Logan pulled over Doig’s desk phone, knocking over a couple of soldiers – much to their commander’s distress – and dialled Chalmers’ number. Listened to it ring again. ‘Come on… Pick up the damn—’
‘Who’s this?’
‘DS Chalmers, it’s Inspector McRae.’
The response was muttered, but still clearly audible. ‘Oh for God’s sake…’ There was a pause, filled with what sounded like engine noises. ‘What do you want? I’m busy.’
‘They want to suspend you, Lorna, but I’ve talked them into giving you one last chance.’
Doig raised an eyebrow at that.
OK, so it was maybe a bit of artistic licence. Still worth a go, though. ‘Go into the office right now and tell DI Fraser what you know, or suspect, or whatever it is you’re chasing about Ellie Morton.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Work with me; I’m trying to help you here!’
The contempt virtually dripped from the earpiece. ‘Remind me to send you a thank you card and a medal.’ Another pause. ‘Now, if you’re finished being beneficent and condescending, I’ve got work to do.’
God’s sake, she was impossible.
‘Lorna, don’t be…’ Logan stared at the phone. ‘She’s hung up.’
Superintendent Doig shrugged. ‘Some people just don’t want to be helped.’
Lorna turned off the main road, into the little industrial estate, ignoring the five miles an hour speed limit as she roared past the line of warehouses. Slamming on her brakes so the Fiat slithered to a halt outside one of the Portakabins at the far end of the car park.
A big sign decorated the front wall: ‘ABERRAD INVESTIGATION SERVICES LTD. ~ FAST, EFFICIENT, & DISCREET’ with a ram’s head above it for a logo.
She climbed out into the rain and nothing hurt any more, adrenaline singing through her veins. She slammed the car door, pulled the hockey stick from the back seat and strode over there. Rolling her shoulders. Loosening up. Getting ready.
She swung the stick, smashing its head into the glass panel that made up the top half of the Portakabin’s door, shattering it, sending the ‘COME ON IN, WE’RE OPEN!’ sign flying.
Yes. This was more like it.
Lorna backed away, cricking her neck from side to side, feet planted shoulder-width apart, stick at the ready. Took a deep breath ‘COME ON THEN! LET’S SEE HOW BRAVE YOU ARE NOW!’
The door opened.
Logan tucked the packet of Penguin biscuits under his arm, picked up the two mugs of tea, and wandered out into the PSD office. They’d taken over half of the floor, stuck a couple of offices down one side, a reception area, put in a cupboard-sized kitchen, and left the rest open plan. Divided up by the ubiquitous Police Scotland cubicles.
A poster adorned one wall – a kitten climbing out of an old boot, beneath the slogan, ‘GO GET ’EM, TIGER!’
Someone definitely go-getting-’em was Shona. Logan nodded at her as he passed, keeping his mouth shut. Because if you said anything to her she’d drag you into her ongoing battle with the office printer. She was belting it with a packet of Post-it notes, teeth gritted, her brown fringe flopping with every blow – exposing the toast-rack wrinkles that crossed her forehead.
She gave it another thwack. ‘Print both sides, you useless pile of junk!’
Brandon was on the phone, one foot up on his return unit, rocking his chair from side to side. ‘…only, and here’s the problem, I don’t think that was a wise thing to say to a member of the public, do you, Constable?’ He looked over at Logan’s mugs and raised two massive hairy eyebrows. Hopeful.
Logan kept on going.
The eyebrows fell again. ‘Because, Constable, when you tell someone to “bleep” off “bleeping” filming you on their “bleep-bleeping” mobile phone and stuff it up their “bleeping bleephole”, they tend to make formal complaints!’
Rennie’s cubicle lurked in the corner, mostly hidden by a wall of file boxes, archive crates, stacks of paperwork, and a faint miasma of beef-and-tomato. Its occupant sat hunched over, tongue poking out the side of his mouth as he traced a finger through a document and typed with his other hand.
Logan stuck one of the mugs on Rennie’s desk. ‘Milk, two sugars.’
A beaming smile. ‘Ooh, ta.’ Slurp. ‘And does one spy biscuits?’
‘One does, but only if one has actually discovered something useful.’
‘Oh.’ He poked at the papers spread across his desk. ‘I’ve been through all of DI Bell’s cases for the last ten years. Nothing with missing evidence. No gold bullion, or jewellery, or nonsequentially numbered banknotes, or works of art. If he was digging up loot I’ve no idea where it came from.’
