Dying Light (25 page)

Six forty and Logan was legging it away from HQ – Marks and Spencer for a bunch of scarlet roses, back along Union Street, stopping off at Oddbins for the second time that day: sparkling Chardonnay from the chiller cabinet. Then hell for leather round the corner and down Marischal Street, getting to the flat’s communal front door with thirty seconds to spare. Puffing and wheezing, he let himself in, clambered up the stairs, and got into the flat just after the stroke of seven.

Silence.

Somehow he’d been expecting soft candlelight, romantic music, the smell of something nice simmering away on the stove. He did a quick tour of the flat, but it was cold and empty. ‘Bastard.’ He stuck the fizzy in the fridge, the roses in a dusty vase and the heating to O
N
. It clunked, pinged and rattled as he stripped off and clambered into the shower. Running around like an
idiot had left him pouring with sweat. He could hear the phone ringing while he fought with the shampoo bottle, but let the machine pick it up. Whatever it was, it could wait. And that’s when the thought occurred to him that it might be DI Steel, calling to thank him for landing her in it with Insch. Screwing her over. After all she’d done for him – which would have been laughable yesterday, but that was before Professional Standards had bent over backwards to play down the complaint from Sandy the Snake. Why couldn’t he have come up with a nice convincing lie? Something that would have defused DI Insch, but kept Steel out of it. He groaned. She was going to kill him.

By the time he’d climbed out of the shower and into some clean clothes the flat was warming up nicely, but there was still no sign of Jackie. She clattered in fifteen minutes later, swearing under her breath and struggling with half a dozen carrier bags. ‘Ever tried shopping in town with your arm in a cast? Don’t, it’s a bastarding nightmare.’ She froze, staring past him at the vase on the kitchen table. ‘You bought flowers?’

‘And champagne. Well, not champagne-champagne: it’s Australian, but it’s supposed to be good.’

Jackie smiled. ‘You know, Mr McRae, sometimes you’re not so bad.’ She dumped all her bags on the carpet, wrapped her arms round his neck – accidentally bashing him one on the head with her plaster cast – and planted a big, soggy kiss on
his lips. Logan worked his way through the buttons on her blouse, opening it wide to expose—

‘What the hell is this?’ He took a step back and stared in horror at the huge, industrial lace construct that imprisoned Jackie’s chest. ‘I thought you were going to buy some new bras and pants: this thing looks like the Forth Rail Bridge!’

‘This,’ she said, snapping the bra strap with pride, ‘is the Triumph Doreen: best-selling bra in the world. Get used to it.’

Logan flinched. ‘Are you seriously going to be wearing this?’

‘Hey, I’m running after some scumbag: you want my boobs bouncing up and down like watermelons in a sock, getting all saggy? You want me to have saggy boobs? That what you want?’ Logan had to admit that no, he didn’t. Trying not to think about the Bra From Hell, he pulled her close and kissed her.

Jackie closed her eyes, leaning into him, enjoying the heat of their bodies pressed against each other, unaware that Logan’s gaze had strayed to the little red light flashing away on the answering machine. The winking, baleful eye of a guilty conscience.

The woods were deep and dark, the faint slivers of sky visible between the trees fading from tarnished silver to graveyard black in the dying light. A cough rattled feebly in the small clearing, a wet, sick sound that finished in a dribble of blood. With a small start, Colin Miller realized it was him. He’d been somewhere… somewhere dark and warm, but now he was back. Cramp in his legs, cramp in his shoulders, numb everywhere else. He’d stand up in a minute. Just as soon as the feeling died down. Just as soon as his shoulders and legs stopped hurting. Just as soon as… darkness.

Sparks of white and yellow exploded through his head, shoving him back, tipping the lawn chair over, sending him crashing backwards into the leaves, his arms and legs still strapped to the seat. Unable to move. And then the real pain starts, not the cramp – that’s nothing, this is like fire! Like someone’s taking a blowtorch to his hands. Burning his hands! He opened his mouth and screamed.

‘Evening, handsome. Nice to see you’re awake.’ A pause, filled with Colin Miller’s screams, then, ‘Pick him up, will you, Greg? And see if you can’t get him to shut up.’

