Shatter the Bones

Chapter 18

‘No, it’s definitely getting colder.’ Rennie shifted from foot to foot, tilted his head back and let out a long, huffing breath. A faint plume of white drifted up from his mouth. ‘See! Told you.’

‘Aye, very clever.’ Steel screwed up her face, peering into the line of dignitaries in through the front doors of the Kirk of St Nicholas, mobile phone clamped to her ear. ‘No’ you, sir… Aye… I think so too…’

A sea of faces filled the graveyard — everyone, packed in shoulder-to-shoulder all the way from the church to the ornate columned frontage that separated the grounds from Union Street. A row of orange traffic cones and ‘POLICE’ tape kept the crowd off the wide path to the church. There had to be at least a thousand people in here, probably more. Camera crews and photographers clumped together into little islands, training their lenses on the shuffling masses.

Rennie popped up onto his tiptoes. ‘See anyone famous yet?’

Logan ignored him. Almost everyone was wearing black, some clutching garish teddy bears, others floral tributes with the price stickers still on from Asda, Tesco, or the nearest petrol station.

‘Think they didn’t have time to go home and change?’ Rennie nodded, agreeing with himself. ‘Bet half of them are really disappointed Jenny’s not dead any more. Can’t mourn a wee girl if she’s still alive.’

‘Cynical bugger.’ Steel held her phone against her chest. ‘Ooh, is that no’ thingie off the telly? What is it, Eastenders?’

‘Where?’ Rennie bounced up and down. ‘God, it is! Wow. How cool is that? Look, he’s got Melanie from Corrie with him! MELANIE! MELANIE, YOU’RE BRILLIANT!’

‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Logan slapped him on the arm. ‘Will you grow up? Supposed to be a police officer.’

Rennie grinned. ‘Think we’ll get to meet them after the service?’

Steel stuck a finger in her ear, back on the phone again. ‘Aye, sorry sir, bit noisy here — got the telly on for the memorial service… Who’s looking into where the toe came from? … Oh.’ She drooped slightly. ‘No, no, I’m sure you know what you’re doing…’ She snapped her phone shut.

‘Surprised they’re still going through with it.’ Logan leant back against a lichen-covered headstone, the name barely legible on the weather-beaten granite. ‘What’s the point of having a memorial service when she’s not even dead?’

‘Too late to back out now. Look at it…’ Steel waved a hand, indicated the milling throng packing the graveyard, the TV crews, the huge screens and speakers. ‘Celebration of a wee girl’s life and all these famous buggers actually setting foot in Aberdeen for a change. They’re here anyway, what else they going to do, go down Codonas and play on the dodgems?’

‘Ooh, ooh! Look, it’s Robbie Williams!’ The only thing Rennie didn’t do was clap his hands as he jumped up and down. ‘ROBBIE!’

‘Next time, I’m not going to thump you, I’m going to knee you in the balls.’

Rennie’s face fell. ‘Inspector…?’

‘Don’t be such a jobbie, Laz. Rennie, you scurry off and wet your wee star-struck panties if you like.’

‘Thanks, Guv!’ Rennie pushed his way through the crowd, making for the progression of VIPs. ‘God, there’s the bloke off Cash In The Attic!’

Logan watched him go. ‘Next time we’re at the vet, I’m getting him fixed.’

‘Let the wee loon have some fun.’ She pulled out her fake cigarette, switched it on, and took a puff. ‘Finnie’s got a team going through all the missing kid reports, see if we can get a match on the toe. Bastards must’ve got it from somewhere.’

Logan shifted, the tombstone’s cold leaching through his suit jacket. ‘If it is a paedophile ring they might’ve had her for years…’ There was a comforting thought. ‘Might not even be local — they could’ve bought her off the Eastern Europeans.’ In which case they’d probably never know who she was. ‘Who’s SIO?’

Steel pulled her mouth down at the edges and took a long hard sook on the plastic cigarette. ‘McPherson.’

