The Blood Road

Without Whom

As always I received help from a lot of people while I was writing this book, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank: Sergeant Bruce Crawford, star of Skye and screen, who answers far more daft questions than anyone should ever have to, as does Professor Dave Barclay and the magnificent Professor Lorna Dawson; Christine Gordon, Geoff Marston, Lynda McGuigan, and Michael Strachan, who were a massive help with research (for a different story); Fiona Culbert, who helped with Social Work questions; ex-Detective Superintendent Nick Brackin, for ‘the shed’; Sarah Hodgson, Jane Johnson, Julia Wisdom, Jaime Frost, Anna Derkacz, Isabel Coburn, Charlie Redmayne, Roger Cazalet, Kate Elton, Hannah Gamon, Sarah Shea, Louis Patel, Damon Greeney, Finn Cotton, Anne O’Brien, Marie Goldie, the DC Bishopbriggs Super Squad, and everyone at HarperCollins, for doing such a stonking job; Phil Patterson and the team at Marjacq Scripts, for keeping my numerous cats in cat food; and let’s not forget Danielle Smith, Kim Fraser (née McLeod), and Andrew McManus, all of whom raised money for some very good causes in order to inspire fictionalised characters in this book.

Of course, writers, like me, wouldn’t be here without people like you (yes, YOU – the person reading this book), booksellers, and bookshops too. You’re all magnificent!

And saving the best for last – as always – Fiona and Grendel.

0

Duncan’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed the steering wheel, snatching the car away from the edge of the road. The headlights glittered back from the rain-slicked tarmac, sweeping past drystane dykes and hollow trees.

Don’t fall asleep.

Don’t pass out.

LIVE!

Madre de Dios, it hurt… Fire and ice, spreading deep inside his stomach, burning and freezing its way through his spine, squeezing his chest, making every breath a searing rip of barbed wire on raw flesh.

The wipers screeched back and forth across the windscreen – marking time with the thumping blood in his ears – the blowers bellowing cold air into his face.

He switched on the radio, turning it up to drown them out.

A cheesy voice blared from the speakers: ‘…continues for missing three-year-old Ellie Morton. You’re listening to Late Night Smoothness on Radio Garioch, helping you through the wee small hours on a dreich Friday morning…’

Duncan blinked. Bared his teeth. Hissed out a breath as the car swerved again. Wrestled it back from the brink. Wiped a hand across his clammy forehead.

‘We’ve got Sally’s O.M.G. it’s Early! show coming up at four, but first, let’s slow things down a bit with David Thaw and Stones.’

His left hand glistened – dark and sticky.

He clenched it over the burning ache in his side again. Pressing it into the damp fabric. Blood dripping from his fingers as he blinked…

Teresa walks across the town square, brown hair teased out by the warm wind. Little Marco gazes up from her arms, worshipping her for the goddess she is. The sky is blue as a saltire flag, the church golden in the summer sun.

Duncan wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in for a kiss – warm and smoky from her mother’s estofado de pollo.

She cups a hand to his cheek and smiles at him. ‘Te quiero mucho, Carlos.’

He beams back at her. ‘Te quiero mucho, Teresa!’ And he does. He loves her with every beating fibre of his heart.

The car lurched right, heading for the drystane dyke.

Duncan dragged it back. Tightened his right hand on the steering wheel. Hissed out a barbed-wire breath. Shook his head. Blinked again…

— mice (and other vermin) —

1

Drizzle misted down from a clay sky. It sat like a damp lid over a drab grey field at the base of a drab grey hill. The rising sun slipped between the two, washing a semi-naked oak tree with fire and blood.

Which was appropriate.

A brown Ford Focus was wrapped around its trunk, the bonnet crumpled, the windscreen spiderwebbed with cracks. A body slumped forward in the driver’s seat. Still and pale.

Crime-scene tape twitched and growled in the breeze, yellow-and-black like an angry wasp, as a handful of scene examiners in the full SOC kit picked their way around the wreck. The flurry and flash of photography and fingerprint powder. The smell of diesel and rotting leaves.

Logan pulled the hood of his own suit into place, the white Tyvek crackling like crumpled paper as he zipped the thing up with squeaky nitrile gloves. He stretched his chin out of the way, keeping his neck clear of the zip’s teeth. ‘Still don’t see what I’m doing here, Doreen.’

