The Missing and the Dead

49

Trees and hedges made a green blur outside the Big Car’s windows as Nicholson hammered along the coastal road. The windscreen wipers thumped back and forth across the glass.

‘All units, be on the lookout for a blue Transit van towing a caravan in the Peterhead area, believed to contain a stolen Labrador …’

Logan snatched at the grab-handle above his door, as the Big Car cleared a hump in the road and took to the air for a heartbeat. Then battered down onto the tarmac again. ‘This isn’t the Dukes of Hazard!’

Nicholson didn’t look round. ‘You want to get there in time, or don’t you?’

‘Calamity Janet rides again.’

A small ding sounded somewhere inside Logan’s stabproof vest, followed by a buzzing sensation in his ribs. That would be a text message coming in. He pulled out his phone and checked the screen.

Got an address for you

Alison hay — was alison anderson — 19 rooks crescent, tiverton, devon

Mobile number to follow

You owe me, right?

Say what you liked about Colin Miller; he might be a chubby Weegie shortarse, but he knew how to dig up info.

Logan punched the number for the Mintlaw traffic car into his Airwave. ‘Tango Bravo One Two, from Shire Uniform Seven.’

Whatever the response was, it was inaudible over the siren. Logan poked the button to switch it off, leaving the lights going.

‘Say again?’

‘I said, “Safe to talk”.’

‘Is the van still empty?’ They went airborne again, slinging his stomach up into his ribs and then down again.

‘No sign of them yet, but three men went into the baker’s opposite a minute ago, and there’s a fourth outside with a big black umbrella — on his phone, having a fag.’

Sounded as if the whole gang was there.

‘Is your car marked or unmarked?’

‘We’re buck-naked the day. Blending right in.’

‘Perfect. With any luck they’ll hang around till we get there. Who else you got in the area?’

Nicholson jabbed the brakes, changing down to rally their way into a gorge and round a hairpin bend, accelerating up the other side.

‘Sierra One One’s approaching from Sandhaven. Tango Bravo One Four’s on its way from Strichen.’ Which didn’t leave a lot of ways to escape the place.

‘OK, shout if anything happens. We’ll be there in … call it ten.’

A ping and a burr announced the arrival of Colin’s second text message. It contained the promised mobile phone number. Logan selected it and made the call.

A small voice barked in his ear. ‘Hello? Yes? Hello? Yes?’

‘Hello, can I speak to your mummy?’

‘I has a fire engine.’

‘That’s great, I has a police car.’

Nicholson threw it around another corner, pressing Logan up against his door.

‘I has a fire engine, and a tiger, and the Tooth Fairy gave me a whole pound for-’

‘All right, sweetie, that’s enough.’ There was some crackling, probably the phone being confiscated. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Is this Alison Hay, formerly Alison Anderson?’

A sigh. ‘Look, I’m not giving any more interviews, so please, leave me and my family-’

‘My name’s Sergeant Logan McRae, Police Scotland. We were investigating your ex-husband’s disappearance.’

The Big Car nipped onto the wrong side of the road for just long enough to pass a people carrier, and end up right in the crash zone of a massive tractor coming the other way.

Logan’s hand tightened around the grab handle, eyes wide, something solid jamming his throat. Nicholson wrenched the wheel and they jerked back into the left lane before the tractor turned them into police pâté.

Oh God …

It rumbled past, hauling up a thick mist of road spray behind it. The world went opaque for a second, then the wipers caught it.

‘Craggie isn’t missing any more, he’s dead. To be honest, he died years ago. We want to move on.’

Might be best to close his eyes.

‘I can understand that, and I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to ask about what happened five years ago. It’s important.’

