Broken Skin

from the front of the room, one huge buttock perched on the edge of a desk, popping chocolate raisins into his mouth between sentences. Like a big, pink eating machine. This investigation had been stagnant for too long. There were going to be some changes. Or he was going to kick everyone’s arse for them.

Not that there were many arses to kick — when the case had been downgraded from murder to kinky sex gone wrong, the team had been cut by more than two thirds and stuck in one of the smaller incident rooms. Now it was just Insch, Logan, DC Rennie and a handful of uniforms. And even then Logan was only part time.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ asked Insch as Logan tried to sneak out at the end.

‘Those break-ins. You didn’t want the case, so I’ve been lumbered with it.’

Insch shook his head. ‘Not today you’re not — you’ve got some homework to do.’ He handed over a plastic bag.

‘What’s this?’ said Logan, peering inside at Jason Fettes’ narcissistic porn collection.

‘This is what Steel should have done in the first place. Go through that lot and see if you can find a match for the guy who dropped Fettes off at the hospital. Maybe they worked together.’

Now that Insch mentioned it, it did sound bloody obvious. But it meant Logan would have to spend the whole day watching a dead man having sex, which didn’t exactly sound like a bundle of laughs. Especially not after watching his post mortem. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And don’t take too long about it either — we’re seeing Macintyre at ten and I want you there in case I need someone to talk me out of strangling the little footballing bastard.’

Logan was about to complain that two and a half hours probably wasn’t enough time to watch six DVDs and go through eight pornographic magazines. But Insch cut him off with a fat finger. ‘If you’re thinking of having a whinge, don’t. There’s no one here to talk me out of strangling you.’

18

There was no way he was going to get through all of Fettes’ porn collection by ten on his own, so Logan grabbed Rickards and commandeered a tiny room full of abandoned box-files and evidence bags. It had nicotine- yellow ceiling tiles, peeling magnolia paint on the walls, and a fluorescent light that buzzed and flickered, but it was the only place free. Now all they needed was something to watch the DVDs on.

‘Got an idea …’ Rickards disappeared off, leaving Logan in the cramped and messy space.

Swearing quietly to himself, Logan started stacking things in the corner. By the time the constable returned he’d cleared enough space to work in.

‘Don’t tell anyone, OK?’ said Rickards, dumping an archive box on the tabletop. ‘Sergeant Mitchell thinks I’m taking them upstairs for more fingerprint tests.’ Inside there were new-looking laptops and one of those little photo printers.

Logan was impressed. ‘Where did-’

‘Part of that brothel raid. They were doing live internet sex shows with their punters.’ He started plugging things in. ‘We can take screen-grabs from Fettes’ porn films and print them out.’ The machinery whirred and beeped into life, and the constable nodded happily.

‘Not as daft as you look then.’ Logan selected one of Fettes’ DVDs at random.

Rickards grinned. ‘Thank God for that, eh?’

By ten o’clock they had a small stack of printed-out porn stars. It’d been easy enough to whiz through the films on fast forward, pausing every time a new face appeared, taking a screen shot, printing it out, then cranking up the speed again. Not surprisingly a lot of the same people popped up in nearly every film, but three of them actually bore a vague resemblance to the e-fit. If you squinted and ignored the whole goatee beard thing.

Logan made sure they all had the names of their films scribbled on the back then went off in search of Insch.

Rob Macintyre’s football salary had bought him a large granite house in one of the more exclusive streets off the swankier end of Great Western Road, and a brand new silver Porsche 911 to park outside it, reflecting back the gunmetal skies. According to the DMV computers the twenty-one-year-old also had a Merc and an Audi estate. All with personalized number plates. Logan got the feeling Macintyre was probably spending money as fast as he earned it. Playing Aberdeen’s ‘look at my car — see how successful I am!’ game.

Insch’s muck-encrusted Range Rover looked decidedly out of place. The inspector sat in the driver’s seat, staring up at the house, crunching his way through a packet of Polo mints. ‘You see what they said in the paper this morning?’