‘You’re kidding — they made McPherson Senior Investigating Officer? DI Disaster?’

‘All he’s got to do is go through the misper reports and get DNA samples. No’ even McPherson can screw that up.’ Another sook. ‘I hope…’

Rennie had shoved his way to the front of the crowd lining the path, waving his hands at someone Logan vaguely recognized from the TV.

‘I can’t believe they put McPherson in charge of a murder inquiry.’

‘Give it a rest, eh?’ DI Steel went for a dig in her armpit. ‘With any luck we’ll catch the bugger long before McPherson ruins…’ She pursed her lips. ‘There he is.’

‘Who?’

She pointed at a bald bloke with ridiculous sideburns and a pedestal-matt-style soul patch. Gordon Maguire — MD of Blue-Fish-Two-Fish Productions. Fancy black suit and expensive-looking T-shirt with a skull and crossbones on it. Sunglasses. Big cheesy grin.

He was waving to people as he strolled towards the church. Signing the occasional autograph.

‘You want to question him?’

‘Alternative line of enquiry, Laz. Watch and learn.’

‘You think he…’ Logan stared. Someone had ducked under the blue-and-white tape and out onto the path: a rumpled, chinless sack of skin with a big hooked nose. Michael Larson. The git from the Edinburgh Evening Post.

A photographer stumbled onto the path behind him. Click, flash, whirr, click…

‘Mr Maguire, is it true you obtained a dead girl’s toe in order to con people into buying your so-called “charity record”, when-’

‘Complete rubbish, we’re here to celebrate the fact that Jenny’s still alive.’ Maguire turned and pumped his fists in the air. ‘JENNY’S STILL ALIVE!’

A huge cheer.

‘Mr Maguire, your company-’

‘I think it’s disgusting that you’re exploiting this terrible tragedy to sell your sleazy newspaper. You should be ashamed of yourself. THE REST OF US ARE GOING TO FOCUS ON GETTING JENNY AND HER MUM BACK ALIVE! AREN’T WE?’

Another huge cheer.

The reporter glanced at his photographer — still snapping away — and back. ‘I put it to you, that you’re a heartless-’

‘NOTHING MATTERS MORE TO ME THAN JENNY AND ALISON’S SAFETY!’

Cheer.

Someone reached out and shoved Michael Larson, sending him lurching to the other side of the walkway, knocking over a traffic cone, where someone else shoved him back.

‘Get off me!’

Gordon Maguire stuck a hand in the middle of the reporter’s chest and pushed past. ‘WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR SLEAZY JOURNALISTS, DO WE?’

A resounding ‘NO!’ echoed back from the headstones. Logan shifted his feet, feeling for the little canister of pepper-spray in his pocket. ‘Inspector?’

‘Meh, not like Larson needs all his teeth anyway. A wee spanking might do the boy some good.’

The reporter was shoved again, this time hard enough to make him clatter to the ground. Then a grunt, as someone’s boot thumping into his ribs. Then another. Then a blister of people burst out onto the path, buckling the line of tape, hauling the reporter back between the graves, punches raining down onto his head and chest.

‘BASTARD!’

‘PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME SICK!’

‘FUCKIN’ HIT HIM!’

Steel sighed, then twisted the filter on her e-cigarette. ‘Suppose we better go do something.’ Stuck her hands in her pockets. Stared up at the clouds.

‘Fine…’ Logan dragged out his pepper-spray and shoved his way through the crowd. ‘POLICE! MOVE IT!’

By the time he’d fought his way to the path, Gordon Maguire was on his way again, smiling and waving at the crowd.

Logan pushed into the crowd on the other side. ‘BREAK IT UP!’

Feet thumped down on the reporter’s chest and head. He was curled on his side, arms covering his face, shrieking. ‘HELP ME!’

