Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae)
Page 24
Welcome to hell.
‘I’m taking WPC Watson with me,’ said Insch. ‘You want to come?’ The words were flippant, but the voice wasn’t. The inspector sounded low. Not surprising given the week they’d just had. Insch thought he could bribe Logan into coming by dangling WPC Watson in front of him. Like a carrot in a police uniform.
Logan would have gone without the bribe. Telling a mother her child was dead wasn’t something he was looking forward to, but Insch looked as if he needed the support. ‘Only if we go for a drink afterwards.’
They pulled up at the kerb in DI Insch’s Range Rover, the massive car towering over all the little Renaults and Fiats that lined the street on either side with their white hats of pristine snow. No one had said much on the trip out. Except for the Family Liaison Officer, who’d spent the whole trip making ‘Who’s a pretty girl?’ noises at the smelly black-and-white spaniel in the back of Insch’s car.
The area was nice enough: some trees, a bit of grass. You could still see fields if you climbed on the roof. The house was at the end of a two-up, two-down terrace, all done out in white harling, the little white chips of stone and quartz sparkling in the streetlights, mimicking the snow.
The blizzard had turned into the occasional lazy flake, drifting slowly through the bitter night. They tramped through the ankle-deep snow to the front door together. Insch taking the lead. He pressed the doorbell and ‘Greensleeves’ binged and bonged from somewhere inside. Two minutes later the door was opened by a displeased, damp woman in her mid-forties, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe. She wore no make-up, the faint remains of mascara smearing outwards from her eyes towards her ears. Her hair was wet, hanging over her face like damp string. The look of irritation on her face vanished as she saw WPC Watson’s uniform standing at the back.
‘Mrs Henderson?’
‘Oh God.’ She clutched at the front of the robe, twisting the neck tightly shut. All the colour went from her face. ‘It’s Kevin isn’t it? Oh God . . . he’s dead!’
‘Kevin?’ Insch looked flustered.
‘Kevin, my husband.’ She stepped back into the tiny hall, her hands all a flutter. ‘Oh God.’
‘Mrs Henderson: your husband’s not dead. We—’
‘Oh, thank the Lord for that.’ Instantly relieved, she ushered them through the hall into a pink, candy-striped living room. ‘Excuse the mess. Sunday’s usually my day for the housework, but I had a double shift at the hospital.’ She stopped and surveyed the room, moving a discarded nurse’s uniform off the sofa and onto the ironing board. The half-empty bottle of gin was swiftly tidied away to the sideboard. Above the fireplace was a framed fake oil painting, one of the ones photographers churn out. A man, a woman and a fair-haired little girl. A husband, a wife and a murdered child.
‘Of course Kevin doesn’t live here right now. . . He’s having a break. . .’ There was a pause. ‘It was after our daughter went missing.’
‘Ah. That’s why we’re here, Mrs Henderson.’
She waved them towards a lumpy brown sofa, the leather covered up with pink-and-yellow throws. ‘Because Kevin doesn’t live here? It’s only temporary!’
Insch pulled a clear plastic envelope from his pocket. There were two pink hairclips in it. ‘Do you recognize these, Mrs Henderson?’
She took the envelope, peered in at the contents and then back at Insch and went pale for the second time. ‘Oh God, these were Lorna’s! Her favourite Barbie hair things. She wouldn’t go out of the house without them! Where did you get them?’
‘We found Lorna, Mrs Henderson.’
‘Found? Oh God. . .’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Henderson. She’s dead.’
She seemed to turn in on herself and then: ‘Tea. That’s what we need. Hot sweet tea.’ She turned her back and scurried away into the kitchen, her towelling bathrobe flapping as she went.
They found her sobbing into the kitchen sink.
Ten minutes later they were back in the lounge, Insch and Logan on the lumpy settee, WPC Watson and Mrs Henderson on matching lumpy brown armchairs, the Family Liaison Officer standing behind her making consoling noises, one hand on Mrs Henderson’s shoulder. Logan had made a big pot of tea and it sat steaming away on top of a coffee table festooned with Cosmopolitan magazines. Everyone had a cup, but no one was drinking.
