Close to the Bone

‘She was like a zombie on the pills, she hated it. Lumbering through the weeks like she wasn’t even there.’ He wriggled forward in his seat. ‘You never love someone enough that you’ll do anything for them? And I’m not talking about a box of candy and some flowers, or dinner and a movie, I mean change the whole world just ’cos it makes them glow? ’

‘You made her kill people.’

‘Yeah, you’re all outraged and shit, but I’ve never seen her that alive before. You know? She’s living the dream.’ He smiled. ‘And you can’t do her for the murders — she wasn’t in her right mind. It’s not her fault.’

‘No, it’s not.’ Logan stood. ‘It’s yours. And do you know what? As we’re off the record: you’re going down for at least eight years, and the people you stole from? They’ll have someone inside waiting for you.’ He held up his hands. ‘I’m not trying to threaten you, or pressure you into making a deal, I’m just letting you know you’re well and truly screwed. You’re responsible for every one of those deaths, and the poor sods who got crippled. You won’t last a month.’

Anthony picked at a chip on the tabletop. ‘I. .’ He licked his lips. Looked up at the camera, sitting dead high up on the wall. ‘I did it all for her.’

‘You tell the guys in the shower block that. The ones with the homemade knives.’

A little chunk of Formica peeled away beneath his fingernails. ‘I need you to look after my mom and dad.’

Logan leaned back against the door and folded his arms.

‘I mean, when the McLeods find out it was me stealing from them, they’re going to go after him, aren’t they? ’ Anthony gave a little laugh. ‘Course they are. They’ll think he told me where the other farms were, but he didn’t. I followed him to work one day, saw who he spoke to. Then I followed them. Took a couple of weeks, but I worked out how the operation fits together.’

‘Your dad works for the McLeods? ’

Of course he did. Simon McLeod said he’d paid a fortune getting the best in the business over to grow for him, and according to the US Justice Department, Raymond Chung had form for growing cannabis in San Francisco.

Logan groaned. ‘Is that why your father told us the body we found was yours? He wanted his masters to think you were dead, so they wouldn’t go after you? ’

Anthony stopped picking. ‘I never stole from Dad’s farm. Simon and Creepy Colin McLeod — you wouldn’t believe how bad they’ll mess you up if they think you’re not looking after their merchandise. That’s why I never touched the weed Dad was growing.’

‘Let me guess: everyone else was fair game? ’

‘He had nothing to do with the thefts, it was all me.’

‘What a great son you are. Very thoughtful.’

‘He doesn’t deserve to get fed to the pigs.’ Anthony drew himself up. Shoulders back. ‘You get him and Mom into witness protection, and I’ll totally tell you where all the McLeods’ farms are. You can shut down the whole operation. That’s got to be worth something, right? ’

Rennie whistled. ‘And he’s giving us everything? The McLeods are going to love that.’

Logan kept going up the stairs. ‘Every time he targeted a new farm, he’d ID one of the drones and get Agnes to pay them a visit. Told her they were witches so she’d torture the details out of them. Then they go in, avoid the booby traps, and steal all the cannabis they could fit in their truck.’

‘They’re going to rip him a new one the minute he sets foot in Craiginches, aren’t they? ’

‘Of course they are. That’s why I’ve got him going in as a vulnerable prisoner.’ Logan pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it over. ‘You’re always moaning that you never get the credit for anything, so I’m giving you the happy job of going out there and telling Mr and Mrs Chung their little boy’s not dead after all. And then take the two of them into custody. It’s-’ The phone blared. Logan pulled it out. ‘McRae.’

‘Is this ASAP enough for you? ’ It was the forensic lab guy he’d given a hard time to earlier.

Logan stuck the phone against his chest and shooed Rennie away. ‘Don’t just stand there.’

He waited until Rennie scurried off before going back to his mobile. ‘Look, I’m sorry about-’

‘We got a DNA match off your necklacing victim. And before you get all sarcastic again, I know the samples went in on Sunday, but the one we matched it to didn’t hit the system till yesterday evening.’

All the moisture disappeared from Logan’s mouth. ‘Yesterday evening? ’

Please. .

‘A Morgan Mitchell.’

He grinned. Maybe there was a God after all.

She kicked and screamed, teeth bared, snapping at the arm of the uniform dragging her off the set. Scarlet hair flashing in the movie spotlights.

Zander Clark slumped in his director’s chair, hands over his head.

The rest of the cast and crew just stared.

Insch marched over, throwing his arms in the air, shouting.

And Logan stood there, in the middle of Soundstage Three. ‘Morgan Mitchell, I’m detaining you under Section Fourteen of the Criminal Procedure — Scotland — Act 1995, because I suspect you of having committed an offence punishable by imprisonment, namely the murder by burning of one Roy Forman. .’

Chalmers sat propped up on a barricade of scratchy NHS pillows. The bruising down the left side of her face was aubergine dark, yellows and greens just visible at the edges. An IV line disappeared into a shunt in the back of one hand, little square patches of gauze and cotton wool poking out above the neckline of her hospital gown. A faint dusting of grey coloured the skin of her shaved head, between the tie-dye bruises and scabs.

The other three beds in the ward were occupied: one woman lying flat on her back, snoring; another reading a crime novel the size of a breezeblock; one more lying on her side, shoulders quivering as she cried.

‘No, I’m fine. Never better.’ Chalmers fiddled with the nurse call button, turning it round and back again in her hand. Never quite pressing it.

‘Really? ’

She blinked. Pulled on a smile that didn’t go anywhere near her pink, watery eyes. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. .’

‘You got stabbed twenty times with a pricking blade, and then she tried to drown you.’

Chalmers stared at the call button. ‘I’m fine.’

The hospital’s background hum droned on, broken by the snores and choked-back tears from the other beds.

Logan laced his fingers together. ‘They’re going to invalid you out.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m. .’ Then wiped a hand across her eyes. ‘You got over it, didn’t you. You told me. I just need to do what you did: see a psychologist. Try that “talking therapy” thing. I can get over this.’

The ward door banged open and she flinched.

An old lady in a black T-shirt and red tabard reversed into the room, pulling a trolley with tea things on it.

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘You’re not getting the choice. You take the early retirement or they instigate disciplinary proceedings. A little ambition’s a good thing, but loose cannons only work on TV and in books. People nearly died, just so you could further your career.’

Chalmers sat upright. ‘But I can-’

‘You’re done.’

‘Pffff. .’ Logan eased back into the visitor’s chair. ‘My back is killing me.’ He wriggled from side to side, pushing the bruises until they snarled.

Someone had tidied Samantha’s bedside cabinets, lining up the Lucozade bottles like soldiers on parade, the stack of unread magazines perfectly centred on the veneer surface, the copy of Witchfire perched on top of them like a brick.

‘So, she pleaded for a bit, then she cried, and then she called for the nurse.’ He levered his shoes off and let