The Blood Road Read online

  Logan pushed into his temporary office.

  Rennie was slumped over his computer, nose inches from the screen. Behind him, rain sparked and crackled against the windows – the streetlights turning it into amber fireworks. He looked up and yawned. Stretched. Then a short squeaky trumpet noise sounded from somewhere beneath the desk. His eyes widened. ‘Oops.’

  Revolting little monster.

  ‘You better not have been saving that up for when I got back.’

  Rennie pointed at a collection of evidence bags sitting on one of the other desks. ‘Chalmers’ stuff. I got everything they took off her at the mortuary. Couldn’t find any notebook, though.’ He swept an arm out, indicating the cardboard boxes on the other desks. ‘DI Bell’s stuff. Pick a box, any box.’

  ‘Not tonight, Josephine: time for home. We’ll go through his things tomorrow.’

  ‘Cool!’ Rennie scrambled to his feet and grabbed his jacket. ‘Bright and early though, right? Cos I’m SIO?’

  ‘No. Because one: tomorrow’s Sunday. And two: it’s a suicide. Soon as you sent off your report, that was it. Job’s done.’

  His bottom lip popped out, trembling. ‘But I’m SIO…’

  It was like running a nursery some days, it really was.

  ‘Fine. Come in early and draft a press release, if you like. But if you send it anywhere before I approve it, I’ll have your bollocks for tiny doorstops. Understand?’

  Rennie grinned. ‘Thanks, Guv.’

  ‘And make sure you remind me to—’ Logan’s phone burst into the Addams Family theme tune and his shoulders slumped. ‘Why does God hate me?’ But he picked up anyway. ‘Sheila. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Inspector McRae, I would request your attendance at the mortuary. It appears we have something that may prove pertinent to the inquiries you make.’

  What?

  ‘Why do you sound like something Dickens threw up?’ He checked that his computer was switched off. ‘You know what, it doesn’t matter. I’m heading home, so—’

  ‘Make haste. My mistress has other appointments and a mind to keep them.’ And with that, she hung up on him.

  Great. Because God forbid Logan McRae should actually be able to go home. And no prizes for guessing who Tara would blame for leaving her alone with the kids for however long this was going to take.

  Logan groaned. Sagged. Then shooed Rennie away.

  ‘Go. Off with you. Before it’s too late to escape.’

  Rennie gave him the thumbs up and scarpered.

  Lucky sod.

  Sheila Dalrymple stood over what was left of Lorna Chalmers. They’d stitched her body closed again, a thick line of puckered flesh and heavy black twine running from beneath both ears, down the neck and out across her collarbones. Another line disappeared under the pale green sheet draped over the remains to cover her modesty. As if that would make up for the post mortem’s violation. Skin pale as unsalted butter between the dark red and purple bruises.

  But while Dalrymple was still dressed up in her white wellies, blue scrubs, purple nitrile gloves, a green plastic apron, and a hairnet – like Post-Mortem Barbie – Isobel had changed into a dark-grey suit. Very tailored and stylish.

  Her hair swept back from her face, high cheekbones, full lips, eyes partially hidden behind narrow steel-framed glasses. The only thing letting the catwalk-model-look down was the pair of mortuary clogs on her feet.

  Logan leaned against one of the other cutting tables. ‘Well? What was so urgent it—’

  ‘I need you to pay attention.’ Isobel clicked her fingers. ‘Sheila, if you wouldn’t mind?’

  Dalrymple gave a weird curtsy / nod thing, then took hold of Chalmers’ left arm, raised it straight up and held it there. As if Chalmers was asking to go the bathroom.

  ‘Thank you. Now, Inspector McRae, the crime-scene photographs clearly imply that DS Chalmers committed suicide by hanging herself, do they not?’

  ‘I know. I was there.’

  Isobel produced what looked like a pen from her pocket, then pulled it out into a pointer and tapped it against the body’s forearm. ‘It was your list of antidepressants that made me take another look. Antidepressants, antipsychotics, and alcohol: if you’ve taken all three of those things, why bother with the rope?’

  ‘Being thorough?’ Logan shrugged. ‘Or maybe Chalmers hanged herself to punish her husband? It’s a bit more dramatic if he has to come in and find her dangling there in the garage.’

