Dying Light (11 page)

Out in the corridor DI Steel was waiting for him, hands in her pockets, slouching in front of a large oil painting in shades of blue and orange. ‘You got any idea what this is supposed to be?’ she asked him.

‘It’s a post-modern representation of the birth of man.’ Logan knew all the paintings in the hospital by heart. He’d spent enough time with them, wandering the corridors after dark, IV drip in one hand, walking stick in the other. ‘Looks a lot better on morphine.’

Steel shook her head. ‘Takes all bloody sorts.’ She cast Logan a sly glance. ‘So did McKinnon spill his guts then? Come clean to the nice cop?’

‘Still maintains he didn’t kill her. But from the
sound of things he was a reseller for the kids who got burnt up in that fire Monday night.’

Steel nodded. ‘That figures.’ She held up McKinnon’s hospital chart. Logan hadn’t even seen her swipe it. ‘Attempted suicide my arse: he swallowed a plastic fork. Every fucker in Craiginches tries it at one time or another. It’s not fatal, you get transferred out to hospital for a nice wee low-security holiday. Come visiting time you can get your hands on any substance your loved ones care to bring in. McKinnon’s a dealer: he’ll be looking for someone to slip him a bundle of something before he goes back inside. Maybe sell some, use the rest himself.’ She tossed Jamie’s chart into the nearest bin and started for the exit. ‘We’ll have someone keep an eye on him. See what comes in.’

Logan took one last look at
The Birth of Man
and followed.

The rest of the day was spent getting authorization for a low-key surveillance on Jamie McKinnon, and as usual Logan did all the work. The inspector smoked lots of cigarettes and offered ‘helpful suggestions’, but it was Logan who had to fight his way through the forest of paperwork. The only bit she’d actually done herself was present the request to the head of CID, who wasn’t best pleased. His men were stretched thin enough as it was. The best he could do was get a plainclothes officer to drop by during visiting hours. Provided nothing more important was going on at the time.

That done, DI Steel went off in search of a bottle of wine and a half-dozen red roses. It looked like she was in for a
much
better night than Logan was.

Half eight Sunday evening: Jackie would be up and getting ready for the night shift. The sound of someone murdering the theme tune to
The
Flintstones
echoed out of the shower as he let himself in. The singing trailed off into ‘da-da, dum-de da-da…’, the shower juddered to a halt and
The
Flintstones
started up again, this time the X-rated version Jackie liked to perform at parties after one too many vodkas.

Logan set the table, complete with tablecloth and candles. Then it was out with the funny-shaped balti dishes his mother had given him for Christmas the year he got out of hospital, and a bottle of white from the fridge. He was just plonking a small bunch of carnations in a dusty vase when someone said, ‘What’s all this in aid of?’ He turned to see Jackie standing in the doorway, wrapped in a Barbie-pink bathrobe, her hair turbaned up in a towel, her broken arm wrapped in a black plastic bag to stop the cast getting soggy.

‘This,’ he said, making a sweeping gesture to take in the table, ‘is a peace offering.’ He dug into a plastic bag from the local curry house. ‘Chicken jalfrezi, chicken korma, nan bread, poppadums, lime pickle, raita and that red, raw oniony stuff you like.’

She actually smiled at him. ‘Thought you weren’t speaking to me… You know, after Friday…’ Pause. ‘You were out all day yesterday.’

‘Thought you’d want to be alone. You spent the night on the couch…’

‘I… I was out on the piss till one in the morning. Didn’t want to wake you.’

‘Oh…’

Silence.

Jackie bit her lip and took a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m sorry for storming off, OK? It wasn’t you, it was me… Well, it wasn’t all me, I mean you should’ve never let that manipulative old bitch talk you into working on your day off, but I suppose it wasn’t
all
your fault.’ She unpeeled the sticky tape wrapped around the bin-bag, pulling it off to expose the cast on her left forearm. The once pristine-white plaster was now a dirty yellow-grey. ‘Ever since I did it, I’ve been bored out of my head. Filing! Can you believe it? I’m a bloody good police officer, but I’m stuck doing the crappy, shitty, boring, fucking filing.’ She picked a fork off the perfectly set table and used it to scratch inside the cast. ‘Going out of my bloody mind…’ Grimace, scratchscratchscratch.

