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‘Don’t know yet.’
Hardie sniffed. ‘How can you not know who you’re going to exhume?’
‘We buried DI Bell two years ago, remember? Only he wasn’t really dead: he faked the whole thing. So who did we bury?’
Big Tony’s eyes widened as it sank in. ‘Oh for… CHRIST’S SAKE!’ He booted the nearest wastepaper basket, sending it flying, crumpled-up sheets of paper and sweetie wrappers exploding out like cheap confetti.
Hardie covered his head with his hands and groaned. ‘Not again.’
‘Why did no one think of this till now? What the fffffff…’ Big Tony screwed up his face, marched over to the dented bin and booted it away again. It clattered off a filing cabinet. ‘Aaaaargh!’
‘Now…’ Hardie peeked out between his fingers. ‘To be fair, there’s been a lot going on and—’
‘So let’s get this straight: not only do we have the PR disaster of DI Bell faking his own death then turning up stabbed in a crashed car, now we’ve got to investigate him for murder as well? We buried him with full police honours!’
Logan nodded. ‘So I can dig up whoever-it-is?’
‘The media are going to love this…’ Big Tony sagged. ‘Our beloved bosses at Tulliallan are already pulling on their hobnail boots to give my arse a kicking. When this hits… Argh!’ He gave the wastepaper basket one last whack and stormed from the room, flinging his arms about like a man on fire. ‘Dig him up. Dig them all up! Every single last bloody one of them!’
The door slammed shut.
Hardie stared at it for a moment. ‘I would really like to make it clear that none of this is my fault.’
‘I know how you feel.’ Logan settled back against the meeting table. ‘Speaking of which: have you heard of someone called Fred Marshall?’
A frown. ‘Possibly. Probably… I think so. Wasn’t he one of those rent-a-thug-have-baseball-bat-will-travel types? Why?’
‘Just wondering.’
The office they’d given him wasn’t exactly huge: lined with half a dozen manky old desks, a couple of scuffed whiteboards, and a collection of swivel chairs that looked as if they’d fallen off the back of a lorry. And then been driven over. Twice. Everything looked shabby and used, especially the carpet.
Logan sat back in one of the creaky chairs, phone to his ear, case file open on the scarred desktop in front of him. Frowning at the pathologist’s report on what was left of whoever it was they’d buried in DI Duncan Bell’s grave. ‘According to this, cause of death was indeterminable, but likely to be due to the extensive shotgun wound to the cranium.’
On the other end of the phone, Rennie gave a little sarcastic laugh. ‘“Likely”? Thought it took half of Ding-Dong’s head off!’
‘Turns out DI Bell had stashed about fifteen litres of petrol about the caravan, set fire to the place, then tried to gargle his dad’s shotgun.’ Logan turned the page. A crime-scene photo popped and crackled with reds and blacks and pinks. Like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-themed barbecue. ‘Urgh… What was left of the remains isn’t pretty.’ He turned the page, hiding the image. ‘Do me a favour: run a PNC check on a Fred Marshall, IC-One male, thug for hire.’
‘Hold on, have to excavate my keyboard.’ The sound of rustling paperwork. ‘Fred Marshall. Fred Marshall… Why does that sound familiar?’
‘Prime suspect in the Aiden MacAuley case.’
‘Ah, that Fred Marshall. Here we go. Clickity, clickity … Fred Marshall.’ A low whistle came down the earpiece. ‘Well he does seem like every girl’s dream date. Five counts of threats and extortion, four aggravated assaults, three possessions with intent, two thefts from a lockfast place, one arson, and a partridge in a pear tree.’
‘And where’s Prince Charming now?’
The clatter of computer keys went on and on and on and on…
‘Rennie? You still there?’
‘Going digging.’
‘You better not be searching for porn on the office computers. This isn’t the Houses of Parliament.’
‘Moi? Never. Well, maybe that once… Right – I’ve got nothing for Fred Albert Marshall for … call it twenty-six months.’
Sounded unlikely.
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Not so much as a parking ticket. Hang on, I’ll check Twitter and Facebook…’ More clattering. ‘Nothing. Nada. His last status update was going from “in a relationship” to “it’s complicated” and his last post … here we go: a picture of a monkey peeing into its own mouth with the caption “Police Scotland’s finest”. Two years and two months ago.’
Logan nodded. Frowned at the wall for a bit. Two and a bit years. So Fred Marshall was definitely a contender for ‘Most Likely To Have Been Buried In A Police Officer’s Grave’.
