Shatter the Bones

Chapter 9

They pushed through the double doors into the custody area — a bare concrete floor, breezeblock walls, ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?’ posters, the smell of old sweat and stale biscuits.

A shrill, jagged, cry echoed down the corridor: ‘I want a fucking doctor!’

The reply sounded as if it was being spat between gritted teeth: ‘If you don’t quiet down-’

‘I’M FUCKING DYING!’

Logan turned the corner to the cell block. A Police Custody and Security Officer was peering through the hatch of number five, hands on her hips, white shirt rucked up at the back. One epaulette nearly torn off. Hairdo all skewed to one side. ‘You don’t need a doctor, you need a good kick up the-’

‘Morning Kathy.’ DI Steel paused on the way past to slap the PCSO on the bum.

‘Hoy!’ Kathy glowered, both cheeks deep pink, eyes scrunched into narrow slits. Then she saw Logan. ‘You!’

He backed off a step. ‘What?’

‘This,’ she slapped a palm against the cell door, ‘is your fault. Trisha Brown — hospital turfed her out half an hour ago and she’s-’

‘RAPE! I’VE BEEN RAPED! HELP!’

‘Do you see what I’ve got to put up with?’

‘I’M DYING!’

‘Shut up!’ Kathy hit the door again. ‘I want her interviewed and out of here now!’

Logan held up his hands. ‘It’s McPherson’s case — he’s supposed to be interviewing the lot of them this afternoon.’

‘This afternoon? I’m not-’

‘I’M DYING IN HERE, YOU FUCKS!’

‘Christ’s sake!’ The PCSO hauled the hatch open. ‘Will you bloody shut it for five minutes!’

Steel glanced at the floor. ‘You’ve sprung a leak.’

Logan followed her gaze, down to where a clear yellow puddle was seeping out from beneath the cell door and pooling around the PCSO’s sensible shoes.

‘Agh, you filthy cow!’ She danced back a couple of steps, leaving damp footprints on the concrete.

They left her to it.

The Wee Hoose smelled of egg sandwiches left in the sun for too long, but Sergeant Biohazard Bob Marshall was nowhere to be seen.

‘I can’t — I’ve got a team briefing in half an hour.’ Logan shifted his mobile from one ear to the other and settled into his seat, then froze, staring at his desk lamp. Someone had attached three socks and a pair of pale-grey lady’s knickers to the metal shade with clothes-pegs.

Ha-bloody-ha.

DI McPherson’s voice had that petulant sound kids used when their mums were dragging them past the sweetie aisle in the supermarket: ‘But I don’t know what you arrested them for! How can I interview them if-’

‘It was your operation: read the report.’ Logan hauled the socks off his lamp, dumped them on the floor.

‘But I can’t-’

‘And I’m not here this afternoon, anyway. You’ll have to do it yourself.’

He reached for the pants, then stopped. Grabbed a blue nitrile glove from the big box by the door and used it to pull the pants from their peg. A thick brown skidmark ran the length of the gusset. He curled his top lip.

‘Filthy bastards…’

‘What?’

‘No, not you, Guv; someone else.’ He almost dropped the grubby knickers in the bin, then turned and stuffed them in Bob’s top drawer instead. See how he liked it.

McPherson moaned for a bit, but eventually got the point and hung up. Logan slumped back in his seat, blinking up at the ceiling tiles. Be nice to just snooze for a couple of minutes. Not that there was any way in hell he’d risk it, not with Finnie storming around the place like an angry bull-frog.

Nothing for it, but to try and get some work done. He poked the power button on his creaky beige computer, listening to it bleep and groan and whir. Then the speakers made that psychic durrrrrrrrum-durrrrrrrrum-durrrrrrrrum buzz that meant his mobile was about to ring.

Sodding hell. What now?

But when the call came through the phone played the metal-chicken rendition of Lydia the Tattooed Lady Samantha had programmed into it for whenever she called.

‘Hey, you.’

‘Logan? How come you’re not home yet? Big day: you better not be getting cold feet on me!’

‘Two guesses.’

‘Oh for… You’re in work, aren’t you? You do know the Church’s booked for half one?’

‘Yes, but-’

‘Half one. On the dot.’

‘Had to sort out a PM for Jenny McGregor’s toe, and-’

‘Don’t make me drag you out of there, ’cause I will.’

‘Doc Fraser says she’s dead.’

