The Missing and the Dead (53 page)

‘Wish I could say the same.’ He washed the cake down with a mouthful of tea. ‘Stubby, did you ever deal with Neil Wood?’

‘Our missing paedo? Yeah, couple of times when I was in the Offender Management Unit. He wasn’t mine, but I had to fill in now and then. Sniffly, runny, sticky kind of bloke. You know the type people always think of when someone says “child molester”? That.’

‘You been to his B-and-B since he went missing?’ The last of the cake disappeared.

‘Got enough on my plate as it is. Why?’

‘Looking for a link with one Charles “Craggie” Anderson. Tell Glen happy birthday from me, OK?’

‘You sticking around for a bit?’

‘Depends what comes up.’ Logan put the phone down, grabbed the remaining slice of cake, and headed for the Sergeants’ Office.

It wasn’t that much different to the one back at Banff – high ceilings, cornices and moulded architraves being slowly buried under layers of white gloss. Two desks, back to back, and computers almost powerful enough to pull the skin off a cold cup of coffee.

He settled into the seat, slurped, munched, and logged on to the system.

Didn’t take long to catch up with the day’s actions. Everyone was up to date, even Tufty.

A dull ache seeped around Logan’s skull, starting at the back of his head and ending up right behind his eyes. The paramedic’s paracetamol was wearing off.

Paracetamol for a cracked skull – how was
that
supposed to help? Whatever happened to cocodamol, voltarol, naproxen, or oxycodone? Ah, the good old days.

He went rummaging through the desk till he turned up a battered packet of aspirin. Better than nothing, but not much. Two got washed down with a swig of cold tea.

Of course, Steel was right – if they’d wanted him dead, they’d have left him to burn with the house. Still …

He checked the clock on the computer. Gone half eleven. Far too late to be calling civilians. But … He pulled out his phone and dialled.

Ringing. Ringing. Then an Aberdonian accent trying very hard to sound posh came on the line.
‘
Aberdeen Examiner
, news desk, how can I help you?’

‘Is Colin Miller there? Tell him it’s an old friend.’

‘One moment, I’ll put you through …’ Click.

Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ droned out of the handset, sounding as if it was being played in an elevator by drunken monkeys.

Logan finished off his tea.

More ‘Bolero’.

He pulled over a sheet of paper and drew a rectangular box in the middle. Wrote ‘L
IVESTOCK
M
ART
’ in it. Next came the names: Gilcomston, Brussels, Wood, Barden, and what was the woman called? The one living in the big Victorian house with twinset, pearls, and death threats. Ah, right: Mrs Bartholomew. What else? Who else was on the board?

He tapped his pen against the desk. Steel was right: should’ve taken a photograph. Be easier than trying to piece it together from memory, after a thump to the head.

Who else was—

Click
. And on came an unabashed Glaswegian accent.
‘Logie? That you? Long time no hear, man. How’s life in the sticks? You hear anything about this Martyn Baker joker?’

‘You’re still in the office, Colin? Don’t you have a wife and three kids to get home to?’

‘Alfie’s teething, so I’ve come down with a nasty dose of “stuff what needs written for Monday’s edition”. Longer I stay out of the house, the better. What you after?’

‘Did you write that piece on Charles Anderson in the
Examiner
today?’

‘You kidding? The day I use that many adverbs in one story, you’ve got my permission to shoot us. It was that neep, Finnegan.’

‘I need to speak to Anderson’s ex-wife. Any chance you can dig out her details for me?’

A small hungry pause.
‘Something juicy on the go?’

‘Nah, standard follow-up stuff.’

‘Cause if something juicy comes up, you’re no’ gonnae forget your old pal Colin, are you?’

‘When have I ever?’

‘Aye, right.’

Somewhere in the distance church bells gave twelve sonorous cries of doom, while the canteen microwave droned.

The sound of scuffing feet. Then someone cleared their throat. ‘Sarge.’

Bleeep
.

Logan glanced over his shoulder. ‘Hi.’

The wee loon couldn’t have been much over twenty. Spots clung to the sides of his forehead, disappearing into the felt-style haircut. A full-moon face with chubby child cheeks. Quick peek at the shoulder numbers on his epaulettes showed he was one of this year’s gaggle of newbies. He produced something between a smile and a wince. ‘PC Matthews. Ted.’

