Dying Light

21

Thursday started much like any other day, unfortunately. Not enough sleep and what little he’d managed to grab after Operation Cinderella packed up for the night was riddled with dreams of dead children, damp and rotten, the flesh falling from their bones as they skipped and danced through his flat, their eyes like runny-yolked eggs. No wonder he felt dreadful. He was definitely going to check up on PC Maitland today. Pop past and see how he was doing. Offload a bit of the guilt.

DI Steel was in the incident room, speaking to DI Insch and fiddling with a pack of cigarettes. Logan was too tired to bother listening in, so he slouched over to his desk instead and tried to figure out what he was going to do about Steel. She’d told him in no uncertain terms that he was to have nothing more to do with Kylie — she’d be taking over the underage sex thing personally. And if he breathed a word of it to anyone she’d have his balls.

There was a plastic bag full of videotapes sitting on Logan’s desk, each one bearing a sticky label with ‘OPERATION CINDERELLA NIGHT 2’ scribbled on it, and next to that a big Manila folder: the criminal records of one Chib Sutherland. Sighing, Logan got himself a mug of coffee and started to read.

Chib was every bit as lovely as Colin Miller had implied. Most of his formative years were spent in borstal for knifing some attendant at the children’s home he was staying in, then on to a serious life of violent crime. Right up to the time he started working for that great philanthropist, Malcolm McLennan — AKA Malk the Knife. He’d taken the boy in and moulded him in his own image: a vicious wee thug who wouldn’t get caught any more. According to Lothian and Borders he was in the frame for at least eight murders, though there was never enough hard evidence to do him for any of them. But people had gone missing, never to be seen again. Then there were the bodies that had been found, battered and mutilated. Everyone knew Chib was responsible; there just wasn’t any way to prove it. Not when any witnesses were so conveniently struck down with amnesia, or a cricket bat.

‘Hoy, Lazarus.’ Logan looked up to see DI Steel hovering over the desk, smiling at him with yellowed teeth. ‘Good news,’ she said, ‘in a crappy sort of way. Seems like the big boys down south have decided to lend little old Grampian Police a helping hand. Isn’t that just fucking swell?’ When Logan didn’t answer she slapped a couple of sheets of A4 on top of the report he was reading. ‘They’ve sent us up a preliminary psychological offender profile! Wow! According to Insch, you’ve already worked with the specky-four-eyed git who wrote it, so guess what?’ The inspector beamed and punched him on the shoulder. ‘You have “experience”. I want to know what all the shite in that report means, and — more importantly — if any of it’s worth the paper it’s written on. And don’t take too long: Mr Clinical Psychologist is on his way up the road as we speak. I want some sort of synopsis before he gets here at eleven.’ Logan tried not to groan. Instead he poked the plastic bag full of videotapes and asked the inspector what she expected him to do with them all. ‘I don’t bloody care, do I,’ she said. ‘Take them home and record over them if you like, it’s not like we’re ever going to watch the bloody things anyway.’ She stopped, halfway to the door. ‘Oh, and don’t forget what we talked about last night.’ The threat was implicit: tell anyone and you’re screwed.

Dr Bushel was exactly as Logan remembered: arrogant, self-satisfied, balding and immaculately dressed. The strip lights sparkled off his little round glasses as he stood at the front of the briefing room taking a select group of Grampian’s finest through his psychological profile for their potential serial killer. There wasn’t anything here that Logan hadn’t already told DI Steel after reading the report, but it was all new to the Assistant Chief Constable, the deputy CC, and the head of CID. The killer would be white, male, in his mid to late twenties, have intimacy issues, and have used a prostitute before, but found it a humiliating experience. The beating was a sign of his hatred towards women, the intensity of his rage acting as a pointer to buried conflict with his mother. He would have a menial job, but be articulate enough to lure Michelle Wood into his car. Socially adequate. He took his victims’ clothes, not as a trophy, but because he wanted to humiliate them. And possibly for some sort of masturbatory fantasy. He would strike again.

Once the doctor had finished his presentation, DI Steel started asking the questions Logan had raised in private earlier, framing each one as if she was pulling it out of the blue, thinking on her feet. Putting on a show for the senior brass while Logan sat and fumed in disgust.

Dr Bushel hummed and hawed and speculated and theorized, but it all sounded like bollocks to Logan. The man had come up with a vague outline based on next to no evidence, having never seen either of the crime scenes at first hand. Logan couldn’t see how any of it was going to help them actually catch the killer.

The ACC thanked Dr Bushel for his time and invited him to a special lunch with the Chief Constable later. When they were all gone, DI Steel slouched in her seat and blew a long, wet raspberry. ‘Did you ever hear so much shite in your life? “He will strike again!” Course he bloody will, he’s got away with it twice, what’s he going to do, call it quits and take up needlepoint instead?’ She shook her head, scratching away at her left armpit. ‘And I’ll bet Bushel gets paid twice as much as we do. Specky git.’

