Close to the Bone (12 page)

‘Excellent. Milk and two for me, thanks.’ He stood back so she could climb out. ‘I just need to make a couple of calls – get the ball rolling – then I’ll be right through.’

‘You want
tea
? ’ Mrs Garfield’s mouth hung open. ‘You’ve not done anything yet!’

‘Like I said, I need to make a few calls. And DS Chalmers needs to ask you some questions about Agnes’s friends.’

Chalmers blinked. ‘I do? . . . Oh, right, yes, that’s right. Questions. Er, shall we? ’

As soon as they’d disappeared into the kitchen, Logan shut the lounge door again, then clambered into the cupboard under the stairs. There was just enough space to kneel at the tall end without banging his head on the sloping ceiling.

He frowned up at it. Now there was something you didn’t see every day. A pentagram covered the plasterboard, scratched out in red ink. It sat within a couple of circles, with squiggles in various bits, and what looked like Latin around the outside.

Why were teenagers
such
a bunch of freaks?

A pair of wingnuts sat on the inside of the doorframe. Logan peered outside again. The bolt fitted into a metal bracket held in place by the wingnuts. So if you cracked the padlock, opened the door, unscrewed them, put the padlock back on the now unattached bolt mechanism, then climbed inside – you could pull the door shut, do up the wingnuts again, and no one would know you were in there. From the outside it’d look as if the cupboard was still locked.

He shifted the action figures to one side of the shelf and picked his way through the books. Three of them were hollowed out hardbacks, like the one with Harry and Edward getting intimate. One held a notebook, with curly leaves and squiggles inlaid into the red leather cover. It was full of cramped black handwriting, interspersed with sketches of magic circles and other occult thingies. The next held a little woollen dolly, no bigger than the palm of his hand, with button eyes and a lock of brown hair fastened to its chest with a safety pin; a wizened chicken’s foot wrapped in tartan ribbon – like a really cheap kilt pin; a hairbrush; and a test-tube of something dark and viscous.

Book number three was a lot more interesting. Logan tipped the contents out on the mattress. One pack of cherry-scented pipe tobacco. One old-fashioned long-necked pipe. One blister-pack sheet of little orange pills. And one clear plastic Ziploc bag with what looked like catnip in it. He opened the bag and took a sniff: the sweet, sweaty smell of marijuana.

What kind of person smoked weed in a pipe, like an auld mannie?

There was a lot of it too – enough to get a coach-load of students off their faces for a week. Enough to count as possession with intent to supply.

Logan sat back on his haunches. Why would someone run away and leave that much pot behind? Maybe Agnes got into difficulties with her supplier, or another dealer, and needed to get out of town in a hurry?

Assuming she actually managed to leave Aberdeen before they caught up with her. . .

Well, while he was here, might as well be thorough.

He unzipped the sleeping bag and turned it inside out: nothing. The mattress was old and saggy, soft enough that he could lift the corners up and over and poke at the floorboards underneath. More nothing. He let the corner fall back and a puff of fusty dust billowed out into the air.

Logan turned and struggled to haul the mattress up from the short end of the cupboard. Bloody thing was like manoeuvring a dead body. . .

There: a plastic folder lay on the floorboards. He grabbed it and the mattress thumped back into place. More dust.

Inside the folder was a stack of press clippings about
Witchfire
being filmed in Aberdeen – the actors burbling about what a great script it was; the author hedging his bets as to whether it would be any good or not; some toad from the local council banging on about job creation and tourism opportunities; a photo op with the actors doling out soup to homeless people; another with a troupe of little kids in school uniform on the movie set, all grinning and holding swords. But the biggest thing was a copy of the script, marked up with green and yellow highlighter pen:

Witchfire

A Golden Slater Production

Based on the book by William Hunter

Script V: 4.0.2

The name ‘N
ICHOLE
F
YFE
’ was written in red ink on the top-right corner. . . Nichole Fyfe. . . Nichole Fyfe. . . Wasn’t she the blonde woman? The one in that awful Disney romcom about undertakers last year? The one on the telly that morning with the red hair?

Logan pulled an evidence bag out of his pocket and stuck the weed and pills into it, sealed the sticky flap, and wrote down the details on the form printed onto the plastic.

