In the Cold Dark Ground

7

‘Of course they’re no’ connected, you idiot.’ Steel had a pull on her e-cigarette, then let the steam trickle out of her nose. It found its way down the wrinkles either side of her mouth. Then the ones around her eyes deepened. ‘Now, does anyone else have a stupid question?’ Her grey suit looked as if someone much larger than her had slept in it. Whoever it was had done something unmentionable to her hair as well. Possibly involving an electric whisk, a Van de Graaff generator, and a bucket of wallpaper paste.

The DC lowered his hand and mumbled something. Pink flushed the back of his neck, darkening the skin above his suit jacket.

Steel had a dig at her underwire and settled on the edge of a table parked beneath the whiteboard. The board took up nearly the whole wall of the station’s Major Incident Room.

The conference table in the middle of the room was packed with uniformed and plain-clothed officers. They’d commandeered every chair in the place, set up in a long line facing the board. More Uniform stood around the walls, arms folded across their black police-issue T-shirts.

‘Moving on.’ Steel stopped fiddling with her upholstery for long enough to point her fake cigarette at the whiteboard. An array of photographs — much like the ones Logan had on his phone — were Blu-Tacked across the shiny white surface, along with an OS map of the woods. ‘Post mortem is at ten. Till then, the powers that be are no’ letting us unwrap our present.’

The e-cigarette clicked against a close-up of the bin-bag taped over the body’s head.

Another hand went up. ‘Guv: how come?’

She didn’t look at the questioner. ‘What did I say about stupid questions?’

The hand went down again. ‘Sorry, Guv.’

‘Soon as they break the seal and invalidate the warranty, DS Dawson will be taking an ID photo and emailing it straight up. If we’re lucky, one of the local bunnets will recognize our victim. But just in case: I want posters. Becky? You’re on that. Blanket coverage.’

A large woman in a black suit nodded, sending her frizzy brown hair wobbling. ‘Guv.’

‘Next.’ She tossed a pile of printouts to the person sitting nearest — a thin bloke in a cheap fighting suit and seven-quid haircut.

He took one, then passed the rest on.

She waited for the printouts to get halfway around the room. ‘We got an MO hit on the database. Naked body, battered, bag over the head, dumped in woods. Last one belonged to a Lithuanian pimp operating on Leith Walk, Edinburgh, six months ago.’

The stack had made its way as far as Logan. Steel’s handout had half a dozen photos on it: different views of a body like the one from yesterday, only this victim was lying on a mortuary slab instead of the forest floor and the bag over his head had been slit open, revealing a gaunt face with a hooked nose and crooked teeth. More bruising. Both eyes swollen shut.

‘Allegedly, Artu¯ras Kazlauskas didn’t bother asking Malk the Knife’s permission before hooring women out in his city, so Malky sent someone round to teach him some manners. Details are the same, right down to the body getting a dose of bleach after death to mask DNA and trace evidence.’ She took a sheet of paper from a folder and stuck it to the whiteboard with some fridge magnets. It was blown-up from a magazine, part of the text running down one side of the image. A man with a short haircut, baggy eyes, cheery cheeks, and a tuxedo. It was the kind of face that belonged on a Rotary Club steering committee, that always bought the first round, that invited friends from work over for a barbecue, and never forgot the receptionist’s birthday.

Steel poked it in the forehead with her fake fag. ‘Malcolm McLennan, AKA: Malk the Knife. Edinburgh’s Mr Huge. You run drugs, guns, illegal immigrants, or prostitutes in the city, he gets a cut or you wind up missing important bits. If you’re lucky.’

Logan turned his sheet over. There were another three bodies pictured on the back. All naked, all male, all battered, all with bin-bags duct-taped over their heads.

Steel sniffed. ‘And before some smart aleck asks the obvious question: no, we don’t know who killed this lot. Don’t even know if it’s the same person each time. And the Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit can’t prove Malky ordered the killings either. So they’re about as much use as Rennie in a knocking shop.’

‘Hey!’

‘Shut up.’

Logan turned the paper back over again. Jessica Campbell was bringing drugs into Aberdeenshire from Glasgow. And now Malcolm McLennan was killing people in Banff. John Urquhart was right: Wee Hamish Mowat might not be dead yet, but the big boys were already muscling in.

Which meant that sooner or later, Reuben was going to kick back. Hard.

The post-briefing rush for the canteen and the toilets thundered through the station as Steel lounged by the Major Incident Room window, smoking her fake cigarette and exploring her armpit with one hand while the other pinned a mobile phone to her ear. ‘Yeah... Nah... Did he?... Yeah...’

Logan folded the printout with its dead bodies into four and stuck it on the table.

Rennie slouched over. ‘You run B Division, right?’

‘Why?’

‘The guvnor wants a couple of bunnets to go door-to-door when pics of the victim’s face come in. You can spare me two or three, can’t you?’

Logan stared at him. ‘First: you don’t get to call my divisional officers, “Bunnets”.’

Rennie pursed his lips. ‘Someone’s touchy the day.’

‘Second: my divisional officers will be busy policing B Division. They will not have time to go running about doing your legwork for you.’ Logan took a couple of steps, then poked Rennie in the chest. ‘Third: most of them have been in the job a lot longer than you, and they deserve a bit of respect. Are we clear?’

Rennie’s bottom lip popped out. ‘Only asking.’

He stepped closer, till they were nearly nose-to-nose. ‘Well don’t.’

There was a snort from the corner, then Steel’s gravelly tones burst across the room. ‘For God’s sake, will you two just kiss and get it over with? Could cut the sexual tension in here with a spoon.’

Logan stayed where he was. ‘Detective Sergeant Rennie and I were discussing resource allocation.’

‘Nah, you pair were about to whip out your truncheons and give each other a good seeing to. But far be it from me to stand in the way of young love: if you promise no’ to give Rennie back with his arse all covered in lovebites, you can “discuss resource allocations” to your heart’s content.’

‘What?’ There was a shudder, then Rennie backed away wearing his spanked child expression. ‘I only wanted a couple of bodies to help with the ID. You didn’t have to get all threatening about it. Was only—’

Steel rapped her knuckles on the tabletop. ‘Rennie: coffee. Two and a coo.’

‘But, Guv, I wasn’t doing any—’

‘You heard: milk and two sugars. And I hear rumours someone’s got a malt loaf planked somewhere. I’ll have a slice of that too.’

‘But, Gu-uv...’

‘Now, Detective Sergeant.’

His bottom lip got poutier. Then he turned and shuffled out of the room. Closed the door behind him.

Steel crossed her arms and frowned at Logan. ‘Who crapped in your porridge then?’

‘I don’t have to—’

‘Having a go at poor wee Rennie. Police Scotland doesn’t approve of workplace bullying, you grumpy old sack of—’

‘Oh come off it, you say worse to him all the time! And—’

‘You were being a dick, Laz. Spoiling for a fight.’ Steel shook her head. ‘With Rennie. Be like kicking a puppy, then sticking it in a tumble dryer with a bucket of broken glass. Then setting fire to the tumble dryer.’

Yeah.

Logan sighed. Screwed his face up into a knot.

She was right: picking on Rennie wasn’t fair. Steel’s DS might be an idiot, but it wasn’t his fault Logan had barely slept. Wasn’t his fault Reuben loomed over everything like a massive rabid dog.

‘Sorry.’ Logan ran a hand across the stubble on top of his head. ‘Been a tough week. I’ll apologize.’

‘Don’t care how rough it is, you don’t ruin a perfectly good tumble dryer.’ She took a puff on her e-cigarette. ‘Going to be a total nightmare to live with now. He’ll be slumping about with a face like a cat’s bum, all martyred and woe-is-me.’

‘I’ll talk to him.’ Logan looked away. Outside, the violet sky was fringed with pre-dawn blue and pink. The lights of Macduff twinkled on the other side of the bay. ‘We’re switching Samantha off tomorrow. Life support.’

A sigh. Then Steel took hold of his arm and squeezed. ‘You going to be OK?’

‘Yeah. Course.’ He frowned. ‘Don’t know.’ Then let out a long, slow breath. ‘Anyway, suppose I’d better...’ He nodded at the door. ‘Got to go brief the team.’

‘...so make sure you keep your eyes open, OK?’ Logan settled back against the windowsill and rested his mug of tea on a stack of case files.

The Constables’ Office wasn’t a large room. Old-fashioned with worktop desks on two walls, covered in paperwork and four ancient grey computers. Four office chairs, most of which looked on the verge of collapse — the foam rubber stuck out of one as if it had prolapsed. Three uniformed officers in Police Scotland ninja black stared at him.

Calamity clicked the point of her pen in and out and in and out. Click, click, click. ‘What about a national appeal? Maybe we’re not getting any sightings because Tracy’s left the area?’

A wee soft voice piped up. ‘Can’t really blame her, can you?’ Isla pulled her auburn hair back into a thick ponytail and tied it off. Didn’t matter if she was in her thirties or not, she still looked like a teenager — heart-shaped face, red lipstick, with more eyeshadow and mascara than was strictly necessary for arresting people. Her little legs barely reached the ground as she swivelled back and forth in her chair, the toe of her boots barely scraping the carpet. ‘If I had Big Donald Brown for a dad? I’d do a runner too.’ Hair done, she took a sip of coffee. ‘Good luck to her.’

Logan frowned up at the rogues’ gallery above the radiator — a double row of local drug dealers and thieves scowled back at him from their photocopied pictures. Big Donald Brown was second row, three in from the right. A slab of flesh with a broad forehead, prominent ears, and the kind of eyebrows that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Border terrier. ‘Anyone know if she’s run away from home before?’

Tufty checked his notes, the pink tip of his tongue poking out between his lips as he skimmed them. The strip light glowed in his ginger crewcut, giving him a fiery halo. Which was probably as close as he was ever going to get. ‘She’s nineteen, Sarge. It’s not really running away from home, is it?’

‘Still...’ Logan chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. ‘Doesn’t matter how much of a scumbag her dad is, he’s worried about her.’ He pointed. ‘Isla, get onto the media office and tell them we’re after a spot on the news and all the social media they can throw at it. If they give you any grief you have my permission to do the little-girl-lost routine you think none of us know about.’

A nod. ‘Sarge.’

‘Next: Constable Quirrel, I believe you have an announcement for us.’

A grin ripped across Tufty’s thin face, He swept his arms out, as if introducing a magic trick. ‘And on the second-last shift of his indented servitude, verily didst the Probationer say, “Let there be Jaffa Cakes!”’

Calamity and Isla gave him a round of applause.

Logan couldn’t help smiling. ‘Well done, young Tufty. You shall go to the top of the class.’

The grin got bigger. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’ He dipped into his desk and came out with the promised packet of cakey biscuits.

Logan helped himself. ‘And as a reward, you can lead the rest of the briefing.’

Tufty swivelled his chair around and wiggled his mouse, bringing up the next slide on the daily PowerPoint presentation. Martin Milne stared out at them. A strong face with high cheekbones and a dimple right in the middle of his chin. Straight brown hair with a Hugh Grant fringe. ‘I checked distinguishing features on the misper form, and there’s no mention of Milne having a tattoo. So that means whoever we found yesterday, it’s not him. Might be worth checking signs of activity on his bank or credit cards?’

Isla rolled her eyes. ‘You got any idea how long it’ll take his bank to authorize that?’

‘Ah, but no, my dearest Constable Anderson, because I has a clever.’ Tufty leaned forward. ‘We don’t need to hang about and wait for his bank to approve access if he’s on internet banking: we can ask his wife to log on and check. Could ask her about the tattoo while we’re there — make sure that whatever muppet filled in the misper form got it right.’

‘Is that cynicism I hear?’ A smile pulled Isla’s cheeks into shiny pink apples. ‘Ah, Tufty, we’ll make a police officer of you yet.’

‘Next.’ A click of the mouse and a man’s face filled the screen: jowls, one solid eyebrow, hair shaved at the sides to match the bald spot at the top. ‘Mark Connolly violated his parole, Friday...’

Sitting in the driver’s seat, Tufty doo-de-doo-de-dooed along with the old Oasis track jangling out of the speakers. He slowed down as the beige outskirts of Whitehills appeared, then took a left, heading towards the slate-grey sea.

Wind buffeted the Big Car, rocking it on its springs. Rain crackled against the windscreen, blurring the world for a moment, before the wipers squeaked it away. Only for more rain to replace it moments later.

Logan shifted in his seat. The limb restraints made a hard lump in the small of his back, right where the stabproof vest ended. And would they shift? Of course they wouldn’t.

The road narrowed — lined on both sides by billowing green clouds of jagged gorse. Writhing beneath a raven sky.

Why did Samantha think he could just kill Reuben? That he was even capable of killing another human being. OK, maybe ‘human being’ was stretching things a bit where Reuben was concerned, but still. To actually murder someone. Cold. Premeditated.

Logan’s stomach lurched, sour and gurgling.

Oasis faded a bit and the DJ teuchtered all over them. ‘Wisn’t that a flash fae the past? You’re listening till “Gid Mornin’ Doogie!” and it’s bang on eight, so here’s oor Ashley with a’ the news and weather.’

‘Thanks Dougie. A family of four died in a three-car pile-up on the A90, just north of Portlethen last night...’

Tufty kept on drumming. ‘Sarge? You know time, right?’

Logan let his head thunk against the passenger window. ‘Here we go.’

‘No, listen. Quantum mechanics and the theory of general relativity have these, like, completely different ideas about how time works.’

‘...Mrs Garden, sixty-nine, was remanded in custody following a road-rage incident outside the Strichen Post Office...’

‘Einstein says time’s relative, depending on where you are and how fast you’re going, yeah? Faster you go, the slower time is.’

Logan turned and faced the passenger window. ‘He’s right. When I’m in the car with you it slows to a sodding crawl.’

Brown and dull-green fields stretched away on either side of the road. A flock of sheep huddled in the lee of a drystane dyke.

‘...man’s body discovered in woods south of Macduff yesterday. Police Scotland aren’t releasing any details until the next of kin have been informed...’

‘Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, says time’s absolute and external to the universe: keeping track of the wave function in quantum systems.’

Maybe getting killed by Reuben wouldn’t be so bad? At least he wouldn’t have to sit here listening to Tufty any more.

‘...were angry scenes outside BP’s offices in Dyce yesterday, as protesters gathered to picket the oil giant over redundancies and proposed cuts to service companies’ rates...’

Skinned alive and fed to the pigs.

Logan closed his eyes. Swallowed down the bitter taste of tarnished copper.

How was he supposed to kill Reuben? How?

What switch was he supposed to flip to make that possible?

A hand squeezed his shoulder, delicate, the nails painted a shiny black.

Samantha leaned forward from the back of the car. ‘Maybe you could sneak a gun out of the firearms store? There was that hunting rifle you confiscated last week — the one with the telescopic sight and silencer. That’d do it. Get a bit of distance, find somewhere with a good vantage point, and put a bullet straight through Reuben’s head.’

‘Never going to work.’

Tufty nodded. ‘Exactly: they can’t both be right, can they? Time’s either fixed or it isn’t. And some scientists say it doesn’t really exist at all.’

‘All you’ve got to do is squeeze the trigger.’

‘I’m not talking about this.’

‘Yeah, I know it’s a bit complicated, but stick with me, Sarge.’

Pull the trigger? Simple as that? Point a gun at someone’s head and kill them?

Logan’s stomach lurched again.

‘...further protests organized for tomorrow. Weather now...’

‘According to the thermal time hypothesis, time’s a statistical artefact—’

‘For God’s sake, Tufty. Can we... five minutes... Please.’

‘...afraid this cold snap looks set to continue for the rest of the week. The Met Office have issued a yellow warning...’

Tufty pursed his lips. Shrugged one shoulder. ‘Thought you’d be interested.’

Half a dozen bungalows appeared on the right, clustered in the corner of a field. They looked like the advance guard of a much bigger army, posted on the clifftop to keep a lookout over the waves. An eight-foot-high chain-link fence wrapped around the chunk of field next to them, already scarred with a rough arc of gravel and concrete. Pipes and cables jutted up from concrete foundations like thick plastic weeds. Reinforcements on their way.

Samantha squeezed his shoulder again. ‘Just think about it, OK? That’s all I’m asking.’

‘...back with more at nine.’

‘Thanks Ashley. Noo, let’s kick off the hour with a wee bittie Proclaimers and “Sunshine on Leith”, cos looks like we’re gettin’ neen o’ that fir weeks up here.’

Tufty slowed, then indicated, and turned into the scheme as the singing started.

Kept his eyes forward.

Not speaking.

It was like working with a small child.

Logan let his head fall back against the rest. ‘Sorry.’

Another shrug. Then Tufty pointed through the windscreen at the furthest bungalow in the development. It was huge — had to be at least five bedrooms — with a blockwork drive, double garage, conservatory, and landscaped front garden that looked a lot more bedded in than any of the other houses. ‘That’s it.’

A couple of manky hatchbacks lurked at the kerb to either side, engines idling. Windows rolled down a crack so the warty individuals inside could smoke while they waited for something to happen.

Tufty pulled onto the drive, parking in front of a white Range Rover Sport. Switched off the engine. And sat there, still not saying anything.

‘I said I was sorry.’

‘No problem.’ Then Tufty climbed into the rain, jamming his hat on his head. Clunked the door shut and marched up the drive to the front door. Rang the bell.

A very small, very annoying child.

Logan grabbed his high-viz jacket from the back seat and got out of the Big Car.

The occupants of the hatchbacks scrambled out, shoulders and hoods pulled up, fiddling with big digital cameras. ‘Hoy! Over here! Sergeant? Did you find Martin Milne’s body yesterday? Is it him?’

Wind snatched at the fluorescent-yellow material of the jacket as Logan fought his way into it. Rain hammered and pattered off the surface. Off his hat. Off his stabproof vest. Stinging his face and hands like a thousand frozen wasps. While the two lumpy middle-aged men snapped photos.

‘How did Martin Milne die? Did he commit suicide?’

Logan hauled the zip up and turned his back on the wind. ‘How long have you two been out here?’

‘It’s Martin Milne, isn’t it?’

He pointed at the hatchbacks. ‘Police Scotland aren’t issuing any statements at this time. Now, please return to your vehicles and respect the Milne family’s privacy.’

The garden sloped away to the East, where the sea surged and pounded against the curling line of the headland. Probably really impressive in summer, when the sun was shining, but on a dreich Thursday in February? Sod that.

The shorter of the two curled his top lip. ‘Come on, Sergeant, throw us a bone, eh? Been freezing my nuts off out here since six. Is it Martin Milne?’

‘We’re not issuing any—’

‘“Statements”, yeah, I got that the first time.’ He tucked his camera into his coat. ‘Off the record?’

The other one sidled up beside him. A nose like a sandblasted golf ball, wrapped round with broken spider veins. ‘Promise we’ll sod off if you let us have something.’

Logan stared at the ground for a moment. ‘I can’t right now, but...’ He glanced over his shoulder at the house and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Look, give me your business cards, and I’ll let you know what’s going on soon as I can. You get first dibs.’

Frozen Nuts sniffed. ‘What, both of us?’

‘But you have to promise not to tell anyone else I tipped you off, OK?’

‘Deal.’ Golf-Ball Nose dug into his pocket and came out with a card. ‘Bob Finnegan, Aberdeen Examiner. That’s got my mobile number and my email.’

His opposite number produced a card of his own. ‘Noel McGuinness, Scottish Independent Tribune. You promise?’

‘If you promise to back off and leave the family alone till I give you the nod.’

The two of them shared a look, then nodded.

A quick shaking of hands and they retreated to their cars. Got in. And drove away.

Soon as they were gone, Logan marched up the drive to the front door. Gave Tufty’s arm a thump with the back of his hand. ‘Are you planning on sulking all day?’

Tufty poked the bell again, setting something buzzing inside the house. ‘I’m not sulking. I’m disappointed.’

‘You’re disappointed?’

‘Calamity or Isla: I could understand them not getting it, but I thought you were interested in the...’

The door clunked then swung open.

A woman glared out at them from behind a pair of large square glasses. Long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail with a sprinkling of grey at the roots. Teeth bared. Already going at full volume: ‘IF YOU VULTURES DON’T GO AWAY, I’M CALLING THE POLICE!’

Tufty raised his eyebrows. ‘Hello, Katie.’

‘Ah.’ She closed her mouth. Grimaced. ‘Officer Quirrel. Sorry. I thought you were that pair of...’ Then she stared at them, eyes widening. Bit her bottom lip. Wiped her hands down the front of her green-and-white striped apron. ‘Oh God, they were right. It is him isn’t it? The body they found in the woods? It’s Martin.’

She staggered back a step, blinking at the wood laminate flooring. Holding onto the doorframe.

Tufty held out a hand. ‘Katie, does Martin have a tattoo on his left shoulder? Maybe a dolphin or a whale or something?’

8

‘What?’ Mrs Milne pulled her chin in, wrinkling her neck. ‘No. No he doesn’t. He doesn’t have any tattoos. Why would he have tattoos?’

Logan stepped forward. ‘Then it’s not Martin, Mrs Milne: the man we found yesterday had a tattoo.’

She sagged where she stood, letting out a long breath. ‘Oh thank God.’ Another breath, one hand against her chest. ‘Look at me. Sorry. Come in. Please.’

The hallway was light, airy, with framed photos and scrawled crayon drawings lining the walls.

Mrs Milne led them through into the kitchen, where a little boy sat at a rustic table, both hands wrapped around a tumbler of orange juice. Blond hair, red sweatshirt, white shirt, black trousers. Plaster cast on his right arm. The smell of frying butter filled the air.

‘Would you like a tea, or coffee, or something? Or pancakes? I’m making for Ethan.’

The little boy stared back at them through glasses like his mother’s.

Logan slipped out of his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. It dripped onto the slate floor. ‘Tea would be lovely. But don’t worry, Constable Quirrel can make it. Can’t you, Constable?’

A nod. ‘Don’t want to stand in the way of Ethan’s pancakes.’

‘Oh. That’s very kind.’ She went back to the hob while Tufty poked about in the cupboard above the kettle.

The place must have cost a fortune. It was big enough for a full-sized dining table, a central island with hob and sink, fitted units around the outside in what was probably oak, granite work surfaces, slate tiles on the floor, a massive American-style fridge freezer. One of those fancy taps that did boiling water. Bit of a difference from Logan’s — cobbled together out of whatever was cheapest at B&Q and Argos.

There were about a dozen more crayon scribbles in here, most of them featuring what looked like potatoes with arms and legs, but instead of being stuck to the fridge door like in a normal house, they were displayed in elaborate wood-and-glass frames.

Logan settled into a seat and nodded at the little boy. ‘That’s some cast you’ve got there, Ethan, what happened to your arm?’

He stared back in silence.

OK...

Mrs Milne shook her head. ‘I love him to bits, but he can be a clumsy wee soul sometimes. Can’t you, Ethan?’

A shrug, then Ethan went back to his orange juice.

