The Missing and the Dead

44

‘Unngh …’ There was a jackhammer in his skull, battering away, trying to separate it from his spine. Forehead pounding. Face prickly. A million bells ringing in his ears. Warm though.

Not warm, hot. All down one side.

Logan peeled one eye open, squinting out at the crackling yellow light.

Gravel dug into his cheek.

Why was he lying down?

What?

It took a couple of blinks to get the world into focus.

He was on his side, next to the Big Car, bathed in the light of Charles ‘Craggie’ Anderson’s burning house. Flames roared from the open windows, crackling and bellowing in the light of the dying sun. Sparks flew like fireflies, swirling away into the bruised sky.

God …

Logan struggled to his knees and stayed there — eyes closed, thumping forehead resting against the car door.

Don’t be sick.

His trembling hand came away wet from the back of his head. Sticky.

A booming crash sounded behind him.

Get up.

Deep breath.

He pulled himself up the side of the car. Wobbled there for a moment. Then turned and slumped back against the bodywork. Opened his eyes.

Half the roof had caved in, exposing rafters like the ribs of a skeletal ship. The garage was a solid block of snapping flame.

So much for getting a warrant.

He ran his fingertips along the back of his head again. Winced. Yeah, that was blood.

Headlights bounced along the rutted track, getting closer. Then an MX-5 emerged from the gloom, grinding and scraping through the potholes. Steel clambered out from behind the wheel and stood there with her mouth hanging open. ‘What the hell did you do?’

The fire engine’s diesel growl cut through the night, its swirling lights casting strobe patterns that interfered with the ones from the ambulance and the patrol car.

‘Ow!’ Sitting on the ambulance’s back step, Logan winced. ‘Easy!’

‘Don’t be such a baby.’ The paramedic went in for another go with the antiseptic, tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she tortured him. ‘When was your last tetanus shot?’

Acid-dipped needles tattooed across his scalp. ‘Ow!’

‘Bleeding’s stopped — won’t even need stitches.’ She liberated a wad of gauze from its sterile packaging and pressed it against the back of his head. ‘Now: tetanus?’

‘Couple of years.’

‘Should be fine then.’ A smile. ‘Do you want a bandage and a lollypop, or are you putting your big-boy pants on?’

Logan sniffed. ‘You don’t like people very much, do you?’

‘God, no.’ She tried to jab a finger all the way into his skull.

‘Ow!’

‘You’ll live.’ The paramedic snapped off her surgical gloves and turned to Steel. ‘Right, he’s all yours. Need to keep an eye out for a concussion — says he didn’t black-out, but if you believe that …’ A shrug. Then back to Logan. ‘Medical advice time: a concussion can mean subdural haematoma or a subarachnoid haemorrhage, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and — worst-case scenario — death.’ She hooked a thumb in Steel’s direction. ‘So you should probably stay at your mum’s the night. Make sure you don’t die in your sleep.’ Then she shooed Logan off the back step, closed the back doors, climbed in behind the wheel and drove off, while Steel stood there and spluttered.

Thank you, Florence Nightingale.

‘Your mum?’

Don’t smile, it’ll only make it worse. ‘I know, nerve of the woman.’

Steel threw her arms up, as if she was going to tear the clouds from the sky. ‘One: I am nothing like that frumpy scheming battleaxe. Two: I’m nowhere near old enough. And three: if I was your mother you wouldn’t be so sodding ugly!’

‘Finished?’

‘She thinks I’m your mum! How can I be your mum? I mean, look at me: in my prime here.’

He peeled the gauze off and squinted at it in the patrol car’s swirling lights. A thin line of scarlet, marred with dark-orange blobs.

‘Are you listening to me?’

‘Not really.’

Gouts of white steam tumbled upwards into the air, eating away at the black smoke.

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

Steel grabbed his Airwave. ‘No he’s not. And if he opens his mouth again, I’m going to finish the job!’

‘OK … Well, tell him that Tayside have stopped that Megabus and it’s not David and Catherine Bisset. Sighting was wrong.’

‘What a shock.’ She chucked it back at him. ‘How come you’re on the update list for the Killer Bissets?’

‘Because.’ He probed the lump on the back of his head. Winced. ‘Lucky I’m not dead.’

Steel sooked on her fake cigarette. Dribbled the steam out of her nose. Then nodded at the burning house. ‘So?’

He dabbed the gauze pad against the sore bit again. ‘Probably got a cracked skull.’

‘Did you see anyone? Did someone hit you, or did you just trip and bang your head like an auld wifie?’

‘What, and then dragged myself outside and set the house on fire?’ Another dab. ‘Ow.’

The fire flickered, dimmed, then went out, plunging the surrounding area into darkness again. Well, except for the swirling lights of the assembled emergency services.

Four firefighters in their bulky brown-and-high-vis outfits wrestled with a pair of hoses, deluging what was left of Charles Anderson’s house.

Steel pulled the e-cigarette from her mouth and bared her bottom teeth. ‘And you’ve no idea who did it? Thought you said you didn’t black out.’

‘Blah, blah, blah. You heard Nurse Crippen: I’m fine.’ Still stung though.

‘Maybe it was someone in this paedophile ring? Found out you knew about them and decided to make it go away?’

