Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

‘I…’ Natalie’s father licked his top lip and tried again. ‘So she bumped into someone. That’s not a crime.’

‘This isn’t the first time. We’ve had about a dozen other complaints of bags, wallets and purses being stolen. All the victims remember being banged into by a little girl and her friends. Want to bet they recognize Natalie when we show them her picture?’

On the screen Sean lashed out, catching the pregnant woman on the side of the head, sending her crashing to the ground. She didn’t let go, so he put the boot in. And that was when Jerry Cochrane ran into shot. At the sides of the picture shoppers stopped to stare as the old man hauled Sean off the woman. Holding him by the scruff of the neck, shouting. Sean hit him. And the old man hit him back, smack: right across the nose. And that’s when it happened — the flash of a knife blade, and a startled expression on Jerry Cochrane’s face. He sat down hard, letting go of Sean. The eight-year-old started laying into the old man with fists and feet, while a gathering crowd of shoppers looked on in shock. And then all the kids were at it, punching and kicking. Steel hit pause, so they could all see Natalie Lenox kicking Jerry Cochrane in the head.

‘So,’ said Steel, ‘still think she had nothing to do with it?’

Mr Lenox, went very pale. ‘I …’

Steel switched the TV off. ‘I want to know where Sean Morrison is. And I want to know now.’

The little girl just scowled at them.

Her father swallowed hard. Then skelped her over the back of the head. ‘Tell them!’

Nothing.

‘Put it this way,’ said the inspector, ‘you’re probably looking at a spell in a young offenders’ institution. Locked up with all the other nasty little boys and girls. No mummy and daddy to look after you and buy you nice things.’

‘They… they can’t send her to prison! She’s only eight!’

Logan shrugged. ‘That’s the legal age of criminal responsibility in Scotland, Mr Lenox. Vicious attack like that, a man dead. She’s likely to get four, maybe five years. She’ll be a teenager by the time she gets out. You’d be surprised how much they can change.’

‘Oh God.’ Mr Lenox covered his mouth with a shaking hand. ‘It’ll kill her mother!’

‘Unless she helps us catch Sean Morrison. Then maybe we could have a word with the Procurator Fiscal, convince her that Natalie wants to make amends …?’

‘She does! You do, don’t you?’

But Natalie just glared at her father, hot, angry tears making her eyes shine. Like Sean Morrison’s knife.

‘Jesus,’ said Steel slouching back against the interview-room wall, clutching a half-empty cup of coffee to her chest. ‘I’ve interviewed mass murderers with more humanity in them.’ She shivered. ‘Thank God I never wanted kids … Creepy little fuckers.’

So far they’d had three of Sean Morrison’s gang in for interview and not one of them was prepared to spill the beans on his whereabouts. But they each came attached to a hysterical, panicking parent who had no idea what their darling child had been up to. Until they saw the CCTV footage.

The inspector swirled the filmy-brown liquid around in her mug. ‘You know, when I was a kid we respected our elders … Well, maybe no’ respected , but you knew if you gave some old fart lip they’d tan your arse for you. And then they’d tell your mum and dad, so they could do the same.’ She nodded sagely, and took another gulp. ‘Speaking of arses, have you seen Rennie?’

‘Why, what’s he done?’ And suddenly Logan thought of a container yard in Altens. He frowned, trying to figure out why.

‘Nothing, that’s the bloody problem, I…’ she trailed off, staring at Logan. ‘What: you daydreaming about my creamy white thighs again?’

‘Zander Clark.’

‘Who?’

‘The guy who runs the porn studio — he didn’t ask what Jason had done. When we asked him who the guy on the DVD was. He didn’t ask.’

‘Aaaaaaaand?’

‘Well,’ Logan shrugged. ‘Everyone always asks, don’t they?’

‘No’ always.’

‘But-’

‘You’re kidding, right? I mean, it’s a bit Miss Marple, isn’t it?’ She laughed, a throaty sound that rattled a bit towards the end. ‘You want me to summon Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, and Colonel Mustard to the dining room for you?’ Logan didn’t dignify that with a reply. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said at last, ‘it’s Friday night: I’ll buy you a nice pint of beer, OK? Nearly going home time anyway.’

‘What about the search teams?’

‘What about them?’ And then she remembered. ‘Bollocks. It’ll be dark in half an hour won’t it? And all the useless buggers will be back here wanting debriefed.’ She groaned. ‘You do one half and I’ll do the other, OK? We could still be in the pub by seven.’

Logan held up the tiny pack of rubbish painkillers the hospital had given him for his battered head and bruised ribs — there were only a couple left. ‘I’m not supposed to be drinking.’

‘Aye well, my doctor says I’m no’ supposed to smoke, drink, or chat up his receptionist, but it doesn’t bloody stop me, does it?’

The search teams started trickling in around six, with not a lot to show for seven hours out in the freezing cold February air. No one had seen Sean Morrison. He wasn’t hiding in anyone’s shed, garage, or gazebo. They’d even had a team go through the Robert Gordon school buildings looking to see if Sean had gone to ground where he was meant to go to school. ‘According to the head,’ said a blue-faced PC, wrapping herself round a mug of hot chocolate, ‘he’s no’ exactly a regular visitor. Started bunking off about six months ago. Became really disruptive. Bullying, theft, swearing… Right wee shite by all accounts. Had the parents in about a dozen times, but it never made any difference.’

‘Yeah?’ Logan ran a hand over his chin, feeling the stubble begin to scritch beneath his fingers. ‘His dad told us Sean’s never been in trouble before this.’

The PC snorted. ‘Aye, well, he’s lying then.’ She shifted from foot to foot. ‘Er, is there anything else, sir, or can I go change?’ adding, ‘Karaoke tonight.’ by way of an explanation. Logan wished her luck and moved onto the next team’s report.

DI Steel finished first, not surprisingly — they’d be lucky if she even skimmed the forms before telling the officers to bugger off to the pub. ‘Right,’ she said, hands deep in her trouser pockets, ‘we all done for tonight?’

Logan shook his head. ‘Still need to sort out the teams for tomorrow. And I was thinking: we should get a POLSA, start looking in the parks and woods.’ And if they had a Police Search Advisor, Logan wouldn’t have to do all the co-ordination and logistics for a change. ‘Maybe his mother was right and he’s lying in a ditch somewhere. He’s been in all the papers, suppose someone recognized him and decided to avenge Jerry Cochrane?’

‘Oh God, that’s all we need.’ Steel screwed up her face and swore. ‘This was supposed to be a nice easy case — we know who did it, we’ve got it on tape, we’ve got forensic, we’ve got witnesses…’ The only thing they didn’t have was Sean Morrison.

Logan stood at the front of the briefing room, feeling slightly sick. He wasn’t the only one: half the team looked terminally hungover. And he’d been sensible — called it a night after the first round of flaming Drambuies, but not before he’d been subjected to DI Steel belting out D’Ya Think I’m Sexy at Cafe Bardot’s late night karaoke session. It wasn’t a performance he’d be forgetting in a hurry. Unfortunately.

Right now she was introducing the team to their brand new Police Search Advisor — a tall, thin sergeant with droopy eyes and a pronounced chin, who launched into a detailed description of today’s search pattern, locations, teams and all the other things that weren’t Logan’s problem any more.