Broken Skin

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Jesus Effing Christ!’ DI Steel stamped her feet, swore, dug out a cigarette and lit it, the smoke whipped away by the icy wind. ‘My fridge is warmer than this!’

  Logan ignored her, looking down the street at the Morrison residence – a large granite two-storey job with a huge BMW 4x4 sitting outside. Not exactly the type of place you’d expect a nasty, thieving, murderous little bastard like Sean Morrison to come from. Parked cars lined either side of the road – many of them containing bored-looking journalists, cameras and notebooks at the almost ready. No one seemed to have noticed that the inspector and Logan had arrived yet. ‘You want me to get started?’ he asked, one hand rubbing the small of his aching back. The painkillers they’d given him last night were about a fifth of the strength he was used to – might as well have been Smarties for all the good they were doing. At least they would have tasted better.

  Steel shivered, hands jammed deep into her armpits, puffing away on her cigarette like mad. ‘Give us a minute … I only get one fag this morning and I’m going to bloody well enjoy it if it kills me.’

  Logan sighed and made a show of checking his watch. ‘Nearly half eight – we’re going to have to get a shift on if we’re going to make the PM.’

  ‘Nicotine patches my arse …’ The inspector squinted into the bright sunshine ‘Anyway, think I’m going to give this one a miss. Not like we don’t know what killed the old guy, is it?’

  ‘Suppose not.’ He watched the bright orange supply boat disappear behind the tombstone slab of St Nicholas House. ‘What do you want to do about Jason Fettes?’

  ‘What about him? The whole bloody thing’s dead in the water. No one’s got any idea who did it, and no one cares either. Except the bloody parents and those fuckers at the P&J.’ Colin Miller leading another ‘campaign for justice’ as an excuse to give Grampian Police an extra kicking. The inspector scowled, cigarette smouldering away between her lips. ‘We’ve got no evidence, no witnesses and no bloody clue.’

  ‘I know, but you’re supposed to do an update for the ACC today, remember?’

  ‘Is that today?’ Steel swore. ‘Tell you, between that, this thing, and those bloody housebreakings, my crime statistics look sodding awful. Still,’ the cigarette was flicked out into the middle of the road, where it got crushed beneath the wheels of a number twenty-three bus, ‘at least we’re guaranteed a quick result this time.’

  Logan had heard that one before.

  They marched down the pavement, making for the Morrisons’ front door where a lone uniformed officer stood looking cold and miserable. They were still one house away when a baldy wee man appeared in front of them, clutching a digital recorder. ‘Ken Inglis – Radio Scotland. Inspector, have you found the boy yet?’ It was as if someone had dropped a dead zebra in a tank of piranha: as soon they smelled blood there were reporters everywhere.

  ‘No’ yet,’ said Steel in a sudden barrage of camera flashes. ‘But we are pursuing several lines of enquiry. Now if you’ll excuse—’

  ‘ITN News: is it true Morrison’s been in trouble with the police before?’

  ‘I really can’t comment on any—’

  ‘Has Constable Nairn recovered consciousness yet?’

  ‘Joanna Calder – Guardian: How worried are you for the boy’s safety?’

  Steel gave the uniformed PC guarding the Morrisons’ house a wave and he shambled into action, forcing his way through the cameras and questions, holding them back and keeping them there, so Logan and Steel could get to the front door. Right at the very edge of the pack, dour-faced civilians stood, glowering after them. None of them carried placards yet, but it would only be a matter of time.

  Logan leaned on the bell.

  Inside, chez Morrison was like an advert for furniture polish. Everything gleamed. Logan stood by the fire, roasting the backs of his legs, while Steel sat on the couch, working her way through a china mug of tea and a couple of digestive biscuits. Mrs Morrison was on the other sofa looking plump, startled and a lot older than she should have at thirty-two, while her husband paced, wringing his hands, flipping from worried to angry to apologetic and back again. ‘Sean’s never done anything like this before!’ he said, and the inspector snorted.

  ‘I should bloody hope not! Knifing seventy-year-old men and police officers isn’t something you want becoming a habit.’

  Logan tried a slightly less confrontational approach. ‘And Sean’s not been home since yesterday?’

