Close to the Bone lm-8

by Stuart MacBride

  Where the hell would Agnes Garfield get her hands on a murder victim from thirty-five years ago?

  Dr Graham cleared her throat. ‘Look, I don’t want to seem greedy, but Miss Dalrymple tells me you’ve got a badly decomposed body that needs identifying? ’

  ‘Hmm? ’ He glanced back towards the cutting room. ‘Steel won’t let me authorize another facial reconstruction, I already asked.’

  ‘Well. . We could maybe try for the basics. Do you know if they did any X-rays? I’m here anyway.’

  Worth a shot. Especially as it looked as if everything else was a washout.

  He was back two minutes later with a bulky brown cardboard folder. ‘You’re in luck, they did the head and chest before they cut him open.’

  Dr Graham dipped into the folder and came out with an X-ray of the skull from straight ahead, and one taken side on. She held them both up against the viewing-room window. The light from the room beyond was just bright enough to make the bones shine. ‘Can you hold these for me? ’

  Logan did and she leaned in close, peering, squinting, poking at the film with a finger. The upper and lower jaw were a mess of cracks and shattered teeth — just a couple of molars hanging on at the back, one cheekbone broken into three separate bits.

  Then she nodded and stepped back. ‘You see how the nasal aperture is quite narrow? And the zygomatic bones are wide and prominent? ’

  No idea.

  She had another squint at the X-ray, scratching at the image where the battered nose met the bone. ‘Shame we can’t get a good look at the nasal sill. . But if you add in the interocular distance, short nasal spine, and the rounded palate, it means you’re probably looking at an Oriental male. And given the openness of the sutures and the fact he’s got three wisdom teeth at full occlusion, we can guesstimate an age of somewhere between seventeen and twenty-five. Probably. Give or take.’

  Dr Graham shrugged. ‘If you can talk them into letting me deflesh the skull, it’d help. Or if you can find me the missing teeth. .? ’

  An Oriental male, early twenties, lying tortured in the middle of a Ring Knot from Witchfire. Someone who knew Agnes Garfield well enough to go there with her. Someone probably too stoned to put up much of a fight. Maybe someone who’d been screwing around behind her back?

  Someone like Anthony Chung.

  PC Sim curled her top lip. ‘Grave robbing? Seriously? ’

  Logan handed her the stable isotope analysis. ‘She had to get the remains from somewhere. Either she’s stumbled on a shallow grave, or she’s gone mining for bodies in the local cemetery.’

  ‘Urgh. . Grave robbing.’

  ‘Look for females from the north-east, between sixty and seventy years old, died up to forty years ago. And they had syphilis.’

  Sim scanned the report. ‘You know what, Guv? I’m guessing there’s not going to be enough bodies missing to muddy the issue.’

  He pointed down the corridor towards the main CID office. ‘Less sarcasm, more looking for dead old ladies.’

  She rolled her eyes, then turned and ambled away and through the double doors, arms swinging at her sides like a grumpy wind-up toy.

  No bloody respect, that was the problem with officers today.

  Still, at least they were getting somewhere for a change. Almost. .

  He unlocked the door to his office, opened it, then froze.

  Crap.

  Steel was sitting behind his desk, with her feet up, fake cigarette glowing between her bared teeth. ‘Make it good.’

  Slam the door. Slam the door right now and RUN!

  Logan licked his lips. ‘How’s the review meeting going? ’

  ‘HOW THE GOAT-BUGGERING HELL DO YOU THINK? ’ Spittle flew in the grey light. ‘I told you-’

  ‘I was out trying to catch her, OK? I wasn’t sitting about the boardroom table poncing about with whiteboards and Post-it notes.’ He hung his jacket on the hook by the door. ‘So if you want to rant and rave for a bit, go ahead. But don’t expect me to care.’

  Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘Bunch of soap-dodging tossbags, telling me how to run a murder enquiry. .’

  ‘I know something that’ll cheer you up: I think we’ve got an ID on our Kintore victim.’

  Steel stared at him. ‘Well? ’

  ‘According to Dr Graham, he was an Oriental male in his mid-twenties. Can you think of anyone like that Agnes Garfield might want to hurt? ’

  There was a pause, then a smile spread through the wrinkles. ‘Anthony Chung. He was shagging some tart behind her back, wasn’t he? ’

  ‘And according to their friends, they were always fighting. Breaking up, getting back together again, having blazing rows. .’

