The Hangman's Song (Inspector Mclean 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

down from Aberdeen about eighteen months ago, remember?’
    She looked along the street, eyes gliding over her own front door as if it meant no more to her than any other. ‘Nope.’
    ‘Well, let’s go inside. See if you recognize your stuff.’
    Emma had been skinny to start with, but two months on a drip had left her skeletally thin, and weak with it. The hospital had tried their best since she’d woken; regular physiotherapy sessions and the stodgiest food McLean had seen since his school days, but still she moved like someone twice her age. He had to suppress the urge toput his arm out and help her. That, he had already learnt, just pissed her off. Some things were still the same about her, he was pleased to see.
    ‘This one.’ He pointed at the door she was about to walk past. ‘Here.’
    He dug the keys out of his jacket pocket and handed them over. The little plastic gnome hung from the key ring, its hair a bright pink shock of colour. She looked at it with the same intense fascination she’d shown on the journey over, but showed no interest in the keys.
    ‘This is mine?’
    McLean nodded.
    ‘I have no recollection of it at all. Did I buy it? Did someone give it to me? Did you give it to me?’ With this last question Emma stared at his face, examining his features in a way that McLean found deeply disturbing. It was a look he knew well. One he had used in many an interrogation over the years. She even left the silence hanging, waiting for him to fill it and condemn himself with the answer.
    ‘Not guilty, your honour.’ He held up his hands in denial. ‘Are you going in or not?’
    Emma frowned in confusion for a moment, then seemed to notice the bunch of keys hanging from the fascinating key ring. ‘Oh. Right.’ Pause. ‘Umm. Which one is it?’
    It had been like this for almost three weeks now. Doctor Wheeler felt that Emma was improving all the time, but McLean couldn’t see it. Yes, there were occasional flashes of the old Em, but mostly there was this uncomfortable, awkward person who didn’t seem to know much about anything at all. She had latched on to him with suchan intensity that at first he’d thought it was something of their relationship coming back. But as the days had passed and he’d done all he could to help her recuperate, so he’d begun to suspect that she clung to him because his was the first face she’d seen on waking. Even now there were times when he caught her staring at him with something closer to fear than anything else. She didn’t treat him like an equal, didn’t act like an adult. It was almost as if the blow to her head had regressed her to a child.
    ‘Here, let me.’ He reached for the keys. She shrunk away from him, just a little, then realized what she was doing and checked herself. Almost reluctantly she handed over the key ring, fingers clinging to the little gnome as he pulled it away. He selected the right key, slid it in the lock and opened the door.
    Inside was dark. What little light that could make it through the grimy window halfway up the stairs was swallowed up by a large, dead pot plant on the windowsill. McLean had been here a couple of times a week since Emma had been taken to hospital, checking her mail and making sure the flat was OK. In all that time he’d never seen the plant watered and only now it occurred to him that this might be because it was hers. She paused on the stairs as they passed it, feeling a leafy frond between bony fingers. For a moment he thought it might be sparking a memory, but she just shook her head and moved on.
    She didn’t recognize her front door, and when he pushed it open to let her into the apartment, she hesitated on the threshold, peering in as if expecting monsters. McLean stepped inside and reluctantly Emma followed. If this was meant to start the process of bringing back hermemories, as the good doctor had suggested, then it didn’t seem to be working.
    ‘I’ll make some tea.’ He left her standing in