Dying Light

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘That how you keep your Gimp in line, is it?’ said Logan through gritted teeth. ‘Beat him every now and then? Teach him the error of his child-molesting ways?’

  ‘HE IS NOT A CHILD MOLESTER!’ Chib lunged forwards, ramming a fist into Logan’s face, snapping his head back, making the darkness roar. ‘Understand? I will not fucking tell you again!’

  Logan rocked forwards in his seat, blood spiralling from his mouth, the edges of the room lurching in time to the hammering in his skull. Maybe getting Chib mad wasn’t such a good idea after all. The Edinburgh thug grabbed a handful of Logan’s hair, dragging his head up, shouting in his face, ‘You want to meet a child molester? Try growing up in a fucking children’s home! Try spending six years in borstal!’

  Huddled in the corner by the Shiraz and Zinfandel, Jackie sobbed, her cries getting louder and louder, blending into one long incoherent stream. ‘Ohgodnoohgodnoohgodnoohgodno…’ Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her broken arm covering her face, the plaster cast almost unrecognizable under the layers of soot and PC Steve’s blood.

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake…’ Chib turned his back on her in disgust. ‘Greg, please do something about that dreadful racket!’

  The word ‘No!’ burbled from Logan’s split lips, as the Gimp advanced, raising the gun like a cudgel, looking to crack her head open. And that’s when WPC Watson punched him full strength in the balls. The Gimp opened his mouth to suck in a tortured breath, but Jackie’s feet lashed out, catching him in the knee, sending him crashing to the kitchen floor. Snarling, she leapt on him, smashing her plaster cast into his face again and again and again. Chib screamed and leapt for her, but Jackie was too quick, rolling clear as the larger man clattered into the wine rack, sending bottles flying. Then she was on her feet, the gun in her right hand, the plaster on her left arm cracked and flaking, splattered with a patina of fresh, bright-red blood. The Gimp wasn’t moving.

  The whole thing had taken less than four seconds.

  She smiled, all traces of hysteria gone. ‘Women, eh? Can’t trust them an inch.’

  Chib licked his lips, looking from the barrel of the gun to the splayed, bloody figure of his friend. ‘Greg?’

  ‘On the ground – hands behind your head, legs crossed.’

  Chib crawled to his knees and inched forward, placing a hand on his friend’s motionless body. ‘Greg, are you OK?’

  ‘I said, hands behind your head!’

  ‘We need to get an ambulance! He’s not breathing!’

  ‘Good!’ She aimed a kick at the Gimp’s leg. ‘Bastard shot my friend!’

  Logan spat out a mouthful of blood and winced. ‘Jackie, we have to get him an ambulance.’

  ‘Yeah? Why?’ She turned on him, face creased and angry. ‘Why should this piece of shit live when Steve’s going to die?’

  ‘Why should either of them live?’ It was Isobel, her voice cracking on the words. ‘Look what they’ve done! You arrest them – then what?’ She was getting louder. ‘They go to trial, maybe get fourteen years? Out in seven for good behaviour, less with time served! You think the bastards won’t come back? Kill them!’

  Logan turned and stared aghast. ‘You can’t just kill them – they’re not bloody animals, they’re human beings!’

  ‘No they’re not.’ Jackie placed her boot in the small of Chib’s back and shoved, sending him sprawling across the body on the floor. She held up the gun, examining the mechanism, then racked a round into the chamber.

  ‘JACKIE, NO!’

  ‘Greg?’ Chib was back on his knees. ‘Come on, Greg, breathe!’

  ‘Do it!’ Isobel was wheedling now, her face contorted and ugly. ‘No one will ever find out. Colin knows someone with a pig farm – we can get rid of the bodies! They’ll come back if you don’t!’

  ‘JACKIE!’

  She placed the gun to the back of Chib’s head.

  45

  Two days later.

