Insch was dressed in jeans and a tatty blue sweatshirt. It was the first time Logan had ever seen him out of his work suit, not counting his pantomime villain outfit. He scowled as Logan apologized for dragging them all down here at this time on a Saturday night. Again.
‘OK,’ said Logan, selecting the refrigerated drawer that held the remains of the little girl they’d found at Roadkill’s steading. Gritting his teeth, he pulled it open, staggering back as the putrid smell fought against the room’s antiseptic tang. ‘Right,’ he said, his face creased up, trying hard to breathe exclusively through his mouth. ‘We know the girl died from blunt trauma—’
‘Of course she did!’ snapped Isobel. ‘I told you that in my post mortem report. The fractures to the front and back of her skull would have caused massive brain damage and death.’
‘I know,’ said Logan, pulling the X-rays out from the case file and holding them up to the light. ‘You see this?’ he asked, pointing at the ribs.
‘Broken ribs.’ Isobel glared. ‘Did you drag me out of the theatre to show me things I bloody well told you in the first place, Sergeant?’ The last word came out dripping in venom.
Logan sighed. ‘Look, we all thought the injuries were caused by Roadkill beating the girl—’
‘The damage is consistent with a beating. I said so in the post mortem! How much more time do we have to spend going over this? You said you had new evidence!’
Logan took a deep breath and stacked the X-rays end on end so they formed the skeleton of a complete child. Broken hip, leg, ribs, fractured skull. The image was less than four feet tall. Dropping down onto his knees, Logan held the skeleton image so that its feet were touching the floor. ‘Look at the ribs,’ he said, ‘look how far they are off the ground.’
DI Insch and Isobel did. Neither of them looked impressed.
‘And?’
‘What if the damage isn’t down to a beating?’
‘Oh come off it!’ Isobel said. ‘This is pathetic! She was beaten to death!’
‘Look how far the broken ribs are off the ground,’ Logan said again.
Nothing.
‘Car,’ said Logan, moving the X-rays like a macabre shadow puppet. ‘The first point of impact is the hip.’ He twisted the image around the waist, lifting it as he turned the top half clockwise. ‘The ribs hit the top edge of the radiator.’ He moved the X-ray girl again, bending the head hard right. ‘Left hand side of the skull smacks into the bonnet. Car slams on the brakes.’ He pulled the X-ray upright and rotated it back towards the morgue’s floor. ‘She hits the tarmac, the right leg snaps. Back of her head caves in as it hits the deck.’ He laid the X-rays on the floor at his feet.
His audience looked on in silence for a full minute before Insch said, ‘So how come she ends up in Roadkill’s house of horrors then?’
‘Bernard Duncan Philips, AKA Roadkill, comes along with his shovel and his wheelie-cart and does what he always does.’
Insch looked at him as if he’d just plucked the dead child’s rotting corpse from its refrigerated drawer and proceeded to do the Dashing White Sergeant round the room with it. ‘It’s a dead girl! Not a bloody rabbit!’
‘It’s all the same to him.’ Logan looked down at the contents of the drawer, feeling a heavy weight pressing down between his ribs. ‘Just another dead thing scraped off the road. She was in steading number two. He’d already filled one building.’
Insch opened his mouth. Looked at Logan. Looked at Isobel. And back to the X-rays lying on the floor. ‘Bastard,’ he said at last.
Isobel stood in silence, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her bright orange fleece, an unhappy expression on her face.
‘Well?’ Logan asked.
She drew herself up to her full height and, with a voice like frozen bleach, agreed that the injuries were consistent with the scenario described. That it was impossible to tell what order the injuries occurred in, because of the state of decay. That the injuries had looked consistent with a severe beating. That she’d made the best call she could, based on the state of the body. That she couldn’t be expected to be clairvoyant.
‘Bastard,’ said Insch again.
‘He didn’t kill her.’ Logan slid the refrigerated door shut, the dull clang echoing off the cold, white tiles. ‘We’re back to square one.’
Bernard Duncan Philips’ ‘appropriate adult’ turned up after an hour and a half of frantic telephone calls, looking like something the cat dragged in. It was the ex-schoolteacher, Lloyd Turner, again, smelling strongly of mint, as if he’d been drinking alone and didn’t want anyone to know about it. Ten o’clock shadow blurring the edges of his thin moustache. He fussed with his papers as Logan went through the standard details for the tape.
‘We want you,’ said DI Insch, now dressed in his spare suit, ‘to tell us about the dead girl, Bernard.’
Roadkill’s eyes darted round the room and the ex-teacher gave a long-suffering sigh.
‘We have been over this already, Inspector.’ His voice was old and tired. ‘Bernard’s not well. He needs help, not incarceration.’
Insch screwed his face up. ‘Bernard,’ said Insch with careful deliberation, ‘you found her, didn’t you?’
Lloyd Turner’s eyebrows shot up his head. ‘Found her?’ he asked, looking at the stinking, tatty figure sitting next to him with barely concealed surprise. ‘Did you find her, Bernard?’
Roadkill shifted in his seat and stared down at his hands. Small, burgundy clots covered his fingers like parasites. The skin was raw around the fingernails where he’d been picking and chewing his hands into submission. He didn’t even look up, and his voice was small and broken. ‘Road. Found her on the road. Three hedgehogs, two crows, one seagull, one tabby cat, two long-haired cats, black-and-white, one girl, nine rabbits, one roe deer. . .’ His eyes misted up, his voice becoming rough, ‘My beautiful dead things. . .’ A sparkling tear escaped his eye, clearing the long eyelashes, to run down the weathered skin of his cheek and into his beard.
Insch folded his arms and settled back in his seat. ‘So you took the little girl back to your “collection”.’
‘Always take them home. Always.’ Sniff. ‘Can’t just throw them out like garbage. Not dead things. Not things that used to be alive inside.’
And with that Logan was forced to remember a single leg sticking out of a bin-bag in the middle of the council tip. ‘Did you see anything else?’ he asked. ‘When you picked her up. Did you see anything: a car, or a lorry or anything like that?’
Roadkill shook his head. ‘Nothing. Just the dead girl, lying at the side of the road. All broken and bleeding and still warm.’
The hairs went up on the back of Logan’s neck. ‘Was she alive? Bernard, was she still alive when you found her?’
The ratty figure sank down against the table, resting his head in his arms on the chipped Formica top. ‘Sometimes the things get hit and they don’t die right away. Sometimes they wait for me to come and watch over them.’
‘Oh Christ.’
They put Roadkill back in his cell and reconvened in the interview room: Logan, Insch and Roadkill’s appropriate adult.
‘You do know you’re going to have to release him, don’t you?’ said Mr Turner.
Logan raised an eyebrow, but Insch said: ‘Your arse I will.’
The ex-schoolteacher sighed and settled back into one of the uncomfortable plastic seats. ‘The most you