Mrs Kennedy’s lounge was a disaster area: chairs and tables overturned, paintings slashed, photo frames smashed, china poodles reduced to glittering shards on the carpet. Mrs Kennedy sat in a ruptured armchair, fat orange cat clutched to her bosom like a security blanket. It eyed the detectives standing in the middle of the room with evil distrust, yellow eyes narrowed to slits, ears back.
‘Honestly,’ said the old lady, shaking. ‘I don’t want to cause any fuss, I’m fine. Really. . .’ She’d been out at the time, but the downstairs neighbour had heard the destruction and called 999. They couldn’t bear to think of poor old Mrs Kennedy lying up there in a pool of blood, battered to death! They were basically well meaning, but no bloody help whatsoever. They didn’t see anything, didn’t peer out the spy hole in their door to watch the bad guys come down the stairs. Didn’t even look out the window to see if they got into a waiting car, or a bus, or a taxi, or clambered aboard a passing elephant. They were scared someone would see them looking. It was a pain in the arse, but Logan could understand their reticence. They were in their seventies, why risk being seen by violent thugs who might come back and get them? Instead they’d kept their heads down and called the police. It was still more than a lot of people would do.
Whoever the vandals were, they’d done a pretty good job of bankrupting Mrs Kennedy’s insurance company. The lounge, kitchen, and both bedrooms had been thoroughly trashed. But there was something odd in the lounge, something that seemed a bit out of place amidst all the devastation. Smack bang in the middle of the far wall the words ‘STOP NOW’ had been scrawled in dripping, fluorescent orange paint. ‘Any idea what it is they want you to stop doing?’ asked Logan, pointing at the bright, spray-painted letters.
Mrs Kennedy shook her head and hugged the cat even tighter, causing it to wriggle. ‘I . . . I help organize a youth club for local youngsters? Up at the school? We have football matches and jumble sales. . .’
‘Hmm,’ said Insch. ‘Well unless you’re caught in the middle of a turf war between the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, I think we can rule that out. Anything else?’
‘I still tutor some children. Since I had to retire I sometimes think it’s the only thing that keeps me going.’
‘Oh aye?’ Insch was poking about in the remains of a large china dog with his shoe. ‘Piano? French?’
‘Chemistry. I was a chemistry teacher for thirty-six years.’ She smiled, eyes misty with recollection. ‘I taught thousands and thousands of children in my time.’ She sighed. ‘And now all I have is this. . .’ DI Insch made his excuses as the tears started, but Logan decided to do the decent thing and make her a cup of tea. The kettle was dented, but otherwise functional, so he set it to boil and went hunting for some teabags. They were scattered all over the floor by the upended bin, mingling with broken eggshells, potato peelings and other debris. He found one that didn’t look too unhygienic – after all it was going to get boiling water poured over it – and plopped it in a mug that still had its handle attached. While the bag was stewing, Logan rummaged about, looking for milk and sugar. He found it in the fridge: a large, clear plastic bag of something that looked like fresh herbs, only not so wholesome.
The sound of footsteps crunching on debris and Logan spun around to see Mrs Kennedy standing there, sans cat. Hands clenching and unclenching, she watched aghast as he stood up, holding the bag of ‘herbs’. Logan popped open the zip-lock top and took a tentative sniff at the contents.
‘I . . . I can explain. . .’ she said, voice low, eyes darting down the hall where a uniformed PC was writing down details of the damage on a large clipboard. ‘It’s for my arthritis. . .’ She held up her trembling hands. ‘And my sciatica.’
‘Where do you get it from?’
‘I . . . an ex-pupil of mine. He said it had helped his father. He brings me some every now and then.’
‘There’s a lot here,’ he said, shaking the bag. ‘All for your own use?’
‘Please believe me.’ The tears were starting again. ‘It makes the pain go away: I never meant to break the law!’
Logan stood watching her as thick tears rolled down her cheeks, a thin dribble of snot starting on its way south from her nose. She fumbled a handkerchief from her pocket and he stared at her hands: swollen joints, squint fingers, just like his grandmother’s had been for the last fifteen years of her life. ‘OK,’ he said at last, popping the bag back in the fridge and closing the door. ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.’ He let himself out. STOP NOW: a funny thing to scrawl on an old lady’s wall. Esoteric. Probably made perfect sense to whatever drug-addled halfwit scrawled it up there. But still. . .