Detective Sergeant Taylor wriggled into her suit with all the grace of someone’s plump aunty doing the slosh at a family wedding. The hood hid her greying bob, the rest of it covering an outfit that could best be described as ‘Cardigan-chic’. If you were feeling generous. She pointed at the crumpled Ford. ‘You’ll find out.’

Typical – milking every minute of it.

They slipped on their facemasks then she led the way down the slope to the tape cordon, holding it up for him to duck under.

Logan did. ‘Only, RTCs aren’t usually a Professional Standards kind of thing.’

She turned and waved a hand at the hill. ‘Local postie was on his way to work, sees skidmarks on the road up there, looks down the hill and sees the crashed car. Calls one-oh-one.’

A pair of tyre tracks slithered and writhed their way down the yellowing grass to the Ford Focus’s remains. How the driver had managed to keep the thing from rolling was a mystery.

‘See, we’re more of an investigating complaints made against police officers when they’ve been naughty deal.’

‘Traffic get here at six fifteen, tramp down the hill and discover our driver.’

Logan peered in through the passenger window.

The man behind the wheel was big as a bear, hanging forward against his seatbelt, the first rays of morning a dull gleam on his bald head. His broad face, slack and pale – even with the heavy tan. Eyes open. Mouth like a bullet wound in that massive thicket of beard. Definitely dead.

‘Still not seeing it, Doreen.’

She gestured him over to the driver’s side. ‘Course it looks like accidental death, till they open the driver’s door and what do they find?’

Logan stepped around the driver’s open door… And stopped.

Blood pooled in the footwell, made deep-red streaks down the upholstery. Following it upwards led to a sagging hole in the driver’s shirt. So dark in there it was almost black.

‘Oooh…’ Logan hissed in a breath. ‘Stab wound?’

‘Probably. So they call it in and we all scramble out here like good little soldiers. Body’s searched: no ID.’

‘Give the hire company a call. They wouldn’t let him have the car without ID.’

She turned and stared at him. ‘Yes, thank you Brain of Britain, we did actually think of that. Car was booked out by one Carlos Guerrero y Prieto.’

‘There you go: mystery solved.’ Logan stuck his hands on his hips. ‘Now, make with the big reveal, Doreen: why – am – I – here?’

Little creases appeared at the sides of her eyes. She was smiling at him behind her mask. Dragging it out.

‘Seriously, I’m going to turn around and walk away if—’

‘While we were waiting on Trans-Buchan Automotive Rentals to get their finger out and stop moaning about data protection, someone had the bright idea of taking the deceased’s fingerprints with one of the wee live scan machines. We got a hit from the database. Dramatic pause…’

The only sounds were the clack-and-whine of crime-scene photography as she waggled her eyebrows at him.

‘Were you always this annoying? Because I don’t remember you being this annoying.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m surprised you don’t recognise him. OK, so he’s lost a bit of weight and shaved his head, and the Grizzly Adams beard and tan are new, but it’s still him.’

‘Doreen…’

‘Carlos Guerrero y Prieto’s real name is Duncan Bell, AKA: Ding-Dong, late Detective Inspector of this parish.’

Logan stared.

The hairy hands dangling at the end of those bear-like arms. The rounded shoulders. The heavy eyebrows. Take off the beard. Add a bit more hair. Put him in an ill-fitting suit?

‘But … he’s dead. And I don’t mean just now dead – we buried him two years ago.’

Doreen nodded, radiating smugness. ‘And that’s why we called you.’

The duty undertakers lifted their shiny grey coffin, slipping and sliding in the damp grass. Two of the scene examiners broke off from collecting samples and grabbed a handle each, helping them carry it away from the crashed Ford.

Logan unzipped his suit a bit, letting the trapped heat out, and shifted his grip on his phone. ‘We’ll need a DNA match to be a hundred percent, but they’ve done the live scan on his fingerprints five times now and it always comes up as DI Bell.’

‘I see…’ Superintendent Doig made sooking noises for a bit. When he came back, his voice was gentle, a tad indulgent. ‘But, you see, it can’t be him, Logan. We buried him. I was at his funeral. I gave a speech. People were very moved.’

‘You tripped over the podium and knocked one of the floral displays flying.’

‘Yes, well. … I don’t think we need to dwell on every little aspect of the service.’

