The Blood Road

8

The letterbox went chlack, and that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner thumped onto the bare floorboards. Logan bent to pick it up, as the light on the papergirl’s bike faded through the rippled glass.

He held his mug against his chest, its warmth seeping into the bare skin. Probably should have put on a bit more than jammie bottoms, but hey-ho.

A noise mumbled out from the bedroom upstairs.

Logan took a sip of coffee and unrolled the newspaper, heading back through into the living room.

The Examiner’s front page carried a big picture of DI Bell’s crashed hire car, beneath the headline ‘“SUICIDE COP”’ FAKED OWN DEATH’.

A grunt. ‘“By Colin Miller.” Of course it is.’

Logan tossed the paper onto the couch and kept going to the open patio doors. Had another sip of coffee.

Twenty past seven and the sky was a dirty shade of charcoal, the first rumours of dawn catching at the horizon. A thin drizzle misted its way across the gloomy expanse of grass and weeds and bushes and trees. Going to be an absolute nightmare getting all that whipped in to shape. No point worrying about it now, though — had the house to do first.

He scratched at his checked jammie bottoms and yawned — a proper jaw-cracking one — then sagged. ‘Pfff...’

Cthulhu sat right at the edge of the veranda, on a little stump of log, just out of reach of the rain. Logan wandered over and squatted beside her. Tried to ignore the popping sounds his knees made. Goosebumps rippled his bare arms as he rubbed the fur between her ears. Soft and warm. She mrowped.

‘Don’t start — I’ve taken my pills, OK? Did it first thing, so Tara wouldn’t see.’ He smiled. ‘What makes you think that? Was it the sleeping together? Of course I like her.’

Cthulhu turned big dark eyes on him.

‘Well, yes, I know she snores, but so do you.’ More between-the-ear rubbing. ‘That’s very true, she is less of a nutjob than my usual.’

A stretch, then Cthulhu thumped down from her perch and sashayed back into the living room.

‘Yes, OK. You’re right: “so far”.’ Logan stood. ‘But we can always—’

‘Logan?’

He turned and there was Tara, wearing one of his old baggy hoodies. Bare legs poking out from underneath. Her hair was... huge. Haystack huge.

She yawned. Shuddered. ‘Who are you talking to?’

‘Cthulhu. She likes you.’

‘Are you not cold?’ Tara’s finger was warm as it traced its way down his chest to the collection of twenty-three shiny lines that criss-crossed his stomach. ‘This is a lot of scar tissue for one man.’

‘I was dead for five minutes on the operating table, if that makes me sound windswept and interesting?’

‘Makes you sound like a zombie. Or a vampire.’ She narrowed her eyes and poked him with the finger instead. ‘You better not be the sparkly kind!’

‘So technically you’ve had sex with a dead person. You dirty necrophiliac pervert.’

She poked him again. Then stole his coffee, padding across the bare floorboards to where Cthulhu waited at the kitchen door — one paw up on the wood. Expectant.

Logan cleared his throat. ‘I have to head off soon. Got an exhumation organised and a couple of widows to talk to. You can stay here and keep Cthulhu company if you like? There’s a spare key by the kitchen door.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why, Inspector McRae, are you giving me a key to your house?’

‘Lending. On the condition that you don’t turn out to be a complete nutjob.’

A smile made little dimples in her cheeks. ‘I promise nothing.’

Logan hurried through the rear entrance to Bucksburn station, shaking the rain from his peaked cap. No sign of anyone as he walked down the corridor, past closed office doors.

Water rippled the stairwell windows, distorting the romantic view of the station car park — almost empty — and the main bulk of the building itself. Two storeys of rectangular brown-and-grey blockwork, devoid of character or charm. Like a miserable primary school, only without the swings and roundabouts.

His phone dinged at him and he hauled it out.

HORRIBLE STEEL:

He thumbed out a quick reply on his way up the stairs:

His footsteps echoed back at him — still no sign of anyone — through the doors at the top and into another empty corridor. Ten to eight on a rainy Saturday morning and the place was like the Mary Celeste... At least that meant he might actually get some work done for a change, free from the distraction, whingeing, and general all-round pain-in-the-backside-ishness of his fellow officers.

Logan punched in the door-code and let himself into the Professional Standards office. Stopped. Suppressed a little groan.

So much for the Mary Celeste.

Rennie was slouched in his chair, surrounded by his file-box battlements, staring at the ceiling tiles as he swivelled left and right.

Logan stripped off his fleece and hung it on the coatrack. ‘Thought you were taking Donna swimming?’

‘Guv.’ Rennie snapped upright.

‘You’re an idiot; it’s Saturday morning. Go home.’

A frown. ‘You didn’t hear?’

Logan sank into his own chair and powered up his computer. ‘Get the kettle on. And there better be some of those Penguins left.’

‘Yeah, but...’ Rennie grabbed a sheet of paper from his in-tray and hurried over. Held it out. ‘It’s DS Chalmers.’

He didn’t bother suppressing this groan. ‘What’s she done now?’

Sobbing howled out of the living room in jagged painful stabs. He was just visible, through the open door, hunched up on the floor in the corner of the room slumped against a set of DVD racks. A slightly chubby man, going bald at the back, arms wrapped around himself. Face buried in his knees, shoulders shaking.

Logan eased the door shut.

A uniformed PC stood at the other end of the hall, talking into the Airwave handset attached to her shoulder. ‘...no, Sarge, no sign of forced entry I can see, but the SE haven’t finished with the back garden yet.’

Past her, a patrol car sat at the kerb, its lights flickering blue and white in the rain.

Logan stepped through the plain door and into the garage again.

It probably hadn’t been big enough to park an actual car in to start with — ‘Executive Family Homes’ being developer-speak for ‘Tiny Rabbit-Hutch Houses You Can’t Swing A Cat In’ — but it definitely wasn’t big enough now. Lorna Chalmers and her husband had filled the garage with metal shelving, leaving a four-foot-wide path down the middle. Tins of beans, soup, tomatoes, fruit, and sweetcorn. Semi-transparent boxes of crockery, others of spices, towels, clothes, cleaning products, and unidentifiable things. Various items of kitchen gadgetry, still in the original boxes. Cartons of washing powder, rice, macaroni-and-cheese mix, cereal... As if they’d tried to pack their lives away out here.

And Lorna Chalmers had finally succeeded.

She was halfway down the space between the shelving units, the toes of her socks grazing the concrete floor. Scuffing the fabric as her body turned in the draught that slipped in beneath the garage door. A thick electrical cord made a makeshift noose around her neck, the other end tied to the exposed rafters above. Arms slack by her sides. Eyes open. Mouth too. Face covered in scrapes and the faded remains of bruising on waxy yellow flesh.

The hard clack of a camera’s flash caught a bluebottle as it landed on her bottom lip. Then wandered inside.

Definitely dead.

9

Logan leaned against the open doorway as a couple of scene examiners got Lorna Chalmers down. One hugged her around the middle while the other clambered up onto a chair, holding a pair of snips. Their white SOC suits rustled and crumpled.

Snips took hold of the electrical lead in her other hand. ‘You ready?’

Hugs kept his head as far away from Chalmers’ remains as possible without letting go. ‘Gawd... Soon as you like, Shirley. She reeks of booze!’

A click and the body dropped, but didn’t sag.

So still in the throes of rigor mortis, then.

Snips — Shirley — jumped down from the chair and helped her colleague wrestle Chalmers into a body bag. She zipped it up and backed off, waving a hand in front of her face. ‘Pfff... You weren’t kidding.’

Logan shook his head and turned away.

Shirley shouted after him. ‘Hoy! You SIO then?’

‘Nope.’

‘You’re Senior, you’re an Officer, and you’re Investigating. Sounds like SIO to me.’

Logan kept going. ‘Yeah, nice try. But the answer’s still no.’

Logan leaned his forehead against the bedroom window, breath making a foggy crescent on the glass.

Outside, the duty undertakers wheeled their shiny grey coffin down the driveway, then lifted it into the back of their shiny grey van. The name of the firm was picked out in discreet white letters, ‘CORMACK & CALMAN ~ FUNERAL DIRECTORS’ above the words ‘PRIVATE AMBULANCE’, but other than that there was nothing to indicate that Lorna Chalmers’ remains were on the way to the mortuary.

What a bloody waste...

‘Guv?’

‘Mmm?’ Logan turned, and there was Rennie waving at him from the bedroom doorway.

‘I know you don’t want to be SIO, but do you think... maybe...?’ He raised his eyebrows and mugged it up a bit.

‘You want to be SIO?’

‘Come on, Guv, got to be good practice, right?’ Rennie shrugged. ‘For the old CV? Even if it’s only a suicide.’

‘You know it’s mostly paperwork, right?’

‘And maybe people would say, “You remember that police officer who hanged herself? DS Rennie was the SIO on that. Did a bang-up job. Let’s give him something exciting to be in charge of next time!”’

Logan puffed out a breath. ‘I suppose I can ask. But no promises.’

Swear to God, the little sod did a wee jig. ‘Cool biscuits!’ Then stopped and pointed over his shoulder. ‘Oh, and you might want to come see this.’ He led the way across the hall and into a bathroom barely big enough for the bath, sink, and toilet that had been squeezed into it. Nearly every flat surface was littered with assorted shampoos and conditioners and body butter and talc and moisturisers. A small mountain of empty toilet-roll middles lay slumped against the loo brush.

Rennie opened the medicine cabinet above the sink, exposing a huge stash of pill tubs, boxes, and blister packs that all seemed to have Lorna Chalmers’ name on them. He pulled out a white box with a pharmacist’s label stuck to the front. ‘Tranylcypromine sulphate: Emma was on this stuff after Donna was born, they’re antidepressants. And so are these: Venlafaxine hydrochloride, and Nortriptyline, and Moclobemide too. And yes, you should be impressed that I managed to pronounce all that.’ He returned the first box to the cabinet, then pulled out another one and frowned at it. ‘Not sure what Aripiprazole is though.’

Good old Aripiprazole, banishing visions of dead girlfriends and other assorted hallucinations for nearly two years now.

Logan took the packet off him. ‘It’s a second generation — or atypical — antipsychotic. Possible side effects include anxiety and suicidal thoughts.’

‘Really?’ Rennie raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh. Right. Wow.’

Logan replaced the box and shut the mirrored door. Stepped out onto the landing again.

Rennie followed him. ‘Her husband says there was a “sort of fight” yesterday. She stormed off, he didn’t hear her come back. Look at this.’ A smartphone appeared from Rennie’s pocket and he held it out. A text message sat in the middle of the screen. ‘Had his phone on to charge, so he didn’t get her text till an hour ago. Came down and found her.’

Logan accepted the phone, reading the message out loud. ‘“I’m sorry. I just can’t take it any more. I can’t.” Sent at ten thirty last night.’ He scrolled down to the earlier text messages. ‘Long time to be left hanging there.’

‘I had a snoop round.’ Rennie hooked a thumb over his shoulder at another small bedroom. ‘Someone’s definitely sleeping in this one: got loads of women’s things in it. Lipsticks and jars of stuff. Women’s underwear in the chest of drawers. Women’s clothes in the wardrobe. No man things.’

A chain of yesterday’s texts swept up onto the screen.

BRIAN:

STEPH:

BRIAN:

STEPH:

There was more of the same, each one more flowery than the last.

‘God, it’s like a bargain-basement Mills and Boon.’ Logan stepped back into the master bedroom again. Slid the door to the fitted wardrobe all the way across.

It was full of men’s clothes: no dresses, skirts, or high heels. Nothing feminine at all.

He pointed at the bedside cabinet. ‘Have a squint in there.’

Rennie did. ‘Man socks, man pants, man hankies. No lady things.’

Logan nodded. Slid the wardrobe door closed. ‘Then I think it’s time we had a word with the grieving husband.’

A tiny conservatory clung to the side of the tiny living room — its doors closed, trapping inside a small herd of clothes horses draped with washing.

Brian had moved himself to the couch, sitting there as if someone had rammed their hand down his throat and ripped out everything inside him. He kept his eyes on his knees, as Logan handed him a mug of tea.

‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

He didn’t look up. ‘It’s... I never...’

Logan put a bit of steel in his voice. ‘Mr Chalmers, someone assaulted your wife yesterday. Twice. I want to know who.’

‘I don’t... I didn’t see her. She went out before I got up and—’

‘Would you say Lorna was happy at home?’

Oh, he looked up at that. ‘What? I...’ Pulled his chin in. ‘Hey, no, wait — I didn’t do that! I would never do that!’

‘And yet Lorna texted you a suicide note at half ten last night, but you didn’t call the police till after seven this morning.’

‘No!’ Looking from Logan to Rennie. Bottom lip trembling. ‘I told your constable—’

‘Constable?’ Rennie folded his arms. ‘I’m a detective sergeant.’

Brian blinked at the pair of them, getting smaller. ‘Sorry. It... I was recharging my phone. I didn’t check it till I got up!’

The central heating gurgled.

Rain pattered on the conservatory roof.

‘I didn’t!’

‘Really?’ Logan loomed over him. ‘Are you expecting us to believe your wife was hanging there for nine hours and you didn’t notice?’

Rennie put a hand on Logan’s arm. ‘Guv?’

‘We didn’t... She has her own bedroom. It’s the antisocial hours. We decided it’d be better if we didn’t wake each other up.’

‘Who’s Stephanie?’

Brian flinched as if he’d been slapped. ‘I don’t...’

‘Don’t you?’ Logan held up the phone again, reading from the screen. ‘“The milk of your passion fizzes inside me like finest champagne.” If that helps jog your memory?’

‘Oh God.’ Brian wrapped his hands around his head.

‘You said there’d been “a sort of fight”.’

‘You don’t know what it was like. She was never here. Not properly. Even when she was physically in the room, she was somewhere else. I was...’ Deep breath. ‘Stephanie is... I met her at work. She’s the account manager. We... Her husband isn’t there either. We were lonely.’

