Cold granite

30

Logan tried not to make eye contact with anyone as he went into work on Tuesday morning. No one said a word to him, but he could feel their eyes on his back, feel the gossip as it followed him through the building and into DI Insch's morning briefing. He'd slept badly, the dreams full of tower blocks, burning skies and flashing knives. Angus Robertson's face, twisted and grinning as he carved up Logan's stomach.

The inspector was in his customary place, leaning one round buttock on the edge of the desk, the strip lighting gleaming off his bald head. He didn't look at Logan, just kept his attention on a sherbet double dip. Eating with care, trying not to get red-and-orange powder all down the front of his black suit.

With his face slowly turning red, Logan took his usual place at the front of the room.

DI Insch made no mention at all of that morning's article in the P amp;-J. The one spread all over the front page, with an extra-long editorial on page twelve. Instead he told everyone about Roadkill being attacked. And how the search teams had come up with nothing more than heavy colds. Then he handed out the day's duties and called the meeting to a close.

Logan was the first to his feet, ready to run for it, but Insch wasn't letting him get away that easily. 'Sergeant,' he said in a voice like treacle. 'Amoment if you'd be so kind.'

So Logan had to stand there like an idiot as everyone filed past, looking anywhere but at him. Even WPC Watson wouldn't meet his eyes. It was probably just as well: he felt bad enough already.

When the last PC was gone, and the door to the briefing room closed, Insch produced a copy of that morning's paper and slapped it down on the table. 'Lazarus came back from the dead, didn't he?' asked the inspector. 'Well, I'm not a religious man, Sergeant, but your career seems to have performed the same trick.' He poked the headline: 'KILLER OAP ARRESTED: LOCAL POLICE HERO FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE!' And below that a picture of Desperate Doug when he was being sent down for crippling a builder's merchant with a ratchet screwdriver. With the milky-white eye, the snarl and the flaming tattoos he didn't look like anyone's granddad.

Miller had called in every favour he had at the paper to get the new front page in place. Not that it wasn't a damn sight more newsworthy than 'TILLYDRONE FUNDRAISER GETS OFF TO A FLYING START!'

'Inspector Napier is spitting nails.' A smile broke across Insch's face. 'So, as you're no longer going to be fired, DI Steel says you can get your arse over to the hospital and take Desperate Doug's statement.'

'Me? Doesn't she want to do it?' Detective sergeants didn't usually get to interview murder suspects without a DI there to hold their hand.

'No she does not. Something about "keeping a dog and barking yourself". Now hop it.' Logan commandeered another in a long line of rusty Vauxhalls and WPC Watson. She didn't say anything to him as she pulled the car out of the car park. She waited until they were nowhere near Force Headquarters before bursting out laughing.

'It's not funny.'

The laughter subsided into a smirk. 'Sorry, sir.'

Silence.

Watson took them up through Rosemount. The break in the weather was holding, beautiful blue skies sailing above the sparkling grey granite.

'Sir,' she said, stopped, cleared her throat and started again. 'Sir, about that message Ileft on your phone last night.'

Logan's pulse began to quicken.

'Well,' said Watson, joining a queue of traffic behind a bus. 'It wasn't till later I thought about it. You know, about how it might have been misconstrued. I mean, when you didn't call back I thought I might have offended you. Or something.' It all came out in one breath.

The smile froze on Logan's face. She was backing out of it. Pretending it was all a big misunderstanding. 'I was in the hospital. They don't allow mobile phones. I didn't get your message until after midnight. I tried, but your mobile was off…'

'Oh,' she said.

'Yeah,' he said.

And then they both said nothing for a while.

The sun beat down through the windscreen, warming the inside of the car, turning it into a four-wheeled microwave. At the next junction the bus went left and Watson went right. The houses here were all done up for Christmas: trees in the windows, lights round the doors, wreaths and festive gnomes. One even had a plastic reindeer with an electric nose that blinked red. Very tasteful.

Logan sat, watching the snow-covered houses slip past, staring at the decorations, thinking of his own, bare apartment. There wasn't even a single card up. Maybe he should get a tree? Last year he hadn't needed one. He'd spent Christmas at Isobel's huge home, with its two real trees, both dripping with all the most fashionable trimmings. No family, just the two of them. Roast goose bought in from Marks and Spencer. Isobel didn't believe in all that peeling and chopping. They'd made love all morning.

And this year he was probably going to have to go to his parents for Christmas. Who'd have the whole family round. Arguments, bitterness, drinking, forced smiles, bloody Monopoly…

A figure up ahead broke his train of thought. It was a man, head down, trudging along through the snow. Jim Lumley: Peter's stepfather.

'Pull over a minute, OK?' said Logan and Watson drew up at the kerb.

He stepped out into the December air and crunched along after the trudging figure. 'Mr Lumley?' Logan reached out and tapped the man on the shoulder.

