Close to the Bone. Stuart MacBride

lay on the concrete slab, tied together with a tatty piece of red ribbon.

      A hissing whisper came from the other end of the phone. ‘Seriously, Guv, Pukey Pete’s having ferrets up here, it’s—’

      ‘I said I’m on my way.’

      Logan stuck the phone against his chest and scowled out at the caravan park in the growing gloom. Bulky static caravans, the size of shipping containers, all painted a uniform institution green. A patrol car idled on the square of tarmac that acted as a turning circle, its blue-and-whites strobing in the warm late-evening air. The driver hunched forward in his seat, peering out through the windscreen at Logan, working his hands back and forth along the steering wheel – as if he was trying to feel it up.

      No sign of the little buggers.

      Logan kicked the broken bones off the step into the straggly ivy growing up the side of his home. Then took a deep breath and bellowed it out: ‘I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE, YOU WEE SHITES!’

      Back to the phone.

      ‘I mean, he’s gone off on one before, but no’ like this. He’s—’

      ‘If he’s screwing up the scene, arrest him. If not, just hold his bloody hand till I get there.’ Logan stomped over to the patrol car and threw himself into the passenger seat. Hauled on the belt. ‘Drive.’

      The PC put his foot down.

      The sun was a scarlet smear across the horizon, filling the patch of rough ground with blood and shadow. Trees loomed around the periphery, their branches filled with clacks and caws as the rooks settled in for the night.

      Grey and black hulks dotted the clearing: burned-out cars, their paint stripped away, seats a sagging framework of rusty wire, the tyres turned into gritty vitrified puddles.

      A cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape was strung between the vehicles, making a twenty-foot no-man’s-land around the Scenes Examination Branch’s inner cordon of ‘CRIME SCENE’ yellow-and-black. Three SEB technicians knelt in the dirt, poking at something, their white Tyvek oversuits glowing pink in the twilight.

      Logan wrinkled his nose. The rancid stench of vomit fought against the greasy scent of burned meat and rendered fat. Like a barbecue with food poisoning. ‘Where’s the pathologist?’

      One of the techs – a shortarse with fogged-up safety goggles – finished scraping something dark and sticky into an evidence bag, then pointed her gloved finger at the other side of the ‘CRIME SCENE’ tape. There was another figure in the full Smurf outfit, hunched over a bucket, making retching noises, his back convulsing with every stomach-wrenching heave.

      The short tech peeled her facemask off, exposing a circle of shiny pink skin and a thin-lipped mouth. ‘Poor wee bugger. Can’t blame him, really. Nearly lost a white-pudding supper myself.’ She puffed out a breath, hauled at the elasticated hood of her suit. ‘Christ it’s hot in here…’

      ‘You call for backup?’

      A nod. ‘The Ice Queen’s en route as we speak.’ The tech pinged her facemask back into place. ‘You want to take a sneak peek? We’ve got as much as we’re going to before they move the body.’

      ‘How bad is it?’

      She peeled off her gloves and snapped on a fresh pair. ‘What, and spoil the thrill of finding out for yourself?’ Then she set off across an elevated walkway – metallic stepping stones, like upturned tea trays on tiny legs, keeping their blue plastic booties from contaminating the scene. It led away between a couple of burned-out hatchbacks, disappearing behind the blackened skeletal remains of a Renault Clio. A dark curl of smoke twisted up into the sky on the other side.

      Logan adjusted his safety goggles, zipped up his oversuit, and zwip-zwopped after her. The walkway clanged beneath his feet. The rancid barbecue smell got worse. And then they were there.

      Christ…

      His stomach lurched two steps to the right, then crashed back again. He swallowed, hard. Blinked. Cleared his throat. ‘What do we know?’

      ‘Not much: victim’s male, we think.’ Another shrug. ‘He’s been chained to what looks like a section of that modular metal shelving stuff – the kind you get in your garage? Been hammered into the ground like a stake.’

      The victim was kneeling on the hard-packed earth, his legs tucked under his bum. His bright-orange overalls were stained around the legs and waist, blackened across his chest and flecked with little glittering tears of vitrified rubber. Someone had forced his head and right arm through the middle of a tyre – so it sat across his body like a sash – then set fire to it. It was still burning: a small tongue of greasy flame licked up the side of the rubber.

      The SEB tech groaned. ‘Bloody hell…’ She hauled a fire extinguisher from a blue plastic crate, pointed the nozzle, and squeezed the handle. A whoosh of white hid the poor bastard’s face from view for a moment, but when the CO₂ cleared he appeared again in all his tortured glory.

      His skin was swollen and blistered, scorched crimson; the eyes cooked to an opaque white; teeth bared, yellowed and cracked. Hair gone. Patches of skull and cheekbone poking through charred flesh…

      Don’t be sick. Don’t be sick.

      Logan cleared his throat. Looked out over the graveyard of burned-out cars. Deep breaths. The long corrugated metal roof of Thainstone Mart was just visible between the trees in the distance, what sounded like Tom Jones belting out ‘It’s Not Unusual’ at a disco or corporate bash, dancing and boozing it up into the wee small hours. And when they were gone some poor sod would be up all night, clearing up all the spent party poppers and empty bottles before the next livestock auction.

      The SEB tech thumped the fire extinguisher back into the crate. ‘It’s the rubber in the tyre – once it gets up to temperature it’s almost impossible to stop the damn thing from catching again.’

      ‘Get it off him.’

      ‘The tyre?’ She gave a wee spluttering laugh. ‘Before the Ice Queen gets here?’

      ‘Doctor Forsyth—’

      ‘Pukey Pete won’t even look at the poor sod.’ She sagged a bit. ‘Shame. It was nice having a pathologist you could actually talk to…’

      Now the tyre wasn’t burning any more, other smells elbowed their way through Logan’s facemask: excrement, urine. He took a step back.

      The tech nodded. ‘Stinks, doesn’t he? Mind you, if it was me – if someone did that to me? I’d shit myself too. Must’ve been terrified.’

      A voice cut through the still evening air: one of those singsong Highlands-and-Islands accents. ‘Inspector McRae? Hello?’

      Logan turned.

      A woman stood behind the outer cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape, her grey linen suit creased like an elephant’s scrotum. ‘Inspector?’ She was waving at him, as if he was headed off somewhere nice on a train, not standing on a little metal walkway beside a man who’d burned to death.

      Logan picked his way along the clanking tea trays until he was in the blue-and-white area again. Peeled back his hood, took off his safety goggles, then crumpled up his facemask and stuck it in a pocket.

      The woman squinted at him, pulled a pair of glasses from a big leather handbag and slipped them on, tucking a nest of brown curls behind her ears. ‘Inspector McRae?’

      ‘I’m sorry, miss, we’re not giving interviews to the press right now, so—’

      ‘I was First Attending Officer.’ She stuck her hand out for shaking. ‘Detective Sergeant Lorna Chalmers.’ A smile. ‘Just transferred down from Northern? I’m investigating that off-licence ram-raid in Inverurie yesterday, looking for the Range Rover they nicked to do the job?’

      Nope, no idea. But it explained the accent.