Cursing, Logan gripped his overcoat closed with one hand and wished a fiery death on all bus-driving bastards. He'd had a bloody awful night: a punch in the guts followed by three hours being prodded and poked by doctors at Accident and Emergency. They'd finally turfed him out into the cold, driving rain at quarter past five this morning with a bottle of painkillers and an elasticated bandage.
He'd managed a whole hour's sleep.
Logan squelched into the Queen Street lobby, and stood dripping at the curved reception desk. His flat was less than two minutes' walk away, but he was still soaking.
'Good morning, sir,' said a pointy-faced desk sergeant Logan didn't recognize, from behind the glass partition. 'Can I help?' He put on his polite smile and Logan sighed.
'Morning, Sergeant,' he said. 'I was supposed to be working with DI McPherson-'
The polite smile vanished as soon as the desk sergeant realized Logan wasn't a member of the public.
'You'll have a hard job: knife in the head.' He made stabbing motions and Logan tried not to flinch. 'Are you…' He consulted a pad on the desk, flipping the pages back and forward until he found what he was looking for. 'Detective Sergeant McRae?'
Logan admitted that he was, flashing his warrant card to prove it.
'Aye,' said the desk sergeant, his face not moving a muscle. 'Very pretty. You're to report to DI Insch. He's giving a briefing…' He glanced up at the clock. 'Five minutes ago.' The smile flashed again. 'He doesn't like it when people are late.' Logan was twelve minutes late for the seven-thirty briefing. The room was filled with serious-looking police men and women, and all of them snapped around to look at him as he crept around the door, closing it gently behind him. At the front of the room DI Insch – a large, bald man in a brand new suit – stopped in mid-sentence and scowled as Logan limped his way across to an empty seat in the front row.
'As I was saying,' the inspector glowered at Logan, 'the preliminary pathologist's report puts the time of death around three months ago. Three months is a long time for forensic evidence to hang around a crime scene, especially in the pissing rain. But that doesn't mean we're not going to look for it. Fingertip search: half-mile radius from where the body was found.'
A groan went up from the inspector's audience. It was a lot of ground to cover and there was no chance of them finding anything. Not after three months. And it was still chucking it down outside. This was going to be a long, wet, shitty job.
'I know it's a pain in the arse,' said DI Insch, digging in his pocket for a jelly baby. He examined it, blew the fluff off, and popped it in his mouth. 'But I don't care. This is a three-year-old boy we're talking about. We will catch the bastard that did it. No fuck-ups. Understand?'
He paused, challenging the room to say anything to the contrary.
'Good. And while we're on the subject of fucking up: someone tipped off the Press and Journal last night that we'd found David Reid's body.' He held up a copy of that morning's paper. The headline screamed: 'Murdered Toddler Found!'. The front page was split between a photograph of David Reid's smiling face and one of the SOC tent, lit up from within by the police photographer's flash. The tent's occupants were silhouetted against the plastic walls.
'They called the mother for a quote-' his voice rose and his expression darkened '-before we could tell the poor cow her son was dead!'
Insch slammed the paper down on top of the desk. Angry murmurs came from the crowd.
'You can all expect a visit from Professional Standards over the next couple of days. But believe me,' said DI Insch, slowly and deliberately, 'their witch-hunt is going to look like a teddy bears' picnic compared to mine. When I find out who did this I will screw them to the ceiling by their testicles!'
He took a moment to scowl at everyone.
'Right, today's assignments.' The inspector perched a buttock on the edge of the desk and read out the names: who was going door-to-door, who was searching the riverbank, who was staying behind to answer the phones. The only name he didn't read out was that of Detective Sergeant Logan McRae.
'And before you go,' said Insch, raising his arms as if he was about to bless his congregation, 'I would like to remind you that tickets for this year's pantomime are now on sale at the front desk. Make sure you buy one!'
The troops shuffled out, those on telephone-answering duty lording it over the poor sods who'd spend the rest of the day trudging through the rain. Logan hovered at the back of the queue, hoping to recognize someone. A year off on the sick and there wasn't a single face he could put a name to.
The inspector spotted him loitering and called him over.