‘Guv?’
‘Yeah, I need you to get me everything you can about Fred Marshall: dental records, hospital X-rays, everything.’
‘And do you want that before or after the other four million things you’ve asked me to do?’
‘Thanks, Simon.’ He hung up, and had almost got the phone back in his pocket when it dinged at him.
HORRIBLE STEEL:
Stop being such a dick. They’re your kids too – wouldn’t kill you to babysit the little monsters now and then!
He thumbed out a reply.
I’m not being a dick, I’m busy. I have plans. And I babysat them two nights ago, you ungrateful lump.
Logan closed the case file.
Ding:
OK: you can bring Ginger McHotpants with you as long as you don’t leave dirty heterosexual stains on the couch again.
Reply:
That was hummus and you know it. And I’m busy. Find someone else.
And with any luck, that would be that.
Logan called up the inter-department contact list on his steam-powered computer. ‘Right: exhumation.’
‘OK. Thanks. Bye.’ Logan hung up and pocketed his phone. Swaggered over to the whiteboard and put a big red tick next to the words ‘EXHUMATION REQUEST’.
The other whiteboard was covered in maps; post-mortem photos; photos of a burned-out caravan in a clearing somewhere; and photos of a large, hairy, middle-aged man. DI Duncan Bell. Heavy, rounded shoulders, a thick pelt of hair on his head, more hair escaping from the neck of his shirt. Skin like boiled tripe.
Logan dumped the pen back in the tray beneath the whiteboard and grabbed his fleece. Pushed through into the corridor.
A couple of support staff were gossiping outside the stationery cupboard. Both of them shrank back as he passed, their voices dropped to hushed whispers.
He nodded and kept going.
So what if they were all terrified of him. Wasn’t his fault, was it? Just because he worked for Professional Standards now, that didn’t make him a monster. Not often anyway.
The stairwell echoed with the sound of laughter, coming from one of the landings above.
Logan headed downward, digging out his car keys with one hand and… Stopped.
DI Fraser came marching up the stairs – late twenties, not that tall, in a black denim shirt-dress. Black leather jacket. Long red hair with a pair of sunglasses perched on the top. Massive handbag. She was trailing a pair of plainclothes officers. One, a small wrinkly woman in a wrinkly suit. Hair like someone had run over Albert Einstein with a ride-on lawn mower. The other, a thin short-arse in the full Police Scotland ninja-black uniform, with a ginger buzz-cut and a pointy nose. Detective Sergeant Steel and Police Constable Quirrel. North East Division’s answer to Blackadder and Baldrick.
All three froze as soon as they saw Logan, making a strange mini-me tableau there on the stairs.
He gave them a smile. ‘Ah, Kim, I was on my way to see you.’
DI Fraser narrowed her eyes. ‘Were you now?’
He nodded at her miniature friends. ‘Roberta, Tufty.’
Tufty beamed back. ‘Hi, Sarge. I mean, Inspector. Sorry, force of habit.’
Steel made a cross with her fingers, as if she was trying to ward off vampires, and hissed at him like an angry cat.
‘OK…’ He turned back to Fraser instead. ‘You’re running the Ellie Morton case. Can we have a word?’
‘I’m a bit busy trying to track down a missing three-year-old.’
Logan stayed where he was. Saying nothing.
She rolled her eyes and slumped. ‘Urgh… Go on then.’
‘Somewhere a bit more private?’
Fraser snapped her fingers. ‘Tufty: one tea, so milky it’s borderline offensive; two coffees, one with sugar, one black. Roberta: go chase up the media office about that appeal.’
Tufty scurried away, but Steel lingered.
‘Now, Roberta.’
Another hiss, and Steel stomped off back down the stairs.
‘And stop hissing at people!’ Fraser grimaced at Logan. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘She’s upset because I won’t babysit tonight.’ He lowered his voice. ‘What’s happening with Ellie Morton?’
‘Why?’
‘You put in a complaint about DS Chalmers.’
‘Ah.’ Pink flushed Fraser’s cheeks. She cleared her throat. ‘Maybe we should talk about this in private.’
Photos covered Fraser’s office walls. Most were family gatherings, but pride of place went to a big portrait of a black Labrador by the name of Maggie, going by the plaque mounted on the frame.
Fraser dumped her huge handbag on the desk and settled into the chair behind it. ‘Ellie Morton went missing Monday morning. The mother leaves her alone in the back garden and nips to the shops for a pack of fags and four tins of own-brand lager. It’s a Co-op at the end of the street: so a five-minute trip, tops. She stops to talk to a friend on the way back, which means Ellie – and I can’t stress this strongly enough – a three-year-old girl was left unsupervised for approximately twenty, twenty-five minutes.’
