Natural Causes by James Oswald Read Free Book Online Page A

at work, however. Somehow he had managed to find three chairs, and more miraculously, a laptop computer. He looked up from the screen as McLean entered the room.
    ‘How’s it going, constable?’ He pulled off his jacket and hung it on the back of the door. The radiator under the window was still belting out heat.
    ‘I’ve almost finished going through these burglary reports, sir. Think I might have spotted something.’
    McLean pulled up a chair. One of its casters was missing. ‘Show me.’
    ‘Well, sir. These are all just random as far as I can tell. Not much skill, probably junkies feeding a habit and we got lucky with forensics.’ MacBride hefted the bulk of the reports, piled up on one side of the desk, and put them back in their cardboard box. ‘These ones, however. Well, I think there may be some connection between them.’ He lifted a slim pile of folders, perhaps four or five, then dropped them back on the table.
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘All of them are skilled burglaries. Not just a brick-through-the-window job; no sign of forced entry at all. They all had alarm systems that were circumvented without any obvious sign, and in each case the burglar only took small items of high value.’
    ‘Were they kept in safes?’
    ‘No, sir. The safe-breaking’s new. But there’s one other common factor. In all of these cases, the home owner had recently died.’
    ‘How recently?’
    ‘Well, within a month.’ MacBride paused, as if trying tomake up his mind whether to say something or not. McLean kept quiet.
    ‘OK, one of the burglaries happened eight weeks after the old woman died. But the other four were all within a fortnight. Last week’s one happened on the day of the funeral. I need to check the others against burial dates, but we’ve not got that information on file.’
    ‘Mrs Douglas’s funeral was advertised in the paper, and she had an obituary printed beforehand.’ McLean picked up the files, looking at the names and dates on the front of them. The most recent, apart from the case they were investigating, was almost a year ago; the oldest one five years past. They were all still open, nominally. Unsolved. All under the watchful eye of his most favourite chief inspector. He doubted Duguid would even remember their names.
    ‘Let’s see if we can’t put a bit of flesh on the bones.’ He passed the files back to MacBride. ‘Find out some more about these people. Did they have obituaries? Were their funerals advertised, and if so, what paper?’
    ‘What about the alarms?’ MacBride asked. ‘It’s not easy getting round some of these systems.’
    ‘Good point. OK. We need to check out where these people were when they died. Were they at home, hospital, in care?’
    ‘You think our burglar got that close? Isn’t that a great risk?’
    ‘Not if your victim’s dead before you carry out the burglary. Think about it. If our burglar works in a care home, he’d be able to charm the elderly, gain their trust and confidence. Then once they’d told him all he needed to know, he just had to wait for them to die.’
    Even as he said it, he realised it was far-fetched, but a knock at the door stopped McLean from digging himself in further. He looked around to see a uniformed sergeant poking her head into the room, as if she didn’t want to commit herself any further lest some awful fate befall her.
    ‘Ah, sir, I thought I might find you here. The chief superintendent would like a word.’
    McLean stood wearily, reaching for his crumpled jacket as the sergeant disappeared.
    ‘Let’s work the obituary angle first. Get onto the next of kin. Whoever was interviewed when the burglary was reported. Find out how well known these people were. When Grumpy Bob gets in, the both of you can contact everyone in those files, see if there’s a common theme. I’d better go and see what Her Majesty wants. And Stuart?’
    The young detective looked up from the open case file.
    ‘Well done.’
    McLean remembered Jayne