Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

The constable shuffled his police-issue boots. ‘He was kind of insistent it had to be you, Guv.’

Of course he was. Logan put his coffee down. Sighed. Then stood. ‘Get a car.’

PC Guthrie hauled the CID pool car into the car park behind a swanky boutique hotel on Queen’s Road. A middle-aged man in black trousers and burgundy waistcoat was sitting on a low wall, a clump of blood-soaked tissue held against his nose. Scarlet stains covered the front of his white shirt. He looked up as Guthrie hauled on the handbrake and climbed out into the morning sun.

Logan levered himself out of his seat, something sharp grinding away at the base of his spine.

The man with the bloody nose didn’t say a word, just pointed back towards the rear of the hotel and an open fire exit.

Logan nodded at Guthrie. ‘Take his statement.’

Guthrie looked left, then right, then dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Thought we were keeping this low key? ’

‘Tell me, Constable, do you remember what Steel said would happen if you don’t deal with your allotted jobbie when you’re told to? ’

‘Ah. . Right.’ A blush made his chubby cheeks glow. ‘Yes, Guv. Statement. .’ He pulled out his notebook and shuffled in front of Mr Bleedy. ‘Now, sir, I need you to tell me what happened, in your own words.’

Logan left him to it.

Inside the hotel, the corridor was lined in dark-red flock wallpaper with brass sconces every couple of metres casting pools of golden light. Tasteful in a ‘tart’s boudoir’ kind of way. Plain wooden doors sat every eight foot or so, signed with things like ‘PRIVATE’ and ‘STAFF ONLY’. One three doors down lay open, with someone’s leg sticking out into the hallway, their blue sock twitching in time to muffled grunts from inside the room.

Kinky.

He peered in. A lanky man lay face down on the floor, one shoe on, one shoe off, struggling beneath a huge lump of muscle in a bomber jacket, jeans and a red T-shirt.

Mr Muscle had one knee in the base of the guy’s spine, one arm twisted up behind his back, and his face mashed into the grey carpet tiles. A translucent coil of wire spiralled out of Mr Muscle’s left ear and disappeared into his collar. So he was either a concerned citizen with hearing difficulties, or a professional security thug.

Logan leaned against the doorframe. ‘Are we all having fun? ’

Mr Muscle looked up and gave him a thin smile. His face was round and smooth, like a large, slightly scary baby. ‘Mr Whyte here is having a difficult time adjusting to being single. Aren’t you, Mr Whyte? ’

The lanky bloke wriggled some more, muffled swearing just about audible through the carpet tile’s pile.

‘Any chance you can let Mr Whyte go? ’

‘I don’t know if that would be advisable.’ Mr Muscle pulled a face. ‘The last time we tried releasing Mr Whyte, he assaulted one of the hotel staff.’

Logan stepped into the room. Then paused. Something in there smelled like raw meat and wet dog. . He pulled out his handcuffs and secured Mr Whyte’s other wrist, then hauled it over so he could grab the one Mr Muscle had in a death grip. Click. ‘OK, let him up.’

Mr Muscle took his knee out of the guy’s spine, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hauled him to his feet.

One side of Robbie Whyte’s face was scratched and glowing with carpet burn, other than that, there didn’t seem to be a mark on him. What he did have was a rumpled quiff, designer stubble, bright-blue eyes ringed in red veins, and a dimple in his chin big enough to hide a Malteser. That, the hairy arms, and the pot belly, made him look like a boy band member who’d gone to seed. His grey T-shirt had ‘GOD’S GIFT’ printed on it in big flesh-coloured letters. The ‘i’ in ‘gift’ was shaped to look like a willy.

‘Get off me!’ He kicked out, just missing Logan’s knee. ‘I’ll fucking kill you!’ The smell of stale beer, whisky, and kebab oozed out of him.

Logan took a step back and produced his warrant card. ‘Threatening a police officer is an offence , Mr Whyte. As is assault.’

‘I never did nothing! NOTHING!’

Mr Muscle tightened his grip on the guy’s shoulders. ‘Mr Whyte, I strongly suggest you cooperate with the authorities.’

Logan swapped his warrant card for his notebook. ‘Where’s Nichole Fyfe? ’

The big man nodded back over his shoulder. ‘Miss Fyfe is upstairs in her room. She’s deeply upset.’

‘I didn’t do nothing .’

Mr Muscle gave him a little shake. ‘Mr Whyte here has been hanging around the hotel for at least the last three days. Last night he tried to make contact with Miss Fyfe. She informed him that their relationship was over four years ago, and asked him to leave her alone.’

Whyte’s face darkened. ‘That’s crap . You bring her in here, and she’ll tell you-’

‘This morning, Miss Fyfe opened her hotel-room door and discovered a parcel in the corridor outside, addressed to her.’

‘It’s bollocks. He’s lying-’

‘When Miss Fyfe opened it, she discovered the severed head of a Yorkshire terrier, wrapped up in press clippings about her involvement with the filming of Witchfire .’

‘I told you it wasn’t me!’

Logan stared at him. ‘Seriously? ’

Mr Muscle nodded at a cardboard box sitting in the middle of the room’s desk. It was still partially wrapped in gold and silver paper. Logan peeked inside. It wasn’t a big terrier, the head no bigger than his fist, the fur around the muzzle and neck spiky with dark-red clots, both eyes open, staring up out of the box at him.

At least that explained the smell.

The head nestled in a bowl of scrunched newspaper and pages torn from magazines, all of it stained with blood. Looked as if there were a couple of decent fingerprints on a photo-spread from Hello! ‘FABULOUS NICHOLE SPARKLES AT ABERDEEN CHARITY AUCTION’, the whorls and deltas picked out in scarlet.

‘You killed a dog? What is wrong with you? ’

‘I didn’t do it! They’re fitting me up! Ask Nichole: ask her, she’ll tell you it’s all lies. He’s trying to make me look bad. He’s-’

Mr Muscle gave him another shake. ‘I arrived with the studio car to collect Miss Fyfe at six this morning. Mr Whyte was waiting outside, hiding behind the hotel bins. I approached him to ascertain why he wasn’t respecting Miss Fyfe’s request for privacy and he threw an empty bottle of Bell’s Whisky at me.’

‘I never! He’s lying!’

Logan looked Mr Muscle up and down. ‘You give evidence in court a lot , don’t you? ’

‘Occupational hazard.’ His massive shoulders shrugged beneath the shiny bomber jacket. ‘But I believe the incident with the bottle will be captured on the hotel’s security cameras. After Mr Whyte’s assault on my person, I restrained him and contacted Mr Insch for further instructions.’

Logan stopped writing. ‘Let me guess, he asked you not to make it official? ’

‘Sadly, that was before I learned about the package. As I said, Miss Fyfe is considerably distressed.’

Not surprising. Most hotels left newspapers outside the rooms in the morning, not severed Yorkshire terriers’ heads.

As soon as the cell door closed the sobbing started.

PC Guthrie peered through the clear plastic evidence bag and into the open box. His shoulders dropped an inch. ‘Poor little fella. .’

Logan patted him on the back. ‘Get it up to fingerprints. Then off to the mortuary.’

He sucked his teeth, mouth turning down at the edges. ‘The Ice Queen’s going to love that. Can’t we just-’

‘And I want a full criminal history of laughing boy on my desk in twenty minutes, tops.’