Silence. ‘Shit… I’m sorry.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Logan glanced up at the poster on the wall: ‘HAVE YOU ANY INFORMATION?’ The photo was a smiling mother and daughter, standing on Aberdeen beach, caught in a shaft of golden light, the cold grey swell of the North Sea foam-flecked and angry behind them. Now it was only a matter of time before the bodies turned up.

‘Anyway, yes: half one. I’ll be there, OK?’

‘Good. Love you.’ And the line went dead.

He checked his watch — just gone eleven — then his email. Memo; directive; memo; Sheriff Court times for everyone arrested last night at Shuggie Webster’s house; general update on the hunt for Jenny and Alison McGregor’s kidnappers; details of the emergency media briefing at half three; an invitation to PC Henderson’s leaving bash-

A knock on the door.

Logan looked up from his screen to see Acting DI Mark MacDonald, clutching a little parcel — about the size of a hardback book.

Logan nodded. ‘Guv.’

MacDonald cleared his throat. ‘Look, it’s been a bastard of a week…’ He clunked the door shut behind him and settled on the edge of his old desk, one finger tracing a figure-of-eight on the laminate wood surface. He held out the parcel. ‘Peace offering?’

Logan unwrapped the brown paper. There was a brass plaque inside, mounted on a dark wooden plinth: ‘THE WEE HOOSE’. A couple of screws and rawlplugs were Sellotaped to the back.

‘I thought it could, you know: go on the wall outside.’

‘Thanks.’

MacDonald nodded. Then sagged. ‘Fuck me, being a DI is a pain in the arse. You don’t want to swap do you?’

‘Do I hell.’

‘When it was Doreen’s turn, what did she get? Two attempted murders and a run of unlawful removals. Three sodding months, Bill got nothing but break-ins. Me? I get the fucking McGregors.’ He tugged at the edges of his goatee beard. ‘It’s not bloody fair.’

Logan powered his computer down again. ‘Never is.’

‘Sure you don’t want to take your turn early?’

‘Sorry, Mark — got a briefing to go to.’

‘Three month job-share trial period my arse.’ He picked the plaque up from Logan’s desk. Held it against his chest. ‘You remember how Insch used to take his pulse the whole time? Stick two fingers to his throat whenever he was going purple? I don’t need to do that. I can hear the bloody thing pounding in my ears.’

‘All right, that’s enough.’ Finnie stood at the front of the room with his hands up, until silence settled across the crowd again. Everyone involved in the investigation was jammed into FHQ’s major incident room, the biggest in the building: CID, uniform, and support staff perched on chairs and desks, staring. The top brass sat at the front with Finnie, looking as if they were on their way to a funeral — Chief Superintendent Baldy Bain, the Assistant Chief Constable, the Deputy Chief Constable, and God himself — Chief Constable Anderson — all done up in full dress regalia, their silver buttons polished to a mirror shine.

One of the admin officers stuck up her hand.

Finnie stared at her for a moment. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you sure she’s dead?’

The head of CID pursed his lips. ‘No, I just made that bit up, because I thought it would be a fun excuse to get everyone together so we could plait each other’s hair! Anyone have any other stupid questions?’

The admin officer went pink and lowered her hand. Finnie scowled around the room. ‘We are now investigating the abduction and murder of a six-year-old girl, and the abduction of her mother. Media briefing’s at half three; Chief Superintendent Bain will be making the announcement about Jenny’s death. I’m sure the media will do its usual sterling job of appealing for calm and reasoned reflection at this diffi cult time, but just in case: Acting DI MacDonald, you are now in charge of crowd control. I don’t want some journalistic toss-pot using this to whip up a riot, understand?’

Logan watched Mark squirm in his seat.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And I want every chiz handler we’ve got, out there pulling in their sources — someone, somewhere has to know something. DI McPherson, you can handle that.’

Which was bloody doubtful, McPherson could barely handle tying his own shoelaces. But at least this would keep him out of trouble: Covert Human Intelligence Sources were OK for burglaries and low-level drug trafficking, but whoever snatched Alison and Jenny McGregor weren’t going to brag about it over a pint in Dodgy Pete’s, were they?

Finnie pointed at the crumpled mess sitting next to Logan. ‘DI Steel will be coordinating with all the other forces in the UK. Just because they were snatched in Aberdeen, doesn’t mean they’re being held here.’ Finnie turned to his boss, Chief Superintendent Baldy Bain. ‘Sir?’

