The Missing and the Dead

32

Someone walked past outside, setting the floorboards singing. Logan put ticks against each member of the Banff lateshift in his new notepad. Pressed the talk button again. ‘OK, thanks, Joe. I’m going to be out and about for most of the night, but give me a shout if you need anything.’

‘Will do, Sarge.’ And that was it — they were good to go till three in the morning.

Nothing like running a team that didn’t actually need supervision.

Logan stuck his body-worn video unit into the charger next to the steam-powered computer and set everything the BWV had recorded downloading onto the system. Then picked up the phone and called Peterhead.

‘Stubby, it’s Logan. What are you and your hired thugs up to the night, then?’

Sergeant Jane Stubbs blew a raspberry down the line. ‘That’s what. You really Duty Sergeant tonight? You not learn after last time?’

‘Glutton for punishment. Listen, I’m slinging someone up from Mintlaw to help you. Don’t break them.’

‘No promises. We’ve got the usual checks on licensed premises to do, probably be a barney at some point — usually is on a Saturday — then there’s couple of housebreakings to follow up on, some bail violations, and there’s a wee sod selling pills in the clubs. Says they’re Viagra, but they’re really GHB.’

Logan jotted it all in the notepad. ‘Someone’s in for a shock come bedtime.’

‘I want to catch the wee sod before he kills someone.’

‘Good. Do me a favour and keep an eye out for Neil Wood, would you? Oh, and speaking of housebreakings, if anyone spots Tony Wishart knocking about, bang him up and give me a call.’

‘Will do. Have a Q-one.’ Then Stubby was gone.

Next up: call the Mintlaw station to break the good news about them having to lend Peterhead a body tonight. Then head downstairs to prioritize jobs with the Fraserburgh Sergeant — currently playing babysitter to the Cellblock Singers, as per regulations. At least that meant Logan wouldn’t have to sod about with the official Twitter account for the rest of the shift — if Sergeant McCulloch was going to be sitting on his bum all night, he could deal with it.

And after that …

Logan performed a little drum solo on his pad with the end of his biro.

There had to be something out there that was solvable without a team of three thousand and access to a HOLMES suite. Something he could bring in on his own and get a bit of credit for. Something to get Napier off his back.

Something that wouldn’t blow up in his face.

Logan took a big bite out of his burger, chewing through lettuce and meat, onions and cheese, bun and thousand island dressing. Proper food. Food you didn’t eat with a spoon.

Sitting in the Big Car’s passenger seat, Steel had a napkin tucked into the collar of her shirt and pink smeared either side of her mouth. ‘Didn’t know Wimpy still existed.’

From their little patch of gravel, just off the Fraserburgh to Sandhaven road, the sea was a wall of blue, fringed with white where it nudged against the shore. A towering cliff of cumulonimbus reared up from the horizon, caught in the spotlight of the evening sun.

With the car’s windows down, the iodine scent of seaweed and the skirling craw of herring gulls filled the warm air.

A couple of chips, then a scoof of Fanta. ‘I’ve been thinking about what Jack Simpson said about the guy who supplied Klingon and Gerbil’s drugs.’

Steel licked a dribble of sauce off her wrist. ‘Who?’

‘Jack Simpson: the guy we found half-dead in Klingon’s attic.’

‘Don’t care.’ She sooked a fingertip clean. ‘I mean, what kind of place still has a Wimpy? What is this, the 1980s? Welcome to Fraserburgh, look at our cool digital watches, mullets, and shoulder pads.’ Another bite, chewing with her mouth open. ‘No’ that I’m complaining, mind. Haven’t had one of these in years.’

‘Jack said he was called the Candleman, or Candlestick Man. What if he got it wrong? I mean, they’re battering the living hell out of him, and he’s probably off his face on heroin at the time.’

‘You’re obsessed with this Candlebloke.’

‘What if it’s the Candlestick Maker. “Maker”, not “Man”.’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Well?’

His Airwave bleeped. ‘All units from Control. Be on the lookout for a green Audi estate, failure to stop following an RTC on the A95 north of Cornhill …’

‘Can you no’ turn that down?’

‘Duty Sergeant, remember?’

Munch, munch, munch. Chew, chew, chew. ‘Fine. But if I finish my chips before you do, I get to steal yours. It’s the rules.’

‘Since when?’

‘Since I had to buy your dinner.’

Fair enough. He popped a couple of them before that happened. ‘Come on: who do we know who’d use “Candlestick Maker” as an alias?’

She ripped another bit out of her burger. ‘Mmmnnghmmmph.’

‘Martyn Baker, that’s who. AKA: Paul Butcher. The Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker-’

‘Went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.’

‘That’s the Owl and the Pussycat.’ He pulled another chip from the pile and waved it at the view outside the windscreen. ‘We got thrown off the scent because Jack Simpson said Klingon’s supplier had a Newcastle or Liverpool accent. But the Candlestick Maker’s not a Geordie or a Scouser, he’s a Brummie — Simpson was too doped up and concussed to tell the difference. Martyn Baker’s our guy.’

Steel polished off the last of her chips. ‘Aye, well done, Miss Marple. Shame there’s sod all you can do with it. Porter and her crew will have got there on day one. He’ll be under surveillance till he gets his next shipment, then boom, they come down on him like the Fist of God.’ A sniff. ‘You really want to get in the way of that? ’Cos they’ll squish you into mush if you do.’

True.

‘Anyone in the vicinity of King Edward? We’ve got reports of a break-in …’

Logan took another bite, but the burger didn’t taste as good as it had a minute ago. Could’ve been at home eating steak instead … Still, it was miles better than the tin of lentil soup waiting for him back at the station. ‘The fact that they’re watching Martyn Baker doesn’t stop him being an accessory to Jack Simpson’s beatings.’

