The Missing and the Dead

54

‘Shire Uniform Seven, I need backup to Banff harbour now. Officer down.’ He knelt beside the crumpled body.

The back of Tufty’s head glistened with dark red, matting his hair.

Logan grabbed his shoulder and shook. ‘Tufty? You OK?’

Don’t be dead. Don’t be-

‘Unngh …’ Tufty raised his forehead off the pavement. ‘Ow …’

Joe’s voice boomed from the Airwave, crackling and panting, as if he was running. ‘Roger that, Shire Uniform Seven, Penny and me are on our way. Is he OK?’

‘What happened?’

‘My head …’

‘It’s still there. Luckily, you’re all skull and no brain. Can you stand?’

‘Shire Uniform Seven, from Control. Do you need an ambulance?’

‘ASAP. We’ve got an officer with a head wound.’

‘Ow …’

Logan helped him to his knees.

Then Tufty wobbled a bit and slumped back against the rusty van, sitting on the pavement, one hand probing the sticky mess of matted hair. When he pulled the fingers away, they were slick with blood. ‘Ow …’

‘Which way did he go?’

‘Can you hear that? Sounds like sirens?’

Corrugated metal groaned and rattled in the wind. Rain clicked and pattered against the van. No sirens. But they’d be here soon enough.

‘You had a thump on the head, but you’re going to be OK. Now, which way did he go?’

Tufty prodded at the back of his skull again. Winced. ‘Came out …’ His eyebrows furrowed. ‘That way?’ A blood-sticky finger came up and wobbled in the direction of the Macduff Shipyards warehouse, where the dry docks marked the innermost end of the harbour, furthest away from the exit out into the sea. And right now the security lights were blazing on the closest side of the warehouse.

Got you.

‘Stay here.’ Logan sprinted across the road and through the car park. His peaked cap flipped up and over in the wind, abandoning his head. Sod it. He could find it later.

The smell of diesel and iron grew with every thumping step, bringing with it the acidic reek of long-dead fish. Past the shipyard warehouse …

Where now?

‘Shire Uniform Seven, ambulance is on its way.’

A pair of large fishing boats were propped up in the dry docks, their curved hulls scraped back to the metal beneath. They towered up on either side of the slipway down into the inky water.

Where the hell was he?

There — on the other side of the slipway, not running back towards town, but out along the harbour wall.

‘COME BACK HERE!’ As if that ever worked.

Logan ran to the dry dock’s edge, scrambled down the ladder built into the concrete wall. Water lapped halfway up the slipway. He sploshed through it, picking his way over the weed-slicked surface. Cold and damp leached through his boots. Up the ladder on the other side.

The harbour curved around the edge of the town, a narrow strip of water less than two hundred feet wide in most places, fishing boats packed in nose-to-keel along both sides.

Somewhere behind him, the pained wail of a siren battered its way through the wind.

Keep going.

He lurched into a run again, socks squelching in his sodden boots. The North Sea battered against the sea wall, sending up jagged plumes of spray that smelled of salt and seaweed.

They crashed down onto the harbour’s outer arm, making the concrete glisten in the light of swaying lampposts. Jabbed and stabbed at Logan’s face and high-vis jacket. Soaked through his trousers.

Might as well jump in the sodding water, probably be drier than this.

Up ahead, the lights flickered on in one of the fishing boats rocking at the quayside.

Little sod was not getting away.

A figure clambered back onto the harbour side, by the boat, caught in the glow of its lights. Bent over, removing the lines tying it to its moorings. Then he jumped back onto the deck.

Closer. Come on. Only two boat-lengths to go …

A gurgling roar and the fishing boat pulled away.

Oh no you don’t.

Logan picked up the pace, feet slapping against the spray-soaked concrete.

Jump it. Couldn’t be more than six feet. Then eight. Then ten.

Even with the waves hammering the harbour wall on the seaward side, the water on this side was still and black. The fishing boat surged forwards, engine making a burbling roar, leaving a wake of churned white behind it.

Twelve feet.

Yeah, sod that.

He scrabbled to a halt on the lip of the harbour side, arms windmilling. ‘YOU! TURN THAT BOAT AROUND NOW!’

The figure in the wheelhouse turned and stared at him. A leathery face, stretched in a grimace above waterproofs, greying hair hanging damp across his forehead.

Dear God: it was Charles ‘Craggie’ Anderson.

‘YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!’

