Close to the Bone lm-8

by Stuart MacBride

  Steel settled back in the visitor’s chair, eyes clamped on Chalmers’s buttocks. ‘You don’t say. .’

  ‘Yeah, the SPSA got this big IT company in to rationalize everything, and nothing works anymore. Apparently there’s a pensioner in Dumfries that’s come back as a positive DNA match for eight murders, thirty-seven housebreakings, six arsons, and five rapes. Not bad for a woman in a wheelchair.’

  Logan ran a finger along the side of his nose, gently probing the edge of the plaster that crossed the bridge. Sore. ‘Did they get anything off that partial thumb? ’

  ‘Gave it a go, but nothing came back. Which could mean the victim’s not in the database.’ She put the notebook away. ‘So, maybe it’s not gang-related after all? If he was a dealer we’d have his prints in the system, right? ’

  ‘Not if he’d never been caught.’

  Steel took one last look at Chalmers’s bum then sat up straight. ‘Aye, well someone caught him yesterday, didn’t they.’

  5

  Isobel hauled off her purple nitrile gloves and dropped them in the pedal bin, then dumped her green plastic apron in after them. Then stood with her back arched, pregnant bulges sticking out, hands rubbing at the base of her spine. Eyes closed, teeth gritted. ‘Ungh. . You know, when I had Sean I held off going on maternity leave until the last possible moment. Won’t be making that mistake again.’

  Behind her, the Anatomical Pathology Technician was slotting the victim’s ribcage back into place, whistling the theme tune to Dr Who as she worked.

  Logan dropped his facemask and gloves in the bin. Then unzipped his SOC suit. ‘Cause of death? ’

  ‘I need a sit down first.’ She waddled towards the door. ‘And maybe a nice cup of camomile tea.’

  Logan followed her through into the pathologists’ office — a small room with two desks facing opposite walls. One was covered with stacks of paperwork, the other completely clear, except for a power-lead and an empty in-tray.

  Isobel groaned her way into the seat and puffed out her cheeks. Stuck her legs out and rotated the feet at the ankles. First one way, and then the other. ‘Are you sure you don’t want an analgesic? ’

  He shrugged one shoulder. ‘The only benefit of a punch on the nose — can’t smell the post mortem. And I had some paracetamol before we started.’

  ‘You always were such a martyr.’ She opened a desk drawer and pulled out a blister pack of pills. ‘Take two. No alcohol for six hours.’

  Logan popped a couple of tablets out onto his palm, then knocked them back dry. Like a pro.

  Isobel nodded. ‘Damage above the fire line was extensive, the dermis and epidermis are virtually gone. But it looks as if whoever killed him shaved him first. No hair on the head, groin, armpits, or chest, and they didn’t do a particularly smooth job of it either.’

  She dumped the pills back in her desk. ‘In addition to the shaving and burning tyre, your victim was stabbed three times, left-hand side. Twice between the fourth and fifth rib, once between the fifth and sixth. The first two punctured the lung; the third went straight into the left ventricle, rupturing the heart.’ She levered her right shoe off with the toe of the left. Let it clunk to the threadbare carpet tiles. ‘Oh, that’s better. .’

  An off-white kettle sat on top of a filing cabinet. Logan stuck it on to boil. ‘So the burning didn’t kill him? ’

  ‘The ribcage was full of blood, so the knife wound was definitely ante-mortem. Mind you, given the state of his liver, he would probably have been dead within eighteen months. Your victim was a very heavy drinker: his stomach had nothing but alcohol in it. Something else — the hyoid bone was cracked.’

  ‘Stabbed, burned, and strangled? ’

  ‘No. Strangulation is a binary state, you’re either strangled, or you’re alive. Your victim aspirated smoke into his lungs, so he was still breathing when the tyre was set alight.’ She levered off her other shoe. ‘So it’s more like: burned, strangled, then stabbed.’

  ‘Hmmm. .’

