Shirley hurled her facemask to the ground. ‘Low-carbon-footprint, saving-the-planet, eco-friendly, recycling bollocks!’
A purple nitrile glove appeared over the lip of the grave, its fingers dark and slimy with mud. It dumped a chunk of... was that a pelvis? It was. It was a pelvis, still partially encased in stinking...
Nope.
Logan backed away even further from the grave as a handful of finger bones joined the pile of yuck on the filthy tarpaulin they’d spread out beside the hole.
A muffled voice rose from the grave. ‘Oh for... Urgh, I’ve stood in it!’
‘Yeah...’ Shirley grimaced at Logan. ‘This is going to take us a while.’
Logan patted her on the shoulder. ‘It’s all yours. Give us a shout when you’ve got everything back at the mortuary.’
‘Will do.’
As he walked away, down the hearse road, Shirley’s voice took on that irritating over-the-top enthusiastic tone kids’-TV-show presenters always used. ‘Come on, guys, I know it’s horrible, but we can do this!’
The reply from the grave was a bit more to the point: ‘Sod off.’
Rennie started the pool car’s engine. ‘Let’s never do that again. Exhumations are horrible.’
Logan fastened his seatbelt and waved at Mr Scrotumface from the Council. ‘Look at him: standing there in his high-viz jacket and woolly hat, presiding over his empty car park like an impotent gnome.’
The man glowered back at them.
‘Told you, he needs his bonking chits filled out in triplicate.’ Rennie pulled out of the space. ‘Back to the ranch?’
‘No. We’re off to see Bell’s widow.’
He launched into song. ‘The wonderful widow of Bell.’
‘And if we’re lucky, she’ll be able to give you a brain.’
Aberdeen faded in the rear-view mirror as Rennie took the second exit and accelerated up the dual carriageway. Fields. Fields. And more fields. All of them a drab sodden green.
Logan’s phone dinged in his hand.
TS TARA:
Yuck! Cthulhu caught a mouse in the kitchen! It’s still alive! She’s torturing it!
Rennie overtook a mud-encrusted flatbed truck. ‘You ever met Bell’s wife before?’
‘Barbara?’ Back to thumbing out a reply on his phone. ‘Only at the funeral.’
Good. Serves the insulation & wire eating monsters right. Make sure you tell her she’s a good girl!
SEND.
‘Babs was in the am-dram group DI Insch used to run. I saw her in that musical version of Shaun of the Dead they put on. She was the mother. Very convincing.’
‘Hmm.’
Ding.
Oh God she’s eating it now!!!!
Rennie let out a long sigh. ‘It’s got to be hella weird, doesn’t it? Your husband kills himself, only he doesn’t really, and two years later someone else kills him again, but for the first time.’
Ding.
It’s like something off a horror movie!!! She’s eating the brains! THE BRAINS!!!!
‘I mean, put yourself in her shoes: he’s been hiding away somewhere sunny all that time and she’s been stuck here in Aberdeen with the drizzle and the cold, thinking he’s dead.’
Ding.
The only bits left are the tail, some revolting looking green kidney bean thing, & the bits of head she didn’t eat! I’m going to barf!
Another sigh from the bleached-blond philosopher behind the wheel. ‘That’s the kind of thing that’ll really screw you up.’
The housing estate could have been any new-build one in Aberdeenshire. Identical houses on an identical road with identical speedbumps and identical driveways. Tiny patches of miserable soggy grass masquerading as lawns. Trees that would probably still look like twigs for years to come. Four-by-fours parked on bricked-over front gardens. Grey harling with fake-stone details.
Three houses down, the road was packed with outside broadcast vans and journalists’ cars. No way through. A lone uniformed PC stood outside the front door, two down. Holding the mob at bay.
Rennie pulled into the kerb. ‘Pffff... Maybe we should come back later, when they’ve all got bored and sodded off?’
‘Don’t be so damp.’ Logan climbed out into the rain and strode along the pavement on the other side of the road, skirting the scabby Saabs and fusty Fiats parked half-on-half-off of it. Keeping his head down.
Didn’t work though.
He’d barely made it level to the house when someone spotted his uniform and they all crowded in on him. Shouting over the top of each other.
A curly blonde weather-girl-made-good type forced her way to the front. Pekinese perky. A red-topped microphone in her hand. ‘Inspector? Inspector, Anne Darlington, BBC: is it true you suspect DI Bell of murder?’
A ruddy-faced man who looked as if he’d fallen off the back of a tractor. Sounded like it too: ‘Come on, min, oor readers have a right to know what’s goin’ oan here. Have you got a suspect yet or no’?’
An androgynous woman in a shabby suit and short-back-and-sides. Deep voice: ‘Angela Parks, Scottish Daily Post: are you aware of the rumours that DI Bell was involved in people trafficking in Spain?’
A well-dressed short bloke with a bushy beard — like an Ewok off for a job interview at a bank. English accent: ‘Phil Patterson, Sky News: why won’t Police Scotland come clean about DI Bell’s previous whereabouts? What are you hiding?’
Anne Darlington pushed past him. ‘Police Scotland exhumed a body this morning — is that connected to this case?’
Angela Parks shoved her iPhone in Logan’s face, a red ‘RECORDING’ icon glowing in the middle of the screen. ‘Is it true that DI Bell was stabbed during a drug deal that went wrong?’
Logan kept his chin up and his face forwards, pushing through them, not slowing down. ‘We are pursuing several lines of inquiry and I can’t say any more than that at this juncture.’
Rennie struggled on at his shoulder. ‘’Scuse me. Pardon. Sorry. Oops. ’Scuse me...’
Anne Darlington pushed her microphone in front of Logan again. ‘Was DI Bell under investigation at the time of his alleged death?’
‘Fit’s the deal, min? Fit lines of inquiry are ye followin’?’
Another eight feet and they reached the relative safety of the tiny porch — more an extension of the garage roof than anything else.
‘Inspector, was it a drug deal gone wrong or not?’
The PC at the door opened it, shifting to one side so Logan and Rennie could squeeze past, hissing out the side of her mouth as they did. ‘It’s like a swarm of sodding leeches.’ Then stepped forward with her arms extended, blocking the way. ‘All right, you heard the Inspector: everyone away from the house. Let’s give Mrs Bell some privacy.’
Anne Darlington stayed where she was. ‘If you didn’t bury DI Bell in that grave two years ago, who did you bury?’
Phil Patterson was right behind her. ‘Was DI Bell involved in organised crime? Is that why—’
Rennie thumped the front door shut, cutting the rest of it off. ‘Now I know how rock stars feel. Only without the ever-present threat of group sex and free drugs.’
The hallway was an antiseptic-white colour with a single family photo next to the light switch. DI Bell, his wife and their two children at the youngest’s graduation ceremony. Everyone looking very proud and alive.
A door was open at the end of the hall, murmured voices coming from within.