I Wanted To Murder For My Own Satisfaction (DI Buchan Book 7) by Douglas Lindsay

Author:Douglas Lindsay [Lindsay, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Long Midnight Publishing
Published: 2024-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

35

He drove back down to the coast, back to the spot where Kieran Sledd’s body had been discovered the previous morning.

Looking down over the firth of Clyde was different today. Mid-afternoon, low, grey cloud, the light dull. No beauty in the view. Just the west of Scotland in its natural, dreary state.

The area remained closed off, but there was nothing to see, nothing to find, nothing of use that could be plundered, and so, unlike the first crime scene in the heart of a populated area, there was no lingering police presence.

There was dampness in the air, a feeling that rain would soon be falling. The sound of traffic coming up from the Haylie Brae, the wind in the trees, and no one within sight.

Buchan looked at the tree where Sledd had been bound and murdered, letting his thoughts run over the scene, and the scene of the corpse lying on the pathologist’s slab, and then he turned away and looked over the sweep of the hill down to the sea, the island of Cumbrae sitting in the near distance.

His phone rang. Sgt Kane.

‘Sam,’ he said.

‘We might have the creature connection, for what it’s worth,’ said Kane.

‘The creature connection?’

‘The creatures our deity compares himself to in the note. The jackal, butterfly, raven and snake.’

Buchan let out a low whistle. He hadn’t excepted them to find anything.

‘There was nothing online. Ellie phoned around some people, spreading a wide net. Literary and historical scholars, see if there was anything. She came up with an idea, she called someone at the Heraldry Society, and there’s potential there. The creatures have all been known to be used in heraldry, although the jackal might usually be some other canine, the snake more familiarly a serpent.’

‘You think we might be able to find a clan name, or a family?’ said Buchan. ‘Seems like a bit of an obvious clue to leave.’

‘If the thread is really obscure, he might have taken a risk. Planting a clue that maybe, just maybe, we might be able to pin down, if we’re good enough. It’s a test. Might not go anywhere, or it might be an intentional dead end, or... maybe he’s raising the stakes for himself.’

‘Living on the edge?’

‘Why not? The guy seems fairly contemptuous of us. Maybe it amuses him to leave something that might lead us to him, but which he expects us not to be able to follow through on. That would fit his narrative of disdain.’

‘How does that tie in with him knowing we’d find the mailbox?’

‘Pretty well, I think. Maybe he’s peppered the playing field with clues. We find some, we don’t find others. Perhaps he’s ranked all the clues in order of difficulty, and he thinks, well they got to this level, that’s how good they are. Oh, damn, they got to this level, they’re better than I thought. Whatever. He’s toying with us, and why wouldn’t he enjoy putting a little danger for himself into the game?’

‘Yeah, I see that,’ said Buchan.

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