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

by Stuart MacBride

  If it was him, then Jackie was right: the footballer needed a stiff bloody kicking. He watched as Macintyre went back to his phone call, laughing – not a care in the world. And there, to see things remained that way, was Sandy Moir-Farquharson, standing with his back to a huge tropical fish tank, wearing an expression that made Logan want to check the soles of his shoes in case he’d trodden in something.

  ‘Ah,’ said Insch, ‘Mr Far-Quar-Son,’ pronouncing the lawyer’s name wrongly in a childish attempt to wind the man up, ‘Macintyre didn’t tell us you’d be here. How nice to see you.’

  The lawyer sniffed. ‘Spare me your amateur theatrics, Insch, I’m not in the mood. You are here because my client wants to make sure you don’t jump to any of your usual idiotic conclusions about this Dundee attack. You are not here to interrogate, belittle or browbeat Mr Macintyre, is that clear?’

  The inspector’s face darkened, ‘You don’t tell me how to question a suspect!’

  ‘Please, try and get this through your swollen, shiny pink head: Mr Macintyre is – not – a – suspect. Your last pathetic attempt to fit up my client was thrown out of court, remember? And furthermore—’

  A clatter at the door and Macintyre’s mother backed in, wheeling a hostess trolley with tea things and little cakes on it.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Macintyre, the words long, flat and Doric, as his mum handed out the cups and saucers. ‘Gie the mannie a break, he’s only deein’ his joab.’ Without the phone clamped to his lug Logan could see Macintyre’s ruby earstud twinkling away, red like his fiancée’s pendant, the colour of AFC. The colour of fresh blood. And for the first time, Logan got the feeling Macintyre was laying it on a bit thick – playing the good-natured, parochial Teuchter for the nasty policemen. Macintyre pointed Insch at an expensive-looking couch. ‘Yoooo ask away Inspector, I’ll dee ma best ta help ye.’

  Hissing Sid didn’t look too happy about it, but he didn’t say anything as DI Insch sat, pulled a sheet of newsprint from his jacket pocket and laid it on the spotless coffee table in the middle of the room, smoothing it out so that the headline was facing the footballer: COPYCAT RAPIST STRIKES IN DUNDEE! ‘I’d like to know where you were on Friday night.’

  ‘Easy – I wis with Ashley, wizn’t I, baby?’

  Logan watched her right hand flutter to the gold chain round her neck, the one with the shiny red ruby dangling from it. She nodded. ‘Yes, he was with me all night.’ Then she dazzled them with her smile. ‘Snored like a bandsaw too.’

  ‘Dinna listen tae her,’ said Macintyre. ‘I dinna snore!’

  ‘Yes you do, you—’

  Insch cut in across this charming domestic scene. ‘Where? Where did you spend the night?’

  ‘In bed.’ – Macintyre.

  ‘In town.’ – Ashley, both speaking at the same time. She blushed and threw a pillow at her husband to be. ‘We went out for a couple of pints, got a takeaway and spent the rest of the night here.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the mother, bringing round the Bakewell tarts and Tunnock’s tea cakes. ‘I wis here when they came back.’

  Insch stared at her. ‘Don’t tell me he still lives at home with his mum.’

  ‘I live with him. This is my Robby’s hoose, bought it outright: nae mortgage. How many sons can dae that?’

  Insch made them tell him which pub they’d gone to, and which carryout as well. Logan wrote it all down, knowing he was probably going to get lumbered with checking their alibis.

  ‘And if that’s all, Inspector,’ said the lawyer, ‘I think my client has been generous enough with his time. If you have any further questions you will submit them to me in writing and I will pass them on.’

  ‘Oh you think so, do you?’ Insch pulled himself from the couch’s leathery embrace and loomed over the lawyer, using his bulk to intimidate the man. Moir-Farquharson didn’t even flinch.

  ‘Any attempt on your part to contact my client directly will be treated as harassment. Given your recent behaviour I don’t think we’ll have any trouble getting a court order. Do you?’

  The explosion happened in the car outside – DI Insch railing and swearing with the doors closed and the windows rolled up, while Logan stood outside on the pavement, not looking forward to the trip back to the station. Finally Insch calmed down, doing the same pulse-taking, deep-breathing exercise Logan had seen last night in the theatre. And then the passenger door popped open and Insch told him to get into the car: they didn’t have all day.