‘I SAID BREAK IT UP!’ People parted in front of Logan. Black suits, jeans, skirts, cargo-pants, forming a little ring around the groaning, bloody figure on the ground. Blood trickled from Larson’s ear, poured from his nose. His face was already beginning to swell.

‘Bunch of bastards…’ Logan squatted over the reporter. ‘You OK?’

A groan. A cough. A spatter of blood on trampled grass, a tooth glistening pink in a puddle of dark red.

That would be a no then. ‘You’re all under arrest…’ He looked up, but the faces around him had changed. They’d melted away into the crowd, blending in with everyone else dressed in funereal black. ‘All right, who did this?’ Logan stared at the wall of people surrounding Michael Larson. They stared at the ground, or the big display screens. Shuffled their feet. Not one of them looking at him or the battered reporter.

A clatter of heavy boots on paving stones and a uniformed officer appeared at Logan’s shoulder. ‘Jesus, he all right?’

‘Don’t just stand there — call a bloody ambulance.’

‘Oh my GOD!’ An oversized woman in a black miniskirt, clutched her chest. ‘Is that Ewan McGregor? EWAN! WE LOVE YOU!’ Jumping up and down like an ecstatic Labrador, while a man lay bleeding at her Doc-Martined feet.

By the time Larson was wheeled away on a stretcher the service was well underway.

The organizers had set up four huge screens in the St Nicholas Kirkyard, each one showing the action inside: a nondescript man in full Church of Scotland regalia, going on about peace and understanding, when all anyone outside seemed interested in was ogling the celebrity guests.

Logan elbowed his way through the crowds, back to the monument where he’d left DI Steel. She was leaning against the lichened granite, smoking her fake cigarette.

‘Aye, aye, save the day did you?’

Logan looked back over his shoulder. ‘Paramedics say he’ll probably be OK: concussion, fractured jaw, broken ribs. Maybe a dislocated shoulder.’

‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.’ She blew a little puff of vapour towards the heavens where grey clouds were spreading across the sky, like ink dropped on wet paper.

‘Where’s Rennie?’

She waved a hand in the general direction of the church. ‘Off worshipping at the altar of whatsherface from Girls Aloud.’

‘Skiving little-’

‘Oh, lighten up.’ She turned to face the nearest screen, where the minister was giving up the stage. ‘How often you get this in Aberdeen, eh?’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Robbie Williams, and Ms Katie Melua are going to sing for us…’

The speakers crackled and the church organ rang out through the speakers: the opening bars to Wind Beneath My Wings.

‘Oh Christ, not again!’

Close-up on Mr Williams and Ms Melua, microphones in hand.

Everyone in the graveyard was silent. The crowd seemed to be holding its breath for the first two verses, but as soon as the chorus started, they joined in.

Logan watched the woman who’d bellowed her love to Ewan McGregor, hands clutched over her massive bosom in full opera singer pose, warbling along with tears streaming down her cheeks. She wasn’t the only one. Half the crowd seemed to be wetting itself with emotion.

Then someone started in on the alternative lyrics and it spread like a cancer through the throng.

‘Can you believe…’ Logan turned to Steel, but she was singing along too.

What the hell was wrong with everyone?

When the service was over, Steel shoved her way to the front, warrant card out. ‘Come on, shift it: police business.’

As soon as Gordon Maguire appeared from the church, she dug Logan in the ribs. ‘Heads up.’

The producer was swaggering down the path, arms up over his head, giving everyone the victory Vs. Like a bald Richard Nixon. ‘YEAH! COME ON ABERDEEN!’

Cheers.

Logan pulled up the ‘POLICE’ tape and Steel ducked under, right in front of Maguire. He raised his hands. ‘Sorry, love, I can’t-’

‘We’d like a word.’ She stuck her warrant card under his nose. ‘Ah, right…’ He backed off a couple of paces. ‘Can it wait? I’m kinda in the middle of-’

‘Now, Mr Maguire.’

