Logan McRae 09 - The Missing and the Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  Mind you, if it was difficult to blend into the scenery in Aberdeenshire, it’d be almost impossible on Orkney …

  Logan pulled a three-point turn and headed back to the main road.

  If Wood and Anderson were working together, there’d be a trail, wouldn’t there? Something more tangible to connect the pair of them than a photograph on a dead paedophile’s wall.

  Steel and her team would’ve been all over Neil Wood’s bed-and-breakfast, but no one had given Charles Anderson’s house more than a quick once-over – making sure he really was missing and not lying dead in the bath.

  Time to change that.

  Anderson’s house was all on one level, with a grey slate roof. Chimney stacks at both gable ends, the pots cracked. Twig fingers reaching out of the tops, where the rooks had set up home. Warm light washed the cottage walls, made the white paint glow beneath the heavy black and blue clouds. Like the sky was one big bruise.

  Dockens and thistles rampaged through the garden. Dandelion seeds stuck to nearly every surface – a plague of gossamer spiders in the long grass and overgrown borders.

  Logan locked the Big Car and crunched across the gravel driveway to the front door.

  The house sat all on its own, halfway between Macduff and Gardenstown. Isolated from its nearest neighbours by fields of neon rapeseed, down the end of a rutted track, about fifty feet from the edge of the cliff.

  No prying eyes to see Anderson getting up to anything.

  Front door was locked, so Logan tried around the side, wading through the knee-high grass, getting his itchy black trousers clarted with willowherb tufts.

  Back door was locked too.

  Logan’s mobile launched into ‘The Imperial March’. He paused. Swore. Dug the thing out of his pocket. ‘What?’

  ‘Laz, that’s no way to talk to a superior officer. Bit of respect, eh?’

  ‘I’m busy. Leave me alone.’

  There was probably a key, in a file, in a police station somewhere, but that wasn’t much use right now. He tried above the back door.

  Nothing.

  ‘Ungrateful wee sod. There was me phoning up to congratulate you on catching the guy who shot Constable Nasrallah, and what do I get?’

  ‘Yeah, that was all you were calling about.’ Nothing under the pot plants either side of the door either.

  ‘But now you come to mention it – you might be getting a call from Susan about a big family dinner to celebrate the test results. I need you to tell her she can’t invite her mother. Or yours.’

  ‘She’s your wife, you tell her.’ There was a garage, built onto the far side of the house. A bit ramshackle. Made of nailed-together boards. The paint peeling, exposing the wood beneath. Wasps had been at that, leaving the surface fuzzy and grey. No windows, but it probably wouldn’t be too hard to lever a couple of boards free and squeeze inside.

  Be easier to break one of the panes of glass in the back door though.

  He snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves.

  ‘Don’t want to upset Susan, do I? Tell her … I don’t know, your mum’s giving you a hard time and if she finds out Susan’s mum was there and she wasn’t, she’ll jump off a bridge or something.’

  ‘I should be so lucky.’ Logan grabbed a book-sized rock from the weeds by the door. ‘Anyway, it’s not my job to keep you safe from your mother-in-law.’

  The back door had nine small glass panes set into the top half. The rock smashed through the bottom right one, sending shards of glass crashing to the kitchen floor.

  ‘Why can I hear breaking glass?’

  ‘Grow a pair and tell Susan how you feel. Stop weaselling, and do something about it.’ He unsheathed his extendable baton and jabbed it into the hole. Raked it round the edges to clear off any jagged remnants.

  ‘Laz, you’re no’ doing something you shouldn’t, are you?’

  ‘I’m busy.’

  He stuck his gloved hand through the hole and felt about … Door knob. Down a bit. There – the key was still in the lock.

  Logan turned it, then did the same with the knob. Pushed the door open and stepped inside. ‘Got to go.’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. If you think I’m alibiing you again, you’re off your head. Whatever you’re doing: stop.’

  The kitchen felt cold and damp, as if no one had lived there for years. A crust of moss clung to the inside corners of the window frames. Everything smelled of mould and dust. Not dirty, just neglected.

