"Dying light" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacBride Stuart)

16

The Identification Bureau were delighted to have an indoor corpse for a change, it meant they didn't have to fight with that bloody SOC tent. Karl Pearson's lounge was decorated in much the same way as the hall, with posters and magazine pages, only the naked ladies in here were a lot more hard-core. The IB team had put down their little metal walkway and then proceeded to cover the whole place in black fingerprint powder; empty the flat's vacuum cleaner into an evidence bag; take samples of blood – not difficult, considering how much of it there was in the lounge; argue about whether or not one of the naked women – pictured playing with a variety of battery-operated devices – was Detective Sergeant Beattie's wife; photographed everything and stood quietly by as Doc Wilson pronounced the naked man tied to a dining-room chair with his throat cut dead.

'Amazing the things these doctors can diagnose nowadays,' said Insch, leaning against the far wall. He was wearing the biggest set of white paper coveralls the IB boys had, but it was fighting a losing battle against the inspector's huge frame.

'Care to hazard a guess at time of death?'

Doc Wilson favoured Insch with a withering glance. 'No,' he said, snapping his medical bag shut. 'What is it with you people? You always want a bloody time of death off the poor bloody GP! You know what? I haven't got a bloody clue.

OK? Satisfied? You want a time of death? Ask a fucking pathologist.' He straightened up and made for the door, pausing on the threshold to run an appraising eye over the inspector's straining SOC suit. 'Tell you what, I'll give you a time of death, free of charge. Eighteen months if you don't do something about your bloody weight.' And he was out of there before Insch could do much more than go beetroot red and splutter.

Logan groaned; that was all they needed, Doc Bloody Wilson lighting the blue touch paper and running like buggery. Leaving the rest of them to deal with the explosion.

'Don't pay any attention to him,' he tried. 'Wilson's had a weasel up his arse all week. He's just being a wanker for the sake of it.'

Insch turned a baleful eye on Logan. 'You tell that bastard, if I ever see him at one of my crime scenes again, I will personally make sure he ends up in the FUCKING MORGUE!'

Everyone else in the room went very quiet. 'I WILL FUCKING WELL DECLARE DEATH ON HIM!' Spittle flew from Insch's mouth. Logan had seen him angry plenty of times, but never anything like this. Trembling with the effort, Insch walked quietly into the kitchen and slammed the door behind him so hard every loose object in the flat rattled. From the apartment upstairs came the sound of a television being turned up.

'Jesus,' whispered the IB cameraman. Touched a nerve, or what?'

DI Insch was still sulking in the kitchen when the duty pathologist arrived: Doc Fraser this time, rather than Isobel, much to Logan's relief. Fraser agreed with the duty doctor's diagnosis: Karl Pearson was indeed dead. Logan could go ahead and call the funeral directors to come pick up the body. The post mortem would be at three. And now that the formalities were out of the way, Logan was free to examine the victim without upsetting anyone. Just as long as he didn't actually touch anything.

Karl Pearson: twenty-four, naked, tied to a chair and very, very dead. His throat was sliced nearly all the way through, his head hanging to one side; eyes wide open in surprise, staring vacantly out into the hall. The left ear was missing a large chunk, from the lobe right up to the tip, leaving a crescent moon of skin behind. Deep weals ran parallel along his cheeks from his open mouth round the back of his head. It looked as if he'd been wearing some sort of bondage gag, the little round buckle holes imprinted on the waxy flesh. Karl's arms were secured behind his back, attached to the chair's legs by a set of plastic cable ties. The hands were crusted in more blood, making detail difficult to pick out, but one thing was abundantly clear: several of Karl's fingers were a lot shorter than they should have been. Some ended at the second joint, others had been taken off at the knuckle, some in between: bone and cartilage showing through the stumps like boiled fish eyes. The severed ends were lying underneath the chair, the nails ripped out. Karl's chest – where it wasn't covered with blood from the gaping neck wound – was speckled with cigarette burns and his right nipple was missing. Karl's legs were splayed wide open, giving Logan an excellent view of his bollocks. Those were either pubic hairs, or staples, Logan couldn't decide which, and he wasn't going to get any closer to find out. The pale, hairy legs were also covered in little burns, the knees lumpen and misshapen. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to his feet. » 'What do you think?'

Logan turned to see the deputy PF standing on her own in the doorway, trying to look casual in the standard-issue boiler suit while completely avoiding eye contact with the blood-caked, naked body. There was no sign of the IB team, who were probably poking through the rest of the flat, giving the kitchen a wide berth until DI Insch calmed down a bit.

'Well,' said Logan, 'if he knew anything, he'll have talked.'

Rachael risked a glance at Karl Pearson's body. 'Tortured for information?'

'Probably drugs-related. Karl had form for dealing and we know there's a new crew in town. Looks like they play rough.'

Rachael worked her way around to the far side of the lounge, staring out of the window at the sun-kissed North Sea. Keeping well away from Karl Pearson. 'How the hell do you torture someone in a block of flats and not get caught?

Surely someone must have heard something! He's in here getting… getting that done to him and no one called 999?'

'Well, if it was me I'd gag him, tie him to the chair and then torture him. Stub out some cigarettes, rip out some fingernails, break some toes… Then, when he's finished screaming behind the gag, pop it off and start asking questions.

By now he knows you mean business. You put the gag back in and you go to work again. Slice off an ear, hack off a couple of fingers: really make him suffer. Ask your questions again. See if you get the same answers twice. Then do it all one last time, just to be safe.' He sighed. 'Long as you keep the gag in while you're working, no one's going to hear a thing… Except maybe the hammering.' She was silent.

'You OK?'

Rachael shuddered. 'You know what it's like: never really seen anything on this…' she waved at Karl's tortured body, 'this scale before. Not in the flesh. I mean we get to see a lot of photographs when we're doing the cases in court, but…'

She flapped her hands again.

'But it's not the same.' Logan nodded. Outside the window a seagull swept past on the breeze, its white body caught in a beam of sunshine, fluorescing against the deep, clay-blue sea.

'What the hell's wrong with this place?' she asked, staring