Large hands grabbed the front of Colin’s shirt, dragging him up until the lawn chair was back on its feet. He screamed again, but something hard smacked into his cheek and the taste of fresh blood filled his mouth. The cry faded to a whimper.

A face loomed out of the growing darkness: cropped white hair, perfect teeth, eyes like holes carved in marble. ‘There we go! That wasn’t so bad now, was it?’ Miller didn’t answer and the bastard from Edinburgh just shrugged. ‘OK, Greg, you can untie his hands.’

Oh God, his hands! Someone fumbled with the cable ties holding his wrists to the back of the chair, and then they were free… He pulled his hands round to see how badly they’d been burned. And screamed again as it all came flooding back. The searing pain of flesh parting, the noise of bones and cartilage snapping apart.

‘Oh Christ, again with the bloody screaming?’

This time Greg didn’t need to be told, just balled up a fist and smashed it into Miller’s face. He crashed sideways to the ground, still attached to the chair by his ankles, sprawling out on the forest floor, staring at his ruined hands. Sobbing.

‘Now then, Colin, there’s just two more items on the agenda before we’re finished here. First one is this…’ Chib dropped down and stuck a
photo into Colin’s face. Blocking his view of the stumps. It was from Miller’s wallet: Isobel, standing on the balcony of a hotel in Spain. There was a smudge of blood in the top left corner, where Chib’s latex glove had touched it. ‘Good-looking woman. Now, Colin, if I even
think
you’ve been hanging about with the police again, I’m going to finish the job on you, and then I’m going to make her very, very ugly.’ He took the photo back, kissed it and slipped it into his inside pocket. ‘Item number two is just a wee matter of tidying things up.’ Something hard and cold bounced off Colin’s face, then another one, and another and another. Chunks of fingers, each a single bone long, raining down from the sky. ‘I want you to eat them.’

Miller stared, trembling, at the pale cylinders lying in the dirt. Four of them were just the tips – fingernail to first joint; three were the middle section; two were from the base – still trailing the tendon that was supposed to lie across the knuckle. Nine little bits of piggies go to market. ‘I… I can’t!’ He sobbed. ‘Oh please God, I can’t…’

Chib smiled down indulgently. ‘Now now, let’s have less of that. You eat them up like a good boy and we can all go home.’

Colin reached out with fumbling hands. Trying to pick up the pieces of his own fingers, the remaining digits slick with blood. Feeling the bile rise again. ‘Oh fuckin’ God, my hands… my fuckin’ hands…’

‘I’m running out of patience, Colin. Either you
eat them, or I snip off another joint and make you eat that as well.’ He waggled the poultry shears in the reporter’s face, the stainless steel clarted with blood. ‘The longer you mess me about, the less fingers you got.’

Two bits: a tip and a middle section lying in the palm of his shaking, blood-clotted hand, their flesh cold and white. The ends dark red-black, bone and cartilage showing through. ‘Oh God… They could… they could put them back on! They could stitch them back on!’ A hand grabbed the hair on top of his head and pulled it round until he was looking up at Chib Sutherland’s smiling face.

‘You know what: maybe they could.’ The smile grew wider. ‘I’m a reasonable man. Why don’t you pick three bits to keep? That’s a whole finger’s worth! Call it a gesture of good faith. Can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

Tears were streaming down Colin’s face, making streaks in the dirt and blood. ‘I can’t…’ Voice small and broken. Then a shriek as Chib grabbed his left hand by the wrist and pulled it up, opening the shears wide and clamping them around the top joint of the index finger.

‘Now you choose your three bits, then you eat the rest of your fucking fingers. Understand?’

Crying like a frightened child, Colin picked up the remains of his butchered hands and did as he was told.

‘You wee beauty!’ DI Steel stood by the window in her office, having a sly fag, reading the preliminary forensic report on the hair samples from Neil Ritchie’s brand-new Audi. They were a perfect match for the ones taken from a hairbrush in Holly McEwan’s flat. She turned and beamed at Logan as he entered the room, technically an hour and a half late for work, but as he’d worked the two days he was supposed to be off he didn’t think it would matter that much. And anyway, he wanted to put off seeing the inspector for as long as possible. That winking red light – when he’d finally plucked up the courage to find out what it was at half past four this morning – turned out to be a recorded voice telling him his phone number had won a Caribbean cruise, five thousand pounds cash, or a certificate as the world’s most gullible bumhole. He hadn’t called them back.