  The mother shook her head, curly brown hair bouncing around her oval face. Puffy, pink eyes sparkling with tears. ‘He went out to school in the morning and we haven’t seen him since! All night! What if something’s happened to him? What if he’s hurt?’

  Steel put her mug down on the coffee table. ‘I think we need to be more concerned about him hurting other people.’

  ‘He’s a good boy!’

  ‘He’s just killed someone!’

  The father scowled at her. ‘He’s only eight.’

  ‘And Jerry Cochrane was seventy-two, but he’s still dead. And we’re bloody lucky he didn’t kill that policewoman too! Your darling wee son is a—’

  Logan cut her off before she could say anything else. ‘Mr Morrison, have you checked the outbuildings in case Sean snuck back last night?’

  ‘Fat chance of that happening with all those bloody journalists camped out on our doorstep! It’s like a—’

  ‘Mr Morrison—’

  ‘Yes. Of course I checked, and so did your damn search team – twice last night and once this morning.’

  ‘And you can’t think of anywhere else he might have gone? A friend, or a relative: anything like that?’

  ‘Why aren’t you out there looking for him? It was below freezing last night! He’s only eight! He—’ The phone rang and Mrs Morrison’s eyes went wide, bottom lip trembling. Backing away from the thing. Her husband just stared at it.

  Steel gave it five rings before asking, ‘You going to answer that, then?’

  ‘Er … yes …’ Mr Morrison licked his lips, wrung his hands, and picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’ He recoiled back from the earpiece, then slammed the handset back down into its cradle.

  ‘Let me guess: wrong number?’

  ‘They’ve been calling ever since it was on the news. About the… the old man getting hurt. They say terrible—’ The ringing started again. This time Steel was the one who grabbed the phone, slopping a wee tidalwave of tea on the coffee table in the process.

  ‘Aye?’ she demanded, ‘Who’s this?’ Then listened, face screwed up in concentration, as if she was trying to place the voice. ‘Listen up, shite-face, this is the police. You call here again and I’m gonnae find out where you live, come down there and ram my boot so far up your arse you’ll be tasting athlete’s foot powder for a month!’ She held the phone away from her ear. ‘Hung up, fancy that…’ Then she punched 1471 into the handset, repeating the automated voice as it recited the caller’s number, so Logan could write it down. She smiled at Mr Morrison. ‘We’ll send a patrol car round: give her a hard time. You in the phonebook?’ The man nodded. ‘Aye, well,’ said Steel, putting the phone back and picking up her tea again, ‘change your number and go ex-directory.’

  ‘We can’t … What if Sean calls?’

  ‘Calls? He’s got a mobile?’

  The mother and father exchanged a worried look, then Mr Morrison said, ‘We don’t believe children should have them. You know: brain tumours.’ He collapsed into an armchair, looking on the verge of tears. ‘He could be anywhere …’

  Just to be on the safe side, Steel sent Logan off to check the shed and garage again, while she stayed inside in the warm with another cup of tea. The search team had been thorough – the garage was a mess, everything piled up in one corner. Paint tins, boxes of household junk, three sets of skis, one windsurfer, more junk. Logan peered into all the cupboards, under the work top, into the chest freezer, but Sean wasn’t there. And he wasn’t in the shed either, or hiding in the garden.
>
  Logan went back inside and searched every room, including the washing machine and tumble drier – you never knew what an eight-year-old kid could fit inside if it put its mind to it. Nearly an hour after he’d started, Logan clambered down from the attic, coughing from the dust, little bits of rock wool insulation sticking to his suit.

  DI Steel was standing there waiting for him. ‘Well?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He wiped a hand over his face, trying to get rid of a cobweb.

  ‘Ah well, it was worth a go.’

  They marched out through the knot of journalists and back to the car, ignoring the shouted questions, keeping their heads down till they were safely ensconced in the scabby CID Vauxhall Logan had signed for. Steel squinted out through the windscreen at the Morrison house. ‘What do you think,’ she asked, ‘he going to come home?’

  Logan nodded and turned the engine over. ‘You should have seen his room; kid’s got more stuff than I do. Parents must spoil him rotten. One night out in the cold and he’ll be desperate to get home.’

