Cold granite

26

The preliminary forensic report came in just after six. It wasn't good. There was nothing tying Duncan Nicholson to David Reid other than the fact that he'd found the body. And he had a cast iron alibi for the time Peter Lumley went missing. Insch had dispatched two PCs to where Nicholson claimed to be hiding his stash. They came back with their patrol car's boot full of stolen property. It was beginning to look as if Nicholson was telling the truth.

So that meant all bets were back on Roadkill. That still didn't sit well with Logan. He couldn't see the man as a paedophile killer, even if he did keep a dead girl in one of his outbuildings.

In the end DI Insch called a halt to proceedings. 'It's time to go home,' he said. 'We've got everyone banged up, they'll all still be there come Monday morning.'

'Monday?'

Insch nodded. 'Yes, Monday. Logan, you have my permission to take Sunday off. Observe the Sabbath. Go watch the footie, drink beer, eat crisps, have some fun.' He stopped and gave a sly smile. 'Maybe take a nice WPC to dinner?'

Logan blushed and kept his gob shut.

'Whatever. I don't want to see you back here till Monday morning.'

The rain had stopped by the time Logan left Force Headquarters. The desk sergeant had cornered him with another three messages from Peter Lumley's stepfather who was still convinced they could find his child. Logan tried to lie to him, tell him it was all going to be all right, but he couldn't. So he promised to call as soon as he heard anything. There was nothing else he could do.

The night had turned from chilly to bitterly cold, a thin dusting of frost glittering on the pavements. As Logan stepped out onto Union Street his breath hung about him in a cloud. It was Baltic.

For a Saturday night the streets were strangely silent. Logan didn't fancy going back to his empty flat. Not yet. So he went to Archibald Simpson's instead.

The pub was crowded with noisy groups of youngsters wrapping themselves around pitchers of cocktails, keeping out the cold by getting as pissed as possible as quickly as possible. Come chucking out time there would be vomiting, a bit of fighting and, for some, a trip to the cells. Or maybe A amp;-E.

'Oh to be young and stupid again,' he muttered, squeezing his way through the throng to the long, wooden bar.

The snatches of conversation he heard on the way were predictable enough. A bit of boasting about how wrecked someone was last night and how much more wrecked they were going to get tonight. But underneath it all there was another theme. The topics of alcohol and sexual prowess were being challenged by Gerald Cleaver getting off scot-free.

Logan stood at the bar, waiting for one of the frayed-looking Australians to serve him, listening to a fat man in a bright yellow shirt holding forth to a lanky, bearded bloke in T-shirt and waistcoat. Cleaver was scum. How could the police have screwed up so badly the sicko got away with it? It was obvious Cleaver was guilty, what with all these children turning up dead. And there they were letting a known paedophile back on the streets!

Little and Large weren't the only ones on the 'stupid police' rant. Logan could hear at least half a dozen others banging on about the same topic. Didn't they know this was where most of Aberdeen's off-duty policemen drank? A lot of the dayshift would be in here, having a pint after work. Bemoaning Cleaver's release. Spending some of that overtime they were all getting.

When he finally managed to get served Logan took his pint of Stella and went for a wander through the other sections of the huge pub, looking for someone he knew well enough to talk to. He smiled and waved at clumps of PCs, only vaguely recognizing them out of uniform. In the far corner he spotted a familiar figure wreathed in cigarette smoke, surrounded by depressed looking detective sergeants and constables. She threw her head back and poured another lungful of smoke into the cloud above her head. As she came back down her eyes locked on Logan and she gave him a lopsided smile.

Logan groaned: she'd seen him. Now he had to go over.

A DC shoogled over, making room for Logan and his pint at the small table. Above their heads a television burbled away quietly to itself, local adverts for garages, chip shops and double-glazing, filling the space between programmes.

'Lazarus,' said DI Steel, the word coming out slightly slurred through a haze of cigarette smoke. 'How you doing, Lazarus? You made Chief Inspector yet?'

He should have never sat down here. He should have grabbed a pizza across the road and gone home. He forced some lightness into his voice and said, 'Not yet. Maybe Monday.'

'Monday?' The inspector laughed like a drain, rocking back and forth with fag ash spilling from her cigarette down the front of the DC who'd shoogled. '"Maybe Monday". Priceless…' She cast an eye over the glass-crowded tabletop and frowned. 'Drink!' she said, digging an old leather wallet from an inside pocket and handing it to the ash-covered DC. 'Constable, I want you to get another round. People are dying of thirst here!'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Whiskies all round!' DI Steel slapped the tabletop. 'And make them doubles!'

The detective constable headed off to the bar, taking the inspector's wallet with him.

