In a Place of Darkness

23

DI Tudor underlined Sean McGilvary’s name on the whiteboard three times. ‘And now he’s clammed up tighter than a welder’s rivet, so we’re going to have to crack him the old-fashioned way.’

Operation Telegram’s incident room was even more crowded than it’d been yesterday — extra officers drafted in from other gigs after the ‘incident’ involving Ryan. And the whole team had been summoned with a three-line whip: attend Morning Prayers, or else.

Only Dr Fife seemed to have missed the memo.

But everyone here was on their best behaviour — no fidgeting, no jokes, no talking back, no asking questions. Just watching and nodding and taking notes. The tension almost chewy in the muggy air.

Waiting for something horrible to happen.

Angus stood at the back again, where no one could make fun of the only spare fighting suit he had. An unfashionably baggy black double-breasted affair, with slightly weird lapels and a bright-red lining. Its elbows, knees, and bum beginning to go a bit shiny with wear. The kind of suit that looked as if it’d been bought cheap from a charity shop and saved for funerals and court appearances.

Ahem...

Tudor checked his clipboard, then swept a hand through his greying hair. ‘Team Microscope?’

Four people put their hand up.

‘You hit Calman Road first, then spread out through the area. Interview everyone who’s ever worked with, known, met, or sat next to Sean McGilvary.’ Another clipboard check. ‘Team Tweezers?’

Five people this time.

‘You’re going through his life with a nit comb: I want his car forensicked, I want his house searched again, I want to know what other vehicles he’s got access to, what properties he’s got access to. He’s hiding the bodies somewhere.’ Clipboard. ‘Team Spyglass...?’

Another three.

‘Work the phones: chase up every police station, train station, bus station, airport, and ferry terminal. Ryan is out there, somewhere — let’s find the bastard. Team Postman?’

Four hands.

‘You’re on door-to-doors; we’ll do the whole of Kingsmeath if we have to. Someone knows this guy. Team Spanner?’

More hands.

‘Kate Paisley is officially your specialist subject: same as Sean McGilvary: dig, dig, dig till you find something.’ Tudor dumped his clipboard on the desk behind him. ‘Everyone else: keep working through the actions. Microscope, Tweezers, Spyglass, Postman, and Spanner are going to be throwing leads at us: it’s vital we stay on top of them.’ He gave the assembled officers and support staff the benefit of a motivational stare. ‘I know it’s unusual to have two suspects in custody and a killer still on the loose, but that’s where we are. This is our last chance to catch the Fortnight Killer before he tortures another two people to death. We’re depending on every single one of you.’ A nod, then he turned to DCI Monroe. ‘Boss?’

The whole room’s worth of sphincters tightened as the ‘Something Horrible’ took centre stage.

Monroe glowered out at them. ‘Do you remember when I said we might actually be the first operation in O Division history that doesn’t leak?’

No one moved.

‘Well, perhaps I spoke too soon?’ He produced a copy of that morning’s Castle News & Post, holding it out so they could all see the front page. Most of it was given over to a photo of Angus: half-crouched, arms out, facing away from the camera — with only a hint of ripped trousers on show. In the foreground, a scattering of wee boys and girls lay on the muddy grass, with their hands over their heads, while in the background a murky figure pointed a revolver at Angus. A big banner headline: ‘HERO COP SAVES KIDS FROM GUNMAN’.

But that wasn’t what Monroe was pointing at — instead his finger jabbed a sidebar titled ‘GRUESOME NOTES LEFT BY CRAZED KILLER’.

Monroe’s jaw clenched as he crushed the morning edition in one outraged fist. ‘Would someone care to explain to me how the Castle Pricking News and Pricking Post got hold of the one thing we HADN’T BLOODY RELEASED?’

Nobody said a word.

Some looked at their feet. Others at the whiteboards.

‘DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH HARDER THIS MAKES OUR JOB? HOW MUCH FUCKING...!’ He hurled the paper down, where it burst like an eighteen-storey suicide. ‘HOW are we supposed to weed out the whackjobs, time-wasters, and wannabes now?’

The silence stretched and stretched and stretched as he glared at every single person in the room.

‘When I find out who did this you won’t be allowed within a mile of a police station WITHOUT MY BOOT UP YOUR ARSE!’ He turned his back on them all. ‘Now get out there and do your pricking jobs.’

There was a stampede for the door, as those lucky enough to be on a non-office-based team got the hell out of there before the shouting started again.

Angus almost made it to the door before Monroe’s voice boomed out again:

‘Not you.’

Sod.

He turned, and there was Monroe, beckoning him with a finger. ‘Here.’

Deep breath.

Then Angus scurried over, both hands up as if he was warding off a knife attack. ‘Boss. I swear I didn’t tell Ellie anything about the notes. It wasn’t me! She didn’t even write it, see?’ He scrabbled up the burst newspaper, fumbling his way to the front page. ‘See?’ Pointing at the byline. ‘It was Michael Slosser!’

‘I know.’ Monroe sagged against the desk. ‘Someone’s stabbing us in the back, Angus, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.’ He took the paper from Angus’s hands and stuffed it in the nearest bin. ‘At least you managed to keep Dr Fife’s name out the papers. That’s something. Would’ve been nice if they’d put the appeal for an ID on the front page, but at least they ran it.’ Frowning away at the crumpled newsprint.

‘Did Sean McGilvary really not say anything else?’

A grunt. ‘Bloody solicitor got him to read a statement walking back the confession. Apparently we “harassed it out of him”, he was “too tired to think straight”, was “only saying what he thought we wanted to hear” because he’s such a shrinking, timid wee wallflower. And that was it: not another word till we gave up at three in the morning.’

Sounded as if Mrs Hannay had finally got her client under control.

‘Nothing about how he connects to Kate Paisley and Ryan?’

Monroe looked at him, voice flat and grey as a paving slab. ‘That would be part of the nothing he didn’t say.’ A grimace. ‘Dr Fife got a plan for today?’

‘No idea, Boss. Hasn’t answered any of my calls or texts.’

‘Then you better haul him out of his pit and find out.’ Monroe stood. Clamped a hand down on Angus’s shoulder, even if he had to reach up to do it. ‘This is it, Angus: last chance to catch the Fortnight Killer before he murders another two poor sods.’

The sun finally scraped its way above the valley’s rim, gilding St Jasper’s granite façade. Looked quite pretty through the third-floor window. A big fat pigeon settled on the sill, peering in at Angus as if he was the weirdest thing it’d ever seen.

Angus stuck two fingers up at it, then rapped his knuckles against Dr Fife’s hotel door a second time.

Gave it a count of ten.

Then tried again.

God’s sake...

He pulled out his phone and tried calling as well, knocking as it rang and rang and—

‘You’ve failed to reach Dr Jonathan Fife. A message: leave one. Who knows, I might call back if it’s interesting enough.’

Every inch the charmer.

Angus thumbed the red icon to end the call and dialled again. Still knocking.

Ringing, ringing, ringing:

‘You’ve failed to reach Dr Jonathan Fife—’

He hung up and tried again, knuckles rapping against the ancient wood.

The phone rang.

A mushy voice muffled out from inside the suite. ‘What? Goway! Sleeping...’

‘You’ve failed to reach—’

Red icon.

Green icon.

Still knocking.

‘Dr Fife? It’s Angus. Come on: we’ve got a killer to catch!’

Ringing. Ringing. Ringing.

‘God’s sake...’

A thunk, a click, and the door opened an inch.

There was a flash of sleep-rumpled features. ‘Pain in the ass.’ Then Dr Fife turned and shambled away into the gloom, leaving the door open.

Angus stepped inside.

OK, that was...

Yeah.

It was dark in here with the curtains drawn and all the lights off, but Dr Fife was absolutely bare-arsed naked. Well, except for maybe a bit of jewellery, scratching his backside and yawning as he slouched back towards the bedroom.

Angus made for the curtains. ‘DCI Monroe wants to know where we’re starting today.’ Throwing them open flooded the room in golden light. He kept his eyes on the cathedral opposite, in case there was anything... unwholesome on show. ‘You want to go visit the other victims’ houses? Councillor Mendel’s place is next on the list.’

The bedroom door thumped shut.

Well, at least he was up.

OK, so, if the door at the far end was the bedroom, that meant...

Angus tried one of the other two, discovering a swanky bathroom, all tiled in dark marble: a free-standing bath, heated towel rail, wet-room shower thing, double sink, toilet and bidet, gleaming in the glow of recessed ceiling spotlights.

Nope.

Door Number Three opened on a kitchenette with all the mod cons and, more importantly, a very fancy-looking coffee maker.

Bingo.

He rummaged through the units and cupboards — coming out with two big mugs, a thing of milk, and a selection of coloured pods for the machine.

Angus raised his voice, so it would carry out into the rest of the suite: ‘I’ve been thinking about the “terrorist cell” theory: there’d still have to be points of contact, right? They didn’t all just come up with the idea on their own. And they’d need some way to coordinate the notes too.’

The coffee maker burrrrrrrrrrrrrred and clicked and whirrrrrrred.

‘So maybe they’ve got a concierge. Someone on the outside who directs them? Or maybe it’s Ryan. Maybe that’s why he’s got the gun.’ The machine ejected the pod, so he replaced it with another one.

Burrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Click. Whirrrrrrr.

‘Unless he’s not connected to the Fortnight Killer at all, and him being there when the Fordyces were attacked was some massive coincidence. Which isn’t likely, is it?’

No reply. As usual.

‘Dr Fife?’

He topped the dark-brown frothy liquid off with a dollop of milk.

‘Dr Fi-ife?’

Angus gathered up the coffee, two packs of wee individually wrapped shortbread biscuits, and went through to knock on the bedroom door.

Still nothing.

‘Come on, today’s the day, right? We need to get moving.’

He eased the door open and poked his head in.

A weird electronic-whirring-gurgling noise filled the stale air.

The curtains in here must’ve been heavy-duty blackout ones, because the only light was the alarm clock’s muted red blush — just enough to make out a rounded lump in the Olympic-sized bed.

Brilliant.

The rotten sod was doing his Navy SEAL impersonation again: snoozing it up.

‘DR FIFE!’ Angus thumped the coffees down on the bedside cabinet, then hurled the curtains wide. An anaemic blade of daylight slashed across the bed. ‘WAKE UP!’

Dr Fife thrashed his way free from the duvet’s embrace, surfacing with his hair all askew and his eyes like pickled eggs. ‘Wake! ’M’wake...’ Sitting up, blinking, mouth working on the sour taste of morning breath. But the weirdest thing was the mini ventilator mask covering his nose, held in place with four straps, while a length of tubing connected it to a small machine on the bedside table. Making him look like a half-arsed cosplay version of the Space Jockey from Alien. He struggled his head out of the harness. ‘Where am...? Oh God, it is you! It wasn’t a horrible dream...’

Jesus.

Before, when he’d let Angus into the hotel suite, it’d been too dark to see anything, but now, in the cold sharp light of day, Dr Fife’s naked torso was a map of scar tissue. Not tight and shiny, as if he’d been in a fire — though, to be fair, some of them did look like small, circular burns — but as if he’d been heavily into self-harm as a kid.

A fist-sized, circular tattoo sat over his heart, the ink pale grey and faded, the lines blurring: an outer ring with some sort of knot in the middle — made up of four interconnected capital letter ‘P’s.

The same symbol was carved into a wee stone necklace that had bits of antler and tatty feathers strung onto its leather cord. Very hippy-dip.

Then there were the bruises. Including a blossoming pair of black eyes, from when Ryan punched him in the face.

Dr Fife must’ve realized Angus was staring, because he grabbed the duvet and pulled it right up to his chin, hiding that scar-scrimshawed chest. Then slumped back into the pillows. Snatched one up and covered his face with it, as if trying to suffocate himself.

More scar tissue wrapped around his bare arm. ‘Leave me alone!’

Angus looked away. ‘Whoever dies today can’t afford you having a long lie.’

Another pillow was added to the pile. ‘Urgh... I hate Oldcastle.’

‘Up.’ Angus headed for the door. Paused on the threshold. ‘And if it’s any consolation: it hates you too.’

‘...as Storm Findlay tracks northwards again, meaning it’s all change for the next forty-eight hours!’ On the hotel TV — big enough that Mum would consider it monumentally vulgar — Valerie the weatherperson pressed the button on her wand thing and the big yellow and red rhomboids appeared across the map of Scotland behind her. ‘That weather warning’s been expanded to cover most of the country for today and tomorrow, with only the Borders and Highlands escaping the worst of the high winds.’

Angus sipped at his fancy coffee-machine latte, munching away on his third complimentary pastry from the basket by the not-so-minibar. Which didn’t count, ethically, because they were tiny, came with the room, and Dr Fife probably wasn’t going to eat them anyway.

‘Which means severe disruption to trains and ferries, I’m afraid, with the vast majority of services cancelled...’

He stuffed the last nugget of maple-pecan plait in his mouth and finished his text to Ellie:

Angus frowned at the little glowing words, then added five more.

SEND.

‘So, let’s look at today in more detail...’

The bathroom door swung open with a billow of steam, and out slouched Dr Fife with a lime-green towel wrapped around him. Another kept his curly locks held fast in a turban — like Marge Simpson. He’d pulled on a white, long-sleeved T-shirt, the fabric damp and clingy. Hiding most of the scars. But see-through enough to make out the hippy necklace and the tattoo on his chest.

You’d think the shower would’ve woken him up, but he was just as creased and rumpled as he’d been when he’d hauled himself out of bed.

Angus slipped the phone back into his pocket. ‘Heavy night?’

‘Didn’t stop interviewing that pair of idiots till... What time is it?’ A jaw-splintering yawn ripped through him, followed by a loose-boned sag. ‘Go on, ask me if Kate Paisley answered any of our questions.’

‘Did—’

‘Of course she didn’t. And neither did Sean McGilvary.’ Dr Fife made for the bedroom... then stopped, turned, and squinted at Angus. ‘What in fuck’s name are you wearing?’

Cheeky sod.

‘More than you. Get dressed; the Boss wants us out there solving this thing.’

‘You look like something from an eighties pop video.’

Angus lurched to his feet, arms wide, one foot stamping into the deep-pile carpet. ‘For the love of God, can we please get to work before someone else dies?’

‘Hmph.’ Dr Fife shuffled off into the bedroom, banging the door shut behind him. ‘Make more coffee and I’ll think about it!’

Were all forensic psychologists this bloody needy?

Angus glowered at the closed door for a bit.

Then headed into the kitchenette and did what he was told.

24

The TV in the dining room burbled away to itself, turned down just far enough to make none of it understandable out here in reception.

Angus checked his watch: coming up to half eight and they still weren’t out there hunting Ryan down.

The hotel manager bobbed up from behind the desk with a worried expression on his pinched and pointy face, twitching the waxed handlebars on his military moustache. A tartan waistcoat and unconvincing combover completed the ensemble. He held up a plastic fob — about the size of a Caramac bar, with the hotel’s logo on it, and ‘IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO THE BISHOP’S VIEW HOTEL!’ — a pair of keys dangling from the end. ‘Are you sure this is strictly above board?’

‘I can show you my warrant card again, if you like?’

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a bit. ‘Well, if you’re sure...’ Then held the fob out. ‘But normally we only give duplicate keys to couples.’

Angus took it. ‘You’ve been a great help. Thank you.’ The fob had ‘BISHOP ISBISTER’ in fancy gold script on the other side, along with the hotel’s address. Which wasn’t very security conscious, but it meant no more knocking and calling and waiting. Tomorrow morning he could let himself in and drag Dr Fife out of bed if he had to.

That would show DS Massie: Angus could use his initiative, like a ‘grown-up’.

He pocketed the key as Dr Fife stomped down the stairs, wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses, like some sort of rockstar after a three-week bender.

‘Finally!’

Dr Fife flipped him the middle finger, then went rifling through the small pile of newspapers reserved for hotel guests. ‘The Guardian, Glasgow Tribune, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Standard, Daily Telegraph... God, you people like to stick to a theme, don’t you?’

‘Can we go now?’

‘The local rag?’ He held up that morning’s Castle News & Post, with its front page dominated by Angus’s photo. ‘Well, well, well. If it isn’t our favourite oversized lump! Look at you, being all manly with your bare ass on show.’

Nope. Not rising to it.

‘I’m thinking we visit Councillor Mendel’s place first, see if we can turn up anything.’

He flipped the paper round to face himself again, eyes scanning the page. ‘“Unnamed gunman” blah-blah; “lives at risk” doodle-de-doo; “firing indiscriminately”, et cetera, et cetera; here we go: “Heroic police officer, Angus MacVicar” — brackets, twenty-four — “bravely put himself between the gunman’s bullets and the terrified children, risking his own life” blah-blah-blaah-blah-blah... Who wrote this swooning puppy-eyed bullshit?’

Heat prickled around Angus’s collar. ‘Then, maybe we can hit the Healey-Robinsons’ house?’

Dr Fife raised his sunglasses to squint at the byline. ‘“Crime and Local Issues Reporter, Ellie Nottingham.”’ A grin. ‘I think she wants in your tighty-whities, Angus.’

The heat crept northwards. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

He finished scanning the front page. ‘On the plus side: I don’t get mentioned once. That’s what happens when you keep a low profile.’ He folded the paper and tucked it under his arm. ‘Well? Don’t just stand there: we’ve got a killer to catch, remember?’

The Mini’s windscreen wipers squeal-thunked across the glass, clearing twin arcs through the drizzle. Giving them an unhindered view of the back end of the number fifteen bus, before the spittering rain blurred it away again.

Angus shifted in the passenger seat, so he was facing Dr Fife. ‘The thing is, the handwriting’s the same, isn’t it? On all three notes. So it has to be the same person writing them. But if it’s different people doing the killing, that explains your problem with the MO not developing, and why Sean McGilvary’s DNA doesn’t appear at—’

Vivaldi twiddled away in Angus’s pocket. But when he dug his phone out, nestled within its protective ziplock bag, the words ‘UNKNOWN NUMBER’ glowed in the middle of the screen. ‘Sorry.’

Dr Fife rolled his eyes. ‘If it shuts you up, go for it.’

‘Thanks.’ Putting as much sarcasm into that one word as possible. He hit the green icon. ‘DC MacVicar.’

A woman’s voice: ‘Is... Is it OK if I call you “Angus”? Sorry. Erm... Oh, it’s Gillian. Gillian Kilbride? You gave me your card when—’

‘Gillian.’ Angus sat up straight, a smile pulling his face wide. ‘Hi. How are you?’

On the other side of the car, Dr Fife raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh, fine. You know. Not enjoying the weather much.’ She took a breath. ‘Erm... You?’

‘Yeah. Rain, eh?’

Well, that was smooth.

There was silence from the other end of the phone.

And on this side too.

Come on — you can do this.

He took a deep breath and jumped in, at exactly the same time she did.

‘Listen, Gillian, when all this is over, I wondered if you’d like to get a drink or something?’

‘You asked me to call if I saw anyone suspicious hanging around at the press packs, and I thought...’

Oh no.

Sodding. Buggering. No.

She cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’

Should’ve kept his big fat stupid mouth shut.

Surprised his hair didn’t burst into flame, given the sudden rush of nuclear heat exploding across his cheeks. ‘No, I’m sorry. That was... inappropriate, I shouldn’t have—’

‘No! It’s OK. I just didn’t think you were... I mean, I know I am, but... It’s not...’

Angus scrunched his face up, eyes screwed tight, and clunked his forehead off the passenger window. ‘Sorry.’

The lights must’ve changed, because the Mini edged forward, following the grumbling bus.

You could hear the embarrassment fizzing through her voice. ‘It’s just I think there might’ve been a weird bloke outside your headquarters for last night’s ten o’clock broadcasts. I stayed in the back of shot for the whole Channel Four News piece, flying the flag for truth.’

Way to make a tit of yourself, Angus.

Good job.

He huffed out a breath then produced his notebook. Pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder. Pen poised. ‘Weird bloke?’

The Mini turned left, parting ways with the number fifteen.

‘About five-ten, five-eleven? Really pale and hairy: you know, a beard that spreads right down his neck into the chest whiskers? Big furry hands. Going bald at the back. Kinda thin. Jeans, hiking boots, and one of those outdoorsy jackets people wear when they kid-on they’re mountain climbers?’

Angus scribbled all of that down. ‘And you’ve not seen him before? At the press things?’

‘I don’t know. Sorry. I wasn’t really looking till you asked.’

‘No, that’s OK. And when you say “weird”, what do...’

Wait a minute: the number fifteen went across the Dundas Bridge, into Castleview. The way they should be going.

He stuck his hand over the microphone, and winced at Dr Fife. ‘You’ve missed the turning. The Mendels lived in the Wynd: other side of the river.’ Peering down the dual carriageway in front of them. Looking for a gap. ‘We need to do a U-turn.’

‘We’re not going to Councillor Mendel’s house.’

‘But—’

Dr Fife pointed at the phone-cum-satnav in its dashboard mount. The blue arrow pointed deeper into Cowskillin. ‘Anyway, thought you were speaking to your girlfriend?’

‘She’s not my...’ What was the point? He went back to Gillian’s call. ‘You still there? Sorry.’

‘He was weird, because he was filming O Division Headquarters on his phone. Everyone else was filming the TV crews, or the crowd, but he seemed more interested in what you guys in the police were doing.’

Now that was weird.

Angus frowned through the rain-speckled windscreen.

‘I tried talking to him, but he wasn’t having any of it. Wouldn’t even tell me his name.’

Yeah...

‘Thanks for letting me know, but please: if you see him again, don’t approach, OK? We don’t know if he’s just some random guy or—’

‘Bloody hell!’ A breathy, awed tone hit her voice. ‘The Fortnight Killer.’

‘Just be careful, OK?’

‘Promise.’ Silence radiated down the phone. Then: ‘And, Angus? I’d love to get a drink or something. Doesn’t even have to be when all this is over. If you like?’

All the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. ‘Great. Yeah. Definitely. Thanks.’

‘Right. Super. Erm... Sorry, got to go: traffic warden. Bye! Bye.’ And she was gone.

The smile returned.

They were getting a drink.

Which would take some pretty complicated financial juggling, but it was doable. Kind of.

Anyway, that was a worry for later. Right now her number was going into his contacts. ‘MISS GILLIAN KILBRIDE’. Nah, that was far too formal. ‘GILLIAN’.

Dr Fife shook his head. ‘Oh, to be young and stupid again...’

Angus scrolled up the list to ‘DS MASSIE’ and hit the button. Listened to it ring a few times, before:

‘Detective Sergeant Massie.’

‘Sarge? Got a possible suspect for you. IC-One male: thin, bearded, really hairy, but balding. Was hanging around the station last night, watching the building.’

‘Oh aye? Thought you and Dr Arsehole were convinced it was this Ryan bloke.’

‘Yeah, but if they are operating as separate cells, there’s going to be multiple killers and accomplices. It’s worth a punt, isn’t it?’

‘Hmmmm...’ A hush settled on the line.

The Mini drifted along Jutemill Terrace, past the Post Office depot and the conjoined tower blocks of Dalrymple Park.

‘All right, I’ll bite. Give me that description again and I’ll get someone on it.’

‘Thanks, Sarge.’

Two bits of initiative in one day. Who was the grown-up now?

Calman Road probably didn’t feature on many postcards. A grey, drab slab of tenement flats, it lurked in Cowskillin, south of the dual carriageway, thrown up — in both senses of the word — back in the days when getting something built was more important than making it pretty. Six flats per entrance, arranged over three miserable storeys.

The only decoration they’d given the bland brick frontage was a smattering of wall vents and the block numbers: carved into a single stone mounted above each archway, leading into an open stairwell. Like a cave. Or the mouth of a hungry beast without teeth.

Didn’t help that they overlooked a swanky new development, where the flats all had balconies and planters and actually looked like a nice place to live.

Angus unfolded himself from the Mini’s passenger seat and levered his limbs out into the rain. Which had graduated from spitting to gobbing it down. Pulling his collar up as wind ripped down the street.

Should never have given back that high-vis.

Dr Fife hurried past, holding onto his umbrella like an anchor in a storm. Jogging up the path and into the toothless maw of number fifteen.

Angus followed him, footsteps echoing off the damp brickwork and puddled concrete floor. Enveloped by the smell of drab-green mildew and sharp-yellow urine.

Somewhere in the middle distance, a child’s voice rose and fell — singing a filthy song about two nuns and an unfeasibly well-hung bus conductor.

Dr Fife collapsed the little brolly. ‘So which one’s Sean McGilvary’s...’ Trailing off as Angus pointed above their heads. ‘Sonofabitch. It’s always upstairs.’

Angus followed him up. ‘Should we not be focusing on the Mendels, though? I mean, look what we turned up when we—’

‘HOY!’ An angry voice battered around the stairwell, reverberating off the bland walls. ‘You can’t come up here.’

Turning the corner revealed the first-floor landing, where a line of ‘POLICE’ tape sealed off Flat Fifteen D. PC Mahmud stood blocking the way, arms crossed, glowering down at them. Today’s tartan turban was all muted yellows and oranges. The scowl faded as he clapped eyes on Dr Fife. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

‘Well, who the hell else would it be?’

Crisis averted, Abir sank back into his folding camp chair — complete with a breeze-block-sized Stephen King paperback and a thermos of something.

Angus nodded. ‘Didn’t see you at Morning Prayers.’

‘Nah, been here since seven, haven’t I? Keeping the great unwashed at bay.’

All three of them turned to look at the empty stairwell.

‘Where’s the press?’

Abir shrugged. ‘Do I look like Mystic Meg?’ Then pulled a face when Angus clearly had no idea what he was talking about. ‘I don’t know where they are. Thought someone on the investigation would’ve leaked McGilvary’s name by now, but nope.’ He dug a clipboard out from behind his chair. ‘Sign in, and you too can explore “uncharted territory”!’

They both filled in their details, and Abir unlocked the door to Fifteen D with a little brass key and a flourish. ‘Gentlemen.’ Pushing it open.

That mildewy smell intensified, scratching at the back of Angus’s throat, bringing with it the taste of mouldy bread and dust. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Fusty.’

‘You’ll make detective superintendent in no time with deductive brilliance like that.’ Abir settled back into his seat and cracked the spine on his novel. ‘Try not to make a mess in there, eh? Search team’s not long finished tidying up.’

Dr Fife pulled on a pair of gloves, then stepped inside.

Angus did the same, shutting the door behind them.

You could tell from the hallway that this flat was a fair bit bigger than the one Dr and Mr Fordyce lived in. Kind of outdated, though: old-fashioned wallpaper, old-fashioned carpet, old-fashioned slab doors, old-fashioned prints on the wall. Old-fashioned mould spreading out from the corners in tendrils of dark, dark grey...

Dr Fife disappeared through the door to the nearest room.

Angus scuffed in after him. And stopped dead. Let out a low whistle. ‘So much for “uncharted territory”.’

The double bedroom was an absolute tip.

If this was the search team’s idea of tidy, Christ knew what messy would be like. The wardrobe’s contents lay strewn about, like an explosion in a little-old-lady supply shop. The mattress was tipped up on its end, in the corner of the room — the divan bed it belonged to lay upside down, with its fabric slashed to expose the wooden skeleton within.

Every single bit of furniture had been pulled away from the wall, drawers yanked out, the contents scattered.

Looked as if the search team were a lot less worried about wrecking a suspect’s house than they were a victim’s.

Dr Fife picked a couple of drab floral dresses from the floor, stared at them for a moment, then chucked them over his shoulder. He did the same with a faded pastel-pink jacket with a smattering of mould on the sleeves. Then turned on his Cuban heels and stomped out into the hall again.

OK...

Next stop: the living room.

It’d been gutted as well — the couch upended, armchairs too, their fabric bases disembowelled. An old sideboard lay on its back, the contents heaped up on a small dining table.

A drift of paperbacks lay crumpled beneath the window: Aga sagas mixed in with the dirtier end of Mills & Boon’s output, going by the titles.

The search team had even taken up the rug, leaving it draped over the inverted couch like the flayed skin of some strange dusty animal.

