The Blood Road

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ Logan tried another sip of evil coffee. Nope, still horrible. He pushed the cup away. ‘Did Bell mention him?’

  ‘Not that I can remember. But it was a long time ago.’ Something clunked in the background. ‘Sorry. Is it important?’

  ‘And when you ID’d Bell’s body, there wasn’t anything suspicious about it?’

  ‘What, other than the fact he’d blown his own head off and then burnt to a crisp? Other than that, you mean?’

  ‘Fair point. But—’

  The canteen door thumped open. ‘Inspector McRae?’ A lanky PC with a centre parting waved at him.

  ‘Hold on a second.’ Logan put a hand over his phone’s mouthpiece and raised his eyebrows at the constable. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your guy’s solicitor says they’re ready to make a statement.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He went back to the phone. ‘Sorry, got to go. If you remember anything, give me a shout, OK?’

  ‘Will do.’

  Logan hung up and stood. Curled a finger in Rennie’s direction. ‘Come on then, let’s see what kind of lies Norman Clifton’s got for us this time.’

  35

  Norman Clifton had swapped the sniffing and eye wiping for tiny silent sobs, bottom lip wobbling. Which might have been due to the amount of trouble he was in, or it might have been down to the bright pink handprint swelling up on his left cheek.

  His solicitor sat all prim and proper next to him, cardigan buttoned all the way up to her neck.

  Logan nodded at Norman. ‘In your own time.’

  Norman sat there, not making eye contact. Digging away at a mole on his right wrist with his fingernails. Worrying at it till tiny drops of scarlet stained the pale surrounding skin.

  Mrs Cardigan sniffed. ‘My client wishes to make the following statement.’ She picked a sheet of handwritten paper from the table in front of her, reading out loud. ‘“I want to apologise for not being completely honest with you earlier. I was worried that you would jump to the wrong conclusion if I told you that I had seen Mrs Chalmers’ body after she had died.”’

  Rennie snorted. ‘Wrong conclusions? Us? Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘“I let myself into the Chalmers’ household using one of the spare keys my mother holds for them, as has been my habit over the last eight months.”’ She paused and directed a foul look at Norman. ‘“I like to be in the house when they are both asleep. I find it peaceful and … stimulating.”’

  ‘Ooh, I see.’ Rennie leaned forward, voice all conspiratorial. ‘Is that a polite way of saying you have a bit of a wank?’

  Tears welled up in Norman’s eyes, making them glisten. A tiny bubble of snot popped from one nostril.

  ‘“I realise now that this was misguided and that I need professional help.”’

  ‘Oh it’s too late for—’

  ‘Look,’ she lowered the statement and glared at him, ‘do you think we could do without the snarky running commentary?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘“When I entered the premises at two in the morning I could not see Mrs Chalmers in her bedroom. Searching the house I discovered her body in the garage. I was traumatised by this and left immediately, returning home.”’ Mrs Cardigan cleared her throat. ‘“Where, reflecting on what I had seen, I became … stimulated. Afterwards, I revisited the garage and was again … stimulated.”’ A warm pink flush spread up her neck and into her cheeks. ‘“It was then that I inadvertently licked Mrs Chalmers’ face while trying to comfort her remains with a kiss.”’

  Norman’s shoulders jerked as a massive sob burst free.

  His solicitor dug a hanky out from the sleeve of her cardigan and thrust it at him. ‘“I realise that this was a severe error of judgement on my part and would like to offer my sincere condolences and apologies to Mr Chalmers.”’ She placed the statement down in front of him and folded her arms.

  Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘Finished?’

  ‘Finished. I have advised my client to respond to any further questions with “no comment” until we can have him assessed by a mental-health professional.’

  Rennie curled his top lip. ‘Well … he certainly needs one.’

  Another snot bubble burst, but Norman didn’t wipe it away, he sat there sobbing, tears shining on his cheeks, eyes as pink and swollen as the handprint on his cheek. ‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry I … I didn’t … didn’t mean to…’ He looked at Logan for the first time since they’d sat down. ‘I just … just wanted to taste her dying tears…’

  Rennie leaned in close, his voice barely a whisper. ‘You think he did it? Killed her, I mean.’ He made a big show of pantomime glancing at the custody desk, where Mrs Angry Cardigan was in conversation with Aberdeen’s answer to inbreeding – Sergeant Downie.

