The Blood Road

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘It’s all right, Richard.’ Isobel put a hand on his arm. ‘I don’t think the poor Detective Sergeant needs a discourse on decomposition products.’

  ‘One, two, three: heave!’

  The SE tech lumbered back from the Transit, struggling under the weight of a half-dozen shovels. He stopped and smiled at DS Robertson. ‘Hey, George.’

  Robertson just grunted.

  ‘Oh come on, I said I was sorry.’

  Isobel snapped her fingers at him. ‘I want every bit of soil retained for analysis. And not all in one big lump either! A separate bag for every cubic foot. And number them.’

  The tech’s shoulders slumped, his red-lipsticked mouth sagging at the edges. ‘Aww…’

  Robertson pointed at the blue plastic sheaths on his feet. ‘And you’d better not be planning on returning to the locus with those booties on! Didn’t you do cross-contamination training?’

  A groan, then the tech dumped his shovels in a clattering pile, turned on his heel and stomped off to the Transit again.

  Robertson shouted after him, a great big grin on her face. ‘Suit and gloves too!’ The smile faded as she realised they were all staring at her. ‘What?’

  Logan swapped the umbrella from one shoulder to the other and stuck his spare hand in the pocket of his padded fluorescent jacket. From here – at the top of the field, looking down towards the crumbling farm buildings – there was a perfect view of where the road was going to go. Right through the middle of Nairhillock Farm and up the hill on the other side, disappearing into a stand of trees. And that put the Scene Examination marquee smack bang in the middle of the northbound carriageway.

  A grimy SOC suited figure emerged from inside, wrestling a wheelbarrow full of bagged dirt across the field, making for their Transit van.

  Now the only vehicles left were the SE van, Logan’s pool car, and Robertson’s mud-spattered Vauxhall. Everyone else had sodded off.

  That was the trouble with procurators fiscal and pathologists – no patience.

  Mind you, at least they were bright enough to get in out of the rain. It made pale grey sheets that drifted across the landscape, drummed on the skin of his Crimestoppers brolly, dripped off the edge.

  Logan’s phone launched into David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’.

  He dug it out. ‘Tufty?’

  ‘Guess what I has, go on: guess.’ Sounding like an overexcited spaniel.

  ‘Genital warts?’

  ‘Ew… Shudder.’ There was a crinkling noise. ‘No, I has a mobile phone. DS Lorna Chalmers’ mobile phone, to be precise. Screen’s all cracked like someone’s stamped on it.’

  Yes.

  Logan turned his back to the wind. ‘Where was it?’

  ‘In her garage. Technically. Because Naughty Naked Norman Clifton had it in the pocket of the trousers he wasn’t wearing.’

  Finally something was going their way.

  ‘Has his solicitor turned up yet?’

  ‘Nope, but his mum has. She’s screaming the place down as we speak. Listen:’

  The sound went all echoey, a woman’s voice clearly audible in the background, roaring like a wounded wildebeest. ‘HOW DARE YOU! I DEMAND TO SEE MY SON! DID YOU HEAR ME? I DEMAND TO SEE HIM RIGHT NOW!’

  A clunk and Tufty was back again. ‘What do you want me to do with the phone?’

  ‘Get it fingerprinted, then down to the forensic IT team. See if they can access the thing – I need to know who she’s called, all her text messages… Everything they can get.’

  ‘Guv.’

  Logan hung up. Frowned down at the tent and the pig arks again. At the blue plastic marquee covering the patch of earth that stank of death. ‘What were you doing here, Lorna?’

  A voice sounded over Logan’s shoulder. Indignant and official. ‘Can I help you? Only you’re not supposed to be here.’

  Logan turned and there was a large man in a high-viz jacket of his own, but instead of natty blue-and-silver reflective bands, his had a Transport Scotland logo on it. Big puffy cheeks, thick sausagey fingers, as if he’d never said nay tae a pie in his life.

  Captain Pies tapped the plastic safety gear perched on top of his marshmallow head. ‘And this is a hard-hat area!’

  Logan unzipped his waterproof and pulled out his warrant card. Held it out. ‘Police. Are you in charge here, sir?’

  His eyes widened. ‘Yes? No. Kind of.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry, Officer. I… The umbrella was covering your … the bit where it says “Police” … and I…’ Captain Pies tried for a smile. ‘Erm … would you like a cup of tea?’

