Chapter 29
THREE WEEKS AGO
Two weeks in Tenerife. Two weeks that were supposed to have been a holiday – sun, sand, forgetting about work for a while. Pat had suggested it before they’d separated, back when she still cared whether he was burning himself out over cases that had gone cold years ago.
Instead, he’d spent most of his time in his bedroom, papers spread across every surface, his laptop open to databases and archived files, chasing connections that danced just out of reach.
The Embalmer. That’s what the press had called him seven years ago, during those eighteen terrible months when bodies had appeared on beaches across Fife, positioned like works of art, peaceful in death despite the violence that had preceded it. Seven victims.
McRae hadn’t been on the team. He had wanted to be but he was leading an unrelated investigation. But it hadn’t stopped him from taking an interest. These cases could make or break careers.
He’d been reviewing old cases during a sleepless night four months ago when he’d noticed it – a pattern so subtle it had taken years of data to become visible.
Deaths across Scotland, stretching back over a decade, all ruled as natural causes or suicides.
All examined by a rotating cast of pathologists and mortuary technicians.
All with small inconsistencies in the evidence, details that didn’t quite fit the official narrative.
The Embalmer hadn’t stopped. He’d just learned to hide better.
McRae collected his single battered suitcase from baggage claim and made his way to long-term parking.
His car was where he’d left it, covered in a film of grime from two weeks of Scottish weather.
He threw his case in the boot and sat in the driver’s seat for a long moment, exhaustion pulling at him.
He should go home. He was back on duty tomorrow morning, and although he felt knackered, he wanted to go on. The holiday hadn’t been spent sitting by the pool drinking beer. However, some of that had gone on.
But the notes on his laptop, the connections he’d traced in the quiet of the Tenerife apartment, were burning in his mind.
He thought he knew where The Embalmer had been operating from. One of the locations that kept appearing in his research, a property that had changed hands multiple times over the years but always seemed to remain just outside official scrutiny.
McRae started the engine and pulled out of the car park, heading towards Fife.
The drive took just over an hour, the M90 quiet on a Sunday morning.
McRae’s hands were tight on the wheel, his mind running through possibilities.
If he was right, if the property was being used as some kind of preparation facility, there might be evidence.
Might be proof of what he’d been suspecting for months.
And if he was wrong, if his exhaustion and obsession had led him to see patterns where none existed, then he’d wasted two weeks of holiday and would look like a fool.
Better to look like a fool than to let a serial killer continue operating unchecked.
The property appeared as the morning light strengthened, an old building set back from a minor road, screened by overgrown hedges and bare trees.
It looked abandoned – windows dark, no vehicles visible, the driveway choked with weeds.
But McRae’s research suggested the property was still owned, still occasionally accessed, despite appearing derelict.
He pulled off the road onto a muddy track that led to a neighbouring field, parking where his car wouldn’t be immediately visible from the building. His heart was hammering now, adrenaline cutting through his exhaustion.
This was stupid. He should call for backup, should at least inform someone where he was going.
But if he called it in and there was nothing here, if the building was just an abandoned structure with no connection to anything, he’d have wasted resources and destroyed what little credibility he had left after his obsessive focus on a seven-year-old case.
McRae grabbed his torch from the glovebox and climbed out of the car. The morning was cold, the air heavy with moisture. He could hear birdsong from the surrounding trees and the distant sound of traffic on the main road.
The building looked even more derelict up close – roof tiles missing, gutters sagging, paint peeling from the window frames. But when McRae tested the front door, it was locked. Not just locked but secured with a new-looking padlock, incongruous against the general decay.
Someone was keeping people out, which meant someone had a reason to keep people out.
McRae moved around the perimeter, checking windows and doors. At the rear of the building, he found a window with cracked glass, the frame rotted enough that it gave way with minimal pressure. He hesitated only briefly before climbing through, his torch clutched in one hand.
Inside, the building smelled of damp and abandonment.
McRae found himself in what had once been a kitchen – old appliances still in place, cabinets hanging open, debris scattered across the floor.
But beneath the decay, there were signs of recent activity: footprints in the dust, marks where something heavy had been dragged across the linoleum.
His pulse quickened. He wasn’t wrong; someone had been here recently.
McRae moved through the ground floor methodically, his torch beam cutting through the gloom. A sitting room with furniture covered in dust sheets, a hallway with water damage staining the walls and a bathroom with a cracked mirror reflecting his haggard face back at him.
And then he found the door to the basement.
It was locked, but the lock was another new one, brass gleaming against old wood. McRae tested it, then stepped back and kicked hard at the frame. Wood splintered, the doorjamb giving way. The door swung open, revealing stairs descending into darkness.
McRae’s torch beam showed concrete steps, steep and narrow. The smell that wafted up was chemical – cleaning products mixed with something organic and faintly sweet that made his stomach clench.
He should leave. Should call this in right now, get proper backup before going any further.
But if The Embalmer was using this building, if there was evidence down there that could disappear in the time it took for backup to arrive…
McRae descended the stairs, each step careful, his torch sweeping back and forth.
The basement was larger than he’d expected, the ceiling low but the space extending beyond the footprint of the building above.
Old stone walls, a concrete floor and metal shelving units holding plastic containers and equipment he couldn’t immediately identify.