  The traffic was unusually heavy for a Sunday morning, and the inspector kept up a muttered, murderous commentary as he threaded the car back towards the station.

  ‘Er. . .’ said Logan, ‘are you OK, sir?’

  Insch turned a baleful eye on him and said no he bloody well wasn’t. Then there was an uncomfortable silence. Logan tried a different tack.

  ‘Fettes’s collection – we’ve got three possible matches from the DVDs.’

  A grim smile slid onto the inspector’s fat features. ‘Have we now? Names?’

  ‘All made-up, porn-star ones.’ He pulled the three glossy photo-style printouts from his pocket and handed them over. ‘We’d have to ask the guy who directs the things.’

  Insch clamped the screen grabs against the steering wheel, glancing at them as he drove. ‘You see,’ he thrust the pictures back at Logan, suddenly in a much better mood. ‘I’m on the case less than twenty-four hours and we’re already making progress.’ He pulled the car round, following Logan’s directions to ClarkRig Training Systems Ltd. ‘Check the side pocket will you, should be some toffees in there. . .’

  Zander Clark’s mum was polishing the reception desk when Logan and Insch walked in. ‘Wow,’ she said, staring at the inspector, ‘you’re a big one, aren’t you?’

  ‘Is your son in?’ asked Logan, before she got them all into trouble.

  ‘Eh? Oh . . . yes, yes. We don’t normally work Sundays, but he gets a bit obsessed when he’s working on something new. You go right on through.’ She pointed at a dark blue door leading off the reception area. ‘They’re filming though, so shhhhh!’

  The indoor studio was long and wide, the sort of place you could park four or five double-decker buses in and still have room for a pipe band. They’d built a film set in here – what looked like a small section of an oil rig’s accommodation block – three cabins with bunk beds, a shower and a stretch of corridor, all with powerful television lights hanging overhead. Only Logan was pretty certain they weren’t shooting a safety film. Not unless it was ‘how to avoid catching sexually transmitted diseases from Viking lesbians’.

  Both Logan and Insch stood frozen to the spot, watching as a man in dirty orange overalls walked in on two bleached blondes – hair in pigtails, unfeasibly round breasts – making friends with a double-ended rubber willy and some lubricant. A bloke with a Steadicam walked around the newcomer, stopping just behind him, focusing on the bed and the Viking ladies.

  ‘Aaaaaand, cut!’ Zander Clark, stood up from behind a monitor and marched onto the set. ‘Brian, that was perfect. Claire, Gemma: I still need more energy from you, darlings.’ He plonked himself down onto the bed next to them. ‘Remember – this is you celebrating life! You’ve been in the ice caves of Ragnarok for five hundred years, but now you’re out: you’re free!’

  The girls exchanged a look. ‘Aye, well,’ said one, ‘it’s no’ easy celebratin’ life wi’ a dildo up yer—’

  ‘Ragnarok,’ said Insch, his deep bass rumble echoing off the bare warehouse walls, ‘is an event, not a place.’

  The sound man looked up, saw them standing there, then bonked the director on the shoulder with his boom mike. ‘You got visitors.’

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake!’ Zander threw his hands in the air. ‘This is a closed set! You’re not supposed to be in here!’ He stopped and stared at Logan. ‘Do I know you?’

  Insch nodded. ‘Show the nice man your warrant card, Sergeant.’

  Zan
der snapped his fingers. ‘Of course – you were with that inspector woman, weren’t you: ugly, wrinkled old boot, thought erotic films were beneath her. You here about my break-in this time?’ The director stuck out his hand to Insch. ‘Zander Clark, with a Z.’ Logan had been right: the director wasn’t quite as big as the inspector, but it was close. Without the beard, hair and glasses they’d be very fat, pink, peas in a pod.

  Insch took his hand and squeezed, making the man wince. ‘We need to talk to you about some of your employees.’

  ‘Oh, right. . .’ Zander retrieved his hand and stuck it under his arm, before turning and shouting back at the set, ‘Take ten, people. You’re doing great today!’ He sounded a lot more convincing than Insch had last night with his theatre crowd. ‘Honestly,’ said Zander, dropping his voice as the ladies on the bed unplugged themselves and climbed into fluffy pink dressing gowns, ‘it’s like juggling cats some days.’

