Logan was about to admit that Miller had a point when Jackie stuck her head round the corner of the changing room, searching the collection of bored men for him. He had just enough time to throw Miller a hurried goodbye and switch the phone off again before she saw him. As soon as she did he was handed a pile of clothes and told to find the same things in a size fourteen. As he rummaged through the summer tops, Logan wondered why on earth he’d agreed to come on this expedition; probably because Jackie had made the gesture of a full Scottish breakfast this morning – a peace offering, like the curry he’d bought last week – and he was still feeling guilty for having that dream about Deputy PF Rachael Tulloch. And her pale breasts…
An hour later they’d got as far as Marks and Spencer’s underwear department – no doubt to buy some more World War I army surplus industrial-strength bras and pants – before Logan got the chance to secretly turn his mobile on again, intending to call Miller back and see what else the reporter had got out of Councillor Marshall’s friend. The screen lit up with about a dozen messages, all from DI Steel. Call her back, or ignore her? It was his day off after all. He called her back.
‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling all bloody morning!’
‘I’m on my day off,’ said Logan, eyes darting across the rows of underwired bras, making sure Jackie was still in the fitting room.
‘Don’t be so bloody wet; we’ve got a missing tart to find!’
‘We don’t even know she’s missing.’
‘Aye, well that’s where you’re wrong. Got a warrant to force entry this morning. Found the boyfriend passed out in a pool of vomit – he’s no’ seen her for about a week.’
‘Maybe she’s gone away for a bit?’
‘Aye, right, and my arse squirts perfume. Get back here: we need to come up with a plan.’
‘I’m on my day off!’ He turned and scowled at a line of scarlet thongs. ‘Can this not wait until tomorrow?’
‘No it bloody can’t.’
Jackie could tell he’d done something stupid the moment she stepped out of the changing room. ‘You’re going in, aren’t you? That bitch called and you’re going in.’ Logan nodded and she screwed her face up, counting to ten. ‘Right, I want you back at the flat by seven at the latest – we’re having dinner. If you’re late I’ll kill you. And then I’ll kill her. Understood?’
Logan kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thanks.’
‘Aye, well, just you make sure you solve this bloody case and get shot of the rancid old cow for good.’
The rancid old cow was standing in front of the incident-room whiteboards, a magic marker in one hand and a cup of milky coffee in the other. There was a new picture on the board – though this time it wasn’t paired off with one from the associated post mortem – and DI Steel stared at it, tapping the pen off her cigarette-yellowed teeth. The new girl was in her late thirties: frizzy bleached-blonde hair, brown eyes – one slightly off centre, wide nose, cleft chin and one of those fake-looking beauty spots. Like a greasy black mole. Not the prettiest. Right up their killer’s alley. DI Steel turned suddenly and caught Logan standing behind her. ‘Jesus,’ she said with a start, ‘what you doing sneaking up on me like that for? You want to give me a heart attack?’
Chance would be a fine thing. ‘This Holly?’ he asked, pointing at the new face.
‘Yup. Probably lying battered and dead in a ditch by now, but at least we know who we’re looking for. I’ve got three search teams out.’ She counted them off on her fingers, ‘Hazlehead, Garlogie and Tyrebagger – where we found the last one.’
Logan nodded. ‘Think he’ll go back to the same place twice?’
‘Stake my left boob on it, but just in case I want the other two given the once over. And if we don’t find anything we expand the search: get some more bodies in and work our way through every bit of woodland from here to Inverurie.’ Logan shuddered to think just how much effort that would take.
‘So what do you want me to do then?’ he asked. ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all under control.’
Steel opened her mouth and then closed it again. ‘Buggered if I can remember,’ she said at last. ‘Oh, aye: that woman with the missing husband’s phoned about a million times today, and you’ve got to go see Complaints and Discipline. Here.’ She passed him a hand-scrawled note. ‘If you hurry you’ll just catch him.’