  A fiver said he had gills and a vestigial tail.

  And speaking of weirdos: Norman Clifton’s sobs echoed out from behind a closed cell door. Huge and deep and wracking. Which served the wee sod right.

  Logan shrugged. ‘Pfff… Maybe he sneaks into the house and he finds Chalmers doped up on antidepressants and booze? Thinks this is going to be his one opportunity to watch someone die, carries her into the garage, and hangs her. Or maybe he finds her trying to kill herself and decides to lend a hand? Or maybe he’s telling the truth and all he did was get turned on by a dead woman?’

  A shiver. ‘Creepy little pervert.’

  ‘Better organise a search warrant for his mum’s house. You don’t get to be that weird without leaving traces.’

  ‘Guv.’ Rennie hurried off as Mrs Cardigan stepped away from the custody desk, glowered, stuck her nose in the air, and stomped over.

  She stopped right in front of Logan, hands on her hips. ‘You’re not really charging him with murder, are you?’

  ‘Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t.’

  ‘I’ve known Norman since he was a baby; I was at school with his mother.’ The nose went up another inch. ‘He’s always been a bit … odd. But this? Killing someone?’

  Logan took out his notebook. ‘Didn’t torture any family pets as a kid, did he?’

  She cleared her throat. Looked away. ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to discuss this case any further until Norman has received the help that he needs.’ And she was off, thundering out through the custody suite doors like a bowling ball in a brown cardigan.

  Yeah, Norman Chalmers was definitely a pet torturer.

  Logan put his notebook back in his pocket on the way to the stairwell. Grinding to a halt as the Addams Family theme tune belted out of his phone. He pushed through the doors and answered it. ‘Sheila.’

  ‘Professor McAllister requests the pleasure of your company at our humble mortuary. And if you wouldn’t mind getting a shift on, that would be grand. It’s late and some of us have love lives to struggle through.’ She hung up.

  Great. Summoned like a small child or an errant dog.

  He stared at the screen for a moment. Then turned and thumped through the doors again. Muttering to himself. ‘Thought the whole point of being an inspector was people ran about after you, not the other way around.’

  The extractor fans roared. Not that it achieved very much, the mortuary still stank. The source of the smell lurked on the cutting table, caught in the glare of half a dozen working lights. All glistening and greasy, like it’d been carved from rancid butter.

  That thick layer of adipocere had smoothed away most of the detail, leaving a sort of revolting jelly-baby shape behind.

  Isobel stood beside it, an SOC suit on over her usual mortuary scrubs, complete with booties, full-facemask, gloves, wellies, and a green plastic apron over the top. What every well-dressed pathologist was wearing this season. She’d arranged all the cutting tools on a stainless-steel trolley, everything looking clean and unused.

  Sheila Dalrymple was dressed exactly the same, her face creased with concentration as she wrestled a digital X-ray machine into place over the body’s jelly
-baby head, aligning the machinery for a sideways view.

  Logan stayed where he was – in the doorway. SOC suit or not, that was the kind of smell that oozed into your hair and clothes and skin. And no amount of scrubbing would get rid of it.

  ‘Right.’ Dalrymple pulled a remote control from the equipment and fiddled with it. ‘Anyone not wanting a dose of X-rays should retire to the other room.’

  Oh thank God for that.

  He backed into the prep room: all work surfaces and cupboards, a couple of plastic chairs standing guard over a stack of boxes at the far end.

  Isobel followed him, carrying a laptop. She stuck it down on the worktop and turned it to face him. ‘You need to see this.’

  The X-ray of a knee filled the screen in shades of white and grey. Not a good knee, though. There was something wrong with the way it fitted together.

  Dalrymple appeared, holding the remote control. She pointed it into the cutting room and the X-ray machine bleeped. A nod, then she marched back inside again.

  Isobel traced a purple finger along the screen. ‘The light areas are bone, the dark areas tissue.’

  Lovely.

  ‘I have seen an X-ray before, I’m not completely stupid.’

  ‘Good. Then I won’t need to tell you what these are.’ Her finger traced along one of the twisted grey lines that clustered around the kneecap.

