Who on Earth wants to watch something like that?'
Steel: 'Recognize anyone?'
'Apart from Krystka?' He picked at the skin around his thumbnail. 'Both men are amateurs — they completely messed up the money-shot. Camera's not even high definition, probably a home camcorder thing. The worst sort of gonzo operation. And it's obviously not legal: even if the rape's simulated, there's no titles or BBFC classification.'
Steel's voice was alarmingly level. 'You think it's simulated? They were just faking it?'
Zander put his coffee down and rubbed at his face. 'I wish they were. But Krystka, God bless her, just isn't that good an actress.' He drooped. 'I should never have let her go…'
Logan tapped the nearest monitor. 'You've no idea who might have filmed this?'
'No. And believe me if I did, I'd tell you. The last thing we need is sick crap like this giving erotography a bad name. Doesn't Krystka know?'
'She won't talk: too scared.'
'Well… can't you analyse it? Don't you have police scientist people for this kind of thing?'
'Aye,' said Steel, 'if we want to wait three months.'
'OK.' The director took a deep breath, scrunched his face into a pout, then started punching buttons on his keyboard. A separate scene from the DVD popped up onto each of the monitors; Zander set them all playing at the same time.
A barrage of gibberish, grunting and swearing blared from the speakers. He hit mute. 'I can pull off the audio as a separate file for you, cut out the background noise. Maybe you can do something with the voices.'
His eyes flickered across the screens, the pink flesh reflecting in his trendy rectangular glasses.
Steel sniffed and hauled up her trousers. 'Why are-'
'Shhhh…' Zander stared at the images of Krystka Gorzalkowska being raped. 'They never show the men's faces — they're always wearing the dog masks…'
'We can bloody well see that!'
He hit a key and one of the screens went blank. Then another, and another until only one screen still showed a picture. He froze it, then wound it backwards. Hit pause again, then play.
As the scene started again a man's voice crackled out of the speakers: 'Take it! Take it! Taaaaaaa…' The last word stretched out into the lower register then stopped entirely as Zander slowed the playback. Backwards: 'Aaaaait. Ti…' Pause. '… it! Take…'
'There.'
Steel stared at the screen, face scrunched up in concentration. Krystka was pinned to the couch, tears streaming down her face while Bulldog-mask abused her. 'Where?'
'Like I said, the men always keep their faces covered, but…' He shifted the mouse, highlighting the corner of the picture, and zoomed in. Now they were looking at a grainy close-up of the not-very-good painting of Union Street. A man's face was reflected in the glass. 'Cameraman wasn't so careful.'
Steel went on squinting. 'It looks like Mr Potato Head! What the hell are we supposed to do with that?'
'What we do with that, is send it to my computer geeks. They take the next twenty frames or so and subtract all the pixels that are part of the painting. Composite what's left, clean it up, and Bob's your rapist.' 'I still can't believe you got a warrant based on that.' Rennie parked the pool car and killed the engine. The house was at the end of a moth-eaten cul-de-sac, its garden overflowing with weeds, grass, and a rotting bicycle frame. The houses on either side were even worse: boarded up windows; the corpse of a washing machine; a stack of ruptured bin bags, the contents disappearing into the long grass.
DI Steel sat in the passenger seat, puffing her way to the end of an angry cigarette. 'Aye, well Sheriff McNab might be a sanctimonious old git, but even he's no' going to pass up a chance like this.'
They climbed out into the morning sunshine.
Logan scanned the street. The only visible inhabitant was a grey and white cat, watching them warily from the roof of a plastic Wendy-house.
Rennie marched round to the back of the car and fetched the 'big red door key' from the boot. 'Thing weighs a ton…'
'Don't whinge.' Steel started up the path to the door, with Rennie grumbling along behind her.
Logan waded through the knee-high grass, round the corner of the house and into the back garden. At least this time there wasn't a fence to climb, or a dirty big dog, just a whirly listing at thirty degrees and a collection of mildewed garden furniture. He got into position, and waited for things to kick off.
Three crashes of battering ram against UPVC. Shouts. A thump.
Logan tried the back door — it wasn't locked.
Straight through the kitchen and into the hallway. A man in a brown T-shirt and boxer shorts was sprinting towards him as the front door exploded off its hinges. The man saw Logan and slithered to a halt, socks getting little purchase on the linoleum.
Rennie: 'STOP, POLICE!'
Logan: 'Give it up, Gary.'
Gary: 'Fuck!' He turned and scrambled up the stairs with Rennie in hot pursuit. Logan followed, getting up to the landing in time to see Rennie launch a flying rugby tackle.
The constable slammed into Gary, and they both went down in a heap of flailing limbs and swearwords. An ironing board hit the carpet: creased clothes went everywhere.
Grapple. Struggle. Clunk — Gary bounced the iron off Rennie's head. The constable let go, wobbled a bit, then fell over.
Logan fumbled in his pocket for the canister of pepper-spray as Gary struggled to his feet, the iron still clutched in his fist.
'I didn't do nothing!' He wasn't the ugliest person in Aberdeen, but he was having a decent stab at the title. One thick eyebrow, face like curdled milk, patchy beard.
'You just assaulted a police officer.'
'He was breaking into my house!'
'Come on, Gary, don't make it any worse. Put the iron down.'
Gary dropped it, turned, and ran, slamming the bedroom door behind him. Logan scrambled past Rennie, and kicked the door open. Double bed. Black sheets with crusty white stains. Mirrored tiles on the ceiling. Camera lights on tripods. Gary was on top of a chest of drawers by the window, fighting with the catch.
'It's not going to happen, Gary. Give it up.'
Gary swore, then climbed down. Moping his way across the carpet, head down. 'Bloody thing was locked.'
'Well, if you'd just come quietly in the first-'
Gary's knee slammed right into Logan's crotch.
Oh God… He folded in half, clutching his groin as Gary shoved past out onto the landing. 'Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnngh,'
And then Steel's voice bellowed out from the stairwell: 'Oh no you bloody don't!'
35
Logan winced his way through into the hallway. The bathroom door was shut, but there was a lot of swearing and spluttering coming from inside; the sound of the toilet filling, then flushing, then filling, then flushing.
He stood, holding onto the wall, trying to breathe his way through the burning ache in his testicles, just like they'd taught him at the pain clinic. Then knocked on the door.
'Inspector?'
Flush, splutter, swearing, something thumping on the bathroom floor.
'Inspector, are you OK?' He tried the handle and the door swung open.
She was sitting on the edge of the bath, holding Gary by the scruff of the neck, forcing his head into the toilet bowl. His legs flailed about as water rushed by, both arms wrapped around the porcelain. She'd cuffed his hands
