Dying Light

13

By the time the Deputy Procurator Fiscal arrived, the search was underway. The fog-smothered car park was stuffed to the gunnels with patrol cars and police transports, all of them in need of a good wash. She pulled up at the far end, blocking in a small sports car. This was it: the big one. Two dead women in just over a week, both stripped and badly beaten; it was either a serial killer or one hell of a coincidence. Smiling grimly, she headed up the hill, following the intermittent lightshow of police torches through the thick mist. A serial killer for her very first case. OK, technically it was the PF’s case, but she was assisting, holding the fort until the Fiscal got here. And Rachael Tulloch couldn’t have hoped for a better chance to shine. The investigation would draw a lot of publicity, and publicity meant promotion. Provided no one screwed up and let the bastard get away, that was. She stomped past a cordon of uniformed constables, all done up in bright yellow reflective vests, poking and prodding their way methodically through the undergrowth. It all looked extremely efficient. Probably that Detective Inspector Insch. Everyone in the Aberdeen office had a lot of respect for the man, not like some of the DIs she could mention.

There was no sign of Insch when she got to the top of the hill, but most of the activity in the clearing was centred on a shortish figure in an SOC boiler suit with a fag hanging out of the corner of her mouth. Rachael’s heart sank. If this was still DI Steel’s case there was no chance it was ever going to be a success. She’d not done a lot of work with the inspector — just the Rosie Williams case, and that dog’s torso in the woods — but so far she wasn’t impressed. And she’d heard all about how the inspector had screwed up the Gerald Cleaver trial just last year — a known paedophile with a track record of violent abuse going back years, nearly twenty victims prepared to testify, and Steel still couldn’t get a conviction. They were doomed... But that didn’t mean Rachael Tulloch wasn’t going to do her job properly.

Straightening her shoulders, she struggled into a white paper boiler suit, marched up to DI Steel and demanded an update. And shouldn’t she put that cigarette out? This was a crime scene after all! The inspector raised an eyebrow and stared at her, leaving a gap that was far longer than strictly necessary before asking if there was something rammed up Rachael’s arse. Because if not, the inspector’s size six Wellington boots could be. Rachael was too stunned to speak.

‘Listen up, Curly-top,’ said Steel, flicking a small flurry of ash from the end of her cigarette, her voice cool and level. ‘I am having a fag because we have already searched every square inch of this clearing. I am a detective inspector with Grampian Police, not some fucking numptie for you to order about. Understand?’ DI Steel turned and dismissed the clump of constables surrounding her with an amiable, ‘You lot bugger off back to your jobs. I want this whole forest turned upside down. And I mean the whole forest! No skipping bits. Rabbit holes, streams, bushes, nettles, badgers’ bum holes: everything gets searched.’ They yesma’amed their way off into the fog, leaving DI Steel and a blushing deputy procurator fiscal alone in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by sculptures that reeked of death.

‘You want to start over again?’ asked the inspector.

Logan walked on his own through the fog, following the squelchy path, checking up on the search teams. The whole thing was pretty much a waste of time, crawling about in the damp grass looking for clues that weren’t there. Other than the victim’s handbag — currently undergoing every test the IB could think of — the immediate scene had turned up empty. It didn’t help that the only place they might have found something concrete, the car park, was now covered in SOC vehicles, minibuses and patrol cars. Any trace evidence ground into the mud and gravel by countless police tyres and size nine boots. The search teams might get lucky and find something else the killer had missed, but Logan doubted it: pick up the girl, park the car, force her out into the rain, beat her to death and strip her corpse. The end. Whoever it was, he didn’t go traipsing about the forest in the middle of the night, scattering clues about like some demented evidence fairy.

Logan picked his way across a slippery bridge and headed uphill. The last search team was on the south side of the forest, working their way back towards where the body was discovered. Pointless it might be, but DI Steel wanted this one done by the book. Maybe there was hope for her yet?

