Shatter the Bones lm-7

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘No, Gardner, I want to stand about out here like a pillock for a couple of hours. Open the bloody door!’

  Constable Gardner’s cheeks flushed bright pink. ‘Yes, Boss.’

  ‘Divot.’ Steel waited for him to haul open the door, then barged past. ‘And we’re no’ paying you to sit on your arse reading the paper. At least try to look like a bloody police officer!’

  ‘Sorry, Boss…’

  Logan waited till they were both inside, and the door had clunked shut again. ‘Was that not a bit harsh?’

  ‘Laz, what do you think’s going to happen if he’s still sitting there when that bunch of gits from Channel Four turn on their TV cameras? “Bobbies skive off during hunt for Jenny’s killer.” Finnie’ll love that.’ She hitched her trousers up. ‘Besides, Gardner’s the prick who delivered a death message to the wrong house, couple of weeks ago. Deserves all he gets.’

  The hall looked much the same as it had in the video, only a little more depressing. It had that slightly fusty smell that the Identification Bureau always left behind. A mix of fingerprint powder, emptied Hoover bags, and sneaky Pot Noodles.

  Logan took a pair of blue nitrile gloves from his jacket pocket, pulled them on and opened the door to the lounge. TV in the corner on a wooden stand, a Freeview box on the top, some sort of DVD recorder/player underneath. A stack of celebrity gossip magazines. A sofa well past its sell-by date, a colourful throw doing its best to disguise the faded brown corduroy. Three drawings were framed above the mantel-piece, bright crayon renditions of a man and a woman holding hands beneath a smiley yellow sun; a vague black-and-green blob with the word ‘Sooty’ printed beside it in scruffy lower-case; a happy family outside a square house with a blue roof and smoke coming out of the chimney — ‘MUMMY, DADDY, ME, DOGGY.’

  A square-jawed young man in a black glengarry — with a silver stag’s head cap badge on the side and a wee blue bobble on the top — stared out from a silver picture frame, blue eyes not-quite hiding the beginnings of a smile. There was a black ribbon tied around one corner of the frame, a little sprig of dried heather held in place by the bow.

  Steel stuck her hands in her pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels. ‘Doesn’t look like much, for someone who’s on the telly…’

  The kitchen was stocked with tins of soup, diet ready meals, the kind of children’s breakfast cereals that came laden with E numbers and sugar. An open bottle of white wine in the fridge.

  ‘Shame to let it go to waste.’ Steel dragged the bottle out, found a glass on the draining board, rinsed off the fingerprint powder, and poured herself a hefty measure. ‘Don’t look at me like that — you’re driving remember?’

  Then she followed him from room to room, glass in one hand, bottle in the other, watching as Logan worked his way through the bathroom medicine cabinet. Then the master bedroom.

  Steel settled on the edge of the bed, bounced a couple of times. ‘No’ bad. Could have a decent shag on this.’

  The room was festooned with photographs. Half a dozen wedding pictures sat on the wall by the bed — Alison McGregor dressed in a huge white dress that made her look a bit like a pregnant shuttlecock. Then a couple of her on holiday somewhere sunny with the dead man from the picture downstairs. Then another version of the photo the media department had used on all the posters. Alison and Jenny on Aberdeen Beach, the sea in the background, only this time James McGregor was standing beside them. A happy family, beaming away for the camera.

  One of Jenny with a huge microphone clutched in her hand, front two teeth missing, singing her little heart out. She looked more like her mum than her dad — long blonde curls, a long straight nose she’d never get the chance to grow into, apple cheeks…

  Steel knocked back the last of her wine, then emptied the bottle into the glass, ‘Have a wee rummage in the bedside cabinets.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Humour me.’

  Logan pulled out the top drawer. Some jewellery — nothing expensive, amber mostly — a stack of ironed hankies, a couple of scarves. Next drawer down: pants — frilly skimpy ones and huge industrial passion-killers, all mixed up together. The bottom drawer looked as if it was full of socks. Logan scraped the top layer to one side, then pulled out a big stack of envelopes, held together with a red elastic band.

  He held them up. ‘This what you were after?’

  Steel’s face drooped slightly. ‘Try under the bed.’