  The kettle rumbled and rattled, then clicked and went quiet again. Logan popped a camomile teabag in a bone-china mug. It was decorated with a kid’s drawing — a skeleton lying on a table, while a stick-figure woman in a green dress stood over it with a big bloody knife. The words ‘MUMMY AT WORK’ picked out in wobbly lowercase. He poured boiled water into the mug, filling the room with the smell of dead flowers, then handed it over. ‘It’d have to be strangled, burned, then stabbed. No one’s going to be daft enough to strangle someone who’s on fire, are they? ’

  ‘Unless the hyoid bone was damaged by heat, rather than compression. It’s an incredibly delicate structure, we’re lucky it survived at all.’ Isobel blew steam from the surface of her tea before taking a sip. ‘I hear you’re having problems identifying the body? ’

  ‘Still waiting on DNA. Bloody SPSA reorganization means everything takes three times as long.’ He spooned some instant coffee granules into a second mug.

  ‘A forensic anthropologist could work up a facial reconstruction from the remains. That would help, wouldn’t it? ’

  Logan pulled a face. ‘Steel’s already got a wasp in her pants about the CID budget. We’re not to authorize anything without her say-so. And I’m guessing forensic anthropologists don’t come cheap.’

  ‘About the same as a decent childminder.’ A scowl. ‘Or a thieving au pair.’

  ‘What do I look like, made of money? ’ DCI Steel’s voice echoed around the office. ‘DNA’s still our best bet — you don’t get bumped off like that in a mob hit and not be dirty.’

  ‘But a forensic anthropologist-’

  ‘No. N.O. spells: “shut up and stop bugging me about forensic anthropologists.”’ She slumped back in her office chair. ‘Take the sodding hint.’

  ‘But Isobel-’

  ‘I don’t care if the Ice Queen wants raspberry ripple ice cream with brown sauce and gherkins, we’re waiting for the DNA.’ Steel scrubbed at her face with her hands. ‘He’ll be in the system.’

  Ah well, can’t say he hadn’t tried.

  ‘What about Reuben? ’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘What about him? ’

  For God’s sake. ‘Have they picked him up yet? ’

  ‘Do you really think I’ve no’ got more important things to worry about than who punched you on the bloody nose? You probably deserved it.’ She held up a hand, thumb and forefinger squeezed tightly together. ‘Hell, I’m this far away from doing it myself!’

  ‘Thanks. Thanks for the support. Really appreciate it.’ Logan marched out of her office and slammed the door behind him. ‘Cow.’

  ‘I heard that!’

  Of course she did. Ears like a bloody vampire bat. He stuck two fingers up at the wood.

  The corridor funnelled the noise from the main CID room, open-plan muttering and barely controlled chaos. Greasy coils of garlic, salami, and cheese tentacled through the air carrying with them the ghosts of pizzas past. His stomach gurgled.

  Somewhere, deep within his head, someone was doing a Steve McQueen impersonation from the Great Escape, hurling that bloody baseball against the walls of the cooler. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  He turned his back on the siren scent and slouched through to his own office instead. A lanky figure with sticky-up blond hair was draped all over the visitor’s chair, feet up on Logan’s desk. Eyes closed, head back, mouth hanging open, making little grunting noises.

  Logan opened one of the filing cabinet drawers, then slammed it shut.

  ‘Gaaah!’ DS Rennie jerked upright in his seat, eyes like nervous pingpong balls, jittering feet sending a pile of forms scattering to the carpet. ‘I’m awake, I’m awake.’

  ‘What are you still doing here? ’ The old office chair creaked as Logan settled into it. ‘You were snoring.’

  Rennie stretched: arms up to the ceiling, legs hovering an inch over the tabletop. ‘You’ve been ages. .’

  ‘Post mortem.’ What the hell happened to his desk? The who
le thing was covered in other people’s paperwork. Why did every lazy sod in CID think this was the perfect place to dump their crap? ‘Now get your bloody feet off my desk.’

  ‘Sorry, Guv.’ Rennie screwed the palm of one hand into his eye socket, yawned again, shuddered, then sagged in the chair like someone had stolen all of his bones. ‘Went through all the witness statements and CCTV footage from the jewellery heist: three males, all in their late teens — early twenties. Local accents. Initial getaway car from the scene was a VW Golf.’ He hunched his shoulders and dug his hands into his armpits. ‘Cold in here.’