Steel waved him over and shot him a grin. ‘Lazarus, just the man I’ve been waiting for all
my life…’ She paused and checked her watch. ‘Well, since seven am anyway. Still, never mind,’ she said. ‘You’re here now.’

Logan frowned. This wasn’t exactly the welcome he’d been expecting. Why hadn’t the inspector ripped a chunk out of his backside yet? ‘Er…’ Change the subject. ‘What did you charge Ritchie with?’ With no body it would be hard getting a conviction.

‘Nothing yet. Get this:
he’s still on a voly!
He’s no’ even been detained yet!’ Her face lit up like the Stonehaven Christmas lights. ‘How cool is that?’ The six-hours detainment rule wouldn’t start until Ritchie was formally detained. He was still here voluntarily; as it was, they could keep him as long as they liked. Or at least until he asked to leave. ‘Spent most of last night blubberin’ about how he hadn’t done nothing and it’s all some dreadful mistake.’ She grinned. ‘Had that pompous tosspot Bushel interview him, doing his criminal psychiatrist bit. Four-eyed git was so excited he nearly wet himself – Ritchie fits the profile to a tee: absent mother, domineering father who liked to shag prozzies, miserable childhood, blah, blah, blah, nobody loved him. The usual stuff.’

‘Wait a minute – the profile said he’s supposed to have a menial job; Ritchie’s a hydrocarbon accountant!’

‘So what? Profiling’s hardly an exact science, is it? Anyway, the forensic evidence ties him to Holly McEwan – the PF agrees, Ritchie’s our man.’

‘What about Michelle Wood and Rosie Williams?’

‘Don’t complicate things. We’ve still got Jamie McKinnon if we can’t do Ritchie for all three tarts. In the meantime…’ She rummaged about in the mess of paperwork that covered her desk, coming out with an address. ‘Ritchie claims he didn’t have his shiny new car when Holly went missing. Probably bollocks, but I want it checked out. And take Rennie with you: he’s getting right on my tits this morning.’

Wellington Executive Motors was a single-storey glass box, lined inside and out with top-of-the-range motorcars that cost more than Logan’s two-bedroom flat. The showroom sat on Crawpeel Road, in Altens – an industrial estate on the coast road south out of Aberdeen, packed with oil-service companies. Here and there huge architectural monstrosities in steel and glass loomed over the yards and warehouses – major oil companies making sure everyone knew who was boss. But this early on a Sunday morning, Wellington Motors was the only place open.

Still worrying about why DI Steel hadn’t chewed him out for landing her in it to Insch, Logan had barely heard a word Rennie said on the way across town from FHQ. Which was probably just as well; today the detective constable was on his high horse about some sub plot in
Coronation Street
being identical to one in
Brookside
years ago.

He was
still
banging on about it as they pushed through the glass doors onto the showroom’s dark, rubber flooring. The whole place smelled of new car and freshly brewed coffee, Vivaldi emanating discreetly from hidden speakers.

‘Good morning, gentlemen.’ They turned to find a saleswoman smiling at them with all her teeth. ‘Welcome to Wellington
Executive
Motors.’ She indicated the showroom with a sweeping gesture, just in case they didn’t already know where they were. ‘I’d be delighted to assist you in selecting a model to test drive, but while we do: cappuccino? Biscotti?’ Logan asked for the manager and her smile faltered, before scrambling back into place. ‘Is there anything
I
could help you with?’ No, there wasn’t. ‘Well, er… Mr Robinson’s with a customer at the moment. Can I offer you something while you wait? Cappuccino? Biscotti?’

Mr Robinson was a round and jovial man with a light grey comb over and a neatly trimmed beard, all smiles and handshakes until he found out Logan and Rennie were policemen. Then it was all pensive horror, wringing hands and, ‘Has something happened?’

Logan put on his best disarming smile. ‘Nothing like that, sir, I need to talk to you about a car you sold to one Neil Ritchie last week. Brand new—’

‘Audi. Yes, Audi. Executive model, air-conditioning, sunroof, satellite navigation, power—’

‘When did he pick it up?’

