Logan McRae Crime Series Books 7 and 8

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Of course she did!’ Nichole spun around, hauled the pipe from her mouth and jabbed the man with the end. ‘Look hard enough and you’ll find one on anyone. Give me a knife, a flame, and fifteen minutes, and I’ll find the Devil’s mark on any minister you like.’ Another poke. ‘I’ll find one on you.’

  Steel licked her lips. ‘Bet she goes like a jackhammer on a sunny day.’

  ‘Shhhh!’

  Nichole Fyfe spun around and marched past the camera, off the set.

  ‘Rowan. Rowan! COME BACK HERE!’

  Silence.

  Zander Clark leaned forward and pressed a button on the microphone mounted beside the monitor. ‘Aaaand, cut! That’s a print, everyone, well done.’

  A round of applause rippled through the crew.

  Jack stepped up and tapped the director on the shoulder. ‘Sorry, Zander, but the police need to see you?’

  A frown crossed the huge face. ‘What do the police …’ He stared straight at Logan. ‘Detective Sergeant McRae!’ And the frown turned into a smile. Now he looked exactly like the photo on the pass dangling from his neck. ‘How nice to see you again, it’s been too long. And have you brought …’ More smiling, and a little clap of the hands. ‘Detective Inspector Steel, how’s your lovely wife?’

  Steel sniffed. ‘How come no one’s got naked yet?’

  Blink. Then the smile turned into a grin. ‘No, no, Inspector, haven’t you heard? Those days are behind me: we’re filming a proper Hollywood blockbuster here.’

  ‘Oh …’ Her shoulders drooped. ‘No bonking at all?’

  ‘One nude scene, but it’s very artistic and intrinsic to the plot.’ He leaned forward and keyed the microphone again. ‘Charles, Nichole, you were superb. We’re going to set up for three-six-three.’ Then he let go of the button. ‘Now, it’s not that I’m not happy to see you both again, but you wouldn’t believe how much something like this costs every minute, so …?’

  Logan stepped to one side, letting a woman with a big tray laid out with makeup scuttle by. ‘We need to talk to you about Agnes Garfield.’

  The smile disappeared from Zander’s face. He stared up at the lighting rig above their heads for a moment. Then a sigh deflated his huge frame. ‘Give me fifteen minutes, then we can talk while they’re dressing the set for three-sixty-four.’

  ‘God, she was a complete nightmare.’ Zander slouched in his seat, arms draped along the back of the row. The viewing room wasn’t huge – just big enough for fifty or sixty cinema seats arranged in half a dozen rows. A ceiling-mounted projector flickered images onto the screen at the front of the room, where a handful of people murmured down the front, spinning back and forward through footage of people in frocks shouting at one another.

  Logan settled into a seat a couple down from the director. ‘So she tried to break in?’

  ‘Not to begin with, no.’ A shudder set his jowls wobbling. ‘She was so sweet at the beginning: wanted to study film at Glasgow University, was a huge fan of the books, could we give her a job as a runner so she could get some industry experience?’

  ‘According to her dad, she was going to Aberdeen Uni to do accountancy.’

  ‘She was OK at the start – did what she was told, always showed up on time, and her knowledge of the books was just … encyclopaedic. Every time the writer had a problem she’d be right there, polishing his ego and keeping him happy. Even came up with some great local PR exercises: competitions in the papers, cast and crew helping out at a soup kitchen, guided tours of the set for some primary school, dramatizing a real witchcraft trial from the fifteen-hundreds …’ Zander sighed. ‘Then everything changed: she started arguing with the designers and the chippies and the painters about the sets not being exactly like the book. Then she had a go at the script team for making changes to the story and the dialogue – as if it’d even be possible to do the book line-for-line on the screen.’

  DCI Steel slumped into the row of seats in front of Logan, clutching a wax-paper cup in one hand and a Danish pastry in the other. ‘Can’t believe there’s no shagging …’

  ‘Every time she did it I’d sit her down, and we’d have a talk, and she’d apologize and promise she’d do better, and beg for another chance. And like the big softy I am, I’d agree.’

  ‘Have you no’ got any archive footage or something we could look at? You know, for old time’s sake?’

  ‘But in the end, she was haranguing the actors about how they were interpreting the characters, or speaking their lines, and I had to ask her to leave.’

