Shatter the Bones. Stuart MacBride

asked if I could watch her little boys. I didn’t touch them, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t do anything. I just watched them. Nothing happened.’

      Lee Hamilton (32) – Rape, Possession of an Offensive Weapon

      ‘What the fuck would I want with a wee girl? The mother, maybe, but fuck’s sake, the kid was only six!’

      Duncan McLean (46) – Indecent Assault, Attempted Rape, Possession with Intent to Supply

      ‘…would never touch someone like that. I mean, they’re…female. How disgusting would that be?’

      Logan hung his jacket on the hook in the bathroom, took off his tie, then unbuttoned his shirt. The wadding taped to the top of his left arm almost glowed, it was so white. He peeled back a corner and grimaced. Skin was still all red and inflamed – so much for ‘it won’t hurt a bit’.

      He dug a little tube of antibacterial gel from his jacket pocket, squeezed some into his palm and smoothed it on. Trying not to wince. At least it didn’t look—

      A knock at the door.

      ‘Sarge?’ It was Rennie. ‘Next one’s here.’

      Alastair McMillan (42) – Indecent Assault, Possession of Indecent Images, Theft

      ‘“I want to dedicate this to my husband John; you’ll always be our hero…” I mean, who was she trying to kid? Like rainbows and puppies come out of her arse instead of shite like the rest of us.’ Sniff.

      Alastair McMillan leant forward, and tapped a dirty, chewed fingernail against Logan’s knee. ‘She fucking deserves everything she’s got coming to her, know what I mean?’

      Ross Kelley (19) – Indecent Assault

      ‘You have very pretty eyes, Constable…’

      Shona Wallace (26) – Taking and Distributing Illegal Images of Children, Lewd and Libidinous Practices and Behaviour, Attempt to Pervert the Course of Justice

      ‘…shouldn’t really be surprised, should we? There are some very sick people out there.’ Shona Wallace flicked a strand of bleached blonde hair out of her eyes. She shrugged, bony shoulders rising and falling beneath her LITTLE MISS NAUGHTY T-shirt. ‘I mean, it’s like, you know, you stand up and do anything in this country and the weirdoes just latch onto you, don’t they?’

      She smiled, her weak chin disappearing into the pale skin of her neck. The kind of girl-next-door you didn’t want living anywhere near you. ‘Oh: do you remember that woman? What was her name, you know, like, she was this big ugly heifer and she was saying all these horrible things about Alison? In the papers and that?’

      Rennie nodded. ‘Vicious Vikki?’

      ‘Yeah, that’s right. God, what a cow. Jealousy, that’s all it is. Me I thought Alison and Jenny were the best thing on Britain’s Next Big Star. I mean, like, they really were, you know: stars. The series is going to be totally crap without them.’

      She scooted forward in her seat, until her knees were nearly touching Rennie’s, blue eyes wide, a heavy layer of mascara making them look even bigger. ‘What’s her house really like inside? Is it cool? I bet it’s cool. Bet they hid away all the really cool stuff when they got the cameramen round, you know, for the OK! magazine shoot, yeah? She’s like on the radio all the time, she’s got to have, I don’t know, a jacuzzi and diamonds and champagne and that?’

      ‘Bloody awful, that’s how it’s going.’ Logan slumped into one of the chairs arranged around the long meeting table. ‘What’s happening about lunch?’

      Right on cue, PC Guthrie backed into the room, carrying a cardboard box. The smell of fresh baking oozed out to fill the room. ‘Get them while they’re hot.’

      Steel sniffed. ‘You took your time.’

      The box went on the table. ‘Fourteen steak, six mince, four macaroni, four cheese and onion pasties, and a dozen sausage rolls.’

      ‘Where’s my change?’

      ‘And about a million packets of tomato sauce.’ Guthrie dug a hand into his pocket and produced a mound of coins. They rattled on the tabletop.

      The interview team swarmed around the box, pulling out grease-spotted paper bags, checking the contents, and passing on anything they didn’t fancy.

      Logan rubbed his fingertips against his eyelids, trying to massage the grit away. ‘Lots of rumours about Jenny being available for a price, but no one knows who’s selling. Or they’re not saying.’

      Rennie appeared with a pair of paper bags, the green-and-gold Chalmers of Bucksburn logo going slightly transparent. ‘Macaroni pie, or cheese and onion pasty?’

      ‘Cheese and onion.’ He took the proffered bag and scrunched it down around the golden flaky pastry like a makeshift napkin. ‘I mean, what are we supposed to do? No one’s going to stick their hand up and admit to kidnapping and murder, are they?’

      Steel shrugged, then took a dainty bite out of her pie and chewed. ‘Early days, Laz. Got a lot more perverts to get through.’

      ‘Yeah, and at the rate we’re going it’ll take us three and a half days, minimum.’

      ‘Oh.’ She stared at the hole in her pie for a moment, then tore the top off a sachet of tomato sauce and squirted it inside.

      Logan frowned. ‘Unless we get the back shift to do some?’

      A nod. ‘Sort it out with Ding-Dong. Sooner we get a result the better.’

      ‘Have you been to the scene?’ The pasty was filled with savoury napalm, almost too hot to eat. He brushed pastry flakes from his fingertips as he chewed. ‘I was thinking of paying a visit later. Get a feel for the ground.’

      A lump-faced constable stuck her head around the meeting room door. ‘Guv?’ She waved at DI Steel. ‘That’s the next bunch arrived downstairs, you want me to get them up to the rooms, or let them stew for a bit?’

      ‘Fuck ’em, we’re eating pies.’ Steel took another bite and the tomato sauce she’d so carefully squirted in squirted out in a blood-spatter, all over her hand. ‘Bastard…’ She licked at her wrist. ‘Where’s the napkins?’

      ‘I mean, they must’ve checked out the house before the abduction, they went straight to Jenny’s room and—’ Logan swore, his phone was ringing. He hauled it out with greasy fingers and checked the display: ‘UNKNOWN’.

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Hello?’

      ‘Who’s—’

      ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’ Doc Fraser must have been fiddling with the buttons at his end, because a series of bleeps sounded in Logan’s ear. Followed by, ‘Logan? You there? I’ve just got the tox screen back from the lab. Thought you’d want an update before I went and spilled the beans to Finnie and his fellow wankers.’

      Logan opened his mouth, then shut it again. ‘Er, Doc, are you sure you should be—’

      ‘Now pay attention: we scraped every little vein in that toe for blood cells and found trace amounts of morphine. The fatty tissue contained a minuscule quantity of thiopental sodium. And I mean a tiny, tiny quantity. Damn lucky we detected anything at all.’

      He dug his notebook out of his pocket, pinned the phone between his ear and his shoulder, and scribbled it all down … Taking a rough stab at the spelling, ‘THIGH-O-PENTHAL (SP?)’. ‘Care to hazard a guess?’

      ‘You buggers never change, do you? At a guess – and this is just a guess – she was given the morphine to keep her quiet. Compliant. It would work pretty well as a sedative. Thiopental sodium, on the other hand, is a general anaesthetic. They probably planned to put her under before removing the toe, but something went wrong. An allergic reaction maybe, or she’d eaten too recently, threw up, and choked