Shatter the Bones

Chapter 27

Logan pulled out his pepper-spray, and popped the top off. He crept over to the rocking wardrobe. Grabbed the wooden handle. Threw it wide open. ‘You enjoying Narnia then, Shug-’

Something slammed into Logan’s stomach and he went staggering backwards. Then over, the room flipping through ninety degrees, and then thump. Flat on his back. Cold, sharp pain, as if six-inch metal screws were being twisted into his guts.

A small bare foot flashed past Logan’s nose. A hand, a blue sleeve. The rancid piddly smell of stale clothes, left too long in the washing machine. Scrabbling, swearing, then the slapping sound of naked feet on floorboards.

Logan shot a hand out, groping… Not finding anything. He rolled over onto his side, forced himself upright and lurched to the bedroom door. It sounded as if there were snakes in the hallway below — hissing and writhing. He stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the wallpaper for support.

There was a little boy sitting on the bottom step, wearing grubby Ben 10 pyjamas, clutching his feet in both hands.

‘Ricky?’

The kid stood, limped, collapsed against the battered sofa poking out from the lounge door. A set of bloody footprints followed him across the glass-strewn carpet.

‘There you go.’ Logan clunked a tin of Irn-Bru down on the bare floorboards at the side of the mattress.

Ricky Brown wrapped his arms around his knees, face set in a line much harder than the two crusted streaks beneath his nose. He turned his head away.

‘How’s the feet?’

The response was too mumbled to make out.

Logan pulled up his tatty left trouser leg, showing off three parallel lines of scabs. ‘See, you’re not the only one.’

Ricky picked at a loose thread on the ribbons of towel Logan had wrapped around the little boy’s feet. The soles slowly soaking through in shiny red patches.

‘Where’s your mum, Ricky?’

A shrug. ‘Went out.’

Aha, so he could speak after all. ‘You know where she went?’

He shook his head, little more than a twitch. ‘Said someone killed Dad’s dog.’

‘Shuggie Webster’s your dad?’

‘This week.’ Another thread unravelled from the improvised bandage.

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘Mum went to get food and that.’ Pause. ‘You going to arrest me?’

Logan forced a laugh. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘Gran says it’s what you pig bastards do. You arrest people what haven’t done nothing wrong.’

‘No, Ricky, I’m not going to arrest you.’ He held out the Irn-Bru. ‘Did your mum say when she’s going to be back?’

‘Gran says you arrest people and you shag them up the arse. ’Cos you’re all paedos and poofs.’

‘Yeah, your granny sounds like a bundle of laughs.’ Logan cracked the ringpull off the tin, and helped himself to a swig. ‘Your mum and dad are messed up with some very bad people, Ricky. Now, I can help, but I need to know where they are.’

Silence. ‘Don’t you want your mum and dad to be safe?’

Ricky shifted his feet, leaving a red smear on the duvet cover.

‘OK, well, if you’re sure.’ Logan knocked back another gulp, then set the tin down back on the floor. ‘Right, I know a nice doctor who’ll fix you up, then we’ll see if we can find someone to look after you.’

‘She’s coming back for me.’

‘Never said she wasn’t.’

‘She told me last night.’

‘Yeah, well we’ll…’ Frown. ‘Last night? You’ve been on your own since last night? In the wardrobe?’

‘Said she’d come back soon as it was safe.’

And the nominees for ‘Mother of the Year’ are…

Logan stood. ‘You think you can walk, or do you want me to give you a piggy back?’

Ricky looked up at him, then away again. He gripped a handful of duvet cover. ‘Are you going to shag me up the arse?’

‘Wasn’t top of my agenda, no.’

A nod. ‘Can you carry me then?’

Logan knocked on the doorframe. The paintwork was chipped and peeling, a thick grey line halfway up marking where countless trolleys had bashed their way through. ‘Shop?’

The mortuary was nearly twice the size of the one in the basement of FHQ, done in sparkling white-and-blue tiles, like a swimming pool. A little speaker system sat on a shelf by the refrigerated drawers, Dr Hook’s Sexy Eyes echoing slightly in the antiseptic space.

