All That's Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  They’d been put in the package one on top of the other, palms together, fingers interlaced. As if they’d been severed mid-prayer.

  King lowered the camera. ‘Bloody hell …’

  The butcher’s-shop smell of iron and bone joined the mortuary scent.

  Isobel snapped her fingers. ‘You did a course, remember?’

  King puffed out his cheeks and snapped off a few more pics as Isobel leaned in and had a good sniff.

  ‘Well, they’re reasonably fresh – no discernible trace of cadaverine.’

  Sheila produced a second tray and prised the top hand free. It made a sticky, crackling noise, like damp Velcro. She turned the hand, showing it off so King could get some shots, then did the same with the other one. As if she was modelling them for a catalogue. They both went palm-up, side-by-side, on the new tray.

  ‘Hmmmm …’ Isobel hunched over them, peering and prodding. ‘The wounds imply the use of a short, tapered blade. Wedge shaped. Possibly a hand axe – if you’ll excuse the irony. Two blows for the right hand, one for the left. Our perpetrator may have been getting his “eye in” with the first cut.’

  Logan nodded. ‘The blood in the kitchen.’

  ‘I couldn’t comment, because despite repeated requests we still can’t get photographs out of … that.’ She turned her sneer towards a computer, stuck on top of a stainless-steel worktop, that looked as if it might have been cutting edge sometime in the late Cretaceous Period. ‘How many times do I have to tell Police Scotland and the SPA that context is key?’

  King lowered the camera. ‘Preaching to the choir, Professor.’

  ‘Before this ridiculous centralised nonsense, we used to get glossy eight-by-tens of the crime scene. Now we’re expected to work with low-resolution snaps on a low-resolution screen. We can’t even zoom in!’

  ‘Erm … Hold on.’ Logan dug out his phone, unlocked it, and scrolled through the photographs to the ones he took in Professor Wilson’s kitchen. ‘Try these.’

  She took the phone and squinted at the screen, then put her fingers on it and zoomed in. Out. In again. Swiped through to the next one and did the same thing, all the way through till: ‘Now it’s just pictures of your cat.’

  ‘She’s a very pretty cat.’

  A raised eyebrow, then Isobel swiped through the photos of Wilson’s kitchen again. ‘From the quantity of blood and the way it’s pooled, I would say some sort of tourniquet was used. Otherwise you’d be looking at arterial spray all up the wall and probably ceiling too. Going by the state of the table, they must have used something as a chopping board, wedged it in under Professor Wilson’s arms before the blow.’ She returned Logan’s phone, leaving little sticky red fingerprints on the screen.

  Urgh …

  King frowned at her. ‘Hold on. Chopping board?’

  ‘Well of course, “chopping board”. If they didn’t use one, there’d be deep gouges in the tabletop, wouldn’t there? From the axe head.’

  ‘Oh.’ King pointed. ‘What’s the chance of surviving something like this?’

  ‘A bilateral amputation proximal to the radiocarpal joint?’ She pursed her lips, humming as she frowned at the stumps. Then: ‘Under sterile conditions, with trained staff, proper equipment, and anaesthetic: almost guaranteed.’

  Yes, but Professor Wilson hadn’t had any of those things.

  ‘Hacked off with an axe in a kitchen?’ Isobel pushed the tray towards Sheila. ‘You’re opening yourself up to primary and secondary infection. Without some very strong antibiotics it’ll be septicaemia, then sepsis, then septic shock, multiple organ failure, and death.’

  Sheila picked the right hand up and scraped out the dirt beneath the index fingernail. ‘Assuming he isn’t … dead already.’ She wiped the black gunge into a small glass container and moved on to the next finger.

  Maybe Professor Wilson would be better off if the initial shock killed him? If it was that or slowly dying from the pus-filled wounds where his hands used to be, what would be kinder? Quick and painful, or slow, drawn out, and tortuous, praying for a rescue that never came?

  And talking of where Professor Wilson’s hands used to be …

  ‘Hold on.’ Logan pointed at the stained tinfoil package. What looked like a folded sheet of paper sat in a thick clotted puddle of congealed blood ‘There’s something else in there.’

  ‘So there is.’ Isobel picked up a pair of tweezers and leaned in. ‘Presumably a message of some kind?’ She unfolded it as King clacked and flashed. ‘A4, white, probably laser-printer or photocopy paper. Heavily stained.’

  But the words in the middle were still clearly visible: ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’.