On the wall, above the fireplace, hung a framed print of the Virgin Mary, with a chubby wee Baby Jesus cradled in her arms. The pair of them hanging at a drunken angle.

Dr Fife made his way into the middle of the room and did a slow three-sixty. Frowning out at everything.

Angus nudged a broken china dog with his foot. ‘Are the FBI search teams this messy?’

No comment.

Dr Fife just marched from the room.

It was never like this on the TV detective shows. Couldn’t shut the main characters up on those. Forever explaining everything to the well-meaning sidekick. What was wrong with a bit of that?

Angus strode out into the hall again, catching up to Dr Fife in a damp kitchen that looked even older than Mum’s — the fridge more like a museum piece than something to keep your mousetrap cheddar and cold dinner in. Every single one of the cabinets, drawers, and cupboards hung open, their contents spattered across the worktops.

Dr Fife opened the fridge door, scowled at the contents, slammed the door shut again, then marched out. All without a word.

A single bedroom sat at the back of the property, overlooking a scrubby patch of grass passing as a drying green. Complete with drooping washing lines and rusty poles.

Shockingly enough, it was a tip in here too. Mattress and divan on their side, wardrobe pulled out from the wall and eviscerated — its entrails tossed about all over the place. A large shadow marked the curling wallpaper above where the bed would’ve been if the search team hadn’t got their paws on it. Going by the shape, a cross or crucifix must have hung there for years. And years. And years.

About twenty or thirty books were mingled in with the wardrobe’s viscera, nearly all of them science-fiction paperbacks, curled and battered, their spines creased and crackling. Some still bearing the charity-shop or ‘REMOVED FROM LIBRARY STOCK’ stickers.

So, a man after Angus’s own heart.

Well, except for the murder bit.

He picked up a copy of Larry Niven’s Ringworld, turning it over in his gloved hands before placing it carefully on the windowsill. Following it up with The Martian Chronicles, Dune, and The Three-Body Problem. ‘You going to tell me what we’re doing here?’

Dr Fife evicted a pair of jeans and a black, paisley-patterned shirt from a toppled wooden dining chair, and set the thing back on its feet, plonking it in the middle of the room. Then sat, feet dangling about eight inches off the manky carpet. ‘You’ve read the book, you tell me.’

Eh?

Angus frowned down at the copy of Neuromancer he’d just picked up. Well, yeah, he’d read it, but it was hard to see how that helped in the current...

Ah, OK.

Bet Dr Fife meant that massive tome he’d chucked on the table, Wednesday evening: Behavioral Analysis for Law-Enforcement Personnel, brackets, Crime-Scene Indicators, Forensic Red Flags, & Interview Guidance. ‘When did I get the chance to read a great-big textbook? I’m with you the whole time!’

That got him a shake of the head and a tut. ‘OK, back to basics: what do you see?’

Neuromancer went on the windowsill with the others. ‘Search team’s a law unto itself.’

‘Sean McGilvary was brought up in a strict, religious household. Trust me: that’s not easy.’ Gazing up at the shadow on the wall. ‘See if you can find the missing crucifix.’

Sounded like a waste of time, but Angus went rummaging anyway.

‘You hafta figure: if Ryan the Pizza Guy has any sense, he’ll be halfway to Belgium by now. But, of course, if he had any sense he wouldn’t be torturing people to death.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Angus scooped up the clothes and stuffed them back in the wardrobe — as if he was down the laundrette, filling a washing machine.

‘Thing is, he’s not an idiot. He’s deluded, certainly, but the level of planning involved in stealing a delivery guy’s uniform months in advance, and arranging a changing station so he doesn’t get blood everywhere, and moving the bodies, and getting away with it.’ Dr Fife flexed his gloved fingers. ‘That takes smarts.’

‘Hmmm...’ The divan clumped back into place, the right way up this time, followed by the thunk-boinnnnng of Sean McGilvary’s saggy mattress.

‘And he doesn’t have his accomplice to help him. Cos we’ve got her in the jailhouse.’

‘Them. We’ve got them in the cells.’

‘But Ryan must’ve ID’d his next victims by now. Worked out the best way in, best way out.’ A frown. ‘Is he really gonna abandon all that? And his two-week schedule? And his mission?’

‘Uh-huh...’ Duvet, sheets, and pillows onto the mattress. Place was beginning to look like a bedroom again.

‘Maybe yes, maybe no.’

Angus scooped up an armful of socks and pants, then stuffed them in the wardrobe too, before clicking the doors shut and shoving the whole thing back against the wall.

Which left the chest of drawers.

He tipped it back on its hind feet and peered underneath.

Nope.

It got hefted into the corner — slotted into a matching outline on the wallpaper.

Dr Fife nodded. ‘It’s not here, is it.’

‘No crucifix. Maybe the search team took it?’

‘Sean’s mom’s dead. He keeps the Virgin Mary in the living room, cos he can’t bear to touch it, but he ditches the crucifix from his bedroom wall. No way she lets him do that if she’s still alive.’

‘Hold on...’ Angus checked the file. ‘Here we go: she’s in Castle Hill Infirmary, hospice wing. Pancreatic cancer.’

‘Same thing.’ Glancing up at the shadow again. ‘He can’t have Jesus hanging on the wall over his bed, can he? Not when Sean does such disgusting dirty things there. On his own, or with friends.’ A gloved finger came up to point in Angus’s direction. ‘You live at home with your mom, right? If she was carted off to hospital, would you take loose women back to your place?’

‘What? No.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I mean, I could have people back now if I wanted to. Course I could. I just... don’t.’

A smile. ‘Can’t get a girlfriend, eh? That why you were making goo-goo eyes when — what was it: Gillian? — was on the phone? Think she might pop your cherry?’

The room became very small and far too hot.

‘That’s not... It’s... Shut up.’

Dr Fife sighed. ‘There’s worse things than being a virgin, Angus. Maybe one day I’ll tell you the tale of how I lost mine to a woman twice my age.’ He shook his head. ‘But not today.’ Then hopped down from the chair. ‘One thing you see with these old apartments: they’re prone to damp. And that shit’s expensive to fix, so they do stuff when they’re built to make sure a bit of air can get in.’ He reached into his greatcoat, coming out with a handheld multitool — like a Swiss army knife, only more industrial-looking. Dr Fife fiddled a flat-head screwdriver attachment from the selection of blades and bits. Then swaggered over to the corner of the room, where a curl of wallpaper was coming away, just above the skirting board.

Lifting it revealed a small metal vent, about the size of a house brick. It was crusted with layers of old paint, to the point of being almost solid, which defeated the purpose of installing the thing in the first place. And probably explained the ever-present taint of mould in the flat. But while the metal grille was caked with paint, the screws holding it in place were shiny and new-looking.

A few twists of the screwdriver and the cover clunked down against the ancient carpet.

‘There we go.’ Dr Fife straightened up, put the multitool away, and made for the door. Didn’t even bother to check the vent hole. ‘Bag that lot up, and sign it into evidence, there’s a good sidekick.’

Eh?

Angus inched over and knelt in front of the vent, tipping forward onto his elbows to peer into the tiny cavity.

Even if the thing hadn’t been painted solid, it wouldn’t have let any air into the room — some idiot had stuffed it full of newspaper.

Or, rather, they’d stuffed something inside that was wrapped in newspaper.

He placed it on the carpet and peeled back the layers of Daily Standard. ‘Bloody hell...’

Contents: two insertable sex toys; one tube of lube; one well-thumbed paperback copy of DI Davidson and the Musclehead Murders by D. H. Robinson; and a collection of old-fashioned gay porn magazines with titles like Beefy Lumberjack Bonanza, Big Cocks for Derek, and Sneaky Bumhole Ninjas 3!

Dr Fife’s voice floated in from the hall. ‘Think we need to have another chat with Mr McGilvary, don’t you?’

Definitely.

25

Vivaldi’s ‘Spring’ violined into life as Angus clomped down the stairs from Sean McGilvary’s flat, arms full of slithery evidence bags — all sealed and marked up with the contents of Sean’s secret hidey-hole. Angus struggled the phone from his pocket, trying not to drop anything.

‘DS MASSIE’ glowed in the middle of the screen.

He nearly lost a hardcore porn mag answering the call. ‘Sarge?’

‘You got Dr Pain-In-The-Arse with you?’

Did he ever. The arrogant sod had done nothing but radiate smugness ever since finding that air vent. ‘Yes, Sarge.’

‘Tell him we’ve got DNA back from Sadler Road, at long last. Blood at the scene is a match for Councillor Mendel and Dr Fordyce.’

Around the landing, heading for the brick archway and the rain beyond. ‘What about Kevin Healey-Robinson?’

‘Don’t you think I might’ve mentioned that?’ She sniffed down the phone at him. Then: ‘Nah. Only other matches are you and Kate Paisley.’

‘Not even Sean McGilvary?’

‘Again: don’t you think I would’ve said!’ Another sniff. ‘And before you ask, no one’s reported a hairy balding bloke at any of the crime scenes.’

Angus sagged. ‘Sorry.’

Up ahead, Dr Fife’s heels rang out against the concrete floor as he made for the exit, unfurling his umbrella on the way.

‘What’s he doing, Dr Tosser? Anything that might actually help?’

Good question. Suppose it depended on your attitude to secrets hidden in the walls of a mildewy flat. ‘We’re working on it.’

‘Better be.’

‘At least we were right about Kate Paisley and Ryan, right? Otherwise the victims’ DNA wouldn’t... Sarge?’ Silence. ‘Sarge?’ He checked the screen — she’d hung up.

Always nice to be appreciated.

He stuck the phone back in his pocket, almost dropping the evidence bag with lube in it, and hurried out after Dr Fife.

The wind had picked up again, tugging at the sawn-off greatcoat and setting it flapping. Clattering an empty tin down the pavement.

‘That was DS Massie: they’ve got DNA from our first two victims at Ryan’s house.’ Angus curled his head into his shoulder as a battering of rain hurled sideways into his face.

Dr Fife unlocked the Mini. ‘Shock horror.’ Climbing in behind the wheel.

‘Yeah, but think about it.’ Angus got the passenger door open, and the evidence bags performed a slippery avalanche into the footwell. ‘Oh, for...’ Arse sticking out into the rain, he gathered them up again. ‘How come there’s no DNA from the third victim? Because there’s another murder cell. That’ll be the one Sean McGilvary kills for.’ The evidence bags got stuffed onto the back seat and Angus scrambled into the car. Thunked the door shut.

‘You still harping on about that?’

‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Given the evidence?’

The reply was flat as an unbuttered oatcake. ‘Oh yeah, definitely. Can’t be any other explanation at all. Sean McGilvary’s a Fortnight Killer, for sure.’ Dr Fife cranked the engine into life. ‘Seatbelt.’

Angus clicked his into place. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t help anyone.’

‘Helps me. Now, hush your mouth: I got some strategizing to do.’

Someone had turned the heating up full in Interview Two, which should’ve been a welcome relief after all the wind and rain. Instead, steam rose from the shoulders of Angus’s jacket, damp trousers chafing his thighs as he wrestled a tiny square desk into the room. Maybe two foot by two foot; just big enough for one person and a laptop.

He hefted it over the interview table and plonked it down in the corner, under the window — closing the blinds to shut out the rainy morning. ‘You sure about this?’

Dr Fife arranged the evidence bags on the room’s new desk, placing each so its contents were clearly visible as you entered the room. ‘Sometimes, a bad man murders his wife, only he doesn’t want to go to jail so he makes it look like some asshole broke into the family home to steal stuff, and’ — pulling on an Appalachian-Cletus accent — ‘“Oh no! Things got outta hand and he musta bashed her head in with a hammer!”’ The porn mags got swapped with the sex toys and Dr Fife frowned at both with his head on one side. ‘Other killers like to arrange the bodies in new and exciting ways. Like that guy I told you about: Bradley McCarthy and his Cannibal Thanksgiving.’ Dr Fife swapped the bags back again. Nodded. ‘It’s called “staging the crime scene”.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘What people don’t know is we can stage the interrogation too.’ A knock rang out from the closed interview-room door. ‘Right on cue.’ Grin. ‘Enter!’

A wee man with a crooked moustache and a baldy bit at the back poked his head into the room. Detective Constable Harry ‘Wee Hairy’ Black raised his eyebrows. ‘You ready?’

Dr Fife gave him a thumbs-up. ‘Count to ten, then wheel ’em in.’ He hurried around to the police side of the table, hopped up into his seat, then made that thumb-and-forefinger-rectangle thing that film directors always did. Peering through it at the scene he’d staged. Then waved a hand sideways at Angus. ‘Move left a bit. Want you looming, but not blocking the evidence.’

This was all going to go horribly wrong, wasn’t it...

But Angus shuffled over a couple of feet anyway. ‘We call them “productions” over here. You know: of the investigation.’

That must’ve been ten, because the door opened again and in stalked DCI Monroe, face flushed, a folder clamped to his chest, mouth puckered. He made eye contact with Angus, shook his head. Then took the seat next to Dr Fife without saying a word.

Yeah, horribly wrong and then some.

Next through the door was Sean McGilvary’s solicitor, Mrs Hannay, in another tweed-skirt-and-questionable-cardigan combo, with matching ring binder accessory. Nose in the air, she took her seat as the man of the hour shambled in.

Someone must’ve brought in a change of clothes for him, because Sean’s SOC suit had been replaced by a baggy Oldcastle Warriors replica shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms. Grubby trainers squeaking on the grey terrazzo floor.

He took two steps into the room and froze, eyes locked on the little desk with its display of once-hidden things.

Sean’s mouth fell open.

‘Mr McGilvary! How lovely to see you again.’ Dr Fife beamed across the table at him. ‘Or can I call you “Sean”?’ Pointing. ‘Please: take a seat. Sit, sit.’

He didn’t move, little beads of sweat prickling out across his top lip and forehead.

‘Perhaps you’d like a coffee? Tastes like crap, but it’s hot and wet.’ Throwing in a wink to go with the suggestive tone: ‘If ya know what I mean...?’

Mrs Hannay rapped her long scarlet nails on the chipped interview table. ‘Sit down, Sean.’

With that, he finally creaked into motion again. Doing what he was told. But instead of facing front, he kept glancing over his shoulder at the evidence bags.

Monroe fiddled with the audio-visual controls, setting everything recording. ‘Interview of Sean Colin McGilvary, on Friday fifteenth of March, nine forty-six a.m. Present are—’

Mrs Hannay hissed at her client: ‘Will you sit still?’

He did. For a moment anyway. Growing more fidgety as DCI Monroe went through the script that kicked off every formal interview.

It was as if that little table was magnetic, and Sean’s eyes were lumps of iron. Drawn to it, over and over and over again.

Intro done, Monroe sat back. ‘Mrs Hannay, have you got another statement for us? Or can we proceed?’

She raised her nose an inch or two. ‘I expect my client to be released once this interview is over. He’s explained his presence at Balvenie Row and it’s time you either charge him with burglary or let him go.’

‘Noted.’

Dr Fife pulled on a sympathetic face. ‘How you doing, Champ? You have a good night in the cells?’

Sean bit his lip, as if he was trying to stop any words from accidentally slipping out.

A scowl from Mrs Hannay. ‘I don’t see how this is relevant, Detective Chief Inspector.’

Monroe didn’t answer. Instead, he slid his folder in front of Dr Fife.

‘Why thank you, Detective Chief Inspector.’ Making a big show of lining it up with Mrs Hannay’s ring binder. ‘Gotta tell ya: I’m just trying to build a little rapport here, Lorna. But I can see you’re not a girl for foreplay.’ Dr Fife sleazed it up again. ‘Is she, Sean?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Mrs Hannay’s face soured. ‘I don’t like your tone, Doctor Fife.’

‘“I killed them”, “They were dirty sodomites and I killed them”.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you, Sean?’

‘We’ve been over this! My client was over-tired and confused, and—’

‘Oh, he’s confused all right. Aren’t you, Sean? Confused and conflicted.’

She clutched her client’s arm. ‘You don’t have to answer that.’

‘Now, we told you about the DNA we found at Douglas and Kevin Healey-Robinson’s house, but we didn’t tell you where we found it. Or what kind of DNA it was.’

‘My client has already explained that.’

Dr Fife opened the folder. ‘See, every time you go into a room, you leave a bit of DNA behind. Each breath carries little droplets full of it, your skin cells are constantly falling off and being renewed — same with hair. If you spit, that’s loads of DNA, right there. If you bleed, that’s DNA-tastic too.’ A smile bloomed as he pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘But there’s another big source of DNA that guys have but girls don’t. Ain’t that right, Sean?’

Mrs Hannay’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t have to answer that either.’

‘So if I was to say to you: “We found a big spurt of your spunk in the bedroom”, what do you think would happen?’

Colour flushed into Sean McGilvary’s cheeks, darkening as it spread. Eyes shimmering as he trembled. But still not a word.

‘You killed Douglas and Kevin, then went upstairs to jack off? What is it they call it here... ah: wanking! Did you torture them to death then go for a wank?’

‘All right, that’s enough.’ Mrs Hannay stood. ‘You might think you’re clever, Dr Fife, with your crude language, but my client—’

‘Oh God...’ Sean clamped a hand across his mouth.

‘What would your dear old mom think, Sean? Two dead bodies downstairs and you’re up there jerking on your cock like a demented—’

‘THAT IS ENOUGH!’ Mrs Hannay stabbed a finger at the tabletop. ‘I’m making a formal complaint!’

Monroe’s jaw clenched, but he kept his mouth shut.

‘We’ll have to talk to her, of course. Your mom.’ Dr Fife made a big show of looking over Sean’s shoulder at the display of evidence bags. ‘Tell her what a naughty boy you’ve been.’

Mrs Hannay turned to Monroe. ‘Terminate this interview, right now!’

‘She’s gonna find out sooner or later, Sean.’

A muffled wail rose behind Sean McGilvary’s hand, bursting free as tears spilled from his eyes, running down his cheeks. Silent for a moment as he dragged in a gurgling breath, then howled it out again.

And that was it for Monroe. He reached for the audio-visual kit. ‘Interview suspended at nine fifty-one.’ Clicked the buttons and scowled at Dr Fife. ‘I need a word. Outside.’

‘...yet another complaint, and we’re getting nothing out of it!’ DCI Monroe paced the stairwell, face flushed. Voice not far off being a full-on shout as it echoed up and down the steps. Which is probably why he hadn’t just led them down the corridor a little bit like last time. There was a lot more scope for bollocking people here without the suspects hearing anything. ‘Are we not in enough of a pricking hole as it is?’ Throwing his arms out. ‘Have you got any idea how unprofessional this is?’ Monroe got to the far end and started back again. ‘And you can’t lie to suspects!’

‘I didn’t.’ Dr Fife leaned against the wall. ‘Did you hear me lie, Angus?’

Angus opened his mouth, but Monroe was on a roll.

‘You told McGilvary we’d recovered his semen from the bedroom!’

‘No, I posited a hypothetical. “What would happen if...” It’s right there on tape. Not one single word of a lie.’ He stuck his nose in the air. ‘I’m insulted you’d even suggest such a thing.’

At that, the air seemed to leak out of Monroe, sagging his shoulders and rounding his back. He slumped into a frown — probably running the interview back through his mind — then he scrubbed at his face. ‘Will it work?’

‘It’s already working. Soon as he saw that pile of gay porn, Sean knew the hook was buried deep. He’ll feel the need to thrash and struggle a bit more, but he’s dead in the bottom of the boat and he knows it.’

Angus half raised a hand. ‘Think he’ll give us Ryan?’

‘Nope. Because he doesn’t know Ryan.’

Monroe thumped against the stairwell wall and groaned. ‘But he has to!’

‘And again: nope.’ Dr Fife reached into his jacket, coming out with another little metal cylinder. ‘You getting anywhere with Kate Paisley’s phone?’

‘Forensic IT strikes again. They had a couple of goes unlocking it and say if they try again, it’ll erase all the data.’

He tapped a fat cigar into his palm. ‘No offence, but your geeks are seriously shit. We had time, I’d ship it to this guy I know in Philly; Jamal would crack it like a pistachio in two minutes.’

‘But we don’t have time.’

‘And three times, nope.’ Cigar between his teeth, Dr Fife produced a Zippo with a skull-and-crossbones embossed on it. ‘We got about ten hours, tops.’

‘Also nope.’ Angus plucked the lighter from his hand.

‘Hey!’

‘You can’t smoke in here. It’s against the law.’

Fife turned to Monroe for backup, but the DCI just shrugged. ‘Since 2006.’

‘Course it is.’ The cigar went back in its tube as he muttered away to himself. ‘Goddamn backwater, hick town, shithole...’

Angus held out the Zippo. ‘This is all assuming Ryan hasn’t done a runner.’

A harrumph, then Fife reclaimed his lighter. ‘Gotta be kidding me. Can’t smoke.’ He put it away. ‘And our boy’s got too much invested to abandon it all. Sunk-cost fallacy trumps common sense every time.’

Wee Hairy came trotting around the corner. ‘Boss? Ready when you are.’

‘Ten bucks says I’m right about this too.’ Dr Fife clacked off down the corridor. ‘Dead in the bottom of the boat.’

Sean McGilvary squirmed in his seat, fidgeting with the sleeves of his replica top. Tugging on a single thread, making it longer and longer and longer...

His solicitor was the colour of watered-down Vimto, not looking at her client, sitting bolt upright. Mouth pinched as she opened her ring binder and produced an A4 sheet. Then slapped it down on the table in front of Sean. ‘Statement.’

He picked the thing up and stared at it. Not making eye contact with anyone else. The paper trembled in his hands. ‘“I did not kill Douglas or Kevin Healey-Robinson.”’

On the other side of the table, Monroe sighed and rolled his eyes.

‘I didn’t! I just said that, because...’ Sean licked his lips. Returned to his statement. ‘“My DNA was at number twenty-one Balvenie Row because...”’ He cleared his throat. Tugged on that thread again, unravelling himself. ‘“Because I was having sexual relations with Douglas.”’ As soon as the words were out, his whole body drooped, as if some massive plug had just been pulled out of him. He blew a long breath at the ceiling. Swallowed. ‘Wow. I’ve never said it out loud before. Not even with Dougie. We...’ A laugh. ‘I mean, I’d, you know, fumbled about in the corner of a nightclub, but Dougie was the...’ Sean bit his lips together. ‘He was my first. You know: all the way.’

Mrs Hannay was clearly trying not to squirm, and making a bad job of it.

‘I couldn’t say anything, cos of Mum. It’d kill her if she knew I was... that I was gay. And I’m gay. I’m gay!’ His eyes widened. ‘Please don’t tell her!’

Dr Fife gave him a lopsided smile. ‘If it’s any consolation, I know what it’s like growing up with religious nutjobs judging everything you do.’

Sean stared at him. ‘So you’re...?’

‘Nope. But I empathize all the same.’

‘Oh.’ Clearly disappointed. Sean picked up the statement and put it down again. ‘We’d been seeing each other for about six months. Kevin was just so controlling, you know? Wouldn’t let Dougie breathe sometimes. Didn’t support his writing. It was just a stupid little hobby, not like the genius prose Kevin cranked out for that horrible rag.’

Monroe leaned forward. ‘Is that why you killed Kevin Healey-Robinson: get him out of the way so you and Douglas could be together?’

‘I never killed anybody.’ He glowered at his fists. ‘Oh, I’d love to have done it. Serve the bastard right.’ Then let his hands uncurl again. ‘But I didn’t need to. Dougie was going to leave Kevin, soon as Netflix picked up the rights to the books. And I’d never do anything to hurt Dougie!’ Wiping a tear away. ‘I loved him...’

Mrs Hannay still couldn’t look at her client — leaning away from him, as if he was infectious. ‘I assume we can agree that Sean had neither the motive nor the... temperament to—’

Someone pounded on the interview-room door, then threw it open without waiting for an answer.

DS Massie lurched inside, breathing hard. ‘Boss? Need a word. Urgent. Now.’

Munroe grimaced. ‘Fine. Interview suspended at ten twenty-nine.’ He levered himself out of his chair and turned to DS Massie, the pair of them putting their heads together so no one could hear what they were whispering about.

Whatever it was, Monroe snapped ramrod straight. He turned to the room. ‘Correction: interview terminated.’ Snatching up his files. ‘DC MacVicar, escort Mr McGilvary back to his cell. Dr Fife, you’re with me. Mrs Hannay... no idea. Angus can see you out too.’

She blinked at them. ‘But we’re—’

‘Got to go. Doctor?’ Monroe hurried from the room, following DS Massie.

OK...

Dr Fife looked at Angus, one eyebrow climbing his forehead, bunching up the wrinkles. ‘Was that...?’

‘How would I know?’

And then Dr Fife was off too, leaving him alone with Sean McGilvary and Mrs Hannay.

‘Right. Well, suppose we’d better...’ Angus pointed at the door. ‘Yeah.’

Angus strode back along the corridor and into the organized chaos of Operation Telegram’s incident room.

Officers and support staff bustled about, others were on the phones, grim faces everywhere. Whatever had spooked DCI Monroe, it was clearly big.

No sign of the DCI in here, though. Or DS Massie. Or even Dr Fife.

DS Sharp stood in the middle of the room checking a clipboard and pointing at people. ‘Leo! I need you on the phone to Voodoo’s team every ten minutes. Nag them about that ANPR data till they’re sick of the sound of you.’

A voice called out from somewhere in the grid of cubicles. ‘Dialling now, Sarge!’

Angus hurried over. ‘Sarge? What happened?’

She glanced at her clipboard again. ‘Eric, ’Tash: grab a car and get your arses over to Fettes, McCutchen, and MacBain; solicitors; one-twenty-six Robin Thomson Square. I want every single person interviewed — don’t care if they’re the senior partner or the boy who delivers the sandwiches!’

’Tash grabbed his stabproof vest from the rack in the corner. ‘Sarge!’

Eric ran a hand across his hairless pate and lumbered after him with all the grace of a three-legged polar bear as Vivaldi got his violins out in Angus’s pocket.

‘DR FIFE’ glowed above the icons to decline or accept the call.

ACCEPT.

‘Hello? Dr—’

‘Where the hell are you? I’m in the car park: get your ass in gear!’

Eh?

Angus scanned the whiteboard, searching for some sort of clue as to why everyone was rushing about. ‘But what’s—’

‘We got a dead lawyer: wife’s missing. And according to Monroe, Ryan’s gone full-on meat-grinder this time.’

Buggering hell...

26

Barbazza Crescent couldn’t have been more different to the depressing street where Sean McGilvary lived if it tried. Instead of mildewed tenement flats built of featureless brick, it was a long sweep of dirty-big villas, in tan stone, tan harling and scalloped slate roofs. Each one slightly different from its neighbour.

Behind them rose the dark-green mass of the Swinney — branches shivering in the howling wind. Drizzle blowing sideways down the street drenching the poor sods out guarding the police cordon, making their high-vis jackets shine in the morning gloom.

Or maybe that should be mourning gloom.

A grubby SE Transit sat on the driveway of number eighteen, AKA: ‘Lothrathven’, according to the golden letters carved into a coffin-sized lump of granite in the front garden. A dog unit van was half up on the pavement outside, with two patrol cars acting as roadblocks, just outside the twin lines of blue-and-white tape. A pair of pool cars crowding the space inside.

The scene examiners had battled the weather to erect a small white marquee over the front door, making a wee airlock, and a ghostly figure in SOC white emerged from time to time, humping an evidence crate from the house to the Transit.

Then there was the press.

They’d been turning up for the last half-hour — just a couple of cars to start with, then more and more, followed by the Outside Broadcast Units. But the vile weather kept them in their vehicles. A poor PC staggered from one car to the next — struggling to keep his feet as the wind tore into him — water dripping off his fluorescent-yellow jacket, peaked cap pulled down so far that it bent the top of his ears over as he checked the occupants.

Silly sod.

Angus went back to his text messages.

MUM:

Dr Fife groaned and sighed in the passenger seat, head buried in the copy of the Castle News & Post he’d liberated from reception earlier. Making a big production of turning the pages. Then sighing again. ‘I’m just saying: what was the point of rushing over here if we’re only gonna sit about like a couple of spare dicks?’

