Logan pointed at the milling throng of IB technicians. ‘Any sign of the PF yet?’ Doc Fraser shook his head: no one here but us chickens – not even DI Steel, who by rights should have got there before Rennie and Logan. Grumpy Doc Wilson was about somewhere, but given his recently acquired permanent foul mood the pathologist hadn’t bothered to make conversation and he’d sodded off into the woods to make some phone calls. There was a crash and a clatter from down the track they’d just walked up and DI Steel emerged, looking a little flustered, hauling at the backside of her boiler suit.
‘Call of nature,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask.’ The inspector took a quick stroll round the fallen tree, following the IB’s little raised path. ‘So,’ she said to Doc Fraser when she’d made a complete circuit, ‘you going to hang about here all day reading the paper, or you planning on actually doing some work?’
The suitcase’s lock came off in one piece and was dropped carefully into an evidence bag by a nervous-looking IB techie. ‘You know,’ said Steel as Doc Fraser gripped the top of the case, ‘we’re all going to look like a right bunch of idiots if this is a Cocker Spaniel.’
Fraser opened the case.
The smell wasn’t a patch on the dismembered Labrador, but it was still strong enough to make them all gag. There, lying in a pool of putrid liquid, was a large, grey-white chunk of meat. Definitely not a Cocker Spaniel. It had the word AILSA tattooed on its chest.
Rennie drove foot flat to the floor, rallying along the country roads making for Westhill while Logan phoned the Wildlife Investigation Officer who’d worked the dog-torso case. Had he spoken to a Mrs Clair Pirie when he was going through the list of missing black Labradors? No, he hadn’t, because Mrs Pirie hadn’t reported her dog missing. DI Steel sat up front in the passenger seat, a grin stretching her face wide. The Procurator Fiscal had been ecstatic – a search and arrest warrant was being rushed through. Her office promised it would be faxed to the Westhill police station by the time the inspector’s team got there. Alpha Two Nine was following on behind, having difficulty keeping up with Rennie’s driving.
The PF’s office was as good as its word and twelve minutes later Rennie pulled up outside Clair Pirie’s house in Westfield Gardens. Alpha Two Nine was parked round the back, on the entrance road to Westhill Academy – just in case. Next door, Cruickshanks’ Repose was in darkness, no car in the driveway, no answer when Logan phoned. But the television flickered in Clair Pirie’s lounge, making bruise-coloured shadows lurch and sprawl across the wallpaper.
‘Right,’ said Steel, holding a hand out to Rennie. ‘Warrants.’ The constable handed over the wad of faxed documents, all duly signed and counter-signed. ‘Let’s do it.’
Rennie knocked on the front door, forgoing the broken bell, and settled back to wait. Behind him Steel shifted excitedly from foot to foot, like she was a little kid waiting for her turn at the ice-cream van. Eventually, grumbling and swearing, Clair Pirie opened the door, took one look at Rennie standing on her doorstep and slammed it shut again. ‘Fuck off!’ she shouted through the rippled glass, ‘I’m not in.’
Steel shoved Rennie out of the way, squaring up to the closed door. ‘Don’t be bloody stupid. Open this door now, or I’ll have it kicked in.’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘Really?’ Steel dragged the warrant out of her pocket and pressed it against the glass. ‘Clair Pirie: I have a warrant here to search these premises. You can either. . . Damn!’ The large silhouette had disappeared from the glass. Steel grabbed her radio. ‘Heads up, people – she’s doing a runner!’ She slapped Rennie on the shoulder. ‘What the hell you standing there for? Break it down!’
DC Rennie slammed his foot into the wood and the door sprang backwards. At the other end of the hall they could see the kitchen window, and through that into the back garden where they had a perfect view of Mrs Pirie’s backside as she clambered over the garden fence. Her large rear-end froze at the top and then she dropped back into the ruined flowerbed, shoulders slumped – closely followed by a uniformed constable from Alpha Two Nine.
DI Steel steepled her fingers and grinned. ‘Excellent.’
The Identification Bureau van arrived at twenty past nine, having just finished up in Garlogie Woods. Gavin Cruickshank’s torso was now on its way back to the morgue. They started in the bathroom: bathtubs being a popular location for the hacking up of dead bodies. People were always so keen to not make a mess. Steel left Mrs Pirie in the tender care of DC Rennie while she and Logan went upstairs to watch the IB team work. Willing them to find something.
