Cold granite lm-1

by Stuart MacBride

  Nicholson shifted in his chair, little beads of sweat sparkling on his upper lip. He wasn't a day over thirty-two, but looked closer to forty-five. The hair on top of his head was shaved down to the bone, blue-grey stubble showing between shiny patches of pink scalp. Each of his ears had been pierced in at least three places. The rest of him looked as if it had been thrown together on a Monday morning before the factory was properly awake.

  'I've been here for hours!' he said, mustering up as much indignity as he could. 'Hours! There was nae bog! I wis burstin'!'

  Logan frowned. 'Dear, dear, dear. There's obviously been some mistake, Mr Nicholson. You came forward of your own free will, didn't you? No toilet? I'll have a word with the duty sergeant. Make sure it doesn't happen again.' He smiled a disarming, friendly smile. 'But we're all here now, so shall we get started?'

  Nicholson nodded, smiling a little, feeling reassured. Feeling better.

  'Constable, would you do the honours?' Logan passed Watson two brand new audiotapes and she unwrapped them, sticking one in each side of the recorder bolted to the wall before doing the same with a pair of videotapes. The machine clicked and bleeped as she pressed 'Record'.

  'Interview with Mr Duncan Nicholson,' she said, going through the standard names, date and time.

  Logan smiled again. 'Now then, Mr Nicholson, or can I call you Duncan?'

  The man on the other side of the table cast a nervous glance at the camera in the corner of the room, over Logan's shoulder. At last he nodded his shaved head.

  'So, Duncan, you found the body of David Reid last night?'

  Nicholson nodded again.

  'You have to say something, Duncan,' said Logan, his smile getting wider by the minute. 'The tape can't hear you if you nod.'

  Nicholson's eyes darted back to the staring glass eye of the video camera. 'Er…Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I found him last night.'

  'What were you doing down there in the middle of the night, Duncan?'

  He shrugged. 'I wis…takin' a walk. You know, had a row with the wife and went for a walk.'

  'Down the riverbank? In the dead of night?'

  The smile started to fade. 'Er, yeah. I go down there sometimes to, you know, think an' stuff.'

  Logan crossed his arms, mirroring the PC sitting next to him. 'So you went down there to think. And just happened to fall over the murdered body of a three-year-old boy?'

  'Er, yeah…I just…Look, I…'

  'Just happened to fall over the murdered body of a three-year-old boy. In a waterlogged ditch. Hidden beneath a sheet of chipboard. In the dark. In the pouring rain.'

  Nicholson opened his mouth once or twice, but nothing came out.

  Logan left him sitting in silence for almost two minutes. The man was getting more and more fidgety by the second, his shaved head now as sweaty as his upper lip, the smell of second-hand garlic oozing out of him in nervous waves.

  'I'd been…drinking, OK? I fell down, nearly killed myself goin' down that bloody bank.'

  'You fell down the bank, in the pouring rain, and yet when the police arrived there wasn't a speck of mud on you! You were clean as a whistle, Duncan. That doesn't sound like someone who's just fallen down a muddy bank and into a ditch, now does it?'

  Nicholson ran a hand over the top of his head, the stubble making a faint scritching noise in the oppressive interview room. Dark blue stains marked his armpits.

  'I…I went home to call you. I got changed.'

  'I see.' Logan switched the smile back on again. 'Where were you on the thirteenth of August this year, between half past two and three in the afternoon?'

  'I…I don't know.'

  'Then where were you between the hours of ten and eleven this morning?'

  Nicholson's eyes snapped open wide. 'This mornin'? What's goin' on? I didnae kill anyone!'

  'Who said you did?' Logan turned in his seat. 'Constable Watson, did you hear me accuse Mr Nicholson of murder?'

  'No, sir.'

  Nicholson squirmed.

  Logan produced a list of all the children registered missing in the last three years and placed it on the table between them.

  'Where were you this morning, Duncan?'

  'I was watching the telly.'

  'And where were you on,' Logan leant forward and read off the list, 'the fifteenth of March between six and seven? No? How about the twenty-seventh of May, half-four to eight?'

