I
'I told you: it's that new PR She's mad for used condoms. Could you not just blood test the semen and only DNA match the ones with the same blood group as Jamie McKinnon?' Reluctantly Isobel agreed that it would be a lot less work. But she still wasn't happy. Grumbling, she dug the condoms out of the freezer, where they'd had just enough time to go hard. For the second time in their lives. Logan checked his watch and left her to it. If he hurried he could grab lunch with Jackie in the canteen before heading back to the flat to try and get some sleep. Not that he held out much hope: he always had trouble adjusting to the night shift, and usually he had a couple of days off in between to get used to the idea. Sod the diet. He was having chips with his lasagne today. And a pudding. Though on second thoughts, tapioca probably wasn't the wisest of choices. Looking at it, congealing in the bowl, all white with translucent lumps, all he could think of was Isobel slowly defrosting her condoms down in the morgue. Shuddering he pushed the bowl away. 'Interfering old bitch.' Jackie stabbed her jam sponge with an angry spoon. 'Why did she have to go buggering about with your shifts? If you have to go onto nights today and tomorrow. . .' She did the arithmetic on her fingers. 'That puts you six days ahead of my bloody shift pattern! It took bloody ages to get the damn things in line!' 'I know, I know. I'll just have to get mine shifted again. Though Christ knows when.' 'And I had plans.' Logan looked up. 'Oh? We going away somewhere?' 'Not any more we're not, you'll be asleep all bloody Friday.' Stab, stab, stab. 'Tell you I could kill her!' 'Oh-ho, speak of the devil. . .' DI Steel was standing in the doorway to the canteen, craning her neck. Looking for someone. And Logan had a nasty idea who. He was just
about to duck down under the table, pretend he'd dropped his fork or something, when she spotted him. 'Oi! Lazarus,' she shouted and Logan winced. Every eye in the place turned to stare. 'You finished?' She didn't wait for him to answer. 'Well, come on then: we've got a shout to go to.' Jackie leaned over the table and hissed at him, 'I thought you were supposed to be going home to get some sleep!'
It was a Mrs Margaret Hendry who'd found it, out walking her dog, Jack, in Garlogie Woods. Well, technically it had been Jack who'd found it, leaping away into the undergrowth, barking and yipping. Not coming back, no matter how much Margaret shouted. In the end she'd ducked in under the trees after him. It was just off a small clearing, wedged into the roots of a fallen tree: a red suitcase, big enough to take a week's worth of clothes. The smell was appalling: stinking, rotten meat. Jack of course had gone straight to it, and was hanging off the handle, all four little legs off the ground as he tried to scrabble inside. Well, what with the smell and the suitcase, it wasn't difficult to put two and two together. Margaret pulled out her mobile phone and called the police. The Identification Bureau's dirty white Transit Van was abandoned in the lay-by, just behind a marked patrol car, so Logan had to park their rusty Vauxhall half on the grass verge and hope no one would run into the back of it. DC Rennie spluttered his way out of the back seat, wiping ash from his hair and face - Steel had spent the whole ten-mile journey out from Aberdeen with the passenger window down, the ash from her cigarette spiralling through the car's interior like a mini snowstorm - which was why Logan had elected to drive. He waited until the inspector had shooed Rennie up the path to go find the crime scene, before asking her if this meant he wasn't swapping over onto the night shift.
'Hmm?' Steel looked at him, distracted as she picked three individually wrapped white SOC over suits from a box in the boot of the car. 'No,' she said at last. 'Sorry, but I still need you to go looking for witnesses. We both know Jamie's alibi's a crock of shite. We just have to prove it.' 'Then how come you dragged me out to this?' It came out slightly whiny, but Logan was past caring. Steel sighed. 'What am I supposed to do? You know why they call it the Screw-Up Squad? The Pish Patrol? The Fuck Up Factory? 'Cos every bastard that can't find their backside with both hands gets dumped in it. Keep the useless tossers out of the way, where they can't do any damage . . . We only got this call 'cos everyone half-decent was busy.' She smiled, sadly. 'It's a body in a suitcase, Logan, who else am I going to trust to take with me? That bunch of fuckwits I've been lumbered with?' She handed him the protective gear. 'Never mind, you don't have to do a whole shift tonight. Knock off about two. Look on it as a bonus.' Then she patted him on the arm and stomped off up the rutted track into the forest, leaving him to swear quietly in her wake. They found DC Rennie standing at the side of the track, about half a mile from the main road. There were broken branches and scuffmarks in the carpet of yellow-brown pine needles. 'In there,' he said pointing, obviously proud of himself. Logan gave him the protective gear to carry. As the inspector said: delegation. It was cooler in the woods, the sunlight dappling the ground at their feet, filtered through the canopy of sharp green needles. It should have been dead quiet beneath the spiky branches, but it wasn't. They could hear a barrage of swearing intermingled with helpful suggestions coming from up ahead. And not long after that, the smell started. It was a rancid, stomach clenching stench. Gagging slightly, Logan tried breathing through his mouth. The taste was slightly better than the smell, but not by much.