A pause. Then another sigh. A scrunching noise muffled her voice. ‘Sweetie, go play in the living room for a bit. Mummy needs to talk to the man.’ Then she was back. ‘Andrew …’ She cleared her throat. ‘Sorry, it’s been a long time since I’ve said his name.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘He’d run around the garden like a mad thing. We got him a plastic sword and a shield and he’d be Spartacus, or Bilbo, or whoever it was this week. Fighting dragons and skeletons. We always told him to stay away from the far field, because of the cliffs, but …’ Silence. ‘I only turned my back for five minutes. I was making tattie and leek soup for tea, and …’ A small hissing noise escaped from the handset. ‘We found his sword and shield. We’d been looking for Andrew for hours, and there they were, lying against the drystane dyke at the edge of the far field.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘They called the Coast Guard, and they searched the cliffs and the rocks, but there was nothing. Andrew … They told us he’d been swept out to sea.’

Logan’s stomach lurched against his lungs again as Nicholson took them over another bump at speed. ‘Did Charles say anything?’

‘Say anything?’ She gave him a small bitter laugh. ‘That’s all he’d talk about. How it wasn’t right. Andrew wasn’t dead, he was missing. There wasn’t a body, how could he be dead? Someone must’ve snatched him.’

‘But there wasn’t any proof?’

‘He was obsessed. Put posters up everywhere, adverts in the newspapers, handed out fliers at football matches and the supermarkets, till they told him to move on. Two years I made allowances, I lived with it, because he was grieving. But do you know what? I was grieving too.’

Logan sneaked a peek. Fields and trees hammered past, Nicholson put her foot down to overtake a plumber’s van. He closed his eyes again. ‘Did he ever find anything? Ever connect anyone to Andrew’s disappearance?’

No reply.

‘Ms Hay?’

‘I remarried. We’ve got a little girl. Andrew’s dead and I don’t want to speak about it ever again.’ Click. She’d hung up on him.

Nicholson’s voice rose above the roar of the engine. ‘You can open your eyes now, Sarge. We’re here.’

The thirty limit flashed past and she stood on the brakes, taking them down to a more respectable thirty. Then poked the button switching the swirling blue lights off.

A graveyard with plenty of room went by on the left.

Rain battered the Big Car, sounding like a million tiny hammers.

She pulled up outside the church. ‘What’s the plan?’

Logan hit the button again. ‘Shire Uniform Seven to Tango Bravo One Two. Safe to talk?’

‘You made it?’

‘By the skin of our teeth. Any news on the suspects?’

‘Still in the baker’s. Been ten minutes.’

‘What about the one on the phone?’

‘On his third fag, stomping up and down the pavement, jabbing his elbows about as he talks. Looks like he’s giving someone a bollocking … Oh ho. Hold on. He’s hung up and got a set of keys out. … Making for the van. … Come on, Chuckles, do it for Uncle Ed …’

Nicholson bounced up and down a couple of times in the driver’s seat.

‘He’s in. Repeat, Chuckles has got in behind the wheel.’

Logan stuck a hand out and shoved Nicholson back into her seat. ‘What about the other three?’

‘Still in the … Nope, that’s them coming out now. Lots of paper bags and Styrofoam cups.’

Nicholson slipped the Big Car into gear. ‘Here we go …’

‘Which way’s the van facing: south, or north?’

‘They pull out now, they’ll be on the road to Strichen.’

‘OK, they’re not going to do a three-point turn in a removal van. You’re unmarked, right? When they go, I want you ahead of them. We let them get half a mile then you block in front and we block behind.’

‘Chuckles has started the van. OK, we’re heading out first … Nice and slow … He’s following.’

‘Tell me when you’ve cleared the end of town.’

‘There’s four of them, what if they’ve got guns?’

‘You want me to go first?’

‘You saying Traffic’s full of Jessies? … OK, that’s us cleared the limits on the Strichen road. Chuckles is right behind.’

Logan gave Nicholson the nod. ‘Nice and easy.’

She pulled the Big Car onto the High Street.

Little grey houses, all in a straight line, slipped past the windows. Sulking beneath the hammering rain. At the bottom of the road, they took a left, following the sign for Strichen. Past another couple of houses, then around the corner and out into the countryside.

The road stretched out ahead, the boxy black bulk of the removal van sticking out like a lump of coal between fields of waving gold.

Logan pressed the button. ‘Tango Bravo One Two, that’s us cleared the limits. We have visual. Closing on you now.’

‘Roger that. Slowing to a halt. … And we’re blocking the road. Chuckles has stopped.’

