Broken Skin lm-3

by Stuart MacBride

  The birthday party wasn’t as horrible as Logan had been expecting: it was much, much worse. Jackie kept checking her watch, as if she had somewhere better to be, and Logan watched her grumbling her way through the party like a spoiled child.

  How long had it been going on — her and the man on the phone? How long had she been lying to him? Sneaking around behind his back. Janette’s fictional break-up, the rehearsal on Sunday that wasn’t: lies.

  What was it Ronald Berwick — champion housebreaker — had said? ‘Never trust a woman, they’ll fuck you over every time.’

  LIES

  28

  Last night’s snow hadn’t come to much, just a thin veneer of white that melted away as soon as the sun touched it, making the roads steam. Logan stood at the window of DI Steel’s office, not really watching the people marching by on the streets below — enjoying the brief respite from winter — he was too busy brooding. When he’d punched 1471 into the phone to find out who Jackie had been speaking to last night it was Rennie’s number that came back. He should have known: the two of them had always been close. Simon Bloody Rennie. Two-faced, backstabbing-

  ‘… or am I just being a vindictive old cow? Hoy, Earth to Lazarus, come in Lazarus!’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘miles away.’

  ‘I said the wee shite’s lookin’ at eight to twelve years before he gets out. The PF’ll try for more, but you know what judges’re like when it comes to sentencing wee kids. Soft bastards.’

  ‘Oh, Sean Morrison …’ he turned back to the window. ‘You ever wonder what happened to him? You know, to make him that way.’

  ‘Nope. Don’t know, don’t care. We caught the wee bastard and he’s going away for a long time. That’s all I need to know.’

  ‘Hmm …’ A patrol car turned into Queen Street, the sunshine glinting off the windscreen as it stopped to let an old lady cross the road. ‘Six months ago he was a normal little eight-year-old boy, and now he’s a murderer. Big step for a small kid.’

  ‘You sound like a bloody social worker. He’s a spoilt wee shite and that’s all there is to it.’ The noise of a petrol station lighter scritch-scritchscritching, and a curl of white smoke snaked its way towards the window.

  ‘You don’t kill an old man just because mummy and daddy won’t buy you a pony.’ He looked back over his shoulder — Steel was stretched out happily in her chair, heels dug deep into the carpet, arms up over her head, like a dishevelled cat, puffing away happily to herself. ‘Something must have happened.’

  She pulled the fag from her mouth, peering at him through tendrils of smoke. ‘Gonnae do me a favour an no’ piss on my parade? We won: enjoy it.’ She dragged her sleeve back and squinted at her watch. ‘Come on, just time for a pee break before the PF gets here. And cheer up for God’s sake, you’re starting to make Doc Misery-Guts look cheery by comparison.’

  * * *

  The Procurator Fiscal sat in the least manky of the inspector’s chairs, looking tanned and golden, but her deputy — the one she’d left in charge while she was off basking on a beach somewhere — had taken on the typical Aberdeen mid-winter pallor. Rachael Tulloch: skin so pale it was almost white, her long, curly auburn hair held back in a loose ponytail that she fiddled with while the PF and Steel talked through the list of offences they were going charge Sean Morrison with.

  She was pretty; Logan couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before. Not beautiful, but wholesome, Celtic, girl-next-door pretty. She looked up, caught him staring at her, and smiled.

  Feeling like a naughty teenager he blushed and looked away.

  When they were finished, Rachael hung back, letting Steel and the PF march on ahead. ‘So,’ she said, undoing her hair, letting the curls fall across her shoulders and down her back, ‘I hear you caught Sean pretty much single handed.’ Logan demurred, but she was having none of it. ‘Not to mention solving all those burglaries.’ A smile played across her lips, then she rolled her eyes, putting on a cheesy American accent, ‘Is there anything you can’t do?’

  ‘I … well …’ Suddenly Logan was having difficulty stringing two words together.

  ‘You know,’ taking a deep breath, ‘I’m sure I still owe you a drink. From before.’ Resting her fingertips against his arm.

  ‘Ah, well …’ and then he thought of Jackie and Rennie — he doesn’t suspect a thing — ‘Now you come to mention it, I do remember something about a large gin and tonic.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Er … tonight?’