‘What about forensics? They get anything off the car, or the pick and shovel?’
‘Tried chasing them up this morning: they laughed at me. Apparently we’re not the only case they’re working on.’ Rennie dug into his stacks of paper and came out with a ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?’ poster. He handed it over. ‘Media Department released that at lunchtime.’ Someone had done an e-fit picture of DI Bell, looking like he had when they found his body in his crashed car this morning. Only less dead. Above the e-fit, in big block capitals, was, ‘CARLOS GUERRERO Y PRIETO AKA: DUNCAN BELL’.
Logan frowned at the poster. ‘Please tell me someone’s been to see his next of kin?’
‘Dunno, Guv.’
‘How much do you want to bet?’ He pulled out his phone and called Hardie. It rang for a bit, then crackled.
Hardie’s voice had a strange hollow echo to it, the words broken and fuzzy. ‘Inspector McRae?’
‘DI Bell: has anyone delivered the death message yet?’
‘What? I can barely hear you. Hold on…’ A couple of thumps. A click. Some rustling. Then, ‘Urgh… Are you there?’
‘I said, has anyone delivered the death message to DI Bell’s next of kin?’
‘Reception’s terrible in the mortuary.’
‘Only I’m pretty sure his wife’s still alive. He’s got grown-up kids too: boy and a girl.’
‘Inspector McRae, did you drag me out of Ding-Dong’s post mortem for a sodding reason, because—’
‘And if we’re going to plaster the Northeast in posters with his face on them and “have you seen this man?”, they’re probably going to notice.’
A moment’s silence, broken only by what might have been a muffled swear word.
Logan took a sip of tea. ‘Would be nice if she heard it from us, before the press find out and go after her.’
‘All right, all right.’ Then a sigh. ‘I’ll get a Family Liaison Officer sorted.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Professor McAllister says Bell probably bled to death as a result of the stab wound to his right side. Straight through his ascending colon and severed a chunk of his small intestine. Wasn’t a whole heap of fun watching her remove that lot.’ Hardie huffed out a breath. ‘Anyway: knife went in deep enough to nick the common iliac vein, if that means anything to you? The hilt left a narrow rectangular bruise on the skin too, so we’re looking at a six-inch knife with a wide blade tapering to a point. Maybe a kitchen knife.’
Wow.
‘Isobel said all that? Used to be you couldn’t prise a diagnosis out of her without a crowbar and two weeks’ notice.’
‘Not that it helps.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it does.’
‘Anyway, better get back to it. Still got the urogenital block to dissect.’ What sounded like a shudder. ‘Always a favourite.’ And Hardie was gone.
Logan hung up and stared out of the window.
Cars and lorries and trucks and buses crawled their way along the dual carriageway outside Bucksburn station. Backed-up westbound by the roadworks and roundabout, eastbound by the traffic lights and potholes.
Kitchen knife. So probably untraceable, unless they already had a suspect and something to match the stab wound with. Which they didn’t. And that—
Rennie poked him. ‘So, about those biscuits?’
Logan checked his watch. 16:30. Ah, why not. He opened the packet and tossed a Penguin onto the desk. ‘Here. Got to keep your strength up: big day tomorrow. Interviews and an exhumation.’
‘But … it’s Saturday tomorrow! I’ve got to take Donna swimming, then we’re off to KFC and ballet classes.’
A shrug. ‘Ah well. I suppose we’ll just have to cope without you.’
‘No, but I want to come with!’ Rennie stood, arms spread in true martyr style as he gestured at his piles of paper and boxes. ‘All I ever do is go through files and stuff. I want to be out there, where the action is. Solving crimes!’
‘Well we can’t just put everything on hold for the weekend, Simon, I’ve got a JCB digger booked for half-nine tomorrow.’
‘Argh…’ He slumped back into his chair, hands over his face. ‘Emma’s going to kill me…’
‘Then man-up and take your daughter swimming.’ Logan pointed at the paperwork. ‘And when you’ve finished whatever it is you’re doing, you can pack up for the night. Whoever’s buried in DI Bell’s grave will still be dead on Monday.’
7
Rain sparkled in the Audi’s headlights as he pulled into his driveway, illuminating the yellow bulk of the skip sitting on the weed-flecked lock-block. Logan parked in front of it and sat there.