  Steel peeled the plastic lid off her cup and dark bitter tendrils of coffee coiled out into the cinema. ‘Doesn’t even have to be that hardcore, just a bit of girl-on-girl slippery … What?’

  Logan glared at her. ‘Could you give your libido a rest for five minutes? You can download some porn when you get home, OK?’

  ‘Anyway, after we asked her to leave she started hanging about outside the studio, following people home, making a nuisance of herself. She snuck in a couple of times and had to be evicted. Then she did it in the dead of night and sprayed “thieves and liars” all over the Assembly set, slashed up some of the costumes too.’

  Steel’s face curdled, arms folded beneath her boobs. ‘Was only asking.’

  ‘We’re not even doing the Thieves And Liars scene: it’s a huge book, we had to get rid of something. So I made a formal complaint.’ He brought his chin up, bringing a big swell of neck with it. ‘I know it was mean of me, but this is a multi-million pound production, I can’t have some hormonal teenager sabotaging it.’

  ‘Zander?’ A tall gaunt man with hollow eyes and a tight-fitting polo shirt stood in the aisle a couple of rows down. The projector’s light glittered back from his shiny bald head, as if he’d been polishing it. His voice had the deep rumble of grinding icebergs, and as he spoke the saggy skin around his chin and neck rippled. As if he’d once been a lot bigger, but someone had let all the air out. ‘Do you have a minute to look at the cut for one-twenty-nine?’

  Zander took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘David: I was just telling them about Agnes Garfield.’

  The gaunt man grimaced. ‘We should’ve pressed charges. People like that don’t deserve …’ He frowned at the back of Steel’s head, then stood and stared at Logan. ‘Anyway, one-twenty-nine.’

  He turned and walked back to the front of the room, fiddled with a remote control, and the screen filled with black. Then a bleep. Then a dramatic shot of a woman in a Grim Reaper cloak, rich with black embroidery, on over a red leather jumpsuit. She threw the hood back. Bright scarlet hair tumbled about her face, teeth bared … It was the other actress – the one who’d been on the TV with Nichole Fyfe, making naughty with the camera.

  What was her name, Mary? Maureen? No: Morgan.

  There was something … not right about her slate-green eyes, something dangerous and unhinged.

  Zander patted Logan on the arm and pointed at the screen. ‘She’s magnificent, isn’t she? Terrific actress.’

  The camera pulled out. Morgan was standing over someone kneeling on the ground, hands behind his back, a tyre wedged over his chest, head and one arm forced through the hole in the middle.

  ‘Thomas Leis, you have been found guilty of witchcraft—’

  Logan stood, the seat clacking back upright. ‘You’re necklacing him?’

  ‘I’m not a witch, it’s a mistake!’ Tears and snot glistened on his face, eyes wide, mouth twisted.

  ‘—condemned to burn at the stake until you be dead.’

  Zander sat forward, squinting at the screen. ‘Shh …’

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’

  ‘Coward.’ She pulled out a book of matches – close up on her hands as she struck one, then twisted the book so they all caught fire – then a low angle, looking up past the terrified man at her standing there.

  ‘PLEASE!’

  ‘We found a dead body, Saturday evening
,’ Logan pointed at the screen, ‘just like that! Exactly like that.’

  ‘Burn. Like you’ll burn in hell.’ A vicious smile. ‘It’ll be good practice for you.’ The blazing matchbook tumbled through the air, hit the tyre, and blue and yellow flames leapt up, cracking around the rim of the rubber.

  The man on his knees screamed, wrenching himself from side to side, making the chains rattle. Close up on his face, wreathed in black smoke …

  Zander waved a hand. ‘Can you pause it there, David?’

  On the screen, the burning man lurched to a complete halt, mouth open in a wide scream.

  Standing at the front of the room, cadaverous David pulled out a laser pointer and ran a bright red dot around the man’s face. ‘Do you see it?’

  ‘Yes, compositing really needs to be tighter. And can we lose the snot? It’s just a bit …’ He wiggled his fingers. ‘Too mucusy.’

  Logan settled back into his seat. ‘It’s exactly the same set-up: kneeling, chained to a stake, tyre over his head and under his left arm.’

  Zander frowned, pulling his chin in, making ripples across his wobbly throat. ‘The necklacing of Thomas Leis is a key scene. We’re being very faithful to the book here – the fans would have a fit if we changed it.’

  ‘It’s in the book?’

  ‘Pivotal to our understanding of Mrs Shepherd’s character.’

  Steel squinted down towards the front of the room.

  The big gaunt man had produced a small plastic bag of something. He pulled what looked like a child’s finger from the bag and popped it into his mouth. Crunching.

  Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘David …?’ Then she stood. ‘Holy crap in a handbag, it’s no’, is it? David Insch?’ She cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘HOY, INSCHY? THAT YOU?’

  She was off her head. There was no way that was ex-DI Insch. Insch was the size of a barn: a six-foot-two perpetual-motion eating machine with anger-management issues.

  David hauled his shoulders back, chest out, chin up – pulling a dangly fold of skin with it. ‘Detective Inspector Steel.’

  There was no mistaking that withering, disappointed tone.

  ‘It is you! The boy Insch, as I live and fornicate …’ Her mouth hung open in a lopsided grin. ‘What the hell happened? You look like someone’s draped a deflated bouncy castle over a stepladder.’

  ‘Age hasn’t improved you any, has it? You still have the manners of a two-year-old.’

  Zander clapped his hands. ‘Excellent. I’d forgotten you all knew each other. David, why don’t you sort out DCI Steel and DS McRae, and I’ll get back to work?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Time and principal photography waits for no man.’

  Insch closed his eyes, massaged his temples, teeth bared between thin trembling lips. ‘Cool wet grass, cool wet grass …’

  Nothing ever changed.

  18

  ‘She broke in through there.’ Insch pointed at a window about six foot off the ground. A set of black bars were bolted over the opening, a ‘WET PAINT!!!’ sign hanging beneath them.

  Steel puckered her lips, looking up at the bars. ‘Nothing like bolting the stable door, eh?’

  Insch turned his back on her and marched off down the corridor, soured mouth working on another carrot stick. Strange seeing him walk like that, all rangy and long-limbed, instead of the lumbering mass he used to be.

  Logan followed him. ‘So how long have you been with Crocodildo Productions?’

  ‘I’m not: doesn’t exist any more. The props department is just down here.’

  Steel scuttled up beside them. ‘What? No. Come on, that’s no’ funny!’

  ‘As Zander says: no one appreciates the art any more. What’s the point going to all that effort to create something beautifully written and acted and shot, when all anyone ever does is fast-forward to the sex?’

  ‘But that’s the good bit!’

  ‘The final straw came when someone sent him a link to an illegal porn download site. They’d made a compilation of all the … finale shots from every one of his movies. All his effort and creativity reduced to that. No wonder he gave it up.’ Insch stopped in front of a door marked ‘DEPARTMENT OF VARIOUS THINGS’ and swiped his ID card through the reader fixed on the wall beside it. The little red light went green. He nodded towards a security camera mounted in the corner, with a clear field of view down the corridor. ‘We had all this fitted after the break-in. Insurance company insisted.’

  Steel scratched at her right boob. ‘But he can’t give up, he was … It’s not right.’

  Insch hauled open the door. ‘Of course, I’d always wanted to work in film, so when I bumped into Zander at the Rotary Club we got talking. He invited me onboard for Crocodildo’s last cinerotography project: The Girl with the Dildo Tattoo. We won twelve Woodies for that.’

  Steel curled her top lip and backed off a couple of paces. ‘Eew …’

  He scowled at her. Then dipped into his bag and produced another carrot stick. ‘I wasn’t in it, I was second unit director.’

  ‘Oh, thank God for that. The thought of you, in the nip, humping away at some poor woman. Flaps of skin flippity-flopping all over the shop …’ Shudder.

  She had a point.

  ‘Have you finished?’

  A shrug. ‘Tell you, if I could bleach away the mental image, I would.’

  Logan stepped through into the Department of Various Things, leaving them nipping at each other in the corridor. The props department was about the size of a school assembly room, laid out with racks and racks of costumes in neatly ordered rows on one side, and modular shelving units on the other, laden with various bits and pieces. Everything from standard lamps to swords, bibles to handguns, all marked with little cardboard tags.