  ‘Are you mental? He just knifed an old man and a policewoman. He’s no’ Christopher Bloody Robin. I think the vicious little bastard’s got somewhere to lie low…’

  ‘Well, he can’t stay hidden for ever,’ said Logan, pulling away from the kerb and pointing the car back towards FHQ, ‘he only got fifty quid from Cochrane’s wallet and it’s not like he can actually spend it – can’t be a single person in Aberdeen who doesn’t know what he looks like by now.’ They’d tried telling the media that Sean was just a missing child, released his picture and asked anyone who saw him to come forward, but one of the witnesses from the St Nicholas Centre spotted the photo on the news, rang up the Daily Record and ID’d Sean as the kid who’d knifed Jerry Cochrane. And the press had a field day – EIGHT-YEAR-OLD KILLER!, THE NEW FACE OF EVIL!, SCHOOLBOY KILLS OAP! – it had made every second-edition front page in Scotland and quite a few south of the border too. ‘We could try following his mates; someone’s got to be getting food to him?’

  She thought about it for a moment, head on one side, chewing on the inside of her cheek. ‘Nah, that’ll take for ever. If I was him I’d be on the first bus south to London, or Brighton, or some other godforsaken hole.’

  ‘He’s eight.’

  ‘Blah, blah, blah. When did you last have anything to do with kids, eh? Eight’s the new thirteen. Oh, they look like butter wouldn’t bloody melt, but they’re smacked out their tits half the time trying to get each other pregnant.’ She pulled out her cigarettes, shoogled the packet, then put it away again with a sigh. ‘Let’s get the little bastards picked up and dragged down to the station: give them the fright of their lives. See if one of them’ll shop him. And you’d better check the CCTV for the train and bus station too. And get some uniforms down there to speak to the drivers… Oh, and when you’ve got that lot organized, you might as well do that update report on Jason Fettes. No point sitting about twiddling your thumbs all day, is there?’

  By the time Logan had finished doing the inspector’s job for her, the first of Sean Morrison’s ‘little chums’ was sitting in interview room number two with her father. There was an unpleasant smell of stale socks and ancient coffee with an underlying whiff of sour garlic, slowly marinating everyone present. DI Steel sat back in her cheap, plastic chair and stared at the little girl sitting opposite. Natalie Lenox: eight years old; long, dark brown hair; pale face; all her fingernails bitten down to tiny nubs; a furious scowl pulling at her chubby features. Her father was a bigger version of the same thing, only without the hair. He glowered as Logan wheeled a trolley with a TV and video on it into the corner and plugged them in. ‘I want my lawyer present.’

  Steel sighed. ‘We’ve been through this. Twice. No lawyer.’

  ‘Then I’m not saying anything more.’

  ‘That’s fine with me, keep your trap shut and I’ll speak to Natalie instead.’

  ‘She’s not saying anything either.’

  The inspector put on her most charming smile, which wasn’t saying much. ‘If you continue to be obstructive Mr Lenox I’ll have you replaced by an appropriate adult, how about that?’

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Want a bet? Natalie here was involved in the murder of a seventy-two-yearold man, I think—’

  ‘She had nothing to do with it!’ He poked his child in the shoulder. ‘Tell them, tell them you had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘I hid nuthin’ to dae with it.’ The kid’s accent was broad Aberdonian, and as sullen as her mashed-potato face. ‘Nuthin’.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Steel told Logan to start the tape. ‘Then how do you explain this?’ The screen flickered, a jagged line of static creeping upwards, revealing the inside of the Union Street end of the St Nicholas Centre. People wandered past, laden down with shopping bags and baby buggies, and then a pregnant woman lurched into view, carrying a huge handbag and a plastic carrier from The Body Shop. She’d just passed the lottery booth when half a dozen children arrived – most wearing hooded tops, keeping their faces shielded from the camera. The inspector hit pause. ‘Bottom left, the girl in the green top.’

  She hit play and the girl darted forward, banging into the pregnant woman hard enough to make her drop her handbag. The woman staggered, the girl helping her stay on her feet, grinning up at her, mouth going twenty to the dozen. It was Natalie Lenox – her fat little face and long hair clearly visible on the screen – probably apologizing for being so clumsy while two of her friends helped pick up the nice lady’s things. Helping themselves to her purse in the process. Sean Morrison handed the bag back with a modest tilt of the head, but the pregnant woman wasn’t buying it. She grabbed him by the sleeve and started shouting.

