All That's Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  And knowing Logan’s luck, it wouldn’t be Detective Chief Inspector Hardie.

  Look at him, sweating away up there on his hind legs, regurgitating the same bland nonsense they vomited out at every press conference: ‘We are appealing for anyone who may have seen this individual to come forward.’

  That mugshot of Haiden Lochhead, from Peterhead station, appeared on the screen behind him, but cropped so you couldn’t see the board with his name on it.

  The pack breathed in, tasting the air.

  ‘If you do see him, do not approach him. Call nine-nine-nine.’ Then Hardie nodded and sank back into his seat.

  Jane stood. ‘Thank you, Detective Chief Inspector.’ She looked out at the salivating animals. ‘Any questions?’ A flurry of hands shot up and Jane pointed at one of them. ‘Yes: Anne.’

  A young woman with curly blonde hair lowered her hand. ‘Anne Darlington, BBC. Do you have a name for the individual you want to talk to?

  ‘We do, but we’re not releasing it at this time. Donny?’

  Donny looked as if he’d dressed in the dark, forgotten to shave, and might have died sometime in the last thirty-six hours. ‘Donald Renlinson, Scottish Independent Tribune. DCI Hardie, is it true that Professor Wilson’s disappearance is linked to that of sext-scandal councillor, Matt Lansdale?’

  Hardie pulled up his chin. ‘Our officers have looked into this and we can confirm that there’s no connection between the two men. We are, however, concerned for Councillor Lansdale’s safety and urge him to get in touch.’

  And then Edward Barwell raised his hand, a smug smile on his smug face. It went with his smug haircut and Rupert Bear waistcoat. Everyone on the dais stared at him.

  Jane cleared her throat and moved her finger somewhere less dangerous. ‘Yes: Muriel.’

  If being passed over bothered Barwell, he didn’t show it. If anything, his smile got smugger.

  Yeah, that wasn’t a good sign.

  ‘Muriel Kirk, BBC Radio Scotland.’ She’d swapped her joggy bottoms and ‘I RAN THE MELDRUM MARATHON!’ T-shirt for a sober suit. ‘There was a note with the hands, “The Devil makes work”. Have you identified why the killer included it? What was the significance of sending Professor Wilson’s hands to me at the studio?’ Milking it.

  King took that one: ‘We think it was to gain as much media attention as possible. So I think it’s safe to say that you’ve helped him achieve his goal.’

  Muriel narrowed her eyes at that. But before she could open her mouth, Jane’s magic finger had moved on again:

  ‘Yes: Phil.’

  ‘Phil Patterson, Sky News.’ Small and hairy, like someone had shrunk a Royal Navy Action Man in the wash, only without the baggy sailor suit. ‘Can you tell us if this individual has killed before? Is he a danger to the public?’

  ‘We can’t comment on any previous convictions.’

  Hardie nodded. ‘But I would like to repeat – if you see him, do not approach him, call nine-nine-nine.’

  Barwell still had his hand up.

  Jane sighed. ‘Edward?’

  Here we go …

  ‘Edward Barwell, Scottish Daily Post.’ Dramatic pause. ‘DCI Hardie, clearly the investigation is going well. Does this mean that Detective Inspector Frank King has your complete confidence and support?’

  Silence from the table. Hardie shifted in his seat.

  Yeah, because that didn’t speak volumes, did it?

  Barwell raised an eyebrow. ‘Detective Chief Inspector?’

  Logan poked his elbow into Hardie’s side, hissing the words out the side of his mouth as quietly as possible. ‘Say something!’

  Pink flushed across Hardie’s cheeks. ‘All my officers have my confidence and support, Mr Barwell. What a ridiculous question. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have an investigation to run.’ He stood, motioning for Logan and King to join him as he marched away. Throwing a ‘Thank you’ over his shoulder at the assembled journalists.

  Jane clapped her hands together. ‘Thank you, everyone. See me after for photographs of the man we want to talk to.’

  The squeal of seats scraping against the grey terrazzo floor filled the room as people got to their feet, conversations breaking out between the press pack, everyone staring at Logan and King and Hardie as they pushed through the door into the police-only part of the station again.

