Jack-in-the-Box E-Book

Pat Black

• Herausgeber: Polygon
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: The D.I. Lomond Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 429

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

Home can be the most dangerous place. They had cameras, alarms, lights, even guard dogs. They had storm doors and locks on their windows. They knew martial arts, they had knives to hand, and one of them even had a gun. And he still got in . . . A terrifying killer is haunting Glasgow's affluent suburbs – invading homes and smothering people left on their own. The tabloids have a name for the murderer based on his method of folding the bodies into tiny spaces, as well as his uncanny knack of seemingly springing out of nowhere: Jack-in-the-Box. Inspector Lomond has an impossible case to crack. The houses involved have state-of-the-art security systems and were all securely locked at the time of death. There is no evidence of forced entry, and video footage shows no sign of any intruders. How is he getting in? How is he getting out? And who will be next?

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR PAT BLACK

‘Pat Black has breathed new life into the police procedural in To Pay the Ferryman, the first novel in what promises to be a highly entertaining series’

Mark Sanderson, The Times

‘Arresting writing . . . the art theme works very well, and the villain is a surprise’

Jeremy Black, The Critic

‘With a well-worked plot and credible, sympathetic characters, this is an enjoyable slice of tartan noir’

Allan Massie, The Scotsman

‘Plenty of Scottish police humour, awful coffee, and a most dramatic ending’

Daily Mirror

‘A gripping, multi-faceted mystery with a cast of engaging characters and a delicious dose of camaraderie spiced with dark humour’

Sally McDonald, Sunday Post

‘There’s a dark sense of humour that bubbles away nicely beneath the grisly plot, and Black’s writing style is hypnotically succinct’

Scottish Field

‘A classic murder mystery . . . laced with Scottish humour.

Glasgow-born Pat Black is the author of several thrillers and this is a fine addition to his expert storytelling’

Ella Walker, Irish News

‘A smartly-written thriller’

Alastair Mabbott, The Herald

‘Packed with urgency and threat, and ultimately satisfying’

Jen Med Book Reviews

A note on the author

Pat Black lives in Yorkshire with his wife and children. He will always belong to Glasgow.

Jack-in-the-Box

PAT BLACK

First published in 2026 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.

Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh

EH9 1QS

www.polygonbooks.co.uk

1

Copyright © Paul McGurk, 2026

The right of Paul McGurk to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. This work is reserved from text and data mining (Article 4(3) Directive (EU) 2019/790).

ISBN 978 1 84697 717 6

eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 823 6

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.

Typeset by 3btype, Edinburgh.

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd

For Dave Black. No relation. Except he is.

1

Kath had a mother hen moment as Beatrice waved goodbye.

It might have been the falling snow, the leaden skies, or just January in general. A need to stay close to the little one, to keep her safe. Kath remembered her own mother had once declared a snow day, when she was about the same age as Beatrice, without any warning other than a few thick flakes of snow. They’d had a wonderful time away from the school. Tea and toast, and the radio; felt-tip pens and colouring books, and even a cake after lunch. Just for a moment, at the bus stop, Kath had considered doing the same. Might be nice.

But the moment was lost for ever upon sight of the bus’s yellow and green livery. The little girl in pigtails turned to wave before she hopped up to take the seat beside Jessica, her best friend.

‘Have a good day, sweetheart!’ Kath cried, loud enough for Beatrice to hear through the glass. Absurdly, she felt on the verge of tears. Beatrice waved and smiled, oblivious.

She’d been jumpy all morning. Ed was gone for a few days – some jolly in Amsterdam: eyebrows raised, uneasy smiles, work, of course – and while she wasn’t worried about what he got up to over there, she had a childish habit of not being able to sleep while he was gone. Lights on and everything. Something she’d have scolded Beatrice about. Kath still saw monsters in corners. Unblinking yellow eyes under the bed. She reproved herself for these childish fancies, but she couldn’t stop them. As she checked inside the hall cupboard for the second time, she thought, I’ll do this until my dying day.

There were some odd moments as the morning wore on. The snow had stopped minutes after it started, and it even grew mild outside. Kath decided to give some bedsheets an airing after the washing-machine cycle finished, not liking the fusty smell that hung around house-dried laundry, usually a necessity given the time of year.

She’d been happy to see two foxes playing in the frost-covered wasteground as she pegged out the sheets. But only an hour later, when the blue skies had given way to grey cloud, they were gone. The only warm-blooded life out there was a dirty great crow squatting in one of the trees that obscured the houses backing onto the garden. The wind was bitter, and Kath wondered if more snow was on the way.

Worried that the bedding would freeze with the sharp drop in temperature, she gathered the sheets and spaced them out on the clothes rack in the utility room. They flapped and billowed like grasping hands, and Kath felt a brief panic as the white fabric twisted around her – echoes of ghosts wreathed in sheets with scissored eyes. Jittery as a kitten, she closed the windows, locked the patio doors and then, on an impulse, checked the security cameras monitor. Nothing, of course. Nothing in front of the house, nothing in the garden, nothing in the garage, nothing down the side where the bins lived, in front of the padlocked gate . . .

Kath called her mother on the landline, but there was no reply. Neither the computer’s humming solace nor the cosy DJ she favoured after lunchtime could shake that feeling of isolation that came during quiet afternoons alone in the house. The snow was turning to slush on the patio, frosting the trees beyond the fence. Kath didn’t want to look too closely. She always imagined that someone might be hiding there.

Despite the ticking of the radiators and the warmth they exuded, she decided to have a bath. Warm those bones. Nice and cosy. Her shoulder muscles unbunched at the thought.

