Cold granite lm-1

by Stuart MacBride

  Logan wound the car's windows down as far as he dared, wisps of snow flickering in to melt in the heat of the blowers. That post mortem was going to stay with him for a long, long time. Shuddering, he turned the heat up again.

  The city was grinding to a halt in the heavy snowfall. Cars slithered and stalled all the way down South Anderson Drive, some up on the kerb, others just churning away in the middle of the four-lane road. At least his police-issue, rustacned Vauxhall wasn't having too much difficulty.

  Up ahead he could see the yellow on-off flash of a gritter spraying salt and sand across two lanes. The cars behind were hanging back, trying to avoid getting their paintwork scratched.

  'Better late than never.'

  'Sorry, sir?'

  The PC doing the driving wasn't someone Logan had recognized straight away. He would have preferred WPC Watson, but DI Insch wasn't having any of it. He'd picked the new PC to accompany Logan because he was less likely to give Logan a hard time for the story in the morning paper. Besides, WPC Jackie Watson was in court again today with her changing-room wanker. Last time he was giving evidence against Gerald Cleaver, this time he was there to be tried. Not that it was going to take long. He'd been caught red-handed. Literally. Grimacing away in the ladies' changing room, dick in hand, banging away for all he was worth. It'd be in, plead guilty, mitigating circumstances, community service order and out again in time for tea. Maybe she'd be more inclined to speak to him with a successful prosecution under her belt?

  It took them twice as long as it should have done to get across the Drive and out to Roadkill's farm on the outskirts of Cults. Visibility was so bad they couldn't see more than fifty yards in front of the car. The snow took everything away.

  A crowd of reporters and television cameras was huddled outside the entrance to Roadkill's farm, shivering and sneezing in the snow. Two PCs, dressed up in the warmest gear they could get under their luminous yellow coats, guarded the gate, keeping the Press out. Snow had piled up on their peaked caps making them look slightly festive. The expression on their faces spoiled the image. They were cold, they were miserable and they were fed up with the army of journalists poking microphones in their faces. Asking them questions. Keeping them out of their nice warm patrol car.

  The small lane was clogged with cars and vans. BBC, Sky News, ITN, CNN – they were all here, the television lights making the snow leap out in sharp contrast to the dark grey sky. Earnest pieces to camera stopped as soon as Logan's car pulled into view; then they descended like piranhas. Logan, stuck at the centre of the feeding frenzy, did just what DI Insch had told him: kept his bloody mouth shut as microphones and cameras were pushed through the open windows.

  'Sergeant, is it true you've been given control of this case?'

  'DS McRae! Over here! Has Inspector Insch been suspended?'

  'Has Bernard Philips killed before?'

  'Did you know he was mentally unstable before the body was discovered?'

  There was more, but it was lost in the cacophonous barrage of noise.

  The PC drove gently through the crowd, all the way to the locked gate. Then came the voice Logan was waiting for: 'Laz, 'bout time, man. I'm freezin' ma nuts off out here!' Colin Miller, rosy cheeks and red nose, dressed up in a thick black overcoat, thick padded boots, and furry hat. Very Russian.

  'Get in.'

  The reporter clambered into the back seat, and another heavily wrapped-up man joined him.

  Logan turned sharply, wincing as his stomach reminded him of the staples holding it together.

  'Laz, this is Jerry. He's ma photographer.'

  The photographer peeled a hand out of a thick snow glove and extended it for shaking.

  Logan didn't take it. 'Sorry, Jerry, but this is a one-man-only deal. There will be official police photographs available for the story, but we can't have unauthorized photos doing the rounds. You have to stay here.'

  The reporter tried his friendliest smile. 'Come on, Laz, Jerry's a good lad. He'll no take any gore shots, will you, Jerry?'

  Jerry looked momentarily confused and Logan knew that was exactly what he'd been told to take.

  'Sorry. You and you only.'

  'Shite.' Miller pulled off his furry cap, shaking the snow into the footwell of the back seat. 'Sorry, Jerry. You go wait in the car. There's some coffee in a thermos under the driver's seat. Don't eat all the gingersnaps.'

