Logan made soothing noises, it was important to be thorough, everyone appreciated his team’s efforts, blah, blah, blah. . . The grumpy WPC had been hanging back as Logan and Sergeant Goldfish talked, ignoring the line as it moved slowly away into the mist. ‘What the hell are we doing out here?’ she demanded, her face like a skelped arse.
Logan only had time to open his mouth before the sergeant roared, ‘You’re here because you’re supposed to be a bloody police officer. Now get your backside back to work before I kick it from here to Peterhead!’
She scowled at Logan like it was his fault she’d been yelled at, then turned on her heel and started stabbing the nearest bush with all the venom she could muster, muttering obscenities under her breath as she caught up with the rest of the search team, rejoining the line next to WPC Jackie Watson. Thirty seconds later Jackie cast a glower back in his direction and Logan sighed. The bloody woman was probably telling Jackie what an utter shit he was. And from the expression on Jackie’s face it looked as if she agreed. So much for getting back on an even keel. Their curry-fuelled truce had lasted a whole day.
Enough was enough: Logan was going to— A sudden scream pierced the fog, before being quickly swallowed by the trees and mist. There was silence for a heartbeat and then everyone exploded into action. Logan scrambled down the hill, towards the search team, Sergeant Goldfish hot on his heels, making for the source of the scream. They slithered to a halt at the top of a nearly vertical slope punctuated with deep beds of stinging nettle and spiky gorse. Halfway down, just visible through the swirling fog, was a WPC, lying on her back in the middle of a massive clump of nettles. Her shirt and jumper had been pulled up to her shoulders as she’d careered down the slope, exposing white skin already starting to go red with nettle stings. She was swearing a blue streak. ‘Are you OK?’ called Sergeant Fish-Face.
More swearing.
With a start Logan realized Jackie was standing at the lip of the slope, looking down at the thrashing figure as the woman stung herself more and more thoroughly with every flailing attempt to rise. ‘WPC Buchan,’ said Jackie, pointing. ‘Guess she must’ve slipped. . .’ She smiled.
Five minutes later they’d extricated Buchan from the nettle-infested slope. Puffing, wheezing, scratching and swearing, she clambered back up, looking daggers at WPC Watson the whole way. She was lurid-red from the underwire of her bra right down to the waistband of her trousers. Everything in between was swollen and lumpy and itchy and stinging and she couldn’t even pull down her blouse and jumper because it just made it hurt more and . . . and. . . Sergeant Fish-Face sent her home. As she limped down the trail, arms out to the sides so as not to touch the painful red rash that circled her torso, the sergeant confided in Logan that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. Jackie just winked at him.
‘You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?’ he asked when they were alone again.
She grinned. ‘Nobody calls my man names and gets away with it.’
Logan left them to it, smiling all the way down the hill, back to the main path. It was ten to one, according to his watch. If he and DI Steel hurried they could get back to FHQ and grab a bite to eat before Isobel launched into the post mortem at half past. He took a shortcut, labouring up the hill at the side of the track, making for the clearing and its menacing sculptures. As he crested the rise the fog took on a golden glow. A single shaft of sunlight had pierced the white gloom, spotlighting the edge of the clearing where two men in black suits were manhandling a blue plastic body-bag into a brushed metal coffin, ready for its trip to the morgue. DI Steel was talking to the Procurator Fiscal, pointing at things and nodding seriously as the Fiscal replied. Logan waited on the periphery while they went over the details of the crime scene. Someone coughed beside him and Logan turned to see the new deputy PF standing in full SOC costume, her curly hair escaping from the elastic around the hood, framing her face. Her green eyes glittered above the mask. ‘How’s the search coming?’ she asked. Logan told her, leaving out the bad language and WPC Buchan’s fall. Rachael nodded as he finished, as if she’d been expecting this all along. ‘I see. . .’ A long pause to convey deep thought. ‘What did you make of the handbag?’
‘Why did he leave it behind you mean?’ He paused, thinking about it. ‘Two options: one, he’s leaving us a message – something in the bag, or removed from the bag, is supposed to tell us something; option two – it was a mistake. Maybe she threw it at him and he couldn’t find it again in the dark, after he’d finished with her. Or she dropped it running away. . .’ He shrugged. ‘Difficult to tell with only two bodies what is and isn’t part of the pattern.’