‘He’s a bit shy.’ She ladled batter into the frying pan and pulled on a gleaming smile. ‘So, who’s for pancakes?’

Logan wandered over to the window, rolling up a pancake — smeared with butter and raspberry jam — as if it were a fine cigar. Bit off the end and chewed.

Outside, Ethan slouched through the rain, good hand held in his mother’s. The cast on his other arm pressed against his chest. A scarlet people-carrier idled at the kerb, and as they reached it the driver’s window slid down, revealing a large woman with a Lego-bob haircut who smiled at them.

Mrs Milne bent down and kissed Ethan on the cheek, wiped the lipstick away, and saw him into the back of the car. Made sure he was belted in. Then stood there, in the rain, waving as the car wound its way out of the small development, onto the road, and away. Stood there a moment or two longer. And finally turned and trudged towards the house again.

Tufty appeared at Logan’s elbow. Had a sip of tea from a mug with Winnie the Pooh on it. ‘Doesn’t seem like a very happy kid.’

‘His dad’s vanished.’

‘True.’

Another bite. ‘And then there’s the broken arm.’

‘I was forever falling out of trees when I was five.’

‘Let me guess: you landed on your head a lot.’ Logan frowned out at the rain. ‘Get onto Social and see if anyone’s raised any flags about Ethan. Doctors, hospitals, teachers. Exactly how “clumsy” is he?’

‘Sarge.’

A clunk, then a rattle, and Mrs Milne was back looking as if she’d just been for a swim. She grimaced at them. ‘Poor wee soul’s having a hard time at school. Some of the kids think it’s fun to wind him up, because Martin’s missing. Can you imagine anything so cruel?’ She dabbed at her long black hair with a tea towel. ‘Yesterday, someone told him Martin’s run off with a younger woman. That Martin doesn’t love him any more.’ She shuddered. ‘Well, you know what kids are like. Horrible little monsters.’

Tufty beamed at her. ‘Sorry to be a pain, but could I use your loo? Too much tea.’

‘Out into the hallway, second on the right.’

‘Thanks.’ And he was off, unclipping his Airwave handset as he went. Not exactly subtle.

Idiot.

Logan polished off the pancake. Sooked his fingers clean. ‘Do you know if your husband has online banking? And if he does, can you get access to it?’

‘Martin hasn’t run off with some tart. He wouldn’t do that to us.’ She looked away, lowered her voice. ‘He loves us.’

‘Mrs Milne? The banking?’

‘Of course — we’ve got joint accounts.’ She went over to the Welsh dresser and opened a drawer. Pulled out a small laptop. ‘Oh, you should have heard them when we got married: “He’s far too young for her”, “He’s a toy boy”, “She’s such a dirty old lady”, “Must be like he’s shagging his mum”.’

The laptop went on the kitchen table. Then whirred and beeped into life.

‘Kids aren’t the only monsters.’ She logged in. ‘Suppose that’s where they get it from.’

Logan took the seat next to her. ‘You said Ethan was clumsy sometimes?’

‘Hold on, it wants to install updates...’ Mrs Milne hunched over the keyboard, fingers clattering across the plastic. ‘Do you mean his arm? He says he fell over in the playground, but I don’t know. Why didn’t the teachers see anything? Surely if a wee boy falls over and breaks his arm, they’d see something.’ Then she sat back again. ‘Here we go. What do you need?’

Logan pointed at the bank’s summary page of accounts. ‘Can you call up all recent transactions? We want to see if Martin’s used his credit or debit card.’

She hesitated. ‘You think he’s run away.’

‘We’re only looking for some clue to where he is. If he’s taking money out in Dundee, we know to get the police there looking for him.’

She bit her bottom lip again, then fiddled with the trackpad, bringing up a list of the last ten credit card transactions. Pointed. ‘These are mostly me: Tesco, Tesco, shoes for Ethan, Tesco, Tesco again, heating oil. That one’s Martin’s: the petrol station in Peterhead on Friday. Then it’s just Tesco, Tesco, Tesco.’

‘What about the current account?’

‘Erm...’ She clicked again. ‘Nothing since Monday. I got fifty pounds out to pay the window cleaner.’

So Milne had been missing since Sunday night and not bought a single meal on his credit card, or taken a penny out of the bank. If he really had been on the run for three days and four nights, surely he’d have to spend something. ‘And he doesn’t have any other accounts? Maybe from before you were married?’

‘Martin and I don’t keep secrets from one another.’ Her chin came up. ‘If he had another account I’d know about it.’

Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Everyone had secrets.

Logan nodded at the screen. ‘Any chance you can print off everything for the last three months or so?’

She rested her fingers against the keys, staring at her bitten nails. ‘What if something’s happened to him? What if he...’ Mrs Milne cleared her throat. ‘What if they’re right? What if he thinks we don’t matter, and he can do better somewhere else with someone his own age? What if he’s dead?’

He probably was, but there was no point telling her that.

Logan placed a hand on her shoulder. The jumper was damp and cool. ‘We’re going to do everything we can.’

She nodded. Then sniffed. Then wiped a hand across her eyes. ‘Yes. Right. I’ll download those statements.’

Logan settled back against the work surface, a fresh cup of tea steaming away in his hand.

The back garden was a shivering mass of bushes and low trees, slapped about by the wind. A shed sat in the bottom corner, surrounded by terracotta pots, their contents covered with white fleecy material. What looked like a vegetable plot lay along the far end of the garden. All very bucolic and genteel. Perched on the edge of the world.

He checked his watch. Half eight and there was still no sign of Tufty. Knowing Logan’s luck, Mrs Milne had probably left the front door open and Tufty had got out. He’d be climbing trees, chasing cars, and pooping on people’s lawns.

The room was quiet, just Logan and the hummmm-swoosh-hummmm-swoosh of the dishwasher.

He dug into his pocket and came out with the two business cards. Well, a promise was a promise... He ripped both up and dumped them in the pedal bin.

A newspaper lay on the worktop next to it, open at the crossword. Half the grid was filled in, a blue biro sitting next to the paper. Logan peered at the clues.

She’d got four down wrong.

And that wasn’t how you spelled ‘DISCONTENT’ either. Or ‘INCALCULABLE’.

Then Mrs Milne’s voice cut across the dishwasher. ‘Sorry. I had to change the cartridge in the printer.’

Logan turned. ‘You’re a crossword person.’

Pink flushed her cheeks. Then she held out a small stack of paper. ‘Bank statements for the last twelve weeks.’

‘Thanks.’ He flicked through them.

Regular entries for petrol and food. A pub in Peterhead every Wednesday. A few entries for Amazon. Some for Waterstones in Elgin... Nothing jumped out.

Mrs Milne picked the newspaper up and ruffled it back into shape. ‘Martin was always the puzzle solver. Into his Miss Marples and his crime drama on the TV.’ She closed the paper, shutting away the crossword. Smoothed it down. ‘Don’t know why I bother really, I’m always terrible at it.’

There, spread across the Aberdeen Examiner’s front page, was a photo of the entrance to the woods, all cordoned off with blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape. A uniformed constable stood behind the line, in the pouring rain, while behind him a patrol car sat with all its lights on. ‘GRISLY DISCOVERY IN MACDUFF WOODS’ with the sub-headline ‘IS BODY IN WOODS MISSING BUSINESSMAN?’

No wonder she’d thought the worst when they’d turned up on her doorstep.

Logan reached out and took the newspaper from her. ‘You shouldn’t be reading this kind of stuff. They don’t know anything, they’re just speculating. Making things up to sell more copies.’

‘Keep it.’ Mrs Milne turned away. ‘I never liked doing the crossword anyway.’

Her back was broad beneath the damp jumper, but rounded, as if she spent a lot of time trying to make herself look smaller. Maybe her husband was a short man and he didn’t like being towered over? Little man syndrome.

The dishwasher whispered and moaned.

Rain spattered across the kitchen window.

Logan folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. ‘We’re going to do everything we can, I promise.’

She didn’t turn around. ‘Thank you.’

Then the kitchen door thumped open and Tufty poked his head in. About time.

He pulled on a big grin. ‘Katie? Can I ask a...’ He nodded back towards the front of the house. ‘It’s a quickie.’

She followed him down the hall, Logan bringing up the rear.

‘Any idea who this is?’ Tufty pointed at one of the framed photos. A close-up group of eight men, standing around a barbecue in T-shirts. Baseball caps and sunglasses. Sunburn and grins. A couple had their drinks raised in salute. ‘On the left, with the corn-on-the-cob.’

Mrs Milne blinked, frowned. ‘It’s Pete. Peter Shepherd. He’s Martin’s business partner. Him, Martin, and Brian set up GCML together nine years ago. Why?’

‘Cool, cool.’ Tufty tapped the frame. ‘And he lives...?’

‘Pennan. He’s got one of those sideyways houses. Look, why do you want to know?’

Tufty shrugged. ‘Just interested. Any chance I can borrow the photo?’

Logan fastened his seatbelt. ‘Well?’

Tufty waved through the windscreen at Mrs Milne. Then turned the wheel and took them out of the little development. Soon as he got to the junction with the main road, he reached back into the footwell and pulled out the framed photo of the barbecue. Passed it over. ‘Notice anything?’

‘They’ve burnt the sausages?’

‘Guy on the left, Peter Shepherd. Check the arm.’

Martin’s business partner had a green T-shirt with a sort of Viking logo on the front. He’d ripped the sleeves off, exposing the swollen biceps of someone who spent far too much time down the gym. And there, on his left arm, was a narwhal tattoo.

9

Banff sulked beneath the heavy lid of stone sky, the buildings crouched together in the rain. Tufty took them in through the limits and down the hill. ‘Station?’

‘Pennan.’ Logan pressed the talk button on his Airwave. ‘Maggie, I need you to look someone up for me. Peter Shepherd, lives in Pennan.’

‘Give me a minute, Sergeant McRae, the MIT are hogging all the bandwidth so everything’s running like a slug.’

Tufty took a right, onto Castle Street — its rows of old-fashioned buildings giving way to the same buildings but with shops occupying the ground floor. ‘Sarge, should we not... You know, tell DCI Steel that Shepherd’s her corpse?’

‘No guarantee it’s him, Tufty. We’re just doing a bit of legwork. Making sure we don’t waste anyone’s time.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘When Mrs Milne reported her husband missing, did you go talk to everyone at his company?’

‘No one had seen him since Friday. He bunked off early, about half three, which was par for the course.’

‘What about Shepherd?’

He shrugged. ‘Didn’t ask. We were looking for Milne, didn’t even know Shepherd existed.’

Which was fair enough.

A handful of bodies tramped through the rain, bent nearly double under its relentless assault. All the cars had their headlights on, edging along not much faster than the people on the pavement.

‘What about this Brian person, the other partner?’

Something crawled across Tufty’s face, wrinkling bits of it, before fading away, leaving him smooth as a baby’s backside. ‘Got him: Brian Chapman. Financial Director. Big sticky-out mole on his forehead.’

‘That it?’

‘Didn’t know where Milne was, and seemed genuinely worried when I told him we’d found Milne’s car abandoned, Sunday night.’

‘Sergeant McRae? I’ve got three speeding tickets over the last six years and that’s it.’

‘Vehicles?’

‘Two registered at his property: a Mitsubishi Warrior and a Porsche Nine-Eleven.’

That explained the speeding tickets. Mind you, you’d have to be an optimist to own a Porsche in Pennan. A rear-wheel-drive sports car? And that hill? In winter? Be lucky if you got it out of the garage half the year.

‘Do you want me to check if he made any complaints?’

‘Please. And the phone number.’

The sandstone spire of Banff Parish Church went by the passenger window. A group of OAPs, dressed like carrion crows, shuffled in through the door, single file. A couple of floral tributes sat either side of the entrance as the minister shook hands with each and every one of them. Probably holding a sweepy in his head as to who he’d have to bury next.

Tufty chewed on his lip. ‘Sarge, are you sure DCI Steel isn’t going to blow a hairy when she finds out we didn’t come clean about Shepherd?’

The road swept around to the left, then past the football pitch and the golf course.

‘Sarge?’

‘Tell me about Martin Milne.’

He blew out a breath. Screwed up his face for a moment. Then, ‘OK. Martin Carter Milne, thirty, BA in business from Robert Gordons University, married to Katie Milne, one child: Ethan, six. Drives a dark-blue Aston Martin DB9. Very swish. Really wanted a go in it, but Traffic pulled rank.’

‘Impounded?’

‘Secure parking in Mintlaw. Mrs Milne can pick it up anytime she likes.’ The Big Car bumped over the bridge. The River Deveron was a swollen grey snake, rasping at its banks below, surging out into the bay. ‘Milne got a caution for aggravated assault three years ago. Fiscal didn’t take it to court because he was wading in to break up a fight at a Bloo Toon, Elgin City match. Left a guy with a fractured cheekbone and a broken arm.’

‘Bit of a bruiser then.’ Logan scanned the barbecue photograph for Milne.

He was in the middle, overseeing the ritual burning of the sausages. Red T-shirt with the same Viking logo as Peter Shepherd, only he’d left his sleeves on. Big arms. Not over-muscled like Shepherd’s, but thick enough to do some damage.

‘Sergeant McRae? I’ve got records of Peter Shepherd’s house being burgled last year. The thief got away with an antique gramophone and a set of three regency candlesticks. All recovered. He’s made four complaints in the last six months about vandalism. And there’s two ongoing investigations about his business premises being broken into in Peterhead.’

‘Ongoing since when?’

‘Three years.’

So for ‘ongoing’ read, ‘no one has a clue’.

‘Just in case, better give me his work number too.’ Logan turned to Tufty. ‘What are they called?’

‘GCML: Geirrød Container Management and Logistics, Peterhead.’

‘You get that, Maggie?’

‘Do you want me to text them through to your phone?’

‘Thanks.’

‘And are you coming back to the station anytime soon, Sergeant McRae? Only the MIT are being... difficult.’

‘Sorry. It’s oot-and-aboot for me and the loon. If anyone asks, we’re chasing up a misper.’

And with any luck, Steel would believe it.

‘And you’ve not seen Mr Shepherd since Friday?’ Logan pinned his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he wrote the details down in his notebook. Leaning into the corners as the Big Car wheeched along the winding road.

‘Yup, he’s off seeing a supplier in Chesterfield.’

Oh no he wasn’t. He was dead.

‘But you haven’t heard from him?’

‘Nah. Don’t usually when he’s off on his travels. Likes to keep a low profile does our Pete, so it’s all text messages and emails.’

‘OK, well, if you hear from him, tell him we’d like a word.’

‘Will do.’

Logan hit the button and ended the call. ‘GCML say Shepherd’s off down south, buying them some new containers.’

Tufty overtook a tractor with mud-spattering tyres. ‘So maybe it isn’t him we found. Maybe it’s someone else. Maybe he’ll turn up tomorrow with a bunch of containers and a confused look on his face.’

‘Maybe.’ But it wasn’t likely.

Logan tried the other number again. Got the answering machine again.

‘Hello, you’ve reached Pete Shepherd. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.’ Then a pause. Bleeeeeeeep.

He hung up.

‘Shepherd’s still not answering his mobile.’

A nod from the driver’s seat. ‘Well, he can’t, can he? Not if he’s dead. Roaming charges are probably extortionate from the afterlife.’

‘...but that’s nonsense, isn’t it? Of course time exists. And do you know what I think?’

Logan ruffled the copy of the Aberdeen Examiner he’d taken from Mrs Milne. ‘Nope.’ Wasn’t interested either, but there was no point telling Tufty that, he’d only sulk again.

So instead, Logan skimmed an article on the new development going into the gap where Aberdeen’s Saint Nicholas House used to be. Not exactly riveting, but it was better than listening to Tufty rambling on about physics. ‘“WE’LL NEVER STOP PROTESTING AGAINST THE EVIL CONCRETE RUBIK’S CUBE!” SAYS LOCAL CAMPAIGNER.’ Who bore an uncanny resemblance to a scrotum in a shirt and tie.

Outside the car windows, rain lashed the fields and bushes and trees, making the tarmac shine in the Big Car’s headlights as they wound their way along the Fraserburgh road.

‘I think time’s an emergent property of an entropic field. You know, like the Higgs boson is caused by vibrational ripples in the Higgs field?’

‘Hmm...’ Then there was an article about a project to get big, painted, fibreglass sheep installed across the city. Because all the dolphins weren’t enough.

‘And just as the Higgs field gives particles their physical mass, the entropic field gives particles their chronological mass.’

Next up, a long piece on Emily Benton’s death. Quotes from her parents and friends about how lovely she was and how everyone liked her and she didn’t have any enemies. Which obviously wasn’t true, because someone battered her to death. The Examiner had gone out and done a vox pop in Inverurie — little photos of cold-looking shoppers above banal statements about how that kind of thing shouldn’t happen and their prayers were with her family.

‘So time is actually a boson. You see?’

‘Hmm...’

Then there was a half-page on Banff Academy raising money for Macduff lifeboat station after one of the pupils nearly drowned on a fishing trip.

‘And that’s why the faster you move, the slower time gets. The entropic field is like cornflour — go slow and you pass through it without noticing, go fast and it seizes up.’

Logan turned the page, where there was an opinion piece on the number of bodies being found in woods about Aberdeenshire. ‘Of course, you know what this means, don’t you?’

‘Exactly. Time is the physical manifestation of a non-Newtonian-fluid-like field.’

Logan looked at him over the top of the paper. ‘No, it means we’re going to have to release details of the bodies, or the papers will start screaming, “Serial Killer!” Surprised they haven’t already.’

‘Oh. Right. Well, anyway, so the entropic field only allows travel in one direction or it violates the second law of thermodynamics, right? And—’

‘The chronology’s interesting, isn’t it?’

Tufty beamed. ‘That’s what I think. Entropy, thermodynamics, the time boson—’

‘Emily Benton’s body is discovered in woods ten days ago. Then Martin Milne disappears a week after Emily was found. And Peter Shepherd turns up battered to death with a bag over his head, in different woods, three days after that, when he’s meant to be in Chesterfield buying containers.’

The sign for Gardenstown flashed by on the left, and the sea was back — a thin line of charcoal on the horizon.

‘So...’ That thinky frown worked its way across Tufty’s face again. ‘Milne killed Emily, and his business partner? Thought the MO was meant to be different?’

‘Her skull was bashed in with an adjustable wrench. We’ve got no idea what happened to Shepherd’s head: there’s a bag over it.’ Logan went back to the paper, frowning at an article about childcare services getting cut in Ellon. ‘Maybe that’s why they’re different? Emily was killed in situ. Imagine you’ve just gone berserk on someone’s skull with a wrench, and now you’ve got to dump the body. That head’s going to leak blood and fluid and bits of brain all over your boot. So you stick a bin-bag over it and duct-tape it tight around the neck so nothing oozes out.’

‘Ooh. That has a sensible.’

‘Then you get the hell out of Dodge, before the police come looking for you.’

The windscreen wipers droned across the glass, clearing a path that immediately vanished to be cleared again.

Tufty coughed. ‘Mind you. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Shepherd’s death just happens to be exactly the same MO as this Edinburgh gangster?’

‘Hmm...’ There was that.

‘And why kill Emily Benton?’

There was that as well.

A big four-by-four rattled past in the opposite direction, its driver oblivious on her mobile phone, big Dulux dog in the back seat.

More fields drenched with rain.

‘How long till Pennan?’

Tufty peered at the dashboard clock. ‘Five minutes?’

Trees swallowed the road, thumping heavy droplets from their sagging branches. Then out the other side.

Next: an article on diesel thefts around Turriff.

OK, so the evidence was circumstantial at the moment, but Milne’s disappearance made him look guilty. If he had nothing to do with Shepherd’s death, why did he run? Innocent people didn’t vanish three days before their business partners turned up dead in the woods.

And then there was Milne’s obsession with crime fiction and TV shows. All those stories telling him how not to leave forensic evidence behind.

Couldn’t deny that it fit.

Martin Milne killed Peter Shepherd, dumped the body, covered his tracks, then did a runner.

Logan wriggled in his seat, getting comfortable. Steel had a team of what, twenty officers? Maybe thirty? And she didn’t have a clue. Here he was, with nothing but Tufty for backup, and he’d already solved the murder. Two murders, if Milne killed Emily Benton as well.

Tufty was right: Steel wasn’t going to be very happy. But you know what? Tough.

He flipped the page.

Sometimes the gods smiled upon...

Oh.

No.

The breath curdled in his lungs. His fillings itched. A wave of electricity riffled the hairs on the back of his arms and neck, finally settling in his bowels.

There, sandwiched between something on house prices in Strichen and a bit about a new music festival in Fraserburgh, was a photo of Wee Hamish Mowat.

All the moisture disappeared from Logan’s mouth as his throat closed up.

‘LOCAL BUSINESSMAN’S CHARITY LEGACY’

The newspaper trembled in his hands.

Under the photo, the caption was: ‘PHILANTHROPIST HAMISH ALEXANDER SELKIRK MOWAT PASSED AWAY IN HIS SLEEP LAST NIGHT.’

How the hell did the Aberdeen Examiner get the news out so fast? What did Reuben do, hire a publicist?

There was a quote from the Lord Provost about what a great man he’d been. There were quotes from three different charities about how generous his contributions were. But there was nothing about him running the biggest criminal empire in the Northeast of Scotland. Nothing about the punishment beatings. Nothing about the pig farm where people disappeared.

Nothing about the fact that Reuben would be coming for Logan now.

Oh God...

‘Sarge?’

The funeral was set for Friday. Tomorrow.

But then Wee Hamish Mowat was never one for hanging about.

And neither would Reuben.

‘Sarge? You OK? You look like you’ve swallowed a bee.’

Logan lowered the paper. Blinked out at the hostile world. ‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Fine.’

Liar.

10

The road wound around and down the cliff face, steep enough for Tufty to change into second gear. Pennan appeared as a cluster of rooftops, all huddled together for protection against the North Sea as it hurled itself against the little harbour’s walls, the cliffs, and the stony beach.

Of course, it wasn’t really all that surprising the Aberdeen Examiner had been ready to go with the story of Hamish Mowat’s death. They’d probably had the whole thing filed and ready for months. Just waiting. Freshening up the quotes from time to time.

The BBC had the same kind of thing all ready to go for when the Queen popped her royal slippers, didn’t they? Testimonials, photos, documentaries. Why should Aberdeen’s biggest crime lord be any different?

Especially with Reuben waiting in the wings: the king is dead, long live the king.

They slowed to a crawl, squeezing the Big Car between a slab-like greying lump of a building and the whitewashed Pennan Inn. Out onto the tiny village’s only street. Houses on one side, the angry swell of the sea on the other.

Tufty took a left. Rain pelted the windscreen, clattered off the roof, sparked on the bonnet. ‘Bit bleak, isn’t it?’

Waves boomed against the seawall, sending up arcs of spray that hovered for a moment like heavy clouds, before smashing down across the tarmac.

