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

all about it. Apparently he killed himself in his bath. My bath. Can you imagine that?’

McLean almost didn’t catch the quick mention of Mrs Saifre by her first names. He was surprised by the excitement in Elmwood’s voice, the mischievous glint in her eye, the apparent delight rather than horror at the discovery.

‘I don’t really need to imagine it. I saw it.’ He didn’t add, ‘I set it up so it looked like suicide because nobody would believe a vengeful ghost had scared him to death and almost did the same for poor Janie Harrison.’

‘Gosh. I suppose that means you’ve been in my bedroom.’

McLean chose to ignore the slightly lewd suggestion, waiting for the chief superintendent to sit down before doing so himself.

‘That’s not why I’m disappointed though, Tony,’ Elmwood said, as she arranged herself on the sofa like a young lady fresh out of finishing school. ‘I’m very disappointed that there has been no progress on the Cecily Slater murder. We’ve spent a great deal of money so far for very little return.’

McLean had been savouring his coffee, but the chief superintendent’s words gave him pause. Not that her concern about the lack of progress was a surprise, far from it. Jayne McIntyre had warned him the investigation was going to be mothballed by the end of the week. It was the mention of budgets that jarred. In all his dealings with Elmwood so far, money had never come up. She had found the budget for half a dozen new detective constables and was pushing for more funding to come east. It rang false that she would want to wind down the Slater investigation because it was expensive. And that made him wonder what the real reason was.

‘It’s not been an easy case,’ he said. ‘Bad enough her body wasn’t found for a week and the weather destroyed most of the forensic evidence. She was a recluse, had been for years. It’s almost impossible to find anyone who’s been in contact with her recently, let alone anyone who might have harboured such a powerful grudge.’

The chief superintendent nodded, her face serious for a moment. ‘I understand. Some cases are like that. And it’s not as if it’s actually closed. I want you to pull everything together and we’ll get an outside team to review it. You’ll need to reassign the team to other duties.’

McLean took a sip of coffee to stop his reflex instinct to complain. This wasn’t a battle he could win, he knew that. It hurt all the same. Cecily Slater’s death had been fuelled by a hate that wouldn’t simply go away. If they didn’t find the people responsible, someone else would suffer the same fate soon enough.

‘You got my report on Brian Galloway?’ he asked, by way of pushing the conversation along.

‘Yes. Thank you, Tony. I’m very grateful to you for doing that. His death could have been quite . . .’ She searched the air for the right word. ‘Sensational? Everyone knows Mad Bastard, but only a few people knew Brian Galloway. I heard the press were sniffing around, going to make something lurid out of it all. Thought it best to get ahead of them.’

On the surface, Elmwood’s words sounded reasonable, plausible even, but McLean could see the lie easily enough. Nothing to be gained from exposing it though. Not now, at least.

‘The pathology isn’t conclusive, but they reckon he had a bad reaction to a mixture of prescription painkillers and something else he’d taken to help himself sleep. It’s tragic, but I hear the band’s last album is back in the charts.’

The chief superintendent narrowed her gaze for a moment, as if trying to work out whether or not he was taking the piss. McLean kept his best poker face on, and she finally relented.

‘Well, this has been fun, hasn’t it?’ She put her barely touched mug of coffee down and stood up in one fluid motion, bending perhaps a little closer to McLean than would be considered polite at his end of town. One hand briefly flirted with touching his knee, but then she pulled away, giving him space to stand as well.

‘I’ll get the Slater investigation into shape by the end of the day,’ he said, receiving a brief nod before Elmwood retreated to her desk. McLean let himself out, the tension falling from his shoulders as he walked the short route back to his own office. He wasn’t so foolish as to believe he was off the hook though; the leopard didn’t change its spots that easily, and neither did the tiger. Should he have confronted her about Fielding there and then? No, it was too soon. There was too much of their past history he hadn’t uncovered yet, most of all the reason the chief superintendent seemed keen to keep it a secret.

He paused at his door, pulled his phone out and navigated through the screens until he found the text from Dalgliesh. A name, a number, answers. But he couldn’t make that call here, in the building and not more than a dozen swift strides from the woman he wanted to talk about. Shoving the phone away again, he set off, unsure exactly how much distance would ever be safe.

In the end, the station car park had to suffice. McLean sat in Emma’s little Renault ZOE, stared sightlessly out of the windscreen, the chief superintendent’s words going round and round in his mind. He could understand them shutting down the Cecily Slater case; it was going nowhere after all, and showed little sign of any sudden breakthrough. No, it was the excuse of budgetary reasons that still rang false with him. It was stupid, really. If Elmwood had simply said close it down, he’d have reluctantly complied. But she had to go and over-explain it, that was how he knew it was a lie, and he couldn’t help but see the invisible hand behind the order. He’d spooked Lord Bairnfather at the reception and annoyed Tommy Fielding earlier that same