  Steel took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘He shafts her over one time too many, she’s no’ taking her anti-nutbag pills any more, so she goes all witch-trial on his lying cheating, drug-dealing, girlfriend-beating arse. I’m no’ saying he deserved it, but still.’

  ‘Told you it’d cheer you up.’

  ‘And I told you to find her.’ Steel settled back in Logan’s office chair and folded her arms, hoiking up her bosom. ‘Don’t think you deserve your present after all.’

  There was a shame.

  Steel nodded at a red folder, sitting on the desk by her feet. ‘Preliminary post-mortem report. Read.’

  ‘Already? That was quick. .’ He flipped the folder open and skimmed through the contents.

  According to the report, Anthony had three-hundred and sixty-five stab marks all over his body, but they were only half a centimetre deep — the blade nowhere near long enough to penetrate an internal organ. And not one of them nicked a vein or artery. Slow, careful, and methodical. . The probable cause of death was listed as ligature strangulation. So Agnes had veerited him, just like she’d veerited Roy Forman. Only this time she’d finished the job.

  A colour photo was printed onto the sheet: a close-up of the wounds on Anthony Chung’s chest. Four narrow dark-purple gashes, each one sitting in the middle of a perfectly round bruise, about the size of a two-pound coin. A wobbly hand-drawn sketch showed a knife with a tiny V-shaped blade and a circular guard. Should be fairly distinctive.

  Steel gave a wet flobbery sigh, then pulled out the top drawer of Logan’s desk and rummaged through the contents. She emerged with his copy of Witchfire, curled her lip and squinted at the blurb on the back of the book. ‘Our friends from Strathclyde find it “surprising and disappointing” that we’ve no’ interviewed the author yet.’

  ‘They think he killed Anthony Chung? ’

  ‘No’ him, you idiot, crazed fans.’

  ‘Like Agnes Garfield.’

  ‘Like Agnes Garfield, only different.’ Steel flipped the book open, held it out at arm’s length, and peered down her nose at the pages. ‘Any shagging in this? ’

  ‘Do you not have a review to be getting back to? ’

  ‘Comfort break. Any longer and I was going to throttle your bloody ex. “Oh, I’m such an expert on gang-related violence. Look at me with my big perky boobs. I’m so perfect because I got out of Grampian, and Strathclyde Police are so much more special and clever and-”’

  ‘How’s DI Bell getting on with the Chung murder? ’

  ‘Ding-Dong couldn’t find a hand grenade in a bowl of supposi-tories.’ Another angry puff. Then she dumped the book down on the desk. ‘Since you’re such a big fan, you can go talk to what’s-his-face the writer boy. And while we’re at it: we need someone to go tell Anthony Chung’s parents he’s dead.’

  Logan blinked at her. ‘But that’s Ding-Dong’s case, and-’

  ‘Remember what I said about handing out jobbies to people who’ve pissed me off? Well right now, you’re at the top of the list. And since you did such a spectacular job of catching Agnes before she killed him,’ she shook a pair of jazz-hands at him, ‘this turd’s for you.’

  Great.

  ‘Fine, I’ll tell his parents. Get one of them to come in and identify the body.’

  Steel
’s shoulders fell an inch. ‘Do you no’ think they’ve suffered enough? Four days mouldering away on a kitchen floor in May; he’s in no fit state to be seen by anyone. Even then, a visual ID’s going to be worthless. Just have to poke the labs till we get a DNA match from the teeth.’

  Logan nodded, pulled his jacket back on again. ‘Goulding’s going to do us a profile. Gratis.’

  ‘As long as it’s free, he can skip bollock-naked up and down Holburn Street for all I care. Now get your backside over there and explain to Anthony Chung’s mum and dad why their wee boy’s no’ coming home for dinner. And speak to that sodding author!’

  ‘OK. . Thanks.’ Logan hung up and stuck the mobile back in his pocket.

  PC Sim eased the pool car around the Haudagain roundabout, driving as if the car was full of eggs, or sweating dynamite, windscreen wipers squeaking their way back and forth clearing away the misty drizzle. ‘How’s the case review going? ’

  Logan wound up his window. ‘Like getting a prostate exam from a grizzly bear.’

