Dark Blood (17 page)

So Logan went searching through the PNC for any unsolved murders where the house had been burned. Without a specific timeframe to narrow the search the results would be virtually useless, but it would give him somewhere to start when Frankland Prison got back to him.

He dragged another tissue out of the pack and made snottery noises into it.

‘Urgh, could you
please
stop sniffing for five minutes?’

Logan twirled his seat around, until he was looking at the room’s only other occupant. Detective Sergeant Doreen Taylor wrinkled her nose and stared back at him. ‘Honestly, Logan, you’re like a small child.’

Well, if he was like a small child, she was like someone’s plump auntie: blue jeans, grey cardigan, shoulder-length bob.

‘Didn’t see you stuck out in the sodding sleet all morning, did I?’

‘Don’t be petulant. Here…’ She dug into her handbag and came out with a packet of Lockets. ‘And for goodness sake, try—’

The door bashed open and Biohazard Bob skittered to a halt on the carpet tiles. He poked a finger in Logan’s direction. ‘You! Run! Run now!’

‘What are you—’

Bob grabbed Logan by the shoulders and hauled him out of the chair, snatched the jacket off the rack by the door and thrust it into his hands. ‘Trust me. Get your arse in gear and find somewhere else to be.
Now
!’

Logan shuffled sideways. ‘Have you been at the cauliflower cheese again?’

‘Go!’

Frown. Logan pulled on his jacket. ‘OK, OK. But this better not be a wind up or…’

He drifted to a halt as someone bellowed, ‘Where the
sodding hell
is he?’

DI Steel.

Logan stared at Bob. ‘But she’s supposed to be—’

Bob shoved him towards the door. ‘Will you take a bloody telling?’

He staggered out into the CID room, took one look at the door leading back to the main part of FHQ – where all the DIs had their offices, and where the shouting was coming from – and legged it in the opposite direction instead, barrelling through into the bare concrete stairwell.

From here he could see through the window into the CHIS handlers’ room, segregated from everyone else by a keypad door and double glazing. They were all getting out of their seats, moving towards the tiny side window that looked out on the main CID area. Staring at something.

Logan took the stairs two at a time, no idea what he’d done wrong.

Whatever it was, he wanted to be as far away from DI Steel as possible before he found out.

‘You’re late.’ Isobel’s eyes narrowed above her white elasticated mask.

Logan adjusted his safety goggles. ‘Blame Finnie – I had to go babysit a huge Geordie DSI and his pet pervert. Found anything yet?’

The makeshift mortuary was a huge drive-in fridge, part of an old cash-and-carry on an industrial estate in the Bridge of Don, commandeered to act as Isobel’s secondary crime scene. It was the only place big enough for the forklift truck they’d needed to move the concrete slab containing Steve Polmont’s remains.

All the fridge’s usual contents – the boxes of fruits, vegetables, fresh meat, and milk – had been stacked against the walls, clearing a space in the centre about the size of Logan’s flat.

The IB had constructed a makeshift sterile room from clear plastic sheeting, the pieces held together with strips of duct tape. A portable X-ray machine was over by the back wall, a frame beside it displaying ghostly snapshots of a skeleton curled on its side. Four heavy-duty arc lights, one in each corner, illuminated the interior and its collection of white suited technicians like something out of the
X-Files.
An Aberdonian alien autopsy.

Polmont’s slab of concrete rested on a platform wrapped in blue plastic, keeping the remains at table-top height. The electrician’s right hand and left leg sticking up out of the pitted grey surface.

The room’s ancient refrigeration units hummed, making the air crackle with cold.

One of the white oversuits waved at him. ‘Sergeant McRae! Dr Frampton, we met at the scene?’

Her assistant waved too, balancing a collection of evidence bags in the crook of his arms. They were filled with something lumpy and brown, giving them a colostomy look. ‘Wassup?’

Dr Frampton patted one of the bags. ‘We’ve just finished retrieving the soil from the block, should get something back to you mid-week. Let you know its secrets.’

Logan looked at Isobel, then back again. ‘OK…Thanks.’

The soil scientist gave him a little bow, then turned and slipped out of the enclosure, Igor the Dude hot on her heels.

Isobel held up a hand. ‘Mr Haffenden?’

Someone dressed head-to-toe in SOC white shuffled over, a black toolbox held tight to his chest. He fiddled with the elastic hood encircling his masked face. Coughed. Cleared his throat. ‘Actually, my friends call me Ian so—’

‘Don’t be shy, Mr Haffenden.’

With all the soil and mud gone, more of the body was on show. About a quarter of Steve Polmont stuck out of the concrete, the left leg from the knee down, the right arm from the elbow, a hip, a bit of shoulder, and the side of his face. Lividity had stained the flesh dark purple – except where Polmont’s skin had been pressed against Dr Frampton’s precious soil. There it was a pale waxy-yellow, patterned by the dirt and rocks.

Haffenden shifted his feet.

Isobel placed her hand on his shoulder and guided him towards the remains. ‘As soon as you’re ready.’

