Close to the Bone

13

‘It’s not my fault, OK? ’ Logan grabbed his jacket off the hook by the filing cabinet in his office. ‘Not like I ordered them off the bloody internet.’

Steel blocked the doorway. ‘How could you no’ know they were human? ’

‘Yes, because you’re such an expert on anthropology. Who leaves actual finger bones on someone’s doorstep? ’ He picked up the phone on his desk, punched in the number for the CID main office. ‘Who’s this: Guthrie? ’

Little sod sounded half asleep. ‘Yes, Guv? ’

‘I need you to go through the missing persons reports. Looking for someone between forty-five and sixty-five, right-handed, with arthritis. Five-one to five-six.’

‘Aye, right.’ Steel had a dig at the underside of her left boob, one side of her face all creased up. ‘Like that’s no’ going to throw up a million hits.’ Dig, dig, dig. ‘Think my boobs are getting bigger? ’

‘Male or female? ’

‘Probably female, but check both just in case.’ Logan put the phone down on the grumbled complaints.

‘I think they’re getting bigger. .’ She squidged them together, making a crevasse of wrinkly cleavage. ‘Look.’

‘No.’

‘What about your mate the scumbag journalist? He got his fingers lopped off, maybe he’s sending you the bits as a wee gift? ’

‘I need a search warrant for Reuben’s house. And he’s got a workshop, or a lockup or something, out in the countryside — we need to search that too. He’s killed someone, maybe a rival dealer, that’s where he’s getting the bones from.’

‘You’re no’ right in the head. When did you last hear of a little old lady drug dealer? ’

Logan hauled open the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and pulled out a bundle of empty evidence bags, held together with an elastic band. ‘There was that one in Torry last year with the cannabis farm in her garage. And the granny selling coke in Northfield. And the bunch of pensioners running that meth lab in Huntly.’

Steel scowled at him. ‘They were retired chemistry teachers, it doesn’t count.’

The drawer clanged shut again. ‘Reuben’s the only-’

‘God’s sake, you’re obsessed. Why would Reuben boil the bones clean? Why no’ just send you the fingers? ’

‘Well, who else would it be? ’

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.

Logan stepped back. ‘When you fall and break your neck I’m going to tell everyone I told you not to do this.’

‘If you like, we can go back to the station, have a threat-assessment meeting, come up with a health-and-safety plan, hire some scaffolding, get someone qualified to erect it, someone else to inspect it, and then-’

‘Just don’t fall off.’

She reached up and grabbed the branch with the nest on it.

The magpie bounced up and down, hurling abuse as Sim pulled herself up and peered into the nest.

‘Anything? ’

‘Some bottle tops, a set of car keys, bit of tinsel, and an earring.’

‘Bones? ’

‘Sorry, Guv.’ She turned and looked down at him. ‘Looks as if. .’ Her eyes went wide. ‘Jeepers!’

There she went again: jeepers, like something out of Scooby-Doo. ‘What? ’

Sim wrapped one arm around the branch, and pointed with the other one at the roof of Logan’s caravan. ‘You better see this.’

He frowned up at her. ‘If you’re-’

‘Seriously, Guv: you need to see this.’

Fine. Whatever.

Logan fetched the wheely-bin from the side of the caravan and dragged it over to the front door, climbed onto the top step, then clambered up onto the bin until he was kneeling there. The black plastic wobbled beneath him. Fall off a wheely-bin and kill himself, how great would that be? Bloody stupid idea. .

He grabbed the lip that ran around the caravan roof and pulled himself up to his feet. Then stared down at what was spread out across the gritty roofing felt, mouth hanging open.

Jeepers was right.