  They went through every date on the list, Nicholson sweating and murmuring his answers. He wasn't anywhere he said. He was at home. He was watching television. The only people who could vouch for his whereabouts were Jerry Springer and Oprah Winfrey. And they were mostly repeats.

  'Well, Duncan,' said Logan when they'd got to the end of the list, 'doesn't look too good, does it?'

  'I didn't touch those kids!'

  Logan sat back and tried DI Insch's silent treatment again.

  'I didn't! I fuckin' came to you lot when I found that kid, didn't I? Why the hell would I do that if I killed him? I wouldn't kill a kid: I love kids!'

  WPC Watson raised an eyebrow and Nicholson scowled.

  'Not like that! I've got nephews and nieces, OK? I wouldn't fuckin' do something like that.'

  'Then let's go back to the start.' Logan shoogled his chair in closer to the table. 'What were you doing wandering about on the banks of the Don in the middle of the night in the pouring rain?'

  'I told you I was pissed…'

  'Why don't I believe you, Duncan? Why do I get the feeling that when the report comes back from Forensics there's going to be evidence linking you to the dead boy?'

  'I didn't do anything!' Nicholson slammed his hand down on the tabletop, making the little pile of shredded paper scatter and fall like snow.

  'We've got you, Mr Nicholson. You're only kidding yourself if you think you're going to talk your way out of it. I think a little time in the cells is going to do you the world of good. We'll talk again when you're ready to start telling the truth. Interview terminated at thirteen twenty-six.'

  He got WPC Watson to escort Nicholson down to the cellblock, hanging on in the interview room until she returned.

  'What do you think?' he asked.

  'I don't think he did it. He's not the right type. Not smart enough to lie convincingly.'

  'True.' Logan nodded. 'But he's lying all the same. No way he was down there having a bit of a late night stagger. You get plastered, you don't go stomping about down the riverbank in the pissing rain for a laugh. He was down there for a reason, we just don't know what it is yet.' Aberdeen harbour slid by the car window, grey and miserable. A handful of offshore supply vessels were tied up along the docks, their cheery yellow-and-orange paintwork dulled by the pouring rain. Lights glinted in the semi-darkness of the afternoon as containers were winched off lorries and onto the waiting boats.

  Logan and WPC Watson were heading back to Richard Erskine's house in Torry. Someone had actually remembered seeing the missing boy. A Mrs Brady had seen a small blond boy wearing a red anorak and blue jeans crossing the waste ground behind her house. It was the only break they'd had.

  The half past two news was about to come on and Logan turned the car radio on, catching the end of an old Beatles track. Not surprisingly Richard Erskine's disappearance was given top billing. DI Insch's voice boomed out of the speakers asking members of the public to come forward with information about the child's whereabouts. He had a natural flair for the dramatic, as everyone who'd seen him in the annual Christmas panto knew, but he managed to keep it in check as the newsreader asked the obvious question:

  'Do you think Richard has been taken by the same paedophile who killed David Reid?'

  'At this moment we're just looking to find Richard safe and sound. If anyone has any information please call our hotline on oh eight hundred, five, five, five, nine, nine, nine.'

  'Thank you, Inspector. In other news: the trial of Gerald Cleaver, the fifty-six-year-old former male nurse from Manchester, continues today under tight
security following death threats made to the accused's solicitor, Sandy Moir-Farquharson. Mr Moir-Farquharson spoke to Northsound News…'

  'Here's hoping it's not just an idle threat.' Logan reached out and snapped the radio off before the lawyer's voice could come through the speakers. Sandy Moir-Farquharson deserved to get death threats. He was the weaselly little shite who'd argued leniency for Angus Robertson. Who'd tried to claim that the Mastrick Monster wasn't entirely to blame. That he'd only killed those women because they'd reacted violently against his advances. That they'd dressed provocatively. That they'd been, basically, asking for it.

  The media presence outside the door of little Richard Erskine's house had almost doubled by the time they got there. The whole road was packed with cars. There were even a couple of outside broadcast vans. WPC Watson had to park miles away, so they trudged back through the rain, both sheltering under her umbrella.

  BBC Scotland had been joined by Grampian, ITN and Sky News. The harsh white television lights bleached colour from the pale granite buildings. No one seemed to take much notice of the winter rain, even though it was battering down from the sky in sheets of frigid water.

