Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

‘Never too early to get the garden in order.’ Traces of an Aberdonian accent, but not much.

Logan pointed up at the house. ‘You work for the Whytes for long?’

The old man settled back on his haunches, grimaced, and stuck the trowel in the flowerbed, peeling off a pair of mud-crusted gardening gloves. ‘I don’t work for them. I’m Daniel’s father.’ Mr Whyte senior levered himself up to his feet with a grunt.

‘You lived here long?’

‘Eight months. Ever since my Mary died. The house was too empty without her.’

Eight months — that explained why he wasn’t on the database as living at the address. ‘So you were here when Sean Morrison stayed?’

‘Terrible, isn’t it? He was such a lovely wee boy, I can’t believe he’d hurt anyone.’

‘Your son thinks he’s a vicious little monster.’

The old man gave a sad smile. ‘Yes … well … Sean Morrison is the spitting image of Daniel’s little brother. Daniel was always jealous.’ He sniffed and stared at the pond where a golden shape swam beneath the surface. ‘It was our own fault: Mary and I spoiled Craig. We shouldn’t have, but he was such a beautiful child.’ There was silence in the garden. ‘Mary was never the same after …’ Mr Whyte senior gave an embarrassed cough. ‘Yes, well, no point in dwelling on it now.’

It might have been the rain misting his eyes, or it might have been a tear. Either way Logan left him to his memories.

DI Steel was sitting behind her desk when Logan backed into her office carrying two mugs of tea. She had a big wet stain over her left boob and a scowl on her face. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘You wanted to see me?’ Trying not to stare at the inspector’s damp patch.

‘Aye, fifteen minutes ago …’ She threw a sheet of A4 at him: a memo from the Chief Constable himself. Logan read it, muttering along under his breath until he got to the bombshell.

‘Oh … Well, it could be worse.’

‘How?’ Steel pulled the office window open, then went rummaging for her cigarettes. ‘How could it be worse?’

‘Look, I’m sure he’s going to-’

‘Why the hell did they have to lump him on my team?’ Cigarettes found, the hunt for a working lighter began. ‘He’s going to be a bloody nightmare!’

So that was why she’d wanted him to drop everything and rush up to her office: so she could whinge about DI Insch being assigned to ‘facilitate her caseload’. Logan sighed. ‘Well, you could give him those house break-ins to look after, or the Fettes investigation?’

‘Are you kidding? You know what he’s like — he’ll try and take over the whole lot. I’ll end up working for him !’ The lighter went, scrrrrrit, scrit, scrit, then she hurled it at the bin in the corner. ‘Fucking thing … If I wanted “help” I’d have asked for it.’ Which was the starting point for a fifteen-minute-long rant ending with, ‘You’ll have to look after him.’

‘Me?’ Logan sat bolt upright. ‘Why me? Give him Rennie, or Rickards!’

But DI Steel just shook her head. ‘Sorry Laz: can’t do that. Rennie’d be like kicking a kitten, and Bondage Boy would enjoy it too much. All that abuse, he’d never get any work done.’ She took a slurp from her mug. ‘So you see: it has to be you. You’re young, you’ll get over it.’

Detective Inspector Insch wasn’t the sort of person you wanted to get on the wrong side of. Which was unfortunate, because he didn’t seem to have a right side any more. Logan took a deep breath, then knocked on the inspector’s door, having spent an unhappy twenty minutes in the canteen trying to figure out how to keep him busy without actually having to work with him.

A deep, rumbling voice sounded on the other side of the door. ‘Enter.’ All the warmth of a butcher’s bandsaw. Insch’s office was larger than Steel’s and a lot tidier, with framed theatre posters on the walls: local musical productions of Kiss me Kate, Chicago and a handful of pantomimes. Some of which featured the inspector in various ridiculous costumes. Pride of place had been given to The Mikado in a big mahogany frame on the wall facing Insch’s desk.

The huge man looked up at Logan, said, ‘Oh, it’s you,’ then went back to hammering away at his keyboard with fat, angry fingers.

‘DI Steel thought I should come up and-’

‘Where the hell do they get off telling me to work for her ?’

Logan slumped into one of the inspector’s visitors’ chairs and prepared himself to be whinged to, but Insch just ground his teeth for a minute, then went back to punishing his keyboard.

When there was nothing else forthcoming, Logan held up a couple of manila folders. ‘I brought you the case files for those housebreakings. There’s-’

‘I don’t care.’ The inspector stabbed the return key then pushed his chair back, staring at Logan over steepled fingers. ‘Tell me about the dead body.’

‘Which one: the tramp’s, the old man who got stabbed Thursday, or the porn star who got buggered to death?’

‘The last one. And try to bear in mind the victim was a human being, Sergeant.’

And suddenly Logan felt very ashamed of himself. ‘Sorry, sir.’ That was DI Steel’s influence — he’d definitely been working with her for too long. He told Insch everything they knew about Jason Fettes, from his parochial porn career to his rubber bondage suit. Keeping it professional and objective.

Insch listened in silence, stuffing fruit pastilles into his mouth and making the occasional note on small yellow Post-its. ‘What about this website: Bondageopolis?’ he asked when Logan had finished. ‘You get onto Fettes’s ISP?’

‘It’s a local company — they’ve turned over Fettes’s emails and there’s nothing in there that looks like it’s connected with his death. But from the list of favourites on his computer, we think he’s got at least one hotmail account and maybe a couple of yahoo ones as well.’

‘And?’

‘They’re all anonymous — you don’t have to give any real details. Could sign up as Osama Bin Laden and no one would bother to check. And Fettes was careful, seems to have cleared his cache pretty regularly and didn’t get the browser to remember usernames or passwords.’

‘So you can’t just log in as him.’

‘Nope. I got the IT department to go through his emails and see if he might have forwarded anything to himself from his anonymous accounts. They’ve got a couple of possibles, but it’s taking forever to get anything sorted out with the free email people. Not only do we have the data protection act to deal with, everything has to go through their head offices in the States. It’s a nightmare.’

Insch leaned forward, resting his huge elbows on the desktop, staring down at his collection of Post-its. ‘OK, bring me the files — updates, interviews, PM notes, everything. Even the HOLMES actions. We’ll go through them this afternoon.’

‘Yes, sir.’ So much for keeping the inspector at arm’s length.

By the end of the day they’d mapped out the whole investigation and DI Insch hadn’t snapped at Logan once. Which was something of a record these days. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ said Insch, frowning at his watch, ‘I want you to get the team together and we’ll do a re-start briefing. Where the hell is that idiot Rennie?’

‘No idea, sir.’

‘Well, if you see him, tell him I want him at the Arts Centre by half-six at the latest, or his bollocks are going to be hanging from my car keys!’ And with that he was gone.

Logan let out a sigh of relief. Insch was a lot more work than he used to be. Still, at least it was time to go home. He was in the middle of signing out when DI Steel found him. ‘Heading off early are we?’ she asked, treating him to an imperious sniff.