Some of the houses faced front, but most of them stood sideways, with their gable ends pointing out at the storm. Narrow alleys separated the buildings, the front doors sheltering from the wind.

Tufty pulled the car over and pointed at a one-and-a-half storey, traditional Scottish house, with whitewashed walls and a Porsche parked out front. ‘That’s us.’ Another wave smashed into the seawall — the spray completely engulfed the sports car. He grimaced. ‘What do you think, wait for it to ease up a bit?’

‘Be here all week.’ Logan unclipped his seatbelt, pulled on his peaked cap, then struggled into his high-viz. Doing his best not to bash Tufty in the face with an elbow. ‘Come on then.’

It was like being pelted with frozen nails.

He slammed the car door and hurried across the road, slipping into the alley between the front of Peter Shepherd’s house and the back of the next one in the row as another wave crashed down.

‘Aaaaaagh! God... sodding... bloody...’ Tufty shuffled into the alley with his arms held out from his body, dripping, mouth hanging open. ‘Gagh...’

Logan tried the bell.

A trilling ring sounded inside, but no one answered.

One more go.

And again.

Tufty raised one leg and shook the foot. ‘I’m drenched.’

OK, so there was no one home. But then, given that Shepherd was lying on his back in a refrigerated drawer in the mortuary, waiting for his turn to be dissected, that wasn’t too surprising.

Logan tried the door handle.

Locked.

‘Could’ve jumped in the sea and I’d be drier...’

He turned. The house with its back to Shepherd’s had a couple of windows on this side. Light shone out from one of them, the glass all steamed up, what sounded like Led Zeppelin belting out in there. Logan knocked on the window.

A shadowy figure loomed, then wiped a hole in the fog revealing a lined face, with lots of dark eye make-up and a grey quiff. She frowned for a moment, then opened the window. Rock music pounded out into the rain, accompanied by the sweet buttery scent of baking. ‘HELLO?’

‘We’re trying to—’

‘YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP!’

Logan huddled closer. ‘WE’RE TRYING TO TRACE YOUR NEIGHBOUR. PETER SHEPHERD?’

‘PETE? NO, HE’S NOT HERE. HE... HOLD ON,’ she held up an arthritis-twisted finger, as Robert Plant’s wailing gave way to a guitar solo, ‘I LOVE THIS BIT.’ Nodding along with her eyes closed, thrashing away on a clawed-hand air guitar.

‘DO YOU KNOW WHEN HE’LL BE BACK?’

‘WHO?’

‘YOUR NEIGHBOUR.’

‘OH. HAS HE DONE SOMETHING?’ Still rocking along.

‘NO. WE’RE WORRIED ABOUT HIS SAFETY. WE... LOOK, CAN YOU TURN THAT DOWN A BIT?’

She shrugged, then turned and padded back into the room. The music clicked off, leaving nothing behind but the booming waves, clattering rain, and howling wind. ‘There we go.’

‘Do you have a key to Mr Shepherd’s house, Mrs...?’

‘Call me Aggie. Give me a minute to grab my coat: I’ve got to go round and feed his cat anyway.’ Then she thunked the window shut and disappeared.

‘Here we go.’ Aggie swung the door open and stepped inside. ‘Onion? Unnnnn-yun, where’s kitten?’

Logan followed her inside. Shepherd had obviously had a bit of work done to the place. It might look all traditional and Scottish vernacular on the outside, but inside — the living room and kitchen were one big open-plan space full of gleaming surfaces, leather, and abstract oil paintings.

Shepherd and Milne’s container business must be making a fortune.

Tufty closed the front door behind him, and stood there, dripping on the hall tiles. ‘Gah...’

Aggie hobbled up the stairs. ‘Onion? Come on, time for nom-noms.’

Soon as she was gone, Logan poked Tufty on the shoulder. ‘You try Shepherd’s mobile again, and try not to get everything soggy. If he’s not dead, I don’t want him suing the force because you ruined his carpet.’

A dining room sat on the other side of the stairs, with a long oak table and matching chairs. The only other room on the ground floor was a study. Bookshelves lined the walls, all crammed to overflowing with textbooks, folders, lever-arch files, boxes, and hardback books. A proper office-style desk with a docking station for a laptop and a pair of flatscreen monitors on armatures. Swanky office chair with more buttons and levers than most family saloons. A pair of oak filing cabinets.

No diary or appointments calendar. But then everyone was all electronic these days, weren’t they? Whatever happened to the good old days, when people actually wrote things down, then left them lying around for police officers to find?

He scanned the bookshelves. The textbooks all had titles like Optimisation For Hydrocarbon Support Industries and Logistic Management in the Norwegian Sector — Regulations and Compliance Volume VII. The folders were just as bad. And the books all seemed to be true crime. Biographies of murderers and case studies on serial killers. A collection of gangster memoirs. All neatly ordered, alphabetically, by author and title.

So Milne wasn’t the only crime freak.

Logan tried upstairs.

A big bathroom, all done out in dark slate tiles and spotlights, with a freestanding enamel bath big enough for three. A box room, full of boxes. A small bedroom with a lot of lace and flowers in it, completely out of keeping with the rest of the place. And last, but not least, the master bedroom.

Aggie was on her knees at the side of the bed, bum in the air, one arm wiggling about in the space underneath. ‘Come on, Onion Pickle Pie, it’s only policemen, they’re not really that scary.’

A king-size bed dominated the room, with a maroon velvet headboard. Huge telly on the facing wall. Thick, smoke-coloured carpet. One wall a deep claret, the others stark white. Normal people didn’t have houses like this. This was what happened when you hired a decorator who specialized in boutique hotels.

Aggie sat back on her heels and bared her top teeth at Logan. ‘He’s not normally this shy.’

Logan wandered over to the window, looking down on the narrow alley that separated the two houses. ‘Do you look after his cat a lot?’

‘Only if he’s going to be away for more than one night. Onion doesn’t really like change. Likes to know his Aunty Aggie’s looking after him.’ Then she leaned forwards, bum up in the air again. ‘Come on, sweetie. I’ve got lovely tuna for you. Your favourite. Yum, yum!’

The room wasn’t just swanky-hotel designed, it was swanky-hotel clean as well. No personal knick-knacks, bits, or bobs. No deodorant, hairdryer, or combs on show. No clothes dumped over the chair in the corner. The only thing out of place was the book on the bedside cabinet. And even that was perfectly lined up with the edges.

The Blood-Red Line. Subtitled, How Malcolm McLennan Founded Edinburgh’s Biggest Criminal Empire. The author’s name was picked out in white, ‘L. P. MOLLOY’, over a montage of towerblocks, Edinburgh Castle, somewhere dark in the Old Town, and a line of crime-scene tape. With a few tasteful blood spatters thrown in for good measure.

L. P. Malloy had to be a pseudonym. No one would be thick enough to write an exposé about Malcolm McLennan and use their real name. Not if they wanted to keep all their fingers. Surprised anyone was brave enough to publish it.

‘Oh come on, Onion, be a good cat for Aunty Aggie.’

Logan flicked through the pages. A biro inscription was scrawled on the title page, ‘TO PETER, YOU’RE A SICK BASTARD FOR READING THIS STUFF, BUT I LOVE YOU ANYWAY. MARTIN XXX!’ Bit gushing, but there you go.

There was a wodge of printed photos in the middle of the book — most in black-and-white and copied from newspaper reports. But a couple were clearly crime-scene pics, reproduced in vivid gory colour. One of a young man in a Seventies suit with his throat slashed, lying crumpled in a toilet stall. One of a burned-out car with blackened human remains in the driver’s seat. A woman lying twisted beneath a railway bridge. And one of a naked man, lying on his back in some woods, with a bag over his head.

Logan stood at the window, looking down into the little alley. The paving slabs glittered with water, the puddles rippled in the battering rain. He pressed the talk button on his Airwave handset. ‘OK, that’s great news. We’ll get it set up soon as I’ve handed over to the MIT.’

Inspector McGregor’s voice crackled from the speaker. ‘Glad to hear you’re being so grown-up about it.’

Aunty Aggie bustled out of the front door, hauling the jacket hood up over her quiff. She disappeared into the downpour.

‘No point fighting the system, is there? Besides, I’ve got a dunt to organize.’ And maybe this way Steel would be too busy running around trying to find Martin Milne to be a pain in Logan’s backside.

‘Make sure you keep me up to date then.’ And McGregor was gone.

‘SARGE?’

Logan stuck his head out of the bedroom door. ‘WHAT?’

‘YOU WANT A TEA?’

‘HAVE YOU FOUND ME A NEXT OF KIN YET?’

‘WAITING TO HEAR BACK. SO: TEA?’

Shouldn’t really be helping themselves to the contents of a murder victim’s cupboards... But it wasn’t as if Peter Shepherd would have grudged them a cuppa. ‘THANKS.’

He went back to the bedroom and opened the bedside cabinet. Handkerchiefs, a watch, various flavours of chapstick, pens, mixed with bits-and-bobs that would never come in handy again. Next drawer down was all socks. The one below that, pants and boxers. All neatly folded.

The cabinet on the other side had a huge remote control in it, along with a box of tissues and some lubricant in the top drawer. So no prizes for guessing what normally played on the huge wall-mounted TV opposite the bed. Next drawer down: more socks and some aftershave. Bottom drawer: more underwear.

Logan settled onto the edge of the duvet and picked up the remote. It was about three times bigger than it had any right being, with a corresponding number of extra buttons. He pressed the one with the power icon on it. There was a pause, then the TV played a three-note tune and displayed the manufacturer’s logo.

Instead of defaulting to BBC One, the screen displayed a series of folders and icons under the title ‘MEDIA HUB’. He picked a folder marked ‘CHILE 13’ and a slideshow popped into life: photos of alpaca and mountains and two men backpacking through stunning scenery, accompanied by a soundtrack of something bland played on the panpipes. Lots of photos of Peter Shepherd grinning and posing for the camera.

Logan tried another one. ‘SHETLAND 09’: a much younger Shepherd, tootling about in an open-top sports car with a woman in rock-chick chic. This time it had some sort of Jimmy Shand accordion soundtrack.

‘DUBAI 14’: Shepherd and two men in denim shirts and chinos, wheeching about through sand dunes in a four-by-four, riding camels, buying things in a souk, drinking cocktails on a rooftop terrace with a dirty big skyscraper in the background. Middle Eastern music.

‘STUFF&THANGS’:...

OK, that was... different.

Tufty appeared in the doorway with a mug. Then froze, staring at the TV. ‘Oh.’

On the screen, three people were caught in a very intimate tableau — a middle-aged woman with long blonde hair, Peter Shepherd, and Martin Milne. She was on all fours, on the bed in this very room, with Milne at the back — doggy style — and Shepherd in her mouth. A classic spit roast. All done to a backing track of classical music. The image was high-res, not taken on a phone, or a webcam. Probably an expensive SLR digital camera, on a tripod going by the shadows on the bedroom carpet.

Tufty cleared his throat. ‘Don’t think we should be watching porn in a dead guy’s house, Sarge.’

The next image was the same three people, only this time Milne was in the middle.

‘Ooh...’ Tufty flinched. ‘Yeah, definitely shouldn’t be watching it.’

This time it was just the two gents. Which explained the dedication in the book.

Pink rushed up Tufty’s face. ‘I’ll be downstairs.’

‘Bloody hammering it down.’ Steel barged past Logan into the hallway, with Becky hot on her heels. Steel gave a little shake, like a terrier, and ran both hands through her wet hair, smoothing it down to her head. Then flicked the water off onto the tiles. ‘This better no’ be a wild goose chase, Laz, or I’m going to forget I’m a lady and do things to your bumhole that’d make Genghis Khan blush.’

Becky closed the door on the downpour, brown curls plastered to her forehead. ‘Urgh... Need water wings just to walk here from the car. Don’t you teuchters do proper weather, or are you too busy shagging sheep?’

‘DS McKenzie: stop mocking the afflicted. It’s no’ their fault they’re all inbred.’ Steel shoogled out of her coat and handed it to her sidekick, then turned and thumped Logan on the chest. ‘Come on then, Mr Mysterious, make with the ID.’

He took a sip of tea. ‘Have they taken the bag off your victim’s head yet?’

Steel checked her watch. ‘PM’s no’ till ten. You’ve got five minutes to astound me.’

‘Peter Shepherd.’ Then he turned and marched up the stairs.

‘Who the hell is Peter Shepherd when he’s at home?’

‘He was Martin Milne’s partner.’

Steel hurried after him, boots clunking on the steps. ‘Business or sex?’

‘Bit of both. And he’s got a narwhal tattoo on his upper left arm.’

In the bedroom, Logan pointed the remote at the TV and got the slideshow rolling again. This time, the classical soundtrack was accompanied by Milne and Shepherd having a threesome with a redhead in stripy holdups and a Zorro mask.

‘Kinky.’ Steel pursed her lips. ‘Course, she’s a bit chunky for me, but I’d no’ mind with the lights off. Just gives you more to hold onto.’ She grinned over her shoulder at Becky. ‘How about you?’

DS McKenzie shuddered. ‘No thanks.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Logan hit pause and peered at the remote. Then pressed the button marked ‘ZOOM’, fiddling with the direction arrows until Shepherd’s tattoo filled the screen. It was a detailed illustration of a horned whale’s head emerging from the sea, contained in a ring of rope, with scallop shells around the outside, and the motto ‘CORNEUM CETE SUNT OPTIMUS’ underneath. ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’

‘Don’t speak Latin.’ Steel dug into her jacket pocket and came out with an e-cigarette. Popped it in her mouth. ‘There more porn on this thing?’

‘It means Peter Shepherd disappeared at some point over the weekend, only no one notices because he’s supposed to be away down to Chesterfield to speak to a supplier this week. Martin Milne goes missing Sunday night. Shepherd’s body turns up three days later.’

She snatched the remote from Logan’s hand and pressed play, setting the slideshow rolling again. Sank onto the edge of the bed, e-cigarette sticking out of her mouth as if it was on Viagra. ‘Aye, very good, Miss Marple. Only problem is, if it’s Shepherd who’s dead — and I’m no’ saying it is — but if it is, then how come it looks like he got bumped off by an Edinburgh gangster?’

On the screen, Milne, Shepherd, and their anonymous friend switched one contorted position for another one. As if they were going for some sort of record.

Logan picked up the book and dumped it in Steel’s lap. ‘Page one-fifty-two.’

‘Ooh...’ She didn’t look at the book. She tilted her head to one side and gaped at the TV instead. ‘How did he get his leg all the way over there? Surely that’s no’ physically possible.’

‘God’s sake.’ Logan grabbed the book back and flicked through to the right page, then held it out, poking the photo with a finger. ‘Look. There’s a complete description there too. Milne and Shepherd get into some sort of fight. It gets out of hand. Milne panics, he has to ditch the body. And right there, sitting on the bedside cabinet, he’s got a blueprint of how to do it and make the whole thing look like a mob hit.’

Steel stared, open-mouthed at the screen.

Becky sighed. ‘Lot of trouble to go to if you’re only wanting rid of your humpbuddy, isn’t it?’

‘Phwoar... Look at the size of that strap-on! Could beat a horse to death with that. Surely she’s not going to stick that up his... Ooooh yes she is. That’s gotta—’

‘Give me that.’ Logan took the remote back and switched off the TV.

‘Hoy! I was watching—’

‘Milne killed Shepherd and staged the body so we’d think it was Malcolm McLennan. You’re supposed to be running the investigation, so stop watching porn and go investigate.’

‘I’m no’ “watching porn”, I’m reviewing evidence.’ Steel reclined on the bed, resting on her elbows. Nodded at her sidekick. ‘Becky, let’s imagine for a wee moment that our body was Mr Flexible up there.’ She pointed at the blank screen. ‘Does that mean Martin Miller is our killer.’

‘No, Guv.’

‘It’s Milne. Martin Milne. And he’s disappeared. Vanished. Run away. Skipped out on his family, Sunday night.’

‘Yeah...’ Steel bared her teeth. ‘Still. Looks more like a gangland killing than a lovers’ tiff.’

He shook The Blood-Red Line at her. ‘Because of the book! It’s right there — a how-to guide. Milne set it up.’ Logan chucked it down on the bed. ‘It’s obvious.’

‘It’s a wild stab in the dark is what it is.’ She picked up the remote and set the slideshow playing again. ‘Seconds out, round two.’

He stepped between her and the TV, blocking her view. ‘What is wrong with you?’

Becky sighed. ‘Come on, McRae, even you’ve got to see this is a stretch. We still don’t know if our body’s Peter Shepherd. Could be anyone.’

‘Of course it’s Shepherd!’

Steel stared at him for a bit. Then took another puff on her fake cigarette. Hissed out a thin line of steam. ‘You used to be a lot more fun.’ A sniff. ‘Actually, scratch that, you’ve always been a misery-guts.’

‘Yeah? Well this misery-guts has had enough of your—’ His phone blared out its anonymous ringtone. ‘God’s sake.’ He yanked it out. ‘What?’

There was a brief pause, then a thick dark voice oozed into his ear like evil treacle. ‘Good morning, Sergeant McRae. “Long time, no speak”, as I believe the expression goes. Which isn’t normal for you and I, is it?’

Logan ran a hand over his eyes. Gritted his teeth. Then forced a smile as he turned and walked from the room. ‘Chief Superintendent Napier.’

‘Have you been behaving yourself, Sergeant? Or have you just been very good at getting away with it?’

Through into the floral-print bedroom with its kitsch pillows and crocheted bedspread. ‘I hear you’re retiring soon.’

‘Ah yes, but not to worry: there’s still time for a final hurrah. And speaking of rumours, a little birdie tells me that you’re working with DCI Steel again.’

Then silence from the other end of the phone.

Rain hammered the window.

More silence.

Fine, two could play at that. If Napier thought Logan was going to leap in and fill the gap with something incriminating he could wait till his ears dropped off.

Classical music seeped through from the other room.

‘And tell me, Sergeant McRae, how are you getting on with the Detective Chief Inspector?’

Like an orphanage on fire.

Logan raised his chin. ‘We’re making progress.’

‘I see, I see.’ Another pause. ‘You two have a good working relationship, don’t you, Sergeant? She confides in you. She trusts you.’

Here we go.

‘Tell me, has she ever mentioned a Mr Jack Wallace to you? Possibly in connection with a case she investigated last year?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Really... Hmm. Interesting. Well, if she does mention him, do think of me and our little chat. Till then, take care.’ Napier ended the call.

What the hell was that about?

Logan put his phone away and stepped out onto the landing. Stood there, listening to the violins and cellos.

Then there was a dinging, buzzing sound. Followed by, ‘You wee beauty!’

Whatever had happened on Shepherd’s porn slideshow, she could keep it to herself. He was out of here. Had better things to do.

He’d got halfway down the stairs when the music died and Steel charged out of the bedroom, phone held high like the Olympic torch.

She pointed at him. ‘Hoy, where do you think you’re going?’

‘Banff. Got a dunt to organize.’

‘Time for that later. Look.’ She shoved her phone at him. On the screen was a photo of a bruised face, ringed with black plastic. The features were swollen, and the skin between the blue and purple stains was the colour of rancid butter, but it was definitely Peter Shepherd. ‘After careful consideration, I have decided to give you, your grumpy man-panties, and your half-baked theory a second chance. Get in the car: we’re off to see this Martin Milne’s wife. If the wee sod’s done a runner, I want to know where.’

‘Told you: I’m busy.’ Logan started back down the stairs, then stopped. Frowned up at her. ‘Who’s Jack Wallace?’

Steel’s eyes narrowed, deepening the wrinkles. ‘On second thoughts, you can sod off back to Banff.’ She took a deep breath. ‘BECKY! ARSE IN GEAR, WE’RE LEAVING.’

11

Calamity handed the mug to Logan, then nudged the door shut. ‘Sorry, Sarge, MIT’s had all the milk.’

Logan peered into the depths of his dark-brown tea. Still, it was better than nothing. Then he had a sip... Actually, no it wasn’t. A tiny shudder, and he put the mug down on the windowsill. ‘It’s the thought that counts.’

Even with the door closed, the sounds of a busy station seeped into the Constables’ Office. Banging doors. Heavy booted feet. Ringing telephones. Shouting.

Calamity settled into her chair. ‘It’s like a football match out there. Never seen so many people in the station at one time. And the stench!’

Isla bared her teeth. ‘Locker room smells like a tramp’s sock dipped in Lynx deodorant. It’s seeping along the landing like sarin gas.’ She thumped a can of diet Irn-Bru down on the worktop, setting loose a curl of ginger froth. ‘But do you know what really grips my shit? Someone’s done kippers in the canteen microwave. Kippers!’

‘Ooh, watch out,’ Calamity pulled her chin in, ‘the Ginger Mist is rising.’

‘Damn right it is.’ She jabbed a finger at the closed door. ‘What kind of antisocial, thoughtless—’

‘All right, that’s enough whingeing about the Moronic Idiot Team. Tufty?’

No reply. The wee sod was sitting with his back to the room, hunched over doodling something on a notepad.

‘Constable Quirrel!’

He swivelled around and grimaced, mobile phone clamped to his ear. ‘Right. Thanks, Lizzy, I owe you one.’ He hung up. ‘Social Services, Sarge. Apparently Ethan Milne’s had a fair number of bruises and scrapes. The broken arm’s the worst of it, but he’s been to the doctors and A-and-E so many times he’s got a frequent flier card. Lizzy says the kid’s probably eighty percent TCP by now.’

Logan picked up his mug again. ‘Suspicious?’

‘Don’t know. According to the teachers he’s about the clumsiest thing they’ve ever seen. Forever falling over in the playground and walking into doors and things.’

‘Right. Well, you can get on with the briefing then.’

‘Sarge.’ Tufty clicked the mouse and a pair of ID photos appeared on his computer monitor: Ricky Welsh with his shoulder-length hair, bloody nose, and split lip. He’d grown an elaborate Vandyke with twiddly handlebars on the moustache. What looked like a chunk of the Declaration of Arbroath wrapped around his throat in dark-blue tattooed letters. Laura Welsh was bigger; tougher; thickset; one green eye, one black; and an off-blonde perm. Bruises swelled across her left cheek like a tropical storm. Because, ‘It’s a fair cop, I’ll come quietly’ just wasn’t in Laura or Ricky’s vocabulary. They were more of a, ‘You’ll never take me alive, copper!’ kind of family.

Tufty checked his notes. ‘Inspector Fettes has got us the Operational Support Unit, a dog unit, and four bodies from Elgin to help dunt in the Welshes’ door. Watch yourselves, though: one of the Elgin lot’s a Chief Inspector doing his “in touch with the common folk” thing.’

Isla groaned. ‘Not again.’

Calamity covered her eyes with her hands. ‘Why us?’

‘You know fine well, why.’ Logan risked another sip of tea. Nope: still horrible. ‘Keep going, Tufty.’