The engine changed tone, dropping in pitch and ferocity. Coming to a halt, instead of forging away. ‘PEERIE WULLIE’S RANT’ was painted along the bow in red letters, over a thick white stripe that circled the hull. Charles Anderson opened the wheelroom window, picked up a radio handset — stretching the loops out of the coil of wire — and thumbed a button. His voice crackled out from the boat’s PA system. ‘I am dead.’

Logan made a loud hailer out of his hands. ‘WHO WAS IT IN THE BOAT, UP IN ORKNEY? IT WASN’T YOU BURNED TO DEATH.’

‘Someone who deserved to die. He liked to play with little boys.’

‘AND YOU KILLED HIM.’

‘You let him go. You could’ve kept him in prison for ever, but you let him go. You let him run free, abusing children!’

‘I DIDN’T, IT’S …’ The boat wasn’t holding position any more, it was edging forward, towards the next section of the harbour. Towards the exit. ‘COME BACK AND WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT.’

No reply.

A stack of ancient lobster creels were piled at the foot of a flight of steps up onto the sea wall. Logan pulled out a Police Scotland business card and scrawled his mobile number on the back. Stuck it in one of the creels. Then took a run and flung the thing out over the harbour side.

It twirled through the air, crossing twenty foot of inky water, then crashed down on the deck of the fishing boat. Slid back against the wheelhouse and jammed beneath a railing. ‘MY NUMBER’S IN THERE. CALL ME AND WE CAN SORT SOMETHING OUT!’

But Charles Anderson stayed at the controls. ‘Neil Wood was hanging about the Community Centre. He was following schoolboys into the changing rooms and giving them money to let him touch them. Not years ago, two weeks ago.’

Logan kept pace with the boat. ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ANYONE? WE COULD’VE DONE SOMETHING!’

‘I didn’t know, till just before he died. Sometimes it takes a while for people like him to tell the truth.’

The boat slipped through the bottleneck by the old fish market building. From here the harbour opened out, twisting around to the right, before narrowing one final time, then it was a straight run out to the sea. But Anderson kept Peerie Wullie’s Rant twenty feet from the harbour wall where Logan was. Close enough to shout, but too far to jump.

‘DON’T DO THIS. COME BACK AND WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT. WE DON’T-’

‘He told me about the Livestock Mart. He told me about what they were doing. Him and his nasty little ring. Told me about the little girl they’d bought to share.’

Little girl. The one they’d found floating face-down in Tarlair Outdoor Swimming Pool. The one on the board in Charles Anderson’s garage, connected by a red ribbon to Dr Gilcomston.

‘It was Neil Wood’s “turn”.’ The word came out as if it tasted of sick. ‘He didn’t even like little girls. I tried to save her. I couldn’t. I tried, but I was too late.’

On the other side of the harbour, an ambulance raced along Shore Street, lights flashing, siren wailing. It disappeared behind the fishing boat for a heartbeat, then screamed past. Siren dopplering away.

‘IF YOU’VE GOT EVIDENCE, I CAN-’

‘William Gilcomston, Neil Wood, Mark Brussels, and Liam Barden bought a little girl to share from the Livestock Mart. I know, because Liam Barden screamed their names before he died. Think they’d let you have a warrant based on that?’

Logan’s Airwave gave its four point-to-point beeps. ‘Shire Uniform Seven, ambulance is on scene now.’

‘WE CAN ARREST THEM. WE CAN SEARCH THEIR HOMES AND FIND SOMETHING CONNECTING THEM TO THE LITTLE GIRL: DNA, FIBRES-’

‘They’re not that stupid. The law isn’t justice, it’s the law. You lock them up and then you let them out and they never change.’

The boat accelerated, making for the narrowest part of the harbour. Definitely be able to jump on board there. Wouldn’t be more than six or seven feet between the deck and the wall.

But the boat would be through, long before he got there.

Damn it.

Anderson stepped out of the wheelhouse and picked up the lobster creel. Turned it over in his hands as the fishing boat puttered towards the exit.

‘CALL THE NUMBER!’

He stepped back inside the wheelhouse. Closed the door.

Another wave pounded against the sea wall, showering Logan with a spray of frigid brine.

‘YOU CAN’T GO OUT THERE, THE SEA’S TOO ROUGH.’

‘You never arrested Liam Barden. He was at it for years. Boys, girls: didn’t matter to him.’ The boat slipped through the narrow point. ‘You know what else he told me before he died? He told me about Andrew. He told me about how he and Neil Wood shared my son.’

Logan jogged to a halt. This was it, there was nothing between Charles Anderson and the raging sea. The fishing boat’s bow reared in the swell as it lined up to exit the harbour. Last chance to jump on board and arrest him.