  ‘Notice the marks on her wrist and forearm. They’re faint, more like the memory of folds pressed into the skin.’ The pointer moved. ‘The other arm please, Sheila.’

  Dalrymple lowered the left with exaggerated care, then walked around the table and raised the right.

  ‘There are matching marks, here …’ indicating Chalmers’ wrist, ‘and here.’ Isobel clacked her pointer in again and turned to Logan. ‘If I was a speculating sort of person, which as you know I’m not, I’d be wondering if they were significant.’

  OK, no idea.

  ‘And are they?’

  ‘Let’s imagine you tie someone’s hands behind their back – someone who’s struggling to breathe because of the noose around their neck – that leaves very distinct marks. Now imagine you wrap something else around them instead.’ Isobel mimed doing it. ‘Something that doesn’t have a single hard line to it. Something large, like a bath sheet, or some foam rubber.’

  Logan stared at Chalmers’ body. ‘Are you saying someone tied her hands behind her back, then hanged her?’

  ‘No, I’m saying they didn’t tie her hands. Because it would have left—’

  ‘Distinctive marks.’

  ‘There are similar marks on her calves and shins too.’

  Dalrymple’s hand flashed out and grabbed hold of Logan’s wrist, squeezing it through his sleeve. Putting some pressure on it.

  ‘Gah!’ He flinched, but she held on. Grinning at him like something out of a Hammer House of Horror film.

  ‘See?’ She gave it an extra squeeze. ‘See how the fabric folds and crumples as I squeeze it? That leaves distinctive marks on the skin.’ Dalrymple let go of his wrist and pulled up his sleeve. A network of small white grooves snaked across the red skin, branching and merging – mirroring the wrinkled fabric. Exactly like the ones on Chalmers’ arms and legs.

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake… She was murdered?’

  Isobel pulled the sheet up, covering Chalmers’ bruised face. ‘The medication and the alcohol would have been enough to make her malleable.’

  ‘Ah-ha!’ Dalrymple rubbed her hands. ‘But not malleable enough to dangle meekly at the end of a rope, I’ll wager. For that a means of restraint must be put in place.’

  There was silence as Isobel frowned at her. Then, ‘What have I told you about speaking like that, Sheila?’

  Another strange curtsy / bow thing. ‘A thousand apologies, Professor. I shall return to my allotted tasks immediately.’ She took hold of a mop and wheely bucket, pushing out of the cutting room on squeaky wheels.

  Isobel sighed. ‘I suppose it’s my own fault for getting her that boxed set of Ripper Street as a birthday present. She hasn’t even watched the damn thing yet, God knows what she’ll be like by tomorrow.’

  Logan crossed the ancient brown floor tiles and stood over Chalmers’ shrouded body. ‘Someone wanted us to think she’d killed herself.’

  ‘That would be a logical conclusion. Unless I’m wrong about the marks on her arms and legs, that is.’

  He shook his head. ‘When are you ever wrong?’

  They should be so lucky.

  22

  Logan knocked on DCI Hardie’s door and stood there in the corridor. Waiting.

  Actually, you know what? Sod this.

  He pushed in without an invite.

  Hardie sat behind his desk and a large stack of paperwork. Face flushed and shiny as he wheedled at someone on the phone. ‘…yes. And all the surrounding streets too. … Well I don’t know, do I?’
/>   He had company – DI Fraser and DS Robertson, the pair of them sitting in the visitors’ chairs, Fraser frowning at a clipboard. ‘…when you’ve done that: get McHardy and Butler to dig up everything they can on the parents. Facebook, Twitter, the whole social-media circus.’ Her shirt-dress thing looked a lot more rumpled than it had that morning. A patch of what might have been dog hair on her lap. ‘Maybe someone’s threatened them, or maybe they’ve threatened someone? We’re looking for motive.’

  Robertson nodded. ‘Guv.’

  Hardie rubbed at his eyes. ‘Look, I’m drafting in other patrol cars. … Yes.’

  Robertson picked a pile of papers from Hardie’s desk and turned. Jerked to a halt as she clapped eyes on Logan. Forced a smile onto her face and nodded. ‘Guv.’

  ‘George.’

  She sidled past him and out into the corridor. Footsteps getting quicker as she hurried away.