The sky was a dirty dove-grey as Logan stepped out of the front door. The white and orange of the patrol car had attracted the same audience as last time: a trio of small children, all watching the policemen with awe. It must be just like having the telly come to life, right outside your house. Who knew what sort of exciting things you could see. . .
Logan crossed the road and walked up the steps to the little cluster of kids, dropping down on his haunches so he wouldn’t tower over them. Two little boys, four or fiveish with snotty noses, wide blue eyes and bowl haircuts, and a little girl in a stroller. She couldn’t have been more than two and a bit: frizzy blonde hair done up in pigtails, teddy bear clutched in one hand, sucking her thumb and looking up at Logan like he was a hundred feet tall. ‘Hello,’ he said, in his best non-threatening voice, ‘my name’s Logan. I’m a policeman.’ He pulled out his warrant card and let one of the bowl haircuts handle it with grubby fingers. ‘Were you here earlier?’
The little girl pulled her thumb out, a long trail of spittle stretching from lips to finger before falling onto teddy’s nose. ‘Man.’
‘Did you see a man?’
She pointed a dribble-covered finger at him. ‘Man.’ Then held the bear up, so he could see that she’d chewed most of the fur off one ear, and said ‘Man’ again. Logan’s smile began to falter. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
DI Insch sat behind the wheel of his filthy Range Rover, peering out through the windscreen as the first flecks of moisture gave way to a steady downpour. ‘So much for a sodding barbecue tonight,’ he said as Logan leapt into the passenger seat and out of the rain. ‘How’d you get on with the Grampian Police Fan Club?’
Logan sighed and tried to wipe sticky fingerprints off his warrant card. ‘Tom’s doggy did “big ones” in daddy’s slippers last night and had to sleep in the toilet. Other than that: bugger all.’ He glanced up at the building and saw Mrs Kennedy’s scared face staring down from the kitchen window. Probably terrified he was going to tell the inspector her dirty little secret. He turned to see the three children staring at him as well.
‘Do you think it’s odd the same kids are always hanging around?’
Now it was Insch’s turn to stare at him. ‘Ever occur to you that they might actually live here?’
‘OK, point taken.’ Logan pulled on his seatbelt. ‘So how come you dragged me over here to see this?’ he asked as the inspector did a three-point turn on Union Grove and headed back towards the Holburn Street junction. ‘Come to that: what are you doing here? Breaking and entering not a job for uniform?’
Insch shrugged and told Logan to look in the glove compartment, which revealed an old packet of sherbet lemons, the yellow lozenges gluey from sitting in the car for God knew how long. The inspector clutched the bag to the steering wheel with one hand while he dug about in the sticky packet with the other, eventually emerging with a lump of three or four, all welded together. He stuffed them in his mouth and sucked his fingers clean, before offering the bag to Logan, who politely declined. ‘I suppose,’ said Insch around a mouthful of boiled sweets as he forced his way into the stream of traffic, ‘I was thinking there might be a connection – you know, with her grandson dying in the fire. And we’ve still got bugger all to go on with Karl Pearson. Someone tortures the hell out of the ugly wee t
oe-rag and all we can do is cart him off to the morgue and carve him up some more.’ He sighed and Logan got the distinct impression that once again Grampian Police’s left hand didn’t know if the right one was scratching its elbow or picking its arse.
‘Did DI Steel not tell you about Brendan “Chib” Sutherland?’
Insch said that no, she hadn’t, so Logan filled him in on the way back to the station, including Colin Miller’s promise to find an address for the Edinburgh hoodlum.
‘How come we’ve got to rely on that Weegie shitebag? No, on second thoughts, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. But when you get that address, you tell me. I’m not leaving that daft old cow. . .’ He threw a swift glance at Logan and harrumphed. ‘I mean, DI Steel has enough on her plate right now. I wouldn’t want her to be distracted going after something that wasn’t directly related to her investigation.’
Logan grinned and kept his mouth shut.