‘Same as usual: you’d think they’d get tired of kicking us by now.’ P amp;J front page headline: POLICE CAN’T CATCH 8-YEAR OLD KILLER! Colin Miller again, banging on about how Grampian Police couldn’t find their backsides with both hands, let alone Sean Morrison. Even for Miller it was vitriolic stuff.

Logan cracked his window open, trying to let some fresh air in. The whole car stank of wet dog. ‘What the hell are we supposed to do — search the whole city by hand? Just because he’s eight, doesn’t mean he’s…’ A scowl had settled onto the inspector’s face. ‘What?’

‘Not your missing bloody child: the Dundee rape!’ He shook his head and lumbered out of the car. ‘Well, come on then — we don’t have all day. Mr Macintyre has kindly granted us a whole twenty minutes of his time and I don’t want to waste it sitting here listening to you whine!’

A surprisingly pretty brunette let them into Macintyre’s home — she had a distracting amount of cleavage on display, a gold and ruby pendant nestling between her breasts, an engagement ring the size of a gobstopper, and legs like a poledancer’s. A stereotypical footballer’s wife in training. She couldn’t have been much more than four months pregnant — the bulge artfully framed by her low-slung trousers, cropped, low-cut T-shirt and open blouse, a ruby-pierced bellybutton sparkling invitingly. ‘I don’t know why you can’t just leave him alone!’ she said, marching down the hall ahead of them. ‘He’s never harmed anyone! You should be out catching real crooks, not harassing my Robert …’

Inside, the place was like an Ikea advert: all minimalist lines and pale wood, arty photographs, prints, seashells and strange little glass things in wooden frames. Nothing looked real, as if the whole house had been bought from a catalogue in one go, rather than built up over the years. It was soulless. Logan had been expecting more bling.

Macintyre was sitting in the front room, feet up on the coffee table, can of coke in one hand and a phone in the other, chatting away in broad Aberdonian. Macintyre’s fiancee growled, ‘Feet!’ at him and he snatched them back to the carpet as if he’d been scalded, covered the mouthpiece and apologized to his beloved. Logan had never actually met the man before, only seen him in court, on television, or on the pitch at Pittodrie. For a moment he tried picturing the ugly wee sod pinning that poor woman from Dundee to the ground while he carved up her face.

If it was him, then Jackie was right: the footballer needed a stiff bloody kicking. He watched as Macintyre went back to his phone call, laughing — not a care in the world. And there, to see things remained that way, was Sandy Moir-Farquharson, standing with his back to a huge tropical fish tank, wearing an expression that made Logan want to check the soles of his shoes in case he’d trodden in something.

‘Ah,’ said Insch, ‘Mr Far-Quar-Son,’ pronouncing the lawyer’s name wrongly in a childish attempt to wind the man up, ‘Macintyre didn’t tell us you’d be here. How nice to see you.’

The lawyer sniffed. ‘Spare me your amateur theatrics, Insch, I’m not in the mood. You are here because my client wants to make sure you don’t jump to any of your usual idiotic conclusions about this Dundee attack. You are not here to interrogate, belittle or browbeat Mr Macintyre, is that clear?’

The inspector’s face darkened, ‘You don’t tell me how to question a suspect!’

‘Please, try and get this through your swollen, shiny pink head: Mr Macintyre is — not — a — suspect. Your last pathetic attempt to fit up my client was thrown out of court, remember? And furthermore-’

A clatter at the door and Macintyre’s mother backed in, wheeling a hostess trolley with tea things and little cakes on it.

‘Now, now,’ said Macintyre, the words long, flat and Doric, as his mum handed out the cups and saucers. ‘Gie the mannie a break, he’s only deein’ his joab.’ Without the phone clamped to his lug Logan could see Macintyre’s ruby earstud twinkling away, red like his fiancee’s pendant, the colour of AFC. The colour of fresh blood. And for the