  Soon as the door shut, Hardie curled his hands into fists, keeping his voice down, even though they were the only ones in the corridor. ‘Bloody hell!’

  Logan leaned against the wall. ‘Not wanting to criticise, or anything, but there’s no way they’re not going read volumes into that big long pause.’

  His cheeks darkened. ‘Well what was I supposed to do?’ Then Hardie stomped away a couple of paces, turned around and stomped back again. ‘That wee shite Barwell was playing me! I don’t signal my support, I’m undermining King and the investigation. I do and he can batter us about the head with it when he makes his big terrorist-cell reveal!’

  King grimaced at the ceiling tiles. ‘It wasn’t a terrorist cell!’

  Hardie stared at him. ‘I think you’re probably best keeping your mouth shut at this moment in time, don’t you?’ A deep breath. ‘Logan, we need to find this Haiden Lochhead and we need to find him now. I’ll free up more men. You can have an extra block of overtime, but – I – want – him – found!’ And with that, Hardie stormed off, muttering to himself.

  A uniformed PC stepped out from one of the doors further down the corridor, right in front of him.

  Hardie threw his arms in the air. ‘Out the bloody way!’

  The PC flattened herself against the wall, forcing an ingratiating smile as Hardie stormed past and out through the doors at the far end. Soon as they’d slammed shut behind him, she turned to Logan and King, hooked a thumb at the closed door, and made a wanking gesture with her other hand.

  Then her eyes went wide, presumably because she’d finally realised who Logan was, and making wanking gestures about senior officers was probably frowned upon by Professional Standards. ‘Sorry.’ She made herself scarce.

  ‘Arrgh …’ King covered his face with his hands. ‘Hardie’s right: it was a trap.’

  Of course it was.

  ‘Then let’s finish this thing before he springs it.’ Logan turned and marched off in the opposite direction to Hardie. Through the double doors and into the stairwell.

  King followed him. At least, he did as far as the gents’ toilet. Stopped outside with one hand on the door. ‘I’ll catch up. Nature calls.’

  Nature, or the two half-bottles of vodka he bought in Westhill?

  Logan shook his head and kept walking.

  17

  North Anderson drive crawled past the Audi’s windows. Half four and the rush hour was already in full swing. What the hell happened to people working till five o’clock? Lazy sods should still be hard at it, not clogging up the bloody road system.

  Was going to take forever to get to Dyce at this rate.

  King scowled out from the passenger seat, crunching his way through yet more extra-strong mints, his face a little pinker than it had been back at the station. Eyes a little pinker too. ‘And you know what makes it even worse?’

  Oh God, not this again.

  ‘You’ve got to let it go, Frank, there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  ‘What makes it worse is that now, if we put out the statement, it’ll look like we’re only doing it because Edward Barwell’s got us scared.’

  They crept forward another car’s length.

  ‘He has got us scared.’

  ‘That’s not the point, he’s—’ The opening bars from ‘Fairytale of New York’ burst out of King’s pocket and he bared his teeth. Let the song belt out for a bit. Then sighed and answered it. ‘Gwen.’ He screwed his face closed, one hand coming up to cover his eyes. ‘Oh you have got to be kidding me … No … No, I didn’t … Because I didn’t.’

  Yeah, it wasn’t easy pretending not to listen i
n, because what else was Logan supposed to do – get out and walk?

  Mind you, might be quicker than sitting in rush-hour sodding traffic.

  Anyway, don’t look at him. Eyes on the road.

  ‘For God’s sake, Gwen, I’m at work! … No! …’ Getting louder. ‘You know what? I’m not the one having the bloody affair, that’s why!’ He jerked the phone from his ear and hammered his finger into the screen. Slammed the phone down on the seat between his legs. Fumed at the passenger window.

  She was having an affair. Well that explained all the angry phone calls.

  Logan kept his voice neutral. ‘You want to talk about it?’

  Please say no. Please say no. Please say—

  ‘No I sodding don’t.’

  Phew.

  The car crawled forward another couple of lengths. Six more and they’d get their turn at the Horrible Haudagain Roundabout.

  King rolled his shoulders. ‘She’s sleeping with someone at work. And not someone at her work, someone at mine. Which she takes great bloody pleasure telling me at every bloody opportunity.’

