by JD Kirk
“Something’s bothering you, Jack.”
Logan flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, sighed so hard the windscreen directly in front of him fogged up, then shook his head.
“It’s nothing. Let’s just focus on getting this case squared away so we don’t mess around too much with the planning for the kids’ big day.”
Ben nodded slowly, then hoisted his smile back up his face. “Right. Aye. Let’s do that. But, if you ever need—”
“I know,” Logan replied. “But I’m fine. Honestly.”
“I’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t,” Ben said. “Oh! Before we head down the road, we should probably swing by the office. I think I’ve got some stuff I need to sign.”
Logan hesitated. “I’m sure it can wait until we’re back,” he said, then he started the engine, pulled away from Ben’s house, and set off on the journey south.
Ross Lyndsay woke from a mid-morning, morphine-induced snooze to find a large man in a heavy coat standing at the foot of his bed.
At first, he thought he might be a doctor, but this notion quickly faded when he saw the expression on the man’s face. Doctors didn’t tend to look at their patients like that.
Then, he thought the man might be some sort of ogre or troll, but decided that this might have been the painkillers talking.
He was about to have another guess when the man introduced himself. Again, it might have been the effects of the drugs, but his voice rumbled like thunder around Ross’s private hospital room.
“Mr Lyndsay?” he boomed. “My name’s Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan. I’m here to ask you some questions about your late flatmate. Is now a good time?”
Ross used his elbows to ease himself a little higher up the bed. His leg hadn’t been cast in a stookie, but was instead encased in a series of straps and supports that held everything together.
“Um, actually, I don’t—”
“Excellent,” Logan said, scraping a chair across the floor and sitting himself down. “I won’t keep you long. We’ll arrange for you and me to have a more… robust discussion down at the station, but for now, there’s just a few things I’d like to know.”
“Right. Uh, OK. Yes,” Ross babbled. “It’s just—”
“Why did you run away?” Logan asked. “I suppose that’s my biggest question right now. After ‘Why did you kill Fergus Forsyth?’ I mean. But, we’ll come to that.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t!” Ross protested.
“You didn’t what? Run away?”
“Kill Fergus!”
“Like I said, we’ll come to that,” Logan reiterated. “All in good time. You did run away, though. I don’t think anyone can dispute that.”
“Alright, yes, I did run away, but I didn’t kill—”
“Can you tell me why you did it?” Logan asked. “Ran away, I mean. We’ll get to the killing Fergus bit later, as I say.”
“I didn’t kill him!”
“One thing at a time, Mr Lyndsay, please,” Logan urged. “At your house. With my detectives. You made your excuses to leave the room, then you climbed out the window, and you made a run for it.”
“I mean—”
“How did that work out for you?” Logan asked, then he rapped his knuckles on one of Ross’s leg bracings, drawing a little yelp of pain.
“I panicked, alright?” Ross cried. “It was stupid, I know. It was really stupid, but I panicked. I panic. It’s a condition. It’s on my medical records. Panic attacks. Anxiety. I have a disorder!”
Logan made a show of taking out his notebook. He licked the end of his pencil, positioned it over the pad, then gave Ross a chance to try that again.
“You climbed out of a window and fled a police interview because of a disorder?”
“Yes!”
“What’s the disorder? Itchy feet?”
“What? No! I told you. Anxiety. I get… When I get stressed, I don’t think straight. Everything gets heightened.”
“Good job the window didn’t get heightened. You might’ve broken your other leg,” Logan said. “Why were you so anxious? You weren’t a suspect. Note, the use of the past tense there, Mr Lyndsay? You weren’t a suspect. Thanks to your actions, you are now.” He smiled thinly. “How does that affect the old anxiety levels?”
“Oh, God,” Ross gasped, letting his head sink back onto his pillow.
“Like I say, though, we’ll get to how you killed Fergus eventually,” Logan continued. He indicated his notepad. “So, just to clarify, you want your statement to say that you fled the interview because you panicked? That sound about right?”
