“That’s motive, isn’t it?” Shona said, catching his thoughts. “Those photos prove that Shagger there had a motive to kill him.”
“Certainly looks that way.”
“What’s in the other envelope?” Shona asked, fully invested now.
Logan took out his phone and snapped off a few photographs of the Polaroids spread out on the worktop. Once they’d finished here, he’d send copies of everything to the shared inbox so the rest of the team had the most up-to-date information to hand.
Pictures taken, he returned the photographs to the first envelope, then took the second from the briefcase.
This time, when he reached inside, he produced five sheets of A4 paper, all photocopies of the same handwritten letter. Logan squinted at the top copy, then passed it across to Shona to read.
“What are you giving it to me for?” she asked.
“You’re a doctor. Sort of,” Logan explained.
“So?”
“So, you lot have all got bloody awful handwriting. You’ll have a better chance of reading that than me.”
“I’ve got lovely handwriting,” Shona objected.
“Aye? Well, maybe try using it next time you write something,” Logan suggested. “Instead of that scrawl you usually use.”
She gave him a dunt with her elbow, then turned her attention to the sheet of paper clutched between her gloved fingers.
“Can you read it?” Logan asked.
“Hold your horses, man, I’ve just looked at it,” she said, then she went back to studying the page. “I mean, it’s definitely in English, so that’s a start. It’s shocking writing, though. It’s like he wrote it while drunk. And on horseback.”
“Can you make out anything?”
Shona angled the paper away a little, then brought it closer. “‘We are surrounded by great…’ Something,” she read. “Deceivers, maybe? ‘We are surrounded by great deceivers. Hunted…’ or possibly ‘haunted… by devils in four skins.’”
“Devils in foreskins?” Logan asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“No, not foreskins like on your…” She glanced at Logan’s crotch, looked momentarily mortified, then blundered on through. “Not like on a man’s lad. Like the number four. Devils in four-space-skins.”
Logan gave this some thought, then confessed that he was still none the wiser.
“Ah, wait. It’s about lizards. Apparently, lizards have four skins. Again, not… foreskins. Four, the number.”
“Do they?” Logan asked.
“Does who what?”
“Do lizards have four skins?”
Shona frowned. “How should I know? I’m just reading the letter.”
“Aye, but you’re, you know, a medical professional,” Logan reasoned.
“Of human beings. Anyway, shut up and let me read,” Shona said. He started to say something, but she placed a finger on his lips to silence him. “‘I have tried to share the truth. I have…’ Jesus, what’s that? Attempted? Attempted. ‘I have attempted to open your eyes to the lies and the deceit,’ spelled wrong, ‘of the lizard men who dwell both below and above. But again and again I am…’” She screwed up her eyes and peered closer. “Jesus, now you’re asking. ‘Routinely derided,’ maybe, but that’s a guess from context.”
“He’s using a lot of words to not really say much, isn’t he?” Logan remarked, but Shona shushed him again.
“‘None are so blind as those who refuse to see, and you are wilful in your ignorance. And so, I take leave of my…’ He’s scribbled out a few things here. ‘And so, I take leave of my responsibility to you. I leave you to the lizards and the liars, and turn at last to my own needs. The guilty shall be met with righteous punishment. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.’” Shona tutted and shook her head. “You’re right. I feel he could’ve written this in one carefully planned sentence.”
Logan frowned. “What, is that it?”
“No, there’s more, but the writing gets even worse. Hang on.” She studied the page in silence for a few moments. Logan picked up one of the other copies, scanned down the page himself, then concluded it was best left to Shona.
He’d just returned his copy to the pile when the pathologist started reading again.
“‘I take my leave of you. They will come for me, for what I am about to do. They will hunt me with their dogs and their…’ God. I don’t… ‘Birds,’ maybe. ‘With their dogs and their birds.’”