  ‘Laz, I’m warning you – they’ve got GPS in the Airwave handsets. It works even when they’re turned off. If you’re up to something, they’ll know where you are.’

  Through the kitchen and into the long, narrow hall. Three other doors off the sides, one at either end.

  ‘No one’s going to complain, OK? The homeowner’s dead. No one else lives here.’

  Door number one opened on a living room that must have died years ago. Ancient wallpaper, a sagging couch, a frayed rug on scuffed floorboards.

  Steel’s voice dropped to a hard whisper. ‘Why are you breaking into a dead man’s house?’

  ‘I’m not breaking in. Who said anything about breaking in?’

  Door number two opened on a bathroom – white tiles on the walls, white enamel bath, white sink. All the warmth of a fridge.

  ‘Laz, don’t be a dick! This isn’t—’

  ‘I got here and I noticed there was a broken pane of glass in the back door. I went inside to make sure no one had stolen anything. All perfectly above board.’

  Door number three opened on a bedroom. Double bed, sagging mattress, no pictures or paintings on the walls. The closed net curtains gave it a funeral parlour air.

  ‘God’s sake … Where are you?’

  He tried the bedside cabinet nearest the door. ‘Why?’

  Socks. Pants. Hankies. Assorted junk.

  ‘Because I’m coming over there and kicking your backside for you!’

  The other cabinet was much the same, only with a small bundle of well-thumbed porn mags in the bottom drawer.

  ‘Some of us have work to do, OK?’

  Logan flicked through them with his gloved fingers. Nothing too extreme, nothing too kinky, and definitely no kids.

  ‘We’re supposed to be a team! You, me: the two musketeers, remember?’

  The clothes in the wardrobe were grey and dated, sagging on their hangers as if they didn’t want to face another day.

  Back into the hall.

  ‘I’m at Charles Anderson’s house.’

  Door number four opened on a child’s bedroom. Blue football wallpaper; posters of bands and film stars; a row of picture books, fading on the windowsill. Bart Simpson duvet cover.

  A little shrine to a boy who died five years ago.

  His photo sat in a big silver frame on the bedside cabinet. Bright-red hair. Dimpled cheeks. Big grin and a threadbare teddy bear.

  ‘Who the hell’s Charles Anderson when he’s deid?’

  Door number five, at the far end of the corridor, opened on the wooden garage. With no windows, the only light was what filtered through from the hallway behind Logan.

  Furniture and boxes lurked in the gloom. Things on the walls.

  A light switch was mounted on the wall by the door. He clicked it on and a strip light buzzed, clicked, and pinged its way slowly awake.

  ‘Laz? Hello? You still there?’

  A soft whistle escaped from his lips.

  The things on the walls were corkboards, like the one in Steel’s commandeered office at Banff station. And like Steel’s they were covered in photographs and densely scribbled index cards, all linked together with grey string and red ribbons.

  A single card sat at the centre of the web, with ‘LIVESTOCK MART?’ printed on it in marker pen and underlined three times.

  He blinked a couple of times. The Livestock Mart. Oh, you wee beauty …

  ‘Logan! What the hell’s going on?’

 
; He stepped in close. Ran his fingers across one of the photos. It was Neil Wood, caught somewhere on a long-lens, paparazzi style. That one over there was Mark Brussels, with the patchwork scars he got in Peterhead Prison. And Dr William Gilcomston, with his grey hair and high forehead, caught in the supermarket. Mrs Bartholomew, the owner of the big Victorian pile on Church Street, putting her wheelie bin out.

  There were others too – about two dozen of them, all snapped from a distance. Some familiar faces, some not. All connected to each other with bits of string. All connected to the Livestock Mart.

  ‘LOGAN!’

  He blinked. ‘They’re all paedophiles. Paedophiles and sex offenders.’

  The red ribbons led to pictures cut from newspapers and magazines, or printed off the internet. Pictures of children. Each one was connected to at least one grown-up. One little girl to three of them. But one kid was out on his own: a wee red-haired boy, standing on a local beach in shorts and a Bart Simpson T-shirt, playing with a bucket and spade. His grin made puncture-mark dimples in both cheeks. The picture surrounded by a band of black ribbon.

