Chapter 40
XL
A cluster of scarlet roses glowed against the dark-green foliage, like blood spatter . . .
Patches puffled along the edge of a border, snuffling away, stubby tail wagging as she explored the same old familiar world with the kind of excitement only a springer spaniel could muster.
The sky still glowed a ghostly blue, but Mr Sun had sodded off for the day, leaving only the solar-powered lights to illuminate their massive garden.
Quite proud of that, actually. Took a lot of work to get the place looking this good. And it wasn’t easy having green fingers when you were missing great chunks off four of the buggers.
Colin tightened his grip on the mug, black leather gloves squeaking on the pale china.
They didn’t really go with the old Pink Floyd T-shirt and chinos, but you sort of got used to them. In the end.
There was a clunk, and Professor Isobel McAllister (53) emerged through the French doors from the kitchen.
Glass of Merlot in one hand, casual but stylish in a burgundy short-sleeve V-neck dress.
Hair tucked behind her ears. Wearing the little square glasses she only used at home.
Flip-flops were a bit of a sartorial low point, but Isobel was still the most beautiful woman in the whole frigging world, so you could excuse the occasional faux pas.
A few more creases bloomed between her eyebrows. ‘You’re not out here smoking those stinky cigars again, are you?’
He went back to frowning at the roses. ‘Ever wonder why you bother?’
‘Because they’re bad for you. Always trust a pathologist when they say you should stop doing something – we’ve seen enough people’s innards to know what we’re talking about.’ She took a sip of wine, then transferred the glass to her other hand and slipped her naked fingers between his gloved ones.
‘No’ quite what I meant.’ Sigh. ‘Kinda get the feeling our new owner’s screwing with me.
Dangling the job over my head, you know?
“Here’s a meeting to see if you still get to work here, or if you’re out on your arse like all your mates.
Only I’m no’ gonnae turn up for it, or reschedule.
Instead you can bloody sweat.”’ The coffee turned bitter in his mouth.
‘Natash Aga-frigging-pova. The Scottish Daily Post used to be a decent paper, till she got her hands on it – now it’s nothing but a right-wing tabloid shite-rag, obsessed with fuckin’ celebrities and fearmongering and “the world’s full of paedos and foreigners and everything you don’t like is woke .
. .”’ He dumped his mug on the patio table.
‘Now she’s gonna do the same with the Examiner.
I seen the mock-ups. And I’m expected to beg for my job? ’
Isobel pouted for a moment. ‘Do you want me to be honest, or supportive?’
He smiled. ‘Supportive?’
‘I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding, and they’ll sort it out tomorrow.’
Aye, maybe . . .
‘And honest?’
‘I don’t normally approve of rough language, but: screw them.’ Another sip of wine. ‘You used to love working there and now you hate it. So quit. Tell them to fashion their job into a cylinder and insert it rectally – with force. And no lubrication.’
He winked. ‘I love it when you talk dirty.’
‘You could write that book you’ve been droning on about for years.’
‘I don’t drone. I ponder and muse, cogitate and deliberate, contemplate and—’
‘Well, why not? Are you happy?’
Working with children pretending to be journalists, churning out tweets and blogposts and ‘you won’t believe what these filmstars look like now!’, chasing deadlines, never writing about the things that really matter . . .
Was he happy?
‘No.’
Isobel nodded. ‘There you go, then.’ And as if that settled everything, she spun around – making her skirt flare, showing off a bit of leg – and headed inside again, leaving him out here in the gloom, alone.
‘Aye.’ He picked up his half-empty mug. ‘There I go.’
End of an era.
No more newspapers for Ace Reporter Colin Miller . . .
Or maybe the mug was half full?
Colin nodded, then took Schrodinger’s mug back into the kitchen.
No Isobel – moved on to another part of the house, leaving her empty wine glass behind.
Downlighters sparkled off their swanky high-end gadgets, and the kind of coffee machine you normally only saw in posh restaurants.
Lots of warm wood and terracotta walls, a marble worktop imported all the way from Tuscany.
Photos of the family holidays, Rosie (12) getting her brown belt in karate, Alfie (10)’s first violin recital, and dropping Sean (19) off at university.
See, that was your metaphor, right there: one day your wee boy’s taking his first steps, the next he’s away studying medicine in Edinburgh. Things change.
Maybe it was time he changed too.
Colin rinsed his mug and Isobel’s glass, stuck them in the dishwasher, then grabbed his car keys from the drawer.
