The Missing and the Dead

14

The sound of happy-clappy piano and guitars dragged Logan up from the depths, hurling him into Wednesday morning.

‘And we’ve got more smashing hits of the Eighties after the news and weather with Bernie.’

He slumped back on the bed, one hand over his eyes while the other fumbled for the alarm-clock radio.

‘Thanks, Clyde. Merseyside Police confirmed this morning that one of the women killed in the drive-by shooting in Liverpool on Sunday was Mary Ann Nasrallah, an undercover police officer. We’ll have more on that later this morning. Next, the hunt for missing sex offender Neil Wood enters its second day as-’

Logan slapped the radio into silent submission.

Should’ve switched the damn thing off before crashing last night.

Something dark and spiky throbbed behind his eyeballs. It coated the back of his throat with grit and bitterness. Made everything taste of cheap supermarket whisky. Then it sank its teeth into his bladder.

Unnngh …

The world was a sharp and queasy place as he lumbered through to the toilet.

Then back to bed again.

To hell with the day.

The padlock tumblers squeak beneath his blue fingertips. The hasp falls to the ground, followed by the lock as he pushes the door wide.

Its hinges creak like a coffin lid and he steps into the foetid darkness.

‘Stephen?’ The word comes out in a plume of breath, pale as a ghost. ‘It’s OK, you’re safe now …’

No he isn’t.

The torchlight swings its yellow septic eye across stacks of poles and saws and chains, logs and a cast-iron stove. Settles on a pile of filthy blankets.

Don’t do it.

But his hand reaches out anyway. What choice does it have?

He grips the barbed-wire fabric and pulls.

‘Stephen?’

The body lies on its side, curled up on a wooden pallet that’s stained crimson and black. The gaps between the slats are dark and hollow, like the gaping mouth. Gums torn and ragged where the teeth had been ripped out. Fingers bent and twisted, as if someone had taken a hammer to them. Thick strips of silver duct tape wrapped over the eyes. Dried blood caked around the empty groin and filthy buttocks. More blood across the swollen chest. Chains around the wrists and ankles, heavy and rusted.

He’s dead. He has to be dead.

A fist of gravel catches in Logan’s throat. He swallows it. Forces it down into his chest, sharp and hard and cold. ‘I’m sorry.’

And then that ruined blind head turns and screams …

The toilet bowl was cool against Logan’s cheek. Breath slowing. The pounding in his temples settled to a galley-slave beat, battering the drums in time with his heart.

Sitting on the bathroom floor, Logan howched and spat out streamers of bile-yellow spittle. Groaned.

Pulled himself upright.

The man in the mirror looked like an extra from The Walking Dead.

He rinsed out his mouth. Washed his face. Dried it. Couldn’t look at it any more.

His stomach gurgled and he froze, one hand pressing against the scars that criss-crossed his abdomen. Then it settled.

Never drinking cheap own-brand whisky ever again.

Ever.

Especially not half a bottle of it.

He slumped back to the bedroom. Stood, looking down at the crumpled, sweat-soaked sheets.

Yeah, sod going back to bed.

Sun streamed through the window, turning the air into golden syrup, flecked with glowing dust motes. The ward’s quiet was punctuated by the hum and hiss of ventilators. The wub-wub-wub of a far-off floor polisher. The squeak of comfortable shoes on blue terrazzo flooring.

Logan knocked on the doorframe. ‘Shop?’

Louise looked up from a clipboard. Smiled. ‘Logan. Isn’t it a lovely day?’ Her pixie-cut was about twenty years too young for her, bleached blonde, the fringe gelled into a jagged curl above a pair of heavy dark eyebrows. White linen shirt, boot-cut jeans, black trainers. She picked up a large manila envelope from her desk, then pointed over his shoulder. ‘Shall we grab a cuppa?’

Louise picked her way out onto the balcony, clipboard tucked under her arm, carrying a tray in both hands. One teapot, one cafetiere, two cups, and a plate of tiny triangular sandwiches. She lowered the tray onto the table. ‘Sorry that took so long.’

Sunny Glen was living up to its name. The timber walls shone in the sunshine, the glass-and-chrome balustrade glinting. Logan had picked the table on the upper terrace, in the shade, with a view down the valley and out to sea. A neon-orange supply vessel ploughed its way towards the horizon, leaving a wake of shimmering white.