The team was working its way down a steep slope when he found them, prodding the undergrowth with sticks and poles, going through the motions. A familiar face scowled at him as he struggled up the track — that grumpy cow from last Monday night, the one who’d had a go at him for PC Maitland getting shot. And working next to her was someone he hadn’t expected to see: WPC Jackie Watson prodding about in a holly bush, using her plaster cast to hold back a spiny-leaf-covered branch as she jabbed away with a pole. She didn’t look too happy either. He pulled her to one side. ‘What the hell are you doing out here?’

‘Relax,’ she smiled. ‘I’m not really here. Right now I’m collating the division crime statistics for the year to date: says so on the roster, so it must be true.’

‘Jackie, you can’t do this! You’re supposed to be on light duties, not operational! If the inspector finds out you’ll be for it!’

‘Steel? She couldn’t give a toss. Look, I just wanted to be out of the office for a bit, OK? Do some real bloody police work for a change, instead of shuffling bits of paper about.’ Jackie threw a glance over her shoulder; a goldfish-faced sergeant was coming their way, all fake suntan, puffing cheeks and ping-pong eyes. ‘Now bugger off, before you get us into trouble.’

‘Is there a problem?’ asked the sergeant. Logan took one last look in WPC Watson’s direction and said that no, there wasn’t, how was the search going? Sergeant Fish-Face wrinkled his nose. ‘We’re miles away from the crime scene and there’s no way in hell anyone would cart a body all the way through this, when he could just drag it a fraction of the distance up from the car park. It’s a complete waste of everyone’s time.’

Logan made soothing noises, it was important to be thorough, everyone appreciated his team’s efforts, blah, blah, blah... The grumpy WPC had been hanging back as Logan and Sergeant Goldfish talked, ignoring the line as it moved slowly away into the mist. ‘What the hell are we doing out here?’ she demanded, her face like a skelped arse.

Logan only had time to open his mouth before the sergeant roared, ‘You’re here because you’re supposed to be a bloody police officer. Now get your backside back to work before I kick it from here to Peterhead!’

She scowled at Logan like it was his fault she’d been yelled at, then turned on her heel and started stabbing the nearest bush with all the venom she could muster, muttering obscenities under her breath as she caught up with the rest of the search team, rejoining the line next to WPC Jackie Watson. Thirty seconds later Jackie cast a glower back in his direction and Logan sighed. The bloody woman was probably telling Jackie what an utter shit he was. And from the expression on Jackie’s face it looked as if she agreed. So much for getting back on an even keel. Their curry-fuelled truce had lasted a whole day.

Enough was enough: Logan was going to— A sudden scream pierced the fog, before being quickly swallowed by the trees and mist. There was silence for a heartbeat and then everyone exploded into action. Logan scrambled down the hill, towards the search team, Sergeant Goldfish hot on his heels, making for the source of the scream. They slithered to a halt at the top of a nearly vertical slope punctuated with deep beds of stinging nettle and spiky gorse. Halfway down, just visible through the swirling fog, was a WPC, lying on her back in the middle of a massive clump of nettles. Her shirt and jumper had been pulled up to her shoulders as she’d careered down the slope, exposing white skin already starting to go red with nettle stings. She was swearing a blue streak. ‘Are you OK?’ called Sergeant Fish-Face.

More swearing.

With a start Logan realized Jackie was standing at the lip of the slope, looking down at the thrashing figure as the woman stung herself more and more thoroughly with every flailing attempt to rise. ‘WPC Buchan,’ said Jackie, pointing. ‘Guess she must’ve slipped...’ She smiled.

Five minutes later they’d extricated Buchan from the nettle-infested slope. Puffing, wheezing, scratching and swearing, she clambered back up, looking daggers at WPC Watson the whole way. She was lurid-red from the under-wire of her bra right down to the waistband of her trousers. Everything in between was swollen and lumpy and itchy and stinging and she couldn’t even pull down her blouse and jumper because it just made it hurt more and... and... Sergeant Fish-Face sent her home. As she limped down the trail, arms out to the sides so as not to touch the painful red rash that circled her torso, the sergeant confided in Logan that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. Jackie just winked at him.

