by JD Kirk
“No! It’s not an order, it’s just—” Hamza began to protest, before he realised what was happening. “Oh, shut up,” he muttered. “And that’s a bloody order.”
Sinead smiled, then leaned over and took another look out into the hall. “He’s taking a while, isn’t he?”
Hamza joined her in looking out through the open living room door. “Aye, he is a bit.”
“You alright, Mr Lyndsay?” Sinead asked.
Silence.
Both detectives rose to their feet.
“Mr Lyndsay?” Hamza called. “Everything OK?”
A few moments later, they discovered that Mr Lyndsay was absolutely fine. At least, they assumed so, but as the slippery little bugger was nowhere to be seen, they couldn’t say for sure.
“Ah,” Sinead groaned, as a breeze blew in through the open window and billowed the curtains. “Bollocks.”
Logan blew air out through his nose until there was nothing left in his lungs, took a couple of paces to get clear of his own exhalation, then breathed in again. It was his own private little custom whenever he left the mortuary. A cleansing ritual, to clear the smell of death from the pipes.
It never fully worked, of course. The smell lingered in his hair and in his clothes. It clung to his skin in microscopic beads. It would follow him home tonight, like it had followed him for the best part of twenty years.
Shona followed him into the outer area of the mortuary, where she kept the office equipment and Pot Noodles. If she deployed the same lung-cleansing exhalation technique as Logan, it was too subtle for him to pick up on. Mind you, she never seemed bothered by the sights and smells she had to deal with. He supposed you couldn’t be, in her line of work. You’d certainly want a few choice words with your school careers advisor, if you were.
They removed all their PPE, deposited it in the medical waste bin, and then Logan set the two plastic bags he’d been handed down on one of the worktops. One of the bags contained the key that had been in the victim’s stomach. The other held an assortment of personal effects that had been found on him. A watch. A handful of loose change. A pack of Lambert & Butler cigarettes, still sealed in its thin plastic wrapper.
“I’ll finish typing up the preliminary report and email it over,” Shona told him. “It’ll be a while before we get the full spectrum of toxicology results, but whenever anything comes in I’ll ping it over.”
Logan nodded, then a thought struck him. “I forgot to ask about—”
“I’d put time of death as yesterday afternoon, or early evening,” Shona said, correctly predicting his question. “Decapitation a few hours later.”
“Body was probably moved under the cover of darkness, then,” Logan concluded.
“Well, I doubt you’d want to go hauling it around with you in broad daylight. People tend to notice that sort of thing.”
Logan grunted. “You’d be surprised what people fail to notice.”
Shona’s eyes twinkled. “Aye,” she said cryptically. “Tell me about it.” She checked her watch, then gestured to the door. “Well, much as I always enjoy the pleasure of your company, I need to get this report finished up so I can get home. I’ve got a date tonight.”
Logan made a sound that was like the start of several failed sentences all crashing together at once. “A date?” he asked, once he’d untangled himself from the verbal wreckage.
“Olivia. It’s a movie night.”
Logan’s blood started to move through his veins again.
“Oh. Right. Christ, is that still happening?”
“Down to once every couple of weeks, but yeah,” Shona confirmed. “She’s still coming over.”
Logan bit his bottom lip. “God. I feel partly responsible.”
“You’re fully bloody responsible!” Shona reminded him. She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “But, it’s fine. Don’t tell anyone, but I actually kind of enjoy it. She’s grown up a lot recently. She’s actually becoming pretty good company. And, well, I don’t think her mother has a lot of time for her. She’s a pretty lonely kid.”
“You’re a soft touch.”
“You’re welcome to join us,” Shona said. “We’re doing an 80s movie night.” Her voice became a Schwarzenegger-esqe monotone shout. “Do it! Come on! Kill me!”
Logan regarded her blankly.
“Predator,” she explained.
“Oh, right,” said Logan. “Who’s in that?”
