Broken Skin

‘Hmm …’ A patrol car turned into Queen Street, the sunshine glinting off the windscreen as it stopped to let an old lady cross the road. ‘Six months ago he was a normal little eight-year-old boy, and now he’s a murderer. Big step for a small kid.’

‘You sound like a bloody social worker. He’s a spoilt wee shite and that’s all there is to it.’ The noise of a petrol station lighter scritch-scritchscritching, and a curl of white smoke snaked its way towards the window.

‘You don’t kill an old man just because mummy and daddy won’t buy you a pony.’ He looked back over his shoulder — Steel was stretched out happily in her chair, heels dug deep into the carpet, arms up over her head, like a dishevelled cat, puffing away happily to herself. ‘Something must have happened.’

She pulled the fag from her mouth, peering at him through tendrils of smoke. ‘Gonnae do me a favour an no’ piss on my parade? We won: enjoy it.’ She dragged her sleeve back and squinted at her watch. ‘Come on, just time for a pee break before the PF gets here. And cheer up for God’s sake, you’re starting to make Doc Misery-Guts look cheery by comparison.’

* * *

The Procurator Fiscal sat in the least manky of the inspector’s chairs, looking tanned and golden, but her deputy — the one she’d left in charge while she was off basking on a beach somewhere — had taken on the typical Aberdeen mid-winter pallor. Rachael Tulloch: skin so pale it was almost white, her long, curly auburn hair held back in a loose ponytail that she fiddled with while the PF and Steel talked through the list of offences they were going charge Sean Morrison with.

She was pretty; Logan couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before. Not beautiful, but wholesome, Celtic, girl- next-door pretty. She looked up, caught him staring at her, and smiled.

Feeling like a naughty teenager he blushed and looked away.

When they were finished, Rachael hung back, letting Steel and the PF march on ahead. ‘So,’ she said, undoing her hair, letting the curls fall across her shoulders and down her back, ‘I hear you caught Sean pretty much single handed.’ Logan demurred, but she was having none of it. ‘Not to mention solving all those burglaries.’ A smile played across her lips, then she rolled her eyes, putting on a cheesy American accent, ‘Is there anything you can’t do?’

‘I … well …’ Suddenly Logan was having difficulty stringing two words together.

‘You know,’ taking a deep breath, ‘I’m sure I still owe you a drink. From before.’ Resting her fingertips against his arm.

‘Ah, well …’ and then he thought of Jackie and Rennie — he doesn’t suspect a thing — ‘Now you come to mention it, I do remember something about a large gin and tonic.’

‘When?’

‘Er … tonight?’

‘Tonight. Seven o’clock, Ferry Hill House Hotel, the bar, not the lounge. Don’t be late.’ Rachael grinned, turned, and hurried after the Procurator Fiscal. She only looked back twice.

Logan bumped into Big Gary on the way down the stairs. The big man took one look at him and groaned. ‘What are you doing in? Thought I told you to stay off till Saturday.’

‘DI Steel.’

‘Why do we even bother having a shift rota?’ He dug his notebook out and scribbled something in it. ‘Any idea when Her Holiness will let you back to normal duties?’

‘No. You seen Rennie about?’ Logan didn’t know what he was going to do to the constable, but it wasn’t going to be pretty.

‘Court. All day,’ Gary said, putting his notebook back where he’d found it, ‘two unlawful removals, three shoplifters and an indecent exposure. He’s in tomorrow though.’

Logan thanked him and stomped down the stairs to his commandeered incident cupboard, sitting in the windowless little room, thinking about marching over to the court building, grabbing Rennie by the throat and beating the shit out of him. He was stamping on the little bastard’s testicles when his phone started to ring.

It was Mr Skate Or Die from the IB’s tech team, wanting him to know he’d tried those servers from the Garthdee house.

Logan frowned. ‘Garvie, not Garthdee. Frank Garvie.’

‘Aye, whatever. Plugged them in this morning — everything’s encrypted.’

‘Can you crack it?’

There was a pause and then some derisive laughter. ‘No.’

‘I’ll be right up.’

The servers they’d confiscated from Garvie’s flat lay in the middle of a landfill site of empty Diet Coke cans and bits of wire. Both machines were hooked up to flat-screen monitors — reams of letters and numbers glowing pale green on black. ‘What you’re looking at,’ said the techie, ball-point pen sticking out of his mouth, ‘is two-five-six bit asymmetric encryption. Everything is wide open on the box, no security at all, but you can’t make any sense out of it without the matching keys.’

‘There has to be something you can-’

‘Not a sodding chance.’ He tapped one of the boxes with his pretend cigarette, ‘the military use hundred and twenty-eight bit for secret documents. Two-five-six is like, three hundred and forty billion, billion, billion times more secure. That’s your super top, top secret NSA, MI6 kind of thing. We won’t be able to crack stuff like this for atleast another twenty-five years. And before you ask: you can buy encryption software off the internet for less than the price of a football ticket.’ The pen went back in his mouth. ‘Without the key we haven’t got a chance in hell of finding out what’s on these machines.’

‘Nope, not in.’ The voice of Alpha Thirteen. ‘We went round a couple of the neighbours, but they’ve no’ seen him since last night. Apparently he was pissed — standin’ in the stairwell, shoutin’ about how they was all a bunch of bastards and he’d never done nothing.’

Logan clamped a hand over the telephone’s mouthpiece and passed on the message to DI Insch. ‘Not in.’

The fat man glowered. ‘Tell them to keep going back. Every hour, on the hour. Soon as Garvie’s home I want the encryption key to those bloody files.’

By eleven o’clock Logan was back in his gloomy little incident room, with the lights switched off, brooding about Jackie and Rennie, unable to work up any enthusiasm for the piles of paperwork he was supposed to be catching up on. How the hell could she do that to him? And with RENNIE! Simon Bloody Bastarding Rennie. Simon Bloody Bastarding Arse-Features Thick As Pig Shit Rennie Bastard-

The sound of the door opening. Someone said, ‘Eh?’ and suddenly the room was full of light, leaving Logan blinking and cursing. Big Gary stood on the threshold, one hand on the light switch. ‘What you doing in here in the dark?’

‘What do you want Gary?’

‘Jesus, you sound cheery … That Glaswegian git’s been on the phone.’

Logan waited for the rest of it, but nothing else was forthcoming. ‘And?’

‘The hell should I know — I look like your bloody secretary? If you switched your phone on every now and then you’d know, wouldn’t you?’

‘Fine.’ He went back to staring at the wall. ‘Anything else?’

There was a sigh, Gary muttered, ‘I give up,’ switched off the light and closed the door behind him.

Logan pulled out his phone and called Colin Miller back. It seemed to ring forever before the reporter’s voice came on, deeper and more gravelly than normal.

‘What you want?’

‘Morning, Colin. Feeling better?’

‘Like a cat’s pissed in my mouth.’

‘You phoned.’

‘Did I?’ There was a loud, rattling cough. ‘Urgh… Did I do anythin’ stupit yesterday?’

‘Yes. Isobel speaking to you yet?’

‘She shouteda bit.’ Logan got the feeling that was something of an understatement — Dr Isobel MacAlister wasn’t the kind to suffer in silence. Colin groaned. ‘Said I was an irresponsible