‘Doctor Forsyth—’
‘Pukey Pete won’t even look at the poor sod.’ She sagged a bit. ‘Shame. It was nice having a pathologist you could actually talk to...’
Now the tyre wasn’t burning any more, other smells elbowed their way through Logan’s facemask: excrement, urine. He took a step back.
The tech nodded. ‘Stinks, doesn’t he? Mind you, if it was me – if someone did that to me? I’d shit myself too. Must’ve been terrified.’
A voice cut through the still evening air: one of those sing-song Highlands-and-Islands accents. ‘Inspector McRae? Hello?’
Logan turned.
A woman stood behind the outer cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape, her grey linen suit creased like an elephant’s scrotum. ‘Inspector?’ She was waving at him, as if he was headed off somewhere nice on a train, not standing on a little metal walkway beside a man who’d burned to death.
Logan picked his way along the clanking tea trays until he was in the blue-and-white area again. Peeled back his hood, took off his safety goggles, then crumpled up his facemask and stuck it in a pocket.
The woman squinted at him, pulled a pair of glasses from a big leather handbag and slipped them on, tucking a nest of brown curls behind her ears. ‘Inspector McRae?’
‘I’m sorry, miss, we’re not giving interviews to the press right now, so—’
‘I was First Attending Officer.’ She stuck her hand out for shaking. ‘Detective Sergeant Lorna Chalmers.’ A smile. ‘Just transferred down from Northern? I’m investigating that off-licence ram-raid in Inverurie yesterday, looking for the Range Rover they nicked to do the job?’
Nope, no idea. But it explained the accent. Logan snapped off his purple nitrile gloves. ‘You get the cordon set up?’
‘And the duty doctor, the SEB – or whatever it is they’re called this week – and the pathologist too: original and replacement.’
Cocky.
Logan struggled out of the top half of his oversuit, then leaned back against the remains of a VW Polo. The bonnet wasn’t just warm beneath his bum, it was hot.
DS Chalmers pulled out a police-issue notebook and flipped it open. ‘Call came in at eight twenty, anonymous – well, mobile phone, but it’s a pay-as-you-go disposable. Unidentified male said there was a “bloke on fire with a tyre round his neck and that” out by Thainstone Mart.’
Frown. ‘Why didn’t the local station take it?’
She grinned, showing off sharp little teeth. ‘You snooze, you lose.’
Cocky and ambitious with it. Well, if that’s the way she wanted to play it: he swept an arm out at the collection of burned-out vehicles. ‘I need you to get every car here identified. I want names, addresses, and criminal records of the owners on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.’
She gave him a stiff-lipped smile and a nod. I am determined, nothing will stop me. ‘I’m on it, Guv.’
‘Good.’ Logan pushed himself off the VW Polo. ‘And you can start with this one. Or didn’t you notice it was still warm?’
The smile slipped. ‘It is? Ah, it’s—’
‘Was it burning when you got here?’
‘I don’t—’
‘Details, Sergeant, they’re important.’
‘Only I was... I thought the dead man... I was getting everything sorted and...’ A blush pricked across her cheeks. ‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Get the SEB to give it a once-over before they go. Probably won’t find anything, but it’s worth a try.’ He struggled out of the oversuit’s lower half, then swore as a tinny rendition of the ‘Imperial March’ from Star Wars blared out of his phone. Didn’t even need to check the caller ID to know who it was.
Logan hit the button. ‘What now?’
A pause, then Detective Chief Inspector Steel’s smoky voice rumbled in his ear. ‘Have you still got me ringing up as Darth Sodding Vader, ’cos that’s no’ funny!’
Logan pressed mute. ‘Sergeant, I thought I asked you to get those vehicle IDs.’
She kept her eyes on her shoes. ‘Yes, sir.’
He smiled. Well, it wouldn’t kill him to throw her a bone. ‘You made a good FAO: keep it up.’ He pressed the mute button again. ‘Now bugger off.’
Spluttering burst from the phone. ‘Don’t you dare tell me to bugger off! I’m head of sodding CID, no’ some—’
‘Not you – DS Chalmers.’ He shooed her away, then shifted his mobile to the other side, pinning it in place with his shoulder while he unzipped the rest of his oversuit. ‘What do you want?’
