The Missing and the Dead

42

Logan sank back in his chair and put a hand over his eyes. For some reason, the temporary viewing suite had developed a distinctly cheesy smell. Like a big block of Stilton, abandoned in a small car on a hot day. ‘Well, how was I supposed to know Jack Simpson got it wrong?’

On the other end of the phone, the backshift Duty Inspector puffed out a sigh. Still sounding as if he had a bag of marbles stuffed up each nostril. ‘He was off his face on heroin and getting battered to death at the time. How accurate would you be?’

Yeah, that wasn’t helping.

‘But, on the bright side, we’ve solved the murder of an undercover police officer. Be some brownie points for you there, Logan. Not sure if it’ll be enough to stop McInnes from shafting you, though.’

Still not helping. ‘We’ve got a signed confession and he’s rolling on two of his gang mates, so-’

A knock on the door.

‘Sarge?’ When Logan uncovered his eyes, there was Tufty, with two steaming mugs and a copy of the Sunday Post. He popped a tea down in front of Logan and mouthed the words, ‘I’m hunting biscuits.’

He was retreating when Logan waved him over and muffled the mouthpiece with a hand. ‘Watch: and see if you can spot anything weird.’ Logan scooted his chair back out of the way and pointed at the screen. The view from camera number three flickered on pause — looking out across the street at the removal van and the zombie children. Logan uncovered the mouthpiece. ‘Sorry about that, Inspector, someone came in.’

‘I’ll get onto Merseyside Police. They’ll probably want to send a car up to get him, but I’m pretty certain the Chief Constable’s not letting Martyn Baker go anywhere till we’ve done a joint press conference. We’re not having a bunch of Scousers taking all the credit.’ The grin was audible in his voice. ‘That’s my job.’

Tufty squatted down in front of the viewer and fiddled with the controls, sending the picture streaking into fast-forward.

‘Trouble is, we’ve still got no idea who supplied Klingon and Gerbil with their gear.’

‘Yeah, well, I’m sure DCI McInnes will tell us when he deems fit. And not before. Meantime, what are you and the rest of my sticky minions up to in B Division the night?’

Logan ran through the duty roster and the open caseload while Tufty wheeched back and forth through time. Logan clunked his notepad shut. ‘Guv, don’t suppose there’s any news about my warrant to dunt Frankie Ferris’s door in, is there?’

‘I’ll check. When you going in?’

‘Tomorrow, if I can get the bodies. Might try the OSU.’

‘OK — do that. But make sure the cellblock know Martyn Baker’s going nowhere and talking to no one until I say so.’

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘And Logan? Good work.’

Good grief: praise. For once.

‘But please, for the love of God, stay the hell away from DCI McInnes!’

He hung up the office phone.

Tufty was still fiddling with the dial.

‘Are you having fun?’

‘Wonder who’s flitting.’

Logan stared at him. ‘What?’

‘Who’s moving house? The removal van sits there the whole time. Nobody loads anything into it, nobody takes anything out of it. Maybe they’re parked up for the day?’

Logan blinked at the screen. ‘Try one of the other cassettes.’

Tufty hit eject, then slotted in the one that came after the one they were watching. Twisted the dial and set everything whooshing forwards. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then four men in overalls wandered up Mid Street, carrying brown paper bags that looked as if they might have come from the Wimpy on Hanover Street. They climbed into the removal van, and sat there eating. Then finally buckled their seatbelts and drove away.

‘Just a bunch of gadgies, parked up for lunch.’

Tufty ejected the cassette, and replaced it with the one before the one they’d been looking at before this one. ‘A four-hour lunch break? Tell you, we’re in the wrong job.’ He sent the footage spinning backwards, then hunched forward, nose inches from the screen. ‘If you were the Cashline Ram-Raiders, you’d want to stake the place out, right? Find out when it got stocked up by the bank, or whatever. Maybe we need to find when the security car turns up and look round about then?’

People lurched in reverse across the screen. Cars and bicycles all going backwards too. Everything except that removal van.

Nothing went into it, nothing came out of it.

Then the four men backed across the road and climbed into the van, started it up, and reversed out of shot.

‘… Sarge? Yoohoo, Sarge?’ Tufty was waving at him. ‘You OK?’

‘Get the footage for camera one. Same time-stamp.’

A shrug. But he did what he was told, slotting the new cartridge into place, then spinning the dial until one of the four men walked backwards into Broch Braw Buys: big, with long brown hair and green overalls.

All that time, and the only things they did were buy burgers and visit the shop that got ram-raided the very next day.

Removal van. Removal van.

No …

It was. That was what looked familiar, not the people or the cars.

A slow smile spread across Logan’s face. ‘Tufty, never thought I’d say this, but you’re a genius.’

‘I am? Cool.’ He puffed out his chest. Then frowned. ‘What did I do? And do I get a badge, or something?’

Logan pulled out his notebook and flipped back through to yesterday morning. Found the number for the Portsoy Co-op’s manager, and dialled it.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang, until finally: click. ‘Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of-’ Another click. ‘Hello? Can I help you?’