Steel leaned closer to Logan, dropping her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. 'Between you and me, I think he's a bit drunk.' She sat back and beamed at him. 'You know, with Inschy getting kicked for the Roadkill pantomime thing and Cleaver going free, there's bound to be at least one inspector's job coming up!'

Logan didn't have anything to say to that, but DI Steel's face fell.

'Sorry, Lazarus.' She dropped the cigarette and ground it into the wooden floor. 'It's been a shitty day.'

'It's not your fault they let Cleaver go. If anyone's to blame, it's Hissing Bloody Sid.'

'I'll drink to that!' she said, and did, downing a large whisky in a single gulp.

A familiar-looking DC on the opposite side of the table was staring up at the television above their heads. He grabbed the inspector by the arm. 'It's coming on!'

Logan and DI Steel twisted round in their seats as the opening titles of the local news flickered across the screen and the noise level in the pub took a sudden dip, as every off-duty police man and woman in the place turned to face the nearest television.

Someone a lot less attractive than she could have been was speaking seriously into the camera from behind her news desk. The volume wasn't loud enough to pick out any real words, but a photo of Gerald Cleaver's face appeared over her left shoulder. Then the scene changed to an exterior shot of Aberdeen Sheriff Court. The crowd were thrusting their placards in the air and suddenly a woman in her mid-forties filled the screen, clutching her 'Death To Pediphile Scum!!!' placard with pride. She banged her gums with righteous fury for all of fifteen seconds, not one word of it audible in the crowded pub, before being replaced by another shot of the courthouse through the crowd. The big glass doors were opening.

'Here we go!' said DI Steel with glee.

Sandy Moir-Farquharson appeared through the doors and proceeded to read his client's statement. The camera zoomed in, just in time to see a figure lunge from the crowd and smack his fist into Sandy the Snake's face.

A huge cheer went up from the pub.

The newsreader's concerned and serious face reappeared, said something, and then the punch was shown again.

Another huge cheer.

And then it was something about traffic on the Dyce to Newmacher road and everyone went happily back to their drinks.

DI Steel had a misty-eyed smile on her face as she gulped another large whisky. 'Wasn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?'

Logan agreed that it was pretty damn good.

'You know,' said Steel, lighting up another cigarette, 'I would love to shake that kid's hand. Hell, I'd even be tempted to go straight for a night. What a star!'

Logan tried not to form a mental picture of DI Steel and Martin Strichen going at it like knives, but failed. To take his mind off it he glanced back up at the television. Now it was showing a fullscreen photo of Peter Lumley, missing since last Tuesday. Ginger hair, freckles and smile. Cut to an exterior of Roadkill's farm. Then to a press conference with the Chief Constable looking stern and committed.

The good mood slowly ebbed out of Logan as the pictures flickered in front of him. Peter was lying dead somewhere and Logan had the nasty feeling they still hadn't got the man responsible. No matter what DI Insch thought.

And then it was adverts. A garage in Bieldside, a dress shop in Rosemount and a government road safety thing. Logan watched in silence as the car screeched to a halt, but not before striking the boy crossing the road. The kid was small, the grille and bumper catching him in the side, making his legs flail out as he pin-wheeled into the bonnet, crackinghis head against the metal before sailing off to smack into the tarmac. It was in slow motion, every impact horribly clear and choreographed. The legend 'Kill Your Speed, Not A Child' blazed across the screen.

Logan stared up at the screen with a growing look of pain on his face. 'Son of a bitch.'

They'd got it wrong. It took till eight o'clock to get everyone gathered in the morgue. DI Insch, Logan and Dr Isobel MacAlister, who looked even less happy at being dragged back into work than the inspector, being dressed up to the nines in a long black dress, cut low at the front. Not that Logan was afforded much in the way of gratuitous skin to ogle. Isobel had pulled a luminous orange fleece over the evening dress, hands stuffed deep in the pockets, trying to keep warm in the cold, antiseptic morgue.

She'd been at the theatre. 'I hope this is important,' she said, giving Logan a look which made it clear that nothing could be more important than an evening with her bit of rough at Scottish National Opera's new production of La Boheme.

Insch was dressed in jeans and a tatty blue sweatshirt. It was the first time Logan had ever seen him out of his work suit, not counting his pantomime villain outfit. He scowled as Logan apologized for dragging them all down here at this time on a Saturday night. Again.

'OK,' said Logan, selecting the refrigerated drawer that held the remains of the little girl they'd found at Roadkill's steading. Gritting his teeth, he pulled it open, staggering back as the putrid smell fought against the room's antiseptic tang. 'Right,' he said, his face creased up, trying hard to breathe exclusively through his mouth. 'We know the girl died from blunt trauma-'

'Of course she did!' snapped Isobel. 'I told you that in my post mortem report. The fractures to the front and back of her skull would have caused massive brain damage and death.'

