McRae 2 - Dying Light

by Stuart MacBride

  DI Insch's morning briefing was a sombre affair. The inspector perched at the front of the room, dressed in a smart grey

  suit, his considerable bulk straining its seams. The man just seemed to get larger every year, his round features and shiny bald head making him look like an angry pink egg. There was silence as he told the crowded room that PC Maitland's condition hadn't improved - they'd managed to remove the bullet, but he still hadn't regained consciousness. There was going to be a whip-round for the family. Next up was a spate of drug-related violence. Some new pushers had moved in, kicking off a mini turf war. Nothing fatal yet, but it was likely to get worse. Then Logan had to give a five-minute rundown on Rosie Williams's battered body before Insch took over again to talk about the previous night's fire, his voice booming out in the crowded incident room. It had started in one of the older buildings off Kettlebray Crescent: a run-down, boarded-up street of council housing deemed too scabby for human habitation. Number fourteen had been used as a squat for the last couple of months, three men, two women and a ninemonth-old baby girl, all of whom had been at home on the night of the fire. Which explained the unmistakable burnt-pork smell when the fire brigade finally managed to break down the door. There were no survivors. The inspector shifted, making the desk groan as he ferreted about in his trouser pockets. 'I want one team going doorto-door two streets either side of the scene: anything you can get on the squatters, particularly names. I want to know who they were. Team two is going to pick through the surrounding buildings, gardens and waste ground. You,' he said in a merry sing-song, children's-television voice, 'are looking for clues. Who was the chef at last night's indoor barbecue? Get me something.' As the teams filed out of the room, Logan stayed put, trying not to look as tired and hacked-off as he felt. 'Well,' said Insch when the room was emptied, 'what time you off to see Dracula?'

  Logan sagged even further into his chair. 'Half eleven.' Insch swore and shifted his attention to his jacket pockets. 'What kind of a bloody time is that? Why couldn't he drag you in at seven if he was going to chew a strip out your arse? Waste of a bloody morning. . .' A grunt of satisfaction as he finally found what he was looking for: a packet of fizzy dinosaurs. He stuffed one in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. 'He tell you to bring a Federation rep with you?' Logan shook his head. 'Well, probably not going to sack you then.' He levered his bulk down from the desk. 'If you've not got the Spanish Inquisition till half eleven, you can go pay your last respects to Rosie Williams. Post mortem's at eight. I've got to do a press conference on this bloody fire. With bastard McPherson off on the sick, again, I've got more than enough on my plate without watching the Ice Queen hack up some murdered tart as well. I'm sure you can hold the fort without me. Go on.' He made little shooing gestures. 'You're making the place look untidy.'

  Rosie was already washed by the time Logan slumped his way out across the rear car park and down the stairs to the morgue. It was a collection of odd-sized rooms, buried away in the basement of FHQ, not quite part of the building proper. The cutting room was spacious: clean white tiles and stainless steel tables sparkling in the overhead lighting, disinfectant and room freshener fighting a losing battle against the reek of burnt meat. A row of six trolleys sat against the far wall, their occupants sealed in white plastic body-bags. Locking in the freshness. Logan was only five minutes early, but he was still the only living person there. He let loose a huge yawn and tried to stretch the knots out of his shoulders. No sleep, followed by six hours in a cold, stinking alleyway was beginning to take its toll. Grunting, he slouched over to Rosie's naked