‘. . .I mean it isn’t right, is it? Boy like that sniffing around our. . .’ Mrs Garfield’s mouth clicked shut as Logan walked into the room.

The kitchen was warm, the units painted a terracotta colour, French doors lying wide open, as if they were in the middle of the Mediterranean and not a housing estate in Northfield, overlooking the backside of Middlefield Primary School.

Chalmers nodded towards a mug on the counter. Her mouth turned down at the edges. ‘Milk and two.’

Probably came with free spit.

Logan dumped the evidence bag next to it. ‘I found this in your daughter’s room under the stairs.’

Chalmers whistled. ‘That’s a
lot
of marijuana.’

Agnes’s mum squared her shoulders, voice getting louder with every word: ‘You planted that, didn’t you? You planted it to deflect attention from the fact your lot are doing nothing to find my bloody daughter! You sick—’

A man’s voice blared out across the kitchen. ‘For God’s sake, Doreen!’ Agnes’s dad shuffled in: black goatee, long greying hair swept back from his high forehead with a black Alice band, wearing a T-shirt and torn jeans. Like a middle-aged skateboard dude. He even had a tattoo snaking down his left arm. ‘It’s hers, OK? They didn’t plant anything.’

Doreen Garfield’s mouth hung open. ‘You
knew
about this? ’

‘Why do you think I kept buying all that incense? It covered the smell. The weed kept her . . . level. Meant she didn’t need the pills as much.’

Doreen grabbed Logan’s mug and sent it hurling across the kitchen, tea spraying out behind it like a banner. ‘HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME? ’ It hit the wall by Agnes’s dad’s head and exploded.

‘You wouldn’t listen! You’re so busy controlling everything, you never stop to talk to her.’ He slapped a hand against his chest. ‘I did, OK? While you were busy making rules and trying to control everything and everyone, I sat down and listened to what
she
had to say.’

‘How could you? ’

He brought his chin up. Stared Logan in the eye. ‘She was doing so much better: had a boyfriend, got good marks in her exams; she was going to Aberdeen University in September to do accountancy. . .’

Doreen dug her fingers into her hair. ‘It’s all that . . .
Chung
boy’s fault. If he’d left her alone, we’d—’

‘Oh, come off it, she dotes on him. You have no idea how depressed she was when you said she couldn’t see him any more, have you? No sodding clue at all.’

‘He was a bad influence on—’

‘You’re the bad bloody influence! She didn’t slit her wrists for
fun
, did she? ’

Silence.

‘She tried to kill herself? ’ Logan closed his eyes. Gritted his teeth. Counted to five. ‘Did you not think it would be important to actually
tell
us that when you reported her missing? ’

‘It was. . . We didn’t want it spread all over the papers. What would she think if she saw it? That we betrayed her? ’ He looked away. ‘She’s been doing so much better.’

‘When did it happen? ’

‘Just after Christmas. I found her in the back garden with a bottle of tequila and a packet of razor blades. . .’ A little shudder twitched at his shoulders.

Doreen took another mug from the dishwasher and put it on the working surface. The porcelain rattled against the terracotta tiles, shaking in time with her hand. But her voice was perfectly level as she plucked a teabag from the box. ‘That’s why we read her diary every week. We have to be sure she’s not . . . having those kinds of thoughts. We have to be ready to help.’

The kettle growled and rumbled back to the boil.

Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘Does Agnes have a car? ’

Her mother shook her head. ‘We don’t allow her to drive. Not on her medication – it wouldn’t be safe.’

Agnes’s dad bent and picked up the bits of broken mug from the floor. ‘What if she’s hurt herself? ’

Logan slipped the evidence bag into his pocket. ‘The fact that Anthony Chung is missing too means they’ve probably run away together. Let’s not get all worked up over nothing.’ He turned towards the door. Then stopped. ‘Now before we go, is there anything else you’re not telling us? ’

11

Chalmers pulled away from the kerb as Logan fastened his seatbelt. Her mouth was one thin line, tiny wrinkles standing out at the side of her eye. Face fixed dead front.

Logan turned his phone on. ‘I take it there’s a reason you’re sulking? ’

‘I’m
not
sulking,
sir
.’