‘Oh...’ A cough. ‘Right. Where’s that bloody paperwork?’
‘Your in-tray. Did you even bother checking? Or did you just—’
‘No’ the overtime report, you divot, the budget analysis.’
‘Oh, I thought you meant where was my paperwork. You know, the paperwork I’m actually supposed to do, as opposed to your paperwork.’
‘Bad enough I’ve got all this shite to sort out without you throwing a strop every time you’re asked to do a simple wee task—’
‘Look, I’m at a murder scene, so can we skip through all the bollocks to the actual reason you called? Was it just to give me a hard time? Because if it was, you can—’
‘And what about those bloody missing teenage lovebirds? When are you planning on finding them, eh? Or are you too busy swanning about with—’
‘Which part of “I’m at a murder scene” do you not get?’
‘—poor parents worried to death!’
‘For God’s sake, they’re both eighteen – they’re not teenagers they’re adults.’ He shuffled his way out of the blue plastic booties. ‘They’ll be shacked up together in an Edinburgh squat by now. Bet you any money they’re at it like rabbits on a manky futon.’
‘That’s no excuse for dragging your heels – bloody woman’s mother’s been on the phone again. Do I look like I’ve no’ got anything better to do than run around after your scarred backside all day?’ A loud sniff rattled down the phone. ‘Pull your sodding socks up: you’ve done bugger all on that jewellery heist last night, there’s a stack of outstanding hate crimes... And while we’re on the subject: your sodding mother!’
‘Ah, right: here we go. The real reason.’ Logan scrunched the protective gear up into a ball and dumped it in the bin-bag taped to the remains of an Audi. ‘I’m not her keeper, OK?’
‘You tell that bloody woman to—’
‘I said don’t invite her to Jasmine’s dance recital, but would you listen to me? Noooooo.’
‘—sodding paisley patterned Attila the Hun! And another thing—’
A huge mud-spattered Porsche Cayenne four-by-four growled to a halt on the rutted track, behind the SEB Transit van. Clunk and the headlights went off, leaving the driver illuminated in the glow of the dashboard. Mouth a thin grim line, nostrils flared, eyes screwed into slits. Brilliant, it was going to be one of those evenings.
‘—in the ear with a stick!’
Logan held up a hand and waved at the Porsche. ‘Got to go, Pathologist number two’s up.’
‘Laz, I’m warning you, either—’
He hung up.
Dr Isobel MacAllister stuck both hands against the base of her spine and puffed. Her SOC suit swelled in front, as if she was shoplifting a floor cushion. She hauled back the elasticated hood, showing off a puffy, rose-coloured face framed by a droopy bobbed haircut that looked a lot more functional than glamorous. ‘Did you really just ask for a time of death?’
DS Chalmers nodded, biro hovering over a blank page in her notebook.
Isobel turned to Logan. ‘She’s new, isn’t she?’
‘Just transferred down from Northern.’
‘Lord preserve us from the Tartan Bunnet Brigade.’ Isobel unzipped the front of her suit. ‘The body appears to have been necklaced – rubber tyre placed over the head and one arm, making it impossible for the victim to remove, then the outer surface is doused with paraffin and set alight. Death is usually caused by heat and smoke inhalation,
leading to shock and heart failure. That can take up to twenty minutes.’ She wiped a hand across her shiny forehead. ‘It’s a popular method of summary execution in some African states.’
DS Chalmers scribbled something in her pad. Then looked up. ‘And Colombia too. I saw this documentary where the cartels would chain the guy up on an overpass, fill the tyre with petrol and light it. Everyone driving home would see them hanging there, burning, so they knew what would happen if they screwed with...’ She cleared her throat. ‘Why are you all staring at me?’
Isobel shook her head. ‘Anyway, I’ve—’
A car horn blared across the clearing.
She stared at the sky for a moment. Gritted her teeth. Tried again: ‘As I was saying, I’ve—’
Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
‘Oh, for God’s sake, I can’t get five minutes to myself, can I? Not even five minutes.’ She jabbed a finger in the direction of her Porsche four-by-four, took a deep trembling breath, and let rip. ‘SEAN JOSHUA MILLER-MACALLISTER, YOU STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!’
Silence.
A wee face peered over the dashboard, big eyes and dirty blond hair. Then a flashing grin.