  Sim licked her lips. ‘Are we really going to meet the guy who wrote Witchfire? ’

  ‘Thought you didn’t like the book.’

  ‘It’s just, if I’d known, I could’ve taken a copy along for signing.’ She stared straight again, picking at the steering wheel cover. ‘Not for me, for my niece.’

  Yeah, right.

  ‘According to Insch, the guy’s going to be there all day, doing script rewrites.’

  Sim nodded. Smiled. Picked at the steering wheel some more. ‘And you’re sure we shouldn’t go speak to Anthony Chung’s parents first? ’

  A sigh stole the air from Logan’s lungs. ‘Their son’s dead. Soon as we tell them, that’s it: their lives are blighted forever. Half an hour isn’t going to change that.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m not looking forward to it either.’

  A battered Daihatsu 4Trak growled past in the outside lane, blue-grey smoke sputtering from the four-by-four’s exhaust pipe.

  Sim pointed at a manila folder on the dashboard. ‘I searched through everything reported in the UK for the last two years — only one dead body still missing: a middle-aged man, killed in a motorbike crash in Shropshire fifteen years ago. They dug up one corner of the graveyard to move a gas main and can’t remember where they put him.’ She changed smoothly into fourth. ‘So I got in touch with every council in Scotland and asked them to check their graveyards, just in case there’s an open grave they don’t know about, and the occupant’s gone walkabout.’

  ‘And? ’

  ‘The words “don’t hold your breath” spring to mind. You know what councils are like: it’ll take months.’

  Ah well, too much to hope for an easy solution.

  The 4Trak switched lanes right in front of them. PC Sim slammed on the brakes, missing it by inches, her face constricting around two flared nostrils. ‘Dirty. . bleeding. . poop-head!’

  ‘How can no one be missing a seventy-year-old dead woman? ’

  Sim leaned on the horn, the harsh ‘Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!’ cutting through the drizzly afternoon. ‘PICK A LANE!’

  ‘Will you calm down? ’

  ‘It’s flipping idiots like that who cause accidents. .’ Her eyes bugged. ‘Did he just give me the finger? ’

  The 4Trak driver’s arm was silhouetted between the front seats. Fist clenched, middle finger extended.

  A cold, jagged smile spread across Sim’s face. Then she reached forward and flipped the switch — blue-and-white lights flickered behind the pool car’s radiator grille, the siren giving its two-tone wail.

  ‘Can you not just let it go? ’

  ‘Sorry, Guv, but we’ve got a duty to uphold.’

  In the 4Trak, the middle finger was joined by the rest of its friends. But the silly sod slowed, then pulled into the bus stop up ahead.

  Sim pulled in behind, lights flickering back at them from the four-by-four’s muddy paintwork. ‘Right, you little stinker. .’ She grabbed her hat off the dashboard and climbed out into the drizzle.

  Might as well let her get it out of her system.

  Logan pulled out his phone and settled back in his seat. Dialled Chalmers’s number. ‘Professor Marks: has he cracked yet? ’

  ‘Guv, was just about to call you. We’ve got another Oriental gentleman in A amp;E — says he “fell down some stairs”. Managed to shatter both his kneecaps. According to the orthopaedic surgeon he must’ve fallen on a bag of hammers on the way down.’

  Now there was a blast from the past. ‘Claw hammers? ’

  ‘Can’t tell. Gentleman in question is a Hong Gil-dong. Mr Hong entered the country legally on a student visa from South Korea twelve years ago. Never went home.’

  Obviously.

  Logan drummed his fingers on the dashboard for a minute. ‘What was he studying? ’

  ‘I. .’ A pause. ‘Sorry, Guv, I’ll find out.’

  ‘Want to bet it was horticulture? ’

  31

  A deep bass rumble filled Soundstage Two, low and loud enough to make Logan’s lungs vibrate in his chest. All around him, people stood in silence, staring at the four-storey block-of-flats set as Nichole Fyfe scrambled across the roof, chased by three men dressed entirely in black. The action flickered across a massive widescreen TV down on the studio floor.

  Half a dozen sprinkler heads were going full pelt, drenching the roof in fake rain, making everything glisten. Then a flash of light turned the world monochrome, followed by another bellow of thunder.

  Nichole skidded to a halt at the edge of the roof, arms pinwheeling as a camera swooped up the building on a massive crane.