  The blonde woman with the big boobs from Channel Four News was doing a piece to camera, standing far enough down the street to get the house and the rest of the pack in the background.

  '…have to ask: does the media's attention on a family's pain, at a time like this, really serve the public interest? When-'

  Watson marched right through the shot, her blue and white umbrella completely obscuring the woman from camera.

  Someone yelled: 'Cut!'

  'You did that on purpose,' whispered Logan as the sounds of a swearing television journalist erupted. WPC Watson just smiled and barged her way through the crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs. Logan hurried after her, trying not to hear the howls of complaint mixed in with the shouted questions and demands for comment.

  A Family Liaison Officer was through in the living room with Richard Erskine's mother and the bitter old woman from next door. There was no sign of DI Insch.

  Logan left Watson in the lounge and tried the kitchen, helping himself to an open packet of Jaffa Cakes lying on the worktop next to the kettle. A half-glazed door led from the kitchen out into the back garden, the light blocked by a large figure standing outside.

  But it wasn't Insch. It was a sad-looking, overweight detective constable with half-past-two o'clock shadow, chain-smoking under the tiny porch.

  'Afternoon, sir,' said the DC, not bothering to straighten up, or put his cigarette out. 'Shitty weather, eh?' He wasn't a local lad: his accent was pure Newcastle.

  'You get used to it.' Logan stepped out onto the back step next to the DC to do as much passive smoking as he could.

  The constable took the cigarette out of his mouth and stuck a finger in, working a nail up and down between his back teeth. 'Don't see how. I mean I'm used to rain like, but Jesus this place takes the fucking biscuit.' He found whatever it was he was digging for and flicked it away into the downpour. 'Think it's going to keep up till the weekend?'

  Logan looked out at the low, dark-grey clouds. 'The weekend?' He shook his head and took in another scarred lungful of second-hand smoke. 'This is Aberdeen: it won't stop raining till March.'

  'Bollocks!' The voice was deep, authoritative and coming from directly behind them.

  Logan twisted his head round to see DI Insch standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.

  'Don't you listen to DS McRae, he's pulling your leg.' Insch stepped out onto the already crowded top step, forcing Logan and the DC to shuffle precariously sideways.

  'Won't stop raining till March?' Insch popped a fruit sherbet into his mouth. 'March? Don't lie to the poor constable: this is Aberdeen.' He sighed and stuck his hands back in his pockets. 'It never stops fuckin' raining.'

  They stood in silence, watching the rain do what rain does.

  'Well, I've got a bit of good news for you, sir,' said Logan at last. 'Mr Moir-Farquharson is receiving death threats.'

  Insch grinned. 'Hope so. I've written enough of them.'

  'He's representing Gerald Cleaver.'

  Insch sighed again. 'Why doesn't that surprise me? Still that's DI Steel's problem. Mine is: where's Richard Erskine?'

  7

  They found the body in the council tip at Nigg, just south of the city. A two-minute drive from Richard Erskine's house. A party of school children had been out on a field trip: 'Recycling and Green Issues'. They arrived by minibus at three twenty-six and proceeded to don little white breathing masks, the kind with the elastic band holding them on, and heavy-duty rubber gloves. Everyone wore waterproofed jackets and Wellington boots. They signed in at the Portacabin office next to the skips at three thirty-seven, before squelching their way into the tip. Walking through a landscape of discarded nappies, broken bottles, kitchen waste and everything else chucked out by hundreds of thousands of Aberdonians every day.

  It was Rebecca Johnston, eight, who spotted it. A left foot, sticking up out of a pile of shredded black plastic bags. The sky was full of seagulls – huge, fat bloated things that swooped and screamed at each other in a jagged ballet. One was tugging away at a bloodstained toe. This was what first grabbed Rebecca's attention.

  And at four o'clock, on the dot, they called the police. The smell was unbelievable, even on a wet and windy day like today. Up here on Doonies Hill the rain was bitterly cold. It hammered against the car, gusts of wind rocking the rusty Vauxhall, making Logan shiver even though the heater was going full pelt.