  ‘I…’ Natalie’s father licked his top lip and tried again. ‘So she bumped into someone. That’s not a crime.’

  ‘This isn’t the first time. We’ve had about a dozen other complaints of bags, wallets and purses being stolen. All the victims remember being banged into by a little girl and her friends. Want to bet they recognize Natalie when we show them her picture?’

  On the screen Sean lashed out, catching the pregnant woman on the side of the head, sending her crashing to the ground. She didn’t let go, so he put the boot in. And that was when Jerry Cochrane ran into shot. At the sides of the picture shoppers stopped to stare as the old man hauled Sean off the woman. Holding him by the scruff of the neck, shouting. Sean hit him. And the old man hit him back, smack: right across the nose. And that’s when it happened – the flash of a knife blade, and a startled expression on Jerry Cochrane’s face. He sat down hard, letting go of Sean. The eight-year-old started laying into the old man with fists and feet, while a gathering crowd of shoppers looked on in shock. And then all the kids were at it, punching and kicking. Steel hit pause, so they could all see Natalie Lenox kicking Jerry Cochrane in the head.

  ‘So,’ said Steel, ‘still think she had nothing to do with it?’

  Mr Lenox, went very pale. ‘I …’

  Steel switched the TV off. ‘I want to know where Sean Morrison is. And I want to know now.’

  The little girl just scowled at them.

  Her father swallowed hard. Then skelped her over the back of the head. ‘Tell them!’

  Nothing.

  ‘Put it this way,’ said the inspector, ‘you’re probably looking at a spell in a young offenders’ institution. Locked up with all the other nasty little boys and girls. No mummy and daddy to look after you and buy you nice things.’

  ‘They… they can’t send her to prison! She’s only eight!’

  Logan shrugged. ‘That’s the legal age of criminal responsibility in Scotland, Mr Lenox. Vicious attack like that, a man dead. She’s likely to get four, maybe five years. She’ll be a teenager by the time she gets out. You’d be surprised how much they can change.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Mr Lenox covered his mouth with a shaking hand. ‘It’ll kill her mother!’

  ‘Unless she helps us catch Sea
n Morrison. Then maybe we could have a word with the Procurator Fiscal, convince her that Natalie wants to make amends … ?’

  ‘She does! You do, don’t you?’

  But Natalie just glared at her father, hot, angry tears making her eyes shine. Like Sean Morrison’s knife.

  14

  ‘Jesus,’ said Steel slouching back against the interview-room wall, clutching a half-empty cup of coffee to her chest. ‘I’ve interviewed mass murderers with more humanity in them.’ She shivered. ‘Thank God I never wanted kids … Creepy little fuckers.’

  So far they’d had three of Sean Morrison’s gang in for interview and not one of them was prepared to spill the beans on his whereabouts. But they each came attached to a hysterical, panicking parent who had no idea what their darling child had been up to. Until they saw the CCTV footage.

  The inspector swirled the filmy-brown liquid around in her mug. ‘You know, when I was a kid we respected our elders … Well, maybe no’ respected, but you knew if you gave some old fart lip they’d tan your arse for you. And then they’d tell your mum and dad, so they could do the same.’ She nodded sagely, and took another gulp. ‘Speaking of arses, have you seen Rennie?’

  ‘Why, what’s he done?’ And suddenly Logan thought of a container yard in Altens. He frowned, trying to figure out why.

  ‘Nothing, that’s the bloody problem, I…’ she trailed off, staring at Logan. ‘What: you daydreaming about my creamy white thighs again?’

  ‘Zander Clark.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy who runs the porn studio – he didn’t ask what Jason had done. When we asked him who the guy on the DVD was. He didn’t ask.’

  ‘Aaaaaaaand?’

  ‘Well,’ Logan shrugged. ‘Everyone always asks, don’t they?’

  ‘No’ always.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’re kidding, right? I mean, it’s a bit Miss Marple, isn’t it?’ She laughed, a throaty sound that rattled a bit towards the end. ‘You want me to summon Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, and Colonel Mustard to the dining room for you?’ Logan didn’t dignify that with a reply. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said at last, ‘it’s Friday night: I’ll buy you a nice pint of beer, OK? Nearly going home time anyway.’