Logan stepped back. ‘And Lorna found out you were having an affair.’

The heating gurgled. The rain fell.

Brian shrugged. ‘Steph was here yesterday afternoon. We were in the bedroom when her car alarm went off. Someone had smashed the windscreen and the garage door was lying wide open. It’s... It’s not like Lorna and me had a sex life of our own, is it? We don’t even sleep in the same room any more!’ He ran a hand across his face. Bit his lip. ‘I was going to ask Lorna for a divorce next week, once we’d got her birthday out of the way. It would’ve been Wednesday.’

And with that, Brian dissolved into tears again.

The garage looked strangely empty without Chalmers’ body hanging there. Like a living room after the Christmas decorations had been taken down... Now the only sign that she’d ever been there were the scuff marks on the concrete floor — tiny tufts of fabric stuck to the rough surface where her socks had dragged across it.

Logan turned and stared at the shelving unit by the door. Chalmers’ glasses sat on a shelf next to the dishwasher tablets. Her shoes were on the shelf below lined up side by side.

Rennie pointed at them. ‘Why do people do that? Why take off your shoes and glasses before topping yourself?’

The glasses were cold to the touch. Surprisingly heavy. ‘Suppose it’s like getting ready for bed.’

‘See if it was me? If I was crossing the great dark veil? I’d want to see where I was going.’

Logan put the glasses back on their shelf. ‘Her husband’s having an affair; she’s about to be suspended; she’s on antidepressants; she’s sacrificed having a family for her career, but her career’s going nowhere.’

‘And I wouldn’t want to tread in anything either.’

‘She’s getting into fights...’

Rennie nodded. ‘Sounds like she had a proper, full-on, card-carrying meltdown.’

‘Yup.’ Logan walked out into the hall. No point wasting any more time here. Still had to figure out what Chalmers knew about Ellie Morton’s disappearance. He opened the front door. Paused on the threshold. ‘Do me a favour: soon as we hit the station, have a word with the CCTV team and see if they can place her car anywhere. Find out where she went yesterday. Maybe we can dig up who she spoke to.’

‘Guv.’

Logan hurried down the driveway, shoulders hunched against the rain, Rennie trotting along behind him.

Pale faces gazed out at them from the surrounding houses. The nosy ghosts of suburbia, haunting the lives of their neighbours. Feeding on their tragedy.

He clambered into the PSD pool car and checked his watch. A little after nine. ‘Probably got time to pick up coffee on the way to the cemetery. If we’re quick.’

Rennie clunked his door shut and sat there, looking up at the house. ‘Guv... Not being funny or anything, but back there, with the husband, was that not a bit... harsh?’

‘Good.’

‘No, but what if he makes a complaint?’

‘Brian Chalmers was screwing around on his wife. A wife he knew was on antidepressants. He was going to ask for a divorce the day after her birthday.’ Logan fastened his seatbelt. ‘So yes: I gave him a hard time. What do you think I should’ve given him, biscuits and a cuddle?’

Rennie started the car. ‘Sure you weren’t just punishing him because you feel guilty about what happened to her?’

Idiot.

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘So, let’s get this straight,’ Rennie turned, voice and face deadpan, ‘being investigated by Professional Standards had nothing to do with her topping herself.’

The little sod might have a point.

‘Oh... shut up and drive.’

Hazlehead Cemetery stretched down towards the Westhill road. They’d made an effort to lay this bit of it out in long sweeping curves, but there was a lot of ground to fill. Space for thousands more bodies.

And soon, there would be space for one more.

A bright-yellow JCB sat by a bend in the road that wound through the middle of the cemetery — presumably so the hearses could deliver their passengers to their allotted spots. The digger hunched over one of the graves. Like an expectant beast. Growling.

Logan and Rennie stood beneath a row of trees, on the very edge of the cemetery. Not that they provided a lot of shelter from the thick drifts of pewter-grey drizzle that coated everything with a sheen of cold and damp. But at least it was somewhere to drink their coffee.

Next to the JCB, three SOC-suited figures were busy erecting a Scene Examination tent — big enough to plonk over the grave when it was excavated.

Rennie sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘You ever had a shot on a digger? I’d love that. Gouging huge great clods out the surface of the earth... Oh, ho. Clap hands, here comes Charlie.’

A man in a brown suit and council-issue tie worried his way up the hearse road towards them, clutching his fluorescent-yellow waterproof jacket shut. Woolly hat jammed low over his ears, a scowl pulling his jowls into a disappointed-scrotum shape.

His glasses were all steamed up too. ‘Closing the cemetery... I don’t see why this couldn’t have been done last night!’

Logan had another sip of lukewarm coffee. ‘Health and safety.’

‘There are people wanting to visit their loved ones and they expect the council to facilitate that. If you’re a bereaved relative, what are you going to think about all this?’

Logan leaned over to one side, looking across the cemetery to the car park. Its only occupants were the PSD pool car, Scene Examination’s grubby white Transit, the duty undertaker’s discreet ‘PRIVATE AMBULANCE’, and the battered rattletrap Mr Scrotumface had arrived in. Other than that, the place was deserted. Logan stood up straight again. ‘Please don’t let us stop you comforting them. We’ll let ourselves out.’

‘Hmmph!’ An imperious sniff, then he turned and marched off into the drizzle again, nose held high. Walking as if his buttocks were tightly clenched. Presumably to stop the stick from falling out.

Rennie sidled closer, keeping his voice down. ‘Bet he’s the kind of guy who can’t get it up unless he’s filled out a requisition in triplicate to boink his girlfriend.’

Logan’s Airwave handset gave four bleeps. He answered it. ‘McRae. Safe to talk.’

‘Bet he’s a riot in the bedroom too.’ Rennie put on a droning nasal voice. ‘Tonight, Jean, you’ll observe that we’re departing from our usual missionary position due to roadworks on the A944 outside Dobbies Garden Centre.’

Down by the JCB, one of the white-oversuited figures waved at them. Then her voice crackled out of the Airwave’s speaker. ‘That’s us ready.’

Logan pressed the button. ‘Off you go then.’

‘Instead we’ll be attempting the “Reverse Cowgirl” in honour of John Gordon MP, the 178th Lord Provost of Aberdeen — 1705 to 1708.’

She turned and gave the digger driver a wave.

The great beast roared.

‘And I know it’ll cause you a great deal of sexual excitement, Jean, when I say that John Gordon was also the 185th Lord Provost of Aberdeen. He served two nonconsecutive terms in office. Hmmm? Hmmm? Yes, I thought you’d like that.’

The digger’s yellow arm reached forward, its claw digging deep into the turf, peeling it back to expose the dark-brown soil beneath.

‘Now, enough foreplay, Jean. Let us commence with having “the sex” as per council regulation fifty-four, paragraph six, subsection—’

Logan hit him.

10

The JCB towered over the opened grave, glistening in the drizzle. Its claw thick with dark-brown earth.

Logan inched closer.

One of their three-person Scene Examination team peered down into the pit, hands on her knees. ‘You ready?’

Her two colleagues hunched at the bottom of the hole, fiddling with thick tie-down straps. Then the bigger of the two stood and gave her the thumbs up, his white oversuit clarty with dirt.

She passed the signal on to the digger driver and the JCB’s engine growled again — the arm lifting over the hole. A chain with a hook on the end of it dangled from the claw.

Clarty the Examiner reached up and fastened the straps onto the hook, before he and his filthy friend scrambled out of the grave.

‘OK.’ The scene examiner in the clean suit pointed a few graves down. ‘If we can all retreat to a safe distance, please.’ She ushered Logan and Rennie to step away from the hole, and all five of them gathered around a shiny black headstone — like a chunk of kitchen worktop with gold lettering on it: ‘NOW ANNOYING THE ANGELS’.

She took off her facemask and raised her eyebrows at Logan. Shirley, from Chalmers’ garage that morning. ‘This your first exhumation?’

‘Third.’

Rennie leaned against the headstone. ‘I’ve never done one before. It’s kinda like Burke and Hare, only with a JCB. And in daylight. And not Edinburgh. Or 1828.’

Everyone stared at him.

The tips of his ears went a darker shade of pink. ‘Sorry.’

Shirley raised a hand to shoulder height and pointed at the sky. Then made small circles with her finger, the other hand held flat just beside it.

A deeper growl and the digger’s arm went up, slow and steady.

She smiled at Logan. ‘And, as if by magic...’

A mud-covered shape rose from the grave. It wasn’t a standard wooden coffin — a chunk of dirt fell off exposing what looked like wickerwork. One of those trendy woven-from-sustainable-materials biodegradable jobs.

It cleared the lip of the grave and kept going... five, maybe six foot into the air... and that was when the bottom gave way. The remains cascaded down into the pit. Bones and chunks of stuff and plastic bags swollen with internal organs. Everything slithery and glistening and dark. As they spattered back into the earth, the stomach-clenching stench of rotten meat exploded out from the pit and everyone recoiled, coughing and gagging.

Rennie slapped both hands over his nose and mouth. ‘Aw... God!’

Shirley hurled her facemask to the ground. ‘Low-carbon-footprint, saving-the-planet, eco-friendly, recycling bollocks!’

A purple nitrile glove appeared over the lip of the grave, its fingers dark and slimy with mud. It dumped a chunk of... was that a pelvis? It was. It was a pelvis, still partially encased in stinking...

Nope.

Logan backed away even further from the grave as a handful of finger bones joined the pile of yuck on the filthy tarpaulin they’d spread out beside the hole.

A muffled voice rose from the grave. ‘Oh for... Urgh, I’ve stood in it!’

‘Yeah...’ Shirley grimaced at Logan. ‘This is going to take us a while.’

Logan patted her on the shoulder. ‘It’s all yours. Give us a shout when you’ve got everything back at the mortuary.’

‘Will do.’

As he walked away, down the hearse road, Shirley’s voice took on that irritating over-the-top enthusiastic tone kids’-TV-show presenters always used. ‘Come on, guys, I know it’s horrible, but we can do this!’

The reply from the grave was a bit more to the point: ‘Sod off.’

Rennie started the pool car’s engine. ‘Let’s never do that again. Exhumations are horrible.’

Logan fastened his seatbelt and waved at Mr Scrotumface from the Council. ‘Look at him: standing there in his high-viz jacket and woolly hat, presiding over his empty car park like an impotent gnome.’

The man glowered back at them.

‘Told you, he needs his bonking chits filled out in triplicate.’ Rennie pulled out of the space. ‘Back to the ranch?’

‘No. We’re off to see Bell’s widow.’

He launched into song. ‘The wonderful widow of Bell.’

‘And if we’re lucky, she’ll be able to give you a brain.’

Aberdeen faded in the rear-view mirror as Rennie took the second exit and accelerated up the dual carriageway. Fields. Fields. And more fields. All of them a drab sodden green.

Logan’s phone dinged in his hand.

TS TARA:

Rennie overtook a mud-encrusted flatbed truck. ‘You ever met Bell’s wife before?’

‘Barbara?’ Back to thumbing out a reply on his phone. ‘Only at the funeral.’

SEND.

‘Babs was in the am-dram group DI Insch used to run. I saw her in that musical version of Shaun of the Dead they put on. She was the mother. Very convincing.’

‘Hmm.’

Ding.

Rennie let out a long sigh. ‘It’s got to be hella weird, doesn’t it? Your husband kills himself, only he doesn’t really, and two years later someone else kills him again, but for the first time.’

Ding.

‘I mean, put yourself in her shoes: he’s been hiding away somewhere sunny all that time and she’s been stuck here in Aberdeen with the drizzle and the cold, thinking he’s dead.’

Ding.

Another sigh from the bleached-blond philosopher behind the wheel. ‘That’s the kind of thing that’ll really screw you up.’

The housing estate could have been any new-build one in Aberdeenshire. Identical houses on an identical road with identical speedbumps and identical driveways. Tiny patches of miserable soggy grass masquerading as lawns. Trees that would probably still look like twigs for years to come. Four-by-fours parked on bricked-over front gardens. Grey harling with fake-stone details.

Three houses down, the road was packed with outside broadcast vans and journalists’ cars. No way through. A lone uniformed PC stood outside the front door, two down. Holding the mob at bay.

Rennie pulled into the kerb. ‘Pffff... Maybe we should come back later, when they’ve all got bored and sodded off?’

‘Don’t be so damp.’ Logan climbed out into the rain and strode along the pavement on the other side of the road, skirting the scabby Saabs and fusty Fiats parked half-on-half-off of it. Keeping his head down.

Didn’t work though.

He’d barely made it level to the house when someone spotted his uniform and they all crowded in on him. Shouting over the top of each other.

A curly blonde weather-girl-made-good type forced her way to the front. Pekinese perky. A red-topped microphone in her hand. ‘Inspector? Inspector, Anne Darlington, BBC: is it true you suspect DI Bell of murder?’

A ruddy-faced man who looked as if he’d fallen off the back of a tractor. Sounded like it too: ‘Come on, min, oor readers have a right to know what’s goin’ oan here. Have you got a suspect yet or no’?’

An androgynous woman in a shabby suit and short-back-and-sides. Deep voice: ‘Angela Parks, Scottish Daily Post: are you aware of the rumours that DI Bell was involved in people trafficking in Spain?’

A well-dressed short bloke with a bushy beard — like an Ewok off for a job interview at a bank. English accent: ‘Phil Patterson, Sky News: why won’t Police Scotland come clean about DI Bell’s previous whereabouts? What are you hiding?’

Anne Darlington pushed past him. ‘Police Scotland exhumed a body this morning — is that connected to this case?’

Angela Parks shoved her iPhone in Logan’s face, a red ‘RECORDING’ icon glowing in the middle of the screen. ‘Is it true that DI Bell was stabbed during a drug deal that went wrong?’