And, more importantly, the upper terrace overlooked the lower one.

Down there, a handful of wheelchairs were arrayed across the tiled floor. Some of the residents wearing hats, others baseball caps, a couple bare-headed.

Louise poured tea into Logan’s cup. Nodded at the manila envelope. ‘All signed and sealed?’

He pushed the thing across the small table towards her. ‘Now what?’

‘Now we give it to the lawyers, they give it to the Sheriff, he declares Samantha incapable, and you’re appointed her financial and welfare guardian. Should only take a couple of weeks.’

Logan shifted in his seat. ‘She’s not incapable, she’s ill, it’s not the same thing.’

‘I know, but it has to be done. She hasn’t got anyone else. If her mum and dad were still alive …’ A shrug. Then Louise smiled. Nodded towards the lower terrace. ‘She’s looking well, isn’t she?’

Samantha’s wheelchair sat over by the railing, her back turned to them. Her hair was almost solid brown now, just a tiny fringe of its former colour holding on at the tips. Red, faded to a dirty pinky-grey. Arms curled against her chest. Knees together. Head tilted on one side. As if some great fist had taken hold of her and squeezed till she was twisted out of shape. Far enough away that she couldn’t hear them talking about her.

‘So, about this chest infection …?’

A shrug. ‘You know what it’s like. She’s less susceptible to them now she’s sitting up more of the time. But it’s always the same with brain injuries. Chest infections, urinary infections. At least her temperature control’s a lot better: she hasn’t had a storm in months.’

The tea was hot but underbrewed. Thin and anaemic. A pale shadow of what it should have been.

Louise pressed the plunger on her cafetiere. ‘Samantha’s made remarkable progress since she got here. In fact, if she keeps this up, I think we should aim for a cranioplasty in August or September. Get them to patch the hole in her skull with a metal plate.’

‘A metal plate.’

‘Well, assuming the intracranial pressure remains within safe limits … But there’s no reason to suppose it won’t. And she’ll look a lot more like her normal self without that big dip in her head.’ Louise poured the coffee. Sipped. ‘She smiled yesterday.’

He sat up straight. ‘What?’

A grin. ‘Isn’t that great? First time she’s reacted to anything. I tried calling you. Didn’t you get my message?’

Don’t get your hopes up. Small steps. Remember what the neurosurgeon said.

‘What was it? What made her smile?’

Logan hunkered down on his haunches next to the wheelchair. Looked up into Samantha’s face. Frowned. Took out his handkerchief and wiped a line of dribble from the side of her mouth. ‘I hear you’ve been smiling at the guy who rubs your feet. You hussy.’

No reaction. But then there never was.

Two thick Velcro straps held her upright in the chair, wrapped around the metal frame, then across her chest. Stopped her slumping over, or falling out.

‘Louise says you’re now officially a ten on the Glasgow Coma Scale. How cool is that?’

Nothing.

‘And we’re having you declared incapable, that’s nice, isn’t it?’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Held them off for as long as I could, but apparently I haven’t got a choice any more. I’m going to be your guardian. Like Bruce Wayne and Thingy the Boy Wonder. Only you don’t have to wear a stupid yellow cape and big green pants over your tights.’

Still nothing.

He wiped away another line of dribble.

‘Anyway, they’re talking about putting a metal plate in your head. Maybe September, if you keep going the way you are. That’ll be fun, won’t it?’ He brushed a strand of long brown hair from her face. Doing his best not to touch the big dent over her left ear where they removed a chunk of skull to relieve the pressure on her brain. ‘You could wear hats again. Or maybe we could stick fridge magnets on it …’

He settled his back against the glass balustrade. ‘We caught a dead wee girl, Monday night. Down by the swimming pool. Steel’s up with the MIT. Susan’s tests came back and there’s only a one in five hundred chance of the baby having Down’s. That’s good, isn’t it?’

Samantha didn’t move, staring straight through him as usual.

He cleared his throat. Turned his head. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

The supply boat was smaller now, churning away across the slab of navy blue.

‘I screwed up. Graham Stirling’s going to get away with what he did to Stephen Bisset. He’s going to beat the charges and walk … because of me.’

