Book of Souls Read Online Free PDF Page B

he clambered out of the car, then remembered he was supposed to get it back to the hire company by seven. Even driving like a maniac he’d miss that by an hour. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time his one-day hire had turned into two.
    A line of squad cars and a couple of battered old white Transit vans meant he had to walk a short distance to the fluttering crime-scene tape. Closer in, the arc lights set up by the SOC team washed out an area of rough ground below the road. Fat drops of rainwater glistened on the spiky tips of the thick gorse bushes and splashed down from the bare, black, twisted branches of scraggy birch trees. Through it all ran a deep-culverted stream, gurgling loudly with recent rain. It was a while since he’d been out this way. But if memory served, it was part of the reservoir system that fed the city. Just the sort of place you wanted to find a body.
    ‘I’m sorry, sir, this is a crime scene. You can’t—’
    McLean cut off the young uniformed constable who had tried to block his way, wearily pulling out his warrantcard for inspection. It wasn’t surprising the lad didn’t recognise him; this was Penicuik’s patch, after all.
    ‘Who’s the officer in charge?’ McLean asked once the constable had finished apologising.
    ‘Sergeant Price, sir. He’s down there with the pathologist.’
    ‘Already? That was quick.’ McLean looked up the line of cars; sure enough, parked at the far end Angus Cadwallader’s British Racing Green and mud-coloured Bentley poked one salt-encrusted headlight out from behind a SOC van.
    ‘Dunno about that, sir. I’ve been here over two hours already. Call came in about four o’clock.’
    Long before Dagwood had set out for his masonic knees-up. Bloody marvellous.
    Knee-high grass and gorse bushes soaked his trousers and shoes long before he made it to the edge of the culvert. A group of people clustered around an improbable Heath-Robinson arrangement of scaffolding poles, light stands and other paraphernalia. Steam rose off the hot lights, adding to the already surreal, hellish feel of the place.
    ‘Sergeant Price?’ McLean waited while a large, white-haired, uniformed officer turned slowly around, trying not to slip on the wet concrete edge of the culvert. The drop was about ten feet, spate-swelled waters running noisily below, so McLean couldn’t really blame him.
    ‘About bloody time someone senior showed up,’ was all the greeting the old sergeant gave. That and a cursory nod. McLean tried not to rise to the bait.
    ‘It’s my day off, OK? I spent the morning in Aberdeen burying Donald fucking Anderson. So cut the small talk and tell me the story.’
    If Sergeant Price was impressed by McLean’s sacrifice, he didn’t show it.
    ‘Couple of lads out on their mountain bikes saw her first,’ he said. ‘What they were doing down here is anyone’s guess.’
    ‘They still about?’
    ‘No. They called in from Temple. You can’t get a mobile signal here. I’ve got names and addresses.’
    ‘OK. What about the body?’
    Price shrugged. ‘See for yersel’. Crime scene’s a’ yours.’
    McLean inched slowly to the edge, giving the two SOCOs holding the arc lamps time to shuffle aside. A ladder dropped down to a makeshift platform rigged up over the flowing water, two people kneeling together like penitent sinners, praying before a third. He recognised the balding pate of Angus Cadwallader, city pathologist, and the shiny black bob of his assistant Tracy, but the other person in the threesome was a stranger to him.
    It looked like the water had carried her downstream until she had been pinned against a rusty iron grating. Her arms were splayed wide, her legs twisted back underneath her body as if she were posing for some arty erotic photograph. Wisps of green-black pondweed trailed across skin so white it could have been porcelain, and only the ugly dark welt across her neck stopped him from thinking she was merely sleeping.
    ‘Tony. Good God,