Logan kept his chin up and his face forwards, pushing through them, not slowing down. ‘We are pursuing several lines of inquiry and I can’t say any more than that at this juncture.’

Rennie struggled on at his shoulder. ‘’Scuse me. Pardon. Sorry. Oops. ’Scuse me...’

Anne Darlington pushed her microphone in front of Logan again. ‘Was DI Bell under investigation at the time of his alleged death?’

‘Fit’s the deal, min? Fit lines of inquiry are ye followin’?’

Another eight feet and they reached the relative safety of the tiny porch — more an extension of the garage roof than anything else.

‘Inspector, was it a drug deal gone wrong or not?’

The PC at the door opened it, shifting to one side so Logan and Rennie could squeeze past, hissing out the side of her mouth as they did. ‘It’s like a swarm of sodding leeches.’ Then stepped forward with her arms extended, blocking the way. ‘All right, you heard the Inspector: everyone away from the house. Let’s give Mrs Bell some privacy.’

Anne Darlington stayed where she was. ‘If you didn’t bury DI Bell in that grave two years ago, who did you bury?’

Phil Patterson was right behind her. ‘Was DI Bell involved in organised crime? Is that why—’

Rennie thumped the front door shut, cutting the rest of it off. ‘Now I know how rock stars feel. Only without the ever-present threat of group sex and free drugs.’

The hallway was an antiseptic-white colour with a single family photo next to the light switch. DI Bell, his wife and their two children at the youngest’s graduation ceremony. Everyone looking very proud and alive.

A door was open at the end of the hall, murmured voices coming from within.

Logan stepped into a gloomy little living room. The blinds were down, shutting out the rain and the media, but a standard lamp cast just enough light to see the dark patches on the walls where pictures must have hung for years, leaving nothing behind but the unfaded wallpaper and a capstone of dust. Most of the shelves were empty too, as if they’d had a clear-out recently. The only thing left was a single photo in a black frame: Mrs Bell and her husband. Her in a blue frock and him in his dress uniform, taken at some sort of official ceremony.

She was sitting on the couch now, by the electric fire, bottom jaw twitching as if she was trying to work something out from between her teeth. Eyes focused on the fake flames.

But Barbara Bell wasn’t the only one in here.

Sitting in the armchair opposite was a wee hardman in a well-fitted suit. Broad shouldered with a good haircut, even if his head was going a bit threadbare on top. Colin Miller. A trio of gold chains glinted around his neck, signet rings on over his black-leather-gloved fingers. And standing behind him: an older lady in a safari-type waistcoat — its pockets bulging with photographic equipment. A huge Cannon DSLR hanging around her neck.

Last, but by all means least: a young male PC, face covered with a moonscape of pockmarks, sitting in the other armchair. He struggled to his feet. ‘Inspector. I know this isn’t—’

Logan pointed at Miller. ‘Colin. Should you not be outside with the rest of your lovely Fourth Estate mates?’

A grin, followed by a Glaswegian accent so strong you could have stood on it. ‘Laz, my man, you’re lookin’ well, but. We’ve been expressing our sympathy to poor Barbara here. Haven’t we, Debbie?’

The photographer nodded, one side of her mouth clamped shut as if there were a fag poking out of it. ‘Terrible shame.’

Logan stood in front of the couch. ‘Mrs Bell?’

She didn’t even look at him. Just made a shooing gesture, batting away an invisible fly. Saggy and defeated.

He nodded. ‘Well, I’m sure everyone would like a nice cup of tea. Colin, why don’t you lend a hand?’ Then marched from the room, thumping Rennie on the way past. ‘You too.’

Rennie filled the kettle at a Belfast sink that was far too big for the small kitchen. Colin Miller leaned back against the working surface, crossing his arms and smirking.

Logan gave him a loom. ‘How the hell did you get in here?’

‘Easy, Tiger.’ He held up his hand in self-defence — some of the fingers stiff and twisted in his black leather gloves. ‘That any way to talk to an old friend?’

‘She’s just discovered that her husband died. Again. Bad enough you splashed it all over the front page this morning — she doesn’t need—’

‘Speaking of suicides,’ he dropped his voice to a conspiratorial stage whisper, ‘a wee birdy tells us you’ve got another deid copper on your hands.’

‘I mean it, Colin: leave Barbara Bell alone!’

‘So did Lorna Chalmers really kill herself, or did she do a DI Ding-Dong Bell? Enquiring minds and all that.’

Logan backed off a step. ‘Who told you about Lorna Chalmers?’

‘Cos, see, it’s no’ hard to put two and two together, is it? Babs is sitting there in her gloomy wee living room and even she knows what’s coming. Her beloved deid husband killed someone to take his place in the grave.’

‘I’m going to count to three, then you either tell me who told you about Lorna Chalmers or I hurl you out of here on your arse.’

A grin slashed its way across Miller’s face. ‘That the quote you want me to use when this is all over the Examiner’s front page tomorrow? Cos I’m cool with that.’

The kettle rumbled to the boil and clicked off.

Silence.

Logan glowered at Miller. Miller grinned back at him.

Then Rennie broke the moment by hauling a bunch of mugs out of a cupboard and clattering them down by the kettle.

Miller shrugged. ‘It’s no’ goin’ all that well for Northeast Division, is it? You can’t find Ellie Morton, DI Bell turns up not-dead-but-dead-again, and now DS Lorna Chalmers tops herself.’ He tried on a casual, innocent voice: ‘You were investigating her for something, weren’t you?’

‘DS Rennie, make sure one of those mugs has extra spit in it.’

‘All right, all right. Easy, big man. Me and Debbie got all we need from Babs already. Was only hanging about to be nice to the poor dear. Keep her company and that.’ Miller pushed himself upright. ‘She’s all yours.’

Logan settled back on the couch as Rennie laid out four mugs of milky tea on the coffee table.

The thump of a closing door came from the hall and Family Liaison Officer McCraterface stepped into the room again. ‘That’s them gone now.’

Logan smiled at Mrs Bell. ‘Barbara, you didn’t have to speak to them.’

She flexed her hands into fists. ‘He lied to me.’

‘Of course he did, he’s a journalist.’

‘He left a bloody suicide note!’ Mrs Bell bared her teeth at the electric fire. ‘I memorised it. I thought I’d done something. Two bloody years and I thought... I thought if only I’d done something. If only I’d noticed how depressed he was. If only I’d got him some help!’ She picked up one of the mugs and hurled it at DI Bell’s photo. Knocking it flying, the mug shattering. Tea exploded across the wall. ‘And he wasn’t even dead! He was living it up in the sunshine, drinking sangria and shagging some Spanish tart!’

Logan shook his head. ‘Barbara, we don’t know that.’

‘Oh, we bloody well do! Mr Miller got someone to track down Duncan’s new family in Villaferrueña.’

Wonderful. The wee sod never mentioned that.

Mrs Bell ground her fists into her lap. ‘Duncan and his Spanish tart have a one-year-old son. I thought he was dead and he’s been making bloody babies!’ She snatched up another mug and hurled it to join the first. Another sharp-edged shattering and beige tea sprayed the wall.

Rennie grabbed his tea before it went flying too.

Logan took out his notebook. ‘We need to ask you some questions about what happened two years ago.’

She was still scowling at the tea-drenched wallpaper. ‘I boxed up all his crap. Did it last night, soon as they told me he hadn’t really killed himself.’ A sniff. She wiped at her eyes. Voice brittle. ‘I’ve been keeping this house like some sort of bloody shrine. Like he’d magically come back from the dead and everything would be fine again. I’m such a bloody idiot.’ Her whole face crumpled.

‘Can you remember him talking about a case he was working on at the time? Maybe something that was preying on his mind?’

‘Well, you know what? I’m happy he’s dead. I’m glad someone stabbed him. I hope they get away with it!’

11

Logan was last in line, barely able to see over the top of his large cardboard box. At least it wasn’t that heavy. He followed the FLO and Rennie out through the front door and into a lightning storm of camera flashes.

‘Inspector? Anne Darlington, BBC.’ Her blonde curls bounced as she fell into step, dragging a cameraman after her. ‘Inspector: is it true you’ve uncovered the identity of the individual who died in that caravan two years ago?’

Logan shifted his box, turning it into a cardboard shield between himself and the rampaging hordes of the media. ‘Please get out of the way.’

The Ewok man — Patterson? — jogged alongside as they hurried towards the pool car. ‘Is this case linked to the recent suicide of Detective Sergeant Lorna Chalmers?’

The thin androgynous one hadn’t gone away either. ‘Angela Parks, Scottish Daily Post. Will there be a public inquiry into the handling of DI Bell’s alleged suicide? Were you involved in the investigation?’

Rennie plipped the locks and they stuffed their boxes in the back of the car.

Anne Darlington tried to block Logan’s way. ‘Why won’t Police Scotland respond to any of our questions, Inspector? What are you trying to hide?’

The teuchtery one shoved himself to the front of the scrum. ‘Yer DS Chalmers was working on the Ellie Morton case — fit did she discover that led her to kill hersel’?’

The Family Liaison Officer put a hand against the teuchter’s chest. ‘Come on, back up please.’

Logan pushed around to the passenger side, Angela Parks close on his tail.

‘Is the Ellie Morton case connected to the disappearance of Stephen MacGuire this morning?’

Anne Darlington grabbed at his arm, but he blocked her with the passenger door. ‘Inspector, do you have an ID for the body, or don’t you? It’s a perfectly simple question: yes, or no?’

‘It’s an ongoing investigation.’ And inside.

The Parks woman wasn’t giving up. ‘There’s been a string of child abductions in the last two weeks, hasn’t there? Are they linked to Ellie Morton?’

He hauled the door shut with a thump and snibbed the lock.

Rennie clambered in behind the wheel and started the engine. ‘Gah... It’s like something off The Walking Dead!’

Anne Darlington knocked on the window. Voice muffled by the glass. ‘Yes, or no, Inspector?’

Logan fastened his seatbelt, talking to Rennie out the side of his mouth, so they couldn’t film it. ‘Drive. And if you accidentally run over three or four of the bastards on the way, that’s fine with me.’

‘Done.’ But as soon as he put the car in gear, the horde backed away, cameras filming, flashguns flashing, recording Rennie’s three-point turn for posterity. Then Darlington primped her hair and launched into a piece to camera.

Rennie grimaced, accelerating down the road. ‘Well, that was fun.’

‘Bloody Colin Bloody Miller!’ Logan pulled out his phone and poked at the screen. Listened to it ring. ‘Pick up, you rancid little...’ A click. ‘Colin? Why the hell didn’t you tell me you’d tracked down DI Bell’s Spanish family?’

Miller tutted a couple of times, then, ‘You used to be a lot more polite on the phone.’

‘You should’ve told me he had another family in Villafff...weren...’

‘Villaferrueña. It’s a middle-of-nowhere teeny-wee village. Population about a hundred and fifty? Boring. You’d love it.’

‘This is an ongoing investigation!’

‘Aye, and you can read all about it in tomorrow’s Aberdeen Examiner. Now, if there’s nothing else, I’m away to that nice butcher in Rosemount to pick up some steaks for tea. You know how Isobel loves a good slab of meat when she’s been post-morteming all day, but.’

‘Colin!’

A laugh rattled down the phone. ‘I know stuff you don’t. If you want to play quid pro quo at some point, you know where to find us.’ Then the connection went dead. He’d hung up.

‘Damn it.’ Logan lowered his phone.

Rennie looked across the car at him. ‘We could get a warrant?’

‘Yes, because we’ve done such a great job of that recently.’ Logan shook his head. ‘You know what? Not my case: not my problem. DCI Hardie can deal with it.’

The identikit houses and identikit streets drifted past the car windows as Rennie made for the dual carriageway again. ‘Guv? That reporter — the one who looks like a really thin bloke — she said, “was the Ellie Morton case connected to Stephen MacGuire going missing?”’

‘And?’

‘Who’s Stephen MacGuire?’

Good point.

‘No idea.’ Logan pulled up a web browser on his phone and thumbed in the name. Set it searching.

A link to the Clydebank Herald and Post website came up and he followed it. Waiting for the page to load. ‘Here we go.’ The headline ‘FAMILY’S FEAR FOR MISSING STEPHEN’ filled the screen. Scrolling down revealed a photo of a small blond boy, smiling a gap-toothed smile. Lots of freckles. A dark-purple birthmark spread itself across one cheek and along the side of his nose.

‘“Stephen MacGuire, brackets four, went missing from outside his East Kilbride flat at half past eight this morning.” Blah, blah, blah. “‘A wonderful little boy who lights up every room he walks into,’ said his distraught mother, Janice, brackets twenty-three.”’

Rennie nodded. ‘Any word of a stepdad?’

‘No, but the mother’s partner says, “Stephen would not just wander off, I am sure someone must have taken him.”’

‘There you go — it’ll be him. The partner.’

‘“We are desperate to get our beloved son home. Please, if you have any idea where Stephen is, get in touch with the authorities before it is too late.” Why do newspapers have to make everyone sound like robots? “Before it is too late.” Who talks like that?’

Another nod. ‘It’s always the mum’s new bloke.’

Logan put his phone away. ‘Don’t see how a kid getting abducted in East Kilbride has anything to do with a wee girl snatched from Tillydrone.’

‘All that “Stranger Danger” stuff is a waste of time. We’d be better off teaching kids to run away from their stepdads.’

‘...appealing for any information on missing four-year-old, Stephen MacGuire. Stephen was last seen outside his home on Telford Road at eight thirty-two this morning...’

God, it was a lovely day. Not so nice back home with its wind and rain, of course, but out here? With the mighty Cairngorms rising on either side of the road, purpled with heather? The majestic Scottish sky a bright saphire blue? The sun shining down on natives and tourists alike? Who wouldn’t love this?

