Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

The director nodded. ‘At least you’ve found them … Tell you what,’ he bustled out into the reception, coming back with a couple of DVD cases, ‘I felt kinda guilty you didn’t get one last time. Here: best thing I ever did.’ He gave Rickards his own copy too: Crocodildo Dundee .

Logan turned the thing over in his hands, and there on the cover — hamming it up behind the heroine’s long, bronzed legs — was Jason Fettes, dressed like a gangster. Which was the real reason for their visit. ‘You never asked us what he’d done.’

‘Who?’ Zander’s smile slipped an inch.

‘Jason Fettes, AKA Dick Longlay, you never asked what he’d done.’

‘No?’

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Logan stuck the DVD in the deep pocket of his overcoat and settled back against the mixing desk, arms crossed, giving him DI Insch’s patented silent technique.

‘I … well … it all depends what you mean by “knew” … I mean.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Look, I knew Jason was into other stuff. That’s all! I didn’t know he was dead or anything. I get a bit obsessive when I’m working on a film.’

‘Other stuff like BDSM?’

A blush rushed up Zander’s cheeks. ‘He was … renting himself. For sex.’

‘Was he now?’

Another jiggly nod. ‘He was so desperate to get out to Hollywood and try being a proper actor. Had this screenplay he was working on … You’d be surprised how many people want to sleep with a genuine porn star, even in Aberdeen.’ An uncomfortable pause. ‘We used to get emails through the Crocodildo website.’

Logan stayed silent, watching as Zander Clark, porn producer, started to sweat.

‘I … I wasn’t his pimp, if that’s what you’re thinking! I never had anything to do with that! We just treated everything as fan mail and forwarded it on. Really!’

‘And did you keep copies?’

‘No! Nothing. Deleted everything. It wasn’t anything to do with me, or the company. If Jason wanted to make a bit of money sleeping with deluded, middle-aged ladies that was his business …’ He started picking at the side of his thumb with the nail on his index finger. ‘Seriously, I don’t know anything else.’

‘I want the email address you forwarded them on to.’

‘Sure, sure, no problem, always happy to cooperate with the police.’ Going for jovial bonhomie and overshooting the mark by about a mile.

‘You see,’ said Logan as the fat man hurried off to get it for them, ‘sometimes even Miss Marple gets it right.’

Garvie wasn’t at work, where a frosty-faced man in jeans and a polo shirt told Logan in no uncertain terms what he thought of the police harassing innocent men until they had to be signed off for stress. So they tried the ex-porn star’s flat in Danestone. The sun was hidden behind the building, casting a long, blue shadow across the frost-bleached grass and glittering grey tarmac. Rickards leant on the bell again and again, until finally an upstairs window cracked open and a bleary face peered out. ‘Go away!’

Logan put on his best, friendly smile. ‘Come on Frank, let us in: it’s freezing out here.’

‘I’m not well.’ And it looked like he was telling the truth: dark purple bags under his eyes, a day’s worth of blue-grey stubble stretched across his double chin and pallid cheeks.

‘I can get a warrant if you like?’

The man’s face went even paler, then disappeared. Thirty seconds later a low buzzing sound came from the door lock. They pushed through into the stairwell, marching up to the third floor. Things had changed in the twenty-four hours since they’d searched Garvie’s apartment. Now the word PERVERT!!! was sprayed across the front door in dripping scarlet paint.

Garvie hurried them into the flat, slamming the door and locking it behind him. The tiny hallway stank of disinfectant and the lingering taint of burning paper and excrement. They settled in the dark lounge, curtains drawn, the only light coming from the huge projection screen, with one of the starships Enterprise whooshing across it. Garvie hit pause and the music stopped. Up close Logan could see a line of fresh bruising wrapped around the ex-porn star’s throat. As if someone had tried to strangle him. Garvie slumped down onto the large black leather sofa, knocking over two empty wine bottles that clunked and rattled on the laminate floor. ‘Is this going to take long?’ He couldn’t even look at them.

‘Depends on you, sir.’ Logan settled into a matching black armchair. ‘We …’ he trailed off. ‘That new?’ Pointing at a stainless steel hook bolted to the ceiling. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before.

Garvie barely glanced at it. ‘No. What do you want?’

‘Tea with milk would be nice. Rickards, do the honours would you?’ The constable nodded, and headed off into the kitchen. Soon the sound of drawers and cupboards being opened and closed filtered into the living room. ‘We’ve got a problem, Frank,’ said Logan, holding up the Victorian film canisters. ‘When we searched your house we found these.’

Garvie’s eyes flashed up, then back down to his lap. ‘I don’t know anything about those.’

‘They were in your bedside cabinet with your home movies and socks. Ring any bells?’

‘I …’ And then he was silent again.

‘They’re stolen property. Someone broke into ClarkRig Training Systems and made off with these and a number of other items from your exemployer’s private collection. Bit of a coincidence that, isn’t it?’

Garvie stared at the films. ‘I didn’t steal them!’

‘Come on Frank, you knew Clark had these, you knew what they were worth, you broke in and-’

‘I bought them!’

Logan sat back, looking sceptical. ‘Bought them?’

‘From a guy. In the pub. I …’ he coughed, cleared his throat, and tried again. ‘I knew they were Zander’s. I was going to give them back to him. I just … didn’t get round to it …’

‘And does this guy in the pub have a name?’

‘I …’ Garvie’s eyes went back to his curry-stained jogging bottoms. ‘I never met him before.’

Logan stood, shaking his head sadly. ‘You’ve got to be one of the worst liars I’ve ever seen. Frank Garvie, I’m arresting you for possession of stolen goods, you do not have to say anything-’

‘Ron! Ron Berwick. He sometimes sells stuff round the pubs in Bridge of Don — has a place outside Balmedie. I didn’t have anything to do with it, I swear!’

‘Where outside Balmedie?’

And Garvie told them everything.

The afternoon was crisp and clear, frost still dusting the shadowed grass and skeletal brambles like icing sugar. Up above, the eggshell-blue sky faded to hazy white on the horizon, a thin, dark blue line marking the sea, just visible from the small clump of houses nearly eight miles north of Aberdeen. They’d been a farm steading at one point, a wide, horseshoe-shaped, single-storey granite barn for cattle or pigs, but someone had turned them into six terraced houses with lots of varnished wood and dormer windows, a row of single garages sitting off to the left. According to Control, Ronald Berwick lived in the end house, with his wife, three kids and a Labrador.

‘Er, sir,’ said Rickards, wriggling in the driver’s seat of their scabby CID Vauxhall, watching as half a dozen firearms-trained officers piled out the back of an unmarked filthy-white van, ‘is this not a bit …’ He pointed at the men and women scurrying towards Ronald Berwick’s house, dressed all in black: black body armour, black scarves wound round their faces, bulky black helmets on their heads, bent nearly double over their black Heckler and Koch MP5 machine pistols, Glock nine millimetres strapped to their hips. ‘Well … over the top?’