Book of Souls by James Oswald Page A

any way. I just wanted to ask what time you locked up.’
    ‘Burnt itself. Jes’ like all those others.’
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘Was twelve years old when I went tae work in that factory. Proudest day’ve my life. Old Man Woodbury himself welcomed me. Shook me by the hand an’ give me my card. Six years, I was apprentice there. Six years, ye ken. Aye, we learnt our trade back then. No’ like today. It’s nae wonder the country’s goin’ tae pot.’
    McLean sighed. He knew where this was going. ‘Mr McGregor, you were telling us what time you locked up last night.’
    ‘No I wisnae. Do I look stupit?’
    McLean didn’t answer that. ‘Well, what time was it, then?’
    ‘Back of four. Maybe half-past.’
    ‘Why so early?’
    ‘There’s nae work going on there the noo. Would’ve stayed later, if there’d been a delivery or anything. But they postponed.’
    ‘And what time did Mr Randolph leave?’
    ‘Four, mebbe a wee bit earlier. No’ much, mind.’
    ‘So you didn’t hang around.’
    ‘No, no. It’s no’ a nice place to be after dark. Too many memories. Too many ghosts.’
    ‘Ghosts?’
    ‘Aye, ghosts.’ McGregor was warming to his tune now. ‘D’ye ken they built that factory in 1842. ‘Fore that therewas a wee close there, wi’ a dozen workshops. Folk’ve been working on that site for more’n five hundred years. It’s got history. There’s blood in the ground.’
    ‘So you think a ghost set fire to the place, sir?’ DC Robertson’s question was asked without any hint of sarcasm, but even so McLean winced. He’d met too many crabbit old men like McGregor before.
    ‘Don’t be daft, son. There’s no such thing as ghosts. No’ like you see on the telly.’ McGregor nodded towards an ancient wood-veneer box with what looked like a shiny glass bowl on the front of it. Late sixties black and white Rediffusion, if McLean wasn’t mistaken, and probably worth a bit to a collector. Most likely the old man had owned it from new.
    ‘But you said—’ Robertson started to say, but was cut off by an angry tirade.
    ‘Don’t you tell me what I said, son. I’m eighty-four years old an’ never took a day off sick in my life, you know. I fought in the war.’
    ‘I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to upset you. We’re just trying to understand—’
    ‘You’re a Fifer, aren’t you laddie. I can tell by your accent. East Neuk if I’m no’ wrong.’
    ‘Pittenweem, sir.’
    ‘My Esme was frae Struther,’ McGregor said, and his face changed, his eyes looked haunted and lost behind his thick, grease-smeared lenses. McLean wondered how long it had been since his wife had died; wondered too if social services were even aware of this half-mad old man living alone in his squalor.
    ‘Mr McGregor.’ He hunkered down in the middle ofthe room so as to be on the same eye-level. ‘How do you think the Woodbury building was set alight? You were the last person in there. Could you have left a light on or something?’
    ‘There were nae lights in there. Took the ‘lectrics out a week past. That’s why I didnae much like staying there after dark.’
    McLean sniffed the air, then wished he hadn’t. There were many unpleasant aromas best left unidentified in the flat, but tobacco smoke wasn’t one of them. ‘You don’t smoke, do you, Mr McGregor.’
    ‘No’ since Esme died. Was the cancer that took her.’
    ‘I’m sorry to hear that, sir. What about Mr Randolph? Or the electricians?’
    ‘There’s no smoking on site. It’s a workplace, see. That’s the law. Had yon fire chappie round about a few days past, tellin’ us all aboot it.’
    ‘So there was no electricity in the place, and no stray cigarettes.’ McLean looked around at DC Robertson. This case was starting to bear an uncomfortable similarity to the nine other fires, with equally little hope of ever being solved. ‘Christ, how does an empty warehouse, locked up like a bank and with no wiring in it spontaneously catch on