A herring gull flapped to the ground on the other side of the glass railing. Strutted up and down, glaring at him with its yellow eyes.

‘Should be spending the rest of his life in prison, and instead: they’re going to let him go …’

The gull cocked its head and crawked at him. Pacing. Demanding. Shouting. Like a miniature DCI Steel.

‘Hissing Sid’s trying to make out that I fitted Stirling up. Can you imagine that? Me?’ A small laugh that tasted as bitter as the spittle he’d left in the toilet bowl. ‘Never fitted anyone up in my life.’

It raised its wings and screamed at him, high-pitched and grating. Digging into his brain with sharp little claws.

‘Spent half my life trying to put bastards like him behind bars, and the courts let them go. If I’d been fitting him up, I’d have made damn sure he couldn’t wriggle out of it …’ Logan scowled at the seagull. It glared back at him. ‘Tell you what I should do: I should go round to Stirling’s house, middle of the night, and batter his head in with a crowbar.’

A sigh.

‘Well, we can always dream, can’t we?’ Logan stood. Brushed the dust off his jeans. ‘You don’t want to hear about this crap, do you? Course you don’t. It’s just me being a whinge.’ He clapped his hands, fetched a chair from the nearest table and set it down next to Samantha. ‘Now, how about we watch the ships and the seagulls for a bit?’

‘Yeah, hold on …’ Logan pinned the phone between his ear and his shoulder, shifted the heavy shopping bags to his other hand, then dug his keys out of his pocket. ‘Sorry, what?’

On the other end, Biohazard sounded as if he was chewing bits of broken glass. ‘Could’ve bloody swung for him. I swear to God, right there in the middle of the court. Homophobic? Me?’

‘So we’re screwed then.’

‘Said, and I quote, “How long have Police Scotland been operating a vendetta against Aberdeen’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities?” And you know why? Because Stirling was in that dress when we caught him, and I called him Danny the Drag Queen!’

‘It’s not …’ Logan slid his key into the lock. ‘Look, there was nothing we could do. We saved Stephen Bisset’s life. At least that’s something.’

‘Tell that to his kids.’

Logan let himself into the Sergeant’s Hoose. Closed the door behind him. Locked it. Held the phone against his chest. ‘Cthulhu? Daddy’s home.’ No sign of her in the lounge. Or the kitchen. Back to Biohazard. ‘Professional Standards say anything to you?’

‘What do you think? Spent the last two hours getting my ear chewed off about gender bias and equal opportunities for trannies and drag queens.’

He dumped the big bag of value tatties in the cupboard under the sink. Stuck the kettle on. ‘They say anything about me?’

‘No way the jury’s going to convict the slimy little git now. No confession, no forensics, and no corroboration. All we’ve got is a couple of adverts placed in the lonely hearts column.’

‘Biohazard: focus. What did Napier say about me?’

‘No idea, got my spanking off Inspector Laird. Sour-faced nettle-licking old bag. Far as I know, they’re coming after you next.’

Wonderful.

‘Tell you: when this whole thing collapses, you, me, and the boy Rennie, are going to be up to our ears in a septic-tank hot tub.’

‘And on that cheery note.’

‘Exactly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get blootered.’ Biohazard hung up.

Logan stood in the kitchen, staring out of the window at Banff police station.

Might be a good idea to get the resignation in early. Take what he could get before they kicked him out. Go work offshore or something where you didn’t have to haul on a stabproof vest to start your working day. And you got decent regular shifts. And more money. And loads of time off …

Tempting.

But then, who’d look after Cthulhu while he was away on the rigs?

He dug her special saucer out, then went looking for a pouch of wet food. Whistled two notes, high-then-low. Stood at the kitchen door with the saucer in his hand. ‘Cthulhu?’

No prooping noise. No sound of surprisingly heavy paws thumping down the stairs.

He climbed up to the first floor.

Stood in the hallway and listened to the rhythmic asymmetrical purr.

Let his head fall back, and swore.

Placed one hand on the bedroom door and pushed.

Steel was lying flat on her back, in his bed, one bare foot and one hand sticking out from beneath the duvet. Mouth hanging open, snoring.

A pile of clothes lay crumpled on the floor by the window. A copy of Fifty Shades of Grey on the bedside cabinet.