  Logan tossed the envelopes onto the duvet and hunkered down on his hands and knees, peering into the shadows. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Not so much as a ball of fluff.’ The whole house was like that. If it wasn’t for the Scottish Police Services Authority looking for forensics, covering everything in fingerprint powder, the place would have been spotless.

  ‘Hmm… Must’ve been a fiddler.’ Steel delved into one of the envelopes, coming out with a letter — pale-blue paper, dark-blue biro.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Think about it, Laz: widow, stuck here on her own with a wee kid and a dead husband. What’s she going to do for a bit of bedtime fun? I was expecting a dirty big dildo … vibrator at the very least.’

  ‘Oh for goodness sake-’

  ‘I’ve got one that lights up, bloody weird, but saves buying a torch when there’s a power cut. But Alison was clearly a devotee of the two-finger fidget.’ Steel held out the letter. ‘Read.’

  ‘You know she’s probably lying dead in a shallow grave somewhere?’

  ‘Just ’cos she’s dead doesn’t mean she was never alive, Laz. Now read.’

  It was a love letter, addressed to Alison McGregor. Logan skimmed it: love of my life — blah, blah, blah — the moon and stars pale compared to the light that shines in your eyes — blah, blah, blah — I can barely sleep when the ghost of your touch haunts me… Who wrote this dribble? Logan flicked to the last page, it was signed ‘MY ETERNAL LOVE, SERGEANT JAMES GEORGE MCGREGOR.’

  He frowned. ‘Sergeant? Thought Doddy was just a squaddie?’

  ‘Come on, read it out.’

  ‘Get your eyes tested and you can read it yourself.’ Logan dropped the sheets of paper back on the bed. ‘What sort of person signs a love letter with their full name and a fake rank?’

  ‘Ah, you’re no fun.’ She slumped back until she was lying flat out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

  Logan abandoned her, going across the hall to Jenny’s bedroom instead. The window was coated in that familiar film of Amido Black, making the back garden look dim and grey.

  Pink wallpaper. Fluffy animals piled up on the toy box. Every breeze-block-sized book in the Harry Potter series.

  The horse on the duvet cover was actually a unicorn… He stopped. Frowned. Tried to remember the video footage. There’d been something on the end of the bed. A teddy bear? It wasn’t there any more. Wasn’t lying on the bedroom floor either.

  Maybe they’d let her take it with her? Maybe it’d offered a bit of comfort while they shot her full of morphine and thiopental sodium, so they could hack off her toe.

  Maybe they’d even buried it with her. Out in the middle of nowhere, wrapped in a black plastic bag. Mouldering away in a shallow grave. Keeping her company as she rotted.

  Christ, there was a cheery thought. ‘You look like you’ve eaten a cold jobbie.’ Steel: standing in the doorway.

  Logan turned his back on the room. ‘There’s nothing here.’ Just a dead girl’s bedroom in an empty house.

  A thin slice of sunlight lies on the bare wooden floorboards, little binks of dust glittering like fairies just above it. Everything’s blurry. And it smells. She wipes her pyjama sleeve across her eyes. Shifts her bum along the floor a bit so she’s sitting closer to the sun.

  It smells of old people in here. Old people like Mrs McInnes next door, with her hairy mole and thick glasses, and breath like a sausage that’s been left in the fridge too long.

  She wipes the sleeve across her face again, getting Winnie
the Pooh all soggy with tears. Tries to wriggle closer, but the chain around her chest and neck pulls tight. They used to keep Sooty on a chain in the back garden, fixed to a big metal spike so he could run round and round. Till he had to go to heaven.

  Only she’s not a dog, chained to a spike in the back garden. She’s a little girl, chained to a bed in a dark, dusty old house.

  She reaches out a pale little foot, and wiggles her toes in that tiny line of sunshine. Not making any noise.

  The monsters will come back if she does.

  A groan behind her.

  She turns, the chain cold against her chin. Mummy’s talking in her sleep again.

  ‘No… You can’t… I don’t want to…’ Then her mouth twitches, opens and closes with little smacking noises. Mummy turns over onto her side. The chain around her ankle rattles against the metal bed. ‘No…’ Then her breathing goes in and out slow and steady.

  Teddy Gordon’s eyes sparkle in the gloomy room. He’s lying on the bed, on his side like Mummy, staring.

