Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae)

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘I haven’t seen any bloody. . .’ His eyes went wide. ‘Shite!’ And the door was slammed shut. Or would have been if DI Steel didn’t have her boot jammed into the gap. She swore as the wood mashed into her foot and Jamie McKinnon bolted back into the flat.

  ‘Ayabastard!’ Hopping in the corridor, Steel clutched her injured foot while Logan charged past, through into a grotty hallway. A door at one end of the hall led to the lounge – Suzie was standing in the middle of the room, a fresh tin of Red Stripe in her hand and a shocked expression on her face. No sign of Jamie. Logan spun around to see the door to a filthy little bathroom lying open, and at the far end the door to the kitchen bouncing off the wall and swinging itself shut again.

  Cursing, he sprinted for the kitchen. Why couldn’t Jamie have made a break for the front, where DC Rennie could have clobbered him one? He burst through the door just in time to see Jamie’s backside disappearing through the open kitchen window. The back door was blocked by an ancient washing machine, so Logan had no choice but to clamber through the window after him, and up a small set of steps into the back garden. Jamie was hoofing it hell for leather across the yellowing grass, towards the six-foot-high back wall, where the buildings backed onto the next row of tenements. Gritting his teeth, Logan chased after him.

  For once luck was on Logan’s side; as Jamie got within lunging distance of the wall his feet tangled in the trailing end of a clothesline. He went down hard, banging his face on a huge, abandoned red plastic fire engine. Swearing, he clasped a hand over his nose – blood welling up between his fingers – and struggled to his feet. Just in time for Logan to tackle him and send them both sprawling to the scabby-yellow grass again.

  The impact was enough to set the scar tissue screaming across Logan’s stomach, leaving him hissing in pain while Jamie scrambled to his feet and jumped for the back wall. He had one leg over the top when Logan grabbed the other one and yanked him back into the garden. Jamie’s chin caught the top of the wall, snapping his head back as he clattered straight down into the rosebush growing at the bottom, breaking the fall with his face, sending pink petals flying.

  Breathing hard, Logan jumped on him, twisted Jamie’s arm up behind his back and snapped on the handcuffs. As the swearing started, Logan slumped against the wall and tried to convince himself that his stomach didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as it really did. When the pain finally settled down, he hauled Jamie to his feet.

  Burger King weren’t going to be too happy about the state of their uniform. Blood ran freely from Jamie’s squashed nose and torn lip, his face a network of thin scratches that oozed red. He looked as if he’d done ten rounds with Mike Tyson’s cat. Swearing, he spat a mouthful of blood out into the rosebush. ‘You made me bite my fuckin’ tongue!’

  ‘Jesus, Logan,’ said Steel when he finally dragged Jamie back into the basement flat. ‘I told you to arrest him, not beat the crap out of him.’

  Something sly weaselled its way onto Jamie’s face. ‘Aye, he beat me up! Police brutality! I want my lawyer! I’m gonnae sue you bastards for all you’re worth!’

  Steel told him to shut his mouth. Suzie was sat on the edge of a tatty settee, worrying at an ever-expanding hole in the cushion with her finger, exposing the plaque-yellow foam rubber. She wouldn’t look at anyone.

  ‘You silly bitch.’ Jamie spat out another mouthful of blood onto the carpet. ‘You led them straight here!’

  Suzie just kept on digging.

  ‘Right then, Sunshine.’ Steel pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and lit one up, dribbling the smoke contentedly down her nose. ‘You don’t mind if we take a little peek round your place do you?’

  ‘Yes I fuckin’ well do mind!’

  Steel’s smile got bigger. ‘Well tough shite, ’cos I’ve got a warrant.’ She flicked a little nub of grey ash from the end of her fag onto the coffee table. ‘Anything you want to tell us before we go a-wandering?’ Silence. ‘No?’ More silence. ‘You sure?’ Outside a truck rumbled past. ‘OK, you’re the boss.’

  Of course Steel didn’t do any of the actual searching herself. Not when she had a detective sergeant and a detective constable to do it for her. They found two small wrappers of heroin, a half-empty box of disposable needles and a lump of cannabis resin the size of a Mars Bar. It was Logan who found the box full of uniforms in the bedroom cupboard.

