Broken Skin Read online

  STUART MACBRIDE

  BROKEN SKIN

  For Fiona

  (third time’s the charm)

  Without Whom …

  Researching a book is always fun – especially when people are prepared to open up and let you into their worlds of expertise. In writing Broken Skin I needed some pretty specialist information about the BDSM scene. The people who shared their secrets with me don’t want to be named, but they know who they are and I thank them.

  I also want to thank everyone at Grampian Police who answered all my stupid questions with clever answers: Sergeant John Souter (CCTV); Inspector John Soutar (Control); Chief Inspector Jim Bilsland; Bruce Duncan and Zoe in the IB; and Fingerprint Expert Gary Dempster. An extra special nod goes to PC Derek Bain, who put up with more than most – thanks!

  And once again I owe a debt of gratitude to that lovely guru of all things post mortem: Ishbel Gall. She knows more about dead bodies than anyone I’ve ever met.

  These are the people responsible for anything I’ve got right: anything I’ve got wrong is my own silly fault.

  More thanks go to Philip Patterson – still the best friend and agent a bearded write-ist could have – Luke, Isabella, and everyone else at Marjacq scripts; my editorial team of spoon-wielding Berber ninjas, AKA the brilliant Jane Johnson and Sarah Hodgson; the superb Amanda, Lucy, Andrea, Fiona, Kelly, Clive, Wendy, Damon, Leisa, Dom and the rest of the team at HarperCollins for doing a stunning job; Kelley Ragland at St Martin’s Press for all her help; and James Oswald for everything not nailed down.

  I also want to thank Ian Burdis who donated a large sum of money to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation so that his partner, Debbie Kerr, could be a character in this book. Two other real people who feature are my old friend Alexander Clark (who was invaluable for IT info), and John Rickards who writes excellent crime novels, when not appearing in my slightly twisted ones. Needless to say, Debs, Alex and John have let me get away with murder;}#

  And lastly, but not leastly, I have to thank my naughty wife Fiona. Not everyone would put up with this kind of thing …

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Sex

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Violence

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Lies

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Darkness

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Chapter Forty Five

  Chapter Forty Six

  Chapter Forty Seven

  Chapter Forty Eight

  Chapter Forty Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty One

  Chapter Fifty Two

  Chapter Fifty Three

  Chapter Fifty Four

  Chapter Fifty Five

  Chapter Fifty Six

  Chapter Fifty Seven

  Chapter Fifty Eight

  Blood

  Chapter Fifty Nine

  Preview

  Chapter Thirty October

  20 Years Later

  Chapter One

  About the Author

  By Stuart Macbride

  Praise

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  SEX

  1

  Up ahead the woman stops. She stands on one leg under the streetlight, rubbing her ankle, as if she’s not used to wearing high heels. Number seven: a wee Torry quine on her way home after a night out on the pish, staggering along in her fuck-me heels and miniskirt, even though it’s February in Aberdeen and freezing cold. She’s a looker. Curly brown hair. Upturned little nose. Nice legs, long and sexy. The kind he likes to feel struggling beneath him as he makes the bitch take it. Shows her who’s boss.

  She straightens up and teeters off again, mumbling away to herself in a little alcoholic haze. He likes them drunk: not so drunk they don’t know what’s happening, but drunk enough that they can’t do anything about it. Can’t get a good look at him.

  Dirty bitches.

  She lurches past the NorFish building – spotlit for a moment in the sweeping headlights of an articulated lorry – across the roundabout and onto the cobbles of Victoria Bridge, crossing the dark, silent River Dee into Torry. He hangs back a bit, pretending to tie his shoelace until she’s nearly all the way over. This part of town isn’t his usual hunting ground, so he has to play it carefully. Make sure no one’s watching. He smiles: the dark, grey street is deserted – just him and lucky Number Seven.

  A quick jog and he’s right behind her again. He’s fit, doesn’t even break a sweat in his Aberdeen Football Club tracksuit, complete with hood and black Nike trainers. Who’s going to look twice at a man out for a jog?

  Torry’s bleak in the late February night – granite buildings stained almost black with grime, washed with piss-yellow streetlight. The woman fits right in: cheap clothes, cheap black leather jacket, cheap shoes, cheap perfume. A dirty girl. He smiles and feels the knife in his pocket. Time for the dirty girl to get her ‘treat’.

  She turns left, heading off the long, sweeping curve of Victoria Road onto one of the side streets, where the fish processing factories are. Probably taking a shortcut back to her horrible little bedsit, or the house she shares with mummy and daddy. He grins, hoping it’s mummy and daddy – she should have someone to share her pain with when this is all over. Because there’s going to be a lot of pain to share.

  The street’s deserted, just the back end of an empty eighteen-wheeler parked opposite the oriental cash and carry. It’s all industrial units here, silent and dark and closed for the night. No one to see them and call for help.

