The Blood Road

by Stuart MacBride

  And Lorna Chalmers had finally succeeded.

  She was halfway down the space between the shelving units, the toes of her socks grazing the concrete floor. Scuffing the fabric as her body turned in the draught that slipped in beneath the garage door. A thick electrical cord made a makeshift noose around her neck, the other end tied to the exposed rafters above. Arms slack by her sides. Eyes open. Mouth too. Face covered in scrapes and the faded remains of bruising on waxy yellow flesh.

  The hard clack of a camera’s flash caught a bluebottle as it landed on her bottom lip. Then wandered inside.

  Definitely dead.

  9

  Logan leaned against the open doorway as a couple of scene examiners got Lorna Chalmers down. One hugged her around the middle while the other clambered up onto a chair, holding a pair of snips. Their white SOC suits rustled and crumpled.

  Snips took hold of the electrical lead in her other hand. ‘You ready?’

  Hugs kept his head as far away from Chalmers’ remains as possible without letting go. ‘Gawd… Soon as you like, Shirley. She reeks of booze!’

  A click and the body dropped, but didn’t sag.

  So still in the throes of rigor mortis, then.

  Snips – Shirley – jumped down from the chair and helped her colleague wrestle Chalmers into a body bag. She zipped it up and backed off, waving a hand in front of her face. ‘Pfff… You weren’t kidding.’

  Logan shook his head and turned away.

  Shirley shouted after him. ‘Hoy! You SIO then?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You’re Senior, you’re an Officer, and you’re Investigating. Sounds like SIO to me.’

  Logan kept going. ‘Yeah, nice try. But the answer’s still no.’

  Logan leaned his forehead against the bedroom window, breath making a foggy crescent on the glass.

  Outside, the duty undertakers wheeled their shiny grey coffin down the driveway, then lifted it into the back of their shiny grey van. The name of the firm was picked out in discreet white letters, ‘CORMACK & CALMAN ~ FUNERAL DIRECTORS’ above the words ‘PRIVATE AMBULANCE’, but other than that there was nothing to indicate that Lorna Chalmers’ remains were on the way to the mortuary.

  What a bloody waste…

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘Mmm?’ Logan turned, and there was Rennie waving at him from the bedroom doorway.

  ‘I know you don’t want to be SIO, but do you think … maybe…?’ He raised his eyebrows and mugged it up a bit.

  ‘You want to be SIO?’

  ‘Come on, Guv, got to be good practice, right?’ Rennie shrugged. ‘For the old CV? Even if it’s only a suicide.’

  ‘You know it’s mostly paperwork, right?’

  ‘And maybe people would say, “You remember that police officer who hanged herself? DS Rennie was the SIO on that. Did a bang-up job. Let’s give him something exciting to be in charge of next time!”’

  Logan puffed out a breath. ‘I suppose I can ask. But no promises.’

  Swear to God, the little sod did a wee jig. ‘Cool biscuits!’ Then stopped and pointed over his shoulder. ‘Oh, and you might want to come see this.’ He led the way across the hall and into a bathroom barely big enough for the bath, sink, and toilet that had been squeezed into it. Nearly every flat surface was littered with assorted shampoos and conditioners and body butter and talc and moisturisers. A small mountain of empty toilet-roll middles lay slumped against the loo brush.

  Rennie opened the medicine cabinet above the sink, exposing a huge stash of pill tubs, boxes, and blister packs that all seemed to have Lorna Chalmers’ name on them. He pulled out a white box with a pharmacist’s label stuck to the front. ‘Tranylcypromine sulphate: Emma was on this stuff after Donna was born, they’re antidepressants. And so are these: Venlafaxine hydrochloride, and Nortriptyline, and Moclobemide too. And yes, you should be impressed that I managed to pronounce all that.’ He returned the first box to the cabinet, then pulled out another one and frowned at it. ‘Not sure what Aripiprazole is though.’

  Good old Aripiprazole, banishing visions of dead girlfriends and other assorted hallucinations for nearly two years now.

  Logan took the packet off him. ‘It’s a second generation – or atypical – antipsychotic. Possible side effects include anxiety and suicidal thoughts.’