Logan picked a fresh fork out of the drawer. ‘I was beginning to think you were fed up with me,’ he said.

She stopped scratching for a moment and looked at him. ‘Trust me: right now I’m fed up with pretty much everything. But this sodding thing comes
off in a couple of weeks, I get to go back to normal duties, everything’s fine.’

Logan hoped so. Christ knew he didn’t want a repeat of this weekend. Not wanting to spoil the mood he kept his thoughts to himself and dished out the curry.

There wasn’t time for a quickie afterwards.

The Monday morning edition of the
Press and
Journal
was waiting on Logan’s doormat when he finally surfaced sometime after nine. He carried the paper through to the kitchen so he could cover it in toast-crumbs and coffee-circles, getting as far as bite one before glancing at the front page. ‘Dirty bastard…’ The headline explained Colin Miller’s private little meeting in the pub on Friday. E
DINBURGH
D
EVELOPER
D
ELIVERS
J
OBS
W
INDFALL
! Much of the front page was devoted to Miller’s gushing praise of the new development: three hundred homes on green belt between Aberdeen and Kingswells. ‘
McLennan Homes are proud to
announce a new development on the outskirts of the
small commuter town, bringing jobs and improved
amenities to the people of Kingswells!
’ Logan snorted: they’d heard that one before. Miller went on to wax rhapsodic about the great things McLennan Homes in general – and its founder in particular – had done in Edinburgh, where the developer had been building ‘
quality family homes for over a
decade!
’ Surprisingly enough there was no mention of Malcolm McLennan, AKA Malk the Knife’s
other business ventures: drugs, prostitution, protection rackets, loan sharking, gun running, and every other variety of criminal enterprise he could get his grubby little paws on.

Logan settled back in his seat and read the article again. No wonder Colin Miller had been so jumpy when he’d seen him in the pub. The reporter had been thrown off the
Scottish Sun
for refusing to complete a series of exposés on Malk the Knife’s drug smuggling activities, because two of Malkie’s boys had made it quite clear that if he didn’t drop the story like the proverbial radioactive tattie, they’d hack off his fingers. And just last Christmas, Malk the Knife had tried, and failed, to bribe his way through the planning regulations and into a lucrative property development deal. Looked like his luck was better second time around.

But the main story of the day wasn’t in the
Press and Journal
. It’d be all over the evening news.

Sounds were muffled. The mist, thicker here in the forest than out on the road, clung to the trees and bracken, making everything alien and strange. The rain had given up the ghost sometime after midnight, fading to a misty drizzle. Then came the haar, rolling in off the North Sea, smothering the world. The ground beneath her feet was cold and wet as she squelched along the path, the vague outlines of Scots pine, oak, beech and spruce lurking to either side. Dripping. The Tyrebagger Woods were a damn sight creepier today than they’d been yesterday. Anyone could be lurking in the bushes, just around the next bend. Waiting for her… Just as well she had Benji to protect her – or would have if the rotten little sod hadn’t charged off into the fog at the first opportunity.

‘Benji!… Bennnnnji?’ Something snapped in the forest and she froze. A twig? ‘Benji?’ Silence. She did a slow pirouette, watching the white-and-grey landscape swim around her. It was deathly
quiet. Just like it went in films before something really horrible happened to the blonde bimbo with the big boobs. She smiled at herself. Not that she had any worries on that front, being a flat-chested brunette with a Master’s Degree in molecular biology. She was just a bit twitchy because of the job interview. ‘Benji! Where are you, you hairy wee shite?’ The fog swallowed her calls, not even giving her an echo in return. And yet she was sure there was something…

