‘This isn’t the telly, I can’t just magic up a DNA profile in time for the adverts. Can probably do you a blood-type, though.’ He took another swab, then wandered over to the work surface beside the fridge. ‘As for the rest of it …’ He sighed, adjusted his safety goggles, then looked across the room. ‘Sam? How long for fingerprints?’
Nothing.
Logan peered at the shape huddled over the vacuum table. The baggy white SOC suit made her completely anonymous, even to him. ‘Samantha?’
The tech tried again. ‘Sam?’
Still nothing.
‘SAM: HOW LONG FOR FINGERPRINTS?’
She looked up from her length of iron pipe. One end was wrapped in a clear plastic evidence bag, the metal inside dark and stained. She hauled at the elastic on her suit’s hood – exposing a shock of bright scarlet hair – and pulled a tiny black headphone out of her ear. ‘What?’
‘Fingerprints.’
‘Oh.’ She looked at Logan and smiled … Probably. It was difficult to tell under the full SOC get-up. ‘That you in there?’
Logan smiled back behind his own mask. ‘Last time I checked.’
‘Got your envelope in the superglue box. Not holding my breath though, been in there ten minutes already and nothing’s come up.’
‘O rhesus negative.’ The tech held up a card. ‘Does that help?’
Same as Jenny McGregor.
‘Post mortem?’
‘No idea.’ The man picked up the evidence bag with the toe in it – using two fingers as if it was a dirty nappy – handed it to Logan, then wiped his gloves down the front of his oversuit. ‘The Ice Queen’s off at a conference in Baltimore, and the silly sod they got in to cover for her’s off with the squits. So …’
Logan tried not to groan. ‘When’s her highness back?’
‘Tuesday week.’
Brilliant.
He signed for the toe, then headed down to the mortuary: quiet and cold in a subterranean annex off the Rear Podium car park. The duty Anatomical Pathology Technician was sitting in a small beige office by the cutting room, feet up on the desk, reading a celebrity gossip magazine.
Logan knocked on the door frame. ‘Got some remains for you.’
‘Ah, indeed.’
‘WAG LOVE CHEAT EXCLUSIVE!’ went into a desk drawer, and the APT unfolded herself from the chair. Tall, thin, and insect-like, with trendy glasses and wide flat face, fingers constantly moving. ‘Is the hearse in the loading bay?’
Logan held up the bag containing the tiny chunk of flesh and bone.
‘Oh …’ She raised a broad, dark eyebrow. ‘I see. Well, we’ve had a busy day; I dare say this will represent a change of pace when Mr Hudson returns from his illness.’ She prowled through to the cold storage room, selected a metal door, opened it, and slid a large metal drawer out of the wall.
A waxy yellow face stared up at them. Swollen golf-ball nose; scraggy grey beard; the skin around the forehead and cheeks slightly baggy, as if it hadn’t been put back properly.
The APT frowned. ‘Now that’s not right. You should be in number four.’ Sigh. ‘Never mind.’ She opened up the next one along. ‘Here we go.’
‘I need the PM done soon as possible. We have—’
‘Sadly with Dr McAllister away, and Mr Hudson … indisposed, it may be a few days before we can do anything.’ She reached towards him, fingers searching like the antennae on a centipede. ‘May I have the remains?’
Logan got her to sign for the toe, then watched her solemnly place the little pale digit in the drawer. It looked vaguely ridiculous: a tiny nub of flesh in an evidence bag, lying in the middle of that expanse of stainless steel. Then she slid the drawer back into the wall and clunked the heavy door shut.
Out of sight, but definitely not out of mind.
3
‘Rose Ferris, Daily Mail. You still haven’t answered the question: did you find Jenny McGregor’s body or not?’ The gangly reporter shifted forward in her seat, nostrils flaring.
Up on the podium DCI Finnie opened his mouth, but the man sitting next to him got in first.
‘No, Ms Ferris, we did not.’ Chief Superintendent Bain straightened the front of his dress uniform, the TV lights glinting off the silver buttons and his shiny bald head. ‘And I’d thank the more excitable members of the press to stop spreading these unsubstantiated rumours. People are distressed enough as it is. Is that clear, Ms Ferris?’
Standing at the side of the room, Logan scanned the sea of faces gathered in the Beach Ballroom’s biggest function suite – the only place near Force Headquarters large enough to fit everyone in. TV cameras, press photographers, and journalists from every major news outlet in the country. All here to watch Grampian Police screwing everything up.
