The Book of Souls (The Inspector McLean Mysteries) (10 page)

'I was waiting for my colleagues from Strathclyde Region to join us, but they seem to have been delayed. Look this isn't what you think it is. It's about Mr MacDougal's daughter, Audrey.'

Something that sounded like a small animal being flayed alive escaped from the hallway behind the huge minder. He was elbowed aside and a thin, pale woman darted out of the house.

'My Audrey! You've found her? Is she...?' Jenny MacDougal's eyes darted from MacBride to McLean and back again, her hands wringing together as if in prayer. But no more words escaped from her and the minder put a surprisingly gentle hand on her shoulder, steered her back into the house.

'You'd better come in then.'

*

'Please forgive my wife. These past two years haven't been easy on her.'

Razors MacDougal was smaller than his police photograph and reputation suggested. Or maybe it was just that he surrounded himself with such enormous muscle that any normal man was going to look small in comparison. Besides the heavy who had shown them in, there were three more equally large men in the house, which turned out to be both halves of the semi knocked through. Looking around the large living room into which he had been shown, McLean saw a number of professional portrait photographs of a strikingly beautiful woman and could only agree that Mrs MacDougal had taken the disappearance of her daughter hard. He could also see the unmistakable similarity between mother and child, which didn't really make his job any easier.

'I'm very sorry, sir, madam,' McLean nodded at Jenny MacDougal who had curled herself almost foetally into an oversized armchair. 'There's no easy way to say this, really. But we think your daughter might have been killed.'

'Is this some kind of sick joke, Inspector McLean? Only I don't find it fucking funny.' MacDougal's low growl reminded McLean of how he'd got his nickname.

'I can assure you, sir. This is no joke.'

'What do you mean, you think Violet might have been killed?'

The question threw McLean, both because of the unfamiliar name, and the fact that it was Jenny MacDougal who had voiced it. Her face had drained of all colour so that she looked even more like her daughter, laid out on the slab. McLean nodded to MacBride. 'The photographs please, constable.'

A4 glossies, fresh from the colour printer that afternoon. It was difficult to make a corpse's head look anything other than what it was, but the pathology photographer had tried.

'This young woman was found in a stream near Gladhouse Reservoir on Monday evening.' McLean handed the photographs to Razors MacDougal, trying not to notice the shake in the gangster's hands as he took them, avoiding the man's eyes. MacDougal looked at them for less than a second before dropping them to the floor, cupping his face in his hands and running his fingers through his straggly, greying hair.

'In the water, you say. She drowned?'

'No sir. She was put there after she died.'

Suddenly MacDougal was on his feet, and he didn't look so small now. His face was bright red with anger, veins straining through skin, eyes wide. He was too close. McLean could feel the gangster's breath on his own face, but he stood his ground. There were two ways this could go, and one of them wasn't at all appealing.

'What're you saying inspector? She was murdered?'

McLean was about to answer when a screeching wail rose up from the floor. He looked down to see Jenny MacDougal sprawled out on the carpet, clutching the discarded photographs, screaming incoherently. He bent down to help her, but Razors pushed him roughly aside, stooped, picked up his wife.

'Get her out of here,' he said to one of the bodyguards. Jenny fought and kicked as she was hauled bodily from the room, but it was a weak effort, worn down by two years of worry.

'Jesus, but you've got a nerve.' MacDougal paced back and forth, flexing his overlarge hands into fists. 'What the fuck do you think you're doing, bringing this in here?' He swept an arm in the direction of the crumpled photographs.

'I take it that is your daughter, Mr MacDougal?'

'Aye, it's her.' For the first time he looked like he might actually be grieving, a rime of tears forming in his eyes. He sniffed hard, wiping his face with a sleeve. 'So what happened? And why's it taken this long for youse lot to come and tell us?'

'When we found her she was naked, no personal effects. Missing Persons didn't come up with a match. I'm sorry about that, they really should have done. It wasn't until we put the photograph out wider that a name came up. She was calling herself Audrey Carpenter.'

McLean could see that MacDougal wasn't really listening. He'd gone to the sideboard, poured himself a large scotch from a hideous crystal decanter. Why did villains always decant their whisky? Probably because it was cheap and they wanted to pretend it wasn't.

'Audrey was living in a squat somewhere in Edinburgh,' McLean continued. 'She'd been talking to a reporter at the Scotsman, mostly about life on the streets, I think.'

MacDougal might have been a thug, but he wasn't stupid. Two quick steps brought him face to face with McLean, staring at him with those wild eyes.

'Who? This reporter. I want his name.'

'You know I can't tell you that, sir. I can pass on your request for a meeting though.'

'Don't give me that shit, inspector. The name.' MacDougal prodded McLean in the chest with a stubby finger. The whisky in his other hand sloshed around in its glass, giving off an unmistakably Islay peat aroma. So much for that theory.

'When was the last time you saw your daughter, Mr MacDougal?'

For a moment, the words just hung in the air, echoing in the silence as the colour in MacDougal's face darkened. Then he pointed at the door and growled like an angry bear.

'Get out.'

McLean held the gangster's gaze for a couple of seconds more, then nodded his head. 'Constable,' he said without turning. MacBride scurried out of the room like a frightened mouse.

'We'll speak again, Mr MacDougal,' McLean said, and then he walked slowly to the door.

*

'You'll be wanting to keep your head down, sir. Old Dagwood's looking for you and I don't think it's to give you a medal.' Sergeant Dundas smiled from behind his glass barrier as he buzzed McLean back into the station.

'What have I done this time, Pete?'

'No idea, but he's been tearing a strip of anyone who gets in his way. Right foul mood he's in.'

'No change there, then. You know where he's looking right now? So I can avoid him.'

'Haven't got a clue. Just keep your ears open and you'll be fine.'

McLean wasn't so sure as he made his way down into the bowels of the station. Those few officers he passed on the way seemed to be giving him a wary look, as if he were bad luck walking. The CID room was almost empty, just one lone figure slumped in a chair with his feet up on the desk. McLean looked around the room with a faint nostalgia. It was only a few months since he'd moved out and into his cubbyhole of an inspector's office, but he already missed the place.

'You up for some work this evening, Bob?' He asked. Detective Sergeant Laird did a good impression of a man waking from a deep sleep, almost falling off his chair in the process.

'Shit, you gave me a fright there, sir. You seen Dagwood yet?'

'No, and the longer I can put it off the better. Any idea why he wants to see me?'

'No, but I can tell you this much. He's not a happy bunny.'

'My heart bleeds for him. Did you get the PM report on Audrey Carpenter yet?'

'Who?' Grumpy Bob's face was a mask of confusion.

'The dead lass we found out at Gladhouse. Audrey Carpenter. Or Violet Audrey MacDougal if you prefer.'

'I didn't think we had an ID for her yet. When did this come in?'

McLean slumped against one of the desks. 'Just after the PM. Jo Dalgliesh made the ID, of all people. I could do without having to be grateful to her.'

'Does Dagwood know?'

'He should do. I left a message on his phone and a report on his desk before I went. I thought he'd have told you.' And slowly the pieces began to fall into place. 'Shit. He's not been into his office, and he's not listened to his messages, has he.'

'At a guess, I'd say no. And that's probably why he's on the warpath right now.'

'Well, I'd better go and find him before he does something even more stupid than usual. Meantime I need you to get the ball rolling on this one. Put a team together. Set up an incident room.'

'Erm, this is it,' Grumpy Bob said, adding as an afterthought: 'sir.'

'What? There's no spare rooms we can use right now?'

'Nope.'

'Not even that cupboard we used for the Smythe case?'

'Tech boys have got it while the basement's being damp-proofed again.'

'Nothing on the first floor?'

'All taken up with the drugs investigation.'

'Fucking marvellous. How the hell can we be short-staffed and not have enough room? No, don't answer that Bob. Just set it up, OK. I'll go see what's got up Dagwood's skirt, and then I think I'm going to need a drink.'

~~~~

17

McLean found DCI Duguid in his office on the second floor. It was warm, three times the size of McLean's tiny cupboard, and in the daytime would have a commanding view of Arthur's Seat. The privileges of seniority, no doubt.

'I believe you were looking for me sir?'

Duguid grunted something from his desk, leafing through a file of papers. McLean couldn't help but notice that his preliminary report on Audrey Carpenter had been carefully laid to one side.

'You've identified the dead girl, I see,' Duguid said after a long pause. 'Even been to see her parents.'

'We needed confirmation, sir. And...'

'Didn't anyone tell you that it's both polite and a good idea to consult with another force if you're conducting an investigation on their patch?' Duguid's tone was neutral, which never boded well.

'We did contact Strathclyde, sir. Spoke to a DS Coombes who said he'd send some support round to meet us.'

'Is that so? Then why, tell me, have I just spent an hour on the fucking phone apologising to some tosspot detective superintendent from SOCA with an impenetrable Weegie accent because one of my officers seriously fucked up his ongoing investigation?'

'Investigation?'

'What? You thought it'd be OK to just go and have a wee chat with one of Glasgow's most notorious hard men? Thought it would be fine to accuse him of murdering his own daughter?'

'I never...'

'Don't interrupt me when I'm speaking, McLean.' Duguid rose up out of his chair like a volcano, hands smashing on the desk. Now he was angry, and that was much easier to deal with. 'You went to see MacDougal without any backup, right?'

'I had Constable MacBride with me.'

'Brilliant idea. Why not endanger the life of yet another new recruit. No wonder we've no bloody staff. You keep on trying to get them killed.'

Remain calm. Don't rise to the bait. Take the bollocking and move on.

'What were you even doing there, for Christ's sake? You could have faxed the photographs through to the nearest station and let them deal with it.'

Aye, and wait a week for a reply. 'I needed to speak to Mr MacDougal myself, sir.'

'Why? So you could make wild allegations about him to his face? You do know why they call him Razors, don't you?'

'The man abused his daughter. Raped her. That's why she ran away. That's why she was living on the streets. But she was talking to the press. It was only a matter of time before it all came out. I don't know about you, sir, but I think that's motive enough for a man like MacDougal.'

Duguid slumped back down into his seat, his expression changing from anger to something more like excitement. He glanced sideways at the report, then back at McLean.