The Blood Road

23

Sunlight barged in through the kitchen window, making the mouldy wallpaper glow, glinting off the toaster and kettle.

Naomi and Jasmine were ‘helping’. Which seemed to involve running around the kitchen with plates and tins of ratatouille no one had asked for, while shrieking. Instead of sitting down and eating their breakfast like they’d been told.

Logan poured muesli into a bowl ‘You: horrors, put that stuff down and get ready for breakfast.’ He slid it across the table where Tara topped it with sliced banana.

The radio played in the background, adding to the general din. ‘...twenty-one victims in the third mass shooting this week. San Francisco police confirm the gunman was shot dead at the scene...’

He grabbed Naomi as she thundered past. ‘Have you washed your hands?’

Jasmine held hers up to be inspected. ‘I’m all clean!’

Naomi wriggled. ‘All cleeed! All cleeed!’

‘Urgh.’ Tara poured orange juice into a glass. ‘This must be what it’s like to work in a lunatic asylum.’

‘Looontic! Looontic!’

‘...continues for missing five-year-old Rebecca Oliver at Hazlehead Park this morning. We spoke to Detective Chief Inspector Hardie...’

‘Sit down, you little monster. Who wants toast?’

The doorbell rang, two long sonorous notes that echoed through from the hallway. Tara put down the juice. ‘I’ll go. You...’ she pointed at the disaster, ‘deal with this.’ Then strode from the room.

DCI Hardie’s voice growled out of the radio. ‘...want to stress that our number one priority is getting Rebecca home safe and sound.’

Naomi clambered up onto her chair, singing. ‘Toast! Toast! Toast!’

A reporter’s voice: ‘Is Rebecca’s disappearance linked to that of abducted three-year-old Ellie Morton?’

The Arch Scumbag, Roberta Steel, sauntered into the kitchen, dressed casual in jeans and a jumper. She stopped and frowned at the table. ‘What the hell are you feeding my kids? Is that muesli? What is this, 1974? Where are the sausages?’

Naomi jumped down from her seat and ran at her, arms wide. ‘Mummy!’ Grabbing her legs and hugging, staring up at her. ‘I seed vampeers! Vampeers!’

Susan appeared in the doorway, perfectly turned out in Laura Ashley’s finest. As usual. She thumped Steel on the arm. ‘Don’t be rude, Robbie. A healthy breakfast never harmed anyone.’ Then bent and kissed Naomi’s head. ‘Hello, teeny horror.’

‘Sod healthy — what about bacon. Baked beans. Eggy bread!’

‘...any information, no matter how trivial you think it is — anything at all — call one-oh-one and let us know.’

‘Pfff...’ Steel hauled out a chair and slumped into it. Snapped her fingers at Logan. ‘Hoy, garçon: coffee. Milk, two sugars. And a decent fry-up! Who do I have to kill to get some black pudding around here?’

Oh joy.

Logan groaned, shook his head, then put the kettle on.

Sunlight breaks through the trees, washing the garden in shades of gold and silver. The wet grass shines, as does the hulking ivy beast slowly eating the smaller of her two remaining sheds. A pair of rabbits sit in the middle of the lawn, nibbling the grass.

Sally stares through the window, mug of tea clutched to her chest, feeling the warmth through her red corduroy shirt. Shame it can’t penetrate all the way to her heart.

Red cord shirt, new Markie’s jeans, hair brushed, make-up on. Making the effort for Raymond.

He tears another chunk off his croissant and nods at the patio doors. ‘Do you want me to go check on her?’

Sally puts her mug down. ‘No. No, I’ll go. Becky will be hungry.’ OK: a bowl from the cupboard and the Coco Pops. She stops on the way past the fridge for the semi-skimmed milk, and heads for the patio doors.

Raymond holds up a hand. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ Then points to the baseball cap, wig, and sunglasses sitting by the toaster. ‘Don’t want her recognising you.’

Heat blooms in Sally’s cheeks. ‘No. Sorry. Yes.’ She puts on her disguise, slips on her old brown hoodie and pulls up the hood. Slides open the door and steps out into the sunshine.

The rabbits scatter as she picks her way through the wet grass towards the shed, breathing in that heady scent the world has after the rain. Tristan scrabbles at the end of his run, making little yowling noises, wanting out to chase the rabbits. Not that he ever catches any — he’s far too big and slow for that, great hairy lug that he is.

Maybe they should take him to Bennachie this afternoon for a walk up Mither Tap? He’ll like that. Or out to the beach. Or over to the Bin forest... Anywhere but the woods at the back of the house.

A small shudder runs down Sally’s spine and she looks away from the greedy trees, tucks the Coco Pops under her arm so she’s got a hand free, unlocks the shed door, and steps inside.

Lee adjusted his mask, removed the padlock, slid back the bolt, and stepped into the garage. ‘Teddy Bears and Elephants’ bounced out of the speakers, jolly and cheery, raising the spirits.

‘Go up the stairs, you sleepy bears, it’s time to brush your teeth,

Then climb into your cosy beds and snuggle underneath...’

Sobbing came from one of the crates — high pitched and painful. Poor old Lucy Hawkins. She was only three.

Maybe it was time to give the garage another coat of paint? It was getting kind of gloomy in here. That might help?

He placed his tray on the workbench and clapped his hands, voice a touch muffled by the mask, but it was safer for everyone this way. What the children didn’t know, wouldn’t get them killed. ‘How are we all this morning then, did we sleep well? Did we?’

And right away Lucy stopped sobbing. Good girl.

He took the clingfilm off the sandwiches — well, rolls really — and opened the twelve pack of little water bottles. Humming along with the music as he unbolted Stephen MacGuire’s crate.

‘Hey, Champ.’ Lee undid the gag and handed over one egg mayonnaise with salad. Then one ham, cheese, and coleslaw, and two bottles of water. ‘You get those down you.’

He opened the next crate. ‘Here you go, Vernon, got to keep your strength up.’

Poor old Vernon. But maybe he’d get lucky this time?

He thumped the crate lid shut again, slid the bolt home, and moved on to the next one. ‘Lucy! Who wants lovely sandwiches for breakfast?’

Of course she did, and soon as he had her gag off she was wolfing them down like the tiny trouper she was.

Ellie Morton next.

He opened the crate and Ellie blinked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

‘Good morning, Princess. Egg mayonnaise, your favourite! I even put some cress in there, specially for you.’ He smiled at her — not that she could see it, because of the mask, but she’d hear it in his voice and that’d be nice for her. ‘You’ll be happy to know that even though some other kid’s gone missing, the police are still looking for you. Yes, they are. Yes, they are!’

Ellie shrank away from him, till her back pressed against the crate’s wall. Well, it was all a big change for her. Things would get better when she had a more permanent home. More settled.

He placed the sandwiches and water in her crate.

‘Don’t worry: I know this Rebecca Oliver’s getting a bit of coverage, but you’re still in all the papers and that makes you worth a lot more money. Isn’t that nice?’

He unbuckled Ellie’s gag as the song tinkled to an end, then started up again.

‘Teddy bears and elephants went up the stairs to bed,

They’d had a lovely dinner of tomato soup and bread,’

She snatched up the egg mayonnaise and tore into it, leaving a white smile imprinted on her cheeks as she glowered and chewed.

‘That’s the spirit. Now you eat them all up. Going to be a big day tomorrow!’

‘Good morning, sweetheart, did you sleep well?’ Sally squats down in front of her little guest and has a bash at a reassuring smile as she lays the cereal bowl on the wooden floor between them.

Becky’s face is grimy with dirt, smeared with dried tears. She sits on top of the sleeping bag, clutching Mr Bibble-Bobble tight. Somehow, she’s managed to wriggle out of her gag, but that’s OK. She can shout as loud as she likes, the only one who’ll hear her is Tristan. And at least her hands are still tied together.

‘You like Coco Pops, don’t you, Becky? Course you do.’ She opens the box and pours a generous portion into the bowl. Then adds milk. ‘Everyone likes Coco Pops.’ Holding the bowl out as the semi-skimmed darkens. ‘Here you go, sweetheart.’

Becky shuffles backwards until she’s up against the shed wall, her chain rattling.

‘Shhh... It’s OK, it’s OK. Look,’ Sally scoops up a spoonful and swallows it down. ‘See? Mmmm, it’s yummy. Do you want some, Becky? I bet you’re really hungry and—’

‘RAAAAARGH!’ Becky’s arms flash forwards, something shiny whipping out at the end of them.

It’s the chain, the chain isn’t—

The bracket on the end clatters into Sally’s temple, sending her sunglasses flying as she crashes sideways against the shed floor. Hot orange noise blares inside her head, followed by an avalanche of gravel and nails. The cereal bowl bounces off the boards beside her, spraying out its brown goop.

‘Gnnnn...’

Becky springs to her feet, gathers up the chain, grabs her new teddy, and leaps over Sally — trainers thumping on the shed floor as she lands. ‘Only Daddy calls me Becky, you stupid tit!’ Then the shed door bangs open and she’s gone.

Becca slid to a stop on the soggy grass. It was a garden. A big garden, with swings and a slide and things for climbing on. A big hedge with loads of trees on the other side. A big burned thing. A house...

A man inside stared out at her, eyes getting bigger and bigger as his mouth fell open. Surprise, you tit, Super Becca was free!

She tucked Teddy Orgalorg under her arm — not easy with both wrists tied together — and stuck her middle fingers up at the man — like Daddy did every time Question Time came on the telly — turned and ran.

24

Becca leaped over a big branch, trainers scrunching on the fallen leaves. Running fast as a cat through the gloomy woods. Trees swooshing by on both sides. The chain rattling and clanking in one hand, Orgalorg bouncing along in the other. Ducking under a big spiky bush and out the other side. Arms jiggling in a weird elbows-in way because of the string around her wrists. Legs singing an angry song.

Faster.

Charging through the woods. Grinning. Because she was saving Orgalorg from the Horrid Monster Woman. They were escaping!

Sally staggers out of the shed, clutching her throbbing head, bent almost double. The door frame thumps into her shoulder and she slides down it, sitting with her legs on the wet grass as the world spins.

Tristan goes from little yowling noises to full-throated diaphragm-rattling barks as Raymond slithers to a halt in front of her.

His mouth moves, but nothing comes out.

Blood drips between her fingers, disappearing into the red of her shirt.

Raymond stares. ‘What—’

‘I’m fine. Go. Go!’

A blink. Then he turns and sprints across the lawn to the gap in the hedge and stops. Looks left, then right, head cocked to one side as if he’s listening for something. Then he darts forward, disappearing into Skemmel Woods.

Sally clutches the door frame and does her best not to be sick.

Becca scrambled around a clump of jaggy green bushes. Jumped over stones. Ducked under a fallen tree. Running and running and running.

She darted around a tree and her trainers skidded in the slippy leaves, but she didn’t fall over! She thumped a shoulder into a branch, stayed upright, and kept going. Through the woods.

Looked back over her shoulder, but there was no sign of the Chasing Man.

Maybe he’d given up?

She slowed to a walk. Trees everywhere. All around her.

An old house sat off to the left — tumbled down and broken, its windows just big black holes in the stones. Roof a rusty saggy lump like wet cardboard. Could hide in there... But what if they set the Big Dog on her? What if the Big Dog sniffed her out and then bit her and she’d have to go in the Horrid Monster Lady’s shed again and they would chain her up and she’d be all sore from being bitten.

No. No hiding. Running.

Becca clutched Orgalorg tighter and ran away again.

A big green splodge of bushes blocked her way, covered in long brown beans that rattled as she fought her way through it — hissing like angry snakes as she wobbled out into a space where there wasn’t many trees at all.

They gathered around the outside, like kids waiting for a fight to start in the playground. But inside it was all sunny and bright and warm. The leaves beneath her trainers were orangey and yellow, like jelly and custard. Scrunching and crunching as she walked over to a gurgly stream.

Someone had tied flowers and an old grey teddy bear to a tree on the other side of a little wooden bridge. Its eyes were all scuffed and dull, most of its fur either missing or covered in greeny-black mould. Who would do that to a dead teddy bear?

She hugged Orgalorg, pressing his big soppy face against her chest so he couldn’t see.

All she had to do was cross the stream, march through the woods on the other side and she’d be free. They were going to make it. They were going to—

Behind her, the bush made its angry-snakes noise again, joined by crashing and snapping.

Becca barely had time to turn before the Chasing Man burst from inside the bush and leaped at her, arms out like the rugby people on the telly.

He thumped into her and Orgalorg went flying as they bashed down into the leaves. Rolling over and over. Only when they stopped, the Chasing Man was on top, pinning her down, face all red and sweaty, teeth bared, breathing hard.

‘HELP! MUMMY! HELP ME!’ She kicked and she squirmed and she bit, but he held on tight. ‘HELP! HELP—’

The Chasing Man slapped his hand across her mouth, but she kept on screaming — even though all that came out were muffled grunts.

‘Hold still, you little monster!’

No. Never.

Big fierce strong girl!

She writhed and wriggled and fought as he stood, dragging her with him.

He looked around. Smiled a nasty smile at Orgalorg — lying there in the churned-up leaves and twigs.

‘If you don’t hold still, I’m going to hurt your teddy bear. You want that? Want me to rip his arms off and poke out his eyes? That what you want?’

No!

Becca went limp.

‘Good girl.’ He scooped up Orgalorg. ‘No more bad behaviour, or else.’

The Chasing Man marched her back through the hedge into the garden again, one hand holding onto her dungarees and the other holding the chain. Being all rough and shovey, like a big bully. But she didn’t cry.

Becca squeezed Orgalorg to her chest. Cos he was scared. Cos he was only a teddy bear.

The Horrid Monster Woman was sitting in the shed doorway, holding onto her head like it was a broken egg — the side of her face covered in slithery red.

Good.

‘Keep moving.’ The Chasing Man shoved Becca across the garden till they were right in front of her. ‘Are you OK?’

The Horrid Monster Woman looked at them, eyes all puffy and pink, tears and blood on her face. A really good lump growing on the side of her head with an oozy red slash across it.

Becca grinned at her.

Big fierce strong girl!

The Horrid Monster Woman looked away. ‘I’m sorry.’

The Chasing Man pushed Becca closer. ‘You got something you want to say to the nice lady?’

‘My mummy’s going to kill both of you tits.’

‘Gah...’ He shoved her into the shed. ‘Don’t know how you got free, but you’re not doing it again.’

Ice melts through the tea towel, sending cold dribbles down Sally’s face to drip off her chin and onto the kitchen table. Even after two ibuprofen, two aspirin, and a couple of paracetamol, the world thuds and lurches. Like her head is a bass drum and God is stomping on the pedal.

Raymond slides the patio door open and steps in from the garden. Thumps it closed behind him. ‘Here.’ He flicks a small silver disk onto the table, it bounces and skitters to a halt by the tiny puddle in front of her. ‘Five-pence piece. She used it to unscrew the hasp from the wall. I’ve sunk four bolts through the upright and tightened the living hell out of them. She’s going nowhere.’

He walks over and peels the ice-filled tea towel from her forehead. Makes a pained face. ‘You might need a couple of stitches.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, I really think you need stitches.’

Why does no one ever listen to her?

She tries to hold it in, but it claws out anyway: ‘I’m — fine!’

And Raymond flinches, like he’s been slapped. Because it always has to be about him, doesn’t it? Men.

Sally stares at the coin, shiny and glittering as the puddle of meltwater envelopes it. She sighs. ‘I’m sorry. Just... don’t make a fuss.’