They broke through into a small clearing, where an old pine tree had fallen like a massive wooden domino, taking a handful of smaller trees with it. Now it lay on its side, pointing back towards the track, its roots standing upright like a filthy sunburst, blocking the main attraction from view. The IB team were here, trying to manhandle a scene-of crime tent over the bottom part of the tree, three of them heaving away at the uncooperative blue material, while another two struggled to get the remainder over the tree's roots. Standing on the other side of the clearing was a middle aged woman dressed for the outdoors, an excitable Jack Russell terrier on a lead bouncing up and down at her feet. A young uniformed constable snapped to attention as DI Steel approached. 'It's OK,' said Steel digging out another cigarette, 'you don't have to curtsey.' Grinning, the constable told them how Mrs Hendry had guided him to the spot and he'd called for the Identification Bureau as soon as he'd seen the case. A duty doctor and pathologist were on their way. As was the Procurator Fiscal. 'Good boy,' said Steel when he'd finished. 'If I was DI Insch, you'd get a sweetie.' Instead she offered him a fag, much to his horror. Surely it wasn't right to smoke at a crime scene. What about contamination? 'Aye, you're probably right,' said Steel, puffing away. They got Mrs Hendry to go through her version of events again. No she hadn't touched anything; well you weren't supposed to, were you? Not when you found a dead body in a suitcase. Steel waited until Mrs Hendry and her little monster-dog were escorted from the premises before slouching into action. 'Right.' She grabbed a boiler suit from Rennie, leaning on Logan for support as she tucked her trousers into her socks and clambered into it. Once they were all suited up, only their faces showing, she stomped over to where the IB team had almost managed to get the tent erected. The air was
thick with flies. 'You lot going to be all bloody day?' she demanded. A thin man with a dirty-grey moustache scowled at her. 'This isn't easy, you know!' 'Blah, blah, blah. You opened the suitcase yet?' Not bloody likely was the loud reply. You never knew which pathologist you were going to get these days, and if it was that MacAlister woman you'd get your testicles in a jar for messing up her crime scene. So that suitcase was going to stay locked until she, or the duty doctor, got here. Steel stared at the red fabric case. 'Just like Christmas Eve, isn't it?' she said to Logan. 'The present's right there under the tree, you know what's in it, but you're not allowed to open it till Santa's been. Don't suppose a small peek would hurt though, would it. . .' She made for the tent's open door, but Dirty Moustache stopped her on the threshold. 'No,' he told her. 'Not till the pathologist gets here!' 'Oh come on, it's my crime scene! How the hell do you expect me to catch the bastard if you won't let me have a poke about?' 'You can poke about all you like when the pathologist says so. Until then this area will remain sealed. And anyway,' he pointed at the cigarette bobbing away in the corner of the inspector'
s mouth, 'there's no way you're getting in there with that!' 'Oh for God's sake . . .' And with that DI Steel scuffed off to smoke her fag and sulk in peace. Ten minutes, one and a half cigarettes, later there was a cry of 'Hello?' and the crunch and snap of someone pushing their way through the branches. It was the new deputy PF, already done up in her sceneof-crime boiler suit, complete with matching blue shoe covers, even though the rest of her party was still in their regular clothes. The real PF followed her, deep in conversation with Dr Isobel MacAlister - the Ice Queen cometh - while Doc
Wilson stomped along at the rear of the group, not talking to anyone and scowling at Isobel's back. The PF gave them a grim smile, asked to be brought up to speed, then suited up and disappeared into the SOC tent, taking Isobel and a reluctant Doc Wilson with her, leaving her deputy to fidget at the entrance to the stinking blue plastic grotto as Dirty Moustache refused to let her into the crime scene. 'You've trailed every bit of grit and dirt and God knows what else in from wherever you got changed!' he said, pointing at her protective suit and booties. 