“On the safe side for who?” Shona squeaked. “I didn’t have a bomb here five minutes ago.”
“Potential bomb. It’s highly doubtful that it’s going to explode.” He stole a glance at the door to the post-mortem room. “Anyway, you’ll be behind a lead screen, won’t you?”
“We’ll be behind a lead screen,” Shona replied, grabbing him by the front of the shirt. “If I’m getting blown to tiny little bits, then so are you.”
As expected, the briefcase did not contain a bomb. Going by the X-ray image, it didn’t contain very much of anything, in fact, besides some paperwork and—potentially more interestingly—a small bundle of Polaroids.
Once they were sure it wasn’t going to explode, they perched on the stools by the worktop out in the office, and worked their way through the combinations. This was partly because Logan really didn’t want to know what a vertebrae chisel looked like, but mostly so he could enjoy the closeness of the woman beside him.
“Have you spoken to Maddie yet?” Shona asked, fiddling her way through the rightmost digit on the rotating lock. The dials were stiff, and the fact they were both wearing gloves so as to minimise contamination wasn’t making the job any easier.
“How do you mean?” Logan asked.
Shona paused, mid-turn. Her eyes darted around like she was searching for a flaw in the question she’d just asked. “I mean… have you spoken to Maddie yet?”
“Aye. No. I mean… Do you mean spoke to her, spoke to her?”
“What’s the alternative meaning?” Shona wondered. “Not spoke to her, spoke to her?”
“We texted,” Logan said.
Shona, who had briefly resumed working through the combinations, stopped again. “You texted?”
“Aye. Well, she texted me.”
“She texted you?!”
“I replied!” Logan said, suddenly defensive. “I mean, it was a few hours after she sent it, but I replied.”
“Oof!”
“What? What do you mean, ‘Oof’？ What’s ‘Oof’？” he asked.
“She reached out to you, and you took hours to reply.”
“I had no signal!” Logan protested. “You said yourself, I can’t be blamed for lack of network coverage.”
Shona sucked air in through her teeth and shook her head. “In this instance, you can.”
“What was I meant to do? Drive to somewhere with mobile reception?” Logan cried. His eyes flitted left and right, his brow furrowing. “I mean… That doesn’t sound entirely unreasonable, now that I say it out loud. Shite!” He slapped his forehead and ran a hand down his face. “I should’ve driven to somewhere with a mobile reception.”
“And…？”
Logan sighed. “And I should have called her. I shouldn’t have waited for her to text me.”
“Good. You’re learning,” Shona told him. “I’m done with this, by the way.”
Logan blinked. “You’re what? You’re done with this?”
She smirked. “The case. My side. It’s double-oh-nine.” She adopted a passable Sean Connery accent. “Licence to scald.”
Logan blinked for the second time in five seconds. “Eh?”
“Double-oh-seven is licence to kill, double-oh-eight will be, like, licence to generally maim, and nine will be exclusively licensed to cause scalding,” Shona said. “I mean, if I was in charge of the franchise that’s how it would work, anyway.”
“Have you… have you actually thought about this?” Logan asked. “Before now, I mean?”
“Erm…” Shona looked away for a moment, then locked eyes with him again. “No,” she said, quite unconvincingly. “Why would I spend hours doing something like that?” She tapped his side of the case. “Come on, chop-chop.”
“It’s not double-oh-nine on my side,” he replied, turning the dial.
“Oh well, looks like dinner’s on you, then,” Shona announced, hopping down from the stool. She yawned, ran a hand back through her unkempt hair, and went plodding over to the kettle. “But I think we’ll have some coffee, while we’re waiting.”
Over two-hundred-and-thirty rotations later, the second of the briefcase’s clasps sprung open, and Logan let out a sigh of relief.
“We did it!” Shona cheered, raising her half-empty coffee cup aloft. “We cracked the case!”