The Missing and the Dead

19

The driver wrapped his hands tight around the steering wheel. Cheeks flushed. Jaw muscles working like an industrial clamp. He stared straight ahead as Logan checked the proffered driving licence.

‘Thank you, Mr Clifton.’ Logan handed it back. Then followed it up with the fixed-penalty notice.

It was snatched out of his hand. Crushed in a fist. A strangled, ‘Thank you,’ forced out between gritted teeth.

Logan patted the roof of the car. ‘Drive safely.’

A trembling hand reached up and pulled the safety belt down, and clipped it into place. Then the BMW pulled away from the kerb.

Nicholson zipped her ticket book away in a pocket. ‘If he’d done that in the first place, would’ve saved himself a hundred quid.’

‘… reported break-in at Aberdeen Heritage in Mintlaw, anyone free to attend?’

‘You know what bugs me?’ Nicholson took the patrol car up onto the bridge across the River Deveron. ‘If he’d hit someone coming the other way, he would’ve been through that windscreen like a bowling ball. Splat. Probably dead.’

The dull grey water glinted beneath them. Waves crashed in white arcs at the mouth of the bay. Over the bridge and right, towards Macduff.

‘Aye, this is Sergeant Smith, pit me and King-Kong down as attending.’

‘Hmm …’ Logan sniffed his fingertips — talc and chemicals — then reached for the car radio and clicked it on, poking the buttons till Northsound burbled out of the speakers. Some boy-band nonsense, all bland and anaemic, droning away over the Airwave’s chatter. ‘Can you imagine what that must be like? You hear about a dead girl and you rush up the country with DNA samples.’

‘And do you know what? Odds on, when he goes home tonight, it’s not about us saving his life, it’s about the police screwing innocent motorists for every penny we can. And why aren’t we out there catching real crooks instead of harassing road users?’

‘Do you think she hopes it’s her daughter?’ He frowned out at the water. ‘“Hope” is probably the wrong word. Maybe she’s looking for closure?’

Over the bridge and right as the bland-boy-band was replaced by an identikit replica. The auditory equivalent of wallpaper paste.

Nicholson pulled a face. ‘I remember this one bloke, hit a lamp post. Bang — sixty-to-zero in fourteen inches. Found him twenty feet down the road. Half his scalp came off when he hit the tarmac.’

Of course, it was daft listening to the radio and not just because of the horrible music. Sooner or later the news would come on with details of the Stirling case falling apart. It was like picking at a scab, or a hangnail. Knowing it would hurt and bleed.

Speaking of which, should really get Nicholson to pull over, so he could make that call to Napier. But she was still going on about her car crash.

‘There were these … hairy strips of it everywhere. Course I was the probationer, so I got the job of picking them all up. All cold and slimy.’ A shudder.

Christ only knew what Stephen Bisset’s family were going through. Probably something not too far removed from what Helen Edwards was. That was the thing about violent crime, in the end it always came down to pain and loss.

‘Was almost finished when this cat ran out from someone’s garden and grabbed the last chunk. Wheeched off with it into the gorse on the other side of the road.’ She slowed down. Indicated. ‘I mean, what was I supposed to do, charge in there after it? Sod that.’

Logan stretched out in his seat. ‘Suppose it must’ve looked like a big mouse …’

‘There!’ Logan slapped one hand on his hat, the other grabbing his extendable baton as he hammered past the newsagent’s. A hard, screeching right turn onto Cullen Street. ‘Stevie Moran: come back here!’

The big man glanced over his shoulder, swore, and sped up. Down the hill. Past the post office. Red tracksuit jacket flapping behind him, paint-spattered jeans and dirty trainers. Long greying brown hair streaming out behind him. A face carved from driftwood.

Old-fashioned houses lined the street in various shades of grey. Raw stone and oatmeal harling. The thump of boots on tarmac.

Nicholson appeared at Logan’s shoulder, elbows and knees pumping. Police bowler hat wedged down over her ears. Breath hissing in and out.

And then she was past.

Moran threw a left turn, both arms windmilling to keep himself upright.

Then Nicholson — almost colliding with the stop sign on the corner of Low Street.

Logan gritted his teeth and pushed harder, catching up with her as Moran hopped a waist-high stone wall, scrambled through a long narrow garden, trampling the flowers and bushes, then over the wall on the other side. Nearly went headlong, but managed to stay upright. Thumped into the wall below the Church Street sign.

The houses were even older here — three-storey merchant jobs on one side, ancient featureless slabs on the other.

Moran charged down an alleyway, Nicholson right behind him.

Logan didn’t follow her. He cut down the side of the Shore Inn, skiffed the whitewashed stonework with his shoulder, burst out into the sunshine again.

They’d run out of town.

Now the only thing between them and the North Sea was the harbour.

Stevie Moran sprinted for the harbour wall.

