The Missing and the Dead

13

The sound of murmured voices oozed out from the Witness Room. Logan tucked his peaked cap under one arm and pulled out his mobile. Headed through the doors to the stairwell, selecting Deano’s number from the contacts as he climbed up to the next landing. Leaned against the windowsill as the phone rang. Outside, Marischal Street’s granite terrace reached away down the hill, took a break for the bridge over the dual carriageway, then finished up at the harbour. Three storeys of grey stone, flecks of mica glittering in the sunshine. Rooftop dormers mirroring back the glare. A supply vessel loomed at the bottom of the road, its yellow-and-black hull streaked with lines of rust.

Probably start off in Blackfriars after the trial. Couple of pints, then across the road to Archies for pie-and-chips and more beer. Then on to the Illicit Still. The Prince of Wales. Ma Cameron’s … All the old haunts. Maybe even—

‘Hello?’

‘Deano? Logan. Yeah, thanks, barbecue sounds good.’

‘Cool. Janet and Tufty are coming too. Got a box of ribeyes big as your head.’

‘We’re on for the warrant tomorrow. Got the extra bodies.’

‘Even better. Be good to finally get Gerbil and that idiot Klingon banged up.’

‘Can you get the team to keep an eye on the place tonight? Probably peeing in the wind, but I don’t want them cutting their shipment up and wheeching it out till we’ve had a chance to dunt their door in. Keep it low-key though.’

‘Will do.’

‘You need me to bring something on Thursday?’

‘Potato salad? Coleslaw? Something like that. Aye, and not from a tub: homemade. Oops, got to go – don’t want to burn my cornbread.’

Logan almost had his phone back in his pocket when it blared out its generic ringtone. ‘Sod …’ He pulled it out. Unknown number. Hit the button. ‘Logan McRae.’

Silence.

‘Hello?’

A thin, nervous voice filled his ear. ‘Is this … is this Sergeant McRae? You saved my mum’s life last night.’

Frown. He did? ‘Oh, Mrs Bairden.’ The old woman in the bath.

A heavy-set man in a black robe, white bow tie and wing collar, appeared through the door on the next landing down. Scanned the stairs down to the floor below, then looked up at Logan. Small ears and small nose, eyes hidden in folds of drooping grey. The Macer checked the clipboard in his hand. ‘Sergeant McRae?’

Logan nodded, held a hand up. Back to the phone: ‘Is she OK?’

‘The doctors say she had a stroke. If you hadn’t got to her …’ Pause. ‘Thank you.’

Warmth spread through his chest, like a sip of malt whisky. ‘Glad I could help.’

‘Sergeant McRae, they’re ready for you.’ A frown. ‘And you shouldn’t be using your mobile phone in here.’

‘Really, really thank you …’

‘It was my pleasure. Wish her well for me.’

‘Sergeant McRae, I must insist—’

‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. I’m in court today.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. Thank you …’

When she’d hung up, he smiled. Switched off his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. Put his peaked cap on his head and marched downstairs to where the Macer was waiting. Patted him on the shoulder. ‘You know, some days, I remember why I joined the police.’

The courtroom didn’t look anything like the ones on the TV. It was bright and modern, with pale varnished wood and cream-coloured walls. Long and narrow, divided in half by a waist-high partition. A cross-section of Aberdonians had squeezed themselves into the rows of public seating, faces shining in the warm room. The table for the press was packed with hunched men in sweat-ringed shirts, tapping away into laptops or scribbling into notepads.

In the middle of the partition, an eight-foot-high screen of bullet-proof glass wrapped around three sides of the defendant’s box. Graham Stirling sat flanked by two huge G4S guards. He’d dropped the blue sundress for a sombre suit – his hair longer than it had been, curling around his ears. Looking more like an accountant than a manipulative, vicious, sexual predator. He turned his head, avoiding Logan’s eyes.

Should think so too.

