She sat there in silence, looking at the head, the grin fading from her face. ‘Poor old sod.’
‘Nooo …’ On the other end of the phone, Rennie sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. ‘Do you have any idea what time it is?’
‘Quarter past eleven.’
‘I was asleep!’
‘Hey, you’re the one who moaned because you weren’t told about us solving the jewellery heist.’
‘Jewellery …?’ A yawn. ‘I don’t care. Sleep. Need sleep …’
‘OK, well, in that case you go back to bed and I’ll get Chalmers to look into it.’
Silence. ‘Chalmers?’
‘We’ve found one of your missing tramps: Roy Forman. He was our necklacing victim.’
A thump, a crash, some swearing, then: ‘I’ll be right in.’
Logan hung up. Now they knew who the victim was it was going to be a lot easier to solve. Connect Agnes Garfield to Roy ‘Fusty’ Forman, and that would be that. How hard could it be? He swivelled back and forth in his chair a couple of times.
Then stopped.
There was a sheet of paper sitting in his in-tray, on top of Steel’s half-completed budget analysis. It was a PNC search for Nichole Fyfe’s ex-boyfriend Robbie Whyte. Guthrie must have dropped it off while Logan was off visiting the Kintore crime scene.
He picked it up and skimmed through it. Shoplifting, assault, blah, blah, breaking into people’s cars and nicking things, joyriding …
A smile stretched across Logan’s face.
‘Oh, you little beauty.’
The viewing suite still smelled of old Pot Noodles, but now came with an extra stale-biscuity whiff of cheesy feet.
Dr Goulding huffed a breath onto his little rectangular glasses, polished them on a cloth, then slipped them back onto his long, hooked nose. Ran a hand through the thick black hair on top of his head, cut short like animal pelt, grey flecks spreading their way around his temples. A pair of flaming dice sat in the middle of his bottle-green tie. He reached out and pressed play on the video console. ‘This is the interesting bit.’
Logan scooted his chair closer as the crackling screen filled with the interior of interview room two. Robbie Whyte was sitting in the dead seat – the one bolted to the floor – Goulding in the one opposite him, the legs and stomach of PC Guthrie just poking into the side of the frame.
Whyte gave his lopsided shrug again. ‘I don’t know. I found it.’
The on-screen Goulding nodded. ‘You found a dog’s head.’ Not a question, just a statement.
‘I know she still loves me …’
‘Sometimes, Robbie, it’s hard for us to accept that the huge feelings we have aren’t shared by others.’
‘No: she loves me. I know she does.’ He sat back in his seat and stared up at the camera. ‘There was this summer we got a caravan in Lossiemouth. Was a friend’s dad’s and we stayed there for a whole fortnight. Just her and me and Wee Robbie. Caught fish and cooked them under the stars and smoked so much weed one night we saw a kelpie …’
‘I see. You named the dog, “Wee Robbie”. Was that your idea, or Nichole’s?’
‘Going to get married and have kids. Boy and a girl. Always wanted a son, you know? Someone to be a chip off his old man’s block.’
A nutjob who’d cut the head off his own dog. Yeah, that was something to aspire to.
The real-life Goulding pressed pause. ‘So when she left, she not only rejected him, she rejected his future child as well. A double blow. Then, when his mother died, that was the final straw. He couldn’t cope any more.’
‘He gave the dog the same name he was going to give his kid?’
‘You asked if Robert Whyte would be capable of murder …’
Silence.
Logan poked Goulding in the shoulder. ‘Well?’
‘In killing the dog – the emotional surrogate for an unborn son and his potential future with the woman he loves – Robert’s metaphorically killing himself and everything he’s hoped for over the last eight or nine years. He’s a dead man. You can’t hurt the dead.’
‘Could he necklace someone? Or torture them to death?’
‘My opinion is that Mr Whyte is a danger to himself and others. I’ll organize a Mental Health Officer to take a look at him, and we’ll get him sectioned for seventy-two hours for tests. If that goes the way I think it will, we’ll be looking at a Compulsory Treatment Order under Section Seven of the Mental Health – Care and Treatment – Scotland Act 2003.’