‘Right. Ted.’ Logan made a half-arsed set of oven gloves out of a tea towel and liberated his bowl of lentil soup from the microwave. ‘How’s it hanging, Ted?’

The smile got more wincey. ‘Yeah. Great. Thanks.’

‘Good.’ He carried his soup through to the sit-down part of the canteen, then went back for his toast.

‘Anyone free to attend? Got complaints about a man urinating in the Iceland shop doorway, Fraserburgh.’

‘Sarge?’

‘What can I do for you, Ted?’

Constable Matthews sank into the chair opposite. ‘How do you … If … I mean …’ Pink bloomed on his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

Surely he wasn’t asking for a talk on the birds and the bees.

He cleared his throat. ‘I found a body today. Old man, hadn’t been seen for a week and his neighbours were worried.’

Logan put down his spoon. ‘It happens a lot more often than people think.’

‘He’d hung himself, on the stairs. Wrapped a belt round the bannister and his neck.’ Matthews puffed out his cheeks. ‘Place was a tip. I mean, really,
really
horrible. Everything sticky and filthy and the smell was unbelievable.’

A bite of toast. ‘I know it sounds daft, but you get used to it. Never gets any better, but you do get used to it.’

‘He had the heating up full pelt, and he’d been hanging there for seven days … Face all black and crawling with flies …’ A shudder.

‘Update on the piddler: turns out there’s a woman with him and she’s having a wee there too. Can someone attend, please?
’

Should really have had a squint through the cupboard first – found out if anyone had any hot sauce. Couldn’t do it with Matthews here. Not with all those signs about not nicking other people’s food glaring down from the fridge door.

‘You know what I spent the morning doing, Sarge? Getting spat at. Sworn at. Shouted at. Someone threw up on my shoes.’ He slumped inside his stabproof vest, making it look as if he’d shrunk. ‘Don’t know if I can do this any more.’

Have to buy something different next time. No more lentil soup. Maybe cream of tomato? Pff … Who was he kidding. The decent stuff cost more than the budget would allow. Tattie and leek?

‘And it’s the same people, day after day, shift after shift. All the time, the same manky minks, with their filthy houses and smelly clothes and drug habits. Or drink. Or both. Never mind the nutters …’

Of course, the ideal thing would be to go buy a bunch of vegetables and
make
soup. But then he’d have to trust it to the canteen fridge, and everyone knew what a bunch of thieving sods police officers were when it came to food. Oh, you could leave cash and jewellery and electronics lying about for weeks and no one would touch it. But see if you put a custard cream down and turned your back for five seconds? Gone.

‘Joined the police to help people, and all I’m doing is babysitting scumbags who hate me.’

That was the thing about tins, you could hide them. Didn’t need refrigerating.

‘And the pension’s a joke now, isn’t it? Get to work till I’m sixty, for a pittance. Can you see us as a bunch of sixty-year-olds, dunting in some druggie’s door and fighting off his Rottweiler?’ He shrank a little more. ‘Got a friend who works on the rigs.’

‘I know.’ Logan dipped a chunk of toast in his soup. ‘The pay here’s rubbish, the shifts are rubbish, and the pension’s rubbish. Job’s well and truly screwed.’ He popped the soggy morsel in his mouth and chewed. ‘But we get to
change
people’s lives. We get to keep them safe. And when something horrible happens, and they end up dead or damaged, we get them justice. Try doing that on an oilrig.’

Matthews raised his eyebrows. ‘Yeah …’ Then lowered them again. Curled his top lip ‘Suppose.’

‘It’s nothing but milky tea and porn out there anyway.’

Logan scuffed in through the door to Banff station. ‘Pff …’

Joe emerged from the canteen. ‘Sarge, how’s the head?’

‘Like a bowling ball full of angry mice.’

A nod. ‘You want a coffee? I’m doing the rounds.’

‘You’re a star.’

Big Paul and Penny were in the Constables’ Office. The pair of them sitting with their backs to the open door, thumping away at their keyboards. Getting everything tidied away for the two o’clock end of business.

No sign of the nightshift.

Logan slouched through the main office and into the Sergeants’ room. Peeled off his stabproof vest and dumped it behind his desk, then followed it with the equipment belt. A whole stone lighter, just like that. He collapsed into his chair. Stared at the high ceiling for a bit. Then sighed and pulled the keyboard over and logged in.