  Logan picked the forms up from the floor, added them to the rest, then started separating them out into piles for whoever touched them last. ‘Number plate? ’

  ‘Fake. Well, not fake-fake — they’d nicked it off a blue Citroen Berlingo in Mannofield.’ Another yawn. ‘Bet you a fiver they abandoned the Golf and torched it before going on in a second car. So we’ll get nothing off it, even if we can find. .’ He blinked at Logan, then frowned. ‘What? ’ Brushed a hand across his cheek. ‘Have I got pizza on my face? ’

  ‘We found a burned-out VW Golf in the Joyriders’ Graveyard: reported stolen Saturday morning — last seen by the owner, Friday tea-time. It was still warm.’

  ‘Plenty of time to get to the jewellers, cut the alarm cables, get in, tie up the proprietor and his bit on the side, rob everything, then sod off into the night.’

  Logan took a biro from the mess on his desk and tapped it against his chin. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Ooh,’ Rennie sat forward in the chair. ‘Maybe your victim’s one of the team? Someone got greedy, or they thought he was a snitch? ’

  ‘Would explain the gangland execution, wouldn’t it? ’

  A knock at the door, then DS Chalmers stuck her head in. ‘Guv? ’ A huge grin split her face, teeth all small, pointy, and glinting. ‘We just got DNA back: it’s a match.’

  Looked as if DCI Steel was right after all. There’d be bacon flapping its way past the window any minute now. ‘Get on to the PNC, I want-’

  ‘Criminal record? ’ She held up a manila folder.

  ‘And-’

  ‘Current address? ’ She placed a printout in the middle of Logan’s desk, then stood back, showing off her happy little teeth. ‘And there’s a pool car waiting outside for us.’

  Cocky, ambitious, and efficient. Maybe not such a bad combination after all.

  Chalmers took them out through the city limits, heading north on the Inverness road, sitting in the outside lane of the dual carriageway, doing eighty, with the blue flashers going. ‘. .and you’d think he’d be a bit more grateful, wouldn’t you? At least now he knows where his precious Range Rover is. But he was a complete arsehole about it.’

  Logan watched the fields go by, fluffy white sheep and big rectangular cows polka-dotting the swathes of almost luminous green. ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘OK, so it’s a burned-out hulk, but he’ll have third-party fire and theft, won’t he? Don’t know what he’s moaning about, really. Just because we haven’t got a clue who stole it in the first place. .’

  ‘Right.’ A fortress of pine trees flanked the dual carriageway for a minute, needles shining in the sunlight, the earth below wreathed in brambles and sharp-edged shadow. And then more fields. Aberdeenshire at its bucolic best, sliding by outside the car while DS Chalmers jumped from topic to topic in a perpetual-motion monologue.

  ‘. .and I know blow’s never really that difficult to get hold of, but it’s everywhere right now. Cannabis as far as the eye can see: Inverness, Aberdeen, Ellon, Keith, Peterhead, it’s like a plague. .’

  ‘Mmm. .’

  Down the hill to Blackburn, through the roundabout, and on. The sky was a blanket of sapphire blue, streaked around the edges with misty white. Warm in the car. Logan blinked. The army ants had all congregated in the bridge of his nose, and now the little sods were having a hoedown. In clogs.

  ‘. .can’t believe the SPSA are still fiddling about and re-organizing stuff. Honestly, can you think of a single person who’s actually in favour of all this? Nothing but cost-cutting pirate bollocks — not surprising the SOCOs are all grumbling about industrial action. .’

  Sodding Isobel and her ‘analgesics’. Might as well have downed a couple of kiddie Aspirin for all the good they were doing. Should’ve taken some of the proper painkillers from the caravan: the ones that made the world go all fluffy, warm, and soft. Like sleeping on a giant kitten.

  ‘. .just have to look at this guy — we get a hit on his DNA, but nothing on the fingerprints. You know why? Because they can’t leave well enough alone, that’s why. If it’s not broken, poke and fiddle with it till it is. Honestly. .’

  ‘Hmm.’ Might be nice to move further out of town. The caravan was OK, not that much smaller than the flat, and it was all on the ground floor — which was a bonus. And the view wasn’t bad out over the fields, and trees, and the River Don. Just had to ignore the sewage treatment plant directly opposite. Other than that it was OK. Be nice to have a bigger place though.

  ‘. .continual budget cuts. I bet we could catch half the neds in the area if we just stuck a couple of cameras up at the Joyriders’ Graveyard. Make our lives a hell of a lot easier. .’

  Bennachie humped on the horizon, the mountain rising up between the trees. Not much to look at from a distance, the Mither Tap looking like an abandoned breast: nipple pointing at the sky.