  King appeared from behind his camera again. ‘What’s that supposed to …?’ Then it must’ve dawned, because his mouth clicked shut. ‘Oh. Yes.’ More photographs.

  Logan tapped Isobel on the shoulder, then tipped his head towards the severed hands. ‘Can we fingerprint those? I know they’re probably Professor Wilson’s, but just in case?’

  ‘Sheila?’

  ‘I’ll fetch the Livescan machine … Professor.’ She did, returning with something the size of a box of cat treats. Switched it on. Bashed her palm against it a couple of times when nothing happened. Then smiled and pressed the scanner against the tip of the right hand’s index finger. She did the middle finger and the thumb too.

  The Livescan machine bleeped in Sheila’s hand, then one of the laptops let out a tinny ding.

  ‘We have a match … Professor.’ She fiddled with the laptop’s keyboard. ‘Hands belong to one Professor Nicholas Wilson. The prints are in the system marked, “for elimination” and “from the professor’s study, bathroom, and bedroom”.’

  Shirley and her Scene Examiners ride again.

  Logan huffed a breath on his bloodstained phone screen and scrubbed it against his SOC suit’s sleeve. ‘Whoever it was wiped the kitchen down with antibacterial wipes. No prints where it happened.’

  ‘Then I think we can safely assume that the remains do indeed belong to Professor Wilson.’ Isobel raised an eyebrow. ‘Or, at least, the right hand does. Let’s not make assumptions until we’ve checked them both.’

  Logan shook his head. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

  King grimaced. ‘For his sake, I certainly hope so.’

  13

  Logan followed King out through the side doors and up the steps to the Rear Podium car park. Windscreens and bodywork gleamed in the blazing morning sunshine, but this part was painted dark with shadows. At least it cut the heat a bit.

  King stopped at the top. ‘So we’ll be looking for a dead body in a couple of days.’

  ‘If he’s not already dead.’

  ‘Because things weren’t difficult enough.’ King covered his face with his hands for a moment, curling forward from the waist. ‘Hardie’s going to pop an artery.’

  ‘We can’t not tell him it’s probably murder.’

  King stood up straight again, arms hanging loose at his side. Strings cut. ‘Maybe we can tell him it’s a good thing? Let’s be honest: a dead Professor Wilson will kick up a lot less fuss than a live, angry, bitter one with no hands.’

  Wow.

  ‘You do know you said that out loud, right?’

  ‘Oh come off it. The dead don’t give press conferences telling everyone what a useless bunch of turds NE Division are.’

  True. But still …

  King checked his watch. ‘Look, I’ve got to go brief the team. Any chance you can pop past Hardie’s office and let him know?’ Then without waiting for an answer: ‘Great, thanks.’ And with that he marched off, hurrying in through the station’s back doors. They swung shut behind him with an ominous clunk.

  Coward.

  ‘OK, will do.’ Logan stuck his phone back in his pocket and wandered into King’s MIT office. Just in time to rake over the dying embers of the team briefing.

  King was at the front of the room, holding up a full-colour copy of the bloodstained ‘DEVIL
MAKES WORK’ message, the whole team gathered around, staring at it. Well, everyone except for Heather, who was presumably off doing something important. Hopefully getting a round of teas in.

  King lowered the printout. ‘Soon as the media get hold of this you know what’ll happen. It’ll be like wading through a septic tank full of alligators. So go: achieve!’

  Chairs squeaked as they rose and bustled out, faces grim, determined, until only Logan, King, and Steel were left.

  As soon as the door closed, King sagged forward until he was nearly bent in two. Shuddered. Scrubbed his face with his hands. Mumbling through his fingers. ‘We’re completely and utterly screwed …’ He looked up at Logan. ‘What did Hardie say?’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Hardie got dragged into a three-hour review meeting with Detective Superintendent Young about two minutes after I got there. So we’ve got a little breathing space.’

  ‘At least that’s something.’

  Steel stuck her feet up on the nearest desk. ‘Aye, well Horrible Hardie can poke it up himself if he thinks he’s blaming us for this. We’re no’ the ones hacked Professor Wilson’s hands off.’

  King sagged even further. ‘Try telling the media that.’

  The door swung open and in strutted Heather, clutching an evidence bag, smiling like she’d just discovered quilted toilet paper. Nodding at them. ‘Boss, Guv, Roberta.’

  ‘Please tell me you’ve found something?’