'I know,' said Logan, pulling the X-rays out from the case file and holding them up to the light. 'You see this?' he asked, pointing at the ribs.

'Broken ribs.' Isobel glared. 'Did you drag me out of the theatre to show me things I bloody well told you in the first place, Sergeant?' The last word came out dripping in venom.

Logan sighed. 'Look, we all thought the injuries were caused by Roadkill beating the girl-'

'The damage is consistent with a beating. I said so in the post mortem! How much more time do we have to spend going over this? You said you had new evidence!'

Logan took a deep breath and stacked the X-rays end on end so they formed the skeleton of a complete child. Broken hip, leg, ribs, fractured skull. The image was less than four feet tall. Dropping down onto his knees, Logan held the skeleton image so that its feet were touching the floor. 'Look at the ribs,' he said, 'look how far they are off the ground.'

DI Insch and Isobel did. Neither of them looked impressed.

'And?'

'What if the damage isn't down to a beating?'

'Oh come off it!' Isobel said. 'This is pathetic! She was beaten to death!'

'Look how far the broken ribs are off the ground,' Logan said again.

Nothing.

'Car,' said Logan, moving the X-rays like a macabre shadow puppet. 'The first point of impact is the hip.' He twisted the image around the waist, lifting it as he turned the top half clockwise. 'The ribs hit the top edge of the radiator.' He moved the X-ray girl again, bending the head hard right. 'Left hand side of the skull smacks into the bonnet. Car slams on the brakes.' He pulled the X-ray upright and rotated it back towards the morgue's floor. 'She hits the tarmac, the right leg snaps. Back of her head caves in as it hits the deck.' He laid the X-rays on the floor at his feet.

His audience looked on in silence for a full minute before Insch said, 'So how come she ends up in Roadkill's house of horrors then?'

'Bernard Duncan Philips, AKA Roadkill, comes along with his shovel and his wheelie-cart and does what he always does.'

Insch looked at him as if he'd just plucked the dead child's rotting corpse from its refrigerated drawer and proceeded to do the Dashing White Sergeant round the room with it. 'It's a dead girl! Not a bloody rabbit!'

'It's all the same to him.' Logan looked down at the contents of the drawer, feeling a heavy weight pressing down between his ribs. 'Just another dead thing scraped off the road. She was in steading number two. He'd already filled one building.'

Insch opened his mouth. Looked at Logan. Looked at Isobel. And back to the X-rays lying on the floor. 'Bastard,' he said at last.

Isobel stood in silence, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her bright orange fleece, an unhappy expression on her face.

'Well?' Logan asked.

She drew herself up to her full height and, with a voice like frozen bleach, agreed that the injuries were consistent with the scenario described. That it was impossible to tell what order the injuries occurred in, because of the state of decay. That the injuries had looked consistent with a severe beating. That she'd made the best call she could, based on the state of the body. That she couldn't be expected to be clairvoyant.

'Bastard,' said Insch again.

'He didn't kill her.' Logan slid the refrigerated door shut, the dull clang echoing off the cold, white tiles. 'We're back to square one.' Bernard Duncan Philips' 'appropriate adult' turned up after an hour and a half of frantic telephone calls, looking like something the cat dragged in. It was the ex-schoolteacher, Lloyd Turner, again, smelling strongly of mint, as if he'd been drinking alone and didn't want anyone to know about it. Ten o'clock shadow blurring the edges of his thin moustache. He fussed with his papers as Logan went through the standard details for the tape.

'We want you,' said DI Insch, now dressed in his spare suit, 'to tell us about the dead girl, Bernard.'

Roadkill's eyes darted round the room and the ex-teacher gave a long-suffering sigh.

'We have been over this already, Inspector.' His voice was old and tired. 'Bernard's not well. He needs help, not incarceration.'

Insch screwed his face up. 'Bernard,' said Insch with careful deliberation, 'you found her, didn't you?'

Lloyd Turner's eyebrows shot up his head. 'Found her?' he asked, looking at the stinking, tatty figure sitting next to him with barely concealed surprise. 'Did you find her, Bernard?'

Roadkill shifted in his seat and stared down at his hands. Small, burgundy clots covered his fingers like parasites. The skin was raw around the fingernails where he'd been picking and chewing his hands into submission. He didn't even look up, and his voice was small and broken. 'Road. Found her on the road. Three hedgehogs, two crows, one seagull, one tabby cat, two long-haired cats, black-and-white, one girl, nine rabbits, one roe deer…' His eyes misted up, his voice becoming rough, 'My beautiful dead things…' A sparkling tear escaped his eye, clearing the long eyelashes, to run down the weathered skin of his cheek and into his beard.

