McRae 2 - Dying Light

by Stuart MacBride

  Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was the biggest hospital in the North-east of Scotland, but you wouldn't know that to look at its A&E waiting room. The floor had that nasty, sticky thing going for it, a faint reek of vomit easily discernible through pine disinfectant. A short Asian nurse escorted them through the building to a large public ward, most of which was taken up with elderly men and the smell of boiled cabbage. Jamie McKinnon had been in surgery for a little over an hour, but now he was sitting up in bed, looking groggy, with a big, purple bruise covering one side of his face, the eye swollen almost shut, his top lip split and raw. He flinched as DI Steel plonked herself down on his bed. 'Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,' she said, patting his hand. If you

  missed me, you just had to say. You didn't need to do all this just to get my attention.' He pulled his hand away and scowled at her with his good eye. 'I'm no' speaking to you. Bugger off.' Steel smiled at him. 'Prison's done nothing to dull your razor-sharp wit, has it, Jamie my boy?' Jamie just stared at the far wall. 'So.' Steel bounced up and down on the bed, making the springs squeak. 'Why'd you do it, Jamie? Racked with guilt about killing your woman? Looking for the quick way out? Much better you just talk to me. A lot less painful.' She kept it up for a full ten minutes, teasing him, poking fun, being bitchy about Rosie Williams, the love of his life. Not surprisingly Jamie didn't tell her anything. Logan - who'd spent the interview cringing with embarrassment at the inspector's crass technique - waited until she'd stomped off for a cigarette, leaving him alone with Jamie McKinnon, before saying anything. 'You know, you don't have to go through this on your own, Jamie. The prison has counsellors. You could--' 'Who the fuck does she think she is?' 'What?' 'Wrinkly old hag, coming in here, treating me like dirt! I'm no' dirt! I'm a fucking human being!' 'I know you are, Jamie.' Logan settled himself down in the spot Steel had vacated. 'Who did the number on your face?' Jamie raised a hand to his swollen eye, touching the puffy flesh with tender fingers. 'Don't want to talk about it.' 'You sure? Some bastard takes his bad day out on you and you're OK with that?' A big, shuddering sigh escaped Jamie McKinnon. He slumped further into the pillows. 'Don't know his name. John something or other. He wanted some . . . stuff.' He shrugged.

  'You know, but I didn't have any! I'm in prison, for fuck's sake. Where the hell am I going to get smack from? Only he says he knows I've got it and why won't I sell it to him?' 'So he beat you up?' McKinnon forced a brave smile. 'Didn't beat me up. I fucked him over good . . .' Logan recognized a bare-faced lie when he heard one. 'How come he thought you were holding?' A shrug, and the forced smile disappeared. 'Don't know.' Logan settled back and gave him a blank stare, letting the silence grow. Jamie shifted uncomfortably, making the starchy white sheets crackle. 'Look, I know ... I used to know people, OK? I could get hold of things.' 'What kind of things?'

  McKinnon looked at him as if he was stupid. 'You bloody well know what kind of things.' 'So this violent scrotum thought your friends would supply you some stuff, even if you were inside?' A small, humourless laugh and Jamie bit his lip, not hard, but enough to open up the split in it, fresh red oozing up through the yellow-scarlet crust. 'Won't be getting nothing for no one any more 'No?' Logan had a shrewd idea who Jamie's suppliers had been, and where they were now: filling a collection of body bags in Isobel's morgue. 'Where you going to get your stuff from now?' There was a long pause, and then: 'I didn't kill her.' 'I know you say that, Jamie, but there's forensic evidence and witnesses and you've battered her before--' Jamie sniffed, tears starting. 'I loved her.' Logan frowned. No matter what Steel said, he was beginning to get the nasty feeling that Jamie might actually be telling the truth. 'Tell me about what happened that night. Right from the start.'

