Broken Skin

17

The sound of a piano being tortured greeted Logan as he pushed through the Arts Centre’s main doors. According to the posters up outside in the huge, columned portico, there was supposed to be a series of Samuel Beckett plays on this week, but Waiting For Godot had a big CANCELLED sticker across it. Which explained how Insch had managed to get hold of the Arts Centre — calling everyone in for a special rehearsal, even though it was a Saturday night. Normally a production wouldn’t get to set foot on the stage until a day or two before the run. And from the sounds of things, Insch’s Mikado was nowhere near ready for that.

Logan sneaked in through the doors to the theatre — burgundy carpet, mahogany panelling, rows and rows of empty seats facing a stage that was bedecked with some of the lumpiest people Logan had ever seen, mostly wearing jeans and sweatshirts. And down in the front row of seats was DI Insch, addressing his cast: ‘Again, from “I’ll tear the mask from your disguising” and please, for the love of God, watch for the beat!’

Logan stood and watched them for a minute, trying not to laugh. DC Rennie was in the middle of the men, overacting and throwing his hands about like a demented windmill. This time the chorus were almost on time with their bellowing. Insch made them do it again. Logan really didn’t want to have to suffer it a third time through, so he marched up and tapped the inspector on the shoulder.

‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but Control called: Tayside Police have been on the phone…’ Insch listened to what little information Logan had, before turning and telling the people on stage that they were going to go over this bit until they got it right, or it killed them. He didn’t care which. Leaving them in the not-so-careful hands of the pianist he steered Logan out into the corridor.

‘Get back there and find out if they got any forensic evidence. We’ve not destroyed Macintyre’s DNA sample yet — if we can get a match he’s screwed. In fact, get Tayside to email up everything they’ve got. I’ll be finished here in …’ he checked his watch, then looked back at the double doors as a ragged cacophony marked another ill-fated adventure into the world of Gilbert and Sullivan. ‘We’ll still be here by the time you get back.’

Listening to the noise coming from the stage, Logan got the feeling he could come back the same time next year and they’d still be bloody awful.

The last page chugged into the printer’s out tray. According to Tayside Police there was no sign of forensic evidence: no hairs, no flakes of skin, no semen, nothing. But the MO was a perfect match for Rob Macintyre: a lone woman, walking home at night takes a short cut through a darkened street and is jumped from behind. Forced to the ground at knifepoint, cut and raped by a man with an Aberdonian accent. Just like every attack they’d tried to pin on Macintyre. And like all the other Macintyre cases, there was nothing connecting the footballer to the crime.

Logan stuffed the printouts into a manila folder and headed back to the Arts Centre. It had taken nearly an hour and a half to get everything emailed up from Dundee, and by the time he got back to the theatre, Insch was in the middle of his standard motivational speech — the same one he gave to incident rooms after telling them all how crap they were and that they should be ashamed to call themselves police officers. ‘Now go get cleaned up and I’ll see you in the pub.’ He forced a smile. ‘Good work tonight, people!’

Insch watched them all troop off stage chattering excitedly, then sank down into one of the theatre seats, put his head in his hands and muttered quiet obscenities.

Logan gave him a couple of minutes. Then, ‘Got those files you wanted, sir.’

The inspector looked up, wearing a grimace of artistic pain. ‘You’re not a big theatregoer, are you, Sergeant?’

‘Not as such, sir, no.’

Insch nodded thoughtfully. ‘Nights like this, I don’t blame you.’ He sighed. ‘OK. Let’s see what you’ve got.’ They spread the printouts from Tayside Police on top of the grand piano in the orchestra pit: blood analysis, medical reports, before and after photos of the victim, and a blurry identikit picture of the attacker. It could have been anyone.

‘Nikki Bruce, twenty-three, she was on her way home from a night out with friends. She was sick outside the nightclub, so the taxi driver refused to take her. Walked home alone along Broughty Ferry Road. That’s where he attacked her.’