She shook her head and carried on up the track, going the wrong way round the Tyrebagger sculpture trail. A huge disembodied stag’s head loomed out of the mist, hanging between the trees like a cross between the more sinister bits of
Watership
Down
, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, and the dismembered corpse of a bright-yellow Ford Escort. Whenever she saw the thing she couldn’t help smiling. But not this time. This time there was something primitive about it. Something pagan. Something predatory. Shivering, she hurried past, calling out for Benji again. Why the hell did he have to pick today to go AWOL? It wasn’t as if she could spend all morning looking for him! Her interview was at half eleven. This was just supposed to be a little walk in the woods to calm her nerves. Not tramp about like a bastard in the fog looking for a stupid bloody spaniel. ‘BENJI!’

That cracking sound again. She froze. ‘Hello?’ Silence. ‘Is…’ She was going to hate herself for
saying it: ‘Is anybody there?’ Might as well pop on a pair of stiletto heels and a push-up bra then sit back and wait for the axe murderer.

Silence.

Not so much as a whisper. The only sound was the pounding of her heart. This was ridiculous; just because some woman was beaten to death last week didn’t mean there was someone lurking in the woods… Waiting for her…

Crack!
The breath caught in her throat. There
was
someone out there! Fight or flight, fight or flight? FLIGHT: sprinting hell-for-leather up the barely visible path, splashing through puddles and mud. Just wanting to get back to the car park alive. Trees whipped past on either side of the track, their trunks and branches distorted by the mist into wild-killer shapes. Someone was coming after her: she could hear him, crashing through the bushes behind her, getting closer.

Past the poetry trees at a sprint, up the hill, the wet ground treacherous beneath her feet. One foot caught on a tree root and she went sprawling on the gritty mud, fire lancing across her palms and knees as the skin broke. She cried out in pain, but the bastard chasing her didn’t care. There was just time to scream before a dark shape launched itself out of the mist. And slavered all over her with a huge, wet tongue.

‘Benji!’ She pulled herself to her knees and swore and swore and swore while Benji danced and skittered around her, hunkering down on his
forelegs and wiggling his ridiculous stumpy tail in the air. And then he stopped, stood stock-still and charged off into the woods again. ‘Bastard fucking dog!’ Both her palms dripped with neon-red blood, the scrapes peppered with little black flecks of dirt. Her trousers were ripped open, exposing a similar story about the knees. And her head hurt like hell. With trembling fingers she reached up and gingerly touched a tender spot above her left eyebrow, wincing. More blood. ‘That’s just fucking marvellous!’ So much for making a good impression. She’d have to cancel, or turn up at the job interview looking like she’d been beaten up. ‘You
BASTARD
dog!’

Benji was barking from somewhere up the track. Bloody animal had probably found something filthy to roll in. Limping, she followed the sound into the fog-shrouded woods, all thoughts of a sinister attacker forgotten.

The lights of Alpha Two Zero cut solid blue bars through the fog. It sat in one of the Tyrebagger car parks, empty, the radio chattering away schiz-ophrenically to itself, as WPC Buchan and PC Steve picked their way into the woods. Looking for the body.

They’d got the call about twenty minutes ago: young woman’s body found battered to death, stripped naked in the woods. According to the dispatcher, the person who called it in wasn’t that coherent, just kept yammering on about death
and the mist and trees. And something about buying sun? WPC Buchan wasn’t in the mood for this. Not after yet another fight with Robert, coming home stinking of cheap perfume and stale sweat – what was she, stupid? She stomped along the muddy path, hands in her pockets and a scowl on her face as PC Steve played Earnest Police Officer Number One, keeping up a running commentary as he swept the foggy undergrowth with a huge torch. She trailed along behind, watching him roam from bush to bush on either side of the path. He had a nice arse, even if he was a bit of a mummy’s boy. She could… A faint smile drifted across her face as she thought about all the things she could do to PC Steve Jacobs. God knew it would be a damn sight more fun than the crap she’d have to go home to tonight.