‘If it is DI Bell, he’s been lying low somewhere sunny. Going by the tan and new name, maybe Spain?’

‘Why would Ding-Dong fake his own death?’

‘And having faked his own death, why come back two years later? Why now?’

One of the examiners wandered up and pulled down her facemask, revealing a mouthful of squint teeth framed with soft pink lipstick. ‘Inspector McRae? You might wanna come see this.’

‘Hold on a sec, Boss, something’s come up.’ Logan pressed the phone against his chest and followed the crinkly-white oversuited figure to the crashed Ford’s boot.

A shovel and a pickaxe lay partially unwrapped from their black plastic bin-bag parcels – metal blades clean and glittering in the dull light.

She nodded at them. ‘Bit suspicious, right? Why’s he carting a pick and shovel about?’

Logan inched forwards, sniffing. There was a strange toilety scent – like green urinal cakes undercut by something darker. ‘Can you smell that?’

‘Smell what?’

‘Air freshener.’

She leaned in too, sniffing. ‘Oh… Yeah, I’m getting it now. Sort of pine and lavender? I love those wee plug-in—’

‘Get the pick and shovel tested. He’s been digging something up, or burying it, I want to know what and where.’

The other scene examiner sauntered over, hands in his pockets, glancing up at the hill. ‘Aye, aye. We’ve got an audience.’

A scruffy Fiat hatchback lurked at the side of the road above, not far from where the crashed car’s tyres scored their way down the mud and grass. Someone stood next to it peering through a pair of binoculars. Auburn curls made a halo around her head, tucked out of the way behind her ears. A linen suit that looked as if she’d slept in it. But she wasn’t looking at them, she was following the duty undertakers and the coffin.

‘Bloody press.’ The examiner with the pink lipstick, howked, then spat. ‘It’ll be telephoto lenses in a minute.’

Logan went back to his phone. ‘Boss? DCI Hardie’s running the MIT, any chance you can have a word? Think we need to be involved on this one.’

‘Urgh… More paperwork, just what we need. All right, I’ll see what I can do.’

He hung up before Doig launched into his ‘bye, bye’ routine and stood there. Watching the figure up on the road. Frowned. Then turned away and poked at the screen of his phone, scrolling through his list of contacts. Set it ringing.

The woman with the curly hair pulled out her phone, juggling it and the binoculars, then a wary voice – laced with that Inverness Monarch-of-the-Glen twang – sounded in Logan’s ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Detective Sergeant Chalmers? It’s Inspector McRae. Hi. Just checking that you’re remembering our appointment this lunchtime: twelve noon.’

‘What? Yes. Definitely remembering it. Couldn’t be more excited.’

Yeah, bet she was.

‘Only you’ve missed the last three appointments and I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me.’

‘Nooo. Definitely not. Well, I’d better get back to it, got lots of door-to-doors to do. So—’

‘You’re on the Ellie Morton investigation, aren’t you?’

The woman was still following the duty undertakers with her binoculars. They struggled up the hill with the coffin, fighting against the slope and wet grass. One missed step and they’d be presiding over a deeply embarrassing and unprofessional toboggan run.

‘Yup. Like I said, we’re—’

‘Any leads? Three-year-old girl goes missing, her parents must be frantic.’

‘We’re working our way through Tillydrone as I speak. Nothing so far.’

‘Tillydrone?’

‘Yup, going to be here all morning… Ah, damn it. Actually, now I think about it, I’ll probably be stuck here all afternoon too. Sorry. Can we reschedule our thing for later in the week?’

‘You’re in Tillydrone?’

‘Yup.’

‘That’s odd… Because I’m standing in a field a couple of miles West of Inverurie, and I could swear I’m looking right at you.’ He waved up the hill at her. ‘Can you see me waving?’

‘Shite…’ Chalmers ducked behind her car. ‘No, definitely in Tillydrone. Must be someone else. Er… I’ve got to go. The DI needs me. Bye.’

The line went dead. She’d hung up on him.

Those auburn curls appeared for a brief moment as she scrambled into her car, then the engine burst into life and the hatchback roared away. Disappeared around the corner.

Subtle. Really subtle.

Logan shook his head. ‘Unbelievable.’

Something rocky thumped out of the Audi’s speakers as it wound its way back down the road towards Aberdeen. Past fields of brown-grey soil, and fields of drooping grass, and fields of miserable sheep, and fields flooded with thick pewter lochans. On a good day, the view would have been lovely, but under the ashen sky and never-ending rain?