The inspector scowled at the photos — before, Nikki had been a good looking young woman with bright eyes and a mischievous smile. The ‘after’ picture was completely different: one eye swollen shut, the other bright red with burst blood vessels, her nose flattened and off to one side, her mouth crooked and puffed-up, the lip split, three or four teeth missing, her whole face covered in bandages, surgical padding and bruises. It was hard to believe this was the same person.

‘And where,’ he asked, ‘was Macintyre when all this happened?’

‘Thought he wasn’t a suspect any more.’

Something disturbingly like a growl rumbled deep within Insch’s throat. ‘Like hell he’s not.’ He pulled out his mobile and called the Procurator Fiscal, looking for a warrant to drag Macintyre in for questioning. And from the sound of things not getting very far. ‘No … no … he’s … of course it’s him! It’s his MO, he’s … no, we don’t … but …’ He placed one massive hand on the pile of paperwork and crushed it into a ball. ‘Yes, I understand … no … of course. Thank you for your time.’ Insch hung up, slipped the phone carefully in his pocket, then hurled the printouts at the stage. ‘FUCK!’ Sheets of paper flared white in the footlights’ glow, then slipped back onto the grey-painted floor. A few fluttered down into the orchestra pit. Logan held his breath and waited for the inspector to start taking it out on him.

Instead, Insch screwed his face up, stuck two fingers against the throbbing side of his neck and hissed air in and out through his nose. The trembling subsided and Insch’s breathing returned to normal, his face slowly losing its dark purple tinge.

‘Er …’ Logan knew he was probably going to regret asking this, ‘are you OK, sir?’

‘The PF,’ said Insch, his voice eerily level, ‘feels that without any evidence directly linking Macintyre to the rape, we can’t bring him in for questioning or it’ll just look like harassment. If we want to speak to him, we’ll have to go round and ask him nicely.’ The calm act was starting to crumble a bit at the end. ‘But right now, I need a drink.’

A patrol car roared by on Broad Street while Logan followed the inspector’s massive bulk down a steep flight of stairs to the Illicit Still’s subterranean bar. They’d had to walk past FHQ to get here, Insch wrapped up in a brooding silence, while Logan tried to uncrumple the files and get them back into some semblance of order. The pub was about the same distance from headquarters as Archibald Simpson’s, but wouldn’t be full of off-duty policemen. Which was why Insch had chosen it for this post-rehearsal get-together. Inside, the place looked like it had been designed by someone with a serious banister fetish — they were everywhere, carving the place up into little seating areas, full of students and people with trendy haircuts.

Logan followed Insch up to the bar. ‘What do you want to do about Macintyre then?’ he asked while the inspector ordered their drinks, then sent the barman hunting for crisps and peanuts.

‘We go see him. Smile politely. Ask our questions. And figure out how to nail the ugly wee bastard. See if we can get the ACC to authorize a low-key surveillance operation. Macintyre’s going to go out again sooner or later …’ Somehow Logan doubted they’d get permission: if the PF was leery of the case, the Assistant Chief Constable wouldn’t touch it with the shitty end of a pointy stick.

The Mikado crowd were through in the snug — a smaller room up a little flight of stone steps from the main bar, with slightly fewer superfluous banisters. Rennie was holding court for a trio of women. All three of them threw their heads back and laughed like drains as he reached the punch line of a particularly dirty joke. Grinning like an idiot, he looked up and saw Logan. ‘Hey, come meet Sophie, Anna and Liz! They’re my naughty schoolgirls. Come on, scoot up, Liz, let the man park his bum.’ Rennie did the introductions, playing up Logan’s ‘police hero’ credentials for his fellow thespians. ‘You catch any of the rehearsal?’

Logan turned to check the inspector wasn’t within earshot. ‘Only the motivational speech bit at the end.’ A little white lie.

‘Oh yeah,’ Rennie nodded sagely, ‘we sucked big time tonight. Arse from elbow the whole way.’

