‘I only got the word this afternoon,’ she stressed it as if anticipating his complaint. ‘David McGlashan, the homeless guy whose body was found at the old saw works in Houldsworth Street. He did die of natural causes but we’ve been able to put a time of death on it plus check when he last stayed at the Rosewood. Those bastards had been claiming his housing benefit for eight weeks after he died. They’ll be charged and there’s no way they’ll be opening up anything similar. We might even manage a bit of jail time for them both.’

‘Nice. So why was he sleeping in the saw works? No urbexing thing, I take it?’

‘No. We can’t be sure but it seems he just wanted somewhere dry and warm, a roof over his head that wasn’t the Rosewood. The poor sods that are there just now will be looking for the same once it’s closed down. We don’t know who’s going to look after them.’

Addison shrugged. ‘The City Mission will be glad of Tony’s donation. And council services will have to take up some of the slack.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘What do you want me to do? Arrest them? Look, the Rosewood is being shut down, Rico and Johnny Jackson are on Saturn Property’s case and we’ll be asking Bobby Mullen some very difficult questions about torched buildings. Let’s just be happy about that for now. And we’ll make sure McCormack’s put away for life. I’ll drink to that.’

‘There might be a complication with McCormack,’ Winter began slowly. ‘He and Remy Feeks weren’t the only people in the Gray Dunn factory that night.’

They both looked at him. Until that point it had gone unsaid in Addison’s company but he didn’t seem surprised by Winter’s statement.

‘I saw the CCTV images,’ Addison told them flatly. ‘The third man looked familiar but I couldn’t make any definitive identification. Too blurry. If McCormack has something to say in court then we’ll contend with it then. For the moment, he’s saying nothing so let’s leave it like that.’

‘If I could give evidence —’

‘Just shut up, Tony,’ Addison told him firmly. ‘Don’t say another word. We’ll have to deal with your photographs from the Botanics as it is. That’s enough to be getting on with.’

Winter shrugged. ‘So be it. I’ll take whatever’s coming my way.’

Anger flashed in Narey’s eyes and it could be heard in her voice. ‘You made a mistake. Playing at being a detective and nearly getting yourself killed. Lucky for you that you didn’t make that mistake twice.’

‘No, I got good advice and I paid attention to it.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

Addison laughed. ‘Do you two think I’m daft? You think I can’t hear the private messages in amongst what you’re saying to each other? Or that maybe I’m blind?’

‘No idea what you’re talking about, Addy.’

‘No, of course not. Anyway, you’ve got bigger problems than what I know about your relationship. The Chief Constable knows about you taking those photographs and your relationship with Hepburn. He’s put two and two together and it’s fair to say he isn’t impressed.’

‘Great. Where does that leave me?’

Addison and Narey looked at each other again, not a smile or flicker of hope between them. He’d feared as much. Campbell Baxter had been building a funeral pyre for him for some time and now Winter had given him all the fuel he needed to set it alight.

Narey was about to speak when her phone began ringing in her pocket. She pulled it out and her face wrinkled in surprise when she looked at the screen.

‘Hello?’

‘Detective Inspector Narey.’ The voice was instantly familiar. ‘I think you’ll want to speak to me. I suggest you come right away.’

Chapter 59

David McCormack lived in the West End in half a million pounds’ worth of blond sandstone on Lancaster Crescent. The first patrol car had beaten them there and two uniformed officers were standing guard outside the open front door.

They’d called for a car of their own, none of them being able to risk driving. Narey sat up front with the constable while Addison and Winter sat in the back, the latter with his camera bag on his lap. They said little in the few minutes it took them to get there, preferring to let the sound of the siren drown out their thoughts and words.

Narey was first out and up the short flight of steps to the glossy black front door before the others had got out of the car. She talked to the cops on the door and waited impatiently for Addison and Winter to catch up.

‘He’s inside. They’ve kept an eye on him through the window but haven’t been in. They’ve left him to us, as instructed.’

‘Okay, let’s do it. Let me go first.’ Addison was the senior officer and the responsibility was his. He pushed at the door and it swung back to let him stride into the hallway. Narey and Winter followed in silence and single file. The two constables went in behind them.

The hall was dark and minimalist, McCormack clearly taking his work home with him. Dark blue walls and black flashes but no clutter whatsoever. It looked unlived in. Maybe it was.

Addison held his right hand out to the side as he neared the first door, slowing them down. They eased to a halt behind him and let him work his way round so that he was face on to the door, so he could see as much as he could of what he was walking into. He stepped inside and although he pulled up quickly at the scene in front of him, they followed hard on his heels.

David McCormack. In a room of virgin white, an interior designer’s orgasmic fantasy. White walls, white carpet, white furniture. A snowstorm of statement. Spoiled only by the violent splashes of red.

McCormack lay on his back on the white shagpile carpet, his arms and legs wide as if he was making a snow angel. You might have thought it was exactly that but for the blood spatter that formed a sickly halo round his neck and head and beyond. The sticky red clung to the thick white pile of the carpet like an invasion from another world.

Winter eased past Addison and Narey as they stood looking at McCormack, slipping between them and taking his first shot. The contrast between the room and the blood was a photographic gift. The man was sprawled helplessly, his life seeping into his living room, his skin draining of colour till it was beginning to fade into the surroundings.

The man’s throat though . . .

It was a riot of red. Winter’s internal shade chart put it at crimson, meaning it was as fresh as it was warm, no more than twenty minutes since it was spilled. It had soaked into McCormack’s shirt and through it to his skin.

Winter zoomed in, seeing the throat ripped, stabbed, cut, destroyed. This wasn’t one slice of a knife, it was a succession of frenzied assaults. The knife had been wielded savagely long after life had gone.

A tilt of his camera brought it all into focus. On the white-leather sofa above McCormack’s body sat Douglas Cairns. A large knife, its blade still dripping blood onto the once pristine carpet, was clutched in his hands. Winter fired off a succession of shots, catching the open-mouthed, distracted wonder on the man’s face. He’d done this yet he seemed barely capable of believing it. He might have worn the same expression to gaze at a goldfish bowl.

‘Mr Cairns? Douglas?’

The man lifted his head lazily, roused from his deliberations. ‘Detective Inspector Narey. And you’ve brought friends. That’s nice.’

She spoke calmly. ‘Douglas, I need you to put the knife down. Slowly, please.’

‘What?’ He looked down at the kitchen knife in his hands as if surprised to see it there, so easily forgotten amidst everything else. ‘Of course. Sorry.’