Dark Blood

17

A thin stream of misty rain fell through the gaping hole in the ceiling, sparkling in the harsh glare of the IB’s arc lights. Logan peered up through the severed joists at the heavy sky and the huge metal hook lowering down into the house.

Outside, the roar of the crane’s diesel engine had replaced the deafening judder of the jackhammers. So much for Isobel’s insistence that her crime scene wouldn’t become a building site. The foundations were too thick to cut through cleanly, so they’d had to excavate the rectangle she’d marked out on the concrete by hacking a foot-wide trench around it, the rubble all heaped up in the corner against a mound of pink Rockwool insulation.

Nearly a dozen IB technicians stood in little clumps around the outside of the room. A pair of them wandered the ground floor, one with a high-definition video kit, the other with a huge digital camera — its flash flickering in the confined space.

Two IB technicians threaded thick steel rope through four heavy eyelets bolted into Isobel’s concrete slab, then fiddled about with connectors and spanners, fitting a big metal ring to slip over the big metal hook.

DI Steel’s stale cigarette breath washed over Logan’s cheek. ‘Wish they’d get a shift on, I’m bursting for a slash.’

Logan shifted his feet, watching as the IB hooked the block up to the crane. ‘You think it’s him? Polmont?’

‘You’d better pray it is, amount of man-hours we’re wasting on this.’

‘Just seems a bit quick, doesn’t it? They kill him Monday, bury his body in the foundations…what, Monday night? Leave it to set. The soonest they can start building is Tuesday.’

He pointed at the house, the brick-clad ground floor, the gaping hole in the roof where the IB team had to cut away the joists. ‘How did they get all this built in four days?’

‘Kit houses, aren’t they — all prefabricated units. They’re no’ building the thing from scratch, just sticking it together like a big fuck-off Lego kit. Good team of builders, and you’d be moving in before the end of the week.’

‘Right, before we begin,’ Isobel took her place at the headend of the hooked-up slab, ‘I want you all to remember that any evidence we have here will be clinging to the underside of the concrete. Everything is to be collected and analysed.’

She nodded at one of the albino Smurfs, who unfurled a long sheet of the ubiquitous SOC blue plastic. Another Smurf grabbed the other end, then they both held up a thumb.

‘Norman?’

The tech with the HDTV camera squatted down, focussing on the jagged edge. ‘Rolling.’

‘You may begin.’

One of the IB team mumbled something into a bulky radio handset and the rumble of diesel got louder — the hook slowly pulled upwards, hauling the steel ropes tight. There was a loud crack, then the slab of chalked-up concrete juddered out of the foundations. It had to be at least three feet deep.

Smurf Number One shouted, ‘Hold it!’ and the crane’s engine eased off, the slab hanging two feet above the rest of the foundations. Then Smurfs One and Two slid the blue plastic sheet under the rectangle, pulling it tight. ‘OK…’

The engine roared again, and the block rose jerkily into the air, clumps of black-brown earth falling in stinking clumps.

The two cameras swarmed in, taking shots of the block’s underside. Clack, flash, whine…

A large chunk of sticky earth gave way, thumping down on the stretched plastic sheet, exposing a leg, dangling out of the concrete from the knee down. Blue jeans stained almost black. A battered Nike trainer, the filthy white plastic stained with dark brown blotches. A flash of ankle, porcelain white on one side, a tidemark of reddish-purple on the other with a smear of waxy-yellow — pressure pallor where the skin had been in contact with the ground, the cells and capillaries too compressed for blood to pool.

Definitely a body.

Thank Christ.

Isobel waved, and the slab jounced to a halt, swinging gently back and forth. She put a hand out and steadied it, then peered up at the underside. ‘Hmm…’

Steel hunched over, hands on her knees, looking at whatever Isobel was looking at. After a beat, Logan joined them.

Between the clumps of mud and concrete was the partial outline of a man, lying twisted, three-quarters hidden by the grey mass, that one leg dangling free. A thin trickle of yellow-green liquid spattered onto the blue plastic below. It smelled like meat left too long in the fridge.

‘So…’ Steel’s voice was muffled behind her mask. ‘You fancy declaring death so we can get this circus on the road?’

Isobel didn’t even look around. ‘We will proceed at the pace required for the proper preservation of evidence, Inspector. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d-’

‘You think it’s our bloke?’ Steel scooted forward, probably trying to get a better look, getting a face full of tumbling dirt instead. ‘Sodding monkey bollocks…’

One of the IB laughed — the sound quickly dying as Steel glowered around the room. Much shuffling of feet and looking at something else.

That last fall of dirt had exposed a hand, the fingers nearly white, the knuckles stained purple with hypostasis.

Logan stepped in close, staring at the grubby hand. A pair of small ragged holes punctured the palm, surrounded by dark purple bruising. Black earth and grey concrete were wedged in under the fingernails.

‘Sergeant.’ Isobel pushed him firmly to one side. ‘Please try to stay out of the way.’

‘He tried to claw his way out.’ Logan turned his back on the body. ‘He was still alive when they buried him.’