'What happened last night?' he asked as the last PC departed, leaving them alone in the briefing room.
Logan pulled out his notebook and began to read: 'The body was discovered at ten-fifteen p.m., by one Duncan Nicholson-'
'Not what I meant.' DI Insch settled on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. With his large build, bald head and new suit, he looked like a well-dressed Buddha. Only not so friendly. 'WPC Watson dropped you off at Accident and Emergency back of two this morning. Less than twenty-four hours on the job and you've already spent a night in hospital. We've got David Reid's grandfather in a holding cell on an assault charge. And then, to cap it all off, you limp into my briefing. Late.'
Logan shifted uncomfortably. 'Well, sir, Mr Reid was agitated. It wasn't really his fault, if the Journal hadn't called he-'
DI Insch cut him off. 'You're supposed to be working for DI McPherson.'
'Err…Yes.'
Insch nodded sagely and dragged another jelly baby out of his pocket, popping it in his mouth, fluff and all, chewing around the words. 'Not any more. While McPherson's getting his head stitched back together, you're mine.'
Logan tried not to let his disappointment show. McPherson had been his boss for two years, before Angus Robertson had made a pincushion out of Logan's innards with a six-inch hunting knife. Logan liked McPherson. Everyone he knew worked for McPherson.
All he knew about DI Insch was that he didn't suffer idiots gladly. And the inspector thought everyone was an idiot.
Insch settled back on his haunches and looked Logan up and down. 'Are you going to drop down dead on me, Sergeant?'
'Not if I can help it, sir.'
Insch nodded, his large face closed and distant. An uncomfortable silence grew between them. It was one of DI Insch's trademarks. Leave a large enough gap in an interrogation and sooner or later the suspect was going to say something, anything, to fill it. It was amazing the things people let fall out of their mouths. Things they never meant to say. Things they really, really didn't want DI Insch to know.
This time Logan kept his mouth shut.
Eventually the inspector nodded. I've read your file. McPherson thinks you're not an arse-hole, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt. But if you end up in A amp;E like that again, you're out. Understood?'
'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'
'Right. Your acclimatization period is hereby cancelled. I can't be arsed with all that pussy-footing-around bollocks. You're either up to the job, or you're not. Post mortem's in fifteen minutes. Be there.'
He levered himself off the desk and patted his pockets, looking for more jelly babies.
I've got a command meeting from eight fifteen till eleven-thirty, so you'll have to give me the details when I get back.'
Logan looked at the door and then back again.
'Something on your mind, Sergeant?'
Logan lied and said no.
'Good. Given your little trip to A amp;E last night, I'm making WPC Watson your guardian angel. She'll be coming back in at ten. Do not let me catch you without her. This is not negotiable.'
'Yes, sir.' Great, he was getting a babysitter.
'Now get going.'
Logan was almost out the door before Insch added: 'And try not to piss Watson off. They don't call her "Ball Breaker" for nothing.' Grampian Police HQ was big enough to boast its own morgue, si
tuated in the basement, just far enough from the staff canteen not to put people off their soup. It was a large, white, spotless room, with chiller cabinets for bodies along one wall, the floor tiles squeaky under Logan's shoes as he pushed through the double doors. An antiseptic reek filled the cold room, almost masking the odour of death. It was a strange mix of smells. A fragrance Logan had grown to associate with the woman standing on her own by a dissecting table.
Dr Isobel MacAlister was dressed in her cutting gear: pastel-green surgeon's robes and a red rubber apron over the top, her short hair hidden beneath a surgical cap. She wasn't wearing a scrap of make-up, in case it contaminated the body, and as she looked up to see who was squeaking across her nice clean morgue Logan saw her eyes widen.
He stopped and tried a smile. 'Hi.'
She raised a hand and almost waved. 'Hello Her eyes darted back to the little naked body stretched out on the dissecting table. Three-year-old David Reid. 'We've not started yet. Are you attending?'
Logan nodded and cleared his throat. 'I meant to ask you last night,' he said. 'How have you been?'
