Logan McRae 09 - The Missing and the Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘Do you have visual?’

  The car powered past leafy gardens and someone walking their dog.

  ‘Negative.’

  Three cars, a bus, a removal van, and a tanker – all coming the other way – pulled into the side of the road, giving them a clear run at it. More than could be said for the idiot with the caravan blocking this side of the road.

  Nicholson thumped the steering wheel. ‘Out of the way you mouldy old sod!’ Soon as they’d cleared the tanker she wrenched the Big Car onto the other side of the road and accelerated past the caravan. ‘Can’t have missed them by much …’

  Logan clicked his Airwave again. ‘Where’s everyone else?’

  ‘Units are on their way. Closest is fifteen minutes away.’

  ‘Tell them to hit the A98 soon as they can. We’re looking for a blue four-by-four. No make or model known, but the back end will be all dented in.’

  A petrol station whizzed by on the left, then a plumber’s, then the fringe of a housing estate. The speedo hit ninety as they flashed through the limits and out into the countryside again.

  ‘Roger that.’

  Ten seconds later the lookout request crackled from the Big Car’s radio. ‘All units be on the lookout for a blue four-wheel-drive vehicle heading west on the A98 …’

  With any luck, this time, they were actually going to catch them.

  26

  ‘Anything?’

  Nicholson looked up from her Airwave and shook her head. ‘No sign of them anywhere.’

  Logan tied the end of the ‘POLICE’ tape to the downpipe between the two parts of the Co-op. On one side it took up the bottom floor of a three-storey granite building, but the main entrance – the side that had been raided – was a single-storey extension, painted white with green buckled frontage. A red post box positioned by the entrance. The other end of the blue-and-white cordon was wrapped around it, like the ribbon on a very boring present, then stretched out to an orange cone in the middle of the road in front of it, and on to another in front of the downpipe. A nice big rectangle, protecting the scene.

  The Big Car blocked the other side of the road, its lights spinning in the sunshine.

  A bleep from his Airwave. Then, ‘Sarge, it’s Deano. Safe to talk?’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Me and Tufty have been round the burglaries in Pennan. No witnesses. Got some pretty odd stuff gone missing though. There’s the usual iPads and DVDs and phones, bit of cash and jewellery, but one lot’s missing a bible from 1875, a First World War bayonet, and a Georgian vase. House next door’s missing paintings from the 1920s. One next to that’s lost a crystal decanter set from the Cutty Sark.’

  Logan hauled open the Big Car’s boot. ‘M.O.E.?’

  ‘Popped a pane of glass in the back doors. Thing is, Sarge, how’d you know to take a decanter set and ignore a CD player?’

  ‘Stealing to order maybe? That or he’s got an interest. Run a check on the PNC, maybe we can get a quick result on this one.’ Logan pulled the dustpan and long-handled broom from the boot. ‘Keep me up to date, OK?’

  ‘Will do.’

  He handed the broom and dustpan to Nicholson. ‘And before you start moaning, it’s not because you’re a woman, it’s because you’re a constable.’

  Her face drooped. ‘Sarge.’

  ‘Clear this side of the road. Soon as it’s done, shift the car and get traffic moving again. Don’t sweep up anything inside the cordon.’ He picked his way through the scattered debris into the store. Inside, it looked as if a bomb had gone off. Ground Zero was the gap where the two windows had been, spreading impulse-buy items, tins, and lottery tickets out in a fan of destruction. A display stand of newspapers was smashed in half, canted over – spilling out its collection of red-top tabloids, gossip magazines, and issues of Farmers Weekly.

  A handful of breezeblocks from the caved-in sill.

  The manager sat behind the counter, cup of tea and packet of Rennies in front of her, mobile phone to her ear. Green shirt and black fleece. ‘STACEY’, according to her name badge. Round-shouldered, going grey, and smelling of peppermint. She crunched down another antacid. ‘I don’t know, Mike. It’s up to the police. But the whole place …’ She stared out at it. Sagged a little further. ‘I’ll let you know soon as I do.’

  Logan stood at the counter, amongst the drifts of newsprint and lotto tickets.

  It could be you.

  But today it was Stacey.

  She blinked up at him. ‘Got to go.’ Hung up. Put her phone down. ‘Sorry. Head office. Wanted to know if everyone was OK.’

