The Missing and the Dead

26

‘Anything?’

Nicholson looked up from her Airwave and shook her head. ‘No sign of them anywhere.’

Logan tied the end of the ‘POLICE’ tape to the downpipe between the two parts of the Co-op. On one side it took up the bottom floor of a three-storey granite building, but the main entrance — the side that had been raided — was a single-storey extension, painted white with green buckled frontage. A red post box positioned by the entrance. The other end of the blue-and-white cordon was wrapped around it, like the ribbon on a very boring present, then stretched out to an orange cone in the middle of the road in front of it, and on to another in front of the downpipe. A nice big rectangle, protecting the scene.

The Big Car blocked the other side of the road, its lights spinning in the sunshine.

A bleep from his Airwave. Then, ‘Sarge, it’s Deano. Safe to talk?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Me and Tufty have been round the burglaries in Pennan. No witnesses. Got some pretty odd stuff gone missing though. There’s the usual iPads and DVDs and phones, bit of cash and jewellery, but one lot’s missing a bible from 1875, a First World War bayonet, and a Georgian vase. House next door’s missing paintings from the 1920s. One next to that’s lost a crystal decanter set from the Cutty Sark.’

Logan hauled open the Big Car’s boot. ‘M.O.E.?’

‘Popped a pane of glass in the back doors. Thing is, Sarge, how’d you know to take a decanter set and ignore a CD player?’

‘Stealing to order maybe? That or he’s got an interest. Run a check on the PNC, maybe we can get a quick result on this one.’ Logan pulled the dustpan and long-handled broom from the boot. ‘Keep me up to date, OK?’

‘Will do.’

He handed the broom and dustpan to Nicholson. ‘And before you start moaning, it’s not because you’re a woman, it’s because you’re a constable.’

Her face drooped. ‘Sarge.’

‘Clear this side of the road. Soon as it’s done, shift the car and get traffic moving again. Don’t sweep up anything inside the cordon.’ He picked his way through the scattered debris into the store. Inside, it looked as if a bomb had gone off. Ground Zero was the gap where the two windows had been, spreading impulse-buy items, tins, and lottery tickets out in a fan of destruction. A display stand of newspapers was smashed in half, canted over — spilling out its collection of red-top tabloids, gossip magazines, and issues of Farmers Weekly.

A handful of breezeblocks from the caved-in sill.

The manager sat behind the counter, cup of tea and packet of Rennies in front of her, mobile phone to her ear. Green shirt and black fleece. ‘STACEY’, according to her name badge. Round-shouldered, going grey, and smelling of peppermint. She crunched down another antacid. ‘I don’t know, Mike. It’s up to the police. But the whole place …’ She stared out at it. Sagged a little further. ‘I’ll let you know soon as I do.’

Logan stood at the counter, amongst the drifts of newsprint and lotto tickets.

It could be you.

But today it was Stacey.

She blinked up at him. ‘Got to go.’ Hung up. Put her phone down. ‘Sorry. Head office. Wanted to know if everyone was OK.’

Logan nodded at the hole where the two windows used to be. The rest of them were blocked off with shelves and display units. ‘Where was the cash machine?’

She pointed over the counter at a clean rectangular patch on the floor, with four sheared bolts and a snapped length of electrical flex. ‘It was like … I don’t know. The window exploded and there was glass and things everywhere and it was over so quickly.’ Stacey wrapped her hands around her tea. ‘Thought everything was supposed to slow down, but: whoosh.’ A shudder.

‘How about CCTV?’

A nod. Then a deep breath. ‘Yes. CCTV. We can do that.’

She led him through the wreckage to much cleaner aisles. Past the crisps and cat food to a double door. Pushed into a backroom store full of cages of breakfast cereal and tatties. A little office sat on one side. Stacey opened the door and ushered him inside. ‘Three cameras cover the front of the shop: two inside, one out.’

A worktop desk ran along two walls, complete with computer, two phones, and a pair of office chairs. A monitor was mounted in the corner, above a bank of digital recording stuff. Eight views of the shop filled the screen, each with a little timer ticking over in the corner. Only one view was nothing but static.

Stacey picked a remote from the top of the recording boxes and sank into one of the chairs. She poked at the buttons, sending the timers clattering backwards.

Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Forty — and the static disappeared, replaced by a view of the shop from a point above the display stand where people were meant to fill out their lottery tickets.

‘Here we go.’

The screens froze.

Camera four showed an old man juggling a basket and a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru. Six had a young girl dangling a teddy bear by its leg, while an older woman weighed up the difference between two loaves of bread. Camera one was an exterior shot from above the front door. And camera two had Stacey, sitting behind the counter hunched over some sort of paperwork.

Play.

The old man dropped the basket. The little girl skipped along the aisle.

A big blue four-by-four reversed into shot on camera one, swung round and its rear-end smashed into the window beside the door.

Camera two filled with exploding glass and dust, flying tins and packets. All in perfect silence.

Debris blocked the view of cameras two-to-three, but the others showed shelves shaking. The older woman clasping the bread to her chest like a parachute.

Camera three went to static.