He rubs her back, between the shoulder blades, as if that makes up for everything. ‘She’s seen our faces.’

‘I know.’

Then Raymond presses the towel into her hand and marches out of the room, leaving her alone with the shiny five-pence piece.

It’s amazing — Becky’s only five years old, according to the morning news bulletins, and she managed to unscrew her chains with that. Concrete fills the bottom half of Sally’s lungs, dragging her chest down towards the tabletop. A five-year-old, alone and scared. How does this make them any different from the people who took Aiden?

Raymond reappears, carrying a leather satchel. He opens it and pulls out a plastic Ziploc bag. Tips the bag’s contents out in a small pile: blue pills, green pills, white pills, some tiny sheets of paper divided up into squares by perforated lines — like miniature postage stamps. Takes one of the mugs from the draining board and fills it with water. Drops two of the green pills into it.

Because no one ever listens to her. They always have to know best.

Sally stiffens. ‘I told you I’m fine.’

‘It’s not for you.’ He sticks a spoon in the mug and stirs. ‘It’s a little something to help our guest relax and not attack people.’ Stirring and stirring and stirring, till the water turns a pale-blue colour.

‘Ray, don’t hurt her! Please.’

He picks up one of the sheets of mini stamps. ‘I’m not hurting her, I’m... protecting her. She’ll wake up and she won’t be able to remember any of this. You want her to remember this? You want her to have nightmares for the rest of her life?’

‘But she’s—’

‘We’re doing this for Aiden, remember? And it’s better for her this way. Some Rohypnol to forget, a tab of acid so she doesn’t get PTSD.’

How are they any better?

Sally’s breath thickens in her throat, warmth spreading through her eyes as the kitchen blurs and a tear splashes into the meltwater puddle.

Raymond walks over and strokes Sally’s arm. ‘Shh... It’s OK. We’ll bring Aiden home tomorrow, you’ll see.’ He leans in and kisses her lightly on the non-bloody side of her forehead. ‘I promise.’

25

Logan stood in front of the medicine cabinet and popped a couple of Aripiprazole out of their blister pack. The orange tablets snuggled into his cupped palm, like a small child watching a vampire movie. He filled his tumbler from the tap, right up to the brim, and—

Banging on the door, accompanied by Naomi’s high-pitched I-want-something squeal: ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’

‘Give Daddy a minute, Little Monster.’ He palmed the pills into his mouth, washing them down with every drop of water in the tumbler.

‘Help! I needs to make wee-wee!’

He closed the medicine cabinet — his reflection grimaced back at him. ‘Oh joy.’

Susan, Steel, and Tara stood at the open patio doors, nursing mugs of coffee while Naomi and Jasmine played catch-the-leaf with Cthulhu in the garden. Jumping and pouncing between the puddles.

Logan tucked his Police Scotland black T-shirt into his Police Scotland itchy black trousers and joined the coffee drinkers. ‘At least it’s stopped raining.’

Susan wrapped an arm around Steel. ‘You know what we should do today? We should go to the park. Big family picnic. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’

‘Oh aye?’ Steel looked at her. ‘With all those kids being snatched?’

‘Well, how about the beach then?’

Logan straightened his epaulettes. ‘Actually, I can’t. Got to go hand over the Chalmers investigation. Now it’s a murder.’

‘Ooh...’ Steel turned. ‘Murder?’

‘Someone’s going to have to run an MIT and we all know it won’t be me.’ Epaulettes straightened, he tapped Tara on the shoulder. ‘Do you want a lift, because you’ve got that thing, don’t you?’

She frowned at him. ‘Thing?’

He nodded at Naomi and Jasmine, shrieking their way around the garden.

‘Oh, that thing! Yes. Definitely. I’ll grab my coat.’

And they were off — hurrying through the living room and out into the hallway. Struggling into their jackets as Steel finally realised what was going on.

‘Hey! Wait a minute!’

Logan zipped up his fleece, voice an urgent whisper. ‘Quick, quick!’

Steel burst into the hall as they made for the door. ‘Wait, who’s—’

‘Bye!’ He bustled Tara outside, making for the car. ‘Lock the door behind you, and that litter tray needs cleaning!’

‘But...’

Logan thumped the front door shut. ‘Run!’

They scrambled into the Audi, he cranked the key in the ignition and pulled out of the driveway while Tara was still fastening her seatbelt.

And: escape!

Logan pulled up outside an imposing block of modern flats on Riverside Drive. The kind of place that looked as if it’d been modelled on GCHQ. Still, the top-floor flats must have had a great view of Craiginches prison, till they closed it. Bulldozed it. And turned it into yet more flats.

Tara opened the passenger door and climbed out. Walked around to the driver’s side.

He buzzed down his window. ‘Sorry about that. I really didn’t... you know.’

‘Pfff...’ A shake of the head. ‘Yeah, well, maybe it wasn’t exactly the fifth circle of hell.’ Though she didn’t look convinced.

‘The kids aren’t that bad when you get to know them.’

Still didn’t look convinced.

‘OK, maybe they are, but it’s like drinking really cheap wine. The first couple of glasses kill your taste buds and after that you’re too numb to care.’

She sighed, then leaned in through the open window and kissed him. Smiled. ‘You’re a terrible boyfriend.’

‘I know, I know.’

Tara turned and strutted towards the flats, putting a bit of hip into it. ‘You can spend the rest of the day trying to think how to make it up to me!’

Logan grinned and drove off.

Logan tucked the case folder under his arm and raised a fist to knock on DCI Hardie’s office door. Stopped, knuckles inches from the wood, as a voice bellowed out:

‘FOR GOD’S SAKE, GEORGE, JUST DO WHAT YOU’RE BLOODY TOLD FOR ONCE!’

The door jerked open and Logan jumped clear as DS Robertson burst into the corridor.

Hardie was visible in the gap between her and the door frame — sitting at his desk with his head in his hands while DS Scott tried to hand him a form.

DS Scott stuck it on the desk instead. ‘I’m going to need you to sign—’

‘AAAAAAAAAA‌AAAAAAAAAARGH!’

Robertson closed the door behind her, shutting him off. Then leaned back against it, grimacing at Logan. ‘I gave up my Sunday for this.’

‘Now not a good time?’

‘A good time?’ She pulled her chin in, lip curled, as if Logan had suggested battering puppies to death with a hammer. ‘It’s like being trapped on the waltzers with an angry badger. I’d leave it at least an hour, if I was you.’

Fair enough.

The office door thumped open and Logan looked up from Cold Blood and Dark Granite.

It was Rennie, returned with the spoils of his important mission: two mugs of coffee. He had something tucked under one arm, making him all lopsided as he pushed the door shut again. ‘You’re not still reading that, are you?’

‘Hmmm...’

Rennie thunked a mug down on Logan’s desk. ‘Nightshift CID think they’re clever, but you’ve got to stay up pretty late to get one over on Detective Sergeant Simon Rennie. Ta-da!’ He dug into his armpit and produced a packet of custard creams. ‘Hidden inside a half-empty box of past-its-sell-by-date bran flakes. As if I wasn’t going to look in there.’

‘Hmmmm...’

Logan turned the page and there were the photographs again. The happy family snaps before the bomb went off.

Rennie sighed. ‘Don’t know why I bother.’ He thumped into his seat and ripped open the biscuits. ‘Have you approved my press release yet?’

Kenneth MacAuley, standing at the family barbecue — in the back garden at Skemmelsbrae Croft, going by the playset and the sheds behind him — cooking sausages and chicken. Shorts and a Pink Floyd T-shirt. Sunglasses perched on top of his head. Eyes squinted against the smoke. A smile on his face as he toasts the photographer with his free hand and a bottle of Beck’s, big fancy watch dangling from his wrist. Massive Newfoundland Monster Dog in the background...

‘Hello? Press release?’

Logan stared.

It’d been right there, all along.

‘Earth to Inspector McRae, are you receiving me? Over.’

He grabbed his desk phone and dialled the custody suite.

‘Downie.’

‘Jeff? It’s Logan. Crowbar Craig Simpson — have you still got his property?’

‘For my sins. He’s been a complete pain in the ring all morning. “My tea’s too cold.” “My porridge’s too hot.” “My—”’

‘I’ll be right down.’

Sergeant Downie tipped the contents of a brown paper bag into a blue plastic tray. Spread it out, then held up the chunky silver watch Crowbar was wearing when they arrested him. ‘One rip-off Rolex.’

Logan took it — holding it next to the photo of Kenneth MacAuley at the barbecue. That arm raised in salute. The big fancy watch hanging off of it.

The two watches were identical. Which was either a massive coincidence or...

He turned the watch over. The words, ‘TO K FROM S WITH LOADS OF LOVE’ were engraved on the back. Bingo. ‘Stick Crowbar in an interview room.’

Downie puffed out a breath. ‘You got any idea how long it’ll take to get a duty solicitor down here on a Sunday?’

‘Then you’d better get cracking, hadn’t you?’

Logan stopped outside Hardie’s office. Again. This time the door was open and no one was shouting. Which was nice.

The place was a bit crowded though: Hardie behind his desk, DS Scott on the phone, DS Robertson changing things on a whiteboard, DI Fraser on one of the visitors’ chairs — in a green shirt-dress today — frowning at printouts of something as DS Becky McKenzie handed them to her. DI Porter had the other chair, playing with the mole on her cheek while she scrolled through something on an iPad. Everyone talking over everyone else.

DS Scott pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder, then checked some paperwork. ‘Yes... OK, no... No, put the POLSA on, OK?... Look, put her on, please.’

DS McKenzie handed Fraser another sheet. ‘And that’s the third death threat since Friday...’

Fraser shook her head and sighed. ‘What is wrong with people?’

Porter looked up from her screen and grimaced at Hardie. ‘I honestly don’t see how we can do more without at least another dozen uniform.’

He grunted. ‘Where am I supposed to get twelve officers from? We’re stretched razor-thin as it is.’

‘Well go find her then!’ DS Scott thumped his paperwork down on Hardie’s desk. ‘God’s sake, Constable Guthrie, it’s not University Bloody Challenge!’

Logan knocked on the door frame.

Hardie gave another grunt. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘I came by earlier, you were busy. Who do you want me to hand the Chalmers investigation over to? Oh, and I might have a lead on the Kenneth MacAuley murder, if you’ve got someone free?’

McKenzie handed Fraser another sheet of paper. ‘This one’s a threat to rape. There’s six of those.’

Hardie sagged. ‘Do you know how much crap I’ve got on my plate right now?’

Fraser handed it back. ‘What about the usernames?’

‘No one’s using their real names. It’s all MummyLover1962 and SlipsterDavie stuff.’

‘Tell you what,’ Hardie held up his hand, ‘let’s count them, shall we?’ Ticking the fingers off one by one: ‘Search for Ellie Morton. Search for Rebecca Oliver. Murder inquiry into DI Bell’s stabbing. Murder inquiry into whoever it was Bell killed two years ago. Chalmers’ murder.’

DI Fraser nodded. ‘OK: get onto Twitter and find out who they really are. They must have IP addresses, something.’

‘Not to mention a huge drugs bust I can’t postpone, because it’s been set up for weeks.’

DS Scott settled his bum on the edge of Hardie’s desk, still working the phone. ‘Stringer?... Stringer, it’s Charles Scott... Yeah... Yeah, look: I need you to widen your search... Yeah, it—’

Hardie slammed his hand down on the desk, making the pen holder rattle. ‘Can everyone just shut up for thirty sodding seconds?’ Silence. Everyone stared at him, sitting there, looking as if his head was about to go boom. ‘Can’t hear myself think.’

Someone appeared at Logan’s shoulder, peering in from the corridor, dressed in full Police Scotland black with combat trousers and matching riot accessories. Sergeant Rob Mitchell, so big he had to stoop to look through the door, arms thick with muscle and corded with sinew. A wee smile as he waved at Hardie. ‘Sorry to interrupt, Boss, but we’re going to have to get the briefing underway or we’ll lose the dog team.’

Hardie covered his face with his hands and screamed.

26

Hardie hauled open the door, revealing a tiny galley kitchen off the MIT office and a uniformed officer in the middle of doing a little dance. Short, with a Lego-style black bob. Bopping and shimmying away with her back to them, earbuds in as the kettle boiled.

PC Dunn did a Michael-Jackson-style spin and froze, one hand clutching the crotch of her trousers. She yanked out her earbuds. ‘Chief Inspector. I was... It’s not what—’

‘Give us a minute, will you, Stacey?’ Hardie hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘Yes. Sorry.’ She glanced at the six mugs lined up in front of the kettle. ‘I can... Yup.’

Hardie had to shuffle out of the way to let her squeeze past. Then stepped inside. ‘Inspector?’

Logan joined him and closed the door. ‘Are you OK?’

The two of them pretty much filled the place.

‘It’s like trying to juggle jelly, broken bottles, and hand grenades all at the same time.’ He slumped against the sink, pointing towards his office. ‘How am I supposed to organise everything if they won’t leave me alone for five minutes?’

The kettle clicked and Hardie started filling PC Dunn’s mugs. ‘Officially, Superintendent Young is SIO on the Chalmers murder. Dead police officer, so it had to be someone senior. Which means I have to run the actual investigation. Which means DI Jackson should have been in charge of operational matters. Which means...?’ Letting it hang there.

‘Wait: “should have been”?’

Hardie put the kettle down. ‘Jackson’s son was hit by a car this morning. He’s only five.’

Oh no... ‘Is he...?’

‘Touch and go. And I can’t get anyone to fill in for Jackson till Monday morning at the earliest. Maybe Tuesday.’ Hardie gave Logan a pained smile, then raised his eyebrows. ‘So...?’

Logan pulled in his chin. ‘Why are you looking at me like... No.’

‘There’s no one else.’

‘I’m Professional Standards, we don’t do murder investigations. That’s not what we do!’

‘It’s only for one day. One. Two tops. Set things up, get them running.’

‘We investigate dodgy police officers. Nothing else.’

Hardie shrugged. ‘You were investigating Chalmers anyway.’

‘It’s not the same thing!’

‘And I’ve spoken to Superintendent Doig: he’s happy for you to take the reins. Chalmers was a police officer, Logan. We can’t stick her murder in a drawer and forget about it.’

Argh... He was right. Chalmers deserved more than that.

‘Fine. What about my lead on the Kenneth MacAuley case?’

‘I can repeat everything I’ve just said, if you like?’

‘Gah...’ Logan scrubbed his face with his hands. ‘But I get minions! And real ones this time, not like the fake ones I was promised for looking into DI Bell’s not-suicide.’

‘Done.’ Hardie stuck his hand out for shaking. ‘You can have... how about DS Steel and PC Quirrel? They worked with Chalmers on the Ellie Morton case, so they should be some help. I’ll get George to call the pair of them in.’

Terrific. Wonderful. Absolutely great.

Logan grimaced. ‘Oh yeah, Steel’s going to love that.’

The phone rang and rang and rang. Logan shifted it to his other ear and went back to marking Lorna Chalmers’ last known movements on the whiteboard. And still the phone—

A thin, wobbly voice replaced the ringing. ‘Hello?’

‘Dr Frampton? Hi, it’s Logan. Any joy with the soil analysis on those shoes yet?’

‘Shoes...? Urgh... Give me a chance — I was up drinking cocktails till one this morning. Head feels like it’s packed full of fragmented schist with calcareous inclusions.’