‘Aye, good luck with that.’ She reached over and helped herself to a couple of Logan’s chips. ‘Laz, you and me are on a sinking ship, adrift on the Sea of Jobbies. If we’re getting a lifeboat big enough for two, it’ll have to be a different case. What else you got on?’

‘Not counting your murdered wee girl at Tarlair Outdoor Swimming Pool? Only other big thing’s the Cashline Ram-Raiders.’

‘Hmm …’ Steel narrowed her eyes at the horizon and chewed the rest of the way through her burger in silence, with the odd pause to swig down a mouthful of Diet Coke.

‘What if we got Jack Simpson to ID the three of them from a VIPER line-up? I know we’ve got video of Klingon and Gerbil. And there has to be one on file for Martyn Baker.’

‘Don’t be daft. Told you: they won’t let you anywhere near Baker.’ She dipped into Logan’s chips again, so he handed the whole container over. She wolfed down a couple. ‘Tell me about these Ram-Raiders.’

‘Going by past experience, it’s probably a gang up from down south.’ He stuck the last wedge of burger in his mouth. ‘They get themselves a van, or a minibus, and they go on a wee tour of wee towns, boosting cash machines from wee shops. Take the lot back down south and break them up away from …’ He wiped his face with the napkin. Frowned out at the rolling surf. ‘Hold on, if they’ve got Martyn Baker under surveillance, why did they let you vandalize his car this morning?’

‘Told you: it was like that when I found it.’

‘But we searched him. What if he was carrying product? We would’ve arrested-’

‘And you’d have got your bum handed to you on a stick, soon as you got back to the station.’

The traffic was beginning to pick up. Not that rush hour was much to write home about in Sandhaven. Two cars going one way, a tractor going the other.

‘All units, cancel that lookout request on the green Audi estate. Been found wrapped around a signpost on the B9025.’

Steel polished off the last of the chips, then dabbed up the remaining dribbles of special sauce with a fingertip. ‘What kind of wee shops are they hitting?’

‘All Co-ops. Well, except for that place in Fraserburgh: Broch Braw Buys.’

‘Interesting.’ She licked the fingertip clean, then wiped her hands on her trousers and dug out her phone. Made greasy prints on the screen. ‘Hold on. … Aye, Andy? It’s Roberta. … Yeah, still stuck with the Mire’s Bunnit Brigade. … Really?’ She laughed, setting a crevasse of wrinkly cleavage jiggling. ‘Listen, Andy, you’re in charge of the Cashline thing, right? Anyone looked at it being an inside job? Maybe it’s someone from the Co-op, or whoever it is supplies the cash machines?’

A removal van grumbled past on the road, ‘BLOO TOON SHIFTERS ~ TOUGH ENOUGH TO SHIFT YOUR STUFF!’ stencilled down the side with a cartoon of a haddock carrying a packing case.

Steel nodded. ‘Uh-huh. … Yeah, thought so. Never mind, worth a try. Give Dawn a big wet kiss and a grope from me, OK? … Yeah, you too, Andy.’ She hung up. Pursed her lips at the phone for a second. Then thumped Logan on the arm. ‘Told you it was a stupid idea.’

‘Yeah, what was I thinking?’ He finished off his Fanta. ‘Think they’ll keep hitting Co-op stores?’

‘Suppose we could stick a bunnit in every Co-op in the northeast. That’d do it.’

‘Do you have any idea how thin we’re stretched as it is? Where are we supposed to find the bodies?’

‘There is that.’

A minibus drove past with its windows down. Everyone in the back was wearing a black-and-white striped football shirt, as if they were all referees off on a jolly. The words, ‘One-Nil! One-Nil!’ Dopplered by, battered out on the wings of far too much lager and not enough tune.

Logan’s Airwave bleeped. He wiped his hands on a napkin. ‘Safe to talk.’

‘Sarge? Deano.’

‘What you still doing on, Deano? Shift ended an hour ago.’

‘Had to break into an auld wifie’s house. Daughter was convinced the old girl was dead at the bottom of the stairs.’

‘No?’

‘Nah, drunk as a badger. Found her in the downstairs bog, all covered in sick.’ The clunk of a door closing, muffled out of the handset’s speaker. ‘Listen, turns out the auld wifie’s husband did six years for abusing wee girls. Ran his own photography business. You know the sort of thing: come get glamour shots of your kids. “Oh, don’t worry, you can leave wee Jeanie with me, and I’ll be done by the time you’ve finished your shopping.” Kind of thing.’

Logan crushed the empty Fanta can and dropped it into the bag his burger had come in. ‘At it again, is he?’

‘Not unless it’s from beyond the grave. Died last year. His shop caught fire with him in it.’

At least that was something.

‘And …?’

Sitting in the passenger seat, Steel indulged herself with a post-Wimpy e-cigarette, blowing malformed vapour rings at the windscreen.

‘And no one’s going to hire a paedo photographer, so when he got out of prison he started taking pics for competitions. Got some of them up in the house.’

‘Deano, I’m losing the will to live here.’

‘Fifth place in the Aberdeen Examiner portrait competition from four years ago. It’s Neil Wood, cooking eggs in his B-and-B. Two years ago, it’s third place for a photo of Charles “Craggie” Anderson standing alongside his ship in dry dock. Our missing person’s got his portrait up on a paedo’s wall, Sarge.’

And Neil Wood wasn’t the only one who disappeared just before that wee girl’s body turned up.