LITMIR.BIZ

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standing outside on the rear podium two minutes later, surrounded by the patrol and pool cars, drink in one hand, cigarette smouldering away in the other. ‘We’ll get the PF in to look at the tape. “I never meant to hurt her,” my arse, all we need is a couple of witnesses and we’re laughing.’ She smiled and knocked back a mouthful of Irn-Bru. ‘Knew it was about time my luck changed.’

      Unfortunately Logan’s hadn’t. When DI Steel said, ‘All we need is a couple of witnesses,’ what she actually meant was that Logan had to change shifts and spend the next couple of nights wandering around the docks chatting up prostitutes. The first time in ages that his shift pattern was the same as Jackie’s, and the inspector wanted it all changed again. Jackie was going to kill him.

      ‘You’re young,’ Steel told him when he complained, ‘you’ll get over it. Better bugger off home after lunch. Get some kip. In the meantime, let’s get the PF down here…’

      The Procurator Fiscal and her new deputy sat through the recording of Jamie McKinnon’s interview in silence. The tape was a good start, but it wasn’t enough to secure a conviction, for that they’d need some real, hard forensic evidence. ‘Speaking of which,’ said Rachael Tulloch, deputy PF to the stars, ‘how did you get on with those contraceptives?’ The Fiscal looked momentarily flustered as Logan explained about the two hundred and thirteen second-hand prophylactics sitting in the morgue’s specimen freezers; it looked like this was the first she’d heard of her deputy’s spectacular plan. At least Rachael had the decency to blush and admit it was a lot more condoms than she’d been anticipating, but now that they had a suspect under arrest, couldn’t they match his DNA to them? Prove he was there? The Fiscal went quiet for a minute, considering it, and then agreed it probably couldn’t hurt. Logan tried not to groan. Isobel was bound to blame him for all the work she was about to get. He consoled himself with the thought that she didn’t like him much anyway.

      When he went down to the morgue to break the bad news, Isobel was hunched over her brain-in-a-bucket again. Her reaction to Logan’s request for DNA testing was pretty much what he’d been expecting. Only with more swearing.

      ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said when she paused for breath. ‘I told you: it’s that new PF. She’s mad for used condoms. Could you not just blood test the semen and only DNA match the ones with the same blood group as Jamie McKinnon?’

      Reluctantly Isobel agreed that it would be a lot less work. But she still wasn’t happy. Grumbling, she dug the condoms out of the freezer, where they’d had just enough time to go hard. For the second time in their lives.

      Logan checked his watch and left her to it. If he hurried he could grab lunch with Jackie in the canteen before heading back to the flat to try and get some sleep. Not that he held out much hope: he always had trouble adjusting to the night shift, and usually he had a couple of days off in between to get used to the idea. Sod the diet. He was having chips with his lasagne today. And a pudding.

      Though on second thoughts, tapioca probably wasn’t the wisest of choices. Looking at it, congealing in the bowl, all white with translucent lumps, all he could think of was Isobel slowly defrosting her condoms down in the morgue. Shuddering he pushed the bowl away.

      ‘Interfering old bitch.’ Jackie stabbed her jam sponge with an angry spoon. ‘Why did she have to go buggering about with your shifts? If you have to go onto nights today and tomorrow…’ She did the arithmetic on her fingers. ‘That puts you six days ahead of my bloody shift pattern! It took bloody ages to get the damn things in line!’

      ‘I know, I know. I’ll just have to get mine shifted again. Though Christ knows when.’

      ‘And I had plans.’

      Logan looked up. ‘Oh? We going away somewhere?’

      ‘Not any more we’re not, you’ll be asleep all bloody Friday.’ Stab, stab, stab. ‘Tell you I could kill her!’

      ‘Oh-ho, speak of the devil…’ DI Steel was standing in the doorway to the canteen, craning her neck. Looking for someone. And Logan had a nasty idea who. He was just about to duck down under the table, pretend he’d dropped his fork or something, when she spotted him.

      ‘Oi! Lazarus,’ she shouted and Logan winced. Every eye in the place turned to stare. ‘You finished?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘Well, come on then: we’ve got a shout to go to.’

      Jackie leaned over the table and hissed at him, ‘I thought you were supposed to be going home to get some sleep!’

      It was a Mrs Margaret Hendry who’d found it, out walking her dog, Jack, in Garlogie Woods. Well, technically it had been Jack who’d found it, leaping away into the undergrowth, barking and yipping. Not coming back, no matter how much Margaret shouted. In the end she’d ducked in under the trees after him. It was just off a small clearing, wedged into the roots of a fallen tree: a red suitcase, big enough to take a week’s worth of clothes. The smell was appalling: stinking, rotten meat. Jack of course had gone straight to it, and was hanging off the handle, all four little legs off the ground as he tried to scrabble inside. Well, what with the smell and the suitcase, it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. Margaret pulled out her mobile phone and called the police.

      The Identification Bureau’s dirty white Transit Van was abandoned in the lay-by, just behind a marked patrol car, so Logan had to park their rusty Vauxhall half on the grass verge and hope no one would run into the back of it. DC Rennie spluttered his way out of the back seat, wiping ash from his hair and face – Steel had spent the whole ten-mile journey out from Aberdeen with the passenger window down, the ash from her cigarette spiralling through the car’s interior like a mini snowstorm – which was why Logan had elected to drive. He waited until the inspector had shooed Rennie up the path to go find the crime scene, before asking her if this meant he wasn’t swapping over onto the night shift.

      ‘Hmm?’ Steel looked at him, distracted as she picked three individually wrapped white SOC over suits from a box in the boot of the car. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Sorry, but I still need you to go looking for witnesses. We both know Jamie’s alibi’s a crock of shite. We just have to prove it.’

      ‘Then how come you dragged me out to this?’ It came out slightly whiny, but Logan was past caring.

      Steel sighed. ‘What am I supposed to do? You know why they call it the Screw-Up Squad? The Pish Patrol? The Fuck-Up Factory? ’Cos every bastard that can’t find their backside with both hands gets dumped in it. Keep the useless tossers out of the way, where they can’t do any damage… We only got this call ’cos everyone half-decent was busy.’ She smiled, sadly. ‘It’s a body in a suitcase, Logan, who else am I going to trust to take with me? That bunch of fuckwits I’ve been lumbered with?’ She handed him the protective gear. ‘Never mind, you don’t have to do a whole shift tonight. Knock off about two. Look on it as a bonus.’ Then she patted him on the arm and stomped off up the rutted track into the forest, leaving him to swear quietly in her wake.

      They found DC Rennie standing at the side of the track, about half a mile from the main road. There were broken branches and scuffmarks in the carpet of yellow-brown pine needles. ‘In there,’ he said pointing, obviously proud of himself. Logan gave him the protective gear to carry. As the inspector said: delegation. It was cooler in the woods, the sunlight dappling the ground at their feet, filtered through the canopy of sharp green needles.

      It should have been dead quiet beneath the spiky branches, but it wasn’t. They could hear a barrage of swearing intermingled with helpful suggestions coming from up ahead. And not long after that, the smell started. It was a rancid, stomach-clenching stench. Gagging slightly, Logan tried breathing through his mouth. The taste was slightly better than the smell, but not by much.

      They broke through into a small clearing, where an old pine tree had fallen like a massive wooden domino, taking a handful of smaller trees with it. Now it lay on its side, pointing back towards the track, its roots standing upright like a filthy sunburst, blocking the main attraction from view. The IB team were here, trying to manhandle a scene-of-crime tent over the bottom part of the tree, three of them

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