Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae)

by Stuart MacBride

  Insch sighed. ‘I had them in this morning. Some jumped-up prick in a smart new uniform, never done a damned day’s policing in his life, telling me how important it is to find out who leaked the story to the press. Like I couldn’t work that one out for myself. I tell you, I get whoever—’

  A dirty Ford van shot out in front of them, causing Logan to slam on the brakes and swear.

  ‘Let’s pull them over!’ cried Insch with glee. Making someone else’s day miserable might make them both feel better.

  They gave the driver a stern talking to and ordered her to turn up at nine the following morning with all her documentation. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  Back at Force HQ the incident room was in turmoil. The phones were ringing non-stop, following an announcement on Northsound Radio and the lunchtime TV news. All the major channels were carrying the story. Aberdeen was becoming a media hot-spot. The whole force was under the spotlight. And if Insch didn’t get this thing solved soon, he’d get his head to play with.

  They spent a while going over the various sightings of the two missing boys. Most of them would be a waste of time, but they all had to be investigated, just in case. One of the force’s technical experts was busy collating all the reports into the computer, taking every sighting and interview, location, time and date and sticking it into HOLMES, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, setting the massive cross-referencing program running, churning out reams and reams of automatically generated actions. It was a pain in the arse, but you never knew when something might prove to be important.

  But Logan knew it was all a waste of time, because Peter Lumley was already dead. Didn’t matter how many old ladies saw him wandering the streets of Peterhead or Stonehaven. The kid was lying in a ditch somewhere, half-naked and violated.

  The admin officer, a woman far too clever to be that thin, handed a stack of paper to Insch: the actions generated by HOLMES while he and Logan had been out. The inspector took them with good grace and skimmed through them. ‘Shite, shite, shite,’ he said, throwing unwanted sheets over his shoulder as he came to them.

  Every time it came across a person’s name in a statement, HOLMES produced an action to have that person interviewed. Even if it was just some old woman saying she’d been feeding her cat Mr Tibbles at the time the kid went missing: HOLMES wanted Mr Tibbles interviewed.

  ‘Not doing that, or that.’ Another couple of sheets went fluttering to the floor. When he’d finished the pile had been reduced to a mere handful. ‘Get the rest underway,’ he said, handing it back to the admin officer.

  She gave him a long-suffering salute and left them to it.

  ‘You know,’ said Insch, casting a critical eye over Logan, ‘you look worse than I feel.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything here, sir.’

  Insch parked himself on the edge of a desk and riffled through a stack of reports. ‘Tell you what,’ he said and handed over the pile of paper. ‘If you want to make yourself useful, go through that lot. It’s from the door-to-doors in Rosemount this morning. Norman bloody Chalmers gets his appearance in court this afternoon. See if you can find out who that little girl was before they let the bastard out on bail.’

  Logan found himself an empty office as far away from the noise and chaos of the incident room as possible. Uniform had been thorough, the times on the statements making it clear that they’d gone back to some buildings more than once to be sure they spoke to everyone.

  No one knew who the dead girl was. No one recognized her face from the photograph taken in the morgue. It was as if she hadn’t existed before her leg was spotted sticking out of a bin-bag at the tip.

  Logan went out to the supply office and got himself a new map of Aberdeen, sticking it up on the wall of his commandeered office. There was one of these in Insch’s incident room already, all covered with pins and lines and little sticky tags. But Logan wanted one of his own. He stuck a red pin in the Nigg tip, and another in Rosemount: 17 Wallhill Crescent.

  The bin-bag the girl was stuffed into came from the home of Norman Chalmers. Only there was no forensic evidence to tie him to the victim. Other than the contents of the bag. Maybe that was enough to go to trial, but a good defence lawyer – and Sandy Moir-Farquharson wasn’t just good: the little shite was brilliant – would rip the case to shreds.

  ‘Right.’ He sat back on the desk, arms folded, staring at the two pins in the map.

  That bin-bag bothered him. The flat had been covered in cat hair when they’d arrested Chalmers. Logan had spent most of that night in the pub trying to brush the damned stuff off his trousers. There were still stubborn patches of grey fluff sticking to his suit jacket. If the kid had been in the flat, Isobel would have found traces of cat hair during the post mortem.

