Logan tossed the paper onto the couch and kept going to the open patio doors. Had another sip of coffee.
Twenty past seven and the sky was a dirty shade of charcoal, the first rumours of dawn catching at the horizon. A thin drizzle misted its way across the gloomy expanse of grass and weeds and bushes and trees. Going to be an absolute nightmare getting all that whipped in to shape. No point worrying about it now, though – had the house to do first.
He scratched at his checked jammie bottoms and yawned – a proper jaw-cracking one – then sagged. ‘Pfff…’
Cthulhu sat right at the edge of the veranda, on a little stump of log, just out of reach of the rain. Logan wandered over and squatted beside her. Tried to ignore the popping sounds his knees made. Goosebumps rippled his bare arms as he rubbed the fur between her ears. Soft and warm. She mrowped.
‘Don’t start – I’ve taken my pills, OK? Did it first thing, so Tara wouldn’t see.’ He smiled. ‘What makes you think that? Was it the sleeping together? Of course I like her.’
Cthulhu turned big dark eyes on him.
‘Well, yes, I know she snores, but so do you.’ More between-the-ear rubbing. ‘That’s very true, she is less of a nutjob than my usual.’
A stretch, then Cthulhu thumped down from her perch and sashayed back into the living room.
‘Yes, OK. You’re right: “so far”.’ Logan stood. ‘But we can always—’
‘Logan?’
He turned and there was Tara, wearing one of his old baggy hoodies. Bare legs poking out from underneath. Her hair was …huge. Haystack huge.
She yawned. Shuddered. ‘Who are you talking to?’
‘Cthulhu. She likes you.’
‘Are you not cold?’ Tara’s finger was warm as it traced its way down his chest to the collection of twenty-three shiny lines that criss-crossed his stomach. ‘This is a lot of scar tissue for one man.’
‘I was dead for five minutes on the operating table, if that makes me sound windswept and interesting?’
‘Makes you sound like a zombie. Or a vampire.’ She narrowed her eyes and poked him with the finger instead. ‘You better not be the sparkly kind!’
‘So technically you’ve had sex with a dead person. You dirty necrophiliac pervert.’
She poked him again. Then stole his coffee, padding across the bare floorboards to where Cthulhu waited at the kitchen door – one paw up on the wood. Expectant.
Logan cleared his throat. ‘I have to head off soon. Got an exhumation organised and a couple of widows to talk to. You can stay here and keep Cthulhu company if you like? There’s a spare key by the kitchen door.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why, Inspector McRae, are you giving me a key to your house?’
‘Lending. On the condition that you don’t turn out to be a complete nutjob.’
A smile made little dimples in her cheeks. ‘I promise nothing.’
Logan hurried through the rear entrance to Bucksburn station, shaking the rain from his peaked cap. No sign of anyone as he walked down the corridor, past closed office doors.
Water rippled the stairwell windows, distorting the romantic view of the station car park – almost empty – and the main bulk of the building itself. Two storeys of rectangular brown-and-grey blockwork, devoid of character or charm. Like a miserable primary school, only without the swings and roundabouts.
His phone dinged at him and he hauled it out.
HORRIBLE STEEL:
Hope you’re happy with yourself, McRae. We had to spend the night watching kids’ TV instead of dinner and a shag! I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!!!
He thumbed out a quick reply on his way up the stairs:
Tough. I was busy.
His footsteps echoed back at him – still no sign of anyone – through the doors at the top and into another empty corridor. Ten to eight on a rainy Saturday morning and the place was like the Mary Celeste… At least that meant he might actually get some work done for a change, free from the distraction, whingeing, and general all-round pain-in-the-backside-ishness of his fellow officers.
Logan punched in the door-code and let himself into the Professional Standards office. Stopped. Suppressed a little groan.
So much for the Mary Celeste.
Rennie was slouched in his chair, surrounded by his file-box battlements, staring at the ceiling tiles as he swivelled left and right.
Logan stripped off his fleece and hung it on the coatrack. ‘Thought you were taking Donna swimming?’
‘Guv.’ Rennie snapped upright.
‘You’re an idiot; it’s Saturday morning. Go home.’
A frown. ‘You didn’t hear?’
Logan sank into his own chair and powered up his computer. ‘Get the kettle on. And there better be some of those Penguins left.’
‘Yeah, but…’ Rennie grabbed a sheet of paper from his in-tray and hurried over. Held it out. ‘It’s DS Chalmers.’
He didn’t bother suppressing this groan. ‘What’s she done now?’
Sobbing howled out of the living room in jagged painful stabs. He was just visible, through the open door, hunched up on the floor in the corner of the room slumped against a set of DVD racks. A slightly chubby man, going bald at the back, arms wrapped around himself. Face buried in his knees, shoulders shaking.
Logan eased the door shut.
A uniformed PC stood at the other end of the hall, talking into the Airwave handset attached to her shoulder. ‘…no, Sarge, no sign of forced entry I can see, but the SE haven’t finished with the back garden yet.’
Past her, a patrol car sat at the kerb, its lights flickering blue and white in the rain.
Logan stepped through the plain door and into the garage again.
It probably hadn’t been big enough to park an actual car in to start with – ‘Executive Family Homes’ being developer-speak for ‘Tiny Rabbit-Hutch Houses You Can’t Swing A Cat In’ – but it definitely wasn’t big enough now. Lorna Chalmers and her husband had filled the garage with metal shelving, leaving a four-foot-wide path down the middle. Tins of beans, soup, tomatoes, fruit, and sweetcorn. Semi-transparent boxes of crockery, others of spices, towels, clothes, cleaning products, and unidentifiable things. Various items of kitchen gadgetry, still in the original boxes. Cartons of washing powder, rice, macaroni-and-cheese mix, cereal… As if they’d tried to pack their lives away out here.
And Lorna Chalmers had finally succeeded.
She was halfway down the space between the shelving units, the toes of her socks grazing the concrete floor. Scuffing the fabric as her body turned in the draught that slipped in beneath the garage door. A thick electrical cord made a makeshift noose around her neck, the other end tied to the exposed rafters above. Arms slack by her sides. Eyes open. Mouth too. Face covered in scrapes and the faded remains of bruising on waxy yellow flesh.
The hard clack of a camera’s flash caught a bluebottle as it landed on her bottom lip. Then wandered inside.
Definitely dead.
Logan leaned against the open doorway as a couple of scene examiners got Lorna Chalmers down. One hugged her