Lying back in the intense fog from the churning water, Kath kept one eye on the bathroom door. No snib lock. Ed had wanted one, but Kath was against it. What if Beatrice got locked in?

So, even when the door crept open and the dressing gown hanging from the peg swung towards her, blurred through the shower screen, Kath’s mind rationalised the situation. A window left open, surely. A sudden gust of midwinter wind pushing the bathroom door open.

And then the door closed.

Someone was standing there.

2

Corinne said cheerio to Mrs Gleniffer outside Grazers and Blazers. After a good two hours inside, this should only have taken a minute or so, but Corinne managed to extend it to at least five. Even Mrs Glennifer was turning a little bit twitchy, especially with that cold wind in her face. Sliced right through you, that, Corinne thought, turning her back on the sleety gusts and tucking her ears inside her hat.

‘Oh, my Brian’s back,’ Mrs Gleniffer announced, brandishing the phone screen towards Corinne, far too fast for her to focus on. ‘I’d best get home or he’ll get some daft ideas in him. Start thinking he can make the dinner!’

‘God forbid!’ Corinne said, laughing, and the farewells were made at last. As she turned into the high street, wincing as a snowflake landed plum on the point of her nose, she thought her Brian would die before he boiled a bloody egg. Must be desperate to be rid of me, or something. Mind you, they’d been in Grazers and Blazers a while. Nice selection they had there. Good vanilla slice. You didn’t often get one, these days – usually muffins and brownies. They could be a bit much.

Corinne had made it to the shelter of the supermarket entrance, right beside the strange pet shop, inside which she had never seen any customers, nor members of staff either, although the squeezy toys and bird tables and a dog bowl filled with water for passing trade – buffed up better than the silver service in her own house, she had to admit – were left outside the entrance as ever. She was thinking about Mrs Gleniffer and wondering if the phone was new, or just the case – Mrs Gleniffer was forever dropping her bloody phones, or maybe firing them off Brian’s head, which would make sense – when she realised she hadn’t checked her own phone in a while. Reaching into her bag, her fingers curled around it. It was quivering and purring.

Corinne saw that she had missed twenty-six calls. She’d put the phone on silent in order to talk to Mrs Glennifer in Grazers and Blazers. She’d only meant to be in there an hour at most. New place, crafty stuff for sale, but none of your rubbish, mind . . .

Twenty-six calls. Suddenly she understood. She peeled off her gloves, the better to skate across the surface, but her fingers had forgotten how to operate.

She tried to swallow, but a hand seemed to be clamped round her throat, jamming the mechanism. She said ‘Ach’ instead, not the lament, or the exasperated version, just a click. Not even a human sound. It was, she would recall much later, exactly the same as she’d made when the phone went thirty years previously and her Gordon’s site manager was on the line, struggling to tell her the news.

The first of the missed calls was from Kath. Then followed three from an unknown number. Then twenty-two from Ed. Ed was away in Amsterdam.

Corinne triangulated. She moved her fingers to trigger Kath’s number first. The phone buzzed in her hands, confusing her. She was swaying in the wind, trying to remember what to do, what button to press. Her thoughts were spilling out like pennies from a smashed piggy bank. Somehow she put it together that someone was calling her. It was Ed’s name, Ed’s slightly sardonic smile in the wee photie; green was go. Corinne responded.

‘What is it, Ed?’ she said. ‘What’s happening? Tell me it’s not Bea?’

‘What are you talking about?’ He was angry, not scared. ‘What’s happening there?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Ed. I was out for the afternoon. There’s no signal down at the Plaza Centre, you know how it gets in there—’

‘Have you spoken to Kath today?’

His tone was so sharp, so savage, that she started to cry. He had a temper, did Ed. ‘I’ve not spoken to her since Sunday, Ed, when you were round for your dinner. Is everything—’

‘Right, never mind. Corinne, I need you to go to the school. Beatrice is there. Kath hasn’t shown up. She was supposed to get her after her piano class at after-school club. She didn’t show. Beatrice is waiting at the school with her teacher.’

‘I’ve got a bag of messages here, Ed. What’s happening with Kath?’

She could hear him grinding his teeth. It was a good connection. ‘One thing at a time, Corinne. Go to the school. Pick up Beatrice. Don’t frighten her. I can’t get hold of Kath. The neighbour says the car is still at the house, but there’s no answer at the door. So I need you to pick up Beatrice at the school. Take her back to the house, and use your key to get in.’

‘Oh, son! What’s going on?’

‘Probably nothing,’ Ed said. ‘She did this once before, when Beatrice was going for gymnastics. Got her dates mixed up. It happens. Don’t panic, Corinne, and don’t frighten the wee one. Pick her up, take her home, and let yourself in. Give Kath a call yourself, when you can. It’s probably nothing.’

3

It was a street that a lot of learner drivers were taken down to practise U-turns. A glorified cul-de-sac – that had annoyed Ed, when Corinne had said it; it was out of her mouth before she could think about it, really – a dead end, just a crescent where the houses arced round, backing onto some trees and the scrubland. Corinne usually parked outside the house rather than going onto the drive, but she went right in this time, parking up beside Kath’s 4x4.

Beatrice knew something was wrong, all right. How could it not be?

‘Where’s she gone, Nana?’ she said from the seat in the back, fidgeting with something in her hand that caught the corner of Corinne’s eye while she was trying to straighten up in the driveway.

‘What have you got there? Stop fidgeting.’ Then Corinne saw what it was in the girl’s hand. Her rosary beads. Pale blue, and blessed at Lourdes, no less.