Aye: he could just hand in his notice tomorrow, but where was the fun in that? Going by Agapova’s record, she’d probably be ‘working from home’ again, anyway. And if you’re gonnae tell someone to roll their job sideways and stick it up their arse, you want to do it to their face.
Colin stuck his head out into the hall. ‘I’m just heading out for a bit. Go stick a bottle of fizz on ice – when I get back, we’re celebrating!’
Colin turned his BMW M2 Coupé – red as the roses, with active M differential, rear-wheel drive, and TwinPower turbo inline six-cylinder engine – onto the driveway outside Natasha Agapova’s house.
A true-crime podcast rumbled out of the car’s Harman Kardon fourteen-speaker sound system, keeping him company on the journey out here.
‘. . . and when we opened the second trench, there were the missing village children: twenty-two dead little bodies, all lined up in a row, with their heads pointing towards the chancel, their feet bound in silver chains, and iron stakes driven straight through their sternums.’
‘Wow. Not their hearts? Cos you’d think it would be their hearts.’
‘Well, you see that’s the fascinating thing about the Church of Our Lady and Saint Peter—’
He switched it off.
Had to admit, Agapova’s house was bigger than theirs. But where Colin and Isobel had a stylish Georgian sandstone mansion, this was a modern kit-build with all the class of a drunken jakey. Couldn’t be more than a couple years old, set in a big garden that sloped down to some woods.
Aye, it might’ve been big, but the garden was pish. No thought put into the planting at all.
It was one of a small cluster of equally fancy-but-styleless properties a few miles out past Peterculter. An enclave for captains of industry, movers and shakers, and the nouveau riche glitterati.
AKA: pricks.
He followed the snaking driveway up to the house, with its two-storey floor-to-ceiling glazed entrance hall, and parked right outside.
No sign of any other cars, but there was a double garage bolted onto the side, so the Rolls and Ferrari were probably safely locked away in case the squirrels got at them.
Kinda looked like every light in the house was on, blazing out into the dark, but the only figure visible belonged to a massive teddy bear, dressed like an offshore worker in boots, gloves, T-shirt, and hard hat.
Cos editors were weird.
Colin climbed out, thunked the car door shut, and went to shoot his cuffs . . . Only he didn’t have any, cos he was wearing a T-shirt.
Buggering hell.
Should’ve changed into a suit and tie – pulled on the full armour. Given Natasha Bloody Agapova a glimpse of what she’d thrown away with her stupid power games.
Ah well: too late for that, now.
He swaggered over to her front door and thumbed the bell.
The overture to Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro blared out, somewhere inside the house.
Talk about pretentious. ‘Ooh, look at me, a bing-bong isn’t classy enough!’
The thirty-second clip played itself out, and silence returned.
Off in the woods, a deer barked – like a cross between a grunt and a belch.
And there was still no sign of Agapova, tripping downstairs to answer the sodding door.
Well, he hadn’t come all the way out here to just go home again without telling her where to shove her crappy job.
He gave the bell another go, and Mozart started up again.
Still no answer.
Right: time to go old-school.
He raised a hand to knock. But perhaps a bit of drama wouldn’t go amiss? So hammered on the thing with his fist instead . . .
It swung open on the first thump. Never mind locked, it wasn’t even latched.
‘Hello?’ He shoved the door all the way. ‘HOY! AGAPOVA!’
Nothing.
That great-big teddy bear stared at him with its dead button eyes.
Colin stepped across the threshold into the double-height hallway. The cold-blue glow of twilight wasn’t bright enough to compete with the LED spotlights in here, turning the front wall of glass into a mirror.
‘HELLO?’
Still nothing.
He pulled off his left glove, revealing a hand truncated by two joints on his pinkie, and one on his ring finger. Leaving shiny stubs behind, lightly puckered where the skin was stitched back together.
Colin stuck the tip of his thumb and index finger in his gob and let loose a shrill, deafening whistle.
Then stood there as the house swallowed it.
Aye, something wasn’t right here.
The hall sideboard played host to a couple of oversized fancy vases – maybe African, going by the patterns worked into the glaze? – but another two lay broken on the floor, pieces scattered out across the pale carpet.
And in between the shattered curls of pottery, lurked dark-red smears and droplets, staining the deep pile. A smudged handprint on the sideboard. Another on the wall.
Shite.
The blood was already mahogany coloured, each individual drip: dry and shiny as a little beetle, so probably not fresh. But Colin gave them a wide berth as he tiptoed further into the room.
‘MRS AGAPOVA? ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? HELLO?’
A pair of high heels sat cock-ended by the sideboard. Keys in the bowl. One earring beside it – the other glittering away on the carpet.