  ‘Because we’re screwed, that’s why. … Oh for…’ Hardie rubbed at his eyes. ‘Just get out there and do what you can.’

  DI Fraser gave Logan a grimace. ‘It never rains, does it?’

  ‘Something wrong?’

  She scowled at her fingernails: long and unpolished, then popped her pinkie-nail in her mouth and gnawed at it, clipping it away. ‘Bucketing down. Thunder and lightning.’

  Hardie hung up and sagged. Groaned. Rubbed at his eyes again. ‘Another little girl’s gone missing: Rebecca Oliver, five years old. She was playing in Hazlehead Park, Mum turns her back for two minutes and she’s vanished.’

  Fraser thhhpted the clipped nail out into the palm of her other hand and started in on the next one. ‘Monsoon season…’

  ‘No witnesses, no ransom demand. Same as Ellie Morton.’

  Logan lowered himself into the chair Robertson had vacated. ‘I have some bad news.’

  ‘Noooooo…’ Hardie buried his head in his hands. ‘Of course you do.’

  Tttttpt. Another clipped nail. ‘Told you: never rains, but it pours.’

  ‘DS Lorna Chalmers. Professor McAllister thinks she might not have hanged herself after all. She might have been murdered.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Hardie peered out from behind his fingers. ‘Kim, did he say “murdered”?’

  ‘He said “murdered”.’ Another nail.

  Logan held his hand up. ‘Possibly.’

  Hardie looked as if he was melting. ‘But murdered?’

  ‘You might want to put a Major Investigation Team together.’

  ‘Murdered…’ He slumped forwards, keeping going till his forehead thumped into the desktop. ‘Murdered.’ He raised his head an inch, then banged it down again. ‘Murdered.’ Bang. ‘Murdered…’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Logan parked on his driveway, in front of his skip, in front of his house – at – sodding – last. Then groaned and sagged in his seat for a moment.

  According to the dashboard clock, it’d gone ten to nine. And he’d promised Tara he’d be home ASAP what, two hours ago? Oh yeah, he was dead. Bloody Roberta Bloody Steel had managed to kill the only good thing that had happened since… No idea. But it was a long time ago.

  He climbed out, locked the car, and let himself into the house.

  Clunked the front door shut behind him.

  Then froze.

  Stared at the hallway walls.

  Dinosaurs and pirates and unicorns and zombies snaked across the plasterwork – from about waist-height down – kids’ graffiti in lurid shades of crayon and marker pen.

  How…? What…?

  He draped his Police Scotland fleece over the end of the stairs and stood there, looking up into the gloom of the floor above. ‘Hello?’

  The only sound oozed out from the living room.

  A full-fat American accent with a side-order of cheese: ‘Damn it, Poindexter, I’ll kick your ass if you touch Clara again!’

  Another professional American, but a bit whinier: ‘You don’t get it do you, Chuck? I’m not the same nerd you picked on in high school!’

  Logan undid his boots. ‘Tara? Sorry I’m late, there’s been a murder…’

  He scuffed through into the living room.

  All the lights were off. The only illumination came from the flickering TV.

  An over-muscled blond bloke in a ripped T-shirt grimaced at a classic cliché glasses-and-tank-top nerd with oversized incisors. So that would be vampire schlock horror then. They were obviously meant to be college kids, but the actors playing them had to be in their thirties. The production was a bit ropey too – a dodgy day-for-night shoot outside a doughnut shop where all the colours were wrong.

  Tara was slumped on the couch, head back, mouth open, snoring away. Jasmine had nestled in beside her, doing some snoring of her own.

  Only Naomi was still awake, staring at the TV screen with wide eyes and a huge grin on her face. As if this was the best thing in the whole world ever.

  Nerdy McTanktop gave a terrible fake laugh. ‘Bwahahahahahahaaaa! I’m a vampire now. A creature of the mother-lovin’ night! I’ll kick your ass!’

  ‘Get lost, Poindexter! I’ve got garlic and a crucifix and I’m not afraid to use them!’

  Logan crept towards the couch, taking the long way round so he could sneak up behind Naomi. Reached out a hand and put it on her shoulder.

  She didn’t even flinch. Just sat there, utterly enraptured. ‘Vampeeers, Daddy! Vampeers!’