‘ETD — that’s Estimated Time of Dunt — will be twenty-three hundred hours. Though with assorted dicking about, probably closer to midnight. I’ve called Fraserburgh and asked them to reserve two of their finest en suite rooms for Mr and Mrs Welsh. Something with a view and a roll-top bath.’

‘Hmm...’ Calamity dug into her fleece and came out with a tartan wallet. ‘Anyone want a fiver on how many people end up in hospital?’

Isla sucked her teeth. ‘Just our lot, or all in?’

‘Ours. I’ll kick off with two.’

A five-pound note was produced. ‘Three. Tufty?’

‘Fiver on...’ he squinted one eye, ‘four. Sarge?’

‘Can we get on with the briefing, please? Some of us have jobs to do.’

Calamity collected the bets. ‘Let us know if you change your mind.’

Tufty went back to the PowerPoint presentation, bringing up an aerial shot of Macduff ripped off Google Earth. A crude red arrow with ‘Raid Here!!!’ sat on top of the image, pointing at Ricky and Laura Welsh’s place.

Click, and it was replaced with a front-view of the house: a whitewashed cottage, sandwiched a third of the way down a terrace of identikit Scottish homes. The slate roof boasted a pair of dormer windows, which — along with the two downstairs windows and red-painted door — gave the place a slightly startled appearance. As if it didn’t approve of the things going on inside it.

Isla scanned the briefing notes, a wee crease forming between her eyebrows. ‘If Jessica “Ma” Campbell is the one supplying the drugs, are we expecting her or one of her minions to be there protecting their investment? If we are, I want to up my hospital number.’

‘It’s possible, but I’d be more worried about the Welshes’ dog.’ Click. A massive Saint Bernard replaced the house photo. ‘Looks cuddly, but we’re talking full-on Cujo here.’

‘Exactly.’ Logan pointed at the three of them. ‘So anyone not carrying Bite Back deserves all they get. Are we—’

A knock at the door, and Inspector McGregor peered into the room. ‘Ah, there you are.’ She pulled on a smile. It didn’t look very convincing. ‘Logan, have you got a minute? We need to chat.’

OK, well that didn’t sound ominous at all.

‘Guv.’ He gave Tufty a nod. ‘Finish up the briefing, then I want the Method of Entry paperwork sorted. And no spelling mistakes this time. Let’s be ready to rock first thing Sunday night.’ Then Logan followed the Inspector out into the corridor.

The smell of smoked fish hung in the air like a manky perfume.

Voices boomed out of the open canteen door — someone telling a joke about two nuns, a druggy, and a greengrocer.

This bit of the corridor was lined with street maps of Banff and Macduff, with all the sketchy houses marked in red. Then there was the tiny alcove lined with high-viz jackets on one side and a little sink on the other. The door to the gents lurked beyond the coats, the sounds of whistling coming from within. Past the alcove was the canteen, where, apparently, one of the nuns was doing something sacrilegious with a cucumber. Then the door through to the main office.

A plainclothes officer peered out of it into the corridor. She frowned at them. ‘Sorry, but has anyone seen DS Robertson? Anyone? No?’

Laughter burst from the canteen as whatever the punchline was arrived.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Never mind.’ Then marched across the hall into the canteen, where all hilarity immediately ceased.

‘My station is infested.’ Inspector McGregor glowered at the open door for a moment, then smoothed down her black police-issue T-shirt. ‘Logan, DCI Steel tells me you identified her murder victim and a possible suspect.’

‘She did?’ He pulled his chin in, backing away from the subject. ‘That’s a bit out of character. Normally you can’t prise credit out of her with laxatives and a crowbar.’

Especially given how they’d left things: him ditching her to come back here, her storming off to Whitehills with Rennie. And Steel was giving him credit?

‘Apparently your assistance has been invaluable in progressing her investigation.’

‘OK, now you’re scaring me.’

There was a thump and a rattle. Then the door to the tiny gents loo opened and a large bearded man in a baggy suit appeared, hauling his trousers up around his armpits. He pulled the door shut. ‘Sergeant. Ma’am.’ He turned the taps on above the little sink and washed his hands. ‘I’d give it five minutes if I were you.’

McGregor narrowed her eyes. ‘Infested.’ Then she turned and marched down the corridor. ‘Logan: heel.’

Logan followed her through the main office with its collection of new people — all bashing away at the phones and laptops — out and round into the stairwell — where a lumpy man in a lumpier suit was blethering away into his mobile — and up the winding wooden steps to the first floor. Where they had to squeeze past two officers womanhandling a desk along the landing.

McGregor led the way through a blue door that had ‘BANFF & BUCHAN INSPECTOR’ printed out on a laminated sheet of paper on it, mounted beneath a removable brass nameplate: ‘WENDY MCGREGOR ~ INSPECTOR’.

As soon as Logan was inside, she slammed it shut.

Just like the Fraserburgh Inspectors’ Office, there were a pair of corkboards mounted on opposite walls. One with a map of B Division, the other a street map of Banff and Macduff. But where Fraserburgh was all beech units and sleek modern lines, this one had the same high ceilings as the rest of the station, fancy cornices, and a moulded ceiling rose. Two windows sat in the corner of the room, the left-hand one giving a rain-streaked view of the street, the one straight ahead overlooking the car park and the bay.

She stamped across the blue carpet and hurled herself into the seat behind her desk. ‘They’re like... bloody... vermin! They’ve eaten all the Maltesers from the vending machine, we can’t keep milk in the fridge,’ she leaned forwards and jabbed a finger against her mouse mat, ‘and I had a whole malt loaf here yesterday. Now there’s nothing left but the wrapper. There’s not even crumbs; they licked it clean!’

Logan stood to attention. Kept his mouth shut.

Probably safest. Just in case she felt like lashing out at someone. Best not to give her an excuse.

‘I want them gone, Logan.’ She swivelled left and right in her chair. ‘I want them gone.’

Waves surged along the darkened beach.

She hissed out a breath, then spread her hands along the desk. ‘DI Steel has put in a formal request to the Area Commander. She wants you seconded to her Major Investigation Team for the duration.’

The crafty, conniving, manipulative, old bag. So that’s why Steel was so keen to share the credit for identifying Peter Shepherd and Martin Milne. She wanted Logan running around after her again, solving her cases, doing her job for her. Just like the bad old days.

That or she wanted to keep him close, so she could torture him.

‘Yeah... Erm... About that, Guv, I mean, I’ve got a division to run.’ He held up a hand. ‘I’m not saying Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and Mintlaw can’t look after themselves, but we both know they need a grown-up in charge to make sure they’re not all off eating Plasticine and sticking marbles up their noses.’

‘Steel says you’ve proven yourself a valuable resource in progressing the case.’

‘And then there’s the dunt.’ He shifted his feet on the standard-issue blue carpet tiles. ‘We need to get set for bashing in Ricky Welsh’s door and—’

‘She says your experience and local knowledge is an invaluable asset.’

‘It’s simply not possible. I need to be here so we can—’

‘I want them gone, Logan.’

‘But—’

McGregor leaned forward. ‘I — want — them — gone!’ Jabbing the desk with every word. ‘As I see it, letting the DCI borrow you means her bunch of noisy, messy, smelly, sticky vermin get out of my station that much sooner.’

‘But the division...?’

McGregor sat back in her seat. ‘Sergeant Stubbs will fill in for you as Duty Sergeant. She’s been moaning about getting more responsibility: let’s see how she likes having to supervise every station from Portsoy to Cruden Bay. That should shut her up for a bit.’

‘Great. So my job’s a punishment now?’

‘Hopefully. And someone needs to run your team here.’

Sod standing to attention. Logan slumped into one of the visitors’ chairs. ‘What about Laura and Ricky Welsh?’

‘I was thinking Nicholson could act up while you’re away. She’s done her sergeant’s exam, it’ll be a good development opportunity for her.’

He let his head fall back. There was a dirty big spider, wandering across the ceiling rose. ‘But it was my dunt.’

‘A major drugs raid is probably a bit much for Nicholson’s first full day in the role. You’d better hand everything over to Sergeant Ashton when she gets on at three. She can green-shift it.’

‘Gagh...’ Logan’s arms dangled at his sides, fingertips brushing the carpet. ‘Please?’

‘Oh don’t be such a baby. Get out there, find Martin Milne, and get him banged up. The sooner you do, the sooner my station gets fumigated.’

Calamity’s eyes widened as she settled into Logan’s seat. She ran her hands along the desk. ‘Really?’

‘Don’t get too comfy, it’s only till I can wriggle out of the MIT.’ Logan leaned back against the firearms store door. ‘Sergeant Stubbs is your new Duty Sergeant, she’ll keep you right. And Sergeant Ashton will run the dunt on Sunday night. Other than that: it’s all yours.’

A nod. ‘Stubby and Beaky, got you.’ Then she curled her lip and sniffed. ‘Has something died in here?’

Logan narrowed his eyes. ‘Not yet, but it can be arranged.’

She was right, though: the place did have a whiff of mouldy sausages about it. To be honest, the Sergeants’ Office wasn’t the nicest room in the station. It needed a coat of paint for a start: the magnolia was peeling off around the skirting boards and cornices, and the high ceiling had a suspicious coffee-coloured stain spreading out from one corner. Hopefully not from the male toilets on the floor above.

Two desks were jammed in, back to back, each with its own manky old computer, in-tray, and phone. A line of body-worn video units blinked away in the holder, lined up like dominos. The station’s only CCTV monitor lurked on its mount in the corner, with views of the empty cellblocks and public areas in ten little windows.

Not exactly homey.

‘If anything happens you can give me a ring. But as of now, you’re acting up.’

She stroked the desk again and lowered her voice to a hissing whisper, ‘My precioussssssssssss...’

‘And make sure you keep an eye on Tufty. He’s not had a complaint against him in four months, let’s keep it that way. And if he starts banging on about time and entropy, you have my permission to kick his—’ Logan’s phone rang and he pulled it out. ‘Hold on.’ Then pressed the button. ‘McRae.’

‘Yeah, hi, Mr McRae. It’s John?’

Took a moment, but then it clicked. John Urquhart. Wee Hamish’s designated driver. ‘Give me a minute.’ He held his hand over the microphone and grimaced at Calamity. ‘Got to take this.’ Then slipped out of the door, through the bedlam of the main office, past the stairwell, down the corridor, and into the old cellblock.

Pale blue walls, grey-blue floor, an ancient wooden desk/unit thing, and two cells.

No sign of Steel’s sticky minions.

Better safe than sorry, though. Logan pulled open the door to cell number two and slipped inside. It was a small magnolia box of a room, with a glass-brick window and grey-painted concrete floor. The blue plastic mattress had been propped up against the wall, one end resting on the ankle-high concrete sleeping platform.

He closed the cell door and took his hand off the microphone. ‘Mr Urquhart.’

‘You heard the news, right? Mr Mowat passed away last night.’ His voice sounded thick and forced, as if someone was choking him. ‘Doctor says it was pretty painless.’ A sniff. ‘He would say that, though. We find out it was anything but, and he’s going home without legs.’

‘Yes. I heard. I’m sorry.’ For more than one reason.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ Urquhart cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, funeral’s at half twelve, Friday, Old Ardoe Kirk. No flowers. Be good to see you there.’

Logan let the silence grow.

Urquhart puffed out a breath. ‘And Reuben wants me to pass on a message. He says you’ve got one last chance to get with the team. Which is kinda unique, normally he goes from nought to wrath-of-God like that.’ A clicking noise.

‘I’m a police officer.’

‘There’s a guy called Stevie Fowler going to be in your neck of the woods next week. You collect a package from him and keep it somewhere safe till Reuben tells you who to hand it over to and where.’

Even though there’d been no one banged up in the cells for over a decade, the power was still on. There was a radiator hidden inside the ceiling — behind the render — and it belted out heat, making the tips of his ears glow. ‘What’s in the package?’

‘Don’t tell anyone you’ve got it, and squirrel it really out of the way. OK?’

‘What — is — it?’

‘No idea.’

Logan raised his chin. ‘And if I don’t?’

Urquhart sighed. ‘Then Reuben sends round the three guys in the Transit van, and you get to feed the pigs.’

Not much of a choice, was it?

Become a crooked cop or die.

Samantha’s voice was warm and soft in his other ear. ‘Or you could kill Reuben. You won’t have to do favours for him if he’s dead.’

Logan licked his lips. ‘I can’t.’

‘Mr McRae, you can... Look, it doesn’t have to be like this.’ A deep breath sounded in the speaker. ‘You can still take over from Mr Mowat, like he wanted.’

‘Kill him.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Get that rifle from the firearms store and blow his big fat head off.’

‘If you took over, you could get the guys in the van to go pick Reuben up instead. Turn him into pig food.’

From Duty Sergeant in B Division to head of Aberdeen’s biggest criminal empire in one easy step.

Yeah.

Right.

Samantha’s lips brushed his ear. ‘One way or the other, he has to die.’

Logan closed his eyes and leaned forward until his forehead thunked against the cell wall. ‘Steve Fowler. When and where?’

12

Rain lashed the window, rattling the glass in its peeling wooden frame. ‘Well I hope you’re happy.’

The little room was a bit of a hole. Wedged in at the top of the stairs, the walls were close enough to reach out and touch with both hands. And yet, somehow, Steel’s minions had managed to cram a desk and two chairs in, amongst the filing cabinet, a filing cupboard, and the two lockers that usually lived there.

On the other end of the phone, Steel’s voice was all tinny and echoey — as if she was calling from inside a porta potty. ‘Aye, I’m dancing a jig here, can you no’ hear the band?’ She blew a wet raspberry.

Whoever had shifted the desk in had piled all the existing boxes of files into the corner, where it made a wobbly tower of grey cardboard and archived crimes.

‘Wifie Milne swears blind her husband’s no’ run off. He’s a model husband and father.’

Logan sat on the edge of the desk. ‘You didn’t show her the photos then?’

‘No, but it’s going to come out eventually, Laz. Can’t protect her forever.’

‘What about holiday homes, or family and friends?’

‘If you were her, would you want the first time you hear about your hubby having threeways and hot man-on-man action with his business partner to be right there, in open court? When the defence try to make out he’d never kill Shepherd because he loved him? Several times a week. Oh, and here’s the photographic evidence.’

She had a point.

‘We need to get posters up at all the ports and stations. Set up a Scotland-wide lookout request.’

‘Do we? Wow. I’d no’ have thought of that all by my little old self. Good job we’ve got a big strong man like you on the team to keep us right.’

Logan scowled at the carpet tiles. Someone had tried to fix a couple of them with duct tape. ‘Are you finished?’

‘Becky’s already done it. Now get rid of the PC Plod outfit: I want your scarred backside in a fighting suit and ready to go in ten. You, me, and the boy Rennie are off on a family outing to Peterhead.’ The grin was obvious in her voice. ‘Be just like old times.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

Rennie peered out of the car windscreen. ‘How do you think you pronounce it? Gayrod? Geeirod? Jerryod?’

Rain dripped off the big green sign: ‘GEIRRØD ~ CONTAINER MANAGEMENT AND LOGISTICS’ with the same Viking logo Milne and Shepherd had been wearing in the photo. An angry bearded man, in a winged helmet, with a double-headed axe in his hands.

The sign sat in front of a bland two-storey office block of brick and glass, with a handful of cars parked out front on a stretch of potholed tarmac. A security hut sat to one side, where a fat old man watched the metal barrier that controlled entrance to the container yard. The whole place was wrapped around with chain-link fence, punctuated with warning notices about razor wire and guard dogs patrolling this area.

Steel reached across from the passenger seat and whacked Rennie on the arm. ‘Yes, because they set up a company, and called it “Gay-Rod”.’

‘Ow.’

‘Well, don’t be so homophobic. What, two blokes are shagging each other so they’re going to call their company “Gay-Rod”?’

Sitting in the back, Logan kept his mouth shut.

She gave Rennie another thump. ‘That’s a “slashed O”, you ignorant spud. It’s pronounced “eau”.’ Steel made a noise like a dying sheep. ‘Now park.’

He lumped the pool car through the holes and into the spot marked ‘VISITORS’ by the front door. Then sat there, rubbing his arm. ‘Why have you got to be so horrible?’

‘I’ll be horrible to your backside with my boot in a minute.’

Yeah, just like old times.

Logan unclipped his seatbelt and climbed out of the car.

Heavy grey clouds covered most of the sky, but at least it had stopped raining. There was even a patch of blue big enough to let shafts of golden light shine through. They set off a glowing rainbow above the power station in the distance.

GCML’s office and yard sat on the southernmost corner of a small industrial estate. Lots of chunks of machinery and pipes, locked away behind high fences. A place that specialized in refrigerated lorries sat across the road, the sound of shrieking metal coming from a large open-fronted garage.

Steel slammed her door shut, then had a dig at her bra — jiggling its contents. ‘Right, listen up, children. You will be on your best behaviour. You will do what you’re told. You,’ she pointed at Rennie as he locked the car, ‘will no’ embarrass me. Are we clear?’

He stuck his nose in the air. ‘Not going to dignify that with an answer.’

‘Right, here’s the plan: I want... Hoy, Laz, where do you think you’re going?’

‘To do your job for you.’ Logan marched up the steps and into the building. ‘As usual.’

Reception was a small room with a row of plastic seats along one wall and a closed hatch in the other. A doorbell sat on the counter, with ‘RING FOR ATTENTION’ on a small plastic plaque.

He did.

Steel bustled in behind him. ‘Cheeky sod.’ She peered at the sign next to the bell. Then mashed her thumb down on the button. Holding it there as the sound of ringing droned out somewhere inside the building. ‘SHOP! ANYONE IN? COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP! HELLO? SHOP!’

Logan slapped her hand away and the ringing stopped. ‘OK, I think they heard you.’

She raised an eyebrow and stared at him. ‘Where’d you get that suit, Tramps-R-Us?’

‘We kick off with the third partner — the financial director. Assuming he’s not disappeared as well.’

‘Looks more like a sleeping bag than a suit.’

‘Then we split the staff in three, take one third each.’

‘Trousers are hanging off you.’

‘Anyone seems a bit sketchy, we double up on them.’

‘And that’s possibly the ugliest tie I’ve ever seen.’

He glanced down at it: blue with tiny red dots. ‘Jasmine gave me this for Christmas.’

‘She did?’ A frown. ‘For a seven-year-old, she’s got horrible fashion sense.’

‘Maybe Martin Milne has an accomplice?’

‘She gets that from your side of the family.’ Steel banged her open palm down on the desk. Bang. Bang. Bang. ‘SHOP! HELLO? GET A SHIFT ON!’

‘We should get Rennie to run a quick PNC check on all the employees before we start.’

‘They never warn you about that when you get your wife up the stick with a turkey baster, do they? Warning: donor sperm may cause your child to buy ugly ties.’

Logan stared at her. ‘Are you finished?’

A grin. ‘Any other skeletons lurking in your family cupboard I should know about? Any history of mental abnormality?’ Steel went back to hoiking at her underwear. ‘Mind you, I’ve met your mum, she’s about as normal as morris dancing. What about your dad, was he a nutter too? Suppose he must’ve been to marry your mum.’

‘Can we get back to the case, please?’

The hatch rattled open, revealing an orange-skinned bottle-blonde in a polo shirt and fleece — both of which had the Geirrød logo on them. She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes, playing the coy young thing. Which, given the fact that she had to be pushing fifty, was a bit of a stretch.

Steel sniffed. ‘Beginning to think you didn’t exist.’

The smile slipped a little, leaving its wrinkles behind. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Aye: your financial director about?’

‘I’m afraid Mr Chapman is very busy. Do you have an appointment?’

Steel pulled out her warrant card. Held it under the woman’s nose. ‘And while you’re at it, I’ll have a coffee. Milk and two.’

‘I don’t know, all right? I don’t know.’ Brian Chapman paced back and forth, in front of his office window. The room sat on the first floor, looking down on the rows of containers laid out in the yard. Chapman ran a hand through what was left of his hair, pausing to tweak the big brown mole growing just above his right eyebrow. As if he were trying to tune his head in. Dark stains lurked in the armpit of his denim shirt. A smudge of dirt on the backside of his tan chinos. He got to the line of filing cabinets and started back again. ‘If I knew where he was, I’d tell you. Believe me.’ His other hand clenched into a fist, then spread out, then clenched, then spread. Like a throbbing pulse.

Steel slouched in her seat, dunking a chocolate biscuit in a mug of coffee. ‘What about Shepherd, you been in touch with him?’

Chapman stopped pacing and glared at the mound of paperwork on his desk. ‘Oh, I’ve tried. If I get my hands on him, he’s dead. I’ll bloody kill him.’ Then Chapman must have remembered who he was talking to, because he licked his lips, then went back to pacing again. ‘You know what I mean.’

Logan tilted his head to one side. ‘Why don’t you explain it to us?’

‘Do you know what I got yesterday? Do you know what came in the post?’ He dug into the pile and pulled out a letter. Waved it at them. ‘What the hell were they thinking?’

Steel clicked her fingers and Chapman handed the letter over. She squinted at it for a bit, then held it out to Logan. ‘Do the honours.’

The Royal Bank of Scotland logo sat in the top corner. ‘It’s from the bank. A final demand on a loan of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, plus interest.’

‘First I’d heard of it was when it landed on my desk. I’m supposed to be the financial director. How can I financially direct if I haven’t got a clue what’s going on?’

A shrug from Steel. ‘So pay it off.’

‘How? What with?’ He held his arms out, exposing the stains again. ‘Magic fairy-dust and wishes? We’re skint!’

‘Oh.’

‘I’ve managed to keep us afloat this long, but the downturn in the oil price is killing us. No one wants to pay for anything any more. I had to lay three people off last week. Do you have any idea what that feels like?’ He reached across the desk and snatched the letter from Logan. ‘So I phoned the bank and told them it had to be a mistake. We hadn’t borrowed any money. And do you know what I found out?’ Chapman scrunched the letter into a ball and hurled it at the wall. ‘I found out that this isn’t the only loan. There’s another one for seventy-five thousand that’s due in three weeks.’ Spittle flew from his lips. ‘THREE WEEKS!’

His face had taken on an unhealthy redness, his whole body trembled. ‘I’ll bloody kill the pair of them.’

‘Aye, well, we can save you the trouble there, Brian.’ Steel licked the melted chocolate off her bit of biscuit then dunked it again. ‘We found Peter Shepherd’s body, dumped in the woods, yesterday morning.’

Chapman froze. ‘Peter’s dead?’ He sank into his office chair and blinked at them, mouth hanging open. ‘I can’t... He’s really dead?’

Logan pointed at the letter, lying crumpled on the floor. ‘Who took the loans out?’

‘Peter and Martin. They countersigned for each other, with the business as guarantee. Two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds we don’t have.’ His hand crept up and twiddled the mole again. ‘I’m going to have to call in the liquidators.’

‘What did they use the money for?’

‘I’ll lose everything. We put our houses up as collateral when we started the business. Oh God...’

‘Did they buy equipment, or supplies?’