Logan sat in the small reception area outside Professional Standards scowling at the note, trying to get some sense out of its random collection of squiggles. He could strangle DI Steel! Dragging him in on his day off, again, just so that smug bastard Napier could tell him he was going to be fired. Hooray! What a great way to spend the day. It would serve them all right if he just marched straight in there, slammed his warrant card down on the table and told Count Nosferatu where he could shove it. The job and the warrant card both, right up his sanctimonious ar—
‘Ah, Sergeant, if you’d like to step inside…’ It wasn’t Napier, it was the other one, the quiet one who always sat in the corner taking notes. The quiet man settled himself down into one of the nasty visitor chairs and motioned for Logan to do the same. There was no sign of Napier.
‘I take it you know why you’re here?’ said the inspector, pulling out a copy of Sandy the Snake’s complaint. ‘Mr MoirFarquharson alleges that you were abusive and threatened him when he visited the station yesterday. That you said you would, and I quote, “break his bloody fingers”. Is that correct?’ Logan nodded and kept his mouth shut. ‘I see,’ said the inspector, scribbling something down on his copy of the form. ‘And were there any witnesses to this incident?’
Sigh. ‘No. We were alone in the reception area.’
‘Really?’ The inspector sat forward in his chair. ‘Mr MoirFarquharson says that a member of the public was also present. A Mr…’ he flicked through his notes. ‘Mr Milne who’d come in to report a theft?’
‘Milne?’ Logan frowned. ‘What, Manky Milne? He turned up, ranting about having his script nicked, same as he does every Friday. Thinks if he reports his dihydrochloride stolen he can get more from the drugs rehabilitation scheme. But he’s just selling them on to buy heroin. Makes up the difference with a bit of housebreaking.’
‘I see… so not a reliable witness then.’
‘Last time he was in court the judge called him a barefaced liar with the morals of a plague rat. And anyway, he didn’t arrive till after.’
The inspector smiled. ‘Excellent. In that case it will be down to Mr MoirFarquharson’s word against yours. Especially if this Milne character wasn’t even present at the time of the alleged incident … Excellent, excellent… Well, thank you for your time, Sergeant. I’m sure you have much more important things to be getting on with.’ And that was it: Logan was shown out of the office, given a handshake and sent on his way.
He stood on his own in the empty corridor, the sound of damp shoes squeaking on the drab, dirty-olive floor from somewhere round the corner. ‘What the hell was that all about?’ This just didn’t make any sense. It actually felt like the inspector was trying to help… Maybe he was having some good luck for a change? If so he’d better make use of it, before it disappeared again. Logan commandeered a couple of uniforms, an office, and three portable video units. They were going to go through the footage shot by Operation Cinderella on the night Holly McEwan went missing.
28
DI Steel squinted at the video monitor. ‘So what am I supposed to be looking at again?’ Logan hit rewind and the car that had been sweeping towards the camera went into reverse. He hit play and it swooped forward again. A brand-new Audi. The picture was a little ropey, but it was clear enough to make out the figure in the passenger seat. She was caught in the glow of a streetlight: frizzy bleached-blonde hair, squint nose, cleft chin, half a ton of make-up and a black beauty spot on the left cheek.
‘Holly McEwan,’ said Logan, tapping the screen. ‘This was taken by the video surveillance unit in the van. You can’t really make out all o
f the number plate, but if you look over here…’ He pointed at the next monitor, where a view along Regent Quay flickered and jiggled. He pressed play and the image settled down to show the same brand-new Audi stop at the junction before disappearing onto Virginia Street. He rewound the tape and hit pause again. This time the car’s number plate was clearly visible.
‘You sure this is the same car?’ asked Steel, pressing her nose against the glass.
‘Positive: the partial registration from the other tape matches this one and so does the time stamp. But just in case, I’ve asked the lab to see if they can’t get a better image of the first number plate.’
‘Ya wee beauty!’ Steel grinned, showing off a row of yellow teeth. ‘All we need to do now is—’ Logan held up a piece of paper. ‘Vehicle registration, name and address.’
‘Sergeant, if you were a woman: I’d kiss you.’
