Broken Skin

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘What about the search teams?’

  ‘What about them?’ And then she remembered. ‘Bollocks. It’ll be dark in half an hour won’t it? And all the useless buggers will be back here wanting debriefed.’ She groaned. ‘You do one half and I’ll do the other, OK? We could still be in the pub by seven.’

  Logan held up the tiny pack of rubbish painkillers the hospital had given him for his battered head and bruised ribs – there were only a couple left. ‘I’m not supposed to be drinking.’

  ‘Aye well, my doctor says I’m no’ supposed to smoke, drink, or chat up his receptionist, but it doesn’t bloody stop me, does it?’

  The search teams started trickling in around six, with not a lot to show for seven hours out in the freezing cold February air. No one had seen Sean Morrison. He wasn’t hiding in anyone’s shed, garage, or gazebo. They’d even had a team go through the Robert Gordon school buildings looking to see if Sean had gone to ground where he was meant to go to school. ‘According to the head,’ said a blue-faced PC, wrapping herself round a mug of hot chocolate, ‘he’s no’ exactly a regular visitor. Started bunking off about six months ago. Became really disruptive. Bullying, theft, swearing… Right wee shite by all accounts. Had the parents in about a dozen times, but it never made any difference.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Logan ran a hand over his chin, feeling the stubble begin to scritch beneath his fingers. ‘His dad told us Sean’s never been in trouble before this.’

  The PC snorted. ‘Aye, well, he’s lying then.’ She shifted from foot to foot. ‘Er, is there anything else, sir, or can I go change?’ adding, ‘Karaoke tonight.’ by way of an explanation. Logan wished her luck and moved onto the next team’s report.

  DI Steel finished first, not surprisingly – they’d be lucky if she even skimmed the forms before telling the officers to bugger off to the pub. ‘Right,’ she said, hands deep in her trouser pockets, ‘we all done for tonight?’

  Logan shook his head. ‘Still need to sort out the teams for tomorrow. And I was thinking: we should get a POLSA, start looking in the parks and woods.’ And if they had a Police Search Advisor, Logan wouldn’t have to do all the coordination and logistics for a change. ‘Maybe his mother was right and he’s lying in a ditch somewhere. He’s been in all the papers, suppose someone recognized him and decided to avenge Jerry Cochrane?’

  ‘Oh God, that’s all we need.’ Steel screwed up her face and swore. ‘This was supposed to be a nice easy case – we know who did it, we’ve got it on tape, we’ve got forensic, we’ve got witnesses…’ The only thing they didn’t have was Sean Morrison.

  Logan stood at the front of the briefing room, feeling slightly sick. He wasn’t the only one: half the team looked terminally hungover. And he’d been sensible – called it a night after the first round of flaming Drambuies, but not before he’d been subjected to DI Steel belting out D’Ya Think I’m Sexy at Café Bardot’s late night karaoke session. It wasn’t a performance he’d be forgetting in a hurry. Unfortunately.

  Right now she was introducing the team to their brand new Police Search Advisor – a tall, thin sergeant with droopy eyes and a pronounced chin, who launched into a detailed description of today’s search pattern, locations, teams and all the other things that weren’t Logan’s problem any more.

  ‘Right,’ said the inspector when the POLSA was finished, ‘even though Sean Morrison’s an evil wee bastard, he’s only eight. He’s no’ been home in two days and it was below freezing both nights. Chances are he’s holed up somewhere warm with a bottle of vodka and a stack of porn, but he could just as easily be freezing to death under a bush. So keep your eyes open!’ She made them all repeat the DI Steel pledge of allegiance: ‘We are not at home to Mr Fuck-Up!’ then let them get on with it.

  ‘Do you want to go front up Morrison’s father again?’ Logan asked while the troops filed out of the room.

  ‘You go: and take Rickards. I’m sick of him moaning on about how everyone takes the piss out of him the whole time. I’ve got an audience with His Holiness the Chief Constable, have to con him into thinking this case is no’ a huge, flaming disaster …’ She dug a packet of nicotine gum from her pocket, popped a couple of pieces in her mouth then chewed, grimacing. ‘We’ll be fine. We’ll find Morrison today, lock him up, and all will be right with the world again. Just as long as the CC doesn’t want to know about all the other cases I’ve still not solved.’