That night’s stakeout operation was nearly cancelled. The rain had steadily built in tempo until it was chucking it down, bouncing off the pavements and swallowing the gutters. Faint light flickered overhead, followed by a pause: one, two, three, four – thunder boomed out across the blackened skies. ‘Four miles away,’ said the inspector, settling back in her seat with one of Councillor Marshall’s specialist insertion magazines.
Logan shook his head. ‘It’s less than a mile. Sound travels at seven hundred and fifty miles an hour, so that means. . .’ he trailed off into silence. Steel was glowering at him.
‘Four miles away!’ she said again and went back to looking at the dirty pictures by the light of the glove compartment. Occasionally saying things like, ‘Jesus, that’s not natural!’ and, ‘Ouch!’ and once or twice, ‘Hmmm. . .’ Logan scrunched down in the driver’s seat and peered out through the windscreen. WPC Menzies was swearing and grumbling down at the other end of Shore Lane, shifting from one stiletto-heeled foot to the other, trying to keep warm. In the interests of health and safety, she was wearing a long fur coat from the lost-and-found store over her whore outfit tonight. Clutching an umbrella.
Her voice crackled through the radio. ‘This is ridiculous! Nae bastard’s going tae come oot here in this pishin’ weather!’ Sounds of agreement immediately came through from WPC Davidson: it was nearly midnight and they’d not had a single bite. This was a waste of everyone’s time. Logan had to agree they had a point. But the inspector was not for turning, they’d been given sanction to keep this going for five nights and she was damned if they were giving up before then. In the end everyone settled back into unhappy perseverance. Steel snored, WPCs Menzies and Davidson whinged and moaned, Logan brooded. This was such a stupid idea – twenty-six police men and women, sitting in the dark, waiting for some sicko to abduct an unattractive WPC wouldn’t prove anything. He might as well strip down to his underpants and run around the docks in the rain for all the good it would do.
DI Steel had settled into a steady buzz-saw-in-a-washing-machine drone, one of Councillor Marshall’s dirty magazines open in her lap, spot-lit by the open glove compartment, exposing something Logan did not want to see. He leaned over the inspector and snapped the glove compartment shut.
‘Umn, scrrrrrrnch, emph?’ Steel cracked open an eye and peered blearily at him leaning across her. ‘Dirty wee shite. I’m no’ fuckin’. . .’ She drifted to a halt and yawned, the motion ending with a small burp. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half twelve,’ said Logan, rolling the window down, letting some fresh air into the car, bringing the steady roar of torrential rain with it. Steel gave another yawn, stretching and groaning in the passenger seat as Logan finally decided to take the plunge: ‘Why don’t you want Councillor Marshall prosecuted?’
‘Hmm?’ She peeled the plastic wrapper off a pack of twenty cigarettes, throwing it over her shoulder into the rubbish-tip back seat. ‘’Cos you can catch more flies with shite than vinegar. You look out there,’ she said, setting a lighter to the end of her cigarette, ‘and you see guilty or not guilty, yeah? Black or white. Well sometimes it’s no’ that clear cut—’
‘He was paying a fourteen-year-old girl for sex!’
‘Didn’t know she was fourteen though, did he?’
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, ‘Does it matter?’
‘See – there you go again, black or white. It pays to have people in your debt, Logan, especially people who. . .’ She stopped, peering out into the night. There was a figure walking down Marischal Street, dressed in a featureless ankle-length raincoat buttoned all the way up to the neck. Bald as a coot, clutching an umbrella, the black surface shrouded in mist as the rain hurled itself towards the ground. Detective Inspector Insch.
‘Hoy, hoy,’ said Steel, ‘it’s Uncle Fester.’
DI Insch marched slowly across the road and around the car to Logan’s side. Something congealed in Logan’s innards as he looked up into the inspector’s impassive face. Insch’s voice was like a graveyard. ‘It’s Constable Maitland,’ he said, and suddenly Logan could hear each and every drop of rain. ‘He’s dead.’
22
Flames reached up to the sky, devouring wood and plastic, paper and flesh. The blaze crackled and sparked in the rainy night – the downpour doing nothing to quench its hunger. He’d put way too much petrol through the letterbox for that. His very own makeshift crematorium.
