Close to the Bone

Sodding hell — with her ankles tied to the taps, and hands behind her back, there was no way she could get her nose or mouth above the waterline.

Logan lunged forward, elbowed Agnes out of the way and hauled Chalmers to the surface.

She coughed and spluttered, water streaming from her nose and swollen lips, eyes bloodshot and wide. ‘Aaaaaaaaaagh!’ Purple bruises covered one side of her face, tiny cuts on her shoulders and chest leaking scarlet trails into the dirty bath. Her head was completely shaved, covered in nicks and cuts and swollen scabs.

Something made a grating noise in the bathroom, behind him as Chalmers retched.

‘You’re OK! I’ve got you.’

And then Agnes’s breath was warm on his cheek, her lips brushing his ear, voice little more than a whisper. ‘What I do in its service lights a fire in God’s name.’

Pain exploded across Logan’s back, and he went lurching forward on top of Chalmers, sending her down beneath the surface again. Gurgling and twitching.

He rolled off and thumped to the floor.

Agnes stood over him, the lid from the cistern held in her hands like Moses with his tablet. She raised it above her head, clipping the bare light bulb and setting it swinging.

Then Rennie crashed into her, shoving her back into the cracked toilet. The cistern lid shattered on the edge of the cast-iron bath. ‘Get off me!’

‘Guv? You OK? Ow!’

‘GET OFF ME!’

Logan scrambled to his knees and grabbed Chalmers by the shoulders. Hauled her back into the air as water slopped all over the floor and the light swung wildly from one side to the other, swirling the shadows around them like smoke.

Chalmers opened her bloodied mouth and screamed.

Gold and copper streaked the fields of rapeseed to either side of the farmhouse as the sun glowered through the thin gap between the heavy grey clouds and the horizon. Two ambulances and a handful of patrol cars blocked the road, their blue-and-whites strobing the lengthening shadows. Four members of the firearms team — too late to do any bloody good — sat on a wall in the sunshine, smoking cigarettes and laughing.

In the middle distance, a grubby once-white Transit van bounced and rolled its way up the track. The SEB, come to confiscate the cannabis.

Logan shifted his grip on the mobile. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something, Dave, so. .? ’

On the other end of the phone, Goulding sniffed. ‘And I’m meant to be watching a production of Kiss Me Kate, but instead I’m stuck in the office going through the three hundred and sixty-two emails you dumped on me.’

The fan mail. ‘Ah. .’

‘And as it’s. .’ A pause. ‘Oh, for goodness’sake: it’s gone half nine! ’

‘Dave, it-’

‘I’ve been through about half of them, and allowing for the appalling spelling and grammar I’ve got twenty possible matches for whoever’s torturing your victims and three potential necklacers. I’ll get to the others tomorrow, but I’ve asked the computer science department to get hold of the server logs and- ’

‘Actually. . Dave. . I was meaning to call you. We’ve just arrested Anthony Chung and Agnes Garfield.’

Silence.

‘Dave? ’

‘You told me Anthony Chung was dead!’

‘Yes, well. . he got better. And she’s definitely our killer, so you can ditch the rest of the emails.’

‘Do you have any idea how many hours I wasted on that profile, trying to get everything to fit because you told me-’

‘You were right about the trial by water. She was trying to drown DS Chalmers when we found her.’

‘I told you she’d never kill him.’

‘It’s not my fault: Anthony Chung’s father ID’d the body, I just. . Hold on a minute.’ Logan stuck his hand over the mouthpiece as a short paramedic stomped to a halt in front of him. Her hair was swept up in a droopy ponytail, jowls wobbling around a soured mouth. Like someone’s disappointed mum.

She jabbed a finger towards the ambulance. ‘If she doesn’t start cooperating, I’m going to sedate her.’

Back to the phone. ‘Dave, I’ve got to go.’ He hung up, and followed the paramedic’s big wobbly bum to the ambulance, then around the side to the open doors.

Chalmers was sitting on the tailgate, coughing, each breath rattling as if something was loose inside her chest. ‘I don’t want to go to hospital. .’ The silver blanket crinkled as she drew it tighter around her bare shoulders, reflecting back the swirling blue-and-white lights. Grey and purple bruises seeping out into the skin of her shaved head.

The paramedic let out a long sigh. Then rolled her eyes at Logan. ‘Tell her.’

‘You need stitches and antibiotics. You’re going to hospital.’

Chalmers took another hit on the oxygen mask. Did some more coughing.

Logan patted the paramedic on the shoulder. ‘Give us a minute.’

‘I mean it: I’ll sedate her if I have to!’ Then turned and stomped off towards the firearms team.

‘You’re lucky you’re still alive.’

Chalmers nodded. ‘She was at the soup kitchen. Agnes. . Right there, lurking in the shadows, watching everyone. Followed her. .’ More coughing. ‘Lost her round the back of the Bon Accord Centre.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you call it in? ’

‘So I went round the addresses again: all the ones I got from Duncan Cocker. There was no one there in the afternoon, but I thought. .’ A shrug, making the blanket crackle.

‘You thought you’d catch her yourself and take all the glory. Well, that worked out well, didn’t it? ’

Growling and scrabbling came from the front door as a pair of dog handlers hauled the Alsatian outside on the end of a long pole, both of them struggling to keep the noose tight around its neck.

Chalmers wouldn’t look him in the eye. ‘Bumped into Agnes at a house near Fyvie. Literally.’ Chalmers fiddled with the oxygen mask, twisting the soft plastic back and forth. ‘And when I woke up, I was tied up in a grubby little kitchen. .’ She wiped a hand across her eyes. ‘I didn’t tell her anything. .’

‘You wouldn’t have been in that situation if you’d called for backup.’ Logan took a step back, pulse thumping in his neck, heat spreading behind his temples. ‘Because of you, PC Sim nearly died. Rennie nearly got electrocuted. And I was this close,’ he held up his hand, thumb and forefinger almost touching, voice getting louder with every word, ‘to being shot in the face!’

‘I just wanted. . It wasn’t meant to work out like this.’

‘Really? Well that’s OK then, isn’t it? Everything’s forgiven!’ He poked her in the shoulder and the space blanket crackled. ‘You listen up and you listen good: I’m the one who’d have to tell Sim’s husband and kids she died because you couldn’t face sharing the bloody credit!’

Tears spilled down Chalmers’s cheeks. ‘It wasn’t my fault. .’

‘Hope you’re proud of yourself.’ He turned his back and walked away.

Thursday 50

The wub-wub-wub of a floor polisher dragged Logan back above the cold green waves and thumped him down in the visitor’s chair in Samantha’s room.

‘Gagh. .’ Someone had sneaked in at some point during the night and replaced his spine with sharp rocks and broken glass. He creaked himself upright. Yawned. Stretched. Slumped. Then shuffled through to the bathroom, rubbing the grit out of his eyes.