  The woman – Number Seven – passes a skip full of twisted metal, and he speeds up, closing the gap. Her heels go click-clack on the cold concrete pavement, but his Nikes are silent. Past a couple of those big plastic bins overflowing with discarded fish heads and bones, grimy wooden pallets slapped on top to keep the seagulls out. Closer.

  Out with the knife, one hand rubbing the front of his tracksuit, stroking his erection for luck. Every detail stands out bright and clear, like blood splashed on pale, white skin.

  She turns at the last minute, eyes going wide as she sees him, then sees the knife, too shocked to scream. This is going to be special. Number Seven will get to do things she’s never dreamed of, not in her darkest nightmares. She—

  Her arm flashes out, knocking the knife away as she grabs his tracksuit and buries her knee in his groin hard enough to lift him off the ground.

&nbs
p; He lets out a little squeal and she closes his mouth with a fist. Black concentric circles chase a hot yellow roar and his knees give way. The pavement is cold and hard as he collapses, curls up around his battered testicles, and cries.

  *

  ‘Jesus …’ DC Rennie peered at the man snivelling away on the cracked pavement among the fishy stains. ‘I think you broke his goolies. I heard them pop.’

  ‘He’ll live.’ PC Jackie Watson forced the man over onto his face, cuffing his hands behind his back. He groaned and whimpered. Jackie smiled. ‘Serves you right, you dirty little bastard …’ She glanced up at Rennie. ‘Anyone looking?’ He said no, so she kicked the guy in the ribs. ‘That’s for Christine, Laura, Gail, Sarah, Jennifer, Joanne, and Sandra.’

  ‘Jesus, Jackie!’ Rennie grabbed her before she could do it again. ‘What if someone sees?’

  ‘You said no one was looking.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ She stood, glowering down at the crying man in the AFC tracksuit. ‘Right, Sunshine, on your feet.’

  He didn’t move. ‘Oh for god’s sake …’ She grabbed his ear and hauled him upright. ‘Rennie, you want to … ?’ But DC Rennie was busy on the radio, telling Control that Operation Sweetmeat had been a success – they’d caught the bastard.

  2

  Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was spreading like a concrete tumour. For years it’d been in remission, but lately it had started to grow again, infecting the surrounding area with new wings of concrete and steel. And every time he saw it, Detective Sergeant Logan McRae’s heart sank.

  Stifling a yawn he crumpled up the thin plastic cup his vending-machine coffee had come in and dropped it in the bin before pushing through the brown double doors into the heady bouquet of disinfectant, formalin and death.

  The hospital morgue was a lot bigger than the one down at Grampian Police Force Headquarters and a lot more cheerful. A small stereo in one corner of the large, brown room pumped out Dr Hook’s greatest hits, the music almost drowning out the sound of running water as it gurgled down a drain on one of the dissecting tables. A woman in a green plastic apron, surgical scrubs and white Wellington boots was packing an old lady’s organs back where they’d come from, to the tune of When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman.

  Logan’s unidentified male was lying on his back on a hospital gurney, eyes taped shut, skin as pale as wax paper. They’d left all the surgical tubes and lines attached for the inevitable post mortem: it made the body look abandoned. Mid-twenties, short blond hair, thin, but well muscled, as if he’d been addicted to the gym. His lower limbs and abdomen were smeared red, a long row of hurried stitches marking where they’d sewn him back together again after the surgeon finally admitted defeat. Death: one, NHS Grampian: zero.

  The woman stuffing the old lady looked up and saw Logan peering down at the man’s naked body. ‘Police?’ He nodded and she pulled off her mask, frizzy red hair escaping from underneath her surgical cap. ‘Thought so. We’ve not bagged him up yet.’ Stating the obvious. Not that there was much chance of getting any useful forensic evidence off the body now. Not after it’d been contaminated in the A&E lobby, examination room, and operating theatre.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, I can wait.’

  ‘OK.’ She picked the old lady’s ribcage up off a stainless steel trolley and fiddled it back into place, then started to close up.

  He watched her for a moment before asking: ‘Any chance you could take a quick look at our John Doe here?’

  ‘No bloody chance! You got any idea what the Hormonal Bitch Queen would do to me if she found out some lowly APT played with the corpse before she got her icy little fingers on it?’

  ‘I’m not asking you to do a full post mortem, but you could, you know,’ shrug, ‘take a look?’ He tried on his best smile. ‘Otherwise we’re going to have to wait till tomorrow afternoon. Sooner we know, the sooner we can catch whoever did this. Come on, just a quick external examination – no one will ever know.’

  She pursed her lips, frowned, sighed, then said, ‘OK. But you tell anyone I did this and you’re going in one of those bloody freezers, understand?’

