Dying Light

by Stuart MacBride

  Logan nodded. ‘They found the bodies?’

  ‘Bits of them… Seems the girls’ bedroom was above the kitchen. When the roof caved in, the whole lot collapsed. Best guess the mother and father were in there with them. We won’t know till we get the room emptied.’

  Logan picked his way through the remains of the house, moving from room to room, taking in the devastation. There wasn’t much left he could recognize, everything had burnt or melted, the only thing even vaguely intact was the battered front door, still lying where it had fallen, the paintwork blistered and peeling, the glass panes cracked and nearly opaque with soot. He stood staring down at it – the only thing to survive a fire that claimed four lives. There was a little brass plaque on the door, just above the letterbox, and he squatted down, brushing away the dirt and debris until he could read it: ANDREW, WENDY, JOANNA & MOLLY LAWSON. The only thing missing was REST IN PEACE. He was just turning to leave, when he thought he saw something through the door’s fire-damaged glass. Heart hammering in his ears, he wrapped his hands round the edge of the door and pulled, the wood creaking and groaning as it came free of the debris, sending roof tiles clattering to the brick-strewn floor. Underneath, part buried in bits of ceiling, was a burnt human face, features gone, ochre teeth the only really identifiable feature, the skull flattened on one side by a chunk of fallen masonry. Logan’s hung-over stomach lurched.

  When he called for help, DI Insch came lumbering through, took one look at what Logan was pointing at, frowned, then the swearing started. ‘Every bastard and their dog’s been through here!’ He shouted for the bloke from the fire brigade, demanding to know why the hell no one had found this sooner? While they were arguing over whose responsibility it was to make sure people didn’t go traipsing over dead bodies, Logan lurched across the threshold and out into the real world again.

  The sun was still shining, but the air was full of the stench of burning meat and roasting timbers. Closing his eyes, Logan tried to take a deep breath. He wasn’t going to be sick, he wasn’t going to be sick – charred women and children, battered prostitutes, the skinned face of a young woman, rotting animal carcasses, Maitland… He was going to be sick. Logan managed a few slow steps in the direction of the garden wall before abandoning all pretence and sprinting for the safety of a large purple buddleia, ripping his mask aside, falling to his knees and retching behind the bush. When there wasn’t even any bile left, his stomach aching from the effort, he shivered to his feet, wiping the strings of bitter spit from his mouth with the sleeve of his jumpsuit. Please God let no one have seen him puking in the bushes… He cast a quick glance around, but everyone was going about their business, getting on with the job like he was supposed to be.

  Standing on the flattened grass, looking up at the ruined building, he tried not to think about the faces of the dead. The fire at the squat, where six people died, had been a spectator sport, he was sure of it. One man out there in a darkness all his own, turning human beings into charred corpses while he played with himself in the shadows. He would want a good view of proceedings. Preferably close enough to hear their flesh pop and sizzle. Logan started a tour of the garden, looking for the perfect position from which to watch a family of four burn, somewhere that wouldn’t become a trap if the fire brigade turned up earlier than expected. There wasn’t one. He did a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn. There was a hotel driveway across the road, the entrance marked by rusting lanterns set into the eight-foot-high stone wall. It would be the only place with a really good line of sight.

  Still dressed in his white boiler suit, surgical gloves and booties, he sloshed through the puddle of soot-coloured water and into the hotel’s grounds. You could lurk behind the granite posts, peering round the corner and hoping no one looked in your direction while you were busy having a wank, but that would probably spoil the romantic atmosphere… There was a huge rhododendron bush six feet in from the entrance. Perfect: if anyone looked, all they’d see were leaves and shadow. Logan walked through the wet grass to the rhododendron, peering under the fringe of dark green, waxy leaves. The flower heads were dying back, their delicate scarlet blooms battered away by last night’s rain, lying like flecks of blood on the grass. There was a clear footprint in the mud, just inside the bush.

