23

‘The strange thing is I still can’t see any sign of a struggle.’

Early afternoon and McLean found himself once more in the city mortuary, not really watching as Angus Cadwallader peeled back the secrets of the recently deceased. He should have been tracking down Chief Superintendent Forrester and updating him on developments surrounding Mike Finlay’s untimely death, but somehow the thought of standing in a cold examination theatre a half-mile away from the station had been more appealing.

He could justify his reticence by telling himself this was the man’s post-mortem, which might reveal vital clues as to how the haulage contractor had died. Better to gather the facts before opening yet another line of investigation. Coming here gave him an opportunity to consider the implications of DC Blane’s discovery, too. In the hurly burly of the station it was all but impossible to find peace and quiet in which to think.

‘I’m sorry?’ Lost in thought, McLean only now realized that his old friend the pathologist had said something. He dragged his attention back to the cadaver, then wished he hadn’t. Mike Finlay lay on the stainless steel examination table, his naked body pale from blood loss. Only the staining of the skin around his throat gave any indication as to how he had died, the lethal shard of glass now removed and bagged as potential evidence.

‘No sign of a struggle, Tony. Do pay attention.’ Cadwallader manipulated the body as he spoke, pointing out things McLean couldn’t see without coming closer. ‘There’s a bruise on the back of his head, very slight cut. I’m guessing he fell backwards against the window and that’s what broke it. He’d have been fine if it was safety glass, but those old cabins looked like they’d been around a while. Well, you saw how it shattered.’

‘What about the cuts on his arms?’ McLean didn’t like getting too close to the bodies as they were being examined, especially not once the scalpel came out, but he took a step forward to point at the thin lacerations on Finlay’s upper arms and shoulders.

‘More of the glass, I’d say. If he fell backwards that would explain the marks here and here.’ Cadwallader pointed to livid red lines on the dead man’s skin. ‘His suit took the brunt of it. Probably would have protected him better if it hadn’t been a cheap knock-off.’

‘So he fell backwards against the glass. Smashed it. A piece is still in the bottom of the frame sticking upwards. How does he turn around, fall down on it and kill himself, all without any sign of a struggle? He wasn’t drunk was he? There was no sign of any booze at the scene.’

‘Not got to the stomach contents yet, but he’d have to be pretty steaming drunk to do this, don’t you think?’ Cadwallader picked up a scalpel, ready to incise. ‘These injuries are more consistent with panic and flight. Poor sod looks like he was terrified of something.’

McLean took a step back, readying himself for the unpleasant part of the examination. ‘Something, or perhaps someone.’

‘If it was someone then they never laid a hand on him. I’d stake my reputation on that. There is something, though.’ Cadwallader put the scalpel back down again, walked across to a bench at the side of the examination theatre and picked up a clear plastic evidence bag that appeared to be filled with clothing. ‘He’d soiled himself. Urine and faeces both. It’s always difficult to know whether that’s pre-mortem or a result of the body letting go at the moment of death. I didn’t think much of it, but it could be someone quite literally scared the crap out of him.’

McLean remembered the CCTV footage, the mysterious blur that might have been a person visiting the office around the time Finlay had died, the chain across the gates that had been moved. How could someone enter the compound without being seen, get into the portable cabins without leaving any forensic trace and scare a grown man into killing himself without even touching him? ‘There’s no marks on him other than the cuts from the window? Nothing at all?’

Cadwallader held his scalpel up to the light. ‘Not a thing. No bruises, contusions, nothing. Hard to believe he even worked in the haulage industry. Still, let’s see what’s inside shall we? Might find something there to help solve this mystery.’

‘I’ve just got off the phone with the chief constable, Tony. He’s … how can I put it? Concerned about the way the investigation is going.’

The summons to the chief superintendent’s office had come through as McLean was walking back from the mortuary, the image of Mike Finlay’s pale dead body still fresh in his mind. Not Forrester himself, but one of his admin staff had placed the call, so McLean had assumed it wasn’t important enough for him to have to run. Or forgo the cup of coffee in the canteen that he’d needed to replace the unpleasant taste in his mouth. There was the small matter of not quite knowing how to mention the possibility Finlay’s death might not have been as straightforward as they’d initially thought, but Forrester hadn’t given him time to bring that up.

‘Is there a problem, sir? We’re going as fast as we can. This isn’t as straightforward as we’d all like, I know.’

Forrester scowled, his face and neck reddening as if he were embarrassed. ‘That’s the point, though, isn’t it? It’s been three days now since the crash and it’s just getting more and more complicated. Bad enough we’ve got to constantly reassure the press this isn’t some kind of terrorist attack. Now you’ve got a suspicious death to throw into the mix. And why are you pestering this energy company?’ He pulled a notepad towards him, peered at the scribblings on it. ‘Extech? Is that it?’

‘They run the biodigester site, sir, where the truck’s cargo came from. Well, the cargo it was supposed to be carrying.’

‘Exactly. Supposed to be carrying. But it wasn’t, was it? The paperwork had been faked.’