‘...distinctive port wine stain birthmark on his left cheek. Stephen was wearing blue jeans, a red sweatshirt with a panda on it, brown trainers, and a light-blue jacket...’

The sign went past on the left, ‘FÀILTE DON GHÀIDHEALTACHD ~ WELCOME TO THE HIGHLANDS’ above a stylised illustration of the landscape, complete with trees and a shining loch.

Lee grinned as his trusty old beige Volvo grumbled past it at a sensible 58 miles per hour: some wag had added a wee Nessie to the loch. Had to love the imagination of these people.

‘...morning. Police are keen to trace anyone who was in the area at the time, especially the drivers of a green Citroën Picasso and a grey Nissan Micra...’

An idiot in a BMW overtook him, even though there was clearly a coach-load of day-trippers coming the other way. Roaring past, then slamming on its brakes to screech back into the left lane. Idiot. It was people like that who caused accidents.

‘...following statement.’

A rough woman’s voice replaced the newsreader’s more professional tones. ‘While we can’t rule out a connection with the disappearances of Ellie Morton in Aberdeen, and Lucy Hawkins in St Andrews, I have to say that it’s very unlikely.’

Aw, bless.

‘We have a considerable number of officers out searching the area as we speak, but I have to stress: if you saw Stephen MacGuire this morning, or have any idea where he is, I urge you to come forward and talk to us.’

It was all rather sweet, really. Pointless, but sweet.

‘Stephen’s family are obviously very distressed at this time, so if you have any information, please get in touch by calling one zero one. Help us bring Stephen home.’

And the newsreader was back. ‘Sport now and Aberdeen are looking to bring home three points from their Ibrox fixture this weekend. The Dons have been riding high since the start of the season and—’

Lee switched the radio off.

A full-scale manhunt — well, full-scale child-hunt — was excellent news. Nothing like a bit of publicity to whet people’s appetites.

He took his eyes off the road for a brief moment and looked in the rear-view mirror — at the pet carrier in the boot, partially covered by a tartan blanket. ‘Did you hear that, Stephen? You’re famous!’

A pair of watery green eyes blinked back at him through the pet carrier’s grille door. Freckles and tears on the wee boy’s pale cheeks. That distinctive port wine birthmark. The chunk of duct tape across his mouth.

‘Isn’t that exciting? All those policemen out looking for you? I bet they’ll have your picture on the lunchtime news and everything.’

Stephen snivelled and cried.

Which was only to be expected. He’d had a pretty big day after all: being bundled into a car boot by a woman he thought was his mum’s friend, then sold on at a disused-petrol-station in the middle of a run-down industrial estate. It was probably quite overwhelming for a wee lad.

Still, that was no reason to mope, was it?

‘How about a sing-song to pass the time? Come on then, all together now: A hundred green bottles, hanging on the wall,’ belting it out, with a smile in his heart and his voice, ‘A hundred green bottles, hanging on the wall, and if one green bottle, should accidentally fall, there’d be...?’

He glanced in the mirror again. Stephen stared back with his tear-stained cheeks and duct-tape gag.

‘Oh, that’s right. Sorry.’ Lee shrugged. ‘Never mind.’ Deep breath: ‘There’d be ninety-nine green bottles, hanging on the wall...’

‘But how?’ DCI Hardie’s voice whined out of the phone, making him sound as if someone was slowly beating him to death with a haddock. ‘How did they find out so quickly?’

The Asda car park was getting busier as workers in Dyce’s industrial estates and oil offices rolled up to buy something for lunch. At least it had stopped raining.

‘No idea, but you know what the press are like. They don’t have to go through official channels, they can just bribe people.’ Logan hunched over the pool car’s boot. Shifted his phone — freeing up his other hand to rummage about in one of the cardboard boxes from DI Bell’s house. Well, ex-DI Bell’s ex-house.

This one was nearly all clothes, suits and shirts and trousers, crumpled and mangled where they’d been rammed in.

‘And he was living in Verti...?’

‘Villaferrueña.’ There were socks in here too. And Y-fronts. ‘There’s probably more info, but Miller’s saving it for the front page tomorrow. Unless we’ve got something we can trade?’

‘I’ll get on to the Spanish cops, see what they can dig up.’

‘The press are having a feeding frenzy outside Mrs Bell’s house, by the way. And from the sound of things they’ve started making stuff up.’ Some ties. A ten-pin bowling trophy sat at the very bottom of the box; the little man on top’s head had been snapped clean off.

‘Wonderful. Well, I’ve got a press conference starting in half an hour. Looking forward to that about as much as my last colonoscopy.’

Should probably go through all the jacket and trouser pockets too.

‘When Rennie gets back, we’re off to speak to Sally MacAuley. Bell was obsessed with her case, so maybe...?’

‘But probably not.’

‘Probably not.’

And talking of Rennie — he was bumbling his way out through the supermarket’s main doors, pushing a small trolley with a wonky wheel. Not a care in the world.

Must be nice to be that divorced from reality.

Logan dipped into the box again. A handful of serial-killer thriller paperbacks with cheesy predictable titles on a ‘DARK DEADLY DEATH BLOOD DEATHLY DYING’ theme. ‘While I’ve got you: you’ll need a Senior Investigating Officer for the Chalmers suicide. Because she was a police officer?’

‘Are you volunteering?’

‘No. But what about DS Rennie?’

‘As SIO?’ A laugh barked out of the phone. ‘I’d rather put drunken hyenas in charge of my granddaughter’s third birthday party.’

‘Yes, but he’s done the training course; he’s worked on several murders; he’s not got himself suspended, demoted, or fired; and it’s an open-and-shut suicide. Not even Beardie Beattie could screw this one up.’

‘Hmmmm...’

Rennie made a massive detour around a puddle, trolley juddering and rattling away as if it was having a seizure. The idiot was grinning like this was the most fun he’d had in ages.

Maybe Hardie was right? Maybe making Rennie SIO was asking for—

‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but OK. On the strict condition that he goes nowhere near the media and you supervise him the whole time. And I mean the whole time.’

Rennie arrived with his wobbly trolley. He pointed at the contents and waggled his eyebrows.

‘Do we have a deal?’

Oh God... He was going to regret this, wasn’t he?

‘Fine. If that’s what it takes.’ Logan pointed at Rennie, mouthing the words in silence: ‘You owe me!’ Then back to the phone. ‘Got to go. Good luck with the press conference.’

‘We’ll need it.’ And Hardie was gone.

Logan put his phone away.

Rennie frowned. ‘Owe you for what?’

‘You’re now officially SIO on Laura Chalmers’ suicide.’

His eyes bugged and a wonky grin lopsided itself across his face. ‘Woohoo!’ He even did a little dance between the puddles, finishing with a half-arsed pirouette. Pointing at his purchases again. ‘And to celebrate: one pack of spicy rotisserie chicken thighs, hot. One four-pack of white rolls. One squeezy bottle of mayonnaise. One bag of mixed salad. Bottle of Coke, bottle of Irn-Bru. Six jammy doughnuts for a pound. Luncheon is served.’

The pool car’s engine pinged and ticked as it cooled, the bonnet dulled by a thin film of drizzle. From here the view was... interesting: looking down, past a couple of fields to the massive concrete lumps of the new bridge over the River Don. The fabled Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route, rising from the earthworks slow and solid. A dark slash across the countryside, trapped beneath the dove-grey blanket of cloud. About forty years after they should have started building the damn thing. Back when the area was awash with oil money. Before the industry tanked.

Ah well, better late than never.

Rennie passed in front of the car again, pacing round it in the rain. Idiot.

The windows were getting foggy, so Logan wound his one down, letting in the distant roar of construction equipment and passing traffic.

Rennie did another lap. ‘No, I’m not kidding, they made me SIO!’ A pause, then his voice went all deadpan. ‘Oh: ha, ha, ha. No, it doesn’t stand for “Seriously Idiotic Onanist”. Thank you, Sarah Millican.’

Logan poked away at his phone again:

SEND.

‘Senior Investigating Officer, Emma! They made me Senior Investigating Officer on the Laura Chalmers case... Yeah, it is a pretty big deal.’

Ding.

HORRIBLE STEEL:

‘I guess they finally recognised all the great work I’ve been doing... Oh yeah.’

Logan frowned and picked out a reply:

SEND.

‘Who’s your daddy?... Damn right I am.’

No reply from Steel.

Probably sulking. Or sodded off for a vape.

Some things never changed.

‘OK, yeah... Love you, Fluffkins... OK, bye... Bye... Bye, bye.’ Rennie blew a half-dozen kisses, then hung up. Turned to see Logan staring at him. ‘What?’

‘You’ve got a mayonnaise moustache.’ Logan took another bite of chicken-thigh buttie — savoury and salty and spicy and creamy. Talking with his mouth full. ‘And that’s not a euphemism.’

‘Ta.’ Rennie wiped his face with a napkin, scrumpled it up and tossed it over his shoulder into the back of the car. ‘So far we’ve had a suicide, a collapsed coffin, a baying mob of reporters, and I’ve got my first SIO gig.’ He performed a little bum-wriggling dance in the driver’s seat. ‘Best day at work for ages.’

‘When we get back to the Big Top, write up your report on Chalmers’ suicide and submit it to the Procurator Fiscal. Then I want you to go through the boxes in the boot. See if you can find any of DI Bell’s old notebooks in there. Maybe we’ll get lucky for a change?’

Rennie peered across the car at the bag on Logan’s lap. ‘You wanting that bit of skin?’

‘Nope.’

He grabbed the slab of chicken skin and wolfed it down. ‘How come you always call him “DI Bell” now instead of “Ding-Dong”? Always used to call him “Ding-Dong”.’

‘Because you shouldn’t use friendly nicknames for police officers who kill people.’

‘Ah. Point.’

Outside, a crane lowered another chunk of grey onto the massive Lego set crossing the river. A handful of sheep skirted the chunk of flooded grass at the bottom of the field. The sound of chewing and slurping filled the car.

Rennie had another scoof of Coke. ‘Yeah, but maybe he didn’t mean to kill whoever it was we buried? Maybe it was, like, a fight to the death!’

‘Then why use the body to fake your own suicide?’

‘Convenience? Wasn’t like anyone else was using it.’ Another mouthful, bits of salad falling into his lap.

‘And the person who attacked him coincidentally happened to be a good enough match for height and weight that everyone would be fooled?’

‘Another point.’ Rennie polished off his buttie and sooked his fingers clean. Checked his watch. ‘Oops, nearly missed it!’ He clicked on the car radio, stabbing the buttons until ‘NORTHSOUND 1’ appeared on the dial and a horrifically upbeat pop song belted out of the speakers.

Logan turned it down a bit. ‘My money’s still on Fred Marshall.’

Rennie dipped into the doughnut bag. ‘Nah, can’t be. I read his file: Marshall was six-two and built like a whippet. Ding... DI Bell was five-ten tops and built like a grizzly bear. No way you’d get them mixed up. Not even after a fire.’

The song on the radio faded out, replaced by a teuchter accent so thick it had to be fake. ‘Ah, michty me, another Dougie’s Lunchtime Listening Classic there. Gets better every time I hear it! But it’s one o’clock now and we ken fit that means: here’s Claire with the news and weather. Aye, aye, Claire, fit like the day, quine?’

Claire didn’t even try to do the accent. ‘Nae bad, Dougie. Commuter chaos came to Aberdeen this morning when a burst water main flooded the Denburn roundabout...’

Logan frowned. ‘Six foot two?’

‘Well, probably a bit less once you took the top of his head off with a shotgun. But yeah, not the same body type at all.’

‘Good job we didn’t get those warrants then.’

‘...for missing three-year-old Ellie Morton, local businesswoman Jerry Whyte has put up a five thousand pound reward for any information...’

Logan helped himself to a doughnut. ‘Better go through all the missing person reports for the month DI Bell allegedly killed himself.’

‘Assuming it was someone anyone would miss.’

A woman’s voice thumped out of the radio, positive and confident. ‘I’m glad to be in a position to help. And if we all chip in, I’m sure we can make a difference.’

Then Claire was back. ‘And we can go live now to Northeast Divisional Headquarters.’

Rennie licked the granulated sugar from his lips. ‘What if he offed a homeless person? Or a crim?’

‘Thank you all for coming.’ DCI Hardie didn’t sound as if he meant that. ‘I can confirm that the body of a man found in a crashed car yesterday morning was that of Duncan Bell, a former detective inspector with Police Scotland.’

Logan’s doughnut popped with sharp-sweet raspberry jam. ‘Then we’re screwed.’ He caught the drip with a finger. ‘They couldn’t get any viable DNA the first time round, and I doubt we’ll do any better. Bell didn’t set fire to that caravan by accident, he knew it’d cook the remains and cover his tracks.’

‘Mr Bell had been living in Spain under an assumed name, having apparently staged his own suicide two years ago.’

‘Tooth pulp cavity?’

Logan shook his head. ‘Blew them all out with a shotgun, remember?’

‘...currently working with the Spanish authorities to establish his whereabouts during that time.’

‘Maybe someone picked them up?’

‘Maybe.’

‘We are treating Mr Bell’s death as murder and have set up a Major Investigation Team to look into his death.’

‘But knowing our luck?’ Logan washed the last chunk of doughnut down with a mouthful of Irn-Bru. Suppressed a belch. ‘If Bell hadn’t set fire to the caravan you could’ve just dug them out of the walls, but mixed in with all that burnt wreckage?’

‘Anne Darlington, BBC: have you identified the body buried in DI Bell’s grave?’

‘Investigations are ongoing and I would urge anyone with information about Mr Bell’s murder to get in touch.’

Rennie held out the doughnut bag. ‘Better eat another one before I scoff the lot.’

‘No, I’m good thanks.’ Logan wiped his hands together, showering the footwell with sugar. ‘Where’s the MacAuley case file?’

‘Back seat.’

‘You haven’t answered my question, DCI Hardie. Do you know who it is or not?’