‘It never even touched the company bank account.’ His eyes shone, the tip of his nose reddened. ‘They had the money paid into a different account then emptied it. What am I supposed to tell Linda?’

Steel polished off the last of her biscuit. ‘How come you didn’t call us soon as you got the letter, Brian? You know we’re looking for Martin Milne.’

‘Why didn’t...? I’ve been trying to save the company, that’s why!’ The tears broke free, dribbling down his flushed cheeks. ‘I’ve been trying to save everyone’s jobs. I’ve been too busy finding out how screwed I am.’ He scrubbed a hand across his face. ‘They took the money, they lumbered me with the debt, and then they disappeared. Martin and Peter can burn in hell for all I care.’

Steel blew a lopsided cloud of steam into the drizzle. ‘Any luck?’

‘Nope.’ Rennie checked his phone. ‘Most we’ve got is a couple of outstanding parking tickets, and one guy not allowed within two hundred yards of his ex-wife.’

‘Can’t say we haven’t got a motive now.’ Logan stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. Say what you like about Police-Scotland-issue itchy-trousers-stabproof-vest-and-high-viz-jacket combination, at least it kept you warm.

The container yard was full of large metal boxes, all painted blue with a big angry-Viking logo on the side. Some were just about big enough to park Logan’s Fiat Punto in, others could’ve fitted a full-sized minibus. Some with external refrigeration units, others with fancy sliding doors. Like the one they were standing in, sheltering from the thin misty rain.

‘What about the death message? Those lazy Weegie sods delivered it yet?’

Rennie nodded. ‘Becky says Greater Glasgow Division tracked down Shepherd’s next of kin half an hour ago.’

‘Cool. Tell the Media Office I want a slot on the evening news. Appeal for witnesses, heinous crime, blah, blah, blah.’

Logan checked his watch. ‘Better head back to Banff. Shift ends in forty minutes.’

‘You’re no’ in the Bunnet Brigade today, Laz, you’re in the Magnificent Intellectual Team. We don’t do shifts. Shifts are for the weak, remember?’

He closed his eyes and thunked the back of his head off the container’s metal wall, getting a ringing bonggggg in return.

‘Rennie, how many of these GCML monkeys we got left?’

‘Erm... Just the receptionist.’

‘Right, you trot off like a good wee boy and have a word with her. And try no’ to fall for her wrinkly sunbed charm, we all know how you like an older woman. Pervert.’

Rennie sloped off into the rain.

Steel waited till he’d disappeared back into the office building. Then took a long drag on her e-cigarette. ‘Who told you about Jack Wallace?’

‘Who is he?’

She shrugged. ‘A paedo. Caught him with a big wodge of kiddy porn on his laptop.’ Another drag. ‘It was Napier, wasn’t it?’

‘Wanted me to keep an eye on you. See if you mentioned Wallace.’

‘Gah.’ She worked a finger down into her cleavage and had a rummage. ‘Told you, didn’t I? Napier’s hit his thirty years and they’re chucking him out to pasture. Slimy wee sod’s been holding on by his fingernails since the re-org.’ Dig, rummage, fiddle. ‘How do you think it plays back home when we’ve got one Chief Superintendent in charge of the whole division, and there’s Napier, same rank, spodding about in Professional Standards? Big Tony Campbell’s been trying to get shot of him for ages.’

‘So why’s he interested in Wallace?’

‘He’s just on the sniff. Doesn’t want to slump off into obscurity without first screwing over one more poor sod.’

Logan stepped in front of her. ‘So there’s nothing dodgy going on?’

‘Sod, and indeed, all. Forget about it.’ More rummaging. ‘You know what I think?’

Logan waited.

Dig. Fiddle. Hoik. ‘I think this is Susan’s bra.’

13

Steel put the cap back on her marker pen. ‘Any questions?’

There weren’t as many people in the Major Incident Room as there had been for the morning meeting — about half of them were away doing things — but that still left a dozen plainclothes officers. They sat around the conference table, chairs all turned towards the whiteboard. Behind them, Logan leaned back against the wall, stifling a yawn.

Should’ve been home by now.

DS McKenzie put her hand up. ‘So are we treating this as a crime of passion, Guv? Or is it all about the cash?’

‘Crime of passion?’

‘Yeah, maybe Milne finds out Shepherd isn’t as faithful as he thought? Maybe he’s shagging someone else behind his back? Or maybe the bag over his head’s a kind of autoerotic asphyxiation thing?’

Steel stared at her. ‘Bit extreme for a stranglewank, isn’t it, Becky? Don’t know about your love life, but when I’m doing your mum I tend to draw the line at duct-taping a bin-bag over her head.’

Becky folded her arms across her chest, chin in the air. ‘So it’s money.’

‘Two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds of it.’ She turned and underlined the figure on the board. It sat between a photo of Shepherd and one of Milne. One titled ‘VICTIM’ the other, ‘SUSPECT #1’.

A huge DC in an ill-fitting suit stopped doodling penguins on his notepad. It was Rennie’s friend from yesterday, the one with the awful teeth. ‘What about this gangland angle? We ignoring that now?’

Steel stuck her nose in the air. ‘We are ignoring nothing, Owen. We’re focusing our resources. And just for that, you’re searching Shepherd’s place again. You, Donna, and Spaver. Fine-toothed comb this time.’

His shoulders slumped. ‘Guv.’

‘Robertson?’

A whippet-thin man with horrible sideburns nodded. ‘Guv?’

She chucked a flash drive across the table to him. ‘Homemade porn from Shepherd’s house. Between wanks, I want you IDing everyone on there. Background checks and interviews.’

‘Guv.’

Then Steel held her arms out, as if she was about to bless everyone in the room. ‘Now get your sharny backsides out there and find me Martin Milne.’

Chairs were scraped back, and, one by one, the team shuffled out of the room.

Logan didn’t bother to hide the yawn this time as Steel shut the door behind them.

‘No’ boring you, are we?’ She dug out her phone and poked at the screen for a moment, then put it against her ear. ‘Make yourself useful and grab us a coffee will you? And some cake. Or biscuits. Crisps will do at a—’ She held up a hand and turned away from him. ‘Super? Yeah, it’s Roberta. Just wanted you to know we’ve got a suspect and a motive for the Shepherd murder. I’ve got a slot booked on the news, so if—... No... Yeah, I know they think it’s the same MO, but listen, we—... No, sir... Yes, sir. But we—’ Steel marched over to one of the room’s two windows and stood there, glaring out at the rain. ‘I understand that, sir, but we’re making progress here. I’m making progress. And—... No. OK... Bye.’

Steel lowered her phone. Then swore at it.

‘Good news?’

She turned and glared at him instead. ‘Sodding Superintendent Sodding Young says we’re getting a sodding babysitter.’ Steel jammed her e-cigarette in her mouth and chewed on the end. ‘Some arsebag Central-Belt bumwarden from Forth Valley Division. Apparently she’s an expert on Malk the Knife. Apparently she’s very efficient and good at her job. Apparently she’s already on her way.’

Logan tried not to smile, he really did. ‘Not nice when someone waltzes in and takes over your case, is it?’

‘Oh ha, ha.’ Steel thumped herself down on the windowsill, rattling the blinds. ‘Any chance we can catch Milne and beat a confession out of him in the next,’ she checked her watch, ‘hour?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Well, look at you, all booted and suited.’ Sergeant Ashton leaned back in her chair and gave him the once-over. She’d had her hair done again, blonde highlights and brown lowlights giving her head the look of a humbug that’d fallen down the back of the sofa and got all fuzzy. ‘To what do I owe the honour?’

Piles of boxes littered the Sergeants’ Office, all of them tagged and sealed. Some used to contain crisps, some frozen peas. Some had willies drawn on the outside.

Logan settled into the seat opposite. ‘Aye, aye, Beaky. Foos yer doos, the day then?’

‘You’re getting better. But for maximum teuchterness it should be “i’ day”, not “the day”.’

He nodded at the boxes. ‘Has Mum been to Iceland?’

‘Confiscated them from a van in Macduff. Counterfeit handbags.’ She pointed. ‘Might have something that’ll go with your outfit, but you’ll need nicer shoes.’

‘Did Inspector McGregor speak to you about my dunt?’

She grinned. ‘It’s my dunt now, Laz. I’ll be getting all the credit.’

‘You remembering it’s Ricky and Laura Welsh?’

‘There is that.’ Beaky pulled her lips in and chewed on them for a bit. ‘I’ve got a fiver on no one gets hospitalized, which is about as likely as Scotland winning the next World Cup. But what can you do? Got to at least pretend it’ll all go to plan.’

‘Keep me in the loop though, eh?’

‘Anything else I should know about?’

‘Tufty’s got one shift to go till he’s a proper police officer. Try and keep him out of trouble on Sunday night.’

‘They grow up so fast, don’t they?’

‘Oh, and can you and your hired thugs do me a favour? Keep an eye on Portsoy tonight. Some wee sod’s been setting fire to people’s wheelie bins. Be nice to catch him before he graduates to houses.’

‘Think I can manage that. We’ve got—’

A knock on the door, then it opened. One of Beaky’s PCs loomed on the threshold, his shoulders hunched and his face in need of a shave. ‘Sorry, Sarge, but Sergeant McRae’s got a visitor.’

Beaky wafted a hand at him. ‘Tell whoever it is to park their bum. We’re doing important handovery stuff here.’

‘Yeah...’ He grimaced. ‘No offence, but Sergeant McRae’s visitor is way above my pay grade.’ The constable held a hand six inches over his own head. ‘Like way above.’

Logan raised an eyebrow. That would be Steel’s babysitter, the Superintendent, arrived from C Division ahead of schedule and itching to take over. Probably wanted to debrief him in person, after all, he was the one who ID’d the victim and the killer. ‘Ah well.’ He stood, stretched.

Sergeant Ashton tucked her hands into her fleece pockets. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your team while you’re off playing cops and robbers.’

‘Thanks, Beaky, yir a fine quine.’

‘You’re a knapdarloch yourself, Laz.’

Whatever that meant.

The PC flattened himself against the doorframe, and pointed past the photocopier, at the corridor. ‘He’s in the canteen.’

He? Didn’t Steel say it was a she?

Still, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d got that wrong.

Logan crossed the corridor and into the canteen.

A table stuck into the middle of the room like a breakfast bar, with three chairs on either side and what looked like an empty box from the baker’s on top. Doughnuts, going by the crime-scene trail of blood-red jam on the black tabletop and the trails of castor sugar.

His visitor was in the corner, with his back to the room, pouring boiling water into a mug. Full Police Scotland black outfit — the shoes, the trousers, the fleece — but instead of the expected three pips on the epaulettes, there was one pip and a crown. His red hair was swept back, not quite covering the expanding bald patch at the back.

Not Steel’s babysitter after all. Something far worse.

Sod.

He was humming a wee tune to himself, away in his own happy little world.

It wasn’t too late. Could back away right now and sneak off. Get in a car and...

Chief Superintendent Napier turned around and raised his mug. ‘Ah, Sergeant McRae, the very man I wanted to see.’ His long thin nose twitched. ‘Do you have any milk?’

Logan cleared his throat. ‘Milk. Right.’ He crossed to the fridge, opened it, and pulled out the big four-litre plastic container of semi-skimmed. Gave it a shoogle. Empty. ‘Sorry, sir, the MIT must have drunk it.’

‘Oh now, that is disappointing.’ He poured the contents of the mug down the sink. ‘I think, in that case, we should go for a walk, don’t you? That might lift our spirits on a cold February afternoon. We could buy the station some more milk.’

‘Milk. Right.’

Napier’s smile wouldn’t have been out of place on a serial killer. ‘You said that already.’

‘Yes.’

Oh bloody hell.

He pointed a long thin finger at the windowsill, where a piggybank sat next to a white concrete gnome. Someone had painted angry black eyebrows on the gnome and stuck a little paper dagger in his hand. ‘Shall I put thirty pence in the bank, or do you think buying the milk will cover it?’

Logan licked his lips. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Wind growled along Banff Bay, whipping the water into lines of white peaks. Bringing with it the smell of seaweed and death.

The tide was out, and Napier’s thin feet left bullet-shaped marks in the wet sand. ‘Bracing, isn’t it?’ He’d pulled on a peaked cap — complete with waterproof shower-cap-style cover — and a high-viz jacket. Rain pattered against the fluorescent yellow material.

Logan trudged along beside him, suit trousers rippling against his legs, water dripping from his own high-viz gear. No condom on his hat though, thank you very much. Might have been practical, but it made you look a complete tit. ‘No offence, sir, but you didn’t come all the way up here to walk about in the freezing rain.’

‘Perceptive as ever, Sergeant.’ A sigh. ‘I’ve spent most of my thirty years in Professional Standards, Logan. Oh, I did my stint in CID, the GED, on the beat, in the control room, even a short period seconded to the Home Office. But when I joined Professional Standards, I knew this was what I wanted to do with my career.’

A young woman in a stripy top went by the other way, long curly dark hair streaming out behind her like a flag, a wee Scottie dog bounding along at her side — its black fur clarty with wet sand and mud.

‘It was my first case that did it: investigating a sergeant who’d taken money from a local businessman to look the other way in a rape investigation. The businessman had broken a poor woman’s jaw and nose, cracked three of her ribs, and dislocated her shoulder. Then he raped her three times. She was nineteen.’

Out in the distance, the lights of a supply vessel winked, probably tying up to ride out the storm.

‘Imagine that. There you are, supposedly investigating a serious sexual assault, and you know who did it, but instead of building a case, arresting, and prosecuting the criminal, you stick your hand out and demand three thousand pounds. And three thousand pounds was a lot of money in those days.’

Napier stopped, and stared out to sea. ‘That’s what I’ve spent my career doing, Logan. Tracking down the bribe-takers, the constables that steal from crime scenes, the officers who think it’s perfectly acceptable to beat a confession out of someone, or to demand sexual favours in return for facilitating prostitution. Money. Drugs. Violence. Privilege.’

Logan turned his back on the wind, hunching his shoulders. The young woman was a faint figure in the distance, the dirty wee Scottie dog nearly invisible.

A smile twitched at Napier’s lips. ‘We police the police. We make sure the force can hold its head up high and say to the people, “Believe in us. Trust us. Because no one is above the law, not even us.”’ He shrugged. ‘And instead of being grateful that we weed out the rot in their midst, our fellow officers call us Rubber Heelers, and sinister bastards, and all sorts of pejorative nicknames. Make the sign of the cross when they think we’re not looking.’

There had to be a reason for this strange little heart-to-heart.

Logan’s stomach clenched.

Oh God. What if he’d found out about the trip to Wee Hamish’s deathbed? What if Reuben had decided to screw him over after all? What if Napier knew all about Urquhart buying Logan’s flat for twenty thousand pounds over the asking price? Or that he’d agreed to pick up Steve Fowler’s mystery package?

Napier turned and walked on. ‘Other officers look at us the way that junkies and thieves look at you, Logan. Waiting for the long arm of the law to fall upon their shoulders.’

And why here? Why do this out in the freezing cold not-so-great outdoors? Why not back at the station with a witnessing officer and a video camera?

Maybe he was going to cut Logan a deal? Something not quite legal: that was why he needed seclusion to do it.

The beach curled around to the right, where the bay became the River Deveron. But before they got that far, Napier stopped again. ‘Tell me, Logan, what do you know about Jack Wallace?’

Logan blinked. OK, wasn’t expecting that. ‘Not much. He’s a paedophile?’

‘Jack Wallace, thirty-two, currently serving six years for possession of indecent images of children.’

‘Good.’

‘Is it?’ Napier turned and marched up the beach, leaving the sand behind for a line of grass. ‘What if Jack Wallace isn’t a paedophile after all? What if evidence has emerged that suggests his conviction is unsafe? What if the images found on his laptop were planted there?’

Past a low wall topped with a brown picket fence, and out onto the pavement.

Logan grabbed his arm. ‘Why?’

‘The evidence used to convict Wallace all came from DCI Steel. No corroboration, no paper trail, just a laptop with images of child abuse on it.’ He peered over Logan’s shoulder, across the road. ‘Ah, look: a Co-op. We can get milk there.’

‘Are you saying Steel fitted him up?’

‘Jack Wallace had no history of child abuse. No hints. No warnings. No suspicions. And then, one day, all of a sudden his laptop is full of kiddy porn. Does that not strike you as suspicious?’

‘Not really. He was good at covering his tracks. Some of them get away with it their whole lives.’

‘That’s true.’ Napier wandered across the road, past the boarded-up garage. ‘Tell me, Logan, do you think DCI Steel is the kind of officer who would fabricate evidence? Who’d bend the rules to get a result? Even if she had to bend them so far they shattered?’

‘No.’ Of course she would, but there was no way in hell he was telling Napier that.

‘I see.’

They passed the bus shelter, where a young man in a sodden hoodie slouched with a pushchair. Fag in his mouth as he texted away.

‘These are serious allegations, Logan. There has to be an investigation: a thorough one. If Detective Chief Inspector Steel’s done nothing wrong, then we’ll exonerate her. But if I find out that she’s perverted the course of justice, she’ll find herself on the receiving end of an eight-year stretch in Glenochil.’

Napier pulled a packet of fruit pastilles from his pocket, helped himself to one, then held them out to Logan. ‘This isn’t the 1970s, it’s not The Sweeney or Life on Mars. The modern police force has to be squeaky clean, or we’re no better than the thugs and politicians.’

The pastilles hovered between them.

‘What’s it got to do with me?’

‘You know DCI Steel. You’ve worked for her. You know her methods. You have her confidence. The people working for her now — the MIT — they can’t be relied upon, they’re in her thrall. But you’ve been all the way up here in B Division for over a year, beyond her grasp.’

‘How do you know I won’t go right back there and tell her everything you’ve just told me?’

‘Do you have any idea how many times I’ve investigated you over the last decade? Many, many, many times. And each time it’s turned out that you were in the right all along. No one’s that good at covering their tracks. You’re an honest man, Logan McRae.’

Logan’s fingers twitched, then drifted up towards the packet.

‘Of course, I could force the issue: get you formally seconded to Professional Standards, but I don’t want that. I want you to help because this is what’s best for DCI Steel and Police Scotland. A thorough investigation to either clear her name, or... Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.’

‘I see.’ The investigation was going to happen whether he helped out or not. And if he didn’t, it would simply give Napier an excuse to start grubbing about in Logan’s business too.

Yeah, that really, really wouldn’t turn out well.

And maybe Napier was right? Maybe this was for Steel’s own good? An investigation would clear her name and that would be that. And if Logan was involved he could make sure no one jumped to the wrong conclusions. Napier could retire and everyone else could get on with their disaster-ridden lives.

So why not?

Logan took the top pastille and popped it in his mouth. Lime. ‘Suppose I said yes, and I’m not, I’m only asking. But if I said yes, what would you want me to do?’

14

‘Ooh, here we go.’ Steel settled into one of the canteen chairs. ‘Turn it up, turn it up.’

Logan picked the remote off the table and pointed it at the TV mounted on a shelf above the recycling bins. Cranked up the volume. Then grimaced. The remote was all gritty and sticky. ‘For God’s sake...’ The thing was smeared with blobs of doughnut jam and a dusting of castor sugar.

‘Shhh!’

On the screen, a newsreader in a serious suit frowned for the camera. Behind them, Banff station lurked in the rain, water dripping from the curlicues and semi-balconies. ‘Thank you, Stacy. Police Scotland have named the man found in woods outside of Macduff, Aberdeenshire, yesterday as Peter Shepherd. Mr Shepherd, a director at a support services company...’

Logan dumped the remote on the draining board and washed the sticky off his hands. ‘Inspector McGregor’s right, it’s like sharing a station with vermin.’

‘Will you shut your yap, Laz? Trying to watch this.’

‘...following statement.’

The shot cut to the station front door, where Steel stood beneath an umbrella held by someone out of shot. ‘We are anxious to trace the whereabouts of Martin Milne, a partner at Geirrød Container Management and Logistics.’ Milne’s photo filled the screen — the one of him at the barbecue. ‘We are very concerned for Mr Milne’s safety. If you have any information, you’ve seen him or spoken to him, we need you to get in touch.’ Then she was back on the screen again. ‘Mr Milne was last seen on Sunday night, wearing a green waxed Barbour jacket, red fleece shirt, blue jeans, and tan-coloured boots.’

Out here, in real life, Steel pointed at the screen. ‘Do my boobs look perkier than usual?’ She stuck a hand down her shirt and fiddled with the contents. ‘Maybe I should wear Susan’s bra more often?’

A microphone popped into shot, clutched in a gloved hand. ‘Chief Inspector, can you comment on rumours that Peter Shepherd’s death resembles a gangland execution?’

‘I’m no’ playing the speculation game, here, Sunshine, I’m appealing for witnesses.’

Logan drew a breath in through his teeth. ‘Did you really just call the BBC News guy “Sunshine”?’

‘Martin, if you’re watching this, it is extremely important you get in touch with us. Your family are worried about you.’

‘I wonder if they do it in a balconette?’ Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. ‘That’s always good for a bit of jiggly-wobbliness. Susan would like that.’

He shuddered. ‘Can we please not discuss your breasts?’

There was a knock on the doorframe, followed by, ‘I’d ask if I’m interrupting anything, but I think we all know the answer.’ A woman stood with her arms folded. Black suit. Black boots. Black shirt. Long blonde hair tucked behind one fairly large ear and cascading over the other. A strong jaw. The smile she pulled didn’t go anywhere near her eyes, or the bags underneath them. ‘Would someone care to tell me why we put out an appeal on national television?’

Steel gave up on her cleavage. ‘Because, Little Miss Undertaker, I’m trying to catch a murderer. That OK with you?’

The smile got colder. ‘That’s Little Miss Superintendent to you.’

Oh great. Their babysitter from C Division.

‘Superintendent, eh? Well, well, well. And you no’ long out of gymslips too.’ Steel held up a finger. ‘And before you go all feral on me: that’s a compliment. Empowered women, glass ceilings, role model to all the wee girls, blah, blah, blah.’

On screen, the reporter handed back to the studio.

Logan picked up the sticky remote and turned the TV off. Stood up straight. ‘Super.’

She didn’t even look at him. ‘Let me guess, you must be Detective Chief Inspector Steel.’

‘Guilty as charged.’

‘And probably a lot more besides.’ The Superintendent leaned against the doorframe. ‘Let’s be clear, DCI Steel, there will be no more maverick behaviour on this case. Your Major Investigation Team works for me now, it does what I tell it to do, and that includes you.’

Steel pursed her lips. ‘Oh aye?’

‘You will not release anything to the media without my authorization. Are we crystal?’

Outside in the corridor, someone coughed.

A phone rang.

The fridge and vending machines hummed.

Then Steel nodded. ‘Guess we are.’

A short man in a double-breasted suit appeared at her elbow. He was all hairy and fidgety, with a full wiry black beard and a Royal Stewart tartan turban. ‘Super? We’ve got the victim’s car. SEB are on their way.’