  She snaps her head back to the front. Not looking at him. Not looking into those shiny eyes. One time, she’d watched a crow eating a squished rabbit in a lay-by, while Daddy was having a wee behind a tree. The crow had eyes like Teddy Gordon’s: black and shiny and horrible.

  Look straight ahead. Don’t move. Don’t make any noise. Be a Good Little Girl.

  There’s a clunk and she flinches, a tiny squeak pops out between her lips.

  A thump.

  Coming from the shadows where the door’s hiding.

  A rattle.

  Eyes front. No moving. Biting her lip hard enough to make it sting and taste of shiny new pennies.

  Clump. Clump. Clump.

  A shadow blocks out the little slice of sunlight, killing the sparkly fairies.

  The monster’s voice is all metal and buzzy, like a robot. ‘Hey sweetcheeks…’

  She closes her eyes.

  Chapter 15

  ‘-memorial service tomorrow at noon. Sarah Williamson is at the church now. Any change, Sarah?’

  The TV picture jumped to a woman in a black overcoat. ‘So far, all we know is that the memorial service will be open for the public to come and show their respects for Jenny. I can tell you that Robbie Williams will be attending, along with Katie Melua and a host of other celebrities, before heading back down to London for a special live tribute episode of Britain’s Next Big Star.’

  ‘Ooh…’ Samantha sat forward on the couch. ‘Have to set the recorder.’

  Logan took another mouthful of wine, washing down the last of the pasta they’d had for tea. ‘Why do we have to clog the machine up with that shite?’

  There was a small pause. ‘You’re such a bloody telly snob.’

  ‘I’m not a snob.’

  ‘Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s shite.’

  ‘-special guests performing the songs that Jenny and her mother-’

  ‘It is shite. It’s just more cheap reality TV bollocks where halfwits humiliate themselves just so they can get on the bloody telly.’

  ‘Here we go again.’ She pulled her knees up to her chest, black leather jeans squeaking against the couch. ‘Like what you watch is so damn intellectual.’

  ‘-charity single tipped to hit number one, we spoke to Gordon Maguire, chairman of Blue-Fish-Two-Fish Productions-’

  ‘At least I-’

  ‘The Simpsons isn’t bloody Panorama, is it?’

  A middle-aged man in a T-shirt and suit jacket appeared on the screen. He had trendy sideburns with bits cut out of them, a soul patch, a Dundee accent, and a bald head. ‘-bear in mind that the kidnappers still have Alison and we all have to make sure-’

  ‘I’m just saying it’s exploitative, OK? It’s-’

  ‘Have you even watched it?’

  ‘-have to keep raising money while there’s still a chance we can bring her home safely.’

  ‘What? I don’t need to watch-’

  ‘See!’ She poked the arm of the couch with a black-painted fingernail. ‘You have sod-all idea what you’re talking about!’

  ‘-thank you. And now over to Gail with the weather.’

  Logan slumped further into the couch. ‘Can we not-’

  ‘Apart from anything else, this is why Jenny and Alison got kidnapped. If they weren’t on TV, they wouldn’t be famous. And if they weren’t famous, they wouldn’t have been grabbed.’ Samantha stopped poking the couch’s arm, and poked Logan’s instead. ‘So you’ve got no business being a snobby cock, this is directly related to your case.’

  ‘-mass of Arctic air coming in will hit the north east of Scotland, so we can expect some unseasonably cold weather over the next couple of days-’

  Logan finished his wine in a single gulp. ‘OK, OK: fine. I’ll set the machine.’

  She didn’t look around, just stared straight at the TV, where the map of Scotland was a mess of blue and grey. ‘Thank you.’ Clipped.

  He levered himself to his feet. Tried to force a smile into his voice. ‘You want some more wine?’

  Silence. ‘Sam?’

  ‘How’s your arm?’

  Logan looked down at the sleeve of his shirt, all bulked out by the bandages. ‘It’s OK.’ No it wasn’t. It throbbed and stung every time he brushed against anything. Bloody Steel punching it hadn’t helped.

  Sam sneaked a glance at him. ‘You’re a terrible liar.’ Then back to the telly. ‘And we’re watching Britain’s Next Big Star tomorrow, whether you like it or not.’

  ‘Fffff?’ Logan sat straight up in bed, blinked a couple of times, then breathed out again. Squinted at the alarm clock. Quarter past two.