This was why people emigrated.

The music died, replaced by the car’s default ringtone.

Logan pressed the button and picked up. ‘Hello?’

‘Guv? It’s me.’ Me: AKA Detective Sergeant Simon Occasionally-Useful-When-Not-Being-A-Pain-In-The-Backside Rennie. Sounding as if he was in the middle of chewing a toffee or something. ‘I’ve been down to records and picked up all of DI Bell’s old case files. Where do you want me to start?’

‘How about the investigation into his suicide?’

‘Ah. No. One of DCI Hardie’s minions already checked it out of the archives.’

Sod.

‘OK. In that case: start with the most recent file you’ve got and work your way backwards.’

‘Two years, living it up on the sunny Costa del Somewhere and DI Bell comes home to dreich old Aberdeenshire? See if it was me? No chance.’

‘He had a pick and shovel in the boot of his car.’

‘Buried treasure?’

A tractor rumbled past, going the other way, its massive rear wheels kicking up a mountain of filthy spray.

Logan stuck on the wipers. ‘My money’s on unburied. You don’t come back from the dead to bury something in the middle of nowhere. You come back to dig it up.’

‘Ah: got you. He buries whatever it is, fakes his own death, then sods off to the Med. Two years later he thinks it’s safe to pop over and dig it up again.’

‘That or whatever he buried isn’t safe any more and he has to retrieve it before someone else does.’

‘Hmm…’ Rennie’s voice went all muffled, then came back again. ‘OK: I’ll have a look for bank jobs, or jewellery heists in the case files. Something expensive and unsolved. Something worth staging your own funeral for.’

‘And find out who he was working with. See if we can’t rattle some cages.’

A knot of TV people had set up outside Divisional Headquarters, all their cameras trained on the small group of protestors marching round and round in the rain. There were only about a dozen of them, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for with enthusiasm – waving placards with ‘JUSTICE FOR ELLIE!’, or ‘SHAME ON THE POLICE!’, or ‘FIND ELLIE NOW!’ on them. Nearly every single board had a photo of Ellie Morton: her grinning moon-shaped face surrounded by blonde curls, big green eyes crinkled up at whatever had tickled her.

Logan slowed the Audi as he drove by. Someone in a tweed jacket was doing a piece to camera, serious-faced as she probably told the world what a useless bunch of tossers Police Scotland were. Oh why hadn’t they found Ellie Morton yet? What about the poor family? Why did no one care?

As if.

The Audi bumped up the lumpy tarmac and into the rear podium car park. Pulled into the slot marked ‘R

ESERVED

F

OR

P

ROFESSIONAL

S

TANDARDS

’. Some wag had graffitied a Grim Reaper on the wall beneath the sign. And, to be fair, it actually wasn’t a bad likeness of Superintendent Doig. Always nice to be appreciated by your colleagues…

Logan stuck his hat on his head, climbed out, and hurried across to the double doors, swerving to avoid the puddles. Along a breeze-block corridor and into the stairwell. Taking the steps two at a time.

A couple of uniformed PCs wandered downwards, chatting and smiling.

They flattened themselves against the wall as Logan approached, all talk silenced, both smiles turned into a sort of pained rictus.

The spotty one forced a little wave. ‘Inspector.’

Logan had made it as far as the third-floor landing when his phone dinged at him. Text message.

He pulled it out and frowned at the screen.

The caller ID came up as ‘HORRIBLE S

TEEL

!’ and his shoulders sagged a bit. ‘What do you want, you wrinkly monster?’

He opened the message:

Come on, you know you want to.

Nope. Logan thumbed out a reply as he marched past the lifts:

Told you – I’m busy. Ask someone else.

He pushed through the doors and into a bland corridor that came with a faint whiff of paint fumes and Pot Noodle.

A tiny clump of support officers were sharing a joke, laughing it up.

Then one of them spotted Logan, prompting nudges and a sudden frightened silence.

Logan nodded at them as he passed, then knocked on the door with a white plastic plaque on it: ‘D

ETECTIVE

C

HIEF

I

NSPECTOR

S

TEPHEN

H

ARDIE

’.

A tired voice muffled out from inside. ‘Come.’

Logan opened the door.