  Back in the lounge he asked Jamie how his career in the fast-food industry was going. Jamie scowled back at him. The nosebleed was drying up, leaving a crust of reddish-brown across the lower half of his face, making his little goatee as spiky as his bleached hair. ‘I’m going straight, OK?’ he said. ‘Keepin’ out of trouble.’

  ‘At Burger King?’

  ‘Yes at fuckin’ Burger King.’

  ‘Well then,’ said Logan, pulling the cardboard box out from behind his back. ‘You must be a hardworking little bunny! Flipping all those burgers at Burger King.’ He pulled out another uniform. ‘McDonald’s,’ another uniform, ‘the Tasty Tattie,’ another uniform. . . There were work clothes from half a dozen fast-food places in Aberdeen, each one of them complete with ‘HI MY NAME IS’ badges, none of which read ‘JAMES MCKINNON’.

  DI Steel looked confused, so Logan spelt it out for her: ‘Jamie’s the one been helping himself to tills all over town. Turns up in uniform, no one pays any attention to the new boy. After all: who puts on one of these things for fun? He cleans out the till after the lunchtime rush, and gets changed to do the next place.’

  DI Steel dropped her cigarette to the floor, grinding it out against the carpet. ‘Aye, very good, Sherlock,’ she said, sounding completely unimpressed. ‘But we’ve got bigger fish to fry. James Robert McKinnon, I’m detaining you on suspicion of the murder of Rosie Williams.’

  Jamie started shouting that he hadn’t killed anyone, but Steel wasn’t listening. She just finished reciting his rights then told Rennie to frogmarch the suspect to the car. And all the time, Jamie’s sister stared at the carpet, picking at the hole in the settee.

  ‘And, Suzie, thanks for your help,’ said Steel with a wink. ‘Couldn’t have done it without you.’

  6

  Jamie was booked in at FHQ, given a once-over by the duty doctor and stuck in interview room number three. Where he announced, ‘Jesus, it’s like a fuckin’ oven in here!’ He wasn’t kidding. Even with the sun cracking the cobbles outside, the radiator was belching out heat. But all the other interview rooms were taken, so they were stuck with it.

  Grumbling and sweating, Logan set up the interview tapes: audio and video, then did the introductions: date, time and attendees, and settled back to let DI Steel conduct the interview.

  Silence.

  Logan cast a glance in Steel’s direction. She was looking at him with a puzzled expression. ‘Well,’ she told him at last, ‘get on with it. It’s too hot for buggering about.’ Bloody typical. Once again he was going to have to do all the work.

  With a sigh, Logan pulled out a handful of Rosie’s post mortem photographs. ‘Tell us about Rosie Williams.’

  Jamie scowled at them. ‘I’m no’ sayin’ anything till I’ve seen a lawyer.’

  Steel groaned. ‘No’ again! How many times do I have to say this? Under Scottish law you have no right to legal counsel until we’ve finished with you. No lawyers. Interview first, lawyer later. Comprende?’

  The scowl on Jamie’s face didn’t shift. ‘You’re lyin’, I’ve seen the telly. I get a lawyer.’

  ‘No you don’t.’ Steel peeled off her charcoal-grey jacket, exposing large patches of sweat beneath the arms of her red blouse. ‘The telly lies to you. It shows you the English legal system. Not the same. Up here we do not fuck about waiting for some slimy bastard to help you with your lies. Now get your finger out and tell us why you killed Rosie Williams, so we can all get out of this bastard hothouse.’

  ‘I didn’t kill no one!’

  ‘Stop fucking about, Jamie – I’m not in the mood.
’

  He slumped back in his seat, chewing things over. ‘I really don’t get a lawyer?’

  ‘No! Now tell us about Rosie Bloody Williams before I pull that stupid-looking chin-warmer off your face, one hair at a time!’

  Jamie held up his hands in self-defence. ‘OK, OK! We’re. . . you know . . . I stayed with her for a bit. . .’

  ‘You were her pimp.’

  ‘We’re having fun, you know. . .’

  ‘Fun? Rosie was old enough to be your granny! She’s out there shaggin’ for cash, every night, while you’re what? Staying home looking after the kids?’

  Jamie stared down at his hands. ‘Isn’t that old.’

  ‘Yes she fucking was! Ugly as hell too!’

  ‘She is not!’ Jamie’s voice was getting louder with every word. ‘She isn’t ugly!’

  A sly smile blossomed on Steel’s face. ‘You loved her didn’t you?’

