16

By the time Susie arrived at the scene, Burns was already there with the usual supporting cast of detectives, uniforms and scenes of crime officers. Police cordon tape rustled in the fresh morning air, glinting occasionally as it caught the light.

She nodded a greeting to the uniforms who were standing at the bottom of the staircase, where Burns had told her to come when he called her ten minutes ago. Which was odd. It would have been easier just to step out of the court, round the side and onto the News Steps that way, rather than coming all the way round then down Market Street, but she wasn’t in the mood to argue. Blame too much wine last night with Doug.

She pushed through the growing scrum of gawkers, tried to stay out of shot of the photographers and cameramen who had arrived, ducked under the tape and started up the staircase, yesterday’s gym session setting off dull pain in her legs and butt as she moved. Ahead, Burns spotted her and moved to meet her.

“Morning, sir,” she said, noticing the thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. The outdoors didn’t suit him, especially when stairs and bright sunlight were involved. His natural habitat was the CID suite or the pub, best viewed under artificial light.

“Drummond,” Burns growled. “What do you know?”

“Not much more than you told me, sir. Victim was found by a female heading for the National Library on George IV Bridge. Her screams alerted an officer heading for the court at the top of the steps, he radioed it in about thirty minutes ago.”

“Hmm. Hmm.” Burns nodded agreement. “And you’ve not heard any chatter on the radio about this yet?”

“No sir, I’ve not checked it. Why? Should I have?”

Burns grunted. “No real reason. Except it wasn’t quite as routine as you said. You see, young PC Burnett, who responded to the screams, recognised the victim. Got a bit agitated when he made the call to Control. I’m pulling the recording to beat him to death with later, but I think the phrase he used was, ‘Someone’s kebabed Charming Charlie Montgomery’.”

Susie felt her mouth drop open, shock hitting her in the stomach like a left jab. Her head darted up to where a knot of forensic officers dressed in their white jumpsuits were wrestling with a pop-up tent behind another length of police tape that had been draped across the width of the staircase. She couldn’t see the body.

“What? Sir? You don’t mean?”

“Oh yes, Drummond, I do. Go and have a look for yourself. Hope you didn’t have a big breakfast though, he’s in a hell of a state.” Susie searched Burns’s face for any trace of gallows humour. When she didn’t find it, her stomach gave another queasy lurch.

She climbed the last of the stairs, pain in her legs forgotten, until she reached the second, inner cordon that was designed to protect the immediate crime scene. She peered over, the forensics staff shuffling out of her way to give her a clear view. Swallowed back the sudden tang of bile in her throat as she looked down at the dead eyes of Charming Charlie Montgomery.

It took a force of will to tear her eyes from the knife that jutted out of his temple and consider the scene as a whole. His face was a ruin of blood and dusty-purple markings that looked like birthmarks. She realised with a sudden twist of revulsion that they were imprints from the boot that had been smashed into his face again and again. His nose was mashed against his cheek like a blob of plasticine, obviously broken by one or more of the kicks. His limbs were arranged at crazy, disorienting angles beneath him, broken and wrenched from their sockets by the fall. His perfect hair, which Susie noticed he always patted down at the back just before he made a comment in the courtroom, was ruffled and slick with blood and, Susie thought, flecks of bone.

“What happened?” she asked, directing the question into the crowd of SOCOs. One of them Susie recognised, Amanda Paterson, who stepped closer to the cordon, picking her steps gingerly so she didn’t disturb anything.

She nodded a small greeting, looked at the body again, then back up the stairs. “Best we can tell, he was stabbed on the landing halfway up – there’s a hell of a lot of blood up there and the spatter patterns and pooling show that’s where most of the damage was done. Looks like he was beaten up there too; there wouldn’t have been enough room to get the force into those blows on the steps here, too confined.”

Susie saw a picture she didn’t want to look at form in her mind. Charlie being attacked, stabbed to the ground then beaten before…

…before…

She blinked rapidly to clear the image. “Then he was thrown down the stairs? That’s how he ended up here?”

“Either that or he fell when trying to get away, yeah.” Amanda nodded, glasses winking. “But he was dead by the time he landed. No way anyone could survive that type of blood loss, even without the knife wound to the head.”

Susie was dimly aware of Burns’s heavy breathing as he came to a stop beside her. Forced herself to focus on the job, screen out the acrid tang of blood in her nostrils and the caustic taste tickling her gag reflex at the back of her throat.

“Robbery, sir? He fought back, attacker pulled a knife? Secluded staircase, just the place for a dumb shit to jump an unsuspecting passer-by.”

“My first impression, too. But his wallet, watch and other personal belongings are still on the body. And besides, this was deliberate. Look at the knife – a simple mugger would have scarpered, not hung around and left the murder weapon. And whoever did this left us a message.”

Susie felt her legs twitch, either to run or buckle, she wasn’t sure.

“What message?” she asked, amazed how calm her voice sounded, especially as she was talking through numb lips.

“Not sure yet. But the doc says something’s been rammed in his mouth. We’ll know more when he gets Charlie back to the lock-up for the post-mortem. But it’s not your average mugger’s MO now, is it?”

“No sir,” Susie mumbled, “it’s not. But what…?”

“Haven’t got a fucking clue,” Burns said, his voice heavy with disgust. “But that’s a journalist and a lawyer dead in the space of twenty-four hours. What’s next, a banker?”

Susie glanced over his shoulder to the HQ of the Bank of Scotland that sat on the Mound, a massive, castle-like building that dominated the view over Princes Street.

What next? Good question.

She turned again, the Scott Monument coming into view. A flash of Charlie Morris leering over her, pushing a gun into her face. The terror. The impotence. She blinked rapidly, forced herself to breathe. Wished she had taken Doug up on his joke offer of a road trip after all.