not trying to rush you into anything. Take your time.’
‘Yeah, I understand.’ The stabproof vest held him tight in its Velcro embrace, keeping everything squeezed inside. ‘Friday. We’ll do it Friday.’
‘Are you sure? Like I said, you don’t have to—’
‘No. Friday the thirteenth. Samantha would’ve liked that.’
‘I’m sorry, Logan.’
‘Yeah, me too.’ He hung up and slipped the phone back into an inside pocket. Stared up at the heavy grey sky.
Friday.
When he breathed out, it was as if someone had attached weights to his lungs and stomach, dragging them down.
Another breath.
Then another.
And another.
Come on.
He blinked. Rubbed a hand across his face, wiping away a cold sheen of water. Hauled himself straight.
Then pressed the call button on his Airwave handset again. ‘Tufty: safe to talk.’
‘Sarge, we’ve done the loop again. No sign of Milne. You want us to try the burn?’
‘Might as well.’
Dripping water made a slow-motion drumroll on the forest floor.
‘Sarge?’
‘What?’
‘Can we go home soon? Only Calamity’s gone all blue and purple. Last time I saw someone that colour they were lying on a mortuary slab. Bleeding freezing out here.’
‘Tell her we’ll give it another hour, then back home for tea and biscuits.’
‘Sarge.’
Logan slithered his way down the hill, picking his way between the trees, following Syd’s trail.
Silence blanketed the forest, the needles underfoot and the branches overhead smothering all sounds except the ones he made. Not even midday and it was already getting dark. The clouds overhead had blackened and crept lower. Gearing up for the change from breath-frosting drizzle to a full-on downpour. Maybe an hour was chancing their arm? Might be better to pack it up and try again tomorrow.
And after that it’d be someone else’s problem.
A ding and a buzz against his ribcage marked another text message coming into his mobile. No point checking: it’d be Steel. It was always Steel.
Wah, wah, wah, why haven’t you called me back? What I want is much more important than anything you’re doing. Wah, wah, wah…
He left his phone in its pocket. Kept going.
It wasn’t too hard to follow Syd. His feet had left a scuffed path through the needles, the layer below darker than the ones on the surface. It wound its way between the trees, scratching a zigzag line down and off to the left. Where—
Was that a shout?
Yes. Somewhere off in the distance, but definitely there.
Logan stopped, cupped his hands around his mouth in a makeshift loudhailer. ‘SYD?’
Another shout.
Nope, still no idea what he was saying.
Needles slipped beneath Logan’s feet as he hurried down the slope and up the other side. ‘SYD?’
He froze at the crown of the hill, surrounded by boulders and Scots pine. The ground fell away in front of him: a steep incline punctuated by rocks and gorse between hundreds of circular stumps where the trees had been harvested. A dirt track ran along the bottom of the hill, with another clump of gorse on the other side.
Syd stood in front of it, waving his arms like he was trying to guide a plane in to land. Lusso lay on the ground at his feet, hairy yellow tail sweeping back and forth through the mud.
Logan tried again: ‘WHAT IS IT?’
Whatever Syd shouted back, it was swallowed by the wind and rain.
‘Sodding hell.’ No choice for it then. Logan scrambled down the slope, feet sideways to the drop, skirting the dark-green needles of gorse. Windmilling his arms as a clump of mud shifted beneath him, threatening to send him tumbling.
Keep going…
He clattered onto the track and skidded to a halt before he went over the edge and into a drainage ditch thick with rust-coloured water.
Syd sniffed. ‘Took your time.’
‘What?’
He raised a finger and pointed at a patch of broom. ‘In there.’
Logan smoothed down the front of his high-viz jacket, then stepped over the ditch and onto the bank on the other side. ‘Can’t see any—’
‘Keep going.’
Another couple of steps up the bank and… OK.
There was a dip in the earth: semicircular with a chunk of lichen-covered granite at one end. Stalks of dead weeds poked up through the yellowed grass. And right in the middle, lying flat on its back, was the body of a man. Naked. Hands behind him. One leg crooked out at the knee, the foot resting against his other shin.
His torso was a tie-die pattern of purples, blues, and yellows fringed with green, the bruises spaced randomly across pale-grey skin slick with drizzle.
Syd’s voice came from the other side of the bush. ‘That him?’
Logan blew out a breath. ‘Difficult to tell…’
The head was covered with black plastic – like a bin-bag – fixed around the neck with thick strands of silver duct tape. There was a strange smell too. Maybe bleach?
The pubic hair was a sickly yellowy-white, so it could be bleach.
Probably bleach.
Someone covering their tracks, trying to make sure they hadn’t left any DNA or trace evidence behind that could be identified. Yeah, good luck with that. Something always survived.
Another smell lay under the bleach, something sweet and meaty and cloying. Like a chunk of mince, forgotten about at the back of the fridge, a couple of days past its sell-by date.
Definitely dead.
Logan unzipped his jacket and pulled out his Airwave handset. Punched in the Duty Inspector’s shoulder number. ‘Bravo India from Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’
Inspector McGregor’s voice crackled out of the speaker, sounding slightly plummy, as if she was eating something.
