Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

‘Am I fuck. You want to piss in someone’s soup? Piss in your own. Mine tastes bad enough as it is.’

Logan watched the reporter storm off, Cuban heels stomping up the stairs two at a time, before turning back to the bar to finish his pint and pay for his half-eaten breakfast.

Quarter past eleven and he was loitering without intent in front of Force Headquarters. He’d tried to speak to DI Insch about Graham Kennedy, but the inspector wasn’t in — according to the admin officer he was off buying a big box of Sherbert Dib-Dabs from the cash and carry in Altens. Would Logan like to leave a message? No, he bloody would not. If there was any credit to be had for identifying Graham Kennedy, Logan wanted it. In person. So he slouched about in front instead, waiting for DI Steel. The daylight was pre-autumn amber, turning the grey granite to glittering gold. Up above the clouds were a rolling mass of dark purple and white. The air smelled of rain.

Sure enough, the first light drops started as DI Steel’s car purred into the main car park. Cursing and swearing, she struggled with the soft-top, shouting at Logan to get his finger out and help. They got the roof up just before the heavens opened. Logan sat in the passenger seat, looking around. ‘Very swish,’ he said, as the inspector revved the engine and pulled out onto Queen Street.

‘Best mid-life crisis I ever had, buying this thing: it’s a bloody babe-magnet...’ She flicked on the windscreen wipers, squinting at him out of the corner of her eye. ‘You been on the piss?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Keeping an eye on a friend in the pub. Shifty wee bugger’s up to something.’

‘Oh aye? Anyone I know?’

He paused for a long moment, before simply saying, ‘No.’ They cruised up Union Street in silence, the growl of the engine and the drumming of rain on the car’s soft roof the only noise. Steel was obviously desperate for Logan to tell her more, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction. After all, it was her fault Jackie had stormed out this morning.

The rain sparked off the windscreen, catching the golden sunlight as the traffic crawled past pavements packed with pedestrians. A few were hurrying along under umbrellas, but most of them just marched down the street, resigned to getting wet. Live in the North-east of Scotland for long enough and you stop noticing the rain. Up at the far end of Union Street a rainbow had formed against the lowering clouds.

‘Typical fucking Aberdeen,’ said the inspector, shoogling about in her seat, trying to get a hand into her trouser pocket. ‘Blazing sunshine and pissing with rain. Both at the same time. Don’t know why I bothered buying a bloody open-topped sports car.’

Logan smiled. ‘Mid-life crisis babe-magnet, remember?’

The inspector nodded sagely, ‘Aye, that was it... Come on you wee buggers...’ She was still fighting with her trousers. ‘Shite. Hold on to the steering wheel for a minute, OK?’ She didn’t pause for an answer, just let go of the wheel, unbuckled her seatbelt and dragged out the crumpled remains of a packet of twenty Marlboro Lights, digging one out of the pack before retaking control of the car. ‘You don’t mind?’ she asked, not waiting for an answer before setting the tip glowing. The cramped car interior quickly filled with smoke. Spluttering slightly, Logan wound his window down a crack, letting in the steady hiss of rain hitting the road, buildings, cars and people.

Steel swung off Union Street opposite Marks and Spencer, heading down Market Street. As the harbour drifted past Logan peered around, but Shore Lane was hidden from view by a dirty big supply boat. The clanging and bashing of containers being loaded and unloaded echoed through the rain.

‘So what about our hairy friend’s post mortem?’ the inspector asked as they headed along the north bank of the River Dee, taking the scenic route to Craiginches Prison. He told her about the knife and the suitcase and the antidepressant. Steel just snorted. ‘Lot of bloody good that does us.’

‘Well, the drugs are prescription only, so—’

‘So they might be the killer’s ! Or the killer’s wife’s, or his mother’s, or their neighbour’s, or granny’s...’ She wound down the window and flicked the dying remains of her cigarette out into the rainy sunshine. ‘Damn things could be Gulf War surplus for all we know. Hell, they might not even have been prescribed locally!’ said Steel, swinging around the roundabout onto Queen Mother Bridge. ‘What we going to do? Phone up every doctor’s office and pharmacy in the country and ask for a list of patients’ names and addresses?’

‘We could get them to narrow it down a bit; just ask for details of anyone with mental problems who’s been prescribed the drug.’

‘“Mental problems?”’ She laughed. ‘If they didn’t have mental problems they wouldn’t be on anti-bloody-depressants, would they?’ She looked across the car at him. ‘Jesus, Lazarus, how’d you get to be a DS? They giving out sergeant’s stripes free with boxes of Frosties?’ Logan just scowled at the dashboard. ‘Aye, well,’ she smiled at him. ‘When we get back to the ranch you can go find one of them tree-hugging wildlife crime officers to chase it up. Dead dog’ll be right up their street. We’ll start paying attention again if it comes to anything.’

HM Prison Craiginches was segregated from the outside world by twenty-four-foot-high walls, and a small black metal plaque saying, ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY KEEP OUT’, as if the razor wire wasn’t enough of a hint. It was surrounded on three sides by residential streets — the houses festooned with burglar alarms — but on the fourth side there was nothing between the prison’s north wall and the River Dee but the dual carriageway to Altens and a very steep bank. DI Steel parked in a bay marked ‘STAFF ONLY’ and sauntered round to the front door, with Logan slouching along at her heels. Twelve minutes later they were sitting in a shabby little room with a chipped Formica table and creaky plastic seats complete with brown, slug-shaped cigarette burns. There was a tape recorder bolted to the wall, but no video, just the bracket and a couple of loose wires. They sat there for another five minutes, counting the ceiling tiles — twenty-two and a half — before Jamie McKinnon was finally shepherded round the door by a bored-looking prison officer. Logan popped a couple of fresh tapes into the machine and launched into the standard names, dates and location speech. ‘So then, Jamie,’ said DI Steel when he’d finished. ‘How’s the food? Good? Or is Dirty Duncan Dundas still wanking into the porridge?’ Jamie just shuddered and started picking at the skin around his fingernails, hacking away at it until the quick showed deep pink underneath. It didn’t look as if prison agreed with McKinnon; a thin sheen of sweat covered his face and there were dark bags under his eyes. He had a split lip and a bruised cheek. Steel settled back in her seat and grinned at him. ‘The reason we’re here, my little porridgemuncher, is that there’s a tiny problem with your alibi: someone saw you and Rosie Williams going at it like knives the night she got herself battered to death! How’s about that for wacky coincidence?’

Jamie slowly slumped forward until his face was flat on the tabletop, his arms wrapped over his head.

‘You want we should give you a couple of minutes to think up some new lies, Jamie?’ asked the inspector.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt her...’

‘Aye, we know that,’ Steel pulled out her cigarettes and popped one in her mouth without offering them around. ‘So why’d you do it then?’

‘Been drinking... Down the Regents Arms... This bloke kept going on how she was nothing but a posh wank. No’ even that...’ He shivered. ‘Followed him into the toilets and beat the shite out of him. Talking ‘bout Rosie like that. Like she was just a whore...’