“For the first time in 18 months she looked something like the woman he remembered

M clean pulled out his phone just in time to see a missed call from the hospital.

As he stared at it in confusion, the screen faded, then died completely.

Pressing the buttons prompted a few half-hearted flashes and squeaks, but nothing more. He pushed it back into his pocket and turned back to Jenny.

“I couldn’t borrow your phone, could I? The batteries in mine keep on dying.”

“Someone’s thinking negative thoughts about you. Drains the life out of any electrical gadgets you rely on.” Jenny guddled around in her handbag before pulling out a slim smartphone and handing it over.

“At least, that’s what my ex would say, but he’s a bit mad. Work calling?”

“No, it was the hospital. My gran.” Mclean found his way to the keypad and thumbed in the number from memory.

He’d phoned so many times, knew all the nurses so well it took only moments to get through to the right ward. The call was over in a matter of seconds.

“I have to go.” Mclean handed back the phone and headed for the door. Jenny made to follow, but he stopped her.

“It’s OK. She’s fine. I just need to go and see her. Stay and finish your wine. Tell Phil I’ll call him this weekend.”

Mclean pushed his way through the happy crowd and didn’t look back. He was, after all, a very poor liar.

Progress

The back of the driver’s head oozed in fleshy rolls from his bald pate down into his shoulders without any definable neck, giving him a curiously melted appearance.

Mclean sat in the back of the taxi, staring at the pig-skin stubble through the open loop of the headrest and willed the man not to speak.

The street lights strobed orange as they made good progress across the midnight city towards the hospital, the view streaked by a sudden shower of rain blown in off the North Sea.

The touch of it was still on his skin from the walk to the taxi rank, dampening his hair and making his overcoat smell like an old dog.

“You want the main reception or A and E?” The taxi driver spoke with an English accent, South London possibly. A long way from home.

It jarred Mclean out of something that might have been sleep. He focused through the grimy windscreen, seeing the hulk of the hospital glittering and wet.

“Here’s fine.” He handed over a 10 pound note, told the driver to keep the change.

The walk from the street across the near-deserted car park was enough to wake him up, but not enough to clear his head.

Was it really just yesterday he’d been here looking at her? And now she was gone.

He should feel sad, shouldn’t he? So how come he felt nothing at all?

The corridors at the back of the hospital were always quiet, but at this time of the night it was almost as if the place had been evacuated.

Mclean found himself treading carefully so as not to make too much noise, his breathing shallow and ears pricked for the slightest sound.

If he’d heard someone coming, he might well have tried to hide in an alcove or storage room.

It was almost a relief to arrive at the coma ward unnoticed.

Not quite sure why he was so loath to meet anyone, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

Thin drapes blanked off his grandmother’s bed from the other inhabitants, something he had never seen before.

The familiar beeps and whirrs were there still, keeping everyone else alive, but the pulse of the place felt different. Or was that just in his head?

Taking a deep breath, as if about to plunge into the ocean, Mclean pulled aside the curtain and stepped inside.

Cared

The nurses had removed all the tubes and wires, wheeled away the machines, but left his grandmother behind.

She lay in the bed unmoving, her sunken eyes closed as if asleep, hands above the blankets and crossed neatly over her stomach.

For the first time in 18 months she looked something like the woman he remembered.

“I’m so very sorry.”

Mclean turned to see a nurse standing in the doorway.

The same nurse who’d spoken to him before, the one who’d cared for his grandmother all these long months. Jeannie, that was her name. Jeannie Robertson.

“Don’t be,” he said. “She was never going to recover. Really this is for the best.” He turned back to the dead woman lying on the bed, saw his grandmother for the first time in 18 months.

“If I keep telling myself that I might even start believing it.”

Competent

Early morning and a crowd of officers jostled around the entrance to one of the larger incident rooms.

Mclean poked his head through the door, seeing the chaos that always marked the start of a major investigation.

A clean whiteboard ran the length of one wall, and someone had scrawled “Barnaby Smythe” on it in black marker.

Uniformed constables arranged desks and chairs, a technician was busy wiring up computers. Duguid was nowhere to be seen.

“You helping out on this one, sir?” Mclean looked around. A broad-shouldered PC pushed his way through the throng, carrying a large cardboard box sealed with black and yellow evidence tape.

Andrew Houseman, or Big Andy to his friends, was a competent officer and a far better prop forward.

But for an unfortunate injury early on in his career, he would probably have been playing for his country right now, instead of running errands for Dagwood.

Mclean liked him; Big Andy might not have been bright, but he was thorough.

“Not my case, Andy,” he said. “And you know how much Dagwood likes my help.”

“But you were at the scene. Em said you were there.” “Em?”

“Emma. Emma Baird? You know, the new SOC officer. So high, spiky black hair, always looks like she’s wearing too much eyeliner.”

“Oh aye? You two got something going on, have you? Only I’d not want to get on the wrong side of that wife of yours, Andy.”

“No, no. I was just over at HQ getting this evidence from the scene.” The big man blushed, hefting the box to illustrate his point.

“She said she’d seen you at Smythe’s house, hoped you’d catch whatever sick bastard killed him.” “Just me? On my own?”

“Well, I’m sure she meant all of us.”

“I’m sure she did, Andy. But this investigation will have to do without me. It’s Dagwood’s call. And anyway, I’ve got my own murder to solve.”

“Aye, heard about that. Creepy.”

More on Monday.

Natural Causes by Fife farmer-turned-author James Oswald is the first in the Inspector Mclean series. It is published by Penguin, rrp, £7.99. Bury Them Deep, the latest in the series, is published by Headline in February, rrp £14.99.