None but the Dead (4 page)

McNab would have sworn that the cat grinned at him.

‘Who was on the phone?’ Freya said.

‘Dr MacLeod. She’s headed back from Skye and wondered if anything bad had happened in her absence.’

‘And has it?’

‘I’d better go to work and find out.’

As McNab approached to say his goodbyes, the cat sprang from Freya’s arms with what sounded like a growl. When McNab gave her a long lingering kiss, he heard a distinct hiss from the floor
area.

His mobile rang as he exited the main door from Freya’s set of flats.

‘DS McNab here?’

‘Can you get along to . . .’ The caller quoted an address in the East End. ‘The body of an elderly IC1 male reported in flat 1F2.’

‘Suspicious?’

‘We need a detective to tell us that,’ the voice said drily.

McNab swore a retort and hung up, finding himself hoping it was. Not that he welcomed murders per se. Just that murder was more in his line of expertise than a drugs bust at a Glasgow
nightclub.

At this time of the morning, he had to join the rest of the commuter traffic snaking its way through central Glasgow. Never patient, he contemplated a blue flashing light, but decided against
it. There was nowhere for the traffic queue to get out of his way except to mount the pavement, which was thronged with pedestrians.

McNab made do with tapping the driving wheel and muttering under his breath.

Eventually the traffic thinned and he found himself approaching the red sandstone tenement block of the address. There was a squad car outside and a policeman stood at the entrance to the close,
trying to look important.

‘What have you got?’ McNab flashed his ID.

At his arrival, the young constable looked less confident and stuttered a bit in his explanation.

‘The neighbour said he wasn’t answering and he hadn’t been seen for a week. We forced the door and found him sitting in his chair, dead.’

‘How, dead? Like old-age dead?’

‘I couldn’t tell, sir.’

‘Who’s been inside?’

‘Myself and PC Dobson.’ His face flushed red.

‘Where’s Dobson?’ McNab said.

‘She’s on the first landing, guarding the door.’

McNab sprinted the stairs to find a small blonde wearing a determined expression, surrounded by the distinct smell of vomit. McNab didn’t have to look far to find its source.

‘Did you do that?’ he said accusingly.

‘No, sir.’ She looked askance at the accusation.

‘Your partner, then?’

‘He went in first,’ she explained. ‘It was the heat and smell, sir.’

‘He didn’t vomit inside the flat?’ McNab demanded.

‘No, sir.’

McNab indicated she should stand aside, then opened the door. The stink in the close was nothing to what now enveloped him. But the blanket heat and noise was even worse. McNab knew that sound
only too well. The song of feasting bluebottles.

He crossed the small hall, following the buzz. The door to the main room stood ajar, but none of the flies were keen to escape. McNab covered his nose and mouth with his sleeve and took a look
inside.

The figure sat slumped back in a winged armchair in front of an electric fire with two bars beating out heat. As McNab stepped nearer for a closer look, the blowflies rose like a small
threatening cloud, descending almost immediately again to continue their feast.

From where McNab stood, there was no obvious sign of a struggle, no blood, but the smell of defecation, stale urine and decomposition were unmistakable.

McNab retreated to the close where PC Dobson stood resolute, her nostrils pinched shut.

‘Get some fresh air,’ McNab told her.

She couldn’t disguise her relief at the order. ‘Yes, sir.’

McNab pulled out his mobile.

‘Flypapers and an electronic swatter would be good.’

‘A buzzer?’

‘Definitely,’ McNab said sarcastically.

‘Great.’ Chrissy sounded as though she relished the thought of a swarm of flies.

McNab was aware that Chrissy McInsh, Rhona’s right-hand woman, had a strong stomach. He’d seen her order up a smoked sausage supper midway through examining a burnt-out body in a
skip, but he was determined to be clear just how bad it was.

‘There was a heater on full blast,’ he added.

‘Don’t turn it off,’ she ordered.

‘Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Chrissy said sweetly, and rang off.

The two uniforms were standing either side of the main door like sentries, the bloke studiously avoiding McNab’s eye.

‘Your place is upstairs, officer,’ McNab told him.

PC Williams wasn’t happy about that, but didn’t argue.

