In the Cold Dark Ground

by Stuart MacBride

  There were about a dozen more crayon scribbles in here, most of them featuring what looked like potatoes with arms and legs, but instead of being stuck to the fridge door like in a normal house, they were displayed in elaborate wood-and-glass frames.

  Logan settled into a seat and nodded at the little boy. ‘That’s some cast you’ve got there, Ethan, what happened to your arm?’

  He stared back in silence.

  OK…

  Mrs Milne shook her head. ‘I love him to bits, but he can be a clumsy wee soul sometimes. Can’t you, Ethan?’

  A shrug, then Ethan went back to his orange juice.

  ‘He’s a bit shy.’ She ladled batter into the frying pan and pulled on a gleaming smile. ‘So, who’s for pancakes?’

  Logan wandered over to the window, rolling up a pancake – smeared with butter and raspberry jam – as if it were a fine cigar. Bit off the end and chewed.

  Outside, Ethan slouched through the rain, good hand held in his mother’s. The cast on his other arm pressed against his chest. A scarlet people-carrier idled at the kerb, and as they reached it the driver’s window slid down, revealing a large woman with a Lego-bob haircut who smiled at them.

  Mrs Milne bent down and kissed Ethan on the cheek, wiped the lipstick away, and saw him into the back of the car. Made sure he was belted in. Then stood there, in the rain, waving as the car wound its way out of the small development, onto the road, and away. Stood there a moment or two longer. And finally turned and trudged towards the house again.

  Tufty appeared at Logan’s elbow. Had a sip of tea from a mug with Winnie the Pooh on it. ‘Doesn’t seem like a very happy kid.’

  ‘His dad’s vanished.’

  ‘True.’

  Another bite. ‘And then there’s the broken arm.’

  ‘I was forever falling out of trees when I was five.’

  ‘Let me guess: you landed on your head a lot.’ Logan frowned out at the rain. ‘Get onto Social and see if anyone’s raised any flags about Ethan. Doctors, hospitals, teachers. Exactly how “clumsy” is he?’

  ‘Sarge.’

  A clunk, then a rattle, and Mrs Milne was back looking as if she’d just been for a swim. She grimaced at them. ‘Poor wee soul’s having a hard time at school. Some of the kids think it’s fun to wind him up, because Martin’s missing. Can you imagine anything so cruel?’ She dabbed at her long black hair with a tea towel. ‘Yesterday, someone told him Martin’s run off with a younger woman. That Martin doesn’t love him any more.’ She shuddered. ‘Well, you know what kids are like. Horrible little monsters.’

  Tufty beamed at her. ‘Sorry to be a pain, but could I use your loo? Too much tea.’

  ‘Out into the hallway, second on the right.’

  ‘Thanks.’ And he was off, unclipping his Airwave handset as he went. Not exactly subtle.

  Idiot.

  Logan polished off the pancake. Sooked his fingers clean. ‘Do you know if your husband has online banking? And if he does, can you get access to it?’

  ‘Martin hasn’t run off with some tart. He wouldn’t do that to us.’ She looked away, lowered her voice. ‘He loves us.’

  ‘Mrs Milne? The banking?’

  ‘Of course – we’ve got joint accounts.’ She went over to the Welsh dresser and opened a drawer. Pulled out a small laptop. ‘Oh, you should have heard them when we got married: “He’s far too young for her”, “He’s a toy boy”, “She’s such a dirty old lady”, “Must be like he’s shagging his mum”.’

  The laptop went on the kitchen table. Then whirred and beeped into life.

  ‘Kids aren’t the only monsters.’ She logged in. ‘Suppose that’s where they get it from.’

  Logan took the seat next to her. ‘You said Ethan was clumsy sometimes?’

  ‘Hold on, it wants to install updates…’ Mrs Milne hunched over the keyboard, fingers clattering across the plastic. ‘Do you mean his arm? He says he fell over in the playground, but I don’t know. Why didn’t the teachers see anything? Surely if a wee boy falls over and breaks his arm, they’d see something.’ Then she sat back again. ‘Here we go. What do you need?’

  Logan pointed at the bank’s summary page of accounts. ‘Can you call up all recent transactions? We want to see if Martin’s used his credit or debit card.’

  She hesitated. ‘You think he’s run away.’