Logan poked him again. ‘I know a private security guy who speaks just like that.’
A sniff. ‘Sometimes it’s important to be formal. Robert’s mental health is—’
‘Did – he – kill – them?’
Goulding frowned and puffed out his cheeks. ‘It’s much more likely he’d kill the object of his affections, then he’d kill himself.’
‘According to the PNC,’ Logan held up the sheet of paper Guthrie had dumped on his desk, ‘he’s got form for joyriding. And possession of a controlled substance, three convictions for assault, two for unlawful removal, and he just hacked the head off a dog he named after the son he wanted to have.’
‘That doesn’t—’
‘Robbie used to dump the cars he stole in the Joyriders’ Graveyard, where we found Roy Forman’s body. He’s obsessed with Nichole Fyfe, the necklacing was his way of getting her attention. And when that didn’t work, he killed the dog.’ Logan sat back in his seat. Game, set, and match.
Goulding sighed, opened his briefcase and slid his notebook away inside. ‘They should never have got involved with each other in the first place. Robbie Whyte’s needy, and co-dependent. Nichole Fyfe … Well, she’s an actress.’ He clunked the briefcase shut and ran a finger back and forward across the tumblers on the lock. ‘They hold their emotions much closer to the surface, because they have to display and manipulate them when they perform. They feed off the external validation, then wonder why their personal lives don’t live up to the hype. Which is why they’re prone to high levels of drug and alcohol abuse.’ A sigh. ‘It was never going to work.’
‘He’s got form.’
‘Logan, think about it: the stressor event was his mother dying. She’s been in hospital for the last month and a half with pancreatic cancer. She died yesterday afternoon – I called an oncologist I know and checked. Apparently Robert barely left her bedside.’
‘But he could have—’
‘She died. The grief caused a mental collapse in Robbie. He went out and got drunk. And somewhere on the way to the bottom of a bottle, he decided giving Wee Robbie’s head to Nichole Fyfe would be a perfect expression of his undying love. If his mother hadn’t died, he’d still be just another creepy stalker ex-boyfriend.’
So much for that.
Logan checked his watch: five minutes till Steel’s latest update meeting. Just enough time to grab another coffee before getting shouted at for wasting time with this. He stood. ‘I’m still going to check his alibi.’
‘Of course you are.’ Goulding stayed where he was, smiling up at Logan with those dead-fish eyes. ‘Actually, while I’ve got you, why don’t we have a quick chat?’
‘I’ve got … a thing … meeting. You know update on the necklacing—’
‘How are you getting on with the talking therapy?’
Sodding hell. This again. ‘I’m doing it, OK?’
‘And is it helping? Because if not, you can always—’
‘I said I’m doing it.’
Goulding nodded. ‘Good.’ He pulled on his suit jacket and straightened his ugly tie. ‘Well, you have my number …’
Logan stuck his coffee mug down on the desk. ‘I know what I said, but it’s a bit more complicated than it looked …’
‘In the name of Satan’s nipples, Laz, you told me it was him!’
Steel’s office was crowded: DI Bell slumped in the visitor’s seat like a partially shaved bear s
omeone had stuffed into a shirt and tie; DI Leith leaning against the filing cabinets, Logan by the whiteboard, Biohazard Bob and DS Chalmers hovering in the background by the door.
Logan shifted his shoulders. ‘I said it might be him.’
DI Bell scratched at a scab on one hairy forearm. ‘Back in the real world: we need to do a victimology profile. Look into Fusty Forman’s last-known whereabouts, question his drinking buddies, see if they saw him fighting with anyone.’
Leith sniffed. ‘Be realistic, Ding-Dong, the review starts at two, we’re never going to get something by then.’
‘Well, let’s have your genius idea then.’
‘We don’t even know it really is Fusty Forman, do we? Just because some clay-head thing looks a bit—’
‘Oh come on, of course it’s him. Who the hell else—’
‘You’re dreaming, Ding-Dong, if it was him, they’d have got a hit off the database when they did the DNA, wouldn’t they?’