An annoying drip of water fell down, out of sight, but not out of mind.
And at the far end of the room, illuminated by his torch beam, a woman tied up, lying on a table.
‘Jesus Christ.’ McRae rushed forward, his training kicking in. The woman was conscious, her eyes wide above a gag, her hands tied behind her. She was struggling, trying to shout something through the gag, her whole body tense with terror.
But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking past him, at something behind him.
Too late, McRae heard the soft footfall, the whisper of movement in the darkness at the base of the stairs.
He spun, raising his torch, the beam catching a figure standing less than three feet away.
A man, tall and still, dressed in dark clothing. His face was briefly illuminated by the torch beam – features that McRae recognised with a shock like ice water through his veins.
‘You,’ McRae breathed, his voice catching. ‘It’s you. I should have known. I should have—’
The torch was knocked from his hand with sudden, brutal efficiency. It clattered across the concrete floor, its beam spinning crazily before coming to rest pointed at the wall, leaving most of the basement in shadow.
‘You should have stayed in Tenerife, Alan.’ The voice was calm, almost conversational. ‘You should have enjoyed your holiday and forgotten about old cases that have nothing to do with you.’
McRae backed up, his hand going instinctively to his belt where his baton should be, but he’d left it locked in his car, hadn’t thought he’d need it for what was supposed to be a preliminary scout of the location. Stupid. So bloody stupid.
‘You won’t get away with this.’ McRae’s voice was steadier than he felt. ‘People know I’m investigating. I’ve left notes, evidence. If something happens to me—’
‘If something happens to you, it will be a tragedy. A dedicated detective, working a case during his holiday, suffering an unfortunate accident in a derelict building he had no authorisation to enter.’ The man moved closer, and McRae could see him better now in the ambient light from the fallen torch.
‘They’ll find you eventually. Maybe not for a few days, but eventually.
And it will all look perfectly explainable. ’
The woman behind him was struggling harder now, muffled sounds coming from behind the gag.
‘Let her go,’ McRae said, trying to inject authority into his voice. ‘Whatever you’re planning, whatever you think you need to do, she doesn’t need to be part of it.’
‘Oh, but she does. She’s been chosen.’ The Embalmer tilted his head, studying McRae like a specimen.
‘As have you, Alan. I’ve watched you these past months, seen your obsession growing.
I knew eventually you’d trace things back to my facility.
I just didn’t expect it to be this one, or quite so soon. ’
‘You’ve been watching me?’ The words came out as barely more than a whisper.
‘Of course. You weren’t as subtle as you thought, pulling old case files, requesting information from other jurisdictions.
I have friends throughout the system, Alan.
People who notice when someone starts asking uncomfortable questions.
’ The Embalmer moved with sudden speed, closing the distance between them.
‘I’m actually impressed. You got closer than anyone else has in years.
If you’d been just a bit more cautious, if you’d waited for backup before coming here… ’
A hand shot out, gripping McRae’s throat, squeezing with measured pressure. McRae tried to fight back, his fists connecting with solid muscle, but The Embalmer was stronger, faster, and had the advantage of surprise.
The pressure on his throat increased, cutting off air, cutting off the ability to shout for help that wouldn’t come anyway. McRae’s vision began to tunnel, darkness creeping in at the edges. His last conscious thought was of Pat, of the conversation they’d never have, of the case he’d never close.
The darkness took him.
The Embalmer lowered DCI Alan McRae’s unconscious body to the concrete floor, checking his pulse. Still alive. Good. McRae would need to be alive for what came next, for the careful staging that would turn his death into an unfortunate accident rather than murder.
The woman was still struggling on the table, her eyes wild above the gag. The Embalmer turned to her, his expression almost apologetic.
‘I’m sorry you have to witness this, and I’m afraid DCI McRae’s arrival has complicated an already delicate situation.
’ He moved to check her restraints, ensuring they were secure.
‘You’ll both be found eventually. His death will look like an accident – perhaps a fall down the stairs while investigating a tip about the building.
Yours will be more troubling, of course.
But you’re going to be famous. Your face will be in the papers, on TV. You just won’t be able to see it.’
He took out the syringe and injected the liquid behind her ear. In a few seconds, she would be dead. No more struggling, no more fear.
The Embalmer stood back, surveying the scene with a critical eye.
It would need work, careful preparation to make the narrative convincing.
But he’d staged more complex scenarios than this.
The key was in the details, in understanding how investigators thought, how they constructed narratives from evidence.
He’d learned that from watching them work, from standing beside them at crime scenes and autopsies, offering his expertise while they unknowingly examined his own handiwork.
It was almost beautiful, in its way. The symmetry of it, the way he could guide their understanding while remaining invisible.
But McRae had threatened that invisibility. Had seen patterns that should have remained hidden. And now he would pay the price for his insight, for his inability to let old cases remain cold.
The Embalmer checked his watch. He had hours yet before he needed to be anywhere else, hours to prepare the scene properly. McRae’s car would need to be located and then hidden.
So much to do. So many details to perfect.
But that was the art of it, wasn’t it? The careful attention to detail that transformed murder into mystery, that made the unnatural appear natural.
The Embalmer set to work, humming softly to himself as he prepared his canvas.