  Swearing under his breath, the photographer clambered out of the car, into the crowd of journalists and the steadily falling snow.

  'Right,' said Logan as they drove slowly through the blizzard. 'Let's make sure we're clear on the rules here: we get editorial rights over any story. We supply the photographs. If there's something we don't want you to print because it jeopardizes the investigation, you don't print it.'

  'An' I get full exclusive rights. You don't do this for anyone else.' Miller's smile was positively obscene.

  Logan nodded. 'And if you say one bad word about DI Insch I will personally kill you.'

  Miller laughed, holding up his hands in mock surrender. 'Whoa there, Tiger. No taking the piss out the Pantomime Dame. It's a deal.'

  'The constables on duty have been told to answer your questions. As long as they're appropriate.'

  'Is that fit-looking WPC of yours going to be here?'

  'No.'

  Miller shook his head sadly. 'Shame. I had an inappropriate question for her.' They started by getting into full biohazard boiler suits, complete with gas masks. Then Logan began the tour. Steading number one: empty but for the residue of slime and ooze. Steading number two was where Miller got the first real lungful of the stench. He went surprisingly quiet as they stepped in amongst the decaying, furry corpses.

  The scale of the pile was truly staggering. Even with half the dead animals removed to the waste containers outside, there were still hundreds of them in here. Badgers, dogs, cats, rabbits, seagulls, crows, pigeons, the occasional deer. If it had died on Aberdeen's roads, it was here. Decaying slowly.

  A hole in the pile was cordoned off. This was where they'd found the little girl.

  'Christ, Laz,' said Miller, his voice muffled by the breathing mask. 'This is fuckin' grim!'

  'Tell me about it.'

  They found the search team in steading number three. They were dressed in the same blue protective suits, working their way through the mound of decaying carcases by hand.

  Corpse by corpse they picked them up, placed them on a table for examination and then piled them for disposal in the waste containers.

  'Why this one?' asked Miller. 'How come they're not emptying the one where the girl was?'

  'Philips kept the steadings sequentially numbered.' Logan pointed out through the door. 'One through five. Six is the farmhouse. His plan must've been to fill them all. One by one.'

  A pair of constables pulled a mangy-looking spaniel/labrador cross from the pile and carried it between them to the table.

  'This is the building he was in the middle of filling. If he took Peter Lumley, this is where he'll be.'

  Logan could see Miller frowning behind his safety goggles. 'If you're looking for another kid, how come you're doing it like this? Why examine all the things one by one? Why no just turf the shite out till you find him?'

  'Because we might not be looking for all of him. There's still a bit of David Reid missing.'

  Miller looked at the pile of dead things and the police men and women going through the lot by hand. 'Jesus. You're looking for his dick? In this? Fuck me, but you bastards deserve a medal! Or your heads examined.' Another rabbit was added to the table, given a brief inspection, and then thrown in the pile for disposal. 'Fuck…'

  Outside, snow was slowly consuming the waste containers. A thick coating lay on top, drifts climbed the sides. Logan had a nasty thought as he watched a shovelful of examined remains being stuffed into one of the containers.

  It wasn't easy running in Wellington boots and heavy snow, but Logan managed to get there just as the
last seagull was tipped in. 'Hold it,' he said, grabbing the man with the shovel. No not a man, a woman. It was difficult to tell in the shapeless protective gear.

  'Where did you put the original contents?'

  She looked at him as if he were mad, snow swirling down all around them. 'What?'

  'The original contents: the council were filling these things. Where did you put the bodies they'd already put in there? Have you gone through them already?'

  A look of unhappy comprehension appeared on the WPC's face. 'Shit!' She threw her shovel down into the snow. 'Shit, shit, shit!' Three deep breaths and then, 'Sorry, sir. We've been at this all day. We've just been throwing the bodies in. No one thought about checking the stuff already in there.' Her shoulders slumped and Logan knew how she felt.

