Broken Skin Read online

  Somehow Logan got the feeling it would be pushing his luck to ask if the inspector knew what Professional Standards had done to Jackie.

  Six thirty-eight and interview room number five smelt of fear and stale sweat. Iain Watt sat on the other side of the scarred table, his white SOC suit making scrunching noises every time he moved. He fidgeted and fiddled while he told Logan and DI Steel about his time in therapy and how Dr Goulding thought he’d been making excellent progress… Not looking at the clear plastic evidence pouch sitting on the table in front of him. The one with Laura Shand’s knickers in it: pink with grey pigs, stained with dark brown dried blood.

  ‘If you’re making such bloody good progress, how come you had these in your kitchen drawer?’ asked Steel, poking the evidence bag.

  ‘I …’ Watt hung his head. ‘I used to see her walking sometimes. In Seaton Park … I …’ He cleared his throat. ‘Can I have a glass of water?’

  ‘No. Now tell us about her.’

  Silence.

  Then, ‘I thought about it for ages …’

  More silence.

  ‘I’ll bet you bloody did.’

  ‘No! Dr Goulding’s been telling me how I have to make contact with women, try to forge a meaningful relationship. Change the way I think about them. Not just … you know …’ He took a deep shuddering breath. ‘I just wanted to say hello to her. That’s all. Just “hello”, maybe, “nice day, isn’t it?” and maybe she’d say hello back and it would be nice and we’d be having a conversation and it would be all right and…’ Watt’s eyes slid across the blood-spattered material. He licked his lips. ‘And I thought about it for weeks. How Dr Goulding said I had to make the first move. And I practised in front of the mirror and it was all perfect …’

  Another pause, broken only by the metallic whirr of the tapes going round in the recording unit – audio and video, immortalizing the moment for posterity. Logan leaned forward in his seat. ‘But it didn’t go to plan, did it, Iain?’

  Watt shook his head. ‘I said, “hello, nice day isn’t it?” and she didn’t say anything. She just kept walking. Like I wasn’t even there …’

  Steel sighed. ‘So you attacked her.’

  ‘No! No, I thought maybe she misheard. Maybe I had my fly down by accident, you know? Accidentally?’ He looked from Steel to Logan, searching for understanding. ‘But, but I hadn’t … she didn’t like me. She didn’t want to talk to me. I’d reached out, just like Dr Goulding said I should …’

  Steel tried again. ‘So then you attacked her.’

  ‘No. I went home and had beans on toast. Then I read the paper. And they were saying about this guy who goes after women with a knife and how he… how he has sex with them. Sex … And I thought … I … I went out and waited for her … She wouldn’t even say hello…’

  ‘Shite. Could he no’ have just been making it up?’ DI Steel stood, smoking by the open window in her office. Outside, the sun was setting: gilding the granite spines of Marischal College with sparkling light, deep blue shadows creeping in around the edges, ready to smother it all.

  ‘I’ve called Laura Shand,’ said Logan, from the other side of the desk. ‘She’s going to come in and make a formal ID.’ He tried to look nonchalant. ‘Are you going to tell DI Insch?’

  ‘What, that we’ve buggered his case?’ Steel sighed, then examined the glowing tip of her cigarette. ‘I should probably give these things up. Then again …’ she took a long, deep drag. ‘Fuck it.’ She pulled out her mobile and fiddled with the buttons, before holding it to her ear. ‘Insch? … Yeah, it’s me Steel … Uh huh, I told him to get the files… Uh huh … No. Watt’s copped for it. Macintyre didn’t rape Laura… Hello? Insch?’ She pursed her lips and blew a kiss at her phone, before switching the thing off and sticking it back in her pocket. ‘He hung up.’

  ‘Oh …’ Logan could see what was coming, and didn’t want to be anywhere near when it did. ‘Er, Inspector, if you don’t need me, I think I’d better—’ A loud bang from somewhere down the corridor outside Steel’s office, like someone slamming a door. ‘You know,’ he stood, inching his way towards the exit, ‘I should go get an ID book made up and—’ Too late.

  The door burst open: DI Insch, looking very, very angry, his face swollen and red. He poked a fat finger at DI Steel. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at!’