  Steam fogged the windows, dribbling down in rivulets by the small canteen area crowbarred into the corner of the Portakabin. Little more than a mini fridge stuffed under a small table with a kettle and some tins of tea, coffee, and sugar.

  Captain Pies handed Logan a mug of tea that smelled of Styrofoam and burned toast. ‘Sorry about that, but you wouldn’t believe the amount of people we get sightseeing up here. I mean, we’re building a bypass, it’s hardly the Grand Canyon, is it?’

  The office was clean enough, but this obviously wasn’t its first construction site. Dents rippled the walls between the maps of the bypass taped up there, the lino floor scuffed and permanently scarred by thousands of muddy work boots. Desks lined the walls, with a row of filing cabinets at the far end. Back-to-back file cupboards made a waist-high island down the centre, covered in more detailed plans.

  The ghost of something huge and yellow growled its way past the steamed-up windows, making the walls vibrate.

  Logan sipped his tea – tasted every bit as nasty as it smelled – and stood in front of the section of map covering Stonehaven to Cove. ‘Thought the bypass went through east of here?’

  Captain Pies nodded. ‘Yup.’ He picked up a pen and tapped it against the thick line that curved across the map, tracing the route north as he called out the points with obvious pride in his voice. ‘Our stretch starts at Stonehaven,’ tap, ‘B979 to Bridge of Muchalls,’ tap, ‘Netherley,’ tap, ‘B979 to Portlethen,’ tap, ‘Crynoch Burn,’ tap, ‘and joining the bypass at Cleanhill.’ He made a circle over the countryside to the left of the road. ‘But they want to open this area up for development, so now we’re putting a slip road in. Roundabout too.’

  He turned and shuffled through the plans on the central island, hauling one out and laying it on top. ‘See?’

  It was an OS map of the surrounding area, with the slip road and roundabout marked up, annotated, and all measured out.

  The marker pen tapped a crosshatched area. ‘That’s us there. There’s planning permission in for two thousand houses, a retail park, and a swimming pool.’

  Logan put his finger on the bit of map to the right of it, where the new road cut straight across the fields and through a handful of small grey rectangles. ‘What about this place?’

  ‘Nairhillock Farm? Got the bulldozers going in, Wednesday.’ He put his hand up. ‘But don’t worry, nobody’s lived there for years. Didn’t even have to compulsory purchase it – farmer left it to the city in his will before he committed suicide. Shame not everyone’s so public-spirited. You wouldn’t believe the abuse we get bulldozing people’s—’

  ‘This slip road: when did you decide to put it in?’

  Captain Pies puffed out his cheeks. ‘Oooh… Now you’re asking.’ He frowned for a while, then bit his bottom lip. ‘I can find out if you like?’

  30

  Rain drummed on the barn roof, like tiny hammers, twenty-five feet above their heads. The metalwork buckled and twisted its way down to the collapsed corner and rotting bales of hay.

  Shirley unzipped her manky SOC suit, flapping the sides to get some air circulating. ‘Urgh…’ Steam rose from her green polo shirt, along with a funky onion smell.

  Logan moved away a bit. ‘How much longer?’

  ‘At least another hour. Maybe two?’

  DS Robertson stared up at the warped metal roof. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’

&nb
sp; A steamy shrug. ‘We don’t even know how deep it is.’

  ‘Two hours?’

  ‘It’s doing it one square foot at a time that’s the killer! Everything has to be logged and numbered and witnessed. Bloody pathologist is a nightmare.’

  Logan stared out into the rain, where a lone figure in a muddy SOC suit was fighting the wheelbarrow down towards the SE Transit van again. Slipping and sliding in the damp grass. Poor sod.

  Shirley sighed. ‘The only thing we do know is that someone’s dug it out recently. The soil in there isn’t all compressed and hard – it’s been moved.’

  ‘How recently?’

  ‘Week? Two weeks?’

  ‘Well, at least that—’ Logan’s phone launched into ‘The Monster Mash’ and he pulled it out. ‘Sorry, give us a second.’ He pressed the button. ‘Dr Frampton?’

  Something chugged and beeped in the background, then her voice boomed out of the speaker – as if she were shouting at the phone from the other side of the room. ‘Logan? It’s Jessica. I’ve got a bit of a problem.’