‘Only two bodies? Jesus.’ Rachael looked out at the crime scene, the rotting bison, the little metal walkway, the cordons of POLICE tape. ‘How many more of these do we need?’ He was about to answer that when DI Steel beckoned him over and he had to go through the whole search update all over again: no one had found anything.
‘It was always a long shot,’ Steel told the Fiscal, ‘after all this time out in the open and the rain, but I’m not taking any chances.’ She squared her shoulders and raised her pointy chin, stretching out the sagging skin beneath it. ‘There’s a killer out there and we’re going to catch the bastard.’
Logan tried not to gag. That was the cheesiest thing he’d heard all week. But the PF seemed impressed. She too struck a determined pose, asked them to keep her posted – if there was anything she could do, etc. – and left them to it, taking her deputy with her. Rachael looking back over her shoulder, her emerald-green eyes meeting Logan’s for a moment, then she was gone. He watched her disappear into the fog, before speaking. ‘Laid it on a bit thick, didn’t you?’
Steel shrugged and pulled an empty cigarette packet from her pocket, shaking it and peering inside as if that would somehow magically make some fags appear. ‘Position we’re in, we need all the friends we can get. Now the PF and Madame Frizzy-Hair go back and tell the Chief Constable we’re not fucking this whole thing up. That we’re doing things by the book.’ She smiled and crumpled the empty pack in her hand. ‘Things are starting to go our way, I can feel it in my water.’
‘Of course, you realize this means Jamie McKinnon isn’t a serial killer,’ he said, watching as the funeral directors carried the coffin out of the clearing. ‘If the victim was killed three days ago that’s Friday night – Jamie was banged up in Craiginches.’
Steel sighed. ‘I know, but a girl can dream, can’t she?’
Half past one on the dot and the morgue at Force Headquarters was getting crowded. In addition to Isobel, her assistant Brian, DI Steel and Logan, the Deputy Procurator Fiscal was here with her boss, and the corroborating pathologist – Doc Fraser, an IB photographer, the detective chief superintendent in charge of CID, the Deputy and Assistant Chief Constables. It was like a who’s who of Aberdeen law enforcement, all of them worried about the possibility of another serial killer preying on the city. Knowing it would turn into a political nightmare as soon as the media found out. Even God himself had turned up; the Chief Constable being given pride of place at the head of the table. Logan wondered if he’d be saying grace before Isobel started carving.
Logan could almost smell the anticipation in the room as Isobel began her external examination of the body on the slab. According to her instructions the Identification Bureau techies, who’d picked over the body for trace evidence under her assistant’s watchful eye, had positioned the victim exactly as she’d been on the forest floor: lying on her side, legs scissored out on the shiny, stainless steel surface, one arm up over her head. The thick purple line of pooled blood marked horizontal with spirit-level accuracy. They’d removed the blue plastic freezer bag from her head, exposing her battered face and bloodshot, bulging eyes. As if she was staring indignantly at the people gathered around the dissecting table. Something about the tableau made Logan shiver. This wasn’t like a normal post mortem, where the body was laid out on its back, al
l washed clean and clinically dead. Somehow, with the body arranged as it had been discovered, it was as if they were all voyeurs at the last, intimate moment of the victim’s existence. As if this was part of the killer’s performance. The final scene for this bruised and brutalized actor. Logan shivered again. PC Steve was right: he really was turning into a morbid bastard.
Three hours later Isobel’s audience was pale, quiet and slightly shaky, standing in an otherwise empty briefing room on the second floor. A passing uniform had been dispatched to fetch coffee, not the plastic crap from the vending machine, but proper coffee reserved for high-powered meetings and special occasions. The Chief Constable reckoned they all needed it, and Logan wasn’t about to disagree.
Isobel was in the corner with Doc Fraser, a modest smile on her face as he complimented her on a first-rate post mortem. Very thorough. Very revealing. Someone behind Logan muttered, ‘Jesus, did she have tae peel the poor cow’s face off?’ Up at the front of the room, the Chief Constable finished saying something to the Procurator Fiscal and they both laughed. The new deputy fiscal managed a dutiful smile, but she was still green about the gills. When the laughter had subsided the DCC ping-ping-pinged a spoon off the side of his china cup and everyone fell silent. It was time to post mortem the post mortem. Isobel walked them through the sequence of events as she saw them, illustrating the salient points on the whiteboard with diagrams of fractured skull and ribs and limbs. Like some demonic game of Pictionary.
