Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

The CID room was dead, just the repetitive, hungry bleep of the fax machine wanting more paper, spoiling the silence. Logan settled down at his computer and began to type.

‘Oh for God’s sake — not you again!’ Big Gary looked up from his copy of the Evening Express : TRIBUTES POUR IN FOR BRAVE MACINTYRE and watched Logan signing out. ‘I’m going to start charging you rent!’

‘One of Macintyre’s victims killed herself.’

The big man’s face fell. ‘Aw shite …’

‘Yeah. So you can stop giving me a hard time. Got enough of that from bloody Eric today.’

‘Aye well,’ Gary smiled, ‘don’t take it too personally: his daughter borrowed the family car and wrapped it round a bollard yesterday. She’s OK, but the car’s buggered. Mind you,’ said Gary, leaning over the desk to whisper theatrically, ‘it’s his own fault for letting her have the keys in the first place. I wouldn’t trust her to blow her nose, never mind drive to the shops. Still, that’s kids for you … What?’

Logan had turned on his heel and was already hurrying back the way he’d come, ignoring the shouts of, ‘Hoy! You’ve got to sign back in!’

The CCTV team were in the process of following a group of teenagers down Union Street, tracking them from camera to camera as they sung and shouted and staggered their way past the closed shops. Logan accosted the inspector in charge. ‘Can you run an ANPR check on old tapes?’

‘How old are we talking?’

‘Sunday and Monday.’

He thought about it for a bit. ‘Don’t see why not, but it’ll take a while.’

Logan frowned. ‘Any way to speed it up? I only need from about …’ taking a rough guess, ‘call it ten pm onwards?’

‘You got the number?’

‘It’s a red hatchback, probably registered to Rob Macintyre’s mother.’

‘Be quicker to just run the tapes on the MUX and fast forward till you see a red car, then. Soon as we’ve finished with these wee buggers,’ he said, pointing at the teenagers on the screen, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

‘You’ve got to be bloody kidding me!’ said Insch, mouth hanging open, bits of half-chewed jelly babies stuck to his teeth, while the chorus launched into the entrance of the Mikado for the second time since Logan had pushed through the church hall doors. ‘He borrowed his mum’s car?’

‘Technically it’s his aunt’s car. Took us a while to track down the registration, but it was caught on camera taking the road south last Sunday and Monday. I’ve got the team going back through the tapes for all the other nights there was a rape — the ones we’ve still got anyway. Tayside are doing the same.’

‘And you’re sure it’s him driving?’

Logan helped himself to a green baby, biting its head off with a grin. ‘Perfect shot of him going down the Drive, and one more coming back about four hours later. More than enough time.’

The inspector looked confused. ‘But he had that video — the one with you and Watson-’

‘All he had to do was change the time on his watch before he shot it. Half three in the morning: I was keeping watch and Jackie was asleep. On the video we’re both awake. I didn’t twig till we traced the car.’

The singing came to a halt, but it took Insch a couple of moments to realize the chorus were all staring at him. He stood and glowered back. ‘Did I tell you to stop? Keep going! Right,’ he said when they were up and running again, ‘we wait for Dundee to get back to us. Soon as they do: we go to the Fiscal.’

Tayside Police had promised to call Logan back as soon as they found anything, so he settled down to watch the rehearsal. He had to admit Insch’s cast was getting better, even Rennie, but the star of the show was Debbie — the one everyone said was brilliant. Two steps on stage and she shone — changing from a wavy-haired woman in her late thirties into a bitter, twisted old battleaxe, cheated out of love. What she was doing with the rest of Insch’s performing monkeys was anyone’s guess.

The call from Dundee didn’t come for nearly an hour. ‘Well?’ said Insch as Logan thanked the woman on the other end and hung up.

He tried to keep a straight face, but it was impossible. ‘We’ve got him.’

The drinks just kept on coming. After rehearsal they decamped to the Noose and Monkey, where Insch was in such a good mood he bought a round for the entire cast. Logan found himself sitting next to Rennie and his groupies, while Rickards sat at the far end of the table, deep in conversation with Debbie. Logan wasn’t really listening to Rennie telling his ‘When I Met Billy Connolly’ story, he was watching Rickards laughing and joking with the only decent thespian the production had. Logan smiled, remembering that night in the Illicit Still when he’d seen the contents of her handbag, and wondering if the Rankin paperback she’d been carrying around was Black and Blue or something else. Maybe she and Rickards had a lot more in common than anyone knew? It would certainly explain the fur-lined handcuffs.

The guy who played Poo-Bah sauntered over and cajoled Debbie into doing her party piece — an impersonation of their beloved director. She put her wine down, puffed up her cheeks, lumbered to her feet and harangued them all in a pretty good facsimile of the inspector’s bass rumble for not knowing their bloody words. All the time eating invisible sweeties from an invisible bag. Everyone laughed, even Insch.

‘So,’ said Logan, catching Insch after the applause had died down, ‘what’s the plan with Macintyre?’

‘Haul his mother and skanky girlfriend in. Charge them with perverting the course of justice, giving false alibis, lean on them. Impound the car, get the IB to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. The bastard may be in a coma, but we’re going to nail him anyway!’ The inspector stood, towering over Logan, ‘Time for more drinks!’

A bleary face peered out from beneath the duvet as Logan lurched in, clicked on the bedroom light and started to fight his way out of his octopus-like clothes. The socks were the worst. ‘You’ll never guess,’ he said. ‘Go on: guess.’

‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Jackie buried her head under a pillow with a muffled, ‘Switch the bloody light off!’

‘Come on, have a guess …’ He threw the last sock at the light switch, but it didn’t work, so he had to turn it off by hand. ‘We got him!’

‘It’s after one!’

‘Everyone was … was …’ Logan collapsed on the bed and tried to figure out what he wanted to say. ‘He …’ a small belch. ‘You shouldn’t have done it though.’ Having a bit of difficulty with the words. ‘But it was him, so no one cares.’ He lent over and patted her leg through the duvet. ‘You shouldn’t have done it though.’

‘You’re drunk. Go to sleep.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he said, then shooshed her, then giggled. ‘I’m a fucking awful policeman.’ And suddenly it stopped being funny. But he was asleep before the guilt could really take hold.

* * *

‘Well, isn’t this nice ,’ said Insch, sipping from his delicate china cup, a Tunnocks caramel wafer balanced on his knee. Macintyre’s house was gloomy, icy rain rattling the windows as Ashley, her mother-in-law to be, Logan and Insch took morning tea in the front room.

The footballer’s mum sniffed and scowled at him over the top of her glasses. ‘I resent your accusations, Inspector: My Robby was home.’

‘No he wasn’t.’

‘I just said he was! You’ve no right to call me a liar in my own home! How dare you!’

Insch let her rant for a bit, before cutting her off in mid flow. ‘Well, if you’re telling the truth, why do we have CCTV footage of him driving your sister’s car from Aberdeen to Dundee every night there was a rape down there?’