Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

Steel shrugged and pulled an empty cigarette packet from her pocket, shaking it and peering inside as if that would somehow magically make some fags appear. ‘Position we’re in, we need all the friends we can get. Now the PF and Madame Frizzy-Hair go back and tell the Chief Constable we’re not fucking this whole thing up. That we’re doing things by the book.’ She smiled and crumpled the empty pack in her hand. ‘Things are starting to go our way, I can feel it in my water.’

‘Of course, you realize this means Jamie McKinnon isn’t a serial killer,’ he said, watching as the funeral directors carried the coffin out of the clearing. ‘If the victim was killed three days ago that’s Friday night — Jamie was banged up in Craiginches.’

Steel sighed. ‘I know, but a girl can dream, can’t she?’

Half past one on the dot and the morgue at Force Headquarters was getting crowded. In addition to Isobel, her assistant Brian, DI Steel and Logan, the Deputy Procurator Fiscal was here with her boss, and the corroborating pathologist — Doc Fraser, an IB photographer, the detective chief superintendent in charge of CID, the Deputy and Assistant Chief Constables. It was like a who’s who of Aberdeen law enforcement, all of them worried about the possibility of another serial killer preying on the city. Knowing it would turn into a political nightmare as soon as the media found out. Even God himself had turned up; the Chief Constable being given pride of place at the head of the table. Logan wondered if he’d be saying grace before Isobel started carving.

Logan could almost smell the anticipation in the room as Isobel began her external examination of the body on the slab. According to her instructions the Identification Bureau techies, who’d picked over the body for trace evidence under her assistant’s watchful eye, had positioned the victim exactly as she’d been on the forest floor: lying on her side, legs scissored out on the shiny, stainless steel surface, one arm up over her head. The thick purple line of pooled blood marked horizontal with spirit-level accuracy. They’d removed the blue plastic freezer bag from her head, exposing her battered face and bloodshot, bulging eyes. As if she was staring indignantly at the people gathered around the dissecting table. Something about the tableau made Logan shiver. This wasn’t like a normal post mortem, where the body was laid out on its back, all washed clean and clinically dead. Somehow, with the body arranged as it had been discovered, it was as if they were all voyeurs at the last, intimate moment of the victim’s existence. As if this was part of the killer’s performance. The final scene for this bruised and brutalized actor. Logan shivered again. PC Steve was right: he really was turning into a morbid bastard.

Three hours later Isobel’s audience was pale, quiet and slightly shaky, standing in an otherwise empty briefing room on the second floor. A passing uniform had been dispatched to fetch coffee, not the plastic crap from the vending machine, but proper coffee reserved for high-powered meetings and special occasions. The Chief Constable reckoned they all needed it, and Logan wasn’t about to disagree.

Isobel was in the corner with Doc Fraser, a modest smile on her face as he complimented her on a first-rate post mortem. Very thorough. Very revealing. Someone behind Logan muttered, ‘Jesus, did she have tae peel the poor cow’s face off?’ Up at the front of the room, the Chief Constable finished saying something to the Procurator Fiscal and they both laughed. The new deputy fiscal managed a dutiful smile, but she was still green about the gills. When the laughter had subsided the DCC ping-ping-pinged a spoon off the side of his china cup and everyone fell silent. It was time to post mortem the post mortem. Isobel walked them through the sequence of events as she saw them, illustrating the salient points on the whiteboard with diagrams of fractured skull and ribs and limbs. Like some demonic game of Pictionary.

‘Cause of death was asphyxiation,’ she said, drawing a red circle about the head of the body she’d drawn on the board, ‘partly due to the plastic bag secured over the victim’s head and partially due to pneumothorax: the right lung punctured by the ends of the fourth and fifth ribs. Her ribcage filled with air and collapsed the lung. Cyanosis would have been rapid and fatal.’ Then Steel asked the question they were all dying to know: was this the same MO as the one used on Rosie Williams? Had the same man killed them both? Isobel’s smile was condescending. ‘Well, Inspector, I’m sure you’re aware that there is a great deal of supposition involved in—’

But Steel wasn’t having any of it. ‘Just yes or no.’

Isobel stiffened. ‘Possibly. That’s all I can say at this point.’

The inspector wasn’t impressed. ‘Possibly?’

‘Well obviously the first victim didn’t have a bag over her head... I’d have to go over the post mortem notes—’

DI Steel waved a hand in Isobel’s general direction, cutting her off. ‘Then I suggest you go do that, right now. We need to know if we’re looking for one deranged maniac or two.’ When Isobel didn’t move she added, ‘Unless you’ve got something more important to do, that is?’

Bristling, Isobel placed her china cup down on the nearest table, nodded at the Chief Constable, grabbed Brian, and swept from the room, promising to have a report on the inspector’s desk within the hour. There was a moment’s silence, everyone looking from DI Steel, to the doors closing in Isobel’s wake, and back to the inspector again. Steel smiled grimly. ‘I’m not taking any chances with this,’ she told the assembled great and good. ‘There are lives at stake.’

And then the questions started: Inspector, what do you plan to do? What will we tell the press? How many men do you need? DI Steel kept a straight face, but Logan could see she was doing a victory lap inside. She was back.

The press conference was held at five thirty, set up in a rush so there would be time to get it on the Six O’Clock News. The Chief Constable, his deputy, DI Steel and an attractive blonde woman from the press office faced the media from behind a row of flat-pack tables draped with the Grampian Police logo. Steel had somehow managed to tame her feral hair; that and the newish suit made her look like a competent and determined police officer, rather than her usual cross between a tramp and a startled Cairn Terrier. Logan stood at the back of the conference room, behind the sea of cameras and journalists, as the Chief Constable told the world they’d found the body of a woman in the Tyrebagger Woods... Isobel had been true to her word — her report was on DI Steel’s desk in under an hour. There were only small differences between the two killings, this was probably the work of the same man.

As soon as the CC’s statement was finished every hand in the place shot up: ‘Is this the work of a serial killer?’ ‘Have you any suspects?’ ‘What about the man already in custody?’ ‘Have you identified the victim yet?’ ‘Why have you put DI Steel in charge of the investigation?’

The Chief Constable leaned forward and told the assembled crowd, ‘Inspector Steel has my complete confidence.’

‘Sarah Thornburn, Sky News. After the inspector’s performance on the Gerald Cleaver trial, is that wise?’

Logan could see DI Steel bristling, but she managed to keep her mouth shut as the CC once more told everyone what a solid, dependable and experienced officer she was and how she had his complete confidence. Absolute and complete confidence. Logan grimaced: that was what Prime Ministers always said when someone high up in the government was caught with their hand in the till, or someone else’s knickers. Right before they were, regrettably, let go. There were more questions, but Logan wasn’t really listening. Instead he let his eyes drift over the assembled journalists and pundits, looking for a wee Glaswegian in an expensive suit... Colin Miller was sitting between a chisel-jawed woman from BBC News and a saggy man from the Daily Record , scribbling away furiously into a palmtop computer, not bothering to stick his hand up and ask questions. As soon as the CC stood, indicating that the press conference was at an end, Miller was out of there.