Logan put the remote down. ‘We’ve got Martin Milne’s car in lockup at Mintlaw, so if—’

The Superintendent pointed at him. ‘Did anyone ask for your opinion, Sergeant McRae?’

OK... How did she know his name?

‘I’m just trying to—’

‘And you’re out of uniform. That suit looks ridiculous. Change.’ She turned to her hairy friend. ‘Narveer, this whole operation smacks of ineptitude and indolence. Gather the senior officers in the incident room. Time to deliver a kick up the jacksie.’

‘Ma’am.’

Then she turned and stormed off, shouting instructions into her mobile phone.

Narveer puffed out a breath. Shook his head. ‘Sorry about that, she’s not usually like this. Don’t know what’s rattled her cage.’ Then he stuck his hand out. ‘DI Singh, I’m Detective Superintendent Harper’s minder, sidekick, and general dogsbody.’

Logan shook it. ‘Logan McRae. This is DCI Steel.’

She waved. ‘Like the turban, Narveer. Very sexy.’

A blush darkened the skin at his cheeks. ‘Right. I’d better... get on with it. Major Incident Room in, about fifteen minutes? That sound OK?’

At least it would give Logan time to change.

Rennie looked Logan up then down again. ‘Thought you were plainclothes now?’

The Major Incident Room bustled with muffled conversations as they waited for Detective Superintendent Harper to appear. Steel had taken the seat at the middle of the table, facing the whiteboard, flanked by two DIs in much better- fitting suits than Logan’s. Two DSs sat on one side, Becky on the other — not talking to anyone, poking away at her phone instead.

Logan straightened the epaulettes on the shoulders of his black Police-Scotland-issue fleece. ‘Our new Central-Belt overlord’s idea of making friends.’

‘Eeek.’ He bared his teeth. ‘Let me guess: bit of a ballbreaker? Tough woman in a man’s world, having to try harder than anyone else to get the same amount of respect?’

‘Or she was just being a dick.’

‘Point.’ He straightened up and dropped his voice to a whisper as the door opened. ‘Talk of the dick and she shall appear.’

Narveer was first in, carrying a stack of paper bags from the Tesco at the end of the road. He dumped them on the table as DSup Harper swept into the room.

She took up position directly behind Steel. ‘Ladies, gentlemen, glad you could join us.’ A bright smile. ‘Can someone get the lights please?’

Rennie scurried off to oblige, plunging the room into semi-darkness. Lit only by the glow of the streetlights outside.

‘Now, do help yourself to cakes while I get this set up.’

There was a rustling of bags and the occasional ‘Oooh!’ as the MIT dug into doughnuts, yumyums, raisin whirls, and custard slices. How to win friends and influence police officers, lesson one: bring cakes.

A roller screen hung on the wall opposite the whiteboard. Harper pulled it down to full size, then pointed a remote at the projector mounted to the ceiling. It hummed and whirred, then a PowerPoint slide appeared on the screen.

Motes of dust drifted in the beam.

Logan dipped into the last bag and came out with an Eccles cake. The rotten sods had taken all the good stuff.

‘OPERATION HOURGLASS ~ BRIEFING SLIDES’ blurred across the screen, until Narveer stood on a chair and fiddled with the focus.

Harper clicked the button, and a photo of her appeared. ‘In case you don’t know by now, my name is Detective Superintendent Niamh Harper. I work for the Serious Organised Crime Task Force, bridging the gap between Police Scotland and various local and governmental support agencies. I specialize in putting kingpin figures behind bars.’ That smile again. ‘Which is why you’ve been lumbered with me.’

It wasn’t exactly Billy Connolly’s Greatest Hits, but it actually got a chuckle or two from the assembled team.

Click.

A man’s face filled the screen, taken with a long lens probably from a concealed location.

‘Allow me to introduce you to Malcolm McLennan, AKA: Malk the Knife.’

It was a much more candid photo than the one Steel had used at the morning briefing. Middle-aged, receding hairline cropped short. A strange, youthful look to his skin and cheeks, but his eyes peered out from hooded lids. As if he were someone much older wearing a mask.

‘Born twenty-third of April 1960, in a little mining village in Fife. Got into trouble as a kid — low-level stuff, nothing serious — then graduated to the armed robbery of a security van in Edinburgh when he was eighteen. He did four years, and when he came out he was a different man.’

Click.

It was one of the crime-scene photos from the book in Shepherd’s bedroom. The one where a man slumped in a bathroom stall with his throat sliced open. Blood soaked the front of his frilly shirt.

‘Antony Thornton, one-time business associate of McLennan. Word on the street was that Thornton wanted to cut a deal with Lothian and Borders CID, McLennan slashed his throat so deeply the head nearly came off. Nothing could be proved.’

Click.

Another man, this one floating facedown in the harbour, arms and legs spread as if he were playing at being a starfish. ‘David Innes. Drug dealer. Allegedly he was skimming off the top. McLennan gutted him. Again, no evidence, no prosecution.’

Click.

A young man, sprawled across the back seat of a car, eyes wide open, hands curled in his lap. Everything from his chin to his lap was soaked in blood. ‘Edward Tucker—’

‘Aye, no offence,’ Steel brushed pastry crumbs from her cleavage, ‘but fascinating as the history lesson is, Super, when do we get to the bit that’s got anything to do with Peter Shepherd?’

Harper laughed. ‘A very good point, Roberta.’

Roberta? So she’d gone from ‘Do what you’re told’ to first-name terms in fifteen minutes?

She raised the remote. ‘Let’s fast forward a bit.’

Click. Blood. Click. Death. Click. Blood. Click. Bodies. Click. Blood. Click. Death. Click. More bodies.

‘And then we arrive at Michael Webb.’

Click.

Another young man, this one lying on his back, naked, with his arms behind him. Black plastic bag taped over his head. His torso was a mass of green and purple bruises, then porcelain skin, then a line of red where the blood had pooled nearest to the ground after death. Settling through the tissues.

‘Low-level drug dealer. His hands were tied behind his back, then he was beaten around the head, neck, and torso. Then they duct-taped a bin-bag over his head and watched him suffocate to death. The remains were dumped in woodland just south of the Forth Bridge and drenched in bleach to destroy any trace on the body.’

Click.

Different body, different woods, but the MO was the same.

‘Daniel Crombie — used to smuggle cigarettes and alcohol in from the Continent.’

Click.

And again.

‘Alex Ward — pimp.’

Click.

‘Walter Gibson — retired police officer turned loan shark.’ Harper dumped the remote on the table. ‘I’ve got another dozen of these, spread over a space of twenty-six years. All our victims were rivals or inconveniences to Malcolm McLennan, but there’s nothing but rumour connecting him to the killings.’

She picked up one of the empty cake bags and scrunched it into a ball. ‘We’re pretty certain he doesn’t kill them personally, but he does order it. The actual murders are carried out by multiple, unknown, persons. No one has ever been arrested for these crimes, never mind prosecuted.’ Harper lobbed the bag into the bin from a distance of about eight feet. ‘Any comments?’

Rennie put his hand up. ‘What about trace inside the bin-bags? The bleach can’t get in there, if the seal’s reasonably tight. And black plastic bags are like static electricity hoovers for dust and fibres.’

‘Good question...’ she checked a sheet of paper, ‘Simon. No viable DNA from anyone other than the victim — which isn’t surprising, given the warm moist environment inside the suffocating hood. No fingerprints on the bags either. And there hasn’t been any correlation between fibres found on the various bodies. So no two of them were killed in the same place. And none of the fibres match anything at Malcolm McLennan’s home or place of work.’

Another hand.

Harper checked her paper again. ‘Yes, Becky, isn’t it?’

‘It’s all very flashy and unnecessary — leaving the bodies lying about when you could make them disappear. It’s sending out a message: this is what happens when you mess with Malk the Knife.’

‘Of course.’

‘So,’ Becky sat forward, ‘what we need to do is figure out who this is a message for. There’s no point killing Shepherd like this if the intended recipient doesn’t find out about it.’

‘Good idea.’ Harper gave her a smile. ‘I want you to produce a list of all the local villains running more than a one-man operation. Let’s see if we can rattle their tree a bit. Anyone else?’

Logan had a go. ‘What about our prime suspect, Martin Milne, ma’am? We’ve got him tied to Shepherd sexually and financially. They embezzled nearly quarter of a million pounds from their company. And Milne did a runner three days before we found Shepherd’s body.’

She stared at him.

The radiators creaked and pinged.

One of Steel’s DIs cleared their throat.

‘Firstly, Sergeant, I do not appreciate your casual sexism. You will address me as “sir”, “superintendent”, or “super”. Are we clear?’

Warmth bloomed in Logan’s ears, spreading down the back of his neck. ‘Yes, Super.’

‘Secondly, Martin Milne is no longer a suspect, he’s a potential victim. It’s much more likely he’s on the run because Malk the Knife’s boys are after him. Assuming he isn’t dead already.’

‘But—’

‘Milne didn’t kill Shepherd, you idiot.’ She pointed at the DS sitting on the far end. ‘Donna, tell Sergeant McRae what you found in Shepherd’s house, please.’

She turned in her seat to face him. Brushed the lank greying fringe from her eyes. ‘We turned up two residency visas and work permits for Dubai, one lot in Peter Shepherd’s name, the other in Martin Milne’s. They’ve been hired to run logistics for one of the contractors building infrastructure for the World Expo there in 2020. You wouldn’t believe how much they were getting paid, and dirty-big bonuses every quarter too.’ She held up an evidence wallet. ‘Visa’s valid from the end of the week. They were running away together.’

Probably with two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds of GCML’s money.

‘That doesn’t mean Milne didn’t kill him.’

She sighed. ‘And it doesn’t mean he did.’

‘But if Milne—’

‘Enough.’ Harper thumped her hand down on the table. ‘If you’ve quite finished wasting everyone’s time, Sergeant McRae, perhaps you’d like to sod off and make the tea? Don’t worry if it’s too complicated for you, Narveer will supervise.’ She nodded towards the door. ‘Off you go.’

15

Logan slammed the milk down on the work surface, next to the line of mugs. Yanked the drawer open and jammed his hand in, ripped out a spoon. Clattered that next to the milk.

Leaning back against the canteen table, DI Singh sighed. Shook his head. ‘I don’t understand it. I have never seen her take against someone like this.’

Teabags were hurled into five of the mugs. Coffee granules got thrown into the other four.

‘And I’m including the tosser who set fire to that block of flats in Arbroath last year, because the residents dobbed him in for selling drugs to kids.’

Logan snatched the kettle off its stand and filled it, before thumping it back on its charger.

Narveer sucked his teeth. ‘Are you sure the pair of you haven’t met before? Maybe you ran over her dog, or her grandma, or something?’

The kettle growled and hissed.

‘I don’t get it, this really isn’t like her. I swear.’

Logan rammed the sugar back in the cupboard and slammed the door shut. ‘What the hell is her problem?’

A shrug. ‘Genuinely, if I knew I’d tell you. Giving me heartburn, all this tension.’ Then he puffed out a breath. ‘Her dad died a couple of months ago, maybe that’s it?’

‘All she’s done is bitch and whine and moan and act like a complete and total—’

‘Now, Sergeant, let’s not forget ourselves. There is such a thing as chain of command.’

He put a hand on the kettle. Took a deep breath as it grumbled. ‘Sorry, sir.’

‘Hmm...’ Narveer turned and picked the concrete gnome off the canteen windowsill. ‘Heavy little fellow, isn’t he?’

‘And what was with the “casual sexism” remark? You called her “ma’am” earlier and it was fine, but when I do it?’

‘Don’t know. That’s a new one on me too.’ He frowned down at the white lump in his hands. ‘Why do you have a lawn ornament in here?’

‘I don’t even want to be on the bloody MIT. I’ve got a division to run, a drugs raid to organize, and what am I doing? Making the tea.’ The kettle rattled to a halt and Logan drowned the teabags and coffee granules. Glowered at them. Then mashed the teabags against the side of the mugs and hurled their remains in the bin. ‘You’re here to make sure I don’t spit in Harper’s tea, aren’t you?’

‘Couldn’t possibly comment.’ There was a clunk. ‘Sergeant... Logan. I don’t know why the Superintendent has it in for you, but if I find out I’ll let you know. Meantime, till we figure it out, it’s probably best you keep out of her way.’

With pleasure.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Steel’s voice grated down the corridor as Logan’s hand hit the doorknob.

‘Home.’ He hauled open the door. ‘My shift ended at three. It’s nearly quarter past six.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you, Laz? Shifts are for the weak.’

Outside, the rain had given up. Or at least called a truce. The road was slick and shiny in the orange streetlight glow.

He turned. ‘Detective Superintendent Harper has made it perfectly clear I’m not wanted. And that’s fine with me.’

‘Come on, Laz, don’t be like that.’

‘Oh, and thanks for the support, by the way. When she was tearing me off a strip and calling me an idiot. Thanks. I really appreciate it. Hope you liked your coffee.’ He stepped out into the night and thumped the door closed behind him.

It opened a moment later. ‘What did you do to my coffee? Did you put bogies in it? You did, didn’t you? You filthy wee—’

‘You told Inspector McGregor you wanted me for local knowledge and experience.’ Getting louder and louder. ‘So why am I in there playing SODDING TEABOY?’

Steel took out her e-cigarette and stuck it in her gob. Sucked on it, setting the LED in the tip glowing blue. ‘Are we finished having our whiney little strop?’

‘Get stuffed.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and marched off.

Her voice rang out behind him. ‘So you’ll no’ care that Martin Milne’s just turned up.’

Logan froze. ‘Is he alive?’

‘Get in the car.’

The car screeched to a halt on the kerb, outside Milne’s house. Logan yanked the keys out of the ignition and scrambled out into the darkness. Wind slammed into the garden, making the bushes writhe, snatching the breath from his throat as he jammed the peaked cap on his head and followed Steel up the drive to the front door.

Only when they got there she slapped him on the arm. ‘Round the back, you great lump. What if he does another runner? Count of ten.’

Logan ducked and ran, keeping low past the front of the house and around the side. The wail of a siren grew louder in the distance. Backup on its way.

Nine. Eight.

Around the side of the house. He vaulted the gate, set into a knee-high drystane dyke. Stumbled in the darkness beyond. Kicked something plastic. Swore at it. Then hobbled around the back.

Five. Four.

The lights were on in the kitchen, spilling out into the garden.

A paved patio stretched almost the length of the house, with built-in barbecue and raised beds around the outside. A shovel, a trowel, a fork and a hoe were stacked against a water butt, their wooden handles faded and cracked by the winter. The set of rattan garden furniture hadn’t fared much better.

Three. Two.

Logan eased himself along the wall and peered in through the kitchen window.

Katie Milne stood by the sink, glass of wine in one hand, the other massaging her forehead. Black streaks on her cheeks where the mascara had run. So where was... There. Martin Milne sat at the kitchen table, slumped over a very large tumbler of whisky. His face was either dirty or bruised, difficult to tell from the garden.

One. Zero.

Then Steel must have rung the bell, because they both jerked upright and turned to face the front door.

Katie said something, but Milne shook his head and stood. His whole body trembled.

Outside, the siren got louder. Couldn’t be far away now.

Then Katie shook herself. Pulled her chin up, and headed for the kitchen door. As soon as she closed it behind her, Milne was up, running for the French doors.

He flung one of the doors open and leapt out onto the paving slabs.

Logan stepped out of the shadows. ‘Leaving so soon, Mr Milne?’

Milne’s mouth fell open, eyes wide. One of those high cheekbones of his was coloured purple and blue, another bruise on his dimpled chin. Another on his forehead. Crusts of dried blood made dark rings around both nostrils.

He tensed, legs bent. One hand reached for the shovel.

‘You’ll get four, maybe six, feet tops.’ Logan pointed. ‘And if you pick that up, I’ll be doing you for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer as well.’ He unclipped his extendable baton and clacked it out to its full length. ‘Want to risk it?’

The siren’s wail died away, followed by the slamming of car doors.

‘Come on, Martin. It’s over.’

Milne sank down to the patio floor, curled his arms around his head and sobbed.

The convoy of police vehicles threaded their way through the damp and the dark — a glowing caterpillar of crisp white headlights and scarlet tail-lights, following the flashing blue-and-whites of the lead car.

Last in line, Logan followed them down the hill, then up again.

Steel shoogled back and forth in the passenger seat. ‘Does this thing no’ go any faster?’

‘We could’ve taken your car.’

‘You’re no’ man enough to drive my car. That’s why you own a manky old Fiat Punto. I’ve seen BBC costume dramas that move faster than this.’

‘Feel free to get out and walk.’

She folded her arms and scowled out of the window. ‘All the way to bloody Fraserburgh. We should be interviewing the murdering wee sod, no’ driving halfway across the country!’

God, it was like sharing a car with a sulky teenager.

He gritted his teeth, squeezing the words out between them: ‘It’s not halfway across the country, it’s twenty-five miles. And we’re going there because it’s the nearest station with a custody sergeant and up-to-date interview rooms. OK? This is how it works now.’

‘Waste of time, that’s what it is.’

‘Then why don’t you wave your magic wand and give me another dozen full-time officers? Go on. It’ll make my life a hell of a lot easier.’

Steel shook her head. ‘You’re such a moan.’ She dug out her phone and poked at the screen. Listened to it for a bit. Then, ‘Detective Superintendent Young, you’re sounding very sexy this evening... No... Oh, she told you. Yeah, we caught Martin Milne. And when I say “we” I mean me and grumpy old Sergeant McRae... That’s right. We’re wheeching him off to Fraserburgh now.’

They roared through New Aberdour without slowing down.

‘Uh-huh... Uh-huh... No, Superintendent Harper turned up and called dibs. He’s riding with her... Yeah, well I wasn’t quite so polite about it... Yup.’ Then Steel threw back her head and laughed, setting her cleavage wobbling in the dashboard light. The laughter faded, replaced by a frown instead. ‘She did? Seriously?... Hold on.’

Steel stuck the phone against her chest. ‘You’ll no’ believe it, but Madame Bipolar Panties told the Boss that catching Milne was all down to me. If it wasn’t for my magnificent performance on the news, the neighbour would no’ have known to give us a shout when he turned up. Apparently, my initiative is to be lauded, admired, and rewarded with cake and nipples.’

Logan tightened his grip on the wheel, ground his teeth together. ‘Course it is. Because all those interviews my team did with the neighbours and the posters we put up had nothing to do with it.’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Back to the phone. ‘You still there?... Good. Looks like someone’s given Milne a bit of a hiding, but nothing a night in the cells won’t sort out... Not sure. If Laz had let Milne take a swing at him we could’ve done him for assault. But no, he had to be all peaceful resolutiony about it.’

A gap in the clouds opened up just long enough for a half-moon to glare down. Pale grey light turned the countryside into a washed-out monochrome as it rushed by the Punto’s windows.

‘Yeah, I will... What?... No, we got a tip-off from one of the neighbours. She saw Milne rock up and gave us a call so we wouldn’t worry about him any more... Yeah, OK. Will do... Bye.’

Steel hung up, then squinted out through the windscreen with a pinched face. ‘No idea what we’re going to charge Milne with. Knowing our luck he’ll clam up, call his lawyer, and walk right out again.’

The silhouetted bones of a forest scratched by on the left, before the clouds swallowed the moon again — returning everything to darkness.

Steel had another go at a smoke ring. Failed. ‘Are we having a sulk?’

‘You know what? Fine. I’m off tomorrow and Saturday. You can all stand round in a circle patting each other’s backsides till they fall off. This is nothing to do with me.’

‘Oh no you don’t: you work for me now, remember? All leave is cancelled till— AAAAGH!’

He kept his foot hard on the brake as the Punto slithered on the wet tarmac. It jerked to a halt, sideways across the road, nose inches from a deep ditch.

Steel was frozen in the passenger seat, both hands gripping the dashboard like talons. Eyes wide. Breath coming in tiny gasps. Then she turned her head and stared at him. ‘What the goat-buggering hell do you think you’re—’

‘No.’ The words came out smooth, slow, and level. ‘I’m switching Samantha off tomorrow. Then I’m going into town to clean out the caravan. Then I’m going to get very, very drunk. And if you’ve got a problem with that, my resignation will be on the Inspector’s desk two minutes after we get to Fraserburgh.’

She unpeeled her fingertips from the dust-paled dashboard. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. It’s—’

‘I don’t care if I have to write it on the back of a fag packet, I’m done.’

Steel held up her hands. ‘OK, OK. Two days off.’ She pointed. ‘Now get this bucket of sharny rust turned the right way round, before someone comes round the corner and squishes us.’

Logan swallowed the knots in his throat. Deep breath. Then turned the key in the ignition, doing a four-point turn to get the Punto pointing towards Fraserburgh again. ‘I mean it.’

Reuben, Napier, Harper: they could all tie rocks around their necks and jump in a septic tank. Let them sink in the filth while he disappeared off somewhere warm to start a new life.

Steel reached across the car, took hold of Logan’s leg and squeezed. ‘I know. Sorry.’ She gave him a pained little smile. ‘Force of habit.’

He nodded.

Fields and fences slipped by in the darkness.

She let go of his leg and had a rummage down the front of her shirt instead. ‘Still don’t know what we’re going to charge Milne with.’

‘How about embezzling two hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds?’

She raised her eyebrows and nodded. ‘That might do it.’

‘Then we can figure out how to charge him with Peter Shepherd’s murder.’

‘For the record, I’m showing Mr Milne exhibit G. Mr Milne, do you recognize this?’

On the little screen, DSup Harper placed a clear plastic evidence bag on the interview room table. The camera was mounted high in the corner, looking down over Harper’s shoulder at Martin Milne. Even from here it was obvious what was inside: a hardback book. That would be the copy of The Blood-Red Line they’d found in Shepherd’s bedroom.

Milne’s solicitor sat next to him, a saggy man in a dark-blue shirt and tan sports coat, looking more like a disappointed father than a legal firebrand. Narveer was next to Harper, scribbling things down in an A4 notebook.

Harper pushed the evidence bag closer to Milne. ‘Would you like me to repeat the question?’

Steel dug into her trousers and came out with a ten-pence piece. Clicked it down on the worktop next to Logan’s notepad. ‘No comment.’

A rancid curry smell pervaded the Downstream Observation Suite, as if someone’s rogan josh had died in here and not been given a decent burial.

Logan dug ten pence from his own pocket and clicked it beside Steel’s.

The room wasn’t much more than a cupboard, with a worktop down one side and a couple of creaky plastic chairs. A cluster of pixels were dead on the flatscreen monitor, darkening the top-right corner of the picture like a station ident. A couple of microphones were wired into the wall, on bendy stalks, the ‘TALK’ buttons dark and lifeless.

On screen, Martin Milne reached for the evidence bag. Picked it up and blinked at the contents. ‘It’s a book?’

Steel slumped. ‘Sod.’