They clambered up a small hill, the ground slippery beneath their feet. Just past the summit was one of those wooden post things, with a Perspex notice incorporated into it. She flipped it out, reading about how some woman called Matthews had sculpted a group of European bison resting in the primeval forest, out of chicken-wire, moss, wool, and bits of old metal. The usual heritage-slash-council-slash-art-grant-crap. WPC Buchan let the sign fall back into the post and stared into the woods where a barely visible track wound its way into the trees. ‘Buying sun…’ Without saying another word, WPC Buchan stepped off the muddy path and followed the track into the mist.

She could hear PC Steve babbling away to himself, his voice gradually trailing off as she moved away and the fog swallowed him whole.

The ground rose beneath her feet as the track gave way to forest loam. It was like twilight here, shadows of skeletal trees lurking in the mist. Quiet as a shallow grave. And then she heard it: a faint sobbing. WPC Buchan stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Hello?’ She clambered to the crest of a small rise and stepped out onto an area of flat ground. ‘Can you hear me?’

Still nothing.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake…’ She pulled out her torch, even though she knew it probably wasn’t going to do her the slightest bit of good. The fog would just bounce the light back, but the torch’s weight felt comforting in her hand. The sort of thing you could crack someone’s skull open with. Forward into the fog and WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? They loomed out of the mist, cadaverous beasts, partially rotted. Grazing on the scrub-grass between the fog-shrouded trees.

It was the sculptures: bison resting in the primeval forest. WPC Buchan might not know much about art, but she knew what gave her the fucking willies, and these things took the hairy biscuit. The sobbing was louder now, coming from somewhere near the biggest mouldering animal, the fog clearly visible through holes in its carcass. ‘Hello?’ She clicked on the torch and suddenly the world went white. Two unnatural green eyes
flashed in the opaque mass and a low growl split the silence like a rusty knife. ‘Aw shite…’ The eyes came closer and she moved her free hand very slowly to the bulky utility belt at her waist, easing the tiny canister of pepper spray out of its pouch. ‘Nice doggy?’ A face full of that stuff would have anything rolling over and playing dead.

The thing that stalked out of the fog was a spaniel, but without any of the usual happy-go-lucky exuberance. The dog’s lips were curled back, exposing teeth like daggers, its muzzle smothered in gore. She pointed the canister at it, prayed, and sprayed. Suddenly the growling stopped. There was a moment of silence, then yelping exploded from the animal as it staggered around, trying to get away from the searing pain. WPC Buchan didn’t resist the urge to give the dog a good kick in the ribs as she picked her way past.

The sobbing was coming from behind the rotting bison. It was a woman – mid twenties from the look of her clothes – face, hands and knees sticky with plum-coloured blood. Silly cow wasn’t dead after all. It was just another stupid hoax call. WPC Buchan slipped the pepper spray back into its holster. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. The woman didn’t answer. Not directly. Instead she extended a grubby, bloodstained hand and pointed to one of the sculpturally rotting bison. It lay slumped on the ground, as if it had been trying to get up when death came to call. WPC Buchan turned her torch on it, illuminating the statue in all its
decomposing glory. There was something white sprawled alongside it, blending into the fog.

‘Oh fuck…’ Grabbing the radio off her shoulder, she called Control. They’d found the second body.

DI Steel turned up on Logan’s doorstep in a suit that looked almost new. She’d even threatened her hair with a brush: it hadn’t made much difference, but it was the thought that counted. ‘Mr Police Hero,’ she said, picking a fresh cigarette from an almost empty packet, not seeming to care that one was already smouldering away between her lined lips. ‘Got some good news for you! They’ve found another dead tart!’ Soon they were roaring out of Aberdeen on the Inverurie road, past the airport and up the hill to the Tyrebagger Woods. It wasn’t far, less than fifteen minutes from the centre of town the way the inspector drove.

