Dying Light

5

There was something nasty sitting on Logan’s desk when he turned up for work on Wednesday morning. The search team had done as he’d asked, bagging and tagging each and every single used condom they could find in Shore Lane. And there were a hell of a lot of them; little slimy latex tubes oozing their contents out into individual evidence bags, all piled up in his in-tray. Grimacing, Logan scooped them all into a cardboard box, trying not to think about what was making the little bags so cold and clammy.

DI Steel didn’t turn up for the morning briefing, so the Screw-Up Squad just sat around their tables, drinking coffee and talking. Today’s topic was ‘Harry Potter: seminal moment in world cinema, or a load of old wank? Discuss.’ Logan left them to it, taking his box of used condoms down to the morgue where they could be frozen for future analysis. Procurators Fiscal: go figure.

He pushed through the large double doors, onto the sparkling clean tiled floor of the cutting room. There was no sign of yesterday’s rancid-barbecue reek. Instead everything smelled of formalin and pine disinfectant. Standing with her back to the doors was a familiar figure, prodding away at something in a bucket on the dissecting table. Logan’s heart sank even further.

‘Morning,’ he said and she turned to look at him.

Dr Isobel MacAlister, the Ice Queen, Chief Pathologist, ex-girlfriend, fellow victim. Looking a lot better than she had yesterday morning: her neatly bobbed hair held prisoner beneath a green surgical cap, the perfect bow of her lips hidden behind a green surgical mask. She blushed. As usual she was dressed like she’d just stepped off a catwalk: cream linen suit, silk blouse and tan leather boots, with an open white lab coat over the top. Golden jewellery trapped beneath the latex gloves. Obviously not getting ready to hack some poor sod up. ‘Good morning,’ awkward pause. ‘How are you?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Same old. You feeling any better?’

For a split second she looked puzzled, and then it clicked. ‘Oh, this morning...’ It was her turn to shrug. ‘Just a stomach bug.’

‘What, two days on the trot?’ he asked. ‘No pun intended.’

That almost got a smile. ‘Did you want something in particular, or are you just down here for a clip round the ear?’

‘Nope, official business...’ Logan turned and snuck a peek into Isobel’s bucket: a human brain, floating upside down in formalin, the preservative going slightly milky around the grey, whorled surface. Trying not to shudder, he popped his cardboard box up on the table next to the bucket. ‘Got a present for you.’

Isobel raised an eyebrow and dug out one of the little plastic evidence bags, holding it up to the light so she could see the slimy contents more clearly. A smile made her eyes sparkle. ‘How sweet,’ she said, ‘used contraceptives. And they say romance is dead...’ She rummaged about in the box. ‘There’s got to be a couple of hundred of them in here. You’ll go blind.’

It was Logan’s turn to blush. ‘They’re not mine. It’s the Rosie Williams case. These are all the condoms we could find in Shore Lane. They’re to be stored for DNA analysis.’

Isobel shook her head in disbelief. ‘Are you out of your mind? Do you know how long it’ll take to analyse the DNA from two hundred used condoms? It’ll cost a fortune!’

Logan held up his hands. ‘Don’t look at me; it’s that new deputy fiscal.’

Isobel sighed and snatched the box off the cutting table, muttering under her breath. She poured the lot into a large evidence bag, made Logan sign over the chain of evidence, and hurled the condoms into one of the specimen freezers. There wasn’t anything to say after that.

DI Steel rolled in at a quarter to eight, looking as if she’d slept in an ashtray. She yawned her way through a hastily reconvened morning briefing, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, before sending them all on their way with the usual benediction about not being at home to Mr Fuck-Up. Everyone except Logan. She had a job for him: they were off to look for Jamie McKinnon.

