Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

‘The poor sod had no idea his wee boy was making porn films. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

‘You want Rickards to stay here with them?’

‘What?’ She frowned, dragged back from a thoughtful pause. ‘Better no’. He’s no’ been trained, so Christ knows what he’d come out with. Get a Family Liaison officer out here. We’ll nip back to the station soon as they arrive.’

They drove back to FHQ with Jason’s computer, the long metal chest from under his bed and his collection of pornography all stuffed in the boot of the car. Mr Fettes sat in the back with DI Steel — coming in to formally identify his son’s body. Down in the morgue viewing room, he took one look at Jason, said, ‘He looks so small …’ and asked to be taken home. All in a voice that was little more than a whisper. Steel got Alpha Six Nine to give him a lift.

Upstairs, the incident room was nearly empty, just a couple of PCs answering the phones while everyone else was off to the canteen for lunch. Logan had signed everything they’d taken from Jason’s room into evidence, then out again, so they could go through it on one of the desks by the window. Steel went straight for the porn, examining the DVDs and reading out choice quotes from the cover blurbs in her best theatrical voice. Then came the magazines. They weren’t exactly high class, but they were explicit. And they all featured Jason Fettes.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Steel, holding up a two-page spread of their victim, two unidentified women and a man in a rubber mask, ‘he’s got a porn collection full of his own face. Narcissistic little onanist, isn’t he?’ She stuck the magazine back on the pile. ‘What’s in the box?’

Logan unlocked it and showed them.

‘Fuck me!’ The inspector reached in and pulled out a full-length rubber suit with built-in arms, legs, gloves, and booties, all in matt black. She poked a latex-gloved finger through a little hole in the crotch. There was an identical one round the back. ‘Think he got this at Marks amp; Spencer?’ There was a matching moulded, black rubber hood with tiny little holes for the nose and eyes in the box as well as a collection of bats, paddles, gags, and strange pink things: most of which were battery-operated.

Logan peered at a weird, mushroom-shaped object. ‘What the hell’s this?’

‘Butt plug,’ said Steel and Rickards, both at the same time. Then the constable went bright red.

‘OK, Sherlock,’ the inspector grinned at him and pulled a small black plastic case out of the box, ‘seeing as your specialist subject is sexual deviancy: what’s this?’ She clicked it open, exposing a jumble of wires, pads and a controller.

Rickards went from red to deep scarlet. ‘It’s an electrostim set.’

‘Yeah?’ she looked genuinely surprised.

‘You … it gives you … the electricity … for heightening … ahem.’

‘Good is it?’ She pulled the controller out and started poking at the buttons.

‘It … well, it depends … I …’

Logan came to the constable’s rescue. ‘At least this explains the strap marks we found on Jason’s body.’

‘Hmm?’ Steel put the controller back in its case and snapped the thing shut again.

‘Well, he’s obviously heavily into the bondage scene. Someone picks him up, takes him home and ties him up, only it goes too far — the guy panics and dumps him outside A amp;E. It was an accident.’

‘An accident? How do you accidentally bugger someone to death?’

‘You know what these bondage lot are like,’ said Logan, pointing at the contents of Jason’s hope chest, ‘one minute it’s tying each other up for a bit of light spanking, and the next it’s whips, chains, nipple-clamps and butt plugs.’ He might have been imagining it, but he got the feeling Rickards was scowling at him. ‘And let’s face it: if you’re going to kill someone, there are better ways of doing it. You’ve already got the guy tied up and gagged, why not just strangle him? Or put a plastic bag over his head. And why rush him to the hospital afterwards?’

Steel scowled, obviously trying to come up with an alternative scenario. ‘Oh bloody hell,’ she said at last, ‘so much for my nice juicy murder.’ And then she stomped off to tell the ACC.

PC Rickards waited till she was gone before he spoke. ‘You know, just because Jason was different it doesn’t make him a pervert!’

Logan stared at him. ‘Oh — my — God, you’re one of them aren’t you? You’re into all this bondage stuff!’

‘I …’ The constable’s face blossomed with beetroot-coloured embarrassment and then he stormed off, leaving a grinning Logan to pack Jason Fettes’ collection away.

‘Right, settle down you lot!’ DI Steel stood at the front of the briefing room while Aberdeen’s finest made themselves comfortable. ‘We now have an ID for our victim.’ She nodded to Logan and he hit the button. Behind the inspector the screen filled with a smiling face, snapped on a beach somewhere a damn sight warmer than the northeast of Scotland. ‘Jason Fettes, AKA: Dick Longlay.’ That got a laugh and the inspector let it die down before continuing. ‘He made dirty movies for Crocodildo Films, which is how our very own PC Rickards was able to identify him.’

A sudden barrage of wolf whistles and off-colour comments were thrown in Rickards’ direction — the constable looked mortified. He went even redder when Steel started talking about Jason Fettes’ bondage set. ‘So,’ she said, as Logan clicked the screen onto a picture of the rubber romper suit, laid out on the incident room floor, ‘we need to start asking around the sex shops and wherever else it is the bondage crowd hang. Like Ellon. And Westhill.’

While the inspector spoke, Logan kept an eye on Rickards: it seemed as if he was about to say something, but thought better of it.

‘Current theory: this was a sex game gone wrong, so Fettes probably went home with this person of his own free will. There’s no blood at the victim’s house, so they must have gone to Mr Moustache’s bondage bachelor pad.’ Click and the e-fit appeared.

‘We’re pretty sure the victim was contacted through this site…’ Steel paused, waiting for Logan to catch up — the image behind her changing to a pink and black website called ‘BONDAGEOPOLIS!’. ‘Fettes had an advert on there, the IT guys found a copy on his hard drive …’ She paused and dug out a printout from the briefing pack, reading aloud: ‘Real life porn star seeks switch for no-holds-barred action.’

It was DC Rennie who stuck his hand up. ‘What’s a switch?’

‘Well,’ said Steel, ‘let’s ask our resident sexpert.’ She stared at PC Rickards, until he came out with, ‘It’s a BDSM term: someone who can be either dominant or submissive. Top or a bottom.’ Blushing furiously as most of the room started making ‘bottom’ jokes.

‘OK,’ the inspector tipped the embarrassed constable a wink, ‘that’s enough out of-’ Rennie’s hand was up again. ‘What now?’

‘BDSM?’

‘Bondage, Domination and Sadomasochism. Pay attention, for God’s sake. See Constable Rickards afterwards if you want a demonstration.’ More laughter. Gradually a sense of order returned, but the rest of the briefing was marked by giggles and sniggering. Now that this was ‘death by misadventure’ rather than murder, it didn’t seem quite so … serious. When Steel called the meeting to a close, Rickards was the first one out the door.

‘You should go easy on him,’ said Logan as the last few people wandered off, ‘I get the feeling he’s not exactly seeing the funny side.’

‘Oh for God’s sake!’ She rolled her eyes and dug out a packet of cigarettes, shaking them, then peering inside. ‘What is it with bloody prima donnas in this place? OK, OK, I’ll talk to him. Can I at least have a fag first?’