‘It’s all my fault.’ Mrs Henderson seemed to have shrunk two sizes since their arrival. The pink bathrobe was draped around her like a cloak. ‘If we’d only bought her that damn pony. . .’
DI Insch shifted forward on the settee slightly. ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you this, Mrs Henderson, but I need you to tell us about the night Lorna went missing.’
‘I never really believed it. You know: that she wasn’t coming back. She’d just run away. One day she’d just walk back through that door and everything would be right again.’ She looked down into her teacup. ‘Kevin couldn’t take it. He kept blaming me. Every day. “It’s your bloody fault she’s gone!” he’d say. He was right. It was my bloody fault. He. . . he met this woman at the supermarket where he works.’ She sighed. ‘But he doesn’t really love her! He’s just punishing me. . . I mean, she’s got no breasts. How can a man love a woman with no breasts? He’s only doing it to punish me. He’ll come back. You’ll see. One day he’ll walk right back in that door and everything will be all right again.’ She fell back into silence, chewing away at the inside of her cheek.
‘About the night Lorna went missing, Mrs Henderson, did you see anyone on the road? Any vehicles?’
Her eyes came up from her cup, glistening and far away. ‘What? I don’t remember. . . It was a long time ago and I was so angry with her. Why didn’t we buy her that bloody pony?’
‘How about vans, or trucks?’
‘No. I don’t remember. We went over all this at the time!’
‘A man with a cart?’
She froze in place. ‘What are you trying to say?’
DI Insch kept his mouth shut. Mrs Henderson stared at him for a moment and then jumped to her feet. ‘I want to see her!’
DI Insch, put his cup carefully down on the carpet. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Henderson. That’s not going to be possible.’
‘She’s my daughter, damn it, and I want to see her!’
‘Lorna’s been dead for a long time. She’s . . . you don’t want to see her, Mrs Henderson. Please trust me. You want to remember her how she was.’
Standing in the middle of the lounge, Mrs Henderson scowled down at DI Insch’s bald head. ‘When did you find her? When did you find Lorna?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Oh God. . .’ she slapped a hand over her mouth. ‘It’s him isn’t it? The man in the papers! He killed her and buried her in that filth!’
‘Calm down, Mrs Henderson. We have him in custody. He’s not going anywhere.’
‘That filthy bastard!’ She hurled her teacup against the wall. It exploded, raining shards of china, staining the wallpaper with lukewarm, milky tea. ‘He took my baby!’
No one said much on the way back either. The Family Liaison Officer called in a neighbour to look after Mrs Henderson, who collapsed into tears as soon as the large, concerned woman arrived. They left the pair of them weeping on the sofa and let themselves out.
The roads were quiet as the grave as they headed back towards the centre of town: the snow was keeping everyone but the gritters inside.
Eight o’clock. A familiar figure slipped past as Insch swung the car round the Hazlehead roundabout. Peter Lumley’s stepfather, trudging through the falling snow, shouting his son’s name. Logan stared glumly at the soaking, cold figure until they’d left him far behind. He still had that dreadful visit from the police to look forward to. When they finally told him that his son’s body had been found.
Insch checked in with Control and got an address for Mr Henderson. He shared an apartment with his flat-chested supermarket woman in the less salubrious end of Rosemount.
And then back to Force Headquarters.
‘Christ, that was a fun day.’ Insch sounded completely drained as he shambled across to the lifts. He mashed the up button with a fat thumb. Surprisingly the doors slid open immediately. ‘Look,’ he said getting in, leaving Logan and WPC Watson standing in the corridor. ‘Why don’t you two get changed and meet me back here in five. I’ve got two forms to fill in and then I’ll buy you both a drink.’
WPC Watson looked at Logan and then back at the inspector. She looked as if she was searching for a good excuse to be somewhere else. But before she could find it, the lift doors slid shut, taking DI Insch away.
Logan took a deep breath.
‘If you’d rather not,’ he said to her ‘I understand. I can tell the inspector you had a prior engagement.’
‘You that keen to get rid of me?’
Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘No. Not at all. I thought. . . Well, after all that crap in the papers . . . you know,’ he pointed at himself, ‘Mr Shitebag.’