The bathroom was a mess: a pile of dirty towels lying in the corner; dusty plastic tampon wrappers lying on the floor by the toilet; slivers of old soap decaying in a little dish attached to the shower. Mildew spread grey tendrils across the corner above the medicine cabinet and limescale turned the off-pink tiles a dirty grey. Very homely. ‘Manky cow. . .’ Dirty Moustache was kneeling by the side of the bath, working a cotton swab about in the plughole. It came out clarted in pubic hair.
It didn’t look as if the bathtub had been used to hack up a body, but when they tested it for blood the thing lit up like a Christmas tree. Little crusts of congealed haemoglobin in the waste pipe, overflow, under the bath’s handles, behind the scratched chrome taps.
DI Steel let out a delighted whoop and charged down the stairs to the lounge, where the Pirie woman was fidgeting on a floral-print couch. ‘Guess what?’ Steel said, leaning over a cluttered coffee table to grin in Clair Pirie’s face. ‘You’re fucked!’
DI Steel was determined to interview Clair Pirie on her own. Logan may have identified the body and given them a suspect, but she still wasn’t speaking to him. So he had to stay behind with Rennie and keep an eye on things while she went back to FHQ to take all the bloody credit. As usual.
The search team was already going through the attic, so rather than sit about twiddling their thumbs, Logan and Rennie pitched in, starting with the lounge. They found nothing more incriminating than a couple of roaches down the back of the sofa, still smelling faintly of cannabis resin. The IB was still working in the kitchen so Logan pushed through an unlocked internal door into the garage. It took both of them to get the rusty, up-and-over garage door closed, the metal groaning and squealing as they heaved, shutting out the crowd that had begun to gather from the time Steel had driven off with Clair Pirie. The Evening Express was the first paper to send a journalist, but they were still blissfully free of television cameras so far. Oddly there was no sign of Colin Miller; he was usually pretty quick off the mark whenever the POLICE tape went up.
Rennie picked his way through a mound of debris piled up against the back wall of the garage, while Logan contemplated the chest freezer. Years of filth and grime had left it a nasty nicotine-stained grey with suspicious brown splodges of rust streaking the surface. It took him two attempts to open the lid, a thick layer of frost and ice cracking and skittering across the garage’s concrete floor. Unlike the freezer at Chib’s house, this one was packed with mystery meat and long-forgotten packets of sweet corn. He was a third of the way down, fingers burning with cold, when DC Rennie shouted that he’d found something crammed down the back of a pile of old Daily Mails. It was a boning knife with a seven-inch, single-sided blade – scooped near the handle, straight for most of its length and curved at the tip.
Logan pulled out his phone and called Steel, wandering through the house as it rang. It bleeped over to voicemail and he left a message about the knife. That, plus the body and the blood in the bathroom meant there was no way Pirie was ever going to be able to wriggle out of this. Not even Hissing Sid could get her off. Next he tried Jackie’s mobile, hoping to spend a couple of minutes not talking about work or bloody soap operas with Rennie. No answer, so he dialled Colin Miller and settled back against the kitchen table, looking out through the French windows at the silent bulk of Westhill Academy – lit up in the darkness by a row of streetlights. The phone rang and rang
and rang and rang before a recording of Miller’s Glaswegian crackled in Logan’s ear, telling him that if he left his name, number and a short message the reporter would get right back to him. ‘Colin, it’s Logan. Wanted to know if you were still alive after Isobel got her hands on you, you dirty stop-out. I—’
A rectangle of light blossomed in the back garden next door. Ailsa Cruickshank was home. ‘Damn.’ He hung up. No one had been able to track her down; she didn’t know her husband was dead yet. And with DI Steel gone Logan was the senior officer on site.
With a sigh, he headed next door and broke the news as gently as he could, taking a WPC from the search team with him for moral support. Her husband wasn’t on some foreign beach with a pole-dancer after all; his torso was lying on a slab in the morgue. Logan didn’t know which was worse – discovering your husband was a lying, adulterous bastard, or a dismembered corpse.