‘Bloody lab couldn’t even tell the victim’s DNA from the kid that stabbed him. Ever since the re-org—’
‘What happened to eliminative detection? Don’t be a bell-end, it’s not—’
‘Hoy!’ DI Bell jumped to his feet, towering over Leith, fists curled into great hairy hammers. ‘Who are you calling Bell-End, you cock-faced weaselly little—’
Steel stuck two fingers in her mouth and blew. A high-pitched whistle screeched out into the room. ‘Enough! Biohazard: get onto the labs and poke them in the arse till they do another DNA match. Fresh samples, no’ the complete and utter cock-up we got last time.’
Bob nodded. ‘Yes, Guv.’
‘Next, we get …’ A sigh. ‘Ding-Dong, sit your arse down. Leith: apologize.’
Leith chewed on the inside of his mouth, looked away, sniffed. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean anything personal. Was just an expression.’
DI Bell didn’t move for a moment, then licked his lips and sank back into the visitor’s seat.
Steel stared at the pair of them. ‘Like being a sodding primary school teacher …’
Bell picked at his scab again. ‘He started it.’
‘As I was saying: next, we get teams going round every homeless person, tramp, junkie, alky, and beggar on the streets. Try the drop-in centres, hostels, clinics, and hospital. Flash Fusty’s mugshot and see if we can get some witnesses.’
Logan pointed at the ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WOMAN?’ posters sitting on Steel’s desk. ‘You need to show them Agnes Garfield’s face as well.’
‘Fine, if it’ll shut you up. See if anyone’s seen the mental witch woman. Leith, you and Ding-Dong—’
‘Aya, watch it!’ Biohazard Bob lurched forward a step as the door thumped into his back. He turned and wrenched it all the way open. ‘You looking for a fat lip?’
Rennie stood in the doorway, wearing a green bomber jacket, jeans, and a T-shirt with a rock’n’roll tyrannosaurus printed across the front. ‘Sorry.’
Steel took another puff on her fake cigarette. ‘Detective Sergeant, how kind of you to take time out of your busy social whirlwind to grace us with your presence.’
Rennie shrugged. ‘Came soon as I heard. And I’m not supposed to be on till ten tonight, OK? I was asleep.’
‘Could at least have run a comb through your hair: you look like a burst cushion.’
Which was a bit rich, given the exploding wasps’ nest on top of her own head.
‘It was my case, and—’
‘Don’t care. You were supposed to find the poor sod before he wound up dead. I gave you the simple job of tracking down three tramps, and now two of them are in body-bags. You’re like the sodding Angel of Death.’
‘How’s that fair, it’s—’
‘Think you can do us a favour and find the last one while he’s still alive?’ She pulled a stack of forms from her pending-tray, then flapped a hand towards the open door. ‘Go on, shoo, the lot of you, find me someone who saw what happened to Fusty Forman.’
They shuffled towards the door, Rennie leading the way with shoulders slumped.
Steel’s voice cut through the mumbling. ‘DI McRae, where do you think you’re going? Not finished with you yet.’
27
Steel stared up at him, face expressionless as a dead fish. ‘Well?’
Logan collapsed into the vacated visitor’s chair. Still warm. ‘Well what?’
‘You know fine well what.’
Silence.
‘OK, so I was wrong. Are you happy?’
‘Sodding ecstatic.’ She stuck her feet up on the desk.
Logan counted the points off on his fingers: ‘Robbie Whyte had form; he was connected to the film through Nichole Fyfe; he was off his head; he used to dump stolen cars at the Joyriders’ Graveyard. And he killed his own dog. What was I supposed to think?’
‘Oh, I don’t know … how about: did he actually kill anyone?’
‘I’ve got the uniforms stationed at the hospital checking with the nurses on the oncology ward, and going over the security-camera footage. Maybe he left his dying mum’s bedside for long enough to necklace Roy Forman and torture whoever the Kintore victim is?’