Logan leaned against the short row of filing cabinets. ‘Forensics?’
‘Nothing useful. No fingerprints, no footprints, no sign of fibres or a struggle. Garden backs onto a path that sees a fair bit of traffic.’ Fraser dug her iPhone out of The Gargantuan Handbag Of Doom and fiddled with it. ‘You know what it’s like with child abduction cases: if you don’t get a major break in the first twenty-four hours…’ Was she Tweeting? ‘No one saw Ellie run away, no one saw someone take her. We’ve got a few reports of a red car, or maybe a blue one, estate and-slash-or hatchback in the vicinity, but that’s it.’
‘And DS Chalmers?’
A hard sigh. ‘I thought she’d turned herself around, I really did. Yes, she’s always been ambitious, driven, but… I don’t know.’ Fraser put her phone down. ‘I ask her to go interview someone, she doesn’t do it. I tell her to do door-to-doors, she never shows up. I order her to help search the neighbourhood sheds and garages, she goes AWOL.’
No surprises there, then.
‘Where is she now?’
‘Tillydrone: breaking the stepfather’s alibi. Or at least she’s supposed to be. God knows, half the time.’
Logan softened his voice. ‘What happens when you talk to her about it?’
‘Might as well paint a penguin on your willy and call it Antarctica. She’s sorry; she’ll change; she’s going through a rough time right now.’ Fraser reached into her desk drawer and produced a blue folder. Thumped it on the desk. ‘I documented every infraction, every meeting, and every outcome.’
‘You should’ve come to me earlier.’
‘I know, I know. But … sometimes they just need a slap on the wrist. Getting your lot involved isn’t…’ She went back to fiddling with her phone again. ‘They’re still my people.’
‘Professional Standards aren’t here to screw people, Kim. We’re here to help.’ Logan picked up the folder and stuck it under his arm. ‘Do you still want her in your team?’
Fraser kept her eyes on her phone’s screen. ‘I… We’re looking for a wee girl, Inspector McRae. We can’t afford to lose this time.’ She finally looked up. ‘And loyalty has to go both ways.’
Why did everything require nine million forms to be completed in triplicate? Couldn’t go for a pee in the police without a Three-Sixty-Nine B, two corroborating witnesses, and a—
Logan’s phone dinged.
HORRIBLE STEEL:
Look, how about a compromise? You babysit J&N tonight and I’ll look after Cthulhu if you want to take Ginger McHotpants on a dirty weekend later.
Reply:
No. And stop calling her ”Ginger McHotpants”!
He’d barely hit ‘SEND’ when the office door thumped open and Steel slouched in. The phone in her pocket chirruped as she settled on the edge of his desk.
‘That better be you texting me back in the positive, Laz.’
Logan put his phone down, sat forwards in his seat, steepled his fingers, and stared at her. ‘Ah, Detective Sergeant Steel, I wanted a word with you.’
‘If the word’s no’ “I’d be delighted to babysit” I don’t want to hear it.’
‘DS Lorna Chalmers: tell me about her.’
A shrug. ‘Magnificent breasts, so-so arse. But overall? I’d still ride her like a broken donkey.’
Oh God, there was an image.
‘No! What’s she like to work with?’
‘Aye, because I’m going to clype on one of my team to you sneaky Professional Standards scumbags.’
‘Scumbags?’
‘With all due blah, blah, blah, etcetera. Now what about that babysitting?’
He folded his arms. ‘I’m busy.’
‘No you’re no’. You have all the social life of a garden gnome.’
‘Yes I am. But maybe if you scratched my back…?’ Leaving it hanging.
‘Lorna Chalmers is a pain in the hoop,’ Steel stood, ‘but I’m still no’ clyping on her.’
Interesting.
‘But you admit there’s something to clype about?’
‘I’m admitting sod-all.’ She stuck her chin out. ‘And if you didn’t want to babysit your own kids you shouldn’t have got my wife pregnant.’
‘Not this again.’ He pointed at the door. ‘Away with you. Out. Go. Depart. Before I do you for insubordinating a superior officer.’
‘Pfff…’ She flounced out, nose in the air, leaving the office door hanging open. Then her hand appeared in the doorway, did a wee mime turny flourish, then flashed two fingers and flipped him the Vs before disappearing.