35
Back at FHQ the mood was grim but optimistic. DI Steel hadn’t managed to get a confession out of the Pirie woman yet, but it was only a matter of time. Half past ten and the rest of the team were in the pub. Archibald Simpson’s sat at the eastern end of Union Street, a hop, skip and a stagger away from Force Headquarters, a popular hangout for off-duty policemen in need of something to take the day away. The Procurator Fiscal bought the first round, told everyone what a great job they’d done getting a suspect into custody so quickly, and that they were going to put Clair Pirie away for a very, very long time. She raised her glass and Logan, Rennie and Rachael Tulloch chinked their drinks off it, self-consciously, trying to kid on they didn’t feel ridiculous. The PF left after the first one, but her deputy stayed behind, face covered in a huge smile as she got the second round in. Then it was Rennie’s turn to buy and the conversation started drifting away from work. By the time Logan was lurching back from the bar with two lagers and a large gin and tonic, things had started to get a bit fuzzy round the edges – the effect of three pints on an empty stomach and no decent sleep for a fortnight. Back at the table Rachael told a joke about two nuns on holiday in a Mini Metro, fluffing the punch line by giggling too much. Rennie told one about two nuns in a condom factory and Logan thought the deputy PF was going to wet herself. She howled with laughter and slapped Logan’s thigh, letting her hand linger there as she wiped the tears from her eyes. . .
He eventually crawled back to the flat just after midnight, dropping his clothes on the hall floor as he stripped off on the way to the toilet. Bleary urination followed by roughly brushed teeth and two pints of water. He staggered into the bedroom, curled up under the duvet and was snoring away within minutes. He didn’t even hear Jackie coming in off the back shift half an hour later.
The music was probably supposed to be soothing, but came off more gloomy than anything else – a low-key set of hymns on the church organ as the place slowly filled up with police officers. Sitting up at the back, Logan tried not to look as bloody awful as he felt. Monday morning had arrived on the wings of a hangover, beating in time with his lurching stomach. He’d not been sick yet, but there was still time. Half past eight was way too early for a funeral.
Jackie looked up from the order of service as We Plough the Fields and Scatter wheezed to a halt. ‘Good turnout.’ The place was packed – one of the benefits of getting seen off at this ungodly hour was that the night shift were able to attend after knocking off for the day. PC Trevor Maitland had spent a lot of time on the night shift, and the dark, wooden pews in Rubislaw Church were full of his colleagues, friends, family and the man who’d got him shot. A sudden hush as the minister stepped up to the lectern and thanked them all for coming.
The service was every bit as depressing as Logan had expected. His stomach lurched all the way through the eulogies, each one a glowing character reference for the recently deceased. Then the Chief Constable got up and made a speech about how dangerous the life of a police officer was and how brave everyone was who stepped up to that challenge. And how the courage and sacrifice made by their families was every bit as great, while Maitland’s widow cried quietly. Then the music started, Whitney Houston warbling her way through I Will Always Love You as the funeral directors picked up the floral tributes and piled them carefully on top of the coffin before wheeling it out of the church and into the hearse.
What a great way to start the week.
DI Steel’s incident room was charged with excitement when Logan got back to FHQ, dirt under his nails from throwing a handful of earth down onto the polished mahogany casket: yesterday they’d discovered a body in a suitcase AND got a suspect into custody. Today the search teams were back out again, working their way carefully through the Tyrebagger, Garlogie and Hazlehead woods. It was a lot of forest to search, but they were making good progress; the maps pinned to the incident room’s walls were covered with crossed-out grid marks. Another two days at most, and they’d be finished. Then they’d start searching the next set of woods on the inspector’s list and keep on going until Holly McEwan was lying in one of Isobel’s refrigerated drawers.
Someone had pinned up a copy of that morning’s Press and Journal, the front page screaming SUITCASE TORSO MURDER WOMAN HELD! along with a photo of the police cordon at Garlogie Woods and an inset of DI Steel – the picture apparently taken on one of the rare days when she didn’t look as if her hair had been styled by seagulls. According to the story that went with the indecipherable headline, Detective Inspector Roberta Steel had solved one of the most difficult murder cases in Scottish legal history. There was even a quote from Councillor Andrew Marshall, telling the world what a credit DI Steel was to the force and how lucky Aberdeen was to have someone like her about. Logan and Rennie didn’t even get a mention.
