Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

‘Let me guess: wrong number?’

‘They’ve been calling ever since it was on the news. About the… the old man getting hurt. They say terrible-’ The ringing started again. This time Steel was the one who grabbed the phone, slopping a wee tidalwave of tea on the coffee table in the process.

‘Aye?’ she demanded, ‘Who’s this?’ Then listened, face screwed up in concentration, as if she was trying to place the voice. ‘Listen up, shite-face, this is the police. You call here again and I’m gonnae find out where you live, come down there and ram my boot so far up your arse you’ll be tasting athlete’s foot powder for a month!’ She held the phone away from her ear. ‘Hung up, fancy that…’ Then she punched 1471 into the handset, repeating the automated voice as it recited the caller’s number, so Logan could write it down. She smiled at Mr Morrison. ‘We’ll send a patrol car round: give her a hard time. You in the phonebook?’ The man nodded. ‘Aye, well,’ said Steel, putting the phone back and picking up her tea again, ‘change your number and go ex-directory.’

‘We can’t … What if Sean calls?’

‘Calls? He’s got a mobile?’

The mother and father exchanged a worried look, then Mr Morrison said, ‘We don’t believe children should have them. You know: brain tumours.’ He collapsed into an armchair, looking on the verge of tears. ‘He could be anywhere …’

Just to be on the safe side, Steel sent Logan off to check the shed and garage again, while she stayed inside in the warm with another cup of tea. The search team had been thorough — the garage was a mess, everything piled up in one corner. Paint tins, boxes of household junk, three sets of skis, one windsurfer, more junk. Logan peered into all the cupboards, under the work top, into the chest freezer, but Sean wasn’t there. And he wasn’t in the shed either, or hiding in the garden.

Logan went back inside and searched every room, including the washing machine and tumble drier — you never knew what an eight-year-old kid could fit inside if it put its mind to it. Nearly an hour after he’d started, Logan clambered down from the attic, coughing from the dust, little bits of rock wool insulation sticking to his suit.

DI Steel was standing there waiting for him. ‘Well?’

‘Nothing.’ He wiped a hand over his face, trying to get rid of a cobweb.

‘Ah well, it was worth a go.’

They marched out through the knot of journalists and back to the car, ignoring the shouted questions, keeping their heads down till they were safely ensconced in the scabby CID Vauxhall Logan had signed for. Steel squinted out through the windscreen at the Morrison house. ‘What do you think,’ she asked, ‘he going to come home?’

Logan nodded and turned the engine over. ‘You should have seen his room; kid’s got more stuff than I do. Parents must spoil him rotten. One night out in the cold and he’ll be desperate to get home.’

‘Are you mental? He just knifed an old man and a policewoman. He’s no’ Christopher Bloody Robin. I think the vicious little bastard’s got somewhere to lie low…’

‘Well, he can’t stay hidden for ever,’ said Logan, pulling away from the kerb and pointing the car back towards FHQ, ‘he only got fifty quid from Cochrane’s wallet and it’s not like he can actually spend it — can’t be a single person in Aberdeen who doesn’t know what he looks like by now.’ They’d tried telling the media that Sean was just a missing child, released his picture and asked anyone who saw him to come forward, but one of the witnesses from the St Nicholas Centre spotted the photo on the news, rang up the Daily Record and ID’d Sean as the kid who’d knifed Jerry Cochrane. And the press had a field day — EIGHT-YEAR-OLD KILLER! THE NEW FACE OF EVIL! SCHOOLBOY KILLS OAP! — it had made every second-edition front page in Scotland and quite a few south of the border too. ‘We could try following his mates; someone’s got to be getting food to him?’

She thought about it for a moment, head on one side, chewing on the inside of her cheek. ‘Nah, that’ll take for ever. If I was him I’d be on the first bus south to London, or Brighton, or some other godforsaken hole.’

‘He’s eight.’

‘Blah, blah, blah. When did you last have anything to do with kids, eh? Eight’s the new thirteen. Oh, they look like butter wouldn’t bloody melt, but they’re smacked out their tits half the time trying to get each other pregnant.’ She pulled out her cigarettes, shoogled the packet, then put it away again with a sigh. ‘Let’s get the little bastards picked up and dragged down to the station: give them the fright of their lives. See if one of them’ll shop him. And you’d better check the CCTV for the train and bus station too. And get some uniforms down there to speak to the drivers… Oh, and when you’ve got that lot organized, you might as well do that update report on Jason Fettes. No point sitting about twiddling your thumbs all day, is there?’

By the time Logan had finished doing the inspector’s job for her, the first of Sean Morrison’s ‘little chums’ was sitting in interview room number two with her father. There was an unpleasant smell of stale socks and ancient coffee with an underlying whiff of sour garlic, slowly marinating everyone present. DI Steel sat back in her cheap, plastic chair and stared at the little girl sitting opposite. Natalie Lenox: eight years old; long, dark brown hair; pale face; all her fingernails bitten down to tiny nubs; a furious scowl pulling at her chubby features. Her father was a bigger version of the same thing, only without the hair. He glowered as Logan wheeled a trolley with a TV and video on it into the corner and plugged them in. ‘I want my lawyer present.’

Steel sighed. ‘We’ve been through this. Twice . No lawyer.’

‘Then I’m not saying anything more.’

‘That’s fine with me, keep your trap shut and I’ll speak to Natalie instead.’

‘She’s not saying anything either.’

The inspector put on her most charming smile, which wasn’t saying much. ‘If you continue to be obstructive Mr Lenox I’ll have you replaced by an appropriate adult, how about that?’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘Want a bet? Natalie here was involved in the murder of a seventy-two-year-old man, I think-’

‘She had nothing to do with it!’ He poked his child in the shoulder. ‘Tell them, tell them you had nothing to do with it.’

‘I hid nuthin’ to dae with it.’ The kid’s accent was broad Aberdonian, and as sullen as her mashed-potato face. ‘Nuthin’.’

‘Uh huh.’ Steel told Logan to start the tape. ‘Then how do you explain this?’ The screen flickered, a jagged line of static creeping upwards, revealing the inside of the Union Street end of the St Nicholas Centre. People wandered past, laden down with shopping bags and baby buggies, and then a pregnant woman lurched into view, carrying a huge handbag and a plastic carrier from The Body Shop. She’d just passed the lottery booth when half a dozen children arrived — most wearing hooded tops, keeping their faces shielded from the camera. The inspector hit pause. ‘Bottom left, the girl in the green top.’

She hit play and the girl darted forward, banging into the pregnant woman hard enough to make her drop her handbag. The woman staggered, the girl helping her stay on her feet, grinning up at her, mouth going twenty to the dozen. It was Natalie Lenox — her fat little face and long hair clearly visible on the screen — probably apologizing for being so clumsy while two of her friends helped pick up the nice lady’s things. Helping themselves to her purse in the process. Sean Morrison handed the bag back with a modest tilt of the head, but the pregnant woman wasn’t buying it. She grabbed him by the sleeve and started shouting.