  ‘Tonight. Seven o’clock, Ferry Hill House Hotel, the bar, not the lounge. Don’t be late.’ Rachael grinned, turned, and hurried after the Procurator Fiscal. She only looked back twice.

  Logan bumped into Big Gary on the way down the stairs. The big man took one look at him and groaned. ‘What are you doing in? Thought I told you to stay off till Saturday.’

  ‘DI Steel.’

  ‘Why do we even bother having a shift rota?’ He dug his notebook out and scribbled something in it. ‘Any idea when Her Holiness will let you back to normal duties?’

  ‘No. You seen Rennie about?’ Logan didn’t know what he was going to do to the constable, but it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  ‘Court. All day,’ Gary said, putting his notebook back where he’d found it, ‘two unlawful removals, three shoplifters and an indecent exposure. He’s in tomorrow though.’

  Logan thanked him and stomped down the stairs to his commandeered incident cupboard, sitting in the windowless little room, thinking about marching over to the court building, grabbing Rennie by the throat and beating the shit out of him. He was stamping on the little bastard’s testicles when his phone started to ring.

  It was Mr Skate Or Die from the IB’s tech team, wanting him to know he’d tried those servers from the Garthdee house.

  Logan frowned. ‘Garvie, not Garthdee. Frank Garvie.’

  ‘Aye, whatever. Plugged them in this morning — everything’s encrypted.’

  ‘Can you crack it?’

  There was a pause and then some derisive laughter. ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll be right up.’

  The servers they’d confiscated from Garvie’s flat lay in the middle of a landfill site of empty Diet Coke cans and bits of wire. Both machines were hooked up to flat-screen monitors — reams of letters and numbers glowing pale green on black. ‘What you’re looking at,’ said the techie, ball-point pen sticking out of his mouth, ‘is two-five-six bit asymmetric encryption. Everything is wide open on the box, no security at all, but you can’t make any sense out of it without the matching keys.’

  ‘There has to be something you can-’

  ‘Not a sodding chance.’ He tapped one of the boxes with his pretend cigarette, ‘the military use hundred and twenty-eight bit for secret documents. Two-five-six is like, three hundred and forty billion, billion, billion times more secure. That’s your super top, top secret NSA, MI6 kind of thing. We won’t be able to crack stuff like this for atleast another twenty-five years. And before you ask: you can buy encryption software off the internet for less than the price of a football ticket.’ The pen went back in his mouth. ‘Without the key we haven’t got a chance in hell of finding out what’s on these machines.’

  ‘Nope, not in.’ The voice of Alpha Thirteen. ‘We went round a couple of the neighbours, but they’ve no’ seen him since last night. Apparently he was pissed — standin’ in the stairwell, shoutin’ about how they was all a bunch of bastards and he’d never done nothing.’

  Logan clamped a hand over the telephone’s mouthpiece and passed on the message to DI Insch. ‘Not in.’

  The fat man glowered. ‘Tell them to keep going back. Every hour, on the hour. Soon as Garvie’s home I want the encryption key to those bloody files.’

  By eleven o’clock Logan was back in his gloomy little incident room, with the lights switched off, brooding about Jackie and Rennie, unable to work up any enthusiasm for the piles of paperwork he was supposed to be catching up on. How the hel
l could she do that to him? And with RENNIE! Simon Bloody Bastarding Rennie. Simon Bloody Bastarding Arse-Features Thick As Pig Shit Rennie Bastard-

  The sound of the door opening. Someone said, ‘Eh?’ and suddenly the room was full of light, leaving Logan blinking and cursing. Big Gary stood on the threshold, one hand on the light switch. ‘What you doing in here in the dark?’

  ‘What do you want Gary?’

  ‘Jesus, you sound cheery … That Glaswegian git’s been on the phone.’

  Logan waited for the rest of it, but nothing else was forthcoming. ‘And?’

  ‘The hell should I know — I look like your bloody secretary? If you switched your phone on every now and then you’d know, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Fine.’ He went back to staring at the wall. ‘Anything else?’

  There was a sigh, Gary muttered, ‘I give up,’ switched off the light and closed the door behind him.

  Logan pulled out his phone and called Colin Miller back. It seemed to ring forever before the reporter’s voice came on, deeper and more gravelly than normal.