The little man looked up at her. ‘It’s just…
normally
archaeology doesn’t have quite so much…’ Back to the body again. ‘You see, usually it’s just fossils and bones.’

She tilted her head to one side, staring at him.

Logan stepped forward. ‘Just pretend it’s one of those peat bog people. The ones that are all preserved by the tannin and whatever?’

‘Yes…right. Peat bog.’ Haffenden placed his toolbox on the edge of the concrete slab and pulled out a set of tiny chisels. ‘A very hard peat bog…’

The plastic enclosure rippled with white light: the IB photographer’s flash recording everything as the nervous archaeologist chipped at the concrete around the body. Loosening it off.

He’d partitioned the slab into a grid of three-inch squares, piling the waste concrete from each section into separate evidence bags, the whole exercise meticulously documented on video and digital cameras.

After half an hour Haffenden seemed a lot more confident, following the lines of the shoulders and head, chipping around the ends of the hair. The more he exposed, the worse the smell got.

The archaeologist put his chisels down. ‘I’ve got the head free.’

Logan followed Isobel over to the slab.

Polmont’s head lay back at an awkward angle, the whole thing oddly shaped – slightly flattened. The side that had been embedded in concrete was puckered and blackened, flecks of grey still stuck to the cracked skin, a trickle of yellow-green liquid seeping from his nose.

‘Ack…’ Logan cupped a hand over his facemask, the fabric damp with absorbed condensation. ‘Thought he was supposed to be preserved by the cold.’

Isobel leaned forward and gently cupped Polmont’s distorted
cheek, turning the head until it was staring straight at them. The nose had been broken, one ear torn, the open mouth a solid grey mass – not excavated yet – but it was definitely Steve Polmont.

She felt her way around the back of the head. ‘Some concretes are exothermic – they generate heat as they set. A mass the size and thickness of the foundations probably stayed warm for days. He’s basically been cooked on one side and deep-chilled on the other…His head’s been deformed by the weight of the concrete. I won’t know if the damage to the skull was post or ante mortem until I open him up.’

Isobel ran a gloved finger down the body’s twisted neck. Just above the clavicle there was a circle of black puncture wounds. ‘Bite mark.’

Isobel frowned at the exposed arm, the dark brown discolouration on the sleeve. Then unbuttoned the cuff and rolled the fabric back to expose another bite.

‘Of course, I’ve had to lose some of the hair.’ The archaeologist pointed at the strands still embedded in the wall of the block. ‘And the outer clothing’s going to be a challenge.’ He shrugged at Logan. ‘The concrete’s seeped through the weave of the material, then set solid. Should make the actual body easier to remove though, like getting a moth out of a cocoon.’

Haffenden picked up his little chisel again. ‘You know, this isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. It’s really kind of fascinating when you think about it.’

Good to know someone was enjoying themselves.

Half an hour later they were gathered around the body again. Haffenden had moved on to the torso, excavating the left shoulder and upper arm.

‘Problem came when I hit the first one, took a bit of doing to get them chiselled out without damaging any.’ He pointed at the shoulder, where ten or twelve metal spikes protruded from Polmont’s jacket, the fabric stained dark brown.

Isobel held one of the X-rays up for comparison. ‘Excellent job.’ She leaned in, touching the end of one spine with her gloved finger. ‘Definitely nails.’ She laid a ruler along the arm and waited for the photographer to finish, before slicing the sleeve open with a scalpel, then did the same with the jumper and checked shirt underneath. The arm had that familiar mouldy cooked look, but where the nails went in the skin was darker.

She prodded at the base of one metal spike. ‘Signs of bruising…these were inserted before death. And do you see where some have obviously been removed?’ Pointing at a blackened hole in Polmont’s arm.

Logan nodded. ‘He was tortured.’

Isobel called for a set of pliers and eased one of the nails free, then held it up like a tiny Excalibur. ‘Four-inch wire nail, probably from a nail gun. Going by the diameter it’s probably the same thing that made the holes in the palm.’

Behind them, someone said, ‘Maybe he was crucified?’

Logan froze. Sodding hell – Steel.

He turned and there she was, standing less than a foot away, staring at him over her mask. A large figure in an SOC suit pushed through the flaps of the makeshift mortuary, limping slightly. That would be Danby. The big Geordie took up position at the head of the slab.

Steel grabbed Logan’s arm. ‘Sergeant McRae, can I have a wee word? Outside?’

‘I thought you were on holiday?’

‘Now.’

Outside, the cash-and-carry car park was almost deserted, just the little cluster of IB vehicles, Logan’s manky brown Fiat, a pool car, and a fat man loading crates of tins into a mobile burger van – shoulders hunched against the sleet.

Steel ripped her mask off. ‘Tell me, Sergeant, was it too much to hope you bunch of dicks could get along without
me for two sodding weeks?’ Her face had an unnatural orange-brown tint to it, like she’d been smearing Marmite into her skin.