‘She’s never usually late, Nana.’

‘It’s a cold day – maybe she had things to do and ran out of time. She probably thought you were getting the bus, and forgot it was your piano lesson today.’

Beatrice’s lip trembled. So did the tips of her pigtails.

Corinne unclipped her belt and turned round. Her gloved hands covered the girl’s. Even through the material Corinne felt the chill of her fingers. She cursed herself for not thinking. ‘Now don’t you worry,’ she said, in a light tone that grew brittle before she had finished the sentence. ‘It’ll be fine. She’s just forgotten. It’s easy done, sweetheart. Now, you’ll wait in here, OK?’

‘It’s dark, Nana. I’m scared.’

‘Oh, don’t you be scared.’ Corinne coughed to hide the tremor in her voice. She clasped Beatrice’s hands tighter. ‘I’ll be back in two minutes. Anything happens, you just beep that horn, right?’

Beatrice nodded. Corinne got out – cold wind immediately slapping her cheeks and forehead, threatening to tear her hat off. She locked the car, waved to Beatrice, then tried the door. Locked. She hit the doorbell, courtesy really, and the dull, emotionless tones were still ringing out when she put her key in the lock.

There was already a key in the lock – or something in the lock, at any rate. Corinne grunted as she tried the key again. It would not go all the way in. She extricated it gently. Her heart had surely never been this loud, her blood in revolt against the chill. She moved back and scanned the windows. There was a suggestion of a light on in the front room. Nothing upstairs. She slipped as she followed the path round to the side gate, her footsteps gouging weeping prints into the slush. She steadied herself, took a breath and turned to wave at Beatrice. With the glare of the streetlights, she couldn’t really see if she was there or not. It was bloody dark too.

The gate creaked open. The swing set and slide bolted to the ground. Wee one was too old for them, really. Ed should get rid of them. Lawn was like a pudding itself, come to think of it. No footprints, she remembered later. She was quite firm on that point.

The patio door was open a crack.

‘Kath?’ She slid it open. Much warmer through the threshold; heating was on. Kitchen tidy. Clock ticking. Glowing red script on the oven not reset since the clocks went back. Bloody Ed again. ‘Kath? Where are you, pet?’

Water on the laminate flooring catching the light. Footprints, it seemed. Bit of a mess. God, had she slipped?

‘Kath? What’s going on? It’s me!’

She didn’t get much further into the kitchen before it fell into place in her mind, the way it was meant to. Exactly how it had been planned. The kitchen had a play area with a big toybox in it – crammed full, it was an old-style wooden thing painted with animals and dinosaurs on the front. Beatrice was a lovely girl, bless her, but they’d got her too much stuff. Spoiled rotten at Christmas. She didn’t believe in Santa, really, but she’d gone along with it one more time, so as not to upset her mummy or daddy, or her nana. That was the kind of girl she was, nice like that.

Corinne saw that the box was ajar, just a wee bit. And out of place – it had been moved from the corner where it fitted snugly beside the wall units and dragged into the middle of the room.

But that wasn’t the first thing Corinne noticed. The first thing she noticed was the red scarf, dangling from the box lid like a tongue. It had been pulled straight, and was snagged on something inside. Something was stopping it from closing properly. It invited you to open it, and Corinne did. And then just covered her eyes, and screamed.

4

Detective Inspector Lomond switched off the car stereo, then slowed to a crawl. The snow had come on a lot thicker since he’d set off from the house, and even having the wipers on double-time couldn’t clear it off the windscreen fast enough. Lomond spotted DS Slater’s long, somewhat spindly form in the distance, saw what it was wearing and promptly discounted the evidence. Must be Malcolm’s doppelgänger, he thought. Surely that’s not him.

He sped up and had almost driven past Slater, who was standing in a bus shelter just before the crossroads that would take them deeper into the Southside, before a frantic arm gesture brought him to a sudden halt. Lomond eyed with some astonishment the figure that got into the car.

‘What?’ Slater said innocently.

‘Malcolm.’ Lomond was as grave as a father who has been specifically told by his wife to bollock a child. ‘What in God’s name are you wearing?’

‘What d’you mean?’ Slater glanced down at his coat, tugging the collar.

‘I mean . . . did you inherit that jacket?’

‘As it happens, it’s vintage, gaffer.’ Slater frowned, but one corner of his mouth twitched in a smile.

‘Vintage? Vintage what, curtains?’ To Lomond’s eyes, Slater’s jacket looked more like an analogue television tuned to static, a black-and-white monstrosity.

‘It’s style. Distinctive. And you’d think it was brand new. Never been worn, they said.’

‘Aye, there’s a reason for that.’

‘It was featured in a Sunday supplement, apparently.’

‘You say “apparently”,’ Lomond said in a flash. ‘Meaning someone told you about it. Meaning this wasn’t your idea.’

‘Maybe that’s what I’m saying, maybe it isn’t.’

‘Meaning it was Meghan’s idea.’

‘Hey, you’ve been dressed by your missus since you were sixteen, so–’

‘Sixteen and a half.’

‘So give me peace.’

‘You’re about to talk to traumatised people tonight,’ Lomond said, indicating and pulling out. ‘Last thing I want to do is make it even worse for them.’

‘Well . . . at least it’s warm.’

‘Give you that one.’

‘What’s the damage, then? I had a look at the notes. Bad one?’

‘Bad one,’ Lomond agreed. ‘Kathryn Symes, known as Kath, thirty-six years old. Waved her daughter off at the bus stop this morning – that was the last time she was seen alive. Lives at one of the big houses in Fairham.’