  Jamie blushed and looked away.

  ‘You did, didn’t you? You loved her and she was out there every night, some stranger’s dick in her mouth. Screwing them in doorways. Your precious Rosie, out there with—’

  ‘Shut up! Fuckin’ shut up!’

  ‘That’s why you killed her, isn’t it? You were jealous she wasn’t all yours. Anyone could have her for the price of a burger.’

  ‘Shut up. . .’

  Steel settled back in her chair, scratching vaguely at the damp patch under her left arm. She nodded in Logan’s direction and he asked Jamie where he was between eleven o’clock Monday night and two o’clock Tuesday morning.

  ‘I was at home. Asleep.’ But there was something in his eyes. ‘Suzie’ll tell you. She was there.’

  DI Steel raised an eyebrow. ‘No’ in the same bed, I hope.’ Jamie just scowled at her. ‘We’ve got Forensics turning your flat upside down: they’re going to find her blood, aren’t they? You beat her so bad, you must’ve been clarted in it.’ She leaned forwards in her seat, tapping the table with a nicotine-stained finger. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time you beat her up either, would it? She kicked you out ’cos of it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt her!’ The tears were starting.

  Steel’s smile turned into one of triumph. ‘But you did, didn’t you? You didn’t mean to, but you hurt her really bad. Was it an accident? Come on, Jamie, you’ll feel better if you tell us.’

  An hour later they still hadn’t managed to get anything else out of him. And as Steel said, it was too hot in the interview room to bugger about any longer. So down to the cells went Jamie McKinnon and down to the canteen went Logan and DI Steel. Chilled tins of Irn-Bru all round. ‘Christ, that’s better,’ she said, standing outside on the rear podium two minutes later, surrounded by the patrol and pool cars, drink in one hand, cigarette smouldering away in the other. ‘We’ll get the PF in to look at the tape. “I never meant to hurt her,” my arse, all we need is a couple of witnesses and we’re laughing.’ She smiled and knocked back a mouthful of Irn-Bru. ‘Knew it was about time my luck changed.’

  Unfortunately Logan’s hadn’t. When DI Steel said, ‘All we need is a couple of witnesses,’ what she actually meant was that Logan had to change shifts and spend the next couple of nights wandering around the docks chatting up prostitutes. The first time in ages that his shift pattern was the same as Jackie’s, and the inspector wanted it all changed again. Jackie was going to kill him.

  ‘You’re young,’ Steel told him when he complained, ‘you’ll get over it. Better bugger off home after lunch. Get some kip. In the meantime, let’s get the PF down here. . .’

  The Procurator Fiscal and her new deputy sat through the recording of Jamie McKinnon’s interview in silence. The tape was a good start, but it wasn’t enough to secure a conviction, for that they’d need some real, hard forensic evidence. ‘Speaking of which,’ said Rachael Tulloch, deputy PF to the stars, ‘how did you get on with those contraceptives?’ The Fiscal looked momentarily flustered as Logan explained about the two hundred and thirteen second-hand prophylactics sitting in the morgue’s specimen freezers; it looked like this was the first she’d heard of her deputy’s spectacular plan. At least Rachael had the decency to blush and admit it was a lot more condoms than she’d been anticipating, but now that they had a suspect under arrest, couldn’t they match his DNA to them? Prove he was there? The Fiscal went quiet for a minute, considering it, and then agreed it probably couldn’t hurt. Logan tried not to groan. Isobel was bound to blame him for all the work she was about to get. He consoled himself with the thought that she didn’t like him much anyway.

  When he went down to the morgue to break the bad news, Isobel was hunched over her brain-in-a-bucket again. Her reaction to Logan’s request for DNA testing was pretty much what he’d been expecting. Only with more swearing.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said when she paused for breath. ‘I told you: it’s that new PF. She’s mad for used condoms. Could you not just blood test the semen and only DNA match the ones with the same blood group as Jamie McKinnon?’

  Reluctantly Isobel agreed that it would be a lot less work. But she still wasn’t happy. Grumbling, she dug the condoms out of the freezer, where they’d had just enough time to go hard. For the second time in their lives.

  Logan checked his watch and left her to it. If he hurried he could grab lunch with Jackie in the canteen before heading back to the flat to try and get some sleep. Not that he held out much hope: he always had trouble adjusting to the night shift, and usually he had a couple of days off in between to get used to the idea. Sod the diet. He was having chips with his lasagne today. And a pudding.