  So she was never in the flat. That much they knew. That was why Insch had asked for a thorough background search on Chalmers, to see where else he could have taken her. But the research teams had come up empty. If Norman Chalmers had somewhere else to take a four-year-old girl, no one knew about it.

  ‘So what if he didn’t do it?’ he asked himself aloud.

  ‘What if who didn’t do what?’

  It was WPC Wat. . . Jackie.

  ‘What if Norman Chalmers didn’t kill that little girl?’

  Her face hardened. ‘He killed her.’

  Logan sighed and picked himself off the edge of the desk. He might have known she’d be touchy about this. She was still hoping that finding the receipt would crack the case.

  ‘Look at it this way: if he didn’t kill her someone else did. OK?’

  She rolled her eyes.

  Logan went on quickly. ‘OK, so if it was someone else it has to be someone who’s got access to Norman Chalmers’s rubbish.’

  ‘No one does! Who’s going to get into his rubbish?’

  Logan poked a finger at the map, making the paper crackle. ‘Rosemount has those big communal bin things out in the street. Anyone could dump their crap in one. If the killer wasn’t Chalmers, then there’s only two places they could get the body into that bin-bag: here—’ he poked the map again, ‘—or here, when it gets to the tip at Nigg. If you’re going to hide a body at the tip, you’re not going to leave a leg sticking out. What would be the point of that? Much easier to just bury it in the rubbish bags.’ Logan pulled the Nigg pin out of the map and tapped the red plastic end against his teeth. ‘So, the killer didn’t dump the body at the tip. It was taken there in the back of a corporation dustcart and poured out the back along with all the other junk. She was put in that bin-bag while it was still out in the street.’

  WPC Watson didn’t look convinced. ‘Chalmers’s flat is still the most logical. If he didn’t kill her, why’s she in a bin-bag along with his garbage?’

  Logan shrugged. That was the problem. ‘Why do you put anything in a bag?’ he asked. ‘To make it easier to carry. Or to hide it. Or. . .’ He turned back to the table and began sorting through the statements the door-to-door team had taken. ‘You’re not going to cart a dead girl round in your car looking for a wheelie-bin to stuff it in,’ he said, putting all the statements into piles according to their house number in Wallhill Crescent. ‘You’ve got a car: you take the body away and bury it in a shallow grave out by Garlogoie, or up round New Deer. Somewhere isolated. Somewhere no one’s going to find it for years and years. If ever.’

  ‘Maybe they panicked?’

  Logan nodded.

  ‘Exactly. You panic: you get rid of the body in the first place you can find. Again, you don’t go driving round looking for a wheelie-bin. The fact she wasn’t wrapped in anything other than packing tape is weird too. A naked little dead girl, all stuck together with brown packing tape? You’re not going to go far carrying that. . . Whoever dumped the body lived nearer this particular bin than any of the others in the street.’

  He split the piles of statements into two, those within two doors of number seventeen and those farther aw
ay. That still left thirty individual flats.

  ‘Can you do me a favour?’ he asked, scribbling down the names from each statement onto a fresh sheet of paper. ‘Get these down to Criminal Records. I want to know if any of them have priors for anything. Warnings, arrests, parking violations. Anything.’

  WPC Watson told him he was wasting his time. That Norman Chalmers was guilty as sin. But she took the names away with her and promised to get back to him.

  When she was gone Logan grabbed a bar of chocolate from the machine and a cup of instant coffee, consuming both while he read through the statements again. Someone here was lying. Someone here knew who the little girl was. Someone here had killed her, tried to cut up her body, and thrown her out with the trash.

  Trouble was, who?

  Over three thousand people went missing in the north-east of Scotland every year. Three thousand people reported missing every twelve months. And yet here was a four-year-old girl missing for at least two days now, according to the post mortem, and no one had come forward to ask what the police were going to do about it. Why hadn’t she been reported missing? Maybe because there was no one to notice she was gone?

  The familiar jangling tune blared out from his pocket and Logan swore. ‘Logan,’ he said.

  It was the front desk telling him he had a visitor downstairs.

  Logan scowled at the pile of statements sitting on the desk. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll be right down.’