Outside Force HQ, the sun was shining happily down on Aberdeen from a clear blue sky. The inspector led the way out through the front doors and down onto Queen Street, not bothering to sign out one of the CID pool cars. Instead they wandered up Union Street, enjoying the late summer warmth. When the weather was miserable so was Aberdeen: grey buildings, grey skies, grey streets and grey people, but when the sun appeared everything changed. The Granite City sparkled and its inhabitants abandoned their anoraks, parkas and duffel coats in favour of jeans, T-shirts, and short summery dresses. But when a perky brunette tottered past in a tiny floral skirt and even tinier blouse, her bare stomach tanned a delicate shade of gold, DI Steel didn’t even look.

On the other side of the road a blonde, almost wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and a crop top, stopped to wave down a taxi, exposing more flesh in one go than the city had seen all year. Still no comment from the inspector. ‘You OK?’ asked Logan.

Steel shrugged. ‘Rough night. And before you ask: none of your business.’

Fine, thought Logan, sod you then.

Halfway up Union Street the wall of buildings was broken by Union Terrace Gardens, exposing a vista of vivid green all the way across to the glittering façade of His Majesty’s Theatre. The gardens were a rectangle of precipice-sided parkland, sinking way below street level. Steep grassy banks on two sides with huge beech trees clinging on precariously. A small bandstand sat at the bottom, sparkling with a fresh coat of paint. And on the far side the floral clock offered its multicoloured blooms to the cloudless sky and warm August sun. Picture-postcard time.

At the corner of Union Terrace a large white-marble statue of King Edward VII held court; his shoulders regally speckled with pigeon droppings. There was a row of benches in a semi-circle behind the king, there so his closest advisors could drink strong cider and lager, straight from the tin, at ten past nine on a Wednesday morning.

They were a fairly mixed bunch: one or two genuine tramps in the regulation filthy suit-trousers, stained vests and crusted sores, others in jeans and tatty leathers, defying the blazing sunshine. Steel cast her eye across the assembled early morning drinkers and pointed at a young woman with pierced ears, nose and lips, heavy black-and-white make-up and lank, pink hair. She was swigging from a tin of Red Stripe.

‘Morning, Suzie.’ The inspector flicked the last half-inch of her cigarette over the railing. ‘How’s your wee brother keeping these days?’

On closer inspection the girl wasn’t as young as Logan had first thought. Thirty-five if she was a day. That thick layer of white make-up was hiding a multitude of sins, and spots as well. Her face had a rough texture to it, the black-lipped mouth lined like a chicken’s bum. When she spoke her accent was broad Aberdonian. ‘Havenae seen the manky sod fer weeks.’

‘No?’ Steel flopped down on the bench next to her, smiling. She draped her arm across the back of the bench so it encircled the woman’s shoulders.

Suzie shifted uncomfortably. ‘You tryin’ tae poof me up?’ she asked.

‘You should be so bloody lucky. No: I want your wee brother. Where is he?’

‘How the fuck should I know?’ Suzie took a long swig at her lager. ‘Been shaggin’ that old whore of his.’

‘Funny you should mention that, Suzie, you see, that “old whore” turned up yesterday morning battered to death. And Jamie’s no’ exactly shy with his fists, is he?’

The girl stiffened. ‘Jamie didnae kill nobody.’ What the hell was Steel playing at? Logan could see the shutters coming down: they weren’t going to get anything out of her now! Steel should have played it cool, pretended it was nothing important, not gone charging in with both bloody feet! No wonder she was in charge of the Screw-Up Squad.

‘Tell you what,’ said Steel, handing over a dog-eared Grampian Police business card. ‘You have a wee think about it and give me a call, OK?’ She stood and lit another cigarette, coughing as the smoke worked its way into her lungs.

Suzie told the inspector exactly what she could do with her business card, threw back the last of her lager, and stormed off.

Logan waited until the girl was out of earshot. ‘Why did you tell her Rosie was dead? She’s never going to tell us where Jamie is now!’