  ‘Really?’ Rennie raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh. Right. Wow.’

  Logan replaced the box and shut the mirrored door. Stepped out onto the landing again.

  Rennie followed him. ‘Her husband says there was a “sort of fight” yesterday. She stormed off, he didn’t hear her come back. Look at this.’ A smartphone appeared from Rennie’s pocket and he held it out. A text message sat in the middle of the screen. ‘Had his phone on to charge, so he didn’t get her text till an hour ago. Came down and found her.’

  Logan accepted the phone, reading the message out loud. ‘“I’m sorry. I just can’t take it any more. I can’t.” Sent at ten thirty last night.’ He scrolled down to the earlier text messages. ‘Long time to be left hanging there.’

  ‘I had a snoop round.’ Rennie hooked a thumb over his shoulder at another small bedroom. ‘Someone’s definitely sleeping in this one: got loads of women’s things in it. Lipsticks and jars of stuff. Women’s underwear in the chest of drawers. Women’s clothes in the wardrobe. No man things.’

  A chain of yesterday’s texts swept up onto the screen.

  BRIAN:

  I can’t wait to see you today!

  STEPH:

  I miss the touch of your strong hands on my body! Searching and probing my most intimate secret places.

  BRIAN:

  I miss the warmth of your tongue on my neck. The hot swell of your bosom against my bare chest.

  STEPH:

  I miss your hardness deep inside me. Thrusting. Thrusting!

  There was more of the same, each one more flowery than the last.

  ‘God, it’s like a bargain-basement Mills and Boon.’ Logan stepped back into the master bedroom again. Slid the door to the fitted wardrobe all the way across.

  It was full of men’s clothes: no dresses, skirts, or high heels. Nothing feminine at all.

  He pointed at the bedside cabinet. ‘Have a squint in there.’

  Rennie did. ‘Man socks, man pants, man hankies. No lady things.’

  Logan nodded. Slid the wardrobe door closed. ‘Then I think it’s time we had a word with the grieving husband.’

  A tiny conservatory clung to the side of the tiny living room – its doors closed, trapping inside a small herd of clothes horses draped with washing.

  Brian had moved himself to the couch, sitting there as if someone had rammed their hand down his throat and ripped out everything inside him. He kept his eyes on his knees, as Logan handed him a mug of tea.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  He didn’t look up. ‘It’s… I never…’

  Logan put a bit of steel in his voice. ‘Mr Chalmers, someone assaulted your wife yesterday. Twice. I want to know who.’

  ‘I don’t… I didn’t see her. She went out before I got up and—’

  ‘Would you say Lorna was happy at home?’

  Oh, he looked up at that. ‘What? I…’ Pulled his chin in. ‘Hey, no, wait – I didn’t do that! I would never do that!’

  ‘And yet Lorna texted you a suicide note at half ten last night, but you didn’t call the police till after seven this morning.’

  ‘No!’ Looking from Logan to Rennie. Bottom lip trembling. ‘I told your constable—’

  ‘Constable?’ Rennie folded his arms. ‘I’m a detective sergeant.’

  Brian blinked at the pair of them, getting smaller. ‘Sorry. It… I was recharging my phone. I didn’t check it till I got up!’

  The central heating gurgled.

  Rain pattered on the conservatory roof.

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘Really?’ Logan loomed over him. ‘Are you expecting us to believe your wife was hanging there for
nine hours and you didn’t notice?’

  Rennie put a hand on Logan’s arm. ‘Guv?’

  ‘We didn’t… She has her own bedroom. It’s the antisocial hours. We decided it’d be better if we didn’t wake each other up.’

  ‘Who’s Stephanie?’

  Brian flinched as if he’d been slapped. ‘I don’t…’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Logan held up the phone again, reading from the screen. ‘“The milk of your passion fizzes inside me like finest champagne.” If that helps jog your memory?’

  ‘Oh God.’ Brian wrapped his hands around his head.

  ‘You said there’d been “a sort of fight”.’

  ‘You don’t know what it was like. She was never here. Not properly. Even when she was physically in the room, she was somewhere else. I was…’ Deep breath. ‘Stephanie is… I met her at work. She’s the account manager. We… Her husband isn’t there either. We were lonely.’

