Close to the Bone by Stuart MacBride Page B

no photos in here? No birthday parties, or holiday snaps, or hanging out with friends? Just book and movie posters? ’
    ‘Parents seem genuinely worried about her. Maybe a bit too much? ’
    ‘Think they’ve killed her and buried her in the basement? ’
    ‘Wouldn’t be the first time someone did it.’
    Chalmers slid the diary back on the shelf. ‘Is it just me, or is there something . . . wrong with the room? You know, like. . .’
    Silence.
    ‘Like what? ’
    ‘Don’t know. Like someone doesn’t really live here? It’s too ordered, too tidy, there isn’t any personal stuff.’ She picked a stuffed tiger from the group on the bed. ‘Look at these: none of them are worn, or tatty, or threadbare. They’ve never been loved, they’re just things.’ She gave the tiger a hug. ‘Maybe the thing that’s missing is the childhood? ’
    Logan looked down at the tidy little room. ‘Or maybe her mum just tidies the hell out of everything any time Agnes goes out? She’s the type. And what sort of freak calls their kid “Agnes” for God’s sake? Should report them to child protection.’ He took the tiger from her and dumped it back on the bed. ‘Five more minutes with the parents, then we’re out of here.’
    ‘Yes, Guv.’ She followed him out of the bedroom.
    ‘Tomorrow you can get on to the bus stations and the airport and the ferry terminal – have someone knock up “Have you seen Agnes?” posters.’ He started down the stairs. ‘Then go round all her friends. I want to know if she and Anthony Chung talked about going anywhere.’

10
    Logan stopped at the foot of the stairs.
    The voices coming from the lounge were muffled by the closed door, but it was easy enough to hear Agnes’s mum and dad arguing about whose fault it was that she’d run away. An eighteen-year-old girl whose mother poked her nose into everything, who wouldn’t let her have friends over, who went through her things every time she was out. No wonder she’d legged it the first chance she got.
    There was a cupboard under the stairs, the door a blank slab of white. It’d been fitted with a bolt on the outside, held shut with a brass padlock. The kind that had tumblers instead of a key. He squinted at the architrave, the words ‘A GNES’S R OOM ’ were just visible – scratched into the wood, then rendered almost invisible by layer upon layer of gloss paint.
    He gave the padlock a tug. Solid enough. But the trouble with these tumbler locks, especially the cheaper makes, was how easily you could crack the combination by levering the dials apart while you turned them, feeling for the click. . . There. Then the next one. . . Two more to go, and the hasp popped free of the lock.
    Chalmers stared at him. ‘How did you do that? ’
    ‘Gets easier when they’re used a lot. Loosens everything up.’ Logan drew the bolt, and swung the door open.
    Inside, the little cupboard had been turned into a little room. A single mattress filled the available floor space, no sheets, just a sleeping bag and two stuffed toys: a teddy bear that looked as if one more go in the washing machine would finish it off, and a once-white rabbit turned Frankenstein’s monster with random-coloured patches and big clumsy stitching.
    A bookshelf sat at the tall end of the wedge-shaped cupboard, with more paperbacks, and plastic action figures: wizards, witches, and vampires. Half a dozen grey and black roses were long dead in a vase, tied up with a black ribbon. Very cheery.
    He beckoned Chalmers over. ‘This look more like it? ’
    She climbed inside, kneeling on the mattress as she poked through the books on the shelf. ‘Harry Potter’s got a lot to answer for.’
    ‘She’s eighteen .’
    ‘Yeah. . .’ Chalmers pulled a hardback from the collection and frowned at it. ‘She’s got this same book upstairs.’ The front cover was some sort of dragon thing curled around a woman dressed like a gypsy. Chalmers opened it. Raised an eyebrow. Then turned it