DI Steel’s smile became predatory. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Mr Police Hero. She’s going to tell us exactly where he is. She just doesn’t know it yet.’ The inspector stood up on her tiptoes, following Suzie McKinnon’s progress up Union Street. ‘Come on then, we don’t want to lose her.’ She marched straight across the street, narrowly missing getting squashed by a bus, with Logan in nervous pursuit. On the other side of the road she clambered into the passenger seat of an illegally parked Vauxhall. DC Rennie was behind the wheel, wearing a pair of trendy sunglasses, and as soon as Logan was ensconced in the back, they were off.

They spotted Suzie easily enough — her black leather get-up and pink hair stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the summer clothes — she crossed the road, just shy of the Music Hall’s Doric columns, hurrying off down Crown Street. Rennie kept well back, trying not to look like a kerb crawler. Ten minutes later they were parked opposite a basement flat in Ferryhill. The street wasn’t in the best of shapes, a collection of pothole pockmarks and different coloured patches of tarmac making it look like Frankenstein’s monster with acne. A rusty old Ford Escort was dying at the kerbside, bleeding oil. A quick PNC check confirmed it belonged to one James Robert McKinnon. Steel smiled at Logan. ‘Do you want me to say, “I told you so” now or later?’

The door to the building wasn’t locked, so Logan and DI Steel pushed straight through to the stairs leading down to the basement apartment. DC Rennie stayed out front, in case Jamie tried to do a runner.

Down in the mildew-smelling corridor Steel was just about to knock when a thought occurred to her. ‘Are you up to this?’ she asked Logan. ‘What with your Achilles stomach and all.’

‘It was nearly two years ago!’ he hissed. ‘I’m fine.’ Liar. The scars on his stomach still hurt when the weather changed, or he bent down too quickly.

DI Steel knocked gently on the door, putting on a Fife accent to ask if Jamie had seen her cat. A key rattled in the lock and a stressed-looking man, wearing a rumpled Burger King uniform, opened the door. Spiky, bleached-blond hair, bloodshot eyes, slightly overweight, podgy nose, daft little beard thing clinging on to the end of his chin for dear life.

‘I haven’t seen any bloody...’ His eyes went wide. ‘Shite!’ And the door was slammed shut. Or would have been if DI Steel didn’t have her boot jammed into the gap. She swore as the wood mashed into her foot and Jamie McKinnon bolted back into the flat.

‘Ayabastard!’ Hopping in the corridor, Steel clutched her injured foot while Logan charged past, through into a grotty hallway. A door at one end of the hall led to the lounge — Suzie was standing in the middle of the room, a fresh tin of Red Stripe in her hand and a shocked expression on her face. No sign of Jamie. Logan spun around to see the door to a filthy little bathroom lying open, and at the far end the door to the kitchen bouncing off the wall and swinging itself shut again.

Cursing, he sprinted for the kitchen. Why couldn’t Jamie have made a break for the front, where DC Rennie could have clobbered him one? He burst through the door just in time to see Jamie’s backside disappearing through the open kitchen window. The back door was blocked by an ancient washing machine, so Logan had no choice but to clamber through the window after him, and up a small set of steps into the back garden. Jamie was hoofing it hell for leather across the yellowing grass, towards the six-foot-high back wall, where the buildings backed onto the next row of tenements. Gritting his teeth, Logan chased after him.

For once luck was on Logan’s side; as Jamie got within lunging distance of the wall his feet tangled in the trailing end of a clothesline. He went down hard, banging his face on a huge, abandoned red plastic fire engine. Swearing, he clasped a hand over his nose — blood welling up between his fingers — and struggled to his feet. Just in time for Logan to tackle him and send them both sprawling to the scabby-yellow grass again.

The impact was enough to set the scar tissue screaming across Logan’s stomach, leaving him hissing in pain while Jamie scrambled to his feet and jumped for the back wall. He had one leg over the top when Logan grabbed the other one and yanked him back into the garden. Jamie’s chin caught the top of the wall, snapping his head back as he clattered straight down into the rosebush growing at the bottom, breaking the fall with his face, sending pink petals flying.