'You'll have to get on a new set.' Blushing furiously she stripped off, revealing a sombre black suit and canary-yellow blouse. The outfit, combined with Rachael's beetroot face and curly red hair, made her look like an angry bee. DI Steel left her to it, dragging Logan with her into the crime scene. There were hundreds of flies in the SOC tent, buzzing and swooping in the foetid air, making Logan's skin crawl. The sunlight, stronger in the clearing than it had been in the forest proper, made the plastic sheeting glow, tainting everything a sickly blue. Looking a bit like Smurfs in their white over suits, the IB technicians kept a respectful distance from Isobel. Just in case. The video operator went in for a couple of long panning shots before settling down behind her left shoulder so that he could get a good view of the case's contents when it was opened. The photographer flashed away, the sudden clack and whine making everything jump into full colour, before fading back to shades of blue. There was a rustle of plastic and Rachael, dressed in a brand-new set of coveralls, poked her head into the stench then joined Logan and Steel at the back of the tent, looking on as Isobel examined the case. 'It appears to be a mid-range suitcase. Relatively new,' said Isobel, for the benefit of the tape recorder whirring away in her pocket. She tried the catch: it was locked so she made one of the IB team cut the thing out. Telling him, at least
seven times, to be careful. At last the lock was sitting in an evidence pouch and Isobel grasped the lid of the suitcase. 'Let's see what we've got. . .' The smell was instant and overpowering. Logan had thought it was bad before, but with the suitcase opened it was a hundred times worse. The thing was relatively watertight and half-full of viscous, stinking liquid, surrounding what looked like a torso. Two foot long. That meant it was an adult. Logan couldn't see any breasts, so it was probably male. Unless they'd been cut off. The skin was black with hairy mould, slick with slime. There was a sudden movement at his side as Rachael slapped a hand over her mouth and nose and scrambled out of the tent. Logan couldn't blame her. His stomach was rapidly working its way to the same conclusion. And then Isobel spoke: 'Son of a bitch . . .' Logan was almost afraid to ask, 'What?' She sat back on her heels. 'Literally. This torso.' She pointed at the swollen, rotting lump of meat, crammed into a suitcase and hidden beneath a tree in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere. 'It's not human.'
I
7
There was silence in the tent, broken only by the buzzing of flies. Thick, fat bluebottles that settled on the decomposing torso. Feeding. It was Logan who asked the obvious question, 'What do you mean, "It's not human"?' 'Well, for a start it's completely covered with hair.' Logan peered into the stinking suitcase. Isobel was right: what he'd taken for black, furry mould, was, in fact, fur. Genuine, bona ride fur. 'If it's not human, what is it?'
Isobel prodded the torso, less careful with it than she would have been with human remains. 'Has to be a dog. Maybe a Labrador? Whatever it is, the SSPCA can deal with it.' She stood, wiping twin trails of slime down the front of her boiler suit. 'But why is it here? Why go to all this trouble to hide a dead dog?' 'You're the detectives, you tell me. Whatever the motivation, these remains aren't human. Now if you'll excuse me I have real work to do.' She swept out. Logan watched her go, bemused. 'When did this become my fault?' he asked Steel. The inspector just shrugged and buggered off outside for a cigarette, closely followed by the
Procurator Fiscal. Logan shook his head. 'Doc? You want to hazard a guess?' Doc Wilson scowled. 'Oh, I see,' he said, 'it's beneath the great pathologist to examine a dead dog, but it's OK for me to do it, is it? I'm a doctor, no' a sodding vet!' Logan gritted his teeth. 'I just want someone to tell me what the hell is going on! Do you think you could get off your prima donna horse for five bloody minutes and actually help for a change?' Everyone else in the tent suddenly took an all-consuming interest in their shoes as Logan and the duty doctor scowled at each other. It was Logan who folded first. 'Sorry Doc' Dr Wilson sighed, shrugged, then hunched down in front of the suitcase, beckoning Logan over to join him. As it was no longer a murder enquiry, they didn't have to pussyfoot about with the evidence. Grunting, the doctor dragged the suitcase free from its prison of roots and dumped it on the forest floor, the foul-smelling liquid slopping out onto the fallen needles. Coughing and spluttering against the stink, Doc Wilson prodded at the hairy torso, turning it over in the suitcase. The underside was saturated with liquid decay. The head, legs and tail had all been cut away, leaving dark purple, swollen flesh behind. 