LITMIR.BIZ

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cascade of ash spiralling down the front of her blouse. ‘I’d rather have cystitis.’

      ‘You’re going to have to work with him eventually.’

      ‘My sharny arse.’ She took the last inch of her cigarette and ground it out against the Chief Constable’s wing mirror. ‘You have fun with DCI Frog-Face, I’ll give someone else the benefit of my brilliance. Where’s Rennie?’

      ‘Not back till Friday.’

      ‘Oh for God’s … Fine. I’ll take Beattie, you happy now?’ She turned and stomped her way back through the rear doors, swearing all the way.

      Aberdeen Royal Infirmary wasn’t a pretty building. A collection of slab-like granite lumps – connected with corridors, walkways and chock-a-block car parks – it had all the charm of a kick in the bollocks.

      DCI Finnie hadn’t said a word all the way over, he’d just sat in the back, fiddling with his BlackBerry. Probably sending bitchy emails to the Detective Chief Superintendent in charge of CID.

      ‘If you don’t mind me asking, sir,’ said Logan, taking them on their second lap of the car park, looking for somewhere to abandon the shiny new Vauxhall, ‘why didn’t you take DS Pirie?’

      ‘Believe me, you weren’t my first choice. Pirie’s got a court appearance this morning; soon as he’s free you hand this over to him, understand? That way we might actually get a result.’ Finnie watched as yet another row of badly parked vehicles went by. ‘Well, much as I’m enjoying your magical mystery tour, I haven’t got time. Drop me off at the main entrance, you can catch up later. Think you can handle that without screwing it up?’

      Logan kept his mouth shut and did as he was told.

      Fifteen minutes later he slouched along the corridor to the intensive care ward, following an overweight nurse with tree-trunk ankles.

      ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said, ‘it’s not their fault, but still: if you’re going to move to a country, the least you can do is learn the bloody language.’ She took a right, following the coloured lines set into the linoleum. ‘Soon as they get a drink in them they forget how to speak English. Mind you, my husband’s the same, but he’s from Ellon, so what do you expect? … Here we are.’

      She pointed to a private room at the end of the corridor. A uniformed PC sat by the door, reading a lurid gossip magazine with ‘CELEBRITY CELLULITE!’ plastered all over the cover.

      ‘Right,’ said the nurse, ‘if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a two-hour presentation on the importance of washing my hands to go to. God save us from bloody politicians…’

      Logan watched her squeak and grumble away, then wandered over to the constable and peered over his shoulder at a photograph of a bikini-clad woman with lumpy thighs. ‘Who the hell is that?’

      The constable shrugged. ‘No idea. Nice tits though.’

      ‘Finnie inside?’

      ‘Aye, looks like someone shat in his shoe.’

      Logan harrumphed. ‘Need I remind you, Constable, that you’re talking about our superior officer?’

      ‘Doesn’t stop him being a sarcastic dickhead.’

      Which was true.

      Logan pushed the door open and stepped into a brightly lit hospital room. Lubomir Podwojski was slumped in bed, his eyes covered with white gauze, a morphine drip hooked up to the back of his left hand. Finnie and a police interpreter had pulled up chairs on either side, the DCI sitting with his arms crossed as the female officer finished translating something into Polish.

      After a long pause, Podwojski mumbled a reply. The interpreter leaned in close, putting her ear an inch from the blind man’s lips. And then she frowned. ‘He says he can’t remember.’

      Finnie tightened his mouth into a mean little line. ‘Ask – him – again.’

      The interpreter sighed. ‘I’ve been asking him since—’

      ‘I said, ask him again.’

      ‘Fine. Whatever.’ She went back to speaking Polish.

      The DCI looked up and saw Logan standing in the doorway. ‘Where have you been?’

      ‘Had to park miles away. Do you want me to—’

      ‘No. Go speak to the woman. Remember her? The one you somehow managed to put a bullet in? It might be nice to know why she was there and exactly what she saw.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Today, Sergeant.’

      ‘Yes sir.’

      She looked as if she was made of porcelain, her pale skin marred by livid purple bruises. But you could still tell she’d been pretty, before all this…

      A rats’ nest of wires and tubes anchored her to a bank of machinery in the mixed high-dependency ward, just the gentle rise and fall of her chest – powered by the ventilator next to her bed – marring the stillness.

      Logan flagged down a nurse and asked how the patient was getting on.

      ‘Not that good.’ The nurse checked the chart at the foot of the bed. ‘Bullet went through the colon and small intestine, nicked the bottom of her spleen… Didn’t stop till it hit her spine. They’re going to wait to see if she gets a bit stronger before they try removing it. She lost a lot of blood.’

      ‘Any idea who she is?’

      ‘Never regained consciousness.’ The nurse clipped the chart back on the bed. ‘All I can tell you is she’s in her early twenties. Other than that she’s a Jane Doe.’

      ‘Damn…’ Logan pointed at the plastic pitcher of water on the bedside cabinet. ‘Can I borrow one of the glasses?’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Didn’t bring a fingerprint kit with me.’ Logan snapped on a pair of latex gloves, picked up a glass and wiped it clean with a corner of the bed-sheet. Then opened the woman’s right hand and rolled the glass carefully across the fingertips.

      He stood there, staring at her wrist. It was circled with a thin line of purple bruises, about a centimetre wide. The left one was the same. ‘Bloody hell…’

      Logan put the glass back where he’d got it. ‘Help me untuck the sheets. I want to check her ankles.’

      ‘Oh no you don’t. I’ll just have to make the bed again. I do have other patients to look after, you know.’

      But Logan wasn’t listening, he was pulling the sheets out, exposing a pair of pale legs. The ankles had the same ring of bruises. ‘Has she had a rape test?’

      ‘What? No, why would we—’

      ‘The bruises round her wrists and ankles – she’s been tied up and beaten. Pretty girl like that, do you think they just stopped there?’

      ‘I’ll get a doctor.’

       3

      ‘And what exactly did you think you were doing?’ DCI Finnie stood in the hospital corridor, scowling at Logan as the nurse drew the curtain around their mystery woman’s bed. ‘Did I miss a memo? Did you suddenly get promoted to Senior Investigating Officer on this case?’

      ‘I just thought it would save—’

      Finnie poked Logan in the chest. ‘You run everything through me before you do it. Understand?’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Do you secretly yearn to spend every day from now till you retire giving road safety lectures

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