Broken Skin

55

DI Steel fiddled with a packet of cigarettes as the IB crawled all over Macintyre’s little red hatchback. She kept glancing back towards the ambulance and the woman sitting on the tailgate glowering out into the drizzle: squint nose still leaking bright red blood, eyes already beginning to blacken. ‘Jesus Laz, could you no’ just ask her to come quietly? How’s it going to look — “Police Beat The Shite Out O’ Pregnant Bint”? You’re a walking PR disaster. I’ve …’ She frowned. ‘What happened to your jacket?’

Logan looked down, saw nothing, then twisted his arms round: blotches on the sleeves were slowly going pale blue/brown where the bleach had hit. ‘Bastard …’ Now he’d have to get a new suit. ‘She just about castrated Rickards.’

‘Aye?’ Steel shrugged and put her fags away. ‘Best thing for him. Stop the wee fucker breeding.’ She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, then took the cigarettes out again. ‘Fuck’s sake, what’s taking them so long?’ pointing at the IB team in their white coveralls. One team was going through the interior, another guddling about in the boot, pulling out all manner of junk, photographing it, and sticking it into labelled evidence bags. ‘Got to be something … Shite, can you imagine what would happen if this was all just some big fuck-up?’

One of the IB team hefted the spare tyre out of the boot with a grunt. There was a pause, then: ‘Bloody hell!’

‘What?’ Steel lurched forward to the cordon of blue and white POLICE tape, standing on her tiptoes, trying to see past the sudden clump of white oversuits. ‘What is it? If it’s a pile of cash I call first dibs!’

The video operator filmed, the photographer flashed and the IB poked about. Steel took a deep breath and bellowed, ‘What the fuck is going on?’

There was a sudden silence and the head technician turned round, an Aberdeen Football Club holdall in his hands — the sort you could buy at any sports shop in the city. He reached in and pulled out a knife. ‘There’s bits of jewellery and all sorts of shite in here!’

‘Oh thank fuck for that.’ DI Steel closed her eyes, sighed, then turned to Logan and grinned. ‘See, I keep tellin’ people you’re no’ just an ugly face.’

The rear podium was crowded by the time they got back to FHQ — vans and patrol cars double-parked by the rear doors as half a dozen struggling, swearing men were dragged through into the custody area. Two support officers were unloading what looked like bricks wrapped in black plastic and brown packing tape, stacking them up on a wheeled trolley. And right there in the middle, directing things like a taller, uglier version of Napoleon was DI Finnie. He held up an imperious hand as Logan and Steel manhandled Ashley out of the back of their pool car.

‘Well, well, well, if it’s not DS McRae.’ Finnie grabbed one of the blocks from the trolley, shaking it at them. ‘Half a million in uncut heroin! You can thank your lucky stars all this was still there when we raided the place. After that crap you and Fat Boy Insch pulled this morning they could have moved the lot, and next time we saw it it’d be getting sold on the streets! You’re not a police officer, you’re a bloody disgrace.’ And with that he barged past, bumping Logan with his shoulder on the way.

‘Ach,’ said Steel, ‘don’t listen to him. Wanker probably hasn’t had a shag for years.’

The Procurator Fiscal was a hair’s breadth away from doing cartwheels — the jewellery in the holdall was a perfect match for each of the victims, the ones from Aberdeen and the ones from Dundee. If he ever woke up from his coma, Macintyre was going to prison for a long, long time. Steel let Logan phone Tayside Police with the good news, getting little more than a grunt and ‘About bloody time!’ from that craggy-faced tosspot DCS Cameron.

‘Well?’ said Steel as Logan hung up. ‘He overcome with gratitude?’

‘No.’ He checked his watch: six thirty-one. ‘What about Jimmy Duff?’

The inspector slouched back in her chair and stared at him. ‘Jesus, can you no’ enjoy the moment for once? We just caught The Granite City Rapist! Fuckin’ balloons, jelly and ice-cream time.’ She shook her head. ‘Kids today … Fine, go, play with Duff, but you better get your arse back here by seven o’clock sharp: press conference. Then you, me and Spanky are having a booze up.’

She was right of course, he should have been celebrating, but he really wasn’t in the mood; Finnie’s little outburst had managed to take the shine off things. Because much though he couldn’t stand the abusive bastard, the man had a point — they’d compromised an ongoing drugs operation just so Insch could get his hands on a junkie who might have something to do with an accidental death. It wasn’t as if Jason Fettes had been murdered: he was into rough sex, it went too far, he died. End of story. But accident or not, it still needed tidying up, and it gave Logan something to focus on, other than how badly he’d fucked up. How he’d nearly ruined Finnie’s drug bust. How he’d thought Insch was blinded by his need to pin everything on Rob Macintyre. But mostly how he’d doubted Jackie. She wasn’t obsessed, she was right.