Logan turned in his seat and picked up the file. Opened it and skimmed through the contents.

‘As I said, investigations are ongoing. So—’

‘Colin Miller, Aberdeen Examiner. Are you aware that DI Bell had returned to Aberdeenshire on at least three prior occasions?’

He flipped through to the end, then back again. ‘Didn’t she write a book, or something? Thought I remembered a book.’

Hardie cleared his throat. ‘As I say, investigations are ongoing and if you, or anyone else, has any information they should get in touch.’

‘Or you could buy a copy of tomorrow’s Aberdeen Examiner?’

‘Yeah, there was definitely a book: I read it.’ Rennie plucked another doughnut free. ‘Cold Blood and Dark Granite. Subtitled, “A Mother’s hunt for her husband’s killer and her missing child.” Doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue.’

‘I would strongly advise against withholding information from a murder investigation, Mr Miller.’

Rennie bit into his doughnut, getting sugar all down his front. ‘Pretty sure she co-wrote it with a retired P-and-J journalist. There’s talk of a film, but you know what Hollywood’s like.’

‘Tom Neville, Dundee and Perthshire Advertiser: are you threatening the press, DCI Hardie?’

‘I’m asking for its cooperation.’

Logan drummed his fingers against the paperwork. Frowning at it. His fingertips making little greasy circles. ‘Three and a half years ago, someone kills Sally MacAuley’s husband and abducts her three-year-old son. Eighteen months later, DI Bell kills someone and uses the body to fake his own death.’

‘Aye, tell you what: why don’t you and me sit down after this and see if we can’t help each other, but?’

‘Eighteen months.’ Logan stopped drumming. ‘A long time to let something fester... Guilty conscience?’

‘Angela Parks, Scottish Daily Post: there are rumours DI Bell was involved in a so-called “Livestock Mart” where children were bought and sold. Is this—’

‘I’m not here to talk about rumours, Ms Parks.’

Rennie crammed in about half his doughnut in one go. Mumbling through it. ‘You don’t think Bell killed Kenneth MacAuley and abducted the wee boy, do you?’

‘Philip Patterson, Sky News: DS Lorna Chalmers committed suicide last night, is it true she was under investigation for corruption?’

‘No, it’s not. Thank you all for your time. No more questions.’

Logan closed the file. ‘He was definitely running from something.’

12

About three or four miles past Rothienorman, Rennie pulled the car off the back road and onto a potholed strip of tarmac lined by ragged beech hedges and waterlogged fields. He slowed to a crawl, slaloming between the craters. Sheep watched them from the high ground, wool faded to ash-grey by the rain.

The windscreen wipers squealed. Thumped. Squealed. Thumped.

They took a right, through a farmyard with warning notices about livestock and gates and unsolicited callers and bewaring of the dogs. Past agricultural equipment and barns and outbuildings and a ramshackle farmhouse, then out the other side — onto a rough track with a solid Mohican of grass down the middle.

Another right, past a couple of cottages lurking in a block of trees, and up the hill. Fields full of reeds and docken.

A gorse bush scraped and screamed along the car’s bodywork.

More trees. A tumble-down bothy with half its roof missing. Someone was standing in front of it, chopping logs. He stopped, axe over his shoulder, watching them pass.

Logan gave him a smile and a wave. Got nothing back.

Rennie sniffed. ‘God, welcome to Banjo Country.’

Past a stack of big round bales, rotting and slumped in the rain.

‘All together now: “Squeal piggy!” Diga-ding ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding...’

More trees. Getting thicker. Crowding the road.

They kept on going, right to the end of the track. A sagging gate blocked the way, wrapped in chicken wire and peppered with signs: ‘BEWARE OF THE DOG!’, ‘PLEASE SHUT THE GATE!’, ‘NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH AREA’ and ‘SKEMMELSBRAE CROFT’.

A new-ish house sat about a hundred yards further on, just visible through the trees and tussocked grass. Two storeys high, pale pink harling darkened by moisture. Lurking in the woods. The only thing missing was a roof made of gingerbread and a small child cooking in the oven.

Rennie nodded towards it. ‘You want to get the gate?’

‘I’d love to, but...’ Logan sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘Inspector, remember?’

‘Gah...’ Rennie climbed out into the rain. Hurried over and fiddled with the gate. Then hurried back to the car again. ‘It’s padlocked. But there’s a car in the drive and a light’s on.’

Great.

Logan grimaced at the downpour, tucked the case file under his fleece, pulled on his hat and high-viz jacket, then joined Rennie in the cold and damp. Branches loomed overhead, dark and oppressive. But at least they kept some of the rain off.

Rennie clambered over the gate and froze, arms out, shoulders hunched. ‘Arrgh... Right in a puddle.’

Idiot.

Logan climbed over, making sure not to step in the dirty brown lake spreading on either side of the track’s central ridge. He picked his way along the middle bit, past more trees, around a corner, and there was the house.

A big four-by-four sat outside it, along with a filthy blue-and-white horsebox. The light above the door glowed a septic yellow.

Not exactly welcoming.

They were about twenty foot from the house when barking exploded into the damp air.

Rennie froze, staring. ‘Dear God, that’s a massive dog.’

It looked more like a bear than a dog. About the same size as a bear too, covered in thick black hair. Saggy eyes and jowls. Teeth the size of traffic cones. Well, maybe not traffic cones, but big enough. Thankfully it was shut into a kennel / run thing at the side of the house.

Beardog launched itself at the bars of its cage and they shook with a boom and a rattle.

Rennie gave a small tittering laugh. ‘Nice doggy. Don’t eat the lovely policemen...’ He scrambled up the steps and sheltered beneath the small porch, casting worried glances at the massive scary animal as it fell silent.

Logan joined him. Rang the doorbell.

Rennie flinched as the barking started up again. ‘What if she’s not in?’

‘Then we got wet for nothing. You should’ve phoned ahead.’

His bottom lip popped out. ‘But you keep telling me off for doing that! They always find a way to sneak off, you said. You can’t trust them, you said.’

‘Yes, but I was talking about police officers, you total—’

A woman’s silhouette appeared on the other side of the glass-panelled door, growing clearer the closer she came. Tall, with dark eyes and full lips, long brown hair falling over her shoulders. A hint of crow’s-feet and what probably weren’t laughter lines. A soft blue sweater and faded jeans. She didn’t open the door. ‘Who is...’ Her eyes widened as she looked Logan up and down. ‘Oh God. It’s... I didn’t...?’

‘Mrs MacAuley? Can we come in and have a word, please? It’s about your son and husband.’

She unlocked the door and threw it open. Stood there blinking at them. Voice half panicked, half hopeful. ‘Have you found him? Have you found Aiden?’

‘I’m sorry, no.’

Mrs MacAuley buried her head in her hands and cried.

Mrs MacAuley sat at the long wooden table, digging the nails of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘I didn’t... It’s just when I saw you there in your uniform, I thought...’ A small laugh rattled free, cold and bitter. ‘But then I always do.’

The huge farmhouse kitchen was a deep red colour, a bit too womb-like to be cosy. Lots of wooden cabinets. A big AGA-style range cooker gurgling and thrumming away to itself. The kettle rattling to a boil as Rennie busied himself making three mugs of tea.

Logan pulled out a chair and sat across from Mrs MacAuley. ‘You have a lovely home.’

Rennie pointed with a teabag. ‘Shame about the shed, though.’

She frowned. ‘Shed?’

A pair of patio doors led out from the kitchen into a big garden, bordered by a six-foot-high hedge, surrounded by woods.

‘All burnt down.’

He was right. It must’ve been a fairly substantial one too, at least six-by-eight, but all that was left of it were a few burnt stubs where the walls used to be. Glistening and dark in the rain.

‘Ah. No. That was years ago. Kids. I think.’ She looked away. ‘I keep meaning to get rid of it, but Ken built it and Aiden painted every single bit he could reach, even when we asked him not to.

‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to upset—’

‘Anyway,’ Logan sat forward, ‘we’d like to ask some questions about the investigation, if you’re OK with that?’

She nodded.

‘Good. Well, when—’

‘Aiden had been a pain in the backside all morning, shouting and squealing and running about the house.’ She picked at her palm again, digging at it with her fingernails. ‘I was trying to do the ironing. He wasn’t looking where he was going and he... he battered right into the ironing board. The whole thing went crashing down.’ Voice getting more and more brittle. ‘And I screamed at him. I...’

Rennie threw Logan a pained look as she wiped away a tear.

‘I called him a “horrible little monster”; told him he was stupid and careless.’ She looked up. Pleading. ‘He could’ve killed himself! The iron was red hot, what if it’d landed on his head? Or scarred him for life?’ She lowered her eyes, nails gouging away at her palm. ‘So Ken took him off to the shops. And I never saw Aiden again. I never saw either of them ever again.’

Logan put his hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘The last thing I said to my son was “You’re a stupid, careless, horrible little boy.”’

‘You weren’t to know.’

Deep breath. ‘It’s only fifteen minutes through the woods — there’s a track takes you right into Rothienorman. They went out for milk and flour and eggs and they never came back.’

In the silence that followed, Rennie placed the mugs on the table.

Mrs MacAuley covered her face. Her whole body wracked by each juddering sob. ‘They... they were going... to make pancakes... to cheer... to cheer me up... My husband... died... and my... my little boy vanished... because... because of bloody pancakes!’

Rennie was outside on the patio, wandering across the paving slabs, phone clamped to his ear. ‘Yeah... Yeah... No. Don’t think so anyway.’

Logan stepped through the open patio doors, closing them behind him. ‘We better give her a bit of space.’ Up above, the clouds were nearly skimming the treetops. Rain drumming against Logan’s peaked cap. He set off down the path towards the bottom of the garden. ‘Come on.’

‘Yeah... Will do... OK. Thanks.’ Rennie hung up and hurried after him. ‘Creepy Sheila says that’s our exhumed remains all installed at the mortuary. Kickoff’s at three.’

They passed the burned-out shed. Ivy crawled around the base. A drooping fern curling its way through the charcoaled wood in one corner.

Rennie scampered past, looking back towards the house. ‘Nice place, isn’t it? Very big and fancy. Be great to bring a kid up here. Donna would love it. All this space...’

A couple more sheds lurked in different corners of the garden, the undergrowth pressing in on all sides, windows greyed with dust and spiders’ webs. One was almost completely consumed by a rampant thicket of ivy and brambles. The other shed’s door barely clung on to its hinges, exposing the rusting hulk of a ride-on mower inside.

Nature was reclaiming most of the garden, all except the washing line and a child’s play area: climbing frame, slide, and a pristine swingset. Slowly being battered into submission by the rain.

The path led to a gap in the hedge, then off away into the woods. Dark and cold and deep. A thick canopy of pine blocked out most of the rain. The drops hissed and clicked above them, joining the chorus of crunching twigs and rustling needles beneath their feet as they followed the path downhill.

Rennie stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘I mean, did you see how big that back garden was? Ours is about the size of a facecloth.’

They passed the remains of what was probably a croft, now little more than tumbled-down ruins. Ominous bones in the gloom.

‘And think of the games you could play in here! Charging about with a wooden sword.’ He slashed the air with an imaginary one. ‘Being dinosaurs.’

A clump of broom had invaded the path, crowding in from both sides so only a narrow gap remained. Logan pushed through it.

The pine gave way to beech — leaves drooping like scraps of skin waiting to drop — opening out into a clearing with a burn running through the middle of it. Someone had thrown together a makeshift bridge over the water with planks and chunks of stone. The sort of thing a child would build.

On the other side, a fusty grey teddy bear was cable-tied to a tree, along with some faded artificial flowers.

Rennie wandered out into the rain. ‘Ooh... It’s like something off Winnie-the-Pooh, isn’t it?’ He grabbed a twig. ‘Wanna play Poohsticks?’

Logan reached into his jacket and pulled out the case file, sheltering beneath a huge beech tree. He checked the crime-scene photographs, then pointed at the far side of the bridge. ‘That’s where they found Kenneth MacAuley.’

MacAuley lay on his side, one hand dangling in the burn, head reduced to red and purple mush. Logan held the picture out to Rennie.

‘Urgh... That’s horrible.’ Backing away. Face curdled with disgust.

‘Thought you’d read the case file? I told you to read the case file!’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t ogle the crime-scene photos, did I? I’m not a sickie weirdo.’ A shudder. ‘Urgh...’

‘Imagine you’re the killer: why are you here?’

‘To bump off Kenneth MacAuley.’

Logan leaned back against the tree. ‘Then why abduct Aiden?’

‘Ah, OK. So either that was a bonus, or maybe that’s why I’m here? It’s an abduction gone wrong.’

‘Then why the overkill? First blow to the head probably did the job, but you keep on going till there’s nothing left above his neck but mince. Why?’ Logan held up the photograph, moving it around until it overlaid the real scene. Kenneth MacAuley sprawled out with his hand in the water. ‘What does that get you? Why do you do that?’

‘Because I’m a freak?’

‘Or maybe you know him and you can’t stand him looking at you with those accusing dead eyes...’ Logan lowered the photo and stared off into the woods. ‘And what do you do with the wee boy afterwards?’

Rennie dropped his stick in the water and watched it float away.

Mrs MacAuley stood at the living room window, looking out at the dreich view. Shoulders slumped.

A pair of big leather sofas faced each other across a large wooden coffee table covered in dog-eared — and possibly dog-chewed — copies of Horse and Hound. An old upright piano in the corner, almost buried under framed photos of Sally, Kenneth, and Aiden MacAuley. More on the walls. A shrine to the missing and the dead.

It was difficult to tell which Mrs MacAuley was. Probably more than a little bit of both.

Logan shifted on his sofa, the leather creaking beneath him.

Rennie sat on the other one, notepad out, pen poised.

