Broken Skin

Macintyre. The only person missing now was … Talk of the devil: Jackie Watson, coming in from the rain, hair plastered down to her head, jacket dripping on the blue-and-yellow carpet.

Logan froze, just out of earshot, watching as Jackie beamed, paused, then hugged DI Insch. The large man looked momentarily taken aback, then shouted, ‘Drinks!’ And all the way through, Rachael just smiled.

Oh God … Taking a deep breath, Logan joined them.

56

Saturday morning hurt. Not as much as it could have done, but enough to make Logan regret staying up till two in the morning, drinking. He rolled out of bed, groaned, and scrubbed his face with his hands. Some grumbling from under the duvet next to him and he hit the off switch on the alarm, then slouched through to the shower.

FHQ was busy. Ten past seven and the day shift were catching up on all the arrests from a standard Aberdeen Friday night on the piss. Logan signed in and grabbed a big cup of coffee from the canteen before checking with the front desk to see who was about. Sergeant Eric Mitchell frowned at him. ‘You’re supposed to be on the back shift.’

Logan shrugged. ‘Jimmy Duff — he’s off to court at half three.’

‘Bloody hell … Take some sodding time off! You know how much of a pain in the arse it is to balance the books with buggers like you screwing up the overtime bill?’

‘Steel in?’

‘Nope. And neither’s Insch …’ He leant forward and put on a dramatic whisper: ‘Been suspended!’ Then a sniff. ‘Finnie’s about, if you’re desperate.’

‘Never mind.’ Logan would never be that desperate. ‘I’ll manage.’

The cell block stank of disinfectant, urine and vomit, the custody assistant pushing a mop back and forth on the filthy green floor and muttering away to himself. ‘Dirty fuckers …’

Logan took a quick look at the clipboard hanging on the wall. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘Fights, drunk and disorderlies, pissing in shop doorways, the usual.’ He slopped another mopful of grey water on the floor. ‘How come I’m always the one lumbered with the-’

‘Jimmy Duff straight again?’

‘Eh?’ He made dirty, swirly patterns on the green terrazzo floor. ‘Oh, aye. He’s whinging about that kicking he got though. Little bugger hasn’t shut up since I came on. “Oh I’m in pain! Oh I’m dying. Oh I need some medication. Blah, blah, blah.” ‘He scrubbed at a blob of gritty pink chewing gum. ‘I’ve got a bad back, and you don’t hear me-’

‘Do me a favour and get someone to stick him in an interview room.’

‘What did your last bloody slave die of? … OK, fine. Not like I’ve got anything better to do.’ He sighed and stuck his mop back in the bucket. ‘Room one?’

Logan thought about it. ‘The heater working in there?’

‘Aye, three’s still buggered though.’

‘Stick him in three then.’

There was an overwhelming air of doom and gloom in what used to be DI McPherson’s incident room, and it was all coming from a hungover-looking PC Rickards, still complaining about Debbie Kerr, and how his life was ruined. He was sharing a desk in the middle of the room with Rennie, who looked as if he was doing his best to ignore all the moaning and get some work done; fighting through the paperwork Logan had lumbered him with yesterday. ‘Right,’ said Logan, looking round the room, ‘anyone free?’

Rennie’s hand shot out, pointing at Rickards. ‘John’s free, aren’t you John? Yeah, take John. Do him good to get out of the office!’

Logan looked at the dejected figure and got as far as, ‘Ah …’ when Rickards looked up, sighed and dragged himself to his feet. ‘Actually,’ said Logan, backing away from the desk, trying to play it cool, ‘don’t worry about it: you’re busy. It was just questioning a prisoner, I can always …’ But Rickards was already retrieving his jacket from the back of his chair and pulling it on over his wrinkled white uniform shirt.

He stood there, looking as if the world had just caved in, saying: ‘You want me to get coffees.’ Not a question.

‘Well … I …’

‘Fine.’ And he slouched off.

Rennie sank down in his seat till his head was resting on the desktop. ‘Oh, dear God — please don’t bring him back!’

Interview room three was like a sauna. The sun blazed in through a crack in the blinds, striking the back of Jimmy Duff’s head, making his rumpled hair glow like a halo. Which was probably about as close to divinity as he was ever likely to get. Yesterday the bruising had been bad, but today it was even worse: purple, dark blue, green and yellow covering most of his face, like a gaudy, camouflage tattoo. The custody sergeant had confiscated Duff’s broken glasses, so he had to squint, screwing up his blackened eyes, complaining about only being given paracetamol for his aches. ‘I need morphine! Or you know somethin’ a bit … You’ve got gear here, right?’

‘For the last time: no, OK? We’re the police not your dealer.’ Logan settled back in his chair and pointed the remote control at the TV set Rickards had set up in the corner. The picture fizzed and crackled until the DVD player came online. ‘Recognize this?’

Duff squinted at the screen, watching Jason Fettes being strapped to a table and spanked. ‘Look, I’m really in pain here. I need some medication.’

‘Do you recognize it?’

A shrug that ended in a wince. ‘Never seen it before.’

‘No? Well, how come Ma Stewart says you gave it to her: security on a loan?’

At the mention of Ma’s name Duff flinched. ‘Ah,’ he said, licking his broken, swollen lips, ‘if Ma says it, then yeah. I recognize it. Gave it to her. Yeah.’ Jimmy’s unbroken hand stroked the plaster covering his left arm. ‘If Ma says it.’

‘Uh huh. She the one did this to you Jimmy? You gave her a fake name, didn’t you?’

‘No! Nothing to do with her. I … I … Acouple of guys in a pub. Spilt their pints, they … you know.’

‘Sure.’ The second ‘it was a pub fight’ story Logan had heard this week. At least Jackie’s had sounded a lot more convincing. ‘The DVD. Where’d you get it?’

‘You sure I can’t get somethin’ for the pain, eh? It’s really-’

‘The DVD Jimmy! Where — did — you — get — it?’

‘-couple of diffs, some jellies … you know, make it stop hurtin’ for a bit.’

Logan slammed his hand down on the tabletop, and Duff flinched again, trembling into silence as Logan said, ‘If you don’t tell me where you got that bloody DVD from, Jimmy, I’m going to see Ma Stewart and tell her how you’re pressing charges for assault. And loan-sharking.’

A look of terror leapt onto Duff’s bruised face. ‘No! I didnae! I didnae say anything!’

‘She doesn’t know that.’

Jimmy shivered in his seat, scratching away at his cast. ‘I …’ He looked from the screen to Logan, to Rickards, then to the camera bolted up on the wall. ‘It was this bird, er … woman, you know? I needed the cash. I mean, you know, I’m no’ into it, or nothing, I just needed the cash …”

Logan listened to DI Steel giving someone a hard time on the other end of the phone, threatening them with all manner of horrible repercussions if they didn’t come round and fix her toilet. The inspector slammed the handset down and stuck her middle finger up at it. ‘Well, what did Duff say?’ she asked. ‘He cop to Fettes’s backside?’

‘Thought you weren’t coming in today?’

‘Aye well,’ she shrugged and unwrapped a stick of nicotine gum, ‘Susan’s mum’s up from bloody Dundee and she’s getting on my wick. Told them I had an urgent case on. So: Duff?’

‘We got an address — says he lifted the movie with Fettes in it by accident. Disk was in the DVD player he nicked, along with some jewellery, CDs, and electrical stuff. Said it was compensation for what the householder had done to him.’

‘Yeah?’ She popped the gum in her mouth and chewed. ‘Let me guess-’