  The manager of the hotel was a little concerned about the effect a blue plastic scene-of-crime marquee was having on his guests. It was bad enough that the road had been blocked off since last night, but to have a bunch of people wandering around the hotel grounds like something off the television was just… Well, he wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he did send a nice young man out with a huge thermos of tea, another of coffee and a platter of Danish pastries. Much to DI Insch’s delight.

  Things were looking up. The leaves hadn’t just kept their arsonist dry while he played with himself, they’d also helped preserve any evidence he’d left at the scene. In addition to the footprint, they’d also discovered another disposable paper handkerchief, smelling of semen. And the Identification Bureau were swarming all over the inside of the rhododendron, looking for fibres, traces, fingerprints, anything.

  Insch was happily finishing off a third pastry from the tray when a patrol car pulled up outside the burnt-out shell opposite and a familiar bald-headed clinical psychologist stepped out. Hands behind his back, he strolled around the house’s garden, peering at things.

  ‘Oh joy,’ said Insch, brushing the crumbs from his chin. ‘You want to deal with Professor Patronizing, or shall I?’ In the end they both sloshed back over the road. They found Dr Bushel squatting over a large white plastic sheet with four open body-bags laid out on it. There were bits of person arranged in each. A scorched femur, a blackened clavicle, the body they’d discovered under the front door, a lump of burnt meat that had once been a child’s torso… Logan’s empty stomach gave a warning lurch. The doctor smiled up at them as they approached, the sunlight glinting off his little round glasses.

  ‘Inspector, Sergeant, nice to see you again,’ he said, pulling himself to his feet. ‘Lucky I was here, don’t you think? The Chief Constable has asked me to produce a profile of your arsonist. It will take a little while to write up, but I can certainly give you the gist of it now, if you’re interested?’ Clearly a rhetorical question. ‘The psychological pathology of the offender is very clearly one of hatred. The preparation, screwing the door shut, pouring in the petrol, making sure no one can escape – always directed towards families. Did you notice?’ Insch told him that the first group of victims weren’t a family. Just a bunch of squatters living together. Dr Bushel smiled indulgently. ‘Ah, yes, Inspector,’ he said, ‘but they were still a family unit: living together, bringing up a child. I think the offender has a deep-seated rage against his family and is acting upon that when he does these things.’ He nodded modestly to himself, as if someone had just congratulated him for his brilliant deduction. ‘And look at the front door: screwed shut. It’s a sublimated act of penetration. He possibly has some form of erectile dysfunction – I haven’t decided on that one yet – but the very choice of the screws is significant, don’t you think? The connotation is very sexually charged. Hence the evidence of masturbation you found at the first scene.’ He shrugged again. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if you discovered something similar here as well, you just have to know where to look…’ Dr Bushel turned slowly in place, peering over at the allotments. ‘I deduce he would have—’

  ‘Rhododendron bush,’ said Insch, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the hotel grounds. ‘DS McRae already deducted it. But thanks anyway.’

  Flustered, Dr Bushel pulled off his spectacles and gave them a thorough polish. ‘Ah, yes… Well done, very good.’

  ‘All right,’ said Insch, hands in his pockets, ‘that’s enough effusive praise for one day, we don’t want DS McRae to get a swollen head.’ Not that there was much chance of that happening today, thought Logan as he watched Dr Bushel clamber back into the patrol car, heading back to Force Headquarters. Not
with Maitland’s death hanging over him. As the car pulled away, Insch peeled back the hood of his boiler suit, exposing an expanse of sweaty bald head. ‘God, it’s bloody roasting in here.’ He unzipped the suit to the waist and leaned back against the wall. A sudden grin split his face. ‘Think you stole Dr Smartarse’s thunder there…’ He stopped. ‘What? You’ve got a face like my motherin-law’s arse.’

  Logan watched an IB technician carefully place a turnip-sized lump of charcoal in one of the children’s body-bags, where a head would have gone. Joanna or Molly? He closed his eyes, not wanting to see any more. ‘Maitland.’

  ‘Ah yes, PC Maitland…’

  ‘I kept meaning to go see him, but…’ Sigh. ‘You know what it’s like – something always came up.’ He scrubbed his tired face with tired hands, the latex gloves making squeaking noises on his skin. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t go to see him, even once.’