‘Aye, and maybe my bumhole squirts rainbows and pixie dust.’
Logan scowled at her. ‘You know, you’re getting more like Finnie every day. The sarcastic motivational speeches, the fishing for info, the rummaging through people’s desks …’
Steel’s eyes bugged. ‘You take that back: I’m nothing like that frog-faced, rubbery-lipped goat-molester!’
‘Look at Rennie. He’s doing his best, and you’re … what, trying to make him cry? You’re supposed to mentor—’
‘I’m way nicer than—’
‘He’s talking about resigning. That what you want?’
‘Pfff …’ She had a dig at her underwire, making the wrinkly cleavage wriggle and jiggle. ‘I’m doing him a favour. Either he can handle the pressure, or he can’t. Better to find out now – while someone else can still fix it for him – instead of later when some poor sod ends up dead ’cos Rennie’s no’ up to the job.’ Another dig, then she gave up on her bra and tilted her head back, looking down her nose at Logan. ‘Besides, never did you any harm, did it?’
‘Yeah,’ keeping his voice flat and level, ‘you’re such a saint.’
‘You looking for a clip round the lug?’ She took a long draw on her electronic cigarette. Narrowed her eyes. ‘And how come you’ve done nothing about that deid body on your roof yet?’
‘Not my case; you gave it to Ding-Dong.’
‘That’s no excuse! Have some pride in your caravan park, man. Your roof, your skeleton, your responsibility.’
‘So approve the facial reconstruction. Worked for Roy Forman, didn’t it?’
She squirmed in her seat. ‘You got any idea what they’re doing to the CID budget, it’s—’
‘Then don’t come moaning to me when we can’t make any progress. You want a result? Fund the investigation properly.’
A scowl. ‘See: you and the boy Rennie moan and whine at me all the time, but you’re no’ the ones stuck in here with the ACC breathing down your neck like a creepy uncle …’ She poked the desk with a yellowed finger. ‘And another thing: how come your mother keeps calling about taking Jasmine away to Sodding Euro Sodding Disney? I told you to have a word.’
‘If you don’t give Rennie a break, I’m going to give her your mobile number.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘And then I’m going to tell her how you’ve always wanted to join the WRI, and can she put in a good word for you?’
‘If you think—’
‘And then, I’m going to show her how to stalk you on Facebook.’
Steel glowered at him, the little red LED in the tip of her fake cigarette flickering angry Morse code. ‘Fine: I’ll be nicer to Rennie.’
He stood. Yawned. ‘Anything else?’
‘Don’t push it, Laz, or
you’ll no’ get your present.’
‘Present?’
Why did that sound like a threat?
PC Sim had her hands behind her back, walking up Union Street with careful measured steps, in full-on Dixon of Dock Green mode. She glanced up at the ribbon of sky trapped between the granite buildings standing guard on either side of the road. The shining blue had faded to milky white, with clots of pale grey spreading like cancer. She sniffed. ‘Hope the rain holds off till I get home. Got a load of towels out.’
They crossed over to the other side at the lights outside Waterstones, making for the line of charity shops and banks that lined this part of the West End. Corporate greed and unwanted paperbacks, cheek and jowl.
Next stop Gilcomston Church.
Sim hummed something to herself, smiling in the sunshine, padding slowly along. ‘Think we’re going to find a witness?’
‘Do you?’
‘Nope. Might just be a uniform plod, but I’m not daft. Body out in the middle of nowhere, killed like that, whoever did it is organized and tidy. A planner. They didn’t screech up in a black van and bundle Mr Forman inside. They did it careful and quiet, somewhere no one would see.’
‘Probably.’
A lump-faced woman marched towards them, wheeling a double buggy with two screaming toddlers imprisoned within it. The fag sticking out the corner of her mouth twitching with every muttered swear word.
Logan and Sim broke apart, taking opposite sides of the pavement and letting Mummy Dearest stomp past between them.
When they came back together Sim froze, gazing in through a charity shop window.
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 7 and 8 Page 63