Angus went back to his text. ‘It’s barely been an hour.’ Cough. ‘And a bit.’ Thumbs clicking across the onscreen keyboard:

SEND.

‘And look at this crap!’ Dr Fife slapped the newspaper with the back of his hand, then turned the offending article to show Angus. It was a centre-page spread on Operation Telegram. A blurry picture of Ryan took up a quarter of one page, the photo all pixelated from being blown up much further than the image’s resolution could support. Must’ve got it from one of the kids on the rugby field. ‘How’s anyone supposed to recognize that? Looks like a goddamn Mr Potato Head with a beard drawn on.’

Grumble, whinge; rant, rave.

Angus looked up from his phone. ‘What happened to the first one?’

He lowered the paper. ‘First what?’

‘Wife. You said the second Mrs Fife was a psychiatrist. What happened to the first one?’

A snort. ‘Oh no, we’re not opening that can of snakes, thank you very much.’ Back to the paper. ‘What about you — is there a Mrs MacVicar? Or a Mr? I’m open-minded.’

Ding, buzzzzz.

Incoming text.

MUM:

Urgh...

Not that there was anything wrong with Mrs Farooq. It was Ellie writing about him that gave Angus the heebs.

‘Well?’ Dr Fife stared across the car, both eyebrows up.

‘None of your business.’ Click, click, clickity, click, click, click, click:

SEND.

‘Hang on a minute. So you can ask me about my love life, but yours is off-limits?’

‘I was only trying to change the subject. Stop you moaning.’ He squirmed a bit in his seat. ‘And it’s complicated.’

‘Always is: that’s how people work. Spill.’

Outside, a delivery van wove its way through the crowd of media vehicles, only to be turned back at the cordon by a soggy PC.

A squall of wind thrashed at the Swinney’s branches, hammering the front gardens’ trees and bushes, rocking the Mini on its springs.

Rain crackled against the windscreen.

‘Don’t be a dick, Angus.’

He pulled one shoulder up. ‘There’s... someone I’ve known for ages, but I don’t think she’s interested. We went to school together. You know what it’s like.’

‘So ask her out. Turn on that awkward, lumbering-yeti, half-assed charm of yours.’

‘Nah.’ Angus watched the poor PC check the occupants of an ancient Volvo — grabbing the roof to keep upright as wind ripped the peaked cap from his head and sent it spinning off down the street like a flying saucer. ‘Maybe if I’d done it years ago, but the moment passes, doesn’t it. Someone sees you as a brother, you’re never recovering from that.’

Dr Fife sighed and shook his head. ‘You really are a desperately silly—’

Three hard raps clattered against the car roof. A police officer’s knock. A wall of crumpled white had appeared at the driver’s side.

Dr Fife opened his window a couple of inches and DS Massie hunched down to squint in at them, her SOC suit rustling and crackling in the wind.

‘The Boss wants you both inside.’

‘Sarge.’ Angus clambered out — keeping a firm grip on the door handle so the storm wouldn’t yank it from his hand — but Dr Fife stayed where he was.

Bit odd.

Angus ducked his head back into the Mini. ‘You coming?’

Dr Fife buttoned up his greatcoat. ‘Do me a favour and nip round this side first.’

‘Is your door stuck? Do you need me to hold your hand?’

‘Funny. You’re a funny guy.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Grab one’a them CSI suits from the boot on your way past.’

‘Because clearly you’re far too important to get your own—’

‘No one knows I’m here, remember? And we’re gonna keep it that way.’

God save us from forensic psychologists and their paranoid histrionics.

Angus thumped his door shut.

DS Massie stared across the Mini’s roof. ‘Good job we didn’t issue that statement last night. “Everything’s fine, we’ve caught the Fortnight Killer!”’ A grimace. ‘Looks like your arsehole friend’s good for something after all.’ She staggered a couple of steps as a gust of wind barged past. Then pointed at that poor soggy PC — currently chasing his peaked cap across someone’s front garden, three houses down. ‘And you owe Dusty a pint, possibly a handjob. He’s looking for your mystery man: Beardy McBaldhead, every twenty minutes.’

Ah...

Hard not to feel a bit guilty about that.

DS Massie didn’t wait for a response, just stomped back towards Lothrathven.

Four houses down, Dusty finally caught up with his cap as it tumbled into a thrashing clump of pampas grass.

Good for him.

Could whistle for that handjob, though.

Angus snatched one of Dr Fife’s pre-wrapped SOC suits from the box in the Mini’s boot, then stomped around to the driver’s side and stood there — acting as a windbreak and privacy screen between the car door and the assembled press.

Dr Fife popped the door and hopped down onto the puddled tarmac. ‘And make sure the vultures can’t see me!’ Plipping the locks and hurrying up the driveway towards the marquee with Angus following close behind.

The SE Transit provided a bit of cover too.

And then he was yanking open the marquee’s front flaps and slipping inside before the first telephoto lens could turn their way. With any luck. Probably...

Inside was the usual collection of boxes — SOC suits, gloves, masks, safety goggles, plastic booties, wet wipes — a bin already half full of empty takeaway-coffee cups, two plastic chairs, and a PC with a clipboard. Only it wasn’t Abir this time, it was Shirley Westbrook: a hard-edged, tattoo-clarted, dark-haired wee hardwoman. The kind of officer who looked as if she’d be committing all sorts of crimes if she hadn’t joined the police by mistake. She was drawing lines on her clipboard, tongue poking out the side of her mouth.

Dr Fife wrestled his custom SOC suit from its plastic bag.

Angus helped himself to the largest one from the box in here. ‘Your second wife: she didn’t work on that paranoia of yours?’

‘You have any idea how many death threats someone like me gets in a year? And where I’m from, assholes with a grudge can buy AR-Fifteens and sniper rifles. Fewer people know I’m here the better.’

Angus sank into one of the chairs, working his shoes through the leg holes. ‘Hey, Shirley: where’s the Boss?’

She didn’t look up from her lines. ‘Where do you think he is, you utter biscuit. Inside.’

‘Yeah, but DS Massie says, “You always go to the entrance tent and ask to see the senior officer, cos if you just walk into the crime scene you get a bollocking.”’ Hauling the suit up and sticking his arms into the sleeves.

‘Or you could hang around out here, like a numpty, and get a bollocking anyway?’

Oh, joy.

Angus donned a pair of booties, then a mask, goggles, and finally a double pair of gloves — one over the other, just in case.

By which time, Dr Fife was ready to go: all done-up in head-to-toe PPE. He tipped a wink in Shirley’s direction. ‘Later, Toots.’ Then pushed through the inner flap and into the house.

She stared after him, jaw clenched. ‘Who the hell is he calling “Toots”?’

‘Ignore him. He thinks “being a dick” is the same as having a personality.’ Angus paused on the threshold. Looked back at Shirley. ‘You’re positive the Boss wants us inside?’

An evil grin spread across her face. ‘’Bout to find out, aren’t you?’

Lovely.

Deep breath. Then Angus plunged between the layers of plastic and out the other side, emerging in a...

Jesus.

It had been a nice hallway at one point: wide, with pictures on the walls, a cupboard for coats, and that interlocked parquet flooring that Mum always mooned over in the magazines. Now, bloody handprints smeared the walls with scarlet; bloody footprints tracked all over the wooden floor.

The scene examiners had laid their common approach path down one side of the hall to avoid the heaviest staining — the little metal trays clanging beneath Dr Fife’s bootied heels.

A camera’s flash flickered out from an open doorway.

Angus swallowed.

Even through the mask, the air tasted of hot copper and AAA batteries.

Dr Fife stared at the nearest wall, with its crimson spatter-patterns sprayed up the museum-white walls. ‘Looks like Ryan’s tidy phase is over.’ He clanked along the pathway, three inches off the gore-soaked carpet, looking into the other rooms.

Angus sloped along behind.

First up was a drawing room/library, full of expensive-looking furniture; a deep oatmeal carpet; and a row of swanky bookshelves, stocked with lots and lots of books. The curtains were shut, but someone had clicked the spotlights on, bathing the place in a welcoming golden glow. A sweet-musky scent of sandalwood fought against the raw butcher’s-shop tang — even though there wasn’t a drop of blood visible in the room.

The lounge, across the hallway, hadn’t fared so well. Yes, it boasted a mammoth TV and fancy entertainment system, a sleek hyper-modern phone in a sculptural base unit, and oversized china leopards sat upright on either side of the ash-filled fireplace, but a wide smear of dark scarlet reached about eight feet into the room. As if someone had been attacked inside, then dragged out of there.

Dr Fife paused in the doorway to the dining room. Standing still as a gravestone as that flickering camera flash strobed out into the hall. Voice low and breathy. ‘Son of a bitch...’

Angus stepped up behind him.

Wow.

It was a bright, modern room, with a long table and chairs — easily big enough to seat a dozen people in comfort. A sideboard with fancy silver bowls and two decanters on it. More paintings on the wall. A display cabinet full of awards and cups.

And someone had turned it into an abattoir.

27

The body sat on the other side of the table, facing the door. There was almost nothing left of the victim’s head — it’d been battered into a shapeless bag of bloody flesh and slivers of bone. Both hands were screwed to the dining table, like the other crime scenes, but the fingers were split and flattened, the hands lumpy and misshapen, as if someone had shattered each and every bone in them with a hammer. Then moved on to the poor bastard’s forearms.

Blood.

Was.

Everywhere.

Painting the walls.

Saturating the carpet.

When Angus looked up, little stalactites of congealed scarlet hung from the ceiling. ‘Jesus...’

This time, the Post-it note was nailed to the victim’s naked chest — probably because there wasn’t enough left of his head — but the message was illegible. Lost in all that gore.

The traditional second set of screw holes marred the nearside of the table, but they were surrounded by hemispherical dents battered into the wood. As if the killer hadn’t been calm enough to aim his blows, just rained them down amidst the screaming.

Four SOC-suited figures had joined the victim in here — one taking photos, one collecting swabs from the surfaces and slipping them into test tubes, one muttering into a Dictaphone, while the unmistakably thin figure of DCI Monroe stood with his back to the door.

‘Dr Fife.’ He didn’t turn around. Kept his eyes on the remains. ‘Looks like our killer has escalated.’

The forensic psychologist’s foot hovered over the first segment of elevated pathway that led into the room. ‘Is it safe to enter?’

‘No. But this time I’m making an exception.’

Dr Fife stepped inside, heels ringing on the metal.

Angus made to follow, but Monroe raised a finger.

‘Just Dr Fife.’

Ah.

Angus retreated to the doorway. ‘Yes, Boss.’

The path split in two, circling the dining table, and Dr Fife went widdershins, looking at everything along the way, until he was standing at the victim’s left shoulder. Or what was left of it. ‘Who am I looking at?’

‘Leonard Lundy, fifty-one, worked for a wee firm in Castleview. Did the occasional bit of duty-solicitor work.’ Monroe cricked his head to one side, as if the view was physically painful. ‘Good bloke. Didn’t screw you around or play games.’

Dr Fife’s voice lost its hard professional edge, swapped out for what sounded like genuine compassion. ‘It’s... always difficult when the victim’s someone you know.’

‘Wife’s Olivia: corporate-law specialist at Fettes, McCutchen, and MacBain. Didn’t show up for work this morning, so her assistant came round to see if everything was OK.’ Shaking his head. ‘It wasn’t.’

The person with the Dictaphone pointed it at Leonard Lundy’s ruined corpse. ‘The level of violence displayed is really quite remarkable.’ Professor Twining — the forensic pathologist who’d carved up Douglas Healey-Robinson’s remains. ‘Mr Lundy’s skull’s been reduced to little more than a soft, leaky bag.’

Dr Fife stared at it for a couple of breaths. ‘This kind of ferocity is... Either he knew the victim — held some deep, dark anger towards them — or this is his frustration at nearly being caught. He knows we’re looking for him.’

A sniff from Monroe. ‘We’ve always been looking for him.’

‘No: we’ve been looking for “the Fortnight Killer”, now we’re looking for “Ryan”. We came to his house. His picture’s in the paper. That’s a very different thing.’

Hold on a minute.

Angus raised his hand. ‘But it could be anyone! A “Mr Potato Head”, you said.’

‘To us. You think he doesn’t recognize his own face?’ Dr Fife turned to Professor Twining. ‘Gonna venture a time of death, Doc?’

‘Hmmm...’ Twining rocked a glove from side to side. ‘I’d say... somewhere between when they were last seen alive, and when Mrs Lundy’s assistant discovered the husband’s remains this morning.’

‘Thanks. Very helpful.’

‘I’ll know more when we get him back to the mortuary. Meanwhile, maybe have a think about catching this chap soon? We’re running out of refrigerated drawers.’ He marched from the room, followed by whoever it was who’d been taking the samples.

Now the only sound was mask-muffled breathing and the crack-whine of the camera flash. Strobe-lighting the room.

Finally, the crime-scene photographer lowered her lens. ‘That’s me done too. I’ll get everything uploaded soon as I’m back at the farm.’ She took one last look at the corpse and shuddered. ‘I’ve seen some horrible shite in my time, but... Christ.’

She patted Angus on the arm as she went past. ‘Hey, big guy.’

No idea who she was, though.

Back in the dining room, Monroe stared at Dr Fife. Not saying a word.

The forensic psychologist sagged. ‘I know, I know. I shoulda seen this coming.’ A sigh. ‘He knows we know he’s on a two-week schedule — it’s in all the damn papers — so Ryan doesn’t wait till today: he goes last night. Course he doesn’t have his little helper any more, cos we’ve got her locked up, which means he can’t control the scene. And this’ — sweeping a hand around, taking in the battered remains and the blood-drenched house — ‘is the result.’

Difficult to tell what was going on with Dr Fife’s face, what with all the PPE, but he lowered his head for a bit. Pulled in a deep breath. Then nodded and clanged his way back around the table and out into the hall.

Angus fell in behind him.

Monroe brought up the rear. ‘Are you saying we’re responsible?’

‘Kinda.’ Dr Fife wandered along the hallway, peering into every room they passed. Pausing every now and then to examine a smear of blood, or spatter-pattern of dark sticky red. ‘But what you gonna do, just let him run around killing folks? No one likes it when the cops come after them.’

They stopped outside the main bedroom.

Double bed; wrought-iron frame; the pillows dented, sheets rumpled where someone had been sleeping. Duvet half on the floor.

Drips of scarlet on the carpet.

Dr Fife stared, tilted his head to one side, then walked over to the bedside cabinet and pressed a button on the alarm-clock radio. The display switched from ‘12:03’ to ‘06:45’.

He let free a little grunt, then tried the room next door: a study, tidy and neat, complete with desk, computer, law books, and a smart wooden filing cabinet with bloody fingerprints on one of its drawers.

Another grunt, and he was on the move again.

Monroe tapped Angus on the shoulder, then raised his hand, as if cupping something invisible.

Yeah, like Angus had the slightest idea what Fife was up to.

They followed him into a single bedroom.

Ruby-coloured footprints scuffed in from the hallway to the bed and back again, bringing a plethora of drips with them. The bed bore the same tell-tale traces of sleep, but this time the crumpled duvet was clarted with deep crimson. More red spattered up the wallpaper in two fang-shaped arcs.

No alarm clock — just a mobile phone sitting on the bedside cabinet.

Monroe leaned on the doorframe. ‘Would you please tell us what we’re...’

But Dr Fife marched right past them without a word, heading back down the hallway towards the front door.

He didn’t step outside, though, he took a right instead — through the open doorway, disappearing into that drawing-room-cum-library.

By the time they’d caught up, he was squatting in front of a buttoned leather couch. Staring at its legs for some weird reason. Before running a gloved fingertip along the top of the skirting board. Then sat back on his heels. ‘They were in bed when Ryan let himself in. So it must’ve happened before the morning alarm went off at quarter to seven.’

Monroe raised a finger. ‘Hold on: “let himself in”?’

‘No sign of forced entry?’

‘Not that we can find. SE team think—’

‘Then he let himself in.’ Dr Fife pointed towards the hall. ‘From the look of the master bedroom, the Lundys start off sleeping together. Maybe one of them snores, so they have to move to the spare room. Enter Ryan.’ Fife stared at the wall, turning to watch the imaginary action. ‘He goes to the master bedroom first — probably a couple of blows to the head — renders whoever’s there unconscious. Cable-ties hands and feet. Next up: single bedroom.’ Miming the weight of a blunt object in his hand. ‘Got blood dripping off his... hammer? Probably a hammer. Tracks more blood through on his shoes. This time, when he swings the hammer there’s already enough blood on there to fly off, making lines up the walls. Two blows this time. Blood on his hands as he pulls off the duvet. Throws the victim over his shoulder and carries them through to the dining room. That’s why there’s no drag marks.’

Fife tilted his head, and dropped the make-believe hammer. ‘Only he’s not hit them as hard as he thought, and they regain consciousness halfway down the hall. Wriggle free. Try to crawl away from him, into the living room — maybe they’re making for the phone, call for help.’ Dr Fife stood, hands clenching around something only he could see. ‘But Ryan grabs them — drags them back into the hall. Hits them a couple more times. Takes them into the dining room and screws their hands to the table. Goes back for the other one.’

‘But...’ Monroe waved a hand at the front door. ‘...“let himself in” how?’

‘He’s got a key.’ Dr Fife pointed. ‘See the little circular marks in the carpet? That’s where the furniture’s been taken out and replaced in not quite the same place. Probably to fit the brand-new bookshelves.’ The gloved finger swung towards a set of three dents in the deep pile, arranged in an L shape. They looked about the same distance apart as the couch legs he’d been staring at, only the fourth one — back right — would be hidden underneath the bookshelves. And finally the finger stopped six inches from Monroe’s face.

The DCI retreated a step, but Angus edged closer.

Fife’s black nitrile fingertip bore a thin smudge of pale cream.

‘Sawdust. That’s why it smells of fresh wood and beeswax in here.’ Dr Fife dropped his hand. ‘Kate Paisley’s an electrician; why wouldn’t Ryan be a carpenter?’

Monroe blinked. ‘Pricking hell.’

Ooh!

Angus put his hand up again. ‘Maybe that’s why there’s blood on the filing cabinet! He was getting his invoice back, so there wouldn’t be a trail.’

‘Right.’ DCI Monroe yanked out his phone, dialling as he marched off. ‘Badger?... Yeah, it’s me. I need you to get a warrant for whatever bank the Lundys used.’ Voice getting fainter as he disappeared off down the corridor. ‘I want full account details for the last year: money in, money out, and who it was paid to... Yeah: ASAP.’

Angus nodded at Dr Fife. ‘Look at you, all Sherlock Holmes.’

‘Hmph.’ He scrubbed the make-believe murder from his hands, scowling behind his safety goggles. ‘I was gonna get to the bit about the filing cabinet. You stole my thunder.’

‘No “I” in team, remember?’ Angus stuck his head out into the hall. ‘Want to check it out, just in case?’

‘Might as well.’

Dr Fife clambered up onto the office chair, wobbling away till he grabbed the top of the filing cabinet for support, then hauled out the top drawer — the one with the bloody fingerprints all over it — and went rummaging inside.

Angus, meanwhile, sniffed his way along the rows of legal books, flipping through the occasional volume in case there was something incriminating hidden inside. Which there wasn’t. But at least it was more interesting than standing about like a massive twonk, watching Dr Fife do the interesting bit. ‘Anything?’

‘Course not. You think he’s going to leave a handwritten receipt behind for the police to find?’ Dr Fife slammed the drawer shut. ‘We need to talk to the acolyte: Kate Paisley.’

‘She was up before the Sheriff, first thing. She’ll be in HMP Oldcastle by now.’ Locked away, awaiting trial. ‘We could probably arrange a visit, though. Not that she’ll tell us anything.’

‘Hmmm...’ Black nitrile fingertips drummed against the wooden filing cabinet. ‘Maybe not on purpose...’ An evil smile slithered into his voice. ‘But we need to pick something up from evidence, first.’

Yeah.

Why did that sound borderline illegal?

28

Gloom reigned in the Records-and-Productions Store.

Angus sat in the lit part — a small area separated from the rest of the huge warehouse space by a twelve-foot-high chain-link fence. Topped with barbed wire. Rows and rows and rows of shelving racks lurked on the other side — about half were jammed full of dusty files, the rest were cluttered with evidence boxes. A second, top-secret zone lay at the heart of the store, secured behind an electrified cordon of steel mesh, garnished with razor wire and ‘DANGER OF DEATH’ notices.

It would’ve been completely invisible, if PC Mason didn’t keep wandering through some sort of motion sensor’s path, setting off the security lights as he went a-rummaging.

Back here, though, a pair of small desks sat either side of the outer fence, bolted to the floor, with a large hatch set into the chain-link at tabletop height. Awaiting the fruits of PC Mason’s labours.

Dr Fife paced the boundary between the two realms, checking his watch every couple of laps. Man had the patience of a starving crocodile.

Angus shifted in his seat, all hunched up, elbow on one knee — holding his forehead up with his free hand. The other clutched his phone in its ziplock armour. ‘I know, Mum. I’ll do my best.’

‘What are you not telling me, Angus? You know we don’t have secrets in this house.’ Then the suspicious tone disappeared, replaced by a horrified gasp. ‘Did that horrid man try to kill you again? Oh Angus! Is it any wonder I’m worried sick!’

‘No, he...’ Hard to know what to say to that. Maybe someone else could break the news to her? Angus glanced at the phone’s screen. Bang on one o’clock. Well, that helped. ‘Turn on the radio, Mum. Pretty much any station.’

The sound of a door opening and closing came through the phone’s speaker, followed by some scrunching, a weird squarrrrk-tinged buzz, then another door. ‘I always said you shouldn’t join the police. It’s far too dangerous, but you never listen to your mother, do you?’

A sharp click rang out, followed by a serious newsreader’s voice, distorted through the kitchen radio. ‘...denies all allegations and insists his dealings with the Saudi government were above board...’

Mum sniffed, no doubt with her nose in the air. ‘You could’ve got a nice little job at Mr Nwachukwu’s pest-control business. I said, didn’t I?’

‘You’re the one who wanted me to be a police officer! Said it might make up for all the... for Dad.’

‘...demanding the Home Secretary be suspended pending criminal proceedings.’

‘Oh Angus!’ Mum let loose another gasp. ‘How could you? Mentioning that... man.’

Great.

Here we go.

He slumped back in his seat, drooping like a discarded teddy bear.

‘...crash investigators say the eight thirty-nine to Aberdeen was intentionally derailed just north of Kennethmont...’

Angus pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. ‘Mum, it’s not—’

‘I don’t know why I bother, I really don’t.’

‘Mum, please...’

The sniffy tone was back. ‘And Hamish needs more doggie bickies. Don’t forget to pick some up on your way home.’

Dr Fife came to a halt, right in front of him, voice loud and cutting. ‘For God’s sake, DC MacVicar, get off that bloody phone and DO SOME WORK!’

‘...to contact the police with any information.’ The newsreader left a little pause, then: ‘The Fortnight Killer has struck again in Oldcastle, bringing the total number of victims to eight—’

‘I’ve got to go.’ Angus hung up before Mum could say anything else. Put his phone away and glowered at Dr Fife. Bristling.

Where the hell did he get off, yelling at him like that? When there was nothing they could do till PC Manson got back. What was he supposed to—

‘Sorry.’ Dr Fife shrugged. ‘Sounded like you needed rescuing.’ He turned, interlacing his fingers through the chain-link. ‘What’s taking this asshole so long?’

Deep inside the store, those security lights snapped on again, revealing Manson’s silhouette as he shambled past.

Angus put his phone away and drooped some more. ‘Not like there’s any rush, is there.’

‘Are you kidding me? Ryan’s out there, and—’

‘Yes, but the clock’s reset. We screwed up and didn’t catch him.’ Going from discarded teddy bear to shipwrecked jellyfish — his tentacles brushing concrete floor. ‘So there’s fourteen days till the next victims get tortured to death.’

Dr Fife opened his mouth, then closed it again. Pulled his shoulders in. ‘Not the point.’ Then paced the fence again. ‘And as of this morning, we know Ryan is flexible with his timings. Just because it was two weeks last time, doesn’t mean we get a fortnight now.’

‘Do you think that’s even his real name? “Ryan”.’

‘Be a pretty crap nickname if it isn’t.’

‘Suppose.’

Angus’s phone ding-buzzed in his pocket. And when he dug it out, there was ‘ELLIE’ glowing away in the middle of the screen at him. Probably heard the news on the radio and wanted to horrible some information out of him.

‘What about you?’ Angus glanced up as Dr Fife reached the far end of the ‘public’ cage and started back again. ‘Bet you had a crap nickname growing up — that’s why you kicked off the briefing with the whole “don’t call me “John” or “Jonny” bit. How bad was it?’

Frowning, Dr Fife scuffed to a halt, as if it was a question no one had ever asked before. ‘It... kinda depends on your perspective...’

Well, that was... unnecessarily nasty, even for Ellie.

Wonder what’d flown up her bum and laid eggs.

‘Here we go!’ A figure emerged from the shelved depths, carrying a cardboard box about the size of a small microwave. PC Manson had a sort of unwell-Gollum thing going on, with his threadbare scalp, wonky teeth, and gammony skin. The big square glasses didn’t help — magnifying his jaundiced eyes as he shambled up to the desk on his side of the fence and thumped the box down. ‘Forensic IT Unit signed a job-lot back into evidence this morning. But did they fill in the correct paperwork?’ Tutting as he opened the box and rummaged inside.

Dr Fife glared. ‘About goddamn time.’

There was that winning charm again.

Manson paused for a moment, as if processing that, then took a much smaller cardboard box from the bigger one — a phone-specific evidence container, with a form printed on the beige surface. He checked it against a clipboard, then placed it on the desk. ‘One mobile phone.’

‘Give.’ Sticking his hand out, then clicking his fingers.

‘You do understand this is highly irregular? And I’m only doing it because DCI Monroe says so?’

‘For the love of Christ, just gimme the goddamn phone!’

‘Hmmph.’ Manson opened the hatch and slid the clipboard through to their side. ‘Sign for it.’

‘Yeah, yeah...’ Fife scrawled his signature on the dotted line then shoved the clipboard back. ‘Happy?’

‘Delighted. And there’s no need to be an arse about it.’ He reached through the opening and plonked the phone box down. ‘You can see yourselves out.’ He flared his nostrils for a bit, picked up the bigger box, and slithered away into the gloom.

Angus cringed. ‘Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to sit here and watch you do that?’

‘Yeah.’ A sneer. ‘Maybe, if your police department didn’t hire useless half-wound-clockwork assholes, I wouldn’t have to.’ He ripped open the cardboard carton and tipped Kate Paisley’s mobile into his hand.

It had a purple case with a bunch of kittens tooled into the leather, and a sort of scruffy-rosary-bead-dangly-bit hanging from the bottom corner. Very twee for a serial-killer’s assistant.

Dr Fife flipped the cover open and poked at the side buttons till the phone powered up. Frowned at the lock screen when it finally appeared. ‘What kinda cell you got?’

Cell?

Ah, right. Americans. ‘Samsung.’

‘Shit. Need a Google Pixel.’

PC Manson’s voice drifted out of the gloom. ‘I’ve got a Google Pixel.’

‘Cool.’ Dr Fife held out his hand again. ‘I need to borrow it for a couple of hours.’

‘Then you shouldn’t’ve been such a dick, should you.’ A clunk echoed through the warehouse and about a third of the lights on this side of the fence died. ‘Like I said: see yourselves out.’

Clunk. Another third.

Angus scowled at Dr Fife. ‘Because that pre-emptive pissing-people-off thing you do is working so well.’

Clunk.

And they were in darkness.

Great.

‘Cos I say so, that’s why.’ Dr Fife shoved the incident-room door open and barged inside.

Angus paused in the corridor for a moment, voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Manson was right about you. You are a dick.’ But he followed him in anyway.