'I'm no pathologist, mind,' he said, 'but it looks like these cuts have been made by some sort of very sharp, medium-length blade. Could be a kitchen knife? Cuts are fairly solid, not a lot of hacking going on. So whoever it was knew what they were doing: slice around the joint then separate the limb from the socket. Very economical.' He turned the body over onto its back again. 'Cut marks around the head are a bit more muddled. No' an easy thing to do, get a head off a body. Tail's just been chopped off. . .' Doc Wilson frowned. 'What?' He pointed at the base of the torso, where the fur was a
56
I
mess of fluid and flies. Gingerly, he poked and prodded at the rotting carcass. 'Genital area: multiple stab wounds. Poor little sod's had his bollocks hacked to pieces.' And that was when Logan knew. Standing back upright, he told the IB team to get going with the bagging and tagging. This was to be treated as a murder scene, even if it was just a dead dog. Puzzled, the bloke with the moustache started to argue, but Logan was having none of it. Everything was to be taken seriously: trace fibres, fingerprints, tissue samples, post mortem, the whole nine yards. 'What's the point?' demanded the moustache. 'It's just a bloody Labrador!' Logan looked down at the dismembered torso, stuffed in a suitcase, hidden in the woods. 'No,' he said, getting that old familiar sinking feeling. 'It's not just a Labrador. It's a dress-rehearsal.'
DI Steel had Rennie drop Logan off on the way back to the station, so he could get a few hours' sleep before reporting for duty at ten that evening. As they drove off up Marischal Street, Logan cursed his way in through the communal front door and up the stairs to his flat. Neither Steel nor the Procurator Fiscal had been happy to hear his theory about the torso, but they had to agree it looked a hell of a lot like a pre-murder. Someone testing the waters before diving in. So the PF had authorized a full post mortem; Isobel was going to love that, hack up a dirty, rotting Labrador in her nice clean morgue? She'd throw a fit. And then she'd blame him. Grumbling, Logan climbed into the shower, trying to wash off the stench of decaying dog, and half an hour later he was sitting in the lounge, tin of beer in one hand, cheese toastie in the other, watching daytime television, trying to bore himself to sleep. Jackie had made a big difference to Logan's flat when she
moved in - it wasn't half as tidy as it used to be. The woman was chaos with boobs. Nothing in the kitchen made sense any more. Whenever she used anything, it went back in a completely different place to where she'd found it: it had taken him ten minutes just to find the toastie
machine. Magazines spilled over the side of the coffee table, newspapers were heaped on the floor, unopened letters mixed with takeaway menus and assorted scraps of paper. Her collection of pigs had also taken up residence: porcelain pigs, pottery pigs, little pink cuddly pigs. They festooned the lounge, gathering dust. But Logan wouldn't have changed it for the world. Soon he was well into his second tin of beer, the sunlight spilling in through the lounge window, making the room soft and warm. He was actually starting to drift off: sleep washing in and out, like the approaching tide, bringing dismembered corpses with it...
Logan sat bolt upright on the couch, eyes bleary and wide, heart hammering in his ears, trying to figure out where he was. The phone went again and he swung round, cursing, grabbing the handset as the dream rotted away. 'Hello?' A Glaswegian voice boomed happily into Logan's ear. 'Laz, my man. How you doin'?' Colin Miller, golden-boy reporter on the Press and Journal, Aberdeen's main daily newspaper. 'Sleeping. What do you want?' 'Sleepin'? At this time of the day. Been up to a bit of the old afternoon delight with the lovely WPC Watson, eh?' Logan didn't dignify that with an answer. 'Anyway, listen, I got a call from some woman says she found a body in the woods today.' Christ, thought Logan, that Mrs Hendry didn't waste any time, did she? 'Come on man, spill the beans! Who is it?' Logan frowned. 'You've not spoken to Isobel yet, have you?'
McRae 2 - Dying Light Page 5
