Broken Skin. Stuart MacBride

and dug out her mobile phone. ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’

      Logan slumped in the visitor’s chair on the other side of DI Steel’s desk, while the inspector battered away at her computer keyboard. ‘Oh, cheer up for God’s sake,’ she told him, ‘it’s not the end of the world, is it?’

      He shrugged and went back to staring out at the grey granite bulk of Marischal College. The misting drizzle had given way to heavy rain, bouncing off the jagged spires, hammering down on the black tarmac streets and concrete pavements. Drenching the just and unjust alike.

      ‘You know,’ Steel stopped typing for a moment, ‘I remember when Macintyre was a kid, wee bugger was never out of trouble, but you could always rely on his mum to lie for him.’ Putting on a broad Aberdonian accent for, ‘“Oh, no, he couldnae hiv burnt doon yer man’s sheddie, he wiz with me a’night!”’

      ‘Arson’s a long way from rape. And it’s his fiancée this time, not his mum.’

      ‘Aye, well, you’ve got to start somewhere, haven’t you?’ The inspector finished typing with a flourish. ‘Right, they’ve cut our manpower budget, but I think we can still do this if we concentrate on the bondage scene and porn merchants.’ She smiled and hoicked her feet up onto the desk, scattering a small pile of reports. ‘I tell you, Laz, I’ve got a really good feeling about this one. We’re going to get a quick result. I can feel it in me water.’

       VIOLENCE

       Three weeks later.

       12

      Logan skidded to a halt, scanning the empty street. Nothing but parked cars, a skip full of builders’ rubble, and the rain. No sign of Sean Morrison, or any of his nasty little friends. Shite. He did a slow turn, trying to figure out where the wee bugger had got to. He’d been right behind Sean all the way down North Silver Street; nearly lost him in Golden Square when some idiot in a people carrier reversed out without looking; and now Logan was standing halfway down Crimon Place with blood all down the front of his suit, and Sean Morrison was nowhere to be seen.

      It was all residential on the right-hand side of the street – flats at one end and small terraced houses at the other, their granite walls contrasting with the dark-glass-and-concrete office units opposite. Logan was pretty sure Sean hadn’t gone into one of the houses and it was unlikely he’d be welcome in any of the business premises. Not looking the way he did.

      The cathedral car park went straight through to Huntly Street, and so did a small path down the side of the GlobalSantaFe building, but Logan had seen Sean sprinting past them onto Crimon Place, the little eight-year-old’s arms and legs going fifteen to the dozen.

      That left the King’s Gate car park at the far end, but there was no way Sean could have got there so fast. He was hiding somewhere.

      Gritting his teeth against the stitch in his side, Logan jogged forwards, pulling out his mobile phone to call for backup. It rang and rang and rang …

      A drenched, knackered-looking policewoman staggered to a halt at the far end of the street, face flushed, panting and shiny as the rain drummed on her peaked cap and black waterproof jacket.

      Still waiting for Control to pick up, Logan shouted, ‘You see him?’

      She shook her head. ‘No … not … not a sign … Little bastard can run …’

      A voice crackled in his ear – Control telling him the switchboard was buggered and— Logan cut the man off and told him to get a patrol car to Crimon Place right now. Sean Morrison had gone to ground. He snapped his phone shut and started back up the street, yelling, ‘Check the cars!’ to the constable at the far end. He peered underneath and between the vehicles as he went, splashing through puddles, the cold rain bouncing off the road, pavement, BMWs, Porsches, clapped-out Fiestas, Rovers … soaking through Logan’s stained suit, plastering his hair to his head as he searched for the child.

      ‘There!’ It was the policewoman who spotted him. ‘Behind the skip!’ Sean Morrison – eight years old, four foot two, bloody nose, wearing jeans and a red AFC hooded top – grabbed a length of wooden banister not much smaller than a cricket bat from the debris filling the skip, swinging it as the constable lunged for him, catching her right in the face. She grunted and jack-knifed, both feet leaving the ground as she fell, leaving a spray of bright scarlet hanging in the air, glowing against the low, blue-grey clouds. Logan froze for a moment, and so did Sean, watching as she battered onto the wet tarmac, then the eight-year-old looked up at Logan, turned, and legged it.

      For a moment Logan was torn between checking the constable was OK and grabbing the little bastard who’d clobbered her. He sprinted after the boy.

      Sean Morrison was fast all right, but his little legs weren’t nearly as long as Logan’s, plus he was still carrying his makeshift club. He made a hard right, skidding on the wet road, trendy trainers sending up a spray of rainwater as he leapt the kerb and hammered round the side of the Boys’ Brigade Battalion with Logan hard on his heels. And then he suddenly stopped, swinging his chunk of banister.

      Logan had just enough time to get his arms up, covering his face before the wood cracked into it. But it was still enough to make him stop dead, slipping on the wet ground and hitting it hard as his legs went out from underneath him. The breath rushing out of his lungs, fire screeching across his scarred stomach. And then Sean was swearing, calling him a dirtymotherfuckingcuntbastard as he swung the wooden weapon again, smashing it down on Logan’s back, then more swearing – something about a splinter – and the banister went flying. Smash. A car alarm shredded the rainy air. Then a trainer crashed into the top of Logan’s head. He curled into a ball, protecting his stomach as a foot stomped down on his ribs. Making them creak. The little thug took three steps back, took a run up and slammed another foot into Logan’s back.

      Sean was about to do it again, when a pained, angry shout cut across the blaring car alarm: ‘CUMB HERE YOU LIDDLE BASDARD!’

      Logan opened his eyes in time to see Sean Morrison turn and begin to run. ‘No you bloody don’t!’ Lashing out with a hand, he grabbed the eight-year-old’s ankle, sending him crashing to the ground. More swearing. Logan lurched upright, staggered sideways and fell against an Alfa Romeo with a smashed front windscreen, clutching his head as the policewoman skidded to a halt. Everything was lurching in and out of focus in time to the ringing in his ears.

      The PC’s face was a mess of blood, one eye already swollen shut, her nose flattened and misshapen, scarlet bubbles popping from her nostrils as she grabbed Sean Morrison by the scruff of the neck and hauled him off the ground. ‘You’re fugging nicked!’

      She turned, asked Logan if he was OK, then suddenly went very pale. Clatter and Sean Morrison hit the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. The eight-year-old scrambled to his feet as the constable stared open-mouthed at the knife hilt sticking out of her neck, just between the stab-proof vest and her collarbone. Her hands fluttered, bright red spilling down her chest, her eyes locked onto Logan’s, imploring … Then she went down like a sack of tatties.

      Logan caught her just in time to stop her head cracking open on the pavement. Easing her down he grabbed the Airwave handset on her shoulder and shouted, ‘Officer down! Corner of Crimon Place and Skene Terrace! Repeat, Officer down!’

      He cradled her head in his lap as she twitched and moaned. Fresh blood soaking into his trousers as Sean Morrison ran away.

      Four hours later and Logan was standing in Accident and Emergency, getting an update from a male nurse with a hairy mole. The PC was lucky still to be alive, the knife had nicked the brachiocephalic vein – one millimetre to the right and the last sixty seconds of her life would have been sprayed all over the pavement and Logan. She was still critical, but stable.

      Outside, the rain had eased up a bit as the day had grown