Nicholson lunged. Missed. Went crashing into a brown park bench as Moran hurdled the wall and disappeared.

Logan slithered to a halt on the warm tarmac. Peered over the edge.

On the other side of the wall was a ten foot drop onto shingle and rocks. Stevie Moran lay sprawled on his front. Groaning.

‘All right, Stevie, that’s enough.’

But he levered himself upright and limped towards the water, one arm clutched against his chest.

‘What are you going to do, swim to Norway?’

A pause. Then a slip on the seaweed-covered stone and he was on his knees again at the edge of the lapping water.

‘You’ll sink before you get half a mile out. Give it up.’

His shoulders sagged. ‘Arseholes …’

‘And you’ll never guess who we bumped into in Portsoy: Stephen “Stevie” Moran.’ Logan hung back a bit, following Nicholson and Moran up North High Street, back towards the patrol car.

The pair of them limped and puffed and groaned. Moran with both hands cuffed behind his back, Nicholson with a death grip on the plastic bar between the metal arms. Making sure he didn’t go for the five hundred metres record again.

On the other end of the Airwave, Deano sounded as if he was sitting in an echo chamber. ‘How long’s he been on the run: eight months? Ten?’

‘Silly sod should’ve stayed in Ireland.’

‘Speaking of silly sods, your old guvnor wants a word.’

Steel’s gruff smokey voice boomed out, ‘Hoy, I heard that!’

‘Here.’

And she was on. ‘Why haven’t you called Napier yet?’ A small pause. Then, ‘All right, Constable Smartarse, you can sod off now.’ Another pause. Then the muffled thump of a door closing. ‘Well?You looking to get fired?’

‘Been busy arresting people.’

The road opened up, widening as it joined onto the square, with its regimented grid of white-line parking spaces in the middle.

‘Putting it off’s only making it worse. You know what Napier’s like.’

‘All right, all right, I’ll call him.’ And with any luck, Napier would have gone home for the night. Putting it off for another day.

A grey van rumbled past, the driver ducking his right hand down below the dashboard. As if that would stop Logan from seeing the mobile phone clutched in it.

‘Good. And while we’re on it, your merry band of local nonces — any of them got form for drugs? No’ taking them: slipping them to kiddies. Got a positive off the blood tox screen for phenobarbital.’

‘Maybe … Probably. Pretty sure Dr Gilcomston did something like that. Barbiturates and house-calls? Check the files.’

‘Detective Chief Inspector, remember? What’s the point of keeping flying monkeys if I have to check my own files?’

Stevie Moran lunged to the right, but Nicholson hauled the cuffs up, and he went down on his knees in the middle of the car park, wheezing out a barrage of swearing.

‘So get one of your flying monkeys to do it. I’m busy.’

‘You’re hiding.’

True. But that didn’t mean he was going to admit it.

Nicholson pulled Moran to his feet. ‘Try that again, please. I’d love another go.’ And they both limped off towards the Big Car again.

‘Bad enough I had to pick up your victim’s mother — well, potential mother — without having to do all your legwork.’

‘Ah … I wondered how long it’d take you to bring her up. Pretty young woman with curly hair and pouty lips? All distressed and vulnerable? Right up your alley.’

Logan paused, letting a shiny new Mini drive past before stepping out onto the road. ‘I barely met the woman.’

‘Blah, blah, blah. You’re fooling no one.’ A sniff. ‘You ask me, it’s all a bit creepy.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Dotting about from crime scene to crime scene, like an abduction tourist. Creepy-weird. No wonder you like her.’

Nicholson plipped the car’s locks, then wrenched open the back door and bundled Stevie Moran into the passenger side. Buckled the seatbelt for him, pinning him in. Slammed the door closed. Leaned back against it. Raised her left foot off the ground and flexed it one way, then the other. Rubbed at her left elbow. ‘Oww …’

‘You know what she’s doing right now? Hanging about outside the station like a stalker. Woman that screwed up? I’m amazed you’ve no’ tried to shag her yet.’

‘OK, I’m hanging up now.’

‘Don’t be daft. If I-’

Logan switched his Airwave off. Clipped it back onto his vest.

Nicholson’s eyebrows pinched together, her mouth turned down, working on a pout. ‘Think I ruptured something when I hit that bench.’

‘We got him, though: eight counts of robbery, two of resetting, possession of a Class A, an assault, and breach of bail conditions. And we can add resisting arrest.’ Logan opened the passenger door. ‘Best of all, now Police Scotland has to buy us both a fancy piece for nabbing him. I’m having a Danish pastry.’

‘Custard slice for me.’ She poked and prodded at the elbow again. Baring her top teeth. ‘Oww …’

Logan checked his watch. ‘If we hurry, we can get him to Fraserburgh, process him, and pick up our reward in time for tenses.’ Add on the time sodding about waiting for a lawyer, initial interview … Probably wouldn’t make it back to Banff for dinner. ‘Have to pop past the station on the way though. Haven’t got my soup.’