  'Come on. We'll empty this thing into steading number one and check the contents as we go. One group keeps going where they are, the other goes through this lot.' Fun, fun, fun. 'I'll break the good news to the team.' Why not? he thought to himself, they already hate me. Might as well give them good reason for it.

  The news went down every bit as badly as Logan had anticipated. The only thing that made them feel any better was that he was prepared to pitch in and help. At least for a while.

  And that was how Logan spent his afternoon. Miller, bless his cotton socks, swallowed his pride and picked up a shovel. The spaniel/labrador was near the top of the pile this time. Last in, first out. But slowly they worked their way through the contents of the waste container.

  Logan was sure he'd examined the same burst-open rabbit about thirty times when the screaming started.

  Someone came running out of steading number three clutching his hand to his chest. He slipped on the snow and went flat on his back. The screaming stopped for a moment as all the wind was knocked out of him.

  The team abandoned their carcases and charged towards the fallen figure. Logan got there just as the screaming started up again.

  Blood was oozing out of the constable's thick rubber glove through a neat puncture mark in the palm. The victim tore off his mask and goggles. It was PC Steve. Ignoring the calls to calm down, he carried on screaming as he dragged the bloody glove off his injured hand. There was a ragged hole in it: right in the meaty bit between his thumb and forefinger. It pulsed dark-red blood, running down the blue plastic boiler suit and into the snow.

  'What did you do?'

  PC Steve went on screaming so someone slapped him one. Logan couldn't be sure, but it looked like the Bastard Simon Rennie.

  'Steve!' Rennie said, preparing to haul off and smack him again, 'What happened?'

  PC Steve's eyes were wild, darting between the steading and his bleeding hand. 'Rat!'

  Someone dragged their belt out from underneath their boiler suit and wrapped it around Steve's wrist, pulling hard.

  'Jesus, Steve,' said the Bastard Simon Rennie, peering at the hole in his friend's hand. 'That must've been one big rat!'

  'Fucking thing was like a Rottweiler! Ah, bastard that hurts!'

  They stuffed a plastic bag with snow and stuck Steve's bleeding hand into it, trying not to notice as the snow inside slowly turned from white to pink and then to red. Logan wrapped the whole lot in a spare boiler suit and told PC Rennie to take him to the hospital, lights and music all the way.

  Miller and Logan stood side by side as the lights flickered into life on top of the patrol car. It did a messy three point turn on the slippery road before creeping off into the blizzard, siren blazing.

  'So,' said Logan as the flashing lights were swallowed by the snow. 'How are you enjoying your first day on the Force?'

  23

  Logan stayed at the farm as long as he could, examining animal carcases with the rest of the team. Even with all that protective gear on he felt dirty. And everyone was on pins and needles after the rat attack. No one wanted to join PC Steve in A amp;-E waiting for a tetanus and rabies shot.

  In the end, he had to call it a day: he still had work to do back at Force HQ. They dropped an ashen-faced Colin Miller off at the gate to the farm track. He was knackered, going straight home to drink a bottle of wine. Then he was going to climb into the shower and exfoliate until he bled.

  The gaggle of reporters and television cameras outside the farm had thinned out. Now only the hardcore remained, sitting in their cars with the engines running and heaters going full blast. They leapt from the warm safety of their vehicles as soon as Logan's car appeared.

  No comment was all they got.

  DI Insch wasn't in the incident room when Logan got back to FHQ. Getting an update from the team manning the phones was an uncomfortable experience. Even after the inspector's speech they obviously still thought Logan was shite in a suit. No one actually said anything, but their reports were curt and to the point.

  Team one: door-to-door – 'Have you seen this man?' – had generated the usual raft of contradictory statements. Yes, Roadkill had been seen talking to the boys, no he hadn't, yes he had. The Hazlehead station had even set up a roadblock to ask drivers if they'd seen something on their way into and out of town. A long shot, but worth a try.

  Team two: Bernard Duncan Philips's life story. They'd been the most successful. There was a large manilafolder sitting on the inspector's desk containing everything anyone knew about Roadkill. Logan perched himself on the edge of the desk and flicked through the collection of photocopies, faxes and printouts. He stopped when he got to the report on the death of Bernard's mother.