Hardie’s office was all kitted out for efficiency, organisation, and achievement: six whiteboards covered in notes about various ongoing cases, the same number of filing cabinets, a computer that looked as if it wasn’t designed to run on coal or hamster power. A portrait of the Queen hung on the wall along with a collection of framed citations and a few photos of the man himself shaking hands with various local bigwigs. Everything you needed for investigatory success.

Sadly, it didn’t seem to be working.

Hardie was perched on the edge of his desk, feet not quite reaching the ground. A short middle-aged man with little round glasses. Dark hair swept back from a high forehead. A frown on his face as he flipped through a sheaf of paperwork.

He wasn’t the only occupant, though. A skeletal man with thinning hair was stooped by one of the whiteboards, printing things onto it in smudgy green marker pen.

And number three was chewing on a biro as she scanned the contents of her clipboard. Her jowls wobbling as she shook her head. ‘Pfff… Already got requests coming in from Radio Scotland and Channel 4 News. How the hell did they get hold of it so quickly?’

Hardie looked up from his papers and grimaced at Logan. ‘Ah, Inspector McRae. I would say to what do we owe the pleasure? but it seldom is.’

Number Three sniffed. ‘Only positive is they don’t know who our victim was.’

Number Two held up his pen. ‘Yet, George. They don’t know yet.’

George sighed. ‘True.’

Logan leaned against the door frame. ‘I take it Superintendent Doig’s been in touch?’

‘Urgh.’ Hardie thumped his paperwork down. ‘You know this is going to be a complete turd tornado. Soon as they find out we’ve got a murdered cop who faked his own death, it won’t just be a couple of TV crews out there. It’ll be all of them.’

‘Did you ever hear rumours about DI Bell? Backhanders, evidence going missing, corruption?’

‘Ding-Dong? Don’t be daft.’ Hardie folded his arms. ‘Now: we need to coordinate our investigations. PSD and MIT.’

‘Honest police officers don’t run off to Spain and lie low while everyone back home thinks they’re dead.’

‘You can have a couple of officers to assist with your inquiries.’ Hardie pointed at his jowly sidekick. ‘George will sort that out.’

She smiled at Logan. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t lump you with the neeps.’

‘Should think not. And I could do with a copy of the investigation into DI Bell’s so-called suicide, too.’

‘I think Charlie’s got that one.’

Sidekick number two nodded. ‘I’ll drop it off.’

Logan wandered over to the whiteboards and stood there, head on one side, running his eyes down all the open cases.

Hardie was trying on his authoritative voice: ‘My MIT will be focusing on catching whoever stabbed Ding-Dong. You can look into … his disappearance.’

Logan stayed where he was. ‘You’re running the search for Ellie Morton?’

‘I expect you to share any and all findings with my team. You report to me first.’

Aye, right. ‘And Superintendent Doig agreed to that? Doesn’t sound like him. I’d probably better check, you know: in case there’s been a misunderstanding.’

A harrumphing noise from Hardie. Busted.

Logan gave him a smile. ‘Ellie’s been missing for, what: four days?’

DS Scott tapped his pen on the whiteboard. ‘DI Fraser’s working that one. My money’s on the stepdad. Got form for indecent exposure when he was young. Once a pervert…’

A nod. ‘I’ll give Fraser a shout.’

Hardie harrumphed again. ‘If I can drag you back to the topic for a brief moment, Inspector: DI Bell’s files. Where are they?’

‘DS Rennie’s going through them.’ Logan turned and pulled on a smile. ‘You wanted us to look into the historic side of things, remember? Bell’s disappearance?’

A puzzled look. ‘But I only just told you that.’

Logan’s smile grew. ‘See: we’re already acting like a well-oiled machine.’

2

The canteen was virtually deserted. Well, except for Baked Tattie Ted, in his green-and-brown tabard, worrying away at the deep-fat frier while Logan plucked a tin of Irn-Bru from the chiller cabinet.

Logan pinned his phone between ear and shoulder while he went digging in his pocket for some change. ‘Anything?’

The sound of rustling paper and creaking cardboard came from the earpiece, followed by a distracted-sounding Rennie. ‘Nada, zilch, zip, bugger-and-indeed-all. Not that screams lots of money went missing! anyway.’

