This our victim?
She placed the cleaned skull on a little plinth, slotting it onto a rod set into the base. Resin cast. Dr McAllister wouldnt let me use the real one for the facial reconstruction. Its a bit of extra work, but on the plus side it no longer counts as human remains, so we can forget all that rubbish about having to be supervised by a registered medical practitioner with five years experience. . As if Im going to take a can opener to someones skull, or use it as a football.
Logan leaned against the cold stainless-steel surface. So whats the diagnosis?
Well, hes definitely dead. She grinned. Then cleared her throat. Sorry. Ive mapped out the tissue depth and cut the markers, so all I need to do is apply them and I can get on with the real work. . A little crease appeared between her eyebrows. You didnt put ice on that, did you.
Didnt have any. And fish fingers didnt work.
No, probably not. She pulled over a small metal tray, laid out with discs of pale rubber, as if shed cut them off the end of pencils each one marked with a number in black ink. You know, with bones we can tell almost everything about a person: what they ate, where they lived, where they lived before that, height, weight, sex, ethnicity. . A dab of glue went on the end of a disc, then she fixed it right in the middle of the skulls forehead.
What happened to Dr Dempsey?
Sulking. Threatening legal action.
You hit him first?
A shrug. Marker number one was joined by two and three. He pushed me.
Logan nodded up at the shiny black globe hanging from the ceiling over the central cutting table, like a store security camera. Tell him its all on film.
Your victim was male, Caucasian. Four, five, and six followed the ridge of the eyebrows. To be honest, hes been spoiling for a fight for years, ever since I got sent to Iraq instead of him. Said he should be the one digging bodies out of mass graves, not me. . She sat back and tilted her head to one side. Blue, brown, or green?
Shrug. Blue?
Browns more neutral. Dr Graham dipped into her massive handbag and pulled out a wooden box, a little bigger than a pencil case. When she opened it, three pairs of glass eyes stared back at Logan. She plucked the brown eyes from the box, then fiddled around with rubber batons and glue until they were staring out from the skull instead. There we go, much better.
Seriously? It looked like something out of a cheap horror film.
Cant you just do all this on computers?
What, like they do on the telly? Markers seven to ten were longer, sticking out of the upper and lower jaws. Facial reconstructions half science, half art. You have to really know bones. Hows a computer ever going to do that?
Go on then. Logan went into his jacket pocket, pulled out the junior soup starter kit that had been left on his doorstep, and dumped it on the cutting table. The bones rattled against the stainless steel. What can you get from a bunch of chicken bones and some manky herbs?
She peered at them, then added the next couple of markers to the skull. Theyre not chicken bones, theyre phalanges. Finger bones. Human. A smile. Do I pass the test?
Finger bones?
A sigh. OK, well do it properly. . She pulled an A4 lined notepad from beneath one of the books, flipped over to a clean sheet, then stuck her left hand flat down on it and drew around the palm and fingers with a pencil. Then untied the bundle. This one, she held up one of the little bones, is a proximal phalanx from the middle finger. She placed it on her wobbly outline of a hand in the right place. This ones an intermediate. . Might be from the index going by the growth on the distal articular surface but its impossible to tell for sure without having all the other bones for comparison. It went on the drawn hand. And lucky number three is a proximal from the thumb.
Theyre human?
Yup. She lowered the last bone into place. Then picked it up again. I dont know who cleaned them for you, but they seriously need to go on a training course. Boiling bones damages the joints, look, she wiggled the end at Logan, see how its all pitted and porous?
It looked like a pale Crunchie bar with all the chocolate sucked off. She shook her head. Very amateurish.
Oh God. Boiled?
Yup theres much more efficient and less damaging ways to clean skeletal remains: boiling breaks down the cortical bone, thats why you can see that cancellous bone underneath. If you havent got Dermestid beetles to clean the remains, then simmerings the way to go long and slow, like youre making stock. She put it down again. I dont know who youre using, but they should be ashamed of themselves. Another marker went on the skull.
Boiled. . Something cold slithered its way down Logans spine.
She picked up the last marker in the set, then frowned at him. Are you all right? Youve gone all pale.
When? When were they boiled?
Dr Graham backed off a pace. Look, I identified them, didnt I? Cant you just tell your bosses Im not faking it here? I really do know what Im talking. . Her eyes narrowed. Did Dempsey put you up to this? Is he the halfwit who ruined them?
Was someone eating them?
Because if he did, you shouldnt touch him with a bargepole. Hes a bitter, twisted old sod and Im doing a good job here!
