Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

DI Steel. ‘ That’s no’ very friendly .’

‘We’re … busy.’

‘ Aye, well, you can put it away for five minutes. Telly: ITV news .’

Logan sighed, picked up the remote and clicked the television on, getting the lunchtime news — something about the latest balls-up in the war against terror. ‘So what? It’s…’ and the picture switched to a stock photo of Rob Macintyre’s ugly mug. He cranked up the volume.

‘- missing from his home late last night. The twenty-one-year-old signed a seven-figure deal for three volumesof his autobiography this week -’

‘Maybe he’s just off getting drunk somewhere?’

Macintyre’s face was replaced by his fiancee at a press conference, looking distraught in a cleavage-revealing top and perfectly-styled hair, sniffing and crying away as she told the world that her husband-to-be hadn’t come home last night. That he’d missed practice this morning. That they were worried for his safety.

Someone from the media office appeared beside her and made an appeal to camera. Logan hit the mute button. Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck-

‘ You still there? ’

‘Er … yes. Yes.’ Eyes darting towards the bedroom where Jackie had started singing.

‘ Right, get your arse back to the station — Hissing Sid’s shooting his mouth off, the press are all over us and the CC’s having kittens .’

‘I … You said I could have a day off and-’

‘ Now, Sergeant! ’

Cursing, Logan hung up. ‘Jackie?’ He found her in the kitchen, drinking orange juice from the carton. ‘Macintyre’s gone missing.’

‘Yeah?’ She shrugged, wiped her mouth and put the juice back in the fridge. ‘You want Thai or Italian for tea?’

‘Jackie, what happened last night?’

‘Nothing happened. I was here with you, remember?’

‘Jackie-’

‘I fancy noodles. If you’re going out, pick some up, eh?’

‘But-’

‘Dinner’s at seven.’ She planted a kiss on the end of his nose. ‘Don’t be late.’

The sky had taken on an ominous grey-blue tinge, spears of low, golden light sparking off the granite buildings, making them glow as if they were on fire as the sun sank towards the horizon. It was cold, leaching into Logan’s bones as they walked the search perimeter, checking in with the teams. ‘I still don’t see why we’re going to all this trouble,’ he said. ‘Macintyre’s a grown man, only been missing what, thirteen, fourteen hours?’ Just because the footballer had disappeared, it didn’t mean he was lying dead in a ditch somewhere … Please don’t let Jackie have killed him!

‘Because,’ said Steel, face creased up against the chilly wind, nose and ears bright red as she tramped along beside him, ‘he’s a missing celebrity , and they’re much more important than low-life nobodies like you and me. Famous people aren’t allowed to disappear while the media are watching.’ She stopped, looking up and down the line of skeletal trees and porcupine bushes. ‘Nobody looking?’

‘No, you’re safe.’

‘Thank God for that …’ She pulled out a packet of cigarettes with trembling fingers and stuck one in her mouth, lighting it and puffing frantically, shuddering with pleasure, then coughing violently. ‘Ohhhhhh, I needed that! Whose bloody idea was it to give people points for clypin’ on folk?’

Logan just shrugged. So far he’d made twenty quid by telling the DCS running the ‘Fit Like’ programme when Steel was smoking. ‘Watch out — incoming.’ He pointed at a uniformed constable labouring her way up the hill. The park was a wedge of yellowed grass, snow and frost-bitten trees, sweeping downhill from Bonaccord Crescent to Willowbank Road. It wasn’t huge, but it was the closest patch of open ground to where Rob Macintyre was last spotted, and there were plenty of places to hide a body.

Steel took one last puff and hid the cigarette behind her back, waving a hand in front of her face as if that would actually get rid of the smell. ‘Well?’

The PC clambered up the last bit of slippery path and shook her head. ‘Nothing. Any chance of a fag? I’m gasping.’

Steel handed one over. ‘Bugger all here and bugger all in any of the gardens. The little sod’s probably coked up in the arms of some daft tart, but I suppose we’d better widen the search area. Who knows, we might … Oh bugger.’ She squinted off into the distance at a large grey van with a satellite dish on top of it, pulling up on the other side of the park. ‘The bloody media’s here. Tell everyone to look busy!’ She started down the hill, dragging the constable with her, shouting back to Logan, ‘Chase up that useless bugger Rennie!’

Langstane Place and Justice Mill Lane were one long parade of trendy nightclubs and bars. Just the sort of places a local ‘celebrity’ like Macintyre would want to be seen. The sort of place he could pick up some impressionable, star-struck girlie, go back to her place and practise the offside rule.

Please, dear God, let Macintyre have gone home with someone! The alternative was too worrying to think about.

Logan found Rennie in a huge, fancy-looking nightclub, the drone of vacuum cleaners fighting with a portable radio tuned to Northsound Two. The constable was sitting at the bar, drinking cappuccino and making eyes at the manageress. At least he had the decency to look guilty when he saw Logan. ‘Er … thank you, Miss,’ he said, putting his cup down next to a half-eaten muffin, ‘you’ve been very helpful.’ Then marched over to report in. ‘Bingo.’ He flipped through his notebook. ‘Taxi drops Macintyre here at half-eleven after some charity bash. He’s a bit pished, but they let him in anyway because he’s famous. Security cameras show him leaving with a group of people — mostly fit birds, lucky bastard — at one twenty-three, but he didn’t go to any of the other clubs on the street.’

Logan breathed a sigh of relief: so it probably was just a late night of booze, boobs and bonking. Thank God for that. ‘Get onto the Media Office, we want anyone who remembers leaving the club with Macintyre, etc. etc.’

‘Already done it, sir.’

‘Then there’s hope for you yet. We-’

A crash as the front door was thrown open; DI Steel stood silhouetted against the last rays of the dying sun. ‘Don’t just stand there! They’ve found a body!’

Cromwell Road: the ambulance slithered its way in through the chainlink gates, digging muddy trenches into the playing-field grass as Rennie made a dog’s ear of parking outside on the street. Two patrol cars had got there first, their lights spinning lazily in the growing gloom, while their occupants cordoned off the area with blue-and-white POLICE tape. With all the media interest it wouldn’t be long before someone got down here and started taking photos or shooting video, demanding sound-bite comments, or just making shite up.

Logan hurried under the fresh cordon of tape, following Steel and the twin trails of churned-up grass. The ambulance slid to a halt and the crew jumped out, dragging equipment from the back before hurrying over to where a uniformed officer was waving her arms about as if she was drowning, shouting, ‘Over here!’

Logan ran after them, fingers crossed. ‘Please don’t let him be dead, please don’t let him be dead!’

The lead paramedic took one look at whatever the female PC was standing over, turned on his heel and sprinted back the way he’d come.

Logan’s heart sank. He was dead. Macintyre was dead. And Jackie had come home last night and thrown every scrap of clothing she had on into the washing machine to boil …