Logan McRae 09 - The Missing and the Dead

by Stuart MacBride

  Logan hit pause again. Fiddled with the controls to zoom in. Short dark hair, long-ish nose, a designer-stubble goatee. ‘Well, well, well.’

  Print.

  The machine whirred and clunked, then produced a full-colour printout of the man on the screen. Tony Wishart. History buff and burglar.

  Play.

  Wishart walked beneath the camera then off the screen.

  Eject.

  Logan slotted in the cartridge for the next camera and spooled it forward to the right time.

  Tony Wishart walked into shot, under the camera. Stopped at the crossroads. Looked left, then right, then left again. Waited for a Fiat Panda to judder past, then crossed over Finlayson Street. Turned left … And disappeared behind a big black removal van with ‘MAGNUS HOGG & SON ~ MOVING FAMILIES HOME EST 1965’ down the side.

  A red Fiat drove past. Then a blue Audi.

  Still no sign of Tony Wishart.

  A slouch of children zombie’d past, followed by their mums – leaning heavily on pushchairs.

  Where the hell was he?

  Four minutes and counting.

  Either he’d got into the removal van, or he’d gone into one of the houses hidden behind it.

  Logan tried camera number three, but it was the same.

  So … was Wishart robbing the house, or laying low there?

  Print.

  Only one way to find out.

  41

  The Big Car slid along Gallowhill Road, making for the crossroads with Finlayson Street. Logan nodded at Tufty. ‘Go on then.’

  A nod. ‘Right.’

  Sitting in the back seat, Constables King Kong McMahon, and Dundee Bill eased forward. Dundee was big enough, but King Kong’s head scraped the car’s ceiling. His large square head was topped with a fine felt of hair, big sideburns, thick features and a beaming smile. Dundee, on the other hand, looked like someone had squeezed a coatrack into a police uniform. Large ears, long thin nose, enough creases on his face to put a linen suit to shame.

  Tufty glanced at them in the rear-view mirror. ‘Tony Wishart. IC-One male, eighteen years old, wanted on eighteen counts of burglary. Likes to help himself to historic memorabilia along with the usual laptops, mobile phones, and jewellery. Not known to be violent, but there’s always a first time.’

  A thick finger poked into Tufty’s shoulder. King Kong’s voice was a lot posher than it should have been. ‘So, are we looking at a dog here? Or a firearm?’

  ‘Sarge?’

  Logan shook his head. ‘No dogs, no guns.’

  ‘Good. I hate getting bits of Rottweiler all over my uniform. Takes ages to wash out.’

  Dundee Bill grinned. No two of his teeth seemed to be pointing in the same direction. ‘Remember yon time we were up that block of flats with Spooney Birch?’ Dundee stuck a hand on Tufty’s other shoulder. ‘I do the dunt, and Spooney’s the first in. Charges right in there, screaming, “POLICE, EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR NOW!”’

  King Kong sighed. ‘Come on, it wasn’t Spooney’s fault.’

  ‘And then there’s this high-pitched yippy barking, and Spooney screams. And I mean a proper scream, a real dig-down-to-your-socks-and-bellow kind of noise. So we all swarm in, and there’s Spooney doing the highland fling in the middle of the living room.’

  ‘He had thirty-two stitches, I don’t think that’s very funny.’

  ‘Only instead of a sporran, it’s a Jack Russell terrier latched onto his bits. Growling and shaking away while he’s trying to batter the thing off with his extendable baton. Billy Smith recorded the whole thing on his phone.’ The grin got wider. ‘Haven’t laughed so much since Jimmy Deacon fell in the harbour.’

  ‘You’re not a very good friend, are you, Dundee?’

  ‘Nope.’

  The little line of shops came up on the left-hand side.

  Logan held up the printout from the Pubwatch camera as they neared the crossroads. A cluster of new-build houses sat all clean and shiny, opposite the Kenyan Bar. Only the closest one would’ve been blocked by the removal van. He pointed at it. ‘Here we go.’

  ‘Lights and music, Sarge?’

  ‘Knock yourself out.’