‘Fairham? What part of town is that?’

‘New builds. Or new-ish. They just gave it a name, not even sure it means anything. I think it was called Renfrewshire when I was a boy.’

‘It was probably called Rome when you were a boy.’

Lomond ignored this as they waited at a red light. ‘Daughter didn’t find her, thank God – that was her mother. Corinne Bruce, seventy-seven years auld. Went to pick up the wee girl after the victim was a no-show at school.’

‘Husband?’ Slater asked.

Lomond cleared his throat. ‘Away on business. Amsterdam.’

‘Oh aye.’

‘What do you mean, “oh aye”?’

‘You been to Amsterdam?’

‘No.’

‘You planning to?’

‘No. Why would I?’

‘Bit defensive.’

‘Anyway. He was in Amsterdam. Clear as you can get. He got the call from the school first, to say his wife hadn’t showed up. He brought in her mother to go and pick up the girl and make a check on the house. She let herself in. Found the body, rang him back and told him to come home.’

Slater sucked his teeth. ‘She bearing up?’

‘Haven’t heard.’

‘Not good. Just . . . please tell me the daughter didn’t see it?’

‘The daughter didn’t see it.’

‘That’s something.’

‘Life’s wrecked as it is, anyway,’ Lomond mused. He listened to the soft brushstrokes of the snow on the car for a bit.

‘Details?’ Slater said.

‘Minchin won’t say much. You know what that means.’

‘Aye. A weird one.’

Slater shook his head. ‘We were saying that the other day, were we not? Haven’t had a serious one for a while. Couple of open goals – like that boy getting the pool cue in his eye socket. But nothing random.’

‘We might be lucky,’ Lomond said.

‘When are we ever lucky, gaffer?’

‘Fingers crossed this is the first time.’

‘Suppose the snow’s lucky.’

‘How’s that?’

‘The forensics’ friend. Footprints.’

‘We’ll soon find out.’

Slater peered through the windscreen as Lomond crept around a bus pulled over by the side of the road with its hazards on. There seemed to be no one inside, and the lights were off. ‘Fair way out, isn’t it?’

‘I’d have been there already if I hadn’t had to swing by and get you,’ Lomond said tersely.

‘Motor’s off the road.’ Slater sniffed. ‘I did offer to get a taxi.’

‘Never mind,’ Lomond said irritably.

After a silence, Slater ventured: ‘Mind if I stick the radio on? I like to take my mind off it for a bit before I have to get my head into it, if you know what I mean.’

‘Aye, whatever.’ Lomond’s head was into it already. Roads, routes in and out, neighbours. Vantage points. Map of the estate. ‘Hey, wait . . .’

But Slater had already touched the on switch, and what Lomond had been listening to came on loud, mid-song. Lomond used the control built into his steering wheel to bring down the volume. He said nothing more as the song played on.

Slater was silent, resting his elbow on the car door, chin in his hand. Without turning round, he said, ‘This isn’t the radio, is it?’

Lomond shrugged.

‘This is a playlist, in’t it? This is . . . your playlist.’

‘So?’

‘I mean, nothing wrong with this song, is there? Nothing at all.’

‘It’s just a song.’

‘Uh huh. That’s fine.’

‘What makes you say that, Malcolm?’

‘Oh, no reason, gaffer,’ Slater said, not quite expressionlessly.

5

Lomond hated the ghostie suits – they made him sweat, and the tight band that compressed the brow and jaw clearly illustrated that he was fleshier around the eyes and cheeks than the fresh-faced uniform polis of his first warrant card. Slater knew this, of course, and while they had an unwritten code not to crack jokes of any kind at crime scenes – well, crime scenes where they met other officers of the forensics team, at any rate – the razor’s edge sparkle of the DS’s eyes told the story of his amusement.

‘You lost weight, gaffer?’ he said, innocently enough.

‘Not really, Malcolm. You grown a fringe?’

As he adjusted the hood over his shaven-to-exorcise-malepattern-baldness head, Slater’s eyes lost a little of their malevolence.

The houses in the crescent were two-storeyed and broad. The snow fell steadily, blanketing the dark slate roofs.

‘Don’t look like new-builds,’ Lomond said. ‘When did these go up? Can’t be long.’

‘I checked just after we pulled in,’ Slater said smugly. ‘Sixteen-odd years ago.’

‘What? Financial crash? Someone was confident.’

‘Some bugger’s always got the money. Good investment, as well.’

‘They look OK, decent big houses – kind of an oppressive street, though.’

‘Aye.’ Slater frowned. ‘Reminds me of a nick, I dunno why. Maybe the circle . . . what d’you call it?’

‘Crescent. Myrtlewood Crescent.’

Most of the neighbours seemed to be watching – couldn’t help that, of course, with the glowering evidence tent, the uniforms and, worst of all, the masked, white-suited forensics team hunched over in the falling snow. The photographer had already been in and out, and the media had decamped. Just about everyone in the crescent had been spoken to already. You had to imagine it, Lomond thought. The knock at the door, the shock and confusion. Then you had to imagine the worst thing, the one that would linger. The idea that a couple of doors away from you – or even next door – something terrible had happened. Something that might have happened to you, given a different set of circumstances: a change in the weather; a simple whim indulged. In another universe, it was you. Kath was answering her door to the police, aghast, and you . . .

‘Where’s the husband now?’ Slater asked, scrolling through his phone.

‘Got him at the station. He’s in a bad way. Someone was saying they might have to take the mother to hospital,’ Lomond said.