‘Hi, Stacey? It’s Sergeant McRae, we met yesterday morning. After the ram-raid?’

‘Sorry, I was stocktaking the walk-in freezer. You have no idea how many bags of oven chips we go through.’

‘Can you do me a favour? Take a look on your CCTV footage for a removal van. Might have to go back a couple of days.’

‘If you think it’ll help.’

With any luck …

His Airwave handset crackled away to itself. ‘Anyone in the vicinity of Aberchirder? We’ve got a report of cows loose on the A97 south of Castlebrae …’

‘How does half seven, quarter to eight sound?’ Logan pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder and rummaged through the next shelf down. Why did no one put things back where they came from? The Big Car’s CCTV cartridges were supposed to be ordered chronologically, oldest to newest, on the sodding shelf below the monitor. There was even a sodding label on the sodding shelf saying that.

‘Aye, aye, Control, show Big Paul and the Dreaded Penny attending. On our way.’

Seven o’clock and he had the whole of Banff station to himself. Made a nice change.

Or it would do if he could sodding find anything.

Squeaking rattling noises came from the other end of the phone. God knew what Helen was doing, but it sounded like she was washing a bag of robot mice. ‘Steak, mushroom, onion rings and chips?’

On top of confiscated Chinese?

Never look a gift meal in the mouth.

‘Sounds great.’

Finally — there they were, two shelves down, stuffed in willy-nilly behind a stack of evidence bags. Idiots. Supposed to be one for every day of the fortnight, with one spare. If they were all jumbled up, how was anyone meant to find what they were looking for?

‘I got the hall done. Ceiling above the stairs was a bit of a sod, but it’s looking a lot better now.’

He stacked all fourteen cartridges into a big wobbly pile and carried them back to his desk. ‘You got all that done in one day? You should go into business.’

Now where was the lead to connect them with the computer?

‘Alleged dog attack on Williams Crescent, Fraserburgh. Anyone free to attend?’

It was buried under a slew of triple-A batteries, elastic bands, and paperclips in the bottom drawer.

Whole place was like living with the bloody Borrowers. And it couldn’t all be Hector’s fault.

‘Right, I’ll finish cleaning the roller and brushes, then it’ll be time to get dinner on the go.’

‘Looking forward to it.’ Logan hung up, put all the cartridges into order, then plugged the lead into yesterday’s one. The computer groaned, and creaked, a little green light came on in the cartridge. Whirring. A couple of bleeps. Then the loading bar appeared on the screen.

Might as well go make a cup of tea, this would take a while.

An Aberdeen Sunday Examiner was folded over the edge of Maggie’s cubicle. ‘TRAGIC END FOR MISSING FISHERMAN’ sat above a photo of Charles Anderson with an inset of his boat. Logan grabbed the paper and took it through to the canteen. Spread it out on the table and stuck the kettle on.

Had a bit of a sing as the water grumbled and pinged: ‘Steak for tea, steak for tea, la-la-la-la steak for tea …’

According to the Examiner, Charles ‘Craggie’ Anderson’s life had been blighted by the loss of his son five years ago. There wasn’t much more info than Big Paul had dug up from the official files, but the reporter had sexed it up as much as possible. Anderson’s campaign to find the paedophile he was sure had abducted his wee boy. The collapse of his marriage. The drinking. And his fiery Viking death.

They’d even managed to track down Anderson’s wife, now living in Devon under her maiden name. A tearful quote about lost chances, tragedy, and grief.

The kettle growled to a boil.

No suggestion that Anderson was anything other than a broken man on his way to the inevitable grave. No hint that he was responsible for his son’s death, or that he was the kind of guy who would abduct a little girl, abuse her, then cave her head in with a metal pipe.

Logan made a cuppa, checked to make sure no one was looking, and nicked a Jammie Dodger from Inspector McGregor’s stash at the back of the cupboard. She wouldn’t be in again till tomorrow morning, so nightshift could take the blame.

Maybe it was just a coincidence that Anderson had gone missing at the same time as Neil Wood? And a coincidence that a wee girl’s body washed up at Tarlair Outdoor Swimming Pool not long after.

Or, maybe, Wood and Anderson were in it together. Wouldn’t be the first time a pair of scumbags had teamed up to abuse kids.

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

Logan checked the screen. It was the Duty Inspector’s shoulder number. ‘Batter on, Guv.’

‘Got a delay on your warrant for Frankie Ferris’s house. Something about operational pressures. They said to try again tomorrow. Meantime, let me know if you need a hand leaning on the Operational Support Unit for extra bodies.’

‘Thanks, Guv.’

Logan took his tea and pilfered biscuit back through to the Sergeants’ Office, in time to see the progress bar hit 100 percent. Half of the screen filled with a static view of the car park outside Banff police station. The other half was a list of time-stamps — each one representing a block of data when the camera was activated.