  A lid of dove-grey had settled over the town, leeching the colour out of everything, the pale granite buildings merging with the monochrome sky. Rickards made it all the way from the station to School Hill before he started complaining about all the jokes he’d had to put up with since that first Jason Fettes briefing. Logan tuned him out, watching the pedestrians and traffic, looking for an eight-year-old boy in an AFC hooded top.

  Rickards was still moaning when they pulled onto King’s Gate, parking uphill from the Morrison house in order to find a space.

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ Logan told him, ‘at least everyone thinks they’re just taking the piss. Imagine what would happen if they actually knew you were in the scene.’

  The constable scowled at him. ‘I am not!’

  ‘Oh come off it – you really expect me to believe you recognized Jason Fettes’s backside after catching a glimpse of it on a seized DVD? You must have seen it dozens of times to remember it that clearly.’ He unclipped his seatbelt and climbed out into the grey morning. Yesterday’s spectacular view was gone; all the elements were still there, but they were dull and cold. The sea was the colour of clay, a dark smudge beneath a darker horizon. Sooner or later it was going to pee with rain.

  Rickards scrambled out after him. ‘I …’ the constable blushed, then shuffled nervously, not making eye-contact. ‘You … you didn’t tell anyone, did you?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t! You can dress up in rubber and spank each other till you’re blue in the face, far as I’m concerned it’s nobody’s business but your own.’

  ‘Wish I’d never come forward with that bloody ID …’

  Logan stopped and stared at him. ‘You really mean that?’

  He sighed. ‘No. Fettes didn’t deserve to be an unidentified body.’

  ‘No one does.’

  The crowd of journalists outside the Morrison place had grown since yesterday – there were even a couple of outside-broadcast vans, their satellite dishes brushing the skeletal beech trees that lined the road. A clot of protestors had formed around the gate, some had even made their own placards: SHAME!, JUSTICE FOR JERRY! and KIDS SHOULDN’T KILL! They should have looked indignant and self-righteous, but instead they just looked cold, huddled around a thermos of tea, complaining about the weather. They mustered up a bit of shouting and posturing when Logan and Rickards appeared, playing up for the assembled media. Logan got the constable to cut a path for him, ignoring the cameras and microphones being jammed in his face. Keeping up a constant stream of ‘no comment’ until they were safely inside the house.

  Mr Morrison was in the darkened lounge, looking five years older than he had yesterday. Dark circles lurked beneath his eyes, his face pale and fish-like. As soon as the Family Liaison officer showed them through he was on his feet, wringing his hands. ‘Is … have they …’ unable to ask the question.

  ‘We haven’t found him yet,’ said Logan, motioning for the man to sit in one of his own armchairs, before sending PC Rickards off to make the tea. ‘I just need to ask a couple of follow-up questions.’

  ‘Do they …’ a nervous cough, ‘do they think he’ll still be OK?’

  ‘We hope so, Mr Morrison. From what I can tell Sean’s a resourceful wee boy.’ That seemed to calm his father a bit, but not much. ‘We spoke to his headmaster yesterday: he says Sean started causing problems six months ago.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But you led us to believe that he’d never been in trouble before.’

  ‘Ah, yes …’ Mr Morrison stared down at his hands. ‘You see, his mother …
well, she worships the ground Sean walks on. She … well, we’ve probably spoiled him a little, but …’ he shrugged.

  ‘Six months ago. What happened?’

  ‘September? He stole another boy’s bag.’ Morrison stared at the drawn curtains, shutting out the thin daylight and photographer’s lenses. ‘He’d never done anything like that before…’ A sigh. ‘Then he punched someone. Stole some dinner money. Started playing truant. We nearly ended up in court. Lucky he didn’t get expelled.’

  Logan settled onto the couch. ‘He ever tell you why?’

  The man laughed, short and bitter. ‘No. Well they don’t, do they? Parents are always the last to know. One minute they’re fine and the next you’re having to apologize to some distraught mother because your kid’s just bitten theirs. Came back from Guildford and he was like a different wee boy …’

  ‘Guildford?’