A large oval wooden table took up most of the space on this side of the partition. Prosecution team on one side: an Advocate Depute and his junior in their black robes, suits, and ties; and sitting next to them, the Procurator Fiscal in grey pinstripe with matching hair and military moustache. The defence team sat on the other side: the QC and his devil in robes, short wigs, and white bow ties; the instructing solicitor looked as if he should be selling houses in Elgin.

The court clerk was stationed between them, like a referee in No Man’s Land. The jury lurked behind the defence, facing the witness stand, flanked by flat-screen TVs. Another two huge screens on opposite walls to display evidence on.

No mahogany. No Victorian pseudo-gothic twiddly bits. No smell of antique cigarettes seeping out of threadbare carpet tiles. The only nod to antiquity was the carved coat of arms hanging over the Judge’s seat and the mace mounted on the wall beside it.

Well, that and the Judge’s outfit.

She straightened her white robe – stained a mild shade of pink, presumably because of the two big red crosses on the front of it and a washing machine on too hot a cycle. Her short white wig sat on top of her long grey hair. A pair of severe glasses perched on the bridge of her long thin nose. One hand stroking the tip of her pointy chin, watching as Logan took the stand.

The Macer waited until Logan was in place, before turning to the Judge. ‘M’Lady, we have witness number six, Sergeant Logan McRae.’

‘I see.’ She stood, held up her right hand. ‘Sergeant McRae, repeat after me: I swear by Almighty God, that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’

‘So, Sergeant McRae,’ Sandy Moir-Farquharson took off his glasses and polished them on the hem of his black robe, ‘are you seriously expecting the jury to believe it was a coincidence that you happened to be in Cults that evening?’ He slipped his glasses back on and smiled. It emphasized the twist in his nose. Grey hair swept back from the temples, the bald spot at the top covered by the short white wig. A suit that probably cost more than Logan made in six months peeking out between the front of his robes.

Logan pulled his shoulders back. ‘That’s not what I’m saying at all. Graham Stirling was there, attempting to acquire a second victim, so—’

‘Objection.’ He turned a smile on the Judge. ‘Milady, the witness is indulging in supposition.’

A nod. ‘Sustained.’ The Judge peered down at the witness stand. ‘Sergeant McRae, please restrict yourself to the facts.’

‘I am, Milady. Graham Stirling was placing anonymous personal ads in the Aberdeen Examiner, looking for men interested in having a sexual liaison with a pre-operative transsexual. On the advice of our forensic psychologist, we responded to one of them and arranged to meet—’

‘We’ll get to that, Sergeant.’ Moir-Farquharson checked his notes. Probably just for show. The slimy little sod would have all this memorized. ‘Now, you claimed in your statement that you’d given chase through the back gardens of Hillview Drive, because there was, and I quote, “Something suspicious about the figure in the blue sundress.” Is that right? In what way suspicious?’

‘… and did anyone else hear this alleged confession, Sergeant?’

The clock mounted on the wall ticked away to itself.

Motes of dust hung in the light streaming in through the windows.

‘Sergeant?’

Logan flicked over a couple of pages in his old notebook. ‘Graham Stirling said, “Stephen Bisset is dying in the dark and there is nothing you can do about it.”’

Moir-Farquharson shook his head. ‘No, Sergeant, I didn’t ask you what you claim to have heard, I asked if anyone could corroborate it.’

Tick. Tick. Tick …

‘We were alone in the garden at that point, but—’

‘I thought not.’ The smile was wide and white. Good dental work. Couldn’t even see where most of his teeth had been kicked out. ‘So, you assaulted Graham Stirling: headbutting him and breaking his nose. Tried to break his wrist, and then miraculously got this confession that no one else heard.’

The prosecution’s Advocate Depute was on his feet. One arm jabbed out at his learned colleague. ‘Objection!’ Long grey curls swept back from a high forehead and pinched face. Voice a booming Morningside: ‘Sergeant McRae applied reasonable force in restraining a suspect who was vigorously resisting arrest. To paint this as some sort of confession obtained by torture is disingenuous, to say the least.’

Moir-Farquharson held up a hand. ‘My apologies, Milady. No such implication was intended.’

