Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin

Logan thought about it. ‘No. I’ll do him when I get in tomorrow.’ After all, it wasn’t as if there was a rush. Jason Fettes wasn’t going to get any more dead.

The press conference went surprisingly well: all the newspapers and TV crews seemed to have conveniently forgotten that this time yesterday they’d been smearing the front pages and national news with, GRAMPIAN POLICE’S SHAMEFUL CAMPAIGN OF HATE AGAINST BRAVE ROBBY MACINTYRE! Suddenly the footballer was a monster and it was a good job he was in a coma and couldn’t hurt anyone else.

Afterwards they hit the pub: Logan, Steel and Rickards, with Rennie bringing up the rear — anything for a free drink.

‘So,’ said Steel, watching Rickards scamper off to the bar for another round, ‘where’s Watson then? Thought she’d be gagging for a celebratory pint or three.’

Logan shrugged, still feeling guilty about the whole thing. ‘Day off. I left her a message.’ Wherever she was she didn’t have her phone switched on, but Insch did. Suspended or not, he was on his way in to join the party.

‘Course,’ said Steel, helping herself to another large whisky when Rickards got back from the bar, ‘now every bugger says they always knew Macintyre was guilty. But they didn’t catch him, did they? No: Spanky and Lazarus did!’ She held up her glass, proposed a toast to the pair of them — sending Rickards into a bright-red blushing fit — then downed her drink in one and sent Rennie off to the bar with her wallet.

She was halfway through a filthy joke about two nurses and a shipment of cucumbers when someone tapped Logan on the shoulder and asked if the seat next to him was taken. He got as far as, ‘No, help yourself, we-’ before he realized who it was: Rachael Tulloch, still wearing her work suit. He’d never got around to calling her back.

‘Thought I’d find you here,’ she said, sitting down next to him, then addressing the table, ‘the PF says, “bloody well, done and the next round’s on her”.’ That got a cheer.

The inspector went back to her joke as more people drifted in from FHQ — off-duty constables, sergeants, inspectors, all of them telling Steel how they knew she’d get to the bottom of it. Rachael laid a hand on Logan’s thigh when she was sure no one was watching. He tried not to flinch and she smiled at him. ‘I sort of thought you’d be stuck here tonight, what with Macintyre and everything.’

‘I … yes, about that, we-’

‘Come over tomorrow instead. It’ll be fun, I’ve got the weekend off, as long as nothing major happens.’ She gave his thigh a squeeze.

Oh God. ‘We … I’m …’ TELL HER! ‘I’m living with someone.’

Rachael smiled at him. ‘I know.’

Logan didn’t know what to say to that, so he drank half his pint in one and announced he had to go to the toilet, scurrying away before she could say anything else. Round the corner, through the doors, up the stairs … He stopped on the landing and leant back against the wall with his eyes closed. Fuck. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He’d done the hard bit: he’d told her he was living with Jackie and it didn’t make any difference! Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like Rachael — he’d kissed her for God’s sake! And it’d been nice. And she was probably a lot less volatile than Jackie, who wasn’t exactly easy to live with. And … and he didn’t know what to do.

‘Fuck.’ The fact he was even debating it probably said a lot.

Marching back downstairs to the bar Logan saw DI Insch, hulking over the small table where Steel and the rest of them sat, clapping people on the back and telling them how he’d always said it was Robert Bloody Macintyre. The only person missing now was … Talk of the devil: Jackie Watson, coming in from the rain, hair plastered down to her head, jacket dripping on the blue-and-yellow carpet.

Logan froze, just out of earshot, watching as Jackie beamed, paused, then hugged DI Insch. The large man looked momentarily taken aback, then shouted, ‘Drinks!’ And all the way through, Rachael just smiled.

Oh God … Taking a deep breath, Logan joined them.

Saturday morning hurt. Not as much as it could have done, but enough to make Logan regret staying up till two in the morning, drinking. He rolled out of bed, groaned, and scrubbed his face with his hands. Some grumbling from under the duvet next to him and he hit the off switch on the alarm, then slouched through to the shower.

FHQ was busy. Ten past seven and the day shift were catching up on all the arrests from a standard Aberdeen Friday night on the piss. Logan signed in and grabbed a big cup of coffee from the canteen before checking with the front desk to see who was about. Sergeant Eric Mitchell frowned at him. ‘You’re supposed to be on the back shift.’

Logan shrugged. ‘Jimmy Duff — he’s off to court at half three.’

‘Bloody hell … Take some sodding time off! You know how much of a pain in the arse it is to balance the books with buggers like you screwing up the overtime bill?’

‘Steel in?’

‘Nope. And neither’s Insch …’ He leant forward and put on a dramatic whisper: ‘Been suspended!’ Then a sniff. ‘Finnie’s about, if you’re desperate.’

‘Never mind.’ Logan would never be that desperate. ‘I’ll manage.’

The cell block stank of disinfectant, urine and vomit, the custody assistant pushing a mop back and forth on the filthy green floor and muttering away to himself. ‘Dirty fuckers …’

Logan took a quick look at the clipboard hanging on the wall. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘Fights, drunk and disorderlies, pissing in shop doorways, the usual.’ He slopped another mopful of grey water on the floor. ‘How come I’m always the one lumbered with the-’

‘Jimmy Duff straight again?’

‘Eh?’ He made dirty, swirly patterns on the green terrazzo floor. ‘Oh, aye. He’s whinging about that kicking he got though. Little bugger hasn’t shut up since I came on. “Oh I’m in pain! Oh I’m dying. Oh I need some medication. Blah, blah, blah.” ‘He scrubbed at a blob of gritty pink chewing gum. ‘I’ve got a bad back, and you don’t hear me-’

‘Do me a favour and get someone to stick him in an interview room.’

‘What did your last bloody slave die of? … OK, fine. Not like I’ve got anything better to do.’ He sighed and stuck his mop back in the bucket. ‘Room one?’

Logan thought about it. ‘The heater working in there?’

‘Aye, three’s still buggered though.’

‘Stick him in three then.’

There was an overwhelming air of doom and gloom in what used to be DI McPherson’s incident room, and it was all coming from a hungover-looking PC Rickards, still complaining about Debbie Kerr, and how his life was ruined. He was sharing a desk in the middle of the room with Rennie, who looked as if he was doing his best to ignore all the moaning and get some work done; fighting through the paperwork Logan had lumbered him with yesterday. ‘Right,’ said Logan, looking round the room, ‘anyone free?’

Rennie’s hand shot out, pointing at Rickards. ‘John’s free, aren’t you John? Yeah, take John. Do him good to get out of the office!’

Logan looked at the dejected figure and got as far as, ‘Ah …’ when Rickards looked up, sighed and dragged himself to his feet. ‘Actually,’ said Logan, backing away from the desk, trying to play it cool, ‘don’t worry about it: you’re busy. It was just questioning a prisoner, I can always …’ But Rickards was already retrieving his jacket from the back of his chair and pulling it on over his wrinkled white uniform shirt.

He stood there, looking as if the world had just caved in, saying: ‘You want me to get coffees.’ Not a question.