  ‘How much of this is true?’ asked Insch, tossing Logan’s report back across the desk. Fifteen pages of lies and half-truths, printed out this morning when he’d got back from the hospital. Outside the inspector’s window morning sunshine caressed the city, making the monolithic glass tombstone of St Nicholas House sparkle and gleam as summer put in a farewell appearance. From now on the weather forecast was doom and gloom. Thank you Aberdeen, and goodnight…

  ‘All of it. Every last word.’

  Insch just looked at him, letting the silence grow, waiting for Logan to step in and fill the void with something incriminating. Logan kept his swollen mouth shut. Two days on and Chib’s fist was still making its presence felt. ‘Fine,’ said the inspector at last. ‘You’ll be interested to know that the lab’s come back on the bullet they dug out of PC Jacobs – believe it or not, it matches the one they found in PC Maitland. Same rifling marks. Same shooter.’

  Same shooter? Logan closed his eyes and groaned. ‘The van.’

  Insch stopped and stared at him. ‘What van?’

  ‘Outside Miller’s house: grubby blue Transit. It was the same van that turned up at the warehouse when Maitland was shot. I knew I recognized it!’ He swore and stared up at the ceiling. There never had been any stolen property in that warehouse; it was Chib’s drugs distribution point. Miller said Graham Kennedy was the one who’d tipped him off about the place being full of nicked electrical goods, but Kennedy just wanted the police to get rid of the competition for him. Turn up, find the drugs, arrest the new boys from Edinburgh. Fine if it had worked, but it hadn’t: Chib and his pals got away. Then they returned the compliment, only Chib didn’t piss around with anonymous tip-offs, he went straight in with the abduction, torture and mass murder. Gotta love someone who takes their work seriously. Logan swore again.

  ‘You OK, Sergeant?’

  ‘Not really, sir, no.’

  Insch nodded and creaked his massive frame out of his chair, scrunching up an empty Jelly Babies packet and tossing it into the bin. ‘Come on, Fatal Accident Enquiry’s not till half four, I’ll stand you a bacon buttie and a cup of tea.’

  Logan’s stomach churned. ‘No, thanks, but I’m not really in the mood for bacon.’ All he could think about were Miller’s friend and his pigs. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ve got something I need to take care of.’

  He picked up a pool car and went looking for someone in uniform to take with him. WPC Buchan was standing by the back door, smoking a cigarette and chewing at her nails. She looked as if she hadn’t slept a wink since he’d ordered her off his crime scene two days ago. ‘It’s half ten, how come you’re still on?’ he asked and she flinched. ‘Thought night shift finished at seven.’

  She looked at the ground beneath her feet and shrugged. ‘Put in for a green shift. Couldn’t just go home and wait for Professional Standards to call. Climbing the walls…’

  ‘Come on,’ he said, tossing her the keys. ‘You’re driving.’ They made it as far as Hazlehead before she cracked and asked him when he was going to file his complaint against her.

  ‘You know you’ve been behaving like a complete arsehole, don’t you?’ said Logan as the tower blocks drifted past and the countryside opened out on either side of the car. Her back stiffened, but she kept her mouth shut. ‘If I could go back,’ he said, ‘and fix things so Maitland and Steve didn’t get shot, I would. I never wanted it to turn out like this.’ The road up to the crematorium went past on the left, the building hidden behind a hill and a stand of trees. Logan sighed. ‘I’m not putting in a complaint. I’m giving you another chance.’

  She squinted at him from the corner of her eye. ‘Why?’ Suspicious.

