Close to the Bone lm-8

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Something’s wrong.’

  ‘Apparently he based the three old witches on real people. Think they tried to sue Hunter for putting them in the book, but it all got settled out of court.’

  Logan turned slowly on the spot. There was nothing here. Chalmers had just headed off to work like any other day, and never come back. And the only thing she’d definitely done was ask about the people who’d been to see the home where Anthony Chung died. God forbid she’d have to share the glory. .

  Sim tucked her hands into the armholes on her stab-proof vest. ‘So. .? ’

  ‘Time to go see a man about a house.’

  ‘I really don’t understand how we can be of any more assistance.’ Mr Willox fiddled with the buttons on his desk phone, shoogling them from side to side. His grey hair was piled up into a combination comb-over and quiff on top of his wide head, a dark-blue suit and a thick purple tie making him look as if he’d just fallen through a portal from the early eighties.

  Logan tapped a finger on the glass desk, leaving a smudge. ‘Agnes Garfield and Anthony Chung got the keys to that property from somewhere.’

  ‘Do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost to clean the kitchen in the Abernethy house? And even if they can get all the stains out, who’s going to want to buy a house where someone was tortured to death in the kitchen? It’s not like we can make a feature out of it.’

  ‘And you’re sure everyone who viewed the place was on the list? ’

  He waved a hand at the lever-arch file on the desk. ‘You’ve seen the paperwork. That’s everyone.’

  ‘So who else had access to the keys? ’

  ‘Well, I did, obviously; Jennifer on reception; Jake Smith, my partner; our trainee, Duncan Cocker; and a couple of people we use for viewing rural properties when it’s simply not convenient to send someone out from the office.’

  Cocker. Cocker. .

  Logan pulled out his notebook and went flipping back through the days until he got to Monday when they were interviewing Anthony Chung’s friends. ‘Duncan Cocker — young, bit vague, sounds as if he just wandered off the set of some awful American teenage rom-com? ’

  A sigh. ‘At Willox and Smith we pride ourselves on quality and service. Duncan’s. . He still has a lot to learn.’

  Damn right he did. ‘I need to see him.’

  ‘Well,’ Willox thumbed through a big desk diary, ‘he’s down to show a couple round a detached cottage with two bedrooms, sun porch, and excellent potential as an equestrian property, in twenty minutes, but you can-’

  ‘I don’t think you’re really getting the seriousness of this.’

  ‘We do have a business to run, and-’

  ‘Get him in here now.’

  Willox puffed out his cheeks, ran a hand across his comb-over quiff. ‘I. .’ Then he leaned forward and pressed one of the shoogled buttons on his desk phone. ‘Jennifer, can you ask Mr Cocker to step into my office please? ’

  Duncan Cocker shifted in his seat, licked his lips. Pulled on a twitchy smile. ‘Nah: honest, I got no idea, you know? ’

  Logan sat back in Mr Willox’s executive office chair and steepled his fingertips, the top two just under the tip of his nose. Doing his best Superintendent Napier impression. Staring at Duncan Cocker in silence.

  ‘So, you. .’ A shrug. ‘It’s all OK, right? ’

  More silence.

  He started to rise out of his seat, so Logan gave PC Sim the nod and she loomed over him, both hands on his shoulders, pushing him back down. ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘But I told you, I don’t know, it’s just, like, one of them coincidences? ’

  Sim patted him on the cheek. ‘Tell me, Mr Cocker, do we look thick? ’

  Pause. ‘No? ’

  ‘So why do you think it’s OK to lie to us? ’

  ‘But I’m totally not lying, and-’

  ‘Mr Cocker, it’s not polite to call someone thick, is it? ’

  ‘I didn’t say anyone was thick, it’s like a-’

  ‘Some people might take a lot of offence at that.’

  He stared at Logan, hands up at chest height, as if miming the ‘Please, sir, can I have some more? ’ bit from Oliver Twist. ‘I didn’t tell anyone about me knowing Ton, ’cos I didn’t want to lose my job, and it wasn’t like I had anything to do with it, yeah? ’

  Logan smiled at him. ‘You have no idea how much trouble you’re in, do you? ’

  ‘But. .’ A breath. Then he looked at the floor. ‘Ton would kill me.’