He scrolled through it, and clicked on the one for half-nine yesterday morning.

The screen jumped to an image of a winding road, trees and bushes reduced to a green blur by the speeding car as its siren wailed out of the computer’s nasty little speakers. A readout in the corner of the picture put Nicholson’s speed at eighty-five. The ‘WELCOME TO PORTSOY’ sign flashed past. Houses. Cars. Then onto the main street.

Bottles and cartons and tins covered the road in a slick outside the Co-op with its ruptured window. The car screeched to a halt. Some clunking. Then Logan appeared on the screen, pulling on his peaked cap.

‘You! Which way did they go? What are they driving?’

The young woman with the pushchair pointed, mouth moving, but she was too far away for the microphone to pick up any words.

Logan jumped back in. There was a thump. Then, ‘Go!’

And they were off again, tearing along the street, past houses and cars and stunned pedestrians.

‘Shire Uniform Seven to Control, perpetrators have fled the scene. Witness says they took the Cullen road. We’re in pursuit.’

Whatever Control said in reply, it got reduced to a tinny burr.

His own voice again: ‘Negative.’

A caravan blocked the left side of the road, ignoring the flashing lights and screaming siren. Cars coming the other way … There.

Logan hit pause. Three cars. A bus. A removal van. And a milk tanker. All pulling into the side of the road to let them past. The van was big and black, with ‘MAGNUS HOGG amp; SON ~ MOVING FAMILIES HOME EST 1965’ down the side in curly red lettering.

Same one that was sitting outside the Kenyan Bar in Fraserburgh the day before Broch Braw Buys got ram-raided. Only this time the number plate was clearly visible. He copied it down into his notebook and called up the PNC interface.

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

Logan grabbed his Airwave and checked the screen. No idea whose shoulder number that was, but it was a low one, so maybe a boss. He pressed the button. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Ah, Sergeant McRae, it’s DCI McInnes.’

Oh joy. Here it came — McInnes’s revenge.

Logan typed the registration in one-handed. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You can join me at thirty-six Fairholme Place, that’s what you can do. Right now, would be good.’

Brilliant. ‘Sir.’

The screen filled with ownership details for the removal van — a firm down in Bristol. The next page had the insurance details, and who was insured to drive the thing. None of the names seemed familiar.

Mind you, there was no guarantee there was actually anything dodgy about the thing. So it had turned up near two ram-raids, so what? Coincidences happened all the time.

Still …

But it’d have to wait. No point winding McInnes up any more than he already was.

Logan grabbed his hat and his keys.

Logan pulled the Big Car into the kerb, behind the Scene Examination Branch’s manky white Transit van. Someone had finger-painted ‘IF YOUR MUM WAS THIS DIRTY I WOULDN’T NEED PORN!’ in the grime covering the back doors.

OK. Might as well get this over with.

He climbed out into the drizzle. The tips of his ears burned in the cold. So much for May, felt more like December.

His phone launched into its generic tune. He pulled it out as he walked along the pavement towards Klingon’s mum’s house. ‘Hello?’

‘Sergeant McRae? It’s Stacey from Portsoy. I’ve looked through the CCTV like you asked.’

He ducked under the cordon of blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape. ‘And?’

‘Why did you want me to look for a removal van?’

‘We …’ Good question. ‘We think they might have witnessed a crime, we’re trying to track them down so we can get a statement.’ OK, so it was a lie, but she didn’t know that.

There wasn’t an officer on the front door, so Logan let himself in.

‘OK. Well, I found one. Had to go back to Wednesday to do it, but there’s a removal van parked opposite the shop for a couple of hours in the morning.’

The smell of burst bin-bags and rotting filth was like a wall across the porch.

‘Let me guess: blue, with Duncan Smith Movers down the side?’

‘Oh … No. It’s black. Magnus Hogg amp; Son.’

Bingo.

There was a thump from somewhere inside, followed by a shrill woman’s voice, ‘NO I WILL NOT CALM DOWN! LOOK AT IT!’

Logan paused. ‘Forgot to ask earlier: when do they refill your cash machine?’

‘Friday evening. Usually. Sometimes Saturday if there’s a problem at the bank, or they’re busy.’

‘LOOK AT IT!’

‘OK, thanks. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.’ He hung up. Took a deep breath. Regretted it. The air tasted of mank. He coughed a couple of times. Then stepped into the hall.

The shouting was coming through the open kitchen door.

He walked over and knocked on the frame.

McInnes leaned back against the work surface, arms folded, while a PC tried to placate a battleship of a woman in stonewashed jeans and a Burberry coat.

HMS Angry jabbed a finger at the kitchen window. ‘AND WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING TO MY GARDEN?’

McInnes turned his head in Logan’s direction and pulled on a cold smile. ‘Ah, Sergeant, good. So glad you could join us. Have you two met?’ He pointed at the quivering mound of irate woman. ‘This is Lesley Spinney. Colin Spinney’s mother.’

Ah … So maybe she wasn’t dead and buried after all.