Copyright © 2018 James Oswald
The right of James Oswald to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an EBook in 2018 by WILDFIRE, an imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
Ebook conversion by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford-on-Avon, Warwickshire
eISBN: 978 1 4722 5000 1
Cover design by Patrick Insole
Cover image © Jackie Robinson/Arcangel Images
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Praise
Also by James Oswald
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Praise for James Oswald and his novels
‘The new Ian Rankin’ – Daily Record
‘Oswald’s writing is a class above’ – Express
‘Crime fiction’s next big thing’ – Sunday Telegraph
‘Oswald is among the leaders in the new batch of excellent Scottish crime writers’ – Daily Mail
‘A master of his material . . . an unusually competent and humane police procedural’ – Scotsman
‘The hallmarks of Val McDermid or Ian Rankin . . . dark, violent, noirish’ – The Herald
Books by James Oswald
Inspector McLean
Natural Causes
The Book of Souls
The Hangman’s Song
Dead Men’s Bones
Prayer for the Dead
The Damage Done
Written in Bones
The Gathering Dark
Constance Fairchild
No Time to Cry
For all the readers, without whom I’d just be shouting at cows
1
It’s the scent of smoke that tips me off.
Sure, the unlocked back door’s a big clue too, but it’s the smoke that really has me worried. I’ve come here alone, checked I’m not being followed. Must have done it a hundred and more times. Never been anything wrong before. But now the back door’s unlocked and there’s a smell of smoke in the air.
Wood smoke? Coal? I can’t really tell. Maybe it’s the scent of a recently gone cigarette. London’s ruined my country-born senses. All I know is there’s smoke and there shouldn’t be. So where’s it coming from?
I’m in a quiet courtyard at the end of a dark alley, tucked away in a forgotten part of the city centre. You don’t have to go far to find hipster cafés, old Victorian pubs and all the other stuff the tourist board loves about London, but this is well hidden. We chose it for that reason, among others. Not cheap to rent, but not so expensive it looks suspicious either. Just another business trying to make its way in the capital, struggling to pay the bills and maybe open to a little dealing under the counter, as it were. We set it up to fish for contacts, get someone into the local organised crime scene. It was working fine too. Until now.
I pull out my phone and stare at the screen like a lost tourist. Pete’s text is there in front of me.
Come to the office. Something’s up. Usual protocols. P.
It’s unlike him not to just phone, but not so odd I’d thought to bring backup. We’re a small team anyway, and this is meant to be deep undercover. Dragging anyone else along would risk blowing the whole thing before it’s really started.
Except there’s that faint whiff of smoke, and the back door’s unlocked.
Despite everything the press and politicians say, most of us in the Met aren’t armed and don’t particularly want to be. I wish I was right now though. All I’ve got is a can of mace and a rape alarm. It’s small comfort as I nudge the back door wider with my foot, try to peer inside. Foolish, really. There’s just the narrow hallway, piled up with old cardboard boxes and a couple of bin bags waiting to be taken out. Then the stairs climb up to the offices on the first floor. Can’t see anything around the corner. Do I shout?
No. That’s being stupid. Come on, Con. Get in there and find out what’s happening.
I thumb a quick text to DS Chambers anyway. Not that she’ll do anything about it, but at least it covers my arse. A quick look around the tiny courtyard, and then I step inside.
The smell of smoke is heavier, but I still can’t see any fire. I take the stairs as quietly as I can, back to the wall for support. Wary. At the top, I peer over the parapet, nervous ears straining for any sound over the ever-present rumble of traffic. Time was I loved that sound, the noise of progress, of sophisticated living. Now I’d happily trade it for the bored silence of my youth.
There’s no one in the outer office, but then I wouldn’t have expected there to be. This place is a front, usually only Pete here going through the motions of being an unsuccessful businessman. Waiting for the right person to start taking an interest in what we’re doing. I don’t notice the chair on its back at first, my gaze drawn by movement at ceiling level. That’s when I see the smoke clinging to the plaster, easing out of the gaps in the doorway through to the front room. Pete’s office. The top half of the door’s made from obscured glass, nothing but indistinct white shapes beyond.
‘Pete. You in there?’ Even as I speak the words I know how stupid they are. There’s a fire alarm in this place that feeds straight back to control. Should be bells ringing, fire engines on their way. My phone should have lit up with notifications when the back door was opened without t
he right key code, but there was just the text. This is wrong.