  Logan grinned. ‘My lips are sealed.’

  ‘Right, give me a minute to finish up here and we’ll see what we can do …’ Ten minutes later the old lady was sewn closed and back in a refrigerated drawer. The APT pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. ‘What do we know?’

  ‘Shoved out of a car at A&E, wrapped in a blanket.’ Logan hoisted up the plastic bag full of bloodstained fabric they’d given him upstairs. ‘We’ll do a full forensic on the clothes, but could be a hit and run. Driver flattens some poor sod, panics, bundles them into the back of the car and abandons them at the hospital.’ He watched as the anatomical pathology technician started prodding the cold flesh, muttering ‘hit and run’ under her breath in time to the music.

  ‘Don’t think so.’ She shook her head, sending a stray Irn-Bru-coloured curl bouncing. ‘Look—’ she hooked a finger into the side of the man’s mouth, pulling it back to expose the teeth, still wrapped around the ventilation tube, ‘incisors, canines and premolars are broken, but there’s no damage to the nose or chin. An impact would leave scarring on the lips. He’s bitten down on something …’ She stroked the side of the dead man’s face. ‘Looks like some sort of gag, you can just see the marks in the skin.’ Logan’s blood ran cold.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yup. And he’s covered with tiny burns. See?’ Little circles and splotches of angry red skin, some with yellowing blisters in the middle. Oh God.

  ‘What else?’

  Dermal abrasions, bruising … I’d say he’s been roughed up a bit … More marks on the wrists, like he’s been strapped to something. It’s too thick to be rope. A belt? Something like that?’

  That was all Logan needed: another body who’d been tied up and tortured. He was about to ask her if there were any fingers missing when she handed him a pair of gloves and told him to give her a hand turning the body over. It was a mess of dark, clotted blood, reaching from the small of the back all the way down to the ankles.

  The APT slowly scanned the skin, pointing out more burns and contusions as she went, then prised the corpse’s buttocks apart with a sticky screltching sound. ‘Bloody hell.’ She stepped back, blinked, then peered at the man’s backside again. Dr Hook started in on If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me?). ‘The only way this was a car accident is if someone tried to park a Transit van up his backside.’ She straightened up, peeling off her latex gloves. ‘And if you want anything more, you’re going to have to ask a pathologist,’ cos I’m not opening him up to find out.’

  Grampian Police Force Headquarters wasn’t the prettiest building in Aberdeen: a seven-storey block of dark grey concrete and glass stripes – like an ugly Liquorice Allsort – jaundiced with pale yellow streetlight.

  There was a lot of indignant shouting coming from the front lobby, so Logan gave it a miss. One look through the part-glazed door was enough for him: a large woman with grey hair and a walking stick was giving Big Gary on the front desk an earful about police harassment, prejudice and stupidity. Bellowing, ‘YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES!’ at the top of her lungs. He took the stairs instead.

  The canteen was in the post-midnight lull: just the sound of pots and pans clattering in the sink and a late-night radio station turned down low to keep Logan company as he sat slurping his cream of tomato soup, trying not to think about the dead man’s ruptured rear end.

  He was finishing up when a familiar figure grumbled her way up to the service counter and asked for three coffees, one with spit in it. PC Jackie Watson – she’d changed out of the rape-bait outfit she’d worn to work that evening and back into the standard all-black uniform, her hair returned to its regulation bun. She didn’t look very happy. Logan sneaked up behind her while she was waiting, grabbed her round the middle and went, ‘Boo!’.

  She di
dn’t even flinch. ‘I could see you reflected in the sneeze guard.’

  ‘Oh … How’s it going?’

  Jackie peered over the counter at the little old man fumbling about with the coffee machine. ‘How long does it take to make three bloody cups of coffee?’

  ‘That good, eh?’

  She shrugged. ‘Honestly, I’d be quicker swimming to Brazil and picking the bloody beans myself!’

  When the three cups finally materialized, Logan walked her back down to interview room number four. ‘Here,’ she said, handing him two of the paper containers, ‘hold these.’ She peeled the plastic lid off the third, howched, and spat into the frothy brown liquid, before putting the lid back on and giving it a shake.

  ‘Jackie! You can’t—’

  ‘Watch me.’ She took the other coffees back and pushed through into the interview room. In the brief moment the door was open, Logan could see the huge, angry shape of DI Insch leaning back against the wall, arms crossed, face furious, and then Jackie banged the door shut with her hip.

  Intrigued, Logan wandered down the corridor to the observation room. It was tiny and drab – just a couple of plastic chairs, a battered desk and a set of video monitors. Someone was already in there – ferreting about in his ear with the chewed end of an old biro: DC Simon Rennie. He pulled the pen out, examined the tip, then stuck it back in his ear and wiggled it about some more.