Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

Logan's eyes moved past the gore. There were distinct ligature marks around both ankles. The wrists too. Angry bruises, torn skin. The signs of a struggle. He winced. From the look of things Geordie had been tied up and awake while one of the McLeod boys took his kneecaps off. Hack after hack. And George Stephenson had been a big lad. He would've put up one hell of a fight. So it was both McLeods: Colin and Simon. One to hold him down, the other to wield the machete.

There were other marks too. Contusions, scrapes, damage from floating about in the harbour all night. What looked like teeth-marks.

Logan hadn't read the post mortem report yet, but he recognized bite-marks when he saw them. He squatted down beside the body and peered at the indentations. Dark purple weals in the pale skin. Slightly irregular, as if a few teeth were missing. He didn't think of the McLeods as being biters. Not Simon anyway. Colin? There always was something not right about that boy, from the moment he'd jammed a live cat onto the railings surrounding Union Terrace Gardens to the time he'd been caught taking a crap on his grandmother's tombstone. Not right. And he didn't have a full set of choppers, due to a bottle fight in a karaoke bar. He'd have to get Forensics to make a cast of the bite. See if they couldn't match it up to Colin McLeod's dental records.

The door banged behind him and he straightened up to see Isobel deep in conversation with her assistant, Brian, who finished saying something and made a big, expansive gesture with his hands. Isobel threw back her head and laughed.

Oh Brian, you're so damn funny with your floppy girl's hair and your massive nose. Was this the bit of rough DI Steel was talking about? Even with his stomach full of stitches Logan could kick the shite out of him in two minutes flat. How was that for rough?

Isobel stopped laughing as soon as she saw him standing there over the naked body of Geordie Stephenson. 'Hello?' she said, flushing slightly.

'I have an ID for this gentleman.' Logan's voice was slightly less warm than the corpse.

'Ah, right…' She looked at him, then at the body laid out on the slab. She gestured to her assistant. 'Well…Brian will be able to help you.' She flashed a brittle smile, and then she was gone.

Brian took down George Stephenson's details, scribbling them down in a little pad. Logan was finding it very difficult to keep his voice polite and even. Was this little shite of a man screwing Isobel? Did she make those small mewing noises for him?

Brian spiked the last full stop with a flourish and popped the pad back in his jacket. 'Oh, and before you go I've got something for you…' he said.

Logan had the sudden feeling he was going to pull a pair of Isobel's panties out of his pocket but instead Brian crossed the room and picked a large manila envelope out of the internal mail tray.

'Bloodwork on your unknown four-year-old girl. Some interesting stuff in there.' He handed the envelope over then busied himself zipping up Geordie's body-bag and tidying the corpse away while Logan flipped through the report.

Brian wasn't kidding. It was very interesting. In the canteen at lunchtime there was only one topic of conversation: was DI Insch for the chop? Logan ate in silence at a table as far away from everyone else as possible. The lasagne tasted like damp newspaper to him.

A wave of silence went through the room and Logan looked up to see DI Insch walking up to the counter for his usual: scotch broth, macaroni cheese and chips, jam sponge and custard.

'Please God,' said Logan under his breath, 'let him sit somewhere else…'

But Insch took one look round the canteen, fixed his eyes on Logan and made a beeline for his table.

'Afternoon, sir.' Logan pushed the half-eaten lasagne away.

To his immense relief DI Insch just grunted a hello and started in on his soup. And when that was all gone he launched himself at the macaroni, drowning the chips in salt and vinegar, smothering the cheesy pasta with black pepper. Munch, munch, munch.

Logan felt daft, just sitting there, watching the inspector eat. So he poked at his lasagne with a fork. Breaking down the layers into a big homogeneous mush. 'Got the bloodwork back on the little dead girl,' he said at last. 'She was pumped full of painkillers. Temazepam mostly.'

Insch's eyebrow shot up.

'It wasn't enough to kill her. Not an overdose or anything, but it looked like she'd been on them for a while. The lab thinks it would have kept her spaced out. Docile.'

The last of the pasta disappeared into Insch and a chip used to mop up the remaining, vinegar-laced, cheese sauce. He chewed thoughtfully. 'Interesting,' he said at last. 'Anything else?'

'She had TB at some point.'

'Now we're getting somewhere.' Insch stacked his empty plate on top of the soup bowl and pulled his dessert to centre stage. 'Not that many places in the UK you can still catch TB. Get onto the health boards. It's a notifiable disease. If our girl had it she'll be on their lists.' He scooped up a spoonful of custard and sponge, a smile on his lips. 'About bloody time we got some good luck.'

Logan didn't say anything.

Matthew Oswald had worked for the council for six months, straight out of school with fewer qualifications than his mother had been hoping for. His father didn't care that much. He'd never got a qualification in his life and it hadn't done him any harm, had it? So Matthew picked up his lunchbox and went to work for Aberdeen City Council's sanitation department.

The life of a scaffy wasn't as bad as a lot of people thought. You got out in the fresh air, the guys were a laugh, the pay wasn't that bad, and if you screwed up nobody died. And, since the invention of the wheelie-bin, there wasn't much heavy lifting. Not like in the old days, as Jamey, the driver of their wagon, liked to say.

So, all in all, life was OK. A bit of money in the bank, mates at work and a new girlfriend who wasn't shy about letting him get his hand up her jumper.

And then came the offer of overtime. He should have said no, but more cash meant a season ticket to the football. Matthew lived for Aberdeen Football Club. Which was why he was now dressed in a blue plastic boiler suit, black Wellington boots, thick black rubber gloves, safety goggles and a breathing mask. The only skin showing was where his forehead didn't quite fit under the boiler suit's elasticated hood. He looked like something out of the X-Files and was sweating like a bastard.

The sleet pounding down out of the dark grey sky didn't make any difference to the sweat running down his back and into his boxers. But there was no way in hell he was taking the damn rubber rompersuit off!

Grunting, he lifted the shovel up to shoulder height and stuffed another load of rotting carcasses into the huge waste container. Everything stank of death. Even through the breathing mask he could smell it. Rotting meat. Vomit. He'd lost his breakfast and lunch yesterday. Not today though. Today he'd kept his Weetabix where they were supposed to be.

All bloody day yesterday and all bloody day today. And from the look of it all bloody day tomorrow. Shovelling up dead animals.

The filthy bastard who owned the place was standing in the doorway to one of the steadings, the one they'd cleared out yesterday. He didn't seem to notice the sleet either, just stood there in a ratty jumper looking miserable as his sicko collection was carted away.

Matthew had seen his dad's paper this morning. Some parents in Garthdee had beaten the shite out of the bloke for hanging round their kids' school. The man's face was a patchwork of purple-and-green bruises. Served him fucking right, thought Matthew as he trudged back through the sleet for another shovelful of rotting corpses.