'Probably.' Steel looked from the blood-splashed car park all the way up to the roof. 'That or Brooks decided to go in for a bit of freestyle plummeting.' She sucked in a lungful of smoke. 'Maybe he was wracked with guilt for screwing up the Flesher inquiry? If he'd done a proper job in the first place, they'd never have let the bastard go.' She dragged the last gasp from her cigarette, then flicked it out into the puddle of drying blood. 'How's your vertigo?'
From the roof, eighteen floors up, the car park looked a long, long way down. The Environmental Health had finished with the spraying and were now trying to wash the remaining bleachy sludge down the nearest drain with a hose. Steel sidled up next to Logan and peered over the wall. 'Jesus, how far you think that is?' 'Sixty, seventy feet?' 'Hmm ...' She howched, and spat, watching as the glob disappeared. 'Enough time for a good long scream. You'd think someone would've noticed.' 'Fireworks. The Council had their big display--'' Looks like Brooks wasn't the only one who had a bad one last night.' She turned and stared at Logan's bruised face. 'Twice in two days?' Logan put a hand up to his cheek: it was still swollen, even after an evening of cold compresses and malt whisky. 'It's nothing.' 'Word is Watson lamped you one.' 'When's the post mortem?' 'Eh? Half eight, they're rushing it through' cos he's an ex-cop. And stop changing the subject.' Logan leant on the wall, staring out over the city as the sun rose from the watery depths of the North Sea, washing the granite buildings with gold. 'Insch and I were supposed to meet Brooks on Saturday night. He was trying to pump us for details on the Wiseman case.' 'Sounds like Basher Brooks. Silly sod could never let it-- Arse ...' Her phone was ringing. 'Hello? ... Aye ... Did he? ... Oh.' Her face fell. 'Aye, well, no surprise there ... No, no, it's OK. See you then.' She hung up. 'They were doing a quick check at the mortuary, making sure they'd no' left any bits of Brooks behind. Ligature marks round wrists and ankles.' 'Definitely Wiseman then.' Not suicide: murder.
The mortuary smelt like a butcher's shop, the numerous chunks of Ex-DCI Brooks arranged to make a whole, slightly flattened person, as Isobel dictated her way through the remains. Most of the jumpers Logan had seen were from six or seven storeys high - broken bones, internal bleeding - but Brooks looked as if he'd been torn apart, then battered with a sledgehammer. 'You fancy pizza for lunch?' whispered Steel, while Isobel wrestled with the deflated football that used to be Brooks' head. Logan grimaced. 'OK, OK, not pizza. Curry? Sushi? How about ...' she trailed off when she realised Isobel and the Procurator Fiscal were staring at her. Steel shrugged. 'Didn't have any breakfast.' Isobel put Brooks' head back on the dissecting table. 'Can we all please remain silent while I'm dictating!' No one said anything.