Nicholson sank into the driver’s seat. ‘You’re obsessed with soup.’

‘Yeah, well. Glutton for punishment.’

‘I’ll only be a minute.’ Logan clunked the passenger door shut and pulled on his peaked cap.

The sun was an orb of gold, dripping its way down to the border between the sky and the North Sea. It sparked rubies from the water, painted the Sergeant’s Hoose with fire. Turned the shadows a deep midnight blue.

The Big Car idled at the kerb — Nicholson peering out from behind the wheel, Stevie Moran glowering out from the back seat as Logan let himself into the Sergeant’s Hoose.

Quick rummage in the kitchen for a tin of lentil and two slices of cheap floppy white bread, stuff the lot in a carrier bag, and out again. All in under two minutes.

Logan locked the door, then turned. Stopped.

A figure leaned on the sea wall, staring out across the bay. Dirty-blonde hair, hanging in corkscrew curls around her head.

Logan popped his dinner on the Big Car’s roof. Crossed the road. And stepped up onto the kerb beside her. ‘Ms Edwards? Helen? You OK?’

She didn’t look around. ‘There’s dolphins.’

‘They come in from time to time.’

She pointed out into the bay as a sleek shape arced out of the water then disappeared again. ‘Never seen one in real life before.’

‘It’s a beautiful place.’ He leaned his elbows on the wall beside her. From here, the ground fell sharply away to the beach eight or twelve feet below. The sand turned dark orange by the setting sun. ‘You sure you’re OK?’

She picked at a fleck of lichen, growing on the concrete wall. ‘They wouldn’t take Natasha’s hair for DNA testing. Said it wouldn’t work because it was cut; they needed the roots attached. So they took a swab from my cheek instead.’

‘That’ll be enough to go on.’

Out in the bay, the dolphins danced.

‘I don’t know whether to hope for a positive match or not. If it matches, she’s dead. If it doesn’t …’ Helen swept a wodge of curls out of her eyes. Her hand trembled, the fingernails bitten down to the quick.

‘Why do you think it might be your daughter? Maybe she’s in … is it Spain? With her father?’

‘Because he’s not in Spain. Hasn’t been for years. I hired a very expensive private investigator to track Brian down. Trail went cold in Middlesbrough two years ago.’

The sun sank lower, the colours richer.

‘Well, it’s-’

‘Brian had a drink problem and a temper on him. Oh, butter wouldn’t melt when we started going out, but then I got pregnant …’ Another bit of lichen was peeled off by a ragged thumbnail. ‘Most days it was like trying to defuse a bomb with boxing gloves on. He’d get drunk and bang — the smallest thing would cause an explosion.’

‘Must’ve been hard.’

‘I can’t even change my name back. I have to be Mrs Edwards till I find Natasha. Soon as people think I’m not her mother, that’s it: up go the barricades. Till then I can’t even wash his stink off me.’ She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, as if trying to scrub her ex-husband away. ‘So this is my life. Every time they find a little girl my private investigator lets me know, and off I go, getting my hopes up. Maybe this one will be her? Maybe. But it never is. So I lurch from one crime scene or abduction or accident to the next. Three years.’

Logan pointed back towards the station. ‘Do you want a cup of tea, or something? I’m off to Fraserburgh, but I can get someone to-’

‘Do you have any idea what it’s like to love someone who’s completely lost? At least if they were dead you could start moving on. But they won’t give you that, they keep dangling that sliver of hope just out of reach.’

Warmth spread between his shoulder blades, curled its claws around his throat. Choked down the words. ‘It’s difficult.’

‘Sorry.’ She let go of her arms and stared up at the darkening sky. ‘Didn’t mean to bang on like a crazy person. Helen Edwards, the broken record of doom and gloom.’

Logan glanced at the Big Car.

Nicholson was staring out through the windscreen at them, eyebrows up.

He backed towards the car. ‘We’ve got a prisoner. Sorry.’

‘Yes. No. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.’ Helen turned and stared out into the bay again as glittering beads of sunlight scattered and died in the water.

Logan let himself into the empty office and closed the door behind him. Outside, the floorboards creaked and groaned as someone walked past. Fraserburgh police station had to be at least a hundred years newer than Banff’s, but it sounded like a galleon in full sail anytime anyone set foot in the corridor.

Through the office window, the granite buildings were washed in golden light as the sun sank. A few high wisps of cloud painted impossible shades of pink and orange.

Might as well get it over with.

He settled his backside into a creaky office chair, sooked the last sticky remnants of Danish pastry from his fingers, pulled out his mobile phone and the stack of Post-its Maggie had given him way back at the start of the shift. Called the number.

It rang.