Breathing hard, Logan jumped on him, twisted Jamie’s arm up behind his back and snapped on the handcuffs. As the swearing started, Logan slumped against the wall and tried to convince himself that his stomach didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as it really did. When the pain finally settled down, he hauled Jamie to his feet.

Burger King weren’t going to be too happy about the state of their uniform. Blood ran freely from Jamie’s squashed nose and torn lip, his face a network of thin scratches that oozed red. He looked as if he’d done ten rounds with Mike Tyson’s cat. Swearing, he spat a mouthful of blood out into the rosebush. ‘You made me bite my fuckin’ tongue!’

‘Jesus, Logan,’ said Steel when he finally dragged Jamie back into the basement flat. ‘I told you to arrest him, not beat the crap out of him.’

Something sly weaselled its way onto Jamie’s face. ‘Aye, he beat me up! Police brutality! I want my lawyer! I’m gonnae sue you bastards for all you’re worth!’

Steel told him to shut his mouth. Suzie was sat on the edge of a tatty settee, worrying at an ever-expanding hole in the cushion with her finger, exposing the plaque-yellow foam rubber. She wouldn’t look at anyone.

‘You silly bitch.’ Jamie spat out another mouthful of blood onto the carpet. ‘You led them straight here!’

Suzie just kept on digging.

‘Right then, Sunshine.’ Steel pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and lit one up, dribbling the smoke contentedly down her nose. ‘You don’t mind if we take a little peek round your place do you?’

‘Yes I fuckin’ well do mind!’

Steel’s smile got bigger. ‘Well tough shite,’ cos I’ve got a warrant.’ She flicked a little nub of grey ash from the end of her fag onto the coffee table. ‘Anything you want to tell us before we go a-wandering?’ Silence. ‘No?’ More silence. ‘You sure?’ Outside a truck rumbled past. ‘OK, you’re the boss.’

Of course Steel didn’t do any of the actual searching herself. Not when she had a detective sergeant and a detective constable to do it for her. They found two small wrappers of heroin, a half-empty box of disposable needles and a lump of cannabis resin the size of a Mars Bar. It was Logan who found the box full of uniforms in the bedroom cupboard.

Back in the lounge he asked Jamie how his career in the fast-food industry was going. Jamie scowled back at him. The nosebleed was drying up, leaving a crust of reddish-brown across the lower half of his face, making his little goatee as spiky as his bleached hair. ‘I’m going straight, OK?’ he said. ‘Keepin’ out of trouble.’

‘At Burger King?’

‘Yes at fuckin’ Burger King.’

‘Well then,’ said Logan, pulling the cardboard box out from behind his back. ‘You must be a hardworking little bunny! Flipping all those burgers at Burger King.’ He pulled out another uniform. ‘McDonald’s,’ another uniform, ‘the Tasty Tattie,’ another uniform... There were work clothes from half a dozen fast-food places in Aberdeen, each one of them complete with ‘HI MY NAME IS’ badges, none of which read ‘JAMES MckINNON’.

DI Steel looked confused, so Logan spelt it out for her: ‘Jamie’s the one been helping himself to tills all over town. Turns up in uniform, no one pays any attention to the new boy. After all: who puts on one of these things for fun? He cleans out the till after the lunchtime rush, and gets changed to do the next place.’

DI Steel dropped her cigarette to the floor, grinding it out against the carpet. ‘Aye, very good, Sherlock,’ she said, sounding completely unimpressed. ‘But we’ve got bigger fish to fry. James Robert McKinnon, I’m detaining you on suspicion of the murder of Rosie Williams.’

Jamie started shouting that he hadn’t killed anyone, but Steel wasn’t listening. She just finished reciting his rights then told Rennie to frogmarch the suspect to the car. And all the time, Jamie’s sister stared at the carpet, picking at the hole in the settee.

‘And, Suzie, thanks for your help,’ said Steel with a wink. ‘Couldn’t have done it without you.’