Shatter the Bones (2 page)

She pointed at the case beside her. ‘If you sign for it, you can have the lot.’

‘You left it out in the
sun
? Why isn’t it packed in ice?’

The tech wiped the arm of her SOC suit across her glisten ing forehead. ‘Where the hell am I going to get ice from? Anyway, not like they’re going to sew the bloody thing back on, is it?’

‘No wonder Finnie does his nut…’ Logan opened the battered metal case. A black Grampian Police fleece was folded up inside it, the padded envelope in its clear plastic evidence pouch resting in the middle. At least she’d had the common sense to keep it insulated. He filled in the chain of evidence form and stood. ‘Right, if you see any—’

‘MCRAE!’ Finnie’s voice was loud enough to make them both flinch. ‘I SAID ASAP, NOT WHEN YOU BLOODY FEEL LIKE IT!’

Logan turned the rattling Vauxhall into Queen Street. They’d stuck the battered exhaust in the boot and now the pool car roared and bellowed like a teenager’s first hatchback, the choking smell of exhaust fumes filling the interior.

Sitting in the passenger seat, DC Rennie tutted. ‘Thought they’d all be out at Hazlehead by now…’

Grampian Police Force Headquarters loomed at the end of the road – an ugly seventies-style black-and-white building, blocky and threatening, the roof festooned with communications antennae and early warning sirens. The Sheriff and JP Court building next door wasn’t much better, but even that was welcoming compared with the crowd gathered on FHQ’s Front Podium car park.

TV crews, reporters, photographers, and the obligatory crowd of outraged citizens clutching banners and placards: ‘D
ON’T
H
URT
O
UR
J
ENNY
!’, ‘T
HE
W
IND
B
ENEATH
O
UR
W
INGS
!!!’, ‘W
ERE
P
REYING
4 U A
LISON
A
ND
J
ENNY
!’, ‘LET THEM GO!!!!!’ Tears for the cameras. Grim faces. What’s the world coming to, and hanging’s too good for them.

A few protesters turned to watch the Vauxhall grumble past.

Rennie sniffed. ‘How come it’s the ugly ones that always want to get on the telly? I mean, don’t get me wrong: it’s tragic and all that, but none of this lot ever even met the McGregors. So how come they’re out here bawling their eyes out like their mum just died? Not natural, is it?’

Logan parked around the back, abandoning the battered car next to the police vans. ‘Get everything up to the third floor.’

Rennie rummaged the evidence bags out from the back seat. ‘I mean public displays of grief for someone you’ve never met are just creepy, they… Is this dog shite?’ He held one of the bags up, peering at the grey-brown lumps inside. ‘It is! It’s dog—’

‘Just get it up to the bloody lab.’ Logan turned and made for the back doors.

‘So how long’s it going to take?’

‘Urgh…’ The man in the white Tyvek suit shuddered, then lifted the toe from the bloodstained note and slipped it into an evidence bag. His voice came out muffled from behind the facemask. ‘A wee girl, for God’s sake.’

The lab at FHQ was a fraction of the size of the main facility on Nelson Street and it looked more like a messy kitchen than a state-of-the-art forensic facility. It even had a fridge-freezer, gurgling away to itself by the door, covered in novelty shaped magnets. A little digital radio played Northsound One just loud enough to be heard over the whine of the vacuum table as someone dusted a length of metal pipe for prints.

Logan hauled at the crotch of his oversuit. Some funny bugger must’ve changed the label, because there was no way in hell this was a Large. ‘So, how long?’

‘Give us a break, we’ve only had the stuff fifteen minutes.’

‘Finnie wants everything tested ASAP.’

‘There’s a shock.’ The technician bent over the crumpled note again, taking a swab of sticky dark-red blood and slipping it into a little plastic vial. ‘If I put a rush on the DNA you’ll get it back in an hour—’

‘There’s a media briefing at six!’

‘—hour and a half tops. Best I can do.’

‘Can’t you—’

‘This isn’t the telly, I can’t just
magic up
a DNA profile in time for the adverts. Can probably do you a blood-type, though.’ He took another swab, then wandered over to the work surface beside the fridge. ‘As for the rest of it…’ He sighed, adjusted his safety goggles, then looked across the room. ‘Sam? How long for fingerprints?’

Nothing.

Logan peered at the shape huddled over the vacuum table. The baggy white SOC suit made her completely anonymous, even to him. ‘Samantha?’

The tech tried again. ‘Sam?’

Still nothing. ‘SAM: HOW LONG FOR FINGERPRINTS?’

