The Blood Road Page 18

  He pulled onto Chalmers’ road, with its collection of boxy wee houses and too-small built-in garages, no two exactly identical, but all cobbled together from the same basic building blocks. As if someone had swallowed a whole bellyful of Lego then vomited it up.

  ‘You’re listening to Mair Banging Tunes with me, Kenny Mair, and we’re raising money for the Ellie Morton Reward Fund! Next up for auction: dinner for two at Nick Nairn’s—’

  Logan killed the radio and parked.

  Surprisingly enough, the street wasn’t as dead as it could have been. Maybe because it was a secluded cul-de-sac, far from the main road? But there were actually kids out riding bicycles, playing in the streetlight, people walking dogs. Lights on in every living room but one.

  Chalmers’ house was in darkness. No car in the driveway.

  Logan got out and walked up the path to the front door.

  An old lady and her Dobermann pinscher stopped on the other side of the road to stare. Suppose anyone in a uniform would be big news here today. It wasn’t every Saturday you got to see the police attending a neighbour’s suicide.

  Logan rang the doorbell.

  No response.

  Another go.

  Still nothing.

  A high-pitched voice sounded behind him. ‘Can I help you?’

  He turned.

  It was a young man: mid-twenties with a hipster haircut, Skeleton Bob T-shirt, flesh-tunnel earlobes, skinny jeans, and a Kermit the Frog tattoo on his arm – so new it was still swollen and covered in clingfilm. Kermit the Hipster pointed at the house. ‘He’s not in. Brian, Mr Chalmers, he’s not in. Went to stay with friends, I think. Cos of what happened.’ Kermit licked his lips, eyes shining. ‘My mum’s got a key, you know: for watering the plants and things when they’re on holiday. I can let you in, if you like?’

  Logan gave the weird little man a nod. ‘Thanks. But I’d better check first.’

  Creepy Kermit stood on the pavement, watching him like a hungry puppy watches a sausage.

  Logan shifted his phone from one ear to the other, keeping it between him and Kermit. ‘Mr Chalmers? You still there?’

  What sounded like singing, somewhere in the background. Not proper professional singing, shower warbling. And was that hissing noise running water?

  Brian Chalmers cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just … the shock.’

  ‘Your wife was on antidepressants, Mr Chalmers. I need to know which ones.’

  ‘It… Yes. She… Ever since her father died. It … the job.’

  ‘Will you be returning home soon?’

  The song warbled to an end, the running water fell silent.

  Still nothing from Brian Chalmers.

  ‘Are you—’

  ‘I’m… I’m not staying there. I’m staying with … a friend. I can’t stand… I can’t be in the house. Not after… I’m sorry.’

  Logan did another circuit of the driveway. Well, rectangle of tarmac in front of the too-small garage. ‘We need access to the property, Mr Chalmers.’

  ‘Fine. Break in. Kick the door down. I don’t care. I can’t be there.’

  A voice in the background. Female, warm. ‘Brian? Brian, have you seen my hairbrush?’ She paused for a beat. ‘Who are you talking to?’

  The response was hard and sharp. ‘I’m on the phone!’ Then muffled scrunching came from the earpiece. Probably Chalmers covering the phone to talk to what was her name, Stephanie? The account manager? ‘Sorry. I’m sorry, it’s… I’ll only be a minute. I promise.’ Brian returned at full volume. ‘Search the place, burn it down, do what you want. I – don’t – care.’ And then he hung up.

  Hmph… Hadn’t taken Brian Chalmers long to get over his wife’s suicide, had it? Body wasn’t even post-mortemed yet.

  Logan put his phone away. Turned to Creepy Kermit. ‘About that key?’

  ‘Yes. Right!’ He hurried up the path, produced a pink fuzzy keyring with a single rectangular key dangling from it, and unlocked the front door. Stood aside and made a flourishing gesture. ‘After you.’

  Logan stepped inside. Stopped. Slipped the key from the lock and pocketed it. Turned to Creepy Kermit and gave him a smile. ‘Thanks for your help.’ Then closed the door in his surprised and disappointed face.

  Weirdo.

  And just in case: Logan engaged the snib on the Yale lock. That’d keep the little sod out.

  Right: bathroom.