Logan scowled. ‘So how come you played up to it then?’

‘Ah... politics, Sergeant. When the top brass hand you a turd, you polish it and say, “my, what a lovely jobbie!” That way they are impressed by your intellect, perception and ability. If you don’t, all you’ve got is a handful of shit. Come on, we’ve got more important things to do than sod about here. We’ve a killer to catch.’

It was just after lunch when Logan finally got a result from his lookout request on Skanky Agnes, though it wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for. A WPC, over at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary visiting her mother in intensive care, had spotted Agnes Walker lying on a bed in the corner, tubes going in and out of every orifice. She’d been mainlining heroin while pissed out of her face on supermarket vodka — the perfect recipe for an overdose. An unemployed receptionist discovered her slumped in the ladies’ toilets at the Trinity shopping centre. She lapsed into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and had been in a coma ever since. DI Steel sent a WPC up to sit by her bedside, just in case she made a miraculous recovery and decided to give them a description of whoever had beaten her up. They weren’t holding their breath.

So instead of charging off to save the day, Logan was stuck wading through the list of known sex offenders in an attempt to match one of them to Dr Bushel’s ridiculously vague offender profile. It was too noisy in the incident room, so Logan grabbed his piles of paperwork and went looking for somewhere quieter. All the other offices were busy, but interview room four was free. He annexed it, flicking the switch that changed the light outside from green to red: INTERVIEW IN PROGRESS, before spreading out the files and printouts on the battered tabletop. Trying to find a killer in amongst the rapists, paedophiles and flashers. Even with the window open it was too hot in here — Logan loosened his tie, yawned, rested his elbows on the table and propped his head up with his hands. Slowly the words started blurring into each other. Blink. Rapist. Blink. Rapist. Nod... blink. Paedophile. Yawn. Blink, blink... darkness.

‘Mmmphf...?’ Logan snapped upright, eyes wide and dilated, what the hell was — he dragged his mobile out, wiping the small trail of drool from the side of his mouth with his other hand. Blink, blink. The clock on the interview-room wall said seven minutes past five: he’d been asleep for three whole hours. ‘Hello?’ trying not to sound like he’d just woken up. It was DI Insch.

Mrs Kennedy’s lounge was a disaster area: chairs and tables overturned, paintings slashed, photo frames smashed, china poodles reduced to glittering shards on the carpet. Mrs Kennedy sat in a ruptured armchair, fat orange cat clutched to her bosom like a security blanket. It eyed the detectives standing in the middle of the room with evil distrust, yellow eyes narrowed to slits, ears back.

‘Honestly,’ said the old lady, shaking. ‘I don’t want to cause any fuss, I’m fine. Really...’ She’d been out at the time, but the downstairs neighbour had heard the destruction and called 999. They couldn’t bear to think of poor old Mrs Kennedy lying up there in a pool of blood, battered to death! They were basically well meaning, but no bloody help whatsoever. They didn’t see anything, didn’t peer out the spy hole in their door to watch the bad guys come down the stairs. Didn’t even look out the window to see if they got into a waiting car, or a bus, or a taxi, or clambered aboard a passing elephant. They were scared someone would see them looking. It was a pain in the arse, but Logan could understand their reticence. They were in their seventies, why risk being seen by violent thugs who might come back and get them? Instead they’d kept their heads down and called the police. It was still more than a lot of people would do.

Whoever the vandals were, they’d done a pretty good job of bankrupting Mrs Kennedy’s insurance company. The lounge, kitchen, and both bedrooms had been thoroughly trashed. But there was something odd in the lounge, something that seemed a bit out of place amidst all the devastation. Smack bang in the middle of the far wall the words ‘STOP NOW’ had been scrawled in dripping, fluorescent orange paint. ‘Any idea what it is they want you to stop doing?’ asked Logan, pointing at the bright, spray-painted letters.

Mrs Kennedy shook her head and hugged the cat even tighter, causing it to wriggle. ‘I... I help organize a youth club for local youngsters? Up at the school? We have football matches and jumble sales...’

‘Hmm,’ said Insch. ‘Well unless you’re caught in the middle of a turf war between the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, I think we can rule that out. Anything else?’

‘I still tutor some children. Since I had to retire I sometimes think it’s the only thing that keeps me going.’

‘Oh aye?’ Insch was poking about in the remains of a large china dog with his shoe. ‘Piano? French?’

