Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

‘Suzanne — it’s not what it looks like, I swear! I didn’t do anything!’

‘I see.’ The inspector smiled. ‘And tell me, Mr Ritchie, where’s that nice new car of yours?’

‘What? It’s in the garage... I didn’t do anything!’

‘Well, we’ll let the forensic team decide that, eh? Now, how about you come down to the station voluntarily, and we can sort this whole thing out? How does that sound?’

His eyes darted left and right, but Logan was blocking the doorway and there were policemen in the back garden. ‘I... I want to speak to my lawyer first.’

Steel tutted and shook her head sadly. ‘Sorry, that’s not the way it works. You can come with us voluntarily, or in cuffs, but either way, you’re coming with us.’

Back at the station, Mr Ritchie was stuck in interview room number five, with a nice cup of decaffeinated brown sludge and a glowering PC. The IB team had found bleached-blonde hair on the passenger seat of Ritchie’s new car that looked a lot like the samples they’d taken from Holly McEwan’s flat. Down in the incident room, DI Steel was busy fidgeting with her bra strap while Logan pinned up everything they could find on Neil Ritchie: thirty-four; married — no children; working as a hydrocarbon accountant for one of the major oil companies. The only blemishes on his police record were two warnings for kerb crawling, both more than four years old. Other than that he was Mr Squeaky Clean. He’d even organized a ‘teddy bear scramble’ in aid of the Archie Foundation — a local charity that raised money for sick children. So the IB were going through his home computer, looking for internet kiddie porn.

‘Right,’ said the inspector when Logan was done. ‘Let’s go see what he has to say for himself. You can play good cop if you like?’

‘What? No, I can’t.’

‘You want to be nasty? No offence, but you’re not exactly—’

‘No, I mean I can’t do the interview.’ This was the bit Logan had been dreading. It was already twenty past six — an interview would take hours and Jackie had been quite explicit about what would happen if he wasn’t back at the flat by seven.

‘You’re kidding me! We’ve got the bastard by the balls, and you don’t want to be in at the kill?’

‘I do. I do want to. But I can’t. I have to get home.’

‘Ahh.’ Steel nodded sagely. ‘You’re on a promise and you think getting your leg over is more important. I understand. Fine...’ She crossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air. ‘I’ll take DC Rennie in with me. Be good experience for him, breaking a case like this. You go get laid.’

‘It’s not like that, I—’

‘By the way, did you speak to Complaints and Discipline this morning?’

‘What?’ Logan frowned, thrown by the sudden change of tack. Complaints and Discipline was what Professional Standards used to be called, before they’d changed their name to appear more cuddly and approachable. ‘Er... yes. I did.’

‘Going to let you off with a caution, are they?’

‘Well, it was kinda weird, they were talking like it might even get thrown out. No charges.’

All expression fell from the inspector’s face. ‘Aye, well don’t say I never do anything nice for you.’ She turned on her heel and stomped off. Logan almost made it as far as the front door before an out-of-breath PC Steve grabbed him, sounding like he’d just sprinted all the way from Dundee.

‘Sorry, sir...’ Puff, pant. ‘But DI Insch wants to see you, right away!’

Logan checked his watch: he still had thirty-five minutes, enough time to go home via a florist and pick up something for Jackie, so she’d know he appreciated the armistice. A few more minutes here probably wouldn’t hurt.

Up in the main incident room DI Insch had parked himself on a desk at the epicentre of organized chaos, one large buttock resting on the top, the other hanging over the edge as he listened to a report from the bearded detective sergeant he’d tormented earlier. DS Beattie, he of the porn-star wife. Insch glanced up from the report to stuff another cola bottle into his mouth, saw Logan walking in with PC Steve and told Beattie to go do something else for ten minutes. ‘Sergeant,’ he said, fixing Logan with a cool gaze. ‘Join me in my office.’

Detective Inspector Insch’s office was bigger than Steel’s: enough space to fit a large, tidy desk, a computer, three filing cabinets, a huge weeping fig, and a couple of comfy chairs. But Logan wasn’t offered a seat — as soon as he was inside the door was slammed shut and Insch demanded to know what the blue fucking hell Logan thought he was playing at?

‘Sir?’ He took a step back, bumping into a wastepaper basket overflowing with sweetie wrappers, sending an empty packet of Gummi Bears fluttering to the dirty carpet tiles.

‘You had those bastards in here last night and you DIDN’T TELL ME!’

Logan held up his hands. ‘Who? Who did...’ and then it dawned on him. ‘What, Chib Sutherland and his mate?’

Insch was getting redder and redder. ‘You bloody well knew I wanted to speak to them, but did you call me and let me know you had them in custody? No: I had to hear it when I came in this afternoon. After they’d been released on bail!’

‘They got bail?’ Bloody typical, you could murder your granny with a tattie peeler these days and still not get remanded in custody.

‘Of course they got bail!’ The inspector’s face had gone past red, heading into a dangerous shade of purple, spittle flying from his lips as he yelled. ‘You tried to do them for a piddling little drugs charge! I wanted them for suspected murder. MURDER! Understand? Not just a couple of condoms of heroin!’

‘It was crack cocaine...’ He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.

Insch jabbed a sausage-like finger into Logan’s chest. ‘I don’t care if they were filled with C-Four explosive and rammed up the Duke of Edinburgh’s backside: I wanted to speak to them!’ He took a deep breath then settled back onto his desk, crossing his huge arms and scowling. ‘Come on then, let’s hear it: your brilliant excuse.’

‘DI Steel told me not to.’ He might feel shitty for landing the inspector in it, but it was hardly his fault. He’d tried to get her to involve Insch at the outset. ‘I told her you should be informed about the operation and she refused.’

Insch’s eyes narrowed, until they were little angry black pearls, glittering dangerously in his flushed, piggy face. ‘Is that so...’ He stood, flexing his shoulders, making his shirt bulge alarmingly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Sergeant, I have some business to attend to.’

The sky was low and grey above the opulent granite buildings of Rubislaw Den as Colin Miller heaved himself out of the car, dragged the laptop from behind the driver’s seat and plipped on the alarm. It had been yet another shitty day. Not so long ago he’d been a proper journalist. Used to win awards. And now look at him; reduced to writing crappy human interest stories, and all because of that lousy puff piece on Malk the Knife’s bloody housing development. Bad enough Malkie sends his psychopaths up to lean on him to produce the thing in the first place, but now the paper didn’t trust him to write about anything more challenging than bloody knitting fairs and sheep dogs. And the one good story he had, the one that would save him from all this shite, was the one story he couldn’t publish.

Colin stood up straight and glowered at the looming clouds. He should quit: write a book. Something gory with lots of death, blood and sex in it. The paper could stick their human-bastard-interest stories. He’d be out there drinking champagne and eating fucking caviar! He didn’t need the P&J, it needed him...