Need to get that guttering fixed. And do something about the garden. Compared to the rest of the street it was a bit … well, ‘shabby’ was probably being generous. Call it an overgrown jungle instead. The rattling spears of rosebay willowherb shook beside a rhododendron bush big enough to swallow a caravan. A couple of beech trees lurked in the gloom, dropping their pale-cream leaves in the tussocked grass.
Never owned trees before. Or rhododendrons. Or a garden, come to that.
Still, one thing at a time.
He climbed out and hurried up the drive, past the skip, to shelter under the porch.
Ivy wound its way around the granite pillars supporting the little roof, reaching out from a massive wodge of the stuff that choked the living room window and curled into the gutters, hiding the blockwork. That would have to go too.
He plipped the Audi’s locks and let himself in.
‘Cthulhu?’
Click – the bare lightbulb showered the hallway in cold white light.
Scuffed floorboards clunked beneath his feet, tiny tufts of fabric still sticking to the gripper rods where he’d torn the carpet up. Walls stripped to the bare plaster, white blobs of Polyfilla making it look like a child undergoing treatment for chicken pox.
Logan peeled off his Police Scotland fleece and hung it over the newel post at the foot of the stairs. Tried not to think too much about the patch of brand-new floorboards surrounding it.
At least the smell had gone.
More or less…
‘Cthulhu? Daddy’s home!’
He unbuttoned the flaps on his T-shirt and slid the epaulettes free on his way into the living room.
It was almost pitch-black in here, the yellow glow of the streetlights dimmed to a septic smear by the ivy outside.
Click – more chicken-pox walls, and bare floorboards.
But at least he was making a start. Rolls of fresh paper lay piled up on the floor, by the wallpaper table. Two stepladders with a scaffolding board slotted into the steps between them. Pots of paint. A couple of cheap camping chairs, a sofa that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the skip on the driveway, and a decent-sized TV – even if it was propped up on breeze blocks.
‘Cthulhu? Where the hell are you, you…’ Logan smiled as she padded into the room. He squatted down and held out his hand.
She prooped and meeped her way across the floorboards, huge fluffy tail straight up, white bib and paws almost fluorescent in the harsh overhead light. Cobwebs sticking to her brown-and-grey stripes. Fur so soft it was like stroking smoke.
‘How’s Daddy’s bestest girl?’
She did her little cat dance, treadling on the floor as she turned around him.
‘Oh, you’ve been hunting mouses? Good girl! Did you catch any?’
She thumped her head into his thigh and purred.
‘Well, that is exciting.’ He scooped her up with a grunt, holding her upside down and rubbing her tummy as he wandered back through to the hall.
More purring.
‘What? No, not really. It was a horrible day.’
Up the stairs and along the landing. More chicken pox. Probably have to replace a few of the floorboards here too.
‘Someone abducted a little girl. Four days and there’s still no ransom note.’
At least the master bedroom was finished: nice thick carpet, cheerful yellow walls, some framed photos above the double bed.
‘I know, I know: if they didn’t snatch her for ransom, then it’s probably sexual, isn’t it?’ He lowered Cthulhu onto the bed and stripped off his Police Scotland T-shirt. The scar tissue crisscrossing his stomach shiny and pink. Might be an idea to invest in some of those warm-white lightbulbs instead? Something a bit less intense and guard-towery.
Cthulhu treadled on the duvet cover, making delighted noises.
‘That’s what I was thinking.’ He changed out of his boots and police-issue trousers. ‘Oh, you think she’s been abducted to order? Could be. Amounts to the same thing, I suppose.’
A pair of paint-spattered jeans came out of the wardrobe.
‘Or maybe someone abducted her to sell on? A little girl’s got to be worth a fair bit on the open market. If you had somewhere to sell her.’ He did up the buttons. Fastened his belt. Frowned. ‘That’s a very good point. Maybe it is the fabled northeast Livestock Mart…’
Cthulhu started in on a wash.
‘Or maybe it’s the obvious answer? The stepfather abused her, killed her, and hid the body somewhere.’ An equally painty T-shirt joined the jeans. ‘I knew you’d say that, but Chalmers interviewed him. His alibi’s sound.’
Cthulhu washed her tummy in a barrage of shlurpy noises.
‘True… I don’t think I’d trust Lorna Chalmers either.’ Logan perched on the end of the bed and pulled on a pair of painty trainers. ‘Tara’s coming over later for pizza. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’
One last shlurp and Cthulhu stopped washing and stared at him.