‘Hello?’ A head appeared from a door at the back of the room — ginger curls bobbing as she wheeled a mop and bucket into the cutting room, white mortuary clogs squeaking on the floor. She smiled. ‘Sergeant McRae, we’ve not had you here for a while. Picking up, or dropping off?’

‘They got you mopping up now? You not a bit overqualified for that?’

‘Fred’s off sick, so we’re all chipping in.’ The Anatomical Pathology Technician hauled the mop out of the bucket and slopped it across the tiles, making little streams rush along the grout. ‘How’s Sheila? She still channelling Vincent Price?’

‘Three weeks to go.’ He limped into the room. ‘Wanted to ask you a question.’

‘What happened to your leg?’

‘Rottweiler. Look, I’ve only got a minute — have you had any dead children in recently? Girls. Between four and eight years old?’

‘I had a neighbour with a Rottweiler, lovely big lump it was. Broke her heart when it got cancer.’ The APT dumped the mop back in the mangle bit of the bucket and hauled the handle down, squeezing out the dirty water. ‘Hop up on the table and I’ll take a look.’

Logan looked at the stainless-steel table, the one with guttering around the edges, and a water supply to rinse away the blood. ‘I’m… Nah, it’s OK. I’m fine.’

‘Oh come on.’ She smiled. ‘Never lost a patient yet.’

‘Ever saved one?’

A sigh. ‘That’s a good point.’ She leant the mop against the wall, then crossed to a laptop sitting on its own on an expanse of shining worktop. ‘Little girls between four and eight…’ Her fingers clicked across the keys. ‘Am I allowed to ask why?’

There’s no need to sound so dramatic, Sergeant. Where do you think the kidnappers got the thing from, Toes R Us?

‘Was sitting upstairs, waiting for them to put a dozen stitches in a wee boy’s feet, and I thought — where would you get a dead little girl’s toe from?’

‘Lovely.’ She shook her head, Irn-Bru curls swaying. ‘So when you think of dead little girls: I’m the one who springs to mind?’

‘Have you had any? Over the last two or three weeks? They’d have been given morphine and thiopental sodium.’

She leant her head closer to the laptop’s screen. ‘That narrows it down a bit… Here we go: female, five-year-old, brought in suffering from abdominal pains. Died on the operating table.’ A sigh. ‘Poor wee soul.’

The song on the stereo changed to All the Time in the World. Logan limped over. ‘Could we do a DNA test? See if the toe they sent us was hers?’

‘I remember her now. Such a pretty little girl. When we opened her up she was riddled with cysts and cancer… Five years old.’

‘You’d have tissue samples though, right? We could-’

‘It’s not her.’

‘But if we check-’

‘It’s not her.’ The APT stepped back and pointed at the screen.

A photograph filled the right-hand side next to a list of post mortem notes: a little girl, lying on the cutting table, eyes taped closed, the breathing tube still in her mouth. Her skin was the colour of dusty slate, all the blood and life leached out of it.

The APT closed the laptop with a click. ‘There’s no way they could pass a toe from her off as coming from a little white girl.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Deep breaths. Stay calm.

‘Then what did you mean, Sergeant?’ Superintendent Napier steepled his fingers, then rested his chin on the point. He smiled, dark eyes wide behind his glasses. His desk was arranged so that his back was to the window, meaning the chair reserved for visitors, supplicants, and sacrificial offerings, faced into the sun. The light made a fiery halo of Napier’s ginger hair, his black dress uniform a solid silhouette against the bright blue sky.

Logan squinted. ‘There just didn’t seem to be an opportunity to call it in. After I banged my head…’ He reached up and rubbed a spot behind his ear, just to sell the lie.

‘Ah yes. Of course. Detective Constable Rennie mentioned … where are we?’ The superintendent picked a sheet of paper from his in-tray and peered at it down his long pointy nose. ‘“He was acting all confused and had difficulty remembering the end of sentences, when I collected him. I believe he may have been concussed.”’ The paper went back in the tray. ‘A more cynical man might think you’d cooked that up between you to deflect the blame, don’t you think, Sergeant?’

