The Missing and the Dead

35

‘God, Klingon and Gerbil are the gift that keeps on giving, aren’t they?’ The words came out flat and nasal, as if the backshift Duty Inspector needed a good clean out with a drain rod. He paused for a sneeze. Then a sniff. ‘And you’re sure it’s her?’

‘Well … not a hundred percent, but there’s definitely something there, Guv.’ Logan stepped back as a line of anonymous figures in white SOC suits rustled past and out the back door. ‘The IB’s ready to start digging.’

Outside the window, a blue marquee snapped and rippled in the wind. Hiding the deposition site from prying eyes.

‘They killed his mum, and buried her in the back garden? Are they mental?’

‘Well, Klingon and Gerbil were never the sharpest spoons in the drawer.’

‘Why didn’t they chuck her in the sea? Or take her out to the middle of nowhere? Not like we don’t have excellent body-burying opportunities round here.’

‘Some people are just lazy.’

‘Place should be a Mecca for people looking to get rid of their no-longer-loved-ones. We could sell spades and souvenir T-shirts.’

There was a knock on the door and Constable Griffiths poked her head into the kitchen. Her eyebrows were up, the edges of her mouth down. ‘Sarge, there’s a boss outside and he’s foaming. Big Paul won’t let him in, ’cos it’s a crime scene.’

Oh. Logan sucked a breath in through his top teeth. ‘Any idea who it is?’

‘A Detective Chief Inspector McInnes?’

The guy in charge of Operation Troposphere. This wasn’t going to be fun.

‘OK, thanks Penny.’ Back to the handset. ‘Sorry, Guv, got to go. Someone wants to give me a bollocking for doing my job.’

‘I’ll be over soon as I can.’

Logan clipped his Airwave back into place, slipped the elastic band off his body-worn video, pulled his chin up, and marched out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into the porch.

Big Paul stood on the top step, blocking the front door, towering over a figure wearing a suit, a tie, and a homicidal expression. That would be McInnes, then.

Big Paul tapped the clipboard in his other huge hand. His voice was a collection of rumbling bass notes that vibrated everything for twenty yards. ‘I know that, sir, but this is a crime scene and I’m not going to let you in until the Scenes Examination Branch tell me it’s OK. Those are the rules.’

McInnes paced up and down on the short path. Streetlight glinted off the bald patch at the back of his head every time he turned around, like a lighthouse in a sea of short curly grey hair. A thin face with permanent lines etched past the sides of his mouth, a gathering storm of them between his eyebrows. He was at least a foot shorter than Big Paul, but didn’t seem to let it bother him. Too used to getting his own way. ‘Don’t make me call your Divisional Commander!’

‘Feel free.’ Big Paul leaned forward, voice dropping to an even more menacing rumble. ‘Now get behind that barrier tape, before I-’

‘All right.’ Logan tapped him on the arm. Solid muscle, bunched tight beneath the black T-shirt. ‘Thanks, Paul, I’ll take it from here.’

He turned. Smiled. ‘Sarge.’ Then stepped to one side, letting Logan squeeze past onto the path. Before returning to blocking the front door. Both huge arms crossed over his huge chest.

McInnes jabbed a finger at Logan. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ The auld-mannie scent of Old Spice wafted off him like cheap vodka.

‘We’re-’

‘Did I, or did I not expressly forbid you from interfering in Operation Troposphere? Because I’m pretty sure I told you to keep your damn nose out of it!’

‘Sir, I need you to-’

‘THIS!’ Another finger, but this one made contact, stabbing Logan’s stabproof vest. ‘THIS IS WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT!’

‘Sir, I need you to calm down. Shouting the odds isn’t helping.’

‘DON’T YOU BLOODY TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!’

‘The curtains are already twitching all along the street. Do you really want to see yourself having a rant posted on YouTube by some nosy neighbour?’

McInnes hissed a couple of breaths in and out through gritted teeth. Then, ‘Fine.’ His voice dropped to a growling whisper. ‘You listen to me, Sergeant, and you listen well. This isn’t some halfwit divisional bumfest, it’s an extremely high-profile inter-agency cross-border operation, and what you’re doing is screwing it about!’

Logan pulled his shoulders back. ‘With all due respect-’

‘Shut up! I’ve given you chance after chance, but somehow, because you lucked into the initial bust, you think that gives you the right to decide how a thousand-man-hour operation is run?’

‘I didn’t-’

‘You think I don’t know you’ve been asking people to question Kevin McEwan and Colin Spinney in Craiginches? And now here you are, digging up MY BLOODY CRIME SCENE!’

The dogs in Syd’s Transit must have finally had enough, because shotgun barks boomed out through the open windows.