  She held up the evidence bag. ‘Lab’s been over the Jiffy bag: only viable fingerprints on the outside are the BBC receptionist, presenter, and producer. Everything else is too smudged.’

  King sat up at that. Eyes wide, eyebrows up. ‘But on the inside …?’

  ‘None at all. And only the presenter’s prints on the tinfoil package. Nothing on the hands themselves or the note. Our boy was bright enough to wear gloves. They’ve swabbed for DNA, but given the crime scene—’

  ‘Aye.’ Steel shook her head. ‘You were right the first time, Kingy: you’re screwed.’

  He stared at the ceiling tiles, mouth moving as if he was swearing away inside his head.

  ‘But I have managed to trace the package back to the Post Office it was sent from. First class, yesterday morning.’ Hence the smugness.

  ‘Pfff …’ Steel had a big stretch, showing off a toad-belly pale slice of stomach. ‘Aye, but they could’ve posted it from any postbox in the collection area. There could be thousands and thousands of houses covered by the one Post Office. No’ to mention Happy Harry the Hand Hacker-Offer probably wouldn’t use his friendly neighbourhood postbox. He’d drive somewhere out of the way and use theirs.’

  Heather gave Steel’s arm a little squeeze. ‘No, dear, you’re not listening: the hands were in the tinfoil palm to palm, yes?’ She put the evidence bag down and gave them a demonstration. ‘So that makes the package too thick to jam in through a postbox slot. You’d need to drop it off in person.’

  Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘Nobody likes a smartarse.’

  ‘So I got on to a friend of mine who works at the Huntly depot and he traced the postmark for me.’ She checked her notebook. ‘Package was sent from the Westhill Post Office, yesterday, at nine twenty-three.’

  King stared at her. ‘Do they have …?’

  ‘They’re digging out the CCTV for us now.’

  ‘Ha!’ He punched the air. ‘DS Steel: get a car. Heather: get—’

  ‘Can it wait till I’ve given Gibbs his walk?’

  ‘We’re against the clock, H.’

  ‘Well I can’t leave him in the car, what if he has an accident?’

  King screwed his face up for a breath. ‘OK, OK. You stay here and coordinate things. I’ll take Milky.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You did great, H.’ He gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘We’re going to catch this bastard!’

  Westhill shopping centre hadn’t taken well to modernisation. The bulk of it was an old-fashioned grey-beige blockwork affair, with the shopfronts nestled in behind a covered walkway, but they’d bolted a knock-off strip-mall to one end, sticking out like a broken limb to line the far end of the car park.

  A car park that was nearly solid 4x4s. None of which looked as if they’d ever been further off-road than the local Costco. Every now and then, a slightly older hatchback denoted some teenager’s first car – usually complete with ‘ironic’ furry dice, oversized exhaust, and completely unnecessary ironing-board-sized spoiler. But mostly, it was 4x4s.

  ‘… described it as a “terrible shock”. We spoke to her soon after the grisly discovery.’

  Milky pulled in next to a Range Rover Discovery, with a ‘Bugger Off Brussels!’ sticker in the rear window, as Muriel Kirk’s voice purred out of the radio, in full-on presenter mode. ‘We get a lot of fan mail at the Muriel Kirk Show, so I didn’t think anything of it until I opened the package.’

  King leaned forward in the passenger seat, staring at the radio. ‘Don’t say it, please don’t say it.’

  In the back seat, Steel nudged Logan. ‘She’s going to say it.’

  ‘Inside was a tinfoil parcel.’

  ‘Don’t …’

  ‘And inside that, was a pair of severed hands.’

  ‘Told you.’

  The car erupted as everyone had a simultaneous rant: ‘For God’s sake!’, ‘It’s a murder investigation!’, ‘Don’t tell everyone that!’

  The original newsreader made a ‘thinky’ noise. ‘And what did the police say?’

  ‘Clearly they’re playing it very close to their chests, but we need to make sure everyone understands how serious this is. If anyone out there has any information that could help find whoever’s responsible, please get in touch with either the police or the Muriel Kirk Show, on the air from one o’clock.’

  ‘Thank you, Muriel.’

  Steel bared her teeth, sooking air through them. ‘Oooh, that’s no’ good. Think they’ll be dragging the Chief Superintendent out of his meeting now? He’ll want to polish his arse-kicking boots.’

  ‘Weather now, and this heatwave’s set to continue on to the weekend at least, with temperatures—’

  Milky killed the engine. ‘I don’t normally indulge in bad language, but as Heather would say, Muriel Kirk can … “sex and travel”.’

