Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

With much harrumphing and muttering the showroom manager explained that unfortunately Mr Ritchie was regrettably unable to collect his vehicle on the Monday due to an inopportune incident with a seagull, requiring the bonnet to be resprayed. Logan cursed under his breath — that meant Ritchie wasn’t the one who — ‘However,’ Robinson smiled with pride, ‘ we were able to drop the vehicle off at Mr Ritchie’s home on Tuesday, along with a complimentary bottle of Veuve Clicquot to compensate him for the delay.’ Holly McEwan didn’t go missing until after eleven on Tuesday night — Ritchie would have had plenty of time to take delivery of the car, pick her up, transport her out to the Tyrebagger Woods and batter her to death. Which meant Ritchie was back in the shit again.

‘We’ll need to take a statement from whoever dropped off the car.’

The manager peered out through the showroom’s glass wall, pointing at a bland man in a grey suit talking to an overweight woman in a bright yellow cardigan. ‘I’m afraid he’s with a customer at the moment. But while you wait — cappuccino? Biscotti?’

They had their coffee and biscuits by the front door, looking out at the forecourt as the first wisps of rain started to fall, speckling all the expensive metal parked outside. The man in the grey suit escorted his becardiganed customer inside to the sales desk, fawned over her a little, complimented her on her excellent taste as she put down a staggeringly large deposit on a new BMW, and escorted her back to her own car with one of the company umbrellas. Rennie cornered him as soon as he returned. Yes he’d delivered Mr Ritchie’s car — drove it round there on the Tuesday after work. Apparently some seagull had done a monster crap on the bonnet, then danced about on it for a while. Made a hell of a mess of the paintwork. Logan let the constable take the statement while he went back to worrying about DI Steel. Maybe she was doing it to punish him, holding off on taking her revenge, letting him stew... To be honest that didn’t sound much like Steel; a swift knee in the bollocks was more her style.

The glass doors opened and he looked up to see a familiar figure striding into the showroom, chatting amiably to a frumpy-looking woman. Councillor Marshall’s face fell when he saw Logan standing by the window. The saleswoman cut through the ranks of expensive cars like a shark, smiling and calling out how nice it was to see the Councillor again, and wasn’t Mrs Marshall looking lovely today? Which was a blatant lie — she was in her mid fifties with a figure that wouldn’t quit... spreading. Her voice was like a dentist’s drill as she told the sales-shark that they were looking to replace their people carrier after it had had a small accident, weren’t they, Andrew? God only knew what her original hair colour had been when she was younger, but now it was fire-engine orange and permed to within an inch of its life. Logan could see why the councillor was so keen to trade up for a newer model. He was loath to admit it, but maybe Steel was right, maybe it wasn’t as simple as ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’. Maybe this was one of those times when the unique verdict allowable under Scottish law applied — ‘not proven’.

‘Well?’ asked Steel when they got back to FHQ. She was sitting behind her paper-strewn desk, feet up on a pile of interview transcripts, her suit jacket thrown over the back of the chair so everyone could see she hadn’t bothered to iron her blouse.

‘Car was delivered on the Tuesday after the showroom shut at six, so he would have had it by half six, quarter to seven at the latest.’

‘Excellent. You get a statement?’

‘Yup.’

‘Good, you can type it up while Rennie gets the coffees in.’

Rennie pouted. ‘Again? How come I always have to get—’

‘Chain of command, Constable.’ She winked at him. ‘And you always manage to scrounge up chocolate biscuits.’ Rennie was obviously about to protest some more, so Steel told him to get a bloody move on, shouting, ‘And wash the mugs this time!’ after him as he muttered, mumbled and grumbled his way down the corridor. When he was gone she opened the window and told Logan to close the door while she had a fag. The smoke drifted out into the grey Sunday morning — disappearing against the charcoal skies. ‘So,’ said the inspector, picking a loose hair of tobacco from her lip, ‘you got something to say to me?’

Here it comes. He took a deep breath and apologized for landing her in it with DI Insch. The inspector listened to him without saying a word, smoking silently like a smouldering volcano. ‘Actually,’ she said when he’d finished, ‘I was talking about Complaints and Discipline. I put a good word in for you and they let you off without so much as a spanking. I didn’t know about the DI Insch thing.’

Logan tried not to wince. Why couldn’t he have kept his bloody mouth shut? ‘I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I—’

‘Doesn’t really matter what you meant to do, does it, Sergeant? It’s what you actually did that counts. Even a moron like you should know that.’

Logan bristled. ‘At least I didn’t tell him about Councillor Marshall!’

‘Well that’s really big of you—’

‘You’re damn right it is! What would Professional Standards do if they found out you’ve been blackmailing him?’

Steel froze, her eyes cold and hard. ‘I beg your pardon?’

It was too late to back out now: ‘Keeping his “little indiscretions” secret must’ve cost him a fortune.’

She stared at him, the muscles in her jaw clenching and unclenching. ‘I’ve no’ taken a bloody penny off the man. You want to know what my “price” is? Do you? He’s no’ allowed to fuck us over in the papers, or give out fucking quotes about how Grampian Police are all a shower of shite! Nothing else.’

Oh God, that explained Marshall’s sudden change of heart. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Steel got there first. ‘Now I think I’d like you to get the fuck out of my sight, before I do something you’re going to regret.’

DI Insch was sitting in his usual spot when Logan slunk into the arson incident room. A new pin board had been set up over by the windows, this one covered with photos of Karl Pearson. One of him smiling at a football match, and a montage of what was left of him in a sixth-floor flat in Seaton. ‘Er, sir,’ said Logan, trying not to look at the graphic, Technicolor close-ups of Karl’s stapled testicles, ‘can I speak to you about DI Steel?’ Insch’s face darkened, but Logan charged on. ‘I was wondering what you did yesterday... About the interview suspects being released?’

‘None of your damned business, that’s what I did about it.’ He dug out a crumpled packet of Fizzy Fish and started throwing the yellow shapes into his mouth, one after another, chewing angrily. ‘She’s caught her serial killer and can do no wrong in the eyes of our beloved bloody Detective Chief Superintendent.’

‘Oh.’ What a surprise, Steel had obviously taken all the credit for tracking down Neil Ritchie. ‘So are you going to bring them in? Chib and his friend?’

‘On what grounds? That they’re from Edinburgh and look a bit dodgy? Think the PF’ll give me a warrant with no bloody evidence?’ He scowled and finished off the packet, crushing it in one huge fist before throwing it at the nearest wastepaper basket. ‘I’ve already had Dr “I’m-So-Sodding-Clever” Bushel in here twice this morning wanting to do up a profile on whoever killed Karl. Little attention-seeking, glory-hunting, four-eyed...’ He snarled. ‘Apparently the Chief Constable is delighted someone so knowledgeable and special is “assisting” poor thick old DI Insch. How? How does writing rubbish about the fires being a sexual thing help us catch the bastard doing it? What am I supposed to do with that? Put an ad in the personal columns? “Looking for white, male GSOH, mid twenties — into setting fire to people’s houses, with them inside, and masturbating while they burn — for long-term commitment at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Genuine psychos only; no time wasters.” Can really see that working.’ Scowl. ‘Oh, and before I forget: we got the DNA results back on your wankerchiefs — both the same. I’ve got them running a search through the database, see if we can find some sort of match, but there’s a dirty big backlog because of that serial rape case in Dundee.’