Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

‘Oh come on! How was I supposed to know I’d get dragged out here at...’ he peeled back his sleeve and peered at his watch with one eye — the other squeezed shut, ‘eleven o’clock?’

‘Suppose not.’ But that didn’t make it right.

King gave himself a bit of a shake. ‘So where are they keeping them? Where do Mhari Powell and Haiden Lochhead have access to?’

Oh for God’s sake.

‘We’re looking into that, already, remember?’

‘Urgh...’ He scrubbed at his face again.

Maybe more than one bottle. And probably something a lot stronger than wine.

‘Go home, Frank, you’re not helping the case or yourself by being here.’

King wouldn’t look at him. ‘Robert Drysdale.’

‘What about him?’

A long pause while King pursed his lips and frowned, as if he was working up to some big secret. ‘He’s... Yeah.’ Whatever it was, the moment passed. ‘Don’t suppose it matters now.’ King sagged back and stared at the ceiling. ‘You ever think about jacking it all in, Logan? About marching up to Hardie, Young, and all the rest of those useless tossers and telling them where they can stick this buggering job?’

All the time. Especially today.

Logan hooked a thumb at the patrol cars outside. ‘Come on: go home. I’ll get someone to drive you.’

‘Doesn’t matter what I do, I’m screwed. Can’t erase the sins of the past.’ He covered his face with his hands. ‘They’re going to tear me apart, Logan. They’re going to crack open my bones and feast on the bloody marrow.’

Probably.

‘We’re doing everything we can.’

‘I was doomed from the moment I decided Cerys was the one for me. My first real love... Sixteen years old and that was my life. Ruined.’

Logan helped him up. Close in, like this, the smell of alcohol was eye-watering. ‘It’ll look better in the morning.’

‘No. No, it really won’t.’

Logan sat back on the sofa and stifled a yawn.

Tayside’s Scene Examination team had cordoned off the blood spatters in the hallway, and now half a dozen of them were giving the crime scene laldy, all dressed in their scrunchy white SOC suits. Fingerprinting, swabbing, and photographing things.

For some reason, their Transit van — parked right outside the living room window — wasn’t the usual filthy grey with obscene slogans written in the dirt. Instead it was a pristine shade of recently cleaned white. They’d have to watch that, if any of the other divisional SE teams found out, they’d get drummed out of the Scene Examiners’ union.

Another yawn.

Urgh...

Should’ve gone home when King did. Or at the very least, when the Tayside team finally turned up. No one could say he hadn’t showed willing.

One of the SE team ducked out from under the tape cordon and padded across the marble on his blue-bootied feet. Stopped right in front of Logan, still wearing the full goggles-facemask-and-gloves outfit. Nodded back towards the bloodstains. You could’ve cut marmalade and sawn through jute with his accent: ‘Got some good fingerprints off the floor around where the body was.’

‘Body?’

‘Aye, body. You can tell from the blood patterns.’ He pulled down his facemask and gave Logan a lopsided smile. ‘I love blood patterns, me. Every little scarlet dot, shimmering like a ladybird, tells a story. You just have to ken how to read it.’

Logan smiled. ‘I know a forensic soil scientist you’d love.’

‘Ace.’ A nod. ‘So, I’d say our victim was standing when they were hit first — there’s fine particulates on the wall and the rubber plant at head height. Then he hits the floor — more blood, but radiating outwards, a few stray hairs caught between the tiles. Some smearing. And that’s when they cut him.’

‘They cut him?’

‘Oh yeah. He’s lying on his back, right? And they have a go at his face with something. You can tell, cos it’s quite a gusher to start with, so his body’s acting like a stencil. He tries to haul himself in here, see the slug trail?’ Pointing at the drag marks. ‘Then they haul him to his feet and frogmarch him out. By then it’s more dribbling than anything, so they’ve maybe packed the wound with something? You can see the foot-scuffs in the dribbles. And it’s definitely dribble, not flobble, cos it’s come straight down with a wee splash.’

Logan stared at him.

‘What?’

‘Normally, I have to batter Scene Examiners over the head with a stick to get even the vaguest predictions out of them.’

‘Oh, the official report will be full of caveats and bet-hedging, but we’re all mates here, right?’ He rocked on his blue-bootied heels. ‘So, Scotty Meyrick, eh?’

Had to hand it to Haiden Lochhead and Mhari Powell — to break in, overpower their victim, mutilate him, vandalise the living room, and vanish into the night taking him with them, before the police could turn up... That took skill. And planning.

The tech sucked on his teeth. ‘Never really liked him on the telly, bit too slick, aye? But he talked a lot of sense in them Telegraph articles. The trouble with Scotland is a bunch of numpties saw Braveheart and now they think if we could only sod about the hills in kilts all day, flashing our arses at the English, somehow everything will be all right.’

Logan stood, checked his watch: twenty to three. ‘How much longer do you think?’

‘I mean, Scotland voted to stay in the EU because we know it’s better to be part of something bigger, right? So why the hell would we want to leave the UK? Bigger’s always better.’ A cheeky wink. ‘Ask any woman.’

Logan blinked at him. Then handed over a business card. ‘If anything urgent comes up, call me.’

‘Will do, Chief.’ He gave himself a wee satisfied chuckle as he wandered off towards his precious bloodstains. ‘“Ask any woman.” Priceless, Leonard, priceless.’

Looked as if Tayside’s policy on hiring weirdos was every bit as robust as Aberdeen’s.

Logan picked his way past the cordon and out into the night.

No moon. Nothing but the glow of every light in Scott Meyrick’s house blazing away beneath a blanket of indifferent stars. The Dundee lot had marked out a common approach path with blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape, and Logan followed it as far as his Audi, bypassing one of the white-suited team, on their hands and knees in the gravel, working away with a high-powered torch.

Logan pulled out his phone, one finger hovering over the contacts list. Not even three o’clock yet. It wasn’t really fair to call Jane McGrath this early.

Then again, why should he be the only one up and worrying about this stuff?

He poked her name and his mobile rang, and rang, and rang, and rang, and rang and—

‘Gnnnn...? Wh... Urgh. Do you know what time it is.’

‘Yes.’ He leaned against his car. ‘The press are going to find out about Scott Meyrick soon. No way we can keep this quiet.’

‘I’m not an idiot , Logan, I’m well aware of that.’ A sort of half-yawn-half-gurgle noise came down the line. ‘His bloody agent held a press conference about thirty minutes after she called nine-nine-nine. It’s all over the twenty-four-hour news outlets.’

‘Oh for God’s sake ... ’

‘So you woke me up for nothing. And I’ve got to be on the BBC in... Aaaargh! Four and a bit hours!’

‘Sorry.’ No he wasn’t, but at least she couldn’t see him grinning. ‘Jane... off the record... hypothetically speaking—’

‘What?’ And just like that she sounded a lot more awake. ‘OK, you’re worrying me now!’

‘Have you ever heard of someone called “Robert Drysdale”?’