Operation Telegram was three-quarters empty — probably because Teams Microscope, Tweezers, Spyglass, Postman, and Spanner were off doing their thing, and every other available officer was either going door-to-door in Castleview or trying to trace Leonard and Olivia Lundy’s last movements. Which left a handful of support staff to answer every single phone in the place as they rang and rang and rang...

No sign of DCI Monroe, but DI Cohen was here, squinting at a spreadsheet. Clicking numbers into it with two-fingered typing, the tip of his tongue poking out between his scrunched lips.

DS Sharp wrote names and dates on a whiteboard. Monster Munch fought with the printer.

‘Hoy: Wind in the Willows!’ Dr Fife strode to the middle of the room and did that annoying finger-snapping thing at DI Cohen. ‘Where’s Monroe?’

There was a very long and pointed pause as Cohen sat back from the laptop and ran a tiny hand through the grey streak above his left ear. ‘Do I look like a waiter? Or more like someone who rips people’s clicky fingers off?’

Dr Fife stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘I need a Google Pixel phone and this one’ — nodding at Angus — ‘won’t let me raid the Lost and Found.’

‘Why?’

Angus stood up straight. ‘It’s not communal property, Guv, it’s—’

‘Not that, you vast twit.’ He swivelled his chair in Dr Fife’s direction. ‘Why do you want a phone?’

‘I wouldn’t need a phone if your Forensic IT team wasn’t dumber than a bag of hammers. Speaking of which: who’s looking into Kate Paisley’s social media accounts?’

‘Forensic IT deals with all electronic communications and—’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! They couldn’t find their assholes with a map and a tour guide!’

Cohen glowered. ‘It’s procedure. That’s how these things work.’

‘Screw that.’ Dr Fife clambered up onto the nearest chair and from there to an unoccupied desk. Stamped his Cuban heel like a flamenco dancer, stuck two fingers in his mouth and let loose a shrieking whistle. ‘LISTEN UP, MOTHERFUCKERS!’

The whole room stopped what it was doing to stare at him, open-mouthed.

‘Everybody: get on the internet and search for “Kate Paisley”. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bindle, Truth Social, Clarion Digital... Any time-wasting sack of social media shit you can think of.’ Then, when no one moved: ‘Go! Go! Go!’

They still didn’t.

Instead, the team all looked to DI Cohen. Who sighed. Rolled his eyes. And finally nodded. ‘Do it.’

Cue an explosion of activity — poking at phone screens, clicking computer keyboards, and hunching over laptops.

Cohen shook his head. ‘You certainly know how to make friends, don’t you?’

‘I don’t need friends, I need results.’ Dr Fife clambered down from the desk. ‘This is what happens when police departments put everything into goddamned silos, and nobody talks to anyone else.’

Monster Munch waved. ‘Guv? I’ve got a Kate Paisley on Bindle. Photo matches.’

Two seconds later, DS Sharp was at it too: ‘I’ve got her on Instagram.’

A smug smile. ‘See?’ Dr Fife bustled over to Monster Munch’s desk, with Angus and DI Cohen hot on his Cuban heels.

She held out her smartphone, so they could see the scratched screen. ‘That’s her Bindle profile.’ A photo of Kate Paisley sat next to a brief bio — which didn’t include being apprentice to a mass murderer.

‘How do you find out who she follows?’

‘Who’s in her bundle? Hud oan...’ Monster Munch poked at the screen. ‘She’s bundled three-hunner and thirty-nine people, and twenty-two have bundled her.’

Cohen curled his lip. ‘That make sense to anyone in long trousers?’

‘Can you order who she follows by date? Look at who’s been there the longest.’ Dr Fife turned to Angus. ‘The first people we follow are the people we know.’

Made sense. ‘Like Ryan.’

‘Exactly.’

Monster Munch scrolled through the list. ‘Nope. No one called Ryan, just a bunch of made-up handles like “Chunky Love Three-Four-Nine-Two-Six” and “Bongo Dog Mummy”.’ She went back and poked the other list. ‘Let’s try people who’ve bundled her...’ Wheeching through all twenty-two of them. ‘No “Ryans”.’

‘OK.’ Dr Fife leaned closer. ‘Let’s see the profile pics.’ Squinting at the screen as she worked through them one at a time. ‘Angus?’

‘Difficult to tell. No one’s got long hair and a beard.’ Shrug. ‘Might be an old photo, though.’

‘Goddamnit...’

DI Cohen straightened up, voice raised so everyone in the room could hear him, nice and clear: ‘Now, if we’ve quite finished with the Everyone Look at Me Because I’m So Special and the Expert at Everything show, perhaps the rest of us can get back to work?’

29

If there was one thing worse than an arrogant Dr Fife, it was a miserable one. Sulking away behind the wheel, face clenched like a toddler’s when a seagull’s just nicked their ice cream.

Angus did his best not to sigh. Forced a bit of faux positivity into his voice instead. ‘Maybe Ryan’s not his real name? Or they’re using pseudonyms? Call signs. Something like that?’

Outside, Camburn Woods drifted by the passenger window. Dark as a raven’s back, branches scrabbling at the sky as gust after gust howled down the valley and rain bounced off the road.

No reply from Dr Fife.

One hand let go of the wheel and poked the dashboard-mounted phone, scrolling the map around on the screen.

‘You’re not supposed to adjust your satnav while driving.’

Still no reply.

They followed the road around onto McLaren Avenue.

More poking and scrolling.

‘Look, I know Badger can be a bit of a dick, but he’s not wrong about policies and procedures. They do things a certain way here and there’s probably a perfectly good reason to...’

Dr Fife took a left at the lights, onto Pudding Lane, even though the arrow on his phone’s screen pointed straight ahead.

Angus turned in his seat, watching the junction receding through the rear window. ‘It’s faster if you keep on McLaren Avenue till the dual carriageway.’ But it was OK. Still fixable. He faced front again, pointing. ‘Take a right, just past the big Asda. We can cut through to Jutemill Terrace.’

But Dr Fife took a left instead, into the big supermarket car park.

‘You’re really not good at directions, are you.’

Dr Fife grunted. ‘Need to pick up a couple of things.’

My God, it speaks!

He parked diagonally across two ‘FAMILY FRIENDLY’ spaces, right in front of the main doors, killed the engine, and hopped out into the rain. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

‘But...’

The driver’s door clunked shut and off he went — disappearing inside. Leaving Angus sitting there like a boiled fart.

Without the windscreen wipers and the blowers, the outside world had turned into a ribboned, wobbly special effect, rapidly disappearing into the fog.

Angus frowned down at that last text from Ellie:

He poked out a reply:

Nah, that made him sound like a becardiganed schoolteacher.

Angus deleted the whole message and tried again:

Much better.

Yeah, that struck the right tone. It was still missing something, though...

Ah. Of course:

SEND.

Then he sat there, grimacing out at the fog.

‘A whole rugby team...’

Angus rubbed the side of his hand against the passenger window, unblocking the porthole he’d made. Again.

Outside, a woman in a dripping fleece struggled past, pushing an overloaded trolley through the storm, with a screaming toddler in the seat. She scowled at the badly parked Mini.

For which Angus took no responsibility.

He gave her an apologetic little wave, by way of explanation. Then huffed out a long breath. Which had the bonus of remisting the porthole again, so she couldn’t hurl daggers at him any more.

His phone ding-buzzed.

Probably Ellie with some suitably cutting remark about his text.

But it wasn’t.

GILLIAN:

Didn’t have to think about that twice:

SEND.

The reply was almost immediate.

GILLIAN:

Yup:

SEND.

A huge grin spread across his face.

It had grown even bigger by the time the driver’s door opened and Dr Fife clambered in out of the downpour. Shuddering the rain off his even-curlier hair like a soggy spaniel.

A frown spread across his face, deepening the wrinkles as he stared at Angus grinning bigly. ‘What’ve you been up to?’

Which just made Angus grin biglier. ‘Nothing.’

‘Yeah... Never take up poker, you’ll get reamed. And not in a good way.’ Dr Fife started the engine, turned the blowers up full, and the windscreen wipers too. ‘Let’s go see if we can’t break Kate Paisley.’

Not exactly politically correct, but right now Angus was too happy to care.

Angus smiled, leaning back against a hot-pink wall punctuated with heavy blue security doors.

The opposite wall was floor-to-ceiling toughened safety glass, overlooking the exercise yard and one of the prison blocks. Normally it’d be full of bustling prisoners: taking the air, playing five-a-side, running laps... but today only a single sodden prisoner braved the storm — battling the wind and rain as he tried to sweep up a clump of leaves that swirled and spun away from him every time he got near them with his bin bag.

Be nice to read Gillian’s texts again, but they’d confiscated his phone when he’d signed in at reception. Securing it in a locker, by the metal detectors, till it was time to leave.

Going out for a drink with an actual, real-life, attractive, genuine woman-type person...

How cool was that?

And the Shoogly Peg was—

The sound of trainers-on-prison-flooring squealed around the corner as a prison officer appeared. A big one — almost as tall as Angus — with tattoos wrapped around both muscular arms, covering every inch of skin from her shirt’s short sleeves all the way down to her scarred knuckles. ‘FAITH’ on one set, ‘HOPE’ on the other. Short grey hair with frosted blonde tips. White shirt, black tie, black jumper with ‘HMP’ epaulettes, black trousers, black trainers. And a wee white clip-on badge: ‘SPS ~ HMP OLDCASTLE ~ BARBARA CRAWFORD’.

Behind her came Kate Paisley — all done up in prison blues — with a second huge prison officer bringing up the rear.

Officer Crawford jerked her head at the door. ‘He ready yet?’

‘Hold on, I’ll find out.’ Angus opened the door to Family Room Number Three and slipped inside.

It was the sort of space that got billed as an ‘intimate welcoming environment’ in the prison literature, but in reality was a wee room with yellow hessian wallpaper and a plastic pot plant that looked in need of a bloody good watering. The decor was rounded out by three mediocre landscape paintings — all screwed to the wall — a semi-manky coffee table, and four plastic chairs.

The room’s only window looked out on a blank, twenty-foot-high concrete wall topped with razor wire.

‘Intimate’ and ‘welcoming’.

Dr Fife sat with his platform cowboy boots up on the coffee table, fiddling with Kate Paisley’s phone.

Angus hooked a thumb at the door. ‘That’s them, now.’

‘Yeah. Gonna be two minutes...’ He produced his copy of that morning’s Castle News & Post and spread it out on the coffee table, opening it to the centre-page special about Operation Telegram. Then aimed the phone’s camera at the blurry, pixelated ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?’ photo of Ryan, and poked the screen. The fake-shutter click rang out. More poking and fiddling.

Angus stared. ‘You got it to work!’

‘Told you.’ Dr Fife didn’t look up, fingers still tapping away. ‘I got me some nerds way brighter than your Forensic IT morons.’ A nod. ‘OK. We’re good to go.’ Slipping the phone into his pocket. ‘Show ’em in.’

How the hell did he do that?

Amazing.

Angus popped his head back out into the corridor and gave Officer Crawford a thumbs-up, then held the door open for the three of them as they marched inside.

Dr Fife had cleared away the newspaper and now he slouched in his seat, hands behind his head, feet up, legs crossed at the ankles. Wearing a great-big smugtastic grin.

Kate Paisley scowled.

‘Right.’ Officer Crawford stuck her chin out. ‘You know the rules?’

‘Yup.’ Dr Fife pointed at a sign, mounted on the back of the door. ‘All laminated and everything.’

‘One hour. No drama.’ Narrowing her eyes at him. ‘From anyone.’ Then she motioned for Kate to sit.

Which she did, bolt upright in her plastic chair, arms crossed, defiant as she glared at Dr Fife.

The grin widened, and he produced that morning’s Castle News & Post with a flourish — making a big show of turning to the centre-page spread again, placing it on the table so it was the right way up for her. Paused for a count of about ten. Then plonked his feet on Ryan’s face.

Kate Paisley sniffed. ‘This supposed to impress me?’

‘Have you ever noticed how scared right-wingers are about everything? Migrants, refugees, foreigners, kids, the “woke”, “leftie” lawyers, sports commentators, celebrities, vaccines—’

‘That’s not fear, that’s anger!’ Pulling her arms tighter. ‘You bastards stick your needles in kids — pumping them full of experimental, DNA-altering, untested chemicals that cause heart attacks and strokes — but if we stand up for what’s right, we’re the monsters?’

‘What about Ryan? He’s into all that “Great Replacement Theory”, isn’t he?’

‘We’re not racists.’

Angus scribbled that down in his notebook. ‘Thought you said you’d never seen him before in your life?’

‘All right, DC MacVicar, I think Kate and me can manage fine here.’ Dr Fife reached into his greatcoat again, coming out with Kate’s phone in its purple cover. ‘Forensic IT guys can do wonders these days. Most folks, they think their phone’s nice and secure, but our nerds can crack them in, like, thirty seconds flat.’ He flipped the cover and held the phone out, showing off the unlocked home screen. ‘Changed your backdrop to Ryan’s photo in the paper. Knew you wouldn’t mind. Had to tidy up the apps and icons, though. What is it with you women and organizing stuff?’ Smiling up at Officer Crawford and her colleague. ‘No offence.’

Clearly some was taken. ‘You’re supposed to hand all mobile phones over when you sign in!’

‘Am I? How naughty of me. Tell you what: don’t think of it as a phone, more as a... conversation starter.’ He turned the screen to face himself again, and poked at it. ‘I like your Bindle quote, Kate: “Live life like it’s a nail and you’re the hammer.” Exclamation mark, smiley face, cake emoji. Very inspirational.’

Kate shrank back in her seat, eyes fixed on her phone.

‘It’s amazing the secrets people keep on these things, isn’t it? All the little things hidden away in their diaries, texts, and messages.’ Wink. ‘End-to-end encryption’s great... till someone gets hold of your password.’

She licked her lips. ‘That’s not legal. You’ve no right to invade my privacy!’

‘And the photos! Let’s not forget those.’ He raised the phone so the camera pointed at her, and pressed something on the screen. That fake-shutter click sounded once more. ‘Did you know, ninety-three-point-seven percent of people convicted of bestiality get banged up because they’ve taken photos of themselves balls-deep in the family dog? Or goat, sheep, llama: whatever.’

Her face pinched, tiny dots of sweat swelling out of her forehead to gleam in the strip lighting.

‘Isn’t that weird? I mean, why would you take photos incriminating yourself?’

Kate’s left leg developed a tremble, the heel going dunk-dunk-dunk-dunk-dunk-dunk against the lino.

‘Still, good job they don’t have the death penalty over here, am I right, Kate?’

It was as if her eyes were welded to the phone now.

‘Only question now is: do you want to cooperate and maybe cut a few decades off your sentence, or don’t ya?’ He lowered the phone. ‘Ryan got the lawyer and her husband, by the way. Mr and Mrs Lundy. You probably saw that on the news.’

The faintest smile slid across her lips. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘OK, so you were in here when they actually died, but you’re still on the hook for conspiracy to commit. Which makes it eight counts of first-degree murder!’ Dr Fife gave her a wee round of applause. ‘Even without the death penalty, you’re gonna die in here. Alone and unloved.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless...?’

She kept her eyes on the phone. Bit her top lip as a single bead of sweat trickled down the side of her forehead. ‘I...’

‘Let’s make it something easy, shall we? To start with. How about: what did you do with the bodies? No one can complain about that, can they?’

She shifted in her seat, hands turning to claws — gripping her sides.

‘And you want people to know, right? Want it in all the papers, so they can be afraid?’

‘You know what happened; you’ve seen the photos.’

‘Yeah, but I need to hear you say it. Part of the process.’

And Kate Paisley finally tore her eyes away from her phone, voice barely more than a whisper: ‘I buried her. The doctor woman.’

‘Good. Where did you bury her, Kate?’

‘The Gallowburn, out by Braecairn Forest.’

Angus’s old childhood haunt.

Looked as if orcs and trolls weren’t the only monsters out there.

Dr Fife clapped his hands together, making her jump. ‘There we go! Isn’t it nice to be helpful?’

And she was on her feet, glaring down at him. Claws out. ‘I’M NOT HELPING!’

Officer Crawford stepped in, putting a hand on Kate’s shoulder. ‘All right, settle down.’ She pointed at Dr Fife. ‘This situation de-escalates now, or I pull the plug. Understand?’

Kate sank into her seat and glowered across the coffee table at him. ‘Must be strange, sitting there with your wee legs not reaching the floor. A kid in a high chair.’

‘Ryan doesn’t need you any more: he’s got himself a new disciple. Someone bright enough to not get caught.’

‘What must your dad have thought when you slithered out of your poor mum? Like something off a horror film.’

There was a pause. ‘My father thought all his prayers had been answered.’ Then Dr Fife shuffled forwards. ‘Ryan’s going to let you rot in here. He thinks you’re too stupid to rat him out, even to save yourself.’

‘The Great Reset is coming, whether we like it or not. Some people will get trampled; some will do what they’re told, like good little sheep; and some will stand up and fight.’

He raised the phone again, flipping the cover shut. ‘But I will say this for Ryan: at least he sent you a lovely text, thanking you for your service.’ Then tossed the phone onto the table — right in front of her.

Officer Crawford jabbed a finger at it. ‘No phones!’ Glaring at Angus. ‘Thought you knew the rules.’

Eh?

‘It wasn’t me! I—’

‘It’s OK, Officer’ — Dr Fife smiled like a cowboy-booted Buddha — ‘she’s gonna give it right back. Aren’t you, Kate?’

Sod that.

Angus reached for the phone, but Kate snatched it off the tabletop before he could get there. Flipped it open.

Well, he’d just have to take it off her, wouldn’t—

‘Don’t!’ Dr Fife raised a hand. ‘Leave her alone. I’m gonna take full responsibility, OK? This is all fine.’

Officer Crawford loomed. ‘It better be.’

He hopped down from his seat and strutted his way around the coffee table, coming to rest at Kate’s side.

Yeah, given what happened last time, that probably wasn’t a good idea. If she decided to kick off, she’d get a good few blows in before they hauled her off him.

Angus moved over, till he was right next to Dr Fife and just behind Kate Paisley. Ready to intervene.

Looked as if Dr Fife had changed her lock screen to the same blurry pic of Ryan.

‘Oh, I disabled the fingerprint and facial recognition’ — wink — ‘for obvious reasons.’

Her shoulders tightened. But curiosity got the better of her, and she poked in her passcode instead. ‘What?’

She tried again.

‘Stupid thing...’

One last go.

A growl swelled in her throat, turning into a snarl as she slammed her phone down on the tabletop.

Dr Fife pulled on a pantomime pout. ‘Well, that’s just rude.’

OK: no more wanking about.

Angus wheeched the thing off the coffee table.

Dr Fife nudged Officer Crawford with his elbow. ‘See? No harm done.’ Then sauntered back round to his side of the coffee table, producing a different Google Pixel phone from his pocket on the way. Prodding the screen with a finger. ‘Three, six, nine, one, four.’

‘What?’ Kate Paisley stared at him, mouth hanging open.

He held the new phone up to show them the home screen — so cluttered with app icons that the backdrop was barely visible. ‘That wasn’t so difficult, was it?’

This whole thing had been a con to get her passcode.

Devious sod.

‘Bastard...’ Kate’s eye bulged, teeth bared. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you.’

‘I have my moments. And now: I have your phone. And all those little secrets we talked about.’

‘Yeah? Well, we know your secrets!’ Scraping her chair back and jabbing a finger at him. ‘With your underground paedophile ring, and drinking the blood of murdered kids. We know about your satanic rituals!’ Taking a step closer, spittle flying: ‘WE KNOW!’

Officer Crawford grabbed her shoulder. ‘All right, that’s enough.’ Scowling at Dr Fife. ‘I said: de-escalate!’

Tears sparked in Kate’s eyes. ‘They murder kids and I’m the one in prison!’

Dr Fife settled back in his chair again, feet up on Ryan’s face. Grinning. ‘Kate, the whole Pizzagate thing was a lie. You really think the Evil Global Elite are abusing kids under a pizza place called “Comet Ping Pong”? It doesn’t even have a basement.’

‘THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK!’

Officer Crawford nodded at her colleague — they both took one of Kate Paisley’s arms. ‘Come on, Kate. This visit’s over.’ They ‘escorted’ her to the door.

‘HE’S COMING FOR YOU, FREAK! YOU’RE DEAD!’

‘Think it through: if they’re drinking murdered kids’ blood, wouldn’t they do it at some swanky private club in the Hamptons? Who goes to a pizza place, on a busy intersection, in downtown DC, where everyone can see them?’ Dr Fife barked out a mocking laugh. ‘What happened to you, Kate? When did bullshit like this start to make sense?’

She wriggled free of the prison officers’ grip and surged towards the table, fists at the ready.

Angus blocked her way, hands out. ‘Don’t.’

‘I CHOOSE THE GREAT AWAKENING!’

Officer Crawford grabbed her again. ‘That’s enough!’

The other officer took hold. ‘Behave yourself.’

But Kate struggled and thrashed, teeth bared in a vicious smile as they wrestled her towards the door. ‘We will rise up. And you — and all your bloodsucking, liberal-elite, paedo friends — will burn!’ Her right foot lashed out, connecting with one of the plastic chairs and sending it wanging off to batter against the wall.

Dr Fife gave her a wee wave. ‘Ryan’s going to forget all about you, Kate, but you won’t forget about him, will you. No, you’ll build a little shrine in your heart and your cell, where you can worship him till they cart you out of here in a pine box. A faithful, stupid little disciple who’s already been replaced.’

The vicious smile sharpened. ‘You don’t know anything.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Ryan doesn’t need to replace me. WE ARE LEGION!’ Laughing and laughing and laughing as they dragged her from the room.

30

Angus stuck a finger in his ear and had yet another go: ‘No: Braecairn Forest. Bravo, Romeo, Alpha, Echo, Charlie—’

‘Oh, Brae-cairn.’ DS Massie finally twigged. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’

‘I was trying, Sarge.’

On the other side of the corridor’s great-big windows, that poor sod was still at it: doing battle with the leaves. And losing.

Dr Fife leaned back against the wall, fiddling with Kate Paisley’s real phone — now returned to its purple-leather kitten case — pulling faces as he scrolled through her photographs.

Angus, on the other hand, was on the fake Google Pixel, using up the ten quid’s worth of free credit it’d come with. Which was cool, given his was still stuck in a locker downstairs.

‘Hey.’ Fife clicked his fingers a couple of times, eyes still focused on Kate’s camera roll. ‘Tell her they buried Dr Fordyce near a sort of twisted tree thing. Maybe a pine? Possibly?’ He held out the phone. ‘This nature shit all looks the same to me.’

No wonder Kate Paisley had squirmed when Dr Fife mentioned idiots taking self-incriminating photos. There she was, pouting for the camera, flashing victory Vs with Dr Fordyce’s tattered remains in the background. The body lay broken like a shotgun, at the bottom of a shallow grave, about a dozen paces from an ancient, twisted oak. Going by the gashes and the blood and the bruises, she’d suffered a death every bit as horrible as her husband’s.

Somehow, Kate’s posturing selfie made it all seem even worse.

How could anyone be proud of that?

He looked away, phone to his ear again. ‘Sarge? They buried Dr Fordyce out by the Gallowburn. You know the tree they used to hang sheep thieves from, back in the day? Near there.’

A scrunching noise drowned out some muffled shouting on the other end of the phone. Then DS Massie was back: ‘Did he really trick Kate Paisley into unlocking her phone for him?’ Sucking a breath in through those tombstone teeth. ‘He’s a sneaky wee shite, I’ll give him that.’

‘Yes, Sarge.’ Angus risked another glance — Fife was logging into her WhatsApp messages now.

‘I want it back at the ranch A-sap. See if we can’t get these useless IT dicks to actually forensic something.’

Another bout of finger-snapping. ‘And tell her everyone needs to be on their guard. Chances are fifty-fifty Ryan’s going after a cop next.’ Frown. ‘Probably more like eighty-twenty.’

‘Dr Fife says—’

‘I heard.’ DS Massie sighed down the phone. ‘Fuck.’ Pause. ‘What happened to targeting bankers?’

Good question.

Angus poked Dr Fife, making him look up from Kate’s no-longer-private messages. ‘Why not bankers next?’

‘Because he’s seen the morning papers. Not only are you guys jackbooted pillars of the establishment, you’re actively hunting him. Ryan might think it’s rude not to return the compliment.’

A groan from DS Massie, who’d clearly heard that too. ‘I’ll put out a call. Anything else while you’re depressing the hell out of me?’

‘Think that’s us for now, Sarge. I’ll let you know if something turns up.’

Her voice went Sahara dry. ‘You do that.’ And then she hung up.

The faux Google Pixel didn’t have a case, so Angus powered down the screen and held it out to Dr Fife. ‘Can’t believe you just bought a new phone.’

‘Don’t worry: I’m claiming it back on expenses.’

Expenses?

‘It must’ve cost hundreds of pounds!’

‘Oh, yeah.’ He slipped it into an inside pocket, then set off down the hot-pink corridor, towards an internal balcony that overlooked the admin wing’s four-storey atrium — each level picked out in a different primary colour. ‘You want it when we’re finished?’ A set of stairs jutted out into the space, looping around a fifty-foot, dangling, art-installation-cum-chandelier thing, but Dr Fife clomped straight past, making for the lifts. ‘Seriously — I’ll tell Monroe that Kate Paisley smashed the thing to bits, and we had to bin it. He’ll never know.’

‘I’d know! I can’t accept a stolen phone!’ Angus pressed the down button. Changing the subject before the forensic psychologist worked his manipulative mojo on him. ‘How come you didn’t ask her where Ryan was, or what his last name is?’

‘Cos she’s hardly gonna believe I’ve got access to everything on her phone if I start asking stupid questions like that.’ He poked away at the screen some more. ‘Besides: answer’s on here, somewhere.’

‘You tried her contacts?’

An electronic voice clattered out of nowhere: ‘THIRD FLOOR. DOORS OPENING.’

And, as if by magic, the lift dinged, and the doors slid open.

Dr Fife stepped inside. ‘Course I tried her bloody contacts.’

It was surprisingly clean in here, certainly a huge improvement on the one back at Divisional Headquarters. But then maybe prison officers weren’t as manky as police ones?

Angus pressed the green button marked ‘G’. ‘What about texts?’

‘DOORS CLOSING.’ And so they did.

‘All deleted. Same with WhatsApp, her call history, and every one of her social-media DMs.’

‘GOING DOWN.’

Dr Fife frowned at his reflection in the shiny stainless-steel doors. ‘They’re on a war footing, Angus. You don’t leave anything lying around the enemy can use.’

‘Except for all those photos.’

A smile. ‘Gotta love stupid people.’

The lift slid down through the floors as Dr Fife went back to frowning.

‘So, what now?’

‘Lunch.’

Just the word was enough to set Angus’s stomach rumbling. Which felt a bit... off, given eight people had died and there was a killer roaming the streets of Oldcastle. ‘But we’ve—’

‘We’ve got fourteen days, give or take. And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t stop being human when I got into law enforcement. I still need to eat, drink, and take a shit from time to time.’

Suppose he had a point.

Plus it was a long time since those complimentary mini pastries.

Dr Fife tapped Kate Paisley’s phone against his palm. ‘You know what worries me?’

Ding.

‘GROUND FLOOR. DOORS OPENING.’

The atrium appeared, complete with indoor shrubs and bushes and a trapped sparrow flittering about from one planter to the next.

‘We’ve got blood from Dr Fordyce and Councillor Mendel at Sadler Road, but...’ His frown deepened. ‘...what if it’s not just trace evidence trailed in from the crime scene? What if both victims were actually physically there?’

‘How?’ Angus joined in with the frowning. ‘Why would they be there?’

‘DOORS CLOSING.’

The atrium disappeared again.

‘Exactly. And where would you put them?’

Angus pressed the ‘←I→’ button. ‘Why would you put them, more like.’

‘DOORS OPENING.’

The atrium appeared again.

‘Doesn’t make sense.’ Angus pulled his shoulders up. ‘Far better to leave their remains in the car-slash-van-slash-whatever till you bury them. Shifting bodies about is just asking for trouble.’