  King made a little growling noise, then hauled in a couple of deep breaths. Stuffing it down.

  Couldn’t blame him. Milky was right, Muriel Kirk really could ‘sex and travel’.

  Logan sighed. ‘It was going to come out eventually. At least we’ve got a lead to follow, now.’

  Steel reached between the seats and patted King on the shoulder, voice soft and kind. Completely unlike her. ‘Laz is right. Come on, Frank: we can do this.’ She checked her watch. ‘Still got nearly two and a half hours: how hard can it be?’

  Another deep breath, then King nodded and climbed out of the car. Stopped to look back inside. ‘So what are you all waiting for?’

  The Post Office was hidden away at the back of the local Co-op, just past the tinned vegetables and baby food. A bespectacled auld mannie with a baldy head and hairy ears sat behind the safety glass, watching with baggy eyes as a dumpy wee lady in a granny cardigan and fur-lined boots counted out a big pile of loose change onto his counter.

  There was a queue: another pair of wee dumpies shuffling at the front of it, while a couple of spotty teenagers brought up the rear – the two of them fiddling with their phones and piercings.

  King marched straight past the lot of them and up to the counter. Making friends as usual.

  ‘Hoy!’ One of the old ladies waved a bag-for-life at him. ‘There’s a queue!’

  ‘You tell him, Babs.’ Old Lady Number Three jerked her chins up. ‘No swicking in, fatty!’

  Logan squeezed past. ‘Sorry about this. Police business …’

  Steel and Milky followed him to the counter.

  The lady counting out change didn’t look up from her coins. Not even when King knocked on th
e safety glass.

  ‘Hmm?’ The auld mannie behind the counter blinked at them. According to his nametag – ‘HELLO, MY NAME IS ANDREW’ – they were supposed to ‘ASK ME ABOUT TRAVEL INSURANCE!’ He pursed his lips. ‘I’m sorry, but there’s a queue, so can you—’

  King slapped his warrant card against the glass. ‘I need to speak to the manager. Now.’

  Mrs Bag-For-Life gave it another wave. ‘Bloody disgrace, that’s what this is!’

  Mrs Chins nodded, setting her wattle swaying. ‘We were here first!’

  Andrew peered at King’s warrant card, then over King’s shoulder at Logan, Steel, and Milky. ‘Oh. Right. I’ll get Geraldine.’

  Mrs Bag-For-Life raised a walking stick and took a wee hurpley step forward – brandishing it like a cutlass. ‘Someone needs to teach you a bloody good lesson!’

  ‘You tell them, Babs!’

  Steel turned and smiled a cold hard smile. ‘Hands up everyone whose road tax, council tax, and TV licence are up to date.’

  Silence.

  Then everyone developed a sudden and profound interest in whatever was on the nearest shelf.

  Steel nodded. ‘Aye, thought as much.’ She leaned in close to Logan and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Got that one from a Hamish Macbeth book.’

  A row of small monitors took up most of the Co-op’s CCTV room, mounted to the wall above a narrow workbench littered with paperwork and a rack of hard drives. Barely space for the single office chair, the woman sitting in it, King, and Logan. Steel and Milky peering in from the corridor outside.

  The woman swivelled her chair and plucked a wireless keyboard from on top of the hard drives. Late thirties, with a fashionable haircut, suit and tie. ‘HELLO, MY NAME IS GERALDINE’ above the word ‘MANAGER’. She poked at the keys and the screen in front of her jumped to a frozen shot of the shop floor, the camera pointing towards the front doors. Newspapers on one side, a display of fruit and crisps on the other, sandwiches in a chiller … ‘I set it to play from when he comes into the store.’ Geraldine tapped the screen, where a blurry figure was just visible through the automatic doors. ‘This is the chap here.’

  She pressed another key and the scene came to life: the doors slid open and in walked a man wearing the standard-issue hoodie-and-baseball-cap security-camera-avoidance outfit. He’d made the extra effort and donned a pair of sunglasses as well, for that exotic out-of-town look. So no way of making an ID of his face. The baggy grey clothes were pretty indistinct too. One thing was certain, though: whoever he was, the guy was massive. And it wasn’t fat, either. Going by the way he moved, arms out from his sides, elbows turned, he was lugging a lot of muscle around. Broad of shoulder and short of neck. A Tesco carrier bag, with something bulky inside, dangling from one hand.