Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

‘I was out trying to catch her, OK? I wasn’t sitting about the boardroom table poncing about with whiteboards and Post-it notes.’ He hung his jacket on the hook by the door. ‘So if you want to rant and rave for a bit, go ahead. But don’t expect me to care.’

Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘Bunch of soap-dodging tossbags, telling me how to run a murder enquiry. .’

‘I know something that’ll cheer you up: I think we’ve got an ID on our Kintore victim.’

Steel stared at him. ‘Well? ’

‘According to Dr Graham, he was an Oriental male in his mid-twenties. Can you think of anyone like that Agnes Garfield might want to hurt? ’

There was a pause, then a smile spread through the wrinkles. ‘Anthony Chung. He was shagging some tart behind her back, wasn’t he? ’

‘And according to their friends, they were always fighting. Breaking up, getting back together again, having blazing rows. .’

Steel took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘He shafts her over one time too many, she’s no’ taking her anti-nutbag pills any more, so she goes all witch-trial on his lying cheating, drug-dealing, girlfriend-beating arse. I’m no’ saying he deserved it, but still.’

‘Told you it’d cheer you up.’

‘And I told you to find her.’ Steel settled back in Logan’s office chair and folded her arms, hoiking up her bosom. ‘Don’t think you deserve your present after all.’

There was a shame.

Steel nodded at a red folder, sitting on the desk by her feet. ‘Preliminary post-mortem report. Read.’

‘Already? That was quick. .’ He flipped the folder open and skimmed through the contents.

According to the report, Anthony had three-hundred and sixty-five stab marks all over his body, but they were only half a centimetre deep — the blade nowhere near long enough to penetrate an internal organ. And not one of them nicked a vein or artery. Slow, careful, and methodical. . The probable cause of death was listed as ligature strangulation. So Agnes had veerited him, just like she’d veerited Roy Forman. Only this time she’d finished the job.

A colour photo was printed onto the sheet: a close-up of the wounds on Anthony Chung’s chest. Four narrow dark-purple gashes, each one sitting in the middle of a perfectly round bruise, about the size of a two-pound coin. A wobbly hand-drawn sketch showed a knife with a tiny V-shaped blade and a circular guard. Should be fairly distinctive.

Steel gave a wet flobbery sigh, then pulled out the top drawer of Logan’s desk and rummaged through the contents. She emerged with his copy of Witchfire , curled her lip and squinted at the blurb on the back of the book. ‘Our friends from Strathclyde find it “surprising and disappointing” that we’ve no’ interviewed the author yet.’

‘They think he killed Anthony Chung? ’

‘No’ him, you idiot, crazed fans.’

‘Like Agnes Garfield.’

‘Like Agnes Garfield, only different.’ Steel flipped the book open, held it out at arm’s length, and peered down her nose at the pages. ‘Any shagging in this? ’

‘Do you not have a review to be getting back to? ’

‘Comfort break. Any longer and I was going to throttle your bloody ex. “Oh, I’m such an expert on gang-related violence. Look at me with my big perky boobs. I’m so perfect because I got out of Grampian, and Strathclyde Police are so much more special and clever and-”’

‘How’s DI Bell getting on with the Chung murder? ’

‘Ding-Dong couldn’t find a hand grenade in a bowl of supposi-tories.’ Another angry puff. Then she dumped the book down on the desk. ‘Since you’re such a big fan, you can go talk to what’s-his-face the writer boy. And while we’re at it: we need someone to go tell Anthony Chung’s parents he’s dead.’

Logan blinked at her. ‘But that’s Ding-Dong’s case, and-’

‘Remember what I said about handing out jobbies to people who’ve pissed me off? Well right now, you’re at the top of the list. And since you did such a spectacular job of catching Agnes before she killed him,’ she shook a pair of jazz-hands at him, ‘this turd’s for you.’

Great.

‘Fine, I’ll tell his parents. Get one of them to come in and identify the body.’

Steel’s shoulders fell an inch. ‘Do you no’ think they’ve suffered enough? Four days mouldering away on a kitchen floor in May; he’s in no fit state to be seen by anyone. Even then, a visual ID’s going to be worthless. Just have to poke the labs till we get a DNA match from the teeth.’

Logan nodded, pulled his jacket back on again. ‘Goulding’s going to do us a profile. Gratis.’

‘As long as it’s free, he can skip bollock-naked up and down Holburn Street for all I care. Now get your backside over there and explain to Anthony Chung’s mum and dad why their wee boy’s no’ coming home for dinner. And speak to that sodding author!’

‘OK. . Thanks.’ Logan hung up and stuck the mobile back in his pocket.

PC Sim eased the pool car around the Haudagain roundabout, driving as if the car was full of eggs, or sweating dynamite, windscreen wipers squeaking their way back and forth clearing away the misty drizzle. ‘How’s the case review going? ’

Logan wound up his window. ‘Like getting a prostate exam from a grizzly bear.’

Sim licked her lips. ‘Are we really going to meet the guy who wrote Witchfire ? ’

‘Thought you didn’t like the book.’

‘It’s just, if I’d known, I could’ve taken a copy along for signing.’ She stared straight again, picking at the steering wheel cover. ‘Not for me, for my niece.’

Yeah, right.

‘According to Insch, the guy’s going to be there all day, doing script rewrites.’

Sim nodded. Smiled. Picked at the steering wheel some more. ‘And you’re sure we shouldn’t go speak to Anthony Chung’s parents first? ’

A sigh stole the air from Logan’s lungs. ‘Their son’s dead. Soon as we tell them, that’s it: their lives are blighted forever. Half an hour isn’t going to change that.’

‘Yeah, I’m not looking forward to it either.’

A battered Daihatsu 4Trak growled past in the outside lane, blue-grey smoke sputtering from the four-by-four’s exhaust pipe.

Sim pointed at a manila folder on the dashboard. ‘I searched through everything reported in the UK for the last two years — only one dead body still missing: a middle-aged man, killed in a motorbike crash in Shropshire fifteen years ago. They dug up one corner of the graveyard to move a gas main and can’t remember where they put him.’ She changed smoothly into fourth. ‘So I got in touch with every council in Scotland and asked them to check their graveyards, just in case there’s an open grave they don’t know about, and the occupant’s gone walkabout.’

‘And? ’

‘The words “don’t hold your breath” spring to mind. You know what councils are like: it’ll take months.’

Ah well, too much to hope for an easy solution.

The 4Trak switched lanes right in front of them. PC Sim slammed on the brakes, missing it by inches, her face constricting around two flared nostrils. ‘Dirty. . bleeding. . poop-head!’

‘How can no one be missing a seventy-year-old dead woman? ’

Sim leaned on the horn, the harsh ‘ Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!’ cutting through the drizzly afternoon. ‘PICK A LANE!’

‘Will you calm down? ’

‘It’s flipping idiots like that who cause accidents. .’ Her eyes bugged. ‘Did he just give me the finger? ’

The 4Trak driver’s arm was silhouetted between the front seats. Fist clenched, middle finger extended.

A cold, jagged smile spread across Sim’s face. Then she reached forward and flipped the switch — blue-and-white lights flickered behind the pool car’s radiator grille, the siren giving its two-tone wail.