Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [0]
by
Allan Guthrie
For Leblanc
Revised edition copyright 2011 Allan Guthrie
Original edition copyright 2008, Allan Guthrie.
First published by Polygon, 2008
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.
Allan Guthrie has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by JT Lindroos
Cover photograph by Keoni Cabral
Visit the author's website at:
http://www.allanguthrie.co.uk
Visit Criminal-E, Allan Guthrie's ebook crime fiction blog, at:
http://criminal-e.blogspot.com
Visit the print publisher's website at:
http://www.birlinn.co.uk
Version 2-1-3
Also by Allan Guthrie on Kindle
novels
Two-Way Split UK/US
Slammer UK/US
novellas
Bye Bye Baby UK/US
Killing Mum UK/US
Savage Night
10:30 PM
Fraser's House
WHEN HE OPENED his sitting room door, the last thing Fraser Savage expected to see was a corpse stuffed inside a stainless steel bathtub on a plastic sheet in the middle of the floor. The body was naked and clearly male, even though it was face down.
"What in the name of fuck is that?" Effie said.
Fraser shook his head slowly. The corpse had pale skin. Hairy buttocks. It was plump round the middle.
Holy Christ, it couldn't be ...
Fraser's toes and fingers started to prickle and his stomach cramped. The two pints he'd had earlier in the evening suddenly seemed like a lot more. And those three—or was it four?—lines of coke hadn't helped. Sweat rolled down his back. His nose was running too. He dabbed at his nostrils with the back of his hand.
"I think it might be Uncle Phil," he said.
"Does Uncle Phil have any identifying features?" Effie asked. "Tattoos? Scars?"
"I don't think so."
He shivered. Not that he was cold. Felt like he'd puked his guts out and there was nothing left. Another shiver rippled through him.
Was it his uncle? Same waxy pale skin that ginger people have, same overall body shape.
But he'd never seen Uncle Phil naked. He might have identified him by his hair, that permanent ginger bed-head, but that wasn't an option. Maybe the corpse had ginger pubes. Although even that didn't mean it was Uncle Phil. There were plenty of other poor bastards with ginger pubes. Maybe the skin was excessively pale because of the blood loss and he wasn't ginger at all.
Fraser could turn him over, find out.
Yeah, right. He wasn't wrestling with that.
There was a good reason for the tub. There was a good reason Fraser felt sick. There was a good reason Fraser didn't want to turn him over.
Somebody had cut the poor bastard's head off and it was nowhere to be seen.
***
"DRINK THIS."
He took the glass of vodka from Effie, the liquid sloshing around as his hand shook. Steadied it with his other hand and knocked it back. It burned his throat nicely. He gave her back the glass and she poured him another. He took it, drank it. Felt warmer now, less shivery, hands not so shaky.
Effie didn't appear fazed by the situation at all. Almost as if she was used to stumbling over corpses in her boyfriends' homes.
Not that he was her boyfriend, exactly. But they'd been getting along well and maybe something would have happened tonight. It certainly wouldn't now. A headless corpse was a major turn-off.
Fraser couldn't help but think of the way Effie had introduced herself when they first met. Wearing a two-tone orange blouse, checked headscarf, sandals, almost a hippy thing going on. Said the cold didn't bother her, although her nipples suggested otherwise.
That was less than a week ago.
"Effie," Fraser had said, shaking her hand, feeling her cool palm in his. "Nice name. And what do you do?"
Her grin brought out the wrinkles round her eyes. She was maybe five years older than him and he liked that. "I kill people," she said.
Fraser