  ‘We’re only looking for some clue to where he is. If he’s taking money out in Dundee, we know to get the police there looking for him.’

  She bit her bottom lip again, then fiddled with the trackpad, bringing up a list of the last ten credit card transactions. Pointed. ‘These are mostly me: Tesco, Tesco, shoes for Ethan, Tesco, Tesco again, heating oil. That one’s Martin’s: the petrol station in Peterhead on Friday. Then it’s just Tesco, Tesco, Tesco.’

  ‘What about the current account?’

  ‘Erm…’ She clicked again. ‘Nothing since Monday. I got fifty pounds out to pay the window cleaner.’

  So Milne had been missing since Sunday night and not bought a single meal on his credit card, or taken a penny out of the bank. If he really had been on the run for three days and four nights, surely he’d have to spend something. ‘And he doesn’t have any other accounts? Maybe from before you were married?’

  ‘Martin and I don’t keep secrets from one another.’ Her chin came up. ‘If he had another account I’d know about it.’

  Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Everyone had secrets.

  Logan nodded at the screen. ‘Any chance you can print off everything for the last three months or so?’

  She rested her fingers against the keys, staring at her bitten nails. ‘What if something’s happened to him? What if he…’ Mrs Milne cleared her throat. ‘What if they’re right? What if he thinks we don’t matter, and he can do better somewhere else with someone his own age? What if he’s dead?’

  He probably was, but there was no point telling her that.

  Logan placed a hand on her shoulder. The jumper was damp and cool. ‘We’re going to do everything we can.’

  She nodded. Then sniffed. Then wiped a hand across her eyes. ‘Yes. Right. I’ll download those statements.’

  Logan settled back against the work surface, a fresh cup of tea steaming away in his hand.

  The back garden was a shivering mass of bushes and low trees, slapped about by the wind. A shed sat in the bottom corner, surrounded by terracotta pots, their contents covered with white fleecy material. What looked like a vegetable plot lay along the far end of the garden. All very bucolic and genteel. Perched on the edge of the world.

  He checked his watch. Half eight and there was still no sign of Tufty. Knowing Logan’s luck, Mrs Milne had probably left the front door open and Tufty had got out. He’d be climbing trees, chasing cars, and pooping on people’s lawns.

  The room was quiet, just Logan and the hummmm-swoosh-hummmm-swoosh of the dishwasher.

  He dug into his pocket and came out with the two business cards. Well, a promise was a promise… He ripped both up and dumped them in the pedal bin.

  A newspaper lay on the worktop next to it, open at the crossword. Half the grid was filled in, a blue biro sitting next to the paper. Logan peered at the clues.

  She’d got four down wrong.

  And that wasn’t how you spelled ‘DISCONTENT’ either. Or ‘INCALCULABLE’.

  Then Mrs Milne’s voice cut across the dishwasher. ‘Sorry. I had to change the cartridge in the printer.’

  Logan turned. ‘You’re a crossword person.’

  Pink flushed her cheeks. Then she held out a small stack of paper. ‘Bank statements for the last twelve weeks.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He flicked through them.

  Regular entries for petrol and food. A pub in Peterhead every Wednesday. A few entries for Amazon. Some for Waterstones in Elgin… Nothing jumped out.

  Mrs Milne picked the newspaper up and ruffled it back into shape. ‘Martin
was always the puzzle solver. Into his Miss Marples and his crime drama on the TV.’ She closed the paper, shutting away the crossword. Smoothed it down. ‘Don’t know why I bother really, I’m always terrible at it.’

  There, spread across the Aberdeen Examiner’s front page, was a photo of the entrance to the woods, all cordoned off with blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape. A uniformed constable stood behind the line, in the pouring rain, while behind him a patrol car sat with all its lights on. ‘GRISLY DISCOVERY IN MACDUFF WOODS’ with the sub-headline ‘IS BODY IN WOODS MISSING BUSINESSMAN?’

  No wonder she’d thought the worst when they’d turned up on her doorstep.

  Logan reached out and took the newspaper from her. ‘You shouldn’t be reading this kind of stuff. They don’t know anything, they’re just speculating. Making things up to sell more copies.’

  ‘Keep it.’ Mrs Milne turned away. ‘I never liked doing the crossword anyway.’