  It was the boy from the shrine in the other room.

  ‘Who’re all …? Have you been drinking?’

  Only one other child looked familiar. A young girl, no more than six years old. She’d looked … different when she was alive. Without the big dent in her forehead where someone had smashed her brains in with a metal pipe. Without the sea-bleached tone to her skin.

  Her picture wasn’t a cut-out, it was a telephoto snap like the grown-ups. Caught outside somewhere – leaves in the foreground, something black, out of focus behind her. Big, rectangular. A door? Maybe a van? And her red ribbon didn’t go to Neil Wood, it went to Dr William Gilcomston.

  ‘Charles Anderson was mapping out a paedophile ring.’

  Because he was blackmailing it? Because he was part of it?

  ‘All right, that’s it, I’m getting in the car. Don’t touch anything!’

  The corkboard on the opposite wall had children’s drawings and little bits of jewellery pinned to it. Ear rings, a bracelet, a couple of watches, and some necklaces. One was a gold chain with a thistle on it. It glittered in Logan’s palm.

  Gold chain with a thistle …

  He went back to the photo board. Scanned the faces.

  A heavyset balding bloke with a smile full of teeth and a third-world moustache looked out of one picture with shining eyes. It must’ve been taken in a pub somewhere, the pumps on the bar pin-sharp in the background. He was halfway out of his seat, arms coming up, celebrating a goal. Wearing the same blue-and-red Caley Thistle replica shirt and gold chain he had on in his missing person’s pic.

  It was Liam Barden, the father of two Nicholson seemed obsessed with spotting on Castle Street.

  But Barden wasn’t on the Sex Offenders’ Register – it would’ve come up when they put together the misper file on him. So why was he on Charles Anderson’s pinboard?

  Logan turned the necklace over in his hands. The metal was cool through the nitrile gloves. Tiny flecks of dark red clung to the inside of the links either side of the thistle.

  Dried blood.

  There was more, clinging to the indentations of the inscription on the back. ‘TO LIAM ~ LOVE KATHY ~ FOR EVER!!!’

  He cleared his throat. ‘You still there?’

  Huffing and puffing came from the earpiece. ‘No.’

  ‘Yeah, neither am I. Think we’d better get a warrant and come back and discover this officially.’ He slipped Liam Barden’s necklace back onto its pin. Backed out of the room and switched off the light.

  As long as Logan was one of the first in when they got the warrant, no one would wonder why his DNA was all over the room. All above board. No breaking and entering and contaminating the crime scene here, thank you very much.

  Yes, there’d be the broken pane of glass in the back door, but that’d be easy enough to blame on someone else. Nothing for Napier to complain about …

  And all Logan had to do was—

  44

  ‘Unngh …’ There was a jackhammer in his skull, battering away, trying to separate it from his spine. Forehead pounding. Face prickly. A million bells ringing in his ears. Warm though.

  Not warm, hot. All down one side.

  Logan peeled one eye open, squinting out at the crackling yellow light.

  Gravel dug into his cheek.

  Why was he lying down?

  What?

  It took a couple of blinks to get the world into focus.

  He was on his side, next to the Big Car, bathed in the light of Charles ‘Craggie’ Anderson’s burning house. Flames roared from the open windows, crackling and bellowing in the light of the dying sun. Sparks flew like fireflies, swirling away into the bruised sky.

  God …

  Logan struggled to his knees and stayed there – eyes closed, thumping forehead resting against the car door.

  Don’t be sick.

  His trembling hand came away wet from the back of his head. Sticky.

  A booming crash sounded behind him.

  Get up.

  Deep breath.

  He pulled himself up the side of the car. Wobbled there for a moment. Then turned and slumped back against the bodywork. Opened his eyes.

  Half the roof had caved in, exposing rafters like the ribs of a skeletal ship. The garage was a solid block of snapping flame.

  So much for getting a warrant.

  He ran his fingertips along the back of his head again. Winced. Yeah, that was blood.

  Headlights bounced along the rutted track, getting closer. Then an MX-5 emerged from the gloom, grinding and scraping through the potholes. Steel clambered out from behind the wheel and stood there with her mouth hanging open. ‘What the hell did you do?’

