Broken Skin

Logan gave Insch the short version: Garvie buying stolen porn from a man they later charged with sixty-two burglaries. ‘And according to Zander Clark, Fettes was acting as a male prostitute; selling middle-aged ladies the chance to sleep with a bona fide porn star. He got email offers through the Crocodildo website, they were forwarded to this hotmail address.’ Logan handed over the compliments slip the director had given him.

Insch took it with a grunt, pulled out the Jason Fettes case file, and flipped through the paperwork till he found the IB report on the victim’s computer. ‘Bloody typical! It’s not even on the list of email addresses they gave us.’ He slammed the folder shut. ‘Get onto them: I want everything sent to, or from, that address in the last six months. Garvie must have been in touch with him. Then find out what’s happening with those bloody servers! And if you see Watson, tell her I want a word.’ He sat back in his seat and flicked on his computer. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? Move it!’

At least Rickards had enough sense to wait until they were well out of earshot before he started complaining. ‘Why the hell did we have to just stand there and take it? We’re not children! You didn’t even-’

‘Because I know what he’s like, OK? There’s no point arguing with Insch right now, it only antagonizes him and he’s in a foul enough mood as it is.’

‘But he’s not supposed to-’

Logan held up a hand, cutting him off. ‘You’ve not worked with a lot of DIs, have you? They all say they’ve got an open-door policy and you can come to them with anything and everyone’s opinion is valid, but when push comes to shove, it’s all bollocks. This is their show. If an investigation goes tits up, they’re the ones get reamed for it, not us.’

‘That still doesn’t give him the right to treat us like shit!’

‘True, but I’m not going back in there to argue the toss. Are you?’

Talking to the IB’s pet nerd involved a ten minute rant from Mr Skate Or Die on how no one understood how difficult it was to do forensic computing properly and was it his fault the Dundee labs were up to their ears? When Logan passed on Insch’s demands, it just set him off again.

By the time Logan finally got around to signing out, all he wanted to do was go back to the flat, crawl into a hot bath and forget about DI Grumpy Bastard Insch. Big Gary was on the desk again, cup of tea in one huge paw, the other wrapped around a raisin whirl. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ the large man asked, mouth full of pastry. ‘I’ve had Insch on my arse all morning looking for you, turn your bloody phone on!’

Logan stuck two fingers up and scribbled his signature into the book. ‘Day off, remember? And for your information, I was upstairs getting a commendation from the Chief Constable.’

‘Ah,’ Big Gary wiped an imaginary tear from his eye, ‘it’s a proud moment for us all. Still, switch on your phone: I’m not your secretary.’ He handed over a wad of barely legible messages, all saying things like: PHONE INSCH! and WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU? Logan scrunched them up and dropped them in the nearest bin, before pulling out his phone and switching it back on again. The thing was full of increasingly irate messages from Insch, and Logan went through them, deleting as he went. Last but not least was a grumpy-sounding one from Jackie, reminding him to pick up a present and a card for tonight, before setting off on a truncated rant about Rob Macintyre being on the radio this morning, telling everyone how much he’d suffered at the hands of Aberdeen Police’s hate campaign. ‘And the little shite’s got himself a book deal! What sort of idiot-’ then the message abruptly ended. Logan deleted it too. This thing with Macintyre was turning into an obsession; every day something else set her off and Logan would be treated to another lecture about how the footballer needed stringing up by the balls. He was getting sick of it.

Sticking the phone back in his pocket, he headed off into town, looking for the sort of present a woman in her mid-fifties wouldn’t complain about too much.

He was in the middle of buying some kind of elephant wind-chime thing when his phone started up: the Ice Queen, AKA Dr Isobel MacAlister. ‘He didn’t come home! Last night! He didn’t come home! ’

Logan handed over his credit card and the young woman behind the counter started wrapping. ‘Isobel, I don’t-’

‘Colin! He didn’t come home!’ She was on the verge of tears, which wasn’t like her at all.

‘Maybe he’s out on assignment? Visiting-’

‘He would have told me!’ There was a pause, and then her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You know what happened last time …’

‘I’m sure it’s nothing, he-’

‘You have to find him!’

Trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice, Logan accepted the plastic bag with his giftwrapped elephants inside it and promised to do what he could.

27

Two hours later Logan marched into the Globe Inn on North Silver Street, pulled a stool up to the bar and ordered a pint of Stella and a cheese and onion toastie. ‘You know,’ he said, as the barmaid went off to phone his order through to the kitchen, ‘she’s doing her nut in down the morgue. It’s upsetting the corpses.’

Colin Miller, golden boy reporter on the P amp;J, tireless campaigner against Grampian Police in general and Detective Sergeant Logan McRae in particular, turned a bleary, bloodshot eye in his direction and told him to fuck off. He wasn’t a tall man even by PC Rickards’ standards, but he more than made up for it in width. What had been a lot of muscle was beginning to soften and settle into middle-aged spread on the father-to-be. His usual suit was missing — replaced by jeans, heavy tartan shirt, scuffed leather jacket, and the heady stench of alcohol. He clasped the pint of beer on the bar in front of him with black-gloved hands. There wasn’t so much as a flash of gold or silver about the man. Not like him at all. And he hadn’t shaved.

‘Come on, Colin, she’s worried about you. You don’t come home all night; she thinks something horrible’s happened.’

‘Aye? Like fuckin’ last time, you mean?’ The words were slurred and broad Glaswegian. He held up his hands, wiggling the fingers so Logan could see the joints that wouldn’t move any more. The rigid parts showing where prosthetic plastic replaced flesh and bone.

‘Colin, she’s worried about you.’

‘None of yer bloody business. Interferin’ wee fuck.’

Logan sighed. ‘Look: I’m sorry, OK? For the thousandth time: I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for it to happen. It wasn’t on purpose. What the hell else am I supposed to say?’

‘How ’bout you don’t say another fuckin’ thing.’ Miller stood, threw back the last mouthful of beer, and banged his empty glass down on the bar top. ‘I don’t fuckin’ need you, “Mr Big Police Hero”,’ poking Logan in the shoulder. ‘So just sod off an’ leave me alone.’ The reporter turned on his heel and staggered into a marble-topped table, before righting himself and lurching towards the toilets.

Logan pulled out his mobile and called Isobel back, telling her, ‘He’s OK. Just a bit drunk.’ Then hanging up before she could start asking questions or hectoring him. Just to be on the safe side, he switched the thing off again.

The cheese toastie arrived just as Miller came marching back to the bar and ordered another pint of heavy and a double Highland Park. The whisky glittered like amber in the glass as it was set before him.

‘How about I call you a taxi and get you home?’

‘How ’bout you fuck off instead?’

Logan picked up his toastie — the pale bread imprinted with a scallop pattern of golden brown

— and broke it on the diagonal, fingernail-crescents of white onion poking out between the slices. ‘Here.’ He slid the other half over to Miller. The reporter stared down at the triangle of bread. ‘This doesnae make us fuckin’ even.’ But he picked it up and ate it anyway, carefully wrapping the half toastie in Logan’s napkin, so as not to get any grease on his gloves. Fastidious even while pished. ‘How’d you know I’d be here?’

‘You’re not the only one who finds stuff out for a living.’

‘Yeah. Suppose not …’ There was a pause, broken by someone putting an old Deacon Blue song on the