There were no witnesses to the murder and the person most likely to have committed it has confessed. Don’t go raking over the coals

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.

The blood smear on the stairwell wall looked paler and less ominous in the daylight flooding from the glass canopy overhead. A constable stood on guard outside Buchan Stewart’s flat. He looked bored to tears, but snapped to attention when he saw the inspector coming up the stairs.

Constable Kydd trailed behind, once more his driver for the day.

“Anyone coming or going, Don?” Mclean asked. “Not a peep, sir.”

“Good.” He knocked gently on the door to Garner’s apartment. “Mr Garner? It’s Inspector Mclean.” No answer. He knocked a little harder.

“Mr Garner?” Mclean turned back to the constable on duty. “He didn’t pop out, did he?”

“No, sir. I’ve been here since seven and no one’s moved since then.

“Phil... Constable Patterson was on before me. Said the place was quiet as the grave.”

Mclean knocked once more, then tried the door handle. It clicked open onto a darkened entrance hall.

“Mr Garner?” A shiver ran down his spine. What if the old man had died of a heart attack? He turned back to Constable Kydd.

“Come with me,” he said and stepped inside.

Illuminate

The apartment was silent save for the tick, tick, ticking of an old grandfather clock in the hallway.

As Mclean went to the living room where they had interviewed Garner earlier in the morning, Constable Kydd headed down a narrow corridor that he assumed led to the kitchen.

The old man was not in the seat where they’d left him, neither was he in his study, which Mclean found through the next door off the hallway.

The room was neat and tidy, the desk empty save for a green-glass-shaded library lamp, which was switched on and pointed downwards to illuminate a single sheet of paper.

He crossed the room, his mind racing. Bending down, he could read the words written on the paper in neat pen.

I have killed my soulmate, my lover, my friend. I did not mean to but fate has made it so. I could no longer live with him, but now I find I cannot live without him. To whomsoever finds this note . . .

A loud gasp echoed through the silent apartment. Mclean hurried out of the study. “Constable?” “Sir! In here.”

He rushed across the hallway and down the narrow corridor, but he knew what was coming.

Constable Kydd stood in the doorway to the bathroom, her face white, her eyes staring.

He gently moved her out of the way and stepped past.

Timothy Garner had taken his bath. And then he’d taken a razor to his wrists.

Pleased

“That was quick, Tony. You might even have beaten Duguid’s record.”

DCS Mcintyre perched herself on the edge of the desk; there was nowhere else in the room to sit other than the chair Mclean was already occupying.

She looked pleased for once; there was nothing like a quick result for boosting the clean-up statistics, after all.

Just a pity he couldn’t share her enthusiasm.

“I don’t think he did it, ma”am.”

“Didn’t he leave a confession?”

“Yes, he left a note.”

Mclean picked up the A4 print of the digital photograph which was all he had of Timothy Garner’s last words, handing it to Mcintyre.

SOC had taken the original away to “do tests”. He could have told them not to bother; they would show it had been written by Garner, using his normal handwriting.

The paper would yield no fingerprints other than those of the dead man, but analysis of the liquid that had splashed the last paragraph might well reveal it to have been his tears.

What part of that isn’t a confession?

“You already said they’d rowed because Garner thought Stewart was getting a bit on the side.

“It was a brutal attack, sure. But crimes of passion often are. And then, when he realised what he’d done, he couldn’t live with it.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. And his words are so flowery.

“He could just be blaming himself for not being there with Stewart when it happened.”

“Come on. He had the motive, he had the weapon.” “Did he?

“Forensics couldn’t match his cut-throat to the knife that killed Stewart. They just said it was razor sharp.”

“Drop it, Tony. OK? You’ve been through the CCTV tapes for the time of the murder.

“No one enters or leaves that building half an hour either side of the time of death.

“There were no witnesses to the murder and the person most likely to have committed it has confessed.

“Don’t go raking over the coals when you don’t need to.”

Mclean slumped back in his uncomfortable chair and looked up at his boss.

She was right, of course. Timothy Garner was the most obvious choice of suspect.

“What about the fingerprints? They couldn’t match all of them to Garner.”

“That’s because they were so smeared they couldn’t match them to anyone.

“And they found traces of Stewart’s blood in Garner’s basin where he washed his hands.

“His clothes were spattered in it too. They’d probably have found it in his bath if he hadn’t filled it with his own.”

Hushed up

Mcintyre dropped the copy of the suicide note back onto Mclean’s desk, followed by the slim brown folder she had brought in with her; the report on the murder of Buchan Stewart.

“Face it, Tony. Your report as good as says Garner killed Stewart and then committed suicide, and that’s what’s going to the prosecutor. Case closed.”

“Is this being hushed up so Duguid doesn’t have to explain to the world about his gay uncle?”

Mclean knew as soon as the words were out that he shouldn’t have said them.

Mcintyre stiffened, then stood up from the desk, straightening her uniform.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, detective inspector. The same way as I’m ignoring the fact that you left Garner at home on his own when by all rights he should have been down in the cells, or at the very least with an FLO to keep him company.

“Now sign off that report and get out of here. Isn’t there a funeral you’re meant to be attending?”

She turned and left.

More tomorrow