Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

Logan turned his back on her. ‘What part of, “Is there anything else you haven’t told us?” did you not understand? ’

A swig of beer. ‘Agnes slit her wrists because her mother decided she wasn’t allowed to see Anthony Chung any more. Doctor said she was lucky she didn’t wind up with permanent nerve damage.’ Garfield waggled the can from side to side, making the contents slosh and fizz. ‘She tried to hang herself when she was twelve. So we sent her to a shrink, and that was it: medication.’ He reached for one of the last slices, pepperoni acne glistening on greasy cheese. ‘Twelve and she’s on antipsychotics. What kind of life is that? ’

Silence.

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell us? I asked you if there was anything else, and you looked me in the eye and lied! Did you really think it didn’t matter? ’

A shrug. ‘She was doing better. The overdose was. . I don’t know. She was upset because Anthony wasn’t enthusiastic enough about her tattoo. They’re like that, always. .’ He curled one hand into a claw, the whole arm trembling. ‘You know? But she loves him.’

‘Did Agnes take her medication with her when she left? What if she has another episode? ’

Garfield’s mouth turned down at the edges. Then he took a bite, chewing as if it was bitter cardboard. ‘She couldn’t take it with her. We don’t. . Doreen doesn’t want. . After the overdose we don’t let Agnes manage her condition on her own. Doreen doles out the pills every day and watches to make sure she takes them.’

‘Then how come she had a pack of Risperidone in her stash? ’

‘Risperidone. .? ’ He shook his head. Washed the pizza down with the last of his beer. ‘No, she can’t have that: it’s only for when the episodes are really bad. It’s too strong for regular use. We manage her condition with Aripiprazole.’ The empty tin went to stand guard with its comrades.

‘Well, she got hold of some, didn’t she.’ God’s sake. Logan marched off a couple of steps, then back again. ‘Does she get violent when she’s not taking her medication? ’

Garfield stared down at the half-eaten slice in his hand. ‘We didn’t tell you, because we didn’t want it splashed all over the papers. Bad enough she has to live with her problems, without every bugger looking at her like she’s got two heads. None of their business.’

‘Is she violent? Yes or no.’

‘Agnes is a sweet little girl. She’s more likely to hurt herself than anyone else.’ He closed his eyes. ‘That’s why you have to find her. .’

‘Going to be sodding late. .’ Steel had one last dig at her bra, then slammed the passenger door shut.

The rear podium was packed with patrol and pool cars, the Chief Constable’s new Bentley standing on its own like a leper with halitosis. Everyone too scared of scratching the thing to park anywhere near it.

Logan plipped the pool car’s locks. ‘It’s five-to. You’ve got plenty of time.’

‘How am I supposed to have a fag, grab a coffee, shout at Rennie, and get to the meeting on time? ’ She hauled up her trousers. ‘Didn’t even want to go to the sodding thing in the first place. Bunch of stuffed shirts stuck in a room moaning. How are we supposed to stop the forensic monkeys going on strike? We’re no’ the ones buggering them about.’

‘And now you’ve got four minutes.’

Steel glanced up at the lump of concrete and glass. ‘Go and do the meeting for us, eh? ’

‘No chance. I’ve got a forensic anthropologist to chase up.’

‘Be good for you: character building. You can-’

‘What’s more important: you sloping out of the meeting, or us catching whoever necklaced that poor bugger? ’

‘Well. .’ A scowl made the wrinkles gang up on Steel’s narrow lips. ‘While we’re on the subject, I told you to tell your bloody mother to sod off and stop whining on about spending more time with Jasmine. She’s your mother. Fix her!’ Then Steel wheeled around and stomped off through the back doors to FHQ.

Logan waited until they’d clunked shut behind her, before sticking two fingers up.

The steps down to the mortuary entrance were a shadowy graveyard for discarded crisp packets and cigarette butts, blown in off the rear podium. He picked his way down the stairs, rang the bell, waved at the security camera, waited for the bzzzzzz. . Then stepped through the door and into the land of the dead.

Today, the land of the dead smelled like bleach and rehydrated curry.

He stuck his head into the staff room.

Miss Dalrymple had her feet up on the coffee table, a Pot Noodle in one hand and a fork in the other. A gossip magazine was spread out on her lap, ‘NICHOLE FYFE: MY SECRET TEENAGE SUICIDE SHAME’. Which explained the scars on her wrist.

Dalrymple shovelled a dangly forkful of noodles into her mouth. The words came out muffled as she chewed: ‘Not here.’

‘Who’s not? ’

‘Dr MacAllister. She’s interviewing candidates to replace our dearly departed Dr Forsyth. He’s not having a leaving do, so there’s no whip-round.’

‘I’m after Dr Graham.’

‘Ah yes, the bone lady.’ Dalrymple popped the fork into the plastic container, then made spidery gestures with her free hand, as if the fingers were sniffing the air for something. ‘She’s managed to break three beakers, two mugs, and knock over a brain bucket since this morning. How anyone so congenitally clumsy can survive day-to-day life is beyond me.’

‘Is she here or not? ’

The fingers formed a knot, then spread out to point towards the cutting room. ‘If she ever offers you a lift, I’d seriously recommend running in the opposite direction.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ The grey terrazzo floor was damp, as if it had been mopped not long ago and hadn’t dried yet. Logan left bleach and detergent footprints all the way down the corridor to the cutting-room doors. Then pushed inside.

The sound of gentle snoring came from the corner. Someone had dragged four chairs through from the staff room, lining them up against the stainless-steel working surface with the backs facing out into the room. Whoever it was lay on their side, cocooned by the two sides, an open newspaper draped across their head and shoulders. Like a tramp on a park bench, but in a mortuary cutting room. The only thing missing was an empty bottle of supermarket vodka.

Dr Graham was almost exactly where Logan had left her — hunched over the necklacing victim’s skull. There wasn’t a lot of the resin cast still visible, instead bands of dark-red clay speckled with tissue depth markers made it look like something out of Hellraiser . Dire Straits burbled out of the mortuary stereo.

Logan switched it off. ‘How we getting on? ’

She looked up, smiled. Then held a finger to her lips. ‘Shh. .’ Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘Dr Ramsey just got off to sleep. Rough night.’

‘Under supervision again? ’

She nodded her head towards the third cutting table, where a partial skeleton was laid out on a blue plastic sheet. ‘Not that I’m complaining. It’s difficult enough to get one job, but to have a second fall right in my lap: how lucky is that? ’

She peeled off her gloves and dumped them in the bin, then crept over to the other bones. The skull sat at the head of the table, missing the top set of teeth. The vertebrae were arranged in a line underneath, with gaps marking the ones that hadn’t turned up on Logan’s roof, but nearly all the rib bones were there, laid out in a disjointed fan down either side. Then the pelvis. And then the two femurs. Dr Graham pointed at the hands: thin cylinders of bone arranged on two sheets of paper, each bit fitting inside the wobbly biro outlines. ‘As far as I can tell, the fingers you found came from the same body. We’re missing the carpals and a couple of metacarpals. And there’s no distal phalanges at all, but fingertips are really small and fiddly so it’s possible they just blew off the roof. Or they were so mangled after being boiled in bleach they just fell apart.’