A Litter of Bones

by J D Kirk

  “Why? What did you find out?” asked Ben.

  “The father says Connor was acting strangely when they were out walking. Quieter than usual.”

  “Aye, that’s in his original statement,” said Hamza, snapping on a pair of thin blue gloves as he returned to his desk.

  “Connor also asked about Walker. ‘Next Door Ed,’ they call him. He asked if his dad liked him, then he asked his dad if he thought his mum liked him.”

  “Liked Ed?” said Ben.

  “Aye. Connor asked his dad if his dad thought his mum liked Ed,” Logan explained, trying to clarify but not making a particularly good job of it.

  “And does she?” Tyler asked.

  “That’s not really the point, is it, son?” Ben said, shooting the younger officer a dismissive look.

  “Maybe not, no,” Logan agreed. “But I did get the impression that she knew him better than the husband did. Nothing concrete, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “An affair, you think?”

  Logan tilted his head from side to side in a sort of weighing gesture. “Doubt it. Maybe, though. But I reckon she’s a woman who likes the finer things. Or would like the chance to like them, anyway. Not sure Next Door Ed would fit that description. The house is a shithole.”

  “Maybe she just likes a bit of rough, boss,” suggested Tyler. He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and grinned at both superior officers.

  “Is it my imagination, or is he still here?” Logan asked Ben.

  “Unfortunately,” Ben said. He clapped his hands twice. “What are you standing around here for? Go put out the shout.”

  “Sorry, Boss,” Tyler said, then he turned and hurried out of the room.

  Ben waited until he was gone, looked over to where Hamza was hunched over the laptop, then sidled closer to Logan.

  “House is a shithole? I thought he wasn’t home?”

  Logan nodded, not looking at him. Instead, his eyes were fixed on ‘the Big Board,’ as he’d always referred to it, and the all-too-sparse collection of leads currently pinned to it.

  “Door wasn’t locked.”

  “Jesus, Jack,” Ben whispered. He pointed to the computer Hamza was working at. “And did you get that…?”

  Logan nodded.

  “Christ. That’s a big bloody risk,” Ben warned. “And not just for you, for all of us.”

  “Aye,” Logan admitted. He finally turned in the DI’s direction, and there was something dark and hollow behind his eyes. “But you didn’t see them, Ben. Last time, I mean. Those kids. You didn’t see them.”

  Ben said nothing. What was there to say?

  “I know it’s not him doing this. It can’t be him,” Logan said. “But someone has done a bang-up job of copying him this far, and if they stick to the script and see this thing through, then we have less than two days to find that boy.”

  He cleared his throat, inhaled through his nose, pulled together his fraying edges. “So, I’ll be the one to take the risks. It won’t reflect on anyone else. Buck stops with me. You’re all just following orders.”

  “You know that’s not how it works, Jack. They won’t buy that.”

  Ben sighed and rubbed a finger and thumb against his forehead, kneading away the beginnings of a migraine.

  “What are you saying?” Logan asked.

  Ben dragged his top teeth over his bottom lip, scraping at the smoothly shaved skin.

  He stopped rubbing his head and nodded, a decision reached.

  “I’m saying that the buck stops with both of us,” Ben said, keeping his voice low. “We’re both responsible. The rest of them aren’t.”

  “Ben…”

  “That’s the deal on offer, Jack.”

  Logan briefly considered protesting, but he knew the DI well enough not to waste his breath. Instead, they shook hands and patted shoulders.

  “I’ll take it, then,” Logan said. “And thank you.”

  “He’s a wee boy, Jack,” Ben said. “Fuck the risks. Let’s just get him home.”

  “No arguments from me,” Logan said, shrugging off his coat.

  “Oh, but before you get too comfy, the Chief Inspector wants to see you,” Ben said.

  “The Chief Inspector? Of what? This place?”

  Ben gave a nod. Something mischievous sparkled behind his eyes.

  “Shite. Who is it?” Logan asked, recognising that expression. He quickly flicked through his mental Rolodex but came up blank.