Lumley turned, his eyes as red as his nose. His chin was covered with grubby stubble, his hair unkempt and wild. For a moment he just stared at Logan and then something clicked inside him. 'He's dead,' he said. 'He's dead and it's my fault.'

'Mr Lumley, it's not your fault. Are you OK?' It was a stupid bloody question, but Logan couldn't help asking it. Of course the man wasn't OK: his child had been snatched, killed and raped by a paedophile. He was dying inside. 'Can we give you a lift home?'

Something that had once been a smile clambered across the man's unshaven face. 'I like to walk.' He raised a hand and swept it around him, indicating the snowy pavements and slushy roads. 'Looking for Peter.' Tears welled up in his eyes, spilling down red cheeks. 'You let him go!'

'Let who…' It took Logan a moment to realize he was talking about Roadkill. 'Mr Lumley, he-'

'I have to go.' Lumley turned and ran, slipping and sliding on the icy snow.

Sighing, Logan watched him go, before clambering back into the car.

'Friend of yours?' asked Watson, pulling back into the traffic.

'The boy we found in the toilets. That was his father.'

'Jesus, poor sod.'

Logan didn't answer.

They abandoned the car in a space marked 'HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY' and went in to the main reception area. The lobby was wide, spacious and open plan, the hospital's coat of arms picked out on the floor. A huge, curved wooden reception desk sprawled in one corner. Logan asked politely where he could find Mr Douglas MacDuff and two minutes later they were clacking their way down a long, linoleum corridor.

Desperate Doug was in a private room, guarded by a young PC reading a book. With a guilty jump he stuffed the Ian Rankin under his seat.

'It's OK, Constable,' said Logan. 'I won't tell anyone. Get us three coffees and you can go back to your tales of police derring-do.'

Relieved, the PC scuttled off.

It was hot in Desperate Doug's room, sun streaming through the window, dust motes drifting lazily in the early December sun. A television, high up on the wall opposite the bed, flickering away soundlessly to itself. The room's occupant was propped up on the bed, looking dreadful. Bruises ran rampant all over the right hand side of his face and his milky white eye was swollen almost shut; but even with the swelling, Desperate Doug looked gaunt. It was hard to believe this was the man who had almost killed him yesterday with his bare hands.

'Morning, Dougie,' said Logan, dragging the visitor's chair out of the corner and plonking himself down at the end of the bed.

The patient didn't even acknowledge his presence. He just lay there staring up at the silent, iridescent screen. Logan glanced over his head and then at WPC Watson. She picked the remote off the bedside cabinet and clicked the telly off.

A slow, rattling sigh escaped the old man in the bed. 'I was watchin' that.' The words came out loose and sibilant and for the first time Logan noticed the set of teeth floating in a glass at the side of the bed.

'Urrgh, put your teeth in, Doug, for God's sake! You look like a turtle!'

'Fuck you,' said Doug, but his heart didn't seem to be in it.

Logan smiled. 'Well, now that we've got the pleasantries out of the way, why not get down to business? You killed George "Geordie" Stephenson.'

'Bollocks.'

'Come on, Doug. We've got all the forensic evidence we need! Your dog's teeth match the bite-marks on his legs. His kneecaps were hacked off with a machete! That's got Doug MacDuff written all over it. What happened? The McLeod boys hold him down while you hacked away?'

Doug snorted.

'Come on, Dougie, you're not telling me you could hold a great big bruiser like that down on your own? While you de-kneed him? You're what: ninety?' Logan settled into the seat, resting a foot on the end of the bed. 'Let me tell you how I think it went down, OK? Just jump in if I get anything wrong.'

Standing quietly in the corner WPC Watson was taking notes, keeping a low profile.

'Geordie Stephenson comes up from Edinburgh all full of himself, looking to do a bit of business. While he's up he fancies a bit of a flutter. So he does the rounds of the bookies, losing big time. Only he can't cover his debts. And they don't take kindly to that at the Turf 'n Track.' Logan paused. 'How much did they slip you to do him, Doug? More than a week's pension? Two weeks'? A month's? Hope it was a lot, Dougie, because Geordie Stephenson worked for Malk the Knife. And when he finds out that you've snuffed one of his men, he's going to skin you alive.'

A smile played round Doug's toothless mouth. 'You are so full of shite.'

'You think? Hell, Dougie, I've seen some of the things left behind after Malkie's boys have finished with somebody. Arms, legs, willies…You don't stand a chance.' Logan gave a friendly wink. 'But tell you what: you tell us all about Simon and Colin McLeod and their debt collection methods, and I'll make sure you get locked away somewhere Malkie can't get at you.'

And at this Doug actually started laughing.

Logan frowned. 'What?'

