Barking. Slavering. Barking. Silence. A high-pitched yelp burst out from the other side of the door. Then whining and yowling.
Sim shouldered the door open. No bang this time.
Inside, the place stank of wet dog, pepper, bleach, and something meaty: like oxtail soup.
The Alsatian was tearing around in a tight circle, back hunched, tail between its legs. Sim marched into the gloomy corridor, grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, and hauled open the nearest door. It was a filthy galley kitchen with yellow linoleum, a cracked sink, and a prehistoric electric cooker — a huge pot bubbling away on the stove. Sim hurled the dog inside and slammed the door on it.
‘Never send a man to do a woman’s job.’
Logan’s shoes clacked on the chipped floor tiles. By the front door a flight of stairs led up to a small landing, doglegging around to the left. A white glow seeped out from beneath the other doors lining the corridor, making it look as if the place had been fitted with trendy mood lighting. He tried a handle, and it swung open on the surface of the sun. .
Harsh light jabbed into his corneas, followed by a wash of heat that tried to squeeze the air from his lungs.
He stuck one hand up, shielding his eyes, and the room slowly faded into view. Two rows of lights hung from the ceiling, blazing down on a sea of chest-high cannabis plants, their dark-green five-fingered leaves gleaming. A walkway snaked between the aisles of growbags, lengths of black plastic tube looping from plant to plant. The walls were papered with tinfoil, bouncing the glaring light around the muggy room.
The other two downstairs rooms were the same, the only difference being the colour of the light bulbs.
Whoever it was, they’d gone from stealing the McLeods’ to growing their own.
Back to the hallway.
‘OK,’ Logan pointed over his head, ‘on three, we-’
A loud bang and chunks of plaster exploded out from the wall by his head.
Back into the nearest cannabis hothouse. Rennie went crashing through a stand of plants, Sim slithered to a halt on the other side of the door.
Slivers of tile erupted from the floor, then twice more as bullets turned them into shrapnel.
Logan dropped to his hands and knees and peered around the doorframe.
A man in boxer shorts and a long black bathrobe stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the corridor, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand, a semi-automatic pistol in the other. White socks on his feet. A thick joint stuck out between his bared teeth, smoke curling through his patchy beard and long black hair. Eyes narrow and bloodshot. He wobbled from side to side, then raised the gun and squinted one eye shut.
It wasn’t, was it? It couldn’t be.
BOOM — the noise reverberated back and forth from the walls as another chunk of plaster erupted into dust. Nowhere near where they were hiding. Too drunk and stoned to hit the side of a bus.
Could it?
Logan had to shout over the ringing in his ears. ‘Anthony? Anthony Chung? ’
The gun wobbled around again, barked twice, tearing twin holes in the door opposite.
Rennie scrambled back through the cannabis plants, five-fingered leaves sticking in his hair. ‘But Anthony Chung’s dead!’
BOOM — another floor tile exploded.
‘Yeah, well, as ghosts go, he’s not taking it lying down, is he? ’
‘You said his dad ID’d the body!’
BOOM, BOOM — one in the doorframe, one in the wall.
His dad was obviously a lying bastard. Not only was Anthony Chung very much alive, there wasn’t a tribal tattoo on the left side of his neck.
Sim wiped a dribble of blood from her eyes. ‘We can’t just sit here like a bunch of lemons.’
BOOM — the ceiling got that one, dust drifting down and shining in the light from the open growing-room door.
Rennie licked his lips. ‘We rush him. His aim’s crap, right? We all run at him at the same time and. .’ He stared at Logan. ‘What? ’
‘You’re an idiot. We are not charging a man with a loaded-’
BOOM — another floor tile.
Click.
Logan stuck his head around the door again. Anthony Chung had one eye squeezed shut, holding the gun up in front of his face — moving it backwards and forward as if that would help get it in focus. The slide was racked all the way back, the round barrel protruding a good three inches, smoke curling from the hole.
He staggered back a step, then his eyebrows shot up and he dropped the Jack Daniels bottle. Reached for his dressing-gown pocket.
Logan charged, the shattered tiles gritty beneath his feet.
The bottle of bourbon hit the stair carpet and bounced, amber liquid spraying from the open neck.
Anthony Chung’s hand disappeared into his pocket.
