Natural Causes by James Oswald Read Free Book Online

his grandmother’s bed from the other inhabitants, something he had never seen before. The familiar beeps and whirrs were there still, keeping everyone else alive, but the pulse of the place felt different. Or was that just in his head? Taking a deep breath, as if about to plunge into the ocean, McLean pulled aside the curtain and stepped inside.
    The nurses had removed all the tubes and wires, wheeled away the machines, but left his grandmother behind. She lay in the bed unmoving, her sunken eyes closed as if asleep, hands above the blankets and crossed neatly over her stomach. For the first time in eighteen months she looked something like the woman he remembered.
    ‘I’m so very sorry.’
    McLean turned to see a nurse standing in the doorway. The same nurse who’d spoken to him before, the onewho’d cared for his grandmother all these long months. Jeannie, that was her name. Jeannie Robertson.
    ‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘She was never going to recover. Really this is for the best.’ He turned back to the dead woman lying on the bed, saw his grandmother for the first time in eighteen months. ‘If I keep telling myself that I might even start believing it.’

7
    Early morning and a crowd of officers jostled around the entrance to one of the larger incident rooms. McLean poked his head through the door, seeing the chaos that always marked the start of a major investigation. A clean whiteboard ran the length of one wall, and someone had scrawled ‘Barnaby Smythe’ on it in black marker. Uniformed constables arranged desks and chairs, a technician was busy wiring up computers. Duguid was nowhere to be seen.
    ‘You helping out on this one, sir?’ McLean looked around. A broad-shouldered PC pushed his way through the throng, carrying a large cardboard box sealed with black and yellow evidence tape. Andrew Houseman, or Big Andy to his friends, was a competent officer and a far better prop forward. But for an unfortunate injury early on in his career, he would probably have been playing for his country right now, instead of running errands for Dagwood. McLean liked him; Big Andy might not have been bright, but he was thorough.
    ‘Not my case, Andy,’ he said. ‘And you know how much Dagwood likes my help.’
    ‘But you were at the scene. Em said you were there.’
    ‘Em?’
    ‘Emma. Emma Baird? You know, the new SOC officer. So high, spiky black hair, always looks like she’s wearing too much eyeliner.’
    ‘Oh aye? You two got something going on, have you? Only I’d not want to get on the wrong side of that wife of yours, Andy.’
    ‘No, no. I was just over at HQ getting this evidence from the scene.’ The big man blushed, hefting the box to illustrate his point. ‘She said she’d seen you at Smythe’s house, hoped you’d catch whatever sick bastard killed him.’
    ‘Just me? On my own?’
    ‘Well, I’m sure she meant all of us.’
    ‘I’m sure she did, Andy. But this investigation will have to do without me. It’s Dagwood’s call. And anyway, I’ve got my own murder to solve.’
    ‘Aye, heard about that. Creepy.’
    McLean was about to answer, but a rumbling voice echoing down the corridor heralded the arrival of the chief inspector. He had no intention of getting sucked into another investigation, particularly one headed by Charles Duguid.
    ‘Gotta go, Andy. The chief superintendent wants to see me, and it doesn’t do to keep her waiting.’ He ducked around the large man and headed off towards his own incident room as what looked like half of the region’s officers filed in for the morning briefing on the murder of Barnaby Smythe. Nice to see the allocation of resources spread so evenly. But then Smythe was an important man, a city benefactor, a prominent member of society. No one had noticed his dead girl in her basement for over fifty years.
    Grumpy Bob was nowhere to be seen when McLean reached the incident room; it was far too early in themorning for that. Constable MacBride was hard