‘Christ. How about the daughter?’

‘She’s with an auntie. Husband’s sister. She drove through from Coatbridge and collected her.’

Slater sighed. ‘Best get in there, then.’

*

Lomond and Slater entered through the front door. Somehow the coverings on their feet were apt in the spotless hallway, which stretched a good distance past the carpeted stairway angled up the western wall. The flooring looked and felt like real oak, and the carefully placed lamps lent the space a warm, burnished look. The upper-storey landing led off to three bedrooms and a main bathroom.

‘I’ve stayed in flats that would fit in this hallway,’ Slater remarked. ‘Kitchen and bathroom, the lot.’

‘Place looks clean,’ Lomond said.

‘What you reckon? Tidied up after himself?’

‘Maybe.’

Anita Khavari was the senior pathologist on the scene. Her striking good looks and height were neutralised by the ghostie suit, but her voice was clear and distinctive enough from the bottom of the hallway. ‘Through here, gents.’

The hallway opened into a spotlit kitchen, almost too bright to look at. Khavari had already laid out the path the two men should take; one or two forensic officers remained on site, photographing the worktop and the breakfast bar at the back of the room. Strong portable lights bleached the whole scene.

Lomond narrowed his eyes; he could feel the beginnings of a headache spreading from his neck to his temples in dull waves. ‘Much to say about the scene? Footprints, specifically?’

Under the glare, Khavari’s eyes were difficult to read behind glasses. She bit the side of her mouth and shook her head. ‘Nothing that we can see.’

‘Did he clean up after himself? Any mops around?’

‘It doesn’t seem like it. It looks like she was in the bath. There was a struggle in the bathroom, lots of water on the floor and the mat, even on the walls. We think he killed her up there, then dragged her down the stairs.’

‘How?’

‘Smothered her,’ Khavari said. ‘Used one of the bath towels.’

‘She fight him?’

‘She’s broken some nails – we’ll have to examine what’s underneath them.’

Slater cleared his throat and asked, ‘Sexual assault?’

Khavari gazed at him. ‘Nothing to suggest it so far. It’s possible, but there’s no indication of it.’

‘He panic?’ Slater asked. ‘Lose his nerve?’

‘I don’t . . .’ Khavari hesitated. ‘It’s a strange one. I’m not going to speculate. But you’ll see.’

‘He had to have dragged her down here for a reason,’ Slater said. ‘Is it the extra space? The light?’ He stared at the high ceiling. As well as the portable lights, Lomond noticed that the wall was studded with small, circular spotlights – all of them functioning.

‘When you get those wee fancy lights, they always conk out, I find,’ he said. ‘My wife hates them. I don’t like them either, for that reason. You’re always up and down the steps, replacing them. It’s a well-kept house. What did she do?’

‘No job,’ Khavari said. ‘She looked after her daughter. Hadn’t worked since maternity leave. Paralegal.’

Lomond and Slater came to the kitchen table, beyond which were the patio doors. The view outside was even harder to look at than what was inside the kitchen: flooded with white light, glaring off the fresh-fallen snow.

‘Footprints outside, surely?’ Lomond said.

Khavari shook her head. ‘No. He was lucky. We think he might have come down the side of the garden path – you see that area shaded over by the trees, the conifers? He came down there. We think, going by some of the neighbours’ door cameras and other security equipment, he got in and out just before the heavier stuff came down. We’ve photographed every inch of it, been out with the thermal cameras, but there’s nothing.’

‘Any chance he got in from the front? Or a window?’

‘It’s possible but unlikely.’ Khavari gestured. ‘You’ll see it better in daylight, or if you look at the survey map. This is the perfect way to get in. It’s not overlooked at all – the gardens were designed that way. Wasteland out the back. There’s every chance he sneaked in, then sneaked out. That would be my guess, except there’s a problem with that too.’

Slater was ahead of her. He pointed towards a console set in the wall, with an LED digital face that was so quaint Lomond supposed it was retro-styled. ‘That a security camera system?’ Slater asked.

‘Yes. The camera was switched on all afternoon.’

Lomond turned to the pathologist. ‘But she was here, wasn’t she?’

Khavari nodded. ‘Hadn’t left the house since seeing the daughter off to school.’

‘But she put on the security system?’ Lomond flipped open his notebook, writing in his indecipherable scrawl. ‘While she was inside?’

‘She’d gone for a bath,’ Slater reminded him.

‘Even so.’ He drew a line in his book. ‘So . . . there are cameras? Outside?’

‘Yes.’ Khavari sounded weary.

‘And they got something, right?’ Slater asked.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘We’re analysing the recordings, but they didn’t get anything out in the garden.’

‘So he didn’t get in that way,’ Lomond said.

‘We can’t be sure. One of the cameras was out. Again, our man could be lucky. Or he could have knocked it out. It would have shown him coming off the side of the path and along the patio.’

‘Don’t like the sound of this,’ Slater said, tutting. ‘We’re well into the stalker zone here.’

Lomond frowned. ‘But the weather’s been crap all day, right? Sleet before it turned cold, then snow. So there must have been some water down here?’

‘Just what was left behind when he dragged her in from the staircase.’ Khavari indicated a track on the floor, marked out with fluorescent numbered signs, showing the meandering path of the body from the bottom of the stairs towards the box. ‘Nothing that showed footprints.’

‘Nah, this isn’t good,’ Lomond said. He nodded towards the red scarf, still dangling out of the toybox. ‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘Let’s get it over with. Is she over there?’

