The killing code a scott.., p.1
The Killing Code: A Scottish Detective Mystery (DCI Logan Crime Thrillers Book 3), page 1
The Killing Code
A DCI Jack Logan Thriller
J.D. Kirk
Zertex Crime
Copyright © 2019 by J.D. Kirk
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Zertex Crime, an imprint of Zertex Media Ltd
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
DCI Logan Returns in…
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Chapter One
It had been twelve hours since Esme Miller had started her shift. Four since she had begun to watch the clock. Two since she had started counting down the minutes until she could finally clock off.
In less than one, she would be dead.
“You still here?”
Esme looked up from the flat-soled shoes she’d been in the process of untying and smiled through her exhaustion at the young man in the doorway. Kel was barely in his twenties and was usually a bouncy-ball of energy, but the shift had been a long one, and the aftermath of a traffic accident earlier in the day had taken its toll on all of them. Now, he just looked like he wanted to be at home, tucked up in bed.
Instead, he leaned on the handle of a mop, trying to hide the fact that he was currently relying on it for support.
“Aye, but not for long, thank God. That’s me finished,” Esme said. “You?”
“Nah. Been roped into staying on until midnight. A&E can’t get cover.”
He smiled, but the way he shook his head betrayed his true feelings on the matter.
“Bloody Brexit,” Esme said.
Kel laughed at their little running joke and nodded. “Too right. Bloody Brexit.”
Esme kicked off her comfies and began the process of wrestling her swollen feet into her regular outdoor shoes. “You must be due a break, though?” she said. “You look awful.”
“Cheeky cow!” Kel protested. “Talk about pot and kettle. Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
“I tried, but it shattered.”
“No bloody wonder.”
Esme placed her work shoes in her locker and took out her jacket. The walk wasn’t far, but she’d been reliably informed that the rain had been off and on all day, and she didn’t fancy arriving home like a drowned rat.
“Make sure you get that break,” she said, closing her locker and turning back to the door.
“Aye, they’re giving me an hour to get my head down. But first…” Kel raised the mop and gave it a waggle. “Clean-up in Room Four.”
Esme thought for a moment. “Albert?”
“Aye.”
“Not again. What end?”
“Both ends. Simultaneously,” Kel said.
Esme tried very hard not to laugh but wasn’t entirely successful. “Yikes.”
“It was actually one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. He was like a human fountain at one point. I was half-expecting Hugh Jackman to jump out in a top hat and start singing The Greatest Show at me.”
Esme snorted. “You wish.”
Kel gave a dreamy little sigh. “A boy can dream.”
“Aye,” Esme agreed. She jabbed a thumb in the direction of Room Four. “Once you’ve cleaned up the shitesplosion.”
Kel gave a little tut and sagged against his mop again. “Way to bring that fantasy crashing to the ground there.”
“You’re welcome,” Esme said, pulling her jacket on.
Kel stepped aside to let her out. “You back on tomorrow?”
“Nope! Two whole days off,” Esme gloated, waggling a two-fingered peace sign in his face as she passed him.
“Two? Jesus. Who did you have to sleep with to make that happen? And, can you give me his number?”
Esme gave a little chuckle. The remark probably deserved more than that, but exhaustion was muting her reactions. She could hear a hot shower and her bed calling to her from a mile up the road.
“Goodnight, Kel,” she said. “And make sure you take that break.”
“Too bloody right,” Kel said. “Night. See you on…” He puffed out his cheeks. “Whatever day is two days from now.”
“God knows. I’m sure someone will keep us right,” Esme replied. “See you then.”
She shambled away from the changing room and along the corridor in the direction of the nurses' station. The usual alarms bleeped and pinged from the usual doorways as she passed them. The usual snores. The usual groans.
Not her problem. Not tonight, not tomorrow, and not the next day, either. Two whole days off. Even if she slept for one—which felt quite likely at the moment—she still had another spare. That was dream-come-true stuff.
There was no one at the nurses' station when she got there, everyone was off doing the final rounds for evening medication. Somewhere along the corridor behind her, she heard Kel’s voice. It was bright and enthusiastic, stuffed full of fake cheer.
“Nice try on the redecorating in here, Mr French. But maybe best leave it to the experts next time, eh?”
