Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

‘Out the bloody way!’ It was the paramedic, running back from the ambulance with a neck brace in one hand, a silvery blanket under his arm, and a bottle of oxygen over his shoulder. He crashed into the bushes and disappeared from sight.

Logan crept forwards.

Macintyre was lying on his side, arms and legs splayed out like a broken swastika on the cold, damp, blood-soaked ground. His face was swollen almost beyond recognition, eyes closed, mouth open, a trail of spittle and dark red trailing across the ambulance men’s gloved hands as they strapped the neck brace into position and slipped the oxygen mask over his smashed nose and mouth. ‘Oh Jesus …’ Logan’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘Jackie, what the hell did you do?’

She’d been thorough: every visible inch of flesh was speckled with livid, purple bruises, the skin in between pale and waxy. Rob Macintyre had been beaten to death. He just hadn’t got around to dying yet.

Logan stood at the back of the room feeling sick as the Chief Constable read out the prepared statement, cameras flashing away as he told the world the official version of events. Rob Macintyre had been the victim of a particularly violent robbery. The podium was crowded — DI Steel, Macintyre’s fiancee and mother, Hissing Sid, someone from Aberdeen Football Club, and the woman from the press office, all there to appeal for any information on Rob Macintyre’s movements last night. Wanting whoever had attacked him to come forward and hand themselves in.

Logan almost laughed. There wasn’t a chance in hell Jackie was going to stick her hand up for what she’d done to Macintyre. Unless someone had seen her, or they found some forensic evidence, this was one case that was going to go unsolved because Logan wasn’t going to say a word. Keep his head down. Pretend it never happened. Be an accessory after the fact and pervert the course of justice. Even though the guilt was killing him. But what else was he supposed to do?

Colin Miller sidled up as the Media Officer unveiled replicas of the items believed to be missing from Macintyre’s body when he was discovered: a thick leather wallet; a Rolex watch; three gold rings; a thick gold chain-bracelet; and the footballer’s trademark ruby earstud. Anyone offered any of these items was to contact the police immediately.

‘Course,’ said Miller, nodding at the display, ‘this is all shite, isn’t it? No way this wiz a muggin’.’ He waited for Logan to reply, got nothing, then said, ‘Come on — I been up the hospital. Fractured legs, broken arms, ribs … it wiz professional. Doctor I spoke to said eighty per cent chance of extensive brain damage. Aye, and that’s if he ever wakes up! Between you an’ me,’ Colin lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘both his nuts wiz ruptured. No’ just battered either, totally crushed. If it wasnae for the hypothermia he’d be deid by now.’

When the CC threw the conference open to questions it took all of three seconds before someone else made the same connection that Miller had. It was difficult not to, with Hissing Sid sitting up there covered in bruises. And as soon as the lawyer let slip that protective surveillance had been withdrawn from Macintyre the night before last, the knives came out. The guy from AFC insisted that the police could, and should have done more, Hissing Sid claimed that a number of significant errors of judgment had been made, Macintyre’s fiancee sat there and cried asking how she could bring up a baby without its father, while his mother stared out at the cameras demanding justice. Someone had to pay for her wee boy being in a coma.

It didn’t take long before the Chief Constable brought the whole thing to an unceremonious halt.

Logan watched Moir-Farquharson limp from the room, handing out soundbites to anyone who’d listen, demanding an official enquiry.

‘Two-faced slimy bastard!’

‘Mmm?’ Miller had switched his mobile back on and was peering at it, holding the thing at various bizarre angles in his black-gloved hands. ‘Come on ya wee …’ A sudden smile, and Miller punched a button then held the phone to his ear, listening in silence for a moment, before hanging up. He gave Logan a nervous smile. ‘Izzy wiz gettin’ twinges this mornin’. Reception here’s shite byraway. What if the contractions start?’ He poked his phone again. ‘Think I’m runnin’ low on battery …’

‘How’d you like an exclusive?’

‘I mean it’s no’ an exact science is it? They say forty-two weeks, but it could be more or less. And how do they know it’s been forty-two weeks? It’s no’ like-’

‘An exclusive , Colin.’

‘What? Oh, right, aye, that’d be grand.’ He swung his phone about a bit more. ‘Can we do it somewhere I can get a signal, but?’

Steel was in her office, pacing back and forth in front of the window, looking down at the knot of journalists outside. ‘Bloody hell — it’s a disaster! Why could they no’ give this one to Insch? What did I do to deserve it?’

Logan let her moan as he pretended to read the interview notes. Since they’d found Rob Macintyre’s battered body all the women he was supposed to have raped had been questioned, along with their partners and families. Not surprisingly none of them expressed any sympathy for the footballer’s condition. And they all had alibis. Tayside police had been asked to do the same thing with their victims, but Logan knew it was pointless. How the hell was he supposed to investigate Macintyre’s getting beaten half to death, when he lived with the person who’d done it? And there was no way he was going to fit anyone else up.

He joined Steel at the window, watching as the television camera lights winked off one by one, and the crews dispersed, leaving three figures standing together in the car park: the familiar brassy blonde of Macintyre’s fiancee, his horrible, blue-rinsed mother, and his battered lawyer. ‘Doesn’t matter what we do,’ said Steel, as Sandy Moir-Farquharson shook the women’s hands and limped off towards his Jaguar, ‘we’re going to get screwed on this one.’

Logan watched the two women march across to a small red hatchback, climb in and reverse out of their parking space. Steel was right — this whole thing was a complete and utter disaster.

He was poring over the preliminary forensic report on Rob Macintyre’s clothes, praying they hadn’t found anything, when the PC collared him. ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you!’ she said, pointing at the collection of seized DVDs in the corner of the CID office. ‘That bloody film — put it in expecting to see some Disney pish with my six-year-old niece and what do we get? Hardcore homemade bondage! What was I supposed to say when her mum got back?’

‘Not my fault, you knew Ma Stewart was peddling porn when you borrowed it.’

‘Shagging I could have coped with, but this was fucking foul!’ And just to prove it, she marched over to the box of pirated films, rummaged around, pulled out the offending DVD and handed it to him. ‘Go on, try it!’

Sighing, Logan dragged himself away from his desk and slipped the disk into the player set up by the fridge. It was hooked up to an old twelve-inch TV set and the picture fizzed and crackled into a low-definition image of a man strapped face-down on a table with his legs open wide as someone hammered the living hell out of his thighs, back and arse with what looked like a leather ping-pong paddle.

‘Look, you borrow stuff from the evidence box, you get what you …’ Logan trailed off into silence, standing with his head on one side, watching the people on the screen. There was a full-length, gilt-edged mirror on the wall at the end of the spanking table, showing the whole scene from the opposite angle. The figure strapped to the table was blond, wearing a gag. And he looked a hell of a lot like Jason Fettes.