‘And yet...’ Dr Fife sucked his top lip in, making the hair on his chin jut out like a greying hedgehog. ‘Hit the button: first floor. I wanna do a bit of snooping. Then lunch.’

Typical.

Angus’s shoulders drooped again. But he pressed the button anyway.

‘DOORS CLOSING...’

Officer Orton was a small, slight woman who looked as if she wouldn’t say ‘mint sauce’ to a lamb. Well, except for the ring of barbed wire tattooed around her neck, like a choker. She clunked a plastic tray onto the custody suite’s twelve-foot-long reception desk — scowling down at them because A: it was raised a couple of feet above ground level on her side, and B: word had clearly travelled about what had happened in Family Room Number Three.

The processing centre for HMP Oldcastle’s new arrivals had a loading bay at the far end, hidden behind a pair of security doors; a mini-barcode of red, green, and blue lines set into the floor, leading off to various bits of the prison estate; cubicles down one wall, for people to change out of their civvies and into their state-issued blues; with shower facilities opposite.

Welcome to jail.

Officer Orton shoved the tray towards Angus. Contents: one large brown paper bag, with a preprinted form on one side — all filled out in red biro. She narrowed her eyes. ‘We don’t appreciate people winding up the inmates.’

Even on his tiptoes, Dr Fife’s eyes barely cleared the desktop. He stared up at her. ‘And I don’t appreciate assholes who torture eight people to death.’ Then did that annoying clicky-finger thing again. ‘Angus?’

Ah.

There was no way he could see what was in the tray from down there.

Angus bent over and reached out to—

‘I’m not asking you to pick me up, you idiot! Take the tray somewhere I can look at it.’

‘Oh, right... Sorry.’

Officer Orton didn’t bother to hide her schadenfreude smile. She plonked a box of nitrile gloves beside the tray. ‘It’s all inventoried, and I’ll be checking everything’s still there when you’re done. Understand?’

Charming.

Angus helped himself to a quartet of blue gloves, then took the tray over to a small table set beneath a sign with ‘SHOES HERE!’ on it.

He unlaced the trio of treasury tags holding the brown paper bag shut, and tipped its contents out into the plastic tray. ‘This is daft: they’ll have been through all this when they processed her at the station yesterday.’

‘Yeah, because I totally trust your colleagues not to screw things up.’ He snatched one of the gloves from Angus, then grimaced at it, before pulling the thing on. Officer Orton must’ve given them the extra-large ones, because the blue nitrile fingers were about twice the length of Dr Fife’s, leaving the rubbery tips dangling like drunken-octopus tentacles. He worked them into place with a vaguely... obscene motion, then did the same with his other hand, before poking through everything Kate Paisley had on her when she was arrested: a wee drift of small change, a couple of hair ties, two pens, a takeaway menu from Pizzageddon, a wallet, and a bunch of keys.

Angus looked up, in the general direction of Family Room Number Three. ‘What do you think she meant by that “We are legion” thing?’ Nodding to himself. ‘I was right, wasn’t I? There’s different cells of them, all over the city, killing people.’

‘Or maybe she was talking about all the online conspiracy douchebags out there, just like her. Now, shut up, and let me work.’

Emptying the wallet produced twenty quid in creased plastic fives, a photo of two old people holding a little girl’s hands, a Tesco Clubcard, the debit card Kate Paisley used to pay for those decoy pizzas, and a tiny bunch of pressed forget-me-nots that’d been laminated.

Dr Fife got to the end of his rummage and frowned, forearms resting on the tray’s lip, hands dangling. ‘Hmmm...’

‘Told you.’

He flexed his right hand, setting one of the tentacles flopping free again, before lunging to pluck the keys from Kate Paisley’s possessions. Holding them up to the light, as if they were precious jewellery.

A raised eyebrow paired with a smug wee head wobble. ‘Notice anything?’

Not really.

It was a perfectly ordinary bunch of keys: two Yales, what looked like one for a padlock, and one for a Honda Civic. All held together by a very old-fashioned, grubby key-chain-and-fob: a small pink baby, with oversized eyes and a great long shock of lime-green hair sticking straight up from its head.

‘Is that a troll? Haven’t seen one of them for years.’

‘Call yourself a detective.’ Dr Fife gave the troll a shoogle and something rattled about inside its little plastic body. He held it up to the light again. ‘I think the head comes off.’

Oh no.

Angus reached for the keys. ‘You can’t just go about damaging prisoners’—’

Too late: he’d popped the thing’s noggin right off. Dr Fife peered in through the open neckhole, smiled, then tipped whatever was inside onto his palm. A dark-grey, round-ended cylinder with a red band across the middle. Slightly smaller than a pen top. The smugness was palpable: ‘Know what this is?’

It took a moment to recognize the shape, but eventually Angus got it. ‘Some sort of USB stick.’

‘No. It’s a proximity key fob: radio-frequency ID. The kind of thing you use to open electronic locks.’ Tossing it in the air and catching it again. ‘Now why would Kate Paisley need one of these? And why hide it in a troll?’

‘Well, she’s an electrician, right? So, probably something for work.’

‘Yeah. Probably.’ He frowned at the fob nestled in his palm.

‘We should check back at the station: Team Spanner’ve been looking into her all day. Bet they’ll know.’ Plus, Angus could hand over Kate Paisley’s phone, and avoid DS Massie’s Naughty List.

Dr Fife shoved the troll’s head back on again — the wrong way around — and dumped it in the tray. Pointed at the former contents of Kate Paisley’s brown paper bag. ‘You can give that lot back to Smiler there. I’m off for a piss, a smoke, and a think. In that order.’

Shaky Dave’s Tattie Shack was a cheery-wee-wooden-house-shaped trailer — hooked up to the back end of a Range Rover and a portable generator — plying its potato-based wares in Gallipoli Park. It had a fake-shingle roof, a fake-brick chimney, and even a couple of fake seagulls, screwed down to stop them taking off in the howling wind.

On a sunny day, you’d have an excellent view of the big war memorial that sat in the middle of the park, pan left, across acres of municipal grass and trees, then out over Kings River to the pristine granite spires of St Bartholomew’s Episcopal Cathedral. But today, what you got was a vague tumorous shape lurking in the twisted shrouds of rain, a big expanse of grey, a slug-grey smear of water, and the ghostly shadow of some vast spiky monster.

The car park was virtually empty — just Dr Fife’s Mini; a fogged-up Nissan Qashqai, rocking rhythmically on its springs; and Shaky Dave’s Tattie Shack.

The man himself was reassuringly round, with a baldy head, Hawaiian shirt, and once-white apron. Oriental tattoos covered both arms and he whistled along to some sort of opera as he bustled from deep-fat frier to plancha to stove to prep area and back again.

All that catering equipment didn’t just exude delicious smells, it radiated a reasonable amount of heat too. Which was why Angus stuck as close to the serving hatch as possible. Plus, the side flap was up, forming a welcome shelter from the hammering rain.

‘Yeah.’ Angus grimaced out at the downpour, phone pressed to his ear. His own phone this time. In its safety-first ziplock bag. ‘But did you have to lay it on so thick?’

Ellie snorted. ‘Course I did. You want everyone to think you’re a hero, don’t you?’

‘No!... Well, maybe. It’s just a bit—’

‘My editor wants a follow-up for tomorrow’s paper. “Get to know the man behind the heroics” sort of thing. Maybe a couple of photos. Nothing sordid — very artistic. You could probably keep your socks on.’

A gust lifted an Oldcastle-Council-branded recycling bin and sent it spinning across the car park, spraying crisp packets and empty drink bottles and tins out into the gale.

Rain sheeted off the tattie shack’s faux-shingle roof.

Shaky Dave whistled away.

‘I’m joking! I’m joking. Well, about the naked pictures, anyway.’

‘Definitely not.’

A sleekit tone wormed its way into her voice. ‘Or you could give me the skinny on this morning’s murders? On account of me doing you a massive favour keeping your forensic psychologist out of the papers? Rumour is the Fortnight Killer hacked off the husband’s head with an axe!’

‘He didn’t. And a thousand percent not.’

‘Hmmmm... I’ll take that as a “maybe”.’ Strange clonking noises rattled down the phone, as if something had come loose at her end. ‘You getting shot at’s been a godsend, by the way: they’re bumping me up to senior crime reporter. OK, there’s already two other senior crime reporters, but that’s Oldcastle for you. Always plenty murders to go around.’

As if that was something for a city to be proud of.

Angus looked out across the car park to where Dr Fife sat behind the Mini’s wheel, fiddling away on Kate Paisley’s phone — with its camera roll full of blood and horror.

He forced a bit of cheer into his voice. ‘Congratulations.’

‘We should celebrate. You, me, Plastic Colin, Burps, and the Captain. We’ll have a Cocktail Calamity at Wobbly Bob’s and—’

‘No!’

Sod. That’d come out far harsher than necessary. Heat burst across his cheeks, warm enough to put Shaky Dave’s deep-fat fryers to shame. Angus cleared his throat. ‘I mean... I can’t be late for dinner three nights in a row. Mum’ll change the locks. Sorry.’

A sigh. ‘Honestly, Angus, I love your mum to bits, but she’s got you tied to her apron strings like a—’

No idea how that simile ended, because everything else was drowned out as Shaky Dave slammed his palm down on a wee reception-style bell. Ding. ‘GREEN: FOUR-SIX-TWO!’ Bellowing it out as if Angus wasn’t the only one there. ‘ONE PICKLE-FRENZY DIRTY DUCK-FAT FRIES WITH FETA AND AVOCADO; AND A SPECIAL POUTINE, EXTRA LOADED, WITH ONION RINGS AND SPICY SLAW; JUMBO LATTE!’

Angus held out his raffle ticket. ‘That’s me.’

Shaky Dave exchanged it for a pair of eco-friendly cardboard containers, two bamboo sporks, a small wodge of napkins, and a big wax-paper cup with a plastic lid. Meaning Angus quickly ran out of hands and had to pin the phone between his shoulder and his ear. He turned, holding everything tight to keep the storm from stealing it. ‘Yeah, so I can’t make it tonight. Sorry.’ Hurrying across the car park.

‘They’ll carve that on your gravestone, you know that, don’t you? “Here lies Angus MacVicar, he’s ‘sorry’.”’

Angus sidestepped a puddle. ‘You’ve had a right hedgehog up your bum ever since I asked about Gillian.’

A sniff. ‘Why would I care about Gillian? No business of mine who you’re shagging. I’m sure Mary Dunwoody would do a sixteensome for you, if you bung her a couple of quid.’

Bloody hell. Talk about bitchy.

Never mind a hedgehog, that was a full-on porcupine.

His bottom lip poked out.

And how come she was taking whatever-this-was out on him?

Well, if she was going to be like that:

‘Got to go. Sorry.’

She groaned down the phone at him. ‘Of course you are.’

Angus stuck Dr Fife’s coffee on the Mini’s roof and hung up. Yanked open the passenger door, rescued the wax-paper cup, and lurched inside. Thumped it closed again, shutting out the storm. ‘Bloody hell... Could you not’ve parked closer?’

Dr Fife didn’t look up from Kate Paisley’s phone. ‘Fresh air’s good for you. Builds character.’

Get, and indeed, stuffed.

‘Here.’ Angus held out the containers and cup. ‘Take.’

Dr Fife tossed Kate’s phone onto the dashboard, selected the top box — opened it, sniffed, closed it again — then did the same with the other one. Weighed each one in a separate hand. Then plumped for the poutine. ‘Let me guess: sporks?’

‘Cos we’re all “bloody heathens”.’ Angus plonked the receipt and a clattering of pound coins next to Kate’s phone.

He sat there, stomach growling, as Dr Fife chewed his way through a few sporkfuls, and the car filled with the mouthwatering scents of chips-and-cheese-and-gravy...

Which was more than a little cruel, given that all Angus had to look forward to was a mousetrap-lettuce-and-brown-sauce sandwich, an apple, and a wee square of rock-solid traybake that tasted like birdseed and carpet fluff. And even that was back at DHQ. Hidden away in the bottom of the filing cabinet in Dr Fife’s temporary office.

Assuming some sticky-fingered food-hoover hadn’t already found it.

Swear to God, some of his fellow officers were like bloody sniffer dogs when it came to other people’s food.

Angus’s stomach snarled again.

Dr Fife sporked up an onion ring and dipped it in the gravy. ‘Kate Paisley: who checked out the company she works at?’

‘Don’t know. Can find out easy enough. Why?’

‘We should go there.’ Munch, munch, munch. ‘Have a word. See what we can find.’

‘But someone’s already—’

‘If you learn one thing from our time together, Angus, it’s that the vast majority of people are assholes and idiots. Never trust them to do anything important. That’s your job.’ One last sporkful, then he closed the box and tried the Pickle-Frenzy chips instead. Nodding as he chewed.

Then handed Box Number One back to Angus.

‘What?’ Creaking the lid open an inch to peer inside. ‘Something wrong with it?’

‘Nope, I just like this better. You have it.’

Scraps from the master’s table.

As if he were a stray dog.

Or a weird little man quoting Shakespeare in a vomity bus shelter...

But Angus had his pride.

‘Told you: I’ve got sandwiches back at the station.’

‘No skin off my ass; I’m claiming everything back on expenses anyway. I’ll call you a consultant for accounting purposes.’

Angus stiffened. ‘You might be happy, gaming the system, cheating, but I’m not.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, what is wrong with you?’

His jaw clenched, the familiar heat crackling up his neck and ears. ‘I... I’m skint, OK? I’m always skint.’

‘So do some overtime!’

‘It’s not like that.’ He puffed out a breath. ‘We pay the bills, and everything else goes to charity: the Molly Ormond Foundation.’

‘Everything else?’ Spearing up a couple of perfectly golden chips, loaded down with all manner of tasty things. ‘No little treats? Soccer matches, burgers, night at the movies with some hot chick?’

Angus stared at his hands. ‘Mum and me get a fish supper once a month.’

‘Jesus. And Courtney thought I was screwed up. So, you’re living like a monk for this Molly Ormond woman? That doesn’t sound like a cult at all!’ Another mouthful disappeared. ‘How many yachts she got?’

‘She doesn’t have... Her mum and dad started the charity in her memory. Wanted to help kids who’ve got megalencephalic leukoencephalopathy with subcortical cysts, like she did.’

Dr Fife put the spork down and sat there, with his head on one side, studying Angus like an injured puppy. ‘Let me guess: your dad died from the same condition.’

If only.

He frowned out through the passenger window, watching the rain bouncing off the waterlogged tarmac.

Deep breath.

‘He took his own life. You’re not allowed to say “committed suicide” any more, cos “committed” makes it sound like he did a crime.’ Hard not to laugh at that — short and bitter. ‘I mean, he did do a crime, but that wasn’t it.’

Dr Fife’s voice lost its mocking sharpness. ‘Which is why you became a cop.’

‘We’re all atoning for something...’

‘And now you’re stuck giving every penny you’ve got to this charity for a condition that most people couldn’t even pronounce. Aren’t families great?’

Silence settled across the Mini as Dr Fife contemplated his Pickle-Frenzy. ‘Hey.’ He held them out in one hand, taking the poutine back with the other. ‘You need a slab of fancy fries way more than me.’

Angus glared. ‘I’m not a charity case.’ Then cleared his throat. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Have them, don’t have them — doesn’t matter. Either way they’re paid for. At least this way they won’t end up in the trash.’ A smile. ‘And cos I’ve tried them, that makes them technically leftovers. Ethically: no biggie, right?’

Unburdened by the shackles of pride, his stomach howled.

After all, it would only go to waste otherwise.

Which wasn’t exactly environmentally friendly. Or sustainable.

Yeah...

Angus accepted the Pickle-Frenzy carton. ‘Thanks. Sorry.’

He took the other spork and stabbed an unpeeled chip — all crisp and golden and loaded with bacon and capers and battered pickles and avocado and salty feta.

God, it was delicious.

‘That’s more like it.’ Dr Fife scooped up some poutine. ‘Soon as we’re done here, we hit Kate Paisley’s work. Find the missing clue. Solve the case.’ He grimaced through the windscreen at the battering wind and howling rain. ‘Then get out of this goddamn city before we all evolve gills.’

31

Dr Sparky was a cartoon man in blue overalls, with a big smile and pointy nose, screwdriver in one hand, lightbulb in the other, posing above the company name and the words ‘EMERGENCY ELECTRICAL REPAIR & MAINTENANCE SPECIALISTS!’ The logo dominated one wall of the small reception area — more like a minicab office than an electrician’s — hidden away in an anonymous business unit, in an anonymous industrial estate, on the anonymous outskirts of Logansferry.

A saggy grey rubber plant spidered its way up the corner of the room. The poor thing looked in need of either water or euthanasia. And so did the saggy grey receptionist.

He drooped behind the desk, cheek propped up on one fist as he perused the Daily Standard, lips moving as he read along, strip lights gleaming off his shiny head.

Dr Fife poked away at Kate Paisley’s phone again, forehead creased up like a sideways rollercoaster, sitting in a creaky plastic seat, feet dangling off the cracked lino floor.

Which can’t have been comfortable. But at least he had a seat — all the other chairs were heaped with electrical bits and bobs, leaving Angus to lean against the wall. Counting the spiders and cobwebs. And trying not to check his watch every two minutes.

Finally, the door through to the warehouse opened, and in marched a sturdy woman. Greying hair pulled back in a ponytail. Wearing a smile that would’ve fallen off her face if it was any squinter. She posed: one hand on her hip, the other making a gun that she aimed at the pair of them. ‘Dr Fife, Constable MacVicar? Jean Barber. You want to come through?’

She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned on her heel and headed back out the door again. ‘Bob, hold my calls, OK?’

Shiny-headed Bob didn’t even grunt.

Angus followed Dr Fife into a smallish warehouse just about big enough to fit a couple of double-decker buses side by side. Most of the space was taken up with modular shelving racks, but they’d left a space at the front, just inside the roller doors, for a grey Vauxhall Vivaro with the Dr Sparky’s logo and ‘IT’S NOT A PARTY WITHOUT DR SPARKY!’ on both sides.

Ms Barber headed for the van. ‘So... I had your colleagues in here for an hour this morning. One smug git with a quiff and a cold sore; and a wee nyaff with sideburns and eyes that point...’ Her twin index fingers wiggled off in random directions. ‘Wanting to know about Kate.’

That sounded like Ernie and PC Gilbert.

She picked a big drum of cable from a pallet and hefted it up onto her shoulder, the weight pulling her sideways as she shuffled between the shelving racks. ‘Kate’s a good worker, excellent sparky, doesn’t embarrass herself at the Christmas bash, and as long as you steer clear of vaccines, the royal family, Hollywood, and international politics: you’re fine.’

The drum thumped down on a shelf with three or four others, and Ms Barber lumbered back to the pallet for another one. ‘Did her apprenticeship with the council, started working here two years ago, and other than a parking ticket on the van, she’s never given us a bit of worry.’ Hoisting up a second drum of cable.

Angus pointed. ‘Shall I...?’

‘Be my guest.’

He stacked four of them in his arms and trailed after her, back into the rows of shelving.

Dr Fife didn’t offer to carry anything, though. ‘Did Kate Paisley really never mention anyone called Ryan?’

‘Nope.’

‘What about her home life? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?’

‘She lives with a guy. Only met him once, ’bout six months ago. Kate wanted to borrow the van. Said she had to move some wood and tools and shit. I said OK.’ The new drum banged onto the shelf with its mate. ‘We like to be flexible, you know? Keeps the team happy and loyal. One big family’ — Ms Barber winked at Angus — ‘right, Slugger?’

He lowered the four reels of cable into place, without so much as a thud.

Dr Fife leaned back against a stack of plastic ducting. ‘This man got a name?’

‘Probably. No idea what, though. Kinda Dave Grohl wannabe — you know, with the hair and beard? Buncha tattoos. Not bad-looking, if you like that sorta thing.’ A frown. ‘Think his van failed its MOT, and they had a homer in Auchterowan that weekend.’

A puzzled look curdled onto Dr Fife’s face, so Angus translated:

‘“Homer”. It’s when you do a job for someone who isn’t your employer, off the books, usually for cash.’

He nodded. ‘So, you’re OK with that?’

‘Long as I know about it, and it’s not a client who would’ve come to the company?’ Ms Barber shrugged. ‘No problem. You’ve got to use your own supplies and tools, though. And you never turn up here too knackered to work cos you’ve been rewiring your mate’s house all night. I didn’t build this company up from nothing just so some...’ She trailed off as Vivaldi Four Seasoned his way out from Angus’s pocket.

‘Sorry.’ He checked his phone: ‘DS MASSIE’ glowed on the screen. ‘Sorry.’ Hurrying off to a quiet corner by the workboard. ‘Sarge?’

‘Where the hell are you? Told you I wanted that phone back here, ASAFP!’

‘Dr Fife wanted to see where Kate Paisley worked.’

‘Did he now? Well, you can tell that pisshole egomaniac tosspot there’s procedures and a chain of command in place for a reason!’

He did his best not to sigh. ‘Sarge.’

‘Back here. Now.’

‘Right.’ As if he had any bloody say in the matter. Time to change the subject: ‘How’s the dig coming?’

‘It’s only been an hour. Give the poor sods time to set up the tent.’

‘Sorry.’ He picked at the nearest shelf. ‘Don’t suppose anything’s come of that search on the Lundys’ finances? You know, whether there’s a payment to Ryan for the—’

‘Oh, Angus, am I not keeping you up to date with all the teeny minutiae of the investigation?’ A sarcastic tut stabbed its way out of his phone’s speaker. ‘How terribly remiss of me!’

He had a quick look around, then lowered his voice, just in case. ‘Not my fault Dr Fife can be a bit abrasive, Sarge.’

‘He’s not abrasive, he’s a dick. But no, there’s no sign of a bank transfer, card payment, or cheque. We’ve got a grand withdrawn in cash a month ago, another grand two weeks after that, and one more last Friday.’

‘Final payment on completion.’

‘Yup. Poor bastards paid him a fortune; gave him a key; and he came back, in the middle of the night, and...’ DS Massie sighed. Couldn’t blame her. ‘I’ve got Mags and Pauly going through the other victims’ financials, see if we can’t find a better hit.’ Then she put a bit of steel back in her voice. ‘Anyway: Forensic IT’s all lined up and ready to get cracking on Kate Paisley’s phone. The only thing missing is...?’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

‘Should think so, too.’ And that was it — she’d hung up.

He hurried back to the pallet, but Ms Barber was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Dr Fife was all on his own, fiddling away with the phone in question.

‘You shouldn’t...’ Angus pointed. ‘You’re interfering with the chain of evidence.’

‘How ever will I cope?’ Fiddle, scroll, fiddle. ‘Kate Paisley might’ve deleted her texts and messages, but she’s kept photos of the jobs she’s done.’

Maybe they’d finally got lucky?

‘Ryan?’

Something higher-res than the crappy effort the Castle News & Post had published would be nice.

‘Not yet, but I live in hope.’ Scroll, fiddle, scroll. ‘It’s—’

‘Here we go.’ Ms Barber appeared from behind a stretch of shelving, carrying a sheet of A4. ‘Told you I was organized.’ She held it out. ‘Kate’s homers. Or at least the ones she told me about.’

Dr Fife accepted the printout, giving the list a quick skim. ‘And the other officers: they got the same list?’

Her mouth scrunched down, her shoulders up. ‘They would’ve if they’d asked about homers.’

Typical.

Ernie and Gilbert — a pair of utter numpties with warrant cards.

‘Thanks.’ Fife folded the list and slipped it into his greatcoat. Turned. Clacked away a couple of paces. Turned back again. ‘If you’re one big happy family, how come you don’t know Kate’s boyfriend’s name?’

‘She was kinda private about her love life.’ Ms Barber gave them a squint wince. ‘And with Kate, you don’t want to dig too deep, in case you set her off on another...’ Ms Barber’s finger came up to describe a little circle, right beside her ear. ‘Now, you guys want anything else, or can I get back to running a business here?’

The Mini crept forward another car length, still waiting for its turn on the roundabout with Kings Drive.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Angus read through the list of Kate Paisley’s homers again — fifteen sets of names and addresses, from Cowskillin to Fiddersmuir. ‘Don’t see the Lundys on here.’ He lowered the printout and sighed at the sheer extravagance of it: ‘Custom-built bookshelves...’ You didn’t stick charity-shop paperbacks and removed-from-library-stock hardbacks on something like that. No, you went into an actual bookshop and bought them brand new.

He looked across the car. ‘Was it nice being rich? When you were married to that psychiatrist?’

Dr Fife moved up into the space just vacated by a prolapse-pink Bedford Rascal with copulating sausages painted down both sides. Meaning they were next for the roundabout. ‘Way better than being poor. Right up to the point I found out Special Agent Morrison was boning my wife.’ Leaning forward in his seat, searching for a gap in the oncoming traffic with a huge smile. ‘I laughed for a week when someone shot him, right in the dick.’ A ScotiaBrand Chickens lorry rattled past, engulfing the Mini in a deluge of filthy spray. ‘Where am I going?’

Probably Hell.

Angus pointed. ‘Straight across. DS Massie needs Kate Paisley’s phone, soon as.’

The smile blossomed into a full-on laugh. ‘Took one of his balls clean off, too. Pow!’

Yeah, definitely Hell.

A gap opened up and Dr Fife put his foot down — the Mini surged forward, but instead of going straight across, onto Castle Drive, he swung them nearly all the way around the roundabout, provoking an outraged blare of horns.

‘Where are... No: that way!’

But Dr Fife accelerated up Kings Drive South instead. Making for the Calderwell Bridge. ‘We’re gonna pay a visit to one of Kate Paisley’s side hustles. Have a sniff about. See what we can turn up.’

Nooooo...

‘But DS Massie—’

‘Chicks dig a bad boy, Angus.’ Wink. ‘You give them what they want all the time: that’s how you end up in the Friend Zone.’ He let go of the steering wheel for long enough to punch Angus lightly in the arm. ‘But you know all about that, right?’

And all Angus could do was glower.

It took over half an hour of strained silence before they reached the genteel streets of Auchterowan. Well, Angus did his best to make it strained, but Dr Fife didn’t seem to notice.

Completely oblivious.

Yet again.

Trebuchet Row was a fancy residential street on the outskirts of the village — fine Georgian sandstone buildings, facing each other across a wide tree-lined street and nice big gardens. Four-by-fours, sports cars, and SUVs parked outside three-storey detached homes with names rather than numbers.

‘BALMORAL’ even had a turret on one corner. Like a mini castle...

A howl of wind shuddered the naked branches as rain flickered against the Mini’s bonnet. Even rich posh people got crap weather sometimes.

Angus turned his collar up and struggled free of the passenger seat. Clunking the door shut before the wind could get at it. Turned his face away from the icy needles being driven into his cheeks. ‘Could you not’ve picked one of the nearby jobs?’

Dr Fife scurried around from the driver’s side, straight past him and through the gate. Hurrying up the path, and not stopping till he reached the relative shelter of Balmoral’s columned portico.

‘All the way out to sodding Auchterowan.’ Angus stomped up the path, shoulders up, hands deep in his pockets. ‘DS Massie’s going to kill me!’

‘Stop whining. Besides, we know Kate and Ryan were both here, right? She borrowed the work van. Now shut up and ring the goddamn bell.’

Angus stomped his feet beneath the portico, gave Dr Fife the benefit of a scowl, then did what he was told. Holding his finger down till a deep bing-bong resonated out through the wood-and-stained-glass door. It was immediately followed by the scrabbling sound of claws on tile and an artillery salvo of barks from howitzer-sized dogs.

Yeah...

Angus backed away from the door a bit. Just in case. ‘They’ve got a team going through the other victims’ bank accounts. See if they took out money for Ryan too.’

‘Morons.’ Dr Fife held up a hand before Angus could object. ‘If they only preyed on people they’d done work for, why would Ryan need to steal a pizza-man disguise? The Lundys were a lucky accident for him. Call them self-selecting victims.’ Pointing at the bell. ‘Again.’