  Her back was broad beneath the damp jumper, but rounded, as if she spent a lot of time trying to make herself look smaller. Maybe her husband was a short man and he didn’t like being towered over? Little man syndrome.

  The dishwasher whispered and moaned.

  Rain spattered across the kitchen window.

  Logan folded the newspaper and tucked it under his arm. ‘We’re going to do everything we can, I promise.’

  She didn’t turn around. ‘Thank you.’

  Then the kitchen door thumped open and Tufty poked his head in. About time.

  He pulled on a big grin. ‘Katie? Can I ask a…’ He nodded back towards the front of the house. ‘It’s a quickie.’

  She followed him down the hall, Logan bringing up the rear.

  ‘Any idea who this is?’ Tufty pointed at one of the framed photos. A close-up group of eight men, standing around a barbecue in T-shirts. Baseball caps and sunglasses. Sunburn and grins. A couple had their drinks raised in salute. ‘On the left, with the corn-on-the-cob.’

  Mrs Milne blinked, frowned. ‘It’s Pete. Peter Shepherd. He’s Martin’s business partner. Him, Martin, and Brian set up GCML together nine years ago. Why?’

  ‘Cool, cool.’ Tufty tapped the frame. ‘And he lives…?’

  ‘Pennan. He’s got one of those sideyways houses. Look, why do you want to know?’

  Tufty shrugged. ‘Just interested. Any chance I can borrow the photo?’

  Logan fastened his seatbelt. ‘Well?’

  Tufty waved through the windscreen at Mrs Milne. Then turned the wheel and took them out of the little development. Soon as he got to the junction with the main road, he reached back into the footwell and pulled out the framed photo of the barbecue. Passed it over. ‘Notice anything?’

  ‘They’ve burnt the sausages?’

  ‘Guy on the left, Peter Shepherd. Check the arm.’

  Martin’s business partner had a green T-shirt with a sort of Viking logo on the front. He’d ripped the sleeves off, exposing the swollen biceps of someone who spent far too much time down the gym. And there, on his left arm, was a narwhal tattoo.

  9

  Banff sulked beneath the heavy lid of stone sky, the buildings crouched together in the rain. Tufty took them in through the limits and down the hill. ‘Station?’

  ‘Pennan.’ Logan pressed the talk button on his Airwave. ‘Maggie, I need you to look someone up for me. Peter Shepherd, lives in Pennan.’

  ‘Give me a minute, Sergeant McRae, the MIT are hogging all the bandwidth so everything’s running like a slug.’

  Tufty took a right, onto Castle Street – its rows of old-fashioned buildings giving way to the same buildings but with shops occupying the ground floor. ‘Sarge, should we not… You know, tell DCI Steel that Shepherd’s her corpse?’

  ‘No guarantee it’s him, Tufty. We’re just doing a bit of legwork. Making sure we don’t waste anyone’s time.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘When Mrs Milne reported her husband missing, did you go talk to everyone at his company?’

  ‘No one had seen him since Friday. He bunked off early, about half three, which was par for the course.’

  ‘What about Shepherd?’

  He shrugged. ‘Didn’t ask. We were looking for Milne, didn’t even know Shepherd existed.’

  Which was fair enough.

  A handful of bodies tramped through the rain, bent nearly double under its relentless assault. All the cars had their headlights on, edging along not much faster than the people on the pavement.

  ‘What about this Brian person, the other partner?’

  Something crawled across Tufty’s face, wrinkling bits of it, before fading away, leaving him smooth as a baby’s backside. ‘Got him: Brian Chapman. Financial Director. Big sticky-out mole on his forehead.’

  ‘That it?’

  ‘Didn’t know where Milne was, and seemed genuinely worried when I told him we’d found Milne’s car abandoned, Sunday night.’

  ‘Sergeant McRae? I’ve got three speeding tickets over the last six years and that’s it.’

  ‘Vehicles?’

  ‘Two registered at his property: a Mitsubishi Warrior and a Porsche Nine-Eleven.’

  That explained the speeding tickets. Mind you, you’d have to be an optimist to own a Porsche in Pennan. A rear-wheel-drive sports car? And that hill? In winter? Be lucky if you got it out of the garage half the year.

  ‘Do you want me to check if he made any complaints?’

