What Will Burn James Oswald (booksvooks txt) 📖

‘You do keep sending us the most interesting specimens, Tony. Please keep up the good work.’

McLean stood in his usual position in the mortuary examination theatre. Close enough to see the body and hear what the pathologist had to say, but not so close he could see the details when the scalpel came out. Today it was Tom MacPhail in charge, but Angus Cadwallader had come along to see him work. Brian Galloway’s pale, naked body lay on the table in front of them.

‘What’s so interesting about this one?’ McLean asked.

‘Well, there’s the fact that he drowned for starters.’ MacPhail bent close to the dead man’s head, pushed open his jaws and peered into his mouth.

‘Drowned? He was in his living room.’

‘Yes, but his lungs were full of fluid, poor chap. That’s what did for him.’

McLean searched his memory for anything medical that might account for this, but had to admit his knowledge fell short. ‘Is that . . . How can that happen?’

‘Surprisingly easily, actually,’ Cadwallader said. ‘It’s how a lot of people die of the flu. Their lungs inflame with the virus, secrete mucus that fills up all the little branches where the oxygen in your breath can cross into the blood, and the carbon dioxide go the other way.’

‘But he didn’t have the flu, did he? Isn’t it a bit early for it yet?’

‘Ah, Tony. Influenza can strike any time of the year. But you’re right. He didn’t have the flu. Something else triggered a massive and rapid inflammation in his lungs. It would have been extremely distressing, and reflex would have closed off his throat to stop him breathing in more liquid. Except that he hadn’t breathed it in, and now he couldn’t get it out. Dry drowning, they call it. More common in children, but it can happen in adults.’

‘Any idea what caused it?’

‘That’s the million-dollar question.’ MacPhail looked up from his work, his white latex gloves smeared with blood and ichor, scalpel held aloft. ‘He shouldn’t have reacted badly to those painkillers you found, even if he’d mixed them with alcohol. Of course, he might have taken something else we don’t know about, but the tests we’ve done so far haven’t come up with anything suspicious. I’ve asked for the painkillers to be analysed just to be sure they’re what’s written on the label.’

‘You think they might not be what they say they are?’

MacPhail lifted both hands in a shrug, narrowly missing Cadwallader with the scalpel. ‘I’m no detective, but that’d be one way to kill someone and hide the evidence, wouldn’t it? Swap his pills? But given they’re in blister packs, it’s unlikely. That’s a lot of trouble to go to.’

‘Anything’s possible, I suppose. Who’d want to kill him though?’

‘Well, anyone who likes decent music for a start.’ MacPhail went back to the cadaver, still talking while he guddled around inside. ‘Seriously though, it’s a strange way for an adult to die, even one who’s probably abused his body more than most.’

‘But not something you’ve never seen before?’ McLean asked.

MacPhail frowned in concentration, as if dredging the very depths of his memory. ‘Once or twice, maybe. More often in kids, like I said. The thing is, that usually goes along with heavy inflammation in the lungs. This chap . . .’ He waved his hand at the body, and for a horrible moment McLean thought he was going to dig the organs out and start showing him. ‘There’s a little inflammation, but he looks more like I’d expect if he’d fallen in his swimming pool while stoned, if you know what I mean. Except without the puckered skin and general dampness.’

McLean had left the mortuary fully intending to take the results of Galloway’s post-mortem straight to the chief superintendent and let her decide whether or not to pursue the matter any further. The short walk back to the station had given him time to think it through a little more, so he diverted to Detective Superintendent McIntyre’s office instead. In a reversal of their morning meeting, he was now the one knocking on the door frame.

‘You got a minute, Jayne?’

McIntyre sat at her desk, half-moon spectacles perched on the end of her nose, squinting at a report. Judging by the two piles – one small, one large – she’d been working through a lot of them.

‘A minute, an hour. Anything to get away from these damned things.’ She closed the folder, but not before slipping a piece of paper in to mark where she’d got to. McLean noticed that she returned it to the larger of the two piles. More left to do than done. He knew the feeling all too well.

‘I’ve just got back from the mortuary, checking in on Brian Galloway’s post-mortem.’

‘Galloway?’ McIntyre looked momentarily confused. ‘He’s the one Gail wanted you looking into? How on earth would she even know him?’

‘I tried asking her, believe me. She’s quite good at not answering questions, so I thought I’d let you know first that the verdict is he drowned.’

That got him a raised eyebrow. ‘Drowned?’

‘Well, his lungs were full of fluid. Possibly a bad reaction to his painkillers. You know he’d apparently fallen down the steps of Fleshmarket Close a while back? Broke his nose and three fingers.’

‘I don’t like the way you say “apparently”, Tony. What are you not telling me?’

‘He was with a mate, who also took a tumble. Blew out his knee and ruptured a testicle. They were both treated at the Royal Infirmary. The thing is, there’s no report of any incident like that in the Old Town that night.’

‘So they weren’t hurt enough to need an ambulance. Too embarrassed to call one even if they were.’

‘There was, however, an attack on a young woman who made more than a good accounting for herself. Trained in self-defence, and perhaps a little bit more. She was jumped by two middle-aged men, dragged into a close off the Royal Mile. Same date, same time.’

McIntyre