  He dropped his chocolate wrapper and empty plastic cup into the bin and headed down to the reception area. Someone had cranked the heating up too far and the windows were all fogged up as visitors, drenched in the downpour outside, sat and steamed.

  ‘Over there,’ said the pointy-faced desk sergeant.

  Colin Miller, the Press and Journal’s new golden boy from Glasgow, was standing over by the wanted posters. He wore a long black tailored raincoat that dripped steadily onto the tiled floor while he copied down details into a small palm computer.

  Miller turned and grinned as Logan approached. ‘Laz!’ he said, sticking out a hand. ‘Good tae see you again. Love what you’ve done with the place.’ He swept a hand round to indicate the steamy, cramped reception area with its soggy visitors and steamy windows.

  ‘My name’s DS McRae. Not “Laz”.’

  Colin Miller winked. ‘Oh, I know. I’ve done me some diggin’ since we met in the bogs yesterday. That wee WPC of yours is a bit tasty, byraway. She can bang me up any time, if you know what I mean.’ He gave Logan another wink.

  ‘What do you want, Mr Miller?’

  ‘Me? I wanted tae take my favourite detective sergeant out for lunch.’

  ‘It’s three o’clock,’ said Logan, suddenly aware that, except for a bar of chocolate and a couple of butteries, he’d not had a thing to eat since WPC Watson’s bacon buttie this morning. And he’d left that splattered all over the grass at Roadkill’s house of horrors. He was starving.

  Miller shrugged. ‘So it’s a late lunch. High tea. . .’ He cast a theatrical eye round the reception and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘We might be able to help each other out. Could be I know somethin’ you could use.’ Miller stood back and beamed again. ‘What d’you say? The paper’s buyin’?’

  Logan thought about it. There were strict rules about accepting gifts. The modern police force was at great pains to make sure no one could point the finger of corruption in their direction. Colin Miller was the last person he wanted to spend more time with. But then again, if Miller did have information. . . And he was starving.

  ‘You’re on,’ he said.

  They’d found a corner booth in a little restaurant down in the Green. While Miller ordered a bottle of chardonnay and the tagliatelle with smoked haddock and peppers, Logan contented himself with a glass of mineral water and the lasagne. And some garlic bread. And a side salad.

  ‘Jesus, Laz,’ said Miller, watching him tear into the breadbasket and butter. ‘Don’t they feed you lot?’

  ‘Logan,’ said Logan, round a mouthful of bread. ‘Not “Laz”. Logan.’

  Miller leaned back in his seat and swirled his glass of white wine, watching the colours sparkle. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Like I said: I did some diggin’. Lazarus isn’t a bad nickname for someone who’s come back from the dead.’

  ‘I didn’t come back from the dead.’

  ‘Aye you did. ’Cording to your medical reports you were dead for about five minutes.’

  Logan frowned. ‘How do you know what’s in my medical reports?’

  Miller shrugged. ‘It’s my job to know things, Laz. Like I know you found a dead child in the tip yesterday. Like I know you’ve got someone banged up for it already. Like I know you and the chief pathologist used to be an item.’

  Logan stiffened.

  Miller held up a hand. ‘Easy, tiger. Like I said: it’s ma job to know things.’

  The waiter arrived with their pasta and the mood eased a little. Logan found it difficult to fume and eat at the same time.

  ‘You said you had something for me,’ he said, shoving salad into his mouth.

  ‘Aye. Your lot dragged a body out the harbour yesterday wi’ his knees hacked off.’

  Logan took a look at the mound of quivering lasagne on his fork. The meat sauce glistened back at him, red and dripping, the pale-cream pasta poking through like slivers of bone. But his stomach wasn’t about to be put off. ‘And?’ he asked, chewing.

  ‘And you don’t know who he is: Mr No-Knees.’

  ‘And you do?’

  Miller picked up his wineglass and did the swirling trick again. ‘Oh aye,’ he said. ‘Like I said: it’s ma job.’

  Logan waited, but Miller just took a slow sip.

  ‘So who is it?’ Logan said at last.

  ‘Well, now, that’s where we can start helpin’ each other, you know?’ Miller smiled at him. ‘I know some things and you know other things. You tell me your things and I tell you mine. End of the day we’re both better off.’