  Out in the corridor DI Steel was waiting for him, hands in her pockets, slouching in front of a large oil painting in shades of blue and orange. 'You got any idea what this is supposed to be?' she asked him. 'It's a post-modern representation of the birth of man.' Logan knew all the paintings in the hospital by heart. He'd spent enough time with them, wandering the corridors after dark, IV drip in one hand, walking stick in the other. 'Looks a lot better on morphine.' Steel shook her head. 'Takes all bloody sorts.' She cast Logan a sly glance. 'So did McKinnon spill his guts then? Come clean to the nice cop?' 'Still maintains he didn't kill her. But from the sound of things he was a reseller for the kids who got burnt up in that fire Monday night.' Steel nodded. 'That figures.' She held up McKinnon's hospital chart. Logan hadn't even seen her swipe it. 'Attempted suicide my arse: he swallowed a plastic fork. Every fucker in Craiginches tries it at one time or another. It's not fatal, you get transferred out to hospital for a nice wee low-security holiday. Come visiting time you can get your hands on any substance your loved ones care to bring in. McKinnon's a dealer: he'll be looking for someone to slip him a bundle of something before he goes back inside. Maybe sell some, use the rest himself.' She tossed Jamie's chart into the nearest bin and started for the exit. 'We'll have someone keep an eye on him. See what comes in.' Logan took one last look at The Birth of Man and followed.

  The rest of the day was spent getting authorization for a low key surveillance on Jamie McKinnon, and as usual Logan did all the work. The inspector smoked lots of cigarettes and offered 'helpful suggestions', but it was Logan who had to fight his way through the forest of paperwork. The only bit she' l actually done herself was present the request to the

  head of CID, who wasn't best pleased. His men were stretched thin enough as it was. The best he could do was get a plainclothes officer to drop by during visiting hours. Provided nothing more important was going on at the time. That done, DI Steel went off in search of a bottle of wine and a half-dozen red roses. It looked like she was in for a much better night than Logan was.

  Half eight Sunday evening: Jackie would be up and getting ready for the night shift. The sound of someone murdering the theme tune to The Flintstones echoed out of the shower as he let himself in. The singing trailed off into 'da-da, dum de da-da . . .', the shower juddered to a halt and The Flintstones started up again, this time the X-rated version Jackie liked to perform at parties after one too many vodkas. Logan set the table, complete with tablecloth and candles. Then it was out with the funny-shaped balti dishes his mother had given him for Christmas the year he got out of hospital, and a bottle of white from the fridge. He was just plonking a small bunch of carnations in a dusty vase when someone said, 'What's all this in aid of?' He turned to see Jackie standing in the doorway, wrapped in a Barbiepink bathrobe, her hair turbaned up in a towel, her broken arm wrapped in a black plastic bag to stop the cast getting soggy. 'This,' he said making a sweeping gesture to take in the table, 'is a peace offering.' He dug into a plastic bag from the local curry house. 'Chicken jalfrezi, chicken korma, nan bread, poppadums, lime pickle, raita and that red, raw oniony stuff you like.' She actually smiled at him. 'Thought you weren't speaking to me . . . You know, after Friday . . .' Pause. 'You were out all day yesterday.' 'Thought you'd want to be alone. You spent the night on the couch

  'I... I was out on the piss till one in the morning. Didn't want to wake you.' 'Oh . . .' Silence. Jackie bit her lip and took a deep breath. 'Look, I'm sorry for storming off, OK? It wasn't you, it was me ... Well, it wasn't all me, I mean you should've never let that manipulative old bitch talk you into working on your day off, but I suppose it wasn't all your fault.' She unpeeled the sticky tape wrapped around the bin-bag, pulling it off to expose the cast on her left forearm. The once pristine-white plaster was now a dirty yellow-grey. 'Ever since I did it, I've been bored out of my head. Filing! Can you believe it? I'm a bloody good police officer, but I'm stuck doing the crappy, shitty, boring, fucking filing.' She picked a fork off the perfectly set table and used it to scratch inside the cast. 'Going out of my bloody mind . . .' Grimace, scratchscratchscratch.

  Logan picked a fresh fork out of the drawer. 'I was beginning to think you were fed up with me,' he said. She stopped scratching for a moment and looked at him. 'Trust me: right now I'm fed up with pre
tty much everything. But this sodding thing comes off in a couple of weeks, I get to go back to normal duties, everything's fine.' Logan hoped so. Christ knew he didn't want a repeat of this weekend. Not wanting to spoil the mood he kept his thoughts to himself and dished out the curry. There wasn't time for a quickie afterwards.