‘I’m sorry to be a nag, but it’s a murder investigation now and the victim was a police officer. So...?’

The sound of rushing water burst out for a couple of seconds, followed by a couple of plinks and a hissing fizz.

‘Dr Frampton? You still there?’

‘Can’t a woman enjoy her Alka-Seltzer in peace?’

‘Only we’re—’

‘I know, I know. Pfff... Give me half an hour and I’ll drag myself to the lab.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

A thunk. Then, ‘I really do feel like schist...’

Logan left her to her hangover.

Rennie dunted the office door open and lurched inside, only his legs visible — the rest of him hidden by the stack of file boxes. ‘Little help!’

Logan put Lorna Chalmers’ service history down, hurried over and plucked the top two boxes off the pile, revealing a shiny-pink face with sticky-up blond hair.

‘Argh... These weigh a ton!’ Rennie staggered to the nearest desk and dumped the rest of the boxes, bent double and grabbed his knees. Puffed and panted for a bit. ‘And... and Downie says... says that Crowbar... has seen... his solicitor. Urgh...’ He straightened up and rubbed the small of his back. ‘Think I pulled something.’

Logan lowered the other two boxes onto the desk. ‘They ready?’

Rennie nodded at the pile. ‘Every case Chalmers worked on in the last two and a half years. Records are still trying to dig out the six months before that.’

‘Rennie, focus. Are they ready?’

‘Waiting for you in Interview Two, but Downie says you’re not to get it all messy this time.’

‘And Crowbar doesn’t know what we’re after?’

‘Thinks we want more dirt on Fred Marshall.’ Rennie grinned. ‘Thought we’d leave the victim’s watch as a nice surprise.’

Crowbar slouched on the other side of the interview room table, arms folded, a sneer twisting his handlebar moustache. A tiny old man sat next to him in a shiny grey suit and grubby glasses. One hand trembling as he fiddled with a biro. Rennie had his pen out too, poised over his notepad, ready to strike.

Logan sat forward. ‘Well?’

Crowbar shrugged. ‘Nah. Like I was saying to Winston here, it’s a total witch-hunt, yeah?’

‘Actually,’ the little man raised a shaky finger, ‘it’s Albert. Not Winston.’

‘Whatever.’ Crowbar lounged back in his seat. ‘They fishing, Winston. They got nothing.’

Rennie put down his pen and picked up an evidence bag. ‘We’ve got this?’ He dipped inside and came out with the fancy watch. ‘Recognise it, Craig?’

‘I...’ Blinking at it. The tip of his tongue snaked across his top lip. ‘It’s a watch.’

‘You told Sergeant Downie it was a “knock-off”, remember that?’

‘Never seen it before in my life.’

‘Really?’ Logan pulled out his copy of Cold Blood and Dark Granite and laid it on the table. Opened it at the Post-it note acting as a bookmark, revealing the photo of Kenneth MacAuley burning sausages and chicken on the barbecue. ‘Because I have.’

Crowbar jerked his chin up. ‘Yeah, so?’

‘Your statement to DS Savage claims Fred Marshall told you he’d murdered Kenneth MacAuley and abducted Aiden. And yet, here you are wearing Kenneth MacAuley’s watch.’

The only sound was the wind, growling against the window.

Crowbar licked his lip again.

His solicitor tutted. ‘Ah. Now, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason for that. Isn’t there, Craig?’

‘Yeah, there’s... gotta be lots of watches, you know, exactly like it. Isn’t there? Heaps of them.’

Logan took the watch from Rennie, turning it over to show the back. ‘Only this one is engraved, “To K from S, with loads of love”.’

‘Winston, you going to say something here, or what?’

Albert didn’t.

‘Fred Marshall didn’t kill Kenneth MacAuley, did he, Craig?’

‘I wanna...’ Crowbar cleared his throat. ‘No comment.’

‘All that talk about how Kenneth’s brains looked when they were pounded out with a rock. All those little details you told us. It wasn’t Fred, it was you. You killed him.’

‘No comment!’

‘It wasn’t Fred who was offered two thousand pounds for Aiden MacAuley, it was you. Wasn’t it?’

He grabbed his solicitor’s arm. ‘Come on, Mr Wolfe, say something!’

A slow smile spread across Albert’s lips. ‘I’ve been practising law in Aberdeen since before you were born, Craig, and I always find “no comment” the best option.’

‘Here’s how this is going to work. You’re going up before the Sheriff on Monday for the two outstanding warrants, breaching your parole conditions, resisting arrest, and assaulting a police officer, so—’

‘You promised! You said if I told you about Fred, you’d drop the charges.’

‘Yes, but you lied to me, Craig. You sat there and lied to my face. Fred didn’t kill Kenneth MacAuley, you did. And then you fitted him up so you could move in on his wife.’

‘It wasn’t... I...’ Big pleading eyes.

Albert took off his glasses and polished them on a hanky. Taking his time. ‘I think it might be wise to pause at this point so I can confer with my client for a wee bittie. If that’s all right with you?’

There was a shock.

‘Course, in the good old days, you could’ve beaten a confession out of him.’ Rennie rocked on the balls of his feet, staring at the closed interview room door.

Logan leaned against the corridor wall. ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.’

Crowbar was having some sort of argument with his solicitor in Interview Two, their voices too muffled to make anything out. The tone was clear enough, though.

Rennie raised his eyebrows. ‘You sure we can’t lug-in at the door?’

‘You do remember we’re Professional Standards, don’t you? Professional Standards? The people who make sure everyone follows the rules?’

‘Was only asking.’

‘And if you think you’re getting to join us full time, you’re going to have to start acting the part.’

Rennie pulled on a lopsided smile and a Yoda voice. ‘Come over to the Dark Side, you must. Penguin biscuits, we have.’

Inside, the argument murmured to an end. There was a thump, then the interview room door swung open and Albert poked his head out. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Shall we have another shottie?’

Crowbar Craig shifted in his seat. Looked at his solicitor. ‘I...?’

An indulgent fatherly smile. ‘It’s all right, Craig, do it like we practised.’

Deep breath. ‘The watch in question was a gift from Fred Marshall.’ He sounded about as natural as a pornstar’s breasts. ‘Fred said it was a knock-off Rolex he’d found at a flea market in Amsterdam. I had...’ Crowbar’s face puckered as the words dried up, as if he’d just sat on an unlubricated lemon. ‘I had...’

Albert nudged him. ‘No idea.’

‘Yeah, I had no idea that Freddy was lying about the watch’s... providence.’

‘He means “provenance”, but you get the idea. The watch was a gift. He didn’t kill anyone.’ Albert polished his glasses again. ‘Now, unless you can prove otherwise, I think we’re done here. Don’t you?’

Logan poked the tabletop. ‘Someone paid you two thousand pounds to kill a man and abduct a child, Craig, and I want to know who!’

‘My client isn’t prepared to answer any further questions unless you have evidence of wrongdoing, Inspector.’ A smile and a shrug. ‘Without it, this is all supposition.’

Of course it was. But that didn’t mean Crowbar Craig Simpson couldn’t do the decent thing, save them all a heap of work, and admit he’d done it.

Logan stared at him.

And stared.

And stared.

Crowbar sat there, like an Easter Island head with ridiculous facial hair.

Fine.

At least they’d tried.

But this wasn’t the end of it. Somewhere, out there, was evidence linking Crowbar Craig Simpson to Kenneth MacAuley’s murder. And when that evidence surfaced, the vicious little sod was going to spend the rest of his life in a small grey cell.

Logan thumped Rennie on the arm. ‘Call it.’

‘Interview terminated at eleven fifty-two.’ Rennie clicked off the recording equipment.

And as soon as he did, Crowbar scooted forward in his seat. ‘They’ll kill me! I tell you anything and they’ll — kill — me.’

Albert shook his head. ‘I advised against this, Craig.’

Now this was more like it. Logan put on his sympathetic voice. Tried not to smile. ‘Who’ll kill you, Craig?’

‘You gotta get us protection, right? Me and Irene and Jaime and Tyrion?’

‘Protect you from who?’

‘Cos I’m saying nothing till I get a new identity somewhere... somewhere warm, like, I dunno, Sydney or something.’

Aye, right.

Logan sat back again. ‘We’re not allowed to export our criminals to Australia any more, Craig. They’re a lot more picky these days.’

‘Well... Spain then, or Italy. Somewhere they’ll never find us.’

‘Who? Where who will never find you?’

Had to hand it to him — if this was an act, he was teetering into Tom Hanks territory.

Crowbar shook his head. ‘Nah. Not till the four of us is protected. Till then I’m saying sod-all.’

27

Logan knocked on Hardie’s door and slipped inside.

He was behind his desk again, forehead resting on a stack of reports, hands wrapped over the top. As if he was trying to physically shove his whole head through the thing and out the other side.

DI Fraser looked up from her iPad and grimaced at Logan. ‘Please tell me you’ve got some good news?’

‘I think we might be able to prove that Crowbar Craig Simpson killed Kenneth MacAuley and abducted Aiden MacAuley.’

Hardie raised his head, face breaking out into a smile. ‘That’s great!’

‘Only trouble is, he’s claiming it was on the orders of a third party, and he won’t talk unless we guarantee safety and new identities for him, Fred Marshall’s wife, their kid, and an exceptionally ugly miniature sausage dog called “Tyrion”.’

Hardie banged his head back down. ‘Arrrgh... How the hell am I supposed to swing that?’

Fraser shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose it’s worth a try?’

‘Arrrrrgh...’

‘Yeah.’ Logan sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘Assuming Simpson isn’t lying about the whole thing to get away with murder.’

Hardie raised his forehead four inches off the desk... then thumped it into the reports again. ‘Arrrrrrgh!’ Thump. ‘Arrrrrrgh!’ Thump. ‘Arrrrrrgh!’ Thump.

Fraser puffed out her cheeks. Put her iPad down, raised her eyebrows at Logan, then nodded at the door.

Fair enough.

The pair of them stepped out into the corridor, Fraser easing the door shut behind her. Keeping her voice down. ‘Look, leave it with me, OK? I’ll see what I can do with DCI NRC.’

‘NRC?’

‘Not Really Coping.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s Sunday. All I wanted was a lie in, a nice spag bol for lunch, bucketful of gin and slimline, and Armageddon on the telly. Instead of which I’m stuck here trying to stop our beloved leader from having an aneurysm.’ Fraser ran a hand through her hair — the nails she’d bitten down were all filed to perfect crescents again, painted the same green as her dress. ‘He’s like an unexploded zit. One good squeeze and his head will go pop! Gunk and yuck everywhere.’

‘Kim?’

‘Yes, Logan?’

‘Never take up poetry.’

She smiled. ‘We’ll do our best to organise some sort of protection for Simpson and his hangers-on, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s incredibly difficult to get new identities authorised. If it’s not major drugs, organised crime, or terrorism-related, they’re not usually interested.’

‘Assuming—’

‘Assuming Crowbar’s not just a lying scumbag.’ Fraser sighed. ‘Which we both know he is.’

Wullie sounded as if he were calling from Mongolia on a tin can at the end of a bit of string, rather than sitting in Bucksburn station. ‘Aye, that’s it set up for you now: one HOLMES instance. I’ll email you the login details.’

‘That’s great, thanks, Wullie.’ Logan hung up and ticked the word ‘HOLMES’ off on the whiteboard.

The office door thumped open and Rennie lurched in, carrying another pair of large boxes. ‘They found the missing six months of case files. And look who I found!’

Steel appeared in the doorway, face like someone had suggested a threeway with Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. She hurled her coat at an empty desk. ‘Let’s get one thing crystal clear, OK? I was on a day off. We were going to buy a new sofa. After which I was planning on watching last night’s Strictly, getting fruity on prosecco, and rolling around naked with my wife on it.’

Urgh...

Logan shuddered. ‘There’s an image.’

Rennie added his boxes to the pile. ‘So that’s us now got every case DS Chalmers worked on in the last three years.’

‘Two:’ Steel held up both fingers, ‘I am no’ your sodding sidekick. Understand?’

‘You want me to start going through the files, Guv?’

Logan opened the nearest box, pulled out about half a dozen folders and dumped them into Rennie’s arms. ‘Pass them round: most recent files first. Maybe someone in here decided to get revenge and kill her.’

‘Three:’ two fingers on one hand, one on the other, ‘I’m not driving you about like a bloody chauffeur.’

The office door bumped open again and in swanned Tufty — dressed in jeans and an original-series Star Trek T-shirt. ‘Morning fellow travellers on the highway to justice!’

Steel gave him the benefit of her three fingers. ‘Oh, shut your twit-hole.’

Logan clapped his hands. ‘Right, listen up, people. We are nowhere near enough bodies for a Major Investigation Team, but for the next two days we’re all we’ve got.’

Tufty settled into an office chair and pulled out his notebook and pen. Keen.

Steel sniffed. ‘We’d better be getting overtime for this.’

‘Detective Sergeant Lorna Chalmers was found hanged in her garage, yesterday morning.’ Logan picked up a sheaf of paper. ‘She’d been seriously assaulted at least twice on Friday. Preliminary forensic report says she was stuffed full of alcohol and probably antidepressants too. Marks on her arms and legs look like they were caused by someone restraining her while she died.’

Tufty put his hand up. ‘What about the husband?’

‘Brian Chalmers has no previous, but he was planning on leaving his wife the day after her birthday. Claims he didn’t see her suicide-note text till the next morning, then went downstairs and found her. I want him brought in and questioned.’

A grin. ‘I’ll grill him like sausages!’

‘No you won’t. Rennie will.’

Rennie nodded. ‘I went on a course.’

‘Tufty: you’re going over to Chalmers’ house and looking for her mobile phone.’

‘No sausages?’

‘No sausages. She texted her alleged “suicide” note at ten thirty on Friday night, so where’s her phone?’

Rennie perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Maybe she sent the message from somewhere else first, then went home and killed herself?’

Steel threw a whiteboard marker at him. ‘Well it’s no’ like she could’ve sent it afterwards, is it?’

Honestly, it was like being in charge of a kindergarten, full of delinquent drunken monkeys.

Logan pointed at Tufty. ‘Go through her bins, search the garage, kitchen, bathrooms, car. It has to be somewhere.’ Then pointed at Steel. ‘You worked with her on the Ellie Morton case.’

‘Oh aye?’

‘Chalmers was very cagey about who assaulted her, but she said she’d recently interviewed the stepfather. I want to talk to him.’

Steel crossed her arms. ‘Russell Morton? Can’t drag him in: press would have a field day.’

‘Then we go to him.’

Steel gripped the steering wheel, as if she was trying to murder it. ‘You’re a rotten, scum-filled, pus-faced—’

‘Privilege of rank.’ Logan stretched out in the passenger seat. ‘That’s what you used to tell me when I had to ferry you all over the place.’

Outside the pool car’s windows, playing fields drifted by on the left. And on the right: Aberdeen University’s contribution to brutalist architecture, AKA: the Zoology Building. A narrow-windowed block of crenellated concrete stuck on top of what looked like a double-storey car park.

Steel gave the steering wheel an extra murder. ‘That’s no’ the point!’

‘Yes it is. Tell me about Russell Morton.’

‘I won’t be a detective sergeant forever. I’ll get promoted to DCI again, and see when I do? Revenge!’

Logan smiled at her. ‘And until then, you’re my sidekick.’

The playing fields gave way to communist-style tenements, arranged in squares.

‘I’m no’ your sodding sidekick!’

