a long pause, Podwojski mumbled a reply. The interpreter leaned in close, putting her ear an inch from the blind man’s lips. And then she frowned. ‘He says he can’t remember.’
Finnie tightened his mouth into a mean little line. ‘Ask – him – again.’
The interpreter sighed. ‘I’ve been asking him since—’
‘I said, ask him again.’
‘Fine. Whatever.’ She went back to speaking Polish.
The DCI looked up and saw Logan standing in the doorway. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Had to park miles away. Do you want me to—’
‘No. Go speak to the woman. Remember her? The one you somehow managed to put a bullet in? It might be nice to know why she was there and exactly what she saw.’
‘But—’
‘Today, Sergeant.’
‘Yes sir.’
She looked as if she was made of porcelain, her pale skin marred by livid purple bruises. But you could still tell she’d been pretty, before all this…
A rats’ nest of wires and tubes anchored her to a bank of machinery in the mixed high-dependency ward, just the gentle rise and fall of her chest – powered by the ventilator next to her bed – marring the stillness.
Logan flagged down a nurse and asked how the patient was getting on.
‘Not that good.’ The nurse checked the chart at the foot of the bed. ‘Bullet went through the colon and small intestine, nicked the bottom of her spleen… Didn’t stop till it hit her spine. They’re going to wait to see if she gets a bit stronger before they try removing it. She lost a lot of blood.’
‘Any idea who she is?’
‘Never regained consciousness.’ The nurse clipped the chart back on the bed. ‘All I can tell you is she’s in her early twenties. Other than that she’s a Jane Doe.’
‘Damn…’ Logan pointed at the plastic pitcher of water on the bedside cabinet. ‘Can I borrow one of the glasses?’
‘Why?’
‘Didn’t bring a fingerprint kit with me.’ Logan snapped on a pair of latex gloves, picked up a glass and wiped it clean with a corner of the bed-sheet. Then opened the woman’s right hand and rolled the glass carefully across the fingertips.
He stood there, staring at her wrist. It was circled with a thin line of purple bruises, about a centimetre wide. The left one was the same. ‘Bloody hell…’
Logan put the glass back where he’d got it. ‘Help me untuck the sheets. I want to check her ankles.’
‘Oh no you don’t. I’ll just have to make the bed again. I do have other patients to look after, you know.’
But Logan wasn’t listening, he was pulling the sheets out, exposing a pair of pale legs. The ankles had the same ring of bruises. ‘Has she had a rape test?’
‘What? No, why would we—’
‘The bruises round her wrists and ankles – she’s been tied up and beaten. Pretty girl like that, do you think they just stopped there?’
‘I’ll get a doctor.’
‘And what exactly did you think you were doing?’ DCI Finnie stood in the hospital corridor, scowling at Logan as the nurse drew the curtain around their mystery woman’s bed. ‘Did I miss a memo? Did you suddenly get promoted to Senior Investigating Officer on this case?’
‘I just thought it would save—’
Finnie poked Logan in the chest. ‘You run everything through me before you do it. Understand?’
‘But—’
‘Do you secretly yearn to spend every day from now till you retire giving road safety lectures to sticky little children? Is that it?’
‘No, sir. I just—’
‘I don’t know what kind of slapdash methods you’re used to, but when you work for me you will follow the chain of command, or so help me I’ll send you right back where I found you.’
‘But—’
‘After your performance last year, you’re lucky to still have a job, never mind be involved in a major enquiry. What, did you think the magic career pixies put you on the Oedipus case? Because they didn’t.’ Finnie poked him again. ‘You had experience with serial weirdoes and I thought, I actually thought you might take this opportunity to get your head out your backside and turn your train-wreck life around. Was I wrong? Are you the complete cock-up everyone says you are?’
Logan ground his teeth, took a deep breath, and said, ‘No, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘And?’
‘It won’t happen again?’
‘That’s not what I meant – when are they going to get the results back from the rape kit…’ He stopped and frowned at the evidence bag in Logan’s hand. ‘Is that a glass?’ Finnie grabbed the bag and held it up to the light. ‘Why have you got a glass?’
‘We don’t have an ID for the victim, and I didn’t have a fingerprint kit with me, so I thought—’
‘You see? That’s exactly the kind of nonsense I’m talking about. We have officers posted here twenty-four-seven, do you think they might – just – have a fingerprint kit? Hmm? Do you think?’ He stared at Logan for a beat. ‘Well, go get it then.’ He held out the evidence bag. ‘And take your Junior Detective Set with you.’
By the time the fingerprint results came back from the lab, it was nearly half past two and Logan was back at his desk in CID, crunching on an indigestion tablet. That’s what he got for microwaving vegetable curry for lunch. And now he had to go tell Finnie they still had no idea who the woman was. He’d love that.
Frog-faced git.
No wonder Logan had indigestion.
It took a while to track Finnie down, but he finally found the DCI in one of the small incident rooms – just big enough for two cluttered desks, three seats, and a strange eggy smell. He was sitting on the edge of a desk, deep in conversation with a gangly admin officer.
Logan settled back to wait.
Finnie didn’t even look round. ‘Did you want something, Sergeant, or are you just worried that wall’s going to fall down with out you leaning on it?’
‘We couldn’t find her