‘I didn’t—’

‘WAS IT?’ The inspector turned her back and marched over to a row of oversized shopping trolleys and kicked one. ‘Susan’s spitting fucking nails. Crying. Shouting. Making my life a bloody misery because we’re
supposed
to be in Puerto de la Aldea drinking non-alcoholic san-fucking-gria and shagging like sea otters!’

Logan took a step back. ‘Then why—’

‘But where am I? Here: in fucking Aber-fucking-deen because
you
had to go crying to bloody Finnie!’ She gave the trolley another kick, then turned on him.

‘But—’

‘Couldn’t cover for that prick Harvey from Fraserburgh CID for another sodding hour, could you? We were in the airport: forty minutes more and we’d’ve been on the fucking plane!’ Steel dug a bundle of paper from her pocket and hurled it at him. Passports, e-tickets, and boarding passes bounced off his SOC suit, fluttering down to the sleet-puddled tarmac.

He watched a duty free receipt flutter away on a gust of wind. ‘Fuck you.’

She froze, eyes bugging. ‘How dare—’

‘I didn’t stab the bastard, did I? You gave me all that shit yesterday about not being a team player and soon as I follow the rules, you throw a hissy fit?’

‘You can’t—’

‘What was I supposed to do: kid-on he’d turned up?’ Getting louder, shouting in her face. ‘And what about you? You could’ve told Finnie to get stuffed, but you didn’t, did you? No, you came trotting back here like a good little girl.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘So don’t blame me because Susan’s pissed off. You had your chance and screwed it up.’

She stood there, scowling at him. ‘I had a sodding bikini wax.’

Logan threw his hands in the air. ‘Then go on bloody holiday! Tomorrow: go to the airport and turn your phone
off.
Tell Finnie to screw himself. Sod off to Puerto del Whereverthefuck and stop getting on my tits!’

The word ‘tits’ echoed around the car park. The big man stopped in the middle of loading a box of burger buns to stare at them.

DI Steel slumped back against the cash-and-carry wall and hauled at the crotch of her trousers. ‘How am I supposed to tell Finnie to go screw himself if my phone’s turned off?’

Logan picked up the soggy bits of paper. ‘So…Susan’s really pissed off?’

‘Oh Jesus, like you wouldn’t believe.’ Steel sagged even further. ‘Last chance we had to go on holiday too: leave it any longer and the airlines get all wanky about pregnant women flying. Scared she’ll give birth in cattle class, and they’ll have to give the sprog free flights for life.’

‘Thought that was an urban myth.’

He wiped the gritty ice from a burgundy passport, then handed everything back.

Steel sniffed. ‘You know, we’ve no’ had sex in months.
Months.
Beginning to forget which bit goes where…Thought pregnant women were meant to get all horny.’ She scowled at Logan, then smacked him on the arm. ‘And soon as she pops your sprog, it’s another six months of celibacy! Could you no’ have kept it in your bloody pants?’

‘Ow! For your information, you
begged
me to get Susan up the stick. Remember? “Oh Logan, please can we have some more sperm? Oh please? Just one more try?
This
time it’ll work. I promise. I’ll love you forever?” Remember that?’

She shrugged and peered out at the dreich afternoon. ‘Aye, well if your bloody sailors had been any good they would have taken the first time.’

Mr Burger-Van loaded three cases of Diet Coke, then slammed the van’s doors shut, abandoned his trolley in the middle of the car park, and drove off.

‘Lazy bugger.’ Steel had another dig at her parts. ‘You any idea how much it hurts to get a full Brazilian?’

‘What’s Danby doing here?’

‘Only did it cos Susan thinks it’s sexy…’ Scratch, rummage, fiddle.

‘Will you stop doing that!’

‘Itchy.’ She shivered. ‘Bloody freezing too.’

‘He just seems to be taking a lot of interest in Polmont. First the journals, now the PM…?’

Steel pulled out a packet of cigarettes, offered one to Logan, then lit them both. ‘The Ice Queen find anything we can pin on someone yet?’

‘He was tortured with a nail gun, then buried alive.’

‘Poor bugger…Anything else?’

‘Bite marks on his arms and neck. Look like dog.’

The inspector dug her hands deep into her armpits. ‘So we’re looking for a big violent bastard with a huge dog, and access to the building site. Think, think, think.’

Logan nodded. ‘I chased up the lookout request on Andrew Connelly – nothing yet. Lothian and Borders are keeping an eye open, just in case he really
has
gone off to see his mum.’

‘Warrant?’

‘PF says we don’t have enough for an arrest. If they can get DNA off the body that matches Connelly or his dog—’

‘Whatever happened to the good old days, when you could just kick someone’s door in and beat a confession out of them?’ She smoked in silence for a minute. ‘What about those journals?’

‘Still working on them.’

‘Right.’ She ground her cigarette out against the cash-and-carry wall. ‘I’m taking over here. You go through that stuff we got from Polmont’s flat.’

Steel turned and hobbled back towards the door.

‘But—’

‘Team player, remember? And do something about your jewellery heist. I’m no’ running a holiday camp here.’

The door clunked shut behind her, leaving Logan alone in the car park.

Bloody typical.