  Logan stepped back. ‘And Lorna found out you were having an affair.’

  The heating gurgled. The rain fell.

  Brian shrugged. ‘Steph was here yesterday afternoon. We were in the bedroom when her car alarm went off. Someone had smashed the windscreen and the garage door was lying wide open. It’s… It’s not like Lorna and me had a sex life of our own, is it? We don’t even sleep in the same room any more!’ He ran a hand across his face. Bit his lip. ‘I was going to ask Lorna for a divorce next week, once we’d got her birthday out of the way. It would’ve been Wednesday.’

  And with that, Brian dissolved into tears again.

  The garage looked strangely empty without Chalmers’ body hanging there. Like a living room after the Christmas decorations had been taken down… Now the only sign that she’d ever been there were the scuff marks on the concrete floor – tiny tufts of fabric stuck to the rough surface where her socks had dragged across it.

  Logan turned and stared at the shelving unit by the door. Chalmers’ glasses sat on a shelf next to the dishwasher tablets. Her shoes were on the shelf below lined up side by side.

  Rennie pointed at them. ‘Why do people do that? Why take off your shoes and glasses before topping yourself?’

  The glasses were cold to the touch. Surprisingly heavy. ‘Suppose it’s like getting ready for bed.’

  ‘See if it was me? If I was crossing the great dark veil? I’d want to see where I was going.’

  Logan put the glasses back on their shelf. ‘Her husband’s having an affair; she’s about to be suspended; she’s on antidepressants; she’s sacrificed having a family for her career, but her career’s going nowhere.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t want to tread in anything either.’

  ‘She’s getting into fights…’

  Rennie nodded. ‘Sounds like she had a proper, full-on, card-carrying meltdown.’

  ‘Yup.’ Logan walked out into the hall. No point wasting any more time here. Still had to figure out what Chalmers knew about Ellie Morton’s disappearance. He opened the front door. Paused on the threshold. ‘Do me a favour: soon as we hit the station, have a word with the CCTV team and see if they can place her car anywhere. Find out where she went yesterday. Maybe we can dig up who she spoke to.’

  ‘Guv.’

  Logan hurried down the driveway, shoulders hunched against the rain, Rennie trotting along behind him.

  Pale faces gazed out at them from the surrounding houses. The nosy ghosts of suburbia, haunting the lives of their neighbours. Feeding on their tragedy.

  He clambered into the PSD pool car and checked his watch. A little after nine. ‘Probably got time to pick up coffee on the way to the cemetery. If we’re quick.’

  Rennie clunked his door shut and sat there, looking up at the house. ‘Guv… Not being funny or anything, but back there, with the husband, was that not a bit … harsh?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘No, but what if he makes a complaint?’

  ‘Brian Chalmers was screwing around on his wife. A wife he knew was on antidepressants. He was going to ask for a divorce the day after her birthday.’ Logan fastened his seatbelt. ‘So yes: I gave him a hard time. What do you think I should’ve given him, biscuits and a cuddle?’

  Rennie started the car. ‘Sure you weren’t just punishing him because you feel guilty about what happened to her?’

  Idiot.

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘So, let’s get this straight,’ Rennie turned, voice and face deadpan, ‘being investigated by Professional Standards had nothing to do with her topping herself.’

  The little sod might have a point.

  ‘Oh … shut up and drive.’

  Hazlehead Cemetery stretched down towards the Westhill road. They’d made an effort to lay this bit of it out in long sweeping curves, but there was a lot of ground to fill. Space for thousands more bodies.

  And soon, there would be space for one more.

  A bright-yellow JCB sat by a bend in the road that wound through the middle of the cemetery – presumably so the hearses could deliver their passengers to their allotted spots. The digger hunched over one of the graves. Like an expectant beast. Growling.

  Logan and Rennie stood beneath a row of trees, on the very edge of the cemetery. Not that they provided a lot of shelter from the thick drifts of pewter-grey drizzle that coated everything with a sheen of cold and damp. But at least it was somewhere to drink their coffee.