They were arranged in neat rows of plastic chairs, facing the little dais where DCI Finnie, his boss – Baldy Brian – and a chewed-looking Media Liaison Officer perched behind a table draped in black cloth. A display stand with the Scottish Constabulary crest on it made up the backdrop: ‘SEMPER VIGILO’, ‘Always Vigilant’. Somehow Logan doubted anyone was buying it.
A rumpled man stuck his hand up: a sagging vulture in a supermarket suit. ‘Michael Larson, Edinburgh Evening Post. “Unsubstantiated,” right? So you’re saying this is all just a big hoax? That the production company—’
Everything else was drowned out: ‘Here we bloody go …’, ‘Hoy, Larson, your dick’s unsubstantiated!’, ‘Tosser …’
Larson’s back stiffened. ‘Oh come on, it’s obviously fake. They’re just doing it to boost record sales, aren’t they? There never was a body, it’s all—’
‘If there are no other sensible questions, I’m …’ Chief Superintendent Bain frowned out into the crowd as a reporter in the middle of the pack stood up. The whole room turned to stare at the short, stocky bloke, dressed in an expensive-looking grey suit, silk shirt and tie, hair immaculately coiffed. As if he’d come shrink-wrapped in a box.
He waited until every microphone and camera was pointed in his direction. ‘Colin Miller, Aberdeen Examiner.’ His broad Glaswegian accent didn’t really go with the fancy clothes. The wee man pulled out a sheet of paper in a clear plastic sleeve. ‘This turned up on my desk half an hour ago. And I quote: “The police isn’t taking this seriously. We gave them simple, clear, instructions, but they still was late. So we got no other choice: we had to cut off the wee girl’s toe. She got nine more. No more fucking about.”’
The room erupted.
‘Is it true? Did you find Jenny’s toe?’, ‘Why aren’t Grampian Police taking it seriously?’, ‘How can you justify putting a little girl’s life at risk?’, ‘Will you hand this case over to SOCA now?’, ‘When can we see the toe?’, ‘… public inquiry …’, ‘… people have a right to know …’, ‘… think she’s still alive?’
Camera flashes went off like a firework display, Finnie, Bain, and the Media Liaison Officer not getting a word in.
And standing there, basking in the media glow: Colin Miller.
Wee shite.
‘Enough!’ Up at the front of the room, Chief Superintendent Bain banged his hand on the desk, making the jug of water and three empty glasses chink and rattle. ‘Quiet down or I’ll have you all thrown out, are we clear?’
Gradually the hubbub subsided, bums returned to seats. Until the only one left standing was Colin Miller, still holding the note. ‘Well?’
Bain cleared his throat. ‘I think …’
The Media Liaison Officer leaned over and whispered something in Bain’s ear and the Chief Superintendent scowled, whispered something back, then nodded.
‘I can confirm that we recovered a toe this afternoon that appears to have come from a small girl, but until DNA results—’
And the room erupted again.
4
Shouts; telephones ringing; constables and support staff bustling about the main CID room with bits of paper; the bitter-sweet smells
of stewed coffee and stale sweat overlaid with something cloying, artificial and floral. A little walled-off section lurked on one side, home to Grampian Police’s six detective sergeants. The sheet of A4 Blu-Tacked to the door was starting to look tatty, ‘THE WEE HOOSE’ barely readable through all the rude Post-it notes and biroed-on willies. Logan pushed through and closed the door behind him, shutting out the worst of the noise.
‘Jesus …’
He nodded at the room’s only occupant, a slouching figure with an expanding bald spot, taxi-door ears, and a single eyebrow that crossed his forehead like a strip of hairy carpet. Biohazard Bob Marshall: living proof that even natural selection had off days.
Bob spun around in his seat. ‘I had a whole packet of fags in here yesterday and they’ve gone missing.’
‘Don’t look at me: gave up four weeks ago.’ Logan checked his watch. ‘How come you managed to skip the briefing?’
‘Our beloved leader, Acting DI MacDonald, thinks someone needs to keep this bloody department’s head above the sewage-line while you bunch of poofs are off being media hoors.’
‘You’re just jealous.’
‘Bloody right I am.’ He turned back to his desk. ‘See when it’s my turn to be DI? You bastards are going to know the wrath of Bob.’