Logan scooped both ten-pence pieces off the surface and stuck them in his pocket.

She folded her arms. ‘What kind of solicitor doesn’t tell their murdering scumbag client to “no comment” everything?’

‘Still, have to admire the guy’s speed. Got up here quick enough.’

‘Very good, Mr Milne, it’s a book. Do you recognize it?’

Steel dug out another ten. ‘No.’

Logan clicked one next to it. ‘Yes.’

The little version of Martin Milne lowered his head. ‘It’s Peter’s. He’s reading it. He likes true crime.’

‘Gah! Are you kidding me?’

Logan scooped them into his pocket too.

‘Have you read this book, Mr Milne?’

Mr Disappointed knocked on the interview room table. ‘I don’t see what my client’s reading habits have to do with anything, Superintendent.’

‘Mr Milne knows. Don’t you, Martin?’

‘My client has had a traumatic ordeal. He’s just learned that his business partner and long-time friend has died. He’s cooperated with your inquiry, and now it’s time to let him get back to his family.’

‘Aye, good luck with that.’

‘We appear to have different definitions of the word, “cooperated”, Mr Nelson.’ Harper counted off the interview on her fingers: ‘Your client “can’t remember” where he’s been for the last five days. He “doesn’t know” when he last saw Peter Shepherd. He has “no recollection” of applying for a loan of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and countersigning another for seventy-five thousand. He “can’t remember” where—’

‘All right, that’s enough. You’re badgering my client. If Mr Milne says he can’t remember, then he can’t remember.’

Steel stretched out in her seat, arms behind her head. It made her shirt ride up, exposing a gash of pasty skin. ‘This is a complete and utter waste of time.’

‘Tell me, Mr Milne, is there anything you can remember?’

Logan jingled the stack of change in his pocket. ‘I had a visit from Napier today.’

‘Oh aye?’

Milne wiped a hand across his eyes. ‘I can’t believe Pete’s dead...’

‘Wanted to talk about Jack Wallace.’

‘Did he now?’

‘I mean, Pete... He and I...’ A sniff.

Harper leaned forwards. ‘You were lovers.’

‘He did.’

‘What?’ Milne shook his head. Wiped at his eyes again. ‘No. Of course we weren’t. I’m married.’

Steel stretched further, exposing more stomach. ‘He’s got it into his silly little ginger head that I fitted Wallace up on the paedo charge. And do you know why? Because Wallace is a nonce, stuck in HMP Grampian for the next five and a half years, who thinks crying “stitch-up” will get his sentence reduced.’ A hand reached down to scratch at the fishbelly flesh. ‘As if I’d ever do something like that.’

‘Mr Milne, you are aware that Peter Shepherd photographed your sex sessions, aren’t you? He had them all set up as a slideshow on the TV in his bedroom. Or have you forgotten that as well?’

Milne stared at her.

‘I can have prints made, if you think that might jog your memory?’

Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘That reminds me.’ She pulled out her phone and poked at the screen. Held it to her ear. ‘Robertson? Where’s my big list of everyone in Shepherd and Milne’s home porno pics?... No, I don’t think you can give it a miss now we’ve got Milne in custody. Finger out, you sideburn-wearing seventies-throwback waste of skin... No, I want that on my desk tomorrow... You heard.’ She hung up. Stuffed her phone away. ‘Anyway, I didn’t need to fit Wallace up, the dirty wee sod did it all himself. Didn’t even try to hide it either, like he was proud of his collection.’

‘Nothing to say, Mr Milne?’ Harper tilted her head to one side. ‘Did Peter Shepherd tell you he loved you? Did he promise the photos were just for him?’

‘All right, that’s enough.’ The solicitor knocked on the interview room table again. ‘Martin, I have to advise you to answer these intrusive and insulting questions with “no comment” from now on.’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Steel sat up straight. ‘Now he tells him!’

16

‘Anyone?’ Detective Superintendent Harper sat back against the desk, arms folded, as Logan eased in through the door.

Fraserburgh’s Major Incident Room had fancy interactive whiteboards on the walls and a long conference table down the middle — lined on either side with the MIT’s senior officers. AKA: everyone from the rank of sergeant up, dragged over here from Banff. They all had their notebooks out, serious expressions on their face.

Logan lowered his tray onto the table. Ten mugs clinked against one another, beige contents sloshing from side to side.

Join the police, see the world. Make it coffee.

Harper helped herself without so much as a thank you. ‘Come on, someone must have some idea. How are Milne and Shepherd connected to Malk the Knife?’ She took a sip, then grimaced. Spat it back into the mug. ‘This is revolting.’ Harper held the mug out towards Logan. ‘Do it again, properly this time.’

Don’t rise to it.

Count to ten.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

‘Now, Sergeant.’

Logan took a deep breath, then the mug. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Try and get something right, Sergeant.’

A spit and bogie special coming right up.

He slipped out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Then stuck two fingers up at it, before turning and stamping away down towards the canteen. The floorboards creaked and rocked beneath him, like an ill-fitting coffin lid.

The sound of laughter came from the other side of the canteen door. It died as soon as Logan entered. Two uniforms sat on the sofa in front of the telly with Martin Milne’s solicitor. At least they had the good sense to blush.

One of them — the lanky one with the side parting and pointy chin — stood. ‘Sarge.’

His partner nodded at the solicitor. She was a proper farmer’s daughter, with a ruddy complexion and arms that could probably bench-press a tractor. ‘We were just discussing a case with Mr Nelson. Dog fighting in Peterhead. Someone lost a leg.’

Logan marched over to the kitchen area. ‘Well, at least that explains the hilarity.’

‘Right.’ PC Lanky shuffled sideways. ‘Suppose we’d better get back to it.’

‘Yeah. No rest for the wicked.’

They bustled out of the room.

Milne’s solicitor — Nelson, wasn’t it? — took a pair of glasses from his pocket and polished them. ‘It’s not their fault. I was gasping for a cuppa and I forced them to make me one. At gunpoint.’

‘And where is this firearm now, sir?’ Logan tipped Harper’s coffee down the sink.

Nelson made a gun out of the fingers of his right hand, holding it up as if he was about to fire a warning shot into the ceiling. ‘I’ll come quietly.’

Logan turned his back and let a gobbet of spittle splash into the bottom of the mug. Then buried it with a teaspoon of coffee granules. ‘How’s Martin?’

‘Confused, frightened, grieving. Take your pick.’ Nelson slipped his glasses on. ‘I’ve been Martin’s solicitor for ten years. I held his hand when he was executor for his father’s estate. I helped him buy his house. I did the contracts when he and his friends set up GCML. I know him.’

Logan turned away again, slipped a finger up his nose, had a quick rummage, then wiped the results on the mug’s insides, below the high-tide mark.

‘There’s no way he killed Peter, it simply isn’t possible. He’s not that kind of person.’

The mug went under the boiling-water tap, steaming liquid going instantly brown as it hit the granules. Hiding all manner of sins.

‘And I’m not saying that because I’m his solicitor, I’m his friend too. He doesn’t even fiddle his taxes, for God’s sake.’

A dollop of semi-skimmed added to the lies. ‘You know he’s not doing himself any favours, don’t you? All this “I can’t remember” nonsense just makes him look guilty.’

‘Sergeant, he got me to draw up divorce papers last week. Martin wouldn’t kill Peter. He loved him.’

‘That’s what they all say.’

‘Are you coming home tonight or not?’ There was an edge to Samantha’s voice. Disapproval, mixed with resignation.

Logan stopped at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the balustrade, phone pressed against his ear. ‘Still waiting on Steel.’

The car park behind Fraserburgh station was full — Steel’s MIT convoy taking up the usually empty spaces. That thin drizzle was back, casting halos of yellow around the rear lights.

‘How much life have you wasted waiting on that woman? She takes advantage of you, Logan, always has.’

‘What am I supposed to do, abandon her?’

‘She can get a lift back with the rest of the team. Why does it have to be you? Let someone else suffer for a change.’

He let his head slip forward, until it rested against the cool glass door. ‘I know.’

‘You don’t want to come home, do you? You want to string this out as long as possible.’

A patrol car pulled into the car park, ignoring the only free space and stopping right outside the rear entrance to the cells instead.

‘Of course I want to come home, it’s not—’

‘You don’t want to come home, because the sooner you do, the sooner you go to sleep, and then you wake up, it’s tomorrow, and you have to kill me.’

The passenger door opened and the lanky PC who’d been watching TV with Milne’s solicitor scrambled out.

‘I’m not killing you. I’m...’ A sigh. Yes he was. Calling it a ‘decision to withdraw medical treatment’ didn’t change the facts.

‘So you work through. Put off going to bed. It just means you’re knackered tomorrow.’ Her voice softened. ‘Think that’ll make it any easier?’

Officer Lanky opened the back door and reached inside.

‘Probably not.’

A bellow from inside the patrol car was followed by a thud and swearing — then a pair of feet lashed out of the patrol car and bang, PC Lanky was lying on his back, peaked cap bouncing off into a puddle. A huge man erupted out of the car, shirt ripped on one side, spattered with blood on the other, hands cuffed behind his back. He wobbled. One leg still, while the other walked itself around in a little circle. Then he lurched forwards and slammed his boot into Lanky’s leg.

‘Got to go.’

Logan burst out through the door, into the rain. Reached for his extendable baton... Only his hand closed on thin air. Wonderful. Why did he have to take off his stabproof vest and equipment belt?

Because it was heavy and uncomfortable, and he was only meant to be lurking around the station, making cups of booby-trapped coffee.

Gah.

Mr Drunk-And-Huge landed another kick on Lanky’s thigh. ‘C’mn... hvago... Fnnnmgh... ME!’

‘You: on the ground now!’ Logan charged across six feet of rain-slicked tarmac and leapt. Curled his shoulder and slammed into the blood-spattered chest, sending the pair of them clattering backwards.

Crunch, the guy slammed into the patrol car. ‘Aaagh... Fgnnn kll ye!’

A knee cracked up into Logan’s ribs, hard enough to shove him sideways, crushing the breath from his lungs.

The big sod whipped his head back, then forward again. Fast.

Logan flinched out of the way... almost. THUNK. The world whipped right, riding on a wave of hot yellow noise and the taste of AA batteries. He staggered. Lurched. His legs weren’t working properly, they wouldn’t hold him up. The left one folded, thumping him down on his knee.

Towering over him, the big lump spat. It splattered against the shoulder of Logan’s fleece.

‘Killlnnn fgnnn plsssssss bsssstrds...’ He lurched sideways a couple of paces and back again. Grinned a gap-toothed grin, the bitter-sharp stench of vomit leaking out. ‘Ha!’ Drew back his foot for a kick.

Logan blinked. Made a fist of his own. Then rammed it up into the guy’s groin, twisting, putting his weight behind it.

Bloodshot eyes bugged. The mouth fell open. ‘Nnnnnngh...’

Then he lurched forward and Logan scrambled sideways, out of the spatter zone as the big sod puked all down himself. Then folded over. Thumped onto the vomit-flecked tarmac, and curled around his battered testicles. Moaning.

‘Gnnn...’ Lanky’s partner wobbled out of the patrol car, one hand clutched over her nose, blood dripping from between her fingers. She tilted her head back. ‘Thags, Sarge.’

Logan pulled himself up the side of the car. Bracing himself against the bodywork as the car park jostled and whistled at him. He pointed at PC Lanky as he struggled upright. ‘You: get this vomity lump on his feet and processed.’

Lanky scooped up his fallen hat, and fondled the back of his own head. ‘Ow...’

‘Now would be good, Constable.’

A nod. A wince. Then he hauled the big guy to an almost-standing position, hissed through gritted teeth, and dropped him. ‘Nope.’

For goodness’ sake.

Logan grabbed the other arm and together they frogmarched the reeking lump through the customer entrance and into the cellblock. The grey terrazzo floor squeaked under the big guy’s trainers as they half-carried half-dragged him to the processing area.

The short desk, covered in posters, with a glass partition above it, made the place look more like the reception of a student hostel. And going by all the warning leaflets about rights, blood-borne diseases, drugs, and rape, a really manky one.

Voices came from somewhere within the cellblock, muffled by thick metal doors and concrete walls. Barely gone nine and it sounded as if they already had a lot of overnight guests.

Logan knocked on the processing desk. ‘Anyone in?’

A thickset woman with thinning hair and a squinty eye appeared from a side room and peered out at them. She sniffed. ‘What is that?’

Lanky heaved Captain Vomity forward. ‘Nicholas Fife. Breach of the peace. Assault. Urinating in a public place. Assaulting a police officer—’

‘Three police officers.’ Logan shoved Mr Fife against the desk. The man’s shirt left a little smear of what might have been pre-chewed doner kebab on a ‘COMBATTING RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM’ poster.

‘Sorry, three police officers. Oh, and I think he may have crapped himself too.’

The Police Custody and Security Officer had another sniff. ‘Well you’re not leaving it here.’

Lanky jerked his chin up. ‘We’re not taking him home to live with us, he’s not a puppy!’

She slapped a clipboard down on the countertop. ‘Care and Welfare of Persons in Police Custody, Standard Operating Procedure. Part five, subsection three is perfectly clear: any suspect in need of immediate or urgent medical care must be taken directly to hospital until such time as they are no longer deemed at risk. And that includes head injuries, overdoses, and anyone who’s completely and utterly pished out of their...’ The PCSO scowled as a line of pale-yellow spittle fell from Mr Fife’s lips and sploshed against the regulations. ‘Urgh.’ She snatched her clipboard back, then grabbed a leaflet about fly-tipping and scrubbed at the dribble. ‘He is not choking on his own vomit in my cells. Get him up the hospital.’

‘Come on, Denise, don’t be a—’

‘I’ve never had a death in custody and I’m not starting now.’ Her arm jabbed out, pointing at the door. ‘Hospital.’

Lanky’s shoulders dipped. ‘Fine. We know when we’re not wanted.’ He turned. ‘Claire!’

His partner appeared. Thick tufts of green hand-towel poked out of each nostril, the paper darkened and browned with blood. ‘Whad?’

‘Grab an arm, we’re leaving.’

‘Soddig hell. Towd you we should’ve god straid to the hosbidal.’

They took hold of Mr Fife and steered him towards the exit. His testicles seemed to have recovered a bit, because he was able to limp along without having to be dragged.

Logan stayed where he was as the door clunked shut behind them.

‘The same argument, every Thursday night.’ The PCSO shook her head. Then frowned at him. ‘You all right, Sergeant? Only if you aren’t: would you mind buggering off and not bleeding on my nice clean floor?’

‘What?’

She pointed. ‘There’s a sink in the back if you want to wash up.’

Logan hunched over the sink in the tiny galley kitchen off the side of the custody processing area — barely enough room for a grown man to stand sideways without brushing the units on one side and the wall on the other. He splashed water on his face. Tiny pink droplets fell onto the stainless steel.

He prodded his left cheek — the skin was already tightening as it swelled, red flushing across the growing lump. A gash ran sideways across it, not far below his eye. Going to be a decent bruise. Nicholas Fife had a really hard head.

The water eased the stinging throb for a couple of breaths, then it was back again, digging its claws through Logan’s face and into his skull.

Sod this. Samantha was right: Steel could find her own way back to Banff.

He patted his face dry with paper towels. Then applied a sticking plaster from the first-aid kit. Little red dots showed through the beige plastic.

A thump behind him, and the PCSO was back. Denise looked him up and down. ‘You still here?’

‘Nope.’

‘Cupboard at your knees — dig in there and find us a red, a brown, and a blue.’

Logan bent down and something large and burny throbbed through his brain. He opened the cupboard, revealing stacks of microwave meals in coloured boxes. Red, brown, blue: shepherd’s pie, chicken and vegetable madras with rice, and an all-day breakfast. He turned the blue box over. ‘“Beans in a rich tomato sauce, with potatoes and two succulent pork sausages.”’ He handed it to Denise. ‘This lot eat better than I do.’

‘He doesn’t usually.’ She pulled the black plastic trays from the cardboard boxes, stabbed the film lids with a fork, and slid the lot into a battered grey microwave. ‘Don’t think the poor sod’s seen solid food since last time he was in here.’ Denise beeped the buttons. ‘How’s the head?’

‘Sore.’

‘As long as it doesn’t make a mess, I don’t care.’ She curled a lip. ‘Been mopping up sick all evening. Why you lot have to arrest people with dodgy stomachs I’ll never know.’

The microwave dinners buzzed and hummed around in a circle.

‘Thought you didn’t allow drunks.’

‘Oh, he was very apologetic about it, but it didn’t stop him barfing everywhere.’

Buzz and hum.

She shuddered. ‘We had a cat once, soon as its shoulders started going you knew what was coming.’ Denise hunched her shoulders up and down a couple of times, then made ‘ack’ing noises. ‘All over the place. Couldn’t just stand still and throw up: much more fun to back away and make sure there was a big long line of the stuff.’

Buzzzzzzzzz...

‘Worst was when he got into the knicker drawer. Urgh... All over my thongs.’

Now there was an image to put you off your chicken curry ready-meal.

Hummmmm...

It’d be really nice to go now, but there wasn’t any room to squeeze past Denise and her pukey pants.

She produced a polystyrene cup and made some milky tea in it.

Buzzzzzzzzz...

Ding.

Denise picked up the tea then pointed at the microwave. ‘Grab those for me, will you? There’s a tray over there.’

He tweezed them out of the microwave with sizzling fingers, dumping them on a round brown tray that looked as if it’d been half-inched from a pub.

She turned and marched from the room, leaving him to follow.

What was it with women? Why did they all expect him to run around after them? Did he have ‘DOORMAT’ printed across his forehead in two-inch-high letters only they could see?

Logan picked up the tray and followed her.

Denise produced a bunch of keys, flipping through them as they walked past the entry corridor and right, past the female cells, and through into the new bit where two rows of big blue doors stretched away in front of them. They each had a slide-down hatch, safety notice, intercom, and a little whiteboard mounted on the metal surface. Someone had scrawled prisoner warnings on those, like: ‘BEWARE!!! HE BITES!’, ‘DIABETIC’, ‘SPITS’, and ‘ALLERGIC TO WHEAT’.

She stopped outside one marked, ‘NEEDS FEEDING UP’ and slid down the hatch. Peered through the plastic viewport. Then unlocked the door. ‘Felix? How you feeling?’

A stench of mouldering garlic and dead mice oozed out into the cellblock.

‘You hungry? Bet you are. Got you a lovely cup of tea too.’

What looked like a mound of dirty laundry stirred on the blue plastic mattress. Then Felix rolled over.

His skin was a mottled grey brown, the wrinkles darkened with dirt. There wasn’t much hair on his liver-spotted head, but what he had was yellow and straggly. He blinked at them with rheumy eyes. ‘Hmmm?’

‘Come on, Felix, see what we’ve got for you? All your favourite foods.’

Thin trembling fingers reached for Logan’s tray, a smile cracking the skeletal face.

Logan put it on the blue plastic mattress next to him. ‘Watch, they’re hot.’

He dug into the chicken curry with a plastic spoon. Shovelling it into his ragged mouth.

Denise smiled. ‘There you go.’

Logan leaned against the blue strip, painted halfway up the wall. ‘Anyone exciting in tonight?’

‘Usual collection of Thursday-night drinkers. Couple of druggies in for possession. A lovely young lady, in the other block, stabbed her granny in the leg because she wouldn’t buy her a new iPhone.’ A sniff. ‘“Stinky Sammy” Wilson’s back again. Thinking of giving that boy a season pass.’

Felix polished off the last chunk of curry, licked the plastic tray clean, then started in on the all-day breakfast. Getting bean juice all over his stubbly chin.

‘What did he do this time?’

‘Cheese and bacon, same as every other druggy.’ She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t even make any sense, does it? Shoplifting cheese and bacon. Who’s going to buy a slab of gouda and a pack of smoked-streaky from a smackhead in a pub? You’d have to be mental.’

Beans and sausages and potatoes disappeared.

Logan glanced out into the corridor, with its rows of heavy blue doors. ‘What about Martin Milne?’

‘Ah yes. Mr Milne.’

Felix slurped the last of the breakfast from the tray and polished it with his tongue. Only the shepherd’s pie to go.

‘Giving you trouble?’

‘I can understand why someone gave him a spanking, put it that way.’ She turned back to their resident garbage disposal unit. ‘There we go, is that nice?’

Felix kept on shovelling.

‘Which one’s he in?’

‘Course it is. You eat up.’ Then up to Logan. ‘Number five. If you want to fall him down the stairs a couple of times, let me know and I’ll nip out for a fag.’

Logan raised an eyebrow.

‘Joking.’ A shrug. ‘Kind of.’

He stepped out into the corridor and wandered across the hall to the cell door marked ‘M5’. The whiteboard had ‘PAIN IN THE HOOP’ scrawled on it. Logan slid the hatch down halfway — until it clicked into the viewing position.

Martin Milne sat on the edge of his thin blue mattress, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. A shudder rippled across the shoulders, setting them quivering. He wiped a hand across his nose and stared at the silvery pink line it left on his forearm.

Then he looked up and round. Stared right back at Logan. Wiped his eyes dry.

Logan slid the hatch back up again.

Turned to go.

There was a knock on the other side of the door — three light bangs, muffled by all that metal. ‘Hello?’

Logan clicked the hatch into the viewing position.

Martin Milne stood on the other side of the little Perspex window, blinking at him with swollen bloodshot eyes. ‘Hello. You were there. At the house.’ He sniffed. Wiped away the tears. ‘Can I see him?’

‘See who?’

Milne turned his face away. ‘Peter. Can I see him?’

‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough, Mr Milne?’

‘I need to. They wouldn’t let me say goodbye.’ He leaned his bruised forehead against the window. ‘I just want to say goodbye.’

‘You want me to ask Detective Superintendent Harper if you can see the body of the man you killed? I can ask, but I know what she’ll say.’

‘I didn’t kill him. I...’ Deep breath. ‘I loved him.’ Milne cleared his throat. ‘About those photographs, at Pete’s place. My wife doesn’t need to find out about them, does she?’

‘They’ll probably be used in evidence.’

‘But...’ Milne looked up, straight into Logan’s eyes. ‘They’re not important. Pete liked to watch the slideshow while we... It’s not illegal. Everything was consensual. Everyone was over eighteen. If someone didn’t want their face on camera they could wear a mask.’ He bit his bottom lip. ‘It’d break Katie’s heart. Please?’

Should have thought of that in the first place.

Logan shook his head. ‘It’s out of my hands. You’ll have to...’ Wait a minute. ‘Who? Who wouldn’t let you say goodbye?’

‘Please. I’m begging you.’

‘No, you said someone wouldn’t let you say goodbye. You weren’t talking about Detective Superintendent Harper, were you? Who wouldn’t?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Milne turned around and slid down the inside of the door — still visible in the convex mirror mounted on the cell’s ceiling. ‘None of it matters any more.’

OK...

