Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

‘You sure you wouldn’t rather have a nice cup of coffee?’ Logan asked, following him.

‘Whisky, whisky, whisky …’ Two tumblers came from the cupboard next to the kettle, ringing like tiny crystal bells as Miller fumbled them onto the kitchen table, then went hunting for the bottle. Logan stuck the kettle on.

‘You know, Laz,’ said the reporter, from the depths of the pantry, ‘I used to … used to really like you …’ He emerged, twisting the cork off the top of a half-empty bottle of single malt. ‘You was always a bit … bit of an arse, like, but you … you was my mate.’ He slumped into one of the chairs by the kitchen table, scowling. ‘Why’d you have tae fuck it up?’

‘It was an accident, Colin.’ Logan raided the dishwasher for a mug, heaping it with instant coffee and sugar, before topping it up with boiling water. ‘I never wanted it to turn out the way it did. You know that-’

‘Tada!’ The reporter whipped his right glove off, dropping it on the tabletop. The third finger was missing its top two joints, the pinky everything above the second segment. The stumps pink and shiny. ‘Fucking things itch … itch like a bastard sometimes.’ He screwed up one eye and peered at the bottle of whisky, carefully slopping a huge measure into each glass. Then pulled off his other glove, revealing another pair of shiny stumps, rubbing them against his stubbled chin.

Logan placed the coffee in front of him, but the reporter ignored it. Colin picked up one of the huge whiskies instead and held it aloft in a toast, ‘Here’s tae sunny Aber-fuckin’-deen.’ He waited for Logan to raise the other glass then clinked them together. ‘Sheep-shaggin’ bastards!’

Twenty minutes later and Logan was locking Isobel’s front door and popping the key back through the letterbox, leaving Miller snoring away on the couch in the lounge. Two things were certain: Colin would have one hell of a hangover tomorrow, and Isobel would kill him. There but for the grace of God … Logan smiled and headed back into town.

He didn’t even get as far as the Queen’s Cross roundabout before his phone started ringing: an irate DI Insch wanting to know where the hell he’d got to. ‘It’s my day off, sir, I’m-’

‘ Where are you? ’

‘What? Queen’s Road, heading back into-’

‘ Hold on …’ There was some muted conversation Logan couldn’t make out, but finally the inspector came back on the line: ‘ Stay where you are, there’s a patrol car coming for you .’

‘But-’

‘ We’re going to Dundee .’

Insch sat in the back with Logan, passing him sheets from the Macintyre rape case while the dual carriageway south flashed past the car’s windows. The traffic cop driving seemed to be making an attempt on the land speed record, overtaking everything else on the road: saloons, hatchbacks, sports cars, and lorries. ‘I still don’t see why we have to drop everything and rush down the road,’ said Logan, accepting another victim statement.

The inspector scowled at him. ‘You want Macintyre out there raping more women? Sooner we catch him the sooner he’s off the bloody streets.’

Fair point. Logan scanned the statement, having difficulty taking it in. ‘You sure we’ll be back in time? Only I’ve got-’

‘For the last time, yes! You’ll make your bloody party. Now pay attention,’ he poked the sheets in Logan’s hand with a fat finger, ‘Christine Forrester: Macintyre’s last Aberdeen victim.’

Logan skimmed the form. ‘Jesus.’

‘He gets worse with every one.’ It had taken the surgeons seven hours to stitch Christine Forrester’s face and neck back to something approaching normal. The attached photograph was enough to make Logan look away, not certain if he was feeling sick because of the picture, or because he was trying to read a whole case file in the back of a police car flying down the road at ninety miles an hour as the sun set.

‘So,’ he said, turning the eight-by-ten face down, ‘why me?’

Insch grumbled something and pulled out a big bag of tiny gummy bears. ‘I’d take Watson, but she had to go shoot her bloody mouth off to the papers. Now if I have her anywhere near the investigation everyone will say it’s a witch hunt.’

Logan watched a handful of little jelly figures disappear, trying not to imagine them screaming as the inspector chewed. ‘You’re convinced it’s Macintyre.’

‘Course it’s bloody Macintyre.’ The words barely audible through all the dying bears.

Logan nodded. Insch was just like Jackie: unable to see past his own obsession. It didn’t matter what the inspector said: it was still a witch hunt. He kept his mouth shut and went back to the case file.

Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital was huge, a labyrinth of corridors and interconnected buildings, the familiar smell of disinfectant and the buzz of fluorescent lighting depressing the hell out of Logan as he marched behind Insch down the stairs and along the corridor to the neurology ward. A middle-aged woman in white and green sat at the nurses station, peering over her specs at a clipboard festooned with forms, a huge box of chocolates lying open beside her. Insch helped himself to one, then said, ‘Nikki Bruce?’

The ward sister looked up. ‘You relatives?’ her voice going up at the end in a classic Fife lilt.

The inspector showed her his warrant card. ‘Police, we-’

‘Aye, I know. Nikki’s expecting you.’ She stood, only coming up to the middle of Insch’s enormous barrel chest, and led them down the corridor to a small, private room. ‘She’s had a tough time of it — a lot of pain. Don’t tire her out.’

Helium balloons bobbed gently in the air-conditioning: glittering metallic things with teddy bears and kittens on them, GET WELL SOON cards pinned to the cork board over the bed, but no flowers. Nikki was propped up with crunchy white NHS pillows, her features hidden in the shadows, an intravenous drip in her arm and a pair of white iPod headphones in her ears.

Insch cleared his throat and sank himself into the high-backed chair by the bed — the one for patients — leaving Logan to fetch a creaky plastic seat from the corner. There was a flicker of movement, as if Nikki had only just realized they were there. Then she sighed and clicked off her music with a trembling, bandaged hand.

The inspector asked her how she was doing, in a voice so full of sympathy Logan almost didn’t recognize it. ‘I’m really sorry,’ the big man said, ‘but we need to ask you some questions. Are you still OK with that?’

A nod. As Logan’s eyes adjusted to the darkened room, he could see the difference a couple of days had made. Nikki’s bruises had blossomed until her whole face was puffy and dark, fresh surgical padding covering the wounds he’d read about on the way down, a faint tinge of yellow and tiny red dots leaking through the white gauze, marking the path of her attacker’s knife. When she spoke her voice was small and painful, crying as she answered the inspector. Telling him about the birthday party at the nightclub, drinking too much. Not remembering anything till she was being sick in the taxi rank. Trying to walk home. The knife. His body. The blood … Her words made Logan feel ill all over again — how the hell could someone do this to another human being?

When it was over Insch apologized again, placed a hand on her shoulder and promised he’d do everything he could to catch the man responsible. Then they left her alone with her pain and her grief.

There was a man in a suit waiting for them at the reception desk: rough features and hands like shovels. He had CID written all over him. ‘Well?’

Insch helped himself to another chocolate from the nurse’s box. ‘Nothing conclusive. But it sounds identical to Macintyre’s MO, everything fits.’