  body. She lay on one of the glittering cutting tables, beneath the massive extractor hood, ready to give her all one last time. Rosie's skin was even paler than it had been in the alley. Her blood had succumbed to gravity's embrace, slipping slowly through the tissue to pool along her back and the underside of her arms and legs, making her porcelain flesh dark purple and bruised where it touched the table. Poor old Rosie. Her death hadn't even merited front-page treatment, just a sidebar in this morning's Press and Journal. 'Six Murdered In Arson Attack!' was the main story. There was a strange protrusion bumping the skin over her ribcage and Logan was leaning in for a closer look when the door burst open and the pathologist swept in. 'If you're about to get romantic,' said the newcomer with a grin, 1 can come back later.' Dr Dave Fraser, overweight, going on fifty-five, bald head, hairy ears. 'I know you have a thing for the colder lady.' He grinned and Logan couldn't help smiling back. 'Speaking of which: you will be disappointed to hear that Her Imperial Majesty the Ice Queen will not be joining us for this little funfest. Doctor's appointment; not feeling well after last night.' Logan breathed a sigh of relief. He was in no rush to see Isobel again after her foul mood at the crime scene this morning. Doc Fraser pointed at the six trolleys in the corner. 'You can take a peek if you like, while I get set up.' Against his better judgement, Logan walked across to the collection of trolleys in the corner. Up close the smell was worse: burnt meat and rendered fat. One of the body-bags had been carefully folded up in quarters, the resulting package held in place with silver tape, making it small enough to take a nine-month-old child. Taking a deep breath, Logan picked one of the other bags, standing motionless in the antiseptic room for a moment, wondering if this was really such a good idea, before pulling the zip down. There wasn't much of a face left: nose and eyes gone, the teeth yellow-brown

  shards poking through scorched-black flesh. The mouth open in a final, silent scream. Logan took one look, gagged, and zipped it back up again. He shuddered his way back to the cutting table. 'Good, isn't it?' asked Dr Fraser, smiling at him from behind his surgical mask. 'Tell you, I did one when they brought them in: all crispy on the outside and raw in the middle. Like every time my wife tries to barbecue.' Logan closed his eyes and tried not to think about it. 'Shouldn't they be in the fridges, instead of lying out there?' Dr Fraser nodded. 'Yup, but the winch is buggered, and I'm not doing it: bad back. Brian can shift them when he gets here.' The aforementioned Brian - the mortuary's senior Anatomical Pathology Technician - arrived bang on eight o'clock, along with the Procurator Fiscal, her assistant, a police photographer, and the corroborating pathologist: there to make sure Dr Fraser didn't screw up the post mortem and cost them a conviction. He was a cadaverous man with eyes like an unwell fish and a handshake to match. The PF's sidekick was the same one who'd attended the crime scene in the wee small hours, a brand-new substantive depute, two years out of law school and moving up the career ladder. She was dressed in full surgical get-up, complete with mask and hat, her eyes shining with a mixture of fear and excitement. Logan got the distinct impression this was her first time at a real post mortem. 'Everybody ready?' asked Dr Fraser when they'd all clambered into the ubiquitous SOC over suits so as not to contaminate the body. 'Er . . . before we begin,' said the new girl, looking at her boss for permission before continuing. 'I'd like to know where the victim's clothes are: have they been examined?' Logan shook his head. 'She was naked at the scene. No sign of any clothing. I had two uniforms search the alley and the gurrounding ones as well.'

  She frowned. 'So whoever killed her took her clothes,' she said, not noticing as Logan and Dr Fraser exchanged a pained look. 'Has she been raped? Is there any sign of recent sexual congress?' Dr Fraser screwed up his face and Logan could tell he was looking for a polite way to tell her to shut up and sod off. 'We've not got that far yet, but as she was on the game I'd be pretty shocked if we didn't find evidence of recent shagging.' He told Brian to start the tape. 'Now, if you're sitting comfortably, we'll begin.' Logan tried not to watch too closely as Fraser finished the external examination and went in with the knife - seeing someone's innards getting hauled out in four big chunks and rummaged through always made his stomach churn. From the looks of things the deputy PF's breakfast was doing the post mortem dance too. Her eyes had gone a watery pink and all the colour had drained from the small part of her face on show between the hat and the mask. Nice to see it wasn't just hi
m. When at last it was all over, and Rosie's brain was floating in a bucket of formalin, Dr Fraser ordered Brian to stop the tape and go put the kettle on. It was time for tea and edited highlights. They stood in the small office, waiting for the kettle to boil, listening to Dr Fraser translate the medical-speak into English. Rosie Williams had been beaten to death: stripped, punched, kicked, stomped on and strangled. Not necessarily in that order. 'But,' he said, 'she didn't die from manual asphyxiation. Left lung was punctured; the rib severed the vein on the way in so she basically drowned in her own blood. But it would Only have been a matter of time before her other injuries killed her anyway. Oh and she was pregnant too. About eight weeks.' The PF's beeper went off, eliciting a small round of genteel swearing as she pulled out her mobile phone, couldn't get a