  Next to the JCB, three SOC-suited figures were busy erecting a Scene Examination tent – big enough to plonk over the grave when it was excavated.

  Rennie sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘You ever had a shot on a digger? I’d love that. Gouging huge great clods out the surface of the earth… Oh, ho. Clap hands, here comes Charlie.’

  A man in a brown suit and council-issue tie worried his way up the hearse road towards them, clutching his fluorescent-yellow waterproof jacket shut. Woolly hat jammed low over his ears, a scowl pulling his jowls into a disappointed-scrotum shape.

  His glasses were all steamed up too. ‘Closing the cemetery… I don’t see why this couldn’t have been done last night!’

  Logan had another sip of lukewarm coffee. ‘Health and safety.’

  ‘There are people wanting to visit their loved ones and they expect the council to facilitate that. If you’re a bereaved relative, what are you going to think about all this?’

  Logan leaned over to one side, looking across the cemetery to the car park. Its only occupants were the PSD pool car, Scene Examination’s grubby white Transit, the duty undertaker’s discreet ‘PRIVATE AMBULANCE’, and the battered rattletrap Mr Scrotumface had arrived in. Other than that, the place was deserted. Logan stood up straight again. ‘Please don’t let us stop you comforting them. We’ll let ourselves out.’

  ‘Hmmph!’ An imperious sniff, then he turned and marched off into the drizzle again, nose held high. Walking as if his buttocks were tightly clenched. Presumably to stop the stick from falling out.

  Rennie sidled closer, keeping his voice down. ‘Bet he’s the kind of guy who can’t get it up unless he’s filled out a requisition in triplicate to boink his girlfriend.’

  Logan’s Airwave handset gave four bleeps. He answered it. ‘McRae. Safe to talk.’

  ‘Bet he’s a riot in the bedroom too.’ Rennie put on a droning nasal voice. ‘Tonight, Jean, you’ll observe that we’re departing from our usual missionary position due to roadworks on the A944 outside Dobbies Garden Centre.’

  Down by the JCB, one of the white-oversuited figures waved at them. Then her voice crackled out of the Airwave’s speaker. ‘That’s us ready.’

  Logan pressed the button. ‘Off you go then.’

  ‘Instead we’ll be attempting the “Reverse Cowgirl” in honour of John Gordon MP, the 178th Lord Provost of Aberdeen – 1705 to 1708.’

  She turned and gave the digger driver a wave.

  The great beast roared.

  ‘And I know it’ll cause you a great deal of sexual excitement, Jean, when I say that Joh
n Gordon was also the 185th Lord Provost of Aberdeen. He served two nonconsecutive terms in office. Hmmm? Hmmm? Yes, I thought you’d like that.’

  The digger’s yellow arm reached forward, its claw digging deep into the turf, peeling it back to expose the dark-brown soil beneath.

  ‘Now, enough foreplay, Jean. Let us commence with having “the sex” as per council regulation fifty-four, paragraph six, subsection—’

  Logan hit him.

  10

  The JCB towered over the opened grave, glistening in the drizzle. Its claw thick with dark-brown earth.

  Logan inched closer.

  One of their three-person Scene Examination team peered down into the pit, hands on her knees. ‘You ready?’

  Her two colleagues hunched at the bottom of the hole, fiddling with thick tie-down straps. Then the bigger of the two stood and gave her the thumbs up, his white oversuit clarty with dirt.

  She passed the signal on to the digger driver and the JCB’s engine growled again – the arm lifting over the hole. A chain with a hook on the end of it dangled from the claw.

  Clarty the Examiner reached up and fastened the straps onto the hook, before he and his filthy friend scrambled out of the grave.

  ‘OK.’ The scene examiner in the clean suit pointed a few graves down. ‘If we can all retreat to a safe distance, please.’ She ushered Logan and Rennie to step away from the hole, and all five of them gathered around a shiny black headstone – like a chunk of kitchen worktop with gold lettering on it: ‘NOW ANNOYING THE ANGELS’.

  She took off her facemask and raised her eyebrows at Logan. Shirley, from Chalmers’ garage that morning. ‘This your first exhumation?’