  Logan put his fork down. He had known this was coming from the moment the reporter asked him out to lunch. ‘You know that I can’t tell you anything.’ He pushed his plate away.

  ‘I know you can tell me a lot more than you tell the rest of the media. I know you can give me the inside track. You can do that.’

  ‘I thought you already had someone to feed you titbits.’ Now that he wasn’t eating any more Logan could concentrate on getting angry.

  Miller shrugged and twisted a long ribbon of pasta onto his fork. ‘Aye, but you’re better placed to help me, Laz. You’re the man on the scene, like. And before you go stormin’ off all huffy, remember: this is a trade. You tell me things, I tell you things. Them bastards should’ve made you a DI for catchin’ that Angus Robertson. Man kills fifteen women an’ you catch him single-handed? Shite, you should’a got a medal, man.’ He twirled another piece of tagliatelle, loading it up with slivers of smoked fish. ‘’Stead of which they give you a pat on the back. You get a reward? Did you bollocks.’ Miller leaned forward, pointing his fork at Logan. ‘You ever thought of writing a book about it?’ he asked. ‘You could get yourself a fuckin’ huge advance on that: serial-killer rapist stalks the streets, no one can lay a finger on him, then up pops DS McRae!’ Miller waved his fork around like a conductor’s baton as he got into the spirit, the tagliatelle unravelling as he spoke. ‘The DS and the brave pathologist track down the killer, only he grabs her! Rooftop showdown: blood, battle, near-fatal injury. Killer gets sent down for thirty to life. Applause and curtain.’ He grinned and stuffed the remaining pasta into his mouth. ‘Bloody great story. Have to move quick, but, Joe Public doesnae have a long memory. I’ve got contacts. I can help. Shite, you deserve it!’

  He dropped the fork on his plate and dug about in his jacket pocket, coming out with a small wallet.

  ‘Here,’ he said, pulling out a dark blue business card. ‘You give Phil a call and tell h
im I sent you. He’ll set you up with a fuckin’ good deal, man. Best literary agent in London, I’m tellin’ you. Done me proud.’ He placed the card in the middle of the table, facing Logan. ‘That’s free byraway. A token of good will.’

  Logan said thank you. But left the card sitting where it was.

  ‘What I want from you,’ said Miller, going back to his pasta. ‘Is what’s goin’ on with all these dead kiddies. The fuckin’ Press Office are givin’ out the usual shite: no details. Nothin’ meaty.’

  Logan nodded. It was standard practice: if you told the media everything they printed it, or staged reconstructions of it, or debated it on live television. Then all the nutters under the sun would be phoning up, claiming they were the new Mastrick Monster, or whatever trite nickname the press were going to give the man who abducted, killed and mutilated little boys before abusing their corpses. If nothing was kept secret there’d be no way of knowing if a call was genuine.

  ‘Now, I know wee David Reid was strangled,’ Miller went on, but that much was common knowledge. ‘I know he was abused.’ Again nothing new there. ‘I know the sick bastard hacked off the kid’s dick with a pair of scissors.’

  Logan sat bolt upright. ‘How the hell did you know—’

  ‘I know he stuffed something up the kid’s bum. Probably couldn’t get his own dick up, so he has to use—’

  ‘Who told you all this?’

  Miller did his shrug and wine glass routine again. ‘Like I said: it’s—’

  ‘—your job,’ Logan finished for him. ‘Sounds like you don’t need any help from me.’

  ‘What I want to know is what’s goin’ on in the investigation, Laz. I want to know what you lot are doin’ to catch the bastard.’

  ‘We are pursuing several lines of enquiry.’

  ‘Dead wee boy on Sunday, dead wee girl on Monday, two wee boys snatched. You got a serial killer on the loose.’

  ‘There’s no evidence the cases are connected.’

  Miller sat back, sighed and poured himself another glass of chardonnay. ‘OK, so you don’t trust me yet,’ said the reporter. ‘I can understand that. So I’ll do you a favour, just so’s you know I’m a good guy. That bloke you dragged out the harbour, the one with no knees, his name was George Stephenson. Geordie to his friends.’