Read The Blackhouse for Free Online Page B

running this inquiry without your help.” He sighed in deep frustration. “But HOLMES seems to think you might be able to say whether or not there’s a connection with the Leith Walk murder. And God forbid we shouldn’t do what HOLMES tells us. So why don’t you sit in on the post-mortem, take a look at the parallel evidence, and if you come up with anything we’ll give it a gander. Okay?”
    â€œI wouldn’t mind casting an eye over the crime scene.”
    â€œFeel free. Detective Sergeant Gunn can give you the tour. The local boys aren’t really equipped to be of much use to us anyway. Except as dogsbodies.” His contempt for everyone outside of his own team, including Fin, was clear.
    â€œAnd I’ll want to take a look at the files.” Fin was pushing his luck. “Maybe talk to some of the witnesses. Suspects, if there are any.”
    Smith pursed his lips and gave Fin a long, hard look. “I can’t stop you doing that, Macleod. But you might as well know that I expect to have this whole thing wrapped up in a matter of days. And just so you’re not under any illusion, I don’t believe there is an Edinburgh connection.”
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œCall it instinct. People here aren’t very sophisticated.” He smirked. “Well, you’d know that.” He was tapping his pencil on his desk now, irritated by having to explain himself to a junior officer from another force. “I think this is a crude copycat killing. There were plenty of details published in the papers at the time. I think the killer’s a local man with a grudge trying to cover his tracks, trying to make us look somewhere else. So I’m going to shortcut the whole process.” Fin resisted the temptation to smile. He knew all about shortcuts. He’d learned very early in life that they could lead you off on tangents. But DCI Smith was not privy to such wisdom. He said, “Unless the PM throws up something unexpected, I’m going to take DNA samples from every adult male in Crobost, as well as any additional suspects we might come up with. I figure a couple of hundred at the most. Economy of scale. A whole hell of a lot cheaper than a long-running investigation tying up officers in the field for weeks on end.” Smith was one of the new breed of senior cops whose primary concern was the bottom line.
    Still, Fin was surprised. “You have a DNA sample of the killer?”
    Smith beamed. “We think so. Despite local sensibilities, we put out teams of uniforms to search the locus on Sunday. We found the victim’s clothes in a plastic binbag dropped in a ditch about half a mile away. The clothes are covered in vomit. And since the police surgeon is pretty sure the victim wasn’t sick, we have to assume the murderer was. If the forensic pathologist can confirm that, we should have a perfect sample of the killer’s DNA.”
    II
    On Church Street, and all the way down to the inner harbour, little hanging baskets of flowers swung in the wind, a brave effort to bring colour into grey lives. Pink- and white- and green-painted shops lined the street, and at the bottom of it Fin could see a cluster of fishing boats tied up at the quay, moving with the rise and fall of the ocean. A blink of sunlight caught the white boatshed on the opposite shore, and swept across the tops of trees in the Lews Castle grounds.
    â€œWhat did you make of the CIO, then?” Gunn said.
    â€œI’d pretty much concur with your assessment.” Fin and Gunn shared a grin.
    Gunn unlocked the car and they got in. “Thinks he’s a superstar, that one. My old boss in Inverness used to say of the brass, they’re no different from you and me. They still have to get their legs out of their breeks one at a time.”
    Fin laughed. He liked the image of DCI Smith struggling to get his stocky little legs out of his trousers.
    â€œListen,”