  Great. Because things weren’t going slowly enough.

  ‘What kind of problem?’

  ‘I think we’ve got some sort of cross-contamination going on in the equipment. It’s giving us screwy results.’

  ‘We’ve found what looks like a grave, so your soil analysis this morning was spot on.’

  ‘No, you see, that’s the thing: I tested a sample from a different case and it produced identical readings. Twice. So I asked Tony to come in and double-check my methodology.’

  A laidback voice called out from the same kind of distance. ‘Inspector McRae, wassup, dude?’

  Ah, OK – so he was on speakerphone. That explained the shouting.

  ‘Hi, Tony.’

  ‘I can only think that something’s got stuck in the mass spectrometer, but we’re getting the same problem with the gas chromatograph, so maybe it’s me?’

  ‘We’ve totally run it, like, a dozen times now. Cleaned all the stuff and everything.’

  ‘Well, at least we got…’ Hold on a minute. ‘Wait, what? You’ve got another case that’s coming up with soil from Nairhillock Farm?’

  ‘And pig faeces.’ Her voice went all distracted. ‘Maybe I got the samples mixed up when I processed them? I should never have come to work with a hangover.’

  Robertson and Shirley were staring at him.

  He turned away. ‘Which case?’

  ‘Oh. I managed to extract it from a shovel and a pick that came in. Someone’d had a damn good go at cleaning them, but soil isn’t so easy to get rid of. It sticks in screw heads and between joints.’

  ‘Yes, but which case?’

  ‘There’s two different layers on the tools: the one on top is peaty podzols, but the one underneath is mineral gleys and we keep getting a false positive for Nairhillock Farm from them.’

  Logan licked his lips. Paced across the cracked concrete to the barn’s edge. ‘Pickaxe and a shovel? That’s the DI Duncan Bell stabbing, isn’t it?’

  Robertson and Shirley were still staring at him.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. ‘Of course it is. Where’s the second soil from? The peaty postles.’

  ‘Podzols. It’s a kind of soil you get in areas associated with coniferous forest and—’

  ‘Fine, OK: podzols. Where?’

  ‘Ben Rinnes, about four and a half miles southwest of Dufftown.’

  ‘And they were the top layer, so the Nairhillock soil got stuck to the shovel first, then the stuff from Dufftown?’

  A sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with the equipment, but we’ll get it fixed – I promise.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your equipment, Jessica. You’re a star!’

  ‘I am?’ Sounding a bit flustered. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Text me coordinates for the peaty podzols, OK? And thanks. I owe you this time!’ He hung up.

  Robertson pulled her chin in. ‘Why do you keep saying “peaty podzols”?’

  Logan pointed at Shirley. ‘Leave a couple of people to keep digging. I need the rest of you to follow me: we’re going to Dufftown.’ He marched out into the rain, towards the pool car, Shirley and Robertson hurrying after him.

  Robertson grabbed his arm. ‘Wait! What the hell is going on?’

  ‘There’s nothing in the hole: the body’s gone. DI Bell dug it up and reburied it out on Ben Rinnes.’

  ‘Argh…’ Shirley stopped where she was and sagged. ‘Not more digging!’

  He pulled open the pool car door.

  Steel was slumped in the passenger seat – reclined all the way back – eyes closed, mouth open, belting out windscreen-wiper-rattling snores.

  Logan banged his palms on the roof.

  She snorted and spluttered, sat bolt upright. ‘It wasn’t me! I never touched her boobs, it was…’ Then blinked, wiping drool from the corner of her mouth. ‘What? Where? Eh…?’

  ‘Start the car: we’re going hill walking.’

  Fields swished past the windows in shades of grey and brown and yellowing green as they hammered up the dual carriageway. Water pooled along the drystane dykes, miserable sheep lumbering through the mud.

  Logan tried not to flinch as Steel overtook an oil tanker on the inside. Focused on his phone call instead. ‘…I’d been looking at it all wrong – Chalmers wasn’t trying to crack the Ellie Morton case on her own. She was after DI Bell.’

  Hardie groaned. ‘Oh in the name of… Because that was more important than a missing three-year-old girl?’

  ‘You know what she was like.’

  ‘Not really, but I’m beginning to get the idea.’