‘And I shall call you “Binky” and if you’re a good little sidekick you shall have a sweetie.’

The muscles bunched and pulsed in her jaw.

Trees reached up on either side of the road now, naked branches dancing in the wind, a cluster of tiny wee houses jammed in behind them.

She jerked the car into a left turn, opposite a development of pink-and-white flats. ‘You’re enjoying this far too much, you know that don’t you? Gloating turdmagnet.’

‘Now: Russell Morton.’

She rolled her eyes, driving deeper into Tillydrone. More terraced housing — painted in slightly different shades, as if that would disguise how ugly they were. Terraces. Small blocks. More terraces. ‘Russell Morton is the kind of guy who’s never earned an honest bob in his life. Benefits, gambling, and a bit of B-and-E. Closest he’s come to a proper job was growing cannabis in a polytunnel up Mintlaw way.’

‘Violent?’

‘Officially? Couple of drunken assaults, other side dropped the charges both times.’

A squat tower block loomed in the distance in shades of grey and brown. Windows glinting in the sunlight. Glowing like a burning brick.

‘And unofficially?’

Steel shrugged. ‘Him and Ellie’s mum have been knocking lumps off each other for years. Serious lumps as well: I’m talking the odd week in hospital for both of them.’

‘What about Ellie?’

‘Battering her, you mean? If they are, no one’s noticed it.’

The pool car turned into a parking area between two rows of tenement flats. Six flats to a communal door. Bland and a bit shabby. Someone had tried the different-coloured-paint trick here as well. It hadn’t worked.

A handful of fancy four-by-fours sat outside one of the communal front doors, all occupied. Conspicuous amongst the hatchbacks and rusty white vans.

‘Aye, aye.’ She parked a few doors down. ‘Our mates from the press are still hanging about, then.’

Logan undid his seatbelt. ‘And if we’re really lucky, we won’t have to talk to any of them...’

The living room was crowded with furniture — more than it could really cope with — two floral sofas and a pair of matching armchairs almost filled the space between a pair of sideboards, a Welsh dresser, and a TV unit topped by a massive set. Every single flat surface covered in floral tributes, cards, and teddy bears.

Not bad going for a two-bedroom flat. Even if there was barely enough space to squeeze sideways through the gaps.

Russell Morton had the armchair with its back to the window, the light framing him as if the chair was a throne and he was King of Laura Ashley Land. Tall and thin. Long fingers. Shoulder-length brown hair and mid-cheek sideburns. A polo shirt and paint-spattered jeans.

He curled his lip at them. ‘So how come you’ve not found our Ellie yet?’

The sound of someone singing along to a boiling kettle rattled through the open door to the kitchen.

Steel slouched on one of the couches, knees akimbo. She smiled at Logan. ‘I think you should answer that one. Seeing as I’m just the sidekick.’

Logan eased himself into the space in front of the TV. ‘You spoke to one of our colleagues a few days ago: Detective Sergeant Chalmers.’

The lip curled some more. ‘She that frizzy-haired bint? Bit rough around the edges, but still kinda doable if you’ve had a couple of pints?’

Steel nodded. ‘That’s the one.’

‘Yeah, I spoke to her.’ Russell Morton shook his head. ‘Bitch wanted to know where I was when Ellie got snatched, didn’t she?’ Pause. ‘Cos I was with me mates.’

Of course he was.

‘You were flashing cash about that night, weren’t you Russell? Bought pizza for everyone and gave the delivery man a big tip.’

A shrug. ‘I’m a nice guy.’

‘Oh aye.’ Steel nodded. ‘A veritable prince among men.’

‘I got a bit of cash in my pocket, why not splash it about? Spread the happy, yeah?’

Logan checked his notebook. OK, so there was nothing actually written there, but Morton didn’t know that. As far as he was concerned Logan knew things. ‘Where were you this Friday, Russell?’

‘Pfff... About. You know, helping search for Ellie and that. Cos she’s missing.’

‘What about Friday night?’

He spread his hands, indicating his floral-print domain. ‘Back here, with Katie. Poor cow’s broken up about Ellie, isn’t she? Cos you lot can’t get your finger out long enough to find her.’

‘Where did you get the money from, Russell?’

‘But you’re doing sod-all aren’t you? Too busy harassing me.’

The singing someone emerged from the kitchen with a mug in each hand. Angela Parks, from yesterday’s media scrum outside Mrs Bell’s house — the thin androgynous one. She had the same suit on, her shirt looking worn and unwashed. She shuffled her way through the upholstered obstacle course and offered one of the mugs to Russell Morton. ‘Milk and three.’

He took it without a word of thanks. As if it was his due. Sipped at it, staring at Logan. ‘You want to know where I got the cash?’

‘Cash?’ Angela Parks turned. ‘What cash?’

‘Got it on a scratcher, didn’t I? Three grand. Sweet as hell, like.’

She stuck her free hand towards Logan for shaking. ‘Angela Parks, Scottish Daily Post. Why are you asking him about cash?’

Morton jerked his chin up. ‘None of anyone’s business, though, is it?’ He jabbed a finger at Angela. ‘And you don’t print a word about it, right? Katie doesn’t know and it’s staying that way or you can kiss your exclusive ta-ta.’

Steel clamped her legs together. ‘You won three grand on a scratch card and didn’t tell your wife?’

‘Course I didn’t. She didn’t win the cash, did she?’ Another sip of tea. ‘Anyway, better not to. Money changes people, yeah? And Katie’s got enough on her plate as it is.’

‘Unbelievable...’

Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘Where did you buy the scratch card? I’ll need the address.’

‘See, you lot swan in like something off Downton Abbey and you think we’re gonna be all bowing and “Yes, m’Lord”, don’t ya? Your frizzy-haired bitch was the same.’

‘Supermarket, newsagent’s, garage?’

‘But we got the power, don’t we? Us. The little people. The working class ain’t taking your crap no more.’

Steel laughed, slapping her thigh as if it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Laying it on thick. ‘Working class? You have to do some actual work to be working class, Russ.’

He bared his teeth and stood, chest out. ‘You calling us a scrounger?’

‘A scrounger?’ Angela Parks looked as if she was about to wet herself with glee. ‘Oh, I am so going to quote you on that.’

‘Not my fault there’s no jobs, is it?’ Morton’s voice got louder. Sharper. ‘Austerity. Banking crisis. Downturn in the oil price and that.’

‘Mr Morton is coping bravely with the disappearance of his little girl and you’re here calling him a scrounger? That’s going right across the front page tomorrow!’ She painted the headline with her hand. ‘Callous Cops Brand Ellie’s Dad A “Scrounger”!’

And at that, Morton turned on her. ‘You think this is funny?’ He put his mug down, curled a pair of fists. Stepped towards her. ‘Ain’t no one’s business but mine if I got a job or not, you skinny munter cow. You try to make me look like a fanny in print and I’ll have you. We shiny?’

She shrank away from him. ‘It... We... I was only trying to defend you.’

Louder. Closer. ‘Well you’re doing a piss-poor job of it, aren’t you?’ And then, as if someone had thrown a switch, he was back to normal — smiling at Logan. Nothing to see here, Officer. ‘I can’t remember where I bought the scratcher. Got wankered with my mates, right? Found it in my pocket the next day — head like a broken hoover, mouth like a septic tank. Then it comes up three grand.’ The smile turned into a grin. ‘Best hangover ever.’

Logan tried to keep the disgust out of his voice. ‘Where did you cash it?’

The smile brittled. ‘Nah. Think I’m done being nice to you tossers.’ Morton jerked his head towards the door. ‘Don’t let it hit your arse on the way out.’

Angela Parks followed them down the shabby hallway with its collection of shabby coats and shabby shoes gathered by the shabby door. Keeping her voice down. ‘Course, he’s going to change his mind about me printing the story, you know that, right?’

Steel glowered at her.

She shrugged. ‘Not my fault you called him a scrounger, is it?’

A sniff. A look of disgust. ‘Here, Laz, Can you smell something rank? Cos I can smell something rank.’

‘Don’t be like that. I could make it all... go away if you like? Pretend I never heard you insulting the stepdad of a missing child?’ Parks inched closer, eyes shining. Eager. ‘What do you know about something called the “Livestock Mart”? Where they sell kids to paedos? It’s a real thing, isn’t it?’

‘Nope.’ Logan held up a hand. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. Never heard of it.’

‘Ellie Morton and Rebecca Oliver: abducted here, Stephen MacGuire in East Kilbride, Lucy Hawkins in St Andrews. Three kids in eight days, all of them under five.’ Parks grabbed at his sleeve. ‘They’ve been abducted to order, haven’t they?’

‘I think we can show ourselves out.’ He removed her hand.

‘I won’t stop digging, whether you help me or not! This is your chance to avoid a PR disaster.’

He opened the door and Steel followed him into the rain.

Parks stayed in the hall, glaring at them. ‘I mean it: I’ll splash “Scroungergate” right across the front page!’

And that’s when Steel paused, turned in a graceful pirouette, stuck up two fingers and blew her a long wet raspberry. ‘And you can quote me on that!’

28

Steel puckered her lips, whistling something cheery as she drove them away from Ellie Morton’s house.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Logan stared at her. Doing his best. Really, really doing his best to stay calm. ‘What the goat-shagging hell was that supposed to be?’

She stopped whistling and turned onto the main road. ‘That song off Timmy and the Timeonauts. The one about the stinky dinosaur who—’

‘Not the bloody whistling: goading Russell Morton!’ OK: now he wasn’t doing quite so well at the staying-calm thing. Starting to get a bit shouty, to be honest. Which was perfectly justifiable in the circumstances.

‘He’s a scroungy—’

‘His step-daughter’s missing!’

A shrug. ‘Yeah, but he’s the one probably—’

‘And you did it in front of a journalist!’ Getting even louder. ‘Because God forbid you go to all that trouble acting like an arsehole without an actual audience!’

She took one hand off the steering wheel and gave him the same Vs she’d given Angela Parks. Long and slow. ‘For your information, sunshine, Russell Morton is an abusive, sexist, misogynistic wankspasm.’

‘I don’t care if he’s Jack the Ripper — you want to rattle him to see what falls out? That’s fine. But you don’t do it in front of a reporter!’

‘Aye, well, doesn’t matter, does it?’ Steel took them out onto Tillydrone Avenue again. ‘You heard him: if she prints a word of it, he’ll “have her”. And where does that lanky strip of puke get off calling her a “skinny munter cow”? He looks like the bastard lovechild of Frankenstein’s monster and a bicycle-seat sniffing smackhead.’

Unbelievable.

‘You think that makes it OK?’

‘Course it does.’

The woman was completely unbelievable.

‘What would’ve happened if I’d done something that stupid when I was working for you? You’d have blown your rag.’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’

Why did he bother? Why? What was the point?

He thumped back in his seat. ‘I should’ve stuck with Rennie. You’re a crap sidekick.’

‘Oh aye. And if you ever shout at me like that again I’m going to rip your nadgers off and feed them to your cat.’

North Anderson Drive slid by, taking its tower blocks, roundabouts, and soggy housing estates with it.

Steel overtook a rusty Land Rover with a yellow ‘BEARDED SEXGOD ON BOARD’ sign stuck to the rear window. ‘See, if you ask me—’

‘Which I didn’t.’ Logan poked at his phone again. No new text messages.

‘We’re wasting our time searching for Ellie Morton.’

‘She’s a little girl!’

‘She’s a dead little girl.’ A right at the roundabout, onto King’s Gate — with its squat granite bungalows and cycle lanes. ‘Russell Morton comes home drunk and stoned, tries it on with her — cos he’s that sort of guy, you can tell just by looking at him — she screams, he kills her.’

‘And where’s Ellie’s mum when all this is happening?’

‘Probably passed out on the couch, surrounded by empty lager cans and copies of Dysfunctional Family Monthly.’

Trees lined the road, opening up into parkland, the grass so waterlogged after the last few days it had grown its own lochan.

‘He was with his mates, remember?’ That was the trouble with Steel — never paid any attention to anything. Or anyone.

‘Aye, if you believe Ellie went missing when they say she did.’

Ah... Logan nodded. Good point. ‘So when Chalmers checked his alibi...?’

‘Exactly.’ She smiled across the car at him. ‘See? We’ll make an inspector of you yet.’

‘Cheeky sod.’

Righty-diddle-doodie, let’s do this.

Tufty grabbed the folder from the back seat of his pool car and a-rummaging he did go. ‘For whosoever pulls the sword from the stone...’ Found it. He held the key aloft, his other hand curled into a claw beneath it, teeth bared, belting the word out: ‘EXCALIBUR!’

And so began the glorious reign of Tufty Drizzleborn; first of his name; Lord of Flat 24, Martin House, Hazlehead; Protector of the Great Biscuit Tin, Breaker of Teapots; Father of Rubber Ducks.

Who was about to get wet.

He climbed out into the rain and hurried up the driveway to the front door — sheltering under the teeny porch while he unlocked DS Chalmers’ house and let himself in.

Not a bad place. A lot bigger than his, that was for certain. And they had stairs! How cool was that? Your very own stairs that went all the way up and all the way down again.

Now, where best to start searching? Up those lovely stairs, or down here?

How about a compromise: kitchen.

Kitchen it was.

Tufty wandered down the hall, pausing to frisk his way through the pockets of the six assorted jackets hanging there: lint, some change, a roll of dog-poo bags — which was a bit weird as Chalmers didn’t own a dog — a couple of takeaway menus, and a packet of peppermint Rennies. No phone.

Onwards ever...

Tufty stopped. Frowned.

There was a weird noise coming from behind a white-painted panel door on the left. A sort of grunty, panting noise. Maybe Chalmers did have a dog after all? And if she was dead, and her scumbagular ex-husband was off playing naughty games with an account manager called Stephanie, who was feeding and walking the poor wee thing?

‘Tufty to the rescue!’

He yanked open the door.

A small garage lay on the other side, lined with shelves full of boxes and tins and bottles and sports stuff and things. Exposed joists, for the room above, ran from side to side, but one near the middle had a chunk of white electrical flex wrapped around it. The end snipped clean where they must have cut down Lorna Chalmers’ body.

And right underneath that was a naked man. Well, not entirely naked, he did have a set of super-huge over-ear headphones on — connected to the laptop sitting on the concrete floor in front of him. Next to a squirty container of hand cream. Which he was massaging into his erection with quite a lot of vigour.

Smiling and grunting. One tattooed arm pumping up and down.

Yeah... No way Tufty was feeding him and taking him walkies.

There was some sort of candid camera footage on the laptop’s screen: Lorna Chalmers, in her back garden and a bikini, on a sun lounger. Working on her tan.

Dirty wee monkey.

There was a packet of non-stick scrubby pads for doing the dishes on the shelf next to the door. Tufty grabbed it and lobbed it at the onanistic halfwit. It bounced off the back of his head.

Woot!

‘Ten points!’

The guy turned, a scowl on his face, then his eyes locked onto Tufty’s. They widened. A look of horror spread like custard. Then he screamed. Covering his willy with one hand, the other slamming the laptop shut, heels scrabbling at the hand-cream-spattered concrete.

Tufty grinned. ‘Get your clothes on, you filthy sod. You’re utterly nicked!’

Tufty propelled No-Longer-Naked Norman the Naughty Knob Noodler down the hallway — both hands securely cuffed behind his back in ‘pat the dog’ position.

The filthy sod snivelled and sniffed. ‘Please, this is all a misunderstanding, yeah?’

