Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

The Offender Management Unit office was cramped, every available surface covered in box files and bits of paper. The bitter-burnt smell of cheap coffee filled the air; an oscillating fan whirred and clicked its way left to right, ruffling the stack of forms nearest to it.

Leggett made humming noises. ‘The ears is all tae buggery, and the nose is three times too big, but other than that, it’s him.’

Logan took the e-fit back, folded it in thirds, and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Thanks.’

‘Fit’s he done?’

‘McInnes? We think he might’ve snatched Trisha Brown off the street in Kincorth.’

‘Trisha Brown?’ Leggett curled his top lip. ‘And Dodgy Darren? Nah, he’s strictly into the younger woman. Did eight years for molesting a three-year-old girl doon the beach. He wouldnae know whit tae do wi’ a fully grown one.’

‘You don’t think he’s-’

‘Oh, dinna get me wrong, he’s a cantankerous dirty auld bugger and I wouldn’t put anything past him, but…’ Leggett shrugged. ‘Never can tell, I suppose. You want to go gie him a wee knock?’

Tempting. But then, what if Finnie came back with Stephen Clayton…? Not that Logan would get a look in at the interrogation — not if Superintendent ‘I’m A Prick’ Green had anything to do with it.

‘Give me a minute.’ Logan wandered over to the corner of the cramped office, looking out of the window while he dialled. Three storeys down, on the opposite side of the road, someone was peeing into the open top of an illegally parked Porsche in full view of Grampian Police Force Headquarters. You had to admire that level of stupidity.

The psychologist picked up on the third ring. ‘DrDave Goulding?’

‘Can you get down to FHQ in about…’ Logan checked his watch. ‘Fifteen, twenty minutes? We’re picking up a suspect in the McGregor case.’

‘Ah…’ There was a pause. ‘And how do you feel about that?’

‘I feel you should get your arse over-’

‘Logan, the thing about being a professional psychologist is that you learn to pick up on the tone of someone’s voice.’

‘Can you make it or not? Finnie needs you to do downstream monitoring and advice.’

‘Are you’re feeling excluded?’

‘Yes or no?’

Silence. ‘I’ve got a client at half ten. I’ll be-’

‘Cancel it.’

‘That’s not exactly-’

‘We’re talking about saving a little girl and her mum here, Dave.’

This time the silence stretched on and on and… ‘On one condition: you and I sit down for half an hour to talk. We do that, or you wait till I’m finished with Mrs Reid.’

Down on the street below, a man in a dark-blue suit stopped in the middle of the road to stare at the Porsche piddler. He dropped the collection of green Marks amp; Spencer bags he’d been carrying and ran at the guy who was using his pride-and-joy as a urinal.

‘That’s blackmail.’

‘Sauce for the goose. Take it or leave it.’

The piddler lurched back and sideways, his legs looking as if they weren’t really under control. And then the Porsche’s owner cracked a fist into his face. The pair of them tumbled to the pavement, arms and rebellious legs flailing.

‘Just make sure you tell the front desk you’re here to interview Stephen Clayton. If I’m not about you can start working up some questions.’

‘Half an hour, Logan. That’s the deal.’

A pair of uniform charged across the road, peaked caps held down with one hand. Logan watched them haul the piddler and the piddlee apart.

Logan glanced over at DC Leggett. He was holding up a set of car keys.

‘I’ll be back soon as I can. Just got to take care of something first.’

‘…want to thank all your listeners for their generous donations. Really, on behalf of Alison and Jenny: you guys are terrifi c. With your help, we’re going to get them back.’

The beige council van grumbled to a halt outside a shabby bungalow in Blackburn.

‘I’m here with Gordon Maguire of Blue-Fish-Two-Fish. You’re listening to Original FM, and here’s Alison and Jenny McGregor with Wind Beneath My Wings …’

The van’s engine gave one last diesel rattle, and there was silence.

DC Leggett pulled the keys out of the ignition. ‘Sure your witness wasn’t taking the piss?’

‘Nope.’ Logan climbed out into the warm morning.

The bungalow’s grey-harled walls were streaked with green and brown; the front garden a jungle of knee-high grass and bright-yellow dandelions, bordered by misshapen bushes. A red helicopter droned by overhead, taking a detour around Kirkhill Forest on the way out to the rigs.

Logan marched up the path, raised his finger to the doorbell, then stopped. There was an old blue Citroen parked on the driveway beside the house, in front of a single garage with a heavy wooden door.

Leggett sniffed. ‘Fits up?’

‘Edward Buchan — the guy who sat on his arse and watched Trisha Brown getting beaten up and abducted — said they were driving a blue saloon.’

The doorbell made a dull buzzing noise deep inside the house.

‘I’m still no’ seeing Dodgy Darren grabbing a fully grown woman.’ The constable scuffed his shoe through a tuft of green, whipping the head off a daisy, then sighed. ‘His poor auld dad would have a fit if he knew what a state the place wis in noo.’

Logan tried the doorbell again.

‘Nice couple, his mum and dad — could nivver figure out fit they did to end up wi a child molester fir a son.’

This time he kept his finger on the button, letting the buzz drone on and on.

‘Wis his mum who dobbed him in the first time. Found a bunch of filthy photos under his mattress when he was sixteen. Wee girls. No’ pretty.’

The door yanked open and there he was: Darren McInnes, fists and jaw clenched, lips flecked with spittle, lank yellow-grey hair flying about his head. ‘Bugger off out of it!’ His breath stank like an ashtray.

He must have had the television and radio turned up full volume, because the noise was almost deafening, a TV advert for toothpaste fighting against Jenny and Alison’s version of Wind Beneath My Wings .

Strange — they hadn’t heard it through the closed door… Logan held up his warrant card. ‘Remember me, Mr McInnes?’

McInnes took a step back, eyes narrowed, goatee beard jutting out. ‘I told you: I’ve never even met Alison and Jenny McGregor.’

‘That’s not why we’re here.’

DC Leggett waved. ‘Fit like the day, Darren: keepin’ well?’

‘What do you want?’

The constable stepped over the threshold into the hallway, forcing McInnes to back up again. ‘You’ll no’ mind if we come in for a fly cup, eh? Thirsty work keeping tabs on registered sex offenders.’

‘On the scrounge, are you? Well you can bugger off. I’m not running a soup kitchen.’

Leggett backed him up another couple of paces, making enough room for Logan to step inside and close the front door. The hallway was crowded with stacks of dusty cardboard boxes, piled up between the doors — high enough to brush the ceiling.

‘Now, now, Darren, you’re no’ refusing to cooperate with a supervising authority, are you?’

‘You’ve got no business barging in here. This is my home. I’ve got rights.’

‘Aye.’ Another couple of steps and they were in the kitchen. A portable radio sat on top of a stained fridge, blaring out the instrumental bit of the song. Leggett flipped the switch, killing the racket. Now it was just the television, shouting to itself in the lounge. ‘And right now you have the right to stick the kettle on and produce a packet of chocolate biscuits.’ He leant back against the working surface as McInnes stuck a dirty kettle under the cold tap, then slammed the thing down on the worktop and plugged it in. ‘Not supposed to be having a visit till next week…’