‘Come on then, out with it.’

Her jaw twitched a couple of times, as if she was biting down on something bitter. ‘With all due respect: you sent me off to make tea while you were searching the cupboard under the stairs. The little woman makes the tea while the big strong man does the actual police work.’ She wrenched the steering wheel left, taking them out the end of the road. ‘Let me guess: you didn’t think my pretty little head was up to it. Making the bloody tea’s all we’re good for.’

‘I see.’ He scrolled through his list of contacts until the number for Control appeared. ‘Feel better now? ’

‘It’s
sexist
.’

‘Seriously? ’ A smile broke across his face, then bloomed into a grin. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to go make tea with the grieving relatives while Steel’s off rummaging through their stuff. That’s what happens when you’re a DS: you’re the distraction.’ He hit the button, listening to it click, then ring on the other end. ‘And when
you
make DI, you can get your own back on whatever poor sod gets lumbered with you. . .’

A woman’s voice boomed in his ear. ‘
Control room.
’

‘Yeah, it’s DI McRae, have you picked up—’

‘
Hold on. . .
’ A pause. Some rustling. Then a muffled conversation. ‘
Yeah, it’s him again. Wants to know if we’ve got the big ugly bloke that works for Wee Hamish yet.
’

‘
Hasn’t he got nothing better to do?
’

‘
You’d think, wouldn’t you?
’

‘I can hear you, you know!’

And she was back, full volume. ‘
Just checking now, sir.
’

Click. Then a creaky version of some waltz. He was on hold.

Chalmers took them out onto the main road, heading back past yet another building site. The whole place was a breeding ground for sandstone-clad little boxy homes with tiny gardens and garages too small to get an actual car in.

Logan reached into his jacket and pulled out the red leather notebook from the cupboard. Stuck it on the dashboard. ‘Found that, hidden in one of the hollowed-out books.’

She gave a small, one-shouldered shrug. ‘What is it? ’

‘Some sort of witchcrafty journal thing. Got magic circles and things. . . Hello? ’

The voice of Control was back. ‘
Yes.
’

‘Yes what? ’

‘
Yes he was picked up an hour ago by Alpha Three Nine. Was in the Burning Buck, absolutely plastered. They’re checking him every fifteen minutes to make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit.
’

Chance would be a fine thing.

‘Give it a bit, then stick him in interview room three. We’ll be back in. . .’ Five minutes to traverse Kintore, half an hour to mollify Anthony Chung’s parents, call it another twenty minutes from there back into town. . . ‘Make it an hour.’

Pause. ‘
Yeah, you better take that up with the desk sergeant
.’ And she was gone.

Chalmers picked the book off the dashboard, weighing it in her hand as she drove. ‘Agnes knows her mum and dad are checking up on her, so maybe she keeps a fake diary in the bedroom where they can find it, and a
real
one in the cupboard under the stairs.’

‘Read it. And call the Procurator Fiscal: I want a GSM trace authorized on Agnes and Anthony’s mobile phones. Then get on to every hospital in Scotland – tell them to look out for attempted suicides.’

‘Can you imagine someone
watching
you all the time like that, never giving you any privacy? I’d have run away years ago.’

The last-known address for Anthony Chung – before he ran away to rescue his girlfriend from her demented overbearing mother – occupied a corner plot in a swanky development on the southern edge of Kintore. Big houses with big gardens and big cars parked outside. The Chung residence even had a set of wrought-iron gates, mounted on sandstone pillars, but there was nothing behind them – the driveway was empty.

Chalmers pulled up at the kerb. Left the motor running. ‘Not looking good, is it? ’

Logan climbed out into the sunshine.

The whumping blades of a helicopter thrummed from somewhere over Kirkhill Forest; a child’s happy squealing came from nearby, punctuated by the high-pitched yip of a small dog; the distant bagpipe drone of a lawnmower. Tuneless whistling from the man three houses down as he washed his Range Rover Sport.

Logan opened the gate and marched up the drive. A portico jutted out of the building, making a little rectangle of shade from the sun. He pressed the button on the intercom and classical music sounded deep within the house, followed by a dog barking. Something big, with lots of teeth.