  He leaned in and squinted at them. They looked a bit like worms, but that probably wasn’t the right answer. ‘Nope. No idea.’

  ‘They’re distorted now, but if you can imagine the knee bent at ninety degrees, as if the victim was sitting, they would be perfectly straight. And approximately sixty millimetres long.’

  ‘OK. Still no.’

  A long-suffering sigh. ‘Imagine taking a drill to someone’s kneecaps.’

  He winced. ‘Please tell me it was accidental.’

  ‘The first time? Perhaps. But not the eighteen other ones. Both knees, both elbows, both ankles, shoulders… Four in the bottom jaw alone.’

  Something heavy congealed in Logan’s stomach. ‘He was tortured.’

  It was bad enough finding out DI Bell was a murderer, but this?

  Dalrymple appeared from the cutting room again. Stood with her legs apart and her hands hanging by her side, Wild West gunslinger-style. Then she snatched the remote control up. Fast. Beep.

  She blew across the end of the remote, mimed slipping it into a holster, then sashayed through the cutting room door as if it was the entrance to a saloon.

  Isobel ignored her, fiddling with the laptop instead so a fractured clavicle appeared on the screen. ‘Then there are the percussive injuries. Possibly a hammer.’

  ‘God.’ Logan huffed out a breath. ‘DI Bell tortured him…’

  ‘And last, but not least, there are nicks in the ribs.’ A section of ribcage appeared, small dark Vs marring the white curves. ‘See how they line up in pairs? That’s consistent with multiple stab wounds to the chest from a double-edged blade. Going by the pattern and number, most likely a frenzied attack.’

  Wonderful.

  Just. Sodding. Great.

  Logan sank down into one of the plastic seats. ‘Any idea who our victim is?’

  She stared at him, face as dead as her patient’s.

  He shrugged. ‘Because if you don’t, then I’ve got a suggestion you could look into?’

  Dalrymple moseyed out into the prep room and stood there, facing away from the door … then snapped around holding the remote in one hand and mashing the button with the palm of her other in one swift seamless motion. Beep.

  Another blow across the ‘barrel’, then she spun the remote and holstered it. ‘Aaaaand, we’re done, pardners.’

  Isobel didn’t move. ‘We don’t do nominative investigations here, Inspector McRae. We follow the evidence.’

  ‘Which is great, but you might find it leads you to Fred Albert Marshall. DI Bell was convinced Marshall killed Sally MacAuley’s husband and abducted her son. He was obsessed with it.’

  Still nothing.

  Logan stood and backed towards the exit, both hands up. ‘OK, I can take a hint.’

  She strode into the cutting room. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Y’all come back, now.’ Dalrymple tipped an imaginary Stetson at him, then cowboyed off after Isobel, leaving him on his own.

  ‘Only trying to help.’ Logan stripped off his SOC get-up, chucked it in the bin, and got the hell out of there. Along the corridor, through the doors, up the stairs, and onto the rear podium car park.

  OK, so it was raining, but at least he wasn’t enveloped in that horrible stench any more.

  You could add that to the list of ‘Reasons Why It Is Not A Good Idea To Sleep With Pathologists’. Very difficult to get amorous when the object of your affections smelled like rotting cadavers.

  He hurried across the car park and in through the rear doors. Shook the rain from his shoulders and trouser legs. Pulled out his phone and called Rennie on the way to the stairwell.

  Rennie picked up with a sigh. ‘Guv.’

  ‘Have you got that warrant sorted for Rod Lawson’s medical records?’

  Through the double doors.

  ‘The Sheriff won’t give us one till he’s read the post mortem report. I emailed it over, but he says it’s nearly nine on a Sunday night and we should know better.’

  Typical.

  ‘What about the search warrant for Norman Clifton’s mother’s house?’

  ‘Same. Only he used fewer words. Three of which were quite rude.’

  Logan headed up the stairs. ‘You told him this is a murdered police officer we’re talking about?’

  ‘No, I left that bit out, because clearly I’m some sort of bum-sniffing moron!’ A groan. Then another sigh. ‘Sorry, Guv. Been a long day.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Logan stopped on the landing. ‘Look, pack up, sign out, and go home. Spend some time with your family.’