Bain stood, gave the standard motivational — we’re all in this together/everyone’s depending on us/justice for Jenny — speech. Then he turned and nodded at the newcomer, sitting with the bigwigs. ‘Right: we have Superintendent Green from the Serious Organized Crime Agency with us. Superintendent, I think you want to say a few words?’

‘Thanks.’ He got to his feet and flashed them a smile, straight white teeth and furrowed brow. ‘Before we go any further I just want you all to know that SOCA isn’t here to tell you how to do your jobs, or take the investigation away from Grampian Police. I’m just here to provide a fresh pair of eyes, a sense-check, and all the support I can.’

And now Acting DI Mark MacDonald wasn’t the only one squirming in his seat. But no one stood up and called Green a lying tosser.

‘OK, so, while I’m up here: other options. How about background checks?’

Finnie’s smile looked painful. ‘Ongoing. I’ve got six teams working their way through Alison McGregor’s colleagues and neighbours. We’ve already interviewed everyone on her course.’

‘Family?’

‘Adopted when she was three. Foster parents are both dead — one cancer, one heart attack. Husband’s parents went in a house fire seven years ago.’

Green nodded, chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. ‘What about the production company?’

Finnie looked at Acting DI MacDonald.

Mark fumbled his way into a blue folder and pulled out a trembling sheet of paper. ‘I spoke to the Met this morning and they say they’ve been through Blue-Fish-Two-Fish Productions with a nit comb. Company has a reputation for some pretty extreme publicity stunts, but DI…’ Mark checked the sheet again, ‘DI Broddur thinks they’d draw the line at kidnapping their own artistes. And they certainly wouldn’t kill a wee-’

‘OK.’ Green nodded. ‘Good work.’

Finnie cleared his throat. ‘So, if there’s nothing else-’

‘Apart from the obvious? Don’t just profile the offender, we need to profile the victim too.’ Green turned, sweeping his arms out, indicating the scribbled whiteboards, scrawled flip-charts, and crowded corkboards that lined the incident room. ‘We need to go back to the start, sift through everything we’ve got. There’s a connection here — something that links Jenny and Alison McGregor to the bastards who kidnapped them. We just have to find it.’

Acting DI Mark MacDonald got as far as the window of DI Steel’s office, turned round and paced back towards the door, about-faced and did it all over again. ‘“There’s a connection here, we just have to find it.”’ Round again. ‘Could that bastard be any more of a cliche if he tried?’

‘Oh, park your arse and stop whining.’ Steel pulled the e-cigarette from her gob, tilted her head back, opened her mouth in a wide ‘O’ and puffed. But instead of a perfectly-formed smoke ring, a mangled amoeba tumbled its way towards the ceiling. ‘You’re just jealous, because he’s sex and chips.’

‘He’s a cock.’ Mark slumped into the visitor chair next to Logan’s and glowered. ‘Coming up here, telling us how to-’

‘Least you’re on crowd control. I’ve got to play nice with Officer Tosser from every sodding force in the country.’ She tried for another smoke ring. Failed. ‘Laz, get a statement together: inter-force cooperation, agreed response times, service levels, utmost importance to catching Jenny’s killer, blah, blah, blah.’

‘Can’t.’ Logan stuck his mug on Steel’s desk and stood. Groaned. Stretched. Slumped. ‘Was supposed to be out of here at twelve, remember? I’ve got-’

‘“A thing”, aye, you’ve been banging on about your mysterious “thing” for weeks. It really more important than finding out who killed a wee girl and hacked off her toe?’

‘Oh no you don’t — I’ve been on duty for…’ He checked his watch. ‘Christ, thirty hours straight.’ Well, with one hour off to clamber into his empty bed, but that hardly counted. He threw in a yawn for good measure. ‘Shattered…’

She pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes. ‘Fine, I’ll get Rennie to do it. Happy?’

‘I’ve got to go.’

Steel pointed a finger at him, the skin stained yellow, the cherry-red nail varnish chipped. ‘Tomorrow morning, seven o’clock, on the sodding dot. And bring-’

The phone on her desk rang. ‘Sod…’ She peered at the display, then snatched up the receiver. ‘Susan? What’s… No… Susan, calm down, it’s…’ Steel crumpled forward, until her head was resting on the desktop. ‘No. No I’m not saying that, Susan, it’s… Yes…’

Logan slipped out through the door.