Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

When he called for help, DI Insch came lumbering through, took one look at what Logan was pointing at, frowned, then the swearing started. ‘Every bastard and their dog’s been through here!’ He shouted for the bloke from the fire brigade, demanding to know why the hell no one had found this sooner? While they were arguing over whose responsibility it was to make sure people didn’t go traipsing over dead bodies, Logan lurched across the threshold and out into the real world again.

The sun was still shining, but the air was full of the stench of burning meat and roasting timbers. Closing his eyes, Logan tried to take a deep breath. He wasn’t going to be sick, he wasn’t going to be sick — charred women and children, battered prostitutes, the skinned face of a young woman, rotting animal carcasses, Maitland... He was going to be sick. Logan managed a few slow steps in the direction of the garden wall before abandoning all pretence and sprinting for the safety of a large purple buddleia, ripping his mask aside, falling to his knees and retching behind the bush. When there wasn’t even any bile left, his stomach aching from the effort, he shivered to his feet, wiping the strings of bitter spit from his mouth with the sleeve of his jumpsuit. Please God let no one have seen him puking in the bushes... He cast a quick glance around, but everyone was going about their business, getting on with the job like he was supposed to be.

Standing on the flattened grass, looking up at the ruined building, he tried not to think about the faces of the dead. The fire at the squat, where six people died, had been a spectator sport, he was sure of it. One man out there in a darkness all his own, turning human beings into charred corpses while he played with himself in the shadows. He would want a good view of proceedings. Preferably close enough to hear their flesh pop and sizzle. Logan started a tour of the garden, looking for the perfect position from which to watch a family of four burn, somewhere that wouldn’t become a trap if the fire brigade turned up earlier than expected. There wasn’t one. He did a slow three hundred and sixty degree turn. There was a hotel driveway across the road, the entrance marked by rusting lanterns set into the eight-foot-high stone wall. It would be the only place with a really good line of sight.

Still dressed in his white boiler suit, surgical gloves and booties, he sloshed through the puddle of soot-coloured water and into the hotel’s grounds. You could lurk behind the granite posts, peering round the corner and hoping no one looked in your direction while you were busy having a wank, but that would probably spoil the romantic atmosphere... There was a huge rhododendron bush six feet in from the entrance. Perfect: if anyone looked, all they’d see were leaves and shadow. Logan walked through the wet grass to the rhododendron, peering under the fringe of dark green, waxy leaves. The flower heads were dying back, their delicate scarlet blooms battered away by last night’s rain, lying like flecks of blood on the grass. There was a clear footprint in the mud, just inside the bush.

The manager of the hotel was a little concerned about the effect a blue plastic scene-of-crime marquee was having on his guests. It was bad enough that the road had been blocked off since last night, but to have a bunch of people wandering around the hotel grounds like something off the television was just... Well, he wasn’t quite sure what it was, but he did send a nice young man out with a huge thermos of tea, another of coffee and a platter of Danish pastries. Much to DI Insch’s delight.

Things were looking up. The leaves hadn’t just kept their arsonist dry while he played with himself, they’d also helped preserve any evidence he’d left at the scene. In addition to the footprint, they’d also discovered another disposable paper handkerchief, smelling of semen. And the Identification Bureau were swarming all over the inside of the rhododendron, looking for fibres, traces, fingerprints, anything.

Insch was happily finishing off a third pastry from the tray when a patrol car pulled up outside the burnt-out shell opposite and a familiar bald-headed clinical psychologist stepped out. Hands behind his back, he strolled around the house’s garden, peering at things.

‘Oh joy,’ said Insch, brushing the crumbs from his chin. ‘You want to deal with Professor Patronizing, or shall I?’ In the end they both sloshed back over the road. They found Dr Bushel squatting over a large white plastic sheet with four open body-bags laid out on it. There were bits of person arranged in each. A scorched femur, a blackened clavicle, the body they’d discovered under the front door, a lump of burnt meat that had once been a child’s torso... Logan’s empty stomach gave a warning lurch. The doctor smiled up at them as they approached, the sunlight glinting off his little round glasses.

‘Inspector, Sergeant, nice to see you again,’ he said, pulling himself to his feet. ‘Lucky I was here, don’t you think? The Chief Constable has asked me to produce a profile of your arsonist. It will take a little while to write up, but I can certainly give you the gist of it now, if you’re interested?’ Clearly a rhetorical question. ‘The psychological pathology of the offender is very clearly one of hatred. The preparation, screwing the door shut, pouring in the petrol, making sure no one can escape — always directed towards families. Did you notice?’ Insch told him that the first group of victims weren’t a family. Just a bunch of squatters living together. Dr Bushel smiled indulgently. ‘Ah, yes, Inspector,’ he said, ‘but they were still a family unit: living together, bringing up a child. I think the offender has a deep-seated rage against his family and is acting upon that when he does these things.’ He nodded modestly to himself, as if someone had just congratulated him for his brilliant deduction. ‘And look at the front door: screwed shut. It’s a sublimated act of penetration. He possibly has some form of erectile dysfunction — I haven’t decided on that one yet — but the very choice of the screws is significant, don’t you think? The connotation is very sexually charged. Hence the evidence of masturbation you found at the first scene.’ He shrugged again. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if you discovered something similar here as well, you just have to know where to look...’ Dr Bushel turned slowly in place, peering over at the allotments. ‘I deduce he would have—’

‘Rhododendron bush,’ said Insch, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the hotel grounds. ‘DS McRae already deducted it. But thanks anyway.’

Flustered, Dr Bushel pulled off his spectacles and gave them a thorough polish. ‘Ah, yes... Well done, very good.’

‘All right,’ said Insch, hands in his pockets, ‘that’s enough effusive praise for one day, we don’t want DS McRae to get a swollen head.’ Not that there was much chance of that happening today, thought Logan as he watched Dr Bushel clamber back into the patrol car, heading back to Force Headquarters. Not with Maitland’s death hanging over him. As the car pulled away, Insch peeled back the hood of his boiler suit, exposing an expanse of sweaty bald head. ‘God, it’s bloody roasting in here.’ He unzipped the suit to the waist and leaned back against the wall. A sudden grin split his face. ‘Think you stole Dr Smartarse’s thunder there...’ He stopped. ‘What? You’ve got a face like my mother-in-law’s arse.’

Logan watched an IB technician carefully place a turnip-sized lump of charcoal in one of the children’s body-bags, where a head would have gone. Joanna or Molly? He closed his eyes, not wanting to see any more. ‘Maitland.’

‘Ah yes, PC Maitland...’