Mrs MacAuley wrapped her arms around herself, kept her face to the window. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit...’ She huffed out a breath. ‘I’ve spent the last three and a half years trying to get my son back. And before you say anything: no, he’s not dead. I know he’s alive. I know it.’

‘DI Bell was the Senior Investigating Officer.’

She flinched at his name.

Strange.

Logan tried again. ‘Mrs MacAuley?’

‘He was... I saw it on the news.’

‘His colleagues say he was obsessed with Aiden’s disappearance. With finding your husband’s killer.’

Her chin went up. Back straight. ‘I call the station every Monday. They tell me the investigation’s still open, that you’re still trying to find my little boy. But nothing ever happens. Nothing.’

‘Did DI Bell come to see you before he... didn’t commit suicide?’

‘When my father died, I sold his house. That’s where I got the reward money from. Fifty thousand pounds after I’d paid off all his debts.’ She made a strangled hissing noise. Then, ‘Oh, there’s plenty of people who want to get their hands on it. Liars and frauds pretending they know things. And then there’s the press.’ She pronounced that last word as if it was drenched in sick. ‘Every time a child went missing, they’d be up here with their cameras and their microphones and their stupid insensitive questions. “How does it feel to lose a child, Mrs MacAuley?” “What would you like to say to the missing five-year-old’s parents, Mrs MacAuley?” Till I started setting Tristan on them.’ A smile — short and cruel. ‘One of the benefits of having a very large dog. They stopped coming after that.’

‘We’re just trying to figure out what happened to DI Bell.’

She turned, face dark and creased. ‘WHEN YOU SHOULD BE TRYING TO FIND MY SON!’

Outside, the dogbear started barking again.

Mrs MacAuley bared her teeth. ‘Instead I had to hire private detectives. So when the timewasters and the greedy come after the reward at least I know someone’s investigating it.’

‘Now,’ Logan held up a hand, ‘I’m sure the inquiry team is—’

‘Is anyone even working on the case any more?’

Good question.

‘I’ll look into that, I promise.’

She stared at him in silence for a bit, the colour in her cheeks faded to its usual grey, then she nodded. ‘Duncan turned up on my doorstep at two o’clock one morning. He’d been drinking. He stood there in my kitchen crying and apologising, because he couldn’t catch the piece of shit who killed Kenneth and took my boy.’

Now that was interesting.

Logan sat forward. ‘You called him “Duncan”?’

She waved a hand — dismissive. Turned her back on them.

‘Mrs MacAuley, were you and DI Bell...?’

‘Duncan was... complicated. He was the only one of you who cared. And I don’t mean pretend “I’m sorry for your loss” cared, I mean really cared. And now he’s dead.’ She rested her forehead against the glass. Sighed. Her shoulders slumped even further. ‘I think I’d like you to leave now.’

The pool car lurched and rumbled down the track, the dark woods swallowing Skemmelsbrae Croft in the rear-view mirror. No wonder Mrs MacAuley was a bit... Well, living there, given what had happened by that little shonky bridge, surrounded by those looming twisted trees.

Rennie clicked the radio on. More pop music. ‘What do you think: were she and Ding-Dong at it?’ A smile. ‘Good for Ding-Dong if they were, she’s milfalicious. I would, wouldn’t you?’

‘Don’t be a sexist arsehole. Her husband’s dead and her son’s missing. Have a bit of respect.’

Pink rushed up Rennie’s cheeks. ‘Sorry, Guv.’

Logan turned the radio off again, pulled out his phone and dialled. ‘Shona? Hi, It’s Logan. Listen I need a favour.’

A disgusted sigh. Then, ‘You always need a favour.’

‘I’m out and about at the moment — see if you can dig up whoever’s SIO on the MacAuley investigation: murder and abduction.’

‘What happened to your plainclothes gruntmonkey?’

‘He’s out and about too.’

‘Pfff...’ The sound of a keyboard receiving two-finger punishment clacked in the background. ‘Right, here we go... Oh.’

‘Shona? I don’t like the sound of that “oh”, Shona.’

‘Senior Investigating Officer is DCI Dean Gordon.’

Wonderful. Just sodding marvellous.

Logan screwed his eyes closed. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’

‘Not my fault.’

‘DCI Dean Gordon. The same DCI Dean Gordon who had a stroke three months ago and is now permanently off on the sick?’

‘And I repeat: not my fault.’

As if Mrs MacAuley didn’t feel let down enough already.

A sigh. ‘Thanks, Shona.’ Logan hung up and slumped in his seat.

Rennie pulled a face. ‘Let me guess: complete and utter, total cocking disaster?’

‘In a top hat.’

13

Logan’s phone dinged at him again.

TS TARA:

Rain battered against the pool car’s roof, bounced off the bonnet, hammered the hatchbacks on either side. The Lidl they’d parked outside squatted in the downpour, a dreary grey bunker of a building with cheery posters in the windows.

Logan thumbed out a reply:

SEND.

Ding.

Now that sounded like an excellent idea.

The driver’s door opened and Rennie thumped in behind the wheel. Sat there grimacing for a moment with his arms raised. Hair plastered flat to his head. Clothes darkened and dripping. ‘Urgh...’ He stuffed a couple of carrier bags into the rear footwell. ‘It’s like swimming out there!’

A wee girl exploded from the Lidl’s doors — couldn’t have been much older than eight — a bottle of brandy clutched in both hands. Running for it.

Two seconds later, a lanky security guard appeared, sprinting after her, mouth moving as if he was shouting something.

Logan turned, watched the pair of them hurdle the low stone wall and race off down the Lang Stracht. ‘I’m troubled, Simon.’

‘Might as well have jumped in the River Don.’ Wiping his face with his hands. ‘Utterly soaked.’

‘The timeline worries me.’ He counted it off on his fingers. ‘Aiden MacAuley is abducted and his dad is killed. DI Bell fancies Fred Marshall for it, but can’t prove anything so Marshall is released without charge. Then Marshall vanishes off the face of the earth and Bell fakes his own death.’

‘You still think Bell killed Marshall?’

‘He killed whoever it was we buried, so why stop there? If you’re planning on disappearing anyway, why not go for a bit of rough justice?’

Rennie wriggled his bum in his seat. ‘I would like to announce that I’m damp right down to my pants here. There’s going to be a whole lotta chafing going on.’

‘What else did you dig up on Fred Marshall?’

‘Forget trench foot, I’m going to get trench—’

‘Rennie: concentrate! Fred Marshall.’

‘OK, OK. Sheesh...’ He pulled out his phone and poked at the screen. ‘Emailed myself the details.’ More poking. ‘Here we go: Frederick Albert Marshall, AKA Freddy Marsh. Two kids, both under five. Different mothers, though. He’s got a brother doing a nine-stretch in HMP Grampian for armed robbery and his sister’s awaiting trial for attempted murder.’

‘Bet family Christmases are fun.’

‘His mum died of an overdose when he was eleven and his dad’s not been arrested for three whole years. Which is something of a record for him. Burglaries, possession with intents, assaults... oh, and dear old dad’s a registered sex offender too.’

The security guard came limping up the road again, one hand clutching his side, face a worrying shade of puce. No sign of the brandy or the little girl.

A bus rumbled by, drenching him with dirty road spray.

Rennie started the engine and cranked up the blowers. ‘If we hurry, we can probably make the PM on Not-DI-Bell’s burnt and stinky remains?’

‘It’ll be all poking about and tissue samples. Won’t get anything useful out of the labs for weeks. If we’re lucky.’

The security guard clambered over the low stone wall and into the car park. Then turned and shook his fist. Bested by an eight-year-old criminal mastermind. And a bus.

Hmmm...

Logan frowned. ‘Has Fred Marshall still got a social worker?’

‘Dunno, but I can find out?’

Laughter rang through the Bon Accord shopping centre — high-pitched and giggly — as Logan climbed the stairs. Then some screaming. Then more giggling.

He stepped onto the landing.

The upper floor was pretty crowded. Families. Feral children. Couples. Slouching teenagers. Young men and women with clipboards and collecting buckets. Lots and lots and lots of shops full of damp people.

Rennie topped the stairs and looked around, then pointed over at the food court. The usual collection of baked tattie / salad / things on a conveyor belt / fried chicken joints were arranged around the outside of the seating area. ‘That’s her there.’

Two women sat at a table over by the baked tattie place: one short, young-ish, with a short-back-and-sides haircut, a leather jacket that had seen better days, a pot of tea, and a raisin whirl; the other a sagging, knackered-looking figure in a burgundy cardigan, hunched over a latte and a sticky bun. Her brown hair had a thick grey line, right down the middle of it, face as pale as rice pudding. Not a make-up kind of person.

The pair of them had bags under their eyes you could fit a week’s shopping in.

Logan walked over. ‘Maureen Tait?’

The one in the scabby leather raised a hand. ‘For my sins.’ She nodded at her becardiganed companion. ‘This is Mrs McCready, she was Fred Marshall’s C-and-F worker when he was a juvenile. What she doesn’t know about him ain’t worth knowing. Isn’t that right, Mags?’

Mrs McCready looked up from her milky coffee and pulled a sour face. ‘Has he decided to grace us with his presence again, then? Freddie?’

Logan patted Rennie on the shoulder. ‘I’ll have a tea, thanks.’ Then pulled out a chair and joined the pair of them as Rennie slumped off, muttering under his breath.

McCready sniffed. ‘Well?’

‘Thanks for agreeing to meet us. Especially as it’s the weekend.’

Tait folded her arms, chin up. ‘So come on then, what’s he done? Where’s he been?’

‘You’ve not seen him for, what, two years?’

She hauled a massive handbag up onto the table and went a-rummaging — producing a large ring binder packed so tight it was on the verge of bursting. It thumped down next to the handbag, setting her crockery rattling. ‘Freddie was... challenging, but he never missed a single appointment.’

McCready nodded. ‘Not since he first came to see me, when he was six.’

‘And then, two years, two months ago: nothing. We went round his flat, but they hadn’t seen him for a week.’

Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘We?’

Tait dumped her handbag on the floor again. ‘Yes “we”. Margaret and me. And I know, technically, that Children-and-Families aren’t supposed to maintain involvement in a service user’s life once they’ve transitioned to supervision by the Criminal Justice team, but Fred Marshall needed... continuity.’ She looked at her colleague. ‘Didn’t he, Mags?’

‘His father beat his mother so badly she ended up in a wheelchair. She’d forgotten to put a bet on for him.’ Mrs McCready tapped the huge file. ‘Not that she was any sort of saint, but when she died it really messed Freddie up.’

‘Must be hard losing your mum to an overdose.’

That got him a pitying look. ‘She was in a wheelchair, Inspector, who do you think bought drugs for her? Can you imagine being eleven years old and feeling responsible for your mum’s death?’ A sigh. ‘You know, I was probably the closest thing he had to a stable family relationship? When he was a teenager he’d go out and shoplift just so they’d catch him and he could see me again. How sad is that?’

Tait nodded. ‘He was a very troubled young man.’

Rennie reappeared, complete with tray: two cups, two wee teapots, some wee tartan packets of something. ‘I got us some shortbread. You’re welcome.’

McCready picked at her sticky bun. ‘And, of course, I told him he didn’t have to get arrested, I’d be happy to see him anyway. As long as it was always somewhere public. Course he wanted to come stay with me — thought it would be the best thing in the whole world if I adopted him so we could see each other all the time. But...’ The hole she’d worried in her bun got bigger. ‘Freddie always had that sharp little core of violence in him, you could see it even when he was a wee boy. No way I was exposing my kids to that.’ McCready frowned and ripped the chunk right off. Dunked it in her latte.

Tait tucked into her raisin whirl, flecks of pastry falling from her mouth as she spoke. ‘Tell them about Jeffery Watkins. Go on, tell them.’

‘Watkins was a wife-beating armed robber with a drink problem. His daughter, Nadia, was a client of mine. He didn’t like that I recommended she be taken into care, so he broke my nose and my wrist. Freddie tracked him down and battered the living hell out of him. Freddie was thirteen, Watkins was twenty-six.’

Sounded lovely.

Logan poured himself some tea. ‘Did Fred Marshall ever mention Aiden or Kenneth MacAuley?’

Rennie whipped out his notebook and pen. Poised and expectant.

Tait stared at him, face pinched, voice guarded. ‘Was he capable of it? Possibly. Did he do it?’ A shrug.

‘What about DI Duncan Bell?’

‘Oh, he was called all the names under the sun. Questioned Freddie at least five times about the killing and the abduction, even though there was absolutely no evidence. But you know what some police officers are like, they won’t...’ Tait stared at them. ‘Wait, DI Bell? He’s the one who faked his own death, isn’t he? It was on the news. You exhumed...’ She reached out and took her colleague’s hand.

Mrs McCready shrank away from the table, eyes and mouth open wide. ‘Oh God... It’s him, isn’t it? It’s Freddie in that grave! That bastard, Bell, killed him!’

Logan held up his hands. ‘We’re running tests now, but we don’t think it’s Fred Marshall.’

She scraped her chair back and stood. ‘THEN WHERE IS HE?’

People at the surrounding tables fell quiet. Everyone looking at them.

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ Voice soft and patient. ‘We want to make sure he’s safe, OK?’

Tait got to her feet and wrapped an arm around her colleague. ‘Shhh... It’s all right, Mags. I’m sure it isn’t Freddie.’

‘I’ve known him since he was a little boy.’ She stayed where she was, trembling, the food-court lights sparkling in her wet eyes. ‘I sang at his wedding...’

‘Look, Mrs McCready, Mrs Tait, Fred had a reputation as a thug for hire.’ Another placating gesture. ‘I’m not saying he was one, I’m saying that was his reputation. Do you know who he worked for?’

Tait glanced at Rennie and his notebook again. ‘Are you honestly expecting us to inform on a service user?’

