Читать книгу Logan McRae Crime Series Books 4-6: Flesh House, Blind Eye, Dark Blood - Stuart MacBride - Страница 50

‘Deceased is female, mid-thirties. Approximately fifteen stone.’ Dr Isobel MacAlister picked her way around the post mortem table, voice raised over the howl of the extractor fan.

‘You know what,’ said DI Steel, tugging at the crotch of her white SOC coveralls, ‘I’m sick of wearing these bloody things. Who the hell were they designed to fit? Quasimodo? It’s bunching right up my—’

Isobel glared. ‘Can we please have quiet for once!’ Then went back to her external examination. Valerie Leith was laid out on the shiny cutting table like a broken Barbie doll: forearms, biceps, head, torso, thighs, legs, all separate. Still covered in a thin grey-brown film of stinking gloop.

‘Can you no’ hurry up and wash the damn bits off?’

‘If you will insist on dragging me in here in the evening to perform a post mortem, the least you can do is not interrupt while I’m doing it.’

Steel puffed out her cheeks, readjusted the breathing mask over her face, and hauled at the crotch of her suit again. She lasted a whole two minutes before leaning over and whispering to Logan, ‘You’re a bloody jinx, do you know that? Anyone else finds a body it’s usually pretty fresh. You: it’s half rotten and marinated in shite.’

‘It’s not my fault – it was just a hunch, OK?’

‘Blind bloody luck, more like.’

‘A considerable portion of flesh has been excised from the left thigh. Edges of the wound are deteriorated after prolonged immersion in sewage—’

‘I said there was something funny about the Leith crime scene.’

Steel scowled at him. ‘What d’you want, a parade?’

‘—dismemberment was caused by a knife: single-sided blade, approximately eight inches long—’

‘I’m only saying.’

‘You have any idea how much trouble this is going to cause?’

‘—angle of incisions implies a right-handed suspect—’

‘What happened to “good job, Logan, you’re a credit to the force”?’

‘Oh don’t be such a drama queen, we—’

‘Inspector, I will not tell you again! This is a post mortem, not a playground.’

Steel actually blushed. ‘Sorry, Doc.’ And then, when no one was looking, she punched Logan in the arm. ‘That was your fault!’

The mortuary clock read eight fifteen before Isobel finally told her assistant to wash off the remains. Eight fifteen and Logan had been on duty since four in the morning. That was … he was too tired to work out how long.

Isobel’s assistant started with the head. Dirty water gurgled down the cutting table drain, and as Valerie Leith’s face slowly appeared from its coating of foul-smelling slime, Logan’s spirits sank. With the other victims it’d been easy to maintain a sense of detachment. They were just hunks of meat. But this was different, this finally looked like a human being. Valerie Leith: thirty-five, skin all puckered and discoloured, brown hair straggly round her face as Isobel’s assistant rinsed the sewage away.

And somehow Logan didn’t feel as pleased with himself as he had.

Aberdeen was a sparkling blanket – yellow and white streetlights shining in the deep blue November night outside DCS Bain’s office window. The head of CID stood with his back to the room, staring out at the view. Taxis drifted by on the streets below; drunken clots of Aberdonians lurched for the nearest club, chip shop or taxi rank; the sound of sirens in the distance. Nearly midnight.

‘Why the hell wasn’t that septic tank searched the first time round?’

‘Why would they?’ Steel didn’t bother covering her mouth, just let go a jaw-cracking yawn, followed by a little burp. ‘God … no reason to think this was anything other than what it looked like.’

‘Insch should have—’

‘Yeah, well, he didn’t. And if it was me, I wouldn’t have either. And neither would you, Bill.’

The DCS turned and stared at Logan. ‘But you did, Sergeant?’

‘It was just a hunch …’

Steel clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be so modest! Tell you, Bill, he—’

The DCS cut her off. ‘The question is: what are we going to tell the media? How’s it going to look when they find out her body lay undiscovered, less than thirty feet from her house, for a fortnight? DI Insch—’

‘Don’t start, Bill, OK? Been a long day and I can’t be arsed fighting with you.’ Steel stretched out in her chair, making creaking noises. ‘Doesn’t matter what we tell the press: they’ll just make up their own shite anyway.’

‘You’re not seeing the big picture here, Inspector. We told the world and his bloody dog that Wiseman killed Valerie Leith, didn’t we? And if that’s not bad enough, it looks like the same person killed the Inglises and Tom and Hazel Stephen. Where was Wiseman at the time? Craiginches!’ The DCS sat back behind his desk. ‘So now we’ve got two psychopaths out there, butchering their way through the populace, and our only suspect is looking less and less guilty every day!’

‘Actually,’ Logan dug in his jacket pocket, pulled out the dog-eared copy of Smoak With Blood Steel had given him, and dumped it on the desk, ‘We do have another suspect.’

‘What,’ the DCS examined the cover, ‘Jamie McLaughlin?’

‘No, William Leith. I found a copy of that in the master bedroom.’

Steel made a sound like a drowning elephant. ‘You remembering he nearly got his head chopped off?’

‘They have an alarm system at the croft, but somehow the killer managed to break in without setting it off. Then he dismembers Valerie Leith and dumps her in their septic tank. How did he know where it was? I’ll bet if we search the garage again we’ll find a crowbar or something that matches the grooves in that septic tank lid.’

‘But Leith’s head—’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s injured themselves to shift the blame, would it?’

The DCS swore, grabbed his phone and started dialling. ‘Yeah, Pete, it’s me. I want William Leith brought in… No, no I don’t. I want him here now … Well, I don’t care, do I? Just sort it!’ He hung up, steepled his fingers, brooded for a minute, then asked Logan, ‘You still friends with that journalist scumbag?’