The Missing and the Dead

34

On the other end of the phone, Jackson groaned. Swore. Puffed out a sigh. ‘But we’ve got his DNA …’

‘Yeah, and I’ll bet you anything you like, if you get the IB to take surface swabs from the other coma patients, you’ll find traces of Marlon Brodie’s semen.’

More swearing.

‘It’s all there on his sexblog. He’s been trying his hand at pseudonecrophilia. Only he doesn’t have to pay someone to pretend to be dead, he’s got loads of them lying about in the hospital for free.’

‘Well …’ The faint sound of drumming filled the silence, as if DI Jackson was beating out a tattoo with his fingers. ‘Maybe he decided to take it all the way? No more “pseudo”. Holds a pillow over Stephen Bisset’s face so he’s got a real live dead body to have sex with?’

‘There’s no mention of murder on his blog. He writes about what he’s done and what he’d like to do. I think he saw an opportunity and he took it.’

‘But we’ve got his DNA, and … Bloody hell. It’s all circumstantial, isn’t it?’

‘He saying anything about why he did it?’

‘His solicitor’s told him to “no comment” everything.’ More drumming. ‘Could still be him. Gah … If it isn’t him, who is it?’

‘You think you’ve got it bad: my girlfriend was in a coma there for four years. Don’t know how many times he was in her room, unsupervised.’ Logan’s jaw tightened.

OK, so they couldn’t do Marlon Brodie for murder any more, but they could do him for sexually exploiting vulnerable people.

And with any luck, someone in prison would rip the damn thing off and make him eat it.

‘No, just wanted to see how you’re getting on.’ Logan drifted the Big Car along Rundle Avenue again. Still no sign of anyone coming or going from Frankie Ferris’s drug den.

On the other end of the phone, Helen coughed. ‘Sorry, paint fumes are getting to me a bit.’

‘Then stop. Put your feet up. Read a book.’ He slowed down and took a left into a small cul-de-sac. Did a three-point turn.

‘Is there any news?’

‘They’re still working on it.’ Logan turned off the engine and sat there, parked beneath a streetlight, with a perfect view of Frankie Ferris’s front door. ‘Helen, when you’ve been to crime scenes before, have they tried tracking down your ex-husband? Done tax searches, Land Registry, benefits office, pensions, things like that?’

‘And every mortuary, hospital, and graveyard. Brian’s disappeared.’

‘Got to be somewhere.’

An old man scuffed past on the pavement opposite, being taken for a walk by a tiny Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy.

‘How was your tea?’

A sigh. ‘The MIT don’t have any leads, do they?’

Not a single one.

‘Early days yet.’

Silence.

The dog snuffled around a lamppost for a bit while its companion poked away at a mobile phone.

‘Helen?’

‘The living room’s nearly done. One more coat on the skirting boards to go.’

‘We’ll get there. I promise. We’ll find-’

‘Don’t.’ There was a catch in her voice, as if something had got stuck. ‘Don’t promise something you can’t. Please. I’ve been here too often.’

The line went quiet again. Only when Logan checked his mobile’s screen it showed the call was over. She’d hung up.

And she was right. He had no business promising anything, because there was sod all he could do.

‘… break-in at New Pitsligo. Anyone free to attend?’

He turned the key in the lock. It was a new shiny brass Yale job, set into a bog-standard blank UPVC door that opened on the stinking hovel Colin ‘Klingon’ Spinney called home.

Logan stepped over the threshold into the enveloping reek of rotting garbage, stale body odour, and greasy filth. Closed the door behind him. Clicked on the lights.

The lounge was as they’d left it on Wednesday after the raid, but in the kitchen, someone had pulled the cooker away from the wall. Probably DCI McInnes’s Major Investigation Team, giving the place another going over. They’d done the same with the fridge-freezer, getting the white goods out of the way so they could search behind them.

A door off the hall led into the garage. A gloomy, dusty space full of cobwebs and discarded beer tins. Cigarette butts. Roaches. Shelves all higgledy-piggledy with cardboard boxes, paint tins, and filthy gardening equipment.

Dark-brown stains covered the middle of the concrete floor, beneath the fluorescent strip light. That would be where Jack Simpson got used for batting practice, before they stuffed him in the attic ready for tomorrow’s beating.

Back into the house proper. Up the sticky stairs.

Logan’s Airwave gave its point-to-point beeps as he reached the landing. He unhooked it and wandered into the smaller of the two bedrooms. ‘Safe to talk.’