Nicholson accelerated, taking them right up behind the van, then slamming on the brakes.

Logan poked the siren button, letting it wail as he unleashed his body-worn video from its elastic band. ‘Let’s do it.’

Out into the downpour. He wedged the peaked cap firmly over his ears — froze for a second and winced as it caught the lump on his head — grabbed a yellow high-vis from the rear seat and hauled it on as the rain trickled down the back of his neck.

Nicholson scrambled out the other side, pulling on her coat as they sploshed through the puddles either side of the removal van. Up to the cab.

The guy behind the wheel, Chuckles, didn’t move. Kept his hands at ten to two. The three men sitting next to him did their best to look relaxed. Nothing to see here. Move along.

The two-person crew of Tango Bravo One Two appeared in their high-vis. Four against four.

Logan reached up and knocked on the driver’s window.

A pause.

Rain thumped out a tattoo on Logan’s peaked cap. Pattered against his fluorescent-yellow shoulders.

Then the window buzzed down.

A smile pulled Chuckles’s cheeks into rosy apples. ‘Something up, Officer?’ Not a local accent, but still Scottish. Dundee maybe? Not sing-song enough for Fife. Big lad, his head almost scraping the top of the cab. Long brown hair. Green overalls.

‘This your vehicle, sir?’

‘Nah, I’m just the driver. Know what it’s like with these removal firms, eh? All we do is drive about and hump the heavy stuff from A to B.’

‘And your name?’

‘And it’s always at the top of the stairs, isn’t it lads? The heavier the bit of furniture, the more flights you’ve got to lug it up.’

His mates nodded. Made agreeing noises that weren’t actually words. All of them in green overalls, all of them big enough to give Constable King Kong McMahon a thump for his money. Larry, Curly, and Moe.

‘Your name, sir.’

‘Yeah, of course. It’s Russell. Russell McNee. Was I speeding or something?’

‘I need you to give me the keys and step out of the vehicle, sir.’

‘Come on, I wasn’t speeding, I know I wasn’t. This is-’

‘Keys. Please.’ Logan stuck his hand out.

No one moved.

Rain.

‘All units, be on the lookout for Terrence and Jon McAuley. Both have apprehension warrants for an aggravated assault on Saturday night.’

More rain.

This was it. Either they came quietly, or-

Moe — the one on the far side — broke. He yanked off his seatbelt and threw the passenger door open. It slammed into Nicholson, sending her crashing back into a barbed-wire knot of brambles. And he was off, jumping the fence and charging into the field of wheat.

It took less than two seconds for Nicholson to swear herself back upright and hammer after him, bowler hat tumbling off as she ran.

Closer … Closer … Closer … Then thump, she slammed into him and they went down in a tangle of arms and legs that disappeared beneath the surface of the wheat.

McNee looked down at Logan. Sighed. Then pulled the keys from the ignition and handed them over. ‘He always was an idiot.’

One of the officers from Tango Bravo One Two scrambled over the fence and waded into the field. He’d barely gone six feet before Nicholson emerged from the wheat, hauling her new captive up with her — both hands cuffed behind his back.

Don’t mess with Calamity Janet.

Logan jerked his head towards the removal van’s big black box. ‘You want to show me what’s inside?’

‘Not really.’ But McNee climbed down from the cab anyway, stomped around to the back roller doors, unlocked the heavy padlock. Then hauled on the lever. The door clattered up, revealing the back end of a brown Ford Ranger. Thick scrapes buckled and scarred the paintwork, the bumper all dented and barely hanging on. A set of metal ramps were secured against the van wall. Four ratchet straps fixed the battered four-by-four to tie-down points on the floor.

Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, well, well.’ No wonder they could never find the cars that did the actual ram-raiding.

McNee licked his lips. Dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Look: I drive the van. I do what I’m told. It’s the other guys who’re in charge.’

‘Aye, right. And where’s the cash machine you boosted from the Strichen Co-op last night? That in the back too?’

He ran a hand across his face, pulling it out of shape. ‘Knew it was going to be a bad day when I woke up this morning.’