Free Prayer for the Dead: A Detective Inspector McLean Mystery by James Oswald

all the computers in it, where the photographic image manipulation was done. He couldn’t help looking over at the desk where Emma had worked, pleased to see that no one else seemed to be using it. The last he had heard, she was somewhere in North Africa, but he hoped that she would come home soon. Seemingly the forensic servicehoped so too.
    ‘You wanted to see the photos from the cave.’ Dr Cairns broke through McLean’s distraction. He dragged his gazefrom the empty desk back to her, catching the merest hint of a grin on her normally taciturn face.
    ‘I did, yes.’
    ‘Well Benny’s been running them through the image analysis software. Reckon we’ve got something that makes a bit of sense now.’
    Dr Cairns led McLean acrossthe room, past a half-dozen casually dressed technicians hunched over computer stations, each of which probably cost more than the entire IT budget for his station. They all had enormous flat screens, two or three per operator, and he couldn’t help but feel a twitch of jealousy even though he had no real need for anything more sophisticated than a laptop that actually talked to the network.
    ‘You got the Gilmerton Cove file up, Benny?’ Dr Cairns pitched her words loud to the scruffy fellow sitting in front of the largest screen in the whole room. Earphone cables snaked away from his long, ginger and slightly greasy hair, and he peered through spectacles so thick McLean had to consider that they’d given him the big monitor because he couldn’t see anything smaller. His ears must have workedthough, as he reached up, unplugged his earphones and turned to his boss, eyes flicking a quick glance in McLean’s direction without any hint of alarm.
    ‘Just finished it now.’ Benny tucked his earphones carefully into the top pocket of his shirt before reaching for the mouse and clicking up a screen full of thumbnail images. ‘You want me to print it out?’
    ‘And waste our budget on ink? No, youcan email the whole file over to the incident room. Let them pick up the tab. Come on, shoo.’ Dr Cairns flicked her hands at thetechnician until he slid, reluctantly, off his stool. Standing, McLean could see that he was at least as tall as Karl, shoulders and back hunched in the habitual pose of a man who doesn’t really enjoy standing out in a crowd. Dr Cairns scrabbled up on to the vacatedstool, and grabbed at the mouse in a lunge that nearly saw her topple to the floor.
    ‘Bloody hell. D’you no’ get altitude sickness up here, Benny?’ she said, before clicking through a series of images too quickly for McLean to see. Finally she stopped and he peered close, trying to make something out through the pixellation. The overall impression was blue. Early Impressionist.
    ‘What am I supposedto be looking at?’
    ‘This is your cave wall. Blood reflects a narrow band of the light spectrum, so we’ve run a filter to cut out everything else. See?’ Dr Cairns clicked once more and the scene changed. It was a bit like one of those old parlour magic tricks McLean remembered from when he was a boy. The blue deepened, but a series of lines, letters and words leapt out at him in glowing yellow.

    ‘Is this the pattern, then? What was written in Stevenson’s blood?’
    ‘Written?’ Dr Cairns turned on the stool, lifting a single eyebrow in his direction. ‘You ever tried to write in blood on a sandstone wall?’
    ‘Not recently, no.’
    ‘Well, it’s not easy. Let me tell you that. Our man here’s tried to write some words. You can see them here.’ Dr Cairns highlighted an area of the screen, then zoomedin on it. The lines looped around each other in a way thatat a casual glance might look like letters, but the more McLean stared, the less he could see.
    ‘I don’t …’ he began.
    ‘Perhaps it’ll make more sense if I do this.’ A couple more clicks and the image shifted, widened out, stretched. ‘See?’
    McLean tilted his head, just about seeing the letters now. ‘Does that