  He tramped up the stairs, down the landing and into the small tiled space. Opened the medicine cabinet and called the mortuary. ‘Isobel? I’ve got the antidepressants here.’ Logan picked one of the pill packets from Chalmers’ collection and peered inside. Almost empty. ‘Right first up is … Mo… Moclo…’ Oh for goodness’ sake, why did they have to make medication completely unpronounceable?

  Isobel put on her patient voice, as if she was talking to a four-year-old. ‘Try sounding it out. Slowly.’

  Yeah, that wasn’t emasculating in any way.

  He worked his way through them, checking inside each one as he went. ‘Mo-clo-bem-ide. Tran-yl-cypro-mine sulphate. Ven-la-faxine hydrochloride. Nor-trip-ty-line. And Aripiprazole. All the boxes are pretty much empty.’

  No reply.

  Logan put the last packet back in the cabinet. ‘Oh come on, my pronunciation wasn’t that bad.’

  ‘Are these all from the same doctor’s surgery?’

  ‘Hold on.’ He did a quick comparison on the pharmacists’ labels. ‘Yes, but different doctors each time. Why?’

  ‘I need to check something.’ She raised her voice, as if shouting across the room. ‘Sheila? Look up Venlafaxine hydrochloride, please: I need contraindications.’

  Then what might have been the staccato click of fingers on a keyboard, but it was too faint to be sure.

  He sat on the edge of the bath.

  Look at all those shampoos and conditioners. How did one human being need so many bottles of the stuff? And body lotions! All they did was make you greasy and slithery. What was the point of—

  Sheila Dalrymple’s voice, barely audible in the background: ‘Possible fatal drug interactions with monoamine-oxidase inhibitors.’

  ‘What about Tranylcypromine?’

  Another pause. Then, ‘Contraindicated with MAO inhibitors and dibenzazepine-related entities, Professor.’

  ‘And unless I’m very much mistaken: Moclobemide is an MAO inhibitor and Nortriptyline is a dibenzazepine-related entity. Aripiprazole?’

  That was definitely someone typing.

  ‘Moderate contraindicators with MAO inhibitors and dibenzazepine-related entities.’

  Complete gobbledygook.

  He picked up a bottle of shampoo – strawberry and pomegranate. Wouldn’t know whether to wash with it or eat it. ‘Is all this supposed to make any sort of sense to normal people?’

  Isobel put on her talking-to-small-children voice again. ‘Mix any of her pills together and you risk a one-way trip to the mortuary. Add alcohol into the mix and you can virtually guarantee it. And as I said, DS Chalmers had consumed a lot of alcohol.’

  Pfff…

  Logan put the shampoo down. ‘She wasn’t taking any chances, then.’

  A sigh. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’m amazed she managed to make it as far as the garage.’

  20

  Logan poked his head into the master bedroom. A couple of cardboard boxes sat on the unmade bed, half-full of clothes. More boxes on the floor, stuffed with CDs and books and DVDs.

  Looked as if Brian Chalmers was moving out.

  The second bedroom was just the same as it’d been that morning. No packing going on in here.

  Might as well have a rummage. After all, you never knew…

  He hauled the bottom drawer out of the bedside cabinet and dumped it on the carpet, next to the other two. Reaching into the hollow left behind with one hand, the other holding his phone. ‘How are you getting on?’

  A groan from Rennie. ‘Give me a chance! Do you have any idea how mu
ch sodding about you have to do to get phone companies to release tracking data on someone’s mobile? On a Saturday? After the office is closed? Because it’s loads. Loads and loads and loads!’

  Nothing in the hollow but a pair of black pop socks.

  ‘When they brought Chalmers in, did she have her notebook on her?’

  ‘And look at the time: it’s gone seven! Emma’s already been on, giving me grief about not going home when—’

  ‘Notebook, DS Rennie, notebook.’ Logan slotted the bottom drawer back into place. ‘Maybe she kept a record of what she was up to.’

  ‘Gah… All right, all right, I’ll have a rummage.’

  ‘And see if you can dig out her mobile phone too.’

  His voice went all quiet and muttering. ‘Ordering me about like I’m an idiot or something. Supposed to be the SIO…’

  Logan hung up and finished reassembling the bedside cabinet.

  Wardrobe next.

  Nothing in any of the jackets, trousers, or shirt pockets. Nothing in the pile of boots and shoes either.