6

The two crime scene investigators who lifted the lid were slightly pissy about it. Lomond wondered if they’d had to do it a few times that day. It was one of those grim things rendered comical by repetition, though no one was laughing at this point.

‘How high do you want it?’ said one – short, pugnacious, with a lot of chin jutting out of his white suit.

‘You being smart, son?’

The man shrugged. He didn’t look away either. ‘Up or down? Let me know.’

Lomond turned to Khavari. ‘This boy on his first day here?’

‘It’s been a long day,’ Khavari said, glaring at the CSI over her glasses.

He sighed and lifted the lid.

Slater flinched at what was underneath, far more sharply than Lomond did. ‘What in the name of God’s going on with that?’ he said, turning to the pathologist.

‘I can’t answer that. I was hoping you could tell me.’

‘He’s done that for shock,’ Slater said. ‘Hasn’t he?’

Lomond nodded. ‘That’s a display. Her poor mum.’

‘Assuming that’s who it was left for.’

The face was turned up towards the onlookers, though only the top of the head from the eyes upwards was protruding from the lip of the toybox. The hair was black, tightly curled and matted along one side. Seeing this, Lomond had a flashback to his own daughter. He had once been stretched for time while putting her to bed. He had to go out on a job that night and had been waiting on Maureen to come off shift so he could leave. He didn’t have time to carry out the full salon-style hair dryer and brush job – which Siobhan had borne with a stoicism that Lomond had found hilarious. He had made do with an undignified buffeting with a towel and sent Siobhan to bed without telling his wife as he left. After Amy Winehouse had lurched out of bed the next morning, there was a full and frank exchange of views. The hair had been so bad, Maureen had taken a photo and threatened to send it to social services.

Something in the texture of the hair and the untreated way it had been left reminded Lomond of that night. The comparison disgusted him, which meant he should make a note, and he did. It was black hair, possibly curls that had been tamed through prolonged use of straighteners, perhaps over decades, and there was no sign of silver in the roots.

The eyes were the main thing. Wide open, as if glaring at the viewer, the expression was baleful rather than horror-struck or simply blank. Lomond had seen victims of suffocation several times before, and the signs of petechial haemorrhage were obvious. Purple patches on the glassy whites, almost entirely covering the right eye. Insult to injury: even more of a horror movie. As if she wanted to weep blood but couldn’t.

These blemishes and purplish starbursts were dotted around the face and head, particularly on the cheeks. She had a natural beauty spot on one, parallel with the underside of her left ear, almost obliterated by the livid haemorrhage line. The rest of the skin was that awful blue colour, a repulsion of life and lividity.

The nose was bloodied, perhaps broken. Lomond noted that the hexagons of dried blood his keen eyes picked out stopped abruptly at the nostrils. He wrote on his pad, Nose wiped post-mortem?

The mouth was closed, the chin almost defiantly thrust upwards. The mouth should have been hanging open from that position. It wasn’t, because something was holding it closed: her feet, crossed over, placed at roughly forty-five-degree angles. One big toe was turned up, the way a toff might turn up their pinkie while drinking tea. The veins in the feet were horribly blue, the rest of the skin white. The blood had not settled there.

The head nestled between the shins. These had surely been shaved recently, a sheen under the punishing lights; perhaps in the bath, moments before the arrival of the person who killed her. Visible beyond tufted black hair pooled behind the head, her knees. It was a grotesque contortionist’s act, the kind you might see at random on your phone or on a TV show, and automatically wince.

‘The legs been severed?’ Lomond asked.

Khavari shook her head. ‘No. Dislocated at the hip.’

‘She’s been bent over backwards.’

‘Looks that way. We’ll take it from the top.’ Khavari pointed a silver object at the face and clicked it; an even stronger beam spotlit the mouth. ‘You see the foam at the mouth, just here? You might have to bend down to get a better look, just at the right-hand corner, here?’

Lomond did so. Bringing his own face so close to that of death brought the first waves of nausea. You never, ever get used to this, he thought. ‘I see it.’

‘Suffocation, something placed over the face. If you look up at the nose, right there on the nostrils, you’ll probably see some fibres.’

The spotlight washed over the nose, washing the skin clean except for where the blood clung. It was dried, but still rich in red. ‘I see it,’ Lomond said. ‘Fibres. Fluff. New bath towel?’

‘Spot on,’ Khavari said. ‘Having had a look inside, we think it’s underneath her, beneath the abdomen – like a mat she’d been laid on.’

‘What’s the score with the legs?’ Slater said, in a choked voice. ‘I can see it’s a display, but how’d he manage that?’

‘All done post-mortem – like, immediately post-mortem. I’ll have to wait until we get her onto the table before I know for sure, but so far as I can tell, she was dragged downstairs feet first, then he emptied out the toybox and placed her inside. Carefully. He meant to do it.’

‘But the bones, the joints . . . was this lady an acrobat or a contortionist?’

‘No – she was slim and kept fit. There’s a gym upstairs, looks like for her use mainly. That would have made it easier for him to fold her up. Look at the placement of the feet. This wasn’t an accident.’

‘How did he do it?’

‘Immediately after she was gone, I’d say he bent her into that shape, cool as you like. Popped out the hip joints, gave the base of the spine one hell of a kick and folded her in, like you’d fold some clothes.’

‘Planned it like that.’ Lomond turned to Slater. He was dying to be rid of the suit. The elastic was pinching his face, a headache pinching his skull. Even to be out in the cold and the snow would be the purest relief from the oppression, the heat of the lights, the restriction. ‘We’ve got someone here who plans. Nothing random about this.’