  ‘What you want?’

  ‘Morning, Colin. Feeling better?’

  ‘Like a cat’s pissed in my mouth.’

  ‘You phoned.’

  ‘Did I?’ There was a loud, rattling cough. ‘Urgh… Did I do anythin’ stupit yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. Isobel speaking to you yet?’

  ‘She shouteda bit.’ Logan got the feeling that was something of an understatement — Dr Isobel MacAlister wasn’t the kind to suffer in silence. Colin groaned. ‘Said I was an irresponsible bastard for disappearin’. That anything could’ve happened. Aye, like last time, remember? When you fucked me over and-’

  ‘We went through this yesterday: you forgave me! Said I was your best mate.’

  ‘Must’ve been really pished …’

  ‘Doesn’t matter, you can’t un-forgive someone.’

  There was a long pause — enough to make Logan think Miller had hung up — and then the reporter said, ‘Izzy says I have to make nice.’

  ‘That mean no more kicking the crap out of us all over the front page of the P amp;J then?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ Another cough. ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Well, if we’re all friends again …’ Logan hesitated, this was a perfect opportunity to get Rennie back — ask Miller to screw him over in the press. ‘Any chance you could dig up some dirt on someone for me?’

  ‘Depends: who?’

  Rennie, Rennie, Rennie … Logan closed his eyes, bottling out at the last minute. He just couldn’t do it. Not even to Rennie.

  ‘You there? C’mon — who?’

  Yes he could. ‘Detective Constable Simon Rennie.’

  There was silence from the other end of the phone, and when Miller’s finally spoke, his voice had its professional edge back. ‘Been up to some-thin’ has he?’

  ‘Depends what you find out, doesn’t it?’

  ‘And I get to publish what I dig up?’

  ‘No skin off my nose. Just as long as you tell me first.’

  ‘See what I can do.’ And then Miller hung up.

  That was it: no turning back now. If there was dirt to be had, Miller would find it and Rennie would be splattered all over the Press and Journal. Ruined. It took nearly five minutes for Logan to start feeling guilty. Sitting on his own, in the dark, he covered his face with his hands and swore and swore and swore.

  29

  By the time he got back to the flat that evening — having spent most of the day sulking and brooding in his little room at FHQ — Jackie was just heading out, dressed up in her black cat-burglar outfit again. She paused at the front door. Scowled. ‘You hear about the rape?’

  ‘Dundee last night? Yeah.’ The worst one yet: Wendy Nichol, twenty-six, computer programmer with a games company, bringing up her five-yearold daughter on her own. If a taxi driver hadn’t seen her leg sticking out of a bush she’d have bled to death. Insch had gone through the roof when the call came from Tayside Police: DCI Cameron blaming the whole thing on the fat man’s inability to put Rob Macintyre behind bars.

  ‘Unbe-fucking-lievable, how the hell …’ Jackie stopped. ‘I’m going to have to go out again tonight.’

  ‘Really.’ Not a question. Trying to keep the anger out of his voice.

  ‘Aye. You know what it’s like.’

  Logan nodded. He did indeed. He knew exactly what it was like. ‘I’m going out too. You going to see Cathy again?’ Trying to catch her off guard by using a random name.

  ‘No: Janette.’ The same name she’d given him earlier. Clever.

  ‘Right. Janette.’

  Jackie looked as if she was about to say something, then gave him a quick peck on the cheek instead. ‘Don’t wait up.’ She banged out through the main door and Logan stood where he was for a moment, before turning round and following her. Sneaking out onto Marischal Street in the rain, watching her march up the road with her mobile phone clamped to her ear. Jackie got to the top and made a right onto Union Street, coming to a halt in the bus shelter opposite the Tolbooth. She stuffed the phone back into her pocket and stood there, breath streaming in the cold night air.

  He hung back, loitering at the door to The Tilted Wig — where she couldn’t see him, but he could see her — cold rain plastering his hair to his head, seeping through his jacket. Three bendy buses had come and gone by the time an anonymous Citroen pulled into the stop, windscreen wipers going full tilt. Jackie threw her hands in the air, shouting, ‘About bloody time!’ then opened the passenger door. The interior light flickered on and Logan got a good look at the driver before Jackie climbed in and the door slammed shut. The Bastard Simon Rennie.

