Dying Light. Stuart MacBride
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main door, looking rumpled and unshaven. PC Steve, infamous for his striptease rendition of Queen’s A Kind of Magic, was standing on the top step.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, looking sheepish. ‘Across the road: naked woman. Looks like she’s been battered to death…’ And any thoughts Logan had of having fun in the wee small hours disappeared.
At quarter past two on a Tuesday morning the harbour was pretty much deserted. The grey granite buildings looked unnatural and jaundiced in the streetlights, their edges blurred by the drizzle. A huge supply vessel, painted luminous orange, was tied up at the bottom of Marischal Street, its lights bright haloes as Logan and PC Jacobs made their way round the corner to Shore Lane. It was a narrow one-way street at the heart of Aberdeen’s red light district: one side a five-storey wall of dirty granite and darkened windows, the other a collection of random-sized buildings. Even at this time of night, the smell was something special. Three days of torrential rain followed by a week of blazing sunshine had left the sewers full of drowned rats, rotting fragrantly. There were sodium lights bolted to the buildings, but most of them were buggered, leaving small islands of yellowed light in a sea of darkness. The cobbles were slick beneath their feet as PC Steve led Logan to a dark pool halfway down, where a WPC crouched over something white sprawled across the lane. The body.
The WPC stood at the sound of their approach, shining her torch full in their faces. ‘Oh,’ she said, without enthusiasm. ‘It’s you.’ Stepping back, she played her spotlight over the naked corpse.
It was a woman, her face battered and broken, one eye swollen nearly closed, the nose mashed flat, broken cheekbone, broken jaw, missing teeth. She wore a necklace of dark red bruises and nothing else.
She was no spring chicken: the thick white flesh of her thighs rippled with cottage-cheese cellulite; stretch marks making sand dune ripples across her stomach; and in between, short rough stubble: long overdue for another homemade Brazilian wax. A rose and a bleeding dagger were emblazoned on the milk-bottle skin just above her left breast, the tattooed blood refusing to wash away in the rain.
‘Jesus, Rosie,’ said Logan, dropping to one knee on the cold, wet cobbled street so he could get a better look at her. ‘Who the hell did this to you?’
‘You know her?’ This from the unfriendly-looking WPC. ‘You one of her regulars?’
Logan ignored her. ‘Rosie Williams. Been working the streets down here for as long as I can remember. God knows how many times she’s been done for soliciting.’ He reached forward and felt for a pulse on her neck.
‘Believe it or not, we already did that,’ said the WPC. ‘Dead as a doornail.’
The drizzling rain muffled the sound of drunken voices singing and shouting somewhere back along the docks. Logan stood, looking up and down the alley. ‘IB? PF? Duty doctor?’
The WPC snorted. ‘You must be bloody joking. They’re all sodding about at that fire. Much more important than some poor cow who got battered to death.’ She folded her arms. ‘Wouldn’t even send us a proper SIO, so we had to make do with you.’
Logan gritted his teeth. ‘You got something to say, Constable?’ He stepped close enough to smell the stale cigarette smoke on her breath. She stared back at him, her face a thin line of displeasure.
‘How’s PC Maitland?’ she asked, her voice as cold as the corpse at their feet. ‘Still alive?’
Logan bit back the reply. He was her senior officer; he had a responsibility to behave like a grown-up. But what he really wanted to do was find one of those greasy, rotting, bloated rats and shove it right up her—
Shouts sounded from the other end of the alley, where it connected with Regent Quay. Three men staggered round the corner, lurching into one another, fumbling with their trousers, laughing as streams of steaming urine splashed against the alley walls. Logan turned back to the smug, defiant WPC. ‘Constable,’ he said with a thin smile, ‘you’re supposed to be securing the crime scene. So why can I see three men pissing all over it?’
For a moment it looked as if she was going to answer back, then she stormed off up the alley, shouting ‘Hoy! You! What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?’
That left Logan and PC Steve with the battered remains of Rosie Williams. Logan dragged out his mobile phone and called Control, asking for an update on the duty doctor, Identification Bureau, pathologist, Procurator Fiscal and the rest of the circus that was meant to roll up whenever a suspicious death was discovered. No joy: everyone was still tied up at the big fire in Northfield, but DI McPherson would be with them as soon as possible. In the meantime Logan was to stay where he was and try not to get anyone else killed.
An hour later there was still no sign of DI McPherson, or the IB, but the duty doctor had arrived. At least it had stopped raining. The doctor struggled his way into a white paper scene-of-crime suit before trudging down Shore Lane, ducking under the blue ‘POLICE’ tape WPC Buchan had grudgingly stretched across the alley.
Doc Wilson wasn’t at his best at half past three in the morning, a fact he made abundantly clear by dropping his medical bag in a ratty-smelling puddle and swearing a blue streak. The bags under his eyes were family sized, his nose red and raw from a late summer cold.
‘Morning, Doc,’ said Logan, getting nothing but a grunt in reply as the doctor squatted down over the corpse and felt for a pulse.
‘She’s deid,’ he said, stood, and started back for his car.
‘Hold on a minute.’ Logan grabbed his arm. ‘Is that it? “She’s deed?” We know she’s dead: care to hazard a guess when and what of?’
The doctor scowled. ‘That’s no’ my job; ask a bloody pathologist.’
Surprised, Logan let go of the old man’s arm. ‘Rough night?’
Doc Wilson ran a tired hand across his face, making the stubble scritch. ‘Sorry. I’m just knackered…’ He cast a glance over his shoulder at Rosie’s naked body and sighed. ‘Best guess: blunt trauma. The bruisin’s no’ that advanced, so circulation must’ve stopped pretty quickly. Given the lividity I’d say you’re lookin’ at three, maybe four hours ago.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Beaten to death.’
It was twenty past four before anyone else turned up, and by then Doc Wilson was long gone. The sun was already on its way, the sky a soft lemon stain wisped with grey, but Shore Lane remained shrouded in shadow.
The Identification Bureau’s filthy white Transit Van reversed up the alley from the dual carriageway, a lone IB technician in white SOC coveralls guiding it in. Both rear doors opened and the ritual fight with the crime scene tent began: wrestling metal poles and blue plastic sheeting up over Rosie Williams’s body. A generator roared into life, chugging blue smoke out into the early morning – diesel fumes fighting with the stench of rotting rat – setting a pair of arc lights crackling. The Procurator Fiscal appeared not long after, parking at the far end of the alley where it emptied out onto Regent Quay. She was an attractive blonde in her early forties, looking almost as tired as Logan felt, smelling faintly of smoke. A serious-looking younger woman trailed along behind her: all frizzy hair, wide eyes and clipboard. Logan brought them up to speed as they struggled into a matching set of white paper over suits, then had to go through the whole thing again when the pathologist turned up. Dr Isobel MacAlister: tired, irritable and more than happy to take it out on Logan. Nothing like an ex-girlfriend to take all the fun out of a crime scene. And there was still no sign of DI McPherson. Which meant Logan was still responsible if anything went wrong. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about. The only upside was that it wouldn’t be his problem for long: there was no way they’d leave him in charge of a murder enquiry. Not with his recent track record. Not after he’d almost got PC Maitland killed in a botched raid. No, this case would go to someone who wouldn’t screw it up. He checked his watch. Almost five. Still another two hours to go before his day shift was supposed to start and he’d already been at it for half the night.
With a tired sigh, Logan stepped from the cold light