Read Close to the Bone for Free Online

know what he’s like.’ She dropped her voice an octave and put on a posh Morningside accent. ‘I can assure you, Roberta, that the press are only too happy to make Grampian Police look like idiots on this. I would appreciate your team not helping them out on that front. We need a swift and decisive result!’ She let out a long wet raspberry. ‘Like we’re sitting about on our bumholes doing sod all about it.’
    ‘What do you mean, “we” ? ’
    ‘Lucky our victim copped it on a Saturday night. Be all over the papers come Monday. Editorializing tosspots. . . Get your victim DNA tested, and if the ACC moans I’ll drop my breeks and tell him to pucker up.’ Steel stuck her feet up on Logan’s desk and polished off the last of the buttie. ‘Speaking of tosspots, have you done anything about Agnes sodding Garfield yet? ’ Steel dug into her pocket and hauled out a wad of ‘W HILE Y OU W ERE O UT ’ stickies. She chucked them onto his desk. ‘All from the mother. Says she’s going to the papers if we don’t get our finger out and find her wee girl.’
    Logan picked them up and dumped them in his bin. ‘She’s not a wee girl, she’s eighteen. And she’s not missing: she’s run away with her boyfriend.’
    ‘Don’t care if she’s sodded off to join the circus – her mum’s going to make a pain in the arse of herself till we find her. Can you no’ at least look as if you’re trying to find her? ’
    Yeah, because he didn’t have anything better to do. ‘Is that it? Nothing else you want? ’
    Steel sooked her fingers clean. ‘Could murder a cup of coffee.’
    Logan groped for the office phone, then punched in DS Chalmers’s number.
    She picked up on the second ring. ‘ Guv? ’
    ‘Got a minute? ’
    ‘ Be right through. ’
    Steel waved at him. ‘Tell whoever it is to bring coffee!’
    Logan blinked at the printout a couple of times, then handed it back. The bleeding had stopped, but burning army ants were marching through his sinuses, trying to force his eyes out of their sockets. A scrunched-up tail of white paper stuck out of each nostril, just in case his head started leaking again. ‘Nothing at all? ’
    DS Chalmers stood to attention in front of his desk, her curly hair more or less under control in a lopsided ponytail. She consulted her notebook. ‘I chased them up at eight, on the dot; told them to put a rush on the DNA, and got an earful of moaning about the new procedures, and the re-organization, and the software upgrade, and it’s Sunday. . .’
    Steel settled back in the visitor’s chair, eyes clamped on Chalmers’s buttocks. ‘You don’t say. . .’
    ‘Yeah, the SPSA got this big IT company in to rationalize everything, and nothing works anymore. Apparently there’s a pensioner in Dumfries that’s come back as a positive DNA match for eight murders, thirty-seven housebreakings, six arsons, and five rapes. Not bad for a woman in a wheelchair.’
    Logan ran a finger along the side of his nose, gently probing the edge of the plaster that crossed the bridge. Sore. ‘Did they get anything off that partial thumb? ’
    ‘Gave it a go, but nothing came back. Which could mean the victim’s not in the database.’ She put the notebook away. ‘So, maybe it’s not gang-related after all? If he was a dealer we’d have his prints in the system, right? ’
    ‘Not if he’d never been caught.’
    Steel took one last look at Chalmers’s bum then sat up straight. ‘Aye, well someone caught him yesterday, didn’t they.’

5
    Isobel hauled off her purple nitrile gloves and dropped them in the pedal bin, then dumped her green plastic apron in after them. Then stood with her back arched, pregnant bulges sticking out, hands rubbing at the base of her spine. Eyes closed, teeth gritted. ‘Ungh. . . You know, when I had Sean I held off going on maternity leave until the last possible moment. Won’t be making that mistake again.’
    Behind her, the Anatomical Pathology Technician was