  Tanktop did his fake laugh again. ‘Garlic and a crucifix? That crap only works in the movies, Chuck.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, lucky I got Betsy here, then, ain’t it?’ Chuck McMuscles somehow managed to produce a massive chainsaw from thin air. It roared into life.

  Logan settled on the arm of the couch. ‘Are you sure you should be watching this?’

  Naomi squealed with delight, hands covering her mouth, as Chuck turned Poindexter into a collection of very messy body parts.

  ‘Because I think you should be in bed, you bloodthirsty little monster.’

  She dragged her eyes away from the screen and blinked up at him, bottom lip trembling. ‘Noooo!’

  Well … Tara and Jasmine were asleep. And it probably—

  Naomi clapped her little hands together, bouncing up and down on the couch.

  On screen, Chuck was covered in scarlet and breathing hard. But ‘Betsy’ was quiet. ‘You should’ve saw that coming, you undead nerd!’

  ‘Ow…’ Poindexter’s severed head rolled its eyes and grimaced at him. ‘Why didn’t I go eat the Chess Club instead?’

  Logan ruffled Naomi’s hair. ‘You know this’ll probably turn you into a serial killer when you grow up, don’t you?’

  She snuggled into him and grinned at the television.

  Becca pushed back against the wall.

  It was dark outside, and dark inside too. Dark and full of spiders and stinky smells and stuff that looked like skellingtons hiding in the shadowy bits. And everything tasted like towels.

  She struggled her fingers into the gap between her cheek and the gag the Horrid Monster Lady tied around her mouth. Wriggled at it. Pulling left and right. Which was really hard with both wrists tied together. But she wasn’t giving up, cos it tasted like towels and towels weren’t nice to eat, they were horrid.

  Something rustle-crunched on the other side of the wall. But it could bugger right off. That’s what Daddy always said about Uncle Kevin. ‘Christ in a hat, Rebecca, your Uncle Kevin can bugger right off.’ Cos he was a tit.

  She strained her chin up, digging and forcing and straining…

  The towelly thing came free and she woomphed in a great big breath that tasted of dust and furniture. Coughed a couple of times. Would’ve spitted too, but the towel had made her mouth all dry.

  Another deep breath. ‘MUMMY!’ Loud as she could. ‘MUMMY, I’M IN HERE! HELP!’

  The rustly-crunchy thing buggered right off. Scared of her.

  And so it should be!

  ‘MUMMY! HELP ME!’ Becca filled her tummy with air and screeched out a big no
isy, ‘EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEE‌EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeee…’ until her face was hot and the world went all swimmy.

  Outside, something made ‘Hoo-hooooooo…’ noises. Like it was laughing.

  No one charged in to save her.

  So, instead, Becca turned and grabbed the chain the Horrid Monster Lady padlocked under her arms. The other end was screwed into one of the big sticks that held the shed walls together. She dug her trainers into the bit where the stick joined the floor, leaned away from the wall and pulled. And pulled. And pulled…

  Then flopped onto the sleeping bag they’d left for her.

  Becca sucked in her tummy and tried to get a finger in between the chain and her chest to push it down, but it was too tight and her wrists were tied together and she couldn’t get them into the right place and even when she finally managed it she couldn’t make the chain move because HER POOPY WRISTS WERE TIED TOGETHER!

  ‘AAAAAAAAAA‌AAAAAAAARGH!’

  Stuck. Trapped – in – this – horrible – shed… In the dark. With the spiders.

  Becca sniffed. Blinked. Wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  No: no crying. No crying allowed.

  Big fierce strong girl!

  She yanked at the chain again, straining backwards, legs trembling, arms all sore and achy. Pulling and pulling and pulling…

  But it was no use. The chain stayed where it was.

  Becca sank down onto her sleeping bag.

  Stared up at the metal platey thing screwed to the stick.

  Sniffed.

  No crying…

  None.

  She wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve. Glared at the Horrid Monster Lady’s stupid teddy bear with its big soppy face. Big floppy ears. Big goofy smile… Maybe he was a prisoner like Becca? Maybe he was scared and frightened, because he was all alone and it was dark and he was only little. He needed someone to look after him and keep him safe and give him a proper name, cos ‘Mr Bibble-Bobble’ was a crap name.