You saw his apartment; he’s got money coming out of his ears. He can buy his freedom

Duguid’s face went from livid red to ghostly white in an instant. His piggy little eyes widened and his nostrils flared like a bull pawing the ground ready to charge. “Don’t you dare mention that in here, McLean.” Duguid’s voiced hissed out through tight lips and he looked around nervously to see if anyone had heard.

There were a number of uniforms going about their business, but they had enough of a sense of self-preservation to avoid eye contact with the chief inspector.

If they had heard anything, they weren’t showing it. “Was there something you wanted, sir?” McLean kept his voice level and steady.

The last thing he needed was to have Duguid raging at him; not after the day had started so well.

“Too bloody right I do. Some lunatic called Andrews walked into a busy office in the city centre yesterday and opened up his neck with a cut-throat razor. I want you to find out who he was and why he did it.”

“Is there no one else available? I’ve got quite a full case-load as it is... ”

“You wouldn’t know the meaning of full case-load if it jumped up and bit you, McLean. Stop whingeing and do the job you’re paid to do.”

“Of course, sir.”

Sarcastic

McLean bit his tongue trying not to argue. There was no point when Duguid was in a rage. “Who conducted the initial investigation?”

“You did.” Duguid looked at his watch. “In the next half hour if you’ve any sense.

“There’s a report on your desk from the sergeant who attended the scene. You do remember your desk, don’t you inspector? In your office?”

And on that sarcastic note, he stalked off, muttering under his breath.

Only then did Grumpy Bob come out of his hiding place behind the photocopier.

“Bloody hell. What’s biting him?”

“I don’t know. Probably found out his uncle left all his money to the animal sanctuary or something.” “His uncle?” So Bob hadn’t been listening. “Forget it, Bob. Let’s go find out about this suicide. It’ll take a while for forensics to process all that jewellery. We can’t match anything with the other burglaries until then.”

“What about McReadie? You want to charge him?” “I guess we better had. But you know he’s going to have a weasel lawyer get him out on bail before the end of the day.

“You saw his apartment; he’s got money coming out of his ears. He can buy his freedom and he knows it.”

“I’ll leave it until the last minute then. Better check with the duty sergeant when you logged him in.”

Grumpy Bob sauntered off towards the front desk; McLean headed for his office.

Sure enough, on the top of a huge pile of overtime sheets, a slim manila folder contained a single typed sheet reporting the apparent suicide of Mr Peter Andrews.

There were names and addresses of a dozen witnesses, all employees of the same financial management company, Hoggett Scotia.

Andrews had been an employee there himself. He’d apparently walked into the front reception area, looking like he’d slept in his clothes for the past two days, pulled out a cut-throat razor blade from his pocket and, well, cut his throat.

And all this had happened almost 24 hours ago. Since which time the police had done b **** r all.

McLean sighed. Not only was it likely to be a fruitless task investigating the suicide, he was also going to be met with hostility and anger that it had taken so long for him to do anything about it. Marvellous.

Grabbing the phone, he dialled the number for the mortuary. Tracy’s chirpy voice answered.

“Did you get a suicide in yesterday? Name of Andrews?” McLean asked after she had tried her usual flirtation.

“Mid-morning, yes,” she confirmed. “Dr Cadwallader was planning on doing him late afternoon. About four.”

McLean thanked her, said he’d see her there, then hung up. He looked at the notes again; at least the address wasn’t far to walk.

Interviews first, then the post-mortem. With a little bit of luck, by the time he got back from that the jewellery they’d found would be back from forensics.

Then they could have endless fun trying to match it to the lists of stolen items.

He picked up the file, ignoring the pile of overtime sheets that needed to be processed, and went off in search of Detective Constable MacBride.

Grimaced

“You’ve been keeping us busy this last week, Tony.” McLean grimaced at the pathologist. “Good afternoon to you, too, Angus. And thanks for coming yesterday, by the way.”

“Think nothing of it. The old girl taught me a thing or two. Least I could do was make sure she was seen off properly.”

The pathologist already wore his scrubs, long surgical gloves pulled tight over his hands. They went through into the autopsy room, where Peter Andrews lay in his pale glory on the stainless steel table.

Apart from the ragged mess of his throat, he looked strangely clean and peaceful. His hair was dishevelled and grey, but his face looked young.

McLean would have put him in his late thirties to early forties. It was difficult to tell from such a pale, pasty corpse.

Cadwallader began with a thorough inspection of the body, looking for signs of injury, drug abuse or disease.

McLean watched, only half listening to the quietly spoken commentary and wondering what could bring a man to commit suicide in such a violent and messy way.

Anguished

It was all but impossible to understand the broken thought processes that made killing yourself seem better than life.

He’d known despair himself, more than once, but he had always imagined the anguish and alarm of the people who might find his dead body, the mental scars that might leave.

Perhaps that was the difference between the suicidal and the depressed; you had to no longer care how other people felt.

If that was the case, then maybe Andrews was a good candidate after all. According to his boss, he had been a ruthless businessman.

McLean didn’t quite understand the ins and outs of fund management, but he knew enough to know that by deciding to remove a stock from his portfolio, Andrews could well destroy a company.

But whilst that ruthlessness might make him the sort of man who could kill himself, the rest of his life spoke of someone with everything to live for.

He wasn’t married, had no girlfriend to tie him down. He was rich, successful, doing a job he seemed to enjoy.

In fact, no one at Hoggett Scotia had a bad word to say about him.

There was still the matter of his parents to interview; they lived in London and were heading north that afternoon.

More tomorrow.