The Bridge of Don was a sprawl of housing developments on the north of the city, growing over the years like a Mandelbrot fractal of cul-de-sacs in tan brick. Neil Ritchie owned a four-bedroom, two-storey detached villa on the very edge of the development, its large back garden studded with mature trees marking the boundary between the city and fields of oilseed rape. Around the front of the property Logan and DI Steel sat in a reasonably clean CID car, with DC Rennie in the back. There was no brand-new Audi sitting on the driveway – just a little, dark blue Renault Clio and a huge motorbike – but there was a double garage sitting at the end of the lock-block drive. Steel pulled out her mobile and punched in Neil Ritchie’s phone number. There was a pause, and then DI Steel said in a broad Aberdonian accent, ‘Hullo, is iss Mistur Ritchie?… Fit?… Aye, aye, aye… Noo, I ken he wis askin’ fer a pucklie chuckies, but ah canna deliver em imarra… A pucklie chuckies… Chuckies… Aye, d’yis want tae pit im oan?’ She clasped one hand over the mouthpiece and smiled like a crocodile. ‘Bastard’s in. Let’s do it.’ She opened the car door and stepped out into the cloudy afternoon, closely followed by Logan and Rennie.
Logan spoke into a radio handset and told the other team it was all systems go as Steel strode up the drive to the front door. She gave the nod and Rennie leant on the doorbell. ‘Hullo?’ she said into the phone clamped to her ear. ‘Is iss Mistur Ritchie?’
From the other side of the door they could hear a man’s voice: ‘Damn, can you hold on a minute? That’s the front door…’ It opened revealing a man in his early thirties holding a cordless phone. He was all dressed up in a set of expensive biker’s leathers, a little heavy around the middle, with a face that no one would think to look twice at. Not ugly, just forgettable. Exactly the sort of face you’d want for picking up prostitutes and beating the life out of them. He smiled at Rennie and pointed at the phone. ‘Be with you in just a minute…’ He turned his attention back to the call. ‘Now, who did you say was calling?’
‘It’s the police,’ said Steel, ‘we’ve come to have a little chat.’
The man looked at the phone, then at the inspector, then said, ‘Sorry?’ into the mouthpiece.
Steel smiled at him and snapped her phone shut. ‘Mr Neil Ritchie? Want to let us in, or would you prefer us to drag you down to the station, kicking and screaming?’
‘What? I’m just on my way out, I—’
‘Not any more you’re not.’ She whipped out the warrant and pointed at Rennie. ‘Make sure there’s not a dead tart lying on the kitchen floor, there’s a good boy.’
Inside, the house was opulent. Expensive-looking Turkish rugs on polished hardwood floors, the pale cream walls festooned with vivid watercolours and photographs, the whole thing looking suspiciously like it had been professionally designed. There was a woman sitting in the spacious lounge reading a Val McDermid, a cup of what smelled like peppermint tea sitting on the Moorish coffee table beside her. She looked up and frowned as DC Rennie marched past her into the kitchen. ‘Neil? Who is that man? Is there something wrong?’
Neil stood, wringing his hands in front of the fireplace. ‘It’s some sort of dreadful mistake!’
DI Steel sidled up and threw a chummy arm around him. ‘That’s right: just a mistake. I’m sure you didn’t mean to pick up those prostitutes, strip them naked and beat them to death. Now why don’t we all have a nice cup of tea and you can tell us all about it.’
The woman was out of her seat in a flash. ‘Prostitutes? Neil? What prostitutes? What the hell have you been up to?’ She clutched her book to her chest, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘You promised me! You promised you wouldn’t do that again!’
‘I… I didn’t! I swear to you! I didn’t do anything!’
‘You know,’ said Steel, patting the man on the shoulder, ‘you’d be surprised how often we hear that in our line of work. Where were you last Wednesday morning at a quarter to three?’
‘I… I was at home, asleep.’
‘And Mrs Ritchie here can confirm that, can she?’
He looked imploringly at his wife, but she collapsed back onto the sofa, staring at him in horror. ‘Oh my God! I was away at my mother’s all week! He’s been here on his own! It’s you isn’t it? That man in the papers!’
‘Suzanne – it’s not what it looks like, I swear! I didn’t do anything!’
‘I see.’ The inspector smiled. ‘And tell me, Mr Ritchie, where’s that nice new car of yours?’
‘What? It’s in the garage… I didn’t do anything!’
‘Well, we’ll let the forensic team decide that, eh? Now, how about you come down to the station voluntarily, and we can sort this whole thing out? How does that sound?’