  ‘Because…’ Pause. ‘Because everyone needs a second chance.’ Or in Logan’s case a third and fourth. Things still weren’t back to normal with DI Steel – this morning’s headline in the P&J hadn’t helped any…

  Silence settled back into the car again. It stayed there until the Kingswells roundabout had been and gone. Now it was just fields and the occasional house unti
l Westhill, the grass shining emerald green in the sunshine. That was one of the great things about Aberdeen: no matter where you lived, the countryside was never more than fifteen minutes away. Except during rush-hour. ‘I…’ WPC Buchan cleared her throat. ‘First I thought he was just having an affair, but…’ Deep breath, the words coming out in a rush. ‘But I think he’s been sleeping with the women down the docks. The… prostitutes. Letting them off with cautions if they—’

  Logan held up a hand. ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to tell me.’ He’d already guessed: that was why Michelle Wood and Kylie didn’t have criminal records, and why the Lithuanian schoolgirl had offered to do him for free – because he was a policeman.

  ‘I kicked the bastard out.’

  ‘Good.’

  *

  Ailsa stood at the kitchen window, watching the children playing in the schoolyard: the younger ones running around like mad things, the older, cooler kids kicking back on the grass, soaking up the sun. The horrible woman from next door had been remanded without bail. That’s what the papers said this morning. Remanded without bail: charged with the gruesome murder of Gavin Cruickshank. There was even a small picture of her ugly, hate-filled face staring out of the Press and Journal’s front page as they led her from the court building. Of course Gavin’s death wasn’t as important as some local sex scandal – Gavin only merited three short columns at the bottom of the page, but it was enough to let everyone know what a bitch Clair Pirie, neighbour-from-hell, had been. Ailsa took a deep shuddering breath. Oh God: she was finally gone.

  The children blurred and she blinked back tears, biting her bottom lip. She wasn’t going to cry, she wasn’t going to – a sob escaped. A low, keening noise, full of pain. Gavin…

  She stood at the kitchen sink and cried, mourning her marriage and her husband, while the children played. Children they would never have together.

  Clutching the edge of the sink she lurched forward and was sick, splattering the spotless, stainless steel with Fruit ‘n Fibre, retching up mouthful after mouthful until there was nothing left.

  She was upstairs in the bathroom, washing her face, when the doorbell went. Probably the press again. Reporters had been ringing her phone day and night, banging on her door, wanting to get their grubby little hands on the story of a grieving widow. As if there wasn’t already enough pain and misery without rubbing a little more salt in the wound. ‘Mrs Cruickshank, is it true your husband was having an affair?’ ‘Mrs Cruickshank, have they found your husband’s head yet?’ ‘Mrs Cruickshank, how does it feel to know your next-door neighbour dismembered the man you loved?’

  The doorbell again, this time accompanied by a voice. ‘Mrs Cruickshank, it’s DS McRae. Can you open up please?’

  She swirled some toothpaste round her mouth – gargling and swallowing the foam, coating the bitter taste of bile with a thin veneer of mint – then hurried downstairs and opened the door.

  DS McRae stood on the top step, with a plain-looking WPC. ‘Can we come in?’

  Logan followed her through to the kitchen where the window hung wide open, the sound of playing children drifting in from the school across the road, the harsh stench of floral air freshener masking the acid smell of vomit. There was a copy of that morning’s P&J on the table, the front page dominated by the words COUNCILLOR HAD SEX WITH 13-YEAR-OLD PROSTITUTE! Not one of Colin Miller’s catchier headlines, but it was difficult to type when you were missing half of your fingers. He skimmed the article while Ailsa Cruickshank made tea. There was no mention of the Chief Greenbelt Development Planner, or McLennan Homes, and the whole thing was attributed to ‘a detective inspector on the vice squad, who wishes to remain anonymous…’ but it was still enough to get Councillor Marshall suspended from the council and investigated by Grampian Police. DI Steel was spitting nails.

  Three delicate china mugs clinked down onto the table, accompanied by a plate of chocolate digestives. Ailsa settled into one of the chairs and looked expectantly at Logan.

  ‘Mrs Cruickshank,’ he said, wondering how best to phrase this, ‘there’s something that’s been bothering me for the last couple of days…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Your husband’s remains were found to contain large amounts of antidepressants.’

