the body and the bed, but up the wall too. He craned his neck back to see little red flecks splattered on the off- white ceiling tiles. Whoever did this would have looked like something from a horror film by the time they'd finished. Not someone you'd forget seeing in a hurry.
This wasn't random violence. Nor was it the violence of a self-righteous mob. This was revenge.
'What is the meaning of this? Why have I been dragged down here?'
The voice was stressed and irritable, just like its owner: a well-built female doctor in a white coat, complete with stethoscope around her neck.
Logan raised his hands in submission and backed away from the body. 'We need you to declare death before we can move the body.'
She scowled at him. 'Of course he's bloody dead. You see this?' She pointed at her name badge. 'It says 'doctor'. That means I know a dead body when I see one!'
Inspector Insch stood up on the other side of the bed and pulled out his warrant card. 'You see this?' he said, holding it under her nose. 'It says 'Detective Inspector'. That means I expect you to behave like a grown up and not take whatever your problem is out on my officers. OK?'
She glowered at him, but didn't say anything. Slowly her face softened. 'Sorry,' she said at last. 'It's been a long, shitty day.'
Insch nodded. 'If it's any consolation I know how you feel.' He stepped back and pointed at Roadkill's pincushion corpse. 'Care to hazard a guess at the time of death?'
'Easy: some time between quarter to nine and quarter past ten.'
Insch was impressed. 'Not often we get an estimated time of death within half an hour.'
The doctor actually smiled at him. 'That's when the last shift was through. The beds get checked regularly. He wasn't dead at quarter to nine. Quarter past ten, he was.'
DI Insch thanked her and she was about to say something else when the pager at her hip let out a series of bleeps. She grabbed it, read the message, cursed, apologized, and ran from the room.
Logan stared down at the bloody remains of Bernard Duncan Philips and tried to figure out what was nagging him about all this. And then it hit him. 'Lumley,' he said.
'What?' Insch looked at him as if he'd grown an extra head.
'Peter Lumley's stepdad. Remember him? He walks round this area of town the whole time. Last time I saw him he was walking away from the hospital. He blamed Roadkill for his son's death.'
'So?'
Logan gazed down at the blood-soaked body lying on the bed. 'Looks like he's got his own back.'
33
Hazlehead was dark and cold as midnight rolled in. The snow was lying thicker here than it had been in the middle of town, the trees standing out like Rorschach inkblot tests. Streetlights cast yellow pools of light, the flickering blue flash of patrol car lights making dark shadows dance. Most of the tower block was shrouded in darkness, but here and there a twitching curtain showed a neighbour peering out, trying to see what the police wanted.
The police wanted Jim Lumley.
The Lumley's flat looked nothing like it had the last time Logan had been here. It was a pigsty. Discarded carryout containers lay in piles on the carpet, joined by empty tins of Special and cheap lager. All the photos had been taken down from the rest of the flat and put back up again in the lounge: one big montage of Peter Lumley's life.
Jim Lumley hadn't put up any sort of struggle when Insch rang the doorbell and barged his way in, dragging Logan and a couple of uniformed PCs with him. He'd just stood there in his filthy overalls, unshaven and rumpled, his hair sticking out like an electrocuted hedgehog. 'If you're looking for Sheila, she's not here,' he said and collapsed onto the couch. 'Went two days ago. Staying with her mother…' He pulled a tin of Special free of its plastic handcuff and cracked it open.
'We're not here to see Sheila, Mr Lumley,' said Insch. 'We're here for you.'
The ragged man nodded and took another swig. 'Roadkill.' He didn't bother to wipe away the beer dripping down his stubbly chin.
'Yes, Roadkill.' Logan settled down on the other end of the settee. 'He's dead.'
Jim Lumley nodded slowly and then stared hard at his tin of beer.
'Want to tell us all about it, Mr Lumley?'
Lumley threw his head back and drained the tin, froth spilling down the sides of his mouth and onto the front of his grubby overalls. 'Not much to tell…' he said, shrugging. 'I was walking around, looking for Peter and there he was. Just like his picture in the paper. Right there.' He pulled another tin of Special free, but Insch liberated it before he could pop the top.
The inspector told the two uniforms to search the place for the murder weapon.
Lumley picked a cushion off the couch and clutched it to his chest like a hot water bottle. 'So I follows him. Into the woods.'
'Into the woods?' This wasn't quite what Logan had been expecting, but Insch cast him a warning glance before he could say anything more.
'He was just walking along like nothing had happened. Like Peter wasn't dead!' Lumley's face flushed red, the crimson rising from the dirty neck of his overalls. 'I grabbed him…I…I was only going to talk to him. Tell him what I thought of him…' He bit his lip and stared down at the stitching holding his cushion together. 'He started to yell and I hit him. Just to shut him up. Make him stop. Only I couldn't. Stop. Just kept on hitting and hitting and hitting…'
Jesus, thought Logan, and we'd thought he'd been attacked by a mob. It was only one man!
'And then…then it started to snow again. It was cold. I washed the blood off my hands and face with handfuls of snow and then I went home.' He shrugged. 'Told Sheila what happened and she packed her bags and left.' A tear ran down his cheek, leaving a thin trail of clean skin behind. He sniffed and tried to take another drink out of his empty beer can. 'I'm a monster…just like him…' He looked into the empty tin and saw only darkness. 'So he's dead, eh?' Lumley crushed the can in his fist.
Insch and Logan shared a frown. 'Of course he's bloody dead,' said Insch. 'Someone turned him into a sieve.'
A bitter smile twisted Lumley's tear-streaked face. 'Good fuckin' riddance.'
*
Outside, tiny flakes of delicate white drifted out of the dark orange sky. Grey clouds lit from below by the city streetlights. Logan and Insch watched Jim Lumley being bundled into the back of a patrol car and driven away.
'Well,' said the inspector, his breath pluming out in great clouds of white. 'Wrong man, right reason. Fifty, fifty.' He pointed the open end of a packet of fizzy cola bottles at Logan. 'No? Ah well.' Insch helped himself to a handful, popping them into his mouth one at a time as they walked back to his mud-splattered Range Rover.
'You think they'll do him?' asked Logan as Insch started the car up and set the heaters going full pelt.
'Aye. Probably. Shame he didn't do the stabbing though. Would've been nice and neat.'
'Back to the hospital?' asked Logan.
'Hospital?' Insch checked the clock on the dashboard. 'It's nearly one in the morning! She'll string me up.' The inspector's wife was not known for her generous nature when it came to late nights. 'I've got uniforms taking statements. We'll go through them in the morning. Half the place is asleep anyway.'
Insch dropped him off at his flat, and Logan watched the car scrunch its way carefully down the street and away before letting himself in. The little red light was flashing away on his answering machine. For a brief second, Logan thought it might be WPC Jackie Watson, but when he pressed play it was Miller's voice that crackled out of the speakers. He'd heard about Roadkill being stabbed and wanted an exclusive update.
Grunting, Logan hit 'Delete' and slumped off to bed. Wednesday started as it meant to go on. Just out of the shower, Logan was too slow to get the phone before the answering machine kicked in. Another call from Miller wanting Logan to spill the beans. Logan didn't bother picking up; just let the reporter prattle away to himself as he