‘You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?’ he asked when they were alone again.

She grinned. ‘Nobody calls my man names and gets away with it.’

Logan left them to it, smiling all the way down the hill, back to the main path. It was ten to one, according to his watch. If he and DI Steel hurried they could get back to FHQ and grab a bite to eat before Isobel launched into the post mortem at half past. He took a shortcut, labouring up the hill at the side of the track, making for the clearing and its menacing sculptures. As he crested the rise the fog took on a golden glow. A single shaft of sunlight had pierced the white gloom, spotlighting the edge of the clearing where two men in black suits were manhandling a blue plastic body-bag into a brushed metal coffin, ready for its trip to the morgue. DI Steel was talking to the Procurator Fiscal, pointing at things and nodding seriously as the Fiscal replied. Logan waited on the periphery while they went over the details of the crime scene. Someone coughed beside him and Logan turned to see the new deputy PF standing in full SOC costume, her curly hair escaping from the elastic around the hood, framing her face. Her green eyes glittered above the mask. ‘How’s the search coming?’ she asked. Logan told her, leaving out the bad language and WPC Buchan’s fall. Rachael nodded as he finished, as if she’d been expecting this all along. ‘I see...’ A long pause to convey deep thought. ‘What did you make of the handbag?’

‘Why did he leave it behind you mean?’ He paused, thinking about it. ‘Two options: one, he’s leaving us a message — something in the bag, or removed from the bag, is supposed to tell us something; option two — it was a mistake. Maybe she threw it at him and he couldn’t find it again in the dark, after he’d finished with her. Or she dropped it running away...’ He shrugged. ‘Difficult to tell with only two bodies what is and isn’t part of the pattern.’

‘Only two bodies? Jesus.’ Rachael looked out at the crime scene, the rotting bison, the little metal walkway, the cordons of POLICE tape. ‘How many more of these do we need?’ He was about to answer that when DI Steel beckoned him over and he had to go through the whole search update all over again: no one had found anything.

‘It was always a long shot,’ Steel told the Fiscal, ‘after all this time out in the open and the rain, but I’m not taking any chances.’ She squared her shoulders and raised her pointy chin, stretching out the sagging skin beneath it. ‘There’s a killer out there and we’re going to catch the bastard.’

Logan tried not to gag. That was the cheesiest thing he’d heard all week. But the PF seemed impressed. She too struck a determined pose, asked them to keep her posted — if there was anything she could do, etc. — and left them to it, taking her deputy with her. Rachael looking back over her shoulder, her emerald-green eyes meeting Logan’s for a moment, then she was gone. He watched her disappear into the fog, before speaking. ‘Laid it on a bit thick, didn’t you?’

Steel shrugged and pulled an empty cigarette packet from her pocket, shaking it and peering inside as if that would somehow magically make some fags appear. ‘Position we’re in, we need all the friends we can get. Now the PF and Madame Frizzy-Hair go back and tell the Chief Constable we’re not fucking this whole thing up. That we’re doing things by the book.’ She smiled and crumpled the empty pack in her hand. ‘Things are starting to go our way, I can feel it in my water.’

‘Of course, you realize this means Jamie McKinnon isn’t a serial killer,’ he said, watching as the funeral directors carried the coffin out of the clearing. ‘If the victim was killed three days ago that’s Friday night — Jamie was banged up in Craiginches.’

Steel sighed. ‘I know, but a girl can dream, can’t she?’

Half past one on the dot and the morgue at Force Headquarters was getting crowded. In addition to Isobel, her assistant Brian, DI Steel and Logan, the Deputy Procurator Fiscal was here with her boss, and the corroborating pathologist — Doc Fraser, an IB photographer, the detective chief superintendent in charge of CID, the Deputy and Assistant Chief Constables. It was like a who’s who of Aberdeen law enforcement, all of them worried about the possibility of another serial killer preying on the city. Knowing it would turn into a political nightmare as soon as the media found out. Even God himself had turned up; the Chief Constable being given pride of place at the head of the table. Logan wondered if he’d be saying grace before Isobel started carving.