Two fifties, a ten and a couple of pennies. They jingled in Logan’s palm as he walked to the counter. ‘Of course it might not be about an old case. Maybe his personal life was what made him up sticks and disappear?’

A groan. ‘Please don’t tell me I’m wading through all this stuff for nothing!’

The canteen door thumped open and in strutted a woman made up like something off the cosmetics counter at Debenhams. Jane McGrath: in a smart trouser suit, perfect hair, folder under one arm, phone to her ear, and a smile on her face. ‘That’s right, yes. … Completely.’

She waved at him and helped herself to a cheese-and-pickle sandwich and a can of Coke. Tucked a packet of salt-and-vinegar under her arm. ‘That’s right. … Uh-huh. … Yes. I know, it’s terrible. Truly terrible.’ She pinned the phone to her chest and her smile blossomed into an evil grin – mouthing the words at Logan: ‘Isn’t it great?’ Then back to the phone. ‘It’s a miracle their injuries weren’t even more serious. I don’t need to tell you how many police officers are hurt in the line of duty every year. … Yes. … Yes, that’s right.’

Rennie whinged in his ear. ‘Guv? You still there? I said, tell me I’m not—’

‘Don’t be daft, Simon: it’s not for nothing if you find something. And see if you can text me a list of DI Bell’s sidekicks.’

‘Hold on…’ The sound of rustling papers. ‘OK. Let me see… Here we go. Most recent one was Detective Sergeant Rose Savage. God that’s a great police name, isn’t it? Sounds like something off a crime thriller. Detective Sergeant Rose Savage!’

Jane dumped her sandwich, Coke, and crisps on the countertop. ‘I’ll talk to the hospital, but I’m pretty sure we can get you in for a ten-minute interview: brave bobbies suffer broken bones chasing cowardly criminal! … Yes, I thought so. … OK. … OK. Thanks. Bye.’ She hung up and sagged, head back, beaming at the ceiling tiles. ‘Ha!’

‘Find out where this Sergeant Savage works now and text me.’

‘Guv.’

Logan put his phone away as Jane launched into a little happy dance.

‘Guess who just got all that crap about us being rubbish off the front page. Go on, I’ll bet you can’t.’

Logan frowned. ‘Hospital?’

‘Two uniforms were chasing down a burglar last night, he wheeches through some back gardens then up and over a shed. They clamber after him and CRASH! Pair of them go straight through the shed roof.’

‘Ooh… Painful.’

‘One broken arm, one broken leg. Which was lucky.’

She had a point. ‘Especially given the amount of pointy things people keep in sheds. Shears, axes, forks, rakes, bill hooks—’

‘What?’ She pulled her chin in, top lip curled. ‘No, I mean: lucky they got hurt in the line of duty. Newspapers love a good injured copper story.’ That kicked off another bout of happy dancing.

Logan paid for his Irn-Bru. ‘Working in Media Liaison’s really changed you, hasn’t it?’

‘And with any luck they’ll have a couple of good bruises as well. That always plays well splashed across the front page.’ She turned and danced away.

Logan shook his head. ‘Why do we have to keep hiring weirdos? What’s wrong with normal—’

His phone dinged at him and he dug it out again.

A text message from

‘

I

DIOT

R

ENNIE’

:

Sargent ROSE SAVAGE!!! (crim fiter 2 the stars) wrks out the Mastrick staton. On duty nw. U wan me 2 get hr 2 com in??

Talking of weirdos…

Logan typed out a reply:

No, I’ll go to her. She’s less likely to do a runner if it’s a surprise. And stop texting like a schoolgirl from the 1990s: you’ve got a smartphone, you idiot!

North Anderson Drive slid by the car’s windows, high-rise buildings looming up ahead on the right, their façades darkened by rain. A couple of saggy-looking people slouched through the downpour, dragging a miserable spaniel on the end of an extendable leash.

‘…heightened police presence in Edinburgh this weekend as protestors are expected to descend on the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference…’

He took the next left, past rows of tiny orangey-brown houses and terraces of pebble-dashed beige.

‘…avoid the area as travel chaos is extremely likely until Tuesday. Local news now, and the Aberdeen Examiner has its sights set on a Guinness World Record next week as it hosts the world’s largest ever stovies-eating contest…’

Three teenaged girls hung about on a small patch of grass, sheltering beneath the trees to share what was quite possibly a joint. Passing it back and forth, holding the smoke in their lungs and pulling faces.