  Both he and WPC Watson were soaked to the skin. The rain had paid no attention to their police-issue 'waterproof jackets, saturated their trousers and seeped into their shoes. Along with Christ knew what else. The car windows were opaque, the blowers making little headway.

  The Identification Bureau hadn't turned up yet, so Logan and Watson had built a makeshift tent of fresh bin-bags and wheelie-bins over the body. It looked as if it was going to fly apart at any moment, torn to pieces by the howling wind, but it kept the worst of the rain off.

  'Where the hell are they?' Logan cleared a porthole in the fogged-up windscreen. His mood had swiftly deteriorated as they'd struggled with whipping black plastic bags and uncooperative bins. The painkiller he'd taken at lunchtime was wearing off, leaving him sore every time he moved. Grumbling, he pulled out the bottle and shook one into his hand, swallowing it down dry.

  At long last an almost-white, unmarked van slithered its way slowly along the rubbish road, its headlights blazing. The Identification Bureau had arrived.

  'About bloody time!' said WPC Watson.

  They clambered out of the car and stood in the driving rain.

  Behind the approaching van the North Sea raged, grey and huge, the frigid wind making its first landfall since the Norwegian fjords.

  The van slid to a halt and a nervous-looking man peered out through the windshield at the driving rain and festering rubbish.

  'You're not going to bloody melt!' shouted Logan. He was sore, cold, damp and in no mood for dicking about.

  A troop of four IB men and women grudged their way out of the van into the downpour and swore the SOC tent up over Logan's makeshift fort. The wheelie-bins and black plastic bags were turfed out into the rain and the portable generators set up. With a roar they burst into life, flooding the area with sizzling white light.

  No sooner was the crime scene waterproof than 'Doc' Wilson, the duty doctor, turned up.

  'Evenin' all,' he said, turning up the collar of his coat with one hand and grabbing his medical bag with the other. He took one look at the minefield of crap that lay between the dirt road and the blue plastic marquee and sighed. 'I just bought these bloody shoes. Ah well…'

  He stomped off towards the tent with Logan and WPC Watson in tow.

  An acne-ridden IB officer with a clipboard stopped them at the threshold, keeping them all out in the driving rain until they'd signed in, and then watched t
hem suspiciously until they'd all clambered into white paper boiler suits.

  Inside the tent a single human leg rose out of the sea of refuse sacks, from the knee down, like the Lady of the Lake's arm. The only thing missing was Excalibur. The IB video operator was sweeping his way slowly around the remains, filming as the rest of the team carefully collected rubbish from the bags surrounding the one with the leg in it and stuffed the debris into clear plastic evidence pouches.

  'Dees a favour?' said the doctor, handing his medical bag to Watson.

  She stood silently while he popped the case open and dug out a pair of latex gloves, snapping them on as if he was a surgeon.

  'Give us a bittie room then,' he told the bustling IB people.

  They stood back and let him get at the body.

  Doc Wilson took hold of the ankle with his fingertips, just below the joint. 'No pulse. Either this is yer genuine severed limb, or the victim's dead.' He gave the leg an experimental tug, causing the rubbish in the bag to shift and the IB team to hiss in pain. This was their crime scene! 'Nope. I'd say that leg's weil an' truly attached. Consider death declared.'

  'Thanks, Doc,' said Logan as the old man straightened himself up and wiped his latex gloves on his trousers.

  'Nae problem. You want us tae hang around till the pathologist and the Fiscal get here?'

  Logan shook his head. 'No sense in us all freezing our backsides off. Thanks anyway.'

  Ten minutes later an Identification Bureau photographer stuck his head round the entrance to the tent. 'Sorry I'm late, some idiot went for a swim in the harbour and forgot to take his kneecaps with him. Jesus, it's bloody freezing out there.'

  It wasn't much warmer inside, but at least it was out of the rain.

  'Afternoon, Billy,' said Logan as the bearded photographer unwrapped himself.

  The long, red-and-white-striped scarf was stuffed into a jacket pocket, followed by a red bobble hat with 'UP THE DONS' stitched into it. He was bald underneath.

  Logan was stunned. 'What happened to your hair?'

  Billy scowled as he clambered into his white paper rompersuit. 'Don't you bloody start. Anyway I thought you were dead.'