Anna, or Liz — Logan wasn’t sure which — slapped the constable on the shoulder. ‘Cheeky bugger! Anyway, Debs was brilliant.’ Pointing at a serious-looking woman sitting on the edge of the group, deep in conversation with DI Insch. It took Logan a moment to recognize her: dark, wavy hair; rosy cheeks; she looked nothing like the bitch-faced harridan she’d been playing on stage.

One of the other two rolled her eyes. ‘Debs is always brilliant. But Erick …’

‘Oh God, don’t get me started on Erick …’

Every discussion seemed to revolve around the various shows they’d been in and who was sleeping with whom. And Logan didn’t have a clue who they were talking about.

He finally escaped one hour and three pints later. Every time he tried to get out of there, Rennie would lurch back from the bar with another round. Eventually he’d had to fake a date with Jackie in order to escape. It wasn’t that they were bad people, he just didn’t have anything in common with any of them. Well, except for DI Insch and DC Rennie, and he got enough of them during working hours.

The closest he’d got to a normal conversation was with the ‘brilliant’ Debs about New Zealand and The Lord Of The Rings films, and even then it was all about actors and scenery and scripts. Much more interesting was the contents of her handbag, which Logan got an unscheduled peek at when she went rummaging for a hankie after spilling a glass of white wine down herself: compact, lipstick, mobile phone, Ian Rankin paperback, tampons, breath mints, and what looked like a set of fur-lined handcuffs. It took all sorts.

Midnight. A clunk and bang from the front door, then some random giggling and Jackie burst into the bedroom. Logan groaned as the overhead light snapped on, dragging him from sleep and poking its fingers in his eyes. He pulled the duvet up over his head and listened to Jackie bumping into things. Click and the room was in darkness again, then a cold body leapt in beside him and tried to warm its hands on his naked chest. ‘Aaagh — get off — horrible woman!’ Jackie just giggled and snuggled in closer. Logan gasped. ‘You smell like a brewery!’

‘Yup, I’ve been drinking.’ She snorted and stuck her cold nose into Logan’s neck. ‘I’ve been very, very naughty, you may have to spank me.’

‘Your feet are freezing.’

‘Ooh, I love it when you’re all manly …’ And then she jumped on him.

Ten past seven and DI Insch’s morning briefing was in full swing, the inspector rumbling out his instructions from the front of the room, one huge buttock perched on the edge of a desk, popping chocolate raisins into his mouth between sentences. Like a big, pink eating machine. This investigation had been stagnant for too long. There were going to be some changes. Or he was going to kick everyone’s arse for them.

Not that there were many arses to kick — when the case had been downgraded from murder to kinky sex gone wrong, the team had been cut by more than two thirds and stuck in one of the smaller incident rooms. Now it was just Insch, Logan, DC Rennie and a handful of uniforms. And even then Logan was only part time.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ asked Insch as Logan tried to sneak out at the end.

‘Those break-ins. You didn’t want the case, so I’ve been lumbered with it.’

Insch shook his head. ‘Not today you’re not — you’ve got some homework to do.’ He handed over a plastic bag.

‘What’s this?’ said Logan, peering inside at Jason Fettes’ narcissistic porn collection.

‘This is what Steel should have done in the first place. Go through that lot and see if you can find a match for the guy who dropped Fettes off at the hospital. Maybe they worked together.’

Now that Insch mentioned it, it did sound bloody obvious. But it meant Logan would have to spend the whole day watching a dead man having sex, which didn’t exactly sound like a bundle of laughs. Especially not after watching his post mortem. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And don’t take too long about it either — we’re seeing Macintyre at ten and I want you there in case I need someone to talk me out of strangling the little footballing bastard.’

Logan was about to complain that two and a half hours probably wasn’t enough time to watch six DVDs and go through eight pornographic magazines. But Insch cut him off with a fat finger. ‘If you’re thinking of having a whinge, don’t. There’s no one here to talk me out of strangling you.’