‘Cause of death was asphyxiation,’ she said, drawing a red circle about the head of the body she’d drawn on the board, ‘partly due to the plastic bag secured over the victim’s head and partially due to pneumothorax: the right lung punctured by the ends of the fourth and fifth ribs. Her ribcage filled with air and collapsed the lung. Cyanosis would have been rapid and fatal.’ Then Steel asked the question they were all dying to know: was this the same MO as the one used on Rosie Williams? Had the same man killed them both? Isobel’s smile was condescending. ‘Well, Inspector, I’m sure you’re aware that there is a great deal of supposition involved in—’
But Steel wasn’t having any of it. ‘Just yes or no.’
Isobel stiffened. ‘Possibly. That’s all I can say at this point.’
The inspector wasn’t impressed. ‘Possibly?’
‘Well obviously the first victim didn’t have a bag over her head . . . I’d have to go over the post mortem notes—’
DI Steel waved a hand in Isobel’s general direction, cutting her off. ‘Then I suggest you go do that, right now. We need to know if we’re looking for one deranged maniac or two.’ When Isobel didn’t move she added, ‘Unless you’ve got something more important to do, that is?’
Bristling, Isobel placed her china cup down on the nearest table, nodded at the Chief Constable, grabbed Brian, and swept from the room, promising to have a report on the inspector’s desk within the hour. There was a moment’s silence, everyone looking from DI Steel, to the doors closing in Isobel’s wake, and back to the inspector again. Steel smiled grimly. ‘I’m not taking any chances with this,’ she told the assembled great and good. ‘There are lives at stake.’
And then the questions started: Inspector, what do you plan to do? What will we tell the press? How many men do you need? DI Steel kept a straight face, but Logan could see she was doing a victory lap inside. She was back.
14
The press conference was held at five thirty, set up in a rush so there would be time to get it on the Six O’Clock News. The Chief Constable, his deputy, DI Steel and an attractive blonde woman from the press office faced the media from behind a row of flat-pack tables draped with the Grampian Police logo. Steel had somehow managed to tame her feral hair; that and the newish suit made her look like a competent and determined police officer, rather than her usual cross between a tramp and a startled Cairn Terrier. Logan stood at the back of the conference room, behind the sea of cameras and journalists, as the Chief Constable told the world they’d found the body of a woman in the Tyrebagger Woods. . . Isobel had been true to her word – her report was on DI Steel’s desk in under an hour. There were only small differences between the two killings, this was probably the work of the same man.
As soon as the CC’s statement was finished every hand in the place shot up: ‘Is this the work of a serial killer?’ ‘Have you any suspects?’ ‘What about the man already in custody?’ ‘Have you identified the victim yet?’ ‘Why have you put DI Steel in charge of the investigation?’
The Chief Constable leaned forward and told the assembled crowd, ‘Inspector Steel has my complete confidence.’
‘Sarah Thornburn, Sky News. After the inspector’s performance on the Gerald Cleaver trial, is that wise?’
Logan could see DI Steel bristling, but she managed to keep her mouth shut as the CC once more told everyone what a solid, dependable and experienced officer she was and how she had his complete confidence. Absolute and complete confidence. Logan grimaced: that was what Prime Ministers always said when someone high up in the government was caught with their hand in the till, or someone else’s knickers. Right before they were, regrettably, let go. There were more questions, but Logan wasn’t really listening. Instead he let his eyes drift over the assembled journalists and pundits, looking for a wee Glaswegian in an expensive suit. . . Colin Miller was sitting between a chisel-jawed woman from BBC News and a saggy man from the Daily Record, scribbling away furiously into a palmtop computer, not bothering to stick his hand up and ask questions. As soon as the CC stood, indicating that the press conference was at an end, Miller was out of there.
Logan caught up to him in the car park. ‘What,’ he asked, ‘you not speaking to me any more?’
‘Hmm?’ Miller looked up, saw Logan and started walking again. ‘Got things tae do. . .’ He fumbled in his trouser pocket and pulled out his car keys.
Logan frowned. ‘You all right?’
Miller marched straight up to his fancy-looking dark grey Mercedes. ‘Don’t have time for this. . .’