Cthulhu raised her head from the pillow, gave a wide triangular yawn, stood. Turned around, and settled down to sleep again.

Typical.

Logan put the saucer of cat food on the chest of drawers and poked Steel in the shoulder. ‘Hoy!’

‘Mmmnnnghphhhhh …’ Her mouth made glistening wet circles. Then the snoring started again.

‘WAKEY, WAKEY!’

‘Gnph …!’ She scrambled up in bed, eyes wide and blinking. ‘What? I never touched her …’

Oh. Dear. God.

Steel wasn’t wearing anything …

Logan swallowed. Flinched back a step. A sour taste filled his mouth. ‘Oh God, not again!’

‘Noooo …’ Then she grabbed the covers and hauled them up to her chin. Scowled at him. ‘You rotten sod. I was dreaming about Claudia Schiffer!’ More blinking. ‘What time is it?’

‘What are you doing in my bed? Naked. Why are you naked in my bed?’ He backed up till he hit the wall. ‘You swore this wouldn’t happen again. You promised!’

Steel thumped back onto the pillow. ‘She was all covered in Nutella and everything.’

‘You know what? Tough.’ Deep breath. Then Logan straightened. ‘I’m not running a B-and-B here.’ He crossed to the window and yanked the curtains open. ‘Up.’

‘Gah! Don’t be a scumbag!’ She pulled the duvet over her head, exposing naked shins and knees. ‘Couldn’t stay in the hotel, some moron was snoring.’

‘That was probably you. Come on, out.’

The lump under the duvet didn’t move. ‘I don’t snore.’

‘Bloody well do. You sound like a drunk pig trapped in a wheelie bin.’ He picked up the pile of clothes and dropped them on her. ‘Downstairs. Five minutes.’

Steel scuffed into the kitchen wearing a hotel bathrobe and Logan’s slippers. Thumped into the single wooden chair and cracked a huge yawn, showing off her fillings. ‘Coffee.’

‘In my sodding bed!’

‘Oh, don’t be such a girl. I changed the sheets and duvet cover first. Wasn’t going to get into your filthy pit, God knows what I might catch.’ Another yawn. ‘Got any toast?’

‘It wasn’t my fault: Graham Stirling. I did what I had to and I’m not apologizing for it any more. They don’t like it, tough.’

She stuck one hand down the front of her robe and had a scratch. ‘Probably should’ve put on a bra …’

Oh God. Not again. Once was bad enough.

He turned his back. Stuck the kettle on to boil again. ‘If you want to shout at me, you can get your stuff and bugger off. My shift starts at three: till then, I don’t care.’

‘Course you do.’ She picked the bottle of supermarket whisky from the floor. Gave it a shoogle. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be drinking this pish.’

‘And while I’m at it, how the hell did you get in here?’

Another yawn. ‘You left me a key, remember?’

Outside the kitchen window, a knot of uniform in high-vis waistcoats clambered into the back of a big police van. Probably off to search the cliffs or the road again. As if that was going to make any difference.

He took two mugs from the cupboard and spooned instant coffee into them. ‘You got an ID on your victim yet?’

‘I wish.’ A little deflating noise came from behind him. ‘She’s no’ in the misper database, so Finnie went on the news last night with a picture and did an appeal for info. No prizes for guessing what happened next.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Six hundred phone calls, and no’ a decent bit of intel between them.’ More yawning. ‘Don’t know why we bother.’

The kettle’s clicking grumble built to a rattling boil.

He stuck two slices of floppy white bread in the toaster. Put on his casual voice. ‘We still on for that raid today? Four OSU and a dog team?’

‘You’ve got a cheek. After your performance yesterday?’

He poured boiling water into the mugs. ‘I can still throw your arse out on the street. In your stolen dressing gown.’

She shrugged. ‘Try it.’

…

Fair enough.

He poured the water over the coffee granules. Stared out of the window as the police van pulled away. ‘I need a success, OK? Biohazard says Professional Standards are coming after me.’

‘Wondered when we’d get to that. Poor Logan, oh pity poor Logan, look at him all sad and unloved, he’s only little, etc.’ Steel went in for another scratch. ‘Mind you, Biohazard’s no’ wrong. The rubber heelers are going to be all over you for yesterday. Right now you’re about one screw-up away from getting booted off the force.’