  DI Forde’s mouth curved up into the beginnings of a smirk.

  “Jinkies.”

  A groan burst unbidden from Logan’s lips. He finished taking off his coat and let it flop down onto his desk. “Of course,” he said with a grimace. “I should’ve bloody guessed.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chief Inspector Hugh Pickering was sitting behind a large, well-organised desk when Logan entered the office. He was writing studiously in a large notebook, the shiny top of his head pointed to the door, a fountain pen scratching across the paper.

  Without looking up, he gestured to the chair across from him. Logan closed the door, stood behind the chair, and waited.

  The pen continued to scratch across the page.

  “You’re making the place look untidy, Jack.”

  Logan recognised the power play, but had no interest in competing. He pulled out the chair, sat in it, then leaned forward with his hands clasped, so his forearms were resting on the edge of the desk.

  “You wanted to see—”

  Pickering raised a hand, still not looking up.

  Once Logan fell silent, the Chief Inspector lowered his hand and returned to writing.

  “I won’t keep you.”

  Logan resisted the urge to point out that he was already keeping him, aware that it would only drag things out further. He sat back and waited.

  Pickering had earned the nickname ‘Jinkies’ on his very first day of training at Tulliallan. It had been coined due to the then constable’s striking resemblance to Velma, one of the characters from the cartoon series, Scooby-Doo.

  At first glance, there had been a passing resemblance, mostly down to Pickering’s reddish-brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Weirdly, though, the longer you looked at him, the more he resembled the canine-accompanied ghost-hunter.

  He had a round face—‘Bawchops,’ had been another popular designation for a while—and a scattering of freckles across each cheek. Someone had got him drunk one night and talked him into putting on an orange roll-neck jumper, thus cementing his status as, ‘What, that guy who looks like Velma out of Scooby-Doo?’ for the rest of his career. And, if Logan had anything to do with it, far beyond.

  Poor Velma had let herself go in recent years, though. Jinkies’ distinctive hair had been vacating the premises for a while now, and only a few stragglers were hanging around the edges like the last revellers at a school disco.

  His already round face was now substantially rounder and was carrying some extra baggage under its chin. He still wore the glasses, though, and if Logan didn’t know better, he’d have sworn they were the same pair.

  Jinkies had never been cut out for front line policing. Not really. In some ways, it wasn’t his fault. It couldn’t have been easy to walk through Sauchiehall Street after closing on a Saturday with some mouth wee bam shouting, “Fuck me, is that no’ her out of Scooby-Doo?” at you at the top of his lungs.

  He’d taken a desk job as quickly as humanly possible, and hadn’t stepped out from behind one since. At least, not to do anything useful.

  From the looks of him, he’d been golfing today. He wore a V-neck Pringle jumper with no sleeves and an eyeball melting diamond pattern knitted into the front. Beneath it, he wore a short-sleeved polo-neck with the top button done up, presumably in some token nod to formality.

  Logan couldn’t see Jinkies’ legs, but he was picturing some truly horrifying checked trousers. Or worse—shorts.

  He pushed the image away and was giving serious consideration to grabbin
g the Chief Inspector’s pen and ramming it up his arse when the scratching stopped. Logan watched impatiently as Jinkies scanned over what he’d written, lips moving silently.

  Then, with a nod, the Chief Inspector slid the page aside, interlocked his fingers on the desk in front of him, and finally raised his head.

  “Jack! Good to see you,” he said.

  “Hugh,” replied Logan, non-committal. “Ben said you wanted to see me.”

  Jinkies frowned, as if this was news to him. Then, his eyes widened behind his glasses and he bumped his hands against the desktop.

  “Ah, yes. I did. That’s right.”

  Logan waited.

  But not for long.

  “Well? What for?” he asked. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, Hugh, but we’ve got a live abduction going on.”

  Jinkies smiled magnanimously. “That was why I wanted to see you, Jack. I just wanted to let you know that whatever you need, it’s yours. “Mi casa, su casa. My house is your house.”