He phoned down to the cells to see if Jimmy Duff had come back from orbit yet. The custody assistant said, ‘Hud oan, I’ll check,’ then disappeared for a bit. He was back a couple of minutes later. ‘Nope, still boldly going where millions of other buggers have been before. He’s due in court at …’ another pause and some rustling, ‘aye, half three the morn. Bags of time. You want me to get someone to interview him tonight?’

Logan thought about it. ‘No. I’ll do him when I get in tomorrow.’ After all, it wasn’t as if there was a rush. Jason Fettes wasn’t going to get any more dead.

The press conference went surprisingly well: all the newspapers and TV crews seemed to have conveniently forgotten that this time yesterday they’d been smearing the front pages and national news with, GRAMPIAN POLICE’S SHAMEFUL CAMPAIGN OF HATE AGAINST BRAVE ROBBY MACINTYRE! Suddenly the footballer was a monster and it was a good job he was in a coma and couldn’t hurt anyone else.

Afterwards they hit the pub: Logan, Steel and Rickards, with Rennie bringing up the rear — anything for a free drink.

‘So,’ said Steel, watching Rickards scamper off to the bar for another round, ‘where’s Watson then? Thought she’d be gagging for a celebratory pint or three.’

Logan shrugged, still feeling guilty about the whole thing. ‘Day off. I left her a message.’ Wherever she was she didn’t have her phone switched on, but Insch did. Suspended or not, he was on his way in to join the party.

‘Course,’ said Steel, helping herself to another large whisky when Rickards got back from the bar, ‘now every bugger says they always knew Macintyre was guilty. But they didn’t catch him, did they? No: Spanky and Lazarus did!’ She held up her glass, proposed a toast to the pair of them — sending Rickards into a bright-red blushing fit — then downed her drink in one and sent Rennie off to the bar with her wallet.

She was halfway through a filthy joke about two nurses and a shipment of cucumbers when someone tapped Logan on the shoulder and asked if the seat next to him was taken. He got as far as, ‘No, help yourself, we-’ before he realized who it was: Rachael Tulloch, still wearing her work suit. He’d never got around to calling her back.

‘Thought I’d find you here,’ she said, sitting down next to him, then addressing the table, ‘the PF says, “bloody well, done and the next round’s on her”.’ That got a cheer.

The inspector went back to her joke as more people drifted in from FHQ — off-duty constables, sergeants, inspectors, all of them telling Steel how they knew she’d get to the bottom of it. Rachael laid a hand on Logan’s thigh when she was sure no one was watching. He tried not to flinch and she smiled at him. ‘I sort of thought you’d be stuck here tonight, what with Macintyre and everything.’

‘I … yes, about that, we-’

‘Come over tomorrow instead. It’ll be fun, I’ve got the weekend off, as long as nothing major happens.’ She gave his thigh a squeeze.

Oh God. ‘We … I’m …’ TELL HER! ‘I’m living with someone.’

Rachael smiled at him. ‘I know.’

Logan didn’t know what to say to that, so he drank half his pint in one and announced he had to go to the toilet, scurrying away before she could say anything else. Round the corner, through the doors, up the stairs … He stopped on the landing and leant back against the wall with his eyes closed. Fuck. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He’d done the hard bit: he’d told her he was living with Jackie and it didn’t make any difference! Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like Rachael — he’d kissed her for God’s sake! And it’d been nice. And she was probably a lot less volatile than Jackie, who wasn’t exactly easy to live with. And … and he didn’t know what to do.

‘Fuck.’ The fact he was even debating it probably said a lot.

Marching back downstairs to the bar Logan saw DI Insch, hulking over the small table where Steel and the rest of them sat, clapping people on the back and telling them how he’d always said it was Robert Bloody Macintyre. The only person missing now was … Talk of the devil: Jackie Watson, coming in from the rain, hair plastered down to her head, jacket dripping on the blue-and-yellow carpet.

Logan froze, just out of earshot, watching as Jackie beamed, paused, then hugged DI Insch. The large man looked momentarily taken aback, then shouted, ‘Drinks!’ And all the way through, Rachael just smiled.

Oh God … Taking a deep breath, Logan joined them.