What Will Burn, by James Oswald, part three: The shock was visceral as she took in more and more details...

In the third of four extracts from What Will Burn, the latest novel in James Oswald’s best-selling Inspector McLean series, the full horror of the crime scene is revealed...

James Oswald

‘Well, you’d better have a look at our poor victim here before we move her, then.’

It was only as he said the words that Janie realised the blackened mess lying at the feet of the pathologist and his assistant was not, in fact, the remains of a burned feather bolster cushion. Intellectually, she had known it wasn’t, but still the shock was visceral as her eyes took in more and more details. She swallowed down the bile that tried to rise up and choke her, took a shallow breath, and stepped closer.

‘Female, old. I’d say in her seventies at least. We’ll know more once I’ve had a chance to examine her back at the mortuary. From the way she’s burned...’ Cadwallader leaned in close to the grisly corpse. ‘...And the smell. I’d say she’s been dead at least a week.’

What Will Burn, by James Oswald

A week? Janie gulped again. She was no rookie, knew she could do this without being sick, but that didn’t make it much easier. She looked up from the body, around what little remained of the room. It was almost impossible to get a sense of the place, the person who lived here, anything really.

‘An accident?’

Cadwallader stood up slowly, knees popping as he straightened. Beside him, his assistant tidied away the few instruments he had used in his examination before standing up herself in a much more fluid and graceful motion.

‘I’ll know for sure once we’ve done the post-mortem. We’ll get a better idea of when she died too. This is a remote spot, and the fact that she’s been here so long unnoticed would suggest she was a loner, wouldn’t you say? Poor dear likely fell asleep in her chair and then something shorted out. Wiring in these old places

is never the best, is it?’

Janie risked a glance down at the remains of the dead woman again, found she was able to detach herself from the horror of it and focus on what few details she could see among the rubble.

The body lay on the floor, and she expected when forensics were done they’d show that the woman had been lying there before the fire started. Hopefully they could tell her where and how it happened, too. It felt off, though. There was something about this scene, this cottage and its setting that made her want to call DCI McLean. It was his kind of case, of that she was sure. If only he was available.

‘Can you let me know when you’re doing the PM, Doctor Cadwallader?’ she asked as the three of them retreated from the building.

‘It’ll probably be a few days, unless you want me to prioritise it. Could maybe get her seen tomorrow if you think it’s necessary.’

Janie wanted to say yes, but she was only a detective constable. This wasn’t her call.

‘No, get to her as soon as you have a space, but unless we turn up something suspicious here I don’t think a few days’ delay is going to make a difference.’

‘You’re probably right. She’s waited a week already, after all. I’ll email you the results as soon as I have them.’

Cadwallader paused a moment as if considering something before adding: ‘On one condition.’

‘Yes?’

‘Call me Angus. “Doctor Cadwallader” is such a mouthful.’

Janie wasn’t sure whether to recoil or laugh, so she said nothing, and after a moment the pathologist gave her a little nod and headed off along the path, his faithful assistant Doctor Sharp trotting along behind him.

‘According to the records I can track down, the cottage is part of the Bairnfather Estate. Council says it’s occupied by a Cecily Slater. Born fifth July 1931. No one else at the address, so I guess it was just her there on her own.’

Back at the station, DC Harrison sat on an uncomfortable office chair in the CID room, trying not to feel dwarfed by the imposing bulk of DC Lofty Blane. It wasn’t his fault that he was six foot eight to her five foot six and a bit, but she still couldn’t get used to someone being quite so large.

He made up for it by being a genius forensic accountant, and something of a wizard with computers, even if his hands splayed wider than the keyboard and his fingers sometimes hit four keys at a time.

‘Do we know anything else about her? Next of kin? GP?’

‘Give me a moment, Janie. We’re not exactly overstaffed here.’

‘Sorry, Lofty. It’s been a bad day.’

Janie glanced up at the clock over the door, disappointed to see that it was barely noon yet. A long afternoon lay ahead of her before shift end, and she had a horrible feeling she wouldn’t be going home then either.

What WIll Burn, by James Oswald, is published by Wildfire, £16.99, on Thursday 12, February

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