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

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He was an enforcer for Malk the Knife. Heard of him?’

  Logan had. Malk the Knife: AKA Malcolm McLennan. Edinburgh’s leading importer of guns, drugs and Lithuanian prostitutes. He’d turned himself semi-legitimate about three years ago, if you could call property development that. McLennan Homes had bought up big chunks of land on the outskirts of Edinburgh and covered them with little boxy houses. Recently he’d been sniffing around Aberdeen, looking to get into the property game here before the arse fell out of the market. Going up against the local boys. Only Malk the Knife didn’t play the game like the local developers. He played hard and he played for keeps. And no one had ever been able to lay a finger on him. Not Edinburgh CID, not Aberdeen, not anyone.

  ‘Well,’ said Miller, ‘it seems Geordie was up here making sure Malkie got planning permission for his latest building scheme. Three hundred houses on greenbelt between here and Kingswells. Bit of the old bribery and corruption. Only Geordie has the bad luck to run into a planner that isn’t bent.’ He sat back and nodded. ‘Aye, that came as a bit of a surprise tae me too. Didnae think there was any of the buggers left. Anyway, the planner says, “Get ye behind me Satan” and that’s just what Geordie does.’ Miller held up his hands and made pushing gestures. ‘Right in front of the number two fourteen to Westhill. Splat!’

  Logan raised an eyebrow. He’d read about someone from the council falling under a bus, but there was never any suggestion it was anything other than an accident. The poor sod was in intensive care at the hospital. They didn’t expect him to see Christmas.

  Miller winked. ‘It gets better,’ he said. ‘Word is Geordie’s got a bit of a problem with the horses. He’s been spreading bets round the local bookies like butter. Big money. Only his luck’s for shite. Now your Aberdeen bookie’s no as . . . entrepreneurial as the ones down south, but they’re no’ exactly Telly Tubbies. Next thing you know Geordie’s floatin’ face down in the harbour an’ someone’s hacked off his kneecaps with a machete.’ The reporter sat back and swigged a mouthful of wine, grinning at Logan. ‘Now is that no’ worth something to you?’

  Logan had to admit that it was.

  ‘Right then,’ said Miller, settling his elbows on the tabletop. ‘Your turn.’

  Logan walked back into Force Headquarters looking as if someone had shoved the winning lottery ticket into his hand. The rain had even let up, allowing him to walk all the way from the Green to the huge Queen Street station without getting wet.

  Insch was still in the incident room, giving orders and taking reports. From the look of things they’d had no joy in locating either Richard Erskine or Peter Lumley. The thought of those two little kids, out there, probably dead, took the edge off Logan’s good mood. He had no business grinning like a loon.

  He cornered the inspector and asked him who was in charge of the missing kneecaps case.

  ‘Why?’ asked Insch, his large face full of suspicion.

  ‘Because I’ve got a couple of leads for them.’

  ‘Oh aye?’

  Logan nodded, the grin seeping back onto his face as he repeated what Colin Miller had told him over lunch. When he’d finished Insch looked impressed.

  ‘Where the hell did you get all this?’ he asked.

  ‘Colin Miller. The journalist from the Press and Journal. The one you told me not to piss off.’

  Insch’s expression became unreadable. ‘I said don’t piss him off. I didn’t say anything about climbing into bed with him.’

  ‘What? I didn’t—’

  ‘Is this the first little chat you and this Colin Miller have had, Sergeant?’

  ‘I’d never seen him before yesterday.’

  Insch scowled at him, keeping silent; waiting for Logan to jump in and fill the uncomfortable pause with something incriminating.

  ‘Look, sir,’ said Logan, unable to stop himself. ‘He came to me. You can ask the front desk. He told me he had something that would help us.’

  ‘And what did you have to give him in return?’

  There was another pause, this one even more uncomfortable.

  ‘He wanted me to tell him about the investigation into the abductions and killings.’

  Insch stared at him. ‘And did you?’

  ‘I . . . I told him I’d have to run any information past you first, sir.’