She didn't meet his eyes, just re-ordered the gleaming row of surgical instruments on their tray. The stainless steel flashing in the overhead lights. 'Oh…' she sighed and shrugged. 'You know.' Her hands came to rest on a scalpel, the shiny metal contrasting with her matt latex gloves. 'How about you?'
Logan shrugged too. 'Much the same.'
The silence was excruciating.
'Isobel, I…'
The double doors opened again and in rushed Isobel's assistant Brian, trailing the deputy pathologist and Procurator Fiscal behind him. 'Sorry we're late. You know what these fatal accident enquiries are like, so much paperwork!' said Brian, brushing his floppy hair out of his eyes. He flashed an ingratiating smile at Logan. 'Hello, Sergeant, nice to see you again!' He stopped and shook Logan's hand before scurrying off to strap on a red rubber apron of his own. The deputy pathologist and the PF acknowledged Logan with a nod, apologized to Isobel and settled down to watch her work. Isobel would be the one doing all the cutting; the other pathologist, an overweight man in his early fifties with a bald head and hairy ears, was only here to make sure Isobel's findings were correct, as required by Scottish law. Not that he would have dared say anything to her face. And anyway, she was always right.
'Well,' said Isobel, 'we'd better get started.' She pulled on her headset, checked the microphone and whisked through the preliminaries.
As Logan watched, she slowly picked her way over David Reid's remains. Three months in a ditch, covered with an old sheet of chipboard, had turned his skin almost black. His whole body was swollen like a balloon as decomposition worked its corpulent magic. Little patches of white speckled the bloated skin like freckles where fungal growths had taken hold. The smell was bad, but Logan knew it was going to get a lot worse.
A small stainless steel tray sat next to the tiny body and Isobel dropped any debris she found into it. Blades of grass, bits of moss, scraps of paper. Anything the corpse had picked up since death. Maybe something that would help them identify David Reid's killer.
'Oh ho…' said Isobel, peering into the dead child's frozen scream. 'Looks like we have an insect guest.' Gently, she delved between David's teeth with a pair of tweezers and for a horrible moment Logan thought she was going to pull out a Death's Head Moth. But the tweezers emerged clutching a wriggling woodlouse.
Isobel held the slate-grey bug up to the light, watching its legs thrashing in the air.
'Probably crawled in there looking for a bite to eat,' she said. 'Don't suppose it'll tell us anything, but better safe than sorry.' She dropped the insect into a small phial of preserving fluid.
Logan stood in silence, watching the woodlouse slowly drown.
An hour and a half later they were standing at the coffee machine on the ground floor, while Isobel's floppy-haired assistant stitched David Reid back together.
Logan was feeling distinctly unwell. Watching an ex-girlfriend turn a three-year-old child inside out on a dissecting table wasn't something he'd ever done before. The thought of those hands, so calm and efficient, cutting, extracting and measuring…Handing Brian little plastic phials with chunks and slices of internal organs to bag and tag…He shuddered and Isobel stopped talking to ask if he was all right.
'Just a bit of a cold.' He forced a smile. 'You were saying?'
'Death was caused by ligature strangulation. Something thin and smooth, like an electrical cable. There's extensive bruising to the back, between the shoulders, and lacerations to the forehead, nose and cheeks. I'd say your attacker forced the child to the ground and knelt on his back while he strangled him.' Her voice was businesslike, as if cutting up children was something she did every day. For the first time, Logan realized that it probably was. 'There wasn't any evidence of seminal fluid, but after all this time…' she shrugged. 'However, the tearing of the anus is indicative of penetration.'
Logan grimaced and poured his plastic cup of hot brown liquid into the bin.
She frowned at him. 'If it's any consolation the damage was post mortem. The child was dead when it happened.'
'Any chance of DNA?'
'Unlikely. The internal damage isn't consistent with something flexible. I'd say it's more likely to be a foreign object than the attacker's penis. Maybe a broom handle?'
Logan closed his eyes and swore. Isobel just shrugged.
'Sorry,' she said. 'David's genitals were removed by what looks like a pair of secateurs, curved blade, some time after death. Long enough for the blood to have clotted. Probably long enough for rigor mortis to have set in.'