She smiled. ‘With all due respect, sir: you can be a right arse at times. I met Miller, remember? I know he’s a wanker.’ The smile slipped. ‘I just didn’t know if you’d want me there. After that outburst. Swearing at the car?’
Logan beamed. ‘No! It’s OK. Honestly. OK, the swearing wasn’t OK—’ Her smile slipped and Logan charged on, afraid he’d screwed it all up again, ‘—but that’s got nothing to do with anything. I’d like you to come. Especially if Inspector Insch is buying.’ He stopped. ‘Not that I wouldn’t want you to come if I was paying. . . It’s. . .’ He clamped his mouth shut to keep any more babble from falling out.
She looked at him for a moment. ‘Right,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll go get changed then. See you out front.’
As she disappeared Logan was sure she was laughing at him. He stood alone in the corridor, blushing furiously.
At the front desk, Big Gary was settling down to another night shift. He smiled and waved Logan over.
‘Hey, Lazarus, nice to see you getting the recognition you deserve!’
Logan frowned and Gary whipped out a copy of the day’s Evening Express, the Press and Journal’s sister paper. There on the front page was a photograph of figures in blue rubber suits, picking through blurry animal carcases by hand.
‘HOUSE OF HORROR: BRAVE POLICE HUNT FOR EVIDENCE’
‘Let me guess,’ Logan sighed, ‘Colin Miller again?’ He must have worked fast.
Gary smacked the side of his nose with a finger. ‘Got it in one, Mr Local Police Hero.’
‘Gary, as soon as I outrank you I’m going to have you out there,’ he pointed out into the snow, ‘pounding the beat again.’
Gary winked. ‘And until then you’ll just have to put up with it. Biscuit?’ He held up a packet of Kit Kats and despite himself Logan smiled. And took one.
‘So what else is Mr Miller saying?’
Gary puffed out his chest, flipped the paper over and read aloud, in his best Shakespearean voice: ‘Blah, blah, blah, snow and ice, blah, blah. Flowery shite about how brave all the police are for digging through “a gruesome mine of death”. Blah, blah, searching for “the vital evidence that will make our children safe from this beast”. Oh, you’ll like this bit. “Local Police Hero Logan ‘Lazarus’ McRae was not above helping his team sort through the carcases by hand”. Apparently you also saved Constable Steve Jacobs’ life when a huge rat attacked him. God bless you, sir!’ Gary cracked a salute.
‘PC Rennie did all the work. All I did was tell someone to get him to hospital!’
‘Ah, but without your firm leadership no one else might have thought of it!’ He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. ‘You’re an inspiration to us all, so you are.’
‘I hate you.’ But Logan was smiling when he said it.
WPC Watson was easier to think of as ‘Jackie’ when she was out of uniform. The austere black had been replaced by a pair of jeans and a red sweatshirt, her curly brown hair falling down over her shoulders. She cursed and tugged at it as she struggled into a thick padded jacket.
At least one of them would be dressed for the snow. Logan was still in his working suit. He never got changed at the station. With his house only two minutes’ walk away there never seemed any point.
She joined them at the desk, begged a Kit Kat off Big Gary and consumed it with delight.
Logan waited until she had a good mouthful before asking, ‘How’d your prisoner get on this morning?’
She munched and crunched and eventually mumbled that he’d been given forty-two hours’ community service with the council’s Parks Department, as usual, and put on the sex offenders’ register.
‘As usual?’
Watson shrugged. ‘Turns out he always gets the Parks Department,’ she said, producing a small shower of chocolate crumbs. ‘Planting, weeding, fixing stuff. You know.’ She swallowed and shrugged. ‘Judge took pity on him, what with giving evidence in the Gerald Cleaver case and all. Went through the whole thing again, only without Sandy the Snake making out it’s all some weird, twisted fantasy. Got to confess I kinda feel sorry for the kid. Can you imagine getting treated like that? Abusive father, drunkard mother and when you go to hospital you get Gerald bloody Cleaver fiddling about with you under the sheets.’
Silence settled in as they considered the flabby male nurse with a thing for little boys.