Breeeep! Breep! Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
Isobel hauled off her gloves and hurled them onto the ground. ‘You see what happens? Do you? And will Ulrika get deported for it? Of course not: we’ll be lucky if she even gets a slap on the wrist.’ Isobel stomped off towards the car. ‘YOU’RE IN BIG TROUBLE, MISTER!’ Shedding the layers of SOC gear as she went.
DS Chalmers shuffled her feet. ‘Well, that was...?’
‘They caught the au pair nicking things.’ Logan pulled out his phone. ‘And consider yourself lucky – the last person who asked for a time of death? She made them help her take the victim’s temperature. And the thermometer doesn’t go in the front end.’
3
Midges bobbed and weaved in the glow of a SEB spotlight, shining like tiny blood-thirsty diamonds. In the middle distance, Tom Jones had given way to ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’. Logan stuck a finger in his ear and shifted a couple of paces further away from the grumbling diesel generators. ‘What? I can’t hear you.’
On the other end of the phone, DI Steel got a notch louder. ‘I said, what makes you think it’s drugs?’
‘Might not be, but it looks like an execution. We’ll know more when we get an ID on the body: my money’s on a scheemie drug runner from Manchester or Birmingham.’
‘Sodding hell, that’s all I need: some flash bastard knocking off rival dealers like it’s a performance art.’ Silence. Then a plastic sooking sound. ‘No way I’m carrying the bucket on this one.’
‘Thought that was the point of being in charge of CID?’
‘Sometimes shite flows uphill, Laz, and this one’s got “Assistant Chief Constable’s Oversight” written all over it in black magic marker. Let him deal with the members of the press.’
The SEB tech who’d taken him to see the body shuffled into view, holding one corner of what looked like a crate wrapped in miles of thick blue plastic. It was big enough to take a kneeling man chained to a metal stake. She grimaced at him. ‘Budge over a bit, eh? This is bloody heavy...’
‘And by “members” I mean—’
‘Got to go, the Procurator Fiscal wants a word.’ Which was a lie – she’d left nearly half an hour ago.
‘Oh no you don’t: you’re no’ going nowhere till you tell me where we are with that bloody jewellery heist. You think you get to dump all your other cases just because you’ve got a juicy wee gangland execution on the cards?’
‘Investigations are on-going, and—’
‘You’ve done sod all, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve been at a bloody murder scene!’
The SEB hauled their blue plastic parcel through the graveyard of burned-out cars, swearing and grunting all the way, feet kicking up a cloud of pale dust from the parched earth.
‘Well, whose fault is that? You’re a DI now: act like it! Park your arse behind your desk and organize things – send some other bugger off to play at the scene.’
Rotten, stinky, wrinkled, bastarding... ‘You’re the one who told me to come out here! I wasn’t even on duty, I was having my tea.’ He pulled the mobile from his ear and glared at it. Concentrate hard enough and her head would explode like an overripe pluke on the other end of the phone. BANG! Brains and wee bits of skull all over the walls.
‘Er... Guv?’ DS Chalmers tapped him on the shoulder, a frown pulling one side of her face down. ‘Are you OK? Only you’ve gone kinda purple...’
Logan gritted his teeth, put the phone back to his ear. ‘You and I are going to have words about this tomorrow.’
‘Sodding right we will. I’m no’—’
He hung up. Glowered at his phone for a beat, then jabbed the ‘OFF’ button. Leave it on and she’d just call back, again and again, until he finally snapped and murdered someone. Logan took a deep breath and hissed it out through his nose. ‘I swear to God...’
Chalmers held up her notebook, like a small shield. ‘We got chassis numbers off all the cars, and guess what: I found my Range Rover.’ Pause. ‘The Range Rover on the CCTV? The one that ram-raided the off-licence?’
‘What about the Golf?’
‘Reported stolen at half ten this morning. According to Control: the registered keeper says he drove down the Kintore chippy for his tea Friday evening, came back and parked outside his mum’s house, and when he woke up it was gone.’ She checked her notes. ‘The car, not his mum’s house.’
‘Go see him. Tell him sod all, just rattle his cage and see what flies out.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Chalmers wrote something in her notebook, then stashed it away in her jacket. ‘I was right about the Colombian drug cartel thing, by the way. Had a boyfriend who downloaded videos of them hanging there, on fire like they were these... horrible Christmas decorations. He always got really horny after watching them too.’ She wiped her hands down the front of her jacket, then rubbed the fingertips together, as if they were dirty. ‘I broke it off: way too creepy.’