Logan went back to the other cell, where Denise was collecting up all the licked-clean ready-meal containers and humming ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. Felix was curled up on his mattress with his back to the cell, looking like a pile of dirty laundry again.

‘Denise, have you—’

‘Shhh!’ She stuck a finger to her lips, then put the Styrofoam cup on the tray and crept out of the room. Eased the door shut behind her. ‘Only just got him off.’

‘Are you two...?’ Logan pulled his chin in and pointed at the cell.

‘The poor sod’s got dementia. He hates his care home, so he disappears for a couple of weeks at a time.’ She slid the hatch up, hiding the sleeping Felix away. ‘But he gets confused and too hot and takes all his clothes off — which is when we get a phone call from some distraught mother of two, because he’s done a strip in the local Post Office, or Asda. And he ends up in here for the night.’

‘Can you open up number five?’

‘Least we can do is feed him up. He’s skin and bones under them rags.’ She dug out her keys. ‘Why do you want into five? Seriously, I was only joking about the “falling down stairs” thing.’

‘Need to ask Mr Milne a couple of questions.’

There was a pause, then a shrug. ‘Don’t see why not. Long as you sign for him.’

17

‘No.’ Martin Milne hunched into himself on the other side of the interview room table. His fingers twitched themselves into knots and out again. ‘No recordings.’

Logan pressed the button on the machine, setting the digital camera running. ‘It’s for your own protection, Martin. This way everyone knows it’s all aboveboard and no one tried to make you say anything.’ The unit gave a bleep. ‘Interview with Martin Carter Milne, of number six, Greystone View, Near Whitehills. Present, Martin Milne and Sergeant Logan McRae. It’s...’ he checked his watch, ‘twenty-one forty, Thursday the twelfth of February—’

‘No comment.’

Great.

Try not to sigh. ‘Martin, if you don’t want to talk to me, why are we—’

‘No comment.’

Well, it was pretty obvious why they’d written ‘PAIN IN THE HOOP’ on his cell whiteboard.

‘Martin, can we—’

‘I said, “no comment”. I have no comment to make.’

Complete waste of time.

‘Interview suspended at twenty-one forty-two.’ He pressed the button and switched it all off. ‘Let’s get you back to your cell.’

The lines around Milne’s eyes deepened. He spread his hands out on the tabletop. ‘They’ll kill me if they find out.’

Here we go.

‘Who’ll kill you, Martin?’

‘They made me watch.’ His eyes glistened. ‘They wouldn’t let me say goodbye, but they made me watch.’ Tears sparkled on his eyelashes. ‘They said if I told anyone about it, they’d do the same to me and my family. To Ethan. They’re going to kill my wee boy.’

Logan sat back in his seat. Slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Felt for his mobile. ‘It’s OK, Martin, you’re safe here. Why don’t you— Damn it.’ He hauled his phone out and poked at the screen. ‘Sorry about that: got it on vibrate.’ Then placed the thing facedown on the table. ‘Should have switched it off earlier.’

Outside the room, the floorboards groaned like a dying dog, the noise fading as whoever it was passed down the corridor.

‘Why don’t you start at the beginning? Tell me what happened and we’ll try to sort it out together, OK?’

Milne nodded. Wiped a hand across his eyes. ‘It was just meant to be a meeting. We turn up and hand over the cash and everything’s done.’ He swallowed. ‘Only, when we got there, they started screaming about more money. They said two hundred and twenty-five thousand wasn’t enough. They wanted an extra hundred grand.’

‘The money you borrowed from the bank.’

A nod. Then a sniff. ‘We told them we didn’t have it. It’d take some time. And this big guy, he starts hitting Peter and screaming at him: “We want our money, Bitch. We want our money.” And I tried to stop him, but they jumped me and they’re kicking and punching...’

Milne hauled in a deep, rattling breath. Stared down at his twitching fingers. ‘Then this other guy comes in and he says that if we want to get out of this alive, we’re going to have to sign GCML over to them. We’re going to have to start doing favours.’

Sounded familiar.

‘Course Peter says, “No way. Deal was for a loan, not this.” And they start in on him again. They’re stamping on his chest and his head and he’s crying and...’ Milne ground tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. ‘They tied his hands behind his back and stuck a bin-bag over his head. I promised them. I promised them anything they wanted, but they... they...’ He bit his bottom lip. ‘They taped it tight around his neck. And he’s thrashing against the floor, and he can’t breathe, and I can’t breathe, and they’re laughing, and...’

Milne folded forwards, until his forehead rested on the tabletop. He put his hands over his head, pressing down, as if he could force it through the scarred Formica. Muscles bunching in his thick arms. Shoulders trembling. Then the sobbing started.

Logan sat back and watched.

Somewhere outside, a patrol car’s siren burst into life. Then faded off into the distance.

He reached across the table and put a hand on Milne’s lurching shoulder. ‘Shh... You’re safe here. You’re safe.’

Milne didn’t look up, the words coming out jagged and torn. ‘If I... if I don’t do what... what they want.... th... they’ll kill me and my... my wife and my little boy.’ A wail grew from somewhere deep inside his torso. ‘Like... like they... they killed Peter.’

Detective Superintendent Harper scowled up from her desk. ‘This better be important, Sergeant, some of us have work to do.’ She pulled back in her chair. ‘What happened to your face?’

The office had the same bland, flat-pack elegance as the rest of the station. Two desks along one wall, one in the middle of the room. Harper had commandeered that one, while Narveer had the one nearest the door. Both of them poking away at fancy laptop computers, rather than the usual hamster-wheel-powered lumps of ancient plastic everyone else had to fight with.

Logan folded his arms, shoulders back. ‘Martin Milne claims he was present when Peter Shepherd was killed.’

‘Does he now?’

‘Their container business was failing, they needed new contracts. Peter Shepherd came up with the idea of bribing officials in Nigeria to let them bid for a bunch of oilfield logistic projects off the coast there. Only they needed the money in a hurry. So they went to one of Malcolm McLennan’s goons.’

‘Hmmm...’ Harper closed her laptop. ‘Narveer?’

Her sidekick swivelled his seat around to face them. ‘It’s a connection.’

‘Apparently Shepherd wasn’t just into true-crime books, he liked to kid-on he was connected. A little bit dangerous. When he bumped into someone he recognized from The Blood-Red Line at a fundraiser, he let it slip they needed two hundred thousand for something dodgy.’

‘I see.’ She picked up a pen and wrote something in her notebook. ‘And we should believe you, because?’

Logan held up his phone. Pressed his thumb against the button marked ‘PLAY’.

Martin Milne’s voice burst out of the speaker, slightly distorted and tinny. ‘...from the bank, but he said we couldn’t get the money fast enough. We had to get these guys bribed by Wednesday or—’

He pressed ‘PAUSE’.

‘I accidentally set my phone on voice-memo mode and left it on the interview room table. Might not be admissible in court, but that doesn’t mean we can’t act on the information till he agrees to make a formal statement.’

She tilted her head to one side and stared at him in silence.

Narveer adjusted his tartan turban. ‘So that’s why they needed those loans from the bank. They had to pay off Malk the Knife.’

‘Two hundred thousand, plus twenty-five grand interest. Only when they tried, the price went up another hundred thousand and they had to hand over the company. Shepherd refused and they killed him.’

Harper narrowed her eyes. ‘Hmm...’

Logan put the phone back in his pocket. ‘And now Milne has to use his containers and ships to shift stuff in and out of the country for Malcolm McLennan — lose them among the other manifests — or the same happens to him and his family.’

She pushed her chair back and stood. ‘Send the audio file to Narveer, Sergeant. We’ll take it from here.’ Harper waved at the door. ‘You can go now.’

You’re sodding welcome.

Steel spread her mouth wide, showing off rows of grey fillings in a jaw-cracking yawn. Then slumped and shuddered. ‘Where the hell have you been? Dropping off the spar, here.’

Logan grabbed his stabproof vest from the corner of the Sergeants’ Office and dragged it on, scritching the Velcro flaps together so the whole thing was tight. ‘I’m leaving now. You’re either in the car, or you’re walking.’ Equipment belt next, complete with the truncheon he could’ve done with when Nicholas Fife was on the rampage.

She stretched. Let him see her fillings again. ‘Pfff... I fancy some chips. Anywhere open for chips?’

‘It’s after ten. No. Now are you coming or not?’

‘All-night bakery?’

He snatched his high-viz jacket from the rack by the door — checked to make sure it actually was his, hauled it on and stormed out. ‘Stay here then.’

‘All right, all right.’ Steel hurried along behind, pulling on her coat. ‘Who poked a burning ferret up your bumhole today?’

Across the corridor and through the door at the top of the stairs. ‘I’ll tell you who — Detective Superintendent Holier-Than-Thou Harper, that’s who.’ Logan’s boots hammered down the steps. ‘Doesn’t matter what I do, that bloody woman treats me like something to be scooped up in a plastic bag and dumped in a park bin. Well, you know what? She can—’

‘Sergeant?’ Narveer appeared at the top of the stairs, mouth stretched out and down as if he was doing a sad frog impersonation. ‘Glad I caught you.’

Logan stopped. ‘Detective Inspector Singh: I’m off duty. And I’m going home.’

A sigh. Then Narveer closed the door and leaned his elbows on the handrail, looking down the stairs at them. ‘I wanted to say, good job. You did well. Milne wouldn’t talk to any of us, and you got him to open up.’

Was that credit?

Dear Lord, wonders would never cease.

He pulled his chin up. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘We’re going to offer Milne a deal. See if we can’t intercept one of Malk the Knife’s shipments.’ A smile widened Narveer’s face. ‘This is the closest we’ve come in years to pinning anything on McLennan.’

Tell that to Detective Superintendent Harper.

Narveer looked away, picking at the handrail with a fingernail. ‘Erm, Sergeant McRae? How did you get him to talk to you?’

No idea. But it wouldn’t do to let DI Singh know that.

Make something up.

‘Harper battered away at him, tried to grind him down. I treated him like a human being.’

‘Right. Good cop to her bad cop. Cool.’ The DI pulled on that big smile again. ‘Anyway, like I said: good job.’ He slipped back through the door, leaving Logan and Steel alone in the stairwell.

She sucked on her teeth, making squeaking noises. ‘Think he fancies you.’

‘Oh shut up.’ Logan turned and marched down the stairs.

‘Ooh, Sergeant McRae, you’re so sexy. Kiss me, Sergeant, kiss me like I’ve never been kissed before. Make a woman of me!’

He hauled the door open and stuck his hat on. Stepped out into the rain.

‘Oh come on, Laz, stop being such a Pouting Percy. You just got a pat on the bum from our new overlord’s sidekick.’ She followed him across the car park to where the Punto sagged under the weight of the drumming rain. ‘Which, on balance, maybe doesn’t sound all that impressive, but it’s better than nothing. And Narveer’s a nice boy: he’d probably take you to dinner before humpity-humpity.’

Logan unlocked the car and slid in behind the wheel. Chucked his cap in the back. ‘Are you coming or not?’

‘Still, going to be a longshot. Hanging about, hoping Malk the Knife will turn up and...’ A frown settled onto her face.

‘What?’

‘Shhh. Thinking.’ She dumped herself into the passenger seat. Then a smile bloomed across her face and she thumped a hand on the dashboard. ‘Of course! Why’d I no’ see it before? It’s obvious!’

‘You know how to get Malcolm McLennan?’

‘That big Asda we passed on the way in — we can get something to eat there!’

Moonlight speared down through the clouds, raking the fields as they slid by the Punto’s windows. Off to the right, the North Sea was a slab of polished granite. The world black-and-white beyond the car’s headlights.

‘Mmmnnnghph mnnnphh?’ Small beige flecks of pastry shone in the dashboard lights as they spiralled out from Steel’s mouth.

‘God, you’re disgusting.’

She swallowed. ‘Oh don’t be such a Jessie.’ Then took another bite of her pasty. Chewing with her mouth open. ‘I said, “Do you want the chicken curry or the steak-and-onion?” you grumpy old sod.’

Oh.

‘Steak-and-onion.’

The road wound along the coast, then headed inland, hiding the sea as Steel struggled with the packaging. ‘Ha!’ She handed it over. She’d even rolled the first inch of plastic down, so he could bite straight into it.

Logan did. Chewing on chilled soft pastry and cold meaty filling. It coated the roof of his mouth with a thin layer of waxy grease. Not exactly three Michelin stars, but better than nothing.

Steel polished her pasty off. Sucked the crumbs from her fingers. ‘When you doing it?’

He talked around a second mouthful. ‘Doing what?’

‘Tomorrow. With Samantha.’

Oh. That.

‘Don’t know. In the morning, probably.’ He puffed out a breath as stones and boulders gathered in his stomach, pulling it down. He cleared his throat. ‘Did you hear about Wee Hamish Mowat?’

She reached across the car and squeezed his leg. Second time that day. ‘You want me to come with you?’

The stones grew heavier. ‘Now he’s dead, we’ve got criminals from all over descending on Aberdeenshire. Looking for a chunk of the pasty.’ He took another bite, but it curdled in his mouth.

‘Give me a call, OK? You phone me when you’re heading over and I’ll dump everything and come sit with you.’ Another squeeze. ‘I mean it.’

He forced the greasy mouthful down. Blinked. Nodded. Then let out a long shuddery breath. ‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ She pointed at the pasty in his hand. ‘Now are you done with that, cos I’m still starving.’

18

Logan pulled up outside a little B-and-B on the northern fringe of Banff. A dozen feet of patchy grass separated the road from the cliffs. A pebbled beach hissed at the base of them, turned into a lunar landscape by the bleaching moonlight. The North Sea a solid slab of clay — glistening and grey.

Steel brushed pastry crumbs off her front and into the footwell. ‘Right. You call me tomorrow. Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Good boy.’ She climbed out into the night and stood there, peering back into the car while all the heat escaped. ‘I mean it, Laz: no trying to do it on your own. You’ve got family now.’

‘OK, OK, I get it.’

‘Don’t forget.’ She thumped the door shut, then turned and huddled her way over to the B-and-B and let herself in. Paused on the threshold to wave at him.

Logan waved back.

Soon as the door closed, shutting off the light, he bent forward and boinked his head off the steering wheel. ‘Great...’

Why was it, sympathy just made things hurt so much more? Indifference, even animosity was fine — could turn that into anger and cope — but sympathy?

He boinked his head off the wheel again. ‘Ungrateful tosser.’

Yeah.

Logan turned the car around and headed back towards the station. Past the silent darkened houses and empty streets.

How was he supposed to investigate her for Napier? If she sat there, holding his hand while he switched Samantha off, what was he supposed to do? Thanks for the support at this difficult time, now do you mind if I screw you over and work for the Ginger Whinger behind your back?

The harbour was full of yachts, berthed up for the winter. A handful of tiny fishing boats tied up closer to the harbour entrance.

But if he didn’t investigate her, Napier would only get someone else in to do the job. And maybe that someone wouldn’t be quite as understanding of Steel’s little foibles. Or her bloody huge character flaws.

Gah.

Maybe it was all just a misunderstanding? A quick poke about in the facts of the case, and bingo: Steel’s exonerated. She’d be delighted that he’d cleared her name... Or she’d kill him for being a disloyal wee sod and investigating her in the first place.

Great. So the whole thing was a lose-lose for him.

He parked outside the Sergeant’s Hoose. Sat there staring out at the bay. All cold and still and dark. The lights of Macduff glimmered on the other side of the water.

And then there was Samantha...

The stones were back, clumping in his stomach.

Come on. Out.

A long, black, sigh huffed out of him. Then he got out and locked the car. Crossed the road.

A couple of women stood outside the Ship Inn, smoking cigarettes and shivering. One looked up and stared at him as he let himself into the Sergeant’s Hoose. Like he was something strange to be studied, in his bright-yellow high-viz jacket — the stripes fluorescing in the streetlight.

Logan thunked the door behind him and locked it.

Sagged.

Tomorrow was going to be... just... terrific.

God.

A soft furry body thumped into his leg, followed by a tiny prooping noise.

Logan let his breath out. ‘Cthulhu. How’s Daddy’s bestest girl?’ He unclipped his equipment belt and hung it on the end of the banister, then stuck his hat on top. Peeled off his stabproof vest and leaned it in the corner. Bent down and ruffled the fur between Cthulhu’s ears. ‘At least you still love me.’

She purred, little white paws treadling on the laminate floor.

A handful of post lay on the mat and he picked it up, flicking through it. Yet another election leaflet from the Lib Dems, one from the SNP, and a brochure about free hearing aids for the over fifties. And last an envelope with no stamp, no postmark, and a black border around the edge. Hand delivered.

Logan turned it over and paused, one finger poised to rip through the flap. Maybe not the best of ideas. Use a knife instead. He marched into the kitchen and dumped everything else on the table. Took a butter knife from the draining board and slit the flap open. Poured the contents out onto the countertop.

No razor blades or needles were taped under the flap, lying in wait for an unwary finger. Instead the envelope contained a gilt-edged rectangle of cardboard engraved in flowery script.

Right. Well there wasn’t much chance of him turning up for Hamish’s funeral, was there.

When he’d just switched Samantha off?

And besides, it probably wasn’t a good idea to be in the same postcode as Reuben, never mind graveyard. No telling what would happen. But it probably wouldn’t be anything good.

He propped the invitation on the windowsill, next to the dying herbs.

Then dug out a squat glass tumbler and poured in a slug of the whisky Hamish Mowat had given him. Toasted the rectangle of card. ‘Sorry, Hamish. But I can’t.’

Took a sip. Warm and fiery and leathery and smooth.

Wait a minute.

He frowned at the tumbler, and the lines of amber crawling down the inside of the glass. There had been a letter, hadn’t there? Wee Hamish had handed it over, then the doctor threw them out and Reuben started throwing his weight around.

Back through to the hall and the collection of coats, jackets, and fleeces.

It was in yesterday’s coat pocket.

The word ‘LOGAN’ was scratched across the front in smudged trembling fountain-pen letters.

He sat at the kitchen table and opened it, while Cthulhu wound herself back and forth between his ankles.

Probably another appeal for him to take over Hamish’s criminal empire, because nothing said ‘Career Police Officer’ like running a stable of drug dealers, prostitutes, and protection rackets. Still, had to admire the man’s tenacity — even when he was dying he didn’t give up.

The contents were almost illegible, written in the same pained hand as the envelope. It must’ve taken Wee Hamish hours to do, given how weak he was at the end.

Wow.

Logan read the letter through again. Put it down on the table.

Took a mouthful of whisky.

Gave it one more read. Then picked Cthulhu up, carried her out into the hall, and closed the kitchen door, shutting her out. He cracked the window open, dug the kitchen matches out of the cupboard, held the letter over the sink, and set fire to it. Turning it back and forth until the flames took hold.

Heat seared the tips of his fingers and he dropped the burning letter into the sink. The gritty cloying smell of burnt paper filled the room.

The letter blackened around the words, then a line of vivid orange washed across it, leaving the sheet white and powdery, but still bearing Wee Hamish’s instructions. He jabbed the ashes with a wooden spoon, beating them into dust. No point taking any risks: the envelope suffered the same fate.

Gah...

Samantha lowered herself down on the couch next to him. ‘What we watching?’

‘Hmm?’ Logan looked up from the tumbler in his hands.

Some vacuous pap cop show lumped its way across the TV screen, about as divorced from the reality of actual policing as Henry the Eighth was from his wives.

Samantha poked him in the shoulder. ‘He didn’t divorce any of them. They were either annulled or beheaded. Well, except for the last one. And the one that died of natural causes. Don’t you ever watch QI?’

Logan had a sip of the whisky. ‘Don’t do that.’

‘Don’t do what?’

‘Don’t jump in when I haven’t said something out loud. Makes me look like a lunatic.’

She turned to the TV, nose in the air.

Onscreen, a man in an SOC suit wandered about a crime scene without wearing goggles or a facemask. Because, on television, no one ever got ripped apart in court for not following proper procedures. No, they could contaminate the scene to their hearts’ content, as long as the halfwit viewing public could see their pretty actory faces.

‘Look at these muppets. Bet none of them would last two minutes in the witness stand against Hissing Sid.’

‘It’s not my fault.’

Another sip. Then he put on a posh Scottish accent, ‘Tell me, Detective Inspector McActor, while you were parading all over the scene of the alleged crime, did you remain on the common approach walkway? No? Did you have the hood of your Tyvek suit up? No? You felt it was more important to show off your magnificent head of flowing hair? I see...’

‘This thing between you and Reuben has been brewing for years.’

‘And were you wearing your goggles and mask, or did you ponce about spewing your own DNA over everything? And did...’ Logan jabbed a hand at the TV, dropping back to his own voice. ‘Oh for God’s sake. Look at it: you don’t pick up a murder weapon with the pen from your pocket! What are you, a moron? How did this idiot get admitted to a crime scene?’

‘You broke his nose. He was never going to forgive you for that.’

‘Who wrote this garbage?’

‘Logan!’ She turned and grabbed his face in both hands. ‘Listen to me: I’m right, Wee Hamish is right — you have to kill Reuben. Have you even got a plan?’

On the TV, DI McActor was snogging one of the Scenes Examination Branch, in the middle of the crime scene, with the body lying at their feet.

Deep breath. Logan lowered his eyes and ran a fingernail along a chip in the rim of his glass. ‘I’m trying not to think about it, OK? I don’t want to kill Reuben. I don’t want to kill anybody.’

‘You have to start planning for it, you know that. Fitting him up isn’t going to do it.’ She let go of Logan’s face and poked him in the chest. ‘Come on: how, when, where, and what do you do with the body afterwards?’

He let his head fall back and stared up at the stippled white ceiling for a moment. ‘Gun. Has to be a gun. And it has to be soon. Somewhere out of the way with no witnesses. And there’s no point burying him, it’d take forever to dig a hole big enough.’ Logan swirled the dregs of his Glenfiddich around the glass, leaving trails up the side of the glass. ‘Fire. Stick the body in a car and set fire to it. Burn off any trace evidence and DNA. When they find the body they’ll think it was one of the rival gangs trying to muscle in.’

She smiled. ‘There you go. I’m proud of you.’

Wonderful.

Assuming he could lure Reuben to somewhere out of the way without anyone else showing up. Assuming he could actually pull the trigger. Assuming Reuben didn’t kill him instead.

And then all he’d have to do was pray that Reuben hadn’t lodged an insurance policy with a solicitor somewhere. In the event of my untimely death, the following letters are to be sent to the media and Professional Standards for the purpose of screwing Sergeant McRae to the wall by his testicles.

Speaking of which.

He pulled out his phone and turned it on again. Scrolled through the call history. And selected a number. Then listened to it ring.

Click. ‘You’ve reached the desk of Chief Superintendent Napier, I’m unavailable at the moment, but you can leave a message after the tone.’

Of course he wasn’t there — it was nearly midnight.

Beeeeep.

‘It’s Logan. McRae. I’ve been thinking about your investigation.’

Samantha stared at him, both eyebrows raised.

‘I’m in.’