‘Chemistry. I was a chemistry teacher for thirty-six years.’ She smiled, eyes misty with recollection. ‘I taught thousands and thousands of children in my time.’ She sighed. ‘And now all I have is this...’ DI Insch made his excuses as the tears started, but Logan decided to do the decent thing and make her a cup of tea. The kettle was dented, but otherwise functional, so he set it to boil and went hunting for some teabags. They were scattered all over the floor by the upended bin, mingling with broken eggshells, potato peelings and other debris. He found one that didn’t look too unhygienic — after all it was going to get boiling water poured over it — and plopped it in a mug that still had its handle attached. While the bag was stewing, Logan rummaged about, looking for milk and sugar. He found it in the fridge: a large, clear plastic bag of something that looked like fresh herbs, only not so wholesome.

The sound of footsteps crunching on debris and Logan spun around to see Mrs Kennedy standing there, sans cat. Hands clenching and unclenching, she watched aghast as he stood up, holding the bag of ‘herbs’. Logan popped open the zip-lock top and took a tentative sniff at the contents.

‘I... I can explain...’ she said, voice low, eyes darting down the hall where a uniformed PC was writing down details of the damage on a large clipboard. ‘It’s for my arthritis...’ She held up her trembling hands. ‘And my sciatica.’

‘Where do you get it from?’

‘I... an ex-pupil of mine. He said it had helped his father. He brings me some every now and then.’

‘There’s a lot here,’ he said, shaking the bag. ‘All for your own use?’

‘Please believe me.’ The tears were starting again. ‘It makes the pain go away: I never meant to break the law!’

Logan stood watching her as thick tears rolled down her cheeks, a thin dribble of snot starting on its way south from her nose. She fumbled a handkerchief from her pocket and he stared at her hands: swollen joints, squint fingers, just like his grandmother’s had been for the last fifteen years of her life. ‘OK,’ he said at last, popping the bag back in the fridge and closing the door. ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.’ He let himself out. STOP NOW: a funny thing to scrawl on an old lady’s wall. Esoteric. Probably made perfect sense to whatever drug-addled halfwit scrawled it up there. But still...

The sky was a dirty dove-grey as Logan stepped out of the front door. The white and orange of the patrol car had attracted the same audience as last time: a trio of small children, all watching the policemen with awe. It must be just like having the telly come to life, right outside your house. Who knew what sort of exciting things you could see...

Logan crossed the road and walked up the steps to the little cluster of kids, dropping down on his haunches so he wouldn’t tower over them. Two little boys, four or fiveish with snotty noses, wide blue eyes and bowl haircuts, and a little girl in a stroller. She couldn’t have been more than two and a bit: frizzy blonde hair done up in pigtails, teddy bear clutched in one hand, sucking her thumb and looking up at Logan like he was a hundred feet tall. ‘Hello,’ he said, in his best nonthreatening voice, ‘my name’s Logan. I’m a policeman.’ He pulled out his warrant card and let one of the bowl haircuts handle it with grubby fingers. ‘Were you here earlier?’

The little girl pulled her thumb out, a long trail of spittle stretching from lips to finger before falling onto teddy’s nose. ‘Man.’

‘Did you see a man?’

She pointed a dribble-covered finger at him. ‘Man.’ Then held the bear up, so he could see that she’d chewed most of the fur off one ear, and said ‘Man’ again. Logan’s smile began to falter. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

DI Insch sat behind the wheel of his filthy Range Rover, peering out through the windscreen as the first flecks of moisture gave way to a steady downpour. ‘So much for a sodding barbecue tonight,’ he said as Logan leapt into the passenger seat and out of the rain. ‘How’d you get on with the Grampian Police Fan Club?’

Logan sighed and tried to wipe sticky fingerprints off his warrant card. ‘Tom’s doggy did “big ones” in daddy’s slippers last night and had to sleep in the toilet. Other than that: bugger all.’ He glanced up at the building and saw Mrs Kennedy’s scared face staring down from the kitchen window. Probably terrified he was going to tell the inspector her dirty little secret. He turned to see the three children staring at him as well.

‘Do you think it’s odd the same kids are always hanging around?’

Now it was Insch’s turn to stare at him. ‘Ever occur to you that they might actually live here?’

‘OK, point taken.’ Logan pulled on his seatbelt. ‘So how come you dragged me over here to see this?’ he asked as the inspector did a three-point turn on Union Grove and headed back towards the Holburn Street junction. ‘Come to that: what are you doing here? Breaking and entering not a job for uniform?’

Insch shrugged and told Logan to look in the glove compartment, which revealed an old packet of sherbet lemons, the yellow lozenges gluey from sitting in the car for God knew how long. The inspector clutched the bag to the steering wheel with one hand while he dug about in the sticky packet with the other, eventually emerging with a lump of three or four, all welded together. He stuffed them in his mouth and sucked his fingers clean, before offering the bag to Logan, who politely declined. ‘I suppose,’ said Insch around a mouthful of boiled sweets as he forced his way into the stream of traffic, ‘I was thinking there might be a connection — you know, with her grandson dying in the fire. And we’ve still got bugger all to go on with Karl Pearson. Someone tortures the hell out of the ugly wee toe-rag and all we can do is cart him off to the morgue and carve him up some more.’ He sighed and Logan got the distinct impression that once again Grampian Police’s left hand didn’t know if the right one was scratching its elbow or picking its arse.

