Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

A blush coloured his freshly shaven cheeks. ‘I don’t see what’s wrong with-’

‘Making a good impression? It’s Steel, isn’t it? You’re angling for the DCI’s job.’

‘Now you’re just being-’

‘What’s the ACC told you?. . They’re looking to get shot of her, aren’t they? They think she’s not up to the job and you want to take her place.’

Ding-Dong raised his chin, letting a tuft of black fur poke out over his shirt collar. ‘I’m not going to dignify that with a response.’

Logan stared at him for a couple of beats. ‘OK, fine. Whatever. Nothing to do with me: I’ve got an appointment anyway.’

‘Good.’ He turned and lumbered down the corridor, broad shoulders rolling beneath the straining shirt.

‘Watch your back, Ding-Dong. She’s bloody vicious if you cross her.’

DI Bell stopped with one hand on the door handle. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ And then he was gone.

Logan’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Another text message.

Where R U? Thot we sed 8:30?

Speaking of which. .

He picked out a reply on the mobile’s little keyboard.

On my way now. See you soon.

After all, it wouldn’t do to keep a lady waiting. Especially not one that could kick his arse from Grampian to Strathclyde.

The words of an old song echoed out from the bathroom, mingling with the roar of the shower: a Pink Floyd number rendered with more enthusiasm than talent or musical ability. Couldn’t carry a tune if it was bound, gagged, and locked in the boot of a car.

Logan stretched out, flat on his back, the duvet rumpled down about his chest. Warmth oozed through his limbs, pulling him down into the fresh sheets. Mmmm. .

‘Stop grinning.’ Samantha settled on the edge of the bed. ‘Makes you look like a smug hamster.’ The oversized black T-shirt rode up around her thighs, Marilyn Manson glaring out from her boobs with his lopsided contact lenses. One of her knee-length red-and-black striped socks had a hole in it, a little toe poking out — nail painted shiny black. ‘See you got rid of Shakespeare.’

A big sigh inflated Logan’s chest, then let it go again. Warm and fuzzy. . ‘Couldn’t have him ogling you in the nip. That’s my job. Union won’t stand for it.’

She laid a hand on his chest. Looked away towards the bathroom, then back down at him. ‘Do you love her? ’

‘I love you .’

‘Don’t avoid the question, Captain Stabmarks: do you love her? ’

‘I. . No. I used to, but it was a long time ago.’

‘Good.’ Samantha nodded, a smile curling one side of her mouth. ‘Just remember: you’re mine, Sunshine.’

A clunk, then the bedroom door opened and DS Jackie Watson stepped into the room, head on one side, drying her long dark hair on a grey towel, a big blue one wrapped around her middle, hiding all the naughty parts. A small furrow appeared between her eyebrows. ‘Thought I heard voices? ’

Logan turned, but Samantha was gone. ‘Just. . talking to myself.’

‘Got to watch that.’ Jackie sank down onto the bed, in the exact same spot that Samantha had just vacated. ‘Bad enough you work with a bunch of nutjobs without turning into one.’ Water droplets shone on her pale shoulders, sitting in the hollows carved into her skin by bra straps.

She reached out and picked Agnes Garfield’s dittay book from the bedside cabinet. ‘A red leather journal? Maybe it’s too late after all. .’ She flipped through it, one eyebrow climbing further and further up her forehead with every page. ‘Oh God, you write poetry now? ’

‘It’s not mine. It’s from the necklacing case.’

Jackie took a deep breath, creating a swell of cleavage at the border of the towel. ‘Listen to this:

“I give my love a token,

of all the hearts he’s broken,

The lungs that are exploding,

the harsh words that were spoken,

He’ll fear what he’s awoken,

And back to earth he goes.

In darkness walks the liar,

We’ll cleanse his house with fire,

Come build the funeral pyre. .”’

She clumped the book shut again. ‘Bet Pam Ayres is shaking in her boots.’

‘You know what teenaged girls are like.’

‘Think you’re going to find her? ’

Logan crossed his arms behind his head and frowned at the ceiling. ‘Depends how things go tonight.’

Jackie stood, letting the towel fall away as she squatted on the floor and dug about in an overnight bag, coming out with a hairdryer. Plugged it in. ‘I need to phone Bill later. See how he got on at the Home Office.’ The hairdryer whooshed and howled.

‘Chances are she’s not going back to the soup kitchen again, not if the place is swarming with CID. . But maybe we’ll turn up someone who’s seen her? Someone who knows where she is? ’

Jackie raised her voice, over the noise. ‘They’re interviewing him for a new position: liaising on terrorism suspects.’

‘I mean, it’s not like she’s just going to waltz into a police station and hand herself in, is it? ’

‘He wants us to move to London. . Only just got Rory settled in primary, how’s he going to feel getting uprooted from all his friends and dumped in some school full of Cockneys and Essex boys? Bloody stupid idea, but then that’s Bill all over.’

‘And the whole thing’s a mess too — Steel’s running about like an angry crocodile, Ding-Dong and Leith are at each other’s throats, and you lot are up here telling us we can’t do our sodding jobs.’

The hairdryer fell silent. Jackie stared at him. ‘You’ve not been listening to a word I’ve said, have you? ’

‘Bill’s getting a new job; you don’t want to move to London. See? ’

‘And we’re not saying you can’t do your jobs, we’re saying there are other avenues of investigation you could be following. No one’s even looked into local Wicca groups. And what about the metal stake she used to necklace Roy Forman? She had to get that from somewhere. Then there’s the soup-kitchen angle-’

‘I know — I came up with it. Assuming Rennie and Ding-Dong don’t screw everything up. .’

The hairdryer started up again. ‘Thought you’d be over this obsessing about work thing by now.’

‘Agnes Garfield is a card-carrying danger to herself and others. The longer she’s out there, the more people she hurts playing Witch-Finder General. It matters.’

A sigh. ‘Fine, go. Leave me here in your fusty caravan. But I’m warning you right now: I’m drinking the rest of the wine. And I have to be up at half six tomorrow, so if you think you’re in for seconds you’d better get your arse back here before midnight. Understand? ’

Logan picked his way through the drizzle, down the long stairs from Union Street to the Green. At the bottom of the first flight a man was huddled in the boarded-up doorway of the sports shop hunched over a sticker-covered guitar, knocking out a reasonable rendition of some country and western tune. The damp woolly hat open in front of him held a couple of coppers and a few fifty-pence pieces. Logan dropped in a couple of pounds and kept on going. Down. And down. And down.

The Green was a lopsided rectangle, buried away in the foundations of the city, lined with tall granite buildings, their grey faces darkened by moisture, lights making glowing orbs in the misty drizzle. Some sort of birthday party was underway in the open-air eating area outside Cafe 52, everyone huddled under a big green patio umbrella as they belted out ‘Happy Birthday To You’, a cake topped with dozens of candles blazing away.

Logan kept going, across the slippery cobblestones, towards the back end of Aberdeen Market — a semicircular lump of seventies concrete, its windows dark, everyone shut up for the night. Down one side, Correction Wynd cut straight under Union Street, a handful of restaurants glowing in the shadow of St Nicholas Kirk. But right ahead, the road disappeared into the gloom.