Logan just stared at her.
‘Ah... Too much information from the new girl. Right.’ Chalmers backed away a couple of steps. ‘I’ll go chase up that ... yes.’ And she was gone.
‘I know, I know, I’m sorry.’ Logan shifted the mobile from one side to the other, pinning it between his ear and his shoulder as he took the battered Fiat Punto around the Clinterty roundabout, heading back along the dual carriageway towards Aberdeen. ‘You know what she’s like.’
Samantha sighed. ‘Logan McRae, you’re not supposed to let her walk all over you any more. You know that. We talked about this.’
He changed gear and put his foot down. The Punto’s diesel engine coughed and rattled, struggling to haul the car up the hill. ‘I’m going to be a little late.’
‘Pfff... I’ll forgive you this time.’
‘Good. I’ll even—’
‘On one condition: you wash the dishes.’
‘Why’s it always my turn to wash the dishes?’
‘Because you’re too cheap to buy a dishwasher.’ There was a pause. ‘Or a decent car.’
A Toyota iQ wheeched past in the outside lane. One-litre engine, and it was still faster than the bloody Punto.
‘I’m not cheap, I’m just—’
‘“Prudent” is another way of saying “cheap”. Why I put up with you, I have no idea.’ But it sounded as if she was smiling as she said it. ‘Don’t be too late. And stand up for yourself next time!’
‘Promise.’ Logan hung up and fumbled with the buttons until the words ‘DS RENNIE’ appeared on the screen.
Ringing... Ringing... Ringing... Then, ‘Mmmph, nnnng...’ A yawn. A groan. ‘Time is it?’
Logan checked. ‘Just gone ten.’
‘Urgh...’ Scuffing noises. ‘I’m not on till midnight.’
‘Yeah, well I was supposed to be off at five, so I think I’m winning
the “Who Gets To Whinge About Their Day” game, don’t you? Jewellery heist.’
‘Hold on...’ A clunk, followed by what sounded like someone pouring a bottle of lemonade into a half-filled bath. ‘Unnnng...’
For God’s sake.
Logan grimaced. ‘You better not be in the toilet!’
A long, suspicious-sounding pause. ‘I’m not in the toilet, I’m ... in the kitchen ... making a cup of tea.’
Disgusting little sod.
‘I want a list of suspects for that jewellery heist before you clock off, understand? Go round the pawnshops, the resetters, and every other scumbag we’ve ever done for accepting stolen goods.’
‘But it’s the middle of the—’
‘I don’t care if you have to drag them out of their beds: you get me that list. Or better yet, an arrest!’
‘But I’m—’
‘And while we’re at it, what’s happening with those hate crimes?’
‘It’s not... I...’ His voice broke into a full-on whine. ‘What am I supposed to do? I’m on night shift!’
‘Rennie, you’re...’ Logan closed his mouth. Sagged a little in his seat as the Punto finally made it over the crest of the hill. It wasn’t really fair, was it: passing on the bollocking, just because Steel had had a go at him? ‘Sorry. I know. Just ... tell me where we are with it.’
‘No one’s talking. All the victims say they fell down the stairs and stuff. Even the guy with two broken ankles won’t blab.’
‘Still all Chinese?’
‘Latest one’s Korean. Makes it four Oriental males in the last month and a half.’
‘Well ... do what you can.’
‘You heading back to the ranch?’
‘Going to see a man about a drugs war.’
‘Yeah.’ Another yawn. Then a whoosing gurgle. ‘Oops. I just... Emma must’ve ... em ... flushed the washing machine?’
The young woman in the nurse’s uniform scowled up at him, one hand on the door knob. ‘I don’t like this. It’s late. You shouldn’t be here.’ Her eyebrows met in the middle, drawing a thick dark line through her curdled-porridge face, as if trying to emphasize the razor-straight fringe of her bottle-blonde hair. Small, but wide with it, arms like Popeye on steroids. Hard. Shoulders brushing the tastefully striped wallpaper of the hallway.
Partners in Crime: Two Logan and Steel Short Stories Page 6