  Logan nodded at the hole where the two windows used to be. The rest of them were blocked off with shelves and display units. ‘Where was the cash machine?’

  She pointed over the counter at a clean rectangular patch on the floor, with four sheared bolts and a snapped length of electrical flex. ‘It was like … I don’t know. The window exploded and there was glass and things everywhere and it was over so quickly.’ Stacey wrapped her hands around her tea. ‘Thought everything was supposed to slow down, but: whoosh.’ A shudder.

  ‘How about CCTV?’

  A nod. Then a deep breath. ‘Yes. CCTV. We can do that.’

  She led him through the wreckage to much cleaner aisles. Past the crisps and cat food to a double door. Pushed into a backroom store full of cages of breakfast cereal and tatties. A little office sat on one side. Stacey opened the door and ushered him inside. ‘Three cameras cover the front of the shop: two inside, one out.’

  A worktop desk ran along two walls, complete with computer, two phones, and a pair of office chairs. A monitor was mounted in the corner, above a bank of digital recording stuff. Eight views of the shop filled the screen, each with a little timer ticking over in the corner. Only one view was nothing but static.

  Stacey picked a remote from the top of the recording boxes and sank into one of the chairs. She poked at the buttons, sending the timers clattering backwards.

  Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Forty – and the static disappeared, replaced by a view of the shop from a point above the display stand where people were meant to fill out their lottery tickets.

  ‘Here we go.’

  The screens froze.

  Camera four showed an old man juggling a basket and a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru. Six had a young girl dangling a teddy bear by its leg, while an older woman weighed up the difference between two loaves of bread. Camera one was an exterior shot from above the front door. And camera two had Stacey, sitting behind the counter hunched over some sort of paperwork.

  Play.

  The old man dropped the basket. The little girl skipped along the aisle.

  A big blue four-by-four reversed into shot on camera one, swung round and its rear-end smashed into the window beside the door.

  Camera two filled with exploding glass and dust, flying tins and packets. All in perfect silence.

  Debris blocked the view of cameras two-to-three, but the others showed shelves shaking. The older woman clasping the bread to her chest like a parachute.

  Camera three went to static.

  It took a couple of seconds for camera two to clear, and when it did the back half of the huge four-by-four jutted into the shop. Not a Range Rover or a sporty job, a proper huge one with a loadbay and canopy. Toyota Hilux, or a Mitsubishi Warrior? Difficult to tell from this angle. Maybe it was an Isuzu? Something like that. The sort of thing you could chuck bales of hay or a couple of sheep into.

  Ceiling tiles and tins lay on top of the canopy.

  Camera one: the car’s back doors popped open and two figures swarmed out and into the shop, climbing through the shattered hole where the windows used to be. Black ski masks, gloves, tracksuits. One had a length of heavy-duty chain in his hands. He wrapped it around the base of the cash machine, while his mate clipped the other end onto the four-by-four’s towbar.

  Mr Towbar jumped back and thumped on the side
of the vehicle. Mr Chain hurried behind the cash machine as whoever was at the wheel put their foot down, snapping the chain taut and ripping the whole machine from its moorings.

  Then Mr Chain and Mr Towbar opened the canopy lid, thumped down the tailgate, and humped the cash machine into the loadbay. Shut everything up and clambered out through the broken window again.

  Camera one caught them clambering back into the four-by-four and it roared off. Inside the shop, a chunk of ceiling tiles collapsed.

  Pause. Two. Three. Four. And then Stacey peeked out from behind the counter.

  The whole thing had taken a little over a minute.

  Brilliant. So much for ‘Be advised, perpetrators are still at the scene.’

  Logan put a mug of tea on Nicholson’s desk.

  ‘Thanks, Sarge.’ She cleared her throat, leaned over in her seat to peer out through the open Constables’ Office door. Then back again, voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Maggie told me that DS Dawson’s still in hospital.’

  ‘Yup.’ He took a sip of his own tea. Hot and milky. ‘We’re never mentioning it again, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, but, Sarge, maybe, you know, if they knew what caused it, they might have more luck fixing him? I don’t know, we could do it anonymously, or something? They wouldn’t have to know it was us …’

  ‘They’d know. And you’ll never make it in CID if you can’t keep a secret.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Yes, Sarge.’