Esme smiled, scrawled her name on the sign-out sheet, then hurried towards the ward exit before anyone could ask her anything. She swore some days a shift at Raigmore was like being Al Pacino in The Godfather.
Just when you thought you were out, they pulled you back in.
Tonight though, she made it to the ward door, out into the corridor, and over to the lifts without anyone calling after her. The lifts weren’t there, so she took the stairs rather than risk hanging around to wait. It wouldn’t be the first time a doctor or one of the senior nurses on duty had caught up with her while she waited for the lift to arrive and she’d found herself talked into working an extra couple of hours.
There were three flights of stairs to get down. Her feet didn’t complain. They knew it was in their best interests to get the hell out of there quickly and with as little fuss as possible.
Two days.
More than that, even. Fifty-nine hours until she clocked back in again. Her feet were willing to take the hit.
She took the side door to the outside when she reached the bottom of the stairs, and the cool October air woke her up a little, sharpening her senses.
It was quicker to walk through the hospital and leave by the Outpatients door, but the longer she was inside the building, the greater the chance she’d be dragged into some unpaid overtime.
No, better to take the longer way around the outside of the building, enjoy the crispness of the air, and—hopefully—not meet another living soul.
Or, at least, none with any direct authority over her working hours.
With thoughts of the next fifty-nine hours filling her head, Esme Miller set off around the outside of the hospital and headed for a home she would never reach.
He loves the way she walks. So fluid. So smooth. She almost looks real.
But then, he loves the way they all walk. Always different. Unique. Like a fingerprint. And yet, exactly the same in all the ways that count.
Her gait varies, just like the rest of them. Sometimes it’s bright, like when she walks little Chloe to school, or sets off to meet her sister for lunch. Tonight, now, her footsteps are flat. Slow. Plodding. She’s battling exhaustion. It isn’t real, of course, but she feels it all the same.
She’ll sleep soon.
He’ll allow her that.
Her movements are so lifelike. Just by looking, it’s almost impossible to know that she’s on strings. Most people can’t see them. Most people don’t understand.
He is not most people.
He is different.
And yet, in all the ways that count, he is the same.
She comes around the back of the hospital, slumping her way past the big bins, then thacking onto the grass. That too seems so real, so alive, so here-and-now. But he sees the truth.
Or rather, the lies.
He wonde
She isn’t thinking. None of them are. None of them ever do.
Taking the shortcut across the grass will save her four minutes on her journey home. He knows this. He has timed her often enough.
Four minutes, even accounting for the way she’ll pick up speed when she’s halfway across, right in the middle of the darkest spot, hidden in the shadows of the trees lining the edges of the hospital grounds.
The trek across the grass will take her less than two minutes. Not long.
But long enough.
Beyond the trees, the evening traffic trundles by. Pointless people leading make-believe lives. Fools. Liars. All of them.
They don’t matter. None of them matter. Not now.
Not ever.
She’s a third of the way across the grass. The darkness reaches out to embrace her.
The knife is heavy in his hand, its weight yet another deception in a never-ending list.
She is halfway now. Her pace quickens.
He loves the way she walks. She almost looks real.
But he knows different. He knows the truth. And soon, he’ll show them.
He’ll show them all.
Chapter Two
Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan plodded up the winding staircase that led to his top floor flat, his boots scuffing on the uneven stone steps. The day had been a long and exhausting one. Not physically, granted, but a stack of paperwork had finally caught up with him, and being stuck behind a desk for hours always took its toll on his energy levels.
Still, he’d broken the back of it, and what had been a stack was now just a couple of small bundles and an overflowing box file. He’d be through it all in a week or so. Sooner, if he could convince DI Forde to chip in. That shouldn’t take too much in the way of bribery and corruption.
Ben Forde wasn’t exactly a fan of the paperwork—no bugger was—but he didn’t hate it in the same way that Logan did. There were even rumours that he’d once said he found it ‘relaxing,’ but he’d been quick to take that back after everyone in earshot had offered to help him get properly chilled-out by giving him their own to do.
After the paperwork was out of the way, Logan was hoping for a bit of breathing space. He might even take a couple of days off to get settled into the flat properly. He’d been in for almost two months now but was still living out of boxes.
