Close to the Bone

‘Don’t change the subject: you made me look like a right fanny!’

‘Tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen, would you? ’ He turned and headed back into the hospital.

‘Hoy!’ Steel’s voice boomed down the corridor behind him. ‘Where do you think you’re going — we’re no’ finished!’

‘Visiting hours. Got someone to see.’

Interview room three was baking hot, the usual pervading odour of cheesy feet and stale digestive biscuits was joined by a thick layer of oniony BO. Its owner shuffled his bum in his seat — the one on the wrong side of the scarred Formica table. The one bolted to the floor.

Sammy McCloist, seventeen and a half, squint nose, sideburns like a pedestal mat, hair down to his hunched shoulders. The fibreglass cast on his right wrist reached all the way from the palm of his hand to just before the elbow. Brand new, and it was already filthy.

He opened his mouth, but the git in the suit sitting next to him put a hand on his arm.

‘My client has nothing to say on that matter.’ McCloist’s lawyer smiled. He was huge, broad and tall enough to tower over everyone, even sitting down. Big hands, big chin, big ears, hair cut short trying to disguise the big bald spot.

‘Really.’ Logan checked his watch: quarter to three. ‘Well, you know what, Sammy? That’s fine with me. Right now we’re getting a warrant to search you and your mates’ houses. Think we’ll find anything interesting? ’

A sniff. ‘You broke my bloody wrist.’

‘You were resisting arrest. Remember? ’

‘My client strenuously denies your interpretation of events. He was visiting a friend when you attacked him.’

‘Do you know we’ve recovered DNA from the jewellery heist? Nice clear sample. Right now they’re seeing which one of you it matches.’ Which was a lie. The way things were going, they’d be lucky to get any DNA results back before Christmas.

‘It cannot possibly match my client, because my client wasn’t there. My client-’

‘Was visiting his sick granny. You said.’

‘Then there’s really no reason for us to continue this interview, is there? ’ The massive lawyer stood. ‘We have co-operated fully with your investigation, now it’s time for you to release my client.’

Sammy grinned. ‘Going to sue your arse off for breaking my wrist. Police brutality, that is. I’m going to own your house, man.’

Logan shook his head. ‘Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. One: you don’t want my house. Even I don’t want my house. Two. .’ He sat forward, lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘We’ve got a witness. When you broke into the jewellers, someone outside recognized you.’ Another lie, but worth a try anyway.

Sammy curled his top lip. ‘That’s bollocks!’ He thumped his cast on the tabletop. ‘No one could’ve recognized us, ’cos we was wearing masks the whole time.’ He sat back, folded his arms, nodded. Smiled. Look how clever I am.

The lawyer sank into the chair and buried his face in his hands.

The Procurator Fiscal wandered over to the window and stared out at the view. A hint of grey was creeping in at the temples of her dark-brown hair. Blue tweed Jackie Onassis suit, cherry-blossom nail varnish. Distinguished, in a cougary kind of way. ‘Could you not have found a less. . complicated solution? ’

Sitting at the boardroom table, Logan shrugged. ‘It wasn’t really up to me, ma’am.’

From here, most of central Aberdeen was laid out in a patchwork of slate and flat roofs, bristling with satellite dishes and obsolete aerials. Big fat seagulls spiralled in the pale-blue sky, like bleached vultures, hunting for scraps and any dogs or children small enough to carry off.

‘There’s no way we’ll get a conviction for murder, not in the circumstances. . Manslaughter, at a stretch, but it won’t be popular.’ She rested her hands on the windowsill. ‘We’ll have to prosecute him for the jewellery robbery, of course. That’s going to play well in the press.’ A sigh. ‘Inspector McRae-’

‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’

‘No, I suppose not. But still. .’ She turned, took off her glasses and polished them on a little yellow cloth. ‘Do we have any good news about the necklacing case? ’

‘We’re-’

‘If you’re about to say, “pursuing several lines of enquiry”, I’m going to stab you in the eye with a pencil. And don’t think I won’t get away with it.’

Ah. . ‘The fact he was necklaced out at the Joyriders’ Graveyard has to be significant. Up a rutted track on a dead-end road past Thainstone Mart — it’s not exactly somewhere you just stumble across on your way to the shops, is it? ’

‘So whoever it is has local knowledge.’

‘They’ve probably got form for unlawful removal as well, or know someone who does. We’re still waiting on a full DNA work-up; you know what it’s like these days. Until we’ve ID’d the victim it’s going to be hard to get anywhere.’

She slipped her glasses back on. ‘I don’t like this, DI McRae. I don’t like this at all.’

‘We could get a forensic anthropologist in? Do a facial reconstruction? ’ He cleared his throat. ‘You know, if we had the budget. .? ’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Find the budget. I’m authorizing it. This case is now Grampian Police’s number one priority.’

Steel would love that.

‘. .no, that’s not what I’m saying at all.’ The Assistant Chief Constable waved a finger and twenty flashguns went off, reflecting off his high forehead, catching him in all his chunky glory. He must have shaved right before the briefing, because the lower of his two chins was an angry shade of puce flecked with tiny spots of scarlet. ‘What I’m saying is we have to treat these two cases separately. That’s how the law works.’

The briefing room was packed with row after row of journalists and TV crews, all sticking their hands up and asking questions at the same time:

‘Was the surgery a success? ’

‘Would you say Guy Ferguson is a hero? ’

‘Why did your officers tell his parents he was dead? ’

‘Why is Grampian Police persecuting a man who sacrificed his fingers trying to save someone? ’

The ACC thumped his hand on the table. ‘We’re not persecuting anyone, and it’s irresponsible to suggest otherwise. What Mr Ferguson tried to do for the victim was admirable, breaking into a jewellery store and making off with thirty-four thousand pounds’ worth of merchandise was not.’

Sitting next to him, the Press Liaison Officer put one hand over the microphone, leaned across and whispered in his ear. Probably something along the lines of, ‘Stop antagonizing the bastards. .’

Standing at the back of the room, behind a forest of microphone booms, Logan checked his watch. Fifteen minutes in and they were already struggling.

Steel nudged him in the ribs, her ancient-ashtray breath congealing around his head. ‘You’re a jammy bugger.’ She jabbed him again. ‘See if it’d been me? No way I’d let you weasel out of it: you’d be up there getting your wee pink bum paddled with the rest of them.’

‘I’m not weaselling out of anything. The ACC said he’d do it on his own — not everyone’s out to cover their own arse, some senior officers actually look after their team.’

A snort. ‘More fool him, then.’

Logan kept his eyes fixed forwards. ‘PF wants us to get a forensic anthropologist in.’

‘Oh, I see: I told you no, so you ran off and clyped to the Fiscal. Judas.’

Up on stage, the ACC ran a hand across his shiny forehead. ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss that for operational reasons.’ Which meant he didn’t have a clue.

One of the journalists stood: a scraggy man in an ill-fitting suit, all bones and sharp edges, nose hooked like a beak, Dictaphone pointed like a handgun. ‘Assistant Chief Constable! Michael Larson, Edinburgh Evening Post: how come Grampian Police refuse to mount a proper search for missing teenagers Agnes Garfield and Anthony Chung? ’