Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

Logan could feel the heat rushing up his cheeks. ‘It was self defence. He-’

‘Bastard should be taken out and shot.’ The paramedic scowled through the windscreen. ‘She’ll be lucky if they can save her legs, forget walking again. Had to give her three times as much morphine to get her settled.’

Logan didn’t tell him that probably had as much to do with Trisha’s tolerance for opiates as the amount of pain she was in.

The Danse macabre sounded in Logan’s pocket as the ambulance pulled away, lights flashing.

‘McRae?’

DI Steel’s gravelly voice hissed in his ear: ‘Where the sodding hell are you?’

‘We found Trisha Brown.’

A pause. ‘Alive?’

‘Only just.’

‘Hold on…’ There was an echoey hiss — probably Steel holding a hand over the mouthpiece of her phone — then the muffled sound of people talking.

Logan watched a uniformed PC help DC Leggett limp out of McInnes’s house. There was a patch of gauze on Leggett’s forehead, held in place with bright-white sticking tape. For some unfathomable reason, his symptoms seemed to get a lot worse as soon as the pretty constable turned up.

‘You still there?’

‘The suspect’s coughed for abduction, rape, and breaking pretty much every bone in her arm and legs. Thinks the cancer’s going to get him before the courts do.’

Logan could hear someone talking to her in the background.

‘Couldn’t agree more, Guv.’ Then she was back. ‘Get yourself over here, we’ve got the president of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society in an interview room, and your mate the Liverpudlian nutwrangler’s being a dick. Says he’s no’ doing bugger all till he’s talked to you.’

Logan stared up at the crystal blue sky and swore. ‘Tell Goulding I’ll be right there.’

Logan shifted in his creaking plastic chair. The Observation Suite was gloomy, the only light coming from the TV screen: interview room number two; Superintendent Green and DI Steel sitting across the table from Stephen Clayton.

The student flicked his head to the side, getting the long dark hair out of his eyes. ‘One more time, for the hard of thinking: I didn’t do anything to Alison and Jenny McGregor. I asked Alison out, she said no. End of story.’

Goulding rested the fingertips of his left hand against the screen, pinning Clayton to the cathode ray tube. ‘Look at the body language — arms open, legs spread, leaning back in his seat, keeping eye contact. “I’m confident and comfortable. You do not threaten me.”’

‘Yes, well…’ Logan shifted again, trying to stop his leg from going to sleep. ‘He’s a psychology student, isn’t he? Don’t they teach you lot how to do this kind of thing?’

‘What,’ Goulding threw a glance in Logan’s direction, ‘you mean: how to lie?’

Logan crossed his arms, then unfolded them again. If Clayton could do it, so could he. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be prompting them with questions?’

‘How long have we known each other, Logan?’

‘I mean, that was the whole point of getting you in here, wasn’t it?’

‘Don’t you think you can trust me?’

‘She rejected you, didn’t she?’ On the little screen, Superintendent Green tapped his knuckles against the tabletop. ‘You loved her, and she shot you down in fl ames.’

‘I didn’t love her. I thought she’d be a decent shag. You know what these single mothers are like: gagging for it.’

Steel nodded. ‘He’s got a point.’

‘Do you think I’ll judge you, or think less of you if you admit you’re having problems?’

‘I’m not having problems!’

‘She shot you down and it hurt, didn’t it? You wanted revenge.’ Clayton leant forward. ‘You don’t do a lot of interviewing, do you?’

‘Logan, if you don’t talk about it, how’s it ever going to get better?’

‘I mean, you haven’t even tried to establish a rapport with me,

just straight in with the cod psychology. Now your colleague here,’ he pointed at Steel, ‘she’s doing much better.’

‘We talked about it — we spent half an hour talking about it. Now will you just do your bloody job!’

Goulding smiled. ‘That’s what I’m trying to do.’ He picked up the little microphone and pressed the red ‘TALK’ button. ‘Ask him about his parents — how does he think they’ll react when they find out he’s been arrested?’

Steel had a wee scratch below the table. ‘What’s your mum and dad going to think about you being dragged in here? Steve?’

Green scowled at her. Probably thought he should be the one asking the questions.

Clayton shrugged. ‘You see, Superintendent, you’re either an alpha male, or you’re not. The inspector here: she is, but you…’ He made a side-to-side see-saw motion with one hand.

‘If it was me: if someone had set fire to my flat while I was sleeping, if my girlfriend had ended up in a coma, I’d want to kill someone.’

Logan stared at Goulding. ‘Leave it.’

‘My mother and father were loving and supportive. They’re proud of everything I’ve achieved.’

‘If I’d stood there and watched her fall-’

‘Fine, you really want to know? I thought Shuggie Webster did it, OK? So I tracked him down and I beat the crap out of him.’ Logan turned away. ‘Could’ve killed him…’

‘That’s a perfectly natural feeling. We all-’

‘I don’t mean figuratively: I had the option. I could have killed him, got rid of the body, no one would have known.’

‘Ah… Now that’s more like it.’ Goulding picked up the microphone. ‘If his parents are so wonderful, why has been rebelling against them all his life?’

On the little screen, Superintendent Green blurted out the question, desperate to get there before Steel.

‘So, for a brief moment you held the power of life and death.’ The psychologist scribbled something in his notepad.

‘And you chose to be merciful.’ He tilted his head to the side. ‘How did that make you feel?’

Logan looked away. ‘Sick.’

‘Really? Interesting… Interesting…’

On the little screen, Clayton ran a hand through his long brown hair. ‘Tell me, Inspector, when did you discover you were a lesbian? Was it sudden, a gradual process, or have you always known?’

Goulding smiled. ‘You know, I’m beginning to think your friend Mr Clayton might be a bit too much of a challenge for the inspector and DSI Green. He’s playing with them, like he’s got all the time in the world. He’s in no rush to give us the McGregors.’

Steel shook her head. ‘Nice try, sunshine, but you’re no’ even in the same league as Hannibal Lecter. Now unless you’re looking for a size-nine hand-stitched leather enema, tell us what you did with Alison and Jenny?’’

‘How you doing kiddo?’ SYLVESTER lifts Jenny’s chin till her eyes are level with the narrow slits where his eyes should be.

She looks away. ‘Want my mummy.’

‘Yeah, well…’ He pats her on the head, like she’s a doggie. ‘Soon be over; then you can go home. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’

The room’s hot. Sunlight makes streaks across the bare floorboards, stopping at the foot of the bed. Stopping short of her sore feet. Jenny bites her lip as he strokes her hair with his rubbery fingers.

‘Will you leave that bloody kid alone?’ TOM’s sitting on the windowsill, reading a newspaper with a photo of Mummy on the front. ‘Look like a paedophile: pawing at her the whole time.’