Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

Nuttier than a bag of squirrels.

‘Do you remember where your mother was buried? ’

The strip of marzipan was rolled up into a ball, then popped in whole. ‘She dug Mother up, didn’t she: the Garfield girl? ’

‘You know her? ’

Ina laughed, setting the loose skin under her chin wobbling. ‘Oh, our wee Agnes is something, isn’t she? ’

Mary sighed. ‘So much talent for someone so young. She’d read all about Mother in the library. Well, ever since that dreadful Witchfire book came out, everyone wants to know about our family. . Agnes was convinced she and Mother were spiritually linked, because they had the same first name. So we took her under our wings.’

‘Taught her the importance of herbs, the secrets of consecrated ground, and the power of bones.’

‘You see, that’s why you haven’t found her. When a witch digs up bones from a graveyard they contain power. And if a normal person’s bones have power, imagine how much the bones of a witch contain.’

‘And Mother was a very powerful witch.’

Make that two bags of squirrels.

But it did explain why Agnes Garfield had dug up Nicholas Balfour. If you couldn’t find a dead witch to exhume, a Victorian spiritualist was probably better than nothing.

‘Do you know where Agnes is now? ’

Ina disassembled her slice of cake into its four coloured squares. ‘And she was such a quick study. The bones, the earth, the herbs, she understood. And she was always so good about doing little chores about the house, and fetching. . medicine for Effie’s glaucoma.’

For God’s sake. . Logan dumped his plate back on the table. ‘You know what? That’s great, but she stabbed a friend of mine today, so if you don’t mind: answer the sodding question. Where is she? ’

Ina put her hand on Logan’s leg again. Gave it a squeeze. ‘We’re sorry for your loss. But we’ve not seen Agnes Garfield for months. Not since we fell out over that horrible young man of hers.’

Mary brought her chin up. ‘We tried to warn her. Effie had a vision where he hurt her and made her do terrible things, and she’s a good girl. But Agnes wouldn’t listen.’

A sigh, then Ina’s eyes drifted to the urn on the mantelpiece. ‘The heart wants what it wants. And when we tried to point out how bad he was for her, she left us.’

‘And now we have to make do with the bones of our babies.’ Mary picked a grey tabby from the carpet and hugged it to her chest. ‘Isn’t that right, Lopez? ’ She glanced up at Rennie. ‘Oh don’t worry, it’s all natural causes. We’d never hurt our little fuzzkins, would we, Lopez? No, we wouldn’t.’

Ina stood and shuffled over to the urn on the fireplace. Stroked it with a twisted finger. ‘How are we supposed to get more consecrated soil, now? Taxi drivers always look at you so strangely when you get in with a shovel and say, “Take me to the nearest graveyard. .”’

OK, time to come back from Happy La-La Land. ‘Where was your mother buried? ’

Mary took the photo album back and shut it. ‘The family plot, out by Kemnay. The church is deserted now, probably all overgrown. We don’t get out as often as we should.’

Ina licked her lips, tongue snaking in and out of her mouth as if it was scenting the air. ‘And you will give us Mother’s bones back, won’t you? So she can be with us where she belongs? ’

Yeah. . Where she’d probably end up ground to a powder and sold to gullible idiots on the internet.

‘Found the hole!’ Rennie stood up to his waist in nettles, elbows out at ninety degrees to his shoulders, hands curled into paws. ‘There’s a coffin at the bottom and everything. Looks like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer .’

The graveyard was completely overrun with weeds: the headstones swallowed by jagged coils of brambles and sheaths of bracken, mixed in with nettles and spires of rosebay willowherb. Little parachutes of gossamer fluff drifted through the heavy air to shine against the thunderhead sky.

Logan shuffled through the undergrowth, brushing cat hair from his trousers as he went, following Rennie’s flattened path. ‘Any signs of recent disturbance? ’

‘Nah. The grass is starting to grow back on the stuff she’s excavated. If she’s still digging up magic mojo compost, she’s doing it somewhere else.’ He hauled a rust-coloured spine of docken from the jungle of weeds and poked at the hole. ‘If she’s such a nice girl, how come she’s off killing people? ’

‘Nice? ’

‘You know, keeping the old dears in graveyard soil, bones, and cannabis. . Most kids these days wouldn’t bother their backsides.’

Cannabis? How did. .

Of course: the glaucoma ‘medicine’. So Agnes was dealing after all. And given the state of Nichole Fyfe and Morgan Mitchell, she was probably helping them out as well.

Very public spirited. No wonder Zander kept giving her second chances.

Logan turned and looked back at the crumbling remains of the church. Three walls, no roof, a handful of black bin-bags, an old fridge, and a soggy mattress. Nowhere to sleep. And even if she’d pitched a tent somewhere in the grounds, there would be trails leading through the waist-high weeds.

She wasn’t here.

So much for that idea.

All that talk of consecrated earth and the power of bones. .

Never listen to daft auld wifies, no matter how good their shortbread is.

Logan headed back towards the patrol car, leaving Rennie to struggle with the weeds. ‘Get on the phone to the council. I want that grave filled in again before some idiot falls down it and breaks their neck.’

There was a brief shout, a rustle and a crunch.

Logan spun around, but there was no sign of Rennie. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! Tell me you didn’t.’

‘Ow. . Help! It’s got me! Aaaaaaaargh! Run: save yourself!’ Then Rennie popped up in the middle of a stand of willowherb with a grin plastered across his stupid face and tufts of white all over his suit. ‘Got you.’

No wonder Steel picked on him.

Rennie pulled the patrol car in to the side of the road, ignoring the zigzag lines for the pedestrian crossing. Causeway End was a lot busier than it had been just before seven that morning, the stream of traffic wheeching itself around Mounthooly roundabout’s bulk moving like a twisting snake of steel and glass.

Logan popped off his seatbelt. ‘Tell Chalmers I want her in my office soon as I get back to the ranch.’

Rennie picked another clump of willowherb from the front of his jacket and dropped it in the footwell. Where it promptly stuck to his trousers. ‘Bloody stuff’s like Velcro.’

‘And after that, you can check up on how Guthrie’s doing getting hold of Anthony Chung’s arrest record from San Francisco.’

Another bit of fluff joined the others. ‘Does it really matter? He’s kinda dead, so-’

‘Because I say so, that’s why.’ He climbed out, then stuck his head back through the open door. ‘I want the names of everyone he was associated with, and if any of them have come into the country in the last six months.’

Rennie’s frown turned into a smile. ‘Ah: you think Agnes didn’t kill him after all. It was one of his old gang mates come to settle a score.’

‘Don’t be an idiot: of course Agnes killed him. I want to know who put her up to it. If Goulding’s profile is right, she needs a dominant personality to tell her what to do.’

‘Ah. . And it’s not like any of her friends had the stones to go up against Anthony Chung. Even Dan Fisher, with his unrequited crush, wouldn’t dare. And last time he tried, she scrambled his eggs with her knee.’ Rennie huffed a breath onto his fingernails then polished them on his fuzzy lapel. ‘Oh yeah: I do read the case notes, you know. It’s-’