It took a couple of seconds for camera two to clear, and when it did the back half of the huge four-by-four jutted into the shop. Not a Range Rover or a sporty job, a proper huge one with a loadbay and canopy. Toyota Hilux, or a Mitsubishi Warrior? Difficult to tell from this angle. Maybe it was an Isuzu? Something like that. The sort of thing you could chuck bales of hay or a couple of sheep into.

Ceiling tiles and tins lay on top of the canopy.

Camera one: the car’s back doors popped open and two figures swarmed out and into the shop, climbing through the shattered hole where the windows used to be. Black ski masks, gloves, tracksuits. One had a length of heavy-duty chain in his hands. He wrapped it around the base of the cash machine, while his mate clipped the other end onto the four-by-four’s towbar.

Mr Towbar jumped back and thumped on the side of the vehicle. Mr Chain hurried behind the cash machine as whoever was at the wheel put their foot down, snapping the chain taut and ripping the whole machine from its moorings.

Then Mr Chain and Mr Towbar opened the canopy lid, thumped down the tailgate, and humped the cash machine into the loadbay. Shut everything up and clambered out through the broken window again.

Camera one caught them clambering back into the four-by-four and it roared off. Inside the shop, a chunk of ceiling tiles collapsed.

Pause. Two. Three. Four. And then Stacey peeked out from behind the counter.

The whole thing had taken a little over a minute.

Brilliant. So much for ‘Be advised, perpetrators are still at the scene.’

Logan put a mug of tea on Nicholson’s desk.

‘Thanks, Sarge.’ She cleared her throat, leaned over in her seat to peer out through the open Constables’ Office door. Then back again, voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Maggie told me that DS Dawson’s still in hospital.’

‘Yup.’ He took a sip of his own tea. Hot and milky. ‘We’re never mentioning it again, remember?’

‘Yeah, but, Sarge, maybe, you know, if they knew what caused it, they might have more luck fixing him? I don’t know, we could do it anonymously, or something? They wouldn’t have to know it was us …’

‘They’d know. And you’ll never make it in CID if you can’t keep a secret.’

She pulled a face. ‘Yes, Sarge.’

He headed back through to the Sergeants’ Office.

Inspector McGregor sat in the other chair, digging through the contents of a large cardboard box. ‘Do we have any triple-A batteries? All I can find are double-A’s. Hundreds and hundreds of double-A’s …’

‘Sorry, Guv — the Alcometers are all double.’ Logan settled in behind his desk. ‘I can get Tufty to pick some up on his way back?’

She pushed the box away. ‘A little bird tells me there was a crowd of journalists outside most of yesterday.’

Ah. He took a sip of tea. Arranged his notepad, Post-its, and keyboard into a straight line. Tried for a nonchalant shrug. ‘Didn’t notice. I was busy painting the house.’

‘They were very interested in talking to you. Apparently, now Stephen Bisset’s dead, the story’s become a lot more shiny. Anything you want to tell me?’

His head dropped. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

‘I don’t like journalists staking out my stations, Logan, it makes the public nervous. Makes it look like we’ve done something wrong.’

‘It wasn’t my fault! I did what …’ He sighed. ‘We’ve been over this.’

‘Of course, things might have gone a bit better if you’d actually caught the Cashline Ram-Raiders this morning, instead of letting them get away.’

‘I didn’t lose them, they were long gone by the time we got there. I saw the security-camera footage: whole thing was over in eighty-two seconds.’ He sat forward and poked the desk with a finger. ‘The only way we could’ve got to Portsoy before they sodded off is if Police Scotland issued us with a TARDIS.’

‘Thought they were still at the scene?’

‘I checked with the control room — turns out the guy who said the Ram-Raiders were still there was blootered. Not bad going for half nine on a Saturday morning.’

The Inspector picked up a manila folder. Tapped the edge against the desk. ‘Did you hear? Traffic stopped a blue Isuzu D-max a mile north of Keith.’

A smile bloomed on Logan’s face. ‘That’s great. Did-’

‘Wasn’t them. Still, it’s not our problem any more, it’s DI McCulloch and his MIT’s.’

The smile faded. ‘Does it really not bug you? Every time something big comes up, we’ve got to hand it over?’

She dumped the folder on his desk. ‘Appraisal results, hot off the press from Division Headquarters. The Big Boss says Maggie can have two and a half percent and not a penny more.’

‘Better than nothing.’ He opened the folder, pulled out the printouts. ‘Oh, I spoke to Jack Simpson this morning.’

‘And how is everyone’s favourite drug-dealing minker?’

‘Lucky to be alive, and feeling vindictive. Got a sworn statement off him, fingering Klingon and Gerbil for assault. They weren’t trying to kill him, they were trying to put the fear of God into everyone else. And whoever supplied the drugs is down as an accessory. So, soon as the MIT are done with their drugs charges, we can ask the PF to prosecute.’

‘Excellent.’ She hopped down from the desk. Straightened her police-issue T-shirt. ‘Don’t suppose he ID’d the supplier?’

‘Best he could do is: wee hardman from Newcastle or Liverpool, calling himself the Candleman, or Candlestick Man. Doesn’t know his real name. I’m going to call round, see if anyone recognizes the alias.’

‘Well, keep me informed.’ She paused in the doorway. ‘It does bother me when the MITs swoop in and grab everything. But it is what it is. We just have to try and get one in under the radar every now and then.’