Close to the Bone lm-8

by Stuart MacBride

  Close to the Bone

  ( Logan McRae - 8 )

  Stuart Macbride

  Stuart MacBride

  Close to the Bone

  Saturday

  1

  She holds up the book of matches. Licks her lips. She’s practised the words a dozen times till they’re perfect. ‘Do you have anything to say before I carry out sentence? ’

  The man kneeling on the floor of the warehouse stares up at her. He’s trembling, moaning behind the mask hiding his face. ‘Oh God, oh Jesus, oh God, oh Jesus. .’ The chains around his wrists and ankles rattle against the metal stake. A waft of accelerant curls through the air from the tyre wedged over his head and shoulders. Black rubber and paraffin.

  ‘Too late for that.’ She smiles. ‘Thomas Leis, you-’

  ‘Please, you don’t have to do this!’

  The smile slips. He’s spoiling it. ‘Thomas Leis, you have been found guilty of witchcraft-’

  ‘I’m not a witch, it’s a mistake!’

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

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’

  ‘Coward.’ The lights are hot on her back as she strikes the first match, then sets fire to the rest. They hiss and flare, bright and shining. Pure. Glorious.

  ‘PLEASE!’

  ‘Burn. Like you’ll burn in hell.’ She drags the smile back on. ‘It’ll be good practice for you.’ She drops the blazing matchbook onto the tyre and the accelerant catches. Whoosh — blue and yellow flames race around the rubber.

  Thomas Leis screams.

  He jerks against his chains. Thick black smoke wreaths his face, hiding the mask from view as the fire takes hold. He pleads and screams and begs. .

  She throws her head back and laughs at the heavens. Spreads her arms wide. Eyes glittering like diamonds.

  The voice of God crackles through the air, making the very world vibrate: ‘And. . cut. Well done, everyone — break for lunch and we’ll go for scene two thirty-six at half one.’

  A round of applause.

  Then a man in a fluorescent-yellow waistcoat rushes into shot with a fire extinguisher. FWOOOSH — the flames disappear in a puff of carbon dioxide as the cameraman backs away, shielding his lens.

  The runner peels off the bright green mask with the yellow crosses on it from the stuntman doubling for Thomas Leis. The stuntman’s grinning, even though he knows they’re going to digitally replace his face in post. Even though he barged over her line.

  God save us from stuntmen who think they’re actors.

  She puts her head on one side and frowns. ‘I don’t know. . It felt a bit over the top at the end there. Really hammy. Wouldn’t she be more. . you know, suppressed? Maybe even a bit sexual? Can I do it again? ’

  2

  ‘I’m on my way. Tell everyone to-’ Something under his foot went crunch. Logan froze on the doorstep, mobile phone clamped to his ear. He slid his shoe to one side and curled his top lip. ‘Not again.’

  Three little bones lay on the concrete slab, tied together with a tatty piece of red ribbon.

  A hissing whisper came from the other end of the phone. ‘Seriously, Guv, Pukey Pete’s having ferrets up here, it’s-’

  ‘I said I’m on my way.’

  Logan stuck the phone against his chest and scowled out at the caravan park in the growing gloom. Bulky static caravans, the size of shipping containers, all painted a uniform institution green. A patrol car idled on the square of tarmac that acted as a turning circle, its blue-and-whites strobing in the warm late-evening air. The driver hunched forward in his seat, peering out through the windscreen at Logan, working his hands back and forth along the steering wheel — as if he was trying to feel it up.

  No sign of the little buggers.

  Logan kicked the broken bones off the step into the straggly ivy growing up the side of his home. Then took a deep breath and bellowed it out: ‘I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, YOU WEE SHITES!’

  Back to the phone.

  ‘I mean, he’s gone off on one before, but no’ like this. He’s-’

  ‘If he’s screwing up the scene, arrest him. If not, just hold his bloody hand till I get there.’ Logan stomped over to the patrol car and threw himself into the passenger seat. Hauled on the belt. ‘Drive.’

  The PC put his foot down.

  The sun was a scarlet smear across the horizon, filling the patch of rough ground with blood and shadow. Trees loomed around the periphery, their branches filled with clacks and caws as the rooks settled in for the night.