  Ooh … Ouch.

  ‘Any normal woman would run off and be with lover boy, but apparently that’s not vicious enough for her!’ He smacked a fist down on his leg. ‘No, it’s much more fun to call me up every five minutes and jab it in my face.’

  ‘Do you know who she’s—’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Whoever they are, they’re welcome to her.’

  Fair enough.

  According to the sign out front, Ravendale Sheltered Living Facility was ‘A HOME FROM HOME, WHEN PEOPLE NEED A HELPING HAND’. With its bland grey-and-brown blockwork and patches of beige harling, it looked more like a cross between a primary school and a bus station. The car park was ‘surprisingly’ free of cars, as if the residents’ relatives didn’t actually need to visit, because, you know, it wouldn’t do to interfere …

  Logan pulled into a parking space as far away from the handful of other vehicles as possible. No point risking someone scratching his Audi’s bodywork with a carelessly opened door. That was the thing about car parks – people turned into animals.

  He pulled on the handbrake, killed the engine, grabbed his peaked cap and Rennie’s file, then climbed out into the roasting sunshine. Within two breaths, sweat prickled across his shoulders, the heat grabbing at his lungs.

  All that time spent moaning about last winter and all the ice. Could do with some of that now. Be nice to feel a bit less like a sodding ready meal.

  He closed his door as King got out.

  ‘You OK to do this?’

  King didn’t look at him. ‘I’m fine.’

  Aye, right.

  ‘Because I can easily—’

  ‘I said I’m fine!’ And he marched off, across the car park to the reception doors. Yanking them open and barging inside.

  Great.

  Logan puffed out a long breath, grimaced, then followed him.

  Ravendale’s reception area was every bit as bland as its exterior, only with more pot plants. The sound of some moronic game show oozed out through an archway marked ‘RESIDENTS LOUNGE’, showing a woeful ignorance of the possessive apostrophe. Someone else that looked as if they suffered from the same affliction sat behind the reception desk. Bland and grey, like the room, in a baggy cardigan and a comb-over that wasn’t fooling anyone but its owner.

  He looked up and smiled a denture-perfect smile. ‘Welcome to Ravendale. How can I—’

  King slapped his warrant card on the desk. ‘I need to speak to Gary Lochhead.’

  Captain Comb-Over spluttered and fidgeted for a bit, squinting down at the ID. Then, ‘Ah. Right.’ He pulled on a pair of glasses and peered at it. ‘He’ll probably be in the residents’ lounge, so …’ His mouth closed with a plastic-on-plastic click as King marched off. ‘Oh, you’re going to see yourself there. Right.’

  Logan gave Captain Comb-Over an apologetic wave and followed King into the residents’ lounge.

  They’d clearly tried to tart the place up, make it homely and welcoming, but it hadn’t really worked. Horrible paintings besmirched the magnolia walls, created by someone with about as much artistic talent as a drunken horse. A beige carpet, mottled with stains. Dusty plastic pot plants. A ceiling-mounted projector casting a slightly fuzzy game show onto one wall, the red and green not really lining up the way they should – subtitles barely legible. The cloying scent of air freshener trying to cover something sharp and yellow. The unmistakable hot wintergreen scent of Ralgex chewing at the edges.

  About two dozen residents were more or less present, none of them a day under eighty-five. Some trembling away in wheelchairs, others hooked up to oxygen tanks and/or drips, bags dangling from their chair frames. A woman in the corner was busying herself at an easel, daubing it with oil paint, no doubt producing another ‘masterpiece’ for the lounge’s walls. A bald man weeping into his knitting. A balding woman shouting the answers at the fuzzy projected contestants. ‘Lusitania, you moron! Lusitania!’

  King raised his voice over hers, ‘Gary Lochhead?’

  The woman committing art crimes waved at them, then pointed her brush at a hunched figure in an electric wheelchair parked over by the windows, his back to the room.

  King marched over. ‘You Gary Lochhead?’

  No reply.

  Logan joined them, looking out across the road, through the chain-link-and-razor-wire fence at the gubbins of Aberdeen Airport. On the far side of the runways, the control tower was barely visible. A big orange 737 taxied past in the middle distance.

  He put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. ‘Gary? We need to talk to you about Haiden.’