The bottom step creaked as Logan launched himself up the stairs, taking them two at a time, arms and legs pumping.
The hand reappeared with a huge chrome-plated semi-automatic.
Three more steps.
The gun came up, pointing right between Logan’s eyes.
Too slow. .
Anthony Chung grinned. ‘Bye, bye.’ And pulled the trigger.
49
Logan blinked. Stood there in silence. Then let out a huge breath, blood hammering in his ears. Oh thank God. ‘Safety catch, you pillock.’
‘No, is. .’ Anthony stared at the gun in his hand.
Then Logan slammed an elbow into his face, lifting him off his feet, sending him thumping back into the wall, arms out. The revolver clattered onto the tiles below.
In the interests of Health and Safety, Logan gave him a swift boot in the testicles as well. Anthony Chung curled up like a foetus, one hand clasped over his broken bloody nose the other wrapped around his battered bollocks.
Then Logan bent over and clutched his own knees, holding on while the room swirled around his head.
‘Guv? ’ Sim patted him on the back. ‘You OK? ’
‘Cuff him. Please.’
‘Right, you little sod: Anthony Chung, I’m arresting you for the attempted murder of three police officers, possession of illegal firearms, and a horrible dog.’ She dragged his hands behind his back and slapped the handcuffs on. ‘And I am seriously hacked off about the shotgun behind the door too!’
Come on: still hadn’t found Chalmers. Arse in gear.
Logan took another deep breath and straightened up. Then clambered up the stairs with Rennie panting along behind him.
The landing at the top was covered in red-and-brown swirly carpet, coming away from the edges. One door hung open on a bedroom with black sheets and a Ring Knot painted on the ceiling. Piles of clothes heaped up on the floor. A couple of open pizza boxes with grease stains on the cardboard marking out their ghosts.
Two more doors.
Rennie pointed at himself, then the one on the left.
Logan nodded and took the other, wrenched it open and froze on the threshold.
It was a bathroom, built in what looked like an extension, the ceiling covered in blooms of damp and mould. Yellowing tiles with dirty grey grout. A roll-top bath streaked with rust and full of water. And Agnes Garfield.
She was kneeling by the bath, holding something under the surface. Something face down that struggled and wriggled, two bare feet sticking out, ankles tied to the taps.
Chalmers.
‘Let her go!’
Agnes looked up at him. Freckles stood out like bloodstains on her porcelain skin, her bright-red hair tied back in a ponytail, so much black makeup around her eyes that she looked like a corpse. She bared her teeth. ‘I’m saving her soul.’
‘Let — her — go!’
A shrug. ‘As you wish. .’ Agnes stood, her hands out, palms up.
Chalmers’ naked back rose to the surface, wrists bound behind her. The struggling got worse.
Sodding hell — with her ankles tied to the taps, and hands behind her back, there was no way she could get her nose or mouth ab
ove the waterline.
Logan lunged forward, elbowed Agnes out of the way and hauled Chalmers to the surface.
She coughed and spluttered, water streaming from her nose and swollen lips, eyes bloodshot and wide. ‘Aaaaaaaaaagh!’ Purple bruises covered one side of her face, tiny cuts on her shoulders and chest leaking scarlet trails into the dirty bath. Her head was completely shaved, covered in nicks and cuts and swollen scabs.
Something made a grating noise in the bathroom, behind him as Chalmers retched.
‘You’re OK! I’ve got you.’
And then Agnes’s breath was warm on his cheek, her lips brushing his ear, voice little more than a whisper. ‘What I do in its service lights a fire in God’s name.’
Pain exploded across Logan’s back, and he went lurching forward on top of Chalmers, sending her down beneath the surface again. Gurgling and twitching.
He rolled off and thumped to the floor.
Agnes stood over him, the lid from the cistern held in her hands like Moses with his tablet. She raised it above her head, clipping the bare light bulb and setting it swinging.
Then Rennie crashed into her, shoving her back into the cracked toilet. The cistern lid shattered on the edge of the cast-iron bath. ‘Get off me!’
‘Guv? You OK? Ow!’
‘GET OFF ME!’
Logan scrambled to his knees and grabbed Chalmers by the shoulders. Hauled her back into the air as water slopped all over the floor and the light swung wildly from one side to the other, swirling the shadows around them like smoke.