Tufty picked ‘SERGEANT MCRAE’ from the contacts list on his phone and set it ringing as he gave Norman another push towards the front door.

‘You don’t have to arrest me: I’m not hurting anyone! How am I hurting anyone?’

The Sarge’s voice whumped out of the phone, a bit tinny and boomy like he was in a car. ‘Tufty?’

‘Guv? I’ve just arrested someone.’ He followed Norman into the rain, grabbing a handful of checked shirt to stop him getting away while the house door got locked.

‘Who?’

A couple of teeny kids danced about on next-door’s lawn in wellies and waterproofs.

Norman lunged at them. ‘Leo, get Mum, yeah? Please get Mum! Get Mum!’

Tufty tightened his grip. ‘Shut up you.’ Then pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could dig out the pool car’s keys and plip the locks. ‘Caught him in Chalmers’ house. He’d broken in and was giving himself a wee treat on the garage floor right under where she was hanged.’

‘Help! Mr Ghent! Police brutality!’

On the other side of the road, an old bloke with grey hair and a Metallica T-shirt looked up from putting out his wheelie bin. Sniffed. Then shuffled off to get the recycling.

‘Let me guess, hipster hairdo and a brand-new Kermit the Frog tattoo?’

‘AKA: Norman Clifton. Stark naked on the floor, hammering away like he was playing Whack-a-Mole.’ He steered the aforementioned pervert towards the parked pool car.

‘Bet he’s got another spare key: confiscate it. And did you find that phone yet?’

Tufty plipped the locks and ‘assisted’ Norman into the back, holding his head down so he wouldn’t bash it on the roof. ‘Not even looked yet, Guv. I’ve been too busy getting No-Longer-Naked Norman here dressed again.’ Tufty thumped the door shut and leaned on the roof. ‘Think he might have something to do with it? Maybe he’s the type who lets himself into other people’s houses in the dead of night and Whack-a-Moles away while they’re lying there sleeping? Maybe he finds Lorna Chalmers all unconscious with booze and antidepressants and decides, “Way-hey, my luck’s in tonight!”’

‘Could be. Get him processed and stuck in a cell. And not a nice one either, one of the scabby ones next to someone with a smack habit and Tourette’s. Soon as his solicitor’s had access, I want the hipstery wee pervert in an interview room.’

‘Hurrah: finally someone to grill like sausages!’

‘No. No sausages for you until you find that phone.’

Oh poo...

Tufty sagged. ‘Guv.’ He hung up and opened the car door. Loomed inside with his scary police-officer face on. ‘Right, Norman, one chance and one chance only: how did you get into Mrs Chalmers’ home? Did you break in, or have you got a key? You’ve got a key, haven’t you?’ Tufty stuck his hand out. ‘Give.’

Norman Clifton blinked at him, bottom lip wobbling like strawberry jelly on a washing machine, and burst into tears.

A big grey slab sat on the other side of the junction, with ‘THE JAMES HUTTON INSTITUTE’ on it, complete with strange wavy logo and a bunch of arrows pointing the way to various access routes and bits of the campus.

Steel followed the one marked ‘Reception’, driving through a set of wrought-iron gates and onto a winding, narrow road through the trees. ‘...the upshot of which is: you and Ginger McHotpants take the kids that week and I take Susan to Reykjavik for pickled fish and naked fireside-wriggling on a bearskin rug.’

Logan put his phone away. ‘OK, one: no. Two: don’t be disgusting. That’s a horrific image to plant in anyone’s mind. And three: stop calling Tara “Ginger McHotpants”!’

Steel reached across the car and thumped him on the arm. ‘Who are you calling a horrific image? Think your naked body is anyone’s idea of a Monet oil painting? Because I’ve seen it, and believe me, it isn’t.’

He stared at her. ‘We swore never to talk about that ever again!’

‘I still have nightmares.’

‘Oh yeah? Well I got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from seeing your—’

‘Don’t!’ Her finger hovered centimetres from his nose. ‘Just don’t.’

Fair enough.

The Hutton Institute campus emerged from the trees — an old two-storey granite building tacked onto a massive white shopping-mall-style extension that completely dwarfed it.

The car park was empty, except for a red Porsche four-by-four parked near the reception.

Steel slid the pool car in next to it. Then sat there, hands still on the wheel, frowning out at the institute. ‘Might wait here. Dr Famptonstein always gives me the willies with her,’ Steel put on her best B-movie vampire voice, ‘“the soil is the life, ah... hah... haaaaah...” shtick.’

Logan climbed out. ‘Don’t be such a big boy’s pants. And don’t look at me like that: apparently we’re not allowed to say “big girl’s blouse” any more. It’s sexist.’

‘Pfff...’ She locked the car and scuffed her way towards reception. Shaking her head. ‘And they made you an inspector...’

Dr Frampton fiddled about with what looked like a huge espresso machine, but probably cost about half a million. Pressing buttons with her purple-nitrile-gloved fingers. Peering at the display through a pair of little round glasses.

The units and workbenches were littered with expensive-looking bits of equipment, sample containers, more equipment, computers, cupboards marked ‘HAZARD!’...

Steel slouched in the corner, eyes down, poking away at her phone.

Logan leaned against a worktop — not touching anything. ‘Sorry to drag you in on your day off.’

Dr Frampton looked up from her... whatever it was. ‘Well, I suppose. I’ve got a conference in South Korea next week so it doesn’t hurt to clear the decks a bit. I can knock off a couple of outstanding analyses before Edward’s got the joint out resting and the roasties in the oven.’ A smile. ‘I’ll be heading off to Seoul with a clear conscience for a change.’ Then over to the screen hooked up to the thing. ‘Come on, little mass spectrometer, work for Mummy...’ A bleep and data filled the screen. ‘There we go.’

‘Where?’

‘It’s a mixture of noncalcareous gleys with peaty gleys, and going by the mineral distribution... that gives us...’ She shuffled across to a desktop computer and punched things into the keyboard. Waved Logan over.

A map of Aberdeenshire appeared, covered in bruise-pattern swirls of blue and red and yellow and brown and purple.

‘The blue bits are all the areas in the northeast with mineral gleys, but ours are from this bit, west of Newtonhill.’ A click and the map zoomed in. ‘Our samples also contain coprostanol and 24-ethyl coprostanol, plus an unusually high ratio of plant sterols to fatty alcohol levels—’

‘Doctor?’ Logan gave her a pained smile. ‘Bearing in mind that we don’t all have PhDs in organic chemistry...’

‘Sorry. OK, in layperson’s terms: we’ve got good biomarkers for faeces here. Most likely porcine. So you’d be looking for a pig farm...’ Her fingers danced across the keyboard again. ‘Which gives us eight possible locations, but when we factor in the organic aggregates...’ Clickity click. ‘Et voila.’

She made a flourishing hand gesture and turned the screen to face Logan.

He peered in closer. A blue amoeba sat in the middle of a yellow splodge, overlaid on an Ordnance Survey map. West of Portlethen, not far from where the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route carved its way through the countryside. ‘And you’re sure?’

‘The soil never lies, Logan. It speaks to us from beyond the grave, whispering its secrets to those prepared to listen.’

Steel didn’t bother looking up from her phone. Just took a deep breath and went, ‘Ah... hah... haaaaa...’

‘And in this case, I mean that literally. There are traces of cadaverine in the sample. And where there’s cadaverine...?’

Great.

Logan covered his face with his hands. ‘Oh God, not another dead body...’

29

Steel kicked a stone across the weed-flecked concrete, phone clamped to her ear. ‘Nah, I’m fannying about on a disused pig farm in the middle of sodding nowhere.’

It must have been quite impressive in its day, but that day was long gone. Someone had panned in all the farmhouse windows — possibly the same someone that had daubed ‘MALKY WAZ HERE!!!’ across the front of it in drippy red paint. The house was surrounded by a collection of crumbling outbuildings, their corrugated-metal roofs sagging in rusty grandeur.

A huge metal barn stood off to one side, the far corner collapsed — trapping big round bales of rotting hay beneath.

Logan turned.

Downhill, the fields were a mess. Thigh-high swathes of docken and reeds. Uphill, it wasn’t much better. Whin and broom hunched in jagged green herds, reaching along the fence line as if they planned on devouring the place.

Steel sent another stone on its clattering way. ‘Oh come on, Susan! Don’t blame me, it’s no’ my fault.’

Between the farmyard and the devouring gorse lay the decomposing hulks of about two hundred pig arks, their dull brown semi-circular roofs making a regular grid pattern across the hillside. And right at the top, diggers and bulldozers growled, prowling the ridge.

Posts and ropes and survey poles marked out a strip of land from there, straight down the hill, through the farmyard, the outbuildings, the farmhouse, and out the other side. Wide enough to fit two lanes, a central reservation, and the road verges either side.

Goodbye, Nairhillock Farm.

Logan wandered over to the farmhouse.

‘What?’ Steel raised her voice, no doubt making sure he could hear her. ‘Because, Buggerlugs McRae thinks it’s OK to drag me in on my day off to ferry him about the place... Aye, I told him that too.’

The door was wasp-stripped and swollen. The grey wood flecked with speckles of red paint. He gave it a couple of kicks. It juddered in an inch — so not locked — then wedged to a halt.

‘What? No! Did she?’ A throaty laugh. ‘Bet she did...’

Logan waded into the weeds and around the side. More weeds. And no sign that anyone else had tried to force their way through them.

He pushed between rattling spears of rosebay willowherb, sending puffs of white drifting off into the dank air. Peered in the windows.

A bedroom rotted on the other side of the broken glass, its lath and plaster swollen and distended, freckled with mould and mildew. What was left of a wooden bedframe and a sagging mattress.

The back door was swollen and jammed too.

Living room — peeling wallpaper, manky furniture, a swathe of bird droppings beneath a couple of house martin nests up in the corner.

Kitchen — crumbling units with the doors hanging off, a hole in the wall the size of a bulldog, an ancient range cooker puffed up with rust. The remains of a table and skeletal chairs. All the charm of a biopsy.

He stepped out in front of the building again.

Steel was still mooching about. ‘I don’t know, do I? Depends when Herr Oberleutnant Von Arseface decides to stop wasting everyone’s time with this jiggery piggery pokery.’

Logan crossed the yard, making for the metal farm gate — wide open on sagging hinges.

‘You liked that did you?... Yeah, thought you would.’

He leaned on it, frowning.

All those rusty pig arks, stretching up the hill. Regular as the squares on a chessboard.

The grass was tussocked and dark green, littered with thick-stalked docken — the colour of dried blood. Animal trails snaked away through the undergrowth.

‘So, come on then: what are you wearing?’

Logan climbed onto the gate.

‘Well, that’s no’ very erotic, is it? Joggy bottoms? Least you could do is make something sexy up!’

More dark grass. More docken...

There — a rectangle of lime-green grass, about a hundred feet into the field. From the ground, it’d been hidden behind one of the pig arks, but from up here on the gate it stood out like a neon sign. And now he’d seen it, it was obvious what else was wrong with the scene. The pig ark in front of that lime-green rectangle wasn’t in line with the others. Two-hundred-odd rusty metal semicircles and this was the only one out of place.

‘Ooh, that’s better!’

He clambered down from the gate and waded into the grass, keeping clear of the animal trails. No point disturbing potential evidence.

Steel gave a dirty chuckle. ‘You saucy minx...’

A perfect rectangle of pale green, peppered with the twisted, stunted stalks of docken. Like they’d been covered with something for a long time, sheltered from the light. The grass between it and the misplaced pig ark was flattened and torn, gouged with scrape marks that ended at the mini Anderson-shelter shape.

Logan peered inside.

The grass inside the pig ark was dark green, but rutted and mismatched, filthy with clods of soil. A brown seam marked the joint between the clumps and the rest of the field. Spade marks?

He squatted down, grabbed a handful of grass and pulled. A chunk, about the size of a placemat, lifted away like a grimy toupee revealing churned earth underneath.

Logan curled his top lip. Sniffed.

There was something lurking beneath the rich dark-brown scent of newly turned earth. Something... He leaned in and sniffed again.

Gah!

Rancid meat. Like a stack of suppurating roadkill, or those floorboards at the foot of his stairs.

He stood, wiped his hands on his trousers. Backed away from the ark.

Steel’s voice battered out behind him. ‘Hoy! You finished twatting about yet?’

Logan turned and pulled his phone out.

She tapped her watch. ‘Lunchtime!’

It took three rings for someone to pick up. ‘Control.’

‘Yes. This is Inspector McRae: I’m going to need an SE team.’ He peered into the sty again. ‘And tell them to bring their shovels.’

The sky darkened like a bruise.

The Scenes Examination Transit sat next to Logan’s pool car, its back doors open — exposing the cages of equipment and rows of seating inside. A scruffy blue Fiat Panda four-by-four was parked on the other side, with an immaculate Range Rover nearest the farmhouse.

Isobel checked her watch. ‘Is this going to take long? I have DNA results pending.’

Logan shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me: I told Control to let you know what was going on, not get you out here.’

A blue plastic marquee hid the pig ark from view. The lightning-flash of photography made the walls glow, casting the silhouettes inside as larger-than-life distorted monsters.

Someone in full SOC regalia exited the tent, carrying a blue plastic evidence crate, lugging it towards the farmyard.

The Procurator Fiscal clasped his hands behind his back, feet shoulder-width apart, as if he was at parade rest. Not the tallest of men, in a blue pinstripe suit and long red tie. Glasses, grey hair, and a military moustache. A voice about three times larger than he was: ‘There might not even be a body in there. Cadaverine does not a human cadaver make, it could be a dead dog, or chicken...’ He looked around him, one eyebrow raised. ‘Or pig.’

Oh for God’s sake.

Logan sighed. ‘Look, I called Control and asked for an SE team, OK? It’s not my fault they mobilised everyone and their Uncle Jim.’

‘So you say.’ Isobel folded her arms. ‘I managed to pull what looks like saliva from DS Chalmers’ cheek, two centimetres below her left eye.’

‘What, someone spat on her?’

‘Not spat, no. The saliva acted as an adhesive, fixing the hairs on that part of her cheek upwards: opposite to their direction of growth. So I’d say whoever it was licked her.’

The Procurator Fiscal’s moustache twitched. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope for that the saliva belongs to our killer and he’s in the database?’

She shook her head. ‘We won’t know until the results come in.’

A filthy Vauxhall lurched its way up the rutted farm track towards them. Because it wasn’t as if Logan didn’t have enough people to deal with.

The SE tech with the evidence crate stopped in front of Logan and pulled down their facemask — revealing scarlet lipstick, stubble and a deep manly voice. ‘That’s us finished with the fingerprints and photographs.’

Behind him, two of his fellow SOC-suited techs backed out of the marquee, hauling the pig ark with them, one foot at a time. A lone voice wafted down the hill, ‘One, two, three: heave!’ The ark moved another foot.

Logan peered into the crate — brown paper evidence envelopes, the forms printed on them all filled in with red biro. ‘Anything?’

‘Nah.’ He shook his head. ‘A bunch of smudges and that’s it. I’m not going to bet the farm on it, but I’d say they looked like leather gloves. You can tell by the grain patterns.’ He stomped off towards the van. ‘Gotta go get the shovels.’

‘One, two, three: heave!’

The Procurator Fiscal rocked on his parade-ground shiny shoes. ‘I don’t like it when murderers lick the people they kill. Next thing you know, you’ve got three more victims and the media are screaming “Serial Killer Stalks Aberdeenshire!”’

