence, and for once there was no paperwork awaiting his immediate attention. Hardly surprising given that he’d come here straight from his final meeting with DCI Crane of Professional Standards. He hadn’t failed to notice that the meeting had been between the two of them, alone. No senior officers present, no witnesses to the proceedings. A simple handover of a letter and it was done. Well, there was the small matter of some annoying training sessions he’d have to endure, but it was better than sitting at home, bored. The demotion was a plus, too. He could see fewer senior officers’ strategy meetings in his future, more puzzling out the strange forces that seemed to have arrayed themselves against the city.

He should probably have reported to Detective Superintendent McIntyre, maybe even checked to see if the new chief superintendent was in Edinburgh this week. Sooner or later he’d have to meet her, after all. Apart from a name – Gail Elmwood – and the fact that she had transferred to Police Scotland from the Metropolitan Police in London, he knew nothing about her at all. The only clue he had to her personality was her signature