  signal, and had to go outside. As soon as her boss was gone, the new deputy PF tried to take charge. 'We should get a DNA analysis done on the foetus: we may have to prove a link between the death and the child's father.' Now that there wasn't a butchery exhibition going on under her nose she was a lot more confident. She'd stripped off her surgical gear to reveal a severe black suit with sensible boots. Her long hair was the colour of stale beer, frizzy at the ends, her face pretty in a long-nosed, girl-next-door kind of way, a smattering of freckles marking the recent sunshine. 'What about the sexual assault angle?' Fraser shook his head. 'Plenty of recent sexual activity all three entrances - but nothing forced. Signs of lubricant in all orifices, probably spermicidal condoms, but we won't know for sure until we get the lab results back. No semen.' 'Right, Sergeant,' she said, turning to Logan, 'I want you to search the alley for any discarded contraceptives. If we can . . .' she caught sight of Logan's expression and stopped. 'What?' 'Shore Lane is one big open-air knocking shop. There'll be hundreds of used condoms down there, and we've no way of telling how long they've been there for, who was wearing them, or who they've been inside.' 'But the DNA--' 'For DNA to count, first you'd have to prove it'd been inside her, then that it was worn by the killer and not just one of her regulars. Not to mention the whole "was it used at the time of her death" thing. And we don't even know if her attacker had sex with her first.' Something horrible occurred to Logan. 'Or after?' He cast a worried glance at Dr Fraser, but the man shook his head. 'No fear of that,' he said. There had been a nasty case a year ago when little boys were being abducted, strangled and then abused and mutilated. At least this wasn't going to be one of those.

  'I see.' She furrowed her neatly trimmed eyebrows. 'I suppose there would also be considerable expense involved in getting DNA extracted from all those contraceptives.' 'Considerable!' said Logan and Dr Fraser at the same time. 'I want them collected anyway she said. 'We can store them in deep freeze in case a suspect emerges.' Logan couldn't see the point, but what did he know? He was just a lowly detective sergeant. Just as long as he didn't have to be the one telling the search teams to rummage about looking for old condoms, preferably filled. 'Will do,' he said. 'OK.' she reached into her immaculate suit and pulled out a slim black wallet, handing each of them a freshly minted business card. 'If anything comes up, day or night, let me know.' And then she was gone. 'Well?' asked Dr Fraser when the morgue door had swung shut. 'What do you think?' Logan looked down at the card in his hand: 'Rachael Tulloch LL.B, Procurator Fiscal Substantive Depute'. He sighed and stuck it in his top pocket. 'I think I've got enough to worry about.'

  Twenty-five minutes past eleven and Logan was getting twitchy. He'd arrived at the offices of Professional Standards early, not wanting to make a bad impression, even though he knew it was way too late for that. Inspector Napier didn't like Logan. Had never liked him. Was just itching for a chance to throw him out on his scarred backside. It was twenty to twelve before Logan was finally summoned through to the inspector's lair. Napier was an unhappy-looking man by nature and had managed to select a career in which his miserable face, thinning ginger hair and hooked nose were a distinct advantage. The inspector didn't stand as Logan entered, just pointed a fountain pen at an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair on

  the opposite side of the desk, and went back to scribbling down something in a diary. There was a second, uniformed inspector sitting on the other side of the room with his back to the wall, arms crossed, face closed. He didn't introduce himself as Logan looked nervously about Napier's office. The room echoed the man, everything in its place. Nothing here was without function, nothing frivolous like a photograph of his loved ones. Presuming he had any. Finishing his entry with a grim flourish, Napier looked up and flashed Logan the smallest and most insincere smile in the history of mankind. 'Sergeant,' he said, smoothing out a razor-sharp crease in his tailored black uniform, the buttons winking and shining away in the fluorescent lighting like tiny hypnotists' pocket watches. 'I want you to tell me all about PC Maitland and why he is now lying in Intensive Care.' The inspector settled back in his chair. 'In your own time, Sergeant.' Logan went through the botched operation, while the silent man in the corner took notes. The anonymous tip-off: someone selling stolen electrical goods from an abandoned warehouse in Dyce. Getting the officers together, fewer than he'd wanted, but all that were available. Piling out to the warehouse in the dead of night when there was supposed to be some big delivery happening. Getting everyone into position. Watching as a grubby blue Transit Van appeared and backed up to the warehouse door. How he'd given the go to storm the building. And then how it had all started to go wrong. How PC Maitland had been shot in the shoulder and fallen from a walkway, twenty feet straight down to the concrete floor below. How someone had set off a smoke grenade and all the bad guys escaped. How, when the smoke cleared, there wasn't a single piece of stolen property in the whole place. How they'd rushed Maitland to A&E, but the doctors didn't expect him to live. 'I see,' said Napier when Logan had finished. 'And the