Not many boxes, granted. He hadn’t brought a lot with him when he’d left Glasgow. Still, it would be good to get properly set up. Even better to take a couple of days to unwind. Things had been more hectic than expected following his move north, and he felt like he hadn’t caught his breath in weeks.
He might even finally get around to putting up that shelf he’d bought the day after moving in, although he wasn’t committing himself to it quite yet.
There were eight flats in the block, each one staggered half a floor above the one before, on opposite sides of the stairwell. He was passing the floor before his own—eight steps from his front door—when he heard the shout and the sound of something breaking. A plate, he thought. Possibly a glass.
His desire to get home carried him up a step before a sense of… not duty, exactly, more common decency, stopped him.
“How was that me? Eh? How is that my fault?”
Male voice. Young-ish. Mid-twenties, maybe.
“It’s no’. You’re no’ listening. That’s no’ what I’m saying!”
A woman. Younger still, he thought. Both voices were raised, albeit in different ways. His was angry. Aggressive. There was a pleading edge to hers. Not quite desperation, but not far off it.
“Well, what are you fucking saying then, eh?”
A crash. A thud.
“Come on, then? What are you fucking saying?”
Logan hadn’t met any of his neighbours yet.
He stepped down onto the landing.
Now seemed like as good a time as any to introduce himself.
He knocked on the door. It was a policeman’s knock, the type of knock that made it very clear the knuckles responsible for it weren’t going to go away without getting an answer.
The man’s voice dropped in volume but lost none of its anger. There were a few hissed comments too quiet for Logan to hear, then a series of thudding footfalls.
The door was yanked open. An unshaven twenty-something with crooked teeth and greasy hair scowled at him, chest all puffed out, fist clenched at his side. His eyes were set so far back in their dark hollows they looked like they’d been put there with a Black & Decker.
“The fuck you want?” the scrote demanded. He was shorter than Logan by a whole head, but his system was currently so flooded with testosterone that he didn’t appear to notice his height disadvantage.
Logan held the man’s gaze long enough to make an impression, then looked past him to where a skinny lassie with a hair colour that could only have come from a bottle stood at the far end of the hall. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, her weight shifting from foot to foot.
Pieces of a broken mug lay on the bare floorboards around her, a dark brown tea or coffee stain on the wall marking the spot where it had first made impact.
“Everything alright?” Logan asked.
“The fuck’s that got to do with you?” the scrote demanded.
Logan flicked his gaze to him, just briefly. “Did I look like I was talking to you?” he asked.
The chest puffed out further. Logan could practically hear the creak of the bastard’s joints as he tightened his fists.
“The fuck you say?”
“Miss?” said Logan, ignoring him. “Everything alright?”
She opened her mouth as if to reply, but then closed it again when the door started to close.
“She’s fine. Fuck off.”
The door stopped when it hit the toe of Logan’s boot. He thought about reaching into his coat for his warrant card, but decided to keep that a surprise for now.
“Gonnae move yer fucking foot?”
“Gonnae shut yer fucking mouth?” Logan countered, eyeballing him.
It was a direct challenge. There were two ways this could go now, Logan knew. Either the scrote would double-down and come at him, or he’d back off. Chicken out. Shite the bed.
“What?” the man said. He seemed to shrink a little as his eyes furtively looked Logan up and down.
Shite the bed, then.
“Miss? Are you OK? I heard shouting,” Logan said.
She stopped her shifting and slouched all her weight on one hip. Her face became a sneer. “Piss off, ya nosy bastard. What’s it to do with you?”
Emboldened by this, the greasy wee bam started bumping the door against Logan’s foot. “You heard her. She’s fine. So, off ya fuck, eh?”
Logan looked between them, then sucked in his bottom lip.
“Fair enough,” he said.
He was about to withdraw his foot when he spotted the well-trodden pile of mail on the floor. Brown envelopes, mostly, with red ‘Final Demand’ warnings stamped on the front.
“Tanya,” he said, reading the name on one of the address labels. He met the girl’s eye again. “I’m just upstairs, alright? If you need me.”
She said nothing, just looked down at the floor and tightened her arms around her middle as Logan withdrew his foot. The door closed between them with a bang.
“Prick!” the man spat through the wood, and then there came the thudding of retreating footsteps, some low muttering, and the slamming of a door somewhere further back in the flat.