  The Monday morning edition of the Press and Journal was waiting on Logan's doormat when he finally surfaced sometime after nine. He carried the paper through to the kitchen so he could cover it in toast-crumbs and coffee-circles, getting as far as bite one before glancing at the front page. 'Dirty bastard . ..' The headline explained Colin Miller's private little

  meeting in the pub on Friday. Edinburgh Developer Delivers Jobs Windfall! Much of the front page was devoted to Miller's gushing praise of the new development: three hundred homes on green belt between Aberdeen and Kingswells. 'McLennan Homes are proud to announce a new development on the outskirts of the small commuter town, bringing jobs and improved amenities to the people of Kingswells!' Logan snorted: they'd heard that one before. Miller went on to wax rhapsodic about the great things McLennan Homes in general - and its founder in particular - had done in Edinburgh, where the developer had been building 'quality family homes for over a decade!' Surprisingly enough there was no mention of Malcolm McLennan, AKA Malk the Knife's other business ventures: drugs, prostitution, protection rackets, loan sharking, gun running, and every other variety of criminal enterprise he could get his grubby little paws on. Logan settled back in his seat and read the article again. No wonder Colin Miller had been so jumpy when he'd seen him in the pub. The reporter had been thrown off the Scottish Sun for refusing to complete a series of exposes on Malk the Knife's drug smuggling activities, because two of Malkie's boys had made it quite clear that if he didn't drop the story like the proverbial radioactive tattie, they'd hack off his fingers. And just last Christmas, Malk the Knife had tried, and failed, to bribe his way through the planning regulations and into a lucrative property development deal. Looked like his luck was better second time around. But the main story of the day wasn't in the Press and Journal. It'd be all over the evening news.

  12

  Sounds were muffled. The mist, thicker here in the forest than out on the road, clung to the trees and bracken, making everything alien and strange. The rain had given up the ghost sometime after midnight, fading to a misty drizzle. Then came the haar, rolling in off the North Sea, smothering the world. The ground beneath her feet was cold and wet as she squelched along the path, the vague outlines of Scots pine, oak, beech and spruce lurking to either side. Dripping. The Tyrebagger Woods were a damn sight creepier today than they'd been yesterday. Anyone could be lurking in the bushes, just around the next bend. Waiting for her . . . Just as well she had Benji to protect her - or would have if the rotten little sod hadn't charged off into the fog at the first opportunity. 'Benji! . . . Bennnnnji?' Something snapped in the forest and she froze. A twig? 'Benji?' Silence. She did a slow pirouette, watching the white-and-grey landscape swim around her. It was deathly quiet. Just like it went in films before something really horrible happened to the blonde bimbo with the big boobs. She smiled at herself. Not that she had any worries on that front, being a flat-chested brunette with a Master's Degree in molecular biology. She was just a bit

  twitchy because of the job interview. 'Benji! Where are you, you hairy wee shite?' The fog swallowed her calls, not even giving her an echo in return. And yet she was sure there was something . . . She shook her head and carried on up the track, going the wrong way round the Tyrebagger sculpture trail. A huge disembodied stag's head loomed out of the mist, hanging between the trees like a cross between the more sinister bits of Watership Down, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, and the dismembered corpse of a bright-yellow Ford Escort. Whenever she saw the thing she couldn't help smiling. But not this time. This time there was something primitive about it. Something pagan. Something predatory. Shivering, she hurried past, calling out for Benji again. Why the hell did he have to pick today to go AWOL? It wasn't as if she could spend all morning looking for him! Her interview was at half eleven. This was just supposed to be a little walk in the woods to calm her nerves. Not tramp about like a bastard in the fog looking for a stupid bloody spaniel. 'BENJI!' That cracking sound again. She froze. 'Hello?' Silence. 'Is . . .' She was going to hate herself for saying it: 'Is anybody there?' Might as well pop on a pair of stiletto heels and a push-up bra then sit back and wait for the axe murderer. Silence. Not so much as a whisper. The only sound was the pounding of her heart. This was ridiculous; just because some woman was beaten to death last week didn't mean there was someone lurking in the woods . . . Waiting for her . . . Crack! The breath caught in her throat. There was someone out there! Fight or flight, fight or flight? FLIGHT: sprinting hell-for-leather up the barely visible path, splashing through puddles and mud. Just wanting to get back to the car park alive. Trees whipped past on either side of the track, their trunks and branches distorted by the mist into wild-killer