  The fire engine’s diesel growl cut through the night, its swirling lights casting strobe patterns that interfered with the ones from the ambulance and the patrol car.

  ‘Ow!’ Sitting on the ambulance’s back step, Logan winced. ‘Easy!’

  ‘Don’t be such a baby.’ The paramedic went in for another go with the antiseptic, tongue poking out the side of her mouth as she tortured him. ‘When was your last tetanus shot?’

  Acid-dipped needles tattooed across his scalp. ‘Ow!’

  ‘Bleeding’s stopped – won’t even need stitches.’ She liberated a wad of gauze from its sterile packaging and pressed it against the back of his head. ‘Now: tetanus?’

  ‘Couple of years.’

  ‘Should be fine then.’ A smile. ‘Do you want a bandage and a lollypop, or are you putting your big-boy pants on?’

  Logan sniffed. ‘You don’t like people very much, do you?’

  ‘God, no.’ She tried to jab a finger all the way into his skull.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘You’ll live.’ The paramedic snapped off her surgical gloves and turned to Steel. ‘Right, he’s all yours. Need to keep an eye out for a concussion – says he didn’t black-out, but if you believe that …’ A shrug. Then back to Logan. ‘Medical advice time: a concussion can mean subdural haematoma or a subarachnoid haemorrhage, dizziness, nausea, confusion, and – worst-case scenario – death.’ She hooked a thumb in Steel’s direction. ‘So you should probably stay at your mum’s the night. Make sure you don’t die in your sleep.’ Then she shooed Logan off the back step, closed the back doors, climbed in behind the wheel and drove off, while Steel stood there and spluttered.

  Thank you, Florence Nightingale.

  ‘Your mum?’

  Don’t smile, it’ll only make it worse. ‘I know, nerve of the woman.’

  Steel threw her arms up, as if she was going to tear the clouds from the sky. ‘One: I am nothing like that frumpy scheming battleaxe. Two: I’m nowhere near old enough. And three: if I was your mother you wouldn’t be so sodding ugly!’

  ‘Finished?’

  ‘She thinks I’m your mum! How can I be your
mum? I mean, look at me: in my prime here.’

  He peeled the gauze off and squinted at it in the patrol car’s swirling lights. A thin line of scarlet, marred with dark-orange blobs.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Gouts of white steam tumbled upwards into the air, eating away at the black smoke.

  ‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

  Steel grabbed his Airwave. ‘No he’s not. And if he opens his mouth again, I’m going to finish the job!’

  ‘OK … Well, tell him that Tayside have stopped that Megabus and it’s not David and Catherine Bisset. Sighting was wrong.’

  ‘What a shock.’ She chucked it back at him. ‘How come you’re on the update list for the Killer Bissets?’

  ‘Because.’ He probed the lump on the back of his head. Winced. ‘Lucky I’m not dead.’

  Steel sooked on her fake cigarette. Dribbled the steam out of her nose. Then nodded at the burning house. ‘So?’

  He dabbed the gauze pad against the sore bit again. ‘Probably got a cracked skull.’

  ‘Did you see anyone? Did someone hit you, or did you just trip and bang your head like an auld wifie?’

  ‘What, and then dragged myself outside and set the house on fire?’ Another dab. ‘Ow.’

  The fire flickered, dimmed, then went out, plunging the surrounding area into darkness again. Well, except for the swirling lights of the assembled emergency services.

  Four firefighters in their bulky brown-and-high-vis outfits wrestled with a pair of hoses, deluging what was left of Charles Anderson’s house.

  Steel pulled the e-cigarette from her mouth and bared her bottom teeth. ‘And you’ve no idea who did it? Thought you said you didn’t black out.’

  ‘Blah, blah, blah. You heard Nurse Crippen: I’m fine.’ Still stung though.

  ‘Maybe it was someone in this paedophile ring? Found out you knew about them and decided to make it go away?’

  ‘How would they even know I was there?’ He crumpled up the gauze and stuffed it into his pocket. ‘Anderson had it all mapped out on his board. About a dozen names and faces, all linked to the Livestock Mart.’