‘What?’
More staring.
‘Oh come on, not this again. There’s nothing wrong with talking to your cat. People do it all the time.’ He leaned over and kissed her on her fuzzy little head. ‘And it’s not as if you’re actually answering back, is it? Only crazy people own talking cats.’ Another frown. ‘Which reminds me.’
Logan stood and wandered down the landing again, into the bathroom.
Still have to finish tiling those other two walls. Just because the shower was usable, didn’t mean the room was done.
Blah, blah, blah.
He opened the medicine cabinet, took out the box of Aripiprazole and popped two small orange tablets out of their blister pack and onto his hand.
Cthulhu appeared in the cabinet’s mirrored door as he shut it – following him into the bathroom and jumping up onto the toilet lid. More staring.
‘I know: I’m taking them, see?’
He popped the pills in his mouth, washing them down with a full glass of water before the taste hit. Then turned and opened his mouth wide for Cthulhu to see.
‘Look: all gone. So if Doctor Goulding asks, you can tell him I’m definitely taking my antipsychotics.’
She didn’t move.
‘Because I know you’re in cahoots with him, that’s why.’
A long slow blink of those big yellow-and-black eyes.
Logan sagged. ‘I know. I love you too.’ He blinked back at her. ‘Now, do you want to help Daddy wallpaper the living room?’
She jumped down from the toilet and padded off towards the bedroom.
‘Lazy sod!’
Ah well, she’d only make the wallpaper paste all hairy anyway.
Logan smoothed down the lining paper’s edges with his brush, making the seam disappear. Might even get this wall finished tonight. Which would be—
His phone launched into its generic ringtone.
‘Arrrgh! Leave me alone!’
But it kept on ringing.
He gave the lining paper one last flourish, then dumped the brush on the table and wiped his fingers clean on his painty T-shirt. ‘Pfff… Almost finished as well.’
When he picked his phone off the couch, the words ‘DS LORNA CHALMERS’ glowed in the middle of the screen.
Interesting.
He prodded the ‘ANSWER’ button then stuck the thing on speakerphone. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello?’
Lorna sagged back in her seat. Outside, the North Sea boomed and crashed against the beach, the spray a grey smear in the night. Lights flickered in the gloom, small and distant – huge supply boats anchored down to wait out the storm. If only it could be that simple…
The tower blocks of Seaton rose up on the left, windows shining as normal people went about their normal evenings as they did every single day of their normal little lives.
When did she forget what that felt like?
Most of her ached. And what didn’t ache, hurt. Stung. Burned.
‘Hello? DS Chalmers? Are you there?’
She dragged in a breath, ribs squealing in protest at the movement. Her voice came out muffled and lisping. Weak. Pathetic. ‘All I ever wanted to do was help.’
A sigh came from her phone’s speaker. ‘Then come in tomorrow and help. Ellie Morton might still be out there, alive.’
She wiped her other hand across her eyes. Do not give him the satisfaction of hearing you cry! ‘Why does it always have to be so hard?’
Headlights swept around the corner, getting closer, making her squint.
The woman in the rear-view mirror was a disaster: her face covered in scrapes and fledgling bruises. A black eye. Shirt collar ripped. Jacket too. Blood smeared around her nose and mouth.
Then the car was past and she was in darkness again.
‘Because it’s about people. Nothing about people is easy.’ McRae put on one of those fake, gentle voices – pretending he cared about her. When he didn’t. No one did. ‘Come in, Lorna. We can find her. Together. We can save a wee girl’s life.’
Lorna swallowed. Blew out a breath. Blinked at the car’s roof. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Lorna? Lorna, it’s—’
She hung up. Put her phone on the passenger seat.
Fumbled a half-dozen painkillers into her palm, swallowing them with a mouthful of Ribena. Grimacing as they clawed their way down her throat. Chased them with another mouthful.
Lorna curled forward, till her forehead rested on the steering wheel, and let the tears come. Why did everyone hate her? Why did everything go wrong? Why wasn’t—
Her phone burst into ‘The Bends’ and there was his name on the screen again: ‘BRIAN’.
She stared at it. Snarled. Picked the thing up.
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Then hurled it into the passenger footwell.
Enough!
She turned the key in the ignition, scrubbed a hand across her eyes, turned on the headlights, and pulled away from the kerb.