  She looked confused. ‘But Gavin wasn’t depressed – he would’ve told me! I’d have noticed.’

  ‘So the question remains: how did he end up with all those pills in him?’

  Ailsa prodded Clair Pirie’s photo on the bottom of the P&J’s front page. ‘Maybe, she forced him to eat them? Crushed them up and mixed them in something?’

  ‘You like crime fiction, don’t you, Mrs Cruickshank? You showed us your collection first time I was here, remember? Do you like that bit at the end of the book, where the detective finally sorts through all the lies and unmasks the real killer?’

  ‘I… I don’t understand.’ She put her mug down. ‘What’s this all about?’

  Logan looked her straight in the eye. ‘We know.’

  She sat on the other side of the table, her face suddenly pale, and stared at him as time stretched like chewing gum. She opened her mouth and closed it, swallowed and tried again. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Why use a bright-red suitcase if you’re going to hide it in the woods? Unless you actually want it to be found. Why dismember a body but leave a huge tattoo with the victim’s wife’s name on it? Even if I hadn’t seen that photo of him with the Hooters girls, we’d have run a search through the database and your name would’ve popped up on Gavin’s missing person report. Gavin, who just happens to be having three separate affairs. And lo and behold your next-door neighbour, who you’ve been trying to get rid of for years, leaves her garage door open the whole time, with the connecting door unlocked, and spends a huge chunk of her life passed out in the back garden. How hard would it be to nip round there, smear some of Gavin’s blood round the bathtub and stash the knife in the garage?’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it? You get rid of your cheating husband and the bitch next door all in one fell swoop.’ Logan smiled. ‘But the pills were a mistake: you should’ve just clobbered him over the back of the head. How was Pirie supposed to get him to eat half a bottle of antidepressants? Bake him an “I’m sorry I smashed you in the face” cake?’

  ‘He phoned his office—’

  ‘Text message. He didn’t need to be alive for you to send it from his phone. And Hayley didn’t go away on holiday either, did she? You killed her and hid the body somewhere, but it’ll turn up eventually, they usually do.’

  Ailsa stood, the chair scraping back across the tiles. ‘I want to speak to my lawyer.’

  Logan shook his head. ‘You read too many detective novels, Mrs Cruickshank. This is Scotland: you get a lawyer when we say so, not before.’

  The Fatal Accident Enquiry was adjourned for the evening at half six, to reconvene at eight the following morning. Jackie was waiting for Logan as he slouched out of the conference room. Her broken arm was back in a brand-new case of plaster – shockingly clean after the filthy mess the last one had been in when they’d finally cut it off at the hospital in the early hours of Tuesday morning. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What did they say?’

  Logan forced a smile. ‘PC Maitland died in the line of duty due to unforeseeable events. We’re getting together for a lessons learned thing tomorrow.’

  ‘You see? I told you it’d be OK.’ Taking a quick check up and down the corridor to make sure no one was watching, she reached up and kissed him hard.

  ‘Ow!’ Logan flinched back, one hand going to his swollen top lip. ‘Take it easy: loose tooth, remember.’

  ‘Oh shut up, you big baby.’ She enfolded him in a long, warm kiss. ‘Come on,’ she said, when they finally broke for air, ‘I promised Steve we’d bring him some Kendal Mint Cake and a pornographic jigsaw.’

  ‘Jackie?’ said Logan as they walked down the stairs. ‘Would you really have sh
ot him? Chib – could you really have done it?’

  Jackie just smiled. ‘Oh hell yes.’

  By Stuart MacBride

  Cold Granite

  Dying Light

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to

  real people, living or dead, real events, businesses,

  organizations, and localities are intended only to give

  the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity.

  All names, characters, places and incidents

  either are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and

  their resemblance, if any, to real-life

  counterparts is entirely coincidental.

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  First published in Great Britain by

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  Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2006

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  ePub edition June 2008 ISBN-9780007279456

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