Blood & Guts by Ed James (best books to read now TXT) 📕

‘Promote him.’

Forrester barked out a laugh. ‘Some arsehole promoted him already and it’s too high a level for him.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, good work on finding his girl.’

‘She’s in a really bad way.’

‘Young enough to get better, though. Not like anything truly bad happened.’

‘Bad enough, sir.’

‘I suppose.’ Forrester pinched his nose, then led her into the Incident Room. ‘Ah, just what I like to see. A sense of order in the world.’ He sat down at a computer but didn’t log in. ‘Reason I’m talking such shite is I’m just back from the PM. Brutal seeing a young lassie laid out like that. Only upside is that Carly wasn’t raped.’

Vicky collapsed into a chair. ‘Wasn’t?’

‘Nope.’

‘So why did Arbuthnott say—’

‘She didn’t. Said it was a possibility. We maybe coerced her into saying it.’

‘Sounds like you’re defending her.’

‘Well, she’s given up her Christmas Eve to carve up a lassie’s body like a turkey, so I kind of owe her one.’

‘Did she give you anything?’

‘Not really. Strangled. Some bruising on the neck, petechial haemorrhages in the eyes. You know the drill. Pretty much the same MO this McLean lad used on Ryan’s kid and on young Carly.’

‘Lot of tying up going on. Catriona Gordon was tied up too… And Catriona was definitely done by Dougie.’ Vicky frowned. ‘But Carly wasn’t tied up, just strangled?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I don’t know. Have you got the photos?’

‘Of her?’

‘Of the knots.’ Vicky got out her phone and found the bindings Dougie McLean had used on Catriona, where she’d been ultra-careful at releasing. She held it up. ‘Dougie’s had proper knots, see? Lots of them all symmetrical and obsessively neat.’

‘You know a thing or two about bondage?’

‘Sir, I’m going to pretend that’s an inquiry as to my professional history.’

Forrester was blushing. ‘Aye, course it is.’

‘Well, on Teresa…’ Vicky found the photos. ‘See? Amateur as hell. Nothing like on Catriona.’

‘Right.’

‘That’s it?

‘Come on, Doddsy, it’s—’

‘Sir, we should be getting a warrant. Go to his flat again, get into his room. Might find similar knots and books on bondage, fetish porn. But it doesn’t explain why Teresa’s knots look like I’ve done it. And I didn’t get a badge for knots in the Brownies.’

Forrester patted her on the arm. ‘Cheer up. We’ve got him.’ He got up and stretched out. ‘And let’s get home, raise a glass with our families and celebrate a good collar. They’ve put up with enough.’

Vicky sat there, arms folded, something rattling around in her brain.

‘I know that look. Your old man’s got one exactly the same. What’s up?’

She looked up and met his narrow-eyed stare. ‘I’m just not so sure, sir. The stuff about his phone going missing. Plus the fact he didn’t rape Carly before she died. It all feels a bit too convenient. Or just… I don’t know.’

‘Doddsy.’ Forrester huffed out a sigh. ‘McLean raped Catriona Gordon. He abducted Ry’s lassie. He killed Carly. Sometimes murder doesn’t always have to follow rape. Sometimes they lose the ability. Not everyone associates violence with arousal.’

‘Or he didn’t do it.’

Forrester held up his thumb. ‘Catriona, eyewitness, raped.’ His forefinger. ‘Teresa, found in the boot of his car, abducted.’ Then the middle finger, but not pointing at Vicky. ‘Carly, murdered where she was going to meet him and where Teresa was abducted from.’

Vicky couldn’t look at him for much longer.

‘Look, I’m going home, Raven’s orders. You can bugger off and watch Die Hard with your old man. Whatever.’

Vicky slowly got up. ‘I think we need to check it all through, sir.’

‘It’s Christmas bloody Eve. You’re here as a favour to me, that’s it. Why don’t you bugger off and spend some time with your kid?’

Vicky nodded. But the taxi firm was on the way home.

* * *

Vicky hit a wall of traffic on the Broughty Ferry Road, that short gap between the town and the city, both long since merged. Blue lights flashing up ahead probably meant some daft kid went hammering along here at sixty and caught the ice, then another car. She’d seen it a few times over the years.

That same CD was stuck in the player, but at least it played. Seemed weird listening to the Frozen soundtrack without Bella in the back singing along, but Vicky knew all the words too, and having it play softly in the car was better company than Karen, asleep in the passenger seat.

Not even midnight. Last of the party animals.

Vicky got through in a wave of cars, all taking it slow on the black ice. A poor uniform was shaking grit over a stretch, blocked off by a squad car. And sure enough, a souped-up Peugeot was wrapped around a lamppost. The driver was sitting on the wall, rubbing his head but laughing, so at least he hadn’t ruined anybody else’s Christmas.

Vicky’s phone rang. Dad calling…

She got that jolt of fear. Never a good thing when he was ringing her. Made her think of all the shit that could happen to her mother.

She hit the button on the wheel to answer it. ‘Hey, Dad, you okay?’

‘Aye, totally fine.’

‘So why are you calling me?’

‘Well, just noticed a few missed calls from you to her. Your mother’s asleep, sitting on your chair. That chainsaw sound you can hear is her snoring.’

‘Ah.’ Vicky felt herself smiling. ‘How’s Die Hard?’

‘It’s always cracking, my girl. Just about to put on the third one, as it happens.’ Dad yawned down the line. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Just heading home now.’ Vicky eased towards the roundabout. Straight ahead was Carnoustie and home, about twenty minutes away, fifteen if she could get the run of the lights around Monifieth.

Warm house, cold wine.

And just up ahead to the right was the taxi firm. Where Considine was going through Dougie McLean’s taxi trips, looking for evidence to back up a really solid conviction, at least in Forrester’s eyes. She should really let him go. Probably still lived with his mother, and she’d be wondering where he was. She would’ve let him go if the stupid sod had