  Silence. Just the sound of the engine, and the tyres growling on the tarmac at eighty miles per hour.

  Logan glanced across the car. DS Chalmers was looking back at him, one eyebrow raised — as if she’d just asked a question.

  He cleared his throat. ‘In what way? ’

  ‘Well. . can’t they see that it’s interfering with the actual job? Surely that’s more important than saving a few quid? ’

  Ah. He went back to the window. Trees and fields and cows and sheep. ‘Austerity measures. We’ve all got to do our bit. All pulling together, in the same boat, etc. Pick your cliche.’ The sun was warm through the glass. Soporific. He closed his eyes for a minute, just to let them rest. Switch off the lights on the ants’ hoedown. ‘Think yourself lucky — you only have to moan about it. Some of us have to implement this crap.’

  A spaniel loped along the pavement, unaccompanied, sniffing each and every lamppost before cocking a leg and leaving its calling card. Logan looked up from the manila folder’s contents and peered out at a line-up of identikit houses. ‘You sure this is the right street? ’

  ‘No.’ Chalmers turned the wheel and they drifted onto another road lined with yet more pale-cream buildings with the occasional patch of sandstone cladding thrown in for fun. White PVC windows, lockblock drives, satellite dishes, and a tiny garage where a front room should have been. All topped with fresh brown pantiles. Detached homes built so close together you’d be lucky if you could walk between them without your shoulders brushing either side. ‘Place is like a maze. .’

  She did a three-point turn and headed back the way they’d come. A wee boy on a yellow bike with tassels on the handlebars cycled slowly by, excavating the inside of his nose as if it held buried treasure.

  ‘Has to be around here somewhere. .’

  According to the Police National Computer, Guy Ferguson was the lucky recipient of umpteen warnings, and three stints of community service. Everything from shoplifting in John Lewis when he was twelve, to drunk and disorderly when he was fourteen. Then there was a string of vehicle offences — theft from opening lockfast places, unlawful removal, vandalism, driving without insurance. . One count of breaking into the corner shop and making off with the till. Almost went to prison eighteen months ago when he was caught helping himself to the contents of ladies’ handbags in the Kintore Arms.

  And that was the last thing on his record. Either Guy had cleaned up his act, or he’d finally figured out how not to get caught.

  ‘God’s sake. Everything round here’s Castleview: Castleview Pla
ce, Castleview Avenue, Castleview Crescent. Where’s the castle? Can you see one? ’

  Logan flicked back to the mugshot at the front of the file. ‘Developers are like politicians — never believe anything they say.’

  In the photo, Guy looked as if he’d just been dragged through an Alsatian, backwards. His left cheek was a patchwork of bruises, his eye swollen almost shut, split lip and swollen jaw. Apparently some bloke objected to Guy stealing things from his wife’s handbag. An earlier pic showed a plain young man with doormat eyebrows, acne-flecked cheeks, and a moustache that barely qualified as enthusiastic bumfluff.

  Very gangsta.

  Chalmers pointed through the window. ‘Here we go.’ She pulled up in front of yet another barely detached sandstone-clad box, blocking the Audi and Renault parked on the driveway. Then wiped her hands on the steering wheel, leaving a shiny film behind. ‘Guv, about the death message. .’

  ‘Let me guess, you’re not keen? ’ Logan slipped the printouts back into the file. ‘Our victim had form for stealing cars and breaking into places to rob them. Sound familiar? ’

  ‘The jewellery job.’

  ‘Car was stolen a couple of streets away from here, used in a robbery, then dumped and burned just past Thainstone Mart. Next to Guy Ferguson’s body.’

  Chalmers left another layer of palm sweat on the steering wheel. ‘They do the job, then his mates turn on him after they’ve divvied up the loot. Maybe he was holding out on them? ’

  ‘Could be.’ Logan climbed out into the warm afternoon. ‘What about the registered keeper? ’

  ‘Straight up, far as I can tell: no record in the PNC. Pretty hacked off to lose the car too, was a present from his dad.’ She straightened her wrinkly suit, then marched up to the front door and rang the bell.

  A minute later, it was opened by a wee girl in a bright yellow dress with bears on it, head a mess of black curls. She looked up at DS Chalmers with big blue eyes, then stuck her thumb in her mouth.