  ‘He’d have to join the queue. You see, the people he’s been stealing from aren’t the let-bygones-be-bygones type. They’re more claw-hammer-to-the-knees kind of guys. And as soon as they know you helped Anthony Chung rip them off. .’ Logan sooked a breath in through his bared teeth. ‘Well, they’re going to be very interested in paying you a visit.’

  ‘But I never-’

  ‘Do you like your kneecaps, Duncan? ’

  Silence.

  He wriggled in his seat, until Sim pinned him down again.

  ‘The Inspector asked you a question, Mr Cocker.’

  ‘I’ve. .’ A cough. ‘I kinda let Ton have the keys to a couple places we’re selling with vacant possession. You know, ones that haven’t shifted for over a year? He does a bit of business there.’

  ‘Until he ended up staked out and tortured to death in the Abernethy house.’

  Cocker squeezed his knees together. ‘Nothing to do with me, I totally swear, I mean totally. I gave Ton the keys, he gave me a shed-load of weed. That’s it.’ He licked his lips and looked up at PC Sim. ‘Er. . All for personal consumption, yeah? I wasn’t selling it or nothing.’

  Logan tossed his notepad onto the desk, then followed it with a biro. ‘Addresses.’

  He made a little whimpering noise.

  Bit his lip.

  Then picked up the pen and scribbled down half a dozen of them. ‘You got to promise not to tell Mr Willox, yeah? I mean, you know, it’s my job and he might. . with the keys and everything? ’

  Logan pointed at the notebook. ‘Sign it at the bottom. And date it.’

  Cocker did. ‘And it don’t have to go any further, right? The other cop swore it’d be OK — you don’t have to drag me into it. She promised.’

  Logan took his notebook back. ‘Other cop? ’

  ‘You know, yesterday? The woman with the curly hair and the boobs? She totally promised.’

  He sat forward. ‘When yesterday? ’

  ‘Afternoon. . About half three, maybe four? I gave her the addresses, and that was it.’

  The leads she was chasing down. The ones she said were dead-ends when she came through to volunteer for soup-kitchen duty.

  Cocker cleared his throat. ‘So, I can go now, right? Got to show a couple round a house. .’

  46

  ‘ A right sodding disaster.’ On the other end of the phone, Steel sounded as if she was chewing on a mouthful of wasps.

  Logan leaned against the roof of his rusty Fiat, notebook open in front of him. ‘You’re the one gave the job to Ding-Dong.’

  ‘Two injured officers. Armed standoff. Hostages. Bloody press everywhere. .’

  ‘What did I tell you? ’

  ‘Hostages! How can he screw up raiding a wee cannabis farm? Now it’s all Waco comes to Blackburn.’

  ‘Should’ve let me do it then, shouldn’t you? Now pay attention — I need you to get armed response units round to six houses. Have you got a pen? ’

  ‘Leith managed to raid his without anyone getting shot. .’ She paused. ‘This isn’t more cannabis farms, is it? Because we got in enough trouble last time.’

  Good question. ‘No idea. Anthony Chung got keys to a bunch of properties from a friend who works for an estate agent’s. Most of them are out in the sticks. That’s why we could never find out where he and Agnes were staying — they just moved from house to house.’

  ‘Six addresses? You want me to get six addresses raided? What part of “Shotgun Hostag
e Drama in Suburban Cul-de-sac” did you no’ understand? ’

  ‘And you better get the SEB to go over them too, see if we can find anything else linking Agnes Garfield to-’

  ‘Pin back your lugs: I — don’t — have — the — men. Got a sodding crisis going on here. If it’s no’ life or death, it’ll have to wait.’

  ‘They might have DS Chalmers.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello? Can you hear-’

  ‘You better be joking, Laz.’

  ‘She got the list yesterday afternoon and didn’t tell anyone. For all we know, Agnes has her staked out on someone’s floor right now.’

  A barrage of foul language erupted from the earpiece. Then more wasp-chewing. ‘Fine, I’ll magic firearms teams up out of nowhere. Get them going round the properties. You happy now? ’

  Ecstatic.

  He gave her the addresses, then she slammed the phone down on him. Like it was his fault Chalmers was a glory-hungry overachiever.