Slater merely nodded. ‘No doubt about it. None.’

The cheeky forensics officer cleared his throat.

‘Yes, you can lower the lid,’ Lomond said.

‘And make sure you’re not so wide, in future,’ Slater snapped, before he could reply.

7

He’d found a flight fast enough. Direct from Amsterdam. Even at that stage, in that scenario, Slater had made a joke or two about the fact of Edward Symes’ absence. Lomond had told him off for it, wearily.

Symes himself even allowed room for it, as soon as he’d made contact with Police Scotland upon his return, then been ushered into a squad car and driven from Glasgow airport to Govan. ‘I actually was on business. No one believed me. You should’ve seen my mother-in-law’s face.’

Joking aside, Edward Symes – ‘it’s Ed’ – had been sober, horribly so, perhaps as sober as he would ever be. There was an edge to his voice, even when he laughed, which he did surprisingly often. Lomond had seen plenty of examples of this. It could go any way, really. Someone going monkey tits was a possibility. Monkey tits was one of a million crudities an old sergeant from back in Lomond’s uniform days had used: something else he wished he could forget, and never would. They might cry. Or, worst of all, they might withdraw. Twin receding points of light in the eyes, like an old analogue telly settling itself from static to silence. Lomond wasn’t quite sure how far Symes would go.

He had taken it upon himself to bring a lawyer, which wasn’t necessary but was entertaining. Friend of the family. Lomond had never met him. His face resembled a shirt front struggling to contain a big belly: huge mouth, huge lips, red cheeks. Ed Symes was sober, but Lomond wondered about his brief.

‘My client would like to make it clear that he was out of the country when this terrible incident happened. However it came about, he has no knowledge of it, nor did he have any active part in it . . .’

Lomond raised a hand. ‘Please, settle down there. We know he didn’t do anything. We know where he’s been. We just want to have a conversation to see if he can provide us with anything that could steer us in the right direction. It’s important we move fast. I know you’ll want to see a quick result, Ed.’

Symes sat back. He was holding his hands in a strange way. Later, Lomond would liken it to someone grappling with an invisible Rubik’s Cube.

‘It’s fine,’ Symes said. He took a breath. It was a bad place to be chatting to him. The lighting, the desk, the recording equipment, and Lomond and Slater – everything had the appearance of an arrest, an accusation. The lawyer didn’t help.

‘If you’d like a tea or something?’ This wasn’t the first time Lomond had asked.

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘A smoke, then.’

Bingo. ‘Yes – is there a smoker’s area somewhere?’

‘There is. We usually have to put a ball and chain on folk, though. Stop them jumping over the walls.’ When Symes didn’t smile, Lomond added quickly, ‘I’ll take you outside.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said the lawyer, scraping his seat back.

‘No, that’ll be OK, Bennett,’ said Symes.

‘Keep the lawyer company, please, Malcolm,’ Lomond said, patting Slater on the shoulder. Slater looked at the red-faced man for a moment, then folded his arms, a disgruntled teenager.

Outside, Lomond, who detested smoking, stood far enough away to keep his expression and manner neutral as Symes burned a cigarette down to the filter in seconds. ‘Sorry. Nerves going crazy.’

Lomond coughed. ‘Anyway. First question, how are you bearing up?’

‘I’m not,’ Symes said quietly. He was a tall man with a kind face, prominent cheekbones and thick, prematurely grey hair, somewhat unruly and all the better for it. He was someone who had aged well. Him and Kath would have made a fine, striking pair. ‘I’m all over the place.’

‘All I can say is – take things at your own pace. I don’t want to waste your time. And I definitely don’t want you to feel as if you’re being interrogated or anything.’

Symes raised a hand. ‘It was my call to come here. I thought it was the best thing . . . Can I be honest with you?’

‘Course you can.’

‘I wanted to get out of my sister’s house. Total, sheer madness. I didn’t want more police in there. Beatrice was sleeping. She just missed it, you know. Kath’s mother is a royal pain in the arse, but she had the foresight to keep her in the car. Imagine if she’d come in and seen it.’

He might have cried then. He took a long draw, composed himself and said, ‘Do you know if it was quick?’

‘I think it was reasonably quick, Mr Symes.’

‘Reasonably. Interesting word, that.’

‘That’s off the record. The forensic report isn’t in yet. I can’t officially comment in any way until the pathologist tells me what happened.’

‘Was she cut up? Was she . . . anything else?’

‘Again, off the record, it seems she was smothered. There is nothing else I can say.’

‘God.’ He shook his head. ‘How did it happen? The cameras must have caught it.’

‘From what we’ve seen so far and the information you’ve given us, one of the cameras had a fault.’ Lomond kept his tone conversational. ‘We’re looking into what that was. Had you had any problems with the camera system?’

‘Absolutely not. I was paranoid about it. Well, that’s maybe not the right word to use,’ Symes added, seeing some subtle change in Lomond’s expression. ‘I wasn’t paranoid about the situation. We only moved into that house about a year ago. Before last Christmas. An Avalon King house. Rock-solid build. Good rep. And they had all these extra security features on them. I was obsessed with making sure it was all working. Like a new toy, I suppose. I remember we caught a jackdaw one morning, perched on the edge of a camera. Screengrabbed it – I think Kath used it as her screensaver for a wee while.’

‘So you knew how to use the system?’

‘Yep – and one thing about it, if there’s any issue, it tips you off, as well. Any break in the chain and a light flashes up.’

‘This is obvious?’

