Logan topped Samantha’s glass up with the last of the wine, then ordered another bottle. ‘Did it turn out OK? The tattoo Twit-Boy tried to ruin?’
She smiled and rolled up the sleeve of her skull-and-crossbones T-shirt. It was a life-sized handprint in black ink, made up of little tribal squiggles, the skin still slightly red and inflamed around the design. ‘What do you think?’
‘That must have hurt.’
‘Not as much as this one.’ She turned her back on him and pulled open the neck of her T-shirt. ‘It’s OK, you’re allowed to look.’
Logan peered down inside – it was a Chinese dragon and it covered pretty much everything, the bright colours only broken by the black of her bra strap. ‘Wow.’
Samantha grinned at him. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’
They giggled their way into the flat and tumbled through to the bedroom. Kissing and groping and stumbling over a cardboard box in the gloom. Logan flicked on the bedside light. ‘I want you to know,’ he said, trying to sound serious, ‘that I don’t usually do this…’ He frowned. ‘Come to think of it, I’ve not done it for…’ Counting backwards on his fingers – June, May, April, March… ‘Nine months!’
Sam whistled. ‘Nine months? Hope you can still remember where everything goes. I better get you started.’ She pulled her T-shirt up over her head, exposing even more tattoos. A pair of skeletons stretched a banner across her chest above the bra-line with, ‘QUOTH THE RAVEN, “NEVERMORE”’ on it, and a spiky tribal thing poked out from the waistband of her black leather trousers, as if a really big spider was trying to escape from her pants. Both arms had a collection of skulls and hearts and swirly things.
She looked him up and down. ‘Well, don’t just stand there, get your kit off.’
As Logan fumbled his way out of his shirt, Sam stripped off her stripy socks and black leather trousers, until she was kneeling on the bed in nothing but her underwear. Which was a lot more impressive than Logan’s slightly baggy pair of blue Marks & Spencer briefs.
‘Oh very sexy!’
He shrugged. ‘Didn’t think anyone would see them.’
The spidery tribal tattoo reached all the way down to her left knee, thick spikes of black ink forever ingrained into her skin. It was disturbing and strangely erotic at the same time. She unhooked her bra, lay back on the bed and said, ‘Well, don’t just stand there…’
He didn’t need to be told twice.
They lay side by side, catching their breath. Samantha ran a finger across Logan’s stomach – the little worms of scar tissue shining in the soft glow of the bedside light. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘No, you were very gentle with me.’
She hit him. ‘Getting stabbed, you idiot. Did it hurt?’
‘The first six or seven times are the worst. After that they all kind of blend into one another.’
She counted her way across his stomach. ‘Twenty-three.’
‘Think I chipped a tooth on your nipple ring.’
‘Is it true you died on the operating table?’
Logan slid out of bed. Changing the subject hadn’t worked, but leaving the room would. ‘I’m going to get a glass of water, you want one?’
She smiled. ‘Man of mystery, eh? I’ll have a Coke. And then you can get your sexy scarred arse back in bed. I’ve still got two condoms left.’
Torry sat just south of the River Dee, its whorl of old granite tenements and concrete council housing making a three-quarter-mile-long fingerprint in shades of grey. The scene was a two-bedroom flat halfway along Victoria Road, with views out across the fish factories and storage sheds to the harbour. Sun sparkled off the mud and fuel storage tanks in the middle distance, a collection of huge, neon-orange supply boats lolling in the blue-grey water beyond. It was almost pretty.
A pair of white gulls circled in the clear blue sky, squawking obscenities at each other.
FLASH – and the small bedroom lit up. Green patterned wallpaper. Brown carpet. Double bed. MFI wardrobe. Dead body.
FLASH.
Three figures in breathing masks and white SOC coveralls. A cloud of bluebottles frozen mid-flight.
FLASH.
‘And one more for luck…’ The Identification Bureau photographer hunkered down for a close-up.
FLASH.
‘Right, that’s me. You can shift the body if you like.’
Logan shook his head. ‘Better leave it till Doc Fraser gets here.’
‘Okey-doke.’ The photographer dug in the pocket of his white paper oversuit, pulled out a business card and handed it to Logan. ‘Listen, if you know anyone getting married, I’m doing homers, OK? Wedding albums, family gatherings, that kind of thing.’
Logan looked down at the body oozing out into the carpet and said he’d think about it.
Lubosław Frankowski lay on his front, head turned to face the open door. He was swollen: bloated with internal gasses fermented over the week and a half he’d lain there undisturbed. His skin was mottled purple and black with flecks of white mould. Crawling with fat, black flies.
The whole room stank – the sickly sour-sweet odour of rotting meat.
‘Bloody hell!’
Logan looked up to see DCI Finnie standing in the doorway, one hand clamped over his nose and mouth.
‘Morning, sir.’
Finnie gagged. ‘Open a window!’
Logan did as he was told, but it didn’t make any difference to the smell.
The Chief Inspector stared down at the corpse. ‘Is it him?’
‘Far as we can tell.’ Logan pulled a photo from the folder he’d dumped on the bed earlier: Lubosław Frankowski sitting up in a hospital bed, the bandages removed from his ravaged face. Not a pretty sight, but the way he looked now was a damn sight worse. ‘We’ll take fingerprints soon as Doc Fraser’s been.’
‘You taking my name in vain again?’
The elderly pathologist was peering around the door frame. He was swamped by his SOC oversuit, the crinkly white paper covering everything except the tired circle of his face – large nose, lined cheeks, watery eyes. Eyebrows like elderly toothbrushes, their bristles pointing in random directions. ‘Come on then – everybody out, give a man some space to work.’
They did as they were asked, Finnie grabbing the excuse to get away from the smell. But he was nice enough to tell Logan to stay behind and help.
Doc Fraser levered himself slowly down beside the body. ‘Death been declared?’
Logan nodded. ‘Any idea what killed him?’
‘Give us a chance. Only just got here.’ He ran his fingers over the body’s head. ‘No sign of blunt trauma, no blood on the clothes… Help us turn him over, eh?’
Logan grabbed the man’s stained sweatshirt and heaved. The body came away from the carpet with a sticky sound and a fresh eruption of flies – buzzing into the air like a pall of smoke. Logan let go and the body flopped down on his back with a wet belch of escaping gas. ‘Ah … God’s sake!’
Doc Fraser waved a hand in front of