  Sim appeared on the other side of the car, her Airwave handset blinking away on her shoulder. ‘Guv? Got Control on the line. They say there’s an NPR hit on Chalmers’s Mini going north on the Inverurie road at half nine last night.’

  ‘Do they have her going back again? ’

  ‘Hold on. .’ Sim clicked the button on her handset and repeated the question. Then shook her head. ‘She might have taken one of the back roads? ’

  Chalmers would still have come down King Street, or West North Street, or the beach Esplanade to get home, and the Number Plate Recognition system would have picked her up. And, more importantly, she would’ve fed her cat.

  ‘What about the GSM trace? ’

  Sim checked. ‘They say her mobile’s not switched on.’

  Logan drummed his fingers on the car roof. Heading north on the Inverurie road. That meant they wanted addresses on the list to the north-west of the city. . And only three fit the bill.

  ‘Guv? ’

  ‘Get in.’

  They’d just have to do without a firearms team.

  The Fiat bumped and ground its way down a dirt track, lined on either side with barbed-wire fences and thick knots of brambles, the ridge of grass in the middle scraping along the bottom of the car every time Sim hit a pothole. And as the track was pretty much all pothole, Logan had to stick his finger in his other ear to hear Rennie at all.

  ‘What? ’

  The radio wasn’t helping: ‘-siege enters its second hour, Grampian Police have cordoned off Fintray Road, and are asking Blackburn residents to remain indoors. We spoke to Mrs Gilmore, who lives next door. .’

  Mrs Gilmore sounded as if she’d just French-kissed a set of bagpipes. ‘Aye, and then there was this big bang and a policeman went flying over the hedge into our roses. It’s-’

  Logan switched it off. ‘I didn’t hear a word of that.’

  Rennie took a deep breath and came back twice as loud. ‘I said, the house at Rickarton is clear. Steel’s got the other four-man team on their way to the place outside Stonehaven. But it’s rush hour, so-’

  ‘What about the other two houses? ’

  ‘Sorry, Guv. We’re going as fast as we can.’

  Sim tapped Logan on the shoulder as the car rolled through yet another outbreak of gravel-edged pits in the track. ‘There it is.’

  House number two on the north-west of Aberdeen list was an ancient-looking farmhouse set back from the road, partially screened by a patchy beech hedge, the front garden a thicket of weeds. The walls were leper grey, the gable end streaked with rust from a buckled TV antenna. One chimney was missing a chunk off the corner and the slate roof was speckled with yellow lichen. Narrow dark windows glowered out at the surrounding fields. Behind it, a massive steading conversion was all fresh pointing and neat double glazing.

  A bright green Willox and Smith ‘FOR SALE’ sign was driven into the jungle of dockens and brambles.

  ‘Get your team over to the next house and let me know if there’s any sign of Chalmers.’ Logan hung up and put his phone away.

  Sim parked the car at the overgrown entrance to a small gravel drive. ‘No sign of a Mini.’

  Well, they weren’t going to just leave it outside, were they?

  He climbed out of the Fiat. The weeds in the driveway were partially flattened, as if a vehicle had been left there. . Or they’d used it to reverse and turn around on the appalling track.

  Sim joined him, pulling on her bowler. ‘What do you think? ’

  ‘Someone’s been here.’ He pointed. ‘See the trampled path through the weeds to the front door? ’

  ‘Unless it was sheep? ’

  She unhooked the pepper-spray from her utility belt and handed it over. Then snapped out her extendable baton. ‘You want the front or the back? ’

  Thistles and nettles bound together around the side of the property. All spiky and stingy. Logan fiddled with the pepper-spray. ‘Think I’ll. . take the front.’

  Sim sagged slightly. ‘Poop.’ Then she straightened up and waded her way through the undergrowth, elbows up at shoulder height, keeping her hands out of the danger zone.

  Grass and broken dandelions squeaked under his shoes as he picked his way to the front door, hauling on a pair of blue nitrile gloves.

  A scrunching crash sounded from the other side of the house, followed by, ‘Oh. . pooping, bum-pooping poop!’