Ringing it hyped the massive dogs to even more enraged heights.

‘Maybe they were assholes while he was doing the work? Wouldn’t make him a cuppa coffee or something? Or maybe he had the key, and we were after him, so he needs to let off some steam?’ Dr Fife curled his lip. ‘Only an idiot craps in his own bath.’

A posh voice joined the baying ruckus. ‘Benedict! Dominic! Down, you naughty muffins!’

‘And Ryan ain’t that stupid.’

There was a clunk and the door popped open about a hand’s breadth, then a woman’s thigh wedged into the gap before the dogs could get their teeth into biting range.

She smiled up at Angus, making little wrinkles line up either side of her mouth. Her greying hair was immaculately styled, as was the rest of her, in a slate-coloured pashmina shawl, layered floaty top, and a pair of ripped-knee jeans that looked way more expensive than Angus’s suit. ‘Hello, hello!’ She grabbed hold of the hellhounds’ collars, only without the door in the way they’d transformed into a pair of Labradors — one black, one yellow — tails going full-pelt. ‘Don’t mind them. All mouth and no trousers, as my dear old dad used to say. How can I help?’

The living room was much nicer than the Lundys’ — not only was it blood-free, it had a cosy lived-in feel to it, with stained glass set into the windows, lots of polished wood, a set of comfy-looking armchairs, a crackling fire, and a whole wall of bookshelves. Busts of Shakespeare, Byron, and Emily Brontë gazed out blindly from the mantelpiece.

Dr Fife stood, still as the three dead writers, hands curled up against his chest as Benedict padded around him.

Dominic had abandoned all pretence of decorum and wiggled about on his back so Angus could rub his tummy.

Mrs Baldwin-Cooper emerged from the hallway, bringing with her three mugs. ‘Only instant, I’m afraid. Bloody machine’s on the blink again.’ She handed them out. Then toasted the bookshelves. ‘So, what do you think? Lovely, aren’t they.’ Her brow crinkled. ‘Benedict, leave the nice man alone!’

Tail between his legs, Benedict slunk off to his mistress’s side.

‘OK.’ Dr Fife wiped his hands down his greatcoat. ‘Mrs Baldwin-Cooper: where’d you find the guy who built them?’

‘Please, call me Patricia. Mrs Baldwin-Cooper sounds so horribly formal, don’t you think?’

‘Cool. Now, the bookcases?’

‘Oh, someone at Rupert’s club recommended him. Lovely chap. Frightfully good with the old woodwork. Been saying for years we really must get those mouldy old bookshelves replaced, and here we are.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘One doesn’t like to blow one’s own trumpet, but it’s nice to have one’s books properly looked after.’

‘Was his name “Ryan”?’

‘And when I say “one’s books” I do actually mean “one’s books”.’ She pulled a volume from the shelves — a hardback, featuring a generic historical-romance cover, with ‘P.B. COOPER’ in gold embossing along the top and ‘L’AMANTE DEL VIAGGIATORE NEL TEMPO’ at the bottom, bracketing a painting of a man in full Elizabethan gear reaching for a bosom-balconied redhead who was armed with a cutlass and musket.

Dr Fife’s eyes were on Benedict’s gaping muzzle, though. All those scary Labrador teeth. Tongue lolling out the side. ‘Right.’

‘Italian edition. Though why they had to change the title to The Time Traveller’s Mistress is beyond me.’ Sigh. ‘Still, they invite me to the most darling little festivals in Napoli and Bologna, so I forgive them.’

‘The man who built your bookshelves, was his name—’

‘Oh, he didn’t just build the bookcases! He did something much more special than that.’ Mrs Baldwin-Cooper lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve wanted one of these ever since I read The Famous Five, by torchlight, as a little girl.’

She flipped Shakespeare’s head back, exposing a hollow neck, reached in and pulled out a little round-ended cylinder: black with a green band around it, instead of the red-banded one in Kate Paisley’s troll.

Mrs Baldwin-Cooper carried her RFID token over to the wall of bookshelves, removed a copy of Diamond Hearts on the Spanish Main, and inserted the fob in its place.

Click.

She placed both palms on the bookcase and pushed — causing a whole three-foot-wide chunk of books and wood to slide into the wall. Then, after it’d sunk in a good four feet, it hinged away to the left, revealing a hidden room on the other side.

‘Isn’t it simply divine?’ She wafted through the secret door with Benedict and Dominic in tow.

Angus stared. ‘Wow.’

Dr Fife raised an eyebrow. ‘Interesting.’ He stepped inside.

Come on, it was more than ‘interesting’. When the thing was shut there hadn’t been so much as a crack on show. The workmanship was phenomenal.

Angus followed them both into what had to be the base of the turret they’d seen from outside.

The walls were free of any distraction, painted a bright white; the floor carpeted in dark-blue deep-pile; an upholstered window nook; a fancy office chair, a roll-top desk, and a wafer-thin laptop. The only books in evidence were a pair of thick reference tomes about seafaring and geopolitics in the late sixteenth century. A journal sat next to the laptop, the page filled in a curling fountain-pen script with today’s date at the top. All very, very swanky.

Mrs Baldwin-Cooper stuck her arms out and gave them a wee twirl. ‘My study.’

‘What was his name? The man.’

‘Oh, it was double-barrelled something. Nothing wrong with that, of course, all the best rogues are.’ Flirty wink. ‘And he was magnificently piratical, with a lilting west-coast accent.’ Her head tilted to one side, eyes misty. Then she gave herself a little shake. ‘Let me see...’

Putting the coffee on her desk, she crossed to the window nook and pressed a knothole on the polished wooden sill. A hidden compartment popped open, showing off a collection of identical leather-bound notebooks, just like the journal. ‘Now, where are we...’ Mrs Baldwin-Cooper walked her fingers along the spines, then plucked one from the collection and flipped it open. ‘As the great Charles Dickens once said, “One keeps a journal not for oneself, but for posterity.”’

She slipped on a pair of reading glasses and leafed through the pages. ‘October, October... Ah, here we go.’ Shoulders back, deep breath. ‘“Outside the leaves are like lips of fire, kissing the branches as the evening sky burns in gold and amber. Oh, October! Your pale, autumnal embrace—”’

‘If we could just skip forward to the name, Patricia.’ Dr Fife checked his watch. ‘We’re kinda on a clock here. With all the murders...’

Pink bloomed in her cheeks. ‘Of course. How silly of me.’ Running a finger down the page. ‘Here we go: Lachlan. Lachlan Ballantine-Reynolds.’

‘Jesus.’ Dr Fife winced. ‘No wonder he goes by “Ryan”.’

Angus held up a hand. ‘You didn’t lend him a key, or anything, did you, Mrs Baldwin-Cooper?’

‘You keep saying “Ryan”. Not the man from the papers: the one with the gun, who killed all those people?’ The colour drained from her face. ‘I... I mean, we had to so he could do the work.’ She blinked up at Angus. ‘But we got the key back, I’m sure we did.’ Clutching her shawl closed around her neck. ‘Didn’t we?’

‘Yeah...’ Angus patted her on the arm. ‘Might be a good idea to change the locks. Just in case.’

32

‘What?’ DS Massie didn’t sound convinced at all. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Lachlan!’ Dr Fife kept pulling faces and shaking his head as he piloted the Mini through Auchterowan’s rain-battered streets, heading for the main road back to Oldcastle. ‘What kinda monster calls their kid “Lachlan”?’ A snort. ‘No wonder he turned into a serial killer.’

Angus swapped the phone over to his left ear, popping a finger in the other one to mute the non-stop muttering. ‘No, I’m serious, Sarge, we’ve got a name!’ Checking his notebook, because accuracy was important when you were kicking off a manhunt. ‘Lachlan Ballantine-Reynolds. Lima, Alpha, Charlie, Hotel—’

‘Yes, I know how to spell “Lachlan”, thank you very much. And your writer woman: please tell me she paid him with a cheque or bank transfer?’

‘Sorry, Sarge. Cash only.’

‘Typical.’ The volume dropped on Massie’s end, probably muffled by a hand. ‘Hoy, Dusty! I need a PNC check on a Lachlan Ballantine-Reynolds... Yes: now!’

They followed the road, past a couple of truly palatial sandstone houses.

‘How’s it going with the shallow grave, Sarge?’

‘Slowly and carefully. What do you think: they’re going to howk the remains out with a JCB? It’s a depositions site, Constable, not a fairground claw machine.’

Fair enough.

‘Now: get that phone back here!’

‘Sarge.’

The line went silent. She’d hung up. Because when you were a detective sergeant, you didn’t have to bother with niceties like saying goodbye. Or thank you.

Angus put his phone down. ‘Still, at least now we know what that lozenge thing was in Kate Paisley’s troll. Spare key to Mrs Baldwin-Cooper’s secret room.’

‘Nope.’ Dr Fife reached into his greatcoat and pulled out a familiar liquorice-torpedo shape with a red band around the middle. ‘Tried it while darling Patricia was calling the locksmith. Doesn’t work.’

‘How have you got... You’re not supposed to steal suspects’ property!’

‘Besides, this one has a red band; Patricia’s was green. This...’ waggling it from side to side, ‘...fits somewhere else.’

Unbelievable.

And illegal.

‘Have you never heard of “chain of custody”?’

He popped it back in his pocket. ‘The question is: where?’

The Mini slipped out through the village limits, swapping genteel sandstone buildings for waterlogged fields and drooping woodland. Dr Fife put his foot down and poked at his phone/satnav. ‘What’s the fastest way to Kingsmeath from here?’

‘We have to go back to the station!’

A smile beamed across the little car. ‘Of course we do. How silly of me. Divisional Headquarters, here we come.’

Thank God for that.

The Mini pulled up to the kerb on Sadler Road, opposite number one-thirty-two with its fluttering banners of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape. The cordon had shrunk since they were last here, and now only sealed off Kate Paisley’s front garden from its neighbours.

For some reason, floral tributes and teddy bears had appeared on the chain-link fence, like sacrificial offerings to a murder that never happened. The stuffed animals sagged under the weight of all the water they’d absorbed as yet more rain scatter-gunned down from an ink-dark sky, wind battering through the wire — ripping leaves and petals from those petrol-station bouquets.

By rights, there should’ve been a Mobile Incident Unit parked outside, but it’d been moved on somewhere else.

Always plenty murders to go around.

Dr Fife killed the engine. ‘Will you stop going on about it?’

‘We have to call this in!’

‘We’re taking a punt, Angus, nothing more.’ A shrug. ‘Be shocked if this isn’t a complete bust, to be honest.’

For God’s sake. ‘Then why are we doing it?’

He opened the driver’s door — nearly losing his grip as the wind grabbed hold — and scrambled out. Curled his face away from the rain. ‘DON’T BE SUCH A DWEEB!’ Then wrestled the door shut again.

Angus sagged in his seat.

No prizes for guessing who DS Massie would blame for all this.

Outside, Dr Fife hurried across the road, bent almost double, greatcoat flapping and snapping in front of him. He ducked under the thrumming cordon, let himself in through the gate, and legged it for the front door.

Where he’d have to stay, because Angus had the keys.

Could just leave him out there.

Maybe the wind would batter a bit of sense into him?

Standing on the front step, Dr Fife turned to face the car, making jabby pointing gestures at Angus and the house.

Angus groaned.

They were going to be in so much trouble...

Dr Fife pretty much collapsed over the threshold soon as Angus turned the key. Stumbling forward into that nice, neat hallway.

Angus bustled in after him and thumped the door closed. He slumped back against the wood and dripped on the laminate flooring. Catching his breath. Then clicked on the lights. ‘If this is such a long shot, why are we here?’

‘Because that’s how you crack cases.’ Standing in the middle of the hall, Dr Fife did a slow three-sixty, staring at everything. ‘You take the long shots. Dream the impossible dream. Poke your nose in where it doesn’t belong.’ A lopsided shrug. ‘Be an asshole: rile folks up.’ Three-sixty complete, he wandered down to the end of the hall. ‘If you were putting in a secret room, where would you hide it?’

‘Dunno.’ Unlike Mrs Baldwin-Cooper, Kate Paisley didn’t have a swanky library full of her own books. ‘Upstairs?’

‘Urgh... It’s always goddamn stairs, isn’t it.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Good a place as any.’ Then headed back to the foot of those backwards, boxed-in stairs and lumbered up them, holding onto the balusters for support.

Angus gave him a decent head start then wandered up after him, emerging on a small, doglegged landing with three doors leading off it. All of which hung open, exposing the search team’s legendary bull-in-a-china-shop finesse.

Dr Fife nudged a small mound of frilly pants out of the way with his cowboy boot, and stepped into the front bedroom.

Click, and light spilled out onto the landing.

It was nicely kitted out, with fitted wardrobes on the far wall, a window overlooking the playing fields, and a double bed with a tasteful headboard. Nice light fitting. Decorated in neutral estate-agent-friendly tones.

Just a shame that every drawer and cupboard door in the place had been thrown wide and ransacked — the contents strewn everywhere.

Angus gave those pants a wide berth. ‘What are we looking for?’

‘Walls in the wrong place, I suppose. Hidden cubbyholes.’ He paced the room like a high-wire walker — heel to toe — as if measuring it. Knocking on all the walls with his ear pressed to the wallpaper. Then clambered into the open wardrobe to do a bit more knocking. Poking and prodding. Waving Kate Paisley’s RFID fob about.

He emerged in a clatter of wire coat hangers. Held the fob out to Angus. ‘Here: try the upper shelves.’

OK...

So Angus did — working his way from one shelf to the next, slow and methodical. But nothing clicked or swung open. ‘Maybe it doesn’t operate a secret catch? Maybe Kate Paisley really did have it for work?’

‘Not according to Dr Sparky; they don’t use this brand.’

Angus stepped down from the wardrobe. ‘When did you—’

‘While you were on the phone. I can actually investigate stuff without you supervising.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and headed out into the hall again. ‘You coming or not?’

Might as well.

Bedroom Number Two was a lot like the first one, only without the blizzard of searched-through clothing.

Angus ran the fob over everything, while Dr Fife paced the room and knocked on the walls. ‘Anything?’

‘Nope.’ And Dr Fife was off again.

In Bedroom Number Three, angry red light oozed in through the rain-rattled window as the sun sank behind the valley rim.

Once again: Dr Fife paced; Angus fobbed.

Nothing.

The forensic psychologist hopped up onto the edge of the bed, then flopped over onto his back. ‘Telling you: I’m not feeling it.’

‘If it’s not for her work, doesn’t mean it’s not for someone else’s, right? Or maybe it opens a gym locker, or a bicycle shed?’

‘Hmmm...’ He stared up at the ceiling. ‘This place got an attic, don’t it?’

Angus stuck his head through the loft hatch, holding his phone out and sweeping its torch beam across a skeleton’s ribcage of rafters and insulation. Dust motes hung thick in the air, wind howling in the guttering and growling across the pantiles, searching for a way in.

No boxes, no crates, no bits of old furniture. Just an empty attic.

Dr Fife’s voice filtered up from below. ‘Anything?’

‘What do you call that thing when they paint fake perspective on walls?’

‘Trompe-l’œil.’ In an almost perfect French accent.

‘Unless Ryan’s shit-hot at that: no.’

Just in case, Angus grabbed a little nugget of plaster sitting by the hatch and hurled it at the far wall. It sailed through the dusty air and bounced off the brickwork, exactly as expected.

He dropped back down onto the landing, leaving the hatch open, and brushed the fibreglass wool off his hands. ‘Not upstairs, then.’

They trooped back down to the ground floor and tried the lounge instead. It was OK. Not flashy. Couch, matching armchairs, a TV just small enough not to fall foul of Mum’s ‘vulgar’ rule, and a double-width rack for DVDs — though the actual DVDs were scattered across the carpet.

Outside, rain punished the city, hiding the other side of the valley in dark, swirling sheets. Angus closed the curtains, shutting it all away.

Which is what the search team should’ve done in the first place, hiding the room from the vulgar gaze of both press and public.

Dr Fife launched into his low-wire act again, wobbling across the room, knocking on the wallpaper, while Angus took the fob for a walk.

Nothing.

‘Same size as the bedroom.’ Fife knocked the toe of his cowboy boot against the skirting board. ‘Which is pretty much what it should be.’ Then frowned at the bland colour scheme. ‘Who owns the place?’

‘Technically: Kate Paisley’s aunt on her dad’s side, but she’s in a care home. Parkinson’s.’

‘Hmmm...’ He wandered out into the hall.

Rolling his eyes, Angus followed him. ‘Neighbours can’t agree how many people lived here, but we’ve got three bedrooms, so could be maybe six people? Think they’re all in on it?’

‘Don’t be dense.’ Stepping into the kitchen.

Cheeky sod.

‘Who are you calling “dense”?’

The kitchen was a lot messier than the last time Angus was here: all the drawers and units and cupboards lay wide open and empty, their contents unceremoniously dumped all over the work surfaces and floor.

Dr Fife kicked a path through the debris. ‘Three bedrooms, but only one looks like an explosion in a Goodwill store. So, either your mates in the search team have sticky fingers, or...?’

Bugger. He was right.

‘There was only two of them.’

‘Only two of them here.’ Dr Fife paced his way across the floor. ‘Kate Paisley said Ryan-slash-Lachlan was never alone. “We are legion”, remember? Could be houses like this all over Oldcastle.’

Ha.

Angus poked him. ‘See! I said it was lots of different murder cells, didn’t I?’

A withering glance. ‘Don’t push it.’ Dr Fife turned, frowning at the devastation. ‘Besides, having a whole bunch of serial-killing bastards running around the city is not a good thing.’

33

The bathroom was just big enough for Angus and Dr Fife, a toilet, and a jacuzzi bath. Sparkly tiles in shades of slate and petrol blue.

Dr Fife paced the room, then had a go with the RFID fob.

No joy.

He perched his bum on the closed toilet seat. ‘Let’s pretend that our Murderous Messiah has disciples other than Kate Paisley—’

‘And Sean McGilvary.’

Dr Fife snorted. ‘If Sean McGilvary’s the Fortnight Killer, I’m Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He’s been so screwed up by his religious-Fruit-Loop mom, it was easier to pretend he’s a serial killer than come out of the closet.’

‘But we’ve got him banged up for murder!’

‘Yeah, you should probably let him out again.’ Dr Fife kicked his heels, letting them swing back to doink against the porcelain. ‘Where was I? Yeah — other disciples. Could be four, six, or maybe he’s gone for the full Jesus dozen? Depends how many whackadoodles you got running round Oldcastle, looking for an excuse to kill people.’

Bit of a sore point, in the Serial-Killer Capital of Europe.

‘Thousands.’

A groan.

Angus shrugged. ‘Apparently it’s got something to do with all the mercury in the environment, cos we made heaps of mustard gas in the First World War. It can cause “developmental issues”.’

‘Yeah, that explains a lot.’ He looked Angus up and down. Shook his head. ‘OK: where did they find the DNA? The blood CSI found — Dr Fordyce and Jessica Mendel?’

‘Understairs bog.’

Going by the look on Dr Fife’s face, he had no idea what that was.

‘Bog. Loo. Or as my mum likes to say: water closet. First door on the right as you come in?’

‘Oh, the restroom.’ He hopped down from the seat. ‘Why didn’t you say?’ Pushing past and out into the hall.

‘Because we don’t have “restrooms” in Scotland.’ Following him to the panel door at the front of the house, squeezed into the space beneath the stairs. ‘Who “rests” in the toilet anyway? What kind of house do you live in if that’s the best place to put your feet up?’

Dr Fife pulled the door open, blocking most of the hallway.

Angus peered around it.

If the bathroom was a tight squeeze for two people, the understairs loo was barely big enough for one. A small WC and sink were wedged in there, with a heated towel rail and nothing else. Soon as the light clicked on, an Xpelair whirred and jittered into life.

They’d gone for less of a glittery-disco feel in here: slate tiles on the floor and halfway up the wall, petrol-blue paint from there to the sloping roof. With a line of thumb-sized pebbles separating the two.

Dr Fife stepped into the teeny space and turned. Mouth pursed.

Angus closed the door far enough to slip past, then opened it wide again. ‘Forensics think they were probably washing blood residue off their hands.’

A finger appeared, pointing at all four sides of the understairs loo: ‘Outside wall, outside wall, hall, which leaves this one.’ Because of the sloping ceiling, it wasn’t much more than waist height. Dr Fife reached out and knocked on the tiles.

The sound came back flat and dead. No echo from a nice hollow space concealed on the other side. ‘Damn...’ He sagged against the sink. ‘Really thought this was it.’ Head falling back to pout at the Xpelair. ‘Maybe I’m losing my touch?’

Vivaldi broke the disappointed silence with those jaunty violins, making Angus flinch.

When he pulled his phone out, there was ‘DS MASSIE’ glowing away on the middle of the screen like an ominous warning.

Yeah...

He bared his teeth, hissed in a breath. Then held the phone out. ‘Maybe you should answer it? It’s you she wants to speak to anyway?’

And Vivaldi fiddled on.

‘Move it.’ Dr Fife wriggled past, fighting his way around Angus and the door, into the hall, to knock on the ever-decreasing section of wall that ran along the side of the stairs. Getting a hollow echo for his trouble.

Well, someone had to take responsibility.

Angus took a deep breath and answered the call. ‘Sarge. Hi. I was just about to—’

‘If the next words out of your gob aren’t “walk into the office” you’re in trouble.’

Bugger.

Dr Fife tried again, a little further on: still hollow.

‘Funny you should say that, Sarge.’

‘Oh, is it now?’

Another knock. Another hollow noise.

‘Tell me, Constable MacVicar, when I told you I wanted a major piece of evidence in an ongoing multiple-murder investigation brought in, did you think I was having a laugh?’

Fife had reached the bit where the stairs were only a couple of feet off the ground and the plasterboard tapered to a triangular point. Gave it a wee kick with his platform cowboy boots.

‘It’s just the Boss said I had to stick with Dr Fife, and—’

‘Put him on.’

Ah.

Angus held the phone out again. ‘DS Massie would like a—’

‘Outta my way.’ Pushing past again and into the understairs loo. He frowned at the short section of wall — where it blocked off the underside of the stairs — for a moment, then gave it a hefty kick.

Thunk.

Definitely not hollow.

Angus stuck his head into the teeny room, one hand over the phone’s microphone. ‘Are you going to talk to her or not?’

‘This wall’s solid, but it should be hollow — cos it’s just the space under the stairs. That ain’t right.’

‘Maybe they bricked it up?’ Angus held out the phone again. ‘Speak to her.’

But instead of taking the thing and sweet-talking DS Massie, Dr Fife stared at the slate-grey floor tiles. ‘No scratch marks, so if it is here, the door has to open inwards.’ He produced the RFID fob again and ran it along the wall — doing one row of tiles at a time, from the ground up to where it joined the sloping roof. Then up past that as well, till he was standing on his tiptoes.

Angus went back to the phone. ‘Sarge? He’s in the middle of something, can he maybe call you—’

‘You remember that talk Badger gave you about detective inspectors being a vindictive bunch of bastards if you cross them? Well, detective sergeants are a thousand times worse.’

Dr Fife leaned back against the sink, forehead a rugged valley of peaks and troughs. ‘Come on, Jonathan: you can do this. Think.’

‘I’m doing my best, Sarge.’

‘Really? Cos as of now you’re right at the top of my bloody list!’

A step closer, and Dr Fife rapped on the tiles with his knuckles. ‘Or maybe we’re just looking at it the wrong way? What if it’s here, but it’s a bit more old-school?’

‘Put me on speakerphone. Now.’

Running his fingers over the tiles. ‘What if they built this before they got their hands on the fancy RFID kit?’

Angus pressed the button. ‘You’re on.’

DS Massie’s voice boomed out of the phone’s speaker. ‘Dr Fife!’ You’d think the ziplock bag would’ve acted as a muffler, but instead it seemed more like an amplifier.

Fife didn’t look around, just kept prodding at the tiles. ‘DS Thingy. Stop bothering my sidekick: he’s working.’ Giving up on the tiles, he tried the line of pebbles that marked the boundary between grey slate and blue paint. Press, poke, press, poke...

‘I’m guessing the FBI used to mollycoddle and indulge you, “Jonathan”, but Police Scotland expects you to be part of the bloody team!’

He’d prodded all the way to the cistern before a sharp click sounded and a sliver of black appeared at the base of that suspiciously-not-hollow wall. The whole thing had hinged up, exposing an inch of gloom where the wall no longer met the floor. Like some sort of weird, tiled cat flap.

‘When I say we need that mobile phone back at the station, I mean: We — need — it — back — at — the — station!’

The gap remained visible for a count of three, then it narrowed and narrowed and narrowed... until click: it disappeared again.

Dr Fife beamed. ‘Sonofabitch. You see that?’

‘See what? What are you talking about?’

He pressed the pebble again.

Click.

This time, he put his hands against the wall and pushed, before it could seal itself shut again. The whole thing hinged upwards — not stopping until it came to rest against what had to be the underside of the stairs.

‘Bloody hell.’ Angus squeezed into the room, head bent sideways to avoid the sloped ceiling.

‘What’s going on?’

Dr Fife stepped forwards, till the toes of his pointy boots disappeared over the edge. ‘HELLO?’

His voice echoed back at him from the darkness below.

He raised his eyebrows at Angus, grinned, then dug out his phone and switched on the torch.

‘DC MacVicar, I’m not kidding about here! Either you—’

‘Sarge? We’ve found something.’

The secret door started its slow-motion descent again. Dr Fife pushed it back up, the glow from his phone’s torch glinting off a little catch you could use to keep the thing open. ‘And that is why they pay me the big bucks.’

The torch traced around the opening — chipboard walls on either side, more chipboard on the underside of the stairs, and a set of wooden steps, leading down into complete darkness.

An uncomfortable scent of bleach and copper oozed up from down below.

‘If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on, this instant, I’m going to make you wish the Spanish Inquisition was in town!’

‘So, Angus, you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘Don’t you dare!’

A wink, and Dr Fife stepped into the secret passage.

‘No! We need to call it in!’

‘Call what in? AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’

Angus lunged for a handful of greatcoat, but there wasn’t enough room to turn and grab at the same time, and Dr Fife disappeared down into the torchlit gloom.

Oh, for God’s sake...

What if Dr Fife was walking into a trap?

Yeah, but one person stomping all over the crime scene was bad enough. Two would give DS Massie and DCI Monroe conniptions.

Protocol said he had to wait here for a search team.

But what if something happened...?

At least there was no one here to see him doing the Dance of Uncertainty, as if needing a pee.

Come on: man up.

Back to the phone. ‘Sarge? We’ve found a secret passage under the stairs at Sadler Road.’

A voice echoed up from the depths: ‘Are you coming or not?’

‘Stay there. Do not touch anything — I’m sending backup and Forensics.’ Her voice went all muffled. ‘Monster Munch: get a car sorted!’

Angus did the dance a little longer.

That was a direct order from DS Massie.

He had no choice, now.

None at all.

He wedged the phone between his ear and his shoulder, freeing up both hands to snap on a pair of nitrile gloves. Voice low, talking to himself. ‘Everyone’s right: you are a hulking great idiot.’ Then back to full volume again. ‘Don’t touch anything!’

‘Correct. And don’t let Dr Arsehole screw around with the crime scene!’

No way he was fitting through that tiny little gap face-first, so Angus turned, hunching his back as he reversed into the low, slope-ceilinged space, climbing down the stairs like a ladder.

After all, what could go wrong?

34

Walls pressed in on both sides of Angus’s shoulders — the stairs narrow, steep, and dark. And he had to navigate the sodding things backwards. Every step a mystery, with no idea what he was descending into.

But it probably wasn’t good.

DS Massie’s voice hissed and crackled from his phone: ‘We’ll be there in ten min—... for God’s sake, don’t—... sss...’

Then silence.

Hope this was worth getting fired for...

The last step thudded beneath his searching foot. Concrete, from the sound of it. He’d arrived.

