Painted In Blood: A Chilling Scottish Murder Mystery (DI Buchan Book 2) by Douglas Lindsay

Author:Douglas Lindsay [Lindsay, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Long Midnight Publishing
Published: 2023-01-18T13:00:00+00:00

22

‘We’re drifting,’ said Buchan. ‘Slip sliding away.’

He let the words slip slide away.

Liddell had left her office, which didn’t happen often, and now she and Buchan were standing at the window of the open-plan, looking out on the city at night, the end of a cold day in March.

There was only one other person left in the open-plan, the whole building had the feeling of already being asleep for the night.

Liddell had the cigarette clutched in her hand, but she wasn’t playing with it as she usually did. Instead, held gently in the middle of a fist, her arms folded. Outside, the city rumbled, traffic busy on Clyde Street and onto the Broomielaw, the wind whipping at the water, the tide up, water level high. There would be more rain later.

‘These are the days of miracle and wonder,’ said Liddell, and Buchan gave her a curious sideways glance, then he kind of rolled his eyes, smiling ruefully.

‘OK, let’s not do that,’ he said.

‘We have to do what we have to do,’ said Liddell, ‘and we never know where it’s going to get us. We never know what’s going to come up, what lead will suddenly present itself out of nowhere. Time passes, there has not been a third murder. And is it too much to suppose that the reason there hasn’t been a third murder, is that the four suspects also mirror the four potential next victims, and they’re all under watch? They are protected, but they’re also monitored. If they’re seen heading into the apartment of one of the others, they’re hardly in a position to drag a corpse out by the hair.’

‘That’s another thing,’ said Buchan, allowing himself to wallow. ‘We don’t even know where this second murder was committed. Like the killer is tidying up his operation, leaving even fewer clues lying around than he did the first time.’

‘There has been no third murder,’ said Liddell, sticking to her point. ‘Let us try to hang on to the positives.’

‘It’s still been less time since the second murder than between the first two, so let’s not get carried away about how great our efforts have been. We know, we know that if someone has a mind to kill one of them, it will happen. Under our noses or not, sooner or later. We don’t have enough resource to place the level of protection that’d be truly needed, nor to keep it up for too long.’

‘Miracle and wonder, Inspector,’ said Liddell. ‘Something’ll come up. We’ll get our man, we always do.’

‘We didn’t get McNaughton.’

‘We’re not done with McNaughton.’

Buchan hadn’t thought of McNaughton in a while, and hated the fact he’d come back to him now. He needed to get that case out of his mind, it was such a dead weight, and he needed to make sure the case he was working on didn’t end up the same.

‘Go home,’ said Liddell. ‘We’re done here today. Go home, get some food.’ She paused, then she added, ‘I’d recommend going straight home, but I expect you’ll stop off at your wife’s bar.

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