Something in his voice alerted both Corstorphine and Frankie that this wasn’t the good news they were hoping to hear.

“What’s his status, Lamb? Over.” Corstorphine wrestled with the wheel as he drove as quickly as he could back down the hill through the dense conifers.

“Bit of a dog’s dinner, sir.” Lamb still hadn’t lost his knack for an accurate and graphic description of a crime scene. “Looks like the dogs killed him. There’s nothing left alive in there by the looks of it, sir, and the door’s locked. I can’t gain access. Over.”

“Wait there, Lamb. We’ll be with you soon.”

Corstorphine spotted Frankie waving from the track ahead. She climbed into the passenger seat without comment, only too aware of what might await them.

XXV THURSDAY 20:24

XXV
THURSDAY 20:24

The forensics team had arrived from Inverness at 20:24, meeting with Corstorphine and the local locksmith outside the laird’s house. Leading a small convoy of 4x4’s, the DI drove back up the now pitch-black forest trail to the remote cold store. Now dressed in white forensic suits they watched as the locksmith bent to his work, feeding metal picks into the lock, juggling the internal mechanism in the beam of his head torch. As minutes passed he gave up the struggle to open the locked door, complaining to Corstorphine that something was jammed inside the lock.

“Just cut the bloody door open.” Corstorphine’s patience had reached the limit. Another long day, another death and still no closer to identifying whoever was responsible. He had no great expectation that the laird’s death was some terrible accident, but they needed access to the building before working the scene.

The locksmith fetched an angle grinder from his toolbox to slice through the deadbolt, sparks flying from the tip of the tool like a firework. As soon as the bolt was cut, the locksmith stood back to allow Corstorphine room to push the door open, releasing a putrid stench of death and faeces. It was immediately apparent nothing was alive in there. The laird had been butchered by his own dogs, his throat torn open leaving a raw, dark void in his neck from where the dogs had ripped bite-sized lumps of flesh. Muscle and sinew lay exposed like some anatomical examination performed with stone-age tools. The laird’s expression had frozen at the moment of death, a nightmarish mask that left no one in any doubt that his death had been excruciatingly painful. One leg lay stripped to the bone, tatters of flesh hanging white against the dark blood-stained tweed. Dogs and man were as stiff as cardboard, rigor mortis leaving them arranged like a grotesque tableau painted in dried blood.