‘One, two, three: heave!’

The filthy Vauxhall lumped to a halt beside the SE Transit and DS Robertson climbed out. She stared up at the hill with its blue marquee, then stomped over. Nodded at the PF and Isobel. ‘Professor. Fiscal.’ Grimaced at Logan. ‘Could you not give over discovering dead bodies, Guv? The boss is doing his nut. I swear he’s going to pop something.’

The Procurator Fiscal held up a finger. ‘Now let’s not jump to any conclusions. It’s not necessarily a dead human body, DS Robertson. Cadaverine is produced by—’

‘It’s all right, Richard.’ Isobel put a hand on his arm. ‘I don’t think the poor Detective Sergeant needs a discourse on decomposition products.’

‘One, two, three: heave!’

The SE tech lumbered back from the Transit, struggling under the weight of a half-dozen shovels. He stopped and smiled at DS Robertson. ‘Hey, George.’

Robertson just grunted.

‘Oh come on, I said I was sorry.’

Isobel snapped her fingers at him. ‘I want every bit of soil retained for analysis. And not all in one big lump either! A separate bag for every cubic foot. And number them.’

The tech’s shoulders slumped, his red-lipsticked mouth sagging at the edges. ‘Aww...’

Robertson pointed at the blue plastic sheaths on his feet. ‘And you’d better not be planning on returning to the locus with those booties on! Didn’t you do cross-contamination training?’

A groan, then the tech dumped his shovels in a clattering pile, turned on his heel and stomped off to the Transit again.

Robertson shouted after him, a great big grin on her face. ‘Suit and gloves too!’ The smile faded as she realised they were all staring at her. ‘What?’

Logan swapped the umbrella from one shoulder to the other and stuck his spare hand in the pocket of his padded fluorescent jacket. From here — at the top of the field, looking down towards the crumbling farm buildings — there was a perfect view of where the road was going to go. Right through the middle of Nairhillock Farm and up the hill on the other side, disappearing into a stand of trees. And that put the Scene Examination marquee smack bang in the middle of the northbound carriageway.

A grimy SOC suited figure emerged from inside, wrestling a wheelbarrow full of bagged dirt across the field, making for their Transit van.

Now the only vehicles left were the SE van, Logan’s pool car, and Robertson’s mud-spattered Vauxhall. Everyone else had sodded off.

That was the trouble with procurators fiscal and pathologists — no patience.

Mind you, at least they were bright enough to get in out of the rain. It made pale grey sheets that drifted across the landscape, drummed on the skin of his Crimestoppers brolly, dripped off the edge.

Logan’s phone launched into David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’.

He dug it out. ‘Tufty?’

‘Guess what I has, go on: guess.’ Sounding like an overexcited spaniel.

‘Genital warts?’

‘Ew... Shudder.’ There was a crinkling noise. ‘No, I has a mobile phone. DS Lorna Chalmers’ mobile phone, to be precise. Screen’s all cracked like someone’s stamped on it.’

Yes.

Logan turned his back to the wind. ‘Where was it?’

‘In her garage. Technically. Because Naughty Naked Norman Clifton had it in the pocket of the trousers he wasn’t wearing.’

Finally something was going their way.

‘Has his solicitor turned up yet?’

‘Nope, but his mum has. She’s screaming the place down as we speak. Listen:’

The sound went all echoey, a woman’s voice clearly audible in the background, roaring like a wounded wildebeest. ‘HOW DARE YOU! I DEMAND TO SEE MY SON! DID YOU HEAR ME? I DEMAND TO SEE HIM RIGHT NOW!’

A clunk and Tufty was back again. ‘What do you want me to do with the phone?’

‘Get it fingerprinted, then down to the forensic IT team. See if they can access the thing — I need to know who she’s called, all her text messages... Everything they can get.’

‘Guv.’

Logan hung up. Frowned down at the tent and the pig arks again. At the blue plastic marquee covering the patch of earth that stank of death. ‘What were you doing here, Lorna?’

A voice sounded over Logan’s shoulder. Indignant and official. ‘Can I help you? Only you’re not supposed to be here.’

Logan turned and there was a large man in a high-viz jacket of his own, but instead of natty blue-and-silver reflective bands, his had a Transport Scotland logo on it. Big puffy cheeks, thick sausagey fingers, as if he’d never said nay tae a pie in his life.

Captain Pies tapped the plastic safety gear perched on top of his marshmallow head. ‘And this is a hard-hat area!’

Logan unzipped his waterproof and pulled out his warrant card. Held it out. ‘Police. Are you in charge here, sir?’

His eyes widened. ‘Yes? No. Kind of.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, Officer. I... The umbrella was covering your... the bit where it says “Police”... and I...’ Captain Pies tried for a smile. ‘Erm... would you like a cup of tea?’

Steam fogged the windows, dribbling down in rivulets by the small canteen area crowbarred into the corner of the Portakabin. Little more than a mini fridge stuffed under a small table with a kettle and some tins of tea, coffee, and sugar.

Captain Pies handed Logan a mug of tea that smelled of Styrofoam and burned toast. ‘Sorry about that, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of people we get sightseeing up here. I mean, we’re building a bypass, it’s hardly the Grand Canyon, is it?’

The office was clean enough, but this obviously wasn’t its first construction site. Dents rippled the walls between the maps of the bypass taped up there, the lino floor scuffed and permanently scarred by thousands of muddy work boots. Desks lined the walls, with a row of filing cabinets at the far end. Back-to-back file cupboards made a waist-high island down the centre, covered in more detailed plans.

The ghost of something huge and yellow growled its way past the steamed-up windows, making the walls vibrate.

Logan sipped his tea — tasted every bit as nasty as it smelled — and stood in front of the section of map covering Stonehaven to Cove. ‘Thought the bypass went through east of here?’

Captain Pies nodded. ‘Yup.’ He picked up a pen and tapped it against the thick line that curved across the map, tracing the route north as he called out the points with obvious pride in his voice. ‘Our stretch starts at Stonehaven,’ tap, ‘B979 to Bridge of Muchalls,’ tap, ‘Netherley,’ tap, ‘B979 to Portlethen,’ tap, ‘Crynoch Burn,’ tap, ‘and joining the bypass at Cleanhill.’ He made a circle over the countryside to the left of the road. ‘But they want to open this area up for development, so now we’re putting a slip road in. Roundabout too.’

He turned and shuffled through the plans on the central island, hauling one out and laying it on top. ‘See?’

It was an OS map of the surrounding area, with the slip road and roundabout marked up, annotated, and all measured out.

The marker pen tapped a crosshatched area. ‘That’s us there. There’s planning permission in for two thousand houses, a retail park, and a swimming pool.’

Logan put his finger on the bit of map to the right of it, where the new road cut straight across the fields and through a handful of small grey rectangles. ‘What about this place?’

‘Nairhillock Farm? Got the bulldozers going in, Wednesday.’ He put his hand up. ‘But don’t worry, nobody’s lived there for years. Didn’t even have to compulsory purchase it — farmer left it to the city in his will before he committed suicide. Shame not everyone’s so public-spirited. You wouldn’t believe the abuse we get bulldozing people’s—’

‘This slip road: when did you decide to put it in?’

Captain Pies puffed out his cheeks. ‘Oooh... Now you’re asking.’ He frowned for a while, then bit his bottom lip. ‘I can find out if you like?’

30

Rain drummed on the barn roof, like tiny hammers, twenty-five feet above their heads. The metalwork buckled and twisted its way down to the collapsed corner and rotting bales of hay.

Shirley unzipped her manky SOC suit, flapping the sides to get some air circulating. ‘Urgh...’ Steam rose from her green polo shirt, along with a funky onion smell.

Logan moved away a bit. ‘How much longer?’

‘At least another hour. Maybe two?’

DS Robertson stared up at the warped metal roof. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’

A steamy shrug. ‘We don’t even know how deep it is.’

‘Two hours?’

‘It’s doing it one square foot at a time that’s the killer! Everything has to be logged and numbered and witnessed. Bloody pathologist is a nightmare.’

Logan stared out into the rain, where a lone figure in a muddy SOC suit was fighting the wheelbarrow down towards the SE Transit van again. Slipping and sliding in the damp grass. Poor sod.

Shirley sighed. ‘The only thing we do know is that someone’s dug it out recently. The soil in there isn’t all compressed and hard — it’s been moved.’

‘How recently?’

‘Week? Two weeks?’

‘Well, at least that—’ Logan’s phone launched into ‘The Monster Mash’ and he pulled it out. ‘Sorry, give us a second.’ He pressed the button. ‘Dr Frampton?’

Something chugged and beeped in the background, then her voice boomed out of the speaker — as if she were shouting at the phone from the other side of the room. ‘Logan? It’s Jessica. I’ve got a bit of a problem.’

Great. Because things weren’t going slowly enough.

‘What kind of problem?’

‘I think we’ve got some sort of cross-contamination going on in the equipment. It’s giving us screwy results.’

‘We’ve found what looks like a grave, so your soil analysis this morning was spot on.’

‘No, you see, that’s the thing: I tested a sample from a different case and it produced identical readings. Twice. So I asked Tony to come in and double-check my methodology.’

A laidback voice called out from the same kind of distance. ‘Inspector McRae, wassup, dude?’

Ah, OK — so he was on speakerphone. That explained the shouting.

‘Hi, Tony.’

‘I can only think that something’s got stuck in the mass spectrometer, but we’re getting the same problem with the gas chromatograph, so maybe it’s me?’

‘We’ve totally run it, like, a dozen times now. Cleaned all the stuff and everything.’

‘Well, at least we got...’ Hold on a minute. ‘Wait, what? You’ve got another case that’s coming up with soil from Nairhillock Farm?’

‘And pig faeces.’ Her voice went all distracted. ‘Maybe I got the samples mixed up when I processed them? I should never have come to work with a hangover.’

Robertson and Shirley were staring at him.

He turned away. ‘Which case?’

‘Oh. I managed to extract it from a shovel and a pick that came in. Someone’d had a damn good go at cleaning them, but soil isn’t so easy to get rid of. It sticks in screw heads and between joints.’

‘Yes, but which case?’

‘There’s two different layers on the tools: the one on top is peaty podzols, but the one underneath is mineral gleys and we keep getting a false positive for Nairhillock Farm from them.’

Logan licked his lips. Paced across the cracked concrete to the barn’s edge. ‘Pickaxe and a shovel? That’s the DI Duncan Bell stabbing, isn’t it?’

Robertson and Shirley were still staring at him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. ‘Of course it is. Where’s the second soil from? The peaty postles.’

‘Podzols. It’s a kind of soil you get in areas associated with coniferous forest and—’

‘Fine, OK: podzols. Where?’

‘Ben Rinnes, about four and a half miles southwest of Dufftown.’

‘And they were the top layer, so the Nairhillock soil got stuck to the shovel first, then the stuff from Dufftown?’

A sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with the equipment, but we’ll get it fixed — I promise.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your equipment, Jessica. You’re a star!’

‘I am?’ Sounding a bit flustered. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Text me coordinates for the peaty podzols, OK? And thanks. I owe you this time!’ He hung up.

Robertson pulled her chin in. ‘Why do you keep saying “peaty podzols”?’

Logan pointed at Shirley. ‘Leave a couple of people to keep digging. I need the rest of you to follow me: we’re going to Dufftown.’ He marched out into the rain, towards the pool car, Shirley and Robertson hurrying after him.

Robertson grabbed his arm. ‘Wait! What the hell is going on?’

‘There’s nothing in the hole: the body’s gone. DI Bell dug it up and reburied it out on Ben Rinnes.’

‘Argh...’ Shirley stopped where she was and sagged. ‘Not more digging!’

He pulled open the pool car door.

Steel was slumped in the passenger seat — reclined all the way back — eyes closed, mouth open, belting out windscreen-wiper-rattling snores.

Logan banged his palms on the roof.

She snorted and spluttered, sat bolt upright. ‘It wasn’t me! I never touched her boobs, it was...’ Then blinked, wiping drool from the corner of her mouth. ‘What? Where? Eh...?’

‘Start the car: we’re going hill walking.’

Fields swished past the windows in shades of grey and brown and yellowing green as they hammered up the dual carriageway. Water pooled along the drystane dykes, miserable sheep lumbering through the mud.

Logan tried not to flinch as Steel overtook an oil tanker on the inside. Focused on his phone call instead. ‘...I’d been looking at it all wrong — Chalmers wasn’t trying to crack the Ellie Morton case on her own. She was after DI Bell.’

Hardie groaned. ‘Oh in the name of... Because that was more important than a missing three-year-old girl?’

‘You know what she was like.’

‘Not really, but I’m beginning to get the idea.’

‘I need a dog unit: something cadaver trained.’

‘I’ll see what I can do, but they’re all tied up looking for Ellie Morton and Rebecca Oliver.’

‘And a POLSA.’

‘Same answer.’

‘Well... can we draft some bodies in from N or D Division?’

‘What exactly do you think I’ve been trying to do all weekend, painting my toenails?’

Bennachie appeared through the rain, its sides dark and brooding beneath that heavy lid of low grey cloud.

‘All I’ve got is two thirds of a Scene Examination team and a DS who drives like a drunken rally driver on acid.’

Steel grinned across the car at him. ‘Vroom, vroom! Beep, beep!’

‘Logan, every spare officer in the country’s been requisitioned for that stupid anti-capitalist thing in Edinburgh. We’re on our own till Tuesday.’

‘I’m trying to investigate a murder here!’

‘And there’s literally nothing I can do about that: you’re going to have to manage till I can get something sorted, OK? I’m sorry, but this is what it is right now.’

Of course it was.

‘Guv.’ He hung up. Sighed. ‘It never gets any better, does it?’

Steel put on what was probably supposed to be a sympathetic face, but it made her look more like a lecherous uncle. ‘You know what might help? Lunch.’

‘No. No lunch. We don’t have time.’

‘Aye, good luck with that. It’s gone half three and if we don’t stop for lunch soon I’m going to pull over in a layby, murder, and eat you.’

They’d grabbed a table by the big wall of glass that ran along the front of the café, overlooking a rain-drenched patio area and the rain-drenched car park, across the rain-drenched A96 and off to the rain-drenched trees and hills opposite.

Not exactly picturesque.

A fork clattered against the flagstone floor and Shirley bent down to retrieve it. It was... weird seeing her out of the usual SOC get-up. Like catching your granny in a gimp suit. She’d pulled her hair back with an Alice band, her green polo shirt and its funky oniony smell constrained by a pink cardigan.

The rest of the Scene Examination team were equally unfamiliar in civvies: Bouncer, in cords and a replica Peterhead FC shirt, with his long nose buried in the menu again — even though they’d already ordered — one hand smoothing down the thinning hair combed across his bald patch. Charlie had a compact mirror out, fixing his make-up, the top three buttons on his lumberjack shirt open to expose a gold chain nestling amongst thick wiry black hair. Polly’s chair was empty, because the silly sod was outside, wrapped up in a high-viz jacket, sheltering in the lee of the Transit van so she could smoke a cigarette and shout at someone on her mobile phone.

Logan checked his watch. Again. Ten to four. If they didn’t get a shift on it’d be dark before they’d found anything. So they’d have wasted the whole—

‘Will you stop fidgeting?’ Steel didn’t look up from her phone, thumbs poking away at the screen. ‘People got to eat.’