The cutting table was cool beneath his fist. Was someone eating the meat off those bloody fingers or not?
She pulled her chin in. Then picked up the bone again, held it up to her nose and sniffed. You smell that? Bleach: thats why its so chalky and crumbly. Whod eat something theyd boiled in bleach?
Oh thank God. .
Dr Graham picked all the bones up and held them in the palm of her hand. It wasnt a test? They made a dry sandpaper sound as she rolled them back and forward. Seriously?
Someones been leaving them outside my house.
Phalanges? She put them back on the paper hand. My life coach told me Aberdeen was weird. . She cleared her throat, then dug a ruler from her stack of books and measured each of the bones in turn. You can estimate height and sex from phalanges, but its unreliable. And I mean seriously unreliable. I wouldnt even put it in writing.
Logan licked his lips. Thought they were chicken bones.
You have to promise not to quote me on this, but best guess: these belong to a woman, about five-two, five-four, something like that. Theres a touch of arthritis, so she might be in her fifties, possibly sixties? Theyve been boiled, so you can whistle for DNA, but you could try stable isotope signature analysis?
Human fingers.
Theres a professor I know in Dundee who does pro bono work for police cases. I can give him a call if you like?
Ive been chucking them into the bushes. .
Rowan shifts sideways on the wooden bench, making enough room for the woman with the shopping bags to puff down beside her. Pregnant. Taking the weight off her swollen ankles. A tight coil of green and blue spirals out from her tummy, making a question mark in the air that shimmers with antici-pation.
St Nicholas Kirk graveyard basks in the warm morning, the ancient granite headstones turning their crumbling lichened faces to the sun. The church building gnaws at the sky with jagged dark-grey teeth, dirty stained-window eyes glowering out at the dead and the living alike.
A comforting place.
The Kirk is my mother and father. It is my rod and my staff. My shield and my sword. What I do in its service lights a fire in Gods name.
Rowan forces down another mouthful of Blood, Ligature, and Tallow, sitting on the bench with her ankles crossed beneath her, curling around her sandwich, shoulders hunched. Newly dyed hair hangs over her face, hiding her eyes.
No one recognizes her as a redhead.
The broodmother unbuttons the top of her shirt and flaps the collar, trying to force cool air in over her swollen udders. Ungh. . This heat! Then she pulls a rumpled newspaper from one of her carrier bags and uses it as a makeshift fan. Ahh, thats better.
She has no idea whats growing inside her. .
Another mouthful forcing it down. Should have bought some water.
You know, Steve says I always moan when its too cold, but dear God I cant wait for it to rain.
Rowan just nods.
The broodmother dumps the newspaper on the bench between them, then pulls out a plastic bottle of apple juice. Cracks the seal and drinks deep. It smells like sunshine. Pfffffff. . Cant believe its this hot. We went on honeymoon to Kenya and it wasnt this hot.
Between them, the headline shouts in big black letters: I COULDNT LET HIM SUFFER ~ BRAVE GUY TELLS OF NECKLACING VICTIMS HORROR and a photograph of an ugly young man in a hospital bed.
The woman sighs. Horrible, isnt it? How could anyone do something so. . horrible?
A shrug, then Rowan rubs at the scars on her left wrist. Like thin shiny worms wriggling beneath her fingertips. Maybe he deserved it?
No one could ever deserve that. The blue and green swirl trembled. Oooh. . juniors on the move again. Tell you: I feel like that bloke out of Alien. Only he was lucky he didnt have a little monsters foot in his bladder.
If only she knew.
Broodmother looks out at the sea of deathstones. I was here when they had that service for Alison and Jenny McGregor, did you see it? Got Robbie Williamss autograph. .
A man walks in through the ornate pillared frontage that screens the graveyard off from Union Street. Hes here. The man has a mobile phone pressed to his ear, a bag from Primark in his other hand. And an aura like a house fire black and orange and red tongues of smoke trailing in his wake, caressing the tombs.
Of course, that was before Steve. And now look at me.
The wide path from the main street to the church is made up of paving slabs and ancient headstones, worn almost smooth by generations of feet. The living trampling on the dead. She can almost hear them groaning as he marches past the bench.
I tell you, they say giving births the greatest thing you can ever do, but its the bit before thats a pain in the- Oh, are you off?
Rowan marches after him, staying far enough back to not be touched by his filthy stench: the cracking lines like burning blood. The beasts are too powerful and so was the woman with the aura of black, but a witch. . Now thats something different.