‘McRae? It’s DI Jackson.’

Here we go. ‘How did you get on with Marlon Brodie?’

Piles of clothes and dirt and bin-bags. The view through the window would have been great in daylight — out across the rooftops to the sea — but the moon had been smothered by clouds, leaving everything shrouded in darkness beyond the streetlight’s glow.

Jackson sighed. ‘He says Stephen Bisset was dead when he got there.’

‘What happened to “no comment”?’ Back onto the landing.

‘Brodie had a change of mind when we told him we’d read his blog.’

‘Uh-huh?’ Should’ve done that in the first place.

The bigger bedroom had all its filth piled up in one corner and the mattress leaning against the wardrobe. The painting of Jesus was squint on its nail. Logan walked over to the window and pulled the curtain back.

‘He’s admitting to masturbating over multiple patients in the coma ward, male and female. Says them lying there all cool and still and almost dead was one of the sexiest things he’s ever seen. Claims he wasn’t really hurting anyone. And definitely denying murder.’

The garden was caught in the glow from the kitchen window, the garage, and the houses on either side. Weeds mostly. Docken and rosebay willowherb jabbed their spears at the dark sky. A patch of brambles in the corner. No shed, but there was a whirly washing line — canted over to the left, its stainless-steel branches buckled and twisted like a tree caught in a storm. The grass had grown in long tufts and clumps, its blades turned rusty and brittle in the recent spate of hot weather.

‘You believe him?’

‘Probably. We went through it a dozen times and he didn’t change his story once. He got into the room, he saw Stephen Bisset was dead, and he grabbed the chance to crack one out over a genuine corpse for a change.’

‘You going to throw the book at him for it?’

‘Going to try.’

‘Good.’

One patch was denser than the others. Over by the back fence, the grass and weeds were shorter and a more luscious shade of green. As if someone had cut a chunk out of some other garden and dropped it into the scrubby wasteland Klingon and Gerbil had ruled over.

‘Listen, McRae, I’m sorry about your girlfriend. We can’t tell if he … you know. But I’ll make sure he’s going away for as long as we can get.’

Why just that patch? Why wasn’t it half-dead and choked like the rest of the garden?

‘Trouble is, if he’s telling the truth and he didn’t kill Stephen Bisset, who did?’

It was as if there was something under the surface, feeding the plants.

Couldn’t really see Klingon and Gerbil out there with the Baby Bio. They weren’t exactly Gardeners’ Question Time kind of guys.

‘McRae? You still there?’

Logan let the curtain fall shut and pressed the talk button. ‘Sorry. Yeah. Listen, has anyone spoken to Bisset’s kids?’

‘Not specifically. I spoke to the mother soon as we picked Brodie up. She knows we arrested someone for her husband’s death, but not who. Well, assuming she was sober enough to take any of it in.’

Out onto the landing and down the stairs. ‘No, I mean there’s no one on the CCTV footage going into Stephen Bisset’s room between his kids leaving and the time Marlon Brodie turns up. Don’t know about you, but I think they might have noticed if their dad was dead. So if he was alive when they went in, and dead by the time Marlon Brodie visited …?’

‘Why the hell would they murder their own-’

‘It wouldn’t be murder for them, it’d be a mercy killing. Or it’s because they’re ashamed of the sex thing. Or maybe they couldn’t face the thought of their father lying there like a corpse for the rest of his life. Doesn’t really matter, does it?’

Steel’s right-hand woman, Becky, had been right after all. Even if she was a sour-faced moaning pain in the backside.

Logan marched along the hall and through the kitchen.

The key was still in the door. He unlocked it and stepped out into the back garden.

‘Unbelievable …’ A sigh crackled out of the Airwave’s speaker. ‘OK, I’ll get them picked up.’

Cool air caressed his face, bringing with it the aniseed-and-petrol smell of wood preservative and the gritty scent of dusty vegetation. He twisted his LED torch free from its catch. Clicked it on.

The grass was soft beneath his boots, like walking on a dying mattress.

‘McRae? Thanks. I owe you one.’

There it was. The only patch of healthy-looking weeds in the whole jungle. Definitely shorter than the rest, as if it’d been trimmed down, or only recently grown. Lush and green and healthy in the LED’s hard white spotlight.

‘Do me a favour? Go easy on them. They’re pretty screwed up as it is.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Then DI Jackson ended the call.

Logan tapped the Airwave handset against his leg.