  At this DI Insch smiled. ‘Good lad.’ He pulled a bag of wine gums out of his pocket and offered them to Logan. ‘But if I find out you’re telling me lies I’ll break you.’

  13

  Logan’s free lunch had turned into rampant indigestion. He’d lied to DI Insch and hoped to God he wasn’t going to get found out. After Colin Miller had told him all about the man with no kneecaps, Logan had reciprocated, detailing the missing child investigations. He’d been convinced he was doing good: establishing a rapport with an informant, building bridges with the local press. But Insch had acted as if he was selling secrets to the enemy. Logan had asked Insch for permission to tell Miller everything he’d already told him. And in the end Insch had agreed. God help him if the inspector ever found out the exchange had happened before he’d given the OK.

  Someone else Logan didn’t want finding that out was the inspector from Professional Standards, currently sitting on the opposite side of the interview room table, dressed in an immaculate black uniform. All parallel creases and shiny buttons. Inspector Napier: thinning ginger hair and a nose like a bottle opener. Asking lots and lots of questions about Logan’s return to the force, his recuperation, his status as police hero, and his lunch with Colin Miller.

  Smiling sincerely, Logan lied for all he was worth.

  Half an hour later he was back in his commandeered office, looking up at the map on the wall, rubbing at the burning sensation sitting in the middle of his chest. Trying not to think about getting fired.

  The blue business card Miller had given him was sitting in his top pocket. Maybe the reporter was right. Maybe he did deserve better than this. Maybe he could write a book about Angus Robertson: Catching the Mastrick Monster. It had a kind of ring to it. . .

  WPC Watson had been in while he was out having lunch, leaving a fresh stack of printouts next to his witness statements. Criminal and civil records of everyone on his list. Logan sifted through it, not liking what he found. Not one of them had form for kidnapping, killing and disposing of young girls’ bodies in a bin-bag.

  But Watson had been thorough. For each person she’d provided a break-down by age, telephone number, place of birth, national insurance number, occupation, length of time they’d lived at their current address. He had no idea how she’d managed to get hold of all this stuff. Just a shame none of it was of any use.

  Rosemount had always been something of a cultural melting pot and that was reflected in Watson’s list: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Newcastle. . . There was even a couple from the Isle of Man. Now that was exotic.

  Sighing, he pulled the stack of statements over again, the ones he’d marked as being close enough to number seventeen to share a wheelie-bin. He read the bio WPC Watson had produced and then re-read the corresponding statement, trying to get some picture of them from their words. It wasn’t easy: every time uniform took a statement they put it into police-statement-speak, a sort of bizarre, stilted English that was so far removed from the way people really spoke it was almost laughable.

  ‘I proceeded to work that morning,’ Logan read aloud, ‘having first removed the rubbish bag from my kitchen and placed it into the communal bin outside the building. . .’ Who the hell spoke like that? Normal people ‘went to work’: ‘proceeding to work’ was something only policemen did.

  He turned back to the front page of the statement to see who had been so weirdly misquoted. The name was sort of familiar: someone from Norman Chalmers’s building. Anderson. . . Logan smiled. It was the man whose bell they’d rung so that they could get into the building without Chalmers knowing. T
he one WPC Watson thought was up to something.

  According to her write-up Mr Cameron Anderson was in his mid-twenties and hailed from Edinburgh: which explained why he had a first name like Cameron. He worked for a firm of sub-sea engineers making remote operated vehicles for the oil industry. Somehow Logan could picture the nervous young man fiddling about with little remote-controlled submarines.

  The next person on the list wasn’t much more help and neither was the one after that, but he worked his way slowly through them anyway. If the killer was here they didn’t jump off the page and tell him about it.

  Finally Logan put the last statement on top of the pile and stretched, feeling his back pop and crack. A yawn threatened to tear his head in half and he let it rip, ending with a tiny, almost inaudible, burp. It was a quarter to seven and Logan had been poring over these damned statements for most of the day. It was time to go home.

