The room was every bit as tiny as the first, but instead of the single bed, there was a Ring Knot marked out on the floorboards in black wax. The body was male, its stomach and chest bloated with gas, naked skin peppered with green and orange mould – covered in tiny purple slits, all the hair shaved off. Just like Anthony Chung.

Blood made dark pools on the floorboards, disappearing through the cracks. . . That must be what made the dark stains on the kitchen ceiling downstairs.

Sim slapped a hand over her mouth and nose. ‘Jeepers!’

Logan hauled the door closed again. Took his phone out with trembling fingers. And called it in.

Chapter 47

47

Insch’s dark baritone growled out of the phone. ‘What exactly are you playing at? ’

Logan perched on the end of the garden wall, one hand shielding his eyes from the pale golden sun. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something, so. . .? ’

The Manky Mystery Machine sat on the overgrown gravel drive, its back doors hanging open while white-suited SEB techs humped boxes into the house. A cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape snaked in the breeze. Two patrol cars blocked the rutted track up to the property, Logan’s rusty old Fiat parked behind them in the gateway to a field of luminous-yellow oilseed rape.

‘Do you have any idea how much money it costs to keep a production like this running? Because—’

‘Want to cut to the chase? ’

A pause. ‘You arrested Morgan Mitchell.’

Logan stared up at the slate-coloured clouds. Sighed. ‘I did not arrest her. She assaulted someone.’

‘Let her out.’

‘She assaulted someone.’

‘Logan, it. . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘What if I get the other party to drop the charges? ’

‘Don’t think your star will be too happy with that – she did it on purpose so she could spend a night in the cells. I believe the term you used was, “Method-acting nutjobs”? ’

‘I’m haemorrhaging money here, Logan. I can’t afford to have one of my main actresses banged up in Craiginches for a month!’

PC Sim clambered over the barbed-wire fence just beyond the end of the beech hedge, waved at him, then picked her way past the parked patrol cars.

‘Ms Mitchell’s up in front of the Sheriff tomorrow. I’ll see if I can get you an early morning slot.’

‘I’m serious, this is—’

‘It’s the best I can do. She assaulted someone, she got arrested. I’m not bypassing the whole criminal justice system as a favour for you or anyone else.’

Silence.

Sim stopped right in front of him, then picked the little round lumps of stickie geordies from her trouser legs.

‘I didn’t mean you should break the law.’

‘I’ve got to go.’ Logan hung up and stuck the phone away. ‘Well? ’