  Insch nodded. ‘I know what you mean. And I’ll bet half of them can’t remember their bloody lines either.’

  Zander smiled, hooked his arm through Insch’s and led him over to a trestle table with thermos flasks, pastries and sandwiches on it. ‘God, if I had a pound for every time I’ve had to re-shoot a scene because of that! The only things they get even vaguely right are “ooh” and “ahh” and “harder!” Try getting them to say anything more complicated and you’re at it all day. Are you in the arts, Inspector?’

  ‘Local stuff. Mostly musicals. A bit of pantomime, I—’

  ‘That’s it!’ He slapped Insch on the back. ‘I knew I’d seen you somewhere before: two years ago – Aladdin. You were Evil Uncle Abanaza. Brilliant.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t—’

  ‘Just you stop right there! You brought an emotional resonance to the role, and that’s not easy with the little buggers in the audience shouting, “He’s behind you!” the whole time.’

  Logan wandered off before they could start discussing motivation and method acting: panto versus porn.

  The cast and crew had split up: the sound, camera, make-up and lighting people hanging out in one of the fake cabins while the actors went round the back to smoke cigarettes and talk about EastEnders. He tried them first. ‘Excuse me.’

  The Viking ladies turned to him in unison. Up close it was easy to see the layers of foundation hiding bad skin, the slightly squint features. Pale, plain women done up to look like something they weren’t. And Mr Orange Boiler Suit wasn’t exactly an oil painting either. ‘Sorry, darlin’,’ said Gemma, flicking a chunk of ash off the end of her fag, ‘we’re kinda workin’ right now, so we canna do the whole fan thing. OK?’

  Logan pulled out his warrant card again. ‘Coincidence: I’m working too.’

  The girls took a step back, but Mr Boiler Suit squared his shoulders – he couldn’t have been much over five foot three, but Logan supposed ‘height’ wasn’t the measurement they’d hired him for. Not standing up anyway. Boiler Suit scowled. ‘You heard her, we’re working!’ He flexed his muscles and gave Logan his best hard-man impersonation. ‘Now clear off out of it!’

  Logan stared at him, until the man looked away, then shuffled backwards to stand with the Vikings. ‘You recognize any of these men?’ Logan handed over the three screenshots from Jason’s porn collection.

  ‘Hey,’ said the man, peering at one, then flipping it over, reading the film name off the back, ‘this is me! Wow . . . Claire, you remember Cumlamity Jane?’

  Claire groaned. ‘Fastest Dildo In The West: couldnae walk straight for a week!’ Boiler Suit handed over the printout and she laughed. ‘You used to be such a porker, Brian!’

  Logan checked the e-fit – without the extra weight round the face he looked nothing like the man in the picture. But Logan asked him where he was the night Fettes died anyway.

  ‘Eurodisney. Two weeks with the girlfriend and her kid. Pissed down the whole time.’ It’d be easy enough to check.

  ‘And what about the other two?’

  Gemma ID’d the man in From Rubber With Love: ‘Frank Garvie – I think he’s somethin’ in computers now. . . Oh and this een,’ she held up the last printout, ‘Mat McEwan, he’s deid. Took an overdose at Christmas. Shame, he was nice.’

  Logan thanked them for their time, then went and asked the camera crew the same questions, just in case, but the stars seemed to be telling the truth. Insch and Zander were laughing about something when Logan got back to the food table, both of them drinking coffee and stuffing their faces with Danish pastries. ‘You see,’ said the director in a shower of pastry flakes, ‘it’s all about challenging expectations. It doesn’t have to just be sex, sex, sex – there should be a real emotional message to it as well. It has to have some heart! That’s why I don’t do gonzo films. No freak sex, nothing that degrades women, no violence,’ another bite, ‘OK, there’s a bit of spanking in the bondage stuff, but it’s all safe, consensual, and straight.’

  Insch opened his mouth, but Logan butted in before he could say anything. ‘What about James Bondage: the nun with the strap-on?’

  ‘Oh, please, that’s straight. Kinky, but straight. I don’t do gay porn.’

  ‘No? What about the two girls then? Your Vikings.’

  Zander smiled indulgently, patting Logan on the shoulder. ‘Girl-on-girl isn’t gay, it’s erotic.’

