Close to the Bone

A face appeared over Steel’s shoulder. DS Chalmers, glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘Guv? Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got activity on Anthony Chung’s bank account. Debit card was used to withdraw two hundred and sixty pounds this morning from the Clydesdale Bank cash machines outside Marks and Spencer on Union Street.’

Steel turned around. ‘Believe it or no’, Sergeant, we do actually know where Markies is.’ She squidged her boobs together again. ‘Do these look bigger to you? ’

A blush rushed up Chalmers’s cheeks. She stared at Logan. ‘Guv? ’

‘Pull the security camera footage from the machine. Then go through the CCTV tapes — find out where he came from and where he went.’

She scribbled it all down in her notebook. ‘They’re still in Aberdeen: only a matter of time before we find them.’

Steel let go, and her breasts sagged and separated again. ‘Unless someone’s chibbed him and nicked his cards.’ She pointed at Logan. ‘You, Bone Boy, when did you find the last lot? ’

‘This morning, in a box on the top step.’

‘Then it’s no’ Reuben, is it? He’s been banged up in here since six last night.’

‘So he got someone else to deliver it for him. It’s a threat. He wants. .’ A frown. What? What on earth would Reuben get out of it? ‘OK, I haven’t got a clue what he wants, but you don’t send someone finger bones for fun.’

‘See if you’re right, and this is some OAP drug dealer from Manchester, or Birmingham, or Christ knows where, I’m going to sodding kill you. How are we supposed to solve that? ’

Logan pocketed his phone and his keys. ‘Chalmers — when you’re done with the CCTV, go dig up a list of Agnes Garfield and Anthony Chung’s friends so we can start interviewing them.’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘And get me someone in uniform with their head screwed on the right way round: search trained. I’m going out.’

Even with her police-issue boots on, PC Sim barely made it past Logan’s shoulder. Her dark-brown hair was swept back and imprisoned in a tight bun, just under the rim of her bowler. That and the glasses made it look as if she was trying to get her head to go faster. She wrinkled her nose. ‘You live here? ’

Logan hefted a roll of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape out of the pool car’s boot. ‘What’s wrong with here? ’

She turned around on the spot, then pointed at the sewage treatment plant on the opposite side of the river. Then the dirty big supermarket. Then the graveyard. Then up past that to the dual carriageway where the eighteen-wheelers thundered. ‘Where do you want me to start? ’

‘Hmph.’ Logan dumped the tape in her arms. ‘String this up between the trees. I want a twelve-foot cordon around the caravan.’

‘Just saying.’ She unravelled the end of the tape and tied it around the trunk of a big beech.

‘And you should have seen it when the chicken factory was right behind us.’

A pair of magpies swooped down, landing on the pool car, hopping on the bonnet, heads cocked to one side, watching as Sim picked her way through the trees that ran behind the caravan, twisting the tape around trunks and branches. Then out around a bush, then another tree, then the caravan next door, until she had a wobbly-sided rhomboid. ‘Should we not have a whole team or something? ’

‘Don’t want this splashed all over the Aberdeen Examiner tomorrow morning. Low-key.’

‘Smart thinking.’ She smiled at him. ‘And the cordon of blue-and-white, with the word “Police” written all over it, isn’t going to be a giveaway at all.’

The magpie cackled from the bonnet of the pool car.

‘Just. . Shut up and put your suit on.’

‘Yes, Guv.’

Logan stood, hands in the small of his back, trying to stretch the knots out. The white Tyvek SOC suit let a little puff of broiling-hot air out of the elasticated hood, sweat trickling down his sides. Should’ve stripped off before putting the damn thing on.

PC Sim was on her knees in the bushes behind the caravan, picking her way slowly through the twigs and leaves. Singing a medley of show tunes to herself, the words all muffled by her facemask. Then she sat back, mid- song, and stared at something in her hand.

Logan slouched his way over, blue plastic bootees scuffing on the tarmac. ‘Find one? ’

‘This them? ’ She held up a small knot of bones, but didn’t hand it over. It was held together with a blue ribbon: that would be the one he’d chucked away on Saturday evening.

‘That’s them.’

Sim pulled an evidence bag from the box beside her, dropped the bones inside, then sealed it up and scribbled the details down on the form printed into the plastic. ‘So there’s this one, the broken bits from the ivy, and the ones from the kitchen bin. That it? ’

Logan shrugged. ‘Should be another couple around here. . There were more, but I chucked them out. The scaffies did the rubbish collection last week.’

‘That’s a shame, I’d have loved to go rummaging through a communal wheely-bin full of other people’s mouldy poop.’

‘Poop? ’

‘Poop.’

Sim rocked from side to side, as if she was on some sort of dodgy exercise video. Sweat your way thin in a Tyvek SOC suit. ‘I give up.’

Logan sank down onto the top step, back resting against the caravan door. Cool sweat made a clammy hand of his shirt, gripping his spine. ‘There were at least three more sets.’

‘And you chucked them all in the bushes? ’

‘I think so. Maybe. .’

The magpies were back, perching on the roof of the caravan opposite. Heads bobbing and weaving as they stared down at him. Waiting for him to do something exciting. Well, they were in for a long wait. Cheeky wee buggers.

Sim peeled off her safety goggles; the glasses underneath were all steamed up. She pulled the facemask out and let it dangle on its elastic around her neck. Her whole face glistened. ‘I’ve been through them a dozen times. If they were there, they’ve gone now.’ Then the hood came off. Her bun had disintegrated into a frizzy clump. ‘Jeepers, it’s hot in here.’

Jeepers?

‘You’re a weirdo, you know that, don’t you, Sim? ’

‘Maybe. .’ She frowned, then unzipped the front of her suit and cleaned her glasses on the black police-issue T-shirt underneath. Popped them back on. ‘Anyone round here got a dog? ’

‘The Dawsons in three have got a border terrier, and the McNeils in seven have a yorkie. Not exactly the place for Alsatians and St Bernards.’

‘Well, dogs might have eaten. .’

A raucous cackle sounded from the caravan roof. Then one of the magpies hopped off the edge and swooped up onto the tree behind her. More laughter.

Sim stared up into the tree. ‘Is that a nest? ’

Logan peeled off his own hood. ‘Little sods sit up there and giggle at each other from about five in the morning. Like Waldorf and Statler.’

She walked over to it, jumped a couple of times for the lower branch, then stomped her foot. The perils of being short. ‘Oh. . poop.’ She waved at him. ‘Give us a leg-up.’

‘Seriously, you think the magpies nicked them? ’

‘Well, if the ribbons are shiny, why not? ’ She peeled off the blue plastic bootees. Looked at him.

Why not. He linked his hands together and gave her a boost.

She clambered up him like a drunken chimpanzee, until she was standing on the lowest branch. Then up onto the next one. And the one above that.