McLean hadn’t been offered a chair. Now, standing on the wrong side of the chief superintendent’s desk it felt like he’d been called up in front of the headmaster to explain himself when as far as he was aware he’d done nothing wrong.

‘It’s still worth our while speaking to them, sir. Wouldn’t you say? Check they actually loaded a tanker full of their waste, how much of it and when? If they did, then that stuff’s got to be somewhere. If they didn’t, then they’re in on the lie.’

‘Yes, of course. But you could have phoned them. Had a constable phone them. You didn’t need to go out and pester them yourself. And looking into their financial history?’

The penny dropped. McLean almost wondered why it had taken him so long to figure it out. Extech was modern and shiny and had been financed entirely with private money. No doubt the first thing Ms Ferris had done after he and DC Harrison had left the site was call her boss. He, and McLean was willing to bet good money it was a he, had picked up the phone to his old chum the chief constable. Or spoken to a tame politician who had done it for him. There might have been a few more layers of influence and favour, but the result was the same. Quite how they knew what DCs Stringer and Blane had been up to when neither of them had managed to find any company information on Extech was another matter entirely.

‘I asked some of the constables to do a quick background check on the company, sir. Who the directors are, that sort of thing. It’s surprising how often the same names crop up. Connections where you wouldn’t expect them to be. I’d rather we found that out ourselves before some smart-arse lawyer pointed it out in court.’

Forrester leaned forward over his notepad, elbows on the desktop and hands clasped as if that was the only way he could stop himself from wringing them. McLean didn’t know him, couldn’t read him the way he had learned to with Brooks and Duguid. Even so, he was fairly certain that the chief superintendent was being put under considerable pressure to steer the investigation away from that direction.

‘There was one other thing, sir.’ McLean clasped his own hands behind his back to stop himself from fidgeting. ‘About Mike Finlay.’

Forrester slumped in his chair as if someone had just pricked his balloon. ‘Go on.’

‘There’s evidence to suggest he wasn’t alone when he died.’ McLean relayed the information he’d gleaned both from the CCTV footage of the yard and from the post-mortem. As he did so, Forrester’s balloon crumpled even further.

‘Do you ever just solve a crime neatly and simply?’

McLean opened his mouth to answer, but Forrester waved him down.

‘No, don’t say anything. I know life’s complicated. Christ, I wish it wasn’t.’ He took a couple of slow breaths and McLean recognized the look of a man silently counting to ten. ‘So what do you think’s going on, then?’

‘I honestly don’t know, sir. Finlay’s death is awkward and suspicious, but it’s also very unusual. If someone wanted to silence him, there are easier ways. And Ang—, … the pathologist can’t find any signs of a struggle, which given how he died is very surprising.’

‘So what do you want to do about it, then?’

The directness of the question brought McLean up short. He was conditioned to having his every move criticized, to being shouted at whenever he suggested something that might make life more complicated. To be asked for an opinion rather put him on the back foot.

‘I’d like to go over the CCTV footage more closely, and speak to the forensics people again first. Maybe get them out to have another look at the scene. I’m interviewing Finlay’s sister later this afternoon, see if I can’t get a bit more out of her.’

‘You think she’s in on this? Why’s she not in a cell already?’

‘If I thought she’d had a hand in it, she would be, sir, but she was the one who called it in. Nothing she’s told us so far has turned out to be false. She could be very helpful with the truck crash investigation, or she could throw up a wall of lawyers to get in our way. I think keeping her on our side is the best approach, don’t you?’

Forrester rubbed at his face, working the tiredness out of his eyes. ‘I’m getting too old for this. OK. Play it your way for now. But keep me in the loop.’

McLean nodded, but said nothing. He started to walk towards the door, and then the chief superintendent stopped him. ‘Any news on that other matter I asked you to look into?’

‘I’ve put some feelers out. Asked a couple of senior officers I can trust to help. I went and spoke to the band he plays with, too. Nice wee lass called Margie.’

‘Margie? Margie Cullen? Christ, what’s she doing over here?’

‘You know her?’

‘She and Eric went to school together. She’s the one got him into all this mess in the first place. Bad news.’ Forrester shook his head as if the mere thought of the young woman were too much to bear. It didn’t take a degree in Psychology to see the displacement going on. So much easier to look for an external reason for the collapse of his family than anything he might have done himself.

‘I gave that DNA swab to the pathologist direct, too. Angus won’t ask questions, but it’ll take a day or two to run comparisons on all three unidentified bodies.’

Forrester nodded once, rubbed at his face with his hands again. McLean couldn’t help but notice the shake in his fingers. Was this what being a father meant?

‘Keep on it, then.’ The chief superintendent picked up his pen and started to jot something down on his notepad. Interview over. McLean headed for the door, waiting for the final remark as he left. He wasn’t disappointed.

‘And don’t push too hard with Extech Energy. They’re not the ones at fault here, aye?’

McLean said nothing, closed the door quietly behind him. Forrester hadn’t told him to stop investigating Extech entirely, only not to push too hard. Well, he could be subtle if he put his mind to it.