  He headed back through to the Sergeants’ Office.

  Inspector McGregor sat in the other chair, digging through the contents of a large cardboard box. ‘Do we have any triple-A batteries? All I can find are double-A’s. Hundreds and hundreds of double-A’s …’

  ‘Sorry, Guv – the Alcometers are all double.’ Logan settled in behind his desk. ‘I can get Tufty to pick some up on his way back?’

  She pushed the box away. ‘A little bird tells me there was a crowd of journalists outside most of yesterday.’

  Ah. He took a sip of tea. Arranged his notepad, Post-its, and keyboard into a straight line. Tried for a nonchalant shrug. ‘Didn’t notice. I was busy painting the house.’

  ‘They were very interested in talking to you. Apparently, now Stephen Bisset’s dead, the story’s become a lot more shiny. Anything you want to tell me?’

  His head dropped. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘I don’t like journalists staking out my stations, Logan, it makes the public nervous. Makes it look like we’ve done something wrong.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault! I did what …’ He sighed. ‘We’ve been over this.’

  ‘Of course, things might have gone a bit better if you’d actually caught the Cashline Ram-Raiders this morning, instead of letting them get away.’

  ‘I didn’t lose them, they were long gone by the time we got there. I saw the security-camera footage: whole thing was over in eighty-two seconds.’ He sat forward and poked the desk with a finger. ‘The only way we could’ve got to Portsoy before they sodded off is if Police Scotland issued us with a TARDIS.’

  ‘Thought they were still at the scene?’

  ‘I checked with the control room – turns out the guy who said the Ram-Raiders were still there was blootered. Not bad going for half nine on a Saturday morning.’

  The Inspector picked up a manila folder. Tapped the edge against the desk. ‘Did you hear? Traffic stopped a blue Isuzu D-max a mile north of Keith.’

  A smile bloomed on Logan’s face. ‘That’s great. Did—’

  ‘Wasn’t them. Still, it’s not our problem any more, it’s DI McCulloch and his MIT’s.’

  The smile faded. ‘Does it really not bug you? Every time something big comes up, we’ve got to hand it over?’

  She dumped the folder on his desk. ‘Appraisal results, hot off the press from Division Headquarters. The Big Boss says Maggie can have two and a half percent and not a penny more.’

  ‘Better than nothing.’ He opened the folder, pulled out the printouts. ‘Oh, I spoke to Jack Simpson this morning.’

  ‘And how is everyone’s favourite drug-dealing minker?’

  ‘Lucky to be alive, and feeling vindictive. Got a sworn statement off him, fingering Klingon and Gerbil for assault. They weren’t trying to kill him, they were trying to put the fear of God into everyone else. And whoever supplied the drugs is down as an accessory. So, soon as the MIT are done with their drugs charges, we can ask the PF to prosecute.’

  ‘Excellent.’ She hopped down from the desk. Straightened her police-issue T-shirt. ‘Don’t suppose he ID’d the supplier?’

  ‘Best he could do is: wee hardman from Newcastle or Liverpool, calling himself the Candleman, or Candlestick Man. Doesn’t know his real name. I’m going to call round, see if anyone recognizes the alias.’

  ‘Well, keep me informed.’ She paused in the doorway. ‘It does bother me when the MITs swoop in and grab everything. But it is what it is. We just have to try and get one in under the radar every now and then.’

  27

  Logan folded his arms and leaned against the alley wall. ‘Really?’

  Sammy Wilson blinked a couple of times with his good eye – the other swollen and darkened, the skin turned purple-blue and green. Looked down at the paper bag in his grubby skeletal hand. Licked his thin lips with a pale tongue. Then sniffed. ‘Yeah … I wasn’t … This …’ He looked over his shoulder where Nicholson blocked his escape route.

  A cough.

  Another sniff.

  Then Sammy’s working eye raked the ground around his manky trainers. ‘Found it.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  He rubbed his other hand along the grass-stain streaks on his tracksuit top. ‘Bag was kinda lying there.’

  ‘I’ll bet it was.’

  Nicholson stepped up close. Opened her mouth to say something. Wrinkled her nose. Then stepped back and tried again from a safer distance. ‘Why’d you run then, Sammy?’