  ‘Please. And the phone number.’

  The sandstone spire of Banff Parish Church went by the passenger window. A group of OAPs, dressed like carrion crows, shuffled in through the door, single file. A couple of floral tributes sat either side of the entrance as the minister shook hands with each and every one of them. Probably holding a sweepy in his head as to who he’d have to bury next.

  Tufty chewed on his lip. ‘Sarge, are you sure DCI Steel isn’t going to blow a hairy when she finds out we didn’t come clean about Shepherd?’

  The road swept around to the left, then past the football pitch and the golf course.

  ‘Sarge?’

  ‘Tell me about Martin Milne.’

  He blew out a breath. Screwed up his face for a moment. Then, ‘OK. Martin Carter Milne, thirty, BA in business from Robert Gordons University, married to Katie Milne, one child: Ethan, six. Drives a dark-blue Aston Martin DB9. Very swish. Really wanted a go in it, but Traffic pulled rank.’

  ‘Impounded?’

  ‘Secure parking in Mintlaw. Mrs Milne can pick it up anytime she likes.’ The Big Car bumped over the bridge. The River Deveron was a swollen grey snake, rasping at its banks below, surging out into the bay. ‘Milne got a caution for aggravated assault three years ago. Fiscal didn’t take it to court because he was wading in to break up a fight at a Bloo Toon, Elgin City match. Left a guy with a fractured cheekbone and a broken arm.’

  ‘Bit of a bruiser then.’ Logan scanned the barbecue photograph for Milne.

  He was in the middle, overseeing the ritual burning of the sausages. Red T-shirt with the same Viking logo as Peter Shepherd, only he’d left his sleeves on. Big arms. Not over-muscled like Shepherd’s, but thick enough to do some damage.

  ‘Sergeant McRae? I’ve got records of Peter Shepherd’s house being burgled last year. The thief got away with an antique gramophone and a set of three regency candlesticks. All recovered. He’s made four complaints in the last six months about vandalism. And there’s two ongoing investigations about his business premises being broken into in Peterhead.’

  ‘Ongoing since when?’

  ‘Three years.’

  So for ‘ongoing’ read, ‘no one has a clue’.

  ‘Just in case, better give me his work number too.’ Logan turned to Tufty. ‘What are they called?’

  ‘GCML: Geirrød Container Management and Logistics, Peterhead.’

  ‘You get that, Maggie?’

  ‘Do you want me to text them through to your phon
e?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And are you coming back to the station anytime soon, Sergeant McRae? Only the MIT are being … difficult.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s oot-and-aboot for me and the loon. If anyone asks, we’re chasing up a misper.’

  And with any luck, Steel would believe it.

  ‘And you’ve not seen Mr Shepherd since Friday?’ Logan pinned his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he wrote the details down in his notebook. Leaning into the corners as the Big Car wheeched along the winding road.

  ‘Yup, he’s off seeing a supplier in Chesterfield.’

  Oh no he wasn’t. He was dead.

  ‘But you haven’t heard from him?’

  ‘Nah. Don’t usually when he’s off on his travels. Likes to keep a low profile does our Pete, so it’s all text messages and emails.’

  ‘OK, well, if you hear from him, tell him we’d like a word.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Logan hit the button and ended the call. ‘GCML say Shepherd’s off down south, buying them some new containers.’

  Tufty overtook a tractor with mud-spattering tyres. ‘So maybe it isn’t him we found. Maybe it’s someone else. Maybe he’ll turn up tomorrow with a bunch of containers and a confused look on his face.’

  ‘Maybe.’ But it wasn’t likely.

  Logan tried the other number again. Got the answering machine again.

  ‘Hello, you’ve reached Pete Shepherd. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.’ Then a pause. Bleeeeeeeep.

  He hung up.

  ‘Shepherd’s still not answering his mobile.’

  A nod from the driver’s seat. ‘Well, he can’t, can he? Not if he’s dead. Roaming charges are probably extortionate from the afterlife.’

  ‘…but that’s nonsense, isn’t it? Of course time exists. And do you know what I think?’

  Logan ruffled the copy of the Aberdeen Examiner he’d taken from Mrs Milne. ‘Nope.’ Wasn’t interested either, but there was no point telling Tufty that, he’d only sulk again.