‘Did DI Steel not tell you about Brendan “Chib” Sutherland?’

Insch said that no, she hadn’t, so Logan filled him in on the way back to the station, including Colin Miller’s promise to find an address for the Edinburgh hoodlum.

‘How come we’ve got to rely on that Weegie shitebag? No, on second thoughts, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. But when you get that address, you tell me. I’m not leaving that daft old cow...’ He threw a swift glance at Logan and harrumphed. ‘I mean, DI Steel has enough on her plate right now. I wouldn’t want her to be distracted going after something that wasn’t directly related to her investigation.’

Logan grinned and kept his mouth shut.

That night’s stakeout operation was nearly cancelled. The rain had steadily built in tempo until it was chucking it down, bouncing off the pavements and swallowing the gutters. Faint light flickered overhead, followed by a pause: one, two, three, four — thunder boomed out across the blackened skies. ‘Four miles away,’ said the inspector, settling back in her seat with one of Councillor Marshall’s specialist insertion magazines.

Logan shook his head. ‘It’s less than a mile. Sound travels at seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, so that means...’ he trailed off into silence. Steel was glowering at him.

‘Four miles away!’ she said again and went back to looking at the dirty pictures by the light of the glove compartment. Occasionally saying things like, ‘Jesus, that’s not natural!’ and, ‘Ouch!’ and once or twice, ‘Hmmm...’ Logan scrunched down in the driver’s seat and peered out through the windscreen. WPC Menzies was swearing and grumbling down at the other end of Shore Lane, shifting from one stiletto-heeled foot to the other, trying to keep warm. In the interests of health and safety, she was wearing a long fur coat from the lost-and-found store over her whore outfit tonight. Clutching an umbrella.

Her voice crackled through the radio. ‘This is ridiculous! Nae bastard’s going tae come oot here in this pishin’ weather!’ Sounds of agreement immediately came through from WPC Davidson: it was nearly midnight and they’d not had a single bite. This was a waste of everyone’s time. Logan had to agree they had a point. But the inspector was not for turning, they’d been given sanction to keep this going for five nights and she was damned if they were giving up before then. In the end everyone settled back into unhappy perseverance. Steel snored, WPCs Menzies and Davidson whinged and moaned, Logan brooded. This was such a stupid idea — twenty-six police men and women, sitting in the dark, waiting for some sicko to abduct an unattractive WPC wouldn’t prove anything. He might as well strip down to his underpants and run around the docks in the rain for all the good it would do.

DI Steel had settled into a steady buzz-saw-in-a-washing-machine drone, one of Councillor Marshall’s dirty magazines open in her lap, spot-lit by the open glove compartment, exposing something Logan did not want to see. He leaned over the inspector and snapped the glove compartment shut.

‘Umn, scrrrrrrnch, emph?’ Steel cracked open an eye and peered blearily at him leaning across her. ‘Dirty wee shite. I’m no’ fuckin’...’ She drifted to a halt and yawned, the motion ending with a small burp. ‘What time is it?’

‘Half twelve,’ said Logan, rolling the window down, letting some fresh air into the car, bringing the steady roar of torrential rain with it. Steel gave another yawn, stretching and groaning in the passenger seat as Logan finally decided to take the plunge: ‘Why don’t you want Councillor Marshall prosecuted?’

‘Hmm?’ She peeled the plastic wrapper off a pack of twenty cigarettes, throwing it over her shoulder into the rubbish-tip back seat. ‘’Cos you can catch more flies with shite than vinegar. You look out there,’ she said, setting a lighter to the end of her cigarette, ‘and you see guilty or not guilty, yeah? Black or white. Well sometimes it’s no’ that clear cut—’

‘He was paying a fourteen-year-old girl for sex!’

‘Didn’t know she was fourteen though, did he?’

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, ‘Does it matter?’

‘See — there you go again, black or white. It pays to have people in your debt, Logan, especially people who...’ She stopped, peering out into the night. There was a figure walking down Marischal Street, dressed in a featureless ankle-length raincoat buttoned all the way up to the neck. Bald as a coot, clutching an umbrella, the black surface shrouded in mist as the rain hurled itself towards the ground. Detective Inspector Insch.

‘Hoy, hoy,’ said Steel, ‘it’s Uncle Fester.’

DI Insch marched slowly across the road and around the car to Logan’s side. Something congealed in Logan’s innards as he looked up into the inspector’s impassive face. Insch’s voice was like a graveyard. ‘It’s Constable Maitland,’ he said, and suddenly Logan could hear each and every drop of rain. ‘He’s dead.’