  She sighed, took one last puff on her cigarette and threw it out of the window. ‘My job, OK? I don’t like it any more than—’

  ‘You had no right interviewing—’

  ‘Watt confessed. His story matches Laura Shand’s—’

  ‘HE’S LYING!’ Little white flecks of spit flew in the evening light.

  ‘Oh grow the fuck up.’ Steel slumped into her tatty office chair. ‘And close the bloody door: you want the rest of the station to hear you acting like an arsehole?’

  It took an obvious effort, but DI Insch, still scarlet and trembling with rage, stepped into the small office and closed the door behind him. Trapping Logan inside. ‘Did it ever occur to you,’ said Insch, through gritted teeth, ‘that your flasher’s just confessing for the attention! He’s an exhibitionist, remember?’

  ‘Then how come everything matches? Eh?’ Steel leant forward and waved Laura Shand’s file at him. ‘Not just one or two things, everything! He had her bloody panties in a kitchen drawer!’

  ‘Oh, really? Well that’s convenient, isn’t it? You get an arrest and my whole case gets screwed. You cast doubt on Laura Shand’s rape and—’

  ‘We didn’t do it on sodding purpose! I was just fishing – trying out the old “we know you’ve been naughty” bit – and he fell for it. Could have been anything, flashing, stolen radios—’

  ‘The Shand MO was identical!’

  Steel threw her hands in the air. ‘He read about it in the papers: man plus knife plus woman equals sex.’ Emphasizing each and every word: ‘He – had – her – knickers – in – his – kitchen! He raped her!’

  ‘He …’ Insch scowled. ‘He must have seen it happen. He watched Macintyre rape her, and then he took the knickers. Something to remind himself—’

  ‘Give it up.’ Steel sighed and ran a tired hand across her wrinkly face. Pulling it out of shape. ‘For Christ’s sake: Macintyre might have raped the others, but he didn’t do Laura.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘NO! Get it through your thick head: he didn’t do this one!’

  Insch loomed over her desk, voice low and menacing. ‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?’

  ‘You!’ Steel shoved her chair back and stood, leaning in close until her nose was inches from Insch’s. ‘You’ve been a right miserable cunt for months now! Whatever’s eating your fat arse it’s not my bloody fault! So stop taking it out on the rest of us! Watt raped Laura Shand – END OF STORY!’

  Insch actually went dark purple for a moment, then turned on his heel and stormed off, slamming the door behind him hard enough to make Logan’s fillings vibrate.

  FHQ was eerily silent in the wake of Insch’s storming out. There was barely a whisper as Logan left DI Steel’s office and wandered back to his little cubicle in the CID room. It took him nearly twenty minutes to check his email and make up an identification book for Laura Shand to look at when she came in – Iain Watt’s face hidden amongst pictures of eleven others from the Scottish Criminal Records Office database. It was a formality more than anything else: with Watt’s confession and the forensic evidence, he’d be on the first bus back to Peterhead Prison, whether she could identify him or not.

  And then Logan really couldn’t put it off any longer: he called the front desk and asked Big Gary where Jackie was.

  ‘No idea.’ Was the reply. ‘She went to Professional Standards first thing, but they can’t have fired or suspended her, or they’d’ve had me in there as her Federation rep.’ There was a faint slurping sound, as if Gary was in the middle of a mug of tea. ‘Probably just a smack on the wrists.’

  ‘Yeah … tha
nks Gary.’ Logan hung up and tried her mobile: it rang and rang, then beeped over to voicemail. There was no point asking Professional Standards – they wouldn’t tell him anything – so he went for a walk instead, wandering the corridors and asking if anyone had seen PC Watson.

  He found her in the basement records room, where the old files went to die, sorting through the ancient unsolved investigations and swearing under her breath – a constant, violent monologue about what would happen if she ever got her hands on that bastard from the Daily Mail. She dumped a dusty box onto the concrete floor and yanked the lid off, glaring at the contents.

  Logan closed the door behind him and wandered over. ‘Hey you.’ She looked up, still glaring and he backed off a couple of paces, hands up in surrender. ‘Whoa, whatever it is, I’m sorry!’

  Jackie went back to scowling at the open box. ‘Can you believe this shite?’ She hauled out an ancient bundle of files held together by an elastic band so old it was beginning to flake away in brittle brown shards. ‘Half these bloody things don’t even match the sodding inventory. Lazy bastards …’

  ‘You OK?’