Grumbling under his breath, Logan slouched across to the admin officer – who told him the inspector was still up in interview room three with the Pirie woman and didn’t want to be disturbed. Logan swore. Bloody Detective Bloody Inspector Bloody Steel. He started poking about for something useful to do, but everything seemed to be in hand. Teams were out searching for the missing prostitute’s body, Steel was off questioning the torso murderer. . . That left Insch’s arsonist, Karl Pearson’s torturer and Jamie McKinnon’s killer. And Logan was pretty sure he knew who was behind Jamie’s ‘rock star’ ending: Brendan ‘Chib’ Sutherland. With McKinnon dead the drugs case was too. They had no other witnesses, or evidence. The Procurator Fiscal wasn’t going to take it to trial – it just wasn’t worth it.
So if they wanted to put Chib away for something it’d have to be Jamie McKinnon’s murder. There was bugger all linking him to Karl Pearson – nothing that would stand up in court anyway – but if Logan could prove Chib had ordered McKinnon’s death it’d be a different story.
Rennie backed into the incident room with another tray of coffees and a plate of chocolate biscuits. The mug he put down in front of Logan came with a Jammie Dodger and a couple of paracetamol. ‘Looked like you could use them,’ he explained before settling down at his desk to finish reading Jamie McKinnon’s post mortem report – what with all the excitement, and the visit to the pub, there’d been no time to finish it yesterday. Poor sod, thought Logan knocking back the painkillers. Rennie complained about always having to make the coffees, but he still went the whole hog with proper mugs and biscuits every time. He just didn’t seem to understand that as long as he kept doing that, DI Steel was going to keep on using him as a tea boy. If Rennie didn’t want. . . Logan had a brief moment of epiphany and groaned. Just like if he kept on solving Steel’s cases for her, it was always going to be in her best interests to keep him around. She’d never give him enough of the credit to let him escape her Screw-Up Squad. All that time he’d spent telling Jackie this was his only way to get away from that manipulative, wrinkly old bag, and he’d just ended up making himself indispensable. ‘Bastard.’ Insch had pretty much told him the best chance he had of getting out of the Fuck-Up Factory was to work on the arson investigation. But would he listen? No. He had to go
busting his hump, day in, day out, so DI Steel could take all the glory.
‘Everything OK, sir?’
Logan looked up to see the admin officer frowning at him. ‘No it bloody isn’t.’ He dragged himself out of his seat. ‘I’m going out. If anyone wants me, you don’t know where I am.’
The admin officer’s frown grew confused. ‘But I don’t know where you’re. . . Sir?’ But Logan was gone.
He signed for a patrol car, not recognizing the registration number until he got down to the rear podium and beheld the same rubbish-filled mobile tip they’d taken yesterday. If anything, it was even more of a mess now; the whole vehicle stank of stale fast food and cigarette smoke.
A patrol car pulled up as Logan was stuffing chip papers into the wire bin by the door with bad grace. Someone familiar unfolded himself from the back seat: DI Steel’s mate from the Drugs Squad, the one with the big hands. He looked up, saw Logan, nodded a greeting then turned to help an old lady out of the car. Graham Kennedy’s grandmother, looking shaken. Poor old cow probably had her flat broken into and vandalized again. ‘You OK, Mrs Kennedy?’ asked Logan, going back for an armful of pizza boxes, the cardboard waxy with cold cheese-grease.
She wouldn’t look at him, but Detective Big Hands grinned. ‘Not today she isn’t. Sweet little old ladies shouldn’t run drug rings from their homes, using wee kiddies as mules. Should they, Mrs Kennedy?’ No response. ‘She had a pair of little boys pushing their wee sister about in a stroller packed with drugs. All nice and innocent looking. Attic was full of hydroponic equipment and a big fuck-off chemistry set – growing cannabis and making PCP. One-woman drug cartel. Weren’t you?’ The old woman kept her face folded shut, staring at the ground. ‘No comment, eh? Well, we’ll see if you’re more talkative after a full body-cavity search.’ He led her in through the back door, followed by the WPC who’d been driving – carrying a large plastic evidence bag with a teddy bear in it, one of the ears chewed almost bald – leaving Logan alone on the rear podium with a pile of fat-saturated cardboard.
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae) Page 71
