Free The Hangman's Song (Inspector Mclean 3) by James Oswald Page A

McLean.’
    Yes. And it mostly involves having someone else do all the work and then taking all the credit. ‘Sorry, sir. I just meant it shouldn’t take more than a few days.’
    ‘Make sure it doesn’t.’ Duguid nodded a dismissal and turned back to his laptop. McLean breathed out a silent sigh of relief and turned to leave.
    ‘Oh, and McLean?’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Don’t think this gets you off Sex Crimes. You want the work, fine, but you’re reporting to DCI Dexter as well as John Brooks. Don’t come running to me if they expect you to work twenty-four hours a day.’



11
    He’s happy to get out of the club. Pounding noise they call music, strobe lights threatening to induce epilepsy, drinks costing half a day’s wages for a single round. He’s never seen the attraction of the places. You can’t even talk to anyone; it’s all by eye contact, a smile, a nod. Is it any surprise a bloke can get confused? Take the wrong message from a throw of the head?
    Not that it’s a problem this time. There’s a crowd of them leaving all at once, bubbling out into the cool night street like school kids at the bell. Only they’re school kids with a nice dull alcohol fug and ears that don’t hear too well, enveloped in a warm fuzziness that’s almost unsettling. There’ll be whining in the morning. Tinnitus by the time he’s forty, if he’s that lucky.
    He doesn’t really know where they’re going. Christ, he doesn’t even know half of the people in the group. But there’s Kizzy and Len and a couple of girls he recognizes from the college. The others all seem friendly enough. Either that or they’re on something. Someone mentions a place nearby. Was it another club or someone’s house? He hopes it wasn’t another club. He couldn’t really face that.
    Maybe it’s the cold air, but he can’t really focus on anything. Or is it that he can only focus on one thing at a time? He doesn’t feel drunk. Not like he’s felt drunk before. Not like those wild undergrad days when he’dstagger back from the pub in the wee small hours, stiff-legged, trying to use the lines between the paving slabs to keep himself straight. Usually failing. And besides, he hardly had anything. Couldn’t really afford it. But there’s the group, and then there’s a house. A bottle getting passed around. Wine? Laughter, smiling faces. Blink and he’s somewhere else. Blink and there’s a hand on his forehead, eyes gazing deep into his own. Blink and they’re still there, burrowing into his soul. Blink.
    Home. His home? Yes, he thinks so. Or is this a dream? It feels a bit like a dream. Is there someone here with him? He can’t see anyone, but he can hear a voice in his head calming him, reassuring like his mum that time he had the flu. Maybe that’s it; he’s got the flu. That would explain why he’s naked. Getting ready for bed. Sleep would be good; sleep cures everything. There’s no worrying about the lack of cash when you’re asleep. No fretting about the bills mounting up, the drudgery of a life that’s fallen so far short of all the promises he was made. No wondering when the axe is going to fall. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to sleep for ever. To fall into that warm, sweet, dark embrace and never leave.
    The ground far, far away. His feet on a precarious chair. Hairy like a Hobbit. There was a girl once, long ago, said she loved him for his feet. But she left him all the same. What would she think of those feet now? Those hairy legs?
    The voice calls to him. Is it her? It tells him to step off the chair. Just jump off and everything will be fine. There’s something around his neck, a light pressure resting on his shoulder, brushing the skin of his naked back. But that’sOK. He doesn’t need to worry about that. He doesn’t need to worry about anything any more. Just a quick bend of the knees and jump down to the ground. Falling, falling, slow like they decided they didn’t need gravity after all.



12
    ‘Jesus wept.