McInnes marched down the path to the line of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape and back again. ‘You will stay the hell away from Kevin “Gerbil” McEwan and Colin “Klingon” Spinney. You will stay away from their house. You will stay away from their friends. And if I hear so much as a whisper about you coming anywhere near Operation Troposphere there’s going to be a lifetime of misery coming your way.’ He dipped into his pocket and produced a smartphone. ‘And so we’re clear: right now, I’m going to call my guvnor and get him to rain crap on your area commander’s head from a great height. You enjoy the fall-out, Sergeant. You’ve had your last warning.’

‘No, Guv, with all due respect, that’s-’

‘Don’t you dare “all due respect” me, Sergeant.’ The backshift Duty Inspector’s cold didn’t sound as if it had improved any. ‘This isn’t an “all due respect” situation, it’s “shut up and do what you’re told”.’

‘Guv, I-’

‘McInnes called his boss. His boss called the Chief Constable, who opened the sewage floodgates. It’s cascading all the way down through B Division from way on high and I don’t appreciate being in the bloody flood zone! You will stay the hell away from Klingon, Gerbil, and Operation Troposphere, do I make myself clear?’

‘But we found-’

‘I don’t care if you found Shergar, the Ark of the Covenant, and the entrance to sodding Narnia: no more! It’s done. Now get out there and do your job.’

The muscles in Logan’s jaw ached. He prised his teeth apart, barely far enough to squeeze the words out, ‘Yes, Guv.’

And the Duty Inspector was gone.

The handset creaked in Logan’s fist.

Slow calm breaths.

Don’t smash the thing against the pavement. Then gather up the broken shards and ram them up McInnes’s backside.

Fifteen minutes. That’s how long it had taken for McInnes’s crap to roll all the way downhill. Fifteen minutes.

A hand thumped down on Logan’s shoulder. Syd. ‘You look like you’re going to kill someone.’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

‘Only saying.’ He hauled back the sliding door on his Transit van, getting a few low yowls of welcome from the dogs. A couple of fold-down seats and some plastic crates filled the space between the Transit’s cab and a partition wall with four hatches set into it — each one marked with a little sticky label. ‘ENZO’ and ‘LUSSO’ on the bottom two, ‘DINO’ and ‘DO NOT USE!’ on the top ones.

The smell of dog was thick as bargain-basement lentil soup. Gritty and sweaty and meaty, all at the same time. Syd hauled a large plastic container from one of the crates and sloshed water in a metal bowl. ‘Look on the bright side, at least we found something. Powers that be spent all that time cutting the Dog Section by half, and you know what? We still deliver the goods.’

Yeah. Just in time for McInnes to show up, throw a hissy fit, then take the credit.

‘All units, be on the lookout for a red Isuzu Trooper. Suspected involvement in the ram-raid on the Gardenstown Co-op. Last seen heading off on the Dubford road.’

Fifteen minutes.

Thank you, Detective Chief Inspector McInnes.

Logan drummed his fingers against the Big Car’s steering wheel.

‘We’ve got reports of an assault on Broad Street, Fraserburgh, two hundred yards down from the Crown Bar …’

Rundle Avenue was quiet. Here and there, lights glowed through living-room and bedroom curtains, but other than that, the houses were dark. A ginger tabby slunk across the road two cars down from where Logan was parked. It hopped up onto the low garden wall and paused for a second, before jumping down and disappearing around the side of the house that Martyn Baker shared with his girlfriend and kid.

Stay away from Operation Troposphere.

Do what you’re told.

Be a good little parochial plod.

Logan wrapped his hands around the steering wheel and squeezed till his forearms trembled.

‘Anyone in the vicinity of Crimond, we’re getting reports of multiple break-ins …’

Could just manufacture something to bring Baker down. Not exactly ethical, but then what did ethics get you? Ethics meant people like Graham Stirling got away with torturing Stephen Bisset. Ethics meant letting the bad guys walk, even when you knew they were guilty.

And Martyn Baker was guilty.

‘Shire Uniform Seven, you safe to talk?’

Logan peeled his fingers off the steering wheel. The knuckles were all white and stiff. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Sarge, it’s Penny. We’ve got a problem in Macduff, any chance of an assist?’

Of course they did. He sagged back in his seat, stared at the car’s ceiling.

‘Sarge? You there?’

‘Yeah. OK.’ A big, long sigh hollowed him out. ‘Give me the address.’

Market Street was another collection of small Scottish houses — most of them tiny with dormer windows above a single floor, gable ends, chimney stacks, and grey slate roofs. A line of parked cars were squeezed down one side of the road, single yellows on the other. All bathed in the sickly septic glow of a sodium streetlight.

Logan parked the Big Car with two wheels on the pavement. Not quite blocking the road, but narrowing it a hell of a lot.

Deep breath. Then he picked his peaked cap off the passenger seat and climbed out into the night.

Wind snatched at his trousers. It dragged the scent of seaweed and iodine all the way from the sea at the end of the road. Sent an empty crisp packet twirling along the kerb.

A faint tang of salt in the air.