‘Uncorroborated confessions seem to be something of a trademark of your evidence, don’t they, Sergeant? I refer, of course, to the one allegedly obtained by yourself in the back of the unmarked police car.’

Tick. Tick. Tick …

Logan straightened his police-issue T-shirt. ‘Graham Stirling insisted my colleagues leave the car before he would talk.’

‘So no corroboration.’

‘We believed, correctly, that there was a clear and imminent danger to Stephen Bisset’s life. It was important to—’

‘Your statement claims you were told,’ he held up a sheath of paper and peered at it over the top of his glasses, ‘“You will never find the shack without me, it is not on any maps. By the time you find him, Stephen Bisset will be dead.” Is that correct?’

‘It is.’

‘How very convenient …’

‘Tell me, Sergeant McRae, is it normal Police Scotland practice to deny a suspect access to a solicitor on their arrest?’

God’s sake …

‘These were unusual circumstances, Stephen Bisset was seriously injured and dying—’

‘You have heard of Cadder versus HM Advocate, haven’t you, Sergeant? Do you make a habit of contravening your suspects’ human rights?’

Tick. Tick. Tick …

‘Sergeant?’

‘We didn’t … I took the decision that, given the time constraints, it was more important to save Stephen Bisset’s life!’

‘I see.’ Moir-Farquharson turned to the jury. ‘So, yet again, ladies and gentlemen, Sergeant McRae decided to ignore procedure, bend the rules, and cut another corner.’

‘To recap: once more, we have only your word for it, Sergeant?’

Deep breaths. Calm.

Logan stared straight ahead. ‘Graham Stirling refused to show me where the shack was, unless DS Rennie and DS Marshall remained behind at the car. My choices were to go with him, or let Stephen Bisset die.’

A sigh. A shake of the head. Then a turn to the jury. ‘Bending the rules, yet again.’

‘I had no choice! And he knew the combination to the padlock, he—’

‘You make a disturbing habit of ignoring procedure, Sergeant McRae. How do we know that your sense of right and wrong isn’t similarly compromised? How far will you go to obtain a conviction?’

‘Objection!’

‘I put it to you, Sergeant McRae, that you nominated Graham Stirling as being responsible for Stephen Bisset’s disappearance and manufactured the circumstances and evidence to fit.’

‘That’s not true. We found evidence that Stephen Bisset had responded to Stirling’s personal ad, seeking sex with what he believed to be a pre-operative transsexual and—’

‘LIAR!’ A young man was on his feet in the public seating area. Shoulder-length black hair, black tie, a shirt that still had the creases from where it had been folded in the packet. Thin face flushed and swollen around the eyes. Spit glowing in the sunlight. ‘YOU’RE A LIAR! MY DAD WOULDN’T DO THAT!’

The Sheriff cracked her gavel against her desk, three sharp raps. ‘Mr Bisset, I won’t tell you again. While the court is sympathetic to your distress, it—’

‘YOU’RE A LIAR!’

The young woman sitting next to him grabbed his arm, trying to pull him back down into his seat. She had the same dark hair, the same thin face. ‘David, don’t …’

‘DAD WASN’T A PERVERT!’

Another three raps. ‘That’s enough, Mr Bisset. This court isn’t—’

‘MAKE HIM TELL THE TRUTH!’

‘Clerk, I want this man removed.’

And all the way through it, Graham Stirling didn’t move. He sat there, still, silent. Blinking slowly. A million miles away as his victim’s children were escorted from the room.

‘Are you denying that you threatened to kill Graham Stirling, Sergeant McRae?’

Logan’s fingernails dug into the pale wood of the witness stand. ‘I did not threaten to kill him.’

‘Really?’ A look of surprise. ‘So you deny saying, “I should kick the living shit out of you”?’

Tick. Tick. Tick …

‘Sergeant?’

‘I don’t remember. I’d just discovered Stephen Bisset. He’d been—’

‘How about this one. Did you, or did you not tell your superior officer, “I need an ambulance and someone to stop me stringing Graham Bloody Stirling up from the nearest tree”?’