Mr Robinson spluttered. ‘I… No, no, it’s out
of the question. I couldn’t discuss a client’s details, Wellington Executive Motors values our—’

‘It’s important.’

‘I’m sorry, but I’m sure you would need some sort of warrant—’

Logan pulled out two sheets of folded paper from his pocket and held them up. ‘I
have
a warrant.’ No he didn’t – it was just a printout of the e-fit pictures of Kylie and her pimp, but Robinson didn’t know that. The fat man blanched and Logan hid the pages away again, just in case he asked to see them. ‘According to the car’s registration papers he bought the car last Monday. When did he pick it up?’

With much harrumphing and muttering the showroom manager explained that
unfortunately
Mr Ritchie was
regrettably
unable to collect his vehicle on the Monday due to an
inopportune
incident with a seagull, requiring the bonnet to be resprayed. Logan cursed under his breath – that meant Ritchie wasn’t the one who— ‘However,’ Robinson smiled with pride, ‘
we were
able to drop the vehicle off at Mr Ritchie’s home on Tuesday, along with a complimentary bottle of Veuve Clicquot to compensate him for the delay.’ Holly McEwan didn’t go missing until after eleven on Tuesday night – Ritchie would have had plenty of time to take delivery of the car, pick her up, transport her out to the Tyrebagger Woods and batter her to death. Which meant Ritchie was back in the shit again.

‘We’ll need to take a statement from whoever dropped off the car.’

The manager peered out through the showroom’s glass wall, pointing at a bland man in a grey suit talking to an overweight woman in a bright yellow cardigan. ‘I’m afraid he’s with a customer at the moment. But while you wait – cappuccino? Biscotti?’

They had their coffee and biscuits by the front door, looking out at the forecourt as the first wisps of rain started to fall, speckling all the expensive metal parked outside. The man in the grey suit escorted his becardiganed customer inside to the sales desk, fawned over her a little, complimented her on her
excellent
taste as she put down a staggeringly large deposit on a new BMW, and escorted her back to her own car with one of the company umbrellas. Rennie cornered him as soon as he returned. Yes he’d delivered Mr Ritchie’s car – drove it round there on the Tuesday after work. Apparently some seagull had done a monster crap on the bonnet, then danced about on it for a while. Made a hell of a mess of the paintwork. Logan let the constable take the statement while he went back to worrying about DI Steel. Maybe she was doing it to punish him, holding off on taking her revenge, letting him stew… To be honest that didn’t sound much like Steel; a swift knee in the bollocks was more her style.

The glass doors opened and he looked up to see a familiar figure striding into the showroom,
chatting amiably to a frumpy-looking woman. Councillor Marshall’s face fell when he saw Logan standing by the window. The saleswoman cut through the ranks of expensive cars like a shark, smiling and calling out how nice it was to see the Councillor again, and wasn’t Mrs Marshall looking lovely today? Which was a blatant lie – she was in her mid fifties with a figure that wouldn’t quit … spreading. Her voice was like a dentist’s drill as she told the sales-shark that they were looking to replace their people carrier after it had had a small accident, weren’t they, Andrew? God only knew what her original hair colour had been when she was younger, but now it was fire-engine orange and permed to within an inch of its life. Logan could see why the councillor was so keen to trade up for a newer model. He was loath to admit it, but maybe Steel was right, maybe it wasn’t as simple as ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’. Maybe this was one of those times when the unique verdict allowable under Scottish law applied – ‘not proven’.

‘Well?’ asked Steel when they got back to FHQ. She was sitting behind her paper-strewn desk, feet up on a pile of interview transcripts, her suit jacket thrown over the back of the chair so everyone could see she hadn’t bothered to iron her blouse.

‘Car was delivered on the Tuesday after the showroom shut at six, so he would have had it by half six, quarter to seven at the latest.’

‘Excellent. You get a statement?’

‘Yup.’

‘Good, you can type it up while Rennie gets the coffees in.’

Rennie pouted. ‘Again? How come I always have to get—’

‘Chain of command, Constable.’ She winked at him. ‘And you always manage to scrounge up chocolate biscuits.’ Rennie was obviously about to protest some more, so Steel told him to get a bloody move on, shouting, ‘And wash the mugs this time!’ after him as he muttered, mumbled and grumbled his way down the corridor. When he was gone she opened the window and told Logan to close the door while she had a fag. The smoke drifted out into the grey Sunday morning – disappearing against the charcoal skies. ‘So,’ said the inspector, picking a loose hair of tobacco from her lip, ‘you got something to say to me?’