  reason you decided to use an unarmed search team rather than trained firearms officers?' Logan looked down at his hands. 'Didn't think it was necessary. Our information didn't say anything about weapons. And it was stolen property, small stuff, nothing special. We did a full risk analysis at the briefing 'And are you taking full responsibility for the entire . . .' he hunted around for the right word, settling on: 'fiasco?' Logan nodded. There wasn't anything else he could do. 'Then there's the negative publicity,' said Napier. 'An incident like this gathers media interest, much in the same way as a mouldering corpse gathers flies . ..' He produced a copy of the previous day's Evening Express. The headline was something innocuous about house prices in Oldmeldrum, but the inspector flicked past that to the centre-page spread and handed it across the desk. To My Mind . .. was a regular column, where the paper got local bigwigs, minor celebrities, ex-police chief inspectors and politicians to bang their gums about something topical. Today it was Councillor Marshall's turn, the column topped with the usual photograph of the man, his rubbery features stretched wide by an oily smile like a self-satisfied slug.

  Police incompetence is on the rise: you only have to look at last week's botched raid for yet more evidence! No arrests and one officer left at death's door. While our brave boys in blue patrolling the streets are doing a sterling job under difficult circumstances, it has become clear that their superiors are unable to manage the proverbial drinks party in a brewery ...

  It went on for most of the page, using Logan's screwed- up warehouse raid as a metaphor for everything that was wrong with the police today. He pushed the paper back across the desk, feeling slightly sick. Napier pulled a thick file marked 'DS L. McRae' from his

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  I

  in-tray and added Councillor Marshall's article to the pile of newspaper cuttings. 'You have been remarkably lucky not to have been pilloried in the press for your involvement in this, Sergeant, but then I suppose that's what happens when you have friends in low places.' He placed the file neatly back in the tray. 'I wonder if the local media will still love you when PC Maitland dies . . .' Napier looked Logan straight in the eye. 'Well, I will make my recommendations
to the Chief Constable. You will no doubt hear in due course what action is to be taken. In the meantime, I'd like you to consider my door always open, should you wish to discuss matters further.' All the sincerity of a divorce lawyer. Logan said, 'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.' This was it: they were going to fire him.

  Lunchtime, and Logan was still waiting for the axe to fall. He sat at a table in the corner of the canteen, pushing a congealing lump of lasagne around his plate. There was a clatter of dishes and Logan looked up to see WPC Jackie 'Ball Breaker' Watson smiling at him. Bowl of Scotch broth followed by haddock and chips. The plaster cast on her left arm made unloading the tray kind of tricky, but she managed without asking for help. Her curly brown hair was trapped in its regulation bun, just the faintest scraps of make-up on her face, every inch the professional police officer. Not at all like the woman he'd gone to bed with last night, who dissolved into fits of giggles when he blew raspberries on her stomach. She looked down at the mush on his plate. 'No chips?' Logan shook his head. 'No.' He sighed. 'Diet, remember?' Jackie raised an eyebrow. 'So chips are out, but lasagne's OK is it?' She dug a spoon into her soup and started to eat. 'How was the Crypt Keeper?' 'Oh you know, same as usual: I'm a disgrace to the uniform, bringing the force into disrepute . . .' He tried for a smile, but couldn't quite make it. 'Beginning to think Maitland might just be one cock-up too many. Anyway,' change the subject: 'how about you? How's the arm?'