Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

‘What did he look like?’

‘It very dark...’ A frown and then, ‘White hair all spike?’ She stuck her hands to the side of her head, fingers pointing upwards. ‘You know? And beard.’ More hand gestures: this time the left, fingers bunched, right on the point of her chin. ‘He smell of chips too.’

Logan sat back and smiled. That would be Jamie McKinnon, no doubt fresh from robbing another late-night fast-food joint. Goodbye alibi.

‘Did you hear anything they said?’

She shook her head and finished her bottle of beer. ‘I go with other man.’

Logan sat back in his seat and looked at her. ‘You know someone killed her?’

Kylie sighed, her face suddenly much older than its years. She knew. People got hurt all the time. People died. It was the way the world worked.

‘Would you come with me to the station? Look at some photographs? Make a statement? Just what you’ve told me?’

She shook her head. ‘Steve angry if I not making money.’ She rolled up the sleeve of her low-cut blouse, showing him the cluster of cigarette burns in the crook of her elbow. There were needle tracks in amongst the circular scars, just enough to get addiction underway. To make her dependent on ‘Steve’.

‘What if I told you I could make sure Steve never hurt you ever again?’

Kylie just laughed. That was crazy talk. She wasn’t going to come with him, she wasn’t going to police station, she wasn’t going to cause no trouble for Steve. Thank you for beer and goodbye. Logan insisted, but Kylie was having none of it. She jumped to her feet and made a run for the door.

Logan leapt up to follow, and that was when things started to go wrong. A large man with a tattoo the size of a Rottweiler blocked the exit, just after Kylie charged through the door. He was a good foot shorter than Logan was, but more than made up for it in breadth.

Logan screeched to a halt.

‘Lady’s no’ wantin’ your company,’ he said, his accent broad Peterhead.

‘Look, I need to catch her! She’s only fourteen!’

‘Oh, like ’em young do you?’ Through gritted teeth.

‘What? No! I’m a police officer! She...’ And that’s when Logan heard it: the silence. Every conversation in the pub had come to a sudden halt. The only sound in the place was a tatty-looking bandit, bleeping and pinging away to itself.

Fuck...

‘OK,’ he turned around and addressed the bar as a whole, ‘I’m looking for whoever killed Rosie Williams. I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone else.’ More silence. Cold sweat was beginning to run down Logan’s back. ‘Some bastard beat Rosie to death: strangled her, smashed her face in, broke her ribs. She drowned in her own blood!’ Logan turned to face the tattooed thug blocking the door. ‘She deserved better than that. Everyone does.’

He was going to get his arse kicked. He could feel it.

The wee muscleman frowned in concentration. The silence stretched. And then he said, ‘Go on, bugger off.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Mind this, though: it’s no’ healthy for you in here. Don’t come back.’

By the time he was outside there was no sign of Kylie.

Logan didn’t know any Lithuanian, so he swore in good old-fashioned Scottish.

Logan spent the next few hours going around the car parks and alleys again, but it wasn’t any use — the young lady from Lithuania was the only one who’d seen Jamie McKinnon. Everyone else had been too busy making a living in doorways and strangers’ cars.

Force Headquarters was like a graveyard when he pushed through the back doors, not a soul to be seen. Except for Big Gary, still sitting behind the desk, with a Teach Yourself French book and a packet of chocolate Hobnobs.

‘Any news on PC Maitland?’ Logan asked, helping himself to a biscuit.

The large man shook his head. ‘Far as I know, he’s still in intensive care.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You know, no’ everyone blames you for it, OK? I mean, it’s no’ your fault they was tooled up. Is it?’

Logan smiled sadly. ‘So how come I still feel like shite then?’

‘’Cos you’re no’ a heartless wanker, like some of the tubes round here.’ He patted Logan’s shoulder with a massive hand. ‘He’ll be fine. Stick some cash in the whip-round: we’ll get him a stripper. This’ll all blow over. You’ll see.’ Logan thanked him for his optimism then sodded off to the canteen for a cup of tea and a sandwich, taking both down to Records so he could look at some mugshots while he ate. Searching for a big bloke with a shaved head and a goatee beard: the fourteen-year-old Lithuanian girl’s pimp. Clicking his way through ream after ream of bad guys on the computer.

By the time three o’clock arrived, he’d only managed to get through a fraction of FHQ’s collection of mugshots. Tomorrow he’d get someone to put together an e-fit identikit picture. Email it round, see if anyone recognized the man. Straightening up with a creak and a yawn, Logan headed back out into the night, wanting to take one last look for Kylie. So much for knocking off at two.

There wasn’t a lot of activity down at the docks; Wednesday wasn’t really a night for hard drinking so there were fewer drunken idiots staggering out of the nightclubs and strip joints to prowl the streets in search of a cash-based romantic interlude. And that meant most of the prostitutes went home too. Now it was just the hard-core left. The women who were the most desperate. Who hadn’t had much luck earlier in the night. The ones with varicose veins and no teeth. The ones like Rosie Williams.

Logan walked the docks again, but there were only four working girls still out, three of whom he’d spoken to earlier. The last ‘girl’ was in her mid to late forties — difficult to tell in the flickering streetlight — dressed in a cheap miniskirt and PVC raincoat, a pair of black plastic kinky boots finishing off the ensemble. Seeing her, Logan wasn’t surprised she only came out in the wee small hours, when all her punters would be at their most pissed and least picky. Her face was odd, distorted, lumpy... And that’s when he realized: someone had beaten the crap out of her recently. That’s why her smile was twisted and her face uneven, swollen from the blows. She’d tried to plaster over the bruises with make-up.

She saw Logan staring at her and said, ‘You lookin’ for a good time?’ The words were slurred, slightly lisping — probably missing a couple of teeth. ‘Good-lookin’ guy like you, must be lookin’ for a good time...’ She wiggled her hips at him, winced and opened her PVC raincoat wide, exposing a black lace bustier over white skin covered in bruises. ‘See anythin’ you like?’

There was no way Logan could answer that honestly. ‘Someone give you a going over?’

She shrugged and dragged a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket, sticking one between her swollen lips and lighting it with a petrol-station lighter. ‘You a cop?’ She looked him up and down. ‘Naw, don’t bother answerin’ that. Course you’re a fuckin’ cop.’ The first good lungful of smoke set off a coughing fit, eyes closed, left arm clutching her ribs as she hacked and grimaced.

‘Those things’ll kill you.’

She stuck her middle finger up at him and wheezed to a rattling stop, before spitting a dark wad out onto the street. ‘I want health advice I’ll go to my fuckin’ doctor. What do you want? Kickback? Freebie?’

Logan tried not to shudder. ‘Rosie Williams,’ he said instead. ‘Got herself killed night before last. I’m looking for anyone who saw the bastard that did it.’

The woman flinched, wrapping the PVC raincoat tightly around her bruised chest. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘Rosie?’