Natural Causes Read Free Page B

low chest of drawers that undoubtedly contained underwear. Some were pictures of his grandfather, the dour old gentleman whose portrait hung above the fireplace in the dining room downstairs, presiding over the head of the table. They charted his life, from young man through to old age in a series of black-and-white jumps. Other pictures were of his father, and then his mother too as she came into his life. There were a couple of McLean's grandmother too, as a strikingly beautiful young woman dressed in the most fashionable of 1930s clothes. The last of these showed her flanked by two smiling gentlemen, also dressed for the period, and in the background the familiar columns of the National Monument on Calton Hill. McLean stared at the photograph for long moments before he realised what was bothering him about it. On his grandmother's left was his grandfather, William McLean, quite obviously the same man who appeared in so many of the other pictures. But it was the man on her right, one arm around her waist and smiling at the camera as if the world were his oyster, who looked the spitting image of the photos of the newly married man and the fresh out of training college Police Constable.

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4

    'Just what exactly's gone missing, Mr Douglas?'
    McLean tried to settle himself into the uncomfortable sofa; there were lumps in the cushions that felt like bricks. Giving up, he looked around the room as, beside him, Detective Sergeant Bob Laird, Grumpy Bob to all his friends, took down notes in a long, loopy scrawl.
    It was a well-furnished room, the lumpen sofa notwithstanding. An Adam fireplace filled one wall, a collection of tasteful oil paintings covering the rest. Two more sofas formed a neat cordon around the hearth, though all that filled it in the sweltering summer heat was a neat arrangement of dried flowers. Mahogany dominated, the smell of polish competing with the faint odour of cat. Everything was old but valuable, even the man sitting opposite.
    'Nothing was taken from here.' Eric Douglas touched his black-rimmed spectacles with a nervous finger, pushing them up to the bridge of his long nose. 'They went straight to the safe. Almost as if they knew exactly where it was.'
    'Perhaps you could show us, sir.' McLean stood up before his legs went numb. He might gain useful information from seeing the safe, but even more he needed to move. Douglas lead them through the house to a small study that looked like it had been hit by a tornado. A wide antique desk was piled with books, pulled from the oak shelves behind to reveal a safe door. It hung open on its hinges.
    'This is pretty much how I found it.' Douglas stood in the doorway, as if not entering the room might make it revert to normal. McLean pushed past him and picked his way carefully behind the desk. Telltale grey-white dust on the shelves and around the frame of the one large window showed that the fingerprint specialist had already been and gone. She was still busy elsewhere in the house, dusting doorframes and windowsills. He fished in his jacket pocket for a pair of rubber gloves anyway, snapping them on before reaching for the small pile of papers still sitting on the floor of the safe.
    'They took the jewellery, left the share certificates. They're worthless anyway. It's all electronic these days.'
    'How'd they get in?' McLean replaced the papers and turned his attention to the window. It was painted solid, no obvious sign of having been opened in the past decade, let alone the last twenty-four hours.
    'All the doors were locked when I got back from the funeral. And the alarm was still set. I've really no idea how anyone could have got in.'
    'Funeral?'
    'Mother.' A frown passed over Mr Douglas' face. 'She passed away last week.'
    McLean silently cursed himself for not paying attention. Mr Douglas was dressed in a dark suit, with a white shirt and black tie. And the whole house felt empty; it had that indefinable air of a place where someone has recently died.