They stood in silence for a moment, not looking at each other.
Isobel twisted her empty plastic cup round in her hands. 'I…I'm sorry…' She stopped and twisted the cup back the other way.
Logan nodded. 'Me too,' he said and walked away.
4
WPC Watson was waiting for him at the front desk. She was muffled up to the ears in a heavy black police-issue jacket, the waterproof fabric slick and glistening with raindrops. Her hair was tucked into a tight bun under her peaked cap; her nose was Belisha-beacon red.
She smiled at him as he approached, hands in pockets, mind on the post mortem.
'Morning, sir. How's the stomach?'
Logan forced a smile, his nostrils still full of dead child. 'Not bad. You?'
She shrugged. 'Glad to be back on days again.' She looked around the empty reception area. 'So what's the plan?'
Logan checked his watch. It was going on for ten. An hour and a half to kill before Insch got out of his meeting.
'Fancy a trip?'
They signed for a CID pool car. WPC Watson drove the rusty blue Vauxhall while Logan sat in the passenger seat, looking out at the downpour. They had just enough time to nip across town to the Bridge of Don, where the search teams would be trudging through the rain and mud, looking for evidence that probably wasn't even there.
A bendy bus rumbled across the road in front of them, sending up a flurry of spray, adverts for Christmas shopping in the west end of town splattered all over it.
Watson had the wipers going full tilt, the wheek-whonk of rubber on the windscreen sounding over the roar of the blowers. Neither of them had said a word since they'd left Force HQ.
'I told the desk sergeant to let Charles Reid off with a warning,' Logan said at last.
WPC Watson nodded. 'Thought you would.' She slid the car out into the junction behind an expensive-looking four-by-four.
'It wasn't really his fault.'
Watson shrugged. 'Not my call, sir. You're the one he nearly killed.'
The four-wheel-drive, all-terrain vehicle – which probably never had to deal with anything more off road than the potholes in Holburn Street – suddenly decided to indicate right, stopping dead in the middle of the junction. Watson swore and tried to find a space in the stream of traffic flowing past on the inside.
'Bloody male drivers,' she muttered befo
re remembering Logan was in the car. 'Sorry sir.'
'Don't worry about it…' He drifted back into silence, thinking about Charles Reid and the trip to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary last night. It hadn't really been Charles Reid's fault. Someone phones your daughter up and asks how she feels about her three-year-old son's murdered body turning up in a ditch. Not surprising he took a swing at the first target that presented itself. Whoever sold the story to the P amp;J: they were to blame.
'Change of plan,' he said. 'Let's see if we can't find ourselves a slimy journalist.' 'THE PRESS AND JOURNAL. LOCAL NEWS SINCE 1748'. That's what it said at the top of every edition. But the building the paper shared with its sister publication, the Evening Express, looked a lot less venerable. It was a low, two-storey concrete-and-glass monstrosity just off the Lang Stracht, squatting behind a high, chainlink fence like a sulking Rottweiler. There being no access from the main road, WPC Watson drove them in through a tatty-looking industrial estate consisting of crowded car showrooms and double parking. The security guard took one look at Watson's uniform and raised the barrier, smiling a gap-toothed smile as he waved them through.
'ABERDEEN JOURNALS LTD' was written in gold lettering on polished granite next to the reception's revolving door, right above a brass plaque proclaiming the paper's history. 'FOUNDED BY JAMES CHALMERS IN 1748…' blah blah blah. Logan didn't bother to read the rest.
The pale lilac walls of the reception area were bare. Only a carved wooden plaque, commemorating the paper's employees lost in World War Two, broke the monotony. Logan had been expecting something a bit more newspaper-ish: framed front pages, awards, photographs of the journalists. Instead it looked as if the paper had only just moved in and hadn't got around to decorating yet.
Weedy pot plants sat on the violently-coloured floor: big linoleum squares of bright blue fake marble, set in a gold-and-pink grid.
The receptionist didn't look much better: pink eyes, lank blonde hair. She reeked of mentholated cough sweets. Peering blearily up at them, she honked her nose on a scabby hanky.
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