His eyes darted left and right, but Logan was blocking the doorway and there were policemen in the back garden. ‘I… I want to speak to my lawyer first.’
Steel tutted and shook her head sadly. ‘Sorry, that’s not the way it works. You can come with us voluntarily, or in cuffs, but either way, you’re coming with us.’
Back at the station, Mr Ritchie was stuck in interview room number five, with a nice cup of decaffeinated brown sludge and a glowering PC. The IB team had found bleached-blonde hair on the passenger seat of Ritchie’s new car that looked a lot like the samples they’d taken from Holly McEwan’s flat. Down in the incident room, DI Steel was busy fidgeting with her bra strap while Logan pinned up everything they could find on Neil Ritchie: thirty-four; married – no children; working as a hydrocarbon accountant for one of the major oil companies. The only blemishes on his police record were two warnings for kerb crawling, both more than four years old. Other than that he was Mr Squeaky Clean. He’d even organized a ‘teddy bear scramble’ in aid of the Archie Foundation – a local charity that raised money for sick children. So the IB were going through his home computer, looking for internet kiddie porn.
‘Right,’ said the inspector when Logan was done. ‘Let’s go see what he has to say for himself. You can play good cop if you like?’
‘What? No, I can’t.’
‘You want to be nasty? No offence, but you’re not exactly—’
‘No, I mean I can’t do the interview.’ This was the bit Logan had been dreading. It was already twenty past six – an interview would take hours and Jackie had been quite explicit about what would happen if he wasn’t back at the flat by seven.
‘You’re kidding me! We’ve got the bastard by the balls, and you don’t want to be in at the kill?’
‘I do. I do want to. But I can’t. I have to get home.’
‘Ahh.’ Steel nodded sagely. ‘You’re on a promise and you think getting your leg over is more important. I understand. Fine…’ She crossed her arms and stuck her nose in the air. ‘I’ll take DC Rennie in with me. Be good experience for him, breaking a case like this. You go get laid.’
‘It’s not like that, I—’
‘By the way, did you speak to Complaints and Discipline this morning?’
‘What?’ Logan frowned, thrown by the sudden change of tack. Complaints and Discipline was what Professional Standards used to be called, before they’d cha
nged their name to appear more cuddly and approachable. ‘Er… yes. I did.’
‘Going to let you off with a caution, are they?’
‘Well, it was kinda weird, they were talking like it might even get thrown out. No charges.’
All expression fell from the inspector’s face. ‘Aye, well don’t say I never do anything nice for you.’ She turned on her heel and stomped off. Logan almost made it as far as the front door before an out-of-breath PC Steve grabbed him, sounding like he’d just sprinted all the way from Dundee.
‘Sorry, sir…’ Puff, pant. ‘But DI Insch wants to see you, right away!’
Logan checked his watch: he still had thirty-five minutes, enough time to go home via a florist and pick up something for Jackie, so she’d know he appreciated the armistice. A few more minutes here probably wouldn’t hurt.
Up in the main incident room DI Insch had parked himself on a desk at the epicentre of organized chaos, one large buttock resting on the top, the other hanging over the edge as he listened to a report from the bearded detective sergeant he’d tormented earlier. DS Beattie, he of the porn-star wife. Insch glanced up from the report to stuff another cola bottle into his mouth, saw Logan walking in with PC Steve and told Beattie to go do something else for ten minutes. ‘Sergeant,’ he said, fixing Logan with a cool gaze. ‘Join me in my office.’
Detective Inspector Insch’s office was bigger than Steel’s: enough space to fit a large, tidy desk, a computer, three filing cabinets, a huge weeping fig, and a couple of comfy chairs. But Logan wasn’t offered a seat – as soon as he was inside the door was slammed shut and Insch demanded to know what the blue fucking hell Logan thought he was playing at?
‘Sir?’ He took a step back, bumping into a wastepaper basket overflowing with sweetie wrappers, sending an empty packet of Gummi Bears fluttering to the dirty carpet tiles.
‘You had those bastards in here last night and you DIDN’T TELL ME!’
Logan held up his hands. ‘Who? Who did…’ and then it dawned on him. ‘What, Chib Sutherland and his mate?’
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