Logan hunched over the sink. Drips fell from his face, making ripples in the water that spread out in overlapping rings. He dug his hands into the basin again and sploshed more on his face. Cold against his skin. Leaching away the burning heat.

Bastard.

The court toilets were clean enough, filled with the scent of air-freshener and disinfectant.

Another faceful of water. Letting it drip back into the bowl. All those overlapping circles, knotting together then fading away, leaving nothing behind to show that they’d ever existed.

His phone buzzed on the surface between the sinks. Then the ‘Imperial March’ sounded.

DCI Steel.

Ignore it. Let it go to voicemail.

The toilet door thumped open and the Procurator Fiscal marched in: short grey hair combed forward above scowling eyebrows. His military moustache bristled, the mouth behind it chewing through the words in a booming Glaswegian accent that was far too big for someone who barely scraped five foot four. ‘What the sodding hell was that?’

‘What was I supposed to do, lie under oath?’

‘Of course not. But … It …’ In four steps he was at the nearest cubicle door. It got a kick with a highly polished brogue. A pause. Then the Fiscal ran a finger along his moustache, as if making sure everything was in order. ‘They’ve effectively killed Stirling’s confession. After that little farce, it’s going to be ruled inadmissible.’

Logan grabbed a handful of green paper towels, stacked by the broken hand-drier. ‘I didn’t have any choice, OK?’ Scrubbed his face with the gritty green sheets. Dropped them in the bin. ‘If I’d stuck to procedure, Stephen Bisset would be dead now. He’d probably still be missing, lying out there, rotting in a shack in the middle of the BLOODY FOREST!’ Logan closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed, screwed his face up. Breathed out. ‘Sorry.’

The Fiscal made a hissing noise, as if he was deflating. ‘You could’ve recorded his confession on your mobile phone. Could’ve used your Airwave to broadcast it. Something.’

Logan’s head fell back, thumped against the wall. Did it again. And once more for luck. ‘I know.’

‘Yes, well, I suppose Descartes was right: hindsight is a treacherous mirror. We just have to hope the DNA evidence convinces them.’

Sitting next to the sink, Logan’s phone started in on the ‘Imperial March’ again. He let his hands fall at his sides. ‘You going to need me again?’

The phone rang out onto voicemail.

The PF cleared his throat. ‘I think you’ve probably done enough.’

Logan’s phone burst into song as he was thumping down the stairs. Not the ‘Imperial March’ this time, but the theme tune to the Muppets. He checked the screen: ‘NICHOLSON’.

His thumb jabbed the button. ‘Is it important? Because now’s really not a good time.’

‘Sarge? It’s Janet. Thought you’d like to know – we got the Big Car back.’

He made it to the ground floor. ‘Janet, I genuinely couldn’t give less of a toss if—’

‘Smells fusty though. Like something’s died in there.’ Her voice went all whispery. ‘Look, about the teas and coffees last night … I kind of … feel a bit, you know, guilty.’

‘Sod them. I will not have a bunch of MIT scumbags treating anyone on my team like a glorified Mrs Doyle.’

‘Yeah, but … they’re working a murder enquiry, and from what I heard most of them spent half the night impersonating a Soyuz rocket.’

He slipped out of the side entrance, onto Marischal Street, avoiding the media scrum at the High Court’s front doors. ‘And?’

A pause. ‘It’s a wee girl, Sarge.’

Someone beeped their horn. There was a taxi parked in the middle of the road, blocking traffic while it picked up a fare.

A wee dead girl … Nicholson had a point.

Perfect: more guilt.

‘If it makes you feel any better, they weren’t going to achieve anything last night anyway.’ He crossed over to the other side. No point heading up the hill, that’d put him in the camera’s firing lines again. ‘One: everyone and their maiden aunt is already out looking for Neil Wood. Two: until they identify her, they can’t build a viable list of suspects. Three: with no ID and no witnesses, there’s very little they can do until the post-mortem results are in.’ He reached the opposite pavement. New plan: cross the bridge, down the steps onto Shore Lane, and he could go around the back of the Castlegate. Sneak into Divisional Headquarters via East North Street. ‘Giving a bunch of arrogant sexist tossers a dose of the squits doesn’t change any of that.’