When he’d disappeared, McNab addressed his partner. ‘The first one I saw like that, I was sick too, but I made sure I got outside first.’ McNab fished out a fiver. ‘Find
the nearest coffee shop and bring me back a double espresso.’

Since he’d cut back on the booze, caffeine had become his drug of choice, and he found himself craving it almost as much as the whisky. Still, it didn’t come with the same hangover.
McNab went back upstairs to find PC Williams on duty beside his own vomit, his expression determined. McNab wondered if he planned ever taking another breath.

‘Which neighbour called the station?’

PC Williams nodded in the direction of the one other door on that landing.

‘Name?’

‘Mrs Connelly.’

McNab’s rap was swiftly answered. He displayed his ID to the elderly woman who stood before him.

‘What’s that smell?’ she demanded.

‘Unfortunately my officer has a weak stomach.’

She thought about that for a moment. ‘So Jock’s dead then?’

‘He is. May I come in?’

She stood back and let him pass, then immediately shut the door.

‘How long?’ she said.

‘A while.’ McNab didn’t go into detail.

She shook her head. ‘I was away a week at my son’s place. I checked on Jock the day after I got back, but he didn’t answer. Sometimes he just liked being on his own. Come
through, detective,’ she offered.

If next door smelt of decomposition, this flat assaulted his senses with lavender. Whether it was polish or air freshener, McNab had no idea.

Mrs Connelly took him into a kitchen, and offered him a cup of tea. McNab said yes, despite hankering after his coffee. From his experience, people talked more with a cup of tea in their
hands.

As she busied herself with kettle and teapot – none of this teabag in a cup nonsense – McNab took in the surroundings.

The phrase, ‘A place for everything and everything in its place’, sprang to mind, much like the flat he’d called home as a child. For some reason, that made him relax, and he
sat back in the chair. Even smiled as he was handed his cup and saucer.

‘How did he die?’ she finally asked, after allowing McNab time to savour the brew.

‘We don’t know yet.’

‘He was about ninety, I think. He told me once that he’d been a Bevin Boy during the war. Worked in the mines. The miners called him Jock. That wasn’t his real first name.
Drever was his surname though. He came from up north somewhere by his voice.’

‘From the Highlands?’

‘He never said where exactly, but he did talk about collecting seaweed when he was a boy.’

‘Lewis? Harris?’ McNab tried.

Mrs Connelly didn’t look as though she knew where he meant, but continued to ponder, so McNab changed the subject.

‘Did he have any family?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. At least he never mentioned any.’

‘Was there anything wrong with him?’

She gave him a wry look and McNab suddenly realized there was a twinkle in her eye.

‘Apart from old age, you mean?’

‘Apart from that.’

She gave a little laugh. ‘He never talked about it if there was, although the truth is, his mind was wandering a bit. He sometimes called me Ella. I assumed that was his late wife’s
name. He showed me a photograph of them once.’ Her eyes misted over. ‘I’ll miss Jock. He was a real gentleman.’ She rose and, taking her cup to the sink, started to wash
it.

‘Thanks for contacting us,’ McNab said.

She turned. ‘What’ll happen to him?’

‘We’ll establish how he died.’

‘Who’ll bury him?’

‘Maybe we’ll find a relative,’ McNab offered.

‘If not?’

‘I’ll keep you informed,’ McNab told her.

When McNab emerged, the mess on the landing had been sanitized. PC Williams’s colour was back and his nostrils had re-opened, allowing him the luxury of breathing. He was holding
McNab’s double espresso. McNab accepted it and swallowed it down.

‘Forensic’s here, sir,’ he said, indicating a bundle of boiler suits next to the door.

McNab pulled one on and, once encased, re-entered the flat.

Metal treads had been laid in the hall and as he pushed open the door he noted that the buzz of flies had dissipated, suggesting Chrissy had been busy with the fly swat. Entering, he saw
she’d also netted a selection, which were now beating themselves against the sides of their individual jars, ready to be sent to entomology to ID, should this prove to be a suspicious
death.

Chrissy sensed his entrance and turned.

‘Before you ask, the duty pathologist’s been. It’s not obvious how he died. So you’ll have to wait for the PM.’ She read his disappointed look. ‘What’s
up? Life not exciting enough for you?’

