three ribbed condoms. He tried the bedside cabinets: socks, underpants, handkerchiefs, more socks, a small silver key, a collection of cheap-looking pornographic magazines, and a handful of Crocodildo DVDs. Logan stuck them on top of the computer desk and peered under the bed. A small set of free weights, a plastic storage thing full of T-shirts, and a long metal chest. Padlocked. The key from the bedside cabinet fit perfectly.
Logan took one look inside. Whistled softly. Then locked it up again.
The computer desk was a mess of CDs and bits of paper. There were a couple of letters from Equity, the actors’ union, regretfully informing Jason that his application for membership was being declined as he’d not been employed for his ‘adult films’ on a suitable contract. A handful of pages ripped from the Stage with auditions circled in red ink. And right at the bottom of the pile: a parking ticket. Logan gave it a cursory glance, about to stick it back where he’d found it when he saw the number plate. It was far too old to be the red Citroën parked in the driveway, and he knew it wasn’t in the garage. He called Control, asking for a lookout report to be put on the vehicle. There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, complete with the clickity clack of a keyboard being pounded, and then, ‘OK, so that’s a lookout request for a blue Volvo estate, registration number—’
‘What?’
‘The number plate, it belongs to a blue Volvo estate.’
Logan sighed. Of course it did.
He found DI Steel standing outside the back door, having a fag and staring out at the lowering clouds, her breath indistinguishable from the cigarette smoke in the cold morning air. She looked tired and old. ‘Sorry, Laz,’ she said, as he stepped out into the cold, ‘I just couldn’t face telling someone else their kid’s dead. Some DI, eh?’ She sighed, then took another deep drag on her cigarette. ‘One hundred and sixty-seven. That’s how many times I’ve broken the news. I was working it out just now. A hundred and sixty-seven people.’ Another sigh. ‘What a bloody job. We must be mad …’
‘I found something in Jason’s room. The car he was dropped off in – looks like it was his.’
‘Shite.’
‘Yup. There’s a computer as well. I’ve told Mr Fettes we’re going to need to take it and a couple of other things down to the lab for analysis.’
‘The poor sod had no idea his wee boy was making porn films. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
‘You want Rickards to stay here with them?’
‘What?’ She frowned, dragged back from a thoughtful pause. ‘Better no’. He’s no’ been trained, so Christ knows what he’d come out with. Get a Family Liaison officer out here. We’ll nip back to the station soon as they arrive.’
They drove back to FHQ with Jason’s computer, the long metal chest from under his bed and his collection of pornography all stuffed in the boot of the car. Mr Fettes sat in the back with DI Steel – coming in to formally identify his son’s body. Down in the morgue viewing room, he took one look at Jason, said, ‘He looks so small …’ and asked to be taken home. All in a voice that was little more than a whisper. Steel got Alpha Six Nine to give him a lift.
Upstairs, the incident room was nearly empty, just a couple of PCs answering the phones while everyone else was off to the canteen for lunch. Logan had signed everything they’d taken from Jason’s room into evidence, then out again, so they could go through it on one of the desks by the window. Steel went straight for the porn, examining the DVDs and reading out choice quotes from the cover blurbs in her best theatrical voice. Then came the magazines. They weren’t exactly high class, but they were explicit. And they all featured Jason Fettes.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Steel, holding up a two-page spread of their victim, two unidentified women and a man in a rubber mask, ‘he’s got a porn collection full of his own face. Narcissistic little onanist, isn’t he?’ She stuck the magazine back on the pile. ‘What’s in the box?’
Logan unlocked it and showed them.
‘Fuck me!’ The inspector reached in and pulled out a full-length rubber suit with built-in arms, legs, gloves, and booties, all in matt black. She poked a latex-gloved finger through a little hole in the crotch. There was an identical one round the back. ‘Think he got this at Marks & Spencer?’ There was a matching moulded, black rubber hood with tiny little holes for the nose and eyes in the box as well as a collection of bats, paddles, gags, and strange pink things: most of which were battery-operated.
Logan peered at a weird, mushroom-shaped object. ‘What the hell’s this?’
‘Butt plug,’ said Steel and Rickards, both at the same time. Then the constable went bright red.
‘OK, Sherlock,’ the inspector grinned at him and pulled a small black plastic case out of the box, ‘seeing as your specialist subject is sexual deviancy: what’s this?’ She clicked it open, exposing a jumble of wires, pads and a controller.
Rickards went from red to deep scarlet. ‘It’s an electrostim set.’
‘Yeah?’ she looked genuinely surprised.
‘You … it gives you … the electricity … for heightening … ahem.’
‘Good is it?’ She pulled the controller out and started poking at the buttons.
‘It … well, it depends … I …’
Logan came to the constable’s rescue. ‘At least this explains the strap marks we found on Jason’s body.’
‘Hmm?’ Steel put the controller back in its case and snapped the thing shut again.
‘Well, he’s obviously heavily into the bondage scene. Someone picks him up, takes him home and ties him up, only it goes too far – the guy panics and dumps him outside A&E. It was an accident.’
‘An accident? How do you accidentally bugger someone to death?’
‘You know what these bondage lot are like,’ said Logan, pointing at the contents of Jason’s hope chest, ‘one minute it’s tying each other up for a bit of light spanking, and the next it’s whips, chains, nipple-clamps and butt plugs.’ He might have been imagining it, but he got the feeling Rickards was scowling at him. ‘And let’s face it: if you’re going to kill someone, there are better ways of doing it. You’ve already got the guy tied up and gagged, why not just strangle him? Or put a plastic bag over his head. And why rush him to the hospital afterwards?’
Steel scowled, obviously trying to come up with an alternative scenario. ‘Oh bloody hell,’ she said at last, ‘so much for my nice juicy murder.’ And then she stomped off to tell the ACC.
PC Rickards waited till she was gone before he spoke. ‘You know, just because Jason was different it doesn’t make him a pervert!’
Logan stared at him. ‘Oh – my – God, you’re one of them aren’t you? You’re into all this bondage stuff!’
‘I …’ The constable’s face blossomed with beetroot-coloured embarrassment and then he stormed off, leaving a grinning Logan to pack Jason Fettes’ collection away.
‘Right, settle down you lot!’ DI Steel stood at the front of the briefing room