‘You know,’ said Big Gary, ‘if it wasn’t for Roadkill, I’d’ve put money on Cleaver for the dead kiddies.’
‘How? He was in custody when Peter Lumley went missing.’
Gary flustered. ‘Might have had an accomplice.’
‘And he was a fiddler, not a killer,’ chipped in Jackie. ‘He liked them alive.’
Logan winced. It wasn’t a nice image, but she was right.
But Big Gary wasn’t going to let go of it that easily. ‘Maybe he can’t get it up any more? Maybe that’s why he kills them!’
‘It doesn’t change the fact that he’s been locked up for the last six months. It’s not him.’
‘I’m not saying it was him. I’m just saying it could have been.’ Gary scowled. ‘And to think I let you buggers eat my biscuits! Ungrateful sods.’
24
One drink turned into two. Two turned into three. Three turned into a curry and four more. By the time Logan said goodnight to DI Insch and WPC Watson, all was right with the world again. OK, with the inspector there he and Jackie couldn’t get up to anything, but Logan got the feeling they might have. If Insch hadn’t been there.
None of which mattered at four-thirty in the morning when he staggered out of bed to drink his own bodyweight in water before falling queasily back to sleep.
Lorna Henderson’s post mortem report was sitting on DI Insch’s desk when Logan got in to work. Seven o’clock on the dot, even if it was a Saturday morning. The inspector was already there, sitting behind his desk looking slightly more pink than usual.
Lorna Henderson had died from blunt trauma. The cracked ribs would have crushed her left lung, the impact to the left temple shattering her skull, the one to the back of her head finishing off the job. The leg break was jagged, just above the knee. A four-year-old girl, beaten to death. Roadkill had really gone to town.
‘You think we’re going to get anything out of him?’ asked Logan, turning the pathology photographs face down so that he wouldn’t have to look at them any more.
Insch snorted. ‘Doubt it. Doesn’t matter though. We’ve got so much forensic evidence there’s no way he’s going to beat this one. Not even Slippery Sandy can get him off. Mr Philips is going to spend the rest of his life in Peterhead Prison with all the other sick bastards.’ He pulled a packe
t of sherbet fruits from his pocket and offered them round the incident room. That done he settled down to working his way through the remainder. ‘You taking Miller back up to the farm today?’ The reporter’s name came out as if Insch was describing a foul smell.
‘No,’ Logan grinned. ‘For some reason he’s not too keen. Can’t think why.’
Friday’s little expedition had been quite enough for the reporter. Today’s Press and Journal had nothing but nice words for the police. It was much the same as the Evening Express story, only with more editorializing. At least DI Insch was out of the spotlight.
‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘How’s your floater going?’
‘Getting there.’
‘DI Steel tells me you’re keen on the McLeod brothers?’
Logan nodded. ‘It’s their kind of gig. Hands on. Brutal.’
Insch almost smiled. ‘Take after their dad, that pair. Going to get them for it?’
Logan tried not to shrug, but he knew it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. ‘Doing my damnedest. I’ve got Forensics crawling all over the clothes they found the body in. Might get something out of it. If not, maybe one of their punters will cough. . .’ He stopped, remembering Duncan Nicholson running into the shop, out of the rain.
Insch popped something green and fizzy into his mouth. ‘Not likely. Can you imagine anyone stupid enough to rat on the McLeod brothers? They’d tear him apart.’
‘What?’ Logan was dragged back from Nicholson: that plastic bag. ‘Oh, yeah. Probably. Simon McLeod said the whole thing was a warning. A message. That everyone in the city knew what it meant.’
‘Everyone in the city, eh?’ Insch crunched as he chewed. ‘How come I’ve no’ heard anything about it then?’
‘No idea. I’m hoping Miller can shed some light on that one.’
Twelve o’clock and Logan was sitting down to a big plate of steak-and-ale pie, chips and beans. The Prince of Wales was an old-fashioned place: all wood panelling and real ale, the low ceiling yellowed by generations of cigarette smokers. It was busy, full of men press-ganged into Saturday morning shopping by their wives and girlfriends. This was their reward: a pint of cold beer and a packet of prawn cocktail crisps.