'You haven't-' The word was interrupted by a cough, a dry wheeze that shook the old man's frame. 'Haven't got-' Another cough, this one deeper, working its way slowly into his chest. 'Got a-' Again. 'Got a fuckin' clue-' This time the whole bed rattled as Doug racked back and forth, a shaking, thin hand almost covering his mouth. Finally he slumped back into his pillows, wiping his hand down the front of his pyjamas. It left a black and red smear. 'Have you, Mr Pig?'

'Do you want me to get a doctor?' Logan asked.

The old man laughed bitterly, the laugh dissolving into yet more coughing. 'No point,' he wheezed, the breaths coming ragged and fast. 'Saw one of the buggers this mornin'. I told you Mr Pig: I got me the cancer. Only it's no a year or two any more. Doctor says now it's a month.' He thumped his chest with a bloodstained hand. 'One big tumour.'

Dust motes drifted by in the silence that followed, each one a spark of gold in the heady sunlight.

'Now fuck off and let me die in peace.'

*

Bernard Duncan Philips didn't have a private room. He had to share a double in intensive care. His narrow hospital bed was surrounded by equipment, monitors, ventilators; you name it they'd plugged it into Roadkill's battered body. Logan and Watson stood in the doorway, sipping the lukewarm, plastic-flavoured coffee the PC had finally delivered.

Desperate Doug had looked bad, but Roadkill looked worse. White bandages separated by bruises. They'd put both his arms and one of his legs in plaster since Logan had seen him last. As if he was in a Carry On film.

The oxygen mask was gone, replaced by a tube with a nosepiece in the middle, the clear plastic line looped over his ears and taped to his cheeks to stop it from falling out.

'Can I help you?'

It was a short woman, dressed in a nurse's uniform: sky-blue slacks and a short-sleeved top with an upside-down watch pinned over the left breast.

'How is he?'

The nurse examined Logan with a practised eye. 'You family?'

'No. Police.'

'You don't say.'

'How is he?'

She picked the chart off the end of Roadkill's bed, skimming it. 'Well, he's doing a lot better than we thought. Surgery went well. He actually came round for an hour this morning.' She smiled. 'Bit of a surprise that. I put money on "coma". Still: win some, lose some.'

It was the last time Logan saw Roadkill alive. DI Steel wasn't surprised he'd got nothing out of Desperate Doug. Instead she just sat back in her chair, feet up on the desk, and puffed smoke rings at the ceiling.

'If you don't mind me asking, ma'am,' said Logan, fidgeting in the seat on the opposite side of her desk, 'how come you didn't go and interview him yourself?'

She smiled languidly at him through a haze of smoke. 'Dougie and me go way back. When I was first in uniform and he was in his prime…' Her smile became wry. 'Let's just say that we had a bit of a falling out.'

'What are we going to do about him?'

She sighed, sending cigarette smoke drifting across her desk like a wall of fog. 'We go to the Procurator Fiscal and we give him the forensic evidence. He reads it and he says, it's enough to go to court on, and we say great. And then Dougie's lawyer says my client is going to snuff it in under a month. And the PF says well in that case bugger it. Why waste the money?' She worked a chipped nail in between her teeth, dug something out and stared at it for a moment before flicking it away. 'He'll be dead before this thing comes to court. Let sleeping Dougs die, I suppose.' She stopped, as if something had suddenly occurred to her. 'You did check with his doctor, didn't you? He is dying, isn't he? Not just pulling your dick?'

'I checked. He's really dying.'

She nodded, the glowing tip of her fag bobbing up and down in the semidarkness. 'Poor old Doug.'

Somehow Logan found it difficult to feel a great deal of sympathy for the man, but he kept his mouth shut.

Back in the incident room Logan took down Geordie Stephenson's photograph. Both the one from Lothian and Borders Police and the one from the morgue. Now that Desperate Doug MacDuff was dying no one would ever be found guilty of Geordie's murder. But the man had no wife, no kids, no brothers or sisters. No one to claim his body. No one was going to miss Malk the Knife's enforcer. No one except Malk the Knife. And what was he going to do to Dougie? The old man would be dead in a month anyway. And it'd be painful: the doctor said so. All Malkie could do was put him out of his misery and Doug knew it. Maybe that was why he'd laughed when Logan had talked of retribution. Either way it didn't matter.

He stuffed everything relating to Geordie Stephenson's death into the file, including his report on yesterday's shenanigans. There would be some paperwork to tidy the thing off, but other than that the case was as dead as Geordie.

With that all packed away, the only thing left in Logan's little incident room was the unknown girl. Her dead face looked down at him with blank eyes.

One down, one to go.

Logan sat down and waded through the statements once more: everyone living within easy access of the communal bins. One of them had killed the girl, stripped her, tried to hack her up, wrapped her body in brown packing tape and stuffed it into the bin. And if it wasn't Norman Chalmers, who was it?