The patch was about five foot by three. Perfect size, if you wanted to get rid of a body.

He thumbed Syd Fraser’s shoulder number into the Airwave. No response. So he dug out his phone and tried Syd’s mobile instead.

‘Hello?’

‘Syd, it’s Logan. Logan McRae, from Banff? You busy?’

‘Sitting here with a cup of tea, watching The Wrong Trousers, that count?’

‘Am I remembering right: does one of your dogs do cadavers?’

‘Hold on.’ A scrunching squelch came from the handset’s speaker, then a muffled, ‘It’s work. Only be a minute.’ Some clunking. Another scrunch, and Syd was back. ‘Lusso did a bit of training as a cadaver dog before I got him. Dog handler who had him ended up falling off a railway bridge after a bottle of vodka, twelve packs of paracetamol, and a note.’

‘The other guy named him Lusso? Dog Section full of Ferrari freaks is it?’

‘Nah, the idiot named him “Goldie”. Don’t know how much of the training stuck, though; I’ve been using Lusso as a cash and explosives dog for years. Hidden firearms, things like that. He’s good at it.’

Better than nothing.

Logan stared at the patch of verdant green. Could just dig it up and see what was down there, but the powers-that-be were already hacked off about him not following procedure. No point giving them another stick to beat him with.

‘Any chance you’re free tomorrow? I’m at what might be a deposition site.’

‘You there right now?’ Some more clunking. Then that scrunching squelch again, and a muffled, ‘Think I’m going to take the wee hairy lads out to stretch their legs before bedtime. Don’t wait up if I’m late.’ Another clunk and he was back, full volume. ‘OK, where am I going?’

‘Yeah, attempted suicide. Not much of an attempt, mind: made a right hash of slashing his wrists. Wasn’t hard to stop the bleeding.’

Logan rested his elbows on the windowsill. ‘OK, thanks Penny. Soon as the ambulance gets there, can you and Joe do another licensed premises check? Want to keep a tight lid on things tonight.’

‘No room at the inn?’

‘Think we’ve got about four cells free in Fraserburgh. After that we’ll have to open up the Banff ones, or start shipping people to Elgin. And you know how that’s going to go.’

‘Do my best, Sarge.’

A pair of headlights worked their way up the street. Then Syd’s police Transit van parked outside Klingon’s mum’s house.

Logan twisted his handset back into place before heading downstairs and opening the front door.

A minute later, Syd came lumbering up the path, being towed by a large golden retriever. He’d changed into his dog handler outfit — webbing waistcoat over a black fleece, black cargo pants, and DM boots. That tatty, ragged old police cap on his head. ‘Evening all.’

‘Thought you were off duty?’

‘Special dispensation from the wife and the Duty Inspector. In that order. Long as I don’t put in for overtime, we’re fine.’

‘Right.’ Logan backed into the hall. ‘There’s a-’

‘Nope.’ Syd held up a hand. ‘Don’t tell me. Don’t want to prejudice Lusso. If you tell me where you think the cadaver is she’ll pick it up from my body language.’

‘OK. Then you can get cracking.’

Syd stepped inside and froze, nose wrinkling. ‘Stinks in here.’

‘You get used to it.’ He removed the elastic band holding his body-worn video shut and set it recording. ‘Ten forty p.m., Saturday the twenty-fourth of May. Present: Sergeant Logan McRae and Police Dog Handler Syd Fraser.’ A nod. ‘Off you go, Syd.’

He let the dog off its lead. ‘Come on then, Lusso. Find the body.’

The golden retriever bounded up and down the hall a couple of times, then settled into a sniffing routine. Trotting around the outside edges of the room, nose down, tail up.

‘So …’ Logan laced his hands behind his back. ‘The Wrong Trousers?’

‘What’s wrong with The Wrong Trousers?’

Through into the living room. Lusso did the same tour of the skirting boards.

‘Never said a word.’

‘It’s a film about a man and his faithful canine companion, solving a crime and catching the bad guy. What’s not to like?’

‘Speaks to your inner dog handler, does it?’

‘Damn right.’ The golden retriever sniffed back and forth across the floor. Circled the tatty sofa a couple of times. ‘Anyone who doesn’t like Wallace and Gromit needs a boot up the backside. There’s nothing in here, by the way.’ Syd stepped back out into the hall. ‘Come on, Lusso, kitchen.’

Logan’s Airwave bleeped at him. He hung back while Syd directed his own personal Gromit around the filthy room. ‘Safe to talk.’

