‘Insch told us to wait here,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Yea, but we all know Strichen’s not coming back here. It’ll take me what? Five, ten minutes? There was a wee newsagents on the corner—’
Mrs Strichen even took the cigarette out of her mouth this time. ‘Will you please shut up!’
They went out to the hall.
‘Look, I’ll only be a minute. And it’s not like you couldn’t kick the shit out of him if he comes back! And there’s two cars out there watching the roads.’
‘I know, I know.’ She looked back through the door to the flickering television and Martin Strichen’s venomous mother. ‘I just don’t like going against the inspector’s orders.’
‘I won’t tell if you won’t.’ PC Rennie grabbed one of the thick overcoats hanging up in the hallway. It smelled a bit of stale chips, but it would keep the cold out. ‘Wanna give me a kiss for luck?’ He puckered up.
‘Not if you were the last man on earth.’ She pushed him towards the door. ‘And get some crisps too. Salt and vinegar.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He executed a sloppy salute.
She watched the front door bang shut before heading back into the lounge to sit in front of mindless drivel and drink her tea.
It was hard to believe just how many buildings were either maintained or owned by Aberdeen City Council’s Parks Department. The list had been faxed through by a grumpy-sounding man, not happy at being called back into the office at a quarter to seven. Each and every building would have to be visited and searched. Dr Bushel was adamant that Strichen would have taken the child to one of them.
Logan didn’t bother to point out just how bloody obvious that was.
The chances of picking the correct building to search, from the extensive list, were slim. They weren’t going to find him in time. Little Jamie McCreath wasn’t going to live to see his fourth birthday.
Trying to whittle it down a bit, Logan had got the grumpy man at the Parks Department to search their records for every place where Strichen had done community service. That list was almost as long as the first. Martin Strichen had been in and out of trouble since he was eleven. Since Gerald Cleaver got his grubby hands on him. Strichen had done his time raking up leaves, pruning bushes, spraying weeds and unblocking toilets in most of the city’s parkland.
Working in reverse chronological order, Logan got the search teams going, starting with the places Strichen had worked in recently. After that they’d work their way backwards through the list. With any luck they’d find the kid before he was violated. But a sinking feeling told Logan that wasn’t going to be the case. They’d pick Strichen up in a couple of days, somewhere like Stonehaven, or Dundee. There was no way he was going to hang around Aberdeen. Not with his face on the front page of all the papers, on the television, his name and description on the radio. They’d pick him up and he would, eventually, lead them to the murdered child’s body.
‘How’s it going?’
Logan looked up to see Insch standing in the doorway of his little incident room. The main room had too many clinical psychologists in it for Logan’s liking and the peace and quiet had helped him get the search teams organized.
‘Search is underway.’
Insch nodded and handed Logan a chipped mug of strong coffee. ‘You’re not sounding hopeful,’ he said, settling onto the edge of Logan’s desk and examining the list of possible venues.
Logan admitted that he wasn’t. ‘There’s nothing more to do: the search teams have their orders, everyone knows what buildings they’re to do next. That’s it. Now they either find him or they don’t.’
‘You want to be out there?’
‘Don’t you?’
The inspector gave him a sad smile. ‘Aye. But I’m babysitting the big boys. . . One of those privileges of rank.’ Insch pulled himself off the edge of the desk and patted Logan on the shoulder. ‘But you’re just a lowly DS.’ He winked. ‘Get your arse out there.’
Logan checked a rusty blue Vauxhall out of the car park. It was dark, going on for seven. The Wednesday night traffic was light, most people going straight home after work. The terrible weather had kept them there. Only the most foolhardy were bustling from pub to pub beneath the Christmas lights.
As the traffic grew scarcer the snow gained a hold on the roads. The black glistening tarmac of the city centre giving way to grey and finally white as Logan worked his way out from Force Headquarters. He didn’t have any real destination in mind: he was driving for the sake of doing something. Just another pair of eyes looking for Martin Strichen’s car.