She looked up from her length of iron pipe. One end was wrapped in a clear plastic evidence bag, the metal inside dark and stained. She hauled at the elastic on her suit’s hood – exposing a shock of bright scarlet hair – and pulled a tiny black headphone out of her ear. ‘What?’

‘Fingerprints.’

‘Oh.’ She looked at Logan and smiled… Probably. It was difficult to tell under the full SOC get-up. ‘That you in there?’

Logan smiled back behind his own mask. ‘Last time I checked.’

‘Got your envelope in the superglue box. Not holding my breath though, been in there ten minutes already and nothing’s come up.’

‘O rhesus negative.’ The tech held up a card. ‘Does that help?’

Same as Jenny McGregor.

‘Post mortem?’

‘No idea.’ The man picked up the evidence bag with the toe in it – using two fingers as if it was a dirty nappy – handed it to Logan, then wiped his gloves down the front of his oversuit. ‘The Ice Queen’s off at a conference in Baltimore, and the silly sod they got in to cover for her’s off with the squits. So…’

Logan tried not to groan. ‘When’s her highness back?’

‘Tuesday week.’

Brilliant.

He signed for the toe, then headed down to the mortuary: quiet and cold in a subterranean annex off the Rear Podium car park. The duty Anatomical Pathology Technician was sitting in a small beige office by the cutting room, feet up on the desk, reading a celebrity gossip magazine.

Logan knocked on the door frame. ‘Got some remains for you.’

‘Ah, indeed.’

‘WAG L
OVE
C
HEAT
E
XCLUSIVE
!’ went into a desk drawer, and the APT unfolded herself from the chair. Tall, thin, and insect-like, with trendy glasses and wide flat face, fingers constantly moving. ‘Is the hearse in the loading bay?’

Logan held up the bag containing the tiny chunk of flesh and bone.

‘Oh…’ She raised a broad, dark eyebrow. ‘I see. Well, we’ve had a busy day; I dare say this will represent a change of pace when Mr Hudson returns from his illness.’ She prowled through to the cold storage room, selected a metal door, opened it, and slid a large metal drawer out of the wall.

A waxy yellow face stared up at them. Swollen golf-ball nose; scraggy grey beard; the skin around the forehead and cheeks slightly baggy, as if it hadn’t been put back properly.

The APT frowned. ‘Now that’s not right.
You
should be in number four.’ Sigh. ‘Never mind.’ She opened up the next one along. ‘Here we go.’

‘I need the PM done soon as possible. We have—’

‘Sadly, with Dr McAllister away, and Mr Hudson …
indisposed
, it may be a few days before we can do anything.’ She reached towards him, fingers searching like the antennae on a centipede. ‘May I have the remains?’

Logan got her to sign for the toe, then watched her solemnly place the little pale digit in the drawer. It looked vaguely ridiculous: a tiny nub of flesh in an evidence bag, lying in the middle of that expanse of stainless steel. Then she slid the drawer back into the wall and clunked the heavy door shut.

Out of sight, but definitely not out of mind.

‘Rose Ferris,
Daily Mail
. You still haven’t answered the question: did you find Jenny McGregor’s body or not?’ The gangly reporter shifted forward in her seat, nostrils flaring.

Up on the podium DCI Finnie opened his mouth, but the man sitting next to him got in first.

‘No, Ms Ferris, we did not.’ Chief Superintendent Bain straightened the front of his dress uniform, the TV lights glinting off the silver buttons and his shiny bald head. ‘And I’d thank the more excitable members of the press to stop spreading these
unsubstantiated
rumours. People are distressed enough as it is. Is that clear, Ms Ferris?’

Standing at the side of the room, Logan scanned the sea of faces gathered in the Beach Ballroom’s biggest function suite – the only place near Force Headquarters large enough to fit everyone in. TV cameras, press photographers, and journalists from every major news outlet in the country. All here to watch Grampian Police screwing everything up.

They were arranged in neat rows of plastic chairs, facing the little dais where DCI Finnie, his boss – Baldy Brian – and a chewed-looking Media Liaison Officer perched behind a table draped in black cloth. A display stand with the Scottish Constabulary crest on it made up the backdrop: ‘
S
EMPER
V
IGILO
’, ‘Always Vigilant’. Somehow Logan doubted anyone was buying it.