I try the door, unsurprised to find it locked. The handle’s warm to the touch though, and when I place my palm against the glass it’s the same. Two steps back, the time for subtlety is over. I kick the door just below the handle, stagger as my foot rebounds off the solid wood frame. Try again, and this time the lock breaks. A third kick has it open, and thick white smoke billows from the room beyond. Through the fog of it, I can see the source, a waste paper bin on fire. Dark charring marks the wall beside it, but mercifully the blaze hasn’t spread. The acrid smoke catches my throat, brings tears to my eyes and makes everything blurred as I hurry in and stamp out the last of the flames. Only then do I turn and see what I already fear.
There’s a large desk to one side of the room, an office chair on the far side. A man sits in it, facing me but unmoving.
‘Pete?’ I step closer, blinking my vision clear. It’s not easy to breathe, but I’m stuck where I stand, unable to process what I’m seeing.
Detective Inspector Peter Copperthwaite, my boss and perhaps closest friend in the force, slumps in the chair and stares lopsided at nothing. If he wasn’t tied up, he’d probably have fallen to the floor by now. I can’t quite work out what’s happened to his face. Blood smears across his skin, bruises seal one eye shut. The other is red and lifeless. A line of bloody drool drips from his ripped mouth, adding to the red stains on his torn white shirt. But it’s the tiny red dot in the middle of his forehead that I can’t stop staring at.
That and the smear of his brains on the wall behind him.
2
‘Well, this is a fucking mess, and no mistake.’
I sat and waited in the reception area outside Pete’s office until the first of the clean-up team arrived. It didn’t take them long to get here, but it was long enough for me to get past the shock and think. Past the initial shock, I should say. There’s going to be a moment, maybe in a few hours’ time, maybe a few days, when this all hits home.
‘You say something, sir?’
There’s a team of forensic technicians working the room where Pete’s body is still sitting in its seat. Duty doctor’s been, and the pathologist’s only hanging around until the ambulance arrives. The only police officer here apart from me is DCI Bain, Pete’s boss. No doubt there’s an over-officious crime scene manager at the back door making sure as few people as possible contaminate the scene.
‘I said it’s a fucking mess, Fairchild.’ Bain rounds on me, one leg swinging as if looking for something to kick across the room. Finding nothing, he just scuffs the carpet tile, rams his hands deep into his pockets in frustration. I don’t know him well; he’s not been part of the team long. Pete seemed to like him though. They certainly spent a lot of time together planning this whole thing.
‘How did they find out? How did they even get in?’
‘I don’t even know who “they” are, sir. Back door was unlocked and open when I got here. Security cameras should have something on them. I’ve not had a chance to look at them yet. Should probably get on to that.’ I start to stand, but Bain pushes me back down into my seat. He pulls a chair out and slumps into it, runs a hand through his straggly grey hair. His suit hangs off him like it was made for a much larger man. Maybe he was, once. I don’t know.
‘No. You don’t. You’re too close to all this to be part of the investigation. You’ll need to be debriefed soon as. We need to find out what happened here. How it happened. Dammit, this was always a risk, but I never thought . . .’
DCI Bain’s words penetrate my muddled thoughts. ‘Always a risk, sir? How? This isn’t normal, even for the kind of people we’re after. Someone’s tortured Pete and then executed him.’
An expression runs across Bain’s face that, were he a suspect being interviewed, I would label guilty as fuck. It’s that look of a man hiding something but not doing it particularly well.
‘There’s more to this than meets the eye, Fairchild.’
‘No shit, Sherlock.’ I start to get up again, but something occurs to me. ‘You knew this could happen, didn’t you?’
Bain’s silence is all the confirmation I need.
‘Did Pete know?’
The all but imperceptible nod, almost as if he’s trying to stop himself from telling me the truth he wants to.
‘Well, don’t think I’m just going to sit here and take this. We need to find them. Get the word out on the street. Someone will—’
‘You’re to say nothing, speak to no one, until you’ve been debriefed. Is that clear, Detective Constable?’
Bain’s tone is so stern I daren’t answer in words, just nod my head and clench my fists until my fingernails dig into my palms. Christ, they’re going to cover this up. Bain opens his mouth to say something more, but a shout from the open office door has us both standing, rushing towards it. We’re almost there when he puts a hand on my shoulder, stops me in my tracks. He may not be a large man any more, but he’s still considerably bigger than me. And a detective chief inspector as well.