He drove up Rosemount and did a tour of Victoria Park and the surrounding streets, never once getting out of the vehicle. With the snow driving in at ninety miles an hour and the temperature sub-zero, there was no way Martin Strichen was going to park miles from where he was going. Not when he had a kidnapped child in tow.
There was no sign of Martin’s leprous Ford Fiesta anywhere near Victoria Park, so Logan tried Westburn Park, across the road. It was much bigger, crisscrossed with snow-covered, single-track roads. Logan slowly crunched his car through the blizzard, looking for any nook or cranny Strichen might have hidden his vehicle.
Nothing.
It was going to be a long night.
WPC Watson stared out of the kitchen window, watching the snow whip back and forth on the furious wind. PC Rennie had been gone for fifteen minutes and since then her bored resentment had changed to nervous anticipation. It wasn’t that she was worried about Martin Strichen coming back – after all, as the Bastard Simon Rennie had said, she could easily kick the shit out of him. All modesty aside, she could kick the shit out of most people. Her nickname had been hard won. No, what worried her was. . . To be honest: she wasn’t sure what was worrying her.
Maybe it was being taken out of the investigation to sit on a long shot? She should have been out there. Doing something. Not stuck here, watching soap operas and drinking tea. Sighing, she clicked off the kitchen light and watched the snow.
The sound, when it came, made her jump. A clicking at the front door.
All the hairs on the back of her head leapt up. He’d come back! The silly bugger had come back home like nothing had happened! A grim smile pulled at her face as she crept out of the kitchen and into the darkened hall.
The door handle creaked down and she tensed. It swung open and she grabbed the figure, pulling him off balance, throwing him down against the plastic carpet protector. Leaping on top of him, her right hand balled into a fist.
The figure screamed and threw his hands over his face. ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!’
It was the Bastard Simon Rennie.
‘Oh,’ she said, dropping the fist and settling back on her haunches. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘Jesus, Jackie!’ He peered out at her from between his fingers. ‘If you wanted to jump my bones you only had to ask!’
‘Thought you were someone else.’ She climbed off Rennie and helped him to his feet. ‘You OK?’
‘Might have to see if there’s a clean pair of boxer shorts upstairs, but other than that I’m fine.’
She apologized again and helped him through into the kitchen with the shopping.
‘Got some Pot Noodles as well,’ he said, emptying the bags onto the counter top. ‘You want chicken and mushroom, beef and tomato, or spicy curry?’
Watson grabbed the chicken, Rennie the curry: the sour-faced Mrs Strichen could have what was left. While the noodles were soaking up a kettle of hot water, PC Rennie filled her in on his trip to the shops. One of Insch’s cars was parked down at the entrance to the street opposite the shops and he’d spent a couple of minutes speaking to the occupants. They were from Bucksburn, just down the road and didn’t think much of their assignment. It was a complete waste of time! Strichen wasn’t coming back. But if he did, they were going to kick seven bells out of him for making them sit out there in the freezing cold.
‘Did they say
how the search was going?’ she asked, stirring absently at the rehydrating noodles.
‘Bugger all. Lots of buildings and no idea which one he’s going to be in.’
Watson sighed, staring out the back window again, watching the snow. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’
‘Never mind,’ Rennie grinned, ‘she’s got EastEnders on tape.’
Watson groaned. As if the day could get any worse!
There was no sign of Martin Strichen’s Ford Fiesta in Westburn Park. Not for the first time Logan wondered if Strichen wouldn’t just hit the main road out of Aberdeen. He had to know they were after him by now. Since leaving the station Logan had heard at least a dozen appeals for information on local radio. If he was Martin Strichen he’d be halfway to Dundee by now. Gradually he let the car drift further out.
Now and then a patrol car would pass in the opposite direction, trawling the streets, just as he was. Maybe Hazlehead would be worth a try? Or Mastrick? In the end he knew it didn’t really matter where he went. Little Jamie McCreath was surely already dead. Sighing, he turned the car onto North Anderson Drive.