‘He’s been missing for two and a bit years. You and I both know there’s only three possibilities: he’s gone straight, he did something so bad he had to do a runner—’

‘Or he’s dead.’ Mrs McCready lowered herself back into her seat and sagged a bit further.

Tait put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Freddie isn’t a bad person, Inspector, he simply... Look: the last meeting we had he turned up with this lovely lady’s watch for Mags. He’d won some cash on the horses and wanted to treat her. Had the receipt and everything. He was so proud of himself.’

Logan nodded. ‘I still need to know who he was working for.’

‘Freddie didn’t have the opportunities you and I had. Yes, he could be difficult, but he was turning his life around. Getting married to Irene was the best thing he ever did.’

No point pushing it. Instead, Logan let the silence stretch. Sitting there, watching the pair of them.

A couple of wee kids thundered past: the girl in a dinosaur onesie with fairy wings and a tiara, chasing a boy dressed up like a Disney princess complete with wand.

Over in the distance someone dropped a cup or a plate and got a round of applause in reward.

Mrs McCready wiped at her eyes.

Maureen Tait fidgeted.

Logan just watched.

A ragged chorus of ‘The Northern Lights Of Old Aberdeen’ broke out in Yo! Sushi.

Tait groaned. ‘All right, all right.’ Then jabbed a finger at Rennie. ‘But this is strictly off the record and if it comes up in court we’ll deny the whole thing. Are we clear?’

Logan nodded. ‘Agreed.’

‘Aw...’ But Rennie put his pen down anyway.

‘All right.’ She cleared her throat. ‘He might have mentioned something about a broker who put work his way from time to time.’

‘A broker?’

‘Someone called “Jerry the Mole”. And no, I don’t know any more than that.’ Tait picked up the big ring binder and jammed it into her massive handbag. ‘Now if you’ll excuse us, our co-worker’s getting married next weekend, and we’ve a hen party to buy inflatable willies for.’ She snapped out a hand and grabbed Logan and Rennie’s packets of shortbread, stuffing them into her pocket as she flounced off. ‘Come on, Mags.’

Mrs McCready nodded, then hauled herself to her feet and slouched off after her colleague.

Rennie watched them go, then reached across the table and helped himself to the half-eaten sticky bun and raisin whirl. ‘Well: waste not, want not.’

The sounds of Divisional Headquarters thrummed along the corridor: voices, phones, laughter, the elliptical dubstep whump-whump-whump of a floor polisher.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Logan let go and the door to his temporary office bounced off one of the desks crammed inside. Empty. Not a single minion to be seen. Nothing but furniture and carpet stains. So much for DCI Hardie and his we-need-to-coordinate-our-investigations speech.

Logan propelled Rennie inside with a little shove, pointing at one of the ancient computers. ‘You, Gruntmonkey: go find Jerry the Mole.’

‘Gah...’ The boy idiot slouched over to the computer, popping on an Igor-from-Frankenstein voice. ‘Yeth mathhhhhter.’

‘And when you’ve done that: make sure you do your report for the PF. And if anyone asks, I’m off to kick DS Robertson’s backside till I get my promised minions.’

He turned and marched down the corridor, up the stairs, and onto the MIT floor. Past posters and notices. Past a handful of plainclothes officers who scattered away from him like sparrows before a cat. And through into the MIT incident room.

Unlike his office, this one was full of minions. Officers on the phone, officers writing things up on the whiteboards, officers hammering away at their keyboards. Officers doing things.

Detective Sergeant Robertson sat on the edge of someone’s desk, making notes on her clipboard as a Spacehopper-round PC with a Donald Trump tan talked to someone else on the phone. The reconstruction of DI Bell’s face sat in the middle of his monitor.

PC Spacehopper nodded. ‘Uh-huh... Uh-huh... OK... OK, yeah. Hold on...’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Robertson. ‘It’s a match. Definite. Manager says he checked in last Monday.’

She punched the air. ‘Yes! Tell them we’ll be right over.’

‘Hello? Mr Murdoch? Don’t touch anything, we’re on our way.’

Robertson hopped down from the desk and took out her mobile phone. Froze as she saw Logan standing right there in front of her. Then pulled on an uncomfortable-looking smile. ‘Inspector McRae.’

‘George. You promised me some staff to chase stuff up. Where are they?’

‘Ah. Yes.’ Getting quicker with every word. ‘Well, we thought... that is, DCI Hardie thought, that as yours is a historical cold case investigation and we’re hunting an active murderer, we would maybe release someone when there was more time?’ Another go with the smile. ‘Sir.’

Rotten bunch of...

Logan stared at her.

A shrug. ‘Sorry?’

He turned and marched away.

Water gurgled in the downpipes around the back of Divisional Headquarters. Presumably run-off from the mortuary roof, because it had actually stopped raining for once.

A chunk of sunlight snuck through a gap in the clouds to turn this bit of tarmac and granite into a tiny grey suntrap. And, as was traditional in Aberdeen, someone was out enjoying it before it disappeared.

Sheila Dalrymple leaned against the mortuary wall, one long thin leg bent at the knee — its white welly resting against the blockwork, the other smeared with something dark-red-and-brown. She was dressed in her full Anatomical Pathology Technician get-up: blue scrubs, green plastic apron, and fetching grey hairnet. A steaming mug of something in one long-fingered hand, at the end of her long pale arm. Wide flat face turned to the sun.

Logan wandered over. ‘Sheila.’

She didn’t move, just stood there with her eyes closed. Sunning herself. ‘If it’s about that sponsorship money, I’m skint.’

‘DI Bell’s remains.’

A tiny snort. The words hard and bitter: ‘Ah, the duplicitous Detective Inspector Bell. And are we here about the body you exhumed from his grave, or the one you pulled from his crashed car?’

‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘Because if you’re here about that rotting pile of meat and bones, you’re crap out of luck.’

‘You don’t sound all right.’

She cradled the mug against her chest. ‘There are two hundred and six bones in an adult human body, not counting the thirty-two teeth. You know what we got out of that grave? One hundred and fifty-two. As the great man said: “The shotgun is an unforgiving mistress when it practises its art upon the human cranium.”’

Sod.

Logan leaned against the wall next to her. ‘Any luck with DNA?’

‘You’re kidding, right? When you take a body, blow its head off, burn everything, post-mortem what’s left, then bury it in an eco-friendly grave for two years, what you end up with isn’t exactly DNA viable. The smell, on the other hand...’

‘Wonderful.’

She toasted him with her mug. ‘Welcome to my world. If we had the teeth, then maybe we could have drilled something out of the tooth pulp cavity, assuming they weren’t cooked too much. But guess what?’

‘No teeth.’

‘Once again, “the shotgun makes its mischief felt”.’ She pushed off the wall and squinted at him. ‘And for future reference, see next year? When someone asks what to get me for my birthday? Assuming anyone sodding remembers. Tell them gudding about in rotting corpse bits isn’t as much fun as they think!’

‘Oh...’ He pulled on a smile. ‘Happy birthday.’

‘Yeah, now you remember.’ She stalked off, shaking her head. ‘They’re all the bloody same...’

14

Somewhere, off in the gloom, a radio belted out a cheery ‘modern’ song. Which, let’s be honest, was a euphemism for ‘crap’.

‘Pfff...’ He scuffed a foot along the concrete floor. ‘Getting old, Logan.’

Yeah, but it was crap.

A large sign sat on the metal grille that separated the small reception area from the expanse of shelving, boxes, and crates: ‘OFF-SITE EVIDENCE STORAGE FACILITY’. It lurked above a small whiteboard with ‘THIS FACILITY HAS WORKED FOR 3 DAYS WITHOUT A LOST TIME ACCIDENT’ on it.

They’d probably do better on that front if they fixed the lighting: no windows in here, so there was nothing but the striplights overhead and about a third of those were dead. Half of those still alive buzzed, blinked, and flickered into darkness — only to judder on again ten or fifteen seconds later. As if someone had tried setting up a Santa’s grotto in hell.

Logan took a deep breath and made a loudhailer from his hands. ‘COME ON, ELLEN, SOME OF US STILL HAVE CAREERS TO GET ON WITH!’

‘Cheeky sod.’ She came limping out from the depths of the storeroom. Small, but solid. The kind of person whose pint you really wouldn’t want to spill. Dust greyed the front and arms of her Police Scotland T-shirt. Probably from the large cardboard box she was carrying. ‘You’re in luck.’ Ellen shouldered open the gate and kicked it closed behind her. ‘Normally suicide stuff gets cleared out after a couple of years.’

She thumped the box onto the productions desk and raised her eyebrows. ‘Teeth?’

‘Teeth.’

Ellen went digging in the box, laying evidence bags out in front of him. ‘Teeth, teeth, teeth, teeth...’ More bags. Then a couple of small cardboard boxes. Then some big bags. ‘Let’s see: we’ve got burned clothes, burned shoes, a burned shotgun, and a petrol container. Also burned. No teeth.’

‘Please tell me they didn’t leave them at the scene.’

‘OK: “they didn’t leave them at the scene”.’

‘Oh for God’s sake...’ He paced away to the other side of the reception area and back again. ‘I’ve got a body lying in the mortuary and no idea who it belongs to. How am I supposed to find out, if there’s no bloody evidence?’

She held up a finger. ‘There’s evidence, there’s just no teeth.’

‘Urgh...’ Logan slumped forward, thunking his forehead gently against the grille.

The rustling of paperwork sounded behind him, then: ‘That’s odd. Looks like they did find some teeth, but they’re not in the box. Did you try the mortuary? Might have sent them over there for analysis.’

‘They swear blind they’ve never seen them.’

More rustling. ‘According to this, the IB recovered Ding-Dong’s prints off the shotgun and the shells inside it. His prints were on the caravan table’s metal frame and the petrol containers and the caravan door handle too. No one else’s prints were found.’

‘That’s sod-all use to me. I know DI Bell was there — he had to be, he set all this up. What I need to know is whose head he blew off!’ The grille rattled as Logan boinged his head against it again. ‘How could we bury the wrong bloody person?’

‘To be fair, Ding-Dong left two suicide notes. The body was wearing his watch, wedding ring, signet ring, and a stainless-steel bracelet with his initials on it. It was all returned to his widow, by the way, in case you think we’ve lost them too. She also ID’d what was left of his clothes, his shoes, and the wallet they found on the passenger seat of his car. I mean, look at it.’

Logan turned.

Ellen held up a photograph. The skeletal remains of a caravan sagged over the blackened carcass of its contents — everything burned to small unrecognisable lumps. Everything except for the torso-sized chunk of charcoal caught on the metalwork that used to support the floor and the twisted chunks of arms and legs scorched all the way down to the bone in places. A Volkswagen Passat sat in the background, the paintwork on its bonnet blistered from the heat, front-left tyre flattened.

She shook her head. ‘Not surprising they believed it was him, is it? I mean, no way you’re getting DNA out of something burned that badly, right? And with all the documentation...’

Why did everything have to turn into a disaster?

Logan sighed and held out his hand. ‘Let’s see the wallet.’

She scribbled something onto a clipboard, spun it around on the desk so it was the right way up for him. ‘Sign there. You need gloves?’

He scribbled his signature on the line and nodded. Snapped on the proffered gloves and opened the evidence bag: one black leather wallet, with pictures of Bell’s children proudly displayed in two matching photo insets.

Logan laid the contents out in a line. Two credit cards and one debit. A bunch of slips of paper that had filled one segment of the wallet — receipts probably, their thermal ink all faded away by the heat. A condom lurked in its wrapper at the back of the wallet. And last but not least: three filthy five-pound notes. He added them to the line.

Ellen whistled. ‘Fifteen quid and a condom? Naughty old Ding-Dong.’

‘Better give me the suicide notes too.’

The off-site storage facility loomed over the pool car in all its miserable glory. A bland industrial building in a bland industrial business park, sealed behind bland industrial chain-link fencing. Topped with exciting razor wire. Or at least, anyone trying to clamber over it would find it exciting — a DIY vasectomy courtesy of Police Scotland.

Above, the sky had taken on a disturbing burnt-toast look, spattering down fistfuls of rain that clattered against the car roof, fighting with the roar of the blowers.

Logan opened the big brown envelope and pulled out two A4 sheets in individual plastic wallets. Rested them against the pool car’s steering wheel.

DI Bell’s suicide notes. One to his children, one to his wife. Both handwritten in red biro on what was probably photocopier paper.

‘If I Only Had a Brain’ warbled up from Logan’s mobile phone and he answered it, not even needing to check the caller ID. ‘Simon?’

Rennie’s voice bounded out like a Labrador. ‘I have news, my liege!’

‘Did you know it was Sheila Dalrymple’s birthday today?’

‘Creepy Sheila? We should all chip in and get her a broomstick.’ A pause. ‘I know, I know. We’re not allowed to say things like that in Professional Standards.’

‘No we’re not.’

‘Not even a little bit?’

‘No.’ Logan skimmed the letter to DI Bell’s kids. ‘Got my hands on Bell’s suicide notes. He wants his children to know how proud he is of everything they’ve achieved and everything they’re going to achieve. No mention of why he’s allegedly topping himself.’ Suicide note number two: ‘“My dearest Barbara, I’m sorry, but I’m so tired. I can’t do this any more. I know I’ve not been the best husband for the last few months and I’m truly, truly sorry for that. You were always my soulmate and I want you to be happy, but all I do is make you miserable.”’

‘That’s cheery. You want my exciting news?’

‘“I really do love you, Barbara, I always have. Please don’t hate me for doing this. Give my guitar to Bob and my AFC collection to Gavin. I love you.” Signed, “Duncan”. Again, no reason why.’

‘Jerry the Mole, AKA: Jerry Whyte with a “Y”. She’s real and I’ve got an address.’

Logan slipped note number two back into the envelope. ‘Criminal record?’

‘Not even in the system: clean as a pornstar’s bumhole. Found her through a friend of a friend of a backdoor burglary specialist. And no, that’s not a euphemism.’