  Delving under the bed produced a handful of shoe boxes full of old school photographs and some fluff-covered bits-and-bobs.

  He lifted up the mattress. A couple of baby magazines sat on the wooden slats beneath it. Would have been better finding sex toys. The magazines, hidden away like that, was just … depressing.

  Logan placed them on the bedside cabinet, sighed, then wandered out onto the landing again.

  There was a hatch in the ceiling, outside the bathroom.

  Right: stepladder.

  Probably find one in the garage.

  Logan thumped downstairs and into the shelf-lined space. ‘Ladder, ladder, ladder, ladder… Ah, there you are.’ Hiding behind an artificial Christmas tree in a box.

  He wrestled it free and carried it over to the door.

  Stopped.

  Chalmers’ glasses and shoes still sat there, on the shelves. Lined up, all neat and tidy, as if she’d nipped out for a minute and would be back for them soon.

  Rennie had been right – it was weird.

  Ah well, nothing he could do about that now.

  Logan wrestled the stepladder up the stairs and clacked it open outside the bathroom door. Climbed it, shoved the hatch open and peered into the darkness. Like that scene in Aliens… A switch sat right by the opening and when he clicked it on, cold white light flickered into the space.

  ‘Great…’

  The place was stuffed full of boxes. They were piled up on every flat surface, jammed in between the joists and rafters, and most of them looked as if they hadn’t been opened since Lorna and Brian Chalmers moved in.

  Mind you, that cut down the workload a bit, didn’t it? Anything covered in dust could be ignored. If Lorna was planking her notebooks up here, hiding evidence, they’d have to be in a box that’d been opened recently.

  Logan levered himself up into the cramped space.

  And that meant these three nearest the hatch – everything else wore a thick lid of pale-grey fluff. Box one: kitchen gadgets that probably got used once then dumped. Box two: threadbare teddy bears, dolls, action figures, board games – all ancient and yellowed. Stored away, waiting for the child that Chalmers never had. Box three was full of her stuff from police college – photos, textbooks, journals.

  He picked a journal and flicked through it: cramped spidery handwriting in blue biro, the occasional diagram that looked as if it’d been copied down at a lecture. Its pages dry and crackling. No sign of any recent additions, scribbled onto the last few pages, saying what had happened to Ellie Morton.

  The other two journals were the same.

  Logan opened the last one somewhere near the middle.

  I graduate tomorrow and I couldn’t be prouder. I’m part of something magnificent! Me and Stevie and Shaz and Tommy Three Thumbs are going to make a difference!

  I bet Shaz £1,000,000 I’d be the youngest Chief Constable ever and she wouldn’t take it! She said only an idiot would bet against me. Look out world, here I come!

  He shut the book and placed it in the box again. Folded the lid shut. Sighed.

  All that hope and optimism, reduced to this. Some lonely toys, a box full of journals no one would ever read, and a body dangling from the end of an electrical cable in a crappy garage you couldn’t even park a car in.

  Shaz should’ve taken that bet.

  Anyway, this wasn’t achieving any—

  His phone went ding.

  That would be Rennie.

  Only when he dug his phone out, it wasn’t.

  HORRIBLE STEEL:

  I told you I’d have my REVENGE!

  Yes, because today wasn’t bad enough already.

  He thumbed out a reply.

  What revenge? Roberta, what have you done?

  SEND.

  Ding.

  Oh, you’ll find out soon enough…

  ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’ Tara wiped her hands on a tea towel as she hurried down the hall, following the summoning chimes of Logan’s doorbell. Probably looked a right state with flour all over the only apron she could find in the kitchen – a surprisingly un-macho pink number with kittens on it that she was definitely going to make fun of him for when he got home – and bits of cheese cobbler dough caked all over her fingers. But tough.

  The bell went again – two long, dark, old-fashioned bongs.

  ‘Keep your underwear on…’ She opened the door. ‘Can I help … you?’

  It was Detective Sergeant Roberta Steel, AKA: The Wrinkly Horror, standing on the top step with a worrying smile on her face and a huge bag over her shoulder. God knew what sort of products she used to get her hair like that. Probably matt varnish and mains electricity.