  ‘Yes . . . well. . . I’ve identified the guys from Fettes’s porn collection: one’s dead, one’s here, and the other quit the business about a year ago.’

  Zander peered at the screenshot. ‘Oh, Frank. Yes . . . got performance anxiety after a while. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was floppy. Works for an IT company in the Bridge of Don now. Used to do our website. I’ve got his business card around here somewhere if it helps?’ Insch told him that it would, and the director led them back through to the reception area, copying Garvie’s home and work addresses down onto a compliments slip. ‘Look, I’ve got to get back to it, but before you go,’ Zander rummaged about in a cardboard box under the desk, coming out with a DVD. ‘Crocodildo Dundee, my masterpiece. I’d really like to know what you think. It’s so nice to actually talk to someone about the art for a change.’

  He showed them to the front door, shook Insch’s hand, then did the same with Logan, winking as he did. ‘Remember, Sergeant: kinky, but straight.’

  19

  Insch made Logan drive: he was too busy reading the blurb on the back of his new DVD. ‘You know,’ he said as Logan wrestled the Range Rover through the Sunday lunchtime traffic, ‘I always wanted to work in films. OK, maybe not this kind of thing, but proper movies with cameras and lights and clapperboards. . .’

  Logan had never heard the huge man sigh wistfully before. ‘You not think he’s a bit suspect?’ he asked, edging out into the traffic on King Street, ‘everything he does has anal sex and dildos in it. He’s obsessed.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Jason Fettes: internal bleeding, torn sphincter, prolapse. . . ?’ He squeezed in between a bus and a filthy grey lorry. ‘Plus when Steel and I asked him if he could identify Fettes’s photo he didn’t ask “what’s he done”?’

  Insch frowned, then rummaged about in the glove compartment, letting loose an avalanche of sweetie wrappers. ‘Not everyone asks.’ He popped a toffee into his mouth. ‘You’ve been hanging round with DI Steel for too long. It’s rotted your brain.’

  There was no response at Frank Garvie’s flat, so they tried his work address instead. Aberdeen Science and Technology Park sat in a little belt of green, surrounded by trees, in the Bridge of Don, the car parks virtually empty except for a handful of vehicles and a family of deer grazing on the grass verges. Garvie’s office was a couple of rooms in a wing of Davidson House, a starfish-shaped building at the furthest end of Campus One. He didn’t look much like a porn star – balding, slightly podgy, clean shaven, shirt and tie. No sign of the raven-and-skull-tattooed backside Logan had seen bobbing about in From Rubber With Love. It wasn’t that kin
d of office.

  Everyone else was away for lunch, so they had the room to themselves: a collection of cubicles decorated with plants, plastic Darth Vaders, and Dilbert cartoons. The blinds drawn to keep the low sun from glaring back off the computer screens. Garvie’s smile was nervous as the inspector lowered himself into one of the office chairs and made a show of looking round the room. ‘So: not in the porn business any more then?’

  ‘Er . . . no. . . And I’d rather people didn’t know about it, OK? I’ve got a good job here.’

  ‘In IT.’

  ‘The money’s a lot better, I get overtime on the weekends. And . . . well, you know. . .’

  Insch just sat and stared at him, letting the silence grow. It didn’t take long before Garvie felt uncomfortable enough to start talking again. ‘I couldn’t do it, OK? Get an erection. I couldn’t get it up. You try screwing two women in front of half a dozen people, with cameras and sound men and someone shouting instructions the whole time – it’s not easy.’ He folded his arms, bit his bottom lip, then said, ‘Plus there. . . Look, it. . .’ An embarrassed cough. ‘You’ve heard of gay-for-pay, yeah? Well . . . I was the other way round.’

  ‘And no one else knows.’

  Garvie hung his head, mumbling, ‘A couple of friends. Not my parents or the guys I work with. So . . . I’d rather you didn’t. . .’ He shrugged. ‘You know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir, we’re the soul of discretion. Aren’t we, Sergeant?’

  That meant it was Logan’s turn: ‘Where were you on Monday night, four weeks ago?’

  ‘Four weeks? Erm. . .’ He checked his Star Trek calendar. ‘At home? I think? Monday I usually go out role-playing, but I was in bed with something.’

  Insch smiled. ‘And does “something” have a name?’