The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Mclean should have been tired, he hadn’t slept in 24 hours, but the guilt and the anger wouldn’t let him sleep
Mclean slumped back in his chair, defeated. He hated it when the chief superintendent was right. “No.”
“Good, because this next bit is an order. I don’t want you coming in to work until next week.” “What? But it’s only Wednesday.”
“Next week, Tony.”
Mcintyre finally looked at him. “You can write me a statement detailing exactly what happened this afternoon.
“Then I don’t want to hear a squeak out of you until Monday.”
“But what about Mcreadie?”
“Don’t worry about him. You’ve got a witness says he was round your place, that sounds like a clear breach of his bail conditions.”
Mcintyre pulled out her phone but didn’t dial. “He won’t be bothering anyone for a while.” “Thank you.”
Mclean let the back of his head bang lightly against the wall. “Are you sure there’s –”
“You keep out of this. If you’re right and someone’s out to get you, then I can’t have you investigating.
“Same as I can’t have you hassling Mcreadie at every turn. Due process, Tony. Leave it alone.
“I’ll be leading this investigation myself, so I’ll know if you start poking your nose where it’s not welcome.” “I –”
“Home, inspector. Not a word more.” Mcintyre stood up, her hands automatically smoothing out the creases on her uniform as she turned and walked away.
Mclean watched her go, then went back to staring at the wall.
Certainty
Police Constable Alison Kydd was moved from surgery into intensive care at a quarter past one in the morning.
Eight hours of surgery might have saved her life, but the doctors were keeping her in a medical coma just in case.
It was a certainty she would never walk again, unless someone came up with a way to regrow a severed spinal cord.
Only time would tell if she had the use of her arms, or even control of her bladder. And there was always the chance that she might never wake up.
The doctor who had told Mclean all this looked too young to have been long out of medical college, but she seemed to know what she was doing.
She was cautiously optimistic; better than 50-50 had been her words.
Said as if that was a good thing, with a tired smile to back it up.
They haunted him all the way home in the rainswept taxi, smile and words both.
Stayed with him as he got started on his report for the chief superintendent and a bottle of single malt whisky.
It was dawn before he had finished the one, realised the other wasn’t really helping.
Getting blind drunk on his own just wasn’t his style; he needed a few good friends to do that with.
And all the while he kept telling himself that it wasn’t his fault.
Say it enough, he might even start believing it. He called the hospital at six to be told there hadn’t been any change, nor was there likely to be for the foreseeable future.
Fault
The nurse at the other end of the line hadn’t said as much, but Mclean could tell from her tone that she wouldn’t be as polite if he phoned again soon.
He should have been tired, hadn’t slept in 24 hours, but the guilt and the anger wouldn’t let him sleep.
Instead he showered, read through the report and made a couple of changes before emailing it off.
It wasn’t his fault. There was no way he could have anticipated what happened.
But it was his fault, after a fashion.
Like Mcintyre had said, it should have been Grumpy Bob who took a constable round to visit Mrs Mccutcheon.
Mcreadie could have had his hired goon run down Mclean somewhere entirely different, where there was no one about to sacrifice themselves so that he might live.
What on earth was all that about? Why had that stupid little . . . ?
His fist was nearly at the pane of glass before Mclean realised he’d even clenched it.
Pulling the punch, he slammed his palm into the window frame instead, feeling a hot sting of tears in his eyes that had nothing to do with the pain.
Not the physical pain, anyway. That faded away in moments. If only the other kind would too.
He was so bloody-minded sometimes. Maybe if he listened to what other people told him, perhaps even delegated from time to time, this would never have happened.
And now he was stuck here, climbing the walls for the best part of a week because he’d been told to stay away and just couldn’t help himself.
What a mess.
There was too much to do, too many other cases that needed his attention.
Mcintyre couldn’t really expect him to do nothing until Monday, could she?
He’d be OK as long as he kept well clear of the station and anything to do with Mcreadie or the search for the van that had run Alison down.
Surprise
That still left the dead girl and the two suicides, not to mention the leak of crime-scene details.
Leaving the flat felt like sneaking round the back of the bike shed for an illicit smoke.
But, he argued, he had to go to the shops for food, if nothing else.
And when all else failed, there was nothing like a good walk to help him think.
“Inspector. What a pleasant surprise.” Mclean turned at the voice, seeing a very shiny black Bentley sliding along the road, one window down like a late-night kerb-crawler trawling the streets for some negotiable virtue.
Not that you’d find anyone working the pavement in this neighbourhood, but it wouldn’t have surprised him if one of these elegant, large houses catered for the more upmarket kind of intimate escort.
Bending slightly, he caught a glimpse of gloved hand, dark overcoat and scarred face before the car came to a silent halt.
The door clicked open, swinging wide to reveal soft red leather, the kind of interior that Freud would have had paroxysms over.
Inside, Gavin Spenser beckoned towards him.
More tomorrow.