Broken Skin

by Stuart MacBride

  Logan followed Insch up to the bar. ‘What do you want to do about Macintyre then?’ he asked while the inspector ordered their drinks, then sent the barman hunting for crisps and peanuts.

  ‘We go see him. Smile politely. Ask our questions. And figure out how to nail the ugly wee bastard. See if we can get the ACC to authorize a low-key surveillance operation. Macintyre’s going to go out again sooner or later …’ Somehow Logan doubted they’d get permission: if the PF was leery of the case, the Assistant Chief Constable wouldn’t touch it with the shitty end of a pointy stick.

  The Mikado crowd were through in the snug – a smaller room up a little flight of stone steps from the main bar, with slightly fewer superfluous banisters. Rennie was holding court for a trio of women. All three of them threw their heads back and laughed like drains as he reached the punch line of a particularly dirty joke. Grinning like an idiot, he looked up and saw Logan. ‘Hey, come meet Sophie, Anna and Liz! They’re my naughty schoolgirls. Come on, scoot up, Liz, let the man park his bum.’ Rennie did the introductions, playing up Logan’s ‘police hero’ credentials for his fellow thespians. ‘You catch any of the rehearsal?’

  Logan turned to check the inspector wasn’t within earshot. ‘Only the motivational speech bit at the end.’ A little white lie.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Rennie nodded sagely, ‘we sucked big time tonight. Arse from elbow the whole way.’

  Anna, or Liz – Logan wasn’t sure which – slapped the constable on the shoulder. ‘Cheeky bugger! Anyway, Debs was brilliant.’ Pointing at a serious-looking woman sitting on the edge of the group, deep in conversation with DI Insch. It took Logan a moment to recognize her: dark, wavy hair; rosy cheeks; she looked nothing like the bitch-faced harridan she’d been playing on stage.

  One of the other two rolled her eyes. ‘Debs is always brilliant. But Erick …’

  ‘Oh God, don’t get me started on Erick …’

  Every discussion seemed to revolve around the various shows they’d been in and who was sleeping with whom. And Logan didn’t have a clue who they were talking about.

  He finally escaped one hour and three pints later. Every time he tried to get out of there, Rennie would lurch back from the bar with another round. Eventually he’d had to fake a date with Jackie in order to escape. It wasn’t that they were bad people, he just didn’t have anything in common with any of them. Well, except for DI Insch and DC Rennie, and he got enough of them during working hours.

  The closest he’d got to a normal conversation was with the ‘brilliant’ Debs about New Zealand and The Lord Of The Rings films, and even then it was all about actors and scenery and scripts. Much more interesting was the contents of her handbag, which Logan got an unscheduled peek at when she went rummaging for a hankie after spilling a glass of white wine down herself: compact, lipstick, mobile phone, Ian Rankin paperback, tampons, breath mints, and what looked like a set of fur-lined handcuffs. It took all sorts.

  Midnight. A clunk and bang from the front door, then some random giggling and Jackie burst into the bedroom. Logan groaned as the overhead light snapped on, dragging him from sleep and poking its fingers in his eyes. He pulled the duvet up over his head and listened to Jackie bumping into things. Click and the room was in darkness again, then a cold body leapt in beside him and tried to warm its hands on his naked chest. ‘Aaagh – get off – horrible woman!’ Jackie just giggled and snuggled in closer. Logan gasped. ‘You smell like a brewery!’

  ‘Yup, I’ve been drinking.’ She snorted and stuck her cold nose into Logan’s neck. ‘I’ve been very, very naughty, you may have to spank me.’

  ‘Your feet are freezing.’

  ‘Ooh, I love it when you’re all manly …’ And then she jumped on him.

  Ten past seven and DI Insch’s morning briefing was in full swing, the inspector rumbling out his instructions from the front of the room, one huge buttock perched on the edge of a desk, popping chocolate raisins into his mouth between sentences. Like a big, pink eating machine. This investigation had been stagnant for too long. There were going to be some changes. Or he was going to kick everyone’s arse for them.

  Not that there were many arses to kick – when the case had been downgraded from murder to kinky sex gone wrong, the team had been cut by more than two thirds and stuck in one of the smaller incident rooms. Now it was just Insch, Logan, DC Rennie and a handful of uniforms. And even then Logan was only part time.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ asked Insch as Logan tried to sneak out at the end.

  ‘Those breakins. You didn’t want the case, so I’ve been lumbered with it.’

  Insch shook his head. ‘Not today you’re not – you’ve got some homework to do.’ He handed over a plastic bag.

  ‘What’s this?’ said Logan, peering inside at Jason Fettes’ narcissistic porn collection.

  ‘This is what Steel should have done in the first place. Go through that lot and see if you can find a match for the guy who dropped Fettes off at the hospital. Maybe they worked together.’

  Now that Insch mentioned it, it did sound bloody obvious. But it meant Logan would have to spend the whole day watching a dead man having sex, which didn’t exactly sound like a bundle of laughs. Especially not after watching his post mortem. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And don’t take too long about it either – we’re seeing Macintyre at ten and I want you there in case I need someone to talk me out of strangling the little footballing bastard.’