  Tufty poked the 999 button on the central console, and put his foot down. The Big Car surged forward, screeched around the corner and slithered to a halt in front of the nearest new-build.

  They piled out into the dull afternoon, Tufty and Dundee hopping the fence into the back garden while Logan and King Kong marched up the short path to the front door.

  King Kong cricked his head to one side, then the other. ‘You want me to batter it in?’

  ‘Let’s try the old-fashioned way first, eh?’ Logan reached out and pressed the doorbell.

  It buzzed slightly.

  No reply.

  King Kong’s knees popped as he squatted down and peered in through the letterbox. The sound of frenetic drums and guitars stuttered out through the gap. ‘Think there’s definitely someone in there.’

  ‘Is it locked?’

  A quick turn of the handle, and the door swung open. They stepped inside.

  A nice hall, bit bland and magnolia, but other than that it was OK. An old leather bible sat on the hall table, next to the phone, its edges scuffed, the gilt lettering flaking and cracked.

  The music was coming from somewhere further down the hall, all the words hammering out in barrages, interspersed with a weird blend of electronic rock and heavy metal guitars.

  Lounge: empty.

  Dining room: empty.

  King Kong eased a door open on a tiny toilet. Also empty.

  That left the kitchen.

  Logan stopped at the door. It was open a couple of inches. Nice new kitchen, certainly a lot more expensive-looking than the one he’d put in at the Sergeant’s Hoose. Lots of black work surface, slate tiles, and oak units. A portable speaker sat in the middle of the breakfast bar with an MP3 player plugged into the top.

  A flash of purple T-shirt and black jeans in the gap between the door and frame then gone again. It sounded as if whoever was in there was having a bit of a singalong. And not doing a very good job of it. The words were all there, but the tune had stormed off in a huff.

  Logan put a hand on the door and pushed.

  It swung all the way.

  A young man stood by the conservatory doors, with his back to the room, pouring what looked like Irn-Bru from a crystal decanter into a tall glass. Battering out the words in time with whoever was battering out of the speakers. The liquorice smell of star anise combined with the aroma of coriander and pepper, presumably coming from the trio of takeaway containers sitting on the breakfast bar. Noodles, something prawny, and what was probably spare ribs. A bag of prawn crackers lay next to them.

  Logan’s stomach growled like an angry badger.

  Who said crime didn’t pay?

  The guy still hadn’t turned around, so Logan crept into the kitchen and pressed the power button on the speaker-dock.

  What almost passed for singing continued for a couple of beats, ‘Old School Hollywood …’ then faded away. The singer cleared his throat. ‘There’s someone there, isn’t there?’ He turned around. And his eyes went wide. ‘Crap.’

  Logan smiled. ‘Tony Wishart, I believe. How nice. Tell me, Tony: the bible out in the hall, that the one you stole from Pennan?’

  He put the decanter down on the work surface. Licked his lips. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Is this your house, Tony?’

  Wishart shuffled left a bit. ‘I’m … looking after it for a lovely old lady. Poor dear’s got Alzheimer’s. She fell and broke her hip, so while she’s in hospital, I’m, you know, doing my bit.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like an old lady’s house.’ Logan pointed. ‘Let me guess, that’s the ship’s decanter from the Cutty Sark?’

  Wishart pulled his lips in, squeezing his jaws together. Look left, look right. He was going to
run for it. Getting up on the balls of his feet. Tensing up. Ready to go.

  Constable King Kong McMahon stepped into the kitchen doorway, filling it. ‘Oh no you don’t.’

  ‘Oh yes I do!’ And Wishart was off in the opposite direction, yanking open the conservatory doors, sprinting past the wicker furniture and out the far side, into the garden.

  King Kong lumbered after him with Logan not far behind.

  Dundee Bill appeared from nowhere, arms open like a goalkeeper, and Wishart ducked, scrambled past him, once round the garden with Dundee and Tufty in hot pursuit. Then bang – he jumped for the high wooden fence, using a plastic compost bin for a boost, up and over the top.

  Tufty didn’t stop in time and hammered into the fence. Bounced. Landed flat on his back with a, ‘Whoooof!’