  Insch laid a huge hand on Logan’s shoulder. ‘No point beating yourself up about it now. What’s done is done. He’s dead and you have to think about your career. You’re a good copper, Logan. Don’t let the bastards guilt-trip you into throwing it all away over this.’

  23

  PC Steve drove him back to Force Headquarters, trying to cover the uncomfortable silence with small talk. Logan clicked the radio on, but Steve didn’t take the hint, just went on and on about the weather and the last film he’d seen and wasn’t it great all the women were out in these skimpy tops? Something bland and poppy juddered to a halt, the song followed by a Northsound DJ Logan didn’t recognize, then a couple more songs, and then it was the news. ‘Dozens of Kingswells residents stormed the council chambers today, interrupting business in protest against the decision to grant McLennan Homes planning permission for three hundred new houses…’

  ‘Bloody criminal, isn’t it?’ said PC Steve, abandoning his current topic: the alleged extra-curricular activities of Detective Sergeant Beattie’s wife. ‘They should all be shot, that planning department. My dad tried for planning permission for a single house, yeah? Just the one – and they turn him down. But up pops this McLennan Homes lot, wanting to put three hundred of the bastards on greenbelt and it’s all: “Yes sir, Mr McLennan sir, and can I polish your knob for you while you wait?” Makes you sick.’ Logan didn’t tell Steve his dad would have a much better chance of building his house if he took photos of the Chief Greenbelt Development Planner with his dick in a fourteen-year-old girl.

  The next piece was on a new dress shop in Inverurie winning some sort of big fashion thing – PC Steve had nothing to add to that one – and then it was on to the main news story of the day: fatal fire kills four! But it was the last piece before the weather that made Logan’s heart sink. ‘Today colleagues and friends paid tribute to Constable Trevor Maitland, the officer tragically shot during an operation to recover stolen property earlier this month.’ The announcer’s voice was replaced by a tearful woman telling the world how her Trevor was a wonderful husband and father. Then someone else saying, ‘Unlike a lot o’ folk, Trev niver wanted ta be CID. Could’a done the job no bother, but he wanted ta stay in uniform, oot on the streets, like, helping people. That wis Trev all over.’ And finally, the voice of doom – at least as far as Grampian Police were concerned – Councillor Andrew I’m-A-Dirty-Dirty-Bastard Marshall. ‘It is important at a time like this to remember all the good that Officer Maitland and his colleagues do every day on the streets of Aberdeen. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that we are all thinking of his family during this difficult time.’ And that was it. No accusations of incompetence or any of his usual anti-police rants. If Logan had been driving he would’ve crashed the car in shock.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said PC Steve, staring aghast at the radio. ‘Did Councillor Slug-Face just say what I think he said? Did he just miss a chance to rub our noses in the shi—’

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’ Logan grabbed onto the dashboard as PC Steve slammed his foot on the brake and swerved back into his own lane.

  It was a little after one when Steve dropped him off at FHQ – he still had time to get something to eat in the canteen before the afternoon collapsed in on him like a ton of bricks. He’d got as far as punching the first two digits of the entry code into the keypad that opened the internal door, when Sergeant Eric Mitchell appeared behind the big glass barrier that topped the reception desk, and called out, ‘Sergeant! Sergeant McRae, can you assist?’ Logan turned to see what was up, his heart sinking as he saw who was sitting in one of the nasty purple chairs set against the far wall: expensive suit, slim briefcase, a pair of half-moon spectacles on the end of his nose and a superior expression on his face: Sandy MoirFarquharson, AKA Sandy the Snake, AKA Hissing Sid, AKA Anything Else Derogatory They Could Think Of At The Time. This was all Logan needed; a perfect way to crown off the whole bloody month. Hell, the whole year. Sandy MoirFarquharson: the nasty little shite who’d defended Angus Robertson, the Mastrick Monster. Who’d tried to convince the world that Robertson was the real victim here, rather than the fifteen women he’d raped and murdered. That it was Grampian Police in general, and Logan in particular, who were to blame. And he’d nearly succeeded.