Chalmers opened her bloodied mouth and screamed.
Gold and copper streaked the fields of rapeseed to either side of the farmhouse as the sun glowered through the thin gap between the heavy grey clouds and the horizon. Two ambulances and a handful of patrol cars blocked the road, their blue-and-whites strobing the lengthening shadows. Four members of the firearms team — too late to do any bloody good — sat on a wall in the sunshine, smoking cigarettes and laughing.
In the middle distance, a grubby once-white Transit van bounced and rolled its way up the track. The SEB, come to confiscate the cannabis.
Logan shifted his grip on the mobile. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something, Dave, so. .? ’
On the other end of the phone, Goulding sniffed. ‘And I’m meant to be watching a production of Kiss Me Kate, but instead I’m stuck in the office going through the three hundred and sixty-two emails you dumped on me.’
The fan mail. ‘Ah. .’
‘And as it’s. .’ A pause. ‘Oh, for goodness’sake: it’s gone half nine!’
‘Dave, it-’
‘I’ve been through about half of them, and allowing for the appalling spelling and grammar I’ve got twenty possible matches for whoever’s torturing your victims and three potential necklacers. I’ll get to the others tomorrow, but I’ve asked the computer science department to get hold of the server logs and-’
‘Actually. . Dave. . I was meaning to call you. We’ve just arrested Anthony Chung and Agnes Garfield.’
Silence.
‘Dave? ’
‘You told me Anthony Chung was dead!’
‘Yes, well. . he got better. And she’s definitely our killer, so you can ditch the rest of the emails.’
‘Do you have any idea how many hours I wasted on that profile, trying to get everything to fit because you told me-’
‘You were right about the trial by water. She was trying to drown DS Chalmers when we found her.’
‘I told you she’d never kill him.’
‘It’s not my fault: Anthony Chung’s father ID’d the body, I just. . Hold on a minute.’ Logan stuck his hand over the mouthpiece as a short paramedic stomped to a halt in front of him. Her hair was swept up in a droopy ponytail, jowls wobbling around a soured mouth. Like someone’s disappointed mum.
She jabbed a finger towards the ambulance. ‘If she doesn’t start cooperating, I’m going to sedate her.’
Back to the phone. ‘Dave, I’ve got to go.’ He hung up, and followed the paramedic’s big wobbly bum to the ambulance, then around the side to the open doors.
Chalmers was sitting on the tailgate, coughing, each breath rattling as if something was loose inside her chest. ‘I don’t want to go to hospital. .’ The silver blanket crinkled as she drew it tighter around her bare shoulders, reflecting back the swirling blue-and-white lights. Grey and purple bruises seeping out into the skin of her shaved head.
The paramedic let out a long sigh. Then rolled her eyes at Logan. ‘Tell her.’
‘You need stitches and antibiotics. You’re going to hospital.’
Chalmers took another hit on the oxygen mask. Did some more coughing.
Logan patted the paramedic on the shoulder. ‘Give us a minute.’
‘I mean it: I’ll sedate her if I have to!’ Then turned and stomped off towards the firearms team.
‘You’re lucky you’re still alive.’
Chalmers nodded. ‘She was at the soup kitchen. Agnes. . Right there, lurking in the shadows, watching everyone. Followed her. .’ More coughing. ‘Lost her round the back of the Bon Accord Centre.’
‘Why the hell didn’t you call it in? ’
‘So I went round the addresses again: all the ones I got from Duncan Cocker. There was no one there in the afternoon, but I thought. .’ A shrug, making the blanket crackle.
‘You thought you’d catch her yourself and take all the glory. Well, that worked out well, didn’t it? ’
Growling and scrabbling came from the front door as a pair of dog handlers hauled the Alsatian outside on the end of a long pole, both of them struggling to keep the noose tight around its neck.
Chalmers wouldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Bumped into Agnes at a house near Fyvie. Literally.’ Chalmers fiddled with the oxygen mask, twisting the soft plastic back and forth. ‘And when I woke up, I was tied up in a grubby little kitchen. .’ She wiped a hand across her eyes. ‘I didn’t tell her anything. .’