  ‘Had to catch a bus. Yeah, a bus, can’t be late for the bus or they drive off, don’t they? Like, you know, the Ninky Nonk …’ He peeled open the paper bag. ‘Wow, look at that, got rowies in it, rowies, yeah, not that big a deal is it? Bagarowies? Found them.’

  She pointed. ‘Where’d you get the black eye, Sammy?’

  ‘Found it.’ Sammy swayed from side to side. ‘You don’t need me, right? I’m not, like, on your radar or nothing and I was just nipping past the baker’s … to get something for Jack Simpson. Yeah, a present, cause of him being in hospital with the beatings and that.’ Sammy’s smile was a graveyard of yellow and brown. ‘Cause of Klingon and Gerbil. Bad stuff, eh? Bad stuff. You don’t need me, right?’

  ‘Thought you said you’d found it?’

  Logan took a deep breath. Regretted it. The air tasted of rotting meat and onions. ‘Normal people bring flowers and grapes, Sammy. Not rowies.’

  ‘Yeah. Right. Forgot. Flowers not rowies.’ Another brown gap-toothed smile. ‘Get them confused. You should see my mum’s grave, like.’

  ‘Sammy, you ever heard of a drug dealer from down south, calls himself the Candleman? Maybe Candlestick Man, something like that? Wee tough nut from Newcastle or Liverpool?’

  ‘Yeah, nah, I don’t know no drug dealers. Don’t do drugs. Nah, used to, but I’m clean as a … you know, these days? Clean, clean, clean.’

  Logan kept his mouth shut and stared.

  One set of filthy fingers beat a tattoo on his pigeon chest.

  Dirty trainers shuffled on the pavement.

  ‘Nope. No drug dealers. Never.’ Sammy cleared his throat. Looked down at his scabby arms. ‘Couldn’t lend us a tenner, could you? You know, for a cuppa tea and that? To go with me rowies …’

  Silence.

  ‘Twenty gets me the name of the guy Klingon and Gerbil got their stuff from. His real name. And where I can find him.’

  Sammy swallowed. Upped the tattoo on his chest. Bit his bottom lip. Then his hand
trembled out, palm open, fingers spread.

  Logan took out his wallet. Produced the last two fivers from the thing. Leaving nothing but lint till the end of the month. Held the notes up. ‘I’m warning you, Sammy – you get me that name, or I come after you. We clear?’

  That single bloodshot eye sparkled like a rat’s. Hand reaching. ‘Yeah, yeah, his name and where you can find him.’

  ‘Half now, half later.’

  ‘Promise on my mother’s grave and that …’ Fingers twitching.

  Logan dropped the cash and he snatched the falling notes from the air like a cat taking a pair of birds.

  ‘Now, get out of here and find me that name.’

  ‘Yeah, right, right, got to go and see Jack Simpson. And find the name. Name, name, name.’ He jammed the money in a tracksuit pocket and lurched off, legs stiff, like a wind-up automaton with heroin as the cranking key.

  Nicholson joined Logan by the wall. Frowning as Sammy disappeared around the corner onto Kingswell Lane. ‘You sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Nope.’ Logan put his empty wallet away. ‘I’m skint now.’

  ‘Well, that’s one tenner you’re never going to see again.’ She waved a hand back and forth. ‘Think he’s ever seen a bar of soap in his life?’

  ‘You never know, maybe he’ll come up with something.’ Logan headed back towards Big Car – parked half on the pavement where they’d abandoned it to give chase.

  Nicholson shook her head. ‘Why are you bothering anyway? Klingon and Gerbil have the backbone of an earthworm. They’ll have sold out their supplier quicker than you can say “wriggle”.’

  Because the Inspector was right – sometimes you had to slip something in under the radar.

  ‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

  Logan pressed the button. ‘Batter on, Maggie.’

  ‘Got another misper sighting for you. Liam Barden – spotted in the Dundee Waterstones this morning.’

  Nicholson took the Big Car along the waterfront. Macduff harbour shone sapphire blue, a couple of small fishing boats tied up against the walls. The wheeling shriek of herring gulls. Windows down, letting in the crisp tang of seaweed and ozone.