‘But I’ve got a plane to catch, it-’

‘Shall we?’ Logan took hold of Maguire’s elbow and steered him back inside, commandeering a small room just off the main entrance, lined with dark wood. It smelled of old wax and older cigarettes, light coming from a bare strip-light in the ceiling. Cardboard boxes were stacked in one corner, a display cabinet full of spider webs and dusty silver things opposite the door.

‘Look, is this going to take long? Only, like I said, I’ve got a plane-’

‘You’re no’ going anywhere till I say you are.’ Steel smiled at him. ‘You must be raking it in: all this publicity?’

Maguire shrugged. ‘I do OK.’

‘Aye, I’ll bet you do. What’s the fund up to now?’

He pulled out a packet of Silk Cut. ‘I don’t see how-’

‘No smoking.’ Logan took the cigarettes from him. ‘Answer the question.’

Maguire scowled. ‘Two-and-a-bit. Million. But it’s not like I get to see any of that, OK? It’s all downloads. Every penny goes into a marked account, and it’s for the ransom. I don’t even have access to it.’

Steel pursed her lips. ‘So what happens if we turn up Jenny and her mum, all safe and sound? What happens to your two-and-a-bit million then?’

Maguire cleared his throat, ran a hand across the back of his neck. ‘I suppose it’d go to charity … or something… After administrative deductions.’

‘Aye, I’ll bet it will.’

‘You can’t just-’

‘Is this all just a big PR stunt?’ Logan tossed the packet of Silk Cut from one hand to the other. ‘Did you set the whole thing up?’

Maguire took off his trendy glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Listen, OK? Yeah, the pre-orders for the album are huge, but if I don’t have Alison and Jenny, I can’t finish recording the bloody thing. We’ve got about half the tracks in the can and I’ve only got three weeks to get it done.’

‘Don’t-’

‘Three weeks — after that the bank call in my overdraft. We’ve sunk everything we’ve got into making Britain’s Next Big Star. Orchestras, backing choirs, classical scores, performance rights payments, cameras, crew, sets… The costs are suffo cating. But we can’t cut corners because we’re up against the X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, and the Search for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Next Whateverthefuck. If we pull it off, we make a sodding mint, but right now the whole production company’s sliding down a razorblade into liquidation using its ball-sack as a brake.’

Maguire ran a hand across his bald head. ‘And you’d think my investors would be rubbing their hands at all the publicity, wouldn’t you? But no, the thieving wankers are waiting for us to go under so they can step in and take a hundred percent, get some cheap-arsed Lithuanian company in to make the next series, and pocket the difference. You lot are lucky — there’s honour amongst thieves. TV companies are all bastards.’

Steel fiddled with her e-cigarette. ‘So you’re no’ the one who sent us a severed toe?’

He closed his eyes. ‘No. I didn’t send you a toe. Where the fuck would I get a toe from?’

‘You’ve done worse for a wee bit of publicity: like them tampons-’

‘It wasn’t even real blood! We dipped them in some fake stuff we got off the internet, OK? We’re a small company, we do everything we can to create a buzz. Alison and Jenny don’t need it — they’re going to win Britain’s Next Big Star… They were going to win. Fuck knows what’s going to happen now.’ He pinched his nose again. ‘Look, I want them back. If they come back, the ratings go through the roof, we finish the record, Blue-Fish-Two-Fish doesn’t have to go into receiver-ship, everyone makes a shit-pile of money, and we all live happily ever after.’

Steel scowled at him. ‘Aye, well, you know what I think? I think-’

The door banged open.

DCI Finnie stepped into the little room. Behind him, Logan could see Superintendent Green and Acting DI Mark MacDonald filling the corridor.

‘Inspector Steel,’ Finnie’s rubbery face pulled itself into something that wasn’t quite a smile, ‘I thought you were supposed to be tracking down a paedophile ring. Did I imagine that? Or have you somehow manage to miraculously work your way through every sex offender in Grampian in time for a jolly into town? Hmmm?’