The basement was little more than a short corridor, with the stairs forming the upright of a ‘T’ shape. LED strips glowed in the ceiling, but they were turned down so low they barely made any difference. And there was no obvious way of turning them up, leaving the room cramped, gloomy, and creepy. With an eye-stinging stench of bleach.

Dr Fife stood at one end of the corridor, tracing his torch beam over the bare chipboard walls.

There was just enough room for Angus to stand up straight in here, but his hair brushed the ceiling.

He held his phone up: no signal.

Great.

‘She’s going to kill us.’

Light swept across him as Dr Fife turned on the spot.

‘This ain’t right. No one goes to all this trouble to hide an empty... cupboard.’

Angus switched on his phone’s torch and held out a pair of nitriles. ‘Gloves.’ Watching to make sure he put them on. ‘Maybe it’s a bolthole? The door self-closes, so you could hide in here if someone comes to the house.’

‘What, someone like the police? Like we did?’ A sarcastic sniff. ‘Ryan-slash-Lachlan ran when he saw us, remember? Leading you away from the house.’

True.

Angus stared at the stairs. ‘And he came out of the understairs bog! The door was open.’

Fife turned to look too, bringing his torchlight with him.

A weird little shadow flashed in and out of existence.

‘Hold on. Swing the light back this way a bit.’

Dr Fife did — and there it was again. A strange crescent-moon shape set into the chipboard. It’d probably be invisible from the forensic psychologist’s eyeline, but it was right there for Angus.

He stepped closer, running his own phone’s beam around it. ‘Little... finger hole, or something.’ Plucking a pen from his pocket gave him something to poke into it, wiggling the biro about, rattling it off the edges.

That got him a raised eyebrow.

‘Well, I don’t know if it’s booby-trapped, do I.’ First rule of dungeon-crawling: do not stick any part of your anatomy into something that might conceal hidden blades. But nothing nipped the top off his pen, so Angus risked slipping his index finger in the hole.

There was a small space on the other side of the wood. Enough to hook the first two joints of his finger into. ‘Hold on...’ He pulled. Gently to start with, then a bit harder. Harder still... and clunk.

A section of chipboard came free — three-foot-wide, five and a bit feet tall. It didn’t come on its own, though: it was attached to a wodge of thick white insulation, then a layer of spiky grey acoustic foam, then a final layer of chipboard. All glued together into an eighteen-inch-thick sandwich, like the lid of a chest-freezer. Only upright.

The stench of disinfectant got much, much stronger.

Dr Fife grimaced. ‘OK, all that soundproofing is not a good sign.’

Angus shifted the ‘lid’ to the other side of the corridor, leaning it back against the wall. ‘We need to go back outside, right now, and wait for Forensics.’

‘Yup.’

Neither of them moved.

Dr Fife looked at him. Shrugged.

This was such a terrible idea...

Angus took a deep breath of bleach-tainted air and leaned into the opening.

His phone’s light bobbed across the walls of what could only be a cell — maybe six feet square. Going by the sides of the doorway, the whole place was wrapped in the same acoustic insulation.

Reddish-brown stains made abstract shapes on the pale concrete. Not dark enough to be fresh blood, but maybe if you heavily doused it with Domestos...?

The torch picked out more bare chipboard on the ceiling, and finally came to rest on some sort of cocoon of clear plastic sheeting, bundled into the far end of the cell. Big enough to take a body.

A blurred face stared out from inside it. Eyes wide. Mouth open. Lips purple. Bald on top, with a tonsure of hair around the sides. A pale belly pressing against the plastic. The cocoon distorted most of the fine detail, but it was obvious from the waxy colour and dark smears that the body was naked and covered in bruises.

Jesus...

Angus jerked his head back out into the secret basement and released a shuddering breath. Then wrestled the cell door back into place.

Dr Fife looked up at him. ‘What?’

Bloody hell.

‘Angus, for Christ’s sake: what’s in there?’

He cleared his throat. Backed towards the stairs. ‘I think we just found Councillor Mendel.’

35

Streetlights cast their wan light through the downpour, shivering like limbless trees in the wind. Doing their best to hold back the darkness.

Angus shifted in his seat, gazing out through the Mini’s passenger window as the SE team battled to get their blue plastic marquee up in number one-thirty-two’s front garden. Looked as if it’d come adrift from its moorings, though, because the thing was making a bid for freedom, walls snapping and furling in the storm.

Rather them than him.

The circus had arrived — with its filthy Transit vans and patrol cars — and now a pair of high-vis officers tied another cordon of ‘POLICE’ tape into place, sealing them all in.

God, it was all such a bloody disaster.

He shoogled around in his seat again as a new set of headlights appeared outside the blue-and-white tape. BBC News had arrived. Which meant the rest of the press pack wouldn’t be far behind.

A groan rattled out from the other side of the Mini, where Dr Fife had his seat fully reclined, lying there with his eyes closed, greatcoat draped over himself like a blanket. ‘Will you sit still?’

‘We just found a dead body!’

‘Meh. When you’ve seen as many as I have, it’s difficult to get that excited.’

Unbelievable.

Ding-buzzzzz.

Angus pulled out his phone.

GILLIAN:

That was nice of her to...

‘Shite!’ He sat up so quickly the whole car rocked. Eyes wide, followed by full-face clampdown. ‘Shiteing, shitty, shite... shite!’

Another groan. ‘Just a half-hour’s sleep, is that too much to ask?’

‘I’m supposed to be meeting Gillian for a drink!’ Seventeen minutes ago, according to the clock on his phone. ‘Shite...’

Well, he’d royally screwed that up, hadn’t he.

Deep breath.

Huge sigh.

Then he thumbed out a reply:

SEND.

Dr Fife raised an eyebrow, but didn’t bother opening his eyes. ‘Oh yeah? And who’s Gillian? She that school friend you been too scared to shag all these years?’

‘What? No!’ He squirmed a little. ‘Gillian’s just a... someone I met the other day.’

Thumbs clicking away at his phone screen:

SEND.

‘Word of advice from an old man who’s been there, Angus: this job screws with your sex life. You gotta move fast if you wanna get laid.’

‘It’s not about “getting laid”, you sexist dinosaur, it’s about—’

A policeman’s knock hammered on the car roof. Then DS Massie loomed at the passenger window, all done up in a rain-crackled SOC suit. She did not look happy.

Angus opened his door. ‘Sarge?’

Her face hardened. ‘Inside. The Boss wants a word.’

Not happy at all.

Angus scrambled out and hurried after her. Wind battering at his back. ‘Sarge? Is there—’

‘If you’re going to ask about the burial site: yes. They found a body.’ She turned and poked a finger into his chest. ‘Now guess what I’m going to ask about.’

A quick check over his shoulder — Dr Fife was getting one of his custom SOC suits from the Mini’s boot, so out of earshot. But Angus lowered his voice, just in case. ‘He kept coming up with other places he wanted to be! I did my best, but you don’t know what it’s like — he’s—’

‘Oh, I am sorry, Constable. I didn’t realize.’ Placing a hand against her chest, a wee pout to her lips. ‘There was me thinking that you were a police officer, and might have some authority in these cases!’

‘Doing my best, Sarge.’

She poked him again. ‘Just because the Boss made you Fife’s minion that doesn’t mean you get a holiday from doing what I tell you! And if you’re thinking’ — she put on a thick yokel accent — ‘“But Sarge, a man can’t have two masters.”’ Back to normal. ‘I’m not your master, I’m your god.’ Poking him in time with every word: ‘And — I — will — smite — you!’

Eek...

‘Yes, Sarge.’

Another poke, harder this time. ‘I don’t care what Dr Arsehole wants, when God says “jump” you bloody well ribbit! Understand?’

‘Yes, Sarge!’

Dr Fife plipped the Mini’s locks as he marched over to them. ‘Hey, Sweet Cheeks. If you’re giving the lump a hard time, don’t bother. He’s my sidekick, he does what I tell him.’

‘You...’ Her eyes bugged. ‘I am not your bloody “Sweet Cheeks”!’

‘Course you are! And I’m the man who gets results.’ He gave her a wee theatrical bow. ‘You’re welcome.’

DS Massie stared at him, fists clenching and unclenching, trembling with what had to be a volcanic, mammoth-sized heap of rage.

But Dr Fife didn’t hang around for the eruption, he swaggered past, and ducked inside the scene examiners’ marquee.

Angus grimaced. ‘You see?’

Her whole face tightened, muscles rippling along her jaw, then DS Massie stormed after him.

Oh joy...

The marquee walls billowed in and out as the wind buffeted them, as if Angus had just stepped into some vast artificial lung. The SE had set up an inner airlock over the house’s front door, a sort of mini-gazebo made of semi-translucent plastic. Presumably because the entrance to their subterranean crime scene was just inside.

No Abir today, instead it was DC McClarty who wielded the clipboard, all bundled up in a houndstooth fighting suit with a padded high-vis over the top. Breath misting in the chilly air. She held the sign-in sheet out, but DS Massie pushed straight past.

‘Who the hell are you calling “Sweet Cheeks”?’

Dr Fife paused, halfway through unwrapping his SOC suit, to bend and peer at her backside. Because clearly he had a death wish. ‘Yeah, it’s flat and square, but I’d still tap that.’

She stepped up, fist raised — but Angus lunged in front of her. Blocking the way.

‘Sarge: the phone! I’ve got it right here.’ Pulling Kate Paisley’s mobile from his pocket, now secured in his spare ziplock bag. ‘To sign into evidence?’

She snatched it from his hand, glaring at Dr Fife. ‘This isn’t over!’

The front door opened with a phooom, sucking the marquee walls in, as if taking a deep breath, and an SOC-suited figure appeared. Indistinct and blurred behind the semi-translucent airlock. Coming into focus as he pushed through into the marquee proper.

DCI Monroe pulled his shoulders back. ‘What’s all the ruckus out here?’

‘Just turning over some evidence.’ Dr Fife pointed at the phone with a smile. ‘I stuck the passcode on the screen, by the way. Cos I’m a team player.’

‘Hmmph.’ DS Massie wriggled the cover open — not easy, because of the bag — and scowled down at the Post-it with ‘36914’ printed on it. ‘You should’ve been back with this hours ago.’

‘Instead of which, we found two of your missing victims.’ A faux-modest shrug. ‘Like I said: team player.’ He finished by tipping a wink in DS Massie’s direction. Throwing rocket fuel on the fire.

She stiffened, ready to swing, but Angus stayed where he was, a dirty-great-big human shield.

‘Sarge...’

Monroe sighed. Frowned at the pair of silly buggers. Then shook his head. ‘In case anyone’s keeping score: I’ve got a serial killer on the loose, the media breathing down my neck, the Chief Superintendent looking over my shoulder, and a kitchen refit that’s turned into a never-ending money-bonfire — I don’t need you pair getting into a dick-measuring contest every time my back’s turned!’ The frown turned into a scowl. ‘Understand?’

The only sound was the wind scrabbling against the marquee walls.

Dr Fife looked at the ground. Kicked a paving slab. ‘Yes.’

DS Massie glared at him for a couple of breaths, then nodded. ‘Fine.’

‘But for the record, mine is much bigger.’

Her jaw clenched again. ‘Why do you have to be such a—’

‘Like a toddler’s leg.’

‘Just...’ Monroe massaged his temples with a purple-nitrile hand. ‘Rhona: go rattle the Media Office. Tell them we’ll need a lot of press management on this one. I want a statement prepped and ready to go.’

No reply.

A warning tone crept into his voice: ‘Rhona?’

She huffed out a breath and cricked her neck. ‘Boss.’ Clacked the phone’s cover shut, turned, and stomped out again.

Angus sagged. ‘Thanks, Boss.’

He snapped off his gloves and dumped them in a black bin by the airlock. ‘Three bodies in one day. I’d like to say that’s a record for Oldcastle, but it’s more like a Wednesday...’ He patted DC McClarty on her high-vis shoulder. ‘Clarty, why don’t you go get yourself a cuppa.’

Big grin. ‘Boss.’

Soon as she’d gone, Monroe slumped into one of the plastic chairs, covering his face with his hands. ‘Three bodies.’ Shoulders drooping. ‘Thank God we didn’t tell everyone Sean McGilvary was the Fortnight Killer.’

Dr Fife unfurled his custom SOC suit. ‘Look on the bright side: at least now we gotta name, right? Can’t be too many Lachlan Ballantine-Reynolds in Oldcastle.’

‘There aren’t any. The PNC came up blank, so I got Monster Munch to do a wider search. Turns out “Lachlan Ballantine-Reynolds” is a character from some obscure American comic book. Hunts vampires, zombies, and werewolves in ye olde Wild West.’

Sod.

Monroe made circling gestures with one hand. ‘Byron and Mags are off to visit your writer woman, see if we can’t get a decent eFit of this guy. Got to be better than the out-of-focus blur in the papers this morning.’ He grimaced. ‘You two: call it a night. We’ve got more than enough dead bodies for one day. Don’t need you finding any others.’

‘But—’

‘It’s half seven, Angus; shift officially ended at five. Go. Have a drink or something. Blow off steam. Come back tomorrow morning, ready to catch this bastard.’

‘But—’

‘Good idea.’ Dr Fife grinned. ‘Besides: Godzilla here’s gotta hot date with a sexy chick.’ Slapping him on the back. ‘Ain’t ya, Champ?’

‘I don’t have a—’

‘Mind you, given how skint he is, doubt Loverboy could paint the town pale peach, never mind red.’

Heat rushed to the tip of Angus’s ears. ‘Will you please—’

‘Here.’ Monroe dug into his rustling SOC suit and produced a wallet, liberating three twenties. He held them out. ‘I hereby officially declare this to be petty cash. We’ll call it “team building”.’ With that he groaned himself upright and lumbered back through the airlock again. ‘Just make sure you get a receipt!’

The house door clunked shut, leaving Angus and Dr Fife alone in the marquee.

Dr Fife fingered the cash. ‘That went pretty well.’

In what world?

Angus scowled at him. ‘Why do you always have to do that?’ Jabbing a finger in the general direction DS Massie had gone. ‘And “Sweet Cheeks”? Have you any idea how misogynistic and patronizing that—’

‘Of course I do! That was the whole point.’ He rolled his eyes as Angus blinked. ‘Means she’s too busy being pissed at me to be pissed at you.’ He scrumpled his unworn SOC suit up and pitched it at the bin. Missed. ‘Besides, me and DS Massie: unresolved sexual tension is kinda our thing.’ Leaving the crumpled Tyvek where it fell, he turned for the marquee’s exit. ‘Now where are we meeting this Gillian woman?’

Angus backed away, both hands up. ‘Oh no — you’re not meeting anyone! I’ve seen what you’re like with police officers, I’m not letting you anywhere near someone I actually like!’

36

The Mini weaved a path between the waterlogged potholes on Mortsafe Road, past dirty sandstone buildings and gurgling gutters. Not the swankiest bit of Castle Hill by any means — the kind of street where a kebab shop rubbed shoulders with a bookie’s and ‘HONEST TONY’S VAPE EMPORIUM’.

‘Son of a bitch.’ Dr Fife scowled out through the windscreen as the wipers thud-squealed their way back and forth. ‘This ain’t how a wild night out starts!’

Tough.

‘I have responsibilities, OK?’ Angus pointed. ‘That’s us, over there.’

They pulled up outside a glum red-brick building with big windows. It looked like a small recycled supermarket from the seventies or eighties — probably part of a chain that went bust long before Angus was even born. The current owners had done a half-arsed job of painting over the old signage, replacing it with a tattered banner: ‘PETOPIA! DISCOUNT PET WAREHOUSE ~ EST. 2019’. So they’d timed that well.

‘You said we were going to a bar!’

‘Brief stop.’ Angus climbed out into the rain. ‘And now you know what it’s like.’ He turned up his collar and ran for the entrance.

According to a sign sellotaped to the glass, opening hours were ‘08:00–20:00’, meaning they’d made it with a whole four minutes to spare.

Angus yanked the door open and charged inside.

The owners had put the same care and attention into renovating the interior as they had the façade. The stained chess-board linoleum still bore the marks of old supermarket shelves, but now everything was piled up on wooden pallets — pet food in huge bags; cardboard trays of tins; stacks and stacks of boxed pouches...

A section at the back was made up of racked cages, each featuring a miserable gerbil or a depressed rabbit, while Simply Red’s greatest hits played over the tannoy.

Angus hurried to the canine section and grabbed a pale-grey sack with ‘SCOTIABRAND TASTY CHICKENS LTD. BUDGET-FRIENDLY MECHANICALLY-RECOVERED-MEAT DRIED DOGFOOD ~ 15KG’ printed on it. Swung it up onto his shoulder and sprinted for the checkout.

It banged down on the motionless conveyer belt, and a boot-faced man rang it up. His expression darkening further as Angus paid with seven pound coins and a big clattering fistful of small change.

Angus hefted the dogfood back onto his shoulder and legged it out to the car again — placing the sack in the back and fastening its seatbelt, like a chubby, limbless passenger. ‘See?’ Fastening his own seatbelt this time. ‘Didn’t take a minute.’

Dr Fife pulled out onto the road. ‘I could be at home, having dinner on the deck, with friends. ’Stead of picking up dogfood, in a rainy shithole, with an idiot.’ He slowed for the junction with McLaren Avenue. ‘Where are we meeting this sexpot of yours?’

‘She’ll be long gone by now.’ And who could blame her? ‘Maybe you should just drop me home.’

‘No way. We’re hitting whatever bar you were taking her. He raised a finger. ‘One: it won’t be some dive, cos you’re trying to impress her. Two: you’re not exactly a pickup artist, so it won’t be anywhere too swanky. Three: you ain’t the sort to hump on a first date — assuming you’ve ever humped at all, and the jury is way out on that one — so it’s gonna be a place where you can actually talk. And four: you’re a cheap bastard, so the booze ain’t gonna cost a fortune.’ He narrowed his eyes and stared at Angus. ‘Fifty bucks says it’s old-fashioned and quaint, with a cute folksy name.’

Warmth fizzled across the back of Angus’s neck.

‘Shows what you know.’

The Shoogly Peg was a proper, old-fashioned Scottish pub, with booths and tables arranged around a central bar that looked a bit like an unpainted fairground carousel. Only without the horses. And a lot more bottles of Bell’s, Grouse, and Grant’s.

A place free from the taint of theme nights and karaoke competitions and darts leagues and live music.

They’d even rejected the sinful allure of recorded music, preferring instead the gentle hum and susurrus of auld mannies hunched over their pints, and the occasional click of a domino.

Angus sat next to the bag of dogfood, a pint and a nip on the table in front of him as he slipped his clip-on tie into a jacket pocket.

Dr Fife filled the other side of the booth, sprawled out, taking up as much space as possible, contemplating a pint and a nip of his own. He raised the small glass. ‘In just three days we’ve come this close to catching a serial killer, duped his disciple, located a hidden grave, got the aforementioned serial killer seriously pissed at us, then sat through an autopsy, discovered a secret hidden basement and a dead body, and been given the night off.’ A lopsided smile. ‘Even for me, that’s a record.’

They clinked glasses and Angus took a sip: sweet and smoky and corrosive, and not too dissimilar to drinking burnt varnish. Shuddering as it went down, eyes closed, tongue poking out. ‘Dear God...’

Turned out bourbon was nowhere near as nice as a proper Scottish whisky. Or creosote. Or Toilet Duck.

Dr Fife just sniffed his. ‘When I got away from the Brethren, I went on a bit of a bender. After all those years of strict fundamentalist Christian horror, I was all about the tits and beer... You know what a decade of hedonistic excess gets you, Angus?’

‘Who’s “the Brethren”?’

He waved that away. ‘A liver the size of Tibet and a lot of very happy memories. The ones you can remember, anyway.’ Sigh. ‘Thirty years on the wagon...’

Angus shifted in his seat. ‘Sure you want to fall off now?’

‘Not like I gave up for religious reasons. ’Sides: kinda interested to find out if I’ve lost the taste for it.’ He knocked back the whole glass of bourbon in one. Closed his eyes as he rolled it around his mouth, savouring the horrible taste, before swallowing. ‘Ahhhh... Like riding a specially adapted bicycle.’ He nodded at Angus’s glass. ‘Drink up. Got a lot of catching up to do, and a whole sixty pounds to do it with.’

The pub’s patrons had swelled with the addition of a professional drinker — in a tweed bunnet, sports coat, jogging bottoms, and dress shoes — and a trio of after-work types in sharp suits, drinking imported beer and talking in some kind of Eastern European language.

The second round lay empty on the table, and a warmth had inhabited Angus’s chest. A nice one, not an embarrassed flush this time. Bourbon wasn’t so bad once you got used to it.

Dr Fife leaned forward, poking the table. ‘See, Ryan’s just swapped one cult for another. That’s what conspiracy theories are — online cults. You don’t have to travel to Waco or Jonestown, you can join up from the safety of your laptop or iPhone. Feel superior cos you’re part of the select few who understand secrets no one else does.’ The finger traced an invisible circle between the empty glasses. ‘You draw a Venn diagram of people with paranoid tendencies, people who believe in conspiracy theories, and people who’re into cults, the three circles would so overlap.’ Then Fife’s finger came up to point. ‘Want another one?’

‘Can’t, my bus is in...’ He checked his watch: half eight, already. ‘Oh buggering hell. Missed it.’

‘Then one more ain’t gonna hurt.’

The barman put a nice sharp head on the second pint of Stella and placed it on Angus’s tray. Then turned and chugged a couple more bourbons from the optics behind the bar.

Angus nodded. Smiled. And made sure not to get any of the words wrong, because his tongue was going a bit floppy. ‘Thank you. And can I have a receipt, please?’

That got him a grimace, but the barman printed one out on the till anyway.

The Shoogly Peg was beginning to feel almost busy as two gentlemen laid claim to one of the empty booths. One looked like Wayne Rooney’s uglier cousin: close-cropped hair on a scarred Easter Island head, while his companion had a definite extra-from-Braveheart vibe: curly red pigtail, big moustache, and John Lennon sunglasses. Bit of a dick thing to wear indoors, but what the hell.

The barman plonked the receipt on the tray, along with a smattering of change. Raising his voice weirdly loud: ‘There you go, Officer.’

At which, the two newcomers gave Angus matching grins.

Which was really friendly of them.

He gave them a cheery nod on his way past, carrying the tray back to the booth. Putting it down nice and slow in case anything spilled. ‘That’s the last of the float.’ Scooping the change from the bottom of the tray. ‘Got enough for a packet of crisps?’ A couple of five-pence pieces slipped from his hand and skittered across the tabletop. He lunged — slamming a hand down to stop them escaping. ‘Oops.’

Dr Fife helped himself to a pint and a nip. ‘You know, for a big lad, you ain’t so good at holding your liquor.’

‘I’m perfectly sober, thank you very much.’ Only slightly spoiled by nearly missing the bench as he sat down. ‘Where was I?’ Ah, right. ‘OK, so people think LARPing is just for spotty kids, but it’s so much more than that. You get to be someone else for a bit, you know? Step out of yourself and suddenly you’re like... a wizard, or a mighty warrior.’ He took a sip of cold fizzy beer. ‘It’s basically all the fun of role-playing, but you’re out in the fresh air battering each other with padded swords and things. Win, win.’

‘Sounds like an idyllic childhood.’ Dr Fife’s eyebrows drooped a bit. ‘Must’ve been nice.’

‘And we had a lovely big house in Cults — that’s on the outskirts of Aberdeen. Only after Dad’s death there were all these debts Mum didn’t know about and she had to sell up. Everything. House, furniture, car, computer, all her fancy clothes...’ Another sip. ‘Course her friends abandoned her, cos of what Dad did, so we packed up what was left and moved to Oldcastle. “Fresh start,” she said.’ Which was a joke. ‘Only place we could afford was a tiny crappy flat, in a crappy tower block, in crappy Kingsmeath. Kingsmeath! I had a huge garden and a golden retriever.’

‘In a tiny flat?’

‘No. When we moved, Westminster had to go away: live on a farm.’

A nod. Then Dr Fife reached across the table and patted Angus’s arm. ‘If it’s any consolation, I wasn’t allowed pets, because keeping an animal for fun was a sin.’ He opened his mouth to say something else, then clicked it shut again. ‘Back up a bit. Think we missed something important there. What did your father do?’

‘Not supposed to talk about it.’ Angus took a good long scoof of lager, chasing down a slurp of bourbon. ‘Anyway, I still had my LARPing gear, so I joined a club in Blackwall Hill and we had all these epic adventures in Camburn Woods, and out by Braecairn... Best thing was, other than a few rolls of duct tape and some foam rubber, it didn’t cost a penny.’ He wagged a finger at the big bad world outside. ‘See, what’s wrong with kids having a bit of imagination? These days it’s all served up on tablets and laptops and smartphones! How’s that progress?’

There was a ding on the other side of the table. Dr Fife pulled his phone out and checked the screen. ‘That identikit image’s come through.’ He pursed his lips, eyes narrowed as he stared at it, moving the phone closer then further away. Before flipping it around. ‘He look familiar to you?’

A black-and-white, computer-generated face filled the screen: male; long, straight, dark hair and a trimmed beard; large ears; sharp cheekbones; dark eyes. As if Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters and Captain Jack Sparrow had popped out a love child.

‘Tell ya, Angus: that woman spends way too much time fantasizing about pirates.’

He unfocused his eyes a bit, tried to conjure up a muddy rugby pitch in Kingsmeath... ‘Sort of? Like I said, I didn’t really get that good a look at—’

‘Angus?’ A woman’s voice. Soft, with a west-coast lilt.

Dr Fife covered the eFit with his palm and slipped his phone back in his pocket.

When Angus looked up, there was Gillian in her combat trousers and leather jacket, holding a stripy beanie hat like a little Victorian orphan. Lots of smoky eye make-up. Hair plastered to her head. Dripping rainwater onto the pub’s wooden floor.

‘Gillian!’ He tried to stand, but the booth’s bench seat and table got in the way, restricting him to an awkward half-bow. Very slick. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here when... but the investigation...’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. Thought you’d gone home.’

‘Did. Lost my hat.’ She held up the stripy beanie. ‘Someone handed it in at the bar.’

Dr Fife looked her over. ‘So you’re the legendary Gillian? Angus never told me you were beautiful.’

Her pink cheeks went bright as a strawberry. ‘Oh, I... It’s...’

He stuck out his hand. ‘Jonathan. Or Dr Fife, if you want to step behind the screen and show me where it hurts?’ Wink.

Gillian shook his hand, but the sleazy sod kept hold of it. ‘Sorry. Er... Are you...?’

‘Angus’s mentor? Well, you could call me that, but I like to think of myself more as a wise friend, helping to guide him and his colleagues.’ Another sodding wink. ‘Please, join us.’ He turned to Angus. ‘Why don’t you get Gillian a drink?’

How?

They’d burned through the float already; all they had left was crisp-money.

Dr Fife held up a finger. ‘It’s OK, it’s on me.’ Then whipped out a twenty and passed it across the table. Just so everyone could see that Angus couldn’t afford to buy a round. Because Angus had planned to visit the Cashline machine on the High Street, back when Gillian was still going to be here, and didn’t because it was just meant to be him and Dr Fife and if he’d known she was going to come back for a missing hat he would’ve raided thirty quid from his savings as planned instead of standing here like Scrooge’s ghost begging for charity and how was this bloody fair?

Gillian brushed a strand of wet hair behind her ear. ‘Thanks. Er... a pint of Camburn Beasties, please? Thanks.’ She gave Angus a pained smile. ‘Sorry. Thanks.’

‘Camburn?’ Dr Fife stretched out in the booth, marking his territory. ‘Like the woods?’

She nodded.

‘You know: Angus was just telling me how he likes to run around down there, dressed as an elf. Hitting people with sticks.’

Oh, for God’s sake...

If the pub’s floorboards could just open up, right now, and swallow him whole, that would be great.

Things had got worse by the time Angus returned with the drinks, because Gillian had shuffled in on his side of the booth.

To start with, that seemed like a great thing, because when he got back from the bar with two lagers, two bourbons, and a pint of Camburn Beasties, that meant she was sitting right next to him. Sitting together. Side by side.