  Out in the hallway the building was quiet. The bulk of the administrative work got done during the day and after the admin staff went home the place was a lot less noisy. Logan stopped off at the incident room to see if anything had happened while he’d been cloistered in the office looking at statements.

  There was a small contingent of uniform in the room: two of them answering the phone while the remaining two got on with filing the reports generated by the last shift. He wasn’t surprised to hear they’d had exactly the same amount of success as him. Bugger all.

  Still no sign of Richard Erskine, no sign of Peter Lumley, and no one had come forward to identify the little girl lying on a slab in the morgue.

  ‘You still here, Lazarus?’

  Logan turned to find Big Gary standing behind him, a couple of mugs in one hand and a packet of Penguin biscuits in the other. The large policeman nodded in the direction of the lifts. ‘We’ve got someone downstairs looking for whoever’s in charge of the missing kid investigation. I thought you was all away.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Logan asked.

  ‘Says he’s the new kid’s stepfather.’

  Logan groaned. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help, it was just that he wanted to go find WPC Watson and discover whether or not they’d had sex last night. And if they had, was she up for a rematch?

  ‘OK, I’ll see him.’

  Peter Lumley’s stepfather was pacing the pink linoleum floor in reception. He’d changed out of his overalls and into a dirty pair of jeans and a jacket that looked as if it wouldn’t stop a sneeze, let alone a howling gale.

  ‘Mr Lumley?’

  The man spun around. ‘Why have they stopped looking?’ His face was pale and rough, blue stubble making the skin look even more sallow. ‘He’s still out there! Why have they stopped looking?’

  Logan took him into one of the small reception rooms. The man was shivering and dripping wet.

  ‘Why have they stopped looking?’

  ‘They’ve been out looking all day, Mr Lumley. It’s too dark to see anything out there. . . You need to go home.’

  Lumley shook his head, sending small droplets of water flying from his lank hair. ‘I need to find him! He’s only five!’ He sank slowly down into an orange plastic seat.

  Logan’s phone started blaring its theme tune and he dug it out, switched it off and stuck it back in his pocket without even looking. ‘Sorry about that. How’s his mother holding up?’ he asked.

  ‘Sheila?’ Something almost approaching a smile touched Lumley’s mouth. ‘The doctor’s given her something. Peter means the world to her.’

  Logan nodded. ‘I know you probably don’t want to think about this,’ said Logan, working his words carefully, ‘but has Peter’s father been told he’s missing?’

  Lumley’s face closed up. ‘Fuck him.’

  ‘Mr Lumley, the boy’s father has a right to know—’

  ‘Fuck him!’ He wiped a hand across his face. ‘Bastard fucked off to Surrey with some tart from his office. Left Sheila and Peter without a fuckin’ penny. You know what he sends Peter for Christmas? For his birthday? Fuck all. Not even a fuckin’ card! That’s what he sends his son. That’s how much he cares. Fuckin’ bastard. . .’

  ‘OK, forget the father. I’m sorry.’ Logan stood. ‘Look, we’re going to have all the area cars keeping an eye out for your son. There’s nothing more you can do tonight. Go home. Get some rest. First light tomorrow morning we’ll be searching again.’

  Peter Lumley’s stepfather slid his head into his hands.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Logan, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder, feeling the shivering turn into silent sobs. ‘It’s OK. Come on, I’ll give you a lift home.’

  Logan signed for one of the CID pool cars, another battered-looking Vauxhall in need of a wash. Mr Lumley didn’t say a word all the way from Queen Street to Hazlehead. Just sat in the passenger seat staring out of the window, searching for a five-year-old child.

  No matter how cynical you were, it would be impossible not to see the genuine love the man had for his stepson. Logan couldn’t help wondering if Richard Erskine’s dad was still out, searching for his missing son in the dark and the rain. Before remembering the poor sod had died before Richard was born.

  He frowned, working the dirty pool car round the roundabout that lead into Hazlehead proper. Something was nagging at him.