A voice sounded behind Logan’s head: ‘OK, so I’ve got a fish pie, a stroganoff, and a cauliflower cheese?’ Their waitress couldn’t have been much more than thirteen, her teeth all constrained behind the train-track wires of a set of braces.

‘Cauliflower cheese?’ Logan stuck his hand up. ‘That’s—’

‘Mine!’ Steel put her phone down. ‘With extra chips?’

A railroad smile. ‘With extra chips.’

‘Gimme, gimme, gimme...’

The plate clunked down. Shirley took the fish pie, and Bouncer got the stroganoff.

‘Ooh, ta.’

The waitress wandered off and everyone tucked in.

Steel grinned at him, mouth full. ‘You snoozed so you loozed.’

Child.

Logan pulled out his phone, scrolling through his text messages to the one from Dr Frampton:

He tapped the link and waited for the screenshot to download. It was another swirly bruised pattern of blue, yellow, red, purple, and grey overlaid on an OS map of Glen Rinnes.

Frampton had added a couple of big white circles with arrows pointing at them and, ‘TRY LOOKING HERE!’ Both circles sat over red bits on the slopes of Ben Rinnes, what looked like a track running through each.

Shirley leaned over and had a squint at the phone’s screen, a prawn skewered on the end of her fork. ‘Those our search areas? What are they, about two, maybe three hundred feet across? Lot of ground to cover.’

Bouncer grimaced. ‘Tenner says it’s all gorse and heather. Be an absolute nightmare to find anything in that.’

‘Aye, in the rain too.’ Steel shovelled in another mouthful of cheesy cauliflower. ‘I’ll stay in the car. Make sure no one steals it.’

Oh no she sodding wouldn’t.

Logan put his phone in the middle of the table, where everyone could see. ‘DI Bell won’t have buried it under a gorse bush. He’d want somewhere secluded but easy to dig.’

The waitress appeared again, with three more plates. ‘Got a meatloaf, chicken Provençal, and another cauliflower cheese?’

Charlie pointed at Polly’s empty chair. ‘Meatloaf.’ Then at himself. ‘Chicken.’

Logan put his hand up again. ‘I’m the cauliflower cheese.’

She winked at him. ‘I got you extra chips too, so you wouldn’t feel left out.’

‘Thanks.’ It was about time something went right. He stabbed a chip with his fork, using it as a pointer. ‘No one carries a body more than fifty metres from their car, so that’ll cut it down a bit. We start with whichever area’s more difficult to see from the road, then we—’

His phone buzzed, then launched into ‘Space Oddity’ as the word ‘TUFTY’ replaced the map.

So much for that.

‘Why me?’ Logan lowered his chip, picked up his phone and answered it. ‘Tufty? Can it wait? I’m in the middle of something important.’

‘Do you want the bad news, or the worse news?’

‘Let me guess: Norman Clifton’s solicitor hasn’t turned up?’

‘Forensic IT say they can’t even look at Chalmers’ phone for about a fortnight.’

He sagged back in his chair. ‘Oh for God’s sake!’

‘Said they’ve got about two dozen laptops from that hacking farm in Ellon to do first. You know, the ones who leaked all the SNP’s emails, when—’

‘And the worse news?’

‘Oh. OK. So I had a go at unlocking it myself.’

Oh no. No. No. No. No. No...

Steel stared at him. ‘Did something just crawl up your bum? Cos it looks like something just crawled up your bum.’

‘Guv?’

‘Tufty.’ Logan tightened his grip on the phone, forcing out each individual word as if it was made of uranium: ‘What — did — you — do?’

‘Only unlocked it on the third try! I has a genius. See, when I was in her house I noticed all these—’

‘How is this “worse news”? What was on it?’

‘Don’t you want to hear my tale of genius and derring-do?’

Why did everyone have to be a pain in his backside? Was there some sort of competition going on? Because right now, Tufty was winning.

‘What — was — on — the — phone?’

‘Pff... I bet Inspector Morse never gets—’

‘Tufty: I swear on my father’s grave...’

‘All right, all right. There was nothing there. Someone had deleted everything: call history, texts, photos, the lot.’

Logan slumped again. ‘Urgh. That is “worse news”.’

‘But they did leave one entry in the phone’s history: a fifteen-minute outgoing call at ten twenty-two.’

‘Any idea who she was calling?’

‘The Samaritans.’

So either Isobel was wrong about the marks on Chalmers’ arms and ankles, and she did kill herself after all, or someone was covering their tracks.

‘But then I has another genius.’ There was a scrunching papery sound. ‘Someone might have deleted everything, but that doesn’t mean it has to stay deleted. You can get all manner of things off an SD card if you know what you’re doing. And fortunately for us, Constable Stewart Quirrel is like a sexier Stephen Hawking.’

‘You recovered it? All of it?’

‘Oh yes.’ More scrunching. ‘And my clever doesn’t stop there. Her phone’s got GPS built in. Which is trickier to hack, but if I can pull a Mitnick we’ll know everywhere it’s been in the last six days.’ There was a small pause, followed by a swanky proud tone. ‘Are we impressed now?’

Damn right we were. Even if we didn’t have a clue what a ‘Mitnick’ was.

‘You, my little friend, have earned yourself a whole packet of sweeties!’

‘Woot!’

‘Now get back to work.’ Logan hung up and dug the chip on the end of his fork into the cauliflower cheese. Grinned. Today was going to turn out just fine after all.

31

The Huntly Asda glowed beneath the low, heavy clouds as Steel took them across the roundabout. And the rain fell. Sheets of grey and darker grey set the landscape out of focus, robbing it of colour as the windscreen wipers squeaked.

Steel nudged him. ‘Anything juicy?’

Logan looked up from Tufty’s email. ‘Not so far. Most of Chalmers’ texts are her fighting with her husband. “Why didn’t you empty the dishwasher?”, “Don’t you ever dare speak to me like that again.”, “You’re disgusting Brian.” Only she’s spelled “disgusting” wrong.’

‘How about naked pics? She must have some of those on her mobile. Everyone has those!’

He stared at her. ‘Remind me never to borrow your phone!’

‘Hmph.’ Her nose went up. ‘Done. Don’t want to send you into an onanistic frenzy.’

Logan shuddered and went back to the email as they drove off into the wilds of Aberdeenshire.

‘Well, this is romantic.’ Steel pulled up on the little rectangle of tarmac acting as a car park at the side of the road. ‘Wish I’d brought some lubricant, now.’

Ben Rinnes loomed in front of them — a lopsided lump of a hill, dark purple with heather. A track cut across it, pale tan in the never-ending rain. Another hill loomed behind them — more tussocky heather with the odd pine tree to break up the monotony.

Headlights swept over the pool car as the Scene Examination Transit crept past and turned onto a chunk of hardstanding in front of a padlocked metal gate with ‘NO PARKING ~ KEEP ENTRANCE CLEAR’ on it.

A small river had formed, coming down the track, out under the gate, and across the road. And still the rain fell.

Yeah, searching in that was going to be loads of fun.

Logan reached into the back of the car and grabbed his peaked cap and high-viz jacket. ‘We’re going to get soaked, aren’t we?’

‘You are. I’m staying put.’

He handed her the other high-viz. ‘Not a chance in hell.’

‘Gah...’

They wrestled their way into their jackets and climbed out into the downpour. Then Logan hurried around to the boot and got the Crimestoppers umbrella. Popped it open.

It twitched and thrummed in the wind.

Steel grabbed it off him and glowered at the rainswept hill. ‘For future reference, this was the moment I decided to kill you.’

Lovely.

Logan pulled on his hat and jogged over to the Transit van. Knocked on the driver’s window.

As it buzzed down, what sounded like Queen’s Greatest Hits belted out for a couple of beats, then clicked into silence, leaving only the engine’s diesel grumble, the thunk-squeak of the windscreen wipers, and the hiss of falling rain.

Polly put both hands back on the wheel and bared her top teeth. Staring straight ahead.

On the other side of the gate, the track reached away around and up the hill. Little rapids marked the bigger stones and potholes as the water coursed down it.

She sucked in a breath. ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea. I mean, if we had a big four-by-four, maybe...?’

Steel banged on the side of the door. ‘Just get the bloody gate open. We’re drowning out here!’

Polly turned in her seat. ‘Bouncer?’

Bouncer zipped up his jacket, pulled up his hood, and hopped down from the passenger side, armed with a large pair of bolt cutters. He strode over to the padlock and snipped right through the shackle — the hinges squealing as he hauled the gate open.

Logan hurried around to the passenger side and climbed in. Scooted across to the middle seat as Steel clambered in after him and thunked the door shut.

The Transit growled and juddered its way onto the track, then stopped so Bouncer could close the gate, open the side door and scramble inside.

Grit and gravel crunched beneath their wheels as the Transit crawled uphill. Lurching through the riverbed potholes and rapids, heather thick on either side.

Polly bared her teeth again, knuckles white where she gripped the steering wheel. ‘Still say this is a bad idea...’

She was probably right, but what choice did they have?

No one said a word as the van grumbled its way up the narrow track. Thumping and groaning. Windscreen wipers squealing and moaning. It listed left for a moment, then thudded down again — everyone bouncing in their seats.

Polly’s knuckles went even whiter. ‘Eeeek!’

Steel grabbed the handle above the passenger door.

The little red dot on Logan’s phone crawled along Dr Frampton’s map.

Another lurch to the left, the hillside falling away like a heather-covered cliff face as the van swayed and bounced.

Someone in the back laughed — high-pitched and nervous.

And on they went, climbing the river / track. On and on and on and—

Logan thumped his free hand on the dashboard. ‘That’s us.’

Polly’s face was fixed in a pained rictus grin. ‘Oh thank God for that!’ She hauled on the handbrake and sagged in her seat, arms dangling by her sides, head drooping, eyes shut.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her they’d probably have to reverse most of the way down again. Well, it wasn’t as if they’d be able to do a three-point turn up here.

Directly in front of the van, the track narrowed even further. To the right, Ben Rinnes stretched away uphill, to the left, it fell towards a line of trees, four, maybe five hundred feet distant.

Charlie poked his head between the front seats and frowned at the drenched landscape. ‘Good a place as any, I suppose.’

Logan undid his seatbelt. ‘What about trace evidence?’

‘In this?’

Bouncer snorted. ‘You’ll be lucky. If it’d been dry: yes.’

Polly nodded. ‘Anything viable would’ve washed away days ago.’

‘Right, people,’ Shirley clapped her hands together, ‘get your waterproofs on. We’ve got a deposition site to find.’

It didn’t matter that the rain had downgraded itself from a full-on torrential downpour to the standard Scottish drizzle, Logan was still soaked. Bulbous clumps of heather grabbed at his legs, hiding roots, rocks, puddles, holes, and other assorted fun ways to break an ankle.

Every step came with the sibilant squish of waterlogged socks.

He picked his way through yet another clump — no dead body — then turned, looking uphill.

The Transit marked the middle of the search area, lurking on the path about eighty feet away. Which meant there was still another eighty-odd to go. God, this was going to take forever.

Five fluorescent-yellow figures inched their way through the treacherous undergrowth. All spread out across the downhill side of the search area. Maybe he should have split the team and got one half searching the uphill side at the same time? The sun was already sinking towards the hills. They only had, what, an hour and a half before it set?

But then, three people would take twice as long to search the same area, so in the end it would’ve made sod-all difference.

Thank you very much, Detective Chief Inspector Stephen ‘I can’t spare anyone’ Hardie. How was Logan supposed to—

‘The Imperial March’ blared from his phone, partially muffled by the thick high-viz jacket. He hauled it out. The words ‘HORRIBLE STEEL’ filled the screen. He answered it anyway. ‘Have you found something?’

‘I just stood in a dirty great puddle!’

‘So watch where you’re putting your feet.’

‘I’m cold and I’m wet and how are we supposed to find anything in this godforsaken hellhole?’

‘Keep looking.’ He hung up.

About seventy feet away one of the high-viz figures made very rude hand gestures in his direction.

Heather grasped hold of his right ankle and Logan toppled forward, arms outstretched, a bush rushing up to punch him in the face.

And BANG! Right into it, branches and leaves scratching at his cheeks and hands. An eruption of water as the rain-soaked undergrowth gave up a fair portion of its moisture.

‘Arrrrrrrrgh!’ He struggled on to his soggy knees. Wiped the water and bits of vegetation from his face. Spat out some peaty-tasting soil. ‘Sodding heathery bastards!’

He forced himself upright, bellowed in frustration, then gave the traitorous bush a serious kicking. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Kick, bash, boot, batter, thump.

Logan stopped and bent double. Hands on his knees. Face and shoulders prickly with heat, panting out great billows of steam. ‘Argh...’

This was impossible. Completely and utterly—

His phone rang again and he yanked it from his pocket. Stabbed the button. ‘No, you can’t go back to the van for a kip! You can search like the rest of us!’

Silence from the phone.

Water dripped from the hem of his high-viz jacket.

‘What, no sarky comeback?’

‘Erm... Guv?’

Oh. It wasn’t Steel, it was Shirley.

‘Sorry. Thought you were someone else.’

‘By my reckoning, we’ve gone a hundred and eighty feet from the van.’

Logan turned. The Transit was a lot smaller than last time he’d checked, the rest of his team were all spread out, the ones in the middle distance like tiny Lego figures. ‘OK. We head back and try the other side of—’

‘HEY!’ A voice bellowed out across the hillside. ‘HEY!’ The Lego figure furthest away jumped up and down, waving her arms in the air. ‘OVER HERE!’

Logan waded into the heather, fought his way past a clump of broom, more heather. Yet more heather...

Everyone fought their way through the undergrowth, all converging on where Polly stood, still waving. As if they wouldn’t be able to find her by the glow of her massive fluorescent-yellow coat.

Logan clambered over a ridge and stopped.

Polly stood in the middle of a natural hollow, surrounded by heather that looked a lot browner and droopier than the stuff around it.

He took one step down into the hollow and stopped. What was that horrible smell? Rotting sausages and... He retreated a couple of steps, breathing through his mouth. Urgh, you could taste it — rancid and greasy. ‘Dear Lord...’

Charlie lurched up beside him. ‘What’s...’ Then his eyes bugged and he slapped a hand over his nose and mouth, hiding the scarlet lipstick. ‘Aw, Jesus, that stinks!’

Polly pointed to a bush, three feet from her foot. ‘He’s had to grub up the heather to get at the soil for digging. That’s why it’s all brown. Dying.’

Shirley stumbled to the brow of the hollow. Narrowed her eyes and wafted a hand in front of her. ‘Can’t be a very deep grave if it smells this bad out here.’

Bouncer sagged. ‘Not again.’

And last, but not least, Steel appeared. Hands in her pockets. She stopped at the edge, flared her nostrils, and took a good sniff. Then nodded. ‘I ate a kebab that smelled like that once. Tell you, my arse was like a Niagara Falls of oxtail soup for a whole week.’

Everyone stared at her.

‘Oh, like you’ve never done it.’

‘...absolutely stinks. And I mean spectacularly.’ Logan shifted in the driver’s seat, looking through the window and down the hill. Phone pressed to his ear.

A newly erected blue plastic marquee squatted over the deposition site, the walls glowing — Shirley and her team turned into monstrous shadow puppets by the crime-scene lights. It was one of the bigger ones, too. Could probably have parked a couple of minibuses in there.

Rain drummed on the van roof, its grey blanket hiding the fields and hills opposite. As if the setting sun wasn’t doing a gloomy enough job.