  King Kong charged up onto the compost bin and over the fence.

  Logan slid to a halt on the wet grass and grabbed the wood, peering out like Kilroy.

  Wishart was legging it down Mid Street as fast as his skinny legs would carry him, the mounded bulk of King Kong pounding along behind him. Gathering momentum.

  Dundee Bill thumped to a halt next to Logan, grinning. Made a loudhailer from his hands. ‘RUN, FORREST, RUN!’

  Nope, Wishart was faster. Little sod was going to get away …

  Then a bicycle appeared from between two parked cars and CRASH. Arms and legs and wheels and swearing.

  Dundee winced. ‘That’s gotta hurt.’

  Tony Wishart lay sprawled across the tarmac, with one foot still tangled in the bicycle’s skeleton. He struggled to his knees, just in time to get rugby-tackled by King Kong.

  ‘Ooh …’ Dundee sucked a breath in through his crooked teeth. ‘But not as much as that.’

  ‘All units be on the lookout for a dark-red Vauxhall Astra, stolen from outside the chip shop in Gardenstown …’

  Tony Wishart sat at the breakfast bar, a bag of frozen sweetcorn pressed to the left side of his face. ‘Think I chipped a tooth.’ The stubble on his chin was all matted with drying blood, where he’d smashed into the road surface.

  Logan sat down opposite and helped himself to a prawn cracker. Cold, but still good. ‘So, when I search this place, what am I going to find, Tony? First World War bayonet? Maybe some paintings from the Twenties?’ Another cracker, crunching through the words. ‘How about all the stuff that got nicked from the Aberdeen Heritage Centre in Mintlaw?’

  He peeled the bag of sweetcorn from his cheek. There was the beginnings of a nice shiner there. ‘Don’t suppose it’d help if I told you I’d found it?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Pfff …’ Wishart dumped the sweetcorn on the worktop. Cracked his way through all eight fingers, then did the thumbs as well. ‘How did you know to find me? Someone ratted me out, didn’t they? Was it Baz? I bet it was Baz, he’s always been a tosser.’

  Logan pulled out the two printouts from the Pubwatch recordings, holding them up one at a time. ‘This is you coming out of Broch Braw Buys. And this is you disappearing behind a removal van. You didn’t come out, so you must’ve gone into the house behind it.’ He laid them out on the counter. Frowned. There was something …

  ‘I only went in for teabags.’ Wishart’s shoulders slumped. ‘Can I at least eat my carryout?’

  ‘Sorry.’ Logan clicked the plastic tops back on the containers. ‘But I’ll do you a deal. You show me everything you’ve squirrelled away here, tell us what you did with the rest of it, and I’ll make sure the Sheriff knows you cooperated.’

  Tufty lowered the last cardboard box into the Big Car. A brass sextant poked out of the top, nestled amongst old gramophone records and rolled-up maps. He stepped back and closed the boot. ‘That’s the lot.’

  ‘Good.’

  Tony Wishart was squeezed into the back seat with his bag of frozen sweetcorn, and a stack of boxes full of historical memorabilia. Paintings, bowls, vases, a medical bag from the Crimean War, pens, pipes, photographs, books … A full-sized porcelain bust of some long-dead man in a naval uniform sat on the passenger seat, held in place by a set of fluorescent-yellow limb restraints.

  ‘Sure you’re OK to walk, Sarge?’

  ‘It’s two minutes up the road. Go.’

  Tufty climbed in behind the wheel.

  Logan stood on the pavement as the Big Car pulled away. OK, so Tony Wishart wasn’t exactly Hannibal Lecter meets Professor Moriarty, but at least the good people of Pennan, and other points north, would get their antique knick-knacks back.

  King Kong clunked the front door shut and locked it. Pocketed the key. ‘That’ll put a dent in the unsolved burglaries.’

  ‘How’s the leg?’

  He glanced down at the hole in his trousers, where a scabby knee showed through. ‘My own silly fault for rugby-tackling him.’ King Kong stepped to the kerb. ‘You filling in for Davey Muir again?’

  ‘For my sins.’ Logan picked up the carrier bag from behind the garden gate, then they set