Logan sat in the passenger seat of Steel’s little sports car, trying to stay calm as they hurtled through the rolling fog. ‘So tell me again how this is good news…’

‘Two dead prostitutes, both stripped naked and battered to death. This isn’t just a murder enquiry any more: we’ve got ourselves a bona fide serial killer!’

Logan risked a peek: a huge grin split the inspector’s face, a half-inch of cigarette butt making the car’s interior almost as foggy as the world outside. She winked at him. ‘Think about it, Laz:
this is our ticket out of the Fuck-Up Factory! We’ve already got Jamie McKinnon in custody, all we need to do is tie him to both bodies and we’re laughing. No more crappy cases no one else wants, no more getting lumbered with every halfwit and reject in the force. You and me: back doing
real
police work!’ They almost missed the turning in the fog, a twisting ribbon of tarmac that snaked away into the shrouded forest. Steel followed it until the slow-motion blue strobe of a patrol car’s lights marked the entrance to the car park. She pulled up between the filthy hulk of the Identification Bureau’s Transit and a flashy Mercedes. That would be Isobel’s. Logan groaned. Just what he needed. All around them the forest was dense and silent, wrapped in a thick blanket of white. There wasn’t a breath of wind as DI Steel popped the boot, swapping her surprisingly clean shoes for a tatty old pair of Wellingtons. And then they headed up the path.

‘What do we know about the victim?’ asked Logan as the inspector wheezed up the hill beside him.

‘Bugger all.’ She stopped and lit the last fag in her packet from the smouldering remains of the one in her mouth, before flicking the tiny butt off into the mist. ‘Dispatch said, “naked and beaten”; I said, “mine!”’

‘Then how do you know she was a prostitute?’

‘Handbag full of condoms. No ID, but loads and loads of condoms. Could have been an erotic
balloon modeller I suppose, but my money’s on tart.’

‘What if it’s not?’

‘What if it’s not what?’

‘A serial killer. What if this wasn’t McKinnon? What if it’s a copycat?’

DI Steel shrugged. ‘We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.’

The crime scene wasn’t hard to find, even in the smothering fog. The clack-flash-whine of the IB photographer’s camera lit up the area like sheathed lightning. An enthusiastic cordon of blue Police tape was wound between the trees and they ducked under it, making for the noise and lights. Suddenly, out of the mist, loomed the shapes of decaying animal carcasses. Off to one side, the Identification Bureau had abandoned the traditional SOC tent – it was too big to fit between the trees, so they’d rigged up a bivouac by draping the blue plastic sheeting over the branches and a web of P
OLICE
tape.

Logan and Steel struggled into a set of white paper coveralls, complete with booties. The IB had erected a walkway of tea-tray-sized rectangles with short metal legs, which wound its way across the clearing towards a cluster of people, preventing the attending personnel from treading all over the crime scene. Steel and Logan clanged their way along it, three inches off the ground, making for the body. An IB photographer hovered on the periphery, camera flashing away as the Chief
Pathologist peered and prodded at the remains of a young woman. The victim was lying on her side, one arm stretched up over her head, her legs like open scissors on the damp, black forest floor. As Logan watched, one of the Identification Bureau technicians asked Isobel if it was OK for him to bag the hands. She nodded and he wrapped clear evidence pouches over the bloodstained fingers, just in case there was any trace evidence under the victim’s nails. Logan was surprised to see they’d done the same thing to her head… and then he realized it was a large, blue freezer bag. That would be an original crime scene feature. Her whole body was covered with weals and bashes, but the skin was like porcelain, a thick line of dark purple marking low tide along the length of her body where the blood had pooled after death.

Isobel sat back on her haunches, snapped off her latex gloves and handed them to the first person she clapped eyes on. Her face had a haggard look, as if she wasn’t sleeping, the dark circles under her eyes still visible through her make-up. She stayed there for a moment, staring at the plastic bag over the victim’s head. ‘Get her down to the morgue,’ she said at last. While one of the IB techs pulled out a phone and dialled a local firm of funeral directors to pick up the body, Isobel wearily stuffed things back into her medical bag.