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This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organisations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental. The only exceptions to this are the characters Allan Doig, Danielle Smith, and Kim Fraser who the author has been authorised to fictionalise and include within this volume. All behaviour, history, and character traits assigned to their fictional representations have been designed to serve the needs of the narrative and do not necessarily bear any resemblance to the real person.
The quotation ‘Heav’n has no rage…’ is from William Congreve’s The Mourning Bride, published in 1697.
This book contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. – specifically section 4.3.1 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016.
HarperCollinsPublishers,
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2018
Stuart MacBride asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Cover design © Blacksheep-uk.com
Cover image © Magdalena Russocka/Trevillion Images (road);
Shutterstock.com (clouds)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
SOURCE ISBN: 9780008208240
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2018 ISBN: 9780008208233
Version: 2020-05-20
Dedication
In loving memory of Peggy Reid,
a friend to cats, arranger of flowers,
and producer of the best cheese straws known to man.
1937–2017
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Without Whom
Chapter 0
— mice (and other vermin) —
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
— the widows’ waltz —
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
— the mortuary songbook —
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
— a dish of wasps in aspic —
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
— in the dark woods, screaming —
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
— secondhand children —
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Keep Reading …
About the Author
By Stuart MacBride
About the Publisher
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…
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 ‘RESERVED FOR PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS’. 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…