“Who will?” Logan asked.
Shona shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not a play. He hasn’t put a list of characters at the start. Just ‘they,’ I think. Whichever individual or organisation that have trained dogs and birds to hunt nutters.”
“We’ve got dogs. The polis, I mean. Not so much the birds, though.”
“Last bit. Here we go,” Shona said, looking down at the page again. “‘I am, and forever shall be, guided by the light. I stand tall. Proud. Erect…’ Sounds like he’s getting a bit saucy there. ‘…before all who have done me wrong. This is my end, and the end shall be as the beginning. A life for a life. A soul for a soul. Death is coming. Slowly.’”
Shona turned the page over, saw that side was blank, then handed it to Logan.
“So, you know, make of that what you will,” she said.
Logan rubbed a hand across his mouth as he contemplated the contents of the letter. “Suicide note?” he pondered, though he didn’t sound convinced. “He’s talking about his end, and about death, and…” He shook his head. “No. It wasn’t that. He was saying something more than that.”
“Oh, he was definitely saying more,” Shona agreed. “Christ knows what, though.”
After taking some more pictures, Logan returned the photocopies to the envelope, and placed it back in the briefcase with the pack of photos. “Maybe I should head back down the road,” he said. “Talk to the MSP.”
“What? No!” Shona spluttered, her eyes widening in panic. She forced a smile, shook her head, then hurriedly tried to explain her outburst. “I mean… it’s a long drive. You’ve been out and about all day, and it’s getting late. You should stay here tonight. Well, not here in this office. But… we could go to yours.”
Logan watched the way the lines in her face moved, and how her hands wrung themselves together. “You alright?” he asked.
“I’m grand!” She grabbed his thigh and shook it playfully. “Just worried about you, you big eejit. You don’t really want to go driving down that road again tonight, do you? Ferry will be off, so you’ll have to go the long road. And you’d have to go get Tyler…”
“Shite. Aye. Didn’t think about that. Another three hours in the car with that bugger.”
“At least!” Shona said. She scoffed at the very suggestion, then shook her head quite forcefully. “No, you’re staying here tonight, and that’s settled! And besides, you owe me dinner for taking fecking ages to open your side of the case.”
“Wait. The case,” Logan said. “That reminds me…”
He picked it up and checked out the digits on the dials. More often than not with combination locks like these, both codes would be the same. They didn’t have to be, of course, but it was human nature for people to give themselves one less thing to have to remember, so nine times out of ten the numbers on both sides would match.
When they didn’t, there was usually a reason for it.
He made a note of the digits - two-four-one on the left, then zero-zero-nine on the right.
“Two-four-one,” Shona said, watching him write. “Isn’t that like a formation, or something?”
“A what?”
“Like a football formation, or whatever you call it? Two-four-one. You know, like five-five-two, or three-one-four, or whatever?”
“Exactly how many players do you think are in a football team?” Logan asked.
“God, how should I know? It’s an awful game. I want to say, like… fifteen.”
“Well, none of those numbers add up to fifteen,” Logan said. “And anyway, it’s eleven.”
“Well, I’m more into the Gaelic football, if I’m honest,” Shona said. “Though, even then, I’m largely indifferent to the whole thing.” She looked down at the numbers in his notepad again. “So, not that, then. Two-four-one. What about, like, a supermarket deal? Like, a two for one deal?”
“What would the double-oh-nine be, then?” Logan asked, then he jumped in before Shona could respond with her Sean Connery impression. “Apart from being licensed to scald, I mean.”
“Oh! Oh! I’ve got it!” the pathologist said, jumping down from her stool. “Two-four-one-oh-oh-nine—”
“Twenty-fourth of October, two-thousand-and-nine,” Logan finished. “It’s a date.”