Free Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride Page A

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 while Aberdeen's finest made themselves comfortable. 'We now have an ID for our victim.' She nodded to Logan and he hit the button. Behind the inspector the screen filled with a smiling face, snapped on a beach somewhere a damn sight warmer than the northeast of Scotland. 'Jason Fettes, AKA: Dick Longlay.' That got a laugh and the inspector let it die down before continuing. 'He made dirty movies for Crocodildo Films, which is how our very own PC Rickards was able to identify him.'
    A sudden barrage of wolf whistles and off-colour comments were thrown in Rickards' direction - the constable looked mortified. He went even redder when Steel started talking about Jason Fettes' bondage set. 'So,' she said, as Logan clicked the screen onto a picture of the rubber romper suit, laid out on the incident room floor, 'we need to start asking around the sex shops and wherever else it is the bondage crowd hang. Like Ellon. And Westhill.'
    While the inspector spoke, Logan kept an eye on Rickards: it seemed as if he was about to say something, but thought better of it.
    'Current theory: this was a sex game gone wrong, so Fettes probably went home with this person of his own free will. There's no blood at the victim's house, so they must have gone to Mr Moustache's bondage bachelor pad.' Click and the e-fit appeared.
    'We're pretty sure the victim was contacted through this site...' Steel paused, waiting for Logan to catch up - the image behind her changing to a pink and black website called 'BONDAGEOPOLIS!'. 'Fettes had an advert on there, the