‘You’re supposed to be a grown-up!’
No reply.
‘Typical.’ Logan checked his watch: 12:10. Oops… Should’ve been back at Bucksburn for that meeting with Chalmers ten minutes ago. Assuming she’d bothered to turn up this time. He pulled out his phone and called Rennie. ‘Have I got any visitors?’
A strange, wet, slurping noise came down the line, followed by a muffled, ‘Have you noticed that no one visiting ever brings us biscuits?’
‘Are you eating something?’
Another slurp. ‘… No?’
‘Visitors, Simon. Specifically, DS Lorna Chalmers: we’ve got a twelve o’clock scheduled.’
‘But it’s ten past.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m—’
‘Ah, I get it. You’re making her stew in her own guilty gravy for a bit. Ratchet up the tension.’
‘No. I got caught up with these—’
‘Hold on.’ One more slurp, then a scrunching sound – the background noises changing as Rennie wandered off somewhere. ‘Nope: no sign of her in reception. Well, not unless she’s hiding under the coffee table.’
‘Damn it.’ Of course she wasn’t there. When did she ever turn up? ‘What about Fred Marshall?’
‘His doctor and dentist won’t give me anything without warrants, so I asked the Warrant Fairy for some and do you know what she said?’
Logan groaned.
‘That’s right, she said, “Naughty DS Rennie! You know you can’t have a warrant to seize people’s medical records without probable cause. Bad DS Rennie! Back in your box!”’
‘Then get me a last known address. And stop eating whatever it is you’re eating: it sounds obscene.’
‘Nothing obscene about Pot Noodles.’ Rennie gave his noodles an extra-loud slurp. ‘You know, when you asked me to come be a plainclothes gruntmonkey for you at Professional Standards I thought that was a playful euphemism for “valued colleague and important member of the team”.’
‘Diddums. Now be a good gruntmonkey and text me that address.’
4
Laughter and voices filled the station canteen as a collection of about two dozen uniforms, plainclothes, and support staff gorged on lunch. They filled all the tables but one. The one Logan sat at, all on his own, Billy Nae Mates in the middle of his own private bubble.
Good job he had a dirty-big plate of macaroni cheese and chips to console him.
He helped himself to a forkful of soft cheesy goodness as the phone in his other hand rang and rang and rang and—
‘This is Lorna Chalmers’ voicemail. Leave a message.’ Curt and to the point.
‘DS Chalmers, it’s Inspector McRae. Again. We had an appointment this afternoon. Please call me back.’ He hung up. ‘Not that you will, because you haven’t the last three bloody times.’
Logan balanced another gobbet of macaroni, on the end of a crisp golden chip. Crunching as he scowled at his phone. ‘Fine, there’s more than one way to skin a snake.’ He picked another name from his contacts and set it ringing.
‘Ahoy-hoy?’ What sounded like rain hissed in the background.
‘Tufty? It’s Logan. I need a favour.’
There was a small pause, then, ‘Aunty Jane, how you doing?’
More macaroni, chewing around the words, ‘Have you fallen on your head again?’
‘No, no. I’m at work, though, so I can’t talk for long.’
‘Steel’s there, isn’t she?’
‘That’s right, the party’s tonight, isn’t it? Don’t know if I can make it though, depends on the case.’
‘Fine.’ Logan shook another dash of vinegar into the puddle of cheese sauce. ‘DS Lorna Chalmers didn’t show for her appointment. You’re on the same team: where is she?’
‘Ah… Don’t really know. I could find out though, if you like?’
Then Steel’s voice blared out in the middle distance. ‘Come on, Tufty, you gimp-flavoured spudhammer, make with the chicken curry pies! I’m starving here.’
‘Text me.’
‘Will do. OK, got to go. It’s—’
‘Aren’t you going to tell your aunty you love her, before you hang up, Tufty? How very rude.’
A groan crawled out of the earpiece. ‘OK, Aunty Jane. Love you. Bye.’
‘Should think so too.’
He ended the call and dug back into his macaroni again. Cheesy vinegary crunchy potatoey goodness.
Over by the canteen counter, the lone figure of DI Kim Fraser peeled away from the till and wandered into the middle of the room. Clearly looking for a seat. But everything was taken, except for Logan’s table. Even then she kept looking.
Logan slid one of the chairs out with his foot. ‘It’s OK, I don’t bite.’
She stood there, staring at him for a beat, then settled into the proffered seat. The heady smell of spices wafted up from her plate – heaped with Friday’s curry special: chicken madras, rice, vegetable pakora, and naan bread, according to the board on the wall.
