Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

‘Jackie, I-’

‘It’s because of Macintyre isn’t it?’

‘I-’

‘Not bad enough the little raping fuck attacks all those women, now he’s-’

‘Enough!’ Logan stuck his head round the side of the shower curtain, water dripping onto the bathroom floor. ‘OK? Enough. Leave it. I don’t want to talk about-’

‘No? Well I do! I’m not putting up with you dragging your pitiful arse round the whole time! Get-’

‘YOU PUT HIM IN A COMA!’ There was silence, just the dull drone of the heater and the spluttering shower. Logan sat on the edge of the bath, with his back against the cool tiles. ‘You could have killed him. You made me an accessory after the fact and I’m on the bloody investigation! What am I supposed to do?’

She stared back at him through the cloud of steam. ‘Did it ever occur to you that I didn’t actually do it?’

‘Oh come off it. You hated him. You come back, throw everything in the washing machine, ask me to lie and say you were here all night, and next morning he turns up battered so badly they don’t know if he’ll ever wake up. Look at your knuckles for God’s sake, they’re still bruised.’

Jackie held up her hands, turning them so Logan could see the dark purple patches. ‘I got into a fight, OK? I was in a pub and some arsehole started going on about how the police should leave Macintyre alone ’cos he was a hero and we’re all corrupt fuckwits and those women were asking for it. He threw something, it got nasty. I think I broke his chin …’ Flexing her hands and wincing. ‘I’m not proud of it, but I didn’t want to get caught. They’d suspend me, or worse, and he started it! I’m not getting chucked off the force ’cos some slope-headed fuckwit wants to pick a fight.’

Logan looked at her, trying to work out if she was telling the truth or not, searching for the telltale signs, but there weren’t any. If it was a lie it was a good one. ‘So you never laid a hand on Macintyre?’

‘I kicked him in the ribs when I arrested him, yeah, kneed him in the balls, but I didn’t put him in a bloody coma, OK? How could you think I would do something like that? I’m a police officer!’

‘I …’ Logan put his head in his hands. ‘It’s been a shite week.’

She nodded, slipped off her shoes and clambered into the bathtub with him, fully dressed, her shirt going transparent in the shower, revealing a hideous grey bra. ‘Well,’ she said, pulling him to his feet and stepping close, ‘if you think I’m a dirty cop, you’d better give me a damn good wash.’ And then there was kissing, full frontal nudity, and soap-on-a-rope.

Seven am Friday and there was no sign of Insch at the morning briefing, so Logan handed out the assignments, hurrying through them, hoping he could be done and out of there before the inspector arrived. Not believing his luck when he managed it.

It was too early to try breaking Deborah Kerr’s alibi — the IT company she worked for didn’t open its doors till nine according to their website — so that left Rob Macintyre’s mother and fiancee.

Logan opted for the lesser of two evils.

It was strangely silent downstairs in the custody wing, just the muffled band-saw sound of someone snoring in one of the male cells, echoing down the short flight of concrete steps to where the women were kept. Ashley was looking rough, hair all skewed, dark bags under her pink eyes, grey face, scarlet nose. She’d obviously had a bad night, done a lot of soul searching and crying. She’d suffered. Which was exactly what Logan was hoping for. She sat upright on her blue plastic mattress, back ramrod straight, not looking at him as he stepped into the sour-smelling cell.

‘So,’ he said, settling down next to her, ‘you had a think about what you saw yesterday?’

She wouldn’t look at him. ‘When I met Robert he was the coolest guy ever. Twenty years old and rolling in cash. The house, the cars, the clothes, foreign holidays…’ She sniffed. ‘Course he had his mum with him the whole time, wouldn’t let him out of her sight. Strong woman. You know, emotionally? His dad died, and this is like six months after I started seeing Robert, and she didn’t cry once. Like a rock. And she liked me . Said I wasn’t like all those gold-digging bitches who tried to get their claws into him before. She hated them, but she was good to me. He was good to me.’

‘But he changed, didn’t he? Something happened.’

‘We were going to have a family. Two boys and a girl.’ She lifted her gaze from the wall to the thin window running along just beneath the roof. It was still dark outside, the etched glass milky grey. She sighed, one hand going to her tiny pregnant bump. ‘Don’t suppose that’ll happen now.’

‘Ashley, you don’t have to lie for him any more. He can’t hurt you.’

She turned and frowned at him. ‘He never hurt me. I’d’ve broken his bloody nose for him if he’d tried. And his mum would’ve had his balls!’

Logan took her hand and stared into her bloodshot eyes. Trying again: ‘Think about what you saw yesterday. All those women. You-’

‘Oh I’ve been thinking a lot.’ And she smiled. It was like watching a wound tear open. ‘I’m going to court at four today for this perverting justice crap you’re trying to pin on me. I’m going to tell them how Robert was a perfect gentleman and you’re all bastards. Then I’m going to talk to that lawyer who got Robert off and sue you fuckers for every penny you’ve got.’

He let go of her hand and stood. ‘You do that. It’ll be something to keep you busy when you’re in prison.’ And she actually laughed.

‘I’m pregnant, you idiot. They don’t send pregnant women to jail. You’ve got nothing — no evidence, no witnesses, nothing. Because my Robert’s innocent!’

Mrs Macintyre had fared a lot better than her son’s fiancee. They’d put the old woman in a cell on the floor above, at the far end of the corridor, one of two that could be segregated from the rest of the detention area by a set of black, metal bars. She was lying flat on her back, fully dressed, staring up at the advert for Crimestoppers painted on the ceiling. ‘Shame,’ said Logan, leaning back against the wall, ‘you’d’ve thought she’d be tougher than that.’

Macintyre’s mum didn’t bother getting up. ‘What do you want now?’

‘Ashley: one night in the cells and she’s telling me all sorts of interesting things about Wee Robby Macintyre.’

‘Your mother never wash your mouth out for tellin’ lies? She peeled open an eye and glowered at him. ‘Our Ashley’s a good quine. She’s no’ said a thing, ‘cos there’s nothin’ to say.’

‘Coma or not, we’re going to prosecute him. Everyone’s going to know what your boy did. She’s given us more than enough to-’

‘I will not stand for lies!’

‘-make sure that if he ever wakes up, he’ll be going straight to jail for thirty years to life-’

‘You’re nothing but filth!’ Macintyre’s mum bustled to her feet and marched across the dark green terrazzo floor till she was standing right in front of him.

‘-with all the other perverts and rapists and paedophiles-’

She spat in his face.

There was still no sign of Insch, but it didn’t make Logan feel any better: whatever the inspector was up to, it just postponed the bollocking he was going to get for last night’s fiasco. So when Colin Miller called it was all the excuse he needed to get the hell out of FHQ.

A cold wind whipped through the streets, the sky opaque and milky-grey as Logan drove up Schoolhill, making for the maternity hospital. A crowd of nervous fathers-to-be and knackered fathers-already-been clustered just around the corner from the hospital doors, smoking. Miller was on the outskirts, yawning his head off, a cigarette cupped in his hand as if he was trying to hide it. He barely looked at Logan, took one last drag and dropped the butt, grinding it into the concrete with his foot. ‘Here.’ The reporter pulled a thick envelope from his pocket and handed it over.