‘I’ll deal with this, Fairchild. You should go home.’ He glances at his watch briefly as more muted cursing comes from the doorway. My best guess is that Pete’s body has fallen off its chair. ‘We’ll schedule a debrief for the morning, OK? Just as soon as we’ve got the initial pathology and forensics in.’
I glance at the office door, then back at the DCI. It’s clear from his body language that he’s not going to let me back in there, and if I’m being honest, I’m not sure I want to go back in there anyway. I shouldn’t really be going home though, and a debrief should happen much sooner than tomorrow morning. Something’s very off here.
‘Sir.’ I nod my understanding. Nothing else I can do. I’m not going to let them hush this up though. Pete deserves better than that.
Nobody speaks to me as I leave the office. Even the crime scene manager just looks at me like I’m something the cat brought in as I scribble my name on his sheet. I’d have expected a bit of sympathy, what with my boss and friend having just been murdered, with me being the one who found him. Instead all the faces I see look at me with suspicion in their eyes, or maybe even fear. That more than anything else brings home to me just how much shit I’m in.
I should really go home. That’s what DCI Bain told me to do, after all. The afternoon’s moving on into evening anyway. Home, bottle of wine, try to get some sleep. Get myself ready for tomorrow’s debriefing, which is going to be long and brutal. That’s what I should be doing right now.
Who am I kidding?
It takes me half an hour to get to the station and let myself in the back door. I can’t really think things through beyond the need to work out what the fuck’s going on. My mind keeps going round and round in circles, always ending up with the look on Pete’s face. That mixture of astonishment and anguish, those dead, staring eyes. I’ve seen death before, too much of it, but this is the first time it’s been so personal.
Somehow I make it to the IT room unseen, so there must be someone up there looking out for me. I fire up one of the workstations and log in to the secure server we set up for this operation. Everything’s here, even if a lot of it’s above my pay grade and security clearance. Still, I know what we were doing in that makeshift office. Pete was posing as a struggling businessman, buying and selling goods that were barely on the right side of dodgy. We knew there was a gang out there exploiting small start-ups like that to launder money, and other things besides. This was meant to be the first step in getting a man on the inside of their operation. How the fuck did it go so spectacularly wrong? Unless there was more to it than I’ve been told, of course, which would explain DCI Bain’s reaction.
I daren’t go near the security camera feeds, even though that’s the first thing I want to look at. How simple it would be just to check and see who came, who beat Pete until his face was black and blue, then put a bullet in hi
s head. Every viewing of those files is logged though, and the last thing I need is someone thinking I’ve tampered with evidence.
Without going through any of the monitoring files, there’s not a lot I can do. We’ve some intelligence on the gang we were hoping to infiltrate, and a more detailed plan of how we were hoping to achieve that. I pull up a list of lowlifes suspected of being part of the operation, most of whom are currently serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure on a variety of charges. Going through their records is a snapshot of everything that’s wrong with modern society, but I don’t see any cop killers in the parade of mugshots.
I close down the window, switch off the workstation. There’s nothing here that’s going to get me any closer to finding Pete’s murderer. There’s nothing here that makes any sense at all.
3
The early morning debrief hasn’t turned out quite the way I thought it would, not helped by the dull ache in my head from the half-bottle of wine that completely failed to help me sleep. I’d imagined a thorough but informal conversation with DCI Bain, and maybe another detective constable to take notes. What I’ve got is more like a kangaroo court.
‘What the hell were you even doing there, Constable?’
Detective Superintendent Bailey’s always been a bit of a twat anyway, but this time he’s struggling to contain his rage. If there weren’t a couple of other detectives and the union rep in here, he’d probably be swearing like a navvy and breaking things just to intimidate me. It won’t work. I’m as pissed off as he is, and still in shock. And my head hurts, which always makes me grumpy. The question doesn’t really deserve an answer anyway, so I keep quiet. For now.
‘Is this a good time to go looking for blame, Gordon?’ For once Sergeant Thomas is a voice of calm reason. I could almost hug him, except that bristly beard of his smells funny.
‘Pete’s dead, Barry.’ Bailey’s voice is the growl of a cornered bear. ‘The whole operation’s fucked and this—’ He waggles an accusing finger in my direction, momentarily stuck for words. There’s something very wrong with his eyes. Actually, there’s something very wrong with the whole of him, but then I’ve never really got on with any of the senior officers here. Pete was my boss, and he’d have been far more understanding in a situation like this.