‘Sergeant McRae? It’s DI Jackson. We sent a car to Stephen Bisset’s house. There’s no sign of David or Catherine. Their mother says she’s not seen them since Wednesday evening.’

That would be just before they put their dear old dad out of his misery.

‘They didn’t take anything with them. No toothbrushes, clothes, makeup, or toiletries. The only thing missing is Catherine’s favourite teddy bear. So it doesn’t look as if it was premeditated.’

‘They went missing Wednesday evening, and the mother didn’t bother telling us?’

‘Don’t think she’s seen the outside of a gin bottle for about a week. I’m getting an apprehension warrant and a lookout request circulated.’

Well, with any luck, someone would find them before the guilt and grief caught up and made them do something stupid — like Lusso’s former owner. ‘Thanks for keeping me in the loop, I appreciate it. If you find them …?’

‘Will do.’ And DI Jackson was gone.

Syd emerged from the kitchen. ‘Got a positive off the bin, but there’s God knows what mouldering away in there, so it’s not surprising he picked up a bit of cadaverine. Going to try the garage next.’

Logan twisted his Airwave back into its holder. ‘Dried blood on the concrete floor.’

‘OK.’

He followed Syd and Lusso into the dusty space. Leaned back against the wall as the golden retriever sniffed and snuffled around the outside, then lay down in the middle of the floor on top of the blood spatter. Which was to be expected.

‘Good boy.’ Syd swept an arm towards the door. ‘Upstairs next.’

‘All units, be on the lookout for a David and Catherine Bisset. IC-One male: seventeen years old. And IC-One female: fourteen. Both with shoulder-length black hair. Apprehension warrant is pending.’

Not exactly a happy ending, but at least the whole sorry mess would be over soon.

He followed Syd up to the landing, filming as Lusso went from room to room.

They’d probably cop a plea. No Procurator Fiscal was going to want to do two grieving kids for the murder of their coma-stricken dad. The media would whip the country into a frenzy.

Then again …

A frown.

Graham Stirling: missing, kitchen full of broken chairs and dishes, blood on the floor and the fridge.

You don’t batter your crippled dad to death, do you? No, you smother him gently with a pillow. The guy who mutilated him, on the other hand — the guy who abducted him and smeared filth across his memory; you take your time caving his head in with a claw-hammer.

No way they’d let Graham Stirling live. Not after what he’d done to their father.

And if they’d made it quick, his body would still be there, mashed and bloody in the kitchen. Whatever they had planned, it was going to take a while and hurt a lot.

Good.

But that didn’t mean they should get away with it.

Logan unhooked his Airwave and dialled DI Jackson again. ‘I think I know what David and Catherine Bisset were doing on Friday night.’

‘If you’re about to say, “Abducting Graham Stirling,” you’re five minutes too late. I’ve told the labs to try matching their DNA with trace found at the scene.’

Oh. OK.

‘Don’t mean to be rude, Sergeant, but I’ve got a manhunt to organize. Anything else?’

‘No, sorry. Thought you’d want to know.’

He put his Airwave back on its holder. So much for that.

Syd puffed out his cheeks as Lusso emerged from the cholera-cesspit toilet. ‘Looks like we’re a corpse free zone.’

‘Yeah. Well, while you’re here, we might as well try the front and back gardens too.’ Keeping it nice and light. No hints or tips. All nonchalant.

They thumped downstairs, and out through the kitchen door.

The wind’s cold fingers pinched at Logan’s ears as the golden retriever sniffed his way around the garden fence. Straight over the top of the patch of healthy weeds. Not so much as a twitch.

Sodding hell.

Logan leaned against the doorframe. ‘When he was a cadaver dog, any idea if he was any good?’

‘Not a clue.’

Lusso snuffled his way across the lawn and back again.

Still nothing.

Syd took off his cap and had a scratch at the shiny scalp beneath. ‘No overtime, middle of the night, wandering about in a druggie’s back garden.’ A smile. ‘We must be off our rockers doing this for a living.’

‘True.’ Logan stuck his hands in his pockets. Nodded at the dog. ‘This isn’t working, is it?’

‘Nope.’

‘Sorry I dragged you out.’

‘Meh, worth a go.’ He unclipped the lead from behind his back. ‘Come on, Lusso, time for home.’

But the dog didn’t come. He was back at the fence, circling that patch of healthy weeds. Then he lay down right in the middle of it.

Bingo.