Logan could almost smell the anticipation in the room as Isobel began her external examination of the body on the slab. According to her instructions the Identification Bureau techies, who’d picked over the body for trace evidence under her assistant’s watchful eye, had positioned the victim exactly as she’d been on the forest floor: lying on her side, legs scissored out on the shiny, stainless steel surface, one arm up over her head. The thick purple line of pooled blood marked horizontal with spirit-level accuracy. They’d removed the blue plastic freezer bag from her head, exposing her battered face and bloodshot, bulging eyes. As if she was staring indignantly at the people gathered around the dissecting table. Something about the tableau made Logan shiver. This wasn’t like a normal post mortem, where the body was laid out on its back, all washed clean and clinically dead. Somehow, with the body arranged as it had been discovered, it was as if they were all voyeurs at the last, intimate moment of the victim’s existence. As if this was part of the killer’s performance. The final scene for this bruised and brutalized actor. Logan shivered again. PC Steve was right: he really was turning into a morbid bastard.

Three hours later Isobel’s audience was pale, quiet and slightly shaky, standing in an otherwise empty briefing room on the second floor. A passing uniform had been dispatched to fetch coffee, not the plastic crap from the vending machine, but proper coffee reserved for high-powered meetings and special occasions. The Chief Constable reckoned they all needed it, and Logan wasn’t about to disagree.

Isobel was in the corner with Doc Fraser, a modest smile on her face as he complimented her on a first-rate post mortem. Very thorough. Very revealing. Someone behind Logan muttered, ‘Jesus, did she have tae peel the poor cow’s face off?’ Up at the front of the room, the Chief Constable finished saying something to the Procurator Fiscal and they both laughed. The new deputy fiscal managed a dutiful smile, but she was still green about the gills. When the laughter had subsided the DCC ping-ping-pinged a spoon off the side of his china cup and everyone fell silent. It was time to post mortem the post mortem. Isobel walked them through the sequence of events as she saw them, illustrating the salient points on the whiteboard with diagrams of fractured skull and ribs and limbs. Like some demonic game of Pictionary.

‘Cause of death was asphyxiation,’ she said, drawing a red circle about the head of the body she’d drawn on the board, ‘partly due to the plastic bag secured over the victim’s head and partially due to pneumothorax: the right lung punctured by the ends of the fourth and fifth ribs. Her ribcage filled with air and collapsed the lung. Cyanosis would have been rapid and fatal.’ Then Steel asked the question they were all dying to know: was this the same MO as the one used on Rosie Williams? Had the same man killed them both? Isobel’s smile was condescending. ‘Well, Inspector, I’m sure you’re aware that there is a great deal of supposition involved in—’

But Steel wasn’t having any of it. ‘Just yes or no.’

Isobel stiffened. ‘Possibly. That’s all I can say at this point.’

The inspector wasn’t impressed. ‘Possibly?’

‘Well obviously the first victim didn’t have a bag over her head... I’d have to go over the post mortem notes—’

DI Steel waved a hand in Isobel’s general direction, cutting her off. ‘Then I suggest you go do that, right now. We need to know if we’re looking for one deranged maniac or two.’ When Isobel didn’t move she added, ‘Unless you’ve got something more important to do, that is?’

Bristling, Isobel placed her china cup down on the nearest table, nodded at the Chief Constable, grabbed Brian, and swept from the room, promising to have a report on the inspector’s desk within the hour. There was a moment’s silence, everyone looking from DI Steel, to the doors closing in Isobel’s wake, and back to the inspector again. Steel smiled grimly. ‘I’m not taking any chances with this,’ she told the assembled great and good. ‘There are lives at stake.’

And then the questions started: Inspector, what do you plan to do? What will we tell the press? How many men do you need? DI Steel kept a straight face, but Logan could see she was doing a victory lap inside. She was back.