Close to the Bone

red leather jumpsuit. She threw the hood back. Bright scarlet hair tumbled about her face, teeth bared. . It was the other actress — the one who’d been on the TV with Nichole Fyfe, making naughty with the camera.

What was her name, Mary? Maureen? No: Morgan.

There was something. . not right about her slate-green eyes, something dangerous and unhinged.

Zander patted Logan on the arm and pointed at the screen. ‘She’s magnificent, isn’t she? Terrific actress.’

The camera pulled out. Morgan was standing over someone kneeling on the ground, hands behind his back, a tyre wedged over his chest, head and one arm forced through the hole in the middle.

‘Thomas Leis, you have been found guilty of witchcraft- ’

Logan stood, the seat clacking back upright. ‘You’re necklacing him? ’

‘I’m not a witch, it’s a mistake!’ Tears and snot glistened on his face, eyes wide, mouth twisted.

‘-condemned to burn at the stake until you be dead.’

Zander sat forward, squinting at the screen. ‘Shh. .’

‘I didn’t do anything!’

‘Coward.’ She pulled out a book of matches — close up on her hands as she struck one, then twisted the book so they all caught fire — then a low angle, looking up past the terrified man at her standing there.

‘PLEASE!’

‘We found a dead body, Saturday evening,’ Logan pointed at the screen, ‘just like that! Exactly like that.’

‘Burn. Like you’ll burn in hell.’ A vicious smile. ‘It’ll be good practice for you.’ The blazing matchbook tumbled through the air, hit the tyre, and blue and yellow flames leapt up, cracking around the rim of the rubber.

The man on his knees screamed, wrenching himself from side to side, making the chains rattle. Close up on his face, wreathed in black smoke. .

Zander waved a hand. ‘Can you pause it there, David? ’

On the screen, the burning man lurched to a complete halt, mouth open in a wide scream.

Standing at the front of the room, cadaverous David pulled out a laser pointer and ran a bright red dot around the man’s face. ‘Do you see it? ’

‘Yes, compositing really needs to be tighter. And can we lose the snot? It’s just a bit. .’ He wiggled his fingers. ‘Too mucusy.’

Logan settled back into his seat. ‘It’s exactly the same set-up: kneeling, chained to a stake, tyre over his head and under his left arm.’

Zander frowned, pulling his chin in, making ripples across his wobbly throat. ‘The necklacing of Thomas Leis is a key scene. We’re being very faithful to the book here — the fans would have a fit if we changed it.’

‘It’s in the book? ’

‘Pivotal to our understanding of Mrs Shepherd’s character.’

Steel squinted down towards the front of the room.

The big gaunt man had produced a small plastic bag of something. He pulled what looked like a child’s finger from the bag and popped it into his mouth. Crunching.

Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘David. .? ’ Then she stood. ‘Holy crap in a handbag, it’s no’, is it? David Insch? ’ She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘HOY, INSCHY? THAT YOU? ’

She was off her head. There was no way that was ex-DI Insch. Insch was the size of a barn: a six-foot-two perpetual-motion eating machine with anger-management issues.

David hauled his shoulders back, chest out, chin up — pulling a dangly fold of skin with it. ‘Detective Inspector Steel.’

There was no mistaking that withering, disappointed tone.

‘It is you! The boy Insch, as I live and fornicate. .’ Her mouth hung open in a lopsided grin. ‘What the hell happened? You look like someone’s draped a deflated bouncy castle over a stepladder.’

‘Age hasn’t improved you any, has it? You still have the manners of a two-year-old.’

Zander clapped his hands. ‘Excellent. I’d forgotten you all knew each other. David, why don’t you sort out DCI Steel and DS McRae, and I’ll get back to work? ’

‘But-’

‘Time and principal photography waits for no man.’

Insch closed his eyes, massaged his temples, teeth bared between thin trembling lips. ‘Cool wet grass, cool wet grass. .’

Nothing ever changed.

18

‘She broke in through there.’ Insch pointed at a window about six foot off the ground. A set of black bars were bolted over the opening, a ‘WET PAINT!!!’ sign hanging beneath them.

Steel puckered her lips, looking up at the bars. ‘Nothing like bolting the stable door, eh? ’

Insch turned his back on her and marched off down the corridor, soured mouth working on another carrot stick. Strange seeing him walk like that, all rangy and long-limbed, instead of the lumbering mass he used to be.

Logan followed him. ‘So how long have you been with Crocodildo Productions? ’

‘I’m not: doesn’t exist any more. The props department is just down here.’

Steel scuttled up beside them. ‘What? No. Come on, that’s no’ funny!’

‘As Zander says: no one appreciates the art any more. What’s the point going to all that effort to create something beautifully written and acted and shot, when all anyone ever does is fast-forward to the sex? ’

‘But that’s the good bit!’

‘The final straw came when someone sent him a link to an illegal porn download site. They’d made a compilation of all the. . finale shots from every one of his movies. All his effort and creativity reduced to that. No wonder he gave it up.’ Insch stopped in front of a door marked ‘DEPARTMENT OF VARIOUS THINGS’ and swiped his ID card through the reader fixed on the wall beside it. The little red light went green. He nodded towards a security camera mounted in the corner, with a clear field of view down the corridor. ‘We had all this fitted after the break-in. Insurance company insisted.’

Steel scratched at her right boob. ‘But he can’t give up, he was. . It’s not right.’

Insch hauled open the door. ‘Of course, I’d always wanted to work in film, so when I bumped into Zander at the Rotary Club we got talking. He invited me onboard for Crocodildo’s last cinerotography project: The Girl with the Dildo Tattoo. We won twelve Woodies for that.’

Steel curled her top lip and backed off a couple of paces. ‘Eew. .’

He scowled at her. Then dipped into his bag and produced another carrot stick. ‘I wasn’t in it, I was second unit director.’

‘Oh, thank God for that. The thought of you, in the nip, humping away at some poor woman. Flaps of skin flippity-flopping all over the shop. .’ Shudder.

She had a point.

‘Have you finished? ’

A shrug. ‘Tell you, if I could bleach away the mental image, I would.’

Logan stepped through into the Department of Various Things, leaving them nipping at each other in the corridor. The props department was about the size of a school assembly room, laid out with racks and racks of