  ‘Well, we – I mean Gwen and I – went to Guildford. Gwen’s dad was going in for a double bypass. Her mum was a mess. We didn’t want Sean to come in case, you know … in case the surgery went wrong.’

  Rickards came through with the tea, plonking three mugs down on the coffee table. He hadn’t managed to rustle up any biscuits. ‘So,’ Logan helped himself to a mug, ‘who did Sean stay with when you were away?’

  Mr Morrison opened and closed his mouth a few times, then said he didn’t really know. It’d been one of Sean’s classmates. ‘Gwen will know, but she’s asleep … the doctor gave her something to help—’

  ‘It’s important, sir.’

  ‘Yes,’ he pulled himself out of his chair, and went back to wringing his hands again, ‘yes, of course. I’ll go … ask.’

  The name didn’t match any of those on Sean’s list of ‘friends’ – according to Mrs Morrison, Sean hadn’t spoken to the boy for months; he used to visit all the time, but they’d not seen him since they got back from visiting her mother and father. ‘But you know what boys are like,’ she’d said, sounding groggy, full of sedatives, ‘one minute they’re the best of friends, the next they’ve forgotten each other exists.’ She still had the address, though, which was how Logan and Rickards ended up outside a large granite box of a house on Hamilton Place. A wee boy could have run down here in seven or eight minutes.

  ‘Uh huh,’ said Logan, staring up at the place, his mobile phone clamped to his ear, ‘how many?’

  ‘Mother, father and three children: boy and two girls.’

  ‘Anyone got any priors?’

  There was a pause as the voice from Control checked with the PNC. ‘Nope … Well, the father was done for drink driving seven years ago, but nothing since.’

  ‘OK, thanks for—’

  ‘They did report a series of breakins starting five months ago… Oh, and some vandalism in September, October … right the way through till Christmas. Broken windows, paint on the doors, that kind of thing. Hang on and I’ll cross-reference it…’ A longer pause, and this time Logan could swear he heard crisps being surreptitiously crunched. ‘Unlucky: looks like it was just them. No other reported incidents of vandalism in Hamilton Place. Couple of stolen bikes down the other end and—’

  ‘That’s fine. Thanks,’ said Logan before he was given the complete criminal history of the street. He stuck the phone back in his pocket. Just after ten on a Saturday morning – if they were lucky, the whole family would still be at home.

  The front door was opened by a balding man in his mid-thirties. A little older than Sean Morrison’s dad and a lot heavier round the middle. He took one look at Rickards standing there on his doorstep, and said, ‘About bloody time you showed up: we called Thursday!’

  Logan couldn’t help himself. ‘Thursday?’

  ‘Thursday! The window! Don’t you lot even speak to each other? Or did they just send you out to arse about and waste our time like the last ones? Well?’

  Typical: Control was getting ready to list every crime and misdemeanour in the area going back to 1906, but they couldn’t tell him there was an open call at the address he was asking about in the first place. ‘We’re not here about the window, Mr Whyte; we’re here about Sean Morrison.’

  And at that the bald man’s face clouded over. ‘We have nothing to say about that little b … about him.’

  ‘He was your son…’ Logan checked his notes, ‘Ewan’s friend, wasn’t he?’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’ Mr Whyte stepped back as the first specks of rain began to fall, making tiny water blisters on the bright-blue door.

  ‘Right up till six months ago.’

  ‘About that.’

  ‘Same time you started reporting acts of vandalism?’

  He started easing the door closed. ‘Look, I’ve told you we don’t want to talk about that Morrison child. Ewan hasn’t had anything to do with him for months. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go—’

  ‘This will only take a moment, sir.’ Logan stuck his foot in the crack, keeping the door from shutting. ‘And you wouldn’t want people to think you refused to help us catch Sean Morrison, would you? It might look like you were protecting him.’

  Whyte scowled and swore, but he let them in.

  15

  Mr Whyte scuttled about the living room, picking up toys and colouring books and piling them on the coffee table, obviously flustered at being outmanoeuvred. Logan let his gaze wander around the room: eclectic ornaments; an upright piano; photos of various sea-and-sand holidays. A large dining room lay through an open archway with a conservatory tacked onto the back, littered with stuffed animals and bits of brightly coloured plastic. Through the glass he could see a remarkably well-tended garden complete with koi pond and waterfall. Very flash. An old man was out in the drizzle, taking a pair of pruning shears to a massive clump of honeysuckle, cutting it back to the bone. Which was not an image Logan wanted to dwell on.