Logan settled behind his desk and powered up his computer. ‘You got that new pathologist, Hudson’s number?’
‘Ask Ms Dalrymple.’
Logan shuddered. ‘No chance.’
‘Hmm,’ Bob narrowed his eyes. ‘She still playing the creepy morgue attendant?’
‘Three weeks straight. Started doing this weird thing with her fingers too, like she’s got spiders for hands.’
Bob nodded. ‘Like it. Dedication.’ He scooted his chair forward. ‘Did I ever tell you about the time—’
The door clunked open, letting in the sounds of barely-controlled chaos. Samantha stood in the doorway, the SOC oversuit gone, revealing a Green Day t-shirt, black jeans, and a mop of scarlet hair, fringe plastered to her forehead. Face all pink and shiny. The metal bar she’d been dusting for prints was slung over one shoulder, wrapped in a swathe of evidence bags and silver duct tape. ‘Anyone in for a DNA result?’
Bob grinned. ‘If you’re looking for a sample, I’ve got some body fluids in a handy pump dispenser?’
‘Logan, tell Biohazard I wouldn’t touch his knob with a cheese grater.’
‘Aw, come on – you’re not still sulking are you?’
She turned and dumped a small sheaf of papers on Logan’s desk. ‘The blood’s Jenny’s. Ninety-nine point nine eight certainty.’
Logan flipped through to the conclusions page. ‘Sod …’
‘Sorry.’ Samantha draped a warm arm around his shoulders. ‘You going to be late tonight? Big day tomorrow, remember?’
‘Aye, well,’ Bob rubbed a finger across his single hairy eyebrow, look on the bright side: imagine if it’d been someone else’s? Then you’d have two kiddies missing.’
‘Yeah, probably …’ Logan put the report down on his desk. Jenny’s DNA. Sod and bugger. ‘Did you tell Finnie?’
Samantha backed off, hands up. ‘Oh no you don’t.’
‘Please?’
‘Your name’s on the chain of evidence, tell him yourself.’ She gave the length of pipe a little shake. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to get down the store before that idiot Downie comes on. Wouldn’t trust the rotten sod to file his toenails, never mind physical evidence …’ Samantha blushed. Cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’
Bob pursed his lips and tutted. ‘See that’s the trouble with support staff these days: always putting their foot in it. Making jokes about toenails when there’s a wee girl’s severed—’
‘Screw you, Bob.’
He grinned. ‘See: you’re talking to me again!’
She planted a kiss on Logan’s forehead then marched out, giving Bob the finger.
Bob pointed at his crotch. ‘So … you want a rain-check on that DNA sample?’
Samantha slammed the door.
The main CID room was broken up into a cattle-pen of chest-high partition walls, all covered in memos, phone lists, and cartoons cut out of the Aberdeen Examiner. Someone had vandalized the ‘TERRORISM: IT’S EVERYONE’S PROBLEM!’ poster on the wall – by the little recess where the tea and coffee making facilities lurked – the word ‘TERRORISM’ scored out and ‘BOB’S ARSE’ written in its place.
Logan paused in front of the huge whiteboards at the front of the room, scanning the scrawled boxes of case updates. Apparently Jenny and her mum had been spotted in a Peterhead post office, a pub in Methlick, Elgin Library, the Inverurie swimming pool, Cults church … All utter bollocks.
Someone had updated the countdown, now it read, ‘8 DAYS To DEADLINE!!!’
‘Sarge?’
Logan glanced to his left. PC Guthrie was standing beside him, clutching a steaming mug of coffee that curled the smell of bitter burnt-toast into the room. Logan turned back to the board. ‘If you’ve got bad news, you can sod off and share it with someone else.’
Guthrie handed him the mug, a wee pout pulling his pale face out of shape. With his semi-skimmed skin, faint ginger hair, and blond eyebrows he looked like a ghost that had been at the pies. ‘Milk, two sugars.’
‘Oh … sorry.’ Logan took the offered mug.
The constable nodded. ‘But while I’ve got you, Sarge, any chance you can take a look at tomorrow’s drug bust? McPherson’s SIO and you know what that means …’
Logan did. ‘When you going in?’
‘Half-three.’
‘Well, at least it’s an early morning shout. The buggers will still be …’ He could see Guthrie’s face pulling itself into an ugly grimace. ‘What?’