  ‘I need a dog unit: something cadaver trained.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, but they’re all tied up looking for Ellie Morton and Rebecca Oliver.’

  ‘And a POLSA.’

  ‘Same answer.’

  ‘Well … can we draft some bodies in from N or D Division?’

  ‘What exactly do you think I’ve been trying to do all weekend, painting my toenails?’

  Bennachie appeared through the rain, its sides dark and brooding beneath that heavy lid of low grey cloud.

  ‘All I’ve got is two thirds of a Scene Examination team and a DS who drives like a drunken rally driver on acid.’

  Steel grinned across the car at him. ‘Vroom, vroom! Beep, beep!’

  ‘Logan, every spare officer in the country’s been requisitioned for that stupid anti-capitalist thing in Edinburgh. We’re on our own till Tuesday.’

  ‘I’m trying to investigate a murder here!’

  ‘And there’s literally nothing I can do about that: you’re going to have to manage till I can get something sorted, OK? I’m sorry, but this is what it is right now.’

  Of course it was.

  ‘Guv.’ He hung up. Sighed. ‘It never gets any better, does it?’

  Steel put on what was probably supposed to be a sympathetic face, but it made her look more like a lecherous uncle. ‘You know what might help? Lunch.’

  ‘No. No lunch. We don’t have time.’

  ‘Aye, good luck with that. It’s gone half three and if we don’t stop for lunch soon I’m going to pull over in a layby, murder, and eat you.’

  They’d grabbed a table by the big wall of glass that ran along the front of the café, overlooking a rain-drenched patio area and the rain-drenched car park, across the rain-drenched A96 and off to the rain-drenched trees and hills opposite.

  Not exactly picturesque.

  A fork clattered against the flagstone floor and Shirley bent down to retrieve it. It was … weird seeing her out of the usual SOC get-up. Like catching your granny in a gimp suit. She’d pulled her hair back with an Alice band, her green polo shirt and its funky oniony smell constrained by a pink cardigan.

  The rest of the Scene Examination team were equally unfamiliar in civvies: Bouncer, in cords and a replica Peterhead FC shirt, with his long nose
buried in the menu again – even though they’d already ordered – one hand smoothing down the thinning hair combed across his bald patch. Charlie had a compact mirror out, fixing his make-up, the top three buttons on his lumberjack shirt open to expose a gold chain nestling amongst thick wiry black hair. Polly’s chair was empty, because the silly sod was outside, wrapped up in a high-viz jacket, sheltering in the lee of the Transit van so she could smoke a cigarette and shout at someone on her mobile phone.

  Logan checked his watch. Again. Ten to four. If they didn’t get a shift on it’d be dark before they’d found anything. So they’d have wasted the whole—

  ‘Will you stop fidgeting?’ Steel didn’t look up from her phone, thumbs poking away at the screen. ‘People got to eat.’

  A voice sounded behind Logan’s head: ‘OK, so I’ve got a fish pie, a stroganoff, and a cauliflower cheese?’ Their waitress couldn’t have been much more than thirteen, her teeth all constrained behind the train-track wires of a set of braces.

  ‘Cauliflower cheese?’ Logan stuck his hand up. ‘That’s—’

  ‘Mine!’ Steel put her phone down. ‘With extra chips?’

  A railroad smile. ‘With extra chips.’

  ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme…’

  The plate clunked down. Shirley took the fish pie, and Bouncer got the stroganoff.

  ‘Ooh, ta.’

  The waitress wandered off and everyone tucked in.

  Steel grinned at him, mouth full. ‘You snoozed so you loozed.’

  Child.

  Logan pulled out his phone, scrolling through his text messages to the one from Dr Frampton:

  If you follow this link it will give you the rough area to search!

  He tapped the link and waited for the screenshot to download. It was another swirly bruised pattern of blue, yellow, red, purple, and grey overlaid on an OS map of Glen Rinnes.

  Frampton had added a couple of big white circles with arrows pointing at them and, ‘TRY LOOKING HERE!’ Both circles sat over red bits on the slopes of Ben Rinnes, what looked like a track running through each.

  Shirley leaned over and had a squint at the phone’s screen, a prawn skewered on the end of her fork. ‘Those our search areas? What are they, about two, maybe three hundred feet across? Lot of ground to cover.’