Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin. Stuart MacBride

a holding cell on an assault charge. And then, to cap it all off, you limp into my briefing. Late.’

      Logan shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, sir, Mr Reid was agitated. It wasn’t really his fault, if the Journal hadn’t called he—’

      DI Insch cut him off. ‘You’re supposed to be working for DI McPherson.’

      ‘Err. . . Yes.’

      Insch nodded sagely and dragged another jelly baby out of his pocket, popping it in his mouth, fluff and all, chewing around the words. ‘Not any more. While McPherson’s getting his head stitched back together, you’re mine.’

      Logan tried not to let his disappointment show. McPherson had been his boss for two years, before Angus Robertson had made a pincushion out of Logan’s innards with a six-inch hunting knife. Logan liked McPherson. Everyone he knew worked for McPherson.

      All he knew about DI Insch was that he didn’t suffer idiots gladly. And the inspector thought everyone was an idiot.

      Insch settled back on his haunches and looked Logan up and down. ‘Are you going to drop down dead on me, Sergeant?’

      ‘Not if I can help it, sir.’

      Insch nodded, his large face closed and distant. An uncomfortable silence grew between them. It was one of DI Insch’s trademarks. Leave a large enough gap in an interrogation and sooner or later the suspect was going to say something, anything, to fill it. It was amazing the things people let fall out of their mouths. Things they never meant to say. Things they really, really didn’t want DI Insch to know.

      This time Logan kept his mouth shut.

      Eventually the inspector nodded. ‘I’ve read your file. McPherson thinks you’re not an arsehole, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. But if you end up in A&E like that again, you’re out. Understood?’

      ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

      ‘Right. Your acclimatization period is hereby cancelled. I can’t be arsed with all that pussyfooting-around bollocks. You’re either up to the job, or you’re not. Post mortem’s in fifteen minutes. Be there.’

      He levered himself off the desk and patted his pockets, looking for more jelly babies.

      ‘I’ve got a command meeting from eight fifteen till eleven-thirty, so you’ll have to give me the details when I get back.’

      Logan looked at the door and then back again.

      ‘Something on your mind, Sergeant?’

      Logan lied and said no.

      ‘Good. Given your little trip to A&E last night, I’m making WPC Watson your guardian angel. She’ll be coming back in at ten. Do not let me catch you without her. This is not negotiable.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’ Great, he was getting a babysitter.

      ‘Now get going.’

      Logan was almost out the door before Insch added: ‘And try not to piss Watson off. They don’t call her “Ball Breaker” for nothing.’

      Grampian Police HQ was big enough to boast its own morgue, situated in the basement, just far enough from the staff canteen not to put people off their soup. It was a large, white, spotless room, with chiller cabinets for bodies along one wall, the floor tiles squeaky under Logan’s shoes as he pushed through the double doors. An antiseptic reek filled the cold room, almost masking the odour of death. It was a strange mix of smells. A fragrance Logan had grown to associate with the woman standing on her own by a dissecting table.

      Dr Isobel MacAlister was dressed in her cutting gear: pastel-green surgeon’s robes and a red rubber apron over the top, her short hair hidden beneath a surgical cap. She wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up, in case it contaminated the body, and as she looked up to see who was squeaking across her nice clean morgue Logan saw her eyes widen.

      He stopped and tried a smile. ‘Hi.’

      She raised a hand and almost waved. ‘Hello. . .’ Her eyes darted back to the little naked body stretched out on the dissecting table. Three-year-old David Reid. ‘We’ve not started yet. Are you attending?’

      Logan nodded and cleared his throat. ‘I meant to ask you last night,’ he said. ‘How have you been?’

      She didn’t meet his eyes, just re-ordered the gleaming row of surgical instruments on their tray. The stainless steel flashing in the overhead lights. ‘Oh. . .’ she sighed and shrugged. ‘You know.’ Her hands came to rest on a scalpel, the shiny metal contrasting with her matt latex gloves. ‘How about you?’

      Logan shrugged too. ‘Much the same.’

      The silence was excruciating.

      ‘Isobel, I. . .’

      The double doors opened again and in rushed Isobel’s assistant Brian, trailing the deputy pathologist and Procurator Fiscal behind him. ‘Sorry we’re late. You know what these fatal accident enquiries are like, so much paperwork!’ said Brian, brushing his floppy hair out of his eyes. He flashed an ingratiating smile at Logan. ‘Hello, Sergeant, nice to see you again!’ He stopped and shook Logan’s hand before scurrying off to strap on a red rubber apron of his own. The deputy pathologist and the PF acknowledged Logan with a nod, apologized to Isobel and settled down to watch her work. Isobel would be the one doing all the cutting; the other pathologist, an overweight man in his early fifties with a bald head and hairy ears, was only here to make sure Isobel’s findings were correct, as required by Scottish law. Not that he would have dared say anything to her face. And anyway, she was always right.

      ‘Well,’ said Isobel, ‘we’d better get started.’ She pulled on her headset, checked the microphone and whisked through the preliminaries.

      As Logan watched, she slowly picked her way over David Reid’s remains. Three months in a ditch, covered with an old sheet of chipboard, had turned his skin almost black. His whole body was swollen like a balloon as decomposition worked its corpulent magic. Little patches of white speckled the bloated skin like freckles where fungal growths had taken hold. The smell was bad, but Logan knew it was going to get a lot worse.

      A small stainless steel tray sat next to the tiny body and Isobel dropped any debris she found into it. Blades of grass, bits of moss, scraps of paper. Anything the corpse had picked up since death. Maybe something that would help them identify David Reid’s killer.

      ‘Oh ho. . .’ said Isobel, peering into the dead child’s frozen scream. ‘Looks like we have an insect guest.’ Gently, she delved between David’s teeth with a pair of tweezers and for a horrible moment Logan thought she was going to pull out a Death’s Head Moth. But the tweezers emerged clutching a wriggling woodlouse.

      Isobel held the slate-grey bug up to the light, watching its legs thrashing in the air.

      ‘Probably crawled in there looking for a bite to eat,’ she said. ‘Don’t suppose it’ll tell us anything, but better safe than sorry.’ She dropped the insect into a small phial of preserving fluid.

      Logan stood in silence, watching the woodlouse slowly drown.

      An hour and a half later they were standing at the coffee machine on the ground floor, while Isobel’s floppy-haired assistant stitched David Reid back together.

      Logan was feeling distinctly unwell. Watching an ex-girlfriend turn a three-year-old child inside out on a dissecting table wasn’t something he’d ever done before. The thought of those hands, so calm and efficient, cutting, extracting and measuring. . . Handing Brian little plastic phials with chunks and slices of internal organs to bag and tag. . . He shuddered and Isobel stopped talking to ask if he was all right.

      ‘Just a bit of a cold.’ He forced a smile. ‘You were saying?’

      ‘Death was caused by ligature strangulation. Something thin and smooth, like an electrical cable. There’s extensive bruising to the back, between the shoulders, and lacerations to