Logan slowed the Audi and wound down the passenger window. Waving at them. ‘’Ello, ’ello, ’ello, what’s all this then?’

‘Scarper!’

They bolted in three different directions, their hand-rolled ‘cigarette’ spiralling away into the wet grass.

Logan grinned and wound his window back up again.

And people said community policing was a waste of time.

‘…and I’m sorry to say that it looks like this rain’s going to stay with us for the next few days as low pressure pushes in from the Atlantic…’

He turned down the next side street, past more tiny terraces, and right on to Arnage Drive in time to see one of the scarpering teenagers barrel out from the side of another grey-beige row. She scuttered to a halt in the middle of the road and stood there with her mouth hanging open, before turning and sprinting back the way she’d come. Arms and legs pumping like an Olympian.

Ah, teenagers, the gift that kept on giving.

He pulled into the car park behind the little shopping centre, designed more for delivery vans and lorries than members of the public. The front side might have been OK, but the back was a miserable slab of brick and barred windows on the bottom and air-conditioning units and greying UPVC on top. All the charm of a used corn plaster.

A handful of hatchbacks littered the spaces between the bins, but Logan parked next to the lone patrol car. Hopped out into the rain.

It pattered on the brim of his peaked cap as he hurried across to the station’s rear door, unlocked it, and let himself in.

The corridor walls were covered in scuff marks, a pile of Method Of Entry kit heaped up beneath the whiteboard for people to sign out the patrol cars, a notice not to let someone called Grimy Gordon into the station, because last time he puked in Sergeant Norton’s boots.

‘Hello?’

No reply, just a phone ringing somewhere in the building’s bowels.

The reception area was empty, a ‘C

LOSED’

sign hanging on the front door. No one in the locker room. No one in the back office.

Might as well make himself comfortable, then.

The station break room was bland and institutional, with an air of depression that wasn’t exactly lifted by the display of ‘G

ET

W

ELL

S

OON!

’ cards pinned to the noticeboard, almost covering the slew of official memos and motivational posters. A window would have helped lift the gloom a bit, instead the only illumination came from one of those economy lightbulbs that looked like a radioactive pretzel. A dented mini-fridge, food-spattered microwave, and battered kettle populated the tiny kitchen area.

Logan dumped his teabag in the bin and stirred in a glug of semi-skimmed from a carton with a ‘STOP STEALING MY MILK YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!!!’ Post-it note on it.

He sat back down at the rickety table and poked out a text message on his phone:

As it’s Friday, how about Chinese for tea? Bottle of wine. Bit of sexy business…?

S

END.

It dinged straight back.

TS T

ARA

:

Make it pizza & you’ve got a deal.

Excellent. Now all he needed was—

A strangled scream echoed down the corridor and in through the open break-room door.

Logan put his tea down and poked his head out.

‘Stop bloody struggling!’ The sergeant was missing her hat, teeth bared and stained pink – presumably from the split bottom lip. Hair pulled up in a bun. Arms wrapped around the throat of a whippet-thin man in filthy trainers and a tracksuit that was more dirt than fabric. Both hands cuffed behind his back. Struggling in the narrow corridor.

A PC staggered about at the far end, by the front door, one hand clamped over his nose as blood bubbled between his fingers and fell onto his high-viz jacket. ‘Unnnngghh…’

All three of them: drenched, soggy, and dripping.

Captain Tracksuit lashed his head to the side, broken brown teeth snapping inches from the sergeant’s face.

She flinched. ‘Calm down, you wee shite!’

He didn’t. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’ Bellowing it out in an onslaught of foul fishy breath. It went with the bitter-onion stink of BO.

Logan pointed. ‘You need a hand?’

The sergeant grimaced at him. ‘Thanks, sir, but I think we’ve got this. So if you don’t mind—’

Captain Tracksuit McStinky shoulder-slammed her against the wall, hard enough to make the whiteboard jitter and pens clatter to the floor. ‘GETOFFME, GETOFFME, GETOFFME!’

‘You sure you don’t want a hand?’

‘Quite sure.’

McStinky spun away and she snatched a handful of his manky tracksuit. It ripped along the zip, exposing a swathe of bruised xylophone ribs. Then he lunged, jerking his forehead forward like a battering ram.