‘How would they even know I was there?’ He crumpled up the gauze and stuffed it into his pocket. ‘Anderson had it all mapped out on his board. About a dozen names and faces, all linked to the Livestock Mart.’

Steel stared at him. Then the burning garage. Then back again. ‘You what?’ Then she hit him.

‘Ow! Cut it out.’

‘We’ve been after a lead on the Livestock Mart for years, and you let it go up in flames? What’s wrong with you?’ Another thump.

‘Get off!’ He backed away. ‘I got bashed over the head. What was I supposed to do, wake up and wade back into the fire?’

Steel stormed off a half-dozen paces, then back again. ‘What was on the board. Who? How did it all link up?’

‘I can’t remember. It-’

‘Why didn’t you take a picture? You’ve got a camera on your sodding phone, use it!’

He jabbed a finger at the smouldering house. ‘I’m not psychic. How was I supposed to know they were going to set fire to the place? I could’ve died!’

Steel turned her face to the dark, oily clouds. ‘Give me strength …’ A sigh. She screwed her eyes shut. ‘Can you remember any of it at all?’

‘The wee dead girl from Tarlair — she was on there, connected to Dr Gilcomston.’

‘Wee Willy Gilcomston? Dr Kidfiddler?’ A raised eyebrow. ‘Why?’

Logan headed across to the Big Car. ‘No idea. Let’s find out.’

‘No, I don’t. I told you this before, and I resent having to repeat myself.’ William Gilcomston’s eyebrows dipped over those eerie blue eyes. Tonight’s cardigan was bottle green, with a small heart-shaped pin in the collar. The kind they gave to blood donors. ‘Now, if there’s nothing else?’

The house sat in silent isolation, surrounded by gardens on all four sides. His standing in the community might have taken a tumble after the court case, but the family home stood firm. Three storeys of grime-streaked granite with mature trees out front, a sweeping gravel driveway, a separate garage, and a low wall separating it from the street.

An old-fashioned Jaguar was parked out front, hubcaps gleaming in the house’s security lights.

Steel kept her foot wedged in the doorway — keeping it open. ‘Can we come in, Billyboy?’

He stiffened his back, pulling himself up to his full height, and glared down at Steel. ‘Do you have a warrant?’

‘I can get one.’

‘Then the answer is no. Now remove your foot from my property, I’m under no obligation to entertain your nonsense any further.’

The sound of a television, turned up a little bit too loud, came from somewhere inside. A serious man’s voice doing the news: ‘… confirm that an arrest has been made in the Scottish town of Banff, connected to the fatal shooting of undercover police officer, Mary Ann Nasrallah …’

Logan stepped up. ‘Dr Gilcomston, do you know a man called Charles Anderson? Also goes by the nickname, “Craggie”?’

‘… go live to Aberdeenshire. Kim, have Police Scotland released any details about the individual involved?’

Gilcomston pursed his lips. ‘I believe he’s some sort of dead fisherman. There was an article in the paper about him setting fire to his boat.’

‘Yes, but did you know him before that? Before he went missing?’

‘No. Now please go.’

‘… as Martyn Baker, a twenty-one-year-old man from Birmingham.’

Steel pulled her foot back. ‘OK, play hard-to-get if you like, Billyboy, but we’ll no’ be far away.’ She winked at him. ‘Stay out of trouble, eh?’ Then turned and marched down the path toward her little sports car.

‘… plead guilty or not guilty, when Mr Baker comes up before the Sheriff Court at nine a.m. tomorrow morning.’

The tendons in Gilcomston’s neck tightened for a beat, then he turned his blue eyes on Logan. ‘I’ll be making a complaint about your superior. This is harassment.’

Logan stared back in silence.

‘Thank you, Kim. And we’ll have more on that later, when the Police Scotland press conference starts.’

A herring gull cawed and shrieked somewhere in the darkness.

‘This, of course, ends a week-long manhunt for the person or people who shot and killed Mary Ann Nasrallah …’

A car rumbled past.

‘… to Liverpool now, where Constable Nasrallah’s family have been holding a prayer vigil …’

Gilcomston cleared his throat. Looked away. ‘I have nothing further to say to you.’

‘Charles Anderson thought you were involved in the death of the little girl we found at Tarlair. What would give him that idea?’

‘I’m sorry, I have to go.’ Gilcomston closed the door. Then the sound of bolts and locks shooting home clicked and clacked out through the wood.

Logan gave it a count of ten, then turned and joined Steel on the pavement.

She was leaning back against her MX-5, arms folded, e-cigarette sticking out the corner of her mouth. ‘He’s a slimy git.’

‘Anderson must’ve seen her. The picture on the board: it wasn’t from a newspaper or off the internet, it was a photograph. He took it. So he must have seen her when she was alive.’

‘And he probably saw her with Dr Kidfiddler.’ Steel blew a stream of steam at the heavy clouds. ‘Laz, could you no’ have saved the evidence, instead of swooning like a Victorian heroine?’

‘Thanks. Yes, it was all my fault someone tried to bash my brains in, how very careless of me.’ He dug his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Could’ve died. Bit of sympathy might not go amiss.’

‘Wah, wah, wah. Don’t be so melodramatic. If they wanted you dead, they would’ve left you in the house when they set fire to it.’