Dying Light. Stuart MacBride
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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,