Shona tutted. “Arnie, obviously. Get to the choppa!”
“Is that who that’s meant to be?” Logan asked. “I thought it was Michael Caine.”
“No. This is Michael Caine. ‘Hello, my name is Michael Caine,’” Shona said, in what surely qualified as the single worst impersonation of all time.
“Jesus Christ. Has he had a stroke?”
“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
“You’re alright, Michael. I’ve called an ambulance. Help’s on the way,” Logan said, speaking slowly and calmly, as if to a pensioner who’d just taken a nasty fall.
Shona laughed, and then punched him playfully on the arm. “So, you joining us for Predator?”
Logan would’ve loved to. Even with the offspring of a former nemesis hanging around and hoovering up all the popcorn.
Unfortunately, duty called.
“Next time, maybe,” he told her. “Was there a Predator 2? I’ll come for that.”
“There was, but it was shite,” Shona said.
“Maybe not, then,” Logan said. “What about the other one? The one with the aliens? What’s that called?”
“Aliens.”
“Is it? God, they must’ve been up all night coming up with that one,” Logan said. He picked up the plastic bags. “Anyway, good luck with Olivia.”
“Good luck with the head-stealing murderer,” Shona replied.
Logan contemplated this for a moment. “Do you know,” he said, after some thought, “I’m not actually sure which one I’d prefer to be dealing with…”
Chapter Twelve
Tyler sat at his desk, scowling at the iPhone that was currently sitting on it, like he might be able to unlock it using willpower alone.
So far, this approach had not proved fruitful.
Forensics had given it a going over, but had found no prints anywhere on it. Given that people generally touched their phone screen several hundred times a day, the lack of fingerprints was a bit of a mystery.
Or, rather, the lack of fingerprints had an obvious answer, but one that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Someone had wiped the phone completely clean of prints, but then returned it to the dead man’s pocket.
Why? Why not just take the phone and get rid of it somewhere? Why leave it with the body?
“How you getting on, son?” Ben asked, rolling over to the DC’s desk on his chair. “Getting anywhere?”
Tyler shook his head. “Not yet, boss, no. I should probably turn it over to the tech bods. You’ve only got a certain amount of tries before it wipes all the data, or bricks the phone on you for good. Ten, I think.”
“And how many have you done?”
“Nine.”
“Fuck!” Ben ejected.
The corners of Tyler’s mouth twitched upwards. “Nah, just kidding, boss. None. Going to wait and see if Sinead and Ham get anything from the fella the victim lived with. He might know what it is. Save us trying to crack it.”
“Worth a try,” Ben conceded. “But, unless this department’s luck has changed significantly in the time I’ve been off, I won’t be holding my breath.”
Tyler agreed that this was probably wise, then both men turned as the double doors of the Incident Room were battered wide open.
At first, nobody seemed to be responsible for the doors opening. It was only when both men stood up and looked over the top of Tyler’s monitor that they saw Dave Davidson rolling into the room in his wheelchair.
“Alright, gents?” he said, a good fifty percent of his face taken up by a grin. “I
hear you lot are in need of my unique set of skills. By which I mean my ability to put things in bags and write on them.”
“Dave! Good to see you, son,” said Ben.
“You too, sir,” the uniformed constable replied. It was rare that he referred to a superior officer by any sort of rank or title, and those three letters of that one word spoke volumes about his respect for the Detective Inspector.
This did not, however, extend to the other detective standing beside him.
“Right then, Tyler,” Dave said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Is it my imagination, or do I hear the kettle boiling?”
Lana was tapping at the keyboard on her phone when Bennet appeared around the kitchen doorframe. She jumped and instinctively tucked the phone down at her side, then let out a shaky breath of relief.
“God. You gave me a fright,” she said. “I’m just doing dinner.”
“Is it alright if Lachlan comes in?” Bennet asked. “We’ll go upstairs.”