‘Not AM, Sarge, PM.’
‘You’re going in at half-three in the afternoon? Are you mad?’
‘Any chance you could, you know, have a word with him?’
‘They’ll all be wide awake and ready for a fight, resisting arrest, doing a runner, destroying evidence—’
‘Setting their sodding huge dogs on us, yeah, I know: Shuggie Webster’s just got himself a Rottweiler the size of a minibus.’ Guthrie sidled closer. ‘Maybe you could talk to Finnie? Tell him McPherson’s being a dick?’
Logan took a sip of coffee. ‘Gah …’ He handed it back. ‘Not that you deserve it, making coffee like that.’
Guthrie grinned. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’
Logan pushed through the doors and out into the corridor. He paused outside Detective Chief Inspector Finnie’s office, took a deep breath and knocked just as the door swung open.
Acting DI MacDonald froze on the threshold, flinching as Logan’s knuckles jerked to a halt just short of his nose. ‘Jesus …’
Logan smiled. ‘Sorry Mark, I mean Guv.’
MacDonald nodded, a blush turning the skin pink around his little goatee beard. ‘Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, Sergeant.’ Then he pushed past, limped back up the corridor to his new office and disappeared inside, slamming the door behind him.
Sergeant? Two weeks in the job and Acting DI MacDonald was already acting like a tosser.
Logan peered into Finnie’s office. The head of CID was behind his desk, face creased into a scowl. Colin Miller, the Aberdeen Examiner’s star reporter sat in one of the leather visitors’ chairs, smoothing the crease on his immaculate trousers. A pile of dirty laundry slumped in the other chair, mouth thrown open in a jaw-cracking yawn.
Detective Inspector Steel finished with a little burp and a shudder, then sagged even further. Her greying hair stuck up in random directions like a malformed Einstein wig. She ran a hand across her face, pulling the deep-blue-grey bags under her eyes all out of shape. Then let go and the wrinkles took over again. She sniffed. ‘We going to be much longer? Only I’ve got a wean with a temperature to go home to.’
Finnie drummed his fingers on the desk. The note lay beside his keyboard in a clear p
lastic envelope, the paper pristine white and shining. He stared at Logan. ‘Yes?’
Logan held up the report Samantha had delivered. ‘DNA result.’
Collin Miller sat up straight. ‘Oh aye?’
Logan looked at Finnie, the reporter, then back to Finnie again. ‘Sir?’
‘Some time today would be good, Sergeant, before we all lose the will to live.’
‘Ah, right.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s positive. DNA matches Jenny McGregor.’
Finnie nodded, his thick rubbery lips pressed into a down-turned line. ‘There’s no need to sound so dramatic, Sergeant. Where do you think the kidnappers got the thing from, Toes R Us? Of course it’s Jenny’s.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘What about the envelope and note?’
Steel held up a hand. ‘Let me guess, sod all.’
Logan ignored her. ‘Same as all the others: no fingerprints, no DNA, no fibre, no hairs, no dust – no trace of any kind. Nothing.’
‘She shoots, she scores!’
‘Inspector, that’s enough.’ Finnie peered down at the note on his desk. ‘“We gave them simple, clear, instructions, but they still was late. So we got no other choice: we had to cut off the wee girl’s toe.”’ He pinched his lips together. ‘Mr Miller, I take it we’re going to be seeing this in tomorrow’s paper.’
‘Aye, got it all set up for the front page: Jenny Tortured – Kidnappers Hack Off Toe.’
‘I see …’ Finnie steepled his fingers. ‘And you sure it’s wise to print something like that? The public are already very upset, and—’
‘Naw, you know the deal here: I have to print it. Just like I had to read it out at that bloody press conference. You think I wanted to do that? Jesus, man, I’d’ve kept it secret till the paper came out tomorrow mornin’. Now I’ve got no exclusive and every bastard tabloid and broadsheet in the country’s goin’ to run it. No’ to mention it’s probably already on the bloody telly.’ The reporter shrugged. ‘Got no choice, but. I publish, or Jenny and her mum die.’
Finnie ran a hand through his floppy brown hair. ‘Then the least you can do is put our side of things. We weren’t given enough time to respond to the call, given the conditions. And the toe was severed long before we got there.’ He looked up. ‘Wasn’t it, Sergeant?’
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 7 and 8 Page 2