Hardie’s voice took on a hopeful edge. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any ID on the body, is there?’

‘Difficult to tell. According to the SE team, everything’s been swallowed by the adipocere. Victim looks like he’s been carved out of solid lard.’

‘Pfff... I don’t like it, Logan. I don’t.’

‘Only bright side is the ground around here isn’t as diggable as the stuff at Nairhillock Farm.’

‘Ding-Dong was one of us. It was bad enough he’d killed one person, but two?’

‘Body was barely three feet down. And they must’ve been three hard feet to dig.’

‘How many more did he kill? How long was he at it?’

‘Managed a good six feet down at the pig farm. It’s—’

The van’s sliding door rattled open, letting in a gust of wind that set jackets and paperwork and takeaway menus rustling.

‘Shut the door!’

Steel clambered in. ‘What did you think I was going to do? Sit here with it open?’ She hauled it closed with a thunk and collapsed into a seat. Sat there with her arms held out to her sides. ‘Freezing, sogging-wet, buggering horrorfest...’

Hardie made a little groaning noise. ‘Let me guess: Detective Sergeant Steel?’

She cupped her hands and blew into them. ‘Should’ve brought a thermos of coffee with us.’ Then she leaned forward and thumped Logan on the arm. ‘Why didn’t you think of that, you’re supposed to be in charge!’

Logan hit her back. ‘Get off me! And there’s a kettle in the equipment rack — plug it into the cigarette lighter and make yourself useful for a change. I’ll have a tea.’

She rolled her eyes, flipped him the Vs, then stood and slouched away down the van. ‘What did your last slave die of?’

Logan shifted the phone to his other ear. ‘Sorry about that. Look: we haven’t got definitive proof DI Bell killed anyone yet.’

‘Do you really think that matters? I know he did it, you know he did it, everyone and their bookie’s dog knows he did it.’

‘Yes. But...’ Logan sighed. ‘I worked with him for ten years and till we found his body in that car... A killer? I wouldn’t have believed you.’

‘Me neither.’

Steel made a show of hauling the kettle out of its rack, banging and clanging her way up the van clutching it and a two-litre bottle of mineral water.

‘Any ideas for motive?’

‘Maybe this is why he had to fake his own death? Something gets out of hand and next thing he’s got a dead body to get rid of.’

‘Buried six feet down where no one would ever find it.’

Steel filled the kettle with mineral water, then stuck it on the floor, jamming the adapter into the cigarette lighter slot like she was performing a vigorous sex act.

‘Until Bell discovers the Western Peripheral Route is going to stick a slip road right through the middle of his secret graveyard.’

She set it on to boil. ‘Where’s the teabags?’

‘I’m on the phone!’

‘Gah...’ Steel stomped off down the van again.

‘Post mortem?’

‘Knowing Isobel? Tomorrow morning? Maybe? If we’re lucky? Won’t find out for sure till she gets here.’ Logan tried for a smile. ‘At least we’ve got a body for her this time.’

That had to count for something.

Four spotlights lit up the marquee’s insides like a bright summer’s day. The effect was slightly spoiled by the big diesel generator roaring away in the corner, the stench of rotten flesh, the five figures in white SOC outfits, the dug-up heather, the waterlogged shallow grave, and the muddy peat floor, but other than that it was indistinguishable from a fortnight in Torremolinos.

Actually, scratch that. The one and only time Logan had been to Torremolinos, there had been shallow graves and dead bodies too. No one ever put that kind of thing in the brochures, though, did they?

Polly and Charlie were stuffing the dying heather plants into bags, while Shirley squatted at the side of the grave, looking up at Isobel. All of them glowing like aliens in the spotlights.

Logan stepped closer. Stared down into the grave.

A man-shaped mass of yellowy-white fat glistened at the bottom of the hole, liberally smeared with earth, peat, and mud. A lard golem.

‘Well?’ He pointed at the remains.

Isobel put her hands on her hips. ‘At least you’ve actually got a body for me this time.’

‘Yeah, I said that.’

She frowned at him.

‘Never mind.’

‘You’re extremely lucky I got here as quickly as I did. If it wasn’t for a fatal stabbing in Insch, you’d still be waiting.’

‘We need an ID soon as possible.’ Logan pointed. ‘Any chance...?’

‘You want me to do a post mortem today? On a Sunday evening?’

‘That would certainly help.’

Isobel stared into the grave for a bit. Then sighed. ‘All right, but I shall expect time off in lieu.’ She snapped her fingers at Shirley. ‘Get the remains bagged and back to the mortuary ASAP.’ Then she turned and swept from the marquee, leaving the tent flaps billowing behind her.

Shirley waited till Isobel was definitely out of earshot. ‘I hope your arse falls off, you rancid lump of yuck.’ She patted the adipose-encrusted remains with a purple-gloved hand. ‘No offence.’

32

Sally grips the steering wheel tighter, like that’s going to stop her hands shaking. Eases off the accelerator as the village limits glow in her headlights: ‘LYNE OF SKENE ~ PLEASE DRIVE SLOWLY’.

‘The Happy Pirate Jamboree’ bounces out of the CD player. Aiden’s favourite. His little face beamed every time she put it on and they’d sing along to the adventures of Captain Wonkybeard and his silly crew.

‘There was panic on the poop deck, as the Kraken he awoke,

Wrapped his tentacles around the ship, and the captain: he got soaked.’

Sally tries to join in... but it’s not the same without Aiden.

Nothing is.

She takes a left at the junction, past a row of small cottages and some new-build homes, lights shining from their windows as their occupants settled in for a nice Sunday evening in front of the television.

Out through the limits, into the countryside and darkness again.

A breath shudders out of her: sharp and painful.

She’s doing the right thing. For Aiden. It doesn’t matter how bad she feels about it, or how guilty — this is what she has to do to get her baby boy back.

She glances in the rear-view mirror, past the red-eyed woman in there with the big square of sticking plaster on her bruised forehead and the long curly blonde wig, to the Shogun’s boot. Separated from the rear seats by a heavy-duty dog grille, the boot cover pulled all the way across so no one can see what she’s got in there. ‘Not long now, I promise.’

Not long...

A track leads away into the woods — the junction marked by a teddy bear cable-tied to a tree...

Sally slows at the junction and stares at it. It’s different to the one in Skemmel Woods, but it means the same thing. Only this time she’s complicit.

And it’s too late to turn back now.

So she pulls onto the track, the engine growling as the Shogun rolls and bounces through the potholes, water rearing up over the wheel arches even though she’s keeping the speed down so Becky won’t get thrown around in the boot.

Deeper into the woods, headlights dragging trees from the darkness, before letting them fade away. Past the looming hulk of a collapsed metal structure. Past piles of logs and a thicket of brambles. Eyes glittering in the woods to either side, their owners lurking beyond the headlights’ reach.

Deeper.

A ruined cottage emerges from the gloom up ahead, sagging at the side of the road. No roof left, the windows nothing more than ragged sockets in the building’s skull. Walls smeared with moss and streaked with rain. A garden in front of it choked with weeds: brambles, bracken, docken, and the grey-brown spears of rosebay willowherb. Like something out of a Brothers Grimm tale.

She stops in front of it, gripping the steering wheel even tighter as she glances in the rear-view mirror again. Swallows down the thing growing in her throat.

‘I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry, but I haven’t got any choice. I need my little boy. I need him so very, very much...’

Becky doesn’t reply, but then she can’t.

Sally wipes her eyes. Huffs out a breath. Then another. And another.

‘Come on, Sally, you can do this. Do it for Aiden.’

Yes.

She puts on her baseball cap and sunglasses, adjusts the wig, then pulls up the hood on her hoodie. Checks her reflection again.

Even without the disguise, would she recognise the woman looking back at her? After everything she’s done?

Probably not. But what choice does she have?

She climbs out into the gloom as the rain starts again — like the pitter-patter of tiny feet on the car and trees and earth.

The Shogun’s headlights pick out the pale skeletal forms of branches and trunks up ahead, casting a thin grey glow along the front of the cottage, leaving everything else in darkness. Its engine grumbles, exhaust trailing scarlet in the tail-lights’ glare.

Sally stands there, breath fogging around her head.

No sign of anyone.

Come on, you can do this.

She pulls a torch from her pocket, clicks it on, and follows its glow to the four-by-four’s boot. Pops open the tailgate. Forces a smile as she slides the cover away. ‘Hey, you...’

Becky lies on her side, cosseted in a nest of sleeping bags and blankets and towels. Hands tied with baler twine, ankles too. Sally tucks Mr Bibble-Bobble in between Becky’s arms and chest — she moans behind her tea-towel gag, eyes barely flickering.

Two more green pills and another mini stamp.

‘I know. I know. I’m sorry.’ Sally reaches in and lifts them both from the boot, cradling them against her chest as she crosses the weed-strangled verge to the cottage’s rusted gate.

She takes a deep breath. ‘HELLO?’

The only sounds are the car’s engine and the falling rain.

‘HELLO? IS THERE ANYONE THERE?’

She shifts her grip on Becky and runs the torch across the cottage. Something scurries into the brambles. A rusting jumble of metal casts a twisted shadow along the wall.

‘I CAN’T JUST LEAVE HER OUT HERE IN THE RAIN!’

She turns on the spot, playing the torch across the garden, the trees, the track, the Shogun. ‘HELLO? IS ANYONE—’

A muffled voice growls out behind her. ‘What part of “clandestine” did you not understand?’

Sally moves to face him, but something hard presses against her hoodie at the back of her neck. There’s a metallic click and she freezes. It’s the unmistakable soundtrack to a million action films — a gun’s hammer being cocked.

‘No, no, no.’ He sounds patient, like he’s talking to a small, but favoured, child. ‘I get to see you. You don’t get to see me. That’s how this works.’

She holds Becky tighter. ‘But—’

‘Genuinely, it makes no difference to me if you survive this handover or not. I leave with the girl either way.’ The gun presses harder into Sally’s neck. ‘Put her down on the ground. Nice and gentle — don’t want to damage the goods.’

Sally tenses. ‘How do I know you won’t hurt her? How do I know you won’t... touch her?’

‘Well, one: no one wants to buy damaged goods. And two: I’m not the kind of guy who’s into little kids. I leave that to perverts like you.’ This time, he doesn’t push with the gun, he shoves. ‘Now, put — the kid — down.’

She lowers Becky onto the wet ground, steps away, and stands there with her hands up.

‘There we go.’

There’s a rustling noise, then Becky moans.

‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘We...’ No. Probably best to make him think she’s working on her own. ‘I gave her something to keep her calm.’

There’s a pause that grows and grows and grows.

Then, ‘Fair enough.’ More rustling and a grunt.

Becky moans again — has he picked her up?

‘Go stand over there, both hands on the bonnet.’

Sally picks her way through the weeds and does what she’s told.

‘Now, you know the rules for tomorrow, right? Cash sales only. I so much as suspect that you’re dodgy: you go home in bitesize chunks. Well, you know, dodgy for a paedophile. Bar’s set a bit differently for you people.’

‘I understand.’

‘You come alone. You don’t tell anyone. You don’t bring anyone. You pay in cash. And you never ever tell anyone about this. Not even on pain of death.’

Sally grits her teeth. ‘I said I understand.’ No one ever listens.

His voice is getting fainter, as if he’s backing away. ‘You get to keep eighty percent of anything your “contribution” makes on the night, collectible at the end of the evening.’

‘But you haven’t told me where to—’

‘You’ll get a text with the time and place. Don’t be late...’

She stands there, hands on the warm bonnet, the engine’s grumble drowning out everything but the rain thumping against the brim of her baseball cap. Breathing hard. Every exhale a glowing grey ghost in front of her face.

Is it safe to turn around yet?

Count to a hundred, that would be long enough, wouldn’t it?

One... Two... Three...

By the time she finally turns, there’s no sign of Becky or the man with the gun.

Sally wraps her arms around herself for a moment, squeezing till the trembling subsides. Then closes the Shogun’s boot and climbs in behind the wheel.

The track is a bit tight for a three-point turn, but she manages it — heading back the way she came, one hand wiping the tears from her cheeks.

At least it’s done. She’s one step closer to saving Aiden.

It doesn’t matter how much it burns inside, it’s for Aiden.

She thumbs the hands-free button on her steering wheel and calls Raymond’s mobile.

He picks up on the first ring. ‘Sally? Sally, is everything—’

‘It’s on for tomorrow night.’

The Shogun rides the potholes harder this time as she puts her foot down, not having to worry about damaging her precious cargo any more. Past the thicket of brambles and the pile of logs — their shapes looming in the headlights, then sinking into darkness again.

‘Sally, are you OK?’

Past the crumpled metal hulk. Hands tight on the steering wheel, the muscles in her jaw clenching.

‘Sally?’

Scowling out through the windscreen. ‘Of course I’m not OK! I handed a little girl over to a bastard with a gun, so he can auction her off to a bunch of paedophiles!’

Filthy liquid crashes over the bonnet as she thunders through a waterlogged rut.

‘We’ll get her back, remember? Andy and Danners won’t let her out of their sight. I promise.’

Sally shakes her head, scrubs a hand across her eyes again. ‘I don’t know if I can go through with—’

‘Yes you can! You can do this, Sally. You just have to be strong for Aiden.’

But that’s easy for him to say, isn’t it? He isn’t the one who has to bloody do it.

On the one hand, drugging children really did seem wrong, but on the other, they really were a lot less... wriggly afterward.

Lee shifted his grip, making sure Rebecca wasn’t going to slip off his shoulder, tucking her teddy bear under his arm as he picked his way through the rattling spikes of rosebay willowherb. Gloomy out here and getting darker. But no point hurrying and having an accident.

Around the back of a clump of spiky holly.

Rebecca groaned.

Poor wee thing. ‘Shhh... Almost there.’

And over to the Volvo. Hidden from the road by a huge swathe of brambles and rhododendron.

He opened the tailgate and reached in — careful to hold her in place with his other hand, didn’t want to drop her, after all — and pulled the pet carrier over. Eased her inside. Patted her on the cheek.

Looked like a sweet kid.

He placed the teddy in beside her, closed the carrier door, draped the tartan rug over the whole thing, then shut the boot. Walked around to the driver’s door and climbed in out of the rain. Smiled. Nothing quite like the satisfaction of a job well done.

Lee plucked the cheap burner phone from his pocket and dialled from memory. Listened to it ring as he started the car and pulled out onto the track, driving in the opposite direction to the woman and her mud-spattered four-by-four. No point taking any risks. And yes, technically it was against the law to use a mobile phone while driving, but this was a private road, so there you go.

Jerry, sounding cheerful, but noncommittal: ‘Hello?’

‘Our final item is now in stock.’

‘Excellent. No issues?’

Trees and bushes slid past the car, dark and brooding. Have to turn the headlights on in a minute, once he was a safe distance from the cottage.

‘Some people need the rules explaining to them, that’s all.’

‘Good. Excellent. Well, in that case, I think you’re all in for a lovely evening tomorrow.’

‘Looking forward to it.’ He hung up, slowed for the junction, flicked on his headlights and turned right onto the narrow road. Threw back his hoodie’s hood, removed the grey mask, and placed it in its box on the passenger seat.

Lee turned in his seat. ‘Hope you’re ready to make some nice new friends, Rebecca! Well, maybe not nice, nice, but at least they’ll give me a lot of money, and in the end isn’t that what matters?’

Of course it was.