Straight to voicemail. Straight to voicemail. Straight to voicemail.

Please.

And then a click came down the line. ‘Napier.’

The Voice of Darkness.

Logan closed his eyes. Let his head fall back. Tried not to sound like a man standing on the gallows trapdoor with a noose around his neck. ‘Chief Superintendent. Hi. Sergeant McRae. You wanted to speak to me …’

‘You OK, Sarge?’ The Police Custody and Security Officer peered at him over the booking-in desk. A big bloke, with broad shoulders and thistles tattooed up both arms, disappearing into the short sleeves of his illicit ‘GRAMPIAN POLICE’ polo shirt. ‘Look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Logan leaned on the worktop. ‘Professional Standards.’

The PCSO sucked air in through a grimace, eyes screwed shut. ‘I remember it well. Like riding a horse through a minefield with haemorrhoids. Fancy a cuppa? I’m making anyway.’

‘Thanks.’

He disappeared through the door behind the desk, into the tiny galley kitchen bolted onto the side. ‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Just milk.’ Logan turned and peered into the detention block. The wide grey-and-beige hall had doors off to one side for detainees, stores, and processing; one at the end for the Custody Sergeant’s office; and two heavy barred gates through to the actual cells. No sign of life. ‘You’ve not seen Constable Nicholson on her rounds, have you?’

‘The delightful Janet?’ He reappeared, placed a Police Scotland mug down in front of Logan. Put a polystyrene cup next to it. ‘She’s helping Suzanne strip-search a young lady caught breaking into the chemist’s next to Farmfoods.’ He pointed at the closed detention-room door. ‘Pretty certain they’ll have heard the screaming and swearing in Inverness. ’Scuse me …’ He squeezed past, carrying the polystyrene cup in one hand, as if it was full of liquid explosives. Rattled his keys in the other. ‘I’m afraid one of our charges is in need of tea and sympathy.’

Logan followed him through into the male cellblock. Clanged the heavy barred gate shut behind him. ‘Any idea how long Nicholson’s going to be?’

‘Depends how much of a pain in the buttocks our novice burglar is when she’s being searched.’ A right, down a short beige corridor. Halfway down, the cells stretched off to one side — ten of them. Five on the left, five on the right. Most had their doors lying wide open — the stainless-steel backs making the place look like something out of a science fiction movie. But three were shut. The front painted the same dark blue as the skirting and architraves.

The PCSO led the way down to the far end, where sobbing oozed through the thick cell door. ‘You know, I had a probationer like your Nicholson, back when I was a PC in Mintlaw. Same fire in her. Couldn’t wait to climb the slippery ladder to CID. Never would take a telling.’

‘What did you do?’

A shrug. ‘Only thing I could do. Married her.’ He grabbed the big metal slider on the safety hatch and pulled it down, lining the rectangular glass partition up with the rectangular hole in the door. Exposing the warning about the hatch now being unsafe, and the little patch of plastic where the occupant’s details were scribbled up. Whether they were a biter, or a spitter. A self-harmer, or prone to outbursts of violence. This one had ‘REALLY NEEDS A WASH!!!’ printed on it in wobbly black marker.

The PSCO peered through the window, then unlocked the door. Stepped inside as the wails and sobs went on. ‘Come on, it’s not that bad, is it?’

Logan stayed where he was as a wave of mouldy body odour crashed out into the hall. Rancid, cloying bitter onions, and the ammonia nip of clothes left too long in the washing machine. ‘Dear God …’

A cough. Blinking as the stench tried to sandpaper his irises off.

Kevin ‘the Gerbil’ McEwan sat on the thin concrete ledge that ran along one wall. He was hunched over with his forehead on his knees and his hands wrapped around his head. Ginger hair poked through the gaps in his fingers. Shoulders quivering in time with the sobs.

The PCSO put the polystyrene cup on the ledge, an inch or two out of reach. ‘Look, if you tell the truth, it’ll be OK.’ He looked back at Logan. ‘Won’t it?’

‘I’m not allowed to talk to him. Don’t want to contravene his human rights.’

Gerbil raised his head. Cheeks pink and shiny, clean bits showing through the dirt where he’d been crying. Snot did a Magnum PI on his top lip. Eyes like bullet holes. Barely able to get the words out. ‘They’re … they’re going to … going to … kill me!’ All traces of the hard-man Weegie accent was gone. Now it was pure, terrified, Teuchter.

The PCSO tutted. ‘No one’s going to kill you, son.’

‘They’re … going to find … find out we lost … lost their stash.’

‘Well, it’s not the end of the world, is it?’

‘I’ll … I’ll go to … prison and they’ll kill me. They’ll get someone to kill me!’

Logan didn’t move.

Don’t get involved. Follow procedure like a good little robot.

Wasn’t even his case any more.

Remember what Napier said.

Logan cleared his throat. Turned his back. And walked away.