The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Far better if as few people knew about this as possible, and he’d investigate it himself
McLean followed his nose, gently sniffing that almost imperceptible odour. It was stronger in the hall, but he couldn’t smell anything in the library or the dining room. Upstairs, he moved quietly around the empty house, looking into rooms that were unchanged since the last time he had visited them, and yet utterly different.
His own bedroom, the place where he had done his growing up, was exactly the same as he remembered it. That bed seemed too narrow for comfortable sleep.
Those faded posters on the wall were an embarrassment, even if they were in large glass clipframes.
The solid furniture, dresser, chest of drawers, large hanging cupboard, all took up the spaces he expected them to, but the wooden chair that should have been neatly tucked in under his desk was pulled away at a slight angle.
Had he really left it that way? Come to that matter, when had he last been in here?
The bathroom smelled strongest, still faint, but enough of an odour to stir a vague memory.
Careful
Reflexively, he went to his jacket pockets, looking for a pair of latex gloves to pull on before he touched anything.
Finding none, he used his handkerchief and careful fingertips to avoid disturbing any potential prints.
The bathroom cabinet held everything he might need for an overnight stay, though he couldn’t be sure quite how old the toothbrush was.
A bottle of painkillers from a few years back when he’d stayed with his gran whilst recuperating from the gunshot wound that had got him promoted to sergeant, but otherwise nothing worth mention. Just that smell.
McLean lifted the toilet seat, but there was nothing in the bowl except stale water, limescale rings showing where it had evaporated down over the months.
Instinctively, he went to flush the handle, then stopped, a horrid certainty creeping into his mind.
A thin layer of dust coated the edge of the bath and the toilet seat, but the lid of the cistern was clean and shiny.
He went back into the bedroom and fished another handkerchief out of the drawers, the reek of cedar and mothballs obliterating the other more subtle smell completely. Using both handkerchiefs to protect his fingers, he carefully lifted the lid off the cistern and placed it on the floor, then looked inside. Nothing. What had he been thinking?
That someone would go to the trouble of planting something incriminating in his grandmother’s house?
Try to frame him? It was just the pressure of work getting to him. Paranoia born of tiredness.
Only when he went to pick up the porcelain lid did he notice that it didn’t sit squarely on the floor. He turned it over slowly.
A brown plastic-wrapped package was taped securely to the underside.
“Woa, sir. This is some palace you’ve got here.” Detective Constable MacBride stood in the hallway, looking up the wide stairwell at the glass dome in the ceiling two storeys above.
McLean let him goggle for a while, turning to Grumpy Bob with a low whisper.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea involving him in this?” “You think he can’t be trusted, sir? He’s a good lad.” “It’s not that,” McLean said, though he had his reservations.
He should really have been involving the drugs squad, the chief superintendent and anyone else he could think of.
Suspended
But if he let the official channels take over, then he’d be at the very least suspended from active cases for the foreseeable future. Until his name was cleared.
And even then it would hang around his neck for the rest of his career – the detective inspector with a kilo of cocaine hidden in his toilet cistern.
Far better if as few people knew about this as possible, and he’d investigate it himself, though he had a shrewd idea exactly who was behind it.
“I’m more concerned about his future as a detective if it gets out he’s been here.”
“Oh, and I don’t count any more.” Grumpy Bob feigned an affronted look. “Don’t worry about the lad. He volunteered.”
McLean looked back to the young detective constable, wondering what it was he’d done to earn such loyalty.
“I’ll make it up to him, if I can. To both of you,” McLean said.
Grumpy Bob just laughed and nudged him in the ribs.
“OK, sir. Where is it then? We’re missing valuable drinking time here.”
“Upstairs.” McLean led the way. They all trooped through his bedroom and into the bathroom beyond. The cistern lid with its suspicious package attached lay on the floor untouched.
“Did you manage to get a fingerprint kit?” McLean asked as Grumpy Bob handed out latex gloves.
“Should be here any minute,” Bob answered. As if on cue, the doorbell rang.
“Who?”
“That’ll be Em,” Grumpy Bob said.
“Em? Emma Baird? You told her about this?” “She’s a trained fingerprint expert and she can get her hands on the kit without anyone being suspicious. What’s more, if she finds something she can run it through the database, too.
“And she’s new. No axes to grind, no allegiance to anyone in particular. Well, not yet anyway.”
The doorbell rang again, and though the chime was exactly the same as before, it sounded somehow more insistent, as if demanding an answer.
McLean liked having her involved even less than DC MacBride, but he trusted Grumpy Bob.
Apart from the obvious mistake that was Mrs Bob, his judgment was generally sound.
And it was true they needed someone with forensic expertise. He levered himself up again and went to answer the door.
Urgent
“Didn’t realise inspectors got paid so well. All right if I come in?”
Emma was dressed in street clothes; faded denim jeans and a loose-fitting T-shirt.
Slung over one shoulder was her camera bag, not quite managing to counteract the weight of the heavy battered aluminium fingerprint case.
“Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it. Here, let me give you a hand with that.”
McLean took the case and led her across the hall towards the stairs. As she followed, her footsteps clacked noisily on the floor tiles.
Turning, he saw that she was wearing black tooledleather cowboy boots; not exactly regulation crimescene attire.
“Bob said it was urgent. Should I have changed?” “No, you’re OK like that. Just didn’t peg you as the line-dancing type.”
McLean felt the tips of his ears flush with heat. “It’s this way.” He started up the stairs.
“Straight to the bedroom. I like a man who’s direct.”
More on Monday.