“Yes! I mean, no. I mean… When you say it like that, it sounds…”
“Pathetic? Unbelievable?” Logan nodded. “You’re not wrong, there. So, how else would you say it, Mr Lyndsay? Why should I say you went on the run right after the violent and brutal murder of your flatmate? Because, between you and me, it’ll have to be a belter of an explanation.”
“I need… I need some painkillers.”
Ross’s hand reached for the call button that he’d left hooked to the side of his bed. Logan knew he’d left it hooked to the side of his bed, because he had moved it as soon as he’d entered the room. It was now hanging from the bottom end of the bed, well out of the patient’s reach.
“I’m sure that can be arranged, Mr Lyndsay,” the DCI said. “Just as soon as you tell me, in your own words, why you climbed out of your bedroom window and attempted to go on the run, rather than answer a few simple questions about your relationship with Mr Forsyth.”
“I just… I just… I just…” Ross’s voice became higher with each repetition of the phrase, then his diminutive frame seemed to sink further into the bed, and he let out a little sob of defeat. “We’d had an argument. About money. He owed rent.”
“When was this?”
“Morning before yesterday.”
“So, the day he died,” Logan pointed out, then he made a little circling motion with the end of his pencil, encouraging Ross to continue.
“He’d promised me he was going to pay me two weekends ago. Then, he said it would be last weekend, and when he didn’t…” Ross sniffed and wiped his nose on his bare arm, almost dislodging a drip-line that was affixed to one of his veins. “I don’t like confrontation. Can’t stand arguments. But, I needed the money. I pay all the bills. Council tax. Everything like that. Internet. Everything. Sky. Everything.”
“But he stopped contributing?” Logan said. “God. I’d have been raging, if I was you.”
“He was late before, but never this late. So, I told him… I told him he had to move out. We had a big shouting match about it. He was really angry at me, but I stood my ground. I’m not usually good at that, but I was in the right. I knew I was in the right, so I didn’t back down.”
The momentary look of pride on his face melted away and twisted into something more like shame.
“And, well, I said some things I regret,” he added.
“Such as?”
“Just… things.”
“Things like what, Mr Lyndsay?” Logan pressed.
Ross made a sound that was not unlike the whimper of pain he’d given earlier. “I told him, ‘Why don’t you just fuck off and die?’” he said, self-censoring by silently mouthing the swear word rather than saying it out loud. He wasn’t sure what the protocol was about cursing in front of police officers, and reckoned he was probably in quite enough trouble, as it was.
Logan’s chair gave a little moan as he shifted his not-inconsiderable weight forward on it. “I think it’s important I clarify that. You’re saying that you told Mr Forsyth to ‘fuck off and die’?” he asked.
After approximately one-third of a second of stoicism, Ross relented and nodded.
“On the very day that he fucked off and died?”
Ross continued to nod. He was biting down on his bottom lip, fighting a losing battle against the onslaught of tears that were currently troubling his internal flood barriers.<
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“Sandra heard. Our neighbour. Across the way. She heard me say it.”
“Your neighbour was there?” Logan asked.
“No. She was in her house. But she gave me a look. When I was going to work. Like a…” He pulled his face into a disapproving, down-the-nose sort of squint. “She’d never looked at me like that before. Never. So she must’ve heard me. She must’ve.”
His defences fell then, the tears forcing their way out through his tear ducts and cascading down his reddening cheeks.
“That’s why I ran. Because… because she’d heard me tell him to go and die, and… and if she told you that. The police. If she told the police I’d said that, and then he did, and then… You wouldn’t believe me if I said I hadn’t done it. You’d think it was me. But it wasn’t! It wasn’t!”
The door opened at the back of the private room, and a male nurse poked his head around the frame. “You alright, Ross, you sound…” He stopped when he saw the brute of a man sitting at the side of the bed. “Sorry, visiting hours aren’t until later,” he said, his warm tone cooling so rapidly you could almost hear the pings. “Can I help you?”