  “I know what it means,” Logan grunted. He checked himself and managed something that was within spitting distance of being a smile. “Thanks, Hugh. I appreciate that.”

  Jinkies leaned forward a fraction. “But, so we’re clear, it is mi casa, Jack.” He tapped a pudgy finger against the desk. “My house. My rules. You have your team, I have mine. We will offer any and all assistance we can, but they answer to me. Is that clear? To me. Not you. I’m not interested in a who’s got the biggest willy contest.”

  This was understandable. Logan had seen Jinkies in the shower. It was a contest the Chief Inspector couldn’t hope to win.

  “Got it? Mi casa, mi…” The Chief Inspector realised, too late, that he had exhausted his Spanish. “…rulios. Capiche?”

  “I’m not here to get in anyone’s way, Hugh,” Logan said. The words were designed to be reassuring, but the tone of his voice didn’t back them up. “But this is a major investigation, and I’m heading the Major Investigations Team. In about…”

  He checked his watch.

  “…six hours the whole world is going to be watching this case, scrutinising every bloody thing we do. And that’s going to be on me, Hugh. Not you. So, I’m going to do whatever I have to do to get that boy home, so if I tell your lads to jump, I want to hear, ‘How high?’ and not, ‘I’ll have to run it by the boss.’ While that boy is missing, I’m the boss, alright?”

  He tapped a finger against the desk, just as Jinkies had done.

  “Mi casa.”

  Across the table, the Chief Inspector leaned back, his face searching for an expression but not quite finding one. “We both know that’s not how it works, Jack. There’s an order of—”

  “Today, that’s how it works,” Jack said, standing up. “And tomorrow.”

  Two days.

  “After that… We’ll see where we are.”

  Logan looked the Chief Inspector up and down, scarcely bothering to hide his distaste. “But don’t you worry about it. You enjoy your golf.”

  He made it to the door without Jinkies saying a word, but stopped when he got there and turned.

  “What’s the story with PC Bell?”

  “Which one’s she?”

  “Sinead. Young lassie. Parents died in an RTA.”

  “Oh, her. Yes. She’s promising,” Jinkies said. He puffed out his ample cheeks. “Nasty business with the accident, though. It was down the lochside. They were headed back up the road from Glasgow, or somewhere, if I recall. Sinead was first on the scene.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Don’t think it was pretty, by all accounts.”

  “I can’t imagine it would be, no,” Logan said. “I want her assigned to my team for this.”

  Jinkies looked the DCI up and down, then raised a salacious eyebrow. “Bit young for you, isn’t she, Jack?”

  “Don’t judge us all by your own standards, Jinkies,” Logan told him. He enjoyed the little flinch the Chief Inspector gave upon hearing his old nickname. “She’s a well-known face. Local knowledge. Seems bright. She’ll be an asset.”

  “Plain clothes?”

  Logan shook his head. “We’ll keep her in uniform. For now, anyway. Could be handy.”

  Jinkies clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth, then nodded. “Fine. You can have her on your team.”

  Logan smiled grimly. “Thanks,” he said, pulling open the door. “But I wasn’t really asking.”

  If the sight of Jinkies’ face had wound him up, the next one Logan saw almost tipped him over the edge.

  “Alright, Jack? You going to give me an exclusive?”

  “Henderson,” said Logan, practically spitting the word out.

  The journalist was being led along the corridor by DS McQuarrie. She hadn’t cuffed him or, to Logan’s immense disappointment, set about him with a baton.

  Logan intercepted them outside a closed door. He caught Henderson by the arm, shot Caitlyn a look, and jerked his head in the direction of the door.

  “This an interview room?”

  “Uh, no. Cleaning cupboard, I think,” Caitlyn replied.

  “It’ll do.”

  Shoving the door open, Logan bundled Henderson inside. The smug wee bastard went clattering into a shelf of polishes and sprays as a single light automatically blinked on above them.

  “Watch it, Jack,” Henderson smarmed, his weasel smile showing off the gap in his two front teeth. “Don’t want to get yourself in trouble again.”