  A tremor ran through the saggy skin as Gary Lochhead turned his face towards Logan. He’d been a big lad, once, you could see that in the length of his limbs and span of his shoulders, but the arms and legs had withered to sticks, his chest and stomach swollen up so they poked out of his dressing gown. Surgical support stockings. Baldy head playing host to a couple of white tufts in need of a trim. He blinked at Logan, the oxygen line taped to his nose shifting as his dry lips twitched. When the words appeared, they were strangely high and effeminate. ‘You want to talk about Haiden?’

  Logan nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you can sod right off, can’t you?’

  King pulled out his warrant card again. ‘Police.’

  ‘Yeah, believe it or not, your big-eared mate’s uniform was kinda the giveaway there.’ His throat twitched, his face darkened, then a gargling cough rattled his whole body, shaking it back and forth as he hacked away. Then spat something dark into a handkerchief, clutched in one shaking liver-spotted hand. Emerging breathless at the other end. ‘I don’t … know … where … he is … I don’t know … what he’s doing … And I don’t … care.’ Sagging into his chair.

  Logan tried for supportive and understanding. ‘He’s your son.’

  ‘Tell him that. Ungrateful wee sod’s never been to see me. Not in prison, not here.’ The other hand came up, curled into an arthritic claw. ‘Far as I’m concerned, Haiden can go to hell and stay there. And so can you.’

  King opened his mouth, but Logan shook his head at him and he shut it again.

  Gary Lochhead glowered out at the 737 as it pulled away and roared up into the bright blue sky. ‘Eighteen years I was banged up. Eighteen years for what?’

  ‘You executed a property developer in the Inverness Asda car park.’

  Gary waved that away with his claw. ‘He wanted planning permission to build three hundred houses at the Peel of Lumphanan. Bloody cultural vandalism.’

  Nope, no idea. And going by the expression on King’s face, he didn’t know either.

  A sigh as Gary looked at them in turn. ‘It was where Macbeth died, you ignorant tossers. The real one, not the regicidal monster from Shakespeare’s play – lying Tudor propaganda-spreading bastard. It’s part of our cultural birthright, and they were going to build three hundred houses on it?’ He
curled his lip. ‘That’s the trouble with you kids today: you don’t learn your country’s history. It’s all World War One poetry and crop rotation in the sixteenth bloody century. You know why? Because the English control the curriculum and they don’t want you to know we used to be a proud, independent nation!’

  He jabbed at his wheelchair’s controls, sending it lurching around through 180 degrees, then whirrrrring off towards the exit at a sedate walking pace.

  They followed him.

  Logan checked Rennie’s file. ‘What about that heist in Edinburgh? Two point six million in gold bullion, you and your mates got away with, wasn’t it?’

  A smile. ‘No idea what you’re on about. I was never charged with that and neither was anyone else.’ The smile grew. ‘Shame.’

  The old man with the knitting lowered his needles and embarked on a maudlin tune in a thin wobbly baritone. ‘Oh my love is lost to me, my heart is nevermore …’ Then trailed away into silent tears again.

  Logan cleared his throat. ‘Would you say Haiden was a bright lad, Gary?’

  The wheelchair came to a sudden halt. ‘With the amount of weed his mother smoked when she was pregnant with him?’ Another bout of coughing left him gasping. ‘Look … at this … hovel … Four months … to live … and this is where … they stick me … What’s compassionate … about that?’

  King looked across Gary’s bald head. ‘This is a waste of time.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Gary Lochhead narrowed his eyes, squinting up at King. ‘Do I know you? You look … familiar. And I never forget a—’

  ‘I’LL KILL YOU!’ An older man in a blue cardigan launched himself across the lounge at the crying knitter, fists swinging. He battered into him, tipping Knitter’s chair over backwards, the pair of them hitting the beige carpet in a barrage of snarling. Balding pates shining in the sunlight as they punched and bit and kicked. Hard and fast.

  The woman with the paintbrush screamed.

  Logan snapped his mouth closed and charged over. ‘STOP! POLICE!’

  King was faster, launching himself into the melee, grunting as a cardiganed elbow caught him in the face. Logan grabbed Knitter, pulling him away – still kicking and screaming.