  ‘Donna will be in bed by—’

  ‘And tell Tufty and Steel they can sod off too. But I want everyone back here tomorrow – seven sharp.’

  ‘Half seven for cash?’

  ‘Don’t push it.’ Logan hung up. Sagged for a moment. ‘Right. One more stop to make and we’re done for the night.’

  Hardie stared at him, mouth hanging open.

  Logan shifted in his seat.

  It was a bit like facing down a goldfish. A goldfish in an ugly suit. That needed a shave.

  Then finally, Hardie’s mouth clicked shut. A blink. ‘He was tortured?’

  ‘That was pretty much my reaction.’

  DI Fraser stretched in her seat, stifled a yawn. ‘The media’s going to love this.’

  ‘How could Ding-Dong torture someone? I was at his twenty-first wedding anniversary…’

  ‘I’ve sent the team home for the night. Can’t do much else till the warrants come in.’

  Fraser nodded. ‘Good idea. My lot are stumbling about like half-shut knives too. Maybe it is time to pack up for the night?’

  Hardie rubbed at his face. ‘We’ve got two missing girls; an ex-police-officer who was stabbed to death; an exhumed murder victim no one can identify; a serving police officer who’s been hanged; and now you say the body you dug up in the middle of nowhere wasn’t just murdered, it was tortured first!’ He pressed his palms into his eye sockets and made a muffled screaming noise.

  Logan and Fraser grimaced at each other.

  Then she stood and put a hand on Hardie’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Boss, you’re tired. We all are.’ She gave the shoulder a squeeze. ‘Inspector McRae’s right. Time to pack up and go home for the night. Get some rest. Things will look a lot better in the morning.’

  Hardie’s shoulders slumped even further. ‘You’re right, Kim. Of course you’re right. I didn’t mean to…’ His head fell back and he stared at the ceiling tiles. ‘God, I hate being a police officer.’

  ‘Then do what I do – go home, make yourself a nice big vodka-and-Diet-Coke, and soa
k in the bath till you look like an elephant’s knee.’

  ‘How come you don’t do kebabs?’ The wee loon in the Man United tracksuit and expensive trainers stuck his bottom lip out.

  Idiot.

  Logan settled onto the windowsill, next to an avalanche of yesterday’s red-top tabloids. ‘JUNGLE LIZZY IN UNDERWEAR HORROR’, ‘POLICE SCANDAL SUICIDE SHOCKER’, ‘MUM’S TEARFUL PLEA: “LET MY BOY DIE!”’, ‘SCOTTISH YOBBOS’ W.T.O. RAMPAGE’, ‘CANDLELIT VIGIL FOR MISSING MILLIE’.

  The takeaway wasn’t that busy. Just Logan; a woman waiting for salt-and-pepper squid, chicken chow mein, beef in black bean sauce, and a prawn-fried rice; the grim-faced auld wifie behind the counter; and Little Lord Kebab.

  Who turned and flounced out of the Chinese takeaway, ramming a baseball hat on his head. ‘You’re getting a one-star on TripAdvisor!’

  Logan pulled out his phone and sent Tara a text:

  If it helps, I’m getting those spare ribs in Peking sauce you like?

  This is me trying to make it up to you, by the way.

  SEND.

  Ding.

  TS TARA:

  Can’t. I’m going round unlicensed sex shops with Dildo the Boy Wonder, tomorrow morning. A Trading Standards Officer’s work is never done.

  Hmm…

  Prawn toast, crispy chilli beef, Szechuan char sui pork, Mongolian king prawns, special fried rice, and Singapore noodles. I’ve ordered enough for six!

  SEND.

  Mrs Salt-and-Pepper-Squid kept sneaking glances at him. Sitting there in his Police Scotland fleece, itchy trousers and muddy boots. And every time he caught her looking, she developed a sudden overwhelming interest in the menu mounted on the wall.

  He thumbed out another message:

  I’m never going to eat all this on my own. And Singapore noodles give Cthulhu the squits.

  SEND.

  Ding.

  Well, she was replying straight away, so that was a good sign. Wasn’t it?

  It’s really late Logan & I’ve got work in the morning. So do you. See how things go tomorrow.

  Ah. Maybe not so good.