  MoirFarquharson was halfway out of his chair before Eric pointed to the other bank of seats, the ones by the front window. An attractive woman sat snivelling beneath the plaque commemorating the force’s dead from World Wars I and II, wringing a handkerchief like she was trying to strangle the thing. Sandy the Snake got as far as, ‘I was here first,’ before Logan showed the woman into a small room off the reception area, closing the door in the lawyer’s face. She was pretty, even with the puffy eyes: long bleached-blonde hair, slightly upturned nose – with a drip hanging from the end of it – full lips concealing a slight overbite, and a figure that would have had DC Rennie dribbling. ‘Now, Miss…?’

  ‘Mrs. Mrs Cruickshank. It’s my husband Gavin, he’s not been home since Wednesday morning!’ She bit her lower lip, the tears welling up in her bloodshot green eyes. ‘I don’t… I don’t know what to do!’

  ‘Have you reported him missing?’

  She nodded, handkerchief clasped over her scarlet nose, shuddering for breath. ‘They… they told me they couldn’t do anything!’ Mrs Cruickshank buried her head in her hands and cried and cried and cried. Logan gave her a couple of minutes to see if she’d pull herself together, before offering to fetch her a cup of tea and excusing himself, feeling like a shit for running out on her. As soon as Logan stepped out into the reception area, Sandy the Snake was on his feet again, this time making it all the way to, ‘DS McRae, I must insist that—’ Logan dismissed him with a gesture and asked Eric to see if he could dig out the missing person report on a Mr Gavin Cruickshank. And a cup of tea for Mrs Cruickshank as well. He turned from the reception desk to find Hissing Sid standing directly in front of him. At six foot two the lawyer was just tall enough to look down his squint nose at Logan. ‘I am here about my client, Mr James McKinnon. Sergeant, I insist that you allow me access!’

  Arrogant fuck. Logan glowered up at the man, getting angrier by the second. Who the hell did he think he was, coming in here and throwing his bloody weight around? ‘You insist all you want: I am currently busy with a distraught member of the public. You want access to your client? Try the hospital – visiting hours are two thirty to five.’ He pushed past Mr MoirFarquharson and started back towards the interview room. A firm hand grabbed his shoulder.

  ‘I insist you—’

  Logan didn’t look round, scared that if he did he’d end up smacking the bastard. ‘Get your damn hand off me, before I break your bloody fingers.’ His voice low and clear, the words squeezed out between gritted teeth. Just begging for an excuse to vent some of the shite that had filled his every day for the last six months on this smarmy, stuck-up, sleazy lawyer bastard. MoirFarquharson flinched back as if burnt, snatching his hand away.

  Silence.

  The door to reception banged open and a ragged-arsed man lurched in, brea
king the moment. Dressed in a tatty AFC tracksuit from three seasons ago, with a beard that looked more like mould than hair, he made a concerted stagger for the centre section of the reception desk, pounded on the wooden top and shouted, ‘Ah’ve hud ma script nicked!’

  The missing persons form arrived on a tray with two mugs of hot, milky tea and a folded note from Sergeant Eric Mitchell suggesting that Logan might like to finish up his interview sharpish and get the hell out of the station and not come back for the rest of the day. Slippery Sandy the Snake was making a formal complaint.

  Trying not to look as if he was hurrying the process along, Logan went through the background of the case with Gavin Cruickshank’s distraught wife. How they were both desperate for a baby and had been trying for months. How she’d given up her job so she’d be less stressed and more fertile. How Gavin had to work late most nights these days. About his battles with the next-door neighbour. The last time she’d seen her husband he’d been going out the front door, a pair of sunglasses hiding a black eye – courtesy of the harridan next door – still furious… and that was Wednesday morning. She hadn’t heard from him since. ‘I phoned the office, but… but they said he was out with a client and wouldn’t be back till late.’ Her eyes were desperate. ‘He always comes home! Always!’