McLean 01 - Natural Causes by Oswald James

Author:Oswald, James [Oswald, James]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781405913157
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2012-11-21T23:00:00+00:00

35

Grumpy Bob was reading his newspaper, feet up on the table amongst the evidence bags when McLean finally stumbled back into their tiny incident room.

‘You all right, sir? You look like you just found half a maggot in your apple.’

‘What? Oh, no. I’m fine, Bob. Just a little shocked is all.’ He told the sergeant his news.

‘Jings. Your boat’s certainly come in. Don’t suppose you could lend me a few quid?’

‘It’s not funny, Bob. He left me everything except his business assets. Why the hell would he do that?’

‘I dunno. Maybe he didn’t have anyone else to leave it to. Maybe he always had a thing for your gran and decided he’d rather leave it to you than the animal shelter.’

A thing for your gran. Bob’s words brought back a memory suppressed by the rush of recent events. A series of photographs in an empty bedroom. A man not his grandfather who nevertheless looked just like his father. Just like him. Could that have been a young Carstairs? Could he have? No. His grandmother would never have. Would she?

‘But he changed it just last week.’ McLean answered his own question and Bob’s both. He tried to remember the few conversations he’d had with the old lawyer since that first telephone call the day after his grandmother had died. He’d been friendly enough, almost avuncular at first. But at the funeral he’d seemed distracted, expecting someone else. And then the strange conversation the afternoon before the lawyer had been killed. What was that all about? What messages had his grandmother left for Carstairs to deliver after her death? Or was it something Carstairs himself wanted to say? Something had rattled the old man. Now he’d never know what.

‘I don’t know what you’re complaining about, sir. It’s not often a lawyer gives you money.’

McLean tried to smile at the joke, but found it hard. ‘Where’s DC MacBride?’

‘He went off to the Scotsman. Something about searching their archives.’

‘Finding out about Albert Farquhar. Good. How are we getting on with McReadie?’

Grumpy Bob put down his paper, moved his feet off the table and sat up straight. ‘We’ve found items from the five burglaries we were looking into. Not everything reported missing’s here, but certainly enough to put McReadie away for a good stretch. The IT boys have pretty much sorted out his computer, too. I don’t think he’s going to weasel out of it, even if he has got himself a fancy lawyer.’

‘Good. What about the cufflink? Did IT come up with an address for that piece yet?’

Grumpy Bob shuffled through the pile of bags on his desk, retrieving a slim sheaf of papers, leafing through them until he found what he was looking for.

‘That was taken from an address in Penicuik about seven years ago. A Miss Louisa Emmerson.’

‘Do we know if the theft was ever reported?’

‘I’ll check, sir.’ Grumpy Bob shuffled over to the laptop, tapped at a few keys. ‘There’s nothing against that address or that name on the database.’

‘I didn’t think there would be.

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