  She'd been diagnosed with bowel cancer five years ago. She'd been ill for a long time, unable to cope. Bernard had come home from St Andrews, leaving a PHD behind, in order to look after his sick mother. Her GP had insisted she get help, but she refused. Bernard was on mummy's side and chased the man off the family farm with a pickaxe. Which was when they spotted the mental problems.

  Then her brother, who'd found her face down on the kitchen floor, made her go to the hospital. Exploratory surgery and bingo: cancer. They tried treating it, but the cancer had spread to her bones by February. And in May she was dead. Not in the hospital, but in her own bed.

  Bernard shared the house with her for two months after she died. A social worker had gone to check on Bernard. The smell had met her at the farmhouse door.

  So Bernard Duncan Philips got a two-year spell in Cornhill, Aberdeen's only 'special needs' hospital. He responded well to the drugs so out he had gone into the care of the community. Which roughly translated meant they wanted the bed freed up for some other poor sod. Bernard buried himself in his work: scraping dead animals off the road for Aberdeen City Council.

  Which explained a lot.

  Logan didn't need an update on team three: he'd seen enough at first hand to know they weren't getting anywhere fast. Making them go through all that stuff in the waste containers hadn't helped, but at least now they knew they hadn't missed anything. At the rate they were going it'd be Monday at the earliest before they'd worked their way through all three steadings-worth of animal corpses. Providing the superintendent authorized the overtime.

  Logan's mini incident room was empty by the time he got there. The lab results had come back on the vomit Isobel had found in the deep cut in the little girl's body. The DNA didn't match the sample from Norman Chalmers. And Forensics still hadn't come up with anything else. The only thing tying him to the girl was the supermarket till receipt. Circumstantial. So they'd had to let Norman Chalmers go. At least he'd had the good sense to go quietly, rather than in a barrage of media attention. His lawyer must have been gutted.

  There was a neatly typed note sitting on Logan's desk, summarizing the day's sightings. He scanned through them sceptically. Most looked like utter fantasy.

  Next to it was the list of every female TB sufferer under the age of four in the whole country. It wasn't a big list; just five names, complete with addresses.

  Logan pulled over the phone and started dialling. It was gone six when DI Insch stuck his head round the door and asked if Logan had a m
oment. The inspector had a strange look on his face and Logan got the feeling this wasn't going to be good news. He put one hand over the phone's mouthpiece and told the inspector he'd just be a minute. The other end of the phone was connected to a PC in Birmingham who was, at that moment, sitting with the last girl on Logan's list. Yes she was still alive and was Logan aware that she was Afro-Caribbean? So probably not the dead white girl lying on a slab in the morgue then.

  'Thanks for your time, Constable.' Logan put the phone down with a weary sigh and scored off the final name. 'No luck,' he said as Insch settled on the edge of the desk and started rummaging nosily through Logan's files. 'All children in the right age group treated for TB are alive and well.'

  'You know what that means,' said Insch. He had hold of the statements Logan had picked out as being nearest to Norman Chalmers and his wheelie-bin. 'If she's had TB and been treated, it wasn't in this country. She's-'

  '-not a British national,' Logan finished for him before burying his head in his hands. There were hundreds of places in the world still regularly suffering from TB: most of the former Soviet Union, Lithuania, every African nation, the Far East, America…A lot of the worst places didn't even keep national records. The haystack had just got an awful lot bigger.

  'You want some good news?' asked Insch, his voice flat and unhappy.

  'Go on then.'

  'We've got an ID on the girl we found at Roadkill's farm.'

  'Already?'

  Insch nodded and placed all of Logan's statements back in the wrong order. 'We looked through the missing persons list for the last two years and ran a match on the dental records. Lorna Henderson. Four and a half. Her mother reported her missing. They were driving home from Banchory, along the South Deeside road. They'd had a row. She wouldn't shut up about getting a pony. So the mother says: "If you don't shut up about that damn pony you can walk home".'