Joe knocked, then let himself in. Mug in one hand, packet of Ginger Snaps in the other. ‘You get your fax?’

A frown. Logan took the mug of coffee. ‘What fax?’

‘Should be in your pigeonhole – came in about five-ish.’

‘Oh. No.’

‘We’re planning on writing everything up, then work up some targets for next week before home-time. Thought we’d have a bash at antisocial behaviour and car thefts.’

Logan had a dig into his desk drawer and came out with a packet of aspirin. ‘Do me a favour and stick drugs on your list? I’m declaring war.’

‘Will do.’

Joe wandered off and Logan threw back four tablets. Washed them down with a slurp of hot coffee.

Someone had given the angry mice chainsaws, and the little sods were on a mission to cut their way out of his skull.

‘Fax.’ He pulled himself out of his seat and through into the main office. The pigeonholes weren’t really pigeonholes, they were a collection of red plastic in-and-out-trays, stacked four-high in a recess by the door through to the front of the building. Logan’s was stuffed with sponsorship forms, takeaway menus, a couple of leaflets for local businesses, and a newspaper clipping about a dirty wee scumbag climbing up onto someone’s roof to have a crap down their chimney pot. There was even a photo.

But right at the bottom was an internal mail envelope.

He opened it and took out the three sheets of A4 from inside.

DNA RESULT ON TARLAIR REMAINS.

According to the fax’s time-stamp, it arrived at 16:58 – the guy from the labs had managed to get it done by close of play after all.

Logan skimmed over the intro paragraphs and procedural bits, the graphs and diagrams on page two, and went straight to the results at the back.

Puffed out his cheeks.

Leaned against the wall and stared at the sheet. No match with Helen’s DNA.

It wasn’t her daughter.

‘Night, Sarge. Night, Hector.’ Penny gave him a wave. Then followed Joe and Big Paul out into the night. Bang on two in the morning.

The door clunked shut, leaving Logan alone with his ghosts.

A dozen names now featured on the sheet of paper he’d started in Peterhead – trying to recreate Charles Anderson’s paedophile wall chart. Some had question marks next to them, others were underlined. Like Dr William Gilcomston, AKA: Dr Kidfiddler, connected by a thick red line to ‘T
ARLAIR
W
EE
G
IRL
’.

Didn’t get them any closer to catching her killer though, did it? Not when Gilcomston could simply deny everything. They needed some evidence. Some information. Something to justify getting a warrant from the Sheriff and ransacking the place.

But that was a job for tomorrow.

Logan logged off. Pushed the keyboard away. Yawned. Then sagged in his seat.

No point hanging about, putting it off any longer. Time to go home.

More mice had joined the throng, and these ones were armed with sledgehammers. Battering away at his brain in time to the thump of his pulse. Need more pills. And something stronger than aspirin.

He scrubbed his hands across his face.

Come on. Home. Bed.

Yeah … But what if Helen was there again – in his bed?

Wear pants. No more embarrassing early-morning protuberances.

Not much of a plan, but it was better than nothing.

He slouched out of the station, leaving it to Hector and the darkness. Crossed the car park.

The moon was a heavy crescent, glowing down through a gap between the clouds, reflecting back from the churned steel surface of the bay. Waves roared and hissed against the beach.

A smatter of rain needled out of the darkness, hurrying him inside.

He eased the door closed again. Locked it.

The living-room door was closed too. No light seeping out from the cracks around it, or the big gap left by the absent carpet below.

Logan crept up the stairs, keeping to the outside of the steps to minimize the creaking.

She’d made a great job of painting the hall – a hell of a lot better than he’d made of the kitchen. Place looked ready for getting some flooring down. Maybe he could nick the police van for a couple of hours and pick a load up from the B&Q in Elgin?

Yeah, Napier would
love
that if he found out.

Have to wait till Wednesday instead, when this block of double-shifts finished. See how much laminate they could fit in his manky old Clio.

Up to the landing.

Rain rattled the skylight.

Teeth. Quick wash. Two Nurofen. Then through into the bedroom.

Pale orange oozed in through the window from the streetlight outside. It caught the mound in the middle of the bed. Glinted off the corkscrew curls. She shifted in her sleep, murmured, smacked her lips together a couple of times, then settled down again.