The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
One to one, without the crutch of his professional persona, was just too fraught with possibilities and difficulties to be ever truly enjoyable
Mclean looked up to the high windows, light spilling out into the night. “He’s not going anywhere in a hurry,” he said. “Best let him calm down a bit and I’ll talk to him in the morning. “Let whoever draws the short straw for guard duty know he’s there. If he wants to go anywhere, we’ll get a DC round to go with him. OK?”
“Right you are, sir.” Big Andy lumbered off, shouting orders at the few remaining policemen on the scene.
Mclean turned to Constable Kydd, who stifled a yawn. “I thought you were on day shift.”
“I am.”
“Then how’d you get roped into this assignment?” “I was using one of the interview rooms at the station to study, sir. My folks aren’t the quietest at the best of times.
“Friday nights it’s best to be somewhere else if you want a bit of peace.”
“And let me guess, Duguid found you and sent you after me. Any idea why he couldn’t attend himself?”
“I wouldn’t like to say, sir.”
Ruined
Mclean stopped himself from interrogating the constable any further.
It wasn’t her fault they’d both had their evening ruined.
He’d find out sooner or later why the case had been handed over to him.
“Well, get yourself home now, and get some sleep. And don’t worry about coming in a bit late tomorrow. I’ll square it with the desk sergeant, get the rosters juggled.”
“Thank you, sir.” The constable smiled a weary smile. “Do you need a lift home?”
“No thanks.”
Mclean looked down the High Street. There were still people wandering about even at this late hour.
Revellers on their way home from the pub, people spilling out of nightclubs, late-night kebab and burger bars doing a roaring trade.
The city never really slept. And somewhere out there was a killer with blood on their hands.
A killer who had cut off a part of his victim and shoved it in their mouth. Just like Barnaby Smythe.
Copycat? Coincidence? He needed time, air, distance to consider it all.
“I think I’ll walk.”
Saturday should have been his day off. Not that he’d made any plans, but whatever he’d intended doing, sitting in his office at the police station at half past eight in the morning hadn’t been high on the list of options.
Not after less than four hours’ sleep. Mclean clicked through the digital photographs from the Stewart crime scene on his computer.
He’d need to get them printed out; it was impossible to work off the tiny screen.
Selecting the whole batch, he sent them to the shared printer down the corridor, hoping it would have enough paper and toner in it for a change.
The flat had been thankfully empty when he’d let himself in, having walked the mile and a half back from Buchan Stewart’s apartment.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like company, but he preferred to lose himself in a crowd.
One to one, without the crutch of his professional persona, was just too fraught with possibilities and difficulties to be ever truly enjoyable.
Even if he hadn’t just come back from a violent crime scene, he preferred his own company. Just him and his ghosts.
Startled
“Ah, Tony. I was hoping to catch you in this morning.”
Startled, Mclean looked up to see Jayne Mcintyre advancing down the corridor towards him.
Her uniform didn’t flatter her much, and he wondered idly if she’d put on weight. “Ma’am?”
“You took on the Stewart case last night. Thank you.” She fell in beside him as they carried on walking.
“I did wonder why there was no one else to take it.” “Ah. Yes. Well, Chief Inspector Duguid did want the case, but as soon as I heard about it, I had to insist he pass it on to someone else.”
“Why?”
“Buchan Stewart is . . . was his uncle.”
“Ah.”
“So really you should be flattered that he chose you to conduct the investigation. I know the two of you don’t see eye to eye.”
“That’s the polite way of putting it, ma’am.”
“Well, I have to be tactful in my line of work. And I have to make sure my senior officers can work together.
“Do a good job on this, Tony, and whatever Dagwood’s got against you, I’m sure he’ll let it slide.”
It was the first time he’d ever heard Mcintyre use the chief inspector’s nickname.
He smiled at her attempt to be conspiratorial with him, but she’d got the nature of their animosity all wrong.
He didn’t much like Duguid because the chief inspector was a sloppy investigator. Duguid didn’t like him because he knew it.
“So what have you got so far?” Mcintyre asked. “It’s early days, really. But I’m leaning towards jealousy as motivation. Nothing obvious had been stolen, so it wasn’t burglary.
“And Stewart was naked, which suggests he may have been expecting sex.
“He was homosexual, and could have recently found a new partner.
“I’d point to him as our prime suspect. If I had to make a guess, I’d say a younger man, maybe considerably younger.”
“Any witnesses? CCTV?”
Accurate
“No one in the tenement saw anything. I’ve got DC Macbride going over the tapes from last night, but it’s a bit of a camera black spot.
“We’ll hopefully narrow things down a bit once the pathologist has given us a more accurate time of death.”
“What about the man who phoned it in?” “Timothy Garner. Lived next door. He was Stewart’s partner for years, business and, um, personal.”
“Could he have done it?”
“I don’t think so. It just didn’t feel like that kind of case. He’s meant to be coming in later this morning to make a statement anyway, but I think I might head over there and interview him at home. He’ll be more at ease there.”
“Good idea. It’ll help to keep things low profile too. I suspect DCI Duguid would appreciate that.”
Mcintyre gave him a conspiratorial wink. “See Tony, you can do diplomacy if you try hard enough.”
More tomorrow.