  He collapsed back into the pillow. Who the hell called at quarter past two?

  Lying next to him, Samantha made mumbling noises.

  The phone kept ringing.

  Logan rolled out of bed, grabbed his mobile, and hit the button. ‘This better be important!’

  ‘Hullo? Hullo?’ A broad Doric accent, not one he recognized. ‘That DS McRae?’

  ‘Who’s this?’ Rubbing his eyes with the heel of one hand. ‘PC Gilbert, doon the station? Anyway, got a wifie in here screamin’ blue murder. Keeps sayin’ she’s been raped.’

  Another yawn. ‘Hello? Sarge?’

  ‘Gilbert, I’m going to call you a very rude name, then I’m going to hang up. Then you can go get someone who’s on bloody duty to deal with it! I’m on day-shift, you-’

  ‘Hud oan, DI Bell wants a word…’

  The constable’s voice disappeared, there was some muffled talk, then DI Bell’s voice grated in Logan’s ear. ‘McRae? Get your arse up here.’

  ‘It’s quarter past two in the-’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s the second coming, I’ve got a mental cow up here trying to castrate people, and she’s got your name on her.’

  ‘No offence, sir, but-’

  ‘I mean literally. She’s literally got your name on her. In black marker pen. And if you’re not wanting a visit from Professional Standards fi rst bloody thing, you’ll do as you’re sodding well told!’

  Half-two on a Saturday morning and the streets were in their usual post-pub haze. By now most of the chucking-out-time violence had settled down. It would only to flare up again when the nightclubs kicked their crop of boozed-up idiots out onto the streets. Men and women, barely dressed, bashing the crap out of each other for a place in the taxi rank, or kebab shop queue, ‘Are you lookin’ at my bird?’

  ‘Leave it, Tracy, she’s not worth it…’

  Logan paused halfway across Union Street, waiting for a battered Toyota with a taxi sign bolted to the roof to grumble past. There were two blokes just inside the entrance to Lodge Walk: the usual short-cut to the back of FHQ. One was keeping himself upright with a hand against the wall, peeing on his own shoes, the other making retching noises.

  He took the scenic route instead, round the council buildings and down Queen Street.

  Stopped outside the Sherif
f and JP Court.

  The crowd gathered on the forecourt outside Force Headquarters was a lot smaller — just forty, fifty people? All linking arms and swaying back and forth. They had makeshift lanterns: tea lights in old jam and pickle jars, the captive flames flickering a warm waxy glow that made shadows writhe as they sang.

  It took a while for Logan to recognize the tune: Wind Beneath My Wings. Of course it was. Only someone had changed the lyrics so it was all about Jenny and Alison McGregor. Christ that was quick.

  And touching…? Or creepy. It was hard to decide.

  A few uniformed officers hovered on the periphery, some watching the crowd, the rest watching the small knot of drunken idiots lurching about and trying to sing along.

  Logan wandered over to the nearest officer — a wee man with thick hairy eyebrows and a baggy face. ‘What’s this?’

  Constable Baggy sniffed, then nodded towards the crowd. ‘Candle-lit vigil, Guv. Don’t know what possible bloody good they think it’ll do. Outside the house, or the church where they’re doing that memorial thing, maybe, but here?’ He sucked on his teeth for a moment. ‘Whole city’s gone fuckin’ mental.’

  The Police Custody and Security Officer puffed out her cheeks and scowled at Logan. A red mark covered half of her chin, slowly purpling itself into a bruise. She pointed along the corridor, mouth barely moving, teeth clamped together. ‘Down there.’

  DI Bell was limping up and down outside the little row of cells reserved for female prisoners. He walked like a bear that hadn’t quite got the hang of it yet, thick rounded shoulders rocking from side to side. He stopped, gave Logan his second scowl of the night, then waved him over with a big hairy paw. ‘Where have you been?’ Voice not much louder than a whisper.

  ‘Thought you were meant to be on back shift? How’d you get on with Steel’s sex offenders, anything-’

  ‘Want to explain this?’ Bell pointed at the cell in front of him.

  Logan checked the name scrawled on the little board beside the door: name, alleged offence, and last time checked. ‘TRISHA BROWN? O.A.M.H.O.? 02:30’ Which meant she’d probably been done for taking a swing at some poor PC.