  Though on second thoughts, tapioca probably wasn’t the wisest of choices. Looking at it, congealing in the bowl, all white with translucent lumps, all he could think of was Isobel slowly defrosting her condoms down in the morgue. Shuddering he pushed the bowl away.

  ‘Interfering old bitch.’ Jackie stabbed her jam sponge with an angry spoon. ‘Why did she have to go buggering about with your shifts? If you have to go onto nights today and tomorrow. . .’ She did the arithmetic on her fingers. ‘That puts you six days ahead of my bloody shift pattern! It took bloody ages to get the damn things in line!’

  ‘I know, I know. I’ll just have to get mine shifted again. Though Christ knows when.’

  ‘And I had plans.’

  Logan looked up. ‘Oh? We going away somewhere?’

  ‘Not any more we’re not, you’ll be asleep all bloody Friday.’ Stab, stab, stab. ‘Tell you I could kill her!’

  ‘Oh-ho, speak of the devil. . .’ DI Steel was standing in the doorway to the canteen, craning her neck. Looking for someone. And Logan had a nasty idea who. He was just about to duck down under the table, pretend he’d dropped his fork or something, when she spotted him.

  ‘Oi! Lazarus,’ she shouted and Logan winced. Every eye in the place turned to stare. ‘You finished?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘Well, come on then: we’ve got a shout to go to.’

  Jackie leaned over the table and hissed at him, ‘I thought you were supposed to be going home to get some sleep!’

  It was a Mrs Margaret Hendry who’d found it, out walking her dog, Jack, in Garlogie Woods. Well, technically it had been Jack who’d found it, leaping away into the undergrowth, barking and yipping. Not coming back, no matter how much Margaret shouted. In the end she’d ducked in under the trees after him. It was just off a small clearing, wedged into the roots of a fallen tree: a red suitcase, big enough to take a week’s worth of clothes. The smell was appalling: stinking, rotten meat. Jack of course had gone straight to it, and was hanging off the handle, all four little legs off the ground as he tried to scrabble inside. Well, what with the smell and the suitcase, it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. Margaret pulled out her mobile phone and called the police.

  The Identification Bureau’s dirty white Transit Van was abandoned in the lay-by, just behind a marked patrol car, so Logan had to park their rust
y Vauxhall half on the grass verge and hope no one would run into the back of it. DC Rennie spluttered his way out of the back seat, wiping ash from his hair and face – Steel had spent the whole ten-mile journey out from Aberdeen with the passenger window down, the ash from her cigarette spiralling through the car’s interior like a mini snowstorm – which was why Logan had elected to drive. He waited until the inspector had shooed Rennie up the path to go find the crime scene, before asking her if this meant he wasn’t swapping over onto the night shift.

  ‘Hmm?’ Steel looked at him, distracted as she picked three individually wrapped white SOC over suits from a box in the boot of the car. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Sorry, but I still need you to go looking for witnesses. We both know Jamie’s alibi’s a crock of shite. We just have to prove it.’

  ‘Then how come you dragged me out to this?’ It came out slightly whiny, but Logan was past caring.

  Steel sighed. ‘What am I supposed to do? You know why they call it the Screw-Up Squad? The Pish Patrol? The Fuck-Up Factory? ’Cos every bastard that can’t find their backside with both hands gets dumped in it. Keep the useless tossers out of the way, where they can’t do any damage. . . We only got this call ’cos everyone half-decent was busy.’ She smiled, sadly. ‘It’s a body in a suitcase, Logan, who else am I going to trust to take with me? That bunch of fuckwits I’ve been lumbered with?’ She handed him the protective gear. ‘Never mind, you don’t have to do a whole shift tonight. Knock off about two. Look on it as a bonus.’ Then she patted him on the arm and stomped off up the rutted track into the forest, leaving him to swear quietly in her wake.

  They found DC Rennie standing at the side of the track, about half a mile from the main road. There were broken branches and scuffmarks in the carpet of yellow-brown pine needles. ‘In there,’ he said pointing, obviously proud of himself. Logan gave him the protective gear to carry. As the inspector said: delegation. It was cooler in the woods, the sunlight dappling the ground at their feet, filtered through the canopy of sharp green needles.