  Whyte ran out of things to stack on top of one another, and said, ‘I suppose you expect a cup of tea,’ with enough distaste for Logan to suspect that it would arrive with spit in it. A Jackie Watson special.

  ‘Actually, sir, I think we’re fine. Why don’t you and I talk about Sean Morrison?’

  The man sank into a floral-patterned armchair. ‘He’s been nothing but trouble. I knew he’d end up hurting someone! That poor old man … you should bring back flogging.’

  Logan nodded. ‘Next time the Crown Office asks, I’ll be sure to let them know. He wasn’t trouble to start with though, was he?’

  Whyte shifted in his seat. ‘I always knew—’

  ‘Then why did you let him stay here when his parents went down to Guildford last September?’

  ‘Yes … well … he was a lot better behaved then.’

  ‘But not after.’

  ‘Look, I’ve no idea, OK? He was fine one day and the next he was all sullen and wouldn’t do anything. We tried taking him bowling, carting, the pictures, even bloody LaserQuest. And all he’d do was mope about and sulk.’

  ‘While he was staying here?’

  ‘Of course while he was staying here. He just kept getting worse; three weeks we had him and it was a nightmare.’ He checked his watch. ‘Look, is this going to take long? I’ve got to get the girls ready for ballet.’

  ‘Why did he change?’

  ‘How should I know?’ sounding a bit defensive. ‘Like I say, he was fine one minute, and the next: boom. Something must have happened at school – a bully, or a teacher, or maybe he did really badly in a test.’ He stood, running his hands through what was left of his hair. ‘Look, I’m really going to have to go. If the girls aren’t there for the start of the lesson they send them home. You don’t even get a refund.’

  ‘OK, I’d like to speak to your wife, if she’s about.’

  ‘She takes Ewan to five-a-side football on Saturdays.’ He turned and shouted up the stairs, telling his ‘little princesses’ to get their tutus down here or they were going to be late. A stampede of tiny elephant feet rumbled down from the first floor, bringing two little girls in pin
k ballet costumes and duffel coats with it. They were only five, jumping up and down while their dad tried to coax them into their Wellington boots.

  The girls took one look at Rickards, squealed, and hid behind their father’s legs, peering out at the strange policeman in their house. ‘Don’t take it personally,’ said Whyte, shooing his ballerinas towards the front door, ‘they don’t like men in uniform – you should see what they’re like with the postman. Come on girls, last one in the car’s a stinky!’

  ‘Well,’ said Logan, handing Mr Whyte a Grampian Police business card, ‘if you can think of anything else, let me know. And I’ll need to speak to your wife and son too.’

  ‘Yes, yes, OK fine.’ He stuffed the card in his pocket without looking at it, then hurried them out into the rain. ‘Molly, darling, put your seatbelt on properly, or the nasty policeman will arrest you!’

  ‘It’s the kid, isn’t it?’ said Rickards as the Whytes’ car reversed out of the drive, both little girls staring at him as if he’d grown horns. ‘Doing all the vandalism.’

  Logan nodded. ‘Bit of a sodding coincidence if it isn’t … and I’ll bet Whyte knows it too. Which makes you wonder why Sean Morrison’s dad played dumb: Whyte would have been round there like a shot, shouting the odds. Only natural.’

  ‘Doesn’t want to admit his kid’s a horrible wee bastard?’

  ‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ They climbed back into the CID pool car, Logan watching the rain make ripples on the wet windscreen, until they were suddenly wheeched away as Rickards started the engine and turned the wipers on.

  ‘Where now?’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’ Logan dug his phone out and called Control again. ‘Those vandalism reports from Whyte: Hamilton Place, did he say he suspected anyone?’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line, the plastic clatter of computer keys, then, ‘No names … fingerprints didn’t turn up anything either – always wore gloves … window … car … fish … window again … No match on anything. Investigating officer thinks it’s got to be someone with a grudge.’