  Logan peered in through the front window. The glass was thick with dirt, but there was enough light to see a mildew-speckled front room, the wallpaper peeling away in one corner and stained with damp. No furniture, just marks in the swirly seventies-style carpet where it used to be. The other front window was pretty much the same.

  He tried the key in the lock. Opened the door. And stepped into a dank corridor that smelled like mouldy bread.

  The house was in a much worse state than the first one they’d tried — a bungalow with a DIY jungle gym out the front. No wonder they’d had trouble selling it.

  A staircase led almost straight up, ladder-style to a small landing, but down here there was a bathroom clarted in rust and mould, the two empty front rooms, and a tiny kitchen. Half the units were missing their doors, the other half had them hanging off. Big black stains spread across the ceiling.

  Talk about a fixer-upper.

  There was another crunch, then more ridiculous pseudo-swearing, and finally Sim’s face appeared at the kitchen window, cheeks flushed, mouth set into a hard line, a strand of sticky willy clinging to the brim of her bowler like a length of furry string.

  Logan hauled open the back door and let her in.

  She was covered in bits of greenery, sticky geordies all up her trousers, bits of bracken, green stains on her knees and elbows, scarlet scratches on the back of her hands and one cheek. She scowled at him. ‘Not one word.’

  The corners of his mouth twitched, but he got it under control. ‘I’ve done downstairs. No sign of anyone.’

  Back to the front hall.

  The stairs creaked as they climbed, the balustrade wobbling every time it was touched. There was no way Anthony Chung and Agnes Garfield would have holed up here. Not with so many other, cleaner, less. . diseasy properties to choose from.

  At the top of the stairs was a small landing with a row of knee-high cupboards built into the angle of the roof, just visible in the gloom of a filthy Velux window. Two doors led off into what had to be attic bedrooms.

  Sim stopped on the top step. ‘Can you smell something? ’

  Logan stood where he was, sniffing. Whatever it was, it was sweet: floral. Not heavy enough to be cloying, but completely out of place in a tiny house that was rotting away inside.

  He put one gloved hand on the doorknob to the first bedroom, turned, and let it swing open. Inside, a single bed sat against the back wall, the plaster on the coombed ceilings disintegrating, showing the lathe beneath.

  Door number two. . The knob turned, but the door stuck. He pushed harder and a ripping noise — like two bits of Velcro being se
parated — came from around the door frame. Duct tape.

  And then the smell fell out of the room on top of them, curdling its way into Logan’s throat and lungs, filling his nose with the stench of spoiled meat. His throat constricted, stomach lurching. ‘Oh Jesus. .’

  The room was every bit as tiny as the first, but instead of the single bed, there was a Ring Knot marked out on the floorboards in black wax. The body was male, its stomach and chest bloated with gas, naked skin peppered with green and orange mould — covered in tiny purple slits, all the hair shaved off. Just like Anthony Chung.

  Blood made dark pools on the floorboards, disappearing through the cracks. . That must be what made the dark stains on the kitchen ceiling downstairs.

  Sim slapped a hand over her mouth and nose. ‘Jeepers!’

  Logan hauled the door closed again. Took his phone out with trembling fingers. And called it in.

  47

  Insch’s dark baritone growled out of the phone. ‘What exactly are you playing at? ’

  Logan perched on the end of the garden wall, one hand shielding his eyes from the pale golden sun. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something, so. .? ’

  The Manky Mystery Machine sat on the overgrown gravel drive, its back doors hanging open while white-suited SEB techs humped boxes into the house. A cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape snaked in the breeze. Two patrol cars blocked the rutted track up to the property, Logan’s rusty old Fiat parked behind them in the gateway to a field of luminous-yellow oilseed rape.

  ‘Do you have any idea how much money it costs to keep a production like this running? Because-’

  ‘Want to cut to the chase? ’

  A pause. ‘You arrested Morgan Mitchell.’

  Logan stared up at the slate-coloured clouds. Sighed. ‘I did not arrest her. She assaulted someone.’

  ‘Let her out.’

  ‘She assaulted someone.’

  ‘Logan, it. .’ He took a deep breath. ‘What if I get the other party to drop the charges? ’

  ‘Don’t think your star will be too happy with that — she did it on purpose so she could spend a night in the cells. I believe the term you used was, “Method-acting nutjobs”? ’