She barely managed to turn her face away – his head smashed into her cheek instead of her nose. She stumbled.

‘Because it’s no trouble, really.’

McStinky kept on spinning, both hands still cuffed behind his back. ‘I never touched him! It was them! IT WAS THEM!’ Dance-hopping back a couple of paces then surging closer to bury one of those filthy trainers in her ribs. Then did it again.

‘Aaaaargh! OK! OK!’

Logan stepped out of the break room and grabbed the chunk of plastic that joined both sides of McStinky’s handcuffs and yanked it upwards like he was opening a car boot.

McStinky screamed as his arms tried to pop out of their sockets. He pitched forward onto the floor, legs thrashing. Bellowing out foul breaths as Logan kept up the pressure. Leaning into it a bit. Up close, the BO had a distinct blue-cheesiness to it and a hint of mouldy sausages too.

The sergeant scrambled backwards until she was sitting up against the corridor wall. Spat out a glob of scarlet.

McStinky roared. ‘DON’T LET THEM EAT ME!’

The PC with the bloody nose staggered over and threw himself across McStinky’s legs, struggling a set of limb restraints into place. ‘Hold still!’

Logan held out his hand to the other officer. ‘Let me guess: Sergeant Savage? Logan McRae. I need to talk to you about DI Bell.’

Logan leaned against the corridor wall, mug of tea warm against his chest. The station’s rear door was wide open, giving a lovely view of PC Broken Nose and Sergeant Savage ‘assisting’ McStinky into the back of the patrol car parked next to Logan’s Audi.

Rain bounced off the cars’ roofs, sparked up from the wet tarmac, hissed against the world like a billion angry cats.

Ding.

He pulled out his phone and groaned.

HORRIBLE S

TEEL

:

Come on, it’s only one night. One wee teeny weeny night.

A quick reply:

I’m busy.

Sergeant Savage slammed the patrol car’s door shut, then lurched into the station again. Wiped the rain from her face. Scowled. ‘God, I love Fridays.’

Logan nodded at the car. ‘He’s nice.’

McStinky thrashed against his seatbelt, screaming – muffled to near silence by the closed car door – while PC Broken Nose stuck two fingers up to the window.

Savage peeled off her high-viz jacket. ‘You wanted to talk about DI Bell.’

‘Don’t you want to take your friend straight to the cells?’

‘Jittery Dave? Nah, he’s off his face. They won’t let us book him in till they know he won’t OD or choke on his own vomit. And the hospital won’t take him: not while he’s violent. So he can sit there and chill out for a bit. Smithy’ll keep an eye on him.’ She prodded at her split lip and winced. There was blood on her fingertip. ‘Why the sudden interest in Ding-Dong?’

‘You hear what happened this morning?’

‘Been chasing Jittery Dave since I got on shift. I’ve run a sodding marathon already today – never mind Mo Farah, we should put a couple of druggies in for the next Olympics.’

‘OK.’ Logan led the way back into the break room. ‘You were Bell’s sidekick.’

She bristled a bit. ‘I worked with him, yes.’

‘How was he as a boss?’

‘Good. Yeah. Fair. Didn’t hog all the credit. Actually listened.’

Logan stuck the kettle on and dug a clean mug from the cupboard. ‘What about his state of mind?’

‘He blew his brains out in a caravan. What do you think?’

Teabag. ‘I think someone wouldn’t do that without a very good reason. What was his?’

She looked away. Shrugged. ‘The last case we worked on. It was … tough for him.’

‘Tough how?’

‘Ding-Dong… Look: Aiden MacAuley was three when he was abducted. He was out with his dad, in the woods near their house. Fred Marshall attacked them. Killed the father, abducted Aiden.’

‘Fred Marshall?’

‘And we couldn’t lay a finger on him. We know he did it – he boasted about the attack to a friend of his down the pub. Told him all the grisly details about bashing Kenneth MacAuley’s brains out with a rock. Never said what happened to the kid, though. So we dragged Marshall in and grilled him. Again and again and again. But in the end, we didn’t have a single bit of evidence to pin on him.’

The kettle rattled to a boil and Logan drowned the teabag.

Savage prodded at her split lip again. ‘Course, we couldn’t tell Aiden’s mother any of that. We’re banging our heads against the Crown Office, but far as she’s concerned it looks like we’re doing sod-all to find her son and catch the guy who killed her husband.’