  Grey and black hulks dotted the clearing: burned-out cars, their paint stripped away, seats a sagging framework of rusty wire, the tyres turned into gritty vitrified puddles.

  A cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape was strung between the vehicles, making a twenty-foot no-man’s-land around the Scenes Examination Branch’s inner cordon of ‘CRIME SCENE’ yellow-and-black. Three SEB technicians knelt in the dirt, poking at something, their white Tyvek oversuits glowing pink in the twilight.

  Logan wrinkled his nose. The rancid stench of vomit fought against the greasy scent of burned meat and rendered fat. Like a barbecue with food poisoning. ‘Where’s the pathologist? ’

  One of the techs — a shortarse with fogged-up safety goggles — finished scraping something dark and sticky into an evidence bag, then pointed her gloved finger at the other side of the ‘CRIME SCENE’ tape. There was another figure in the full Smurf outfit, hunched over a bucket, making retching noises, his back convulsing with every stomach-wrenching heave.

  The short tech peeled her facemask off, exposing a circle of shiny pink skin and a thin-lipped mouth. ‘Poor wee bugger. Can’t blame him, really. Nearly lost a white-pudding supper myself.’ She puffed out a breath, hauled at the elasticated hood of her suit. ‘Christ it’s hot in here. .’

  ‘You call for backup? ’

  A nod. ‘The Ice Queen’s en route as we speak.’ The tech pinged her facemask back into place. ‘You want to take a sneak peek? We’ve got as much as we’re going to before they move the body.’

  ‘How bad is it? ’

  She peeled off her gloves and snapped on a fresh pair. ‘What, and spoil the thrill of finding out for yourself? ’ Then she set off across an elevated walkway — metallic stepping stones, like upturned tea trays on tiny legs, keeping their blue plastic booties from contaminating the scene. It led away between a couple of burned-out hatchbacks, disappearing behind the blackened skeletal remains of a Renault Clio. A dark curl of smoke twisted up into the sky on the other side.

  Logan adjusted his safety goggles, zipped up his oversuit, and zwip-zwopped after her. The walkway clanged beneath his feet. The rancid barbecue smell got worse. And then they were there.

  Christ. .

  His stomach lurched two steps to the right, then crashed back again. He swallowed, hard. Blinked. Cleared his throat. ‘What do we know? ’

  ‘Not much: victim’s male, we think.’ Another shrug. ‘He’s been chained to what looks like a section of that modular metal shelving stuff — the kind you get in your garage? Been hammered into the ground like a stake.’

  The victim was kneeling on the hard-packed earth, his legs tucked under his bum. His bright-orange overalls were stained around the legs and waist, blackened across his chest and flecked with little glittering tears of vitrified rubber. Someone had forced his head and right arm through the middle of a tyre — so it sat across his body like a sash — then set fire to it. It was still burning: a small tongue of greasy flame licked up the side of the rubber.

  The SEB tech groaned. ‘Bloody hell. .’ She hauled a fire extinguisher from a blue plastic crate, pointed the nozzle, and squeezed the handle. A whoosh of white hid the poor bastard�
�s face from view for a moment, but when the CO2 cleared he appeared again in all his tortured glory.

  His skin was swollen and blistered, scorched crimson; the eyes cooked to an opaque white; teeth bared, yellowed and cracked. Hair gone. Patches of skull and cheekbone poking through charred flesh. .

  Don’t be sick. Don’t be sick.

  Logan cleared his throat. Looked out over the graveyard of burned-out cars. Deep breaths. The long corrugated metal roof of Thainstone Mart was just visible between the trees in the distance, what sounded like Tom Jones belting out ‘It’s not Unusual’ at a disco or corporate bash, dancing and boozing it up into the wee small hours. And when they were gone some poor sod would be up all night, clearing up all the spent party poppers and empty bottles before the next livestock auction.

  The SEB tech thumped the fire extinguisher back into the crate. ‘It’s the rubber in the tyre — once it gets up to temperature it’s almost impossible to stop the damn thing from catching again.’

  ‘Get it off him.’

  ‘The tyre? ’ She gave a wee spluttering laugh. ‘Before the Ice Queen gets here? ’

  ‘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 singsong 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 b
e 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!’