  The three men behind her fanned out, knives and swords sparking in the lights as-

  Someone tugged at Logan’s sleeve.

  He turned, and there was Nichole Fyfe, looking up at him.

  Eh?

  Logan glanced back at the roof. No. . she was still up there. Back to the one on the ground.

  The likeness was uncanny.

  She smiled. Then stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, her breath warm and sweet against the side of his face. ‘Body double. They won’t let me do my own stunts.’ A shrug. ‘Insurance.’ She backed off an inch or two and blinked at him. Then closed in again. ‘I wanted to say thank you for. . well, you know, this morning.’

  He moved around, his lips brushing her hair on the way to return the favour. It smelled of mandarins. And something sweet and slightly sweaty. ‘I’m just glad you’re OK.’

  Why was it suddenly getting uncomfortably warm?

  Another flash, and a BOOM of thunder.

  She wrapped her arms around his chest and kissed him on the cheek. Mouthed, ‘Thank you’ at him. Her eyes were huge and dark.

  Logan cleared his throat.

  And then the word ‘CUT!’ boomed out of the speakers, followed by Zander’s voice. ‘Sorry people, we’re getting terrible lens-flare off Inquisitor Three’s sword. Can we get it sprayed? ’

  As soon as the instruction was given an army of people swarmed out onto the roof, and everyone on the studio floor started talking at once.

  Nichole stepped back. ‘Is Robbie going to be all right? ’ Then a frown. ‘I mean, the real Robbie, not. . you know.’

  ‘He’s going to be detained under the Mental Health Act so they can run some tests. Then he’s probably going to be treated in a secure facility for a while.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it? That he’s getting help? ’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘I can’t believe he’d do that to Wee Robbie.’

  ‘Sometimes people do strange things.’

  She stepped in close and kissed Logan on the cheek again. ‘Thank you for looking after him. And me.’

  ‘Yes, well. .’

  A dark rumbling voice cut through the background noise. ‘Nichole? ’ Insch. ‘They’re ready for you in makeup, if you’re sure you’re up to it? ’

  She nodded, patted Logan on the chest. ‘Thanks again.’ Then turned and marched away,
arms swinging at her sides, as if she was on parade.

  Insch scowled, dug into his pocket, and came out with a little bag of apple slices. Popped one in his mouth. ‘You should’ve spoken to him yesterday. And I don’t appreciate you chatting up my lead actress.’

  ‘I wasn’t chatting. .’ Every bloody time. ‘Is the writer here? ’

  ‘Mr Hunter is in conference room two. Try not to piss him off, or he’ll spend the rest of the day hitting the gin and we’ll get nothing decent out of him till tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Can’t promise anything. .’ He craned his neck, scanning the soundstage. ‘Now, have you seen PC Sim? ’

  Conference room two was thick with the dark scent of freshly brewed coffee — a percolator gurgling away to itself in one corner of the large rectangular room. A load of desks had been pushed together to make one huge surface, the top nearly invisible beneath piles of different-coloured paper covered in scribbles and highlighter pen. The blinds were down, leaving the room to slump in the unsympathetic glare of fluorescent lighting. One wall was completely plastered in yellow, green, and orange Post-it notes, the opposite one hiding behind what looked like A4 frames from a storyboard.

  The room’s only occupant sat in the middle, frowning at the screen of a laptop, a ‘WORLD’S WORST DAD’ mug sitting by his mouse. Mid-forties; curly hair surrounding a high, domed forehead that shone in the overhead lights; goatee beard; glasses obviously bought to look ‘hip’ and ‘with it’, but failing.

  Sim grabbed Logan’s sleeve. ‘Eek! That’s him!’

  Logan produced his warrant card. ‘Mr Hunter? ’

  The man didn’t look up from his screen, just waved a hand at the far corner of the desk. ‘Just put them over there, and tell David I’ve solved his continuity problem with four-fifteen.’

  ‘Police, Mr Hunter. I’m Detective Inspector McRae, this is PC Sim. We need to ask you a few questions.’

  He peered at them over the top of his glasses. ‘You haven’t brought the sandwiches? ’

  Logan pulled out a chair and sat. ‘Sim, why don’t you get us all a cup of coffee. I’m sure Mr Hunter would like a refill.’

  ‘Mmmpnnnn. .? ’ She fidgeted for a moment, blushed, then scurried off to fiddle with the percolator.