There was going to be a reckoning, and it was going to happen right now.
‘Sure you don’t want any wine?’ Tara waggled the half-empty bottle again, making the tips of her long, dark-orange hair jiggle.
Logan gave her a pained smile. ‘Sorry the kitchen’s kind of a tip.’
That was gilding the jobbie a bit. The walls hadn’t even made it as far as the chicken pox stage – instead seventies brown-and-green wallpaper lined the room, faded so much that the pattern looked more like mould than anything else. Dark shapes lurked around the edges where he’d ripped out all the kitchen units. Sockets and switches dangled from their wiring. All the skirting removed to reveal holes in the lathe and plaster. The whole thing topped off by the decorative sculptural presence of an electric cooker straight out of the Flintstones and a battered stainless-steel sink.
Tara settled back in one of the six nonmatching chairs arranged around the rickety kitchen table and looked at him over the top of her glass. Piercing blue eyes, a bit like a wolf’s, surrounded by smokey make-up and freckles. Heart-shaped face with a strong jaw. And, let’s face it, slightly out of his league. The unattainable goddess vibe was only undermined by the big red blob of sauce on her fitted white shirt.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I boring you?’
‘No. No. Not at all.’ He took another slice of pizza from his box. Shrugged. ‘It’s just … my day’s been all errant cops and a missing child. It’s not really … you know.’
Cthulhu jumped up onto the table and plonked herself down between Logan’s ham-and-mushroom and Tara’s vegan Giardiniera with prosciutto. Stuck a leg in the air and started washing her tail.
Tara took a sip of wine. ‘Mine’s been all lockups stuffed to the rafters with counterfeit vodka and cigarettes. So I think you probably win.’
He took a bite. ‘Can’t help wondering what happened to Ellie Morton. Maybe it’s better if she isn’t still alive.’ He followed it with a mouthful of fizzy water. Stifled a burp. ‘You ever heard of something called the “Livestock Mart”?’
‘What, Thainstone?’
‘No, not Thainstone. This one’s highly illegal: supposed to be a place where you can buy and sell abducted children. Moves about the countryside so no one can find it unless they know where to look.’
‘Yeah…’ She lowered her glass. Curled her lip. ‘Not really the kind of thing we deal with in Trading Standards.’
‘Been rumours doing the rounds for years. Decades, probably. But no one’s ever—’
Cthulhu sat bolt upright on the table, staring off into the corner of the room at a large hole gnawed through the lathe and plaster.
Logan scooted forward on his chair. ‘Oh ho, here we go.’
Cthulhu thumped down from the table like a dropped washing machine and prowled across the kitchen floorboards. Hunting.
‘Mice.’ Another bite of ham-and-mushroom. ‘Rotten wee sods have eaten half the wiring and nearly all the pipe insulation.’
‘So let’s get this straight: you invited me round to your vermin-infested house to eat takeaway pizza and talk about people buying and selling kids – and you think you’re getting lucky tonight?’
He pointed at the bottle in front of her. ‘There’s more wine, if that helps?’
Tara shook her head. ‘I’m a fool to myself.’
‘Hopefully…’ A grin. ‘And what’s a few mice between friends?’
Tara shuddered. ‘I hate mice.’
Ellie hugged her knees to her chest and pulled the blankie tight. It wasn’t easy, cos the man had tied her hands together with itchy rope. She sucked a breath in around the big red ball stuck in her mouth. And she couldn’t even spit it out cos it was all buckled at the back of her head.
The buckle pulled at her hair whenever she leaned against the wall of the crate.
A wooden crate, made of bits of wood, with spaces between the bits of wood so she wouldn’t stuffocate. And she could peer out, through the gaps, into the Scary Room that was all dark and smelled of dirt and nasty things and crying.
Dirty-orange light glowed through a manky-pants window, thick with spiders’ webs and the shiny black lumps of dead flies. It was barely bright enough to see the edges of boxes and piles of stuff and dead bicycles hiding in the shadows. And the other crates…
Seven crates and her one made eight – same as the number of tentapoles on an octopus.
Mouses skitter-pattered across the dirt floor between them, on teeny pink feet, their eyes shiny as black marbles, teeny pink noses twitching, teeny pink ears swivelling.
One of them crept closer to Ellie’s crate, sniffing, whiskers twitching.
It slid between two of the wooden bits, even though the gap was only big enough to poke a finger.