Logan stood. Turned. Made himself as large and imposing as possible, in the hope of quashing any challenge before it could get underway. He produced his ID and handed it over.
“Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan. I’m just asking Mr Lyndsay here a few questions.”
The nurse took the warrant card and studied it, then handed it back. “And you’ve had permission from the consultant?” he asked, unconcerned by the size of the man looming over him.
Logan shouldn’t have been surprised. There was very little that would faze an NHS nurse. After a couple of years on the job, they’d seen everything, dealt with everyone, and had developed a mental armour thick enough to rival that of any copper’s.
“It’s just a quick chat,” Logan said, but he knew the game was up from the way the nurse stepped back, granting the DCI unfettered access to the exit.
“Well, you’ll have to continue it another time, after the consultant’s given his permission.”
Logan returned his ID to his pocket. “Where do I find the consultant, then?”
“He’ll be on the ward just before lunchtime. He won’t be round to see Mr Lyndsay until after two. I suggest you call in after that.”
Logan thought about arguing, but he’d be on a hiding to nothing. There was no point in standing here arguing. There were plenty of other things to be getting on with.
Besides, the man in the bed wasn’t going anywhere.
“Thanks. I’ll do that,” Logan told the nurse, tucking his notebook into his pocket alongside his warrant card. He turned back to Ross and fired him a look that made it clear the conversation was far from over. “And I’ll look forward to continuing this in a more formal setting later, Mr Lyndsay. I suggest you use the time to get your story straight.”
He stepped out of the room, then about-turned and entered again.
“Oh, and you’ll probably want to get yourself a good lawyer.”
Chapter Eighteen
Moira Corson leaned on the reception desk, on the opposite side of the glass, her face completely impassive and yet, somehow, simultaneously filled with contempt.
“What do you mean ‘name’?” Logan asked. “You know my bloody name. I’ve been here dozens of times before.”
Without shifting her gaze from his, Moira tapped the paper that was attached to the clipboard she held balanced on one arm.
“Name,” she repeated.
“Jesus.” Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled, then elected to offer no further resistance. “DCI Jack Logan.”
Her eyes crept down. She wrote his name in meticulously neat block capitals, spelling out the full ‘Detective Chief Inspector’ rather than using the abbreviation, like any other normal person on the face of the bloody planet would have.
“Purpose of visit?”
“Murder investigation,” Logan replied.
Moira made no move to write. “Can you elaborate?”
“For God’s sake, woman!” Logan spat, which was met with an utterly impassive look. He sighed, then explained further. “I’m leading the investigation into the murder of Fergus Forsyth. We’re setting up the Incident Room down here, to be closer to the site and to potential witnesses,” he said. “Happy?”
Moira looked down at her clipboard.
Then, she looked up again.
“That’s too long for the box.” She clicked the end of her pen. “I’ll put ‘murder investigation.’”
“Is this a wind-up?” Logan demanded. He pointed up to the security camera watching the reception area. “Is this on the bloody telly?”
“—sti—gay—shun,” Moira said, seemingly dictating the words phonetically to her own hand. She read the next question aloud. “Time of entry?”
Was that one rhetorical?
Surely, that was rhetorical?
The way she was looking at him suggested it wasn’t.
“Well, now, obviously,” he snapped.
This, apparently, was not good enough.
He resisted for as long as he could, loathe to give the old cow the satisfaction.
Eventually, though, he relented. It was that or stand there all day.
“Ten-forty-seven,” he said.
She waited.
Logan rolled his eyes.
“For fu—A.M.”
Moira wrote the time in the box. Logan leaned closer to the glass, watching her.
“Mind and just put A.M. Don’t write bloody… ante meridiem, or whatever it is.”
Moira’s gaze crawled up from the page. “What?”