A rumpled man stuck his hand up: a sagging vulture in a supermarket suit. ‘Michael Larson,
Edinburgh Evening Post
. “Unsubstantiated,” right? So you’re saying this is all just a big hoax? That the production company—’

Everything else was drowned out: ‘Here we bloody go…’, ‘Hoy, Larson, your dick’s unsubstantiated!’, ‘Tosser…’

Larson’s back stiffened. ‘Oh come on, it’s obviously fake. They’re just doing it to boost record sales, aren’t they? There never
was
a body, it’s all—’

‘If there are no other
sensible
questions, I’m…’ Chief Superintendent Bain frowned out into the crowd as a reporter in the middle of the pack stood up. The whole room turned to stare at the short, stocky bloke, dressed in an expensive-looking grey suit, silk shirt and tie, hair immaculately coiffed. As if he’d come shrink-wrapped in a box.

He waited until every microphone and camera was pointed in his direction. ‘Colin Miller,
Aberdeen Examiner
.’ His broad Glaswegian accent didn’t really go with the fancy clothes. The wee man pulled out a sheet of paper in a clear plastic sleeve. ‘This turned up on my desk half an hour ago. And I quote: “The police isn’t taking this seriously. We gave them simple, clear, instructions, but they still was late. So we got no other choice: we had to cut off the wee girl’s toe. She got nine more. No more fucking about.”’

The room erupted. ‘Is it true?
Did
you find Jenny’s toe?’, ‘Why
aren’t
Grampian Police taking it seriously?’, ‘How can you justify putting a little girl’s life at risk?’, ‘Will you hand this case over to SOCA now?’, ‘When can we see the toe?’, ‘…public inquiry…’, ‘…people have a right to know…’, ‘…think she’s still alive?’

Camera flashes went off like a firework display, Finnie, Bain, and the Media Liaison Officer not getting a word in.

And standing there, basking in the media glow: Colin Miller.

Wee shite.

‘Enough!’ Up at the front of the room, Chief Superintendent Bain banged his hand on the desk, making the jug of water and three empty glasses chink and rattle. ‘Quiet down or I’ll have you all thrown out, are we clear?’

Gradually the hubbub subsided, bums returned to seats. Until the only one left standing was Colin Miller, still holding the note. ‘Well?’

Bain cleared his throat. ‘I think…’

The Media Liaison Officer leaned over and whispered something in Bain’s ear and the Chief Superintendent scowled, whispered something back, then nodded.

‘I can confirm that we recovered a toe this afternoon that appears to have come from a small girl, but until DNA results—’

And the room erupted again.

Shouts; telephones ringing; constables and support staff bustling about the main CID room with bits of paper; the bitter-sweet smells of stewed coffee and stale sweat overlaid with something cloying, artificial and floral. A little walled-off section lurked on one side, home to Grampian Police’s six detective sergeants. The sheet of A4 Blu-Tacked to the door was starting to look tatty, ‘T
HE
W
EE
H
OOSE
’ barely readable through all the rude Post-it notes and biroed-on willies. Logan pushed through and closed the door behind him, shutting out the worst of the noise.

‘Jesus…’

He nodded at the room’s only occupant, a slouching figure with an expanding bald spot, taxi-door ears, and a single eyebrow that crossed his forehead like a strip of hairy carpet. Biohazard Bob Marshall: living proof that even natural selection had off days.

Bob spun around in his seat. ‘I had a whole packet of fags in here yesterday and they’ve gone missing.’

‘Don’t look at me: gave up four weeks ago.’ Logan checked his watch. ‘How come you managed to skip the briefing?’

‘Our beloved leader,
Acting
DI MacDonald, thinks someone needs to keep this bloody department’s head above the sewage-line while you bunch of poofs are off being media hoors.’

‘You’re just jealous.’

‘Bloody right I am.’ He turned back to his desk. ‘See when it’s my turn to be DI? You bastards are going to know the wrath of Bob.’

Logan settled behind his desk and powered up his computer. ‘You got that new pathologist, Hudson’s number?’

‘Ask Ms Dalrymple.’

Logan shuddered. ‘No chance.’

‘Hmm,’ Bob narrowed his eyes. ‘She still playing the creepy morgue attendant?’

‘Three weeks straight. Started doing this weird thing with her fingers too, like she’s got spiders for hands.’

Bob nodded. ‘Like it. Dedication.’ He scooted his chair forward. ‘Did I ever tell you about the time—’

The door clunked open, letting in the sounds of barely-controlled chaos. Samantha stood in the doorway, the SOC oversuit gone, revealing a Green Day t-shirt, black jeans, and a mop of scarlet hair, fringe plastered to her forehead. Face all pink and shiny. The metal bar she’d been dusting for prints was slung over one shoulder, wrapped in a swathe of evidence bags and silver duct tape. ‘Anyone in for a DNA result?’