Here it comes. He took a deep breath and apologized for landing her in it with DI Insch. The inspector listened to him without saying a word, smoking silently like a smouldering volcano. ‘Actually,’ she said when he’d finished, ‘I was talking about Complaints and Discipline. I put a good word in for you and they let you off without so much as a spanking. I didn’t know about the DI Insch thing.’

Logan tried not to wince. Why couldn’t he have kept his bloody mouth shut? ‘I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I—’

‘Doesn’t really matter what you
meant
to do, does it, Sergeant? It’s what you actually did that counts. Even a moron like you should know that.’

Logan bristled. ‘At least I didn’t tell him about Councillor Marshall!’

‘Well that’s really
big
of you—’

‘You’re damn right it is! What would Professional Standards do if they found out you’ve been blackmailing him?’

Steel froze, her eyes cold and hard. ‘I
beg
your pardon?’

It was too late to back out now: ‘Keeping his “little indiscretions” secret must’ve cost him a fortune.’

She stared at him, the muscles in her jaw clenching and unclenching. ‘I’ve no’ taken a bloody penny off the man. You want to know what my “price” is? Do you? He’s no’ allowed to fuck us over in the papers, or give out fucking quotes about how Grampian Police are all a shower of shite!
Nothing
else.’

Oh God, that explained Marshall’s sudden change of heart. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Steel got there first. ‘Now I think I’d like you to get the fuck out of my sight, before I do something you’re going to regret.’

DI Insch was sitting in his usual spot when Logan slunk into the arson incident room. A new pin board had been set up over by the windows, this one covered with photos of Karl Pearson. One of
him smiling at a football match, and a montage of what was left of him in a sixth-floor flat in Seaton. ‘Er, sir,’ said Logan, trying not to look at the graphic, Technicolor close-ups of Karl’s stapled testicles, ‘can I speak to you about DI Steel?’ Insch’s face darkened, but Logan charged on. ‘I was wondering what you did yesterday… About the interview suspects being released?’

‘None of your damned business, that’s what I did about it.’ He dug out a crumpled packet of Fizzy Fish and started throwing the yellow shapes into his mouth, one after another, chewing angrily. ‘She’s caught her serial killer and can do no wrong in the eyes of our beloved bloody Detective Chief Superintendent.’

‘Oh.’ What a surprise, Steel had obviously taken all the credit for tracking down Neil Ritchie. ‘So are you going to bring them in? Chib and his friend?’

‘On what grounds? That they’re from Edinburgh and look a bit dodgy? Think the PF’ll give me a warrant with no bloody evidence?’ He scowled and finished off the packet, crushing it in one huge fist before throwing it at the nearest wastepaper basket. ‘I’ve already had Dr “I’m-So-Sodding-Clever” Bushel in here twice this morning wanting to do up a profile on whoever killed Karl. Little attention-seeking, glory-hunting, four-eyed…’ He snarled. ‘Apparently the Chief Constable is
delighted
someone so knowledgeable and special is “assisting” poor thick old DI Insch. How? How
does writing rubbish about the fires being a sexual thing help us catch the bastard doing it? What am I supposed to do with that? Put an ad in the personal columns? “Looking for white, male GSOH, mid twenties – into setting fire to people’s houses, with them inside, and masturbating while they burn – for long-term commitment at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Genuine psychos only; no time wasters.” Can really see
that
working.’ Scowl. ‘Oh, and before I forget: we got the DNA results back on your wankerchiefs – both the same. I’ve got them running a search through the database, see if we can find some sort of match, but there’s a dirty big backlog because of that serial rape case in Dundee.’

‘What about the MO? It’s pretty distinctive.’

‘What a great suggestion, Sergeant. I hadn’t thought to run a search on something as bloody obvious as that.’ He gave Logan a withering glance. ‘You think I sailed up the River Don on a used condom? Course I bloody checked. Three other fatal fires where the entrances were screwed shut – Lothian and Borders sent up the investigation reports.’