None but the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

arms.’
    There was nothing obvious on the bony wrists, but when Chrissy pulled up the sleeves there was visible bruising halfway up each forearm.
    McNab had seen such marks before. If rope or tie tags were used they looked like burn marks. Thin wire was worse, slicing through the skin. McNab had a sudden image of what might have happened
to the old man prior to his death.
    ‘Any other injuries?’
    ‘None visible. Without stripping him, we won’t know,’ Chrissy said. ‘I take it you’ve checked for a break-in?’
    ‘We’re three floors up. I can’t see anyone climbing in a window, and the uniforms that found him had to break down the door.’
    ‘If he opened the door to someone, they could easily have pushed their way in.’
    ‘And his neighbour wasn’t there to hear anything,’ McNab said. ‘Okay, we’ll have the place checked for prints, although there are no signs that the flat’s
been searched. The dust next door is evidence of that.’
    Chrissy produced a wallet. ‘This was in his back pocket. There’s money still inside and a cashline card.’
    ‘If it was a robbery they would have had that,’ McNab said, genuinely puzzled.
    Old people did get robbed in their own homes. Too many of them. Some were killed for next to no reward. Tying up an old man but not stealing anything was weird.
    ‘I’d like Rhona’s take on this,’ Chrissy said, matching McNab’s own thoughts exactly.
    ‘She’s on her way back,’ he told Chrissy.
    Her eyes narrowed above the mask.
    Before she could ask, McNab told her. ‘She called me from her island idyll this morning.’
    ‘Really?’
    McNab smiled just to annoy her. ‘You mean she didn’t call
you
, her right-hand woman?’
    By Chrissy’s dismissive expression, he had no chance of pissing her off by suggesting he was the favourite.
    ‘I’ll text her,’ was the response.

6
    The five hours from Skye had passed in a blur of rain and wind, the majestic scenery she’d enjoyed on her way to the island lost in the downpour. Rhona had been lucky to
get across the Skye Bridge, already shut now to high-sided vehicles.
    The Minch had seethed below her like a cauldron, the wind whipping at the sides of the car as though in punishment for her leaving. Like life, the Scottish weather could change in an instant,
which it did frequently. From an early-morning swim to this, she thought, as she turned her windscreen wipers up a notch.
    The radio kept her company, when she could pick up a good enough signal, which was intermittent. Eventually she gave up and resigned herself to trying to make out the road and nursing her own
thoughts.
    Stopping at one of the few petrol stations to be found en route, she took the opportunity to check her mobile, and found two messages. One from Chrissy saying she’d been called out to a
body, the other from the Orkney detective she’d worked with previously, asking her to give him a call.
    Intrigued, Rhona did so.
    He sounds so like Magnus
, was her first thought, as they went through the relevant greetings. Erling Flett had gone to school with criminal psychologist Professor Magnus Pirie and
they’d been firm friends too. Both tall, and built like Vikings, Rhona remembered the first time she’d seen the detective waiting for her as she’d arrived by helicopter near the
Ring of Brodgar.
    When a small silence followed their initial exchange, she said, ‘I’m assuming this isn’t a social call?’
    ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘We’ve found something I believe is a speciality of yours.’
    ‘A buried or concealed body?’
    ‘A digger working in the grounds of an old schoolhouse unearthed a skull and a long bone. I’ve taken a look in the hole and it’s definitely a grave.’ He paused.
‘I’ve informed the powers that be, so no doubt they’ll be in touch with you officially. I just wanted to give you the heads-up on the find.’
    ‘Is this somewhere on the mainland?’ Rhona said.
    ‘No. On one of the most northern isles.