‘You wouldn’t have been in that situation if you’d called for backup.’ Logan took a step back, pulse thumping in his neck, heat spreading behind his temples. ‘Because of you, PC Sim nearly died. Rennie nearly got electrocuted. And I was this close,’ he held up his hand, thumb and forefinger almost touching, voice getting louder with every word, ‘to being shot in the face!’
‘I just wanted. . It wasn’t meant to work out like this.’
‘Really? Well that’s OK then, isn’t it? Everything’s forgiven!’ He poked her in the shoulder and the space blanket crackled. ‘You listen up and you listen good: I’m the one who’d have to tell Sim’s husband and kids she died because you couldn’t face sharing the bloody credit!’
Tears spilled down Chalmers’s cheeks. ‘It wasn’t my fault. .’
‘Hope you’re proud of yourself.’ He turned his back and walked away.
Thursday
50
The wub-wub-wub of a floor polisher dragged Logan back above the cold green waves and thumped him down in the visitor’s chair in Samantha’s room.
‘Gagh. .’ Someone had sneaked in at some point during the night and replaced his spine with sharp rocks and broken glass. He creaked himself upright. Yawned. Stretched. Slumped. Then shuffled through to the bathroom, rubbing the grit out of his eyes.
The face in the mirror peered back at him with two beautiful black eyes.
Then frowned: there was something he was meant to do. .?
Nope, no idea.
Time for a pee and a wash.
Samantha didn’t move as he pulled his shoes back on, just lay there like a corpse, all wires and tubes and lank brown hair.
He cleared his throat. Forced a smile. ‘Probably going to be a long day today. Do you fancy pizza or something for. .’
What was the point?
Something heavy settled on his shoulders, trying to crush him down into the grey terrazzo floor.
And then his phone went — ‘If I Only Had a Brain’.
/> Logan hauled it out. ‘Do you have any idea what time it is? ’
‘Nearly half seven, Guv.’
It was? He checked his watch. Sodding hell. ‘Why didn’t anyone say? ’
‘They’ve turned up another body at the farm. Looks like the poor sod was stabbed all over, throttled, then buried in the ruined chapel. Dr Graham says the bones in that cook pot in the kitchen are definitely human too: scapula, skull, five ribs, and an ulna. Apparently they’re a bit on the ancient side. PM’s at ten if you fancy it? ’
So Agnes Garfield was planting corpses in her very own garden of bones.
‘Not really.’ He hauled his tie back with one hand and tightened it. ‘But I think I know who your bones in the pot belong to: one Nicholas Alexander Balfour.’
‘Ah, right: the spiritualist bloke from the graveyard. Cool. Wondered where he’d got to. Anyway, I spoke to Guthrie — he’s heard back from SOCA’s American Justice Department goons. Anthony Chung’s got form for dealing and a couple of DUIs, but you want to know what’s really interesting? ’
Logan held the phone against his chest, then leaned over and kissed Samantha on the forehead. Her skin was cool and clammy against his lips. ‘Got to go. I’ll see you later, OK? ’
Back to the phone.
‘Guv? You there? ’
‘Go on then: what’s really interesting? ’
‘Turns out his dad’s linked to about two dozen hydroponic cannabis farms in San Francisco. They couldn’t prove anything, but everyone knew it was him.’
Like father, like son. ‘Thanks. Tell Steel I’ll be there in twenty.’
Rain pattered against the window of Steel’s office, making shining ribbons that glittered their way down the glass. She sat back with her feet up on her desk, fake cigarette dangling out the side of her mouth. ‘So she’s a nutbag then? ’
Dr Goulding shrugged, then crossed his legs the other way. ‘Let’s just say she’s a deeply disturbed young woman.’
Steel looked up at Logan. ‘That’s Liverpudlian for “nutbag”.’
‘She’s as much a victim of Anthony Chung’s drug baron fantasy as anyone she hurt for him. He cast himself in the role of Moderator, the man in charge of the Fingermen in Witchfire. Kept her off her medication and on high-concentration THC cannabis. She believed everything he told her.’ Goulding held his hands out — nothing up my sleeves. ‘I’ve started her on Risperidone, so we should see an improvement in her mental state before too long. In the meantime, I’ve arranged for a Mental Health Officer to see her later this morning. Agnes needs to be transferred to a secure psychiatric facility where she can be taken care of, not locked in a prison cell.’
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