“Nothing. Just… Nothing,” Logan sighed.
“Aunty what?”
“Forget it. Just… Can I go through?” He edged his way over to the door. “I’ll just… I’ll go through.”
“Contact telephone number?” Moira asked.
Logan grabbed the handle of the door and rattled it. “This one. The one here. Just put yours. I’ll be in this building. I’ll just go through, if you can push the buzzer there. If you can just buzz me in.”
“I can’t put mine. Contact telephone number?” Moira said again.
With a groan, Logan reluctantly released his grip on the handle and trudged back to the reception desk, fishing out a business card with his phone number on it. He couldn’t recite his phone number from memory, and didn’t trust people who could. They obviously had too much bloody time on their hands. Either that, or they were robots.
He had just started to read the number aloud when the door he’d just been heaving on opened.
“Alright, boss?” asked Tyler, the door already swinging closed behind him.
Logan lunged. His fingers brushed against the handle, but then the door settled back into its frame with a solid thunk.
“No!” he ejected, the sound coming out as something not unlike a sob. He rounded on Tyler, eyes flashing with fury. “You bloody idiot! What’d you let that close for?”
Tyler glanced back at the door, frowning. “We can just buzz in again, can’t we?”
“Not until I finish filling in this bastard form!”
Tyler looked over to the front desk, and the woman scowling at them through the glass. “Oh. Right. Aye. We just came in the back door when a couple of Uniforms were heading out,” he explained.
Behind the barrier, Moira reached down out of sight, then produced a second clipboard. She sat both side-by-side on the reception desk, fixed Tyler with the same impassively resentment-filled look, and in a dry, disinterested voice said, “Name?”
“Christ Almighty. She’s got worse,” Logan remarked, storming into the Incident Room and claiming a chair with a well-aimed throw of his coat.
“Who’s that?” Ben asked. He was fiddling with the height adjustment of his own chair and was currently perched so high on it that his feet couldn’t touch the floor.
“Moira on the front desk,” Logan sa
id, still seething over the encounter. “I mean, she was always a pain in the arse, but Jesus Christ. It’s like she’s had an upgrade.”
“That’ll be the new Chief Inspector. You’ll know him. Alisdair Lyle. Complete and utter—” Ben began, then a careless lifting of a lever dropped him a foot and a half in a fraction of a second. He sank out of sight behind a computer monitor, before stopping with a gasp, a thud, and a, “Fuck!”
“Careful, man!” Logan said. “If you give yourself a heart attack by pissing about with your chair, Mitchell will never let me hear the end of it.”
Ben’s head slowly reappeared as he cranked himself back up to a more practical height. “Speaking of Mitchell, she rang looking for you.”
Logan sat at his desk and busied himself by fishing in his pocket for his notebook. “Did she?”
“Just after we arrived. Phone rang maybe a minute or two later. Spooky timing. I swear, she’s got eyes everywhere, that woman.”
“And you answered, did you?” Logan asked, flipping through the pages of his pad as nonchalantly as possible.
“I did, aye. She wants you to give her a ring as soon as you’re back in the office. She didn’t sound particularly happy,” Ben said. He winced. “In fact, I’d say she sounded decidedly unhappy.”
“No change there, then,” Logan remarked.
Ben nodded slowly. “Anything you want to tell me, Jack?”
“There is, actually,” Logan said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the door. “What’s the big idea sending Tyler to JJ’s for bacon rolls without waiting for me to get back? That’s a low blow, Benjamin. And after me sticking my neck out for you.”
“We didn’t know how long you’d be,” Ben protested. “We thought we’d get the grub in now, and we could always send Tyler over again later, when you got back.”
Logan gave a tut of admonishment, then looked around at the rest of the room. Jackets and mugs marked the desks the others had already set-up shop at, but the detectives themselves were conspicuous by their absence.
“Where are Hamza and Sinead?” he asked. “Did they head back up the road last night?”