Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

‘Didn’t see you stuck out in the sodding sleet all morning, did I?’

‘Don’t be petulant. Here…’ She dug into her handbag and came out with a packet of Lockets. ‘And for goodness sake, try-’

The door bashed open and Biohazard Bob skittered to a halt on the carpet tiles. He poked a finger in Logan’s direction. ‘You! Run! Run now!’

‘What are you-’

Bob grabbed Logan by the shoulders and hauled him out of the chair, snatched the jacket off the rack by the door and thrust it into his hands. ‘Trust me. Get your arse in gear and find somewhere else to be. Now !’

Logan shuffled sideways. ‘Have you been at the cauliflower cheese again?’

‘Go!’

Frown. Logan pulled on his jacket. ‘OK, OK. But this better not be a wind up or…’

He drifted to a halt as someone bellowed, ‘Where the sodding hell is he?’

DI Steel.

Logan stared at Bob. ‘But she’s supposed to be-’

Bob shoved him towards the door. ‘Will you take a bloody telling?’

He staggered out into the CID room, took one look at the door leading back to the main part of FHQ — where all the DIs had their offices, and where the shouting was coming from — and legged it in the opposite direction instead, barrelling through into the bare concrete stairwell.

From here he could see through the window into the CHIS handlers’ room, segregated from everyone else by a keypad door and double glazing. They were all getting out of their seats, moving towards the tiny side window that looked out on the main CID area. Staring at something.

Logan took the stairs two at a time, no idea what he’d done wrong.

Whatever it was, he wanted to be as far away from DI Steel as possible before he found out.

‘You’re late.’ Isobel’s eyes narrowed above her white elasticated mask.

Logan adjusted his safety goggles. ‘Blame Finnie — I had to go babysit a huge Geordie DSI and his pet pervert. Found anything yet?’

The makeshift mortuary was a huge drive-in fridge, part of an old cash-and-carry on an industrial estate in the Bridge of Don, commandeered to act as Isobel’s secondary crime scene. It was the only place big enough for the forklift truck they’d needed to move the concrete slab containing Steve Polmont’s remains.

All the fridge’s usual contents — the boxes of fruits, vegetables, fresh meat, and milk — had been stacked against the walls, clearing a space in the centre about the size of Logan’s flat.

The IB had constructed a makeshift sterile room from clear plastic sheeting, the pieces held together with strips of duct tape. A portable X-ray machine was over by the back wall, a frame beside it displaying ghostly snapshots of a skeleton curled on its side. Four heavy-duty arc lights, one in each corner, illuminated the interior and its collection of white suited technicians like something out of the X-Files. An Aberdonian alien autopsy.

Polmont’s slab of concrete rested on a platform wrapped in blue plastic, keeping the remains at table-top height. The electrician’s right hand and left leg sticking up out of the pitted grey surface.

The room’s ancient refrigeration units hummed, making the air crackle with cold.

One of the white oversuits waved at him. ‘Sergeant McRae! Dr Frampton, we met at the scene?’

Her assistant waved too, balancing a collection of evidence bags in the crook of his arms. They were filled with something lumpy and brown, giving them a colostomy look. ‘Wassup?’

Dr Frampton patted one of the bags. ‘We’ve just finished retrieving the soil from the block, should get something back to you mid-week. Let you know its secrets.’

Logan looked at Isobel, then back again. ‘OK…Thanks.’

The soil scientist gave him a little bow, then turned and slipped out of the enclosure, Igor the Dude hot on her heels.

Isobel held up a hand. ‘Mr Haffenden?’

Someone dressed head-to-toe in SOC white shuffled over, a black toolbox held tight to his chest. He fiddled with the elastic hood encircling his masked face. Coughed. Cleared his throat. ‘Actually, my friends call me Ian so-’

‘Don’t be shy, Mr Haffenden.’

With all the soil and mud gone, more of the body was on show. About a quarter of Steve Polmont stuck out of the concrete, the left leg from the knee down, the right arm from the elbow, a hip, a bit of shoulder, and the side of his face. Lividity had stained the flesh dark purple — except where Polmont’s skin had been pressed against Dr Frampton’s precious soil. There it was a pale waxy-yellow, patterned by the dirt and rocks.

Haffenden shifted his feet.

Isobel placed her hand on his shoulder and guided him towards the remains. ‘As soon as you’re ready.’

The little man looked up at her. ‘It’s just… normally archaeology doesn’t have quite so much…’ Back to the body again. ‘You see, usually it’s just fossils and bones.’

She tilted her head to one side, staring at him.

Logan stepped forward. ‘Just pretend it’s one of those peat bog people. The ones that are all preserved by the tannin and whatever?’

‘Yes…right. Peat bog.’ Haffenden placed his toolbox on the edge of the concrete slab and pulled out a set of tiny chisels. ‘A very hard peat bog…’

The plastic enclosure rippled with white light: the IB photographer’s flash recording everything as the nervous archaeologist chipped at the concrete around the body. Loosening it off.

He’d partitioned the slab into a grid of three-inch squares, piling the waste concrete from each section into separate evidence bags, the whole exercise meticulously documented on video and digital cameras.

After half an hour Haffenden seemed a lot more confident, following the lines of the shoulders and head, chipping around the ends of the hair. The more he exposed, the worse the smell got.

The archaeologist put his chisels down. ‘I’ve got the head free.’

Logan followed Isobel over to the slab.

Polmont’s head lay back at an awkward angle, the whole thing oddly shaped — slightly flattened. The side that had been embedded in concrete was puckered and blackened, flecks of grey still stuck to the cracked skin, a trickle of yellow-green liquid seeping from his nose.

‘Ack…’ Logan cupped a hand over his facemask, the fabric damp with absorbed condensation. ‘Thought he was supposed to be preserved by the cold.’

Isobel leaned forward and gently cupped Polmont’s distorted cheek, turning the head until it was staring straight at them. The nose had been broken, one ear torn, the open mouth a solid grey mass — not excavated yet — but it was definitely Steve Polmont.

She felt her way around the back of the head. ‘Some concretes are exothermic — they generate heat as they set. A mass the size and thickness of the foundations probably stayed warm for days. He’s basically been cooked on one side and deep-chilled on the other…His head’s been deformed by the weight of the concrete. I won’t know if the damage to the skull was post or ante mortem until I open him up.’

Isobel ran a gloved finger down the body’s twisted neck. Just above the clavicle there was a circle of black puncture wounds. ‘Bite mark.’

Isobel frowned at the exposed arm, the dark brown discolouration on the sleeve. Then unbuttoned the cuff and rolled the fabric back to expose another bite.

‘Of course, I’ve had to lose some of the hair.’ The archaeologist pointed at the strands still embedded in the wall of the block. ‘And the outer clothing’s going to be a challenge.’ He shrugged at Logan. ‘The concrete’s seeped through the weave of the material, then set solid. Should make the actual body easier to remove though, like getting a moth out of a cocoon.’