Lana shot a glance out through the kitchen window. The two-car driveway curved around the back of the house. Currently, hers was the only car in it.
“Right, fine, but don’t make too much noise. And if your father comes home and says he has to leave, he has to leave, alright? I’m not having him having a face like thunder on him all night. It’s me who doesn’t hear the end of it.”
“Yeah. OK,” Bennet said. It didn’t seem fair, but then nothing ever did where his dad was concerned.
He gestured along the hall, and Lana heard the front door close.
“Hello, Lachlan!” she said.
A few moments later, Lachlan joined Bennet in the doorway, all sticky-up hair and braces on his teeth.
He was a couple of years older than Bennet, but they stood around the same height. Lachlan hadn’t got his braces fitted until a few months after Bennet had, and was due to get them off any time now. At first glance, Bennet looked the older of the two, although their similar builds and hair colours meant there was very little in it.
They’d met at a part-time job at the same local hotel, had hit it off quickly, and had been friends now for a couple of years. Prior to that, Bennet hadn’t had many friends. Not the sort that would call round to visit.
Not once they’d seen his dad in action, at least.
Perhaps it was on account of being that bit older, but Lachlan seemed more able to tolerate Clyde’s outbursts. He let them wash over him. He almost seemed amused by them, sometimes, like he was watching a monkey losing the plot over something at a zoo. This only infuriated Clyde more, and Lana feared that it was only a matter of time before he banned the boy from the house altogether.
“Hiya, Mrs Lennon,” Lachlan said, giving her a little wave.
“We’re heading upstairs,” Bennet said, cutting short any awkward small talk before it could start. “Shout me when dinner’s ready, will you?”
“I will do,” Lana said.
“Right, cool.” Bennet glanced at the phone in her hand. “You texting Dad?”
“Hmm?” Lana looked at the phone and seemed surprised by it. “Oh. No one. Just looking for a recipe,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Oh. Right. OK. Good luck with that.”
“Nice to see you, Mrs Lennon,” said Lachlan, then he was bundled off along the corridor, and they both went thumping up the stairs.
Lana waited until she’d heard the bedroom door close, and listened for the telltale bleep of the PlayStation switching on, then turned her attention back to her phone, finished typing her message, and hit send.
Sinead stood in the doorway of Fergus Forsyth’s bedroom, listening to Hamza dishing out orders to the handful of uniformed constables who had been sent up from Fort William to help with the search for the missing Ross Lyndsay.
You could tell a lot about someone by their bedroom. That was one of the first bits of advice DI Forde had shared with her after she’d made the move out of uniform and into the ranks of the MIT.
It joined such pearls of wisdom as, “Never stand when you can sit,” “There’s no point rushing, if you don’t have to,” and, “Ultimately, at the end of the day, no bugger knows anything, anyway.”
She wasn’t sure about the others, but the bedroom one was spot-on. Looking into someone’s bedroom was a bit like peeking into their head. A messy room, for example, could speak volumes, although the type of mess was just as important as the mess itself.
Masses of nearly-empty makeup containers scattered across multiple surfaces suggested a level of insecurity. A scrupulously tidy room with a well-made bed and perfectly balanced curtains hinted at OCD levels of neatness.
Piles of clean clothes waiting to be put away might signal that someone was disorganised, or consistently pressed for time.
Piles of dirty clothes might imply a lazy bastard.
The size and placement of mirrors could say a lot about the person who slept in the room, too, just as the decor could reveal plenty about their tastes and styles. Of course, both depended on if they owned the house or rented, how long they’d been there, and a hundred other factors that made the whole thing more of an art than a science.
Fergus’s room didn’t make it easy to start building a picture of its former occupant, largely because there was very little noteworthy about it.
The bed was a double divan, with a plain red duvet cover and matching pillows. Someone had made the bed, although this seemed to have involved just chucking the bedclothes into roughly the right position, and then calling it a day.