A long slow breath. Then, ‘Thanks, Sarge.’

‘Besides, I double-dosed DS Dawson this morning.’

‘Urgh … I know I said I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t mean we should actually—’

Whatever she said next, it was drowned out. ‘YOU!’

Logan stopped. Turned.

The young man from the court – the one with the long black hair – was climbing out of the taxi. Glaring at him. ‘YOU LYING BASTARD!’ Stephen Bisset’s son.

Great, because today wasn’t special enough.

‘Sorry, Janet, got to go.’ Logan hung up. Put the phone back in his fleece pocket. Held his hands out. ‘I need you to calm down.’

He’d loosened his tie and it dangled around his neck like a waiting noose. ‘YOU LIED. WHY DID YOU LIE?’

His sister clambered out of the taxi behind him. Close up, she was obviously younger than him. Barely a teenager. ‘David, come on, we spoke about this. If you calm—’

‘I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!’ His face was heading an unhealthy shade of reddish-purple, tears streaking his cheeks. ‘DAD IS NOT A PERVERT!’ He stormed down the hill towards Logan, hands curled into fists. ‘YOU LIED!’

For God’s sake …

‘I didn’t lie. We followed the trail of messages, that’s how we found your dad. He—’

‘SHUT UP! YOU SHUT YOUR LYING MOUTH!’

His sister caught up with him, grabbed his arm like she’d done in court. ‘You have to stop this.’

‘No! He lied, Catherine, he lied under oath!’

‘It’s OK, it’s OK. Shhh …’ She tried to pull him back towards the taxi, but he wouldn’t budge. ‘Come on, David, let’s go home. Please?’

Logan backed off a step. ‘Look, I’m sorry if it upsets you, but I didn’t lie. I did everything I could to get your dad back safe and sound.’ Yeah, because that worked.

David Bisset bared his teeth, forced the words out between them as if they were made of acid. ‘You call that safe and sound?’ He jabbed a finger in the rough direction of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. ‘Do you? HE’D BE BETTER OFF DEAD!’

‘I know it’s difficult, but—’

‘LIAR!’ David Bisset shook his sister off and lunged, fists swinging. Wide and amateur. No idea what he was doing.

Logan sidestepped, grabbed one of the flailing arms and twisted it round behind David’s back. Slapped his other hand down on David’s elbow, locked the wrist into place and closed the gap. Reached out and took hold of the other shoulder and pulled him upright.

Classic hammer lock and bar.

‘LET GO! LET GO YOU—’

Logan put the pressure on.

‘AAAAARGH!’

‘Calm down.’

The girl, Catherine, snatched at the sleeve of Logan’s fleece. ‘Please, he didn’t mean anything, he’s upset, please don’t hurt him.’

‘GET OFF ME!’

‘Are you going to calm down?’

‘Please, it’s not his fault. He’s upset … We all are.’

David went quiet. Breath hissing in and out through his gritted teeth.

‘Are we all calm? David? Are we good?’

She chewed on her fingernails. ‘David, please don’t …’

His breathing slowed. He stopped struggling. His head dipped. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘OK.’ Logan released his grip. Stepped away. ‘No harm done.’

David leaned against the granite wall of the nearest building, one hand rubbing his abused shoulder. He stared down at his feet. ‘Dad’s not a pervert.’

‘If it’s any help, I know what it’s like—’

‘No.’ His jaw tightened, the words barely making it out between gritted teeth. ‘You don’t. You don’t have any bloody clue.’

Deep breath. ‘My girlfriend fell.’ Logan turned and pointed down Marischal Street, at the top-floor flat that belonged to someone else now. ‘Right there. Five storeys, straight down. Four years in a coma. I know what it’s like to have someone you love hurt and stuck in a hospital bed, unable to move or talk.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s horrible. And it’s not fair. And it stinks. But he’s still your dad.’