‘When was the last time you were attacked by a Rottweiler?’ Or battered to death with your own office chair?

‘And I suppose it was this alleged “concussion” that made you twenty minutes late for our appointment?’ Napier swivelled from side to side, sunlight flaring in Logan’s eyes: shadow, bright, shadow, bright. ‘We’ve not had to deal with you for several months, Sergeant, but I see from Chief Inspector Young’s notes that you were in here only yesterday. Twice in two days. Are you embarking upon some kind of record attempt?’

‘They were trumped up charges by-’

‘Someone allegedly trying to extort drugs from you. Yes, I do actually read the case files of the officers I deal with, Sergeant. And a little birdie tells me that you’re having interpersonal difficulties with Chief Inspector Green from SOCA?’

Did the bastard hire a publicist? ‘We had a frank exchange of views, yes.’

‘Did you now?’ Napier swivelled again. ‘We disagreed about what was and wasn’t acceptable behaviour when interviewing sex offenders. Green thinks it’s OK to put the fear of God in them and threaten to tell their colleagues.’

‘I see…’ He sat forward, blocking out the sun. ‘So, would you say that Superintendent Green was less than receptive to Grampian Police’s thorough and rigorous approach to offender management? That he disregarded best working practice? Was contemptuous of it?’ There was that smile again, the one that made him look like a shark, about to tear into a paddling pool full of orphans.

‘Er…’ Logan was getting set up for something. ‘It was … a non-standard situation that … may have caused some confusion on his part.’

Napier raised an eyebrow. ‘I shall, of course, attempt to smooth out any difficulties in understanding. It’s important that we all get on with our colleagues from the Serious Organized Crime Agency, don’t you think?’

‘…Yes?’

The superintendent picked a silver pen from his desktop, rolled it back and forth between his fingers as if it were a shiny joint. Then returned it to its rightful place, lining it up perfectly with the edge of a desk calendar. ‘Well,’ he stuck out a hand for Logan to shake, ‘thank you for coming in, Sergeant. It’s been most … informative.’

That’s it — he was screwed.

It would just take a while to find out why, and exactly how badly.

‘Well, if you’d hold still for two minutes I wouldn’t have to, would I?’ Dr Delaney shifted her grip on Logan’s ankle. She had fingers like pliers, digging into the skin and muscle, the purple nitrile gloves pulling out leg hairs every time she moved.

‘Ow!’

‘Oh don’t be such a baby.’ She wiped a disinfectant-soaked pad across the dark-red teeth-marks again, rubbing away the scabs. Setting them bleeding again. ‘When was your last tetanus shot?’

‘No idea.’

‘You’re a silly sod. Lucky we don’t get a lot of rabies in Scotland — the needles are massive.’

Sharp, stinging pain tore up his leg. He gritted his teeth, tried not to flinch.

‘If you don’t hold still, you’re going to get gangrene and your foot’ll fall off. Is that what you want?’ She rubbed more disinfectant into the wounds.

‘Did you do a check-up on Ricky Brown?’

‘Pass me the pack of gauze.’ She tore the plastic packet open with her teeth. ‘He wasn’t exactly the most cooperative of patients.’

Dr Delaney laid a square of gauze across the huge gouges in Logan’s ankle. ‘Barely a scratch, I don’t know why you’re being such a whinge about it.’

‘He going to be OK?’

‘Nothing a decent meal and a bath wouldn’t sort out. Hospital did an excellent job on his stitches. I’ve got suits with worse needlework in them.’ She wrapped a bandage around the ankle, securing it with a claw-toothed metal thing on the end of a bit of elastic. ‘And I bet he made a lot less fuss than you did.’

‘Thanks Doc.’ Logan hopped down from the desk, then picked up his bloodstained sock and soggy shoe.

‘One more thing.’ She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I’m recommending they take him into permanent care. A family full of drug users is bad enough, but if his mum and … this Shuggie person are involved with Yardies…’

Logan limped back to his desk, popped open the top drawer and stuck his newly-washed coffee mug and teaspoon inside, then locked them away. That was the trouble with working in a police station — all the thieving bastards.