  Now he came to think about it: all the time they’d been in that house no one had mentioned the father. All the photos on the wall were of the missing child and his suffocating mother. You would have thought there would have been at least one of Richard’s dear departed dad. He didn’t even know the man’s name.

  Logan dropped Mr Lumley at the front door to his block of flats. It was hard to say, ‘Don’t worry, Mr Lumley, we’ll find him and he’ll be fine. . .’ when he was one hundred percent sure the child was already dead. So he didn’t, just made vague reassuring noises before driving off into the night.

  As soon as he was out of sight, Logan pulled out his mobile, turned it back on, and called the incident room. A harassed-sounding WPC answered the phone.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s DS McRae,’ said Logan, heading back into town. ‘Something wrong?’

  There was a pause and then: ‘Sorry, sir, the bloody press have been on. You bloody name it I’ve spoken to them: BBC, ITV, Northsound, the papers. . .’

  Logan didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Why?’

  ‘Bloody Sandy the Snake’s been stirring up shite. Seems we’re all incompetent and trying to pin all the murders on his client, ’cos we haven’t got a bloody clue. Says it’s Judith Corbert all over again.’

  Logan groaned. They’d only ever found her left ring finger, complete with gold wedding band, and Mr Sandy Moir-Farquharson had ripped the prosecution case to shreds. The husband walked free, even though everyone knew he’d done it; Slippery Sandy got a huge cheque, three chat-show appearances and a BBC Crime Special; and three good police officers were thrown to the wolves. Seven years ago and he was still digging her up to beat them with.

  Logan swung the car round onto Anderson Drive, making for the back road to Torry. Where little Richard Erskine had gone missing.

  ‘Yeah, that sounds like Sandy. What did you tell them?’

  ‘Told them to get stuffed and speak to the Press Office.’

  Logan nodded. ‘Quite right. Listen, I need you to look something up for me, OK? Did we get a name for Richard Erskine’s father?’

  ‘Hang on. . .’ The sound of someone massacring ‘Come On Baby Light My Fire’ came on as he was put on hold.

  He’d got all the way down to Riverside Drive before the WPC’s voice replaced the awful rendition. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said, ‘we don’t have the father’s name on file, but the case notes say he died before the child was born. Why?’

  ‘Probably nothing,’ said Logan. ‘Listen: I’ll be at the Erskine house soon. Call the Family Liaison Officer. . . She still on site?’ Distraught mother with a missing child: they wouldn’t have ass
igned a man to look after her.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. Call her and get her to meet me out front in about. . .’ he took a look at the grey buildings drifting past, the windows shining with yellow light, ‘two minutes.’

  She was waiting for him, watching him make an arse of parking the CID pool car.

  Trying not to look as flustered as he felt, Logan left the thing abandoned, half on the kerb, and buttoned up his coat against the rain.

  The Family Liaison Officer was better organized than he was: she had an umbrella.

  ‘Evening, sir,’ she said as he squeezed himself in under the brolly. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I need to know if you’ve heard anything of the boy’s—’

  A harsh white flash broke through the rain, cutting him off.

  ‘What the hell?’ he asked, spinning around.

  There was a scruffy-looking BMW on the other side of the road, the passenger side window rolled down, letting a trickle of smoke escape into the cold night air.

  ‘I think it’s the Daily Mail,’ said the WPC holding the brolly. ‘You turn up: they think something’s happening. Flash, bang, wallop. If they can make up some shite to go along with it you’ll be on the front page tomorrow.’

  Logan turned his back on the car, making sure that if they took any more snaps all they’d get was the back of his head. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘have you heard anything about the child’s father?’

  She shrugged. ‘Only that he’s dead. And a right bastard, according to the next-door neighbour.’

  ‘What, did he beat her up, cheat on her?’

  ‘No idea. But the old witch makes him sound like Hitler, only without the winning personality.’

  ‘Sounds lovely.’

  Inside the Erskine household the only thing that had changed was the air quality. The walls were still lined with those freaky mother-and-son snaps, the wallpaper was still revolting, but the air was thick with cigarette smoke.