Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

‘I don’t have any say on the budget for this one.’

‘I’ll do it for free, on the condition that you catch her. Roy didn’t deserve to die like that.’

‘Free? ’ Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘In that case, knock yourself out. I’ll get the case files sent over. And if it helps, I think she might have tortured someone to death in Kintore too.’

The office door swung partially open, and there was Chalmers. She froze on the threshold, then knocked. As if they didn’t already know she was there. ‘Sorry, Guv. That’s the warrant in now.’

Logan stood. Put his phone away. ‘He still refusing to cooperate? ’

‘Won’t say a word.’

‘Cuff him, then call Control and tell them to send a patrol car: give Marks the full blues-and-twos treatment. March the little sod out the front door in handcuffs so everyone can see.’

She nodded. ‘Guv, about Agnes Garfield. .? ’

‘You stay with him till the patrol car gets here. Make sure he’s processed properly — fingerprints, DNA, the lot.’

‘See, I was thinking: Roy Forman was in the Gordon Highlanders, right? A trained soldier, unarmed combat and all that? Would an eighteen-year-old girl really be able to subdue him, tie him up, and burn him like that? Wouldn’t he fight back? ’

Ah. . Chalmers had a point. ‘Maybe she had help? ’

Goulding picked up a dry eraser. ‘Roy was an alcoholic. Give him a bottle of meths and a straw and he’d do anything you want.’ The eraser cut a swathe through a scribbled mind-map, leaving the ghost of words behind. He picked up a red pen and wrote ‘AGNES GARFIELD’ in the middle of the board and trapped it in a lopsided box. ‘When you stick that idiot Marks in his cell, do me a favour? Make sure there’s someone noisy and smelly next door. It’ll drive him mad.’

Logan took the grumbling Punto for another tour of the surrounding streets. Still no sodding parking space. In the end he had to dump the car on the Beach Boulevard and walk.

A cold wind stirred sand and grit in the gutter, made the trees shiver.

On the other end of the phone, Samantha sighed. ‘ Well. . maybe Wee Hamish is right? Maybe you’ll have to sort Reuben out sooner rather than later. ’

‘I’m not killing Reuben.’

‘ Who said anything about killing him? I said sort him out. Make a deal with him. ’

Logan grimaced. ‘Yeah, because Reuben’s the negotiating type.’

The little red man went green. A hatchback lurched to a halt, the bmtch-bmtch-bmtch of driving bass thumping out through the closed windows.

‘ So get him banged up for something. Don’t just sit about and wait for the scar-faced fat scumbag to turn up on the doorstep with a machete and a power drill. ’

Logan wandered across the road, taking his time, getting the evil eye from the hatchback’s acne-ridden boy-racer driver. ‘I’m not killing him, and I’m not fitting him up either.’

A scrunching noise — probably Samantha putting her hand over the mouthpiece — then a muffled conversation.

He nipped across the other side of the road, weaving his way between cars and trucks waiting at the roundabout. ‘Look, I’m going to have to go. I’ll give you a call later, OK? It’s-’

And she was back. ‘ Listen, these bones of yours — the ones outside the caravan — your historian said they were for protection, right? What if they’re not there to protect you? What if they’re there to protect whoever made them? ’

‘And that helps because. .? ’

‘ Remember, in the book, the Vodun bokor sticks one in Rowan’s pack, so she won’t track him down? ’

Onto Justice Street, where a pair of bulky tower blocks loomed over the surrounding granite buildings, dark windows glinting in a stray beam of struggling sunshine.

‘Sorry, but I don’t-’

‘ God, how slow can you be? Think about it: when did you get the first knot of bones? Before Roy Forman was burned, right? Maybe even before she tortured the other guy? ’

He stopped. ‘She’d planned it all out. She knew I was looking for her, because I’d been to her house. So. .’ A frown. ‘She tracked me down, followed me home. .’ Something cold caressed the back of his neck.

Logan spun around, his free hand clenched into a fist.

No one there.

A thin drizzle drifted down from the clay-coloured sky, misting the windscreens of parked cars, painting an anaemic rainbow in that one slice of sunlight.

‘ Don’t be such a big girl. The bone knots are to protect her from you . She’s scared of you. You’re like a witch-finder finder. ’

‘Ah, right. .’ Jumping at his own shadow, like an idiot.

‘ You’re welcome. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get tarted up for my new physical therapist. He’s a bit hunky .’ And Samantha was gone.

She was right: Agnes Garfield wasn’t a criminal mastermind, or the next Hannibal Lecter, she was just an eighteen-year-old girl with mental health problems who wasn’t taking her medication any more.

The poor girl was more scared of him than he was of her.

A warm breath escapes her lips, curling white in the light of the open chest freezer. Shiny packages wrapped in tinfoil, so many precious things. .

Rowan leans forward until her cheeks rest against the cold plastic tray. Soothing. Calming. Damping down the fire in her head.

Everything will be OK.

The fifth tenet: ‘Do not fear the darkness, make it fear you.’

She closes the freezer lid and the room goes black, just the gurgle and buzz as the compressor kicks in, taking it back down below zero again.

Shapes fade out of the gloom: the boxy outline of the big chest freezer, the scythe leaning against the wall, the lonely pegboard stained by the ghosts of implements past. The old wooden table. The sickly sweet stench of death.

‘Light a fire in God’s name. .’

She takes a deep breath and straightens her back. It’s time.

The door opens with a creak onto the next room. A barn, with dusty bales of hay stacked in the corner, heady with the smell of mildew. Mouse droppings make Morse code patterns on the dirt floor.

That won’t do.

She picks up the broom and clears a patch in the middle, eight foot by eight foot. Then stands and stares down at the uneven grey surface, lights the black candle and traces the circles out across it. Septen, merid, orien, occid — north, south, east, and west. Then the names of God, the symbols, and finally the pentagram.

Rowan smiles. No gaps, no mistakes, a perfect Ring Knot.

The hammer is heavy in her black-gloved hand, and so is the metal stake. It rings like a bell as she batters it into the hard-packed dirt at the head of the pentagram, each blow jarring up her arm into her shoulder, sending up a little puff of dust.

Four more stakes go in and finally it’s done.

The man in the corner says something behind his gag, eyes wide and trembling. He’s lying on his side, both hands tied behind his back. His wrists are red and chafed around the rope where he’s been struggling, the ankles are the same — bare feet filthy and scratched. Tendrils of orange and red crackle around him, thorns of light scratching at the granite walls. Looking for weapons. Looking for a way out.

When what he should be looking for is redemption.

He’s lucky, he gets to be inside the knot, protected from the darkness of witchcraft and unclean souls. From people like her. .

She lays out the tools of her trade — the blade, the pin, the bottle of lemon juice, the can of shaving cream and the razor.

His soul might be protected, but his body is another matter.

Rowan stands, brushes the dust off her gloves. Faces her enemy. Keeps her voice level. ‘The Kirk is my mother and father. It is my rod and my staff. My shield and my sword. What I do in its service lights a fire in God’s name.’