  The smile got worse. ‘Aye, aye: you’ve got your clothes on, so I know I’m no’ interrupting anything naughty.’ She turned, stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

  The call was answered by two little girls. Jasmine, with her dark-brown spiky hair, jeans, trainers, brown leather jacket – a sophisticated look for a ten-year-old, spoiled a bit by the threadbare teddy bear she was clutching. Her little sister, Naomi, waddled up behind, wearing a tatty-looking Halloween pirate costume – not the frilly girly version – holding a cuddly octopus toy above her head like it was a god. Or a sacrificial offering.

  Something jagged coiled up in Tara’s throat. She swallowed it down. ‘Det… It… Detective Sergeant Steel. Logan isn’t—’

  ‘In you go, monsters.’ Steel gave the girls a push and they scampered inside.

  ‘But…’

  ‘Budge up a bit.’

  Steel barged in after them, forcing Tara to flatten herself against the wall.

  What was happening? Why was… What?

  Outside, in the driveway, Susan waved from the passenger seat of a sensible hatchback – the engine still running. What she was doing with The Wrinkly Horror was anyone’s guess. She was a lovely, if slightly frumpy, blonde with a warm smile and dimples, while Steel was a hand grenade in a septic tank.

  Tara tried for a smile of her own and waved back, then turned just in time to see Steel dump her bag in the hallway. ‘It… But…?’

  Any sophistication points Jasmine had left evaporated as she caught sight of Logan’s cat and made a noise that wasn’t far off a full-on squeal. ‘Cthulhu!’ She charged off after the poor creature, closely followed by her tiny pirate sister.

  ‘Thooloo! Thooloo!’

  Steel had a dig at an underwire. ‘Did Laz tell you how come he got the house so cheap? A fancy four-bedroom love nest in Cults must’ve cost a fortune, right?’

  This must be what hostages felt like.

  ‘He… Someone left him money in their will.’

  ‘Oh aye, but this place was going cheap because the old lady who lived here … died here.’ She nudged the bag with her boot. ‘Everything’s in there: pyjamas, toilet bags, sleeping bags, bedtime stories.’

  WHAT?

  ‘Sleeping bags?’


  ‘So the old lady has a stroke, or a heart attack or something, drops dead right here.’ Steel tilted her head at the big patch of new-looking floorboards at the foot of the stairs. ‘Took three months till anyone noticed she was missing. By then most of her had oozed through the floor into the basement. God, the smell! Carpet was about two inches thick with dead flies in here.’

  A squeaky voice blared out through the living room door. ‘Thooloo! Thooloo! Thooloo!’

  Tara swallowed again. ‘But—’

  ‘You’ve looked after them before, you’ll be fine.’

  No, no, no, no, no…

  ‘But only when Logan was there too! I can’t—’

  ‘And they like you, which is a bonus.’ A wrinkly wink. ‘Normally they go through babysitters like vomit through a sock.’

  ‘But I’ve never—’

  ‘Ooh, look at that.’ Steel checked her watch. ‘Gotta go, or we’ll be late.’ She marched towards the front door. ‘Naomi’s bedtime is eight, Jasmine can stay up till ten, but only if she’s behaved herself and done her teeth after dinner. No chocolate.’

  ‘But Logan isn’t here!’

  ‘We’ll see you tomorrow for a nice big slap-up breakfast. Have fun!’

  She actually skipped out the door, climbed into the driving seat of the sensible family hatchback. Grinned as she fastened her seatbelt.

  Susan gave Tara another wave as the car pulled away, while Steel cackled.

  This wasn’t fair.

  ‘I’m not good with children!’

  That tiny voice bellowed out again, like something off Jurassic Park: ‘Thooloo! Thoolooooooooooo!’

  Tara twisted the tea towel until it was tight as a garrotte. ‘Oh God…’

  Logan wrestled the ladder in behind the boxed Christmas tree again. Something else that would probably never see daylight again. Never be taken out and covered in decorations…

  God, this house was depressing.

  He turned and made for the door through into the hall. Then stopped.

  Chalmers’ shoes and glasses. All lined up on their respective shelves.

  The glasses weren’t anything special – half wire frames with a blueish tint to the legs. He put them back in their place. Then picked up the shoes: grey and black, scuffed around the toe, the laces tucked inside. There was soil caught in the treads. Tiny flecks of green grass.