Insch folded his arms and settled back in his seat. 'So you took the little girl back to your "collection".'

'Always take them home. Always.' Sniff. 'Can't just throw them out like garbage. Not dead things. Not things that used to be alive inside.'

And with that Logan was forced to remember a single leg sticking out of a bin-bag in the middle of the council tip. 'Did you see anything else?' he asked. 'When you picked her up. Did you see anything: a car, or a lorry or anything like that?'

Roadkill shook his head. 'Nothing. Just the dead girl, lying at the side of the road. All broken and bleeding and still warm.'

The hairs went up on the back of Logan's neck. 'Was she alive? Bernard, was she still alive when you found her?'

The ratty figure sank down against the table, resting his head in his arms on the chipped Formica top. 'Sometimes the things get hit and they don't die right away. Sometimes they wait for me to come and watch over them.'

'Oh Christ.'

They put Roadkill back in his cell and reconvened in the interview room: Logan, Insch and Roadkill's appropriate adult.

'You do know you're going to have to release him, don't you?' said Mr Turner.

Logan raised an eyebrow, but Insch said: 'Your arse I will.'

The ex-schoolteacher sighed and settled back into one of the uncomfortable plastic seats. 'The most you have on him is failing to report an accident and the illegal disposal of a body.' He rubbed at his face. 'And we all know the Crown Prosecution Service isn't going to take this for criminal trial. One good psychiatric report and the whole thing goes nowhere. He hasn't done anything wrong. Not by his reckoning anyway. The girl was just another dead thing found at the side of the road. He was doing his job.'

Logan tried not to nod his head in agreement. Insch wouldn't have appreciated it.

The inspector ground his teeth and stared at Mr Turner, who shrugged. 'I'm sorry, but he's not guilty. If you don't release him I'm going to go to the press. There are still enough cameras out there to get this all over the morning news.'

'We can't let him go,' said Insch. 'Someone will rip his head off if we do.'

'So you admit that he's done nothing wrong then?' There was something distinctly patronizing about the way Turner said it, as if he was back in the classroom again and DI Insch had just been caught behind the bike sheds.

The inspector scowled. 'Listen, sunshine: I ask the leading questions in here, not you.' He rummaged in his pockets for something sweet and came up empty-handed. 'With Cleaver going free, the great, good and stupid of the community are on the lookout for anyone even slightly dodgy. Your boy had a dead girl in his shed. He's going to be top of their list.'

'Then you'll have to provide him with protective custody. We'll speak to the press: get them to understand that Bernard is innocent. That you've decided to drop all the charges.'

Logan cut in. 'No we haven't! He's still guilty of hiding the body!'

'Sergeant,' said Mr Turner with condescending patience, 'you have to understand how this works. If you try to take any of this to court, you're going to end up losing. The Procurator Fiscal won't stand for another cock-up. He's got enough egg on his face with the Cleaver fiasco. Mr Philips will go free. Question is: how much tax payers' money do you want to waste getting there?' Logan and DI Insch stood in the empty incident room, looking down at the growing bustle of activity in the car park. Mr Turner had been as good as his word. He was standing in front of the cameras, enjoying his moment in the spotlight. Telling the world that Bernard Duncan Philips had been absolved of all charges, that the system worked.

The ex-teacher had been right: the Procurator Fiscal didn't want to touch the case with a stick. And the Chief Constable wasn't that happy about it either. So Roadkill was off to stay at a safe house somewhere in Summerhill.

'What do you think?' asked Logan, watching as yet another camera crew joined the throng. It was almost eleven o'clock, but still they came.

Insch glowered down at the assembled press. 'I'm screwed, that's what I think. First the bloody panto thing, then Cleaver gets away with twelve years of systematic child abuse, and now Roadkill's back on the streets. How long did we have him banged up? Forty-eight hours? Maybe sixty at a push. They're going to eat me alive…'

'How about we go to the media too? I could have a word with Miller. See if he can put our side across?'

Insch gave a sad laugh. 'Small-town Journalist Saves Police Inspector's Career from the Toilet?' He shook his head. 'Don't see it coming off, do you?'

'Worth a shot though.'

In the end, Insch had to admit he had nothing to lose.

'After all,' said Logan, 'we've just prevented a serious miscarriage of justice. Surely that's got to count for something?'

'Aye. It should.' The inspector's shoulders sagged. 'But if it wasn't Roadkill and it wasn't Nicholson, then we've still got a killer out there, picking off children. And we haven't got a bloody clue who it is.'