‘Aye – red light on the console. It happened when one of the cameras wasn’t picking anything up.’

‘When was this?’

‘Six or seven weeks ago . . . Halloween time? Turned out a wood pigeon had shat on it One of the problems with having woods out the back. One of the blessings, as well.’ He searched in his pocket for a fresh cigarette.

Lomond felt the drifting flakes settle on the back of his neck and find their way through his hair to his scalp. ‘And everything was working when you left?’

‘Yep – I remember showing Beatrice the basics, in case the alarm ever went off for some reason. It happened when Kath was out sorting something in the car one day.’ He paused, placing the cigarette between his lips, lighter poised. ‘You’re asking me this . . . surely the cameras must have picked something up?’

Lomond didn’t take long to weigh up how much he should say. ‘Like I said, it seems there’s a fault somewhere with one of the cameras.’

‘Which one? I know where they are.’

‘The one that covered the lawn.’

‘And that’s how he got in? The garden?’

Lomond shook his head. ‘We don’t think so – there had been snow, thicker than this, and it had landed. There would have been footprints. But there was nothing. It’s possible he came in another way, around the side of the shed, an area where he wouldn’t have left footprints. But–’

‘That would mean someone knew there was a weakness in the system. The cameras didn’t cover all the angles. Not every direction. There’s a blind spot.’

‘Who else would have known about your camera system, Ed?’

‘No one.’ Symes shook his head determinedly. ‘All watertight. Beatrice didn’t know the code, and we were damned careful about it all. Kath wouldn’t have . . .’

‘And your mother-in-law?’

‘She knew the code. And she’s a gasbag.’

‘No one else?’

Symes frowned. ‘How did this happen? Cameras everywhere, and there must have been footprints somewhere!’

‘We’ve got dozens of officers out there, knocking on doors, checking for footprints, the whole street. Don’t you worry about that,’ Lomond said.

‘Unbelievable!’

He was on the verge of losing it, Lomond thought. He said quickly, ‘How about grudges, anything like that? Anyone you know with a problem?’

‘Well. Closest thing we’ve had to that for a while is the guy at the top of the crescent. Vincent Finch. Think he actually worked on these houses, owned a few nearby. Liked what he saw, obviously. He’s wanting to build an extension, but it’ll block out a lot of light, so the rest of the street told him to bugger off. Cheeky bastard. He took a spite against most of us for that. Me in particular.’

‘You say “for a while”,’ Lomond said, his notebook appearing in his hand without Symes noticing. ‘Have you had problems with anyone before? Friend or business partner you fell out with, someone from the past?’

‘Aye,’ Symes said, with an almost comically venomous edge to his voice. ‘Just the one, you could say. That bastard comedian.’

8

Cara Smythe had sleep in her eyes, but she hadn’t slept. This was a new one. She rubbed it away, then flipped open her compact. Dark shadows under the eyes, and those lines around her mouth. She didn’t have time to do anything about either. She dry-swallowed a couple of ibuprofen; they fought her all the way down. Time to get on, she thought.

Out of the cubicle, Cara fixed her shirt collar, then smoothed down the lapels of her jacket, straightened her back, and – holy cow, Batman – just like that she was DS Smythe. She appraised her reflection as she crossed over to the sinks. In the mirror, even in the stark lighting, Smythe wasn’t looking too bad, provided she didn’t try to smile. Smythe had learned that it was better not to. Not that the old headmistress death-stare was without problems. You got looks in return, sometimes comments. The worst of these were at weddings.

‘You know, you’d be a lovely lassie if you smiled a bit more.’

‘And you’d be a lovely auntie if you breathed a bit less.’

Had she actually said that, at the last wedding? She had.

Into the briefing room, and there he was, the wee Buddha himself, preparing to present, all five feet eight of the good stuff. Inspector Lomond was the SIO, and people would bitch about it, but there was a reason he got these jobs. To his credit, Lomond sometimes couldn’t believe it either. He had lost a little weight since the Ferryman carry-on, but he still looked like you could punch him in the belly all day and neither of you would feel anything. Cara saw his brown eyes narrow in annoyance as he spotted Slater strolling into the room, a folder under his arm. The slightly nettled daddy. Smythe smiled for the first time that day.

Slater nodded as he sat beside her, and she felt a stab of irritation to go with the throbbing cramps in her abdomen. Slater had a puckish charm – ‘more front than Blackpool’, it had been said more than once – at odds with his gym-pinched features and close-shaven head. Smythe had worked with him for so long she had developed a liking, and then a disliking, for him.

‘Here we go again, eh?’ was his opening line.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Another serial job.’

‘Let’s hope not, eh?’

‘Goes without saying,’ Slater muttered, annoyed.

Lomond said, ‘I’ll make this as brief as I can. Victim is Kath Symes. Thirty-six. On her own at home in Fairham. New estate, big house. She was found yesterday afternoon by her mother, after waving her daughter, Beatrice, off to school in the morning. She’d been dragged out of the bath, we reckon just after lunchtime, smothered, then stuffed into a toybox in the kitchen. You’ll see here the position of the body, and you’ll note in the other photos the placing of the scarf. Not to get too psychological about it, that’s as close as the guy who did it can get to drawing a big red arrow pointing to where the victim was put. Her mother followed it, and found the body. The wee girl, thankfully, was out in the car.’

Lomond let the briefing room, a dozen plainclothes officers, absorb the pictures as he clicked through them. The bluish face, the jemmied-open eyes. The red scarf, white tiling. The only sound aside from the click of the tablet Lomond used to control the images on the screen was the hum of the lights.