Page 58 of Better the Devil
There had to be two hundred of them spread across three different shelving units, all different sizes, some new-looking, others scuffed and chipped away at by careless handling and the passage of time.
‘He liked dugs, then,’ Ben concluded, in the face of what was quite overwhelming evidence.
Hamza nodded to the narrow staircase. Three framed photographs of Golden Retrievers—very possibly the same one—took pride of place along the wall.
‘I think that’s a given, aye,’ he agreed.
‘You haven’t met her yet, have you? Goldie?’ DCI Reeve asked. ‘Poor thing was scared stiff. Just totally losing her mindin here. First guys on the scene called in the Dog Warden. Reckoned they were going to have to tranq the poor girl and knock her out.’
‘And did they?’ Hamza asked.
Reeve smiled and shook his head. ‘Like I said, she was scared, is all. She’s tucked up in the back of my van. Put a blanket down, left her some music playing. She’ll be fine.’
He sighed and shook his head. There was a sudden heaviness to him, like his personal gravity field had been dialled up to maximum.
‘Wish I could say the same for her owner.’
Hamza and Ben turned their attention back to the open kitchen door. From the hallway, they could see most of Kendrick Crichton. Or most of what was left of him, anyway, which was pretty much everything from the neck down.
The air was thick with a sour, acrid aroma that made Hamza instinctively switch to breathing through his mouth. His shoe coverings crinkled as he shuffled in closer to get a better look.
‘Shotgun, we think,’ Reeve said from the back of the line. ‘I mean, we’re pretty much a hundred percent on that.’
Ben peered over Hamza’s shoulder, eyes darting here, there, and everywhere around the room.
‘Blood’s no’ fresh. Been here a good few hours. Must’ve died during the night. Maybe yesterday evening. Afternoon, evening. Killer stood just inside the kitchen. Probably just a step or two further in from where we are here,’ Ben observed. ‘Your man there was facing him at the time.’
He clocked a kitchen chair that lay on its back where it had toppled away from the table. A bowl of soup sat on a placemat that had a picture of a Labrador on it. A spoon lay on the floor between the fallen chair and the body.
‘Sitting down at the time, you think?’ Ben ventured.
Hamza considered the chair, the bowl, the position of the corpse, and the angle of the blood spray. The ceiling and some of the cabinets had taken damage from the blast.
‘No. Gun was angled upwards when he was shot. Victim stood up quickly, maybe, sending the chair flying. Ran this way. Maybe at the killer, maybe trying to get to the back door. Whichever, he’d have to come this direction.’
‘Andbang,’ Reeve said. ‘Yup. That was pretty much my conclusion about the whole sorry matter, too. But, I appreciate the second opinions.’
He put his hands on his hips. The shadow he cast on the wall looked like an image from the front of an old superhero comic book.
‘Now, while I am very much enjoying your company, gentlemen, it would be remiss of me not to ask you a somewhat personal question. I hope y’all don’t take it the wrong way.’
The spotlight of his smile swept across the hallway, dazzling them both.
‘Just what in the holy heck is it that you folks are doing here?’
Tyler satin the passenger seat, gulping down air through the open side window.
He managed a smile of thanks when Sinead reached over from the driver’s seat and rubbed the top of his back.
‘You alright?’
‘Aye, I’m OK,’ Tyler confirmed, though the greyness of his face said otherwise. ‘Just that last couple of corners turned my stomach upside down.’
‘Sorry. Had to get past that tractor,’ Sinead said. ‘Take a minute.’
Tyler nodded and kept breathing. There was a lot of farmland around, though, and the unmistakable stench of liquid manure tainted every inhalation.
‘That must be the Aberdeen lot,’ Sinead said, peering ahead through the windscreen from where they were parked at the side of the road, eight or nine cars back from the Inverness side of the cordon.