Penny stepped out of a doorway two houses down and waved at him. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’

He stamped his way over, jamming his hat on his head. ‘Still don’t see why you couldn’t sort this yourselves.’

‘She won’t listen to us. Says there’s rats in her bed.’

Logan stopped. Stared at the cracked, moss-lined, concrete pavement. The muscles in his jaw tightened, so he had to force the words out between gritted teeth. ‘That’s not a police issue, that’s a Care in the Community one!’

When he looked back up again, Penny had folded her arms across her chest, mouth set in a downward curl. ‘I know that, Sarge.’

Another sigh. He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Sorry. It’s been a long day.’ A long, long, crappy day.

‘We tried Social Services, they say they can’t send anyone out till Monday. Mrs Ellis has been wandering up and down the road, every night for two weeks. In her jammies. She’s eighty-two.’

The wind snatched and tugged at Logan’s hat. Eighty-two, and she was walking about in this, in the dark. Wouldn’t be long till she caught her death of cold, or ended up under a car.

Logan’s shoulders dipped. ‘Come on then, let’s get this over with.’ Chin up. Force a smile. It wasn’t Penny’s fault, or the auld wifie. It was whatever scumbag thought turfing vulnerable people out on the streets to fend for themselves was a good idea in the first place.

‘Sarge.’ Penny led the way into a narrow hallway lined with shelves festooned with little porcelain figurines. Dogs and cats, mostly, but the odd saccharine child in pantaloons or nightshirts too. Dark wood on the walls, a low-wattage bulb in a table lamp. Penny nodded towards a closed door. ‘She’s in there.’

Logan opened it and stepped into a small living room. More dark wood. More shelves. More creepy porcelain effigies, lit by a single standard lamp. Painted eyes glittered at him from the heavy shadows.

A carriage clock sat amongst the figures on the mantelpiece, click-clacking its thin brass arms around.

Big Paul sat on a two-seater sofa, knees nearly up to his chest. When he stood, he had to stoop to avoid banging his bullet-shaped head on the ceiling. A nod. ‘Sarge. This is Mrs Ellis.’

The room’s other occupant was a little old lady, thin as a rolling pin. Her thinning silver hair hung around a lined face that looked as if it had seen a lot more pain than anyone should ever have to. As if every one of those eighty-two years had been carved into her face with a blade. She was dressed in an old pair of winceyette pyjamas, the fabric worn see-through on the knees and elbows. One hand made a brittle claw on the arm of her chair. The other clutched a long breadknife.

OK. Logan took off his hat. ‘Are we making sandwiches, Mrs Ellis?’

She blinked her sunken eyes. ‘It’s meant to be a carving knife, but I don’t have one. And they’re not mice, they’re rats.’

‘Rats.’

She bared a set of yellow-grey teeth, each one perfectly regular, set into dark-brown plastic gums. ‘Rats in the walls. Rats under the floorboards.’ She pulled her knees together and rocked back and forward in her chair. ‘They come out at night and they … climb into my bed. Scurrying about under the blankets with their sharp little claws and shiny dead eyes.’

The clock on the mantelpiece clacked and clicked, while the porcelain figurines stared from the gloom.

Logan tucked his hat beneath his arm, then held his other hand out. ‘How about you put the breadknife down, Mrs Ellis?’

She held it tight against her chest. ‘They scratch and they bite and they won’t let me sleep. Why won’t they let me sleep?’

‘OK.’ Mad as a fish. He turned to Penny. ‘Bedroom?’

She pointed above their heads.

‘Thanks. Come on, Mrs Ellis, let’s go see these rats.’

The stairs were off the narrow hallway. They creaked and groaned all the way up to a landing barely tall enough to stand up in. A single door led off it. Logan pushed through into a claustrophobic room with a coombed ceiling, a small wardrobe, and a double bed that teetered on the cusp between antique and firewood. The mattress wasn’t much better. It sagged in the middle, dragging the layers of itchy blankets and comforters with it.

Floorboards complained as he walked around to the other side of the saggy bed.

Mrs Ellis stayed on the landing, cowering behind the doorframe, breadknife clutched in both hands. ‘See? What did I tell you?’

He nodded at the blankets. ‘Are the rats there now?’

She blinked at him. ‘Of course they are! Can’t you see them?’

‘No, what I mean is: are they all there? In the bed. Not in the walls or the floors, all in the bed?’

A nod.

‘Right.’ Logan unclipped his extendable baton, slid it out of its holster, clacked it out to full length … then battered the hell out of the blankets, comforter, and pillows. Slamming the metal rod down again, and again, and again.

Bloody McInnes and his bloody — thump — bloody — thump — Operation — thump — bloody — thump — Troposphere — thump, thump, slam, thump. Bloody Martyn Bloody Baker. Bloody Klingon. Bloody Gerbil. Bloody Napier. Slam, thump, thump, thump. The blankets jumped and danced beneath their hammering. Bloody every bloody body. Thump, slam, thump.