  Logan was about to complain that two and a half hours probably wasn’t enough time to watch six DVDs and go through eight pornographic magazines. But Insch cut him off with a fat finger. ‘If you’re thinking of having a whinge, don’t. There’s no one here to talk me out of strangling you.’

  18

  There was no way he was going to get through all of Fettes’ porn collection by ten on his own, so Logan grabbed Rickards and commandeered a tiny room full of abandoned box-files and evidence bags. It had nicotine-yellow ceiling tiles, peeling magnolia paint on the walls, and a fluorescent light that buzzed and flickered, but it was the only place free. Now all they needed was something to watch the DVDs on.

  ‘Got an idea …’ Rickards disappeared off, leaving Logan in the cramped and messy space.

  Swearing quietly to himself, Logan started stacking things in the corner. By the time the constable returned he’d cleared enough space to work in.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone, OK?’ said Rickards, dumping an archive box on the tabletop. ‘Sergeant Mitchell thinks I’m taking them upstairs for more fingerprint tests.’ Inside there were new-looking laptops and one of those little photo printers.

  Logan was impressed. ‘Where did—’

  ‘Part of that brothel raid. They were doing live internet sex shows with their punters.’ He started plugging things in. ‘We can take screen-grabs from Fettes’ porn films and print them out.’ The machinery whirred and beeped into life, and the constable nodded happily.

  ‘Not as daft as you look then.’ Logan selected one of Fettes’ DVDs at random.

  Rickards grinned. ‘Thank God for that, eh?’

  By ten o’clock they had a small stack of printed-out porn stars. It’d been easy enough to whiz through the films on fast forward, pausing every time a new face appeared, taking a screen shot, printing it out, then cranking up the speed again. Not surprisingly a lot of the same people popped up in nearly every film, but three of them actually bore a vague resemblance to the e-fit. If you squinted and ignored the whole goatee beard thing.

  Logan made sure they all had the names of their films scribbled on the back then went off in search of Insch.

  Rob Macintyre’s football salary had bought him a large granite house in one of the more exclusive streets off the swankier end of Great Western Road, and a brand new silver Porsche 911 to park outside it, reflecting back the gunmetal skies. According to the DMV computers the twenty-one-yearold also had a Merc and an Audi estate. All with personalized number plates. Logan got the f
eeling Macintyre was probably spending money as fast as he earned it. Playing Aberdeen’s ‘look at my car – see how successful I am!’ game.

  Insch’s muck-encrusted Range Rover looked decidedly out of place. The inspector sat in the driver’s seat, staring up at the house, crunching his way through a packet of Polo mints. ‘You see what they said in the paper this morning?’

  ‘Same as usual: you’d think they’d get tired of kicking us by now.’ P&J front page headline: POLICE CAN’T CATCH 8-YEAR OLD KILLER! Colin Miller again, banging on about how Grampian Police couldn’t find their backsides with both hands, let alone Sean Morrison. Even for Miller it was vitriolic stuff.

  Logan cracked his window open, trying to let some fresh air in. The whole car stank of wet dog. ‘What the hell are we supposed to do – search the whole city by hand? Just because he’s eight, doesn’t mean he’s…’ A scowl had settled onto the inspector’s face. ‘What?’

  ‘Not your missing bloody child: the Dundee rape!’ He shook his head and lumbered out of the car. ‘Well, come on then – we don’t have all day. Mr Macintyre has kindly granted us a whole twenty minutes of his time and I don’t want to waste it sitting here listening to you whine!’

  A surprisingly pretty brunette let them into Macintyre’s home – she had a distracting amount of cleavage on display, a gold and ruby pendant nestling between her breasts, an engagement ring the size of a gobstopper, and legs like a poledancer’s. A stereotypical footballer’s wife in training. She couldn’t have been much more than four months pregnant – the bulge artfully framed by her low-slung trousers, cropped, low-cut T-shirt and open blouse, a ruby-pierced bellybutton sparkling invitingly. ‘I don’t know why you can’t just leave him alone!’ she said, marching down the hall ahead of them. ‘He’s never harmed anyone! You should be out catching real crooks, not harassing my Robert …’

  Inside, the place was like an Ikea advert: all minimalist lines and pale wood, arty photographs, prints, seashells and strange little glass things in wooden frames. Nothing looked real, as if the whole house had been bought from a catalogue in one go, rather than built up over the years. It was soulless. Logan had been expecting more bling.

  Macintyre was sitting in the front room, feet up on the coffee table, can of coke in one hand and a phone in the other, chatting away in broad Aberdonian. Macintyre’s fiancée growled, ‘Feet!’ at him and he snatched them back to the carpet as if he’d been scalded, covered the mouthpiece and apologized to his beloved. Logan had never actually met the man before, only seen him in court, on television, or on the pitch at Pittodrie. For a moment he tried picturing the ugly wee sod pinning that poor woman from Dundee to the ground while he carved up her face.

  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, glancin
g 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!’