Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

Dr Bushel hummed and hawed and speculated and theorized, but it all sounded like bollocks to Logan. The man had come up with a vague outline based on next to no evidence, having never seen either of the crime scenes at first hand. Logan couldn’t see how any of it was going to help them actually catch the killer.

The ACC thanked Dr Bushel for his time and invited him to a special lunch with the Chief Constable later. When they were all gone, DI Steel slouched in her seat and blew a long, wet raspberry. ‘Did you ever hear so much shite in your life? “He will strike again!” Course he bloody will, he’s got away with it twice, what’s he going to do, call it quits and take up needlepoint instead?’ She shook her head, scratching away at her left armpit. ‘And I’ll bet Bushel gets paid twice as much as we do. Specky git.’

Logan scowled. ‘So how come you played up to it then?’

‘Ah... politics, Sergeant. When the top brass hand you a turd, you polish it and say, “my, what a lovely jobbie!” That way they are impressed by your intellect, perception and ability. If you don’t, all you’ve got is a handful of shit. Come on, we’ve got more important things to do than sod about here. We’ve a killer to catch.’

It was just after lunch when Logan finally got a result from his lookout request on Skanky Agnes, though it wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for. A WPC, over at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary visiting her mother in intensive care, had spotted Agnes Walker lying on a bed in the corner, tubes going in and out of every orifice. She’d been mainlining heroin while pissed out of her face on supermarket vodka — the perfect recipe for an overdose. An unemployed receptionist discovered her slumped in the ladies’ toilets at the Trinity shopping centre. She lapsed into cardiac arrest in the ambulance and had been in a coma ever since. DI Steel sent a WPC up to sit by her bedside, just in case she made a miraculous recovery and decided to give them a description of whoever had beaten her up. They weren’t holding their breath.

So instead of charging off to save the day, Logan was stuck wading through the list of known sex offenders in an attempt to match one of them to Dr Bushel’s ridiculously vague offender profile. It was too noisy in the incident room, so Logan grabbed his piles of paperwork and went looking for somewhere quieter. All the other offices were busy, but interview room four was free. He annexed it, flicking the switch that changed the light outside from green to red: INTERVIEW IN PROGRESS, before spreading out the files and printouts on the battered tabletop. Trying to find a killer in amongst the rapists, paedophiles and flashers. Even with the window open it was too hot in here — Logan loosened his tie, yawned, rested his elbows on the table and propped his head up with his hands. Slowly the words started blurring into each other. Blink. Rapist. Blink. Rapist. Nod... blink. Paedophile. Yawn. Blink, blink... darkness.

‘Mmmphf...?’ Logan snapped upright, eyes wide and dilated, what the hell was — he dragged his mobile out, wiping the small trail of drool from the side of his mouth with his other hand. Blink, blink. The clock on the interview-room wall said seven minutes past five: he’d been asleep for three whole hours. ‘Hello?’ trying not to sound like he’d just woken up. It was DI Insch.

Mrs Kennedy’s lounge was a disaster area: chairs and tables overturned, paintings slashed, photo frames smashed, china poodles reduced to glittering shards on the carpet. Mrs Kennedy sat in a ruptured armchair, fat orange cat clutched to her bosom like a security blanket. It eyed the detectives standing in the middle of the room with evil distrust, yellow eyes narrowed to slits, ears back.

‘Honestly,’ said the old lady, shaking. ‘I don’t want to cause any fuss, I’m fine. Really...’ She’d been out at the time, but the downstairs neighbour had heard the destruction and called 999. They couldn’t bear to think of poor old Mrs Kennedy lying up there in a pool of blood, battered to death! They were basically well meaning, but no bloody help whatsoever. They didn’t see anything, didn’t peer out the spy hole in their door to watch the bad guys come down the stairs. Didn’t even look out the window to see if they got into a waiting car, or a bus, or a taxi, or clambered aboard a passing elephant. They were scared someone would see them looking. It was a pain in the arse, but Logan could understand their reticence. They were in their seventies, why risk being seen by violent thugs who might come back and get them? Instead they’d kept their heads down and called the police. It was still more than a lot of people would do.

Whoever the vandals were, they’d done a pretty good job of bankrupting Mrs Kennedy’s insurance company. The lounge, kitchen, and both bedrooms had been thoroughly trashed. But there was something odd in the lounge, something that seemed a bit out of place amidst all the devastation. Smack bang in the middle of the far wall the words ‘STOP NOW’ had been scrawled in dripping, fluorescent orange paint. ‘Any idea what it is they want you to stop doing?’ asked Logan, pointing at the bright, spray-painted letters.

Mrs Kennedy shook her head and hugged the cat even tighter, causing it to wriggle. ‘I... I help organize a youth club for local youngsters? Up at the school? We have football matches and jumble sales...’

‘Hmm,’ said Insch. ‘Well unless you’re caught in the middle of a turf war between the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, I think we can rule that out. Anything else?’

‘I still tutor some children. Since I had to retire I sometimes think it’s the only thing that keeps me going.’

‘Oh aye?’ Insch was poking about in the remains of a large china dog with his shoe. ‘Piano? French?’

‘Chemistry. I was a chemistry teacher for thirty-six years.’ She smiled, eyes misty with recollection. ‘I taught thousands and thousands of children in my time.’ She sighed. ‘And now all I have is this...’ DI Insch made his excuses as the tears started, but Logan decided to do the decent thing and make her a cup of tea. The kettle was dented, but otherwise functional, so he set it to boil and went hunting for some teabags. They were scattered all over the floor by the upended bin, mingling with broken eggshells, potato peelings and other debris. He found one that didn’t look too unhygienic — after all it was going to get boiling water poured over it — and plopped it in a mug that still had its handle attached. While the bag was stewing, Logan rummaged about, looking for milk and sugar. He found it in the fridge: a large, clear plastic bag of something that looked like fresh herbs, only not so wholesome.

The sound of footsteps crunching on debris and Logan spun around to see Mrs Kennedy standing there, sans cat. Hands clenching and unclenching, she watched aghast as he stood up, holding the bag of ‘herbs’. Logan popped open the zip-lock top and took a tentative sniff at the contents.

‘I... I can explain...’ she said, voice low, eyes darting down the hall where a uniformed PC was writing down details of the damage on a large clipboard. ‘It’s for my arthritis...’ She held up her trembling hands. ‘And my sciatica.’

‘Where do you get it from?’

‘I... an ex-pupil of mine. He said it had helped his father. He brings me some every now and then.’

‘There’s a lot here,’ he said, shaking the bag. ‘All for your own use?’

‘Please believe me.’ The tears were starting again. ‘It makes the pain go away: I never meant to break the law!’

Logan stood watching her as thick tears rolled down her cheeks, a thin dribble of snot starting on its way south from her nose. She fumbled a handkerchief from her pocket and he stared at her hands: swollen joints, squint fingers, just like his grandmother’s had been for the last fifteen years of her life. ‘OK,’ he said at last, popping the bag back in the fridge and closing the door. ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.’ He let himself out. STOP NOW: a funny thing to scrawl on an old lady’s wall. Esoteric. Probably made perfect sense to whatever drug-addled halfwit scrawled it up there. But still...