Logan gave her a wee shrug. ‘After all, no one wants to sit with either of us.’
‘People want to sit with me. Why wouldn’t people want to sit with me?’
‘People look at me, all they see is Professional Standards. People look at you and they see fast-tracked graduate-scheme “tosspot”.’ He held up a hand. ‘Not what I see, it’s what they see. We’ve got guys who’ve been on the job for twenty years and they still haven’t made it as far as sergeant. You’re, what, twenty-six?’
A blush darkened her cheeks. ‘Twenty-nine.’
‘And already a detective inspector. Some people feel threatened by that.’
‘Hmmph…’ Fraser crunched down one of the veggie pakora. ‘I take it you saw Ellie’s mum’s press conference.’
‘How can you eat that when there’s perfectly good macaroni cheese and chips on offer?’
‘How is it our fault? Tell me that!’
‘And if you go near my chips I will stab you with a fork.’
‘She’s the one abandoned her three-year-old daughter in the back garden to nip out for booze and fags! If she’d been a halfway decent parent, Ellie wouldn’t have been snatched.’
Logan put down his fork and looked at her. Silent.
Fraser groaned. ‘All right, all right: I know. But still… That doesn’t make it our fault.’
‘Imagine if you were her. Would you want to admit you were responsible? How would you live with yourself?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Fraser chewed on her curry for a bit. ‘And I’m not a “tosspot”, thank you very much. I had to do a law degree to get on the fast-track programme. You try it if you think it’s so easy.’
‘Whoever took Ellie, it has to be someone who knows the area, right?’
‘Back garden’s got a path behind it. Anyone walking past would see Ellie’d been left on her own.’
Logan scooped a chip through the cheese sauce. ‘You run a check on sex offenders living nearby?’
‘And not just Tillydrone. We did Hayton, Hilton, Sandilands, Powis, and Ashgrove too. Interviewed the lot of them. Checked alibis. Nothing.’
Over in the corner someone launched into ‘Happy Birthday to You’. One by one the other tables took it up and belted it out. The only ones not joining in were Logan and Fraser.
She dug into her curry again. ‘Of course the smart money is on the stepfather, but he interviews clean.’
‘Alibi?’
‘Playing video games, drinking Special Brew, and smoking dope at a friend’s house.’
‘Sounds like an excellent role model.’
‘Tell you, Inspector, I’ve scraped things off the bottom of my shoe with more—’
The song reached a deafening climax, complete with operatic wobbling harmonies and a hearty round of applause with extra cheering.
Fraser shrugged when it was quiet again. ‘Five to one, when Ellie’s body turns up, her stepdad’s DNA is all over her.’
‘If her body turns up.’
‘Yeah. If.’ She jabbed a pakora with her fork and gesticulated with it. ‘Course, if we can break his alibi it’s a different story. Assuming DS Chalmers has bothered her backside to even try. And before you say anything: I know. I should’ve sent someone else. She’s had enough last chances.’
Logan put his fork down. ‘Why didn’t you come to me sooner?’
‘Because… When you were in CID, would you have shopped one of your team to the Rubber Heelers? Of course not. No one…’ She cleared her throat. Ate her pakora. ‘Bad example. But the rest of us wouldn’t. Not unless there was no other option.’
‘There wasn’t. And I did it for the same reason you are. Sometimes people don’t leave us any choice.’
His phone dinged, a new message filling the screen.
TUFTY:
It is I, SUPERTUFTY! Scourge of naughty people! A tiny birdy tells me the GPS on DS Chalmers’s Airwave puts her at/near Huge Gay Bill’s Bar & Grill, Northfield.
Logan polished off the last glistening tubes of macaroni and stood. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the pub.’
The building was set back from the road – an oversized mock Northeast farmhouse, long and low, with white walls, gable ends, a grey slate roof, and dormer windows. The Scottish vernacular charm was somewhat undermined by the big neon sign towering over the entrance in shades of yellow and green: ‘HUGE GAY BILL’S BAR & GRILL!’ It steamed and fizzed in the drizzle.
Only two vehicles sat in the large car park, a gleaming Land Rover Discovery and a mud-spattered Fiat. Chalmers’ Fiat. Logan parked two spaces down. Clambered out and hurried into the pub.
Inside, the place had a soulless, unloved feel. Like an abandoned Wetherspoons. A soulless mix of polished wood and psychedelic carpet. Lots of small round tables with chairs. Menus everywhere.