  He picked a Glock 9mm from the collection. Hauled back the slide, then clacked it back into place.

  A voice at his shoulder: ‘Good, aren’t they?’

  Logan turned. ‘You just leave these lying around?’

  A little woman with big glasses smiled back at him, small fleshy lumps speckling her dimpled cheeks. She was wearing a T-shirt with ‘BECAUSE PROP MISTRESS SAYS SO, THAT’S WHY!’ on it. ‘They’re using them this afternoon for three-seventy-one, if they get that far. Need a good clean first, checked for blockages – I’m not having a Brandon Lee on my watch, thank you very much. Otherwise they’re kept in the safe, with the ammunition and the firing pins.’

  She dug into a shoulder bag and produced an iPad in an identical red leather cover to Excitable Jack, the film’s go-to guy. ‘The tags are all barcoded, they’re scanned when the guns are signed out and when they’re signed back in again.’ She held the pad up and pressed something. A click, then a bleep. She turned the screen to face Logan. It was a spreadsheet with names, dates, times, and scene numbers. ‘We’re very, very strict about it.’

  ‘So you’ve got a list of everything that’s gone missing?’

  That produced a small grimace. ‘Don’t get me started. I know this place looks like a junkshop, but every single thing in here has been handpicked for a set or a scene. And anything we couldn’t buy we’ve made, so replacing this stuff isn’t just a case of nipping down to Asda with a shopping list. When we started out we were way too trusting: cloaks, hats, props, daggers, medals … You name it, someone would nick it.’

  She wandered over to another set of shelves, this one full of red leather notebooks. The bottom three shelves looked brand new, but the ones on the fourth were in varying stages of wear and tear. ‘These are always the favourites. You wouldn’t believe how many Dittay books we’ve had to make.’ She picked one up and handed it to him. ‘Started off tooling the designs on the leather by hand, but so many went missing we had to get a die made. Everyone wants a souvenir.’

  Logan ran a finger over the intricate pattern of curlicues and swirls set into the cover. It was identical to the one he’d found in Agnes Garfield’s bedr
oom under the stairs. ‘Dittay books?’

  Insch’s deep, dark voice rumbled through the room. ‘Sixteenth century. They called the list of charges brought against people accused of witchcraft “dittays”. That’s what got you tried and burned at the stake.’

  The prop mistress took the book from Logan’s hand and put it back on the rack. ‘All the Fingermen have to have at least one. They’re quite important to the plot.’

  ‘How many did Agnes Garfield get away with?’

  Another grimace. ‘Bad enough she took a couple of blanks, but she nabbed the main Rowan one too. Do you have any idea how much effort goes into making them look real and used? How many hours I spent, hunched over that bloody book, writing in all the dittays and sigils and notes …’

  Insch folded his arms across his chest. Not as impressive a sight as it used to be, especially with the dangly bingo wings poking out from the sleeves of his polo shirt. ‘She’s lucky we didn’t press charges.’

  DCI Steel slouched into the prop room, hands in her pockets, shoulders slumped. She pursed her lips, looked around. Sniffed. ‘Right: this is boring the arse off me. If no one’s shagging, we’re going.’

  She swung around and stomped off, back down the corridor.

  Insch stared after her. ‘You know, you could probably arrange some kind of accident. I’d give you an alibi: you were with me the whole time.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’

  They followed her out of the prop room, Insch’s hand dipping into the bag of carrots every three or four steps, conveying another bright-orange stick into his mouth. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. ‘Is Rennie still …?’

  ‘A pain in the backside? Yeah. He’s on a major whinge at the moment, because Steel keeps—’

  A woman’s voice echoed down the corridor behind them. ‘David?’

  Insch froze. Then pulled on a smile. And turned. ‘Nichole! I’ve been reviewing yesterday’s rushes – the bath scene was terrific, you were great: such emotional intensity.’

  Nichole Fyfe had taken off the leather frock coat, dark patches beneath her arms staining the red silk shirt. A ring of what looked like napkins poked out of her collar, presumably to keep her makeup off the fabric. Unlike Zander’s and Insch’s ID pass, hers hung around her neck on a bright orange lanyard with ‘ACTOR ~ ACTOR ~ ACTOR …’ picked out in black all along it.