But after twenty minutes the reality sank in — she wasn’t sitting next to him, she was sitting opposite Dr Fife, gazing at the bastard with awe as he told his completely unfunny stories about how he’d caught loads of American serial killers. Like the current rambling, uninteresting, humble-brag, buggering-awful one:

‘...and I swear to God, he’s standing there, with his trousers round his ankles, dick in one hand, and a partially skinned human skull in the other — and he takes one look at the SWAT team and says, “What? Never seen a man getting head before?”’

There was a sharp intake of breath from Gillian, then she burst out laughing. Clapping both hands over her mouth, stifling the giggles that followed. ‘Oh God, that’s so horrible!’

Dr Fife settled back in his seat, arms along the top, dominating the space. ‘Worst thing is: wasn’t his dick. Hacked it off a security guard in Baltimore.’

‘No way!’ She shook her head, then turned to Angus. ‘Sorry. Gotta go to the bathroom.’

He got up and she shoogled herself out of the booth. Straightened her top. Gathered up all their empty glasses like someone who’d done regular bar work. ‘Same again?’

Dr Fife grinned. ‘Excellent idea.’

And off she shimmied.

Angus waited until she was out of earshot before squeezing back in and poking the table. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Being charming?’

‘Well, stop it! No more being charming.’

He tilted his head on one side. ‘Are you jealous, Constable MacVicar? I’m old enough to be—’

‘A dirty old man!’ He poked the table again. ‘How am I supposed to compete when you’ve got money and two decades’ worth of “funny” FBI serial-killer stories?’

‘It’s not a competition, Angus. Women aren’t prizes; they’re not goldfish at the county fair.’

Typical.

‘I liked her first! You’re such a wanking—’

Oh bollocks — Dr Fife was staring over Angus’s shoulder, mouth pulled out and down, one eyebrow raised.

She was behind him, wasn’t she?

She’d been there the whole time, listening to him ranting away like a jealous tosser.

Angus closed his eyes. Groaned. Turned. ‘Gillian, it’s not what you...’

Only it wasn’t Gillian, it was Ellie.

‘Think?’

She was wearing her thick duvet jacket and a serious expression.

Not sure if this was better or worse.

But knowing his luck...

She backhanded Angus’s arm. ‘Budge up.’

He did what he was told and she slid in next to him, opening her coat and pulling out her phone.

She placed it on the table, with the microphone facing Dr Fife and pressed the glowing red icon marked ‘RECORD’. ‘Ellie Nottingham, Castle News and Post.’

Dr Fife eyed the phone as if it were venomous. ‘Angus?’

‘He’s not the one you’ve got to worry about, Doctor Fife. If that is your real name?’

OK, wasn’t expecting that.

Angus tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Ellie, why are—’

‘See, I’ve been doing some digging, and I don’t think you exist. Not till 1992, anyway, when you graduated from Stanford. Before that there’s no sign of a Jonathan Higgins Fife being born or educated anywhere in the United States.’

‘Sonofabitch.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘How did you know my middle... Never mind.’ He folded his arms. ‘That’s because I was born in Scotland. What, you think I put this accent on for fun?’

‘There’s no mention of a Jonathan Higgins Fife being born here either. And I went way back to the fifties.’

Dr Fife licked his top lip. Shifted in his seat. ‘My dad was an abusive asshole. Mom changed our name after the divorce.’

‘Oh.’ Ellie raised her eyebrows. ‘You know what? That makes perfect sense. Sorry to trouble you.’

The exact same trick he’d played on Sean McGilvary.

She stayed where she was, staring at him.

He stared back.

And the air in the booth sizzled like a live toaster dropped into a bubble bath.

‘Ellie! How cool to see you again.’ Gillian was back, carrying a tray with another round on it. ‘Sorry: didn’t get you one. What would you like?’

No one said anything.

Ellie and Dr Fife glared at each other.

Gillian lowered the tray. ‘Jonathan, what’s going on?’

Dr Fife kept his eyes on Ellie. ‘Just a little misunderstanding.’

‘He’s not who he says he is.’

‘Jonathan?’

Ellie leaned forward. ‘There’s not a single photo of “Dr Jonathan Fife” on the internet. No social media accounts. Nothing.’

‘And yet: here I am.’

She glanced at Angus. ‘How do you know he’s who he says he is? You guys got no idea what he looks like, so you, what: went to the airport, held up a crappy sign with “his” name on it, and believed the first person to say “Yeah, that’s me”?’

Dr Fife dug out his wallet. ‘You wanna see my driver’s licence?’

‘And now he’s embedded deep in the investigation. Leading it around by the nose with that half-arsed American accent of his.’

He shuffled sideways, out of the booth. ‘I’m not gonna indulge this... idiotic speculation for a—’

‘And somehow, Satan’s Messenger always manages to be one step ahead!’

‘Satan’s...?’ Angus blinked a couple of times, turning from Ellie to Dr Fife and back again. ‘Are you saying he’s the Fortnight Killer?’

Her smile was as triumphant as it was cold. ‘And his first victim was Malachi Ezekiel McNabb.’

It was as if Dr Fife’s entire world had just tumbled out of his backside. He stood there, mouth hanging open for a moment, then covered his face with both hands. Knees curling. ‘Oh, for...’ Dragging in a huge breath. ‘I HATE THIS FUCKING CITY!’

37

The Shoogly Peg wasn’t exactly jumping to begin with, but it went completely silent as everyone in the place turned to scowl in their direction. It was one thing for natives to badmouth Oldcastle, but strangers?

Dr Fife flipped them all the middle finger. ‘Screw you, I’m outta here.’ And away he clomped.

Angus pushed his way out of the booth — forcing Ellie to scramble clear — hurrying after him. Clamping a hand down on Dr Fife’s shoulder. ‘No: you’re not.’

‘Get off me!’ He tried to wriggle free, but Angus tightened his grip.

‘Sit your arse back down, right now.’

A fist clenched, and for a moment it almost looked as if he was going to start swinging. Then Dr Fife huffed out his cheeks. Cricked one shoulder up. And unclenched his hand. Which was just as well, because that would not have ended well for him. He looked away. ‘Fine.’

Angus let go and Dr Fife stomped back to the table. Slid into his seat again:

‘Let’s get this over with.’

‘OK.’ Angus pointed at Ellie. ‘You better not be fishing.’

‘Don’t worry — I’ve got receipts.’ She shuffled in, opposite Dr Fife. ‘Malachi Ezekiel McNabb, fourteen years old, disappeared from hospital in Wick, thirteenth of September 1983. His remains were discovered by a pair of hillwalkers, near Achavanich Standing Stones, two weeks later.’

Dr Fife shook his head. ‘No, they weren’t.’

‘Malachi’s father identified the remains. Said the only thing missing was his son’s necklace. A family heirloom, passed down for generations. A small chunk of granite, carved with a Celtic shield knot, held in place by silver wire and decorated with wee bits of stag’s antler.’

Hold on.

Angus frowned — this morning in the Isbister suite bedroom. Fife’s hippy necklace. ‘“Celtic shield knot”... is that like a little roundy thing?’

‘Lots of serial killers keep trophies, don’t they, Doctor Fife?’ She prodded her phone, waking it up and unlocking the screen. Scrolling through to the photo gallery. ‘You might be notoriously camera shy, but not every member of your family is so careful.’

Ellie spun her phone around so they could all see the picture of a pretty little girl, with golden ringlets and a gap-toothed smile, clutching her headless Barbie in one hand while she took a selfie. Dr Fife was clearly visible over her right shoulder, in shorts and flip-flops, holding a Coke and a hotdog. Smiling as he talked to someone off camera.

His scarred chest was covered in a white long-sleeve T-shirt, but the necklace had somehow managed to escape its confines to lie over the fabric. No sign of the tatty feathers it had this morning, but the bits of antler were there.

Ellie pinch-zoomed in on the necklace. ‘Got it?’

Yup — it was definitely the same one.

She swiped, bringing up the next image: an article from some old newspaper — the text was far too small to read, but the headline was clear enough: ‘FAMILY OF MISSING TEEN APPEAL FOR HELP’. A chunk of the page was given over to a black-and-white line drawing of the same necklace.

She zoomed in on that too. ‘Malachi was sexually abused, strangled, and his skull battered in with a rock. Isn’t that right, Doctor Fife?’

Angus pointed at the phone. ‘How did you...?’

‘Senior crime reporter, remember?’ Ellie threw that cold smile in Dr Fife’s direction again. ‘You killed him.’

‘Hmmph.’ Sitting back with a sneer. ‘You’re not buying this bullshit, are you?’

Time to do a bit of professional looming. ‘Just answer the question.’

Over in the corner, the auld-mannie contingent finished their game of dominoes, marked by unhappy muttering, the words ‘Jammy sod...’ and the mouse-bone rattle-click of tiles being shuffled for a new game.

One of the Eastern European businessmen took a call on his mobile.

The bartender polished glasses.

And still Ellie and Dr Fife glared at each other.

He gave in first, though. ‘Yeah, OK. Great!’ Throwing his hands in the air. ‘I killed him. I put an end to his miserable little life then buggered off to America in the sincere hope I’d never have to hear that bloody name ever again!’

Wow.

Gillian covered her mouth with both hands, but there was no giggling this time, just a look of pain.

‘Happy now?’ Dr Fife thumped back in his seat. ‘Knew coming to this shithole city was a mistake.’

Angus pulled out his cuffs. ‘Jonathan Fife, I am arresting you under Section one of the Criminal Justice, Scotland, Act 2016 for murder. The reason for your arrest—’

‘Seriously?’ He curled his lip. ‘I was right when I called you a “slack-jawed yokel”.’

‘The reason for your arrest is that I suspect that you have committed an offence and I believe that keeping you in custody—’

‘Oh God.’ Gillian uncovered her face. ‘It’s you...’ She leaned into the booth, wrapped her arms around Dr Fife and hugged him.

How was that fair?

Or appropriate, given the confession.

‘And I believe that keeping you in custody is necessary and proportionate for the purposes of—’

‘You don’t understand.’ Gillian gave Dr Fife another squeeze. ‘He didn’t kill that boy: he is that boy. He’s Malachi Ezekiel McNabb.’

Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t be daft, Gillian. Malachi’s father identified the remains. Think he couldn’t tell the difference between his fourteen-year-old kid and a dwarf?’

‘Why did I bother?’ Dr Fife’s head fell back to scowl at the pub’s smoker-varnished ceiling. ‘“You should go to Scotland, Jonathan”; “It’s time you faced your demons, Jonathan”; “You’ll never get past this if you don’t confront it, Jonathan!”’

Angus poked Ellie. ‘You’re not supposed to call people “dwarfs”, it’s demeaning.’

‘Don’t you start: he raped and killed a fourteen-year-old boy.’ She picked up her phone and held the thing across the table. ‘Any comment, before Angus drags your murdering arse off to prison?’

Gillian still hadn’t let go. ‘Leave him alone!’

Got to admit, that hurt a bit.

Angus poked Ellie again. ‘How did you figure all this out?’

‘Because this’ — tapping her forehead — ‘works just fine. And before you say anything else: a journalist never reveals their sources.’ Giving the phone a jiggle under Dr Fife’s nose. ‘Well?’

A deep breath. ‘My loving pop ID’d some poor dead schmuck’s body? I mean, I always knew he was an asshole, but still...’ Dr Fife downed his bourbon in one. ‘The son of a bitch wouldn’t want the authorities looking for me, cos if they found me, what’s gonna happen to him and the rest of the Brethren? Think Jedediah Gideon McNabb’s gonna spend the rest of his days in a jail cell?’ A cold hard laugh. ‘Not when there’s the End of Days to bring on.’

Gillian slid into the booth next to him, one hand stroking his arm. ‘You poor thing.’

‘Oh, you got no idea.’ He downed Angus’s bourbon as well. ‘Hark: gather round me, sinners, for cometh now the time of darkness, where only one can summon holy light...’

Dr Fife finished his pint with a frothy sigh.

Gillian hadn’t let go of his arm, the whole way through, while Angus had to sit next to Ellie, watching the pair of them. As if he didn’t even exist...

Ellie sniffed. ‘So, basically, it was a cult?’

‘Not basically — completely. Church three times a day, hellfire and brimstone, hard manual labour, everything’s a sin.’ A shrug. ‘Turns out there’s only so much purging and shriving and goddamn prayer a teenaged boy can take. So I’d run away. And they’d catch me, every single time. Drag me back. Beat the ever-lovin’ crap outta me. And I’d be a good little boy till next time.’ He fiddled with his empty glass. ‘Then one day, my dear old pop gets a bit carried away and the Brethren panic — rush me off to hospital, before I croak right there on the church floor. Needed about a dozen blood transfusions.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Gillian curled in, bumping her forehead against his shoulder. ‘My dad used to beat me, too.’

‘Sounds like he and my old man would get on like an orphanage on fire.’ Dr Fife sniffed, as if he could smell the smoke. ‘Soon as I could walk again, I went on the lam — and far as I know, they’re still looking for me. Nobody leaves the Brethren of the Sacred Thorn, not even in a coffin. Yea, unto the third generation.’

Suppose it was hard not to feel sorry for the poor sod.

Even if Gillian was all over him.

Angus cleared his throat. ‘Then why did you come back?’

‘Cos it’s been years. Cos my therapist’s been banging on about it for nearly a decade. Cos even after all this time it’s still screwing with my life. The nightmares; flashbacks; waking, middle of the night, soaked in sweat, screaming — oh yeah, better believe my ex-wives loved that.’ He glowered into his empty glass. ‘And it was just gonna be baby steps. “Go to the forensic conference in London, Jonathan, won’t even be in Scotland. What’s the worst that can happen?” Only I hafta get cocky, don’t I? Cos the old bastard’s probably dead by now, right? Might not even be a Brethren of the Sacred Thorn any more. Maybe they...’ He waved a hand. ‘...I don’t know — swallowed a shitload of Vicodin, washed it down with Drano, and finally got the Rapture they always prayed for?’ The hand thumped down again. ‘So when the call comes in: “Hey, we need your help!” I think yeah, why not? I am un-fucking-touchable. That’s why.’ He pushed the empty glasses away. ‘But if it’s gonna be plastered across the papers, I’m outta here.’

Oh no. ‘But the Fortnight Killer—’

‘Ain’t my problem.’ He pointed in the vague direction of the fire exit. ‘If my loving family find out I’m here, swanning round Oldcastle: bet your ass they’ll come looking. And these fuckers don’t take no for an answer.’

Angus sat back, chewing on the inside of his lip. Then looked at Ellie. ‘You don’t actually have to publish anything, though, do you?’

‘Not me you’ve got to worry about, it’s Slosser the Tosser. Got jealous I “stole” the front page from him; thinks he can do a character piece just as good as the one I did on you.’

Dr Fife sagged. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘But he doesn’t know about “Malachi”.’

Good. That was something, anyway. ‘And he won’t have a photograph, so there’s that.’

Ellie winced. ‘Actually, yeah. He does.’

‘Oh, for...’ A groan rattled out of Dr Fife; he covered his face again. ‘How?’

No reply, but Ellie had one hell of a shifty look on her face as she shrugged.

‘OK. Well, then.’ Gillian wriggled out of the booth. ‘I think, maybe, we could all do with another drink?’

Three crisp packets lay on the sticky wooden tabletop, their bags ripped open and innards exposed. Like a tasty post-mortem — attended by police officers dressed as pints of Stella and shots of Jim Beam.

Angus swallowed down a burp, because there were ladies present and Mum was always very strict about that kind of thing. ‘That’s... terrible!’ Swaying slightly in his seat.

‘I know, right?’ Dr Fife wasn’t as wobbly, but his face had gone all pink and ruddy-cheeked.

‘Everything’s a sin?’

‘That or a punishment from God. Rains blight the harvest? Punishment from God. Calf’s delivered stillborn? Punishment from God. Your brother, Elijah, falls out of a tree and breaks his leg?’

Gillian fidgeted with her tin of Diet Coke. ‘Punishment from God.’

‘Nah. I pushed him.’ Big grin. ‘He always was an asshole.’

‘Punishment from God...’ Angus reached across the table and squeezed Dr Fife’s shoulder. ‘Must’ve been hard, growing up like that.’

He raised an eyebrow, then frowned, clearly trying to work out the subtle and insightful message Angus had just laid on them. But finally he got it:

‘What? No, no, no, no. That little shithead, Kate Paisley, was talking out her ass. Was my father “upset” when I “slithered out” like “something off a horror film”? Course he wasn’t! I wasn’t a punishment, I was what that bunch of mirthless dicks had been waiting for. Generations of them: praying and praying and praying.’ He threw his arms out in a wide ta-daaaa!, then winked at Gillian. ‘I’m quite the big deal.’

Which was fair enough, so Angus gave him a wee round of applause.

Dr Fife raised his chin and put one hand against his chest — the other hand held out and up, as if he was about to tell everyone to be most excellent to each other. ‘For I am the Chalice!’ He dropped the pose and leaned towards Angus. ‘That was my nickname.’ Then leaned back again. ‘And lo: the Chalice shall sire the Dawn Child, and the Dawn Child shall bring forth the End of Days, when fire shall rain from the skies and the dead shalt consume the earth, and the Rapture shall raise the True Believers to God’s right hand, and all others shall be cast into the pit, yea to burn for all eternity.’ A sour burp slithered free, because he hadn’t had the same kind of upbringing as Angus. ‘Only when they say “the True Believers” they mean the Brethren of the Sacred Thorn. Everyone else is screwed.’

‘Bloody hell.’

Dr Fife toasted him. ‘Quite literally.’

Which was when Ellie returned from the ladies’, wiping her wet hands on her jeans. ‘What? I miss something important?’

‘Yes!’ Fife dug out his wallet and slapped it on the table. ‘It is time... for tequila!’

The pavement outside the Shoogly Peg was all uneven: going up and down beneath Angus’s feet, as if someone was sailing it into the wind...

Only it wasn’t a sail that reared up at the end of the narrow dead-end street, it was the vast granite shark’s fin with the Old Castle perched on top. All lit up like an oversized Christmas decoration.

A sparkle-shark.

Sparkle-sharkle.

Someone had tried to gentrify this end of Doocot Lane, by swapping out the concrete-and-steel lampposts for ye-olde-worlde cast-iron ones, and sticking in a row of planters. But drunken morons had ripped out the flowers and shrubs quicker than the council could replant them, and now the only things that grew in the rectangular wooden boxes were cigarette butts; empty bottles, tins, and glasses; and vomit.

Keeping it classy, Oldcastle.

The good thing, though, was with the castle on one side, and the great-big tall buildings on two others, it blocked the storm, cutting the shrieking wind and hammering rain down to gentle breeze and a misty drizzle.

Sparkle-Shark would be a great name for a band, wouldn’t it?

Should write that down.

But if he went rummaging for his pen, he might drop Wee Hamish’s dinner. And that wouldn’t be good. Not on an uppy-downy pavement like this one. So Angus hugged the fifteen-kilo sack of ScotiaBrand Tasty Chickens Ltd. Budget-Friendly Mechanically-Recovered-Meat Dried Dogfood tighter. Like a deformed teddy bear.

Dr Fife had propped himself up against one of the quaint lampposts, cos he was suffering the effects of the wobbly pavement too.

The only ones who didn’t seem bothered by its lurching about were Gillian and Ellie.

Ellie hooked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘Are you sure? My car’s just around the corner.’

‘Honestly, I’m good, thanks.’ Gillian pointed. ‘I’m only five minutes that way.’ She walked to the lamppost and slipped a hand in under Dr Fife’s armpit. Gave the greatcoat’s sleeve a squeeze. ‘I’ll drop him off on my way past the hotel.’

Fife blinked up at her. ‘I don’t... don’t need a babysitter. I’m not’ — a belch barked out — ‘oh, ’scuse me. Not... a child.’

‘I know.’ She beamed down at him. ‘But I’m going that way anyway, and you can keep me safe, in case any perverts are on the prowl.’

‘Oh.’ He gave Gillian a wobbly salute. ‘In that case, it would be... my pleasure.’

‘Thank you.’ Then she paused for a moment. Let go of the forensic psychologist. Stood on her tiptoes. And kissed Angus on the cheek again.

Twice in two days.

She gazed up at him with those smoky eyes. ‘As first dates go, this certainly beat curry and a cheesy movie.’ Then off she went, taking Dr Fife with her. Leaving Angus with the lingering scent of strawberries and Coke, and a warm-fuzzy glow.

Dr Fife’s cowboy boots clacked against the wavering paving slabs. ‘I ever... ever tell you ’bout the time I caught this guy... who liked to skin his victims?’ Another foghorn burp. ‘Damnedest thing...’

Fading away as they were swallowed by the drizzle.

Angus beamed. ‘I really like her.’

‘I’ll bet you do.’ Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, Casanova, let’s get you home.’

Ellie’s ancient Ford Fiesta scunnered its way across the Calderwell Bridge — exhaust sounding as if an elephant was gargling treacle — buffeted by squalling rain. The windscreen wipers went full pelt clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk, back and forth across the glass while the radio played a sad love song at them both.

Ellie hunched forward over the wheel, squinting out through the streaked windscreen, making for the lights glittering on the other side of the river. ‘You know what worries me?’

‘Hmm? No. Maybe.’ He hugged the dogfood tighter. ‘Is it dying alone?’

‘Is it what?’

‘It worries me. I mean, I’m... you know? Totally.’ Which was true.

Ellie pulled a face at him. ‘Why are you such a sodding lightweight?’

‘I mean, how sad... how sad would that be?’

‘Two shandies and you’re falling over, talking shite, and belting out “Scotland the Brave”.’

He gave the sack another squeeze. ‘Gillian’s nice, isn’t she?’

‘Will you listen? What worries me is this story about his dad being some weird cult leader. I mean, we’ve only got so-called “Jonathan”’s word for that.’

‘I think she’s nice.’

Ellie hung a right at the roundabout, along Montrose Road, following the river. The old train station glowed on the other side of the water, like a vast demonic slug. Behind it, the lights of Logansferry and Shortstaine reared up the valley wall — broken only by the dark ribbon of Moncuir Wood — until they disappeared into the low cloud.

‘Hoy!’ She reached across the car and bashed him one, on the arm. ‘Divert some blood away from your nadgers to your brain for a minute: how do we know he’s telling the truth?’

That was easy: ‘Call the hopsital.’ Hold on. Angus had another bash: ‘Hobspital. Hops-sittle. Why’d they make that word so difficult to say?’

‘Total lightweight.’

‘Call ’em and ask. It’ll be on his notes, right? From nineteen thingummy, if the real... real Malachi Ezekiel McNabb’s got achondroplasia.’

‘Oh, so you can say “achondro... whatsit”, but “hospital”’s too tough?’

Ha!

He snapped his fingers. ‘That’s the one: hopsital!’ No, wait, still wasn’t right.

Ellie puffed out her cheeks. ‘Don’t know if they’ll divulge medical records to me, but luckily I know a police officer who owes me lots of favours.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘You! You complete and utter tit.’ She hit him again.

‘Oh.’ He blinked at all the blurry lights. ‘Do you think Gillian likes me?’ A burp burst free, and he slapped a hand across his mouth, but it was too late to catch the thing. ‘Sorry. Very rude.’ Angus stuck his elbow out and nudged her. ‘Come on. ’Mon. All together.’

Deep breath, then he belted it out:

‘And there it is.’ Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘I should’ve made you walk home...’

Wind whipped through the gap between the three tower blocks, snatching at discarded rubbish and making it dance like a pagan rite. The buildings didn’t offer much shelter from the rain either — it clattered down, sparking off the playground outside Millbank North, because not even stoned teenagers were daft enough to be out drinking super-strength cider in this.

Angus cradled the fifteen-kilo sack of dogfood against his chest, tucked safely inside his jacket so it wouldn’t get wet, as he leaned on the Fiesta’s roof and peered in through the driver’s window. ‘Thanks... Ellie. You’re a... a good friend.’

‘Yeah, well, just remember it when I call asking for that favour tomorrow.’

He beamed at her, then threw in a nice sharp salute, and lurched off towards the main entrance. Because, somehow, that wonky-pavement thing outside the Shoogly Peg was spreading throughout the city.

Ellie’s voice pounded through the storm: ‘AND DON’T FORGET TO FEED WEE HAMISH!’

As if he’d ever forget to feed the little man. But Angus waved a polite thank-you over his shoulder anyway.

Took three goes to get through the doors at the tower block’s entrance, but he managed in the end, then turned and waved again.

Ellie flashed her lights at him, then off she jolly well drove, leaving Angus all on his alonesome.

Right.

Fourteenth floor here we come.

Just a shame the lifts never worked...

Angus wobbled in place, one leg ponking up and down to keep him upright, cos wouldn’t you know: it wasn’t just the pavements that’d gone all funny.

But the key finally decided to cooperate and he let himself into the flat.

Being vewy quiet.

Because he was hunting wabbits.

He removed his shoes and tiptoed through into the kitchen. Lowered the dogfood onto the worktop with care.

A plate sat beside the microwave — something grey-brown and congealed. Stovies. Allegedly. He closed one eye to get the clingfilm-wrapped horror into focus. Bet there wasn’t so much as a scrap of meat in there, just potatoes, onions, and a stock cube. If you were lucky.

But Mum was doing her best.

Meat cost money.

You ungrateful bastard.

True.

She’d left a note for him on the fridge:

He blinked at it for a bit while the letters swam in and out of focus. Then made a shooing gesture, and opened his sackbaby, pouring a generous measure into a wee tartan dog bowl. Because why should the little man be on meagre rations too?

Soon as the biscuity nuggets rattled into the dish, Wee Hamish appeared — summoned to dinnertime. Doing his happy whirly dance, tail wagging like a mad thing, claws skittering on the kitchen floor.

Angus placed Wee Hamish’s dinner beside the matching tartan water bowl. Then ruffled the fur between the little man’s ears, keeping his voice low, so as not to wake Mum: ‘Your favourite: ScotiaBrand Tasty Chickens Ltd. Budget-Friendly Mechanically-Recovered-Meat Dried Dogfood! Mmmm... Yum, yum, yum!’

Wee Hamish fell on it like a loveable, weeny terrier with big sparkling eyes and a happy, waggy tail.

Munch, munch, munch.

‘You, my teeny man, are a most excellent dog.’

Angus ruffled the hair on his tiny fuzzy head once more, then lurched from the room. ‘Shhhh...’

He picked his way down the hall — like a ninja — and into his bedroom. Clicked on the bedside light.

The single bed was barely big enough, but he still fit. More or less.

Shame about the faded dinosaur wallpaper, though. And the old school desk, rescued from a tip, with a trio of jury-rigged bookshelves above it. Each one of them stuffed with fantasy paperbacks, collected over the years from charity shops, discount bins, and library sales.

Just like Sean McGilvary’s SF collection.

The curtains were open. Not that he had a great view: the top half of Kingsmeath, followed by a short stretch of the valley wall, then sky. But tonight there was nothing but a scattering of streetlights and a big swathe of darkness.

Yeah, Dr Fife was right. No way he could bring a beautiful woman back here.

Still wearing his soggy fighting suit, Angus half sat, half collapsed onto the edge of the bed.

Just needed to rest for a minute while the world whooshed around his room. Maybe it’d be a good idea to close his eyes for a bit, so he couldn’t see it rush by?

That was an idea.

Smart thinking.

He slumped backwards, arms akimbo, gob open, feet still flat on the floor.

Yeah, that was better.

Comfy.

Just rest here for a minute, then get up, do his teeth, get changed, hang his damp suit up in the bathroom to drip dry.

Piece of cake.

The clickity-clackity of little claws approached down the hall, then in trotted Wee Hamish.

Angus peeled one eye open, watching the teeny man bimble over to the bed and hop up onto the duvet. Then climb onto his chest, turning around twice before curling up and settling down to sleep, all soft and warm and cosy...

A big smile spread across Angus’s face as his eye drifted shut again. ‘Sparkle-Shark.’

And that was that.