Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

There was something nasty sitting on Logan’s desk when he turned up for work on Wednesday morning. The search team had done as he’d asked, bagging and tagging each and every single used condom they could find in Shore Lane. And there were a hell of a lot of them; little slimy latex tubes oozing their contents out into individual evidence bags, all piled up in his in-tray. Grimacing, Logan scooped them all into a cardboard box, trying not to think about what was making the little bags so cold and clammy.

DI Steel didn’t turn up for the morning briefing, so the Screw-Up Squad just sat around their tables, drinking coffee and talking. Today’s topic was ‘ Harry Potter : seminal moment in world cinema, or a load of old wank? Discuss.’ Logan left them to it, taking his box of used condoms down to the morgue where they could be frozen for future analysis. Procurators Fiscal: go figure.

He pushed through the large double doors, onto the sparkling clean tiled floor of the cutting room. There was no sign of yesterday’s rancid-barbecue reek. Instead everything smelled of formalin and pine disinfectant. Standing with her back to the doors was a familiar figure, prodding away at something in a bucket on the dissecting table. Logan’s heart sank even further.

‘Morning,’ he said and she turned to look at him.

Dr Isobel MacAlister, the Ice Queen, Chief Pathologist, ex-girlfriend, fellow victim. Looking a lot better than she had yesterday morning: her neatly bobbed hair held prisoner beneath a green surgical cap, the perfect bow of her lips hidden behind a green surgical mask. She blushed. As usual she was dressed like she’d just stepped off a catwalk: cream linen suit, silk blouse and tan leather boots, with an open white lab coat over the top. Golden jewellery trapped beneath the latex gloves. Obviously not getting ready to hack some poor sod up. ‘Good morning,’ awkward pause. ‘How are you?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Same old. You feeling any better?’

For a split second she looked puzzled, and then it clicked. ‘Oh, this morning...’ It was her turn to shrug. ‘Just a stomach bug.’

‘What, two days on the trot?’ he asked. ‘No pun intended.’

That almost got a smile. ‘Did you want something in particular, or are you just down here for a clip round the ear?’

‘Nope, official business...’ Logan turned and snuck a peek into Isobel’s bucket: a human brain, floating upside down in formalin, the preservative going slightly milky around the grey, whorled surface. Trying not to shudder, he popped his cardboard box up on the table next to the bucket. ‘Got a present for you.’

Isobel raised an eyebrow and dug out one of the little plastic evidence bags, holding it up to the light so she could see the slimy contents more clearly. A smile made her eyes sparkle. ‘How sweet,’ she said, ‘used contraceptives. And they say romance is dead...’ She rummaged about in the box. ‘There’s got to be a couple of hundred of them in here. You’ll go blind.’

It was Logan’s turn to blush. ‘They’re not mine. It’s the Rosie Williams case. These are all the condoms we could find in Shore Lane. They’re to be stored for DNA analysis.’

Isobel shook her head in disbelief. ‘Are you out of your mind? Do you know how long it’ll take to analyse the DNA from two hundred used condoms? It’ll cost a fortune!’

Logan held up his hands. ‘Don’t look at me; it’s that new deputy fiscal.’

Isobel sighed and snatched the box off the cutting table, muttering under her breath. She poured the lot into a large evidence bag, made Logan sign over the chain of evidence, and hurled the condoms into one of the specimen freezers. There wasn’t anything to say after that.

DI Steel rolled in at a quarter to eight, looking as if she’d slept in an ashtray. She yawned her way through a hastily reconvened morning briefing, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, before sending them all on their way with the usual benediction about not being at home to Mr Fuck-Up. Everyone except Logan. She had a job for him: they were off to look for Jamie McKinnon.

Outside Force HQ, the sun was shining happily down on Aberdeen from a clear blue sky. The inspector led the way out through the front doors and down onto Queen Street, not bothering to sign out one of the CID pool cars. Instead they wandered up Union Street, enjoying the late summer warmth. When the weather was miserable so was Aberdeen: grey buildings, grey skies, grey streets and grey people, but when the sun appeared everything changed. The Granite City sparkled and its inhabitants abandoned their anoraks, parkas and duffel coats in favour of jeans, T-shirts, and short summery dresses. But when a perky brunette tottered past in a tiny floral skirt and even tinier blouse, her bare stomach tanned a delicate shade of gold, DI Steel didn’t even look.

On the other side of the road a blonde, almost wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and a crop top, stopped to wave down a taxi, exposing more flesh in one go than the city had seen all year. Still no comment from the inspector. ‘You OK?’ asked Logan.

Steel shrugged. ‘Rough night. And before you ask: none of your business.’

Fine, thought Logan, sod you then.

Halfway up Union Street the wall of buildings was broken by Union Terrace Gardens, exposing a vista of vivid green all the way across to the glittering façade of His Majesty’s Theatre. The gardens were a rectangle of precipice-sided parkland, sinking way below street level. Steep grassy banks on two sides with huge beech trees clinging on precariously. A small bandstand sat at the bottom, sparkling with a fresh coat of paint. And on the far side the floral clock offered its multicoloured blooms to the cloudless sky and warm August sun. Picture-postcard time.

At the corner of Union Terrace a large white-marble statue of King Edward VII held court; his shoulders regally speckled with pigeon droppings. There was a row of benches in a semi-circle behind the king, there so his closest advisors could drink strong cider and lager, straight from the tin, at ten past nine on a Wednesday morning.

They were a fairly mixed bunch: one or two genuine tramps in the regulation filthy suit-trousers, stained vests and crusted sores, others in jeans and tatty leathers, defying the blazing sunshine. Steel cast her eye across the assembled early morning drinkers and pointed at a young woman with pierced ears, nose and lips, heavy black-and-white make-up and lank, pink hair. She was swigging from a tin of Red Stripe.

‘Morning, Suzie.’ The inspector flicked the last half-inch of her cigarette over the railing. ‘How’s your wee brother keeping these days?’

On closer inspection the girl wasn’t as young as Logan had first thought. Thirty-five if she was a day. That thick layer of white make-up was hiding a multitude of sins, and spots as well. Her face had a rough texture to it, the black-lipped mouth lined like a chicken’s bum. When she spoke her accent was broad Aberdonian. ‘Havenae seen the manky sod fer weeks.’

‘No?’ Steel flopped down on the bench next to her, smiling. She draped her arm across the back of the bench so it encircled the woman’s shoulders.

Suzie shifted uncomfortably. ‘You tryin’ tae poof me up?’ she asked.

‘You should be so bloody lucky. No: I want your wee brother. Where is he?’

‘How the fuck should I know?’ Suzie took a long swig at her lager. ‘Been shaggin’ that old whore of his.’

‘Funny you should mention that, Suzie, you see, that “old whore” turned up yesterday morning battered to death. And Jamie’s no’ exactly shy with his fists, is he?’

The girl stiffened. ‘Jamie didnae kill nobody.’ What the hell was Steel playing at? Logan could see the shutters coming down: they weren’t going to get anything out of her now! Steel should have played it cool, pretended it was nothing important, not gone charging in with both bloody feet! No wonder she was in charge of the Screw-Up Squad.