Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

The man’s eyes darted left and right. ‘... Simon McDonald.’

The inspector frowned, head on one side like a cat examining a juicy hamster. ‘How come you look familiar, Simon? Have I done you for something?’

‘I have never been in trouble with the police!’

Logan’s phone went: Control, telling him that there was no vehicle of that make and registration in the system. Was he sure he’d got the number right? Logan walked back to the car and squatted down by the back bumper. Now he looked closely, there was something dodgy about the registration: it didn’t reflect the torchlight. Someone had taped a bit of laminated paper over the top of it. From a distance, in the dark, it was pretty convincing, but up close it had obviously been produced on someone’s home computer with a colour printer. He peeled off the fake number plate and gave Control the real registration hidden underneath, a grin spreading across his face as he heard the result. He swaggered back to where the inspector was giving WPC Menzies’ attacker a hard time, questioning him on his whereabouts last Monday and Friday nights. Logan waited until she’d finished before asking, ‘Don’t you know it’s an offence to give a false name to the police, Mr Marshall? Not to mention driving with falsified number plates.’

The suspect flinched and DI Steel grabbed him by the lapels and dragged him under one of the few working streetlights, letting out a low whistle as she finally recognized him: Councillor Andrew Marshall, chief spokesman for the Grampian-Police-Are-Useless-Tossers brigade. An obscene smile ripped across Steel’s face, like a fire in a nunnery.

‘Well, well, well, a member of the city council, as I live and breathe,’ she said with obvious relish. ‘You are well and truly fucked!’

Councillor Marshall spluttered, panic and indignation fighting for control. ‘You have no right to treat me like this!’

‘No?’ DI Steel winked at him. ‘Indecent assault, resisting arrest, giving a false name, driving with false number plates... Think we’ll find anything else incriminating when we search your car?’ The councillor suddenly wouldn’t meet her eyes and she nodded. ‘Thought as much. Think you and me need to have a little chat, don’t you?’

DI Steel wrapped an arm around the shivering man’s shoulders and led him away.

DI Steel didn’t want anyone else present while she ‘interviewed’ Councillor Marshall, didn’t even want to take him into the station until she’d had a chance to talk to him. In private as it were. So Logan was sent off to swear the rest of the team to secrecy and search the councillor’s car, discovering a number of scary-looking marital aids and a couple of specialist magazines so hard-core the pictures made his eyes water. But he’d collected the lot, sealing them away in clear plastic evidence pouches, not wanting to touch anything he’d found.

Steel had commandeered Logan’s pool car, parking it further down the docks where she could talk to Councillor Marshall without being disturbed. Now the only signs of life inside the rusty Vauxhall were the fiery-orange tip of the inspector’s cigarette and the smoke slowly curling its way out of the open car window. Logan, on the other hand, sat in the councillor’s people carrier, bundled up against the cold wind whistling in through the ruined back window. He’d driven it out from the alley to the harbour’s entrance, where he could keep one eye on the Vauxhall and the other on Shore Lane.

There wasn’t much business being done tonight. The presence of multiple plainclothes police officers had pushed the genuine working girls into the surrounding streets, leaving Shore Lane completely under WPC Menzies’ dominion. WPC Davidson had performed a similar trick on James Street, doing more to clear prostitution from Aberdeen’s red light district than months and months of community policing. So there was the answer: you want to cut down on the sex trade, don’t bother with initiatives and public awareness campaigns, just put a couple of unattractive WPCs out there selling their wares on the streets, and back them up with about two dozen plainclothes CID pimps. Problem solved.

Logan turned up his collar and shivered. Summer was in the process of buggering off and autumn wasn’t going to hang about for long. It was going to be another cold, wet end of year. Still, he thought, at least he wasn’t done up in stockings, suspenders and a push-up bra that would put Hannibal Lecter off his sausages. Right on cue, WPC Menzies reported in, complaining about the cold and her sore nipple and wishing death and hellfire on every slimy wee bastard out trolling the docks at this time of night. Did they really have another four and a half hours of this to go?

At long last the inspector’s passenger door cracked open and a hunched, cowed figure stepped out. He turned and said something before marching, head down, towards the harbour gates and his damaged car. Logan jumped out and held the driver’s door open for him, grinning. The man crawled sheepishly in behind the wheel and started the engine, almost squealing in terror as Logan called out a cheery, ‘Drive safely, Councillor!’

Eyes darting and fearful, the man raced away from the scene of his disgrace as fast as the speed limit would allow. Logan stood there, waving, until the car disappeared from view, then picked up the bagful of seized pornographic material and hurried over to the waiting, smoke-filled Vauxhall. ‘Christ, it’s freezing out there!’ he said, cranking the heaters up and wringing his hands over the vent. ‘You get much out of Mr Marshall?’ DI Steel didn’t answer, just asked him what he’d found when he’d searched the councillor’s car. Logan held up the plastic bag and started digging evidence pouches out of it, listing the things off as he went, finishing with the pièce de résistance: a huge red rubber phallus with separate power/motion control, covered with spines and nobbles. Steel set them twitching, vibrating and rotating by playing with the dials and buttons. The whole thing buzzed and throbbed in its clear plastic evidence pouch, like some sort of malevolent insect larva struggling to get free.

‘Classy,’ said Steel, reading the device’s name off the side: ‘THE ANAL ADVENTURER. Fun for all the family.’ She pushed another button and the end started to pulse and judder. ‘Jesus.’ She nearly dropped it. ‘It’s alive! ALIVE!’ Grinning she clicked the thing off and threw it over her shoulder into the back of the car. ‘So nothing illegal then, just hella-dodgy?’

Logan agreed. ‘What about you? You get anything out of our friend on the council?’

‘Yup.’ Steel’s smile was almost as obscene as the huge, battery-operated rubber willy now lying on the back seat, but she didn’t say any more.

‘Going to share?’ Logan asked at last.

‘Nope.’

Half past eleven came and went without much happening. By the time midnight was sounding on the St Nicholas Kirk bells WPC Menzies had only been propositioned three times, including Councillor Marshall. WPC Davidson hadn’t fared much better either, netting a total of four. Not one of the blokes looked like a good fit for the killer, but they’d been detained anyway. Tomorrow morning someone would check out their alibis for the Monday and Friday nights. Logan didn’t hold out much hope.

Stifling a yawn, he asked DI Steel if she wanted him to pick up something to eat while they were waiting? After all, they’d been on duty since about eight yesterday morning...

‘Eight?’ She snorted. ‘I started at seven. Mind you, had a couple hours’ kip in the afternoon. Makes the world of difference.’

Logan looked at her. ‘I wouldn’t know. I was at a crime scene with DI Insch for most of the morning and then in a post mortem till half five.’