Knowing she was referring to Freya, McNab smiled in what he hoped was a self-satisfied manner. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

Chrissy dismissed him with one of her looks and went back to work.

When McNab had first entered, his focus had been on the body and the smell. Now he checked the room out properly. It had obviously served as the kitchen and Jock’s sleeping quarters, as
McNab discovered when he opened a cupboard door and found a recess bed behind it.

The two-room flat, or room and kitchen in Glasgow parlance, was typical of these old tenement blocks. McNab had been brought up in a flat very like this one. They’d also, like Jock, had a
bathroom, a luxury in the past, where a shared toilet on the landing had been par for the course.

The furniture in the sitting room was solid, well-crafted and not of this era. It also looked as though the room had rarely been used. There was an air of abandonment that went with the film of
dust.

Three framed black-and-white photographs stood on a sideboard. The first was of a group of mixed-age primary children with a female teacher taken outside a stone building. The second image was
of a black-faced lad in his teens, outside what looked like a colliery. In the third, Jock was older. Handsome, tall, straight-backed, with a pretty woman on his arm. It looked like a wedding
photograph.

A search of the drawers produced a tin box. Inside was a marriage certificate. According to it, Jock’s real name was James Drever. Born in January 1925, he’d married Grace Cummings
in Newcastle in 1948. No birth certificates for any children they may have had, but a death certificate for his wife some twenty years before.

So who was Ella?

‘McNab?’

He abandoned his search and answered Chrissy’s call.

‘Take a look at this.’ She eased up the old man’s right trouser leg.

McNab crouched for a closer view. There were pressure marks on the mottled skin that ran round the outside of the thin, veined leg.

‘There’s a matching one on the left leg,’ Chrissy told him, pulling up the neighbouring trouser to let him see. ‘And the arms.’

There was nothing obvious on the bony wrists, but when Chrissy pulled up the sleeves there was visible bruising halfway up each forearm.

McNab had seen such marks before. If rope or tie tags were used they looked like burn marks. Thin wire was worse, slicing through the skin. McNab had a sudden image of what might have happened
to the old man prior to his death.

‘Any other injuries?’

‘None visible. Without stripping him, we won’t know,’ Chrissy said. ‘I take it you’ve checked for a break-in?’

‘We’re three floors up. I can’t see anyone climbing in a window, and the uniforms that found him had to break down the door.’

‘If he opened the door to someone, they could easily have pushed their way in.’

‘And his neighbour wasn’t there to hear anything,’ McNab said. ‘Okay, we’ll have the place checked for prints, although there are no signs that the flat’s
been searched. The dust next door is evidence of that.’

Chrissy produced a wallet. ‘This was in his back pocket. There’s money still inside and a cashline card.’

‘If it was a robbery they would have had that,’ McNab said, genuinely puzzled.

Old people did get robbed in their own homes. Too many of them. Some were killed for next to no reward. Tying up an old man but not stealing anything was weird.

‘I’d like Rhona’s take on this,’ Chrissy said, matching McNab’s own thoughts exactly.

‘She’s on her way back,’ he told Chrissy.

Her eyes narrowed above the mask.

Before she could ask, McNab told her. ‘She called me from her island idyll this morning.’

‘Really?’

McNab smiled just to annoy her. ‘You mean she didn’t call
you
, her right-hand woman?’

By Chrissy’s dismissive expression, he had no chance of pissing her off by suggesting he was the favourite.

‘I’ll text her,’ was the response.

The five hours from Skye had passed in a blur of rain and wind, the majestic scenery she’d enjoyed on her way to the island lost in the downpour. Rhona had been lucky to
get across the Skye Bridge, already shut now to high-sided vehicles.

The Minch had seethed below her like a cauldron, the wind whipping at the sides of the car as though in punishment for her leaving. Like life, the Scottish weather could change in an instant,
which it did frequently. From an early-morning swim to this, she thought, as she turned her windscreen wipers up a notch.

The radio kept her company, when she could pick up a good enough signal, which was intermittent. Eventually she gave up and resigned herself to trying to make out the road and nursing her own
thoughts.