Free Torch by Lin Anderson Page B

Salvador Dali’s Christ of St
John of the Cross. They stuck out rigidly from the wall, three feet
apart.
    ‘Did you see
the victim’s hands?’ Rhona asked. She dropped her forensic bag
beside her and flipped it open.
    ‘Hands?’
Obviously MacFarlane wasn’t sharing her thoughts. ‘The body was
badly burned. That’s all I know.’
    Rhona pointed
to the wall near the nails. ‘Did your forensic team sample the wall
here?’
    ‘I don’t know.
I’d have to check.’
    Rhona rubbed a
filter paper round each nail then dropped on the reagents. She
showed MacFarlane the pink result. By the look on his face,
MacFarlane was catching up.
    ‘I think he was
crucified before the place was set on fire.’
    MacFarlane
hitched a lift back with her. She suspected he wanted to talk or
maybe make sure Dr MacKenzie would give her house-room at the post
mortem. MacFarlane’s excuse was he was short of squad cars and
wanted to leave two for the constables doing the rounds asking
questions of the residents.
    ‘I don’t like
my men in there without a getaway vehicle,’ he said.
    He wasn’t
joking.
    Rhona swung out
onto the main road, which had been traffic calmed with crazy paving
and big ugly bollards. A few struggling trees survived inside their
mesh cages. Yet the housing scheme’s setting couldn’t have been
better. Easy access to the ring road, an established shopping mall
nearby, a short car journey through Holyrood park to Scotland’s
parliament building and the city centre. Private housing was
already encroaching from the east, neat semis, toy houses in red
brick with pseudo Georgian entrances.
    MacFarlane took
his time. They were nearly at the Pathology Lab before he asked her
why she’d come back.
    She told him
about her conversation with DI Wilson, the contaminated cocaine and
the burn marks on the Glasgow boy’s wrists.
    ‘So we go one
better, and nail ours to the wall?’ MacFarlane said grimly.
    ‘Edinburgh
always has to go one better. It’s traditional.’
    MacFarlane
looked thoughtful. A spate of drug-related deaths linked by fire.
But nothing to do with the city centre fires, which were
potentially more disastrous. Rhona asked who was dealing with
them.
    ‘No one. Sev’s
off and Gallagher’s still in hospital.’
    ‘So why was I
sent away?’
    No answer.
    She pulled over
on a double yellow line.
    ‘It was MacRae,
wasn’t it?’
    MacFarlane
hesitated. ‘Sev thought you’d be safer in Glasgow.’ He looked
uncomfortable.
    ‘I would never
have left if I’d known.’
    ‘That’s why he
did it.’
    They were
causing a traffic jam on the narrow road. She indicated and drew
out.
    ‘What happens
now?’
    ‘We continue
our enquiries and hope we’re wrong about the timing.’
    ‘You’ll let the
Hogmanay party go ahead?’
    ‘We have no
choice.’
    It seems you
didn’t cancel the biggest New Year Party in the world on the
strength of a unsubstantiated threat. Rhona changed tack.
    ‘What made
MacRae think I was in danger?’
    ‘There was a
letter after the fire at his house. It mentioned your name.’
    A fleeting
picture entered Rhona’s brain. A single red rose. A place setting.
The song on the ansaphone.
    ‘You okay?’
MacFarlane looked worried.
    ‘Of course I’m
okay,’ she said shortly. ‘What about Amy?’
    ‘Gillian took
her up north to her mother’s for a while.’
    ‘So what’s
MacRae doing with his leave?’
    MacFarlane made
a face. ‘Probably drinking.’
    The Pathology
Unit loomed up in front of her. Rhona drew into a reserved space
and switched off the engine.
    The
pathologist’s voice had a war weary tone. Heat contraction of the
skin of a corpse often produced splits which might be interpreted
as tears or cuts inflicted during life, he told her. The
distinction between burns inflicted during life and burns inflicted
on an already dead body could be difficult, if not impossible to
detect at autopsy.
    ‘So you don’t
think he was nailed to the wall?’ Bluntness seemed