His mobile phone blared out its offensive ring tone and Logan pulled into the side of the road, the car bumping up onto a ridge of icy snow that hid the kerb.
‘Logan.’
‘Laz, my man! How’s it going?’
Bloody Colin Miller.
‘What can I do for you, Colin?’ he said with a weary sigh.
‘Been listenin’ to the news, been readin’ the press releases. What’s goin’ on?’
An articulated lorry thundered past, sending a three-foot wave of slush spattering against the side of the car. Logan watched the tail-lights, twin eyes of red, disappear around the roundabout.
‘You know bloody well what’s going on! You published your bloody story and cost us our best chance at catching this bastard.’ Logan knew he was being unfair, that Miller hadn’t meant for it to turn out like this, but right now he didn’t care. He was tired, frustrated and wanted someone to shout at. ‘He’s snatched another kid because you had to tell the world we’d found a poor wee dead. . .’ He trailed off into silence as he finally saw what had been staring him in the face all along. ‘Fuck!’ He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!’
‘Jesus, man, calm down! What’s wrong?’
Logan gritted his teeth and hammered the steering wheel again.
‘You havin’ a seizure or something?’
‘You always know when someone’s dead, don’t you? You always fucking know when we find a dead body.’ Logan scowled out of the car window as another lorry roared past, buffeting the car with its wake.
‘Laz?’
‘Isobel.’
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
‘She’s your mole, isn’t she? Ferreting about, bringing you titbits. Helping you sell bloody papers!’ He was shouting now. ‘How much you paying her? How much was Jamie McCreath’s life worth?’
‘It’s no’ like that! It. . . I. . .’ There was a pause. And then Miller’s voice returned, sounding very small. ‘She comes home and tells me about her day sometimes.’
Logan looked at the phone as if it had just farted in his face. ‘What?’
A sigh. ‘We’re. . . She does a hard shitty job. She needs someone to share stuff with. We didn’t know it would end up like this. . . I swear! We—’
Logan snapped the phone shut without another word. He should have spotted it a mile off. The opera, the flash car, the clothes, the fancy food, the mouth like a sewer. It was Miller. He was Isobel’s ‘bit of rough’. Sitting on his own, in the car, in the snow, in the dark, Logan closed his eyes and swore.
If WPC Watson had to watch one more bloody soap opera she was going to scream. Now Mrs Strichen had started in on the videoed episodes. Miserable people with miserable lives, buggering about in a miserable, pointless parade of misery. God, she was bored. And there wasn’t a book in the house either. So all they had was the television and its endless barrage of bloody soap operas.
She stomped back into the kitchen and stuffed her empty pot noodle carton into the bin, without bothering to turn on the light. This was such a waste of time!
‘Jackie? Put the kettle on while you’re in there!’
Watson sighed. ‘What did your last slave die of?’
‘Milk and two sugars, eh?’
Grumbling, she filled the kettle back up again and stuck it on to boil. ‘I made it last time,’ she said, back in the lounge. ‘Your turn to make the tea.’
PC Rennie, looked at her aghast. ‘But I’ll miss the start of Emmerdale!’
‘It’s on video! How can you miss the start of Emmerdale if it’s on video? Pause the damn thing!’
Sitting in her overstuffed armchair, Mrs Strichen ground another dead cigarette into the pile. ‘Do you two ever stop bloody fighting?’ she said, pulling out her lighter and her fags. ‘Like bloody children.’
Watson gritted her teeth. ‘You want tea? You make tea.’ She turned to head upstairs.
‘Where you going?’
‘I’m going for a pee. That OK with you?’
PC Rennie held up his hands in self defence. ‘OK, OK. I’ll make the tea. Sheesh, if it’s that big a deal. . .’ He pulled himself out of the sofa and collected the empty mugs.
With a small smile of satisfaction WPC Watson went upstairs.
She didn’t hear the back door opening.
37
The toilet had one of ‘those’ flushes. No matter how hard or how often she forced down the handle, it just wouldn’t make things disappear. WPC Jackie Watson sat on the edge of the bath and pumped the handle again before peering under the lid. At least all the toilet paper was gone now. Anything left was dilute enough to be unnoticeable.
Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was an icebox. Suppressing a shiver, she washed her hands, took one look at the off-grey towel hanging on the back of the door, and dried her hands on her trousers.
Someone was standing right outside the bathroom door when she opened it. She jumped, her breath catching in her throat. Strichen was back!
She snarled and launched a fist at his face without thinking, only swerving at the last moment when her brain caught up with her vision. Not Martin Strichen. His mother, her eyes wide with shock. They stood looking at each other, blood thudding in their ears.
‘Don’t do that!’ Watson said, dropping the fist back to her side.
‘Shift over,’ said Martin’s mum, her voice shaking slightly, eyeing Watson as if she was an escaped loony, ‘my bladder’s killing me.’ She shuffled past, clutching her cardigan shut with one hand and an Evening Express with the other. ‘Your boyfriend’s taking his own sweet time making that bloody tea.’ She slammed the door, leaving WPC Watson standing alone, at the top of the stairs, in the dark.
‘Lovely woman,’ she muttered. ‘No wonder her kid’s a monster.’
She went downstairs thinking about the pint that DS McRae owed her. Much better than yet another cup of tea. Grumbling away to herself, she slumped onto the settee. The opening titles of Emmerdale were flickering on the television screen, paused in the middle of flying over some fields. How nice of them not to start until she’d finished her wee. ‘Come on, Rennie!’ she called through from the lounge. ‘What’s taking so damn long? Teabag, water, milk. It’s not hard.’ She slumped back into the couch and scowled at the telly. ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ She dragged herself up and barged into the kitchen. ‘Can you not even make the bloody. . .’
There was a body lying full length on the linoleum floor.
It was PC Rennie.
‘Shite!’ She grabbed the radio off her shoulder. And the world exploded in a barrage of yellow and black fireworks.
She couldn’t have been unconscious for long. She knew that from the clock on the cooker. Only five minutes. Groaning, she tried to sit up, but something was wrong with her arms and legs. T
he kitchen spun around her head as she slumped back to the floor.
Closing her eyes only made it worse. There was a coppery, metallic taste in her mouth, but she couldn’t spit it out. Someone had tied a rag into a knot and stuffed it into her mouth. And the same someone had tied her hands behind her back and bound her ankles together.
She rolled onto her back, sending the room spinning again. She let it settle for a moment, before continuing all the way over so that she was facing away from the lounge towards the back door.
PC Rennie lay flat on his face, his features slack and pale. He was trussed up just like she was, a slick of blood making his dark hair shiny and crimson under the kitchen lights.
From upstairs came the sound of the toilet repeatedly flushing.
She flipped over again. This time the world took less time to stop screwing the top of her head off.
Flush, flush, flush.
There was a holdall lying next to the bin. A big one. Lumps of snow clung to the stitching.
WPC Jackie Watson tried to press the transmit button on her radio with her chin. It was still strapped to her shoulder but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get purchase on it.
And then a pair of legs came into the kitchen. They were clad in thick stockings and a heavy woollen skirt, the dark hallway framed behind them. Watson looked up into the face of Mrs Strichen. The woman’s eyes were round and white, the flaccid circle of her lips working wordlessly as she stared at the trussed-up figures on her kitchen floor. She spun around, hands flying to her hips. ‘Martin! Martin!’ Her voice was that of a murderous rhinoceros. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, you dirty little bastard?’
A shadow fell across her.
Lying on the floor Watson could just make out the edge of a large-boned man, his hands huge and fluttering. Like a bird caught in a net.
‘Mum—’
‘Don’t you “Mum” me, you little bastard! What the hell is this?’ She pointed at the restrained figures.
‘I don’t—’
‘You’ve been fiddling with little boys again. Haven’t you?’ She poked him hard in the chest with a bony finger. ‘Bringing the police to my house! You make me sick! If your father was alive he’d beat the shit out of you, you snivelling little bastard pervert!’
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae) Page 38