Not too fussy, then, but not untidy, either.
This was a theme that continued through the rest of the room. The curtains had been opened, but they were a little off-balance. There was some clutter on the dressing table—an electric razor, some moisturiser, and hair wax—but it was all gathered together at one end, leaving most of the top clear.
Donning a pair of gloves, Sinead entered the room and started with a check of the back of the door. A dressing gown was hanging there. It was black with yellow trim, and the name ‘Balboa’ emblazoned across the back. She searched the pockets, but found only a slightly crusty tissue that she chose not to spend any time dwelling on.
There was a large wardrobe to the left of the door. It was tall, wide, and ancient-looking—the sort of wardrobe that made her think back to all those Narnia books she’d had read to her as a child. Unlike that one, though, someone had tried to paint this one a bright shade of red at some point. The colour hadn’t stuck to the varnished wood, and less than half the paint now remained, so it looked like the wardrobe was on the mend from a nasty rash.
Opening the doors, Sinead found nothing out of the ordinary. A few shirts. A few pairs of trousers. A selection of shoes at the bottom, from polished black brogues to an assortment of well-worn trainers. Nothing unexpected.
Next, she crossed to the bed and carefully lifted the duvet cover. The sheet was smooth on one side of the bed, but well-crinkled on the other. Fergus had been sleeping alone, at least in recent days.
She checked the bedside cabinet closest to the crinkled side. Phone charger. Kindle. Nothing exciting.
The second drawer was all socks. They had been paired together, but even at first glance, Sinead could see they hadn’t necessarily been matched up first. She had a quick prod around, then closed the drawer.
The rattle of something rolling around inside made her open it again. There, right down at the front, half-hidden beneath a pair of white sports socks, was a ballpoint pen.
Sinead plunged her hand all the way into the sock pile and rummaged around, like the drawer was a lucky dip. Propped up against the back wall of the drawer, she found a small spiral-bound notebook.
She had barely begun flicking through the pages when a voice spoke behind her.
“Find something interesting?”
At first, Sinead expected to find Hamza in the doorway, but recognition began to filter through as she turned to look, and by the time she saw the Uniform standing just inside th
e bedroom, his presence came as no real surprise.
“Jason? What are you doing?” she demanded, straightening up. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”
Constable Hall took his time looking around at the room before answering. “Oh, and you are, I suppose?”
“Yes. I am,” Sinead said. “Now, get out.”
“Are you going to make me?” Jason asked. The smile on his face was an invitation. A challenge. A dare. “You’re not my boss. You might tell yourself you are—that you’re better—but you don’t get to tell me what to do. I hate to break it to you, Sinead, but you’re just a lowly constable, just like me.”
She placed the notebook on the bedside table, walked around the bed, then stood facing Jason. He was a few inches taller than her, and he had a sizeable weight advantage. He’d have the advantage in a straight fight. Luckily, they weren’t in a boxing ring or on the playground.
“Fuck off, Jason,” she said. “Stop acting like such a twat.”
“Oh, I’m the twat?” the constable said with a snort.
“Yes. Absolutely. No question about it,” Sinead replied, holding his gaze. “And I think you know that. I think you know you’re coming across as a sad, bitter little wanker who can’t stand the thought of someone—especially not a woman—being recognised above himself.”
Jason made another snorting sound, but there were no words to accompany it this time.
“So, grow up. Stop behaving like an arsehole, and step back out of this room,” Sinead told him. “Same rank or not, that’s a fucking order.”
The constable’s fixed smile had faded further and further with each word out of Sinead’s mouth, until he was just standing there eyeballing her, seething with impotent rage.
“You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you?” he asked her.
Sinead thought this over for a moment, shrugged, then said, “Yeah. Actually, yes. I do.”
The front door of the house opened and Hamza called out as he wiped his feet on the mat. “You there, Sinead?”
“In here,” Sinead said, not taking her eyes off Jason.