The location was perfect: a little winding road down by the river in the south of the city. High stone walls on one side – keeping the lowlife out of some sort of hotel grounds – scattered, detached houses on the other. Secluded enough to stop the alarm being raised too soon, and with plenty of cover for him to hide in and watch the place burn. And even if someone did raise the alarm, the fire engines were busy elsewhere.
He knew he shouldn’t be here. Not so soon after the other fire. He knew he would get in trouble for this one, but he just couldn’t help himself. Standing in the shadows, on the other side of the road, he grimaced, pounding away at his erection as the upstairs windows exploded outwards in a shower of glass.
God, this was beautiful.
The screaming had lasted for ten whole minutes. Four petrol bombs in through the bedroom windows. Someone had even braved the inferno in the hallway, hammering frantically against the front door, not knowing he’d screwed it shut, just like the one round the back. He bit his bottom lip, imagining their flesh crackling and popping in the heat. Flames raging downstairs, flames raging upstairs. Nowhere to run. All they could do was die. He grunted and shuddered. . . squeezing tighter, trying to make it last, but it was too late. He threw back his head and moaned in ecstasy as the roof finally gave way, sending an eruption of orange and white sparks spiralling up into the night. Then the fire brigade arrived – charging about with their ladders and their hoses, but it was far too late for the family of four charring away beneath the burning rubble.
He really shouldn’t have burned the house; he was bound to get in trouble.
But right now, he just didn’t care.
Seven forty-five, Friday morning, tired, bleary and hung-over. It hadn’t been a good night for Logan; DI Steel had sent him home early, where he’d made friends with a bottle of twelve-year-old single malt whisky. Getting drunk and maudlin and thoroughly depressed. One minute PC Maitland was lying there in his persistent vegetative state, and the next he was gone. DI Insch had told Logan not to worry: it was dreadful, but these things happened. It wasn’t his fault. It would all blow over. And when the inspector had gone, marching back up the road in the rain, DI Steel told him that Insch was talking bollocks. This was a perfect opportunity for the slimy bastards to crawl out of the woodwork and stab him in the back.
The summons from Inspector Napier had been waiting for him when he got into work first thing this morning.
So here he was, sitting outside Professional Standards, feeling sick, stomach churning away as he waited for Napier to call him into the Office of Doom. Right on cue the inspector stuck hi
s pointy face around the door and beckoned Logan inside. This time the room was crowded. In addition to Logan, Napier and the silent, unnamed inspector in the corner, Big Gary was sitting in one of the uncomfortable visitors’ chairs, his huge frame making the plastic buckle alarmingly. He looked up and nodded as Logan entered. This was it then. He was in real trouble this time.
‘Sergeant McRae,’ said Napier, settling down behind his pristine desk. ‘As you can see, I have asked your Federation representative to attend this meeting.’ He threw a cold smile in Big Gary’s direction. ‘But before we start I’d just like to say how saddened we all are at the news of PC Maitland’s untimely death. He was a good officer and will be greatly missed by his colleagues and friends. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife and. . .’ Napier peered down at a sheet of paper on his desktop. ‘Daughter.’
And then Logan had to go through the bungled raid again, while Napier nodded gravely and Big Gary took notes. ‘Of course,’ said Napier when Logan had finished, ‘you realize that we have been lucky with the timing of this.’ He held up a copy of that morning’s Press and Journal. The headline FATAL FIRE KILLS FOUR! was stretched across the front page above a photo of a ruined house, still burning in the darkness with fire engines clustered outside. ‘This arson story has far more public appeal. Also, the papers didn’t get wind of Constable Maitland’s untimely death until after their second editions had run. Naturally we can expect “prominent citizens” like Councillor Marshall. . .’ the name came out sounding like a disease from Napier’s lips, ‘to make their feelings known on the subject.’
Logan suppressed a groan. That pompous, slimy wee pervert would have a field day.
‘Of course, the internal enquiry now has to take into account the fact that an officer died during the operation you organized, resourced and led,’ said Napier, probably loving every minute of this. ‘If you are found to have been negligent, you can expect a reduction in rank and possible expulsion from the force. Criminal charges cannot be ruled out.’
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae) Page 60