  shapes. Someone was coming after her: she could hear him, crashing through the bushes behind her, getting closer. Past the poetry trees at a sprint, up the hill, the wet ground treacherous beneath her feet. One foot caught on a tree root and she went sprawling on the gritty mud, fire lancing across her palms and knees as the skin broke. She cried out in pain, but the bastard chasing her didn't care. There was just time to scream before a dark shape launched itself out of the mist. And slavered all over her with a huge, wet tongue. 'Benji!' She pulled herself to her knees and swore and swore and swore while Benji danced and skittered around her, hunkering down on his forelegs and wiggling his ridiculous stumpy tail in the air. And then he stopped, stood stock still and charged off into the woods again. 'Bastard fucking dog!' Both her palms dripped with neon-red blood, the scrapes peppered with little black flecks of dirt. Her trousers were ripped open, exposing a similar story about the knees. And her head hurt like hell. With trembling fingers she reached up and gingerly touched a tender spot above her left eyebrow, wincing. More blood. 'That's just fucking marvellous!' So much for making a good impression. She'd have to cancel, or turn up at the job interview looking like she'd been beaten up. 'You BASTARD dog!' Benji was barking from somewhere up the track. Bloody animal had probably found something filthy to roll in. Limping, she followed the sound into the fog-shrouded woods, all thoughts of a sinister attacker forgotten.

  The lights of Alpha Two Zero cut solid blue bars through the fog. It sat in one of the Tyrebagger car parks, empty, the radio chattering away schizophrenically to itself, as WPC Buchan and PC Steve picked their way into the woods. Looking for the body. They'd got the call about twenty minutes ago: young woman's body found battered to death, stripped naked in

  the woods. According to the dispatcher, the person who called it in wasn't that coherent, just kept yammering on about death and the mist and trees. And something about buying sun? WPC Buchan wasn't in the mood for this. Not after yet another fight with Robert, coming home stinking of cheap perfume and stale sweat - what was she, stupid? She stomped along the muddy path, hands in her pockets and a scowl on her face as PC Steve played Earnest Police Officer Number One, keeping up a running commentary as he swept the foggy undergrowth with a huge torch. She trailed along behind, watching him roam from bush to bush on either side of the path. He had a nice arse, even if he was a bit of a mummy's boy. She could ... A faint smile drifted across her face as she thought about all the things she could do to PC Steve Jacobs. God knew it would be a damn sight more fun than the crap she'd have to go home to tonight. They clambered up a small hill, the ground slippery beneath their feet. Just past the summit was one of those wooden post things, with a Perspex notice incorporated into it. She flipped it out, reading about how some woman called Matthews had sculpted a group of European bison resting in the primeval forest, out of chicken-wire, moss, wool, and bits of old metal. The usual heritage-slash-council-slash-art grant-crap. WPC Buchan let the sign fall back into the post and stared into the woo
ds where a barely visible track wound its way into the trees. 'Buying sun . . .' Without saying another word, WPC Buchan stepped off the muddy path and followed the track into the mist. She could hear PC Steve babbling away to himself, his voice gradually trailing off as she moved away and the fog swallowed him whole. The ground rose beneath her feet as the track gave way to forest loam. It was like twilight here, shadows of skeletal trees lurking in the mist. Quiet as a shallow grave. And then she heard it: a faint sobbing. WPC Buchan stopped dead in

  her tracks. 'Hello?' She clambered to the crest of a small rise and stepped out onto an area of flat ground. 'Can you hear me?' Still nothing. 'Oh for fuck's sake . . .' She pulled out her torch, even though she knew it probably wasn't going to do her the slightest bit of good. The fog would just bounce the light back, but the torch's weight felt comforting in her hand. The sort of thing you could crack someone's skull open with. Forward into the fog and WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? They loomed out of the mist, cadaverous beasts, partially rotted. Grazing on the scrub-grass between the fog-shrouded trees. It was the sculptures: bison resting in the primeval forest. WPC Buchan might not know much about art, but she knew what gave her the fucking willies, and these things took the hairy biscuit. The sobbing was louder now, coming from somewhere near the biggest mouldering animal, the fog clearly visible through holes in its carcass. 'Hello?' She clicked on the torch and suddenly the world went white. Two unnatural green eyes flashed in the opaque mass and a low growl split the silence like a rusty knife. 'Aw shite . . .' The eyes came closer and she moved her free hand very slowly to the bulky utility belt at her waist, easing the tiny canister of CS gas out of its pouch. 'Nice doggy?' A face full of that stuff would have anything rolling over and playing dead. The thing that stalked out of the fog was a spaniel, but without any of the usual happy-go-lucky exuberance. The dog's lips were curled back, exposing teeth like daggers, its muzzle smothered in gore. She pointed the CS gas at it, prayed, and sprayed. Suddenly the growling stopped. There was a moment of silence, then yelping exploded from the animal as it staggered around, trying to get away from the searing pain. WPC Buchan didn't resist the urge to give the dog a good kick in the ribs as she picked her way past.