Shatter the Bones

paper; the bitter-sweet smells of stewed coffee and stale sweat overlaid with something cloying, artificial and floral. A little walled-off section lurked on one side, home to Grampian Police’s six detective sergeants. The sheet of A4 Blu-Tacked to the door was starting to look tatty, ‘THE WEE HOOSE’ barely readable through all the rude Post-it notes and biroed-on willies. Logan pushed through and closed the door behind him, shutting out the worst of the noise.

‘Jesus…’

He nodded at the room’s only occupant, a slouching figure with an expanding bald spot, taxi-door ears, and a single eyebrow that crossed his forehead like a strip of hairy carpet. Biohazard Bob Marshall: living proof that even natural selection had off days.

Bob spun around in his seat. ‘I had a whole packet of fags in here yesterday and they’ve gone missing.’

‘Don’t look at me: gave up four weeks ago.’ Logan checked his watch. ‘How come you managed to skip the briefing?’

‘Our beloved leader, Acting DI MacDonald, thinks someone needs to keep this bloody department’s head above the sewage-line while you bunch of poofs are off being media hoors.’

‘You’re just jealous.’

‘Bloody right I am.’ He turned back to his desk. ‘See when it’s my turn to be DI? You bastards are going to know the wrath of Bob.’

Logan settled behind his desk and powered up his computer. ‘You got that new pathologist, Hudson’s number?’

‘Ask Ms Dalrymple.’

Logan shuddered. ‘No chance.’

‘Hmm,’ Bob narrowed his eyes. ‘She still playing the creepy morgue attendant?’

‘Three weeks straight. Started doing this weird thing with her fingers too, like she’s got spiders for hands.’

Bob nodded. ‘Like it. Dedication.’ He scooted his chair forward. ‘Did I ever tell you about the time-’

The door clunked open, letting in the sounds of barely-controlled chaos. Samantha stood in the doorway, the SOC oversuit gone, revealing a Green Day t-shirt, black jeans, and a mop of scarlet hair, fringe plastered to her forehead. Face all pink and shiny. The metal bar she’d been dusting for prints was slung over one shoulder, wrapped in a swathe of evidence bags and silver duct tape. ‘Anyone in for a DNA result?’

Bob grinned. ‘If you’re looking for a sample, I’ve got some body fluids in a handy pump dispenser?’

‘Logan, tell Biohazard I wouldn’t touch his knob with a cheese grater.’

‘Aw, come on — you’re not still sulking are you?’

She turned and dumped a small sheaf of papers on Logan’s desk. ‘The blood’s Jenny’s. Ninety-nine point nine eight certainty.’

Logan flipped through to the conclusions page. ‘Sod…’

‘Sorry.’ Samantha draped a warm arm around his shoulders. ‘You going to be late tonight? Big day tomorrow, remember?’

‘Aye, well,’ Bob rubbed a finger across his single hairy eyebrow, ‘look on the bright side: imagine if it’d been someone else’s? Then you’d have two kiddies missing.’

‘Yeah, probably…’ Logan put the report down on his desk. Jenny’s DNA. Sod and bugger. ‘Did you tell Finnie?’

Samantha backed off, hands up. ‘Oh no you don’t.’

‘Please?’

‘Your name’s on the chain of evidence, tell him yourself.’ She gave the length of pipe a little shake. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to get down the store before that idiot Downie comes on. Wouldn’t trust the rotten sod to file his toenails, never mind physical evidence…’ Samantha blushed. Cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’

Bob pursed his lips and tutted. ‘See that’s the trouble with support staff these days: always putting their foot in it. Making jokes about toenails when there’s a wee girl’s severed-’

‘Screw you, Bob.’

He grinned. ‘See: you’re talking to me again!’

She planted a kiss on Logan’s forehead then marched out, giving Bob the finger.

Bob pointed at his crotch. ‘So … you want a rain-check on that DNA sample?’

Samantha slammed the door.

The main CID room was broken up into a cattle-pen of chest-high partition walls, all covered in memos, phone lists, and cartoons cut out of the Aberdeen Examiner. Someone had vandalized the ‘TERRORISM: IT’S EVERYONE’S PROBLEM!’ poster on the wall — by the little recess where the tea and coffee making facilities lurked — the word ‘TERRORISM’ scored out and ‘BOB’S ARSE’ written in its place.

Logan paused in front of the huge whiteboards at the front of the room, scanning the scrawled boxes of case updates. Apparently Jenny and her mum had been spotted in a Peterhead post office, a pub in Methlick, Elgin Library, the Inverurie swimming pool, Cults church… All utter bollocks.

Someone had updated the countdown, now it read, ‘8 DAYS TO DEADLINE!!!’

‘Sarge?’

Logan glanced to his left. PC Guthrie was standing beside him, clutching a steaming mug of coffee that curled the smell of bitter burnt-toast into the room. Logan turned back to the board. ‘If you’ve got bad news, you can sod off and share it with someone else.’

Guthrie handed him the mug, a wee pout pulling his pale face out of shape. With his semi-skimmed skin, faint ginger hair, and blond eyebrows he looked like a ghost that had been at the pies. ‘Milk, two sugars.’

‘Oh … sorry.’ Logan took the offered mug.

The constable nodded. ‘But while I’ve got you, Sarge, any chance you can take a look at tomorrow’s drug bust? McPherson’s SIO and you know what that means…’

Logan did. ‘When you going in?’

‘Half-three.’

‘Well, at least it’s an early morning shout. The buggers will still be…’ He could see Guthrie’s face pulling itself into an ugly grimace. ‘What?’

‘Not AM, Sarge, PM.’

‘You’re going in at half-three in the afternoon? Are you mad?’

‘Any chance you could, you know, have a word with him?’

‘They’ll all be wide awake and ready for a fight, resisting arrest, doing a runner, destroying evidence-’

‘Setting their sodding huge dogs on us, yeah, I know: Shuggie Webster’s just got himself a Rottweiler the size of a minibus.’ Guthrie sidled closer. ‘Maybe you could talk to Finnie? Tell him McPherson’s being a dick?’

Logan took a sip of coffee. ‘Gah…’ He handed it back. ‘Not that you deserve it, making coffee like that.’

Guthrie grinned. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’

Logan pushed through the doors and out into the corridor. He paused outside Detective Chief Inspector Finnie’s office, took a deep breath and knocked just as the door swung open.

Acting DI MacDonald froze on the threshold, flinching as Logan’s knuckles jerked to a halt just short of his nose. ‘Jesus…’

Logan smiled. ‘Sorry Mark, I mean Guv.’

MacDonald nodded, a blush turning the skin pink around his little goatee beard. ‘Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, Sergeant.’ Then he pushed past, limped back up the corridor to his new office and disappeared inside, slamming the door behind him.

Sergeant? Two weeks in the job and Acting DI MacDonald was already acting like a tosser.

Logan peered into Finnie’s office. The head of CID was behind his desk, face creased into a scowl. Colin Miller, the Aberdeen Examiner’s star reporter sat in one of the leather visitors’ chairs, smoothing the crease on his immaculate trousers. A pile of dirty laundry slumped in the other chair, mouth thrown open in a jaw-cracking yawn.

Detective Inspector Steel finished with a little burp and a shudder, then sagged even further. Her greying hair stuck up in random directions like a malformed Einstein wig. She ran a hand across her face, pulling the deep-blue- grey bags under her eyes all out of shape. Then let go and the wrinkles took over again. She sniffed. ‘We going to