Biohazard Bob swivelled his seat around until he was facing the middle of the room. ‘Beer o’clock?’

‘Can’t.’ Doreen stayed hunched over her desk. ‘Superintendent Green wants details on every kidnapping in the area, going back five years.’

‘Logie the Bogie?’

Logan switched off his computer. ‘Green needs taking out and shot. He’s got me digging out the same info for the last ten. I’ve got Rennie doing it now.’

Doreen hunched her shoulders, grinding out the words, ‘Why — didn’t — you — say — that — three — hours — ago?’

Biohazard poked the power button on his computer. ‘Well, another day spent hunting the elusive Stinky Tam has left me gasping for a pint.’ He picked up the slew of paperwork covering his desk, ruffled it into something approaching order, and jammed it in his pending-tray. ‘Anyone seen my stapler?’

He hauled open his top desk drawer. ‘The hell’s this?’ Bob pulled out the pair of knickers Logan had stuffed in there last week — the ones he’d found clothespegged to his lamp along with all the socks.

Bob turned them back and forth, flashing the brown streaks that covered the gusset. ‘Aye, aye, someone’s been a bittie manky.’

Doreen straightened her back, pink rushing up her cheeks. ‘Well, don’t look at me!’

The door banged open and DI Steel grumbled into the Wee Hoose. ‘Sergeant Marshall, why aren’t…’ She frowned. ‘What are you doing?’

He twirled the skidmarked panties around his finger. ‘Just discussing personal hygiene with DS Taylor, here. Superintendent Green’s never going to want to jump in her pants if she’s left filthy bumscrapes-’

Doreen hit him. ‘Detective Sergeant Robert Marshall, I’m warning you!’

‘Behave, the pair of you.’ Steel chucked a manila folder at Bob. ‘General Enquiry Division just turned up a body on Gairn Terrace.’

‘Yeah?’ He pulled out the paperwork, flipped through it. ‘I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow, Guv, it’ll…’ A sigh. ‘Shite.’ He held up a photograph — a man’s face: nose bloated like a pockmarked golf ball, scraggly beard full of bits, unkempt hair, dirty red Aberdeen Football Club bobble hat. ‘Stinky Tam.’

‘Aye, so get your filthy panty-whirling arse out there and bring the poor bastard in.’

Bob went pink. ‘Yes, Guv.’ He hurried out the door, taking the folder with him.

‘And as for you,’ she turned and poked Logan with a finger, ‘what the hell were you thinking?’

Doreen stood. ‘Well, I guess I should really be off-’

‘No’ so fast.’ Steel slammed her hand into the doorframe, blocking the way. ‘You tell your new boyfriend Green, I don’t need somebody running around checking my work like I’m a bloody probationer. And if I catch him spreading shite around about anyone on my team again, I’m going to jam my fist so far up his arse I’ll be working him like a fucking Muppet. Understand?’

Doreen nodded. Steel lowered her hand and the DS crept out.

Steel closed the door, slowly and quietly. Now it was just her and Logan.

‘If you’re planning on shouting at me, don’t bother.’ Logan picked his jacket off the back of his seat and pulled it on. ‘I got enough of that from Napier and Finnie. I thought I could get the car back before anyone found out.’

She poked him again. ‘If you’d bloody well called it in we could’ve tracked the car and grabbed Shuggie Webster before the Yardies got him! Probably hacked into a million pieces by now!’

‘It’s not like I handed him the keys to the bloody car and said, “Nah, you go ahead and borrow it, mate; I’ll just lie here in the pissing rain!” His dog nearly ripped my face off.’

‘See, you’ve got to keep your eye on wee shites like Shuggie.

Got to keep them under control. Can’t bury your head in the clouds and expect them to behave themselves. That’s just common sense.’ She picked up her mug again, took a slurp. ‘You try a GSM trace?’

‘Of course I did. He’s only turning his mobile on for a couple of minutes at a time, then moving.’

‘No’ as daft as he looks.’ She sucked at her teeth for a bit, staring off into the middle distance. ‘Get a car organized.’

‘But the shift finished-’

‘We’re going to sort out your cock-up before it gets any worse.’