Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

Logan didn’t even bother looking round. ‘Nice try. On your feet.’

She swore again, and stood. ‘Bastards.’

‘Rickards, do the honours, will you?’

The constable pulled out his cuffs and started reciting Ashley’s rights, getting as far as, ‘anything you do say will be-’ before she kneed him in the balls. ‘Aya, fuck!’ She was fast, slamming an elbow down on the back of Rickard’s head as he crumpled, sending him crashing to the dirty garage floor, then snatching something out of the cardboard box — a squeezy bottle of bleach — spraying it in Logan’s face.

He got his arms up just in time, his head surrounded with fumes as she barged past, bouncing him off the hatchback’s passenger door. He stumbled, tripped, and landed on his backside as Ashley ran for it.

He clambered to his feet. Rickards was groaning, coiled up around his battered testicles. He’d live, but he’d be bugger-all help. Swearing, Logan burst out of the garage, skidding to a halt on the pockmarked tarmac.

She was running for the main road, shouting, ‘HELP! RAPE!’ at the top of her lungs, going as fast as her high heels would carry her.

Logan caught up with Ashley outside a small newsagents, grabbing the back of her jacket and spinning her round. She swung at him, her fist whistling past his nose as he dodged back. He returned the favour, only he didn’t miss — there was a soft crack and she went down, landing flat on that pert backside of hers, blood dribbling out between her fingers as she clutched her broken nose and moaned.

Logan hauled Ashley to her feet, shoved her up against the newsagents’ window and handcuffed her wrists behind her back. She left a smear of bright red on the glass. ‘You fuck! You fucking fuck! I’m pregnant! I’m fucking suing you! POLICE BRUTALITY!’

The newsagent’s door sneaked open a crack and a wee mannie peered out into the street, shaking his fist, staying well back. ‘You leave her alone!’

Blood streaming down her face, Ashley glared at the not-so-have-ago hero still hiding behind his shop door. ‘You saw! You saw him attack me! Police fucking brutality!’

‘Police? Oh, er … I …’ He blanched, gripping the edge of his door, inching it closed again.

Ashley spat a mouthful of scarlet at him.

Logan frogmarched her back to the garage.

DI Steel fiddled with a packet of cigarettes as the IB crawled all over Macintyre’s little red hatchback. She kept glancing back towards the ambulance and the woman sitting on the tailgate glowering out into the drizzle: squint nose still leaking bright red blood, eyes already beginning to blacken. ‘Jesus Laz, could you no’ just ask her to come quietly? How’s it going to look — “Police Beat The Shite Out O’ Pregnant Bint”? You’re a walking PR disaster. I’ve …’ She frowned. ‘What happened to your jacket?’

Logan looked down, saw nothing, then twisted his arms round: blotches on the sleeves were slowly going pale blue/brown where the bleach had hit. ‘Bastard …’ Now he’d have to get a new suit. ‘She just about castrated Rickards.’

‘Aye?’ Steel shrugged and put her fags away. ‘Best thing for him. Stop the wee fucker breeding.’ She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, then took the cigarettes out again. ‘Fuck’s sake, what’s taking them so long ?’ pointing at the IB team in their white coveralls. One team was going through the interior, another guddling about in the boot, pulling out all manner of junk, photographing it, and sticking it into labelled evidence bags. ‘Got to be something … Shite, can you imagine what would happen if this was all just some big fuck-up?’

One of the IB team hefted the spare tyre out of the boot with a grunt. There was a pause, then: ‘Bloody hell!’

‘What?’ Steel lurched forward to the cordon of blue and white POLICE tape, standing on her tiptoes, trying to see past the sudden clump of white oversuits. ‘What is it? If it’s a pile of cash I call first dibs!’

The video operator filmed, the photographer flashed and the IB poked about. Steel took a deep breath and bellowed, ‘What the fuck is going on?’

There was a sudden silence and the head technician turned round, an Aberdeen Football Club holdall in his hands — the sort you could buy at any sports shop in the city. He reached in and pulled out a knife. ‘There’s bits of jewellery and all sorts of shite in here!’

‘Oh thank fuck for that.’ DI Steel closed her eyes, sighed, then turned to Logan and grinned. ‘See, I keep tellin’ people you’re no’ just an ugly face.’

The rear podium was crowded by the time they got back to FHQ — vans and patrol cars double-parked by the rear doors as half a dozen struggling, swearing men were dragged through into the custody area. Two support officers were unloading what looked like bricks wrapped in black plastic and brown packing tape, stacking them up on a wheeled trolley. And right there in the middle, directing things like a taller, uglier version of Napoleon was DI Finnie. He held up an imperious hand as Logan and Steel manhandled Ashley out of the back of their pool car.

‘Well, well, well, if it’s not DS McRae.’ Finnie grabbed one of the blocks from the trolley, shaking it at them. ‘Half a million in uncut heroin! You can thank your lucky stars all this was still there when we raided the place. After that crap you and Fat Boy Insch pulled this morning they could have moved the lot, and next time we saw it it’d be getting sold on the streets! You’re not a police officer, you’re a bloody disgrace.’ And with that he barged past, bumping Logan with his shoulder on the way.

‘Ach,’ said Steel, ‘don’t listen to him. Wanker probably hasn’t had a shag for years.’

The Procurator Fiscal was a hair’s breadth away from doing cartwheels — the jewellery in the holdall was a perfect match for each of the victims, the ones from Aberdeen and the ones from Dundee. If he ever woke up from his coma, Macintyre was going to prison for a long, long time. Steel let Logan phone Tayside Police with the good news, getting little more than a grunt and ‘ About bloody time! ’ from that craggy-faced tosspot DCS Cameron.

‘Well?’ said Steel as Logan hung up. ‘He overcome with gratitude?’

‘No.’ He checked his watch: six thirty-one. ‘What about Jimmy Duff?’

The inspector slouched back in her chair and stared at him. ‘Jesus, can you no’ enjoy the moment for once? We just caught The Granite City Rapist! Fuckin’ balloons, jelly and ice-cream time.’ She shook her head. ‘Kids today … Fine, go, play with Duff, but you better get your arse back here by seven o’clock sharp: press conference. Then you, me and Spanky are having a booze up.’

She was right of course, he should have been celebrating, but he really wasn’t in the mood; Finnie’s little outburst had managed to take the shine off things. Because much though he couldn’t stand the abusive bastard, the man had a point — they’d compromised an ongoing drugs operation just so Insch could get his hands on a junkie who might have something to do with an accidental death. It wasn’t as if Jason Fettes had been murdered: he was into rough sex, it went too far, he died. End of story. But accident or not, it still needed tidying up, and it gave Logan something to focus on, other than how badly he’d fucked up. How he’d nearly ruined Finnie’s drug bust. How he’d thought Insch was blinded by his need to pin everything on Rob Macintyre. But mostly how he’d doubted Jackie. She wasn’t obsessed, she was right.

He phoned down to the cells to see if Jimmy Duff had come back from orbit yet. The custody assistant said, ‘ Hud oan, I’ll check ,’ then disappeared for a bit. He was back a couple of minutes later. ‘ Nope, still boldly going where millions of other buggers have been before. He’s due in court at …’ another pause and some rustling, ‘aye, half three the morn. Bags of time. You want me to get someone to interview him tonight? ’