OK. Can do this. Bit of a run-up …

‘Don’t be an idiot. You’ll miss: you’ll get crushed between the hull and the harbour wall. Or you’ll drown.’

Dragged down by a stone of stabproof vest and equipment belt.

‘GIVE IT UP. I’LL CALL THE COASTGUARD AND THEY’LL CATCH YOU AND BRING YOU BACK ANYWAY.’

‘No they won’t. You said it: the sea’s too rough.’

‘THEN DON’T BE A BLOODY FOOL!’

‘I’ve got work to do.’

God’s sake.

Wind slammed a massive fist into him, and Logan lurched a pace to the left.

‘PLEASE: CALL THE NUMBER!’

But the engine changed tone again, deepened to a dark diesel growl, and Peerie Wullie’s Rant surged out into the crushing embrace of the North Sea. The bow bucked and reared through a twisted corkscrew path, propellers hammering the boat forward into the waves.

More sirens.

Logan turned.

A patrol car sped along Shore Street, its blue-and-whites making the hotels and shops flicker as it sped past.

At least Tufty would be-

Logan’s phone rang in his pocket. He dragged it out. ‘Hello?’

Charles Anderson. ‘You’re the only one knows I’m alive.’

‘Turn the boat around and come back.’

‘If they come looking for me, I can’t do what I need to do.’

‘What you need to do is come back here before you kill yourself.’

‘So you can stick me in prison for the rest of my life? Don’t think so.’

Logan clambered up a set of steps, to the parapet running around the top of the sea wall. Peerie Wullie’s Rant was getting smaller, surging up the face of the waves, then crashing down the other side in a plume of spray. ‘You killed Neil Wood and Liam Barden.’

‘This why you joined the police? To let child molesters walk free?’

‘Of course I didn’t. It-’

‘Child killers?’

‘Charles … Craggie, we’re not allowed to play God, OK? We’ve got laws and rules and-’

‘Some people don’t deserve the law. I find one of them, and I make sure he tells me everything I need to know. Then I move on to the next one.’

‘That’s not justice, it’s a witch hunt. You need to come back.’

A wave boomed against the sea wall, sending up a stinging explosion of salt water.

Logan hunched his shoulders, turned his face away as it crashed down around him.

‘Is your friend OK? I’m sorry I had to hit him, I really am.’

He wiped the sea from his eyes. ‘You have to stop this.’

‘Sorry I had to hit you too. Didn’t really leave me any choice though, did you? Can’t do what I need to from a prison cell.’

‘You didn’t have to burn the house down.’

‘I’m dead, I don’t need a house. I died a long time ago.’

Peerie Wullie’s Rant grew dimmer, the growl of its engines torn away by the wind. Its shape swallowed by the night.

‘They snatched Andrew, because he was there. Wasn’t planned. Liam Barden saw him playing in the field by the cliff and told Neil Wood to stop the car. They got out. And abducted my son.’

Cold spray whipped across the wall, rocking Logan back on his feet. ‘I’m sorry.’

The only sign of the boat now was its running lights, fading away into the storm.

‘They used him for two days, then they strangled him so he wouldn’t tell anyone. He was four. Nicest wee boy you could ever meet, and they killed him so no one would find out what they’d done.’

‘You can’t just go around murdering paedophiles. An eye-for-an-eye is not how this works.’

‘And if I don’t do it, who will? You can’t even question them without their lawyer sitting there, telling them to lie. The whole system’s rigged so the guilty get every chance their victims didn’t.’

Couldn’t really argue with that. Not after what happened with Graham Stirling.

Logan puffed out a breath. ‘What was her name? The little girl they bought?’

‘Wood didn’t know. Neither did Barden. They said Gilcomston called her “Cherry”, don’t know if it was shorrrrrrrrtttt … ing … Maybe it … be … better place if … innnnnnn … never.’

‘Hello?’

‘… if you tellllllll … won’t … too imporrrrrrrtant … ffffff … shhhhhhhhh …’

Then static.

Then silence.

The boat was out of range of the masts.

Couldn’t even see its lights now. There was nothing but darkness and waves.

Logan turned his back and picked his way down the stairs. Wiped his mobile on the leg of his trousers and slipped it in his pocket.

Penny’s voice clattered out of the Airwave. ‘Shire Uniform Seven. Sarge? We’ve got Constable Quirrel. Where are you?’

‘How’s Tufty?’

‘Think he might have a touch of concussion, but he’s fine otherwise. They’re playing it safe and taking him in for an X-ray, though.’

‘Good. I’m out by the harbour exit and I’m soaked. Do me a favour: come get me?’