  “Uh, boss?” asked Caitlyn, peering into the cupboard from out in the corridor. “I’m not sure we should be…”

  “It’s fine. We go way back,” Logan told her, just as the door squeaked closed between them.

  Henderson straightened and brushed himself down. “No need to be so rough, Jack. You know I’m always happy to help a fine establishment such as yours.”

  “Who told you?” Logan demanded.

  “Who told me what?”

  “You know what. Stop wasting my time.”

  “People tell me a lot of things, Jack. You’ll have to remind me what—”

  Logan’s hand caught him by the front of the jacket. Henderson’s smile only broadened as he was pinned against the shelves.

  “Police brutality is still a hot topic, Jack. I could get a centre spread out of this.”

  “Centre spread? Is that still a thing? I thought you’d all been replaced by blogs and Twitter.”

  “Not quite yet,” Henderson said.

  Logan sneered. “Are you no’ tired of trailing the country looking for dirt to dig up?” he asked. “Aren’t you a bit old for all this shite?”

  Henderson held the detective’s gaze, his smile fixed in place. “Aren’t you?”

  For a second, maybe two, Logan and Henderson just stared at each other, combatants sizing each other up before a duel.

  Then, with a grunt, Logan released his grip.

  “Aye. Maybe,” he admitted. “The teddy. Who told you about the teddy?”

  Henderson smoothed himself down for the second time in as many minutes. “A good reporter never reveals his sources, Jack. You know that.”

  Logan’s jaw tensed. He eyeballed Henderson, but turned his head a fraction towards the door.

  “DS McQuarrie?”

  “Yes, boss?” Caitlyn’s voice was muffled through the door.

  “Go get yourself a cup of tea, will you?”

  There was a pregnant pause. A moment of hesitation.

  “Shouldn’t I maybe hang on in case…”

  “Caitlyn. Go get yourself a cup of tea.”

  Another pause, shorter than the last one.

  “Yes, boss.”

  Logan listened until he heard the DS’s footsteps fading along the corridor. Then, he unbuttoned the cuff of one shirt sleeve, and began to roll it up.

  “Come on now, Jack. There’s no need to go acting the Big Man,” Henderson told him.

  Logan said nothing. He finished rolling up the first sleeve, then set to work on the second.
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br />   “I’m sure we can figure something out,” Henderson said, his eyes darting briefly down to follow the sleeve’s progress. “I’m sure I could be persuaded to help if you were to, say, offer me something I could use. You tell me something, I’ll tell you something.”

  Logan finished rolling up the second sleeve, then opened and closed his fingers a few times, flexing the tendons. He cracked his knuckles. He cricked his neck.

  “Nothing major, just a nugget or two. A crumb, that’s all,” Henderson said. “A fair swap.”

  “We’re talking about a boy’s life,” Logan reminded him.

  “And a man’s career. Namely, mine. Maybe that’s not as important to you, but it’s all relative, isn’t it?” Henderson said. He eyed the DCI’s hulking great hands, then smiled. “You said yourself, those arseholes online are cannibalising us. Come on, Jack. Scratch my back. What have you got?”

  Logan balled his fingers into fists, and the smug look slid from Henderson’s face, swept aside by various flavours of panic. Logan allowed himself a moment to savour it, before throwing the journo a bone.

  “Ed Walker.”

  Henderson’s eyelids fluttered as if Logan had thrown a punch at him but stopped short of landing it.

  “What?”

  “Ed Walker,” Logan said again. “The neighbour. We’re interested in speaking to him.”

  “You think he did it?” Henderson asked.

  “We’re interested in speaking to him,” Logan said again. “That’s all. We’re going to announce it in the morning if we haven’t found him, so I’m giving you the jump on it. Ed Walker. Write it down.”

  Henderson tapped the chest pocket of his jacket and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m recording every word.”

  “Aye. No, you’re not,” said Logan. He produced a phone from one of his own pockets and passed it back to the journalist. “You need to be more careful with that thing, Ken. They’re no’ cheap.”

  Henderson gave his jacket a more thorough pat down.