  She shrugged and started scribbling down a list of the contents into a large notebook. ‘I mean, look at it. Not like it’s hard to keep track of what’s in a bloody box, is it?’

  ‘Jackie?’

  ‘I mean, some of this stuff goes back thirty, forty years! Why the hell couldn’t they do it properly in the first place?’ Throwing the pile of files back in the box, the vitrified rubber band shattering into a thousand pieces. ‘Fucking thing!’

  ‘Jackie. It’s OK.’

  ‘Get the prehistoric bastards out of retirement and make them come down here and inventory their own bloody case files.’ She dragged another bundle out and began scribbling in her notebook again. ‘Should have solved them in the first place! Who cares about some daft sod getting beaten up twenty years ago – it’s not like we’re going to catch whoever did it any time soon, is it?’ There were angry tears, glinting at the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Jackie!’

  ‘They talked to me like I was a fucking child! OK? Like I’d done it on purpose! Like I was just some stupid bloody woman who couldn’t keep her big mouth shut!’

  ‘Come here.’ Logan helped her to her feet, then wrapped her in his arms.

  8

  The shit hit the fan, first thing Thursday morning – Logan could smell it as soon as his copy of the Press and Journal was delivered at ten past seven. TOLD YOU I DIDN’T DO IT! was the headline, above a photo of Rob Macintyre’s ugly, big-eared head. Logan read the article in the kitchen, his cup of coffee going cold beside him. There was a brief account of how DI Steel and local police ‘hero’ DS McRae had charged a known sex offender with one of the rapes Macintyre was supposed to have committed, leaving the footballer in the clear. According to the paper, Macintyre’s legal team were going to the Sheriff Court to have the whole case abandoned. And last, but not least, was a nice big quote from Sandy the Snake telling everyone how this just went to prove that his client had been the victim of a cynical campaign by Grampian Police.

  Logan didn’t need to look at the by-line to know who’d written it: Colin Bloody Miller rides again. He noticed for the first time that the word ‘hero’ Miller always attached whenever he mentioned Logan in the papers now came in ironic single quotes. Grimacing, he sluiced the last filmy remnants of his morning coffee down the sink and went to work.

  DI Steel wasn’t there, so Logan had to start the morning briefing without her. Again. She slouched in five minutes before the end, complaining about having to go see the ACC first thing. Logan finished up then looked expectantly at her. ‘Anything you’d like to add, Inspector?’

  ‘Damn right …’ She held up a clenched fist. ‘We are not at home to Mr Fuck-Up!’ Silence. ‘Come on people, we’re not leaving here till you do it. We are not at home to Mr Fuck-Up!’ And this time everyone joined in, Logan trying not to groan as Steel went into her, ‘I can’t hear you!’ routine. Eventually she’d had enough and told them all to get their backsides in gear. Logan hung back as they filtered out.

  ‘Did you see the paper this morning?’

  Steel nodded. ‘Why do you think the ACC hauled me into his office? The Fiscal goes off on holiday with a lovely cast-iron case against Macintyre and twenty-four hours later it’s falling apart.’

  ‘They’ve still got the other six rapes to do him on.’

  ‘Phffff…’ She pulled out her cigarettes and stared morosely into the packet. ‘Yeah, but this thing with Watt’s going to make a jury itchy: we were wrong about Laura Shand, who’s to say we’ve not fucked up the other ones too? And all the time Rob Macintyre will be sitting there like an ugly wee angel with Hissing Sid polishing his halo for him.’ She shook her head. ‘Tell you, Insch might be a grumpy fat bastard, but I’d no’ wish that case on anyone.’

  She pulled herself out of her seat and performed an elaborate stretch, ending with a grimace. ‘If anyone asks I’m off for a fag. You got anything on this morning?’

  ‘Laura Shand’s coming in at ten for the ID. Other than that: nothing.’ It wasn’t until the words were out that he realized his mistake. Steel now had an excuse to give him something to do.

  ‘Good, you can go chase up the IB for those results on Watt’s house, see if the little sod isn’t responsible for more of Macintyre’s victims. And while you’re at it, get some more bodies on that e-fit, someone must know who he is!’ She stopped for a moment and had a thoughtful scratch. ‘And chase up whatever slack bastard’s going through the dental records; tell them to get a shift on. This is a murder investigation, no’ a slumber party!’