  The car indicated, then drew out into the steady stream of traffic. Joining the rush hour. Soaking wet, Logan stood and watched until the car disappeared.

  The Ferryhill House Hotel was one of the few places in Aberdeen optimistic enough to boast a beer garden — a collection of picnic benches sulking, unused, in the steady downpour. Logan marched through into the bar, looking like a drowned rat. Shivering, he peeled off his jacket and scanned the crowd. Not quite seven o’clock yet. No sign of Rachael.

  All the tables around the open fire were taken, so he made do with the next best thing, hanging his dripping jacket over the back of a chair. Then went up for a pint of Stella, taking it back to the table and staring at it; wondering if it wasn’t too late to chicken out. Maybe he should just go home? This was-

  ‘You came!’ He looked up to see Rachael Tulloch taking off a bright orange waterproof. Too late to back out now. She pulled out the seat opposite and sank into it, little droplets of water falling from her hair to sparkle on the tabletop. ‘Oh, you’ve got a drink, I’ll …’ she went to stand, but Logan shooed her back into her chair.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll get it. Gin and tonic?’

  She blushed. ‘Please.’

  By the time Logan got back to the table Rachael was putting a lipstick back in her bag. ‘Thanks,’ she said, accepting the drink, ‘you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. Cheers,’ Holding up her glass for Logan to clink his off.

  They drank in silence. ‘Er …’ she said, coughed, and tried again. ‘We got someone in court today for those unlawful removals. In Tillydrone?’

  ‘Yeah? That’s great.’

  ‘Yeah …’ More silence. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’ She played with the glass in her hands, not looking at him. ‘Thought you’d make some excuse, or say no, or something …’

  Logan tried for a laugh, but it came out sounding slightly strangled. ‘Sorry.’ He took a gulp of lager. ‘I’m glad you asked.’ Not sure if he was lying or not.

  She smiled. It made her eyes shine.

  The Indian restaurant on Crown Street was only a five-minute walk away, but they were both soaked to the skin by the time they hurried in through the door. At least eating would give them something to do in the awkward silences. Which were getting fewer. Mostly they talked about w
ork: Logan told her about Zander Clark’s stash of Victorian porn, then launched into an anecdote about DI Steel chasing a prostitute who’d been shoplifting from Ann Summers, leaving a trail of vibrators, crotchless knickers and lubricant as she tried to get away. So Rachael told him about a man she’d prosecuted for trying to abort his girlfriend’s pregnancy with a bottle of bleach.

  As the night wore on, Logan tried hard not to think about what Jackie was up to. It didn’t matter anyway, she was sleeping with Rennie: it was over. First thing tomorrow morning he’d ask her to move out. And that would be that. So he told jokes and stories, and tried to convince himself he didn’t care.

  Outside afterwards, standing on the restaurant steps, waiting for the taxi. ‘You know,’ said Rachael, her voice coming out in a plume of steam, lightly scented with cardamom, cumin and garlic, ‘I’m really glad you came.’ She stared down at her woolly gloves, cheeks flushed and shiny pink.

  ‘So am I.’ And this time he meant it.

  ‘Would you …’ Deep breath. ‘Ah sod it.’ She grabbed him by the lapels and kissed him, her lips soft and warm and slightly spicy … And that’s when Logan’s phone rang.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he mumbled, and she backed off laughing as he checked the number. It was FHQ. ‘Sorry.’ He hit the call button and Sergeant Mitchell’s voice burst into his ear, ‘… No I do not, now get your backside in gear …’

  ‘What can I do for you, Eric?’

  ‘What? Oh halleluiah, it’s got its phone switched on for once! You sober?’

  ‘Yes.’ He’d been on pints of water since they arrived at the restaurant, not wanting to make a complete tit of himself. ‘Why?’

  ‘DI Insch isn’t. You’ve had Alpha Thirteen wasting time all day checking on an address in Danestone — aFrank Garvie — ring any bells?’ Logan admitted that it did. ‘Right,’ said Mitchell, ‘we’ve got reports of a disturbance at that address.’

  Logan didn’t see what that had to do with him. ‘And?’