‘Address?’

‘Ooh, do I get to come too?’

The wee sod was probably just trying to get out of doing some actual work for a change.

‘Have you done your report for the Procurator Fiscal?’

‘Done, spell-checked, and submitted. For I am the very model of a modern major SIO.’ His voice took on a saccharine child-asking-for-a-toy-and-or-sweetie tone. ‘So can I? Please? I promise I’ll be ever so good!’

Logan glanced at the suicide note to Bell’s kids again. Then shrugged. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

The man behind the reception desk gave them the benefit of a perfect white smile. ‘Give me a second and I’ll see if Jerry’s free.’ He stood. Had to be at least six two, maybe even six four. Mid-fifties in a Breton top, jeans, designer stubble, and glasses, with a grey shark-fin haircut perched on the top.

It was a fairly plush reception room, with leather couches and prints by local artists on the walls. A fancy coffee machine and a water dispenser.

Mr Sharksfin opened the door behind his desk and poked his head through.

A woman’s voice boomed out from the room. ‘That sounds great, Lee. I think all we need to do now is...’ Then fell silent as Mr Sharksfin waved at her.

‘Sorry to bother you, Jerry, but the police would like a word.’

‘Have to call you later, Lee. Some people here I need to speak to. OK. Yeah... Bye.’

Mr Sharksfin turned and beckoned to Logan and Rennie. ‘She’ll see you now.’

Logan stepped into a large office, overlooking the car park with its cordon of yet more chain link and the dreich day beyond. For some reason they’d clad the room in pine, like a sauna, then added huge rubber plants, a display cabinet full of awards and booze, rap-star furniture and a row of fancy wooden filing cabinets.

The company logo filled one entire wall — a cheery Westie in a red collar and the words ‘WHYTEDUG FACILITATION SERVICES LTD. ~ YOU NAME IT, WE CAN HELP.’

That booming voice again: ‘Gentlemen.’ It belonged to the woman lounging on one of the matching white sofas that dominated the middle of the room, her bare feet on the coffee table. A crisp dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, a bold red tie, and grey suit trousers. Stylish pixie cut, bleached the colour of bone. As if she was trying out for a Eurythmics tribute band. Moles peppered her face and arms — dozens and dozens of them. She placed a mobile phone facedown on the sofa beside her.

Mr Sharksfin wafted Logan and Rennie towards the other couch. ‘Now, would anyone like a tea or coffee?’

Rennie opened his mouth, but Logan got in first: ‘We’re fine, thank you.’

Jerry Whyte stretched her arms out along the back of her sofa. ‘Harvey: give Stevie Zee a bell, make sure that marquee’s up and ready to go Wednesday for the run-through, yeah? Don’t let him fob you off with “It’ll all be up by Thursday.” Wednesday.’

‘Will do.’ Mr Sharksfin strutted from the room, closing the door behind him.

A smile from the woman opposite. ‘So, what can I do you for?’

That logo wasn’t the only Westie in the room. The other one was a wheezy old thing, fur stained to a smoker’s-yellow, snuffling and grunting its way around the coffee table. It made a beeline for Logan’s trousers and gave them a damn good sniffing.

He reached down to scratch the dog’s head, the fur slightly sticky against his fingertips. ‘What exactly do you do here, Mrs Whyte?’

A smile. ‘It’s Miss. And I help people accomplish things. I facilitate.’ She pointed at the closed door. ‘That marquee’s for the Aberdeen Examiner. They’re doing a world record bid — biggest ever stovies-eating competition — and we’re pulling it all together for them. MC, catering, advertising, social media, the works.’

‘So you’re an event coordinator.’

She shrugged. ‘Events, recruitment, mediation, logistics, PR, project management... You name it, we facilitate it.’

Of course she did.

Logan nudged Rennie with his foot.

And for once, the silly sod did what he’d been told. ‘Did you do any facilitation for Fred Marshall?’

‘Let’s find out, shall we?’ She stood and padded her bare feet over to the filing cabinets. Rummaged through one. ‘Fred Marsh?’

Rennie shook his head. ‘Marshall.’

‘Marshall, Marshall, Marshall... Here we go.’ She pulled out a file and opened it, flicking through the contents. ‘Yup, placed him as a doorman at the Secret Service Gentlemen’s Club for three months. Six-month stint as a security guard at Langstracht Business Park. Some more security work at maybe a dozen concerts? Couple of gigs as a courier during Oil Week.’ She held a sheet of headed notepaper up, reading from it. ‘“Fred Marshall is a conscientious worker who gets on well with his fellow employees and isn’t afraid of hard work. Would hire again.”’

‘I’m confused, ma’am.’ Rennie scooted forward, giving her that idiotic Columbo look of his. ‘You had him working as a security guard?’

The wee dog stopped sniffing Logan’s trousers and lumbered over to Rennie. Squared up to him and barked. Twice. Then let loose a wee wheezy growl.

‘You have to forgive Haggis, he’s a devil when he’s riled.’ Whyte popped the file back in her cabinet. ‘And if you’re asking about Fred Marshall’s criminal record: yes. We were fully aware of it when we placed him, as were all of his employers. Not everyone is prejudiced against people who’ve been through the criminal justice system, Inspector...?’

Chin up. ‘Detective Sergeant Rennie.’

The smile turned more than a little condescending. ‘I believe in rehabilitation, DS Rennie. We’ve got a number of ex-offenders on our books, ex-police-officers too, and serving ones. At W.F.S. we don’t discriminate, we facilitate.’

‘Frank Marshall was a thug for hire and you’re the one who—’

Logan stamped on Rennie’s foot.

‘Ow!’

At that, Haggis stopped growling, turned his bum on Rennie, and scuffed his back feet through the carpet a couple of times. Then waddled over to the other couch and scrambled up onto it.

Rennie stared at Logan. ‘What was that—’

Logan thumped him. ‘When did you last hear from Fred Marshall, Miss Whyte?’

‘Oh.’ She dug her file out again and checked. ‘According to this, he wanted to try a job in catering... two and a bit years ago? We didn’t have anything at the time, but when something came along we tried to get in touch. No answer.’ A shrug. ‘Sorry.’

‘Does anyone else on your books know him?’

‘No idea... But I can ask around, if you like?’ She carried the file over to her desk and wrote something on a Post-it note. Stuck it on her monitor. ‘I know Fred Marshall did some bad stuff in his time, but he was getting his life together. When you find him, tell him he’s always got a place on our books.’

Logan nodded. ‘Thank you. We’ll be in touch.’ He made for the door, but Rennie stayed where he was. Sitting there, head on one side. Logan pointed at him. ‘Heel.’

Rennie didn’t. ‘You were on the radio today, weren’t you, Miss Whyte? You put up a five grand reward for info about Ellie Morton.’

She shook her head. ‘How could anyone do that to a wee girl? I’ve got a niece that age; see if anyone laid a finger on her...’ Whyte gave herself a little shake. ‘Anyway, we’ve got to pull together as a community, don’t we?’ She patted him on the shoulder. ‘And you tell your mates at the station: bring Ellie home safe and there’s a case of Glenlivet waiting for you.’

Rennie bustled over to the pool car, unlocking it and scrambling in out of the rain.

Logan paused, one hand on the door handle, looking up towards the building.

Jerry Whyte’s office was on the first floor, and there she was: standing at the window, phone to her ear, smiling down at him. She even raised her hand and gave him a little wave.

He didn’t wave back. Opened the door and got in the car.

Rennie reversed out of the space. ‘Like we need bribing with whisky to find Ellie Morton. Not saying it wouldn’t be a nice bonus, though.’

She was still standing there, watching them.

Logan fastened his seatbelt. ‘Notice how everyone says Fred Marshall was a really great guy?’

‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Yeah, you are. You’re thinking it’s time to go visit Fred Marshall’s last known address, shake the family tree and see how many dead bodies fall out.’

‘Why are they all bigging him up? You’ve seen his criminal record, he was a violent thug.’

‘Maybe he had one of those Scrooge-type epiphanies? Three ghosts, “Oh poor Tiny Tim!”, and it’s turkey-and-presents for everyone.’ Rennie drove them out onto the main road and took a right at the roundabout, heading into town again. ‘Or, maybe DI Bell got it wrong and Fred Marshall didn’t have anything to do with Aidan MacAuley’s abduction after all?’

‘Don’t know. It’s all a bit... itchy. Like there’s something we need to scratch till it bleeds.’

‘Don’t be revolting.’

‘We just need to figure out who to scratch first.’

15

People didn’t appreciate places like this enough. Nice places. Family places. Traditional places. OK, so it was a little run-down, but nothing a bit of elbow grease wouldn’t fix. A grid of static caravans followed the contours of the hill, overlooking a lovely sandy beach. There was even a nice mown area at the far end to park your Swift Challenger 460 — power point and water hook-up included — with the other discerning touring-caravan owners. A low building in the middle of the site for showers and a wee shop that did a very nice sandwich and scone. Then out across the emerald grass to the golden dunes and the sapphire sea beyond. Well, the Moray Firth, anyway — the Black Isle clearly visible through the afternoon haze.

Happy families played on the sand with kites and balls and Frisbees and dogs — shrieks of children’s laughter wafting up the hill towards him on a deliciously salty offshore breeze. The sun warm on his face and bare arms.

You wouldn’t think it was October. No July day was ever nicer than this.

Absolutely lovely.

‘Lee?’

Oh, the tyranny of owning a mobile phone.

‘I’m really in the middle of something...’ He shifted on his picnic bench, turning to keep them in sight.

The wee blond boy squealed with delight, face one big grin as he hammered up and down the sand — a kite fluttering at the end of his string. His mum wasn’t doing a great job of keeping up with him, but she was trying. Bless. Couldn’t be easy, especially since she’d clearly not managed to lose all that baby weight yet. Her podgy arms and legs were sunburnt where they protruded from her shorts and ‘I VOTED YES!’ T-shirt.

‘I’ve just had a visit from two police officers.’

Interesting.

‘That’s nice.’

The wee lad wasn’t looking where he was going, lost his footing and went sprawling. Whoomp, right on his tummy. Little bare feet kicking at the air as if they hadn’t realised he’d stopped running yet.

‘At Whytedug Facilitation Services we’re always happy to help the local authorities.’

‘And did the nice officers want anything in particular?’

‘Information on a young man I used to get work for.’

Mummy reached the wee lad and helped him up. Ruffled his hair. Laughed. Now that was good parenting. None of this, aw did poor liddle diddum hurt himsewf, nonsense.

‘And this concerns me, because?’

‘I think it’s wise if we concentrate on our core projects at the moment. Best not take on anything else right now.’

The wee boy ran and squealed on the end of his kite’s string again. Not a care in the world...

‘Did you hear me? No more extra projects.’

‘That’ll leave us short stocked.’

‘Nothing wrong with a bit of enforced scarcity. No one wants to go home empty-handed — it’ll incentivise them to dig deep and bid high. And, more importantly, it reduces opportunities for... unfortunate occurrences. Do you understand?’

Ah well.

Lee stood, gathered up his sandwich wrapper and the paper plate that came with his scone and popped them in the bin. Nothing worse than people who littered: it was everyone’s countryside. ‘Fine.’

He screwed the top on his thermos of tea, shook out the cup and clicked it into place. Picked up his holdall from the picnic bench — familiar and heavy, reliable — then headed for the car. Also familiar, heavy, and reliable, in a forgettable shade of anonymous beige.

‘Trust me, it’s for the best.’

He hauled the tailgate up and chucked the holdall into the boot. The zip popped open a couple of inches, exposing two rolls of duct tape, some rope, a ball gag, and a couple of knives. Oops!

Lee zipped it up again. Then checked the tartan rug was still nice and snug over the pet carrier and its silent occupant. Of course there was a risk of overheating, but he had parked in the shade and opened the windows a—

‘And listen: I also wanted to tell you that we’ve picked a venue for the company barbecue.’

About time!

Lee straightened up, grip tightening on the phone. ‘Where?’

‘A lovely little farm, out past Inverurie. I’ll text you the details. Just make sure it’s all set-up for Monday night.’

Well, that was excellent news. He put his mobile away. Smiled. It’d been far too long since the last one.

The Volvo’s boot squealed as he closed it — have to get some WD-40 on that. And then another squeal eeeeeeked out behind him, only this one was due to delight, rather than a rusty hinge.

The wee blond boy burst over the brow of a dune, running through the spiky grass, hauling his saggy kite with him.

He thundered past the Volvo.

Lee’s hand snapped out, grabbing hold of the wee boy’s T-shirt — pulling him up short. Holding him there as Lee knelt beside him.

More rustling in the undergrowth and Mummy lurched over a different dune, pink-faced and puffing hard.

Lee waved to her, then gave the wee boy a tickle, making him wriggle and giggle.

Mummy staggered over. ‘Urgh... Thanks, he’s a proper little monster this one. Nought to sixty in three seconds!’

The little monster squirmed, beaming. ‘I want ice cream!’

Lee gave her a wink. ‘Not a problem.’ Then ruffled the kid’s hair. ‘You have fun, Tiger.’

He let go and the wee boy took his mummy’s hand.

The pair of them skipped off towards the low building and its shop, singing a happy song about dinosaurs and soap.

Lee smiled. ‘Cute kid.’

Ah well.

He climbed in behind the wheel, pulled out of his parking space, and made for the exit. Sticking to the five-mile-an-hour speed limit. No point taking risks when there were small children running about.

The wee blond boy and his mum waved as he passed them, and Lee waved back. Then adjusted his rear-view mirror until the pet carrier filled it, draped in its jolly tartan rug.

‘Looks like it’s just you and me, Kiddo.’

Lee slowed at the junction, waited for a blue Nissan to rumble past, and turned onto the main road. Time for home.

Deep breath:

‘Ninety-nine green bottles, hanging on the wall...’