Logan grabbed his shoulder. ‘What’s got into you?’
‘Me? What’s got into me? Well, let’s have a fuckin’ think about that one shall we? Every fuckin’ thing! OK? I’ve had enough!’ He wrenched the car door open and threw himself in behind the wheel. ‘Every fuckin’ bastard in the whole fuckin’. . .’ The engine growled into life and he slammed the door, twisted the wheel and put his foot down. Logan stood in the car park, watching as the car screeched to a halt at the junction before roaring off into the traffic, disappearing in the mist. ‘Something I said?’
Tuesday morning started at quarter past seven with the flat’s phone blaring out its electronic warble – on and on and on. . . Logan peeled open an eye, grumbled and curled back up under the duvet. The answering machine could take care of it. Today he was supposed to be starting on the back shift. Three days of working from two in the afternoon through till midnight. Technically he should have started yesterday, but after putting in a full day with the search team, DI Steel had given him time off for good behaviour. So today he was going to stay in bed until Jackie came home, share a bit of breakfast and invite her back to bed for some under-the-duvet fun. He smiled and wriggled deeper beneath the covers as the answering machine in the lounge dealt with the call.
Maybe he and Jackie could – an explosion of electronic bleeps, whistles and buzzing as Logan’s mobile went mad. ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ He poked a hand out of the tiny cave he’d made with the duvet, fumbled about blindly on the bedside cabinet, grabbed the phone and dragged it into the warmth with him. ‘What?’
‘Where the hell are you?’
Logan groaned: it was DI Steel. ‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘Yes. Where the hell are you?’
‘In bed! I’m—’
‘In bed?’ The inspector put on a sleazy voice. ‘What you wearing?’
‘A frown. I’m on the back shift today, you said—’
‘Stop buggering about. We’ve got a serial killer out there knocking off tarts – get your backside in gear!’
Logan closed his eyes and counted to ten while the inspector banged on about a sense of duty and how shift patterns were for the weak. ‘OK, OK!’ he said at last. ‘I’m coming in. Give me half an hour.’ He hung up, swore, sprawled out on the bed limbs akimbo, scowled at the blind, swore some more, got up, stubbed his toe on one of Jackie’s boots, swore, and limped his way off into the bathroom for a shower.
When he finally made it into Force HQ DI Steel’s briefing was in full swing. There were a lot more people here than usual – the Screw-Up Squad had been supplemented with some real police officers for a change. Unlike the normal rambling shambles, everyone was in ordered rows, uniform and CID sitting to attention as the inspector took them through the events of the last twenty-four hours. The handbag discovered at the scene was covered with fingerprints, but they all belonged to the newly identified victim: Michelle Wood. That was the woman whose face had been peeled off yesterday, so Isobel could get a good look at the damage to the underlying musculature and bones. Logan shuddered at the memory. What with that and the arson victims last week he was spoilt for choice when it came to nightmares.
He tuned back in just as DI Steel was setting up the various teams and doling out their assignments. She wrapped the briefing up and sent them on their way with a rousing chorus of ‘We are not at home to Mr Fuck-Up!’
When there was no one left except Logan, she cracked open a window and sparked up a cigarette with trembling hands, inhaling like a suffocating man. She closed her eyes, sighed happily then lurched into a rattling cough. ‘Jesus, I’ve been bursting for a fag!’ She took another deep drag, shuddering in pleasure as the nicotine and smoke filled her lungs. When she breathed out it hung around her head like her own private fog bank. ‘You see the papers?’ she asked. Logan said no, so she dug a copy of that morning’s P&J from the bin and tossed it over. SHORE LANE STALKER STRIKES AGAIN! right across the front page, BY COLIN MILLER. It wasn’t his best work. ‘I suppose,’ she said as Logan read, ‘I’d better go tell Michelle’s dad she’s dead. . .’ Sigh. ‘You know, you wouldn’t think it to see her on the slab, but she was a pretty girl when she was little. Before spots and boys and underaged drinking. I brought her in about a dozen times when she was younger: shoplifting. Baby clothes, food, shoes, booze, stuff like that. . .’ her voice trailed off. ‘Arrested her all those times and I didn’t even recognize her, not with her face all smashed up like that. Only ID’d her this morning when the prints on the handbag came back. . . She was only twenty-four. Poor wee bitch.’
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae) Page 53