He crossed to the counter which doubled as a desk, sat down the rather disappointing bouquet of Dutch Freesias, then jumped back in fright when Shona reared up from the other side, all wild hair and wide eyes, gasping like she’d just surfaced from an undersea dive.
She windmilled frantically, screamed sharply, then fell backwards off her stool and landed on the floor with a thud that rattled the glass beakers and test tubes on the shelves.
“Jesus. You alright?” Logan asked, hurrying around to where Shona lay flat on her back on the carpet tiles. “What happened?”
“I fell off,” Shona wheezed. “Just then.”
“Aye, no. I saw that. Bloody impressive it was, too, with the waving arms and everything.” He extended a hand, gave Shona a moment to grab on, then helped her back to her feet. “Were you sleeping, or something?”
“What? No. No, of course I wasn’t sleeping. I was just resting my eyes.” She yawned and stretched. “And, you know, my brain.”
She caught her reflection in the glass of the door, and pawed at her hair in a hopeless attempt to flatten it down, straighten it out, or otherwise stop it looking like it had recently played home to a family of slovenly birds.
“You alright?” Logan asked.
“Me? Fine!” Shona replied, a little too forcefully. “What? Yeah. Fine. Right as rain. Why?”
“You seem…” Logan gestured at her, not quite finding the right word. “Different.”
“Nope. Still me,” she insisted, then she pinched her cheek and pulled it, as if trying to prove it wasn’t a mask. “See?”
She threw her arms around him and pressed her head against his chest before he could ask anything more. Or perhaps just to hide her face because she knew that he would.
“You seem stressed,” he said.
Not quite a question then, but close enough.
“Oh, you know me. Work, work, work,” Shona said. Her eyes fell on the perfect excuse to change the subject. “Flowers! You brought flowers? Jack Logan, I’ll make a romantic of you yet.”
“I just got them in the shop in the foyer,” Logan explained. “They were discounted since they’re wilting a bit.”
“OK, so maybe not one of the all-time great romantics, but still,” Shona said. She withdrew her arms and picked up the bouquet. “They’re lovely. Thanks.”
Logan cleared his throat and nodded, finding himself on unfamiliar territory. “Aye, well, I’ve been a bit… shite on the phone front the last couple of days.”
“You had no signal.”
“Well, aye. I had no signal,” he said. “But, still.”
Shona shrugged. “You’re not to blame for the lack of network coverage, Jack.”
“True.” Logan looked from her to the flowers. “Sod it, I’ll take them back, then.”
She laughed and whipped the bouquet away before he could reach for it. “Not a chance,” she said, giving the flowers a sniff. “That you all done, then? Mystery solved and back up the road?”
Logan explained he was just there for the night, and failed to spot the disappointment behind her smile. She looked around for another excuse to switch subjects, and spotted the briefcase he had set on the floor by his feet when Shona had fallen.
“This a new look for you?” she teased. “Nineteen-eighties corporate banker. It’s a bold style choice, I’ll give you that.”
“Eh, actually, no. I’m hoping it’s something you can help me with.”
“You need to open it? I’ve got a vertebrae chisel that should do the job.”
Something about the combination of the words ‘vertebrae’ and ‘chisel’ momentarily stopped the detective in his tracks.
“Or is it a code?” Shona asked, picking up the case by the handle. “We could try one each. We could make it a race! Last one to get it open buys dinner.”
“Actually, I was concerned it might be explosive,” Logan said.
Shona’s smile remained fixed in place, but her gaze crept slowly down to the briefcase she was holding in what she now realised was quite a cavalier manner.
“Like… a bomb?” she whispered, then she swallowed as if trying to clear something that had become stuck in her throat. “You brought me a bomb?”
Logan took the case from her. “It’s probably not a bomb,” he said. Then, when he realised this didn’t have quite the desired calming effect, he went bolder. “It’s almost certainly not a bomb. The chances of it being a bomb are minuscule. But, I thought maybe we could X-ray it to check. Just to be on the safe side.”