  The constable responsible for coordinating the dental records search was sitting behind a small desk in the corner of the incident room, surrounded by piles of paper. PC Rickards, phone clamped to one ear while he scribbled something down on a form. Logan waited till he’d hung up. ‘Well, any luck?’

  Rickards scrunched up his face and sighed. ‘Needle in a haystack. Most of these dentists have about three thousand patients on their books, and the inspector wants me to check every dental practice from Dundee to Peterhead. It’s taking forever.’

  ‘You’ll get there.’ Logan turned to leave, but Rickards grabbed his sleeve.

  ‘Er, sir …’ lowering his voice to a whisper, ‘I was wondering about the victim …’ A blush started at the white collar of his police shirt, rapidly turning his face the colour of boiled ham. ‘Does… does he have a scar on his backside?’

  Logan frowned. ‘Hang on.’ He went and dug the post mortem report out of the filing cabinet, flicking through it to the exterior examination. There were two diagrams of the body: front and back, marked up with the burns, cuts, ligature marks, contusions, and scars.

  ‘Well?’ Rickards asked.

  ‘Left or right cheek?’

  The PC thought about it for a moment. ‘Left.’

  ‘Got it in one.’

  ‘Then I think I know who he is.’

  9

  DI Steel had her feet up on the desk, a cup of coffee in one hand, and an unlit cigarette bobbing about between her lips as she spoke. ‘So how come Rickards recognizes this guy’s arse then? He been there?’

  Logan shrugged. ‘Says he saw it on one of the DVDs they confiscated from that brothel raid. He’s getting it out of evidence now.’

  ‘Excellent. Nothing like a spot of hardcore porn in the morning to set you up for the day!’

  They convened in the board room, Rickards fighting with the DVD player while Steel examined the case. ‘James Bondage?’ She peered at the small print on the back, holding it at arm’s length to get it in focus. ‘Hey, this is shot in Aberdeen! Brilliant! Never knew we had our own dirty film industry.’

  The constable sat back on his haunches and smiled as the TV flickered into life. ‘They do quite a few titles. Not bad actually, once you get past the accents. They …’ He drifted to a halt as he turned and saw the look on DI Steel’s face
. Then he went bright red. ‘I mean, that’s what the guys we arrested said. Em …’ He coughed, fidgeted, then said, ‘We’re, em … ready to go …’

  ‘I’ll bet you are.’ Steel plonked herself down on the end of the conference table as the screen faded to dark blue, then there was a copyright notice, and a warning that this presentation had been rated R18 by the British Board of Film Classification. And then the production company logo appeared and Logan couldn’t help laughing: CROCODILDO FILMS LTD! featuring what could only be described as a rampant, battery-operated reptile. And then the titles started, along with a thinly-veiled pastiche of the James Bond music.

  Rickards stabbed the buttons on the remote control, and everything whirred into fast forward: sports car, house, what looked like Balmedie beach, people whizzing about at sixty-four times normal speed. Suddenly the screen filled with pink and the inspector shouted, ‘Play! Press play!’, but Rickards didn’t.

  ‘It’s coming up in a minute.’

  ‘But I want to see this bit!’ More cars, a fancy house, a brunette in a bikini, a fat man with a goatee, and then more pink. ‘Oh come on! Let us see something!’

  ‘Just a… this is it!’ Rickards hit play and the jerking figures settled into something more recognizable. And explicit. It was clearly meant to be a take-off of the old ‘Secret Agent is captured and tortured for information before being left alone to escape’ routine. Only this time the man in the tuxedo was being strapped, face down, onto a customized massage table by a very busty redhead in a rubber nun’s outfit. And then spanked. ‘Here …’ said Rickards, tapping the screen as the nun ripped James Bondage’s trousers and pants off. ‘The henchman.’ A figure emerged from the shadows – mid-twenties, short blond hair, dark glasses – dressed like a priest.

  The man pulled off his shades and said, ‘There’s no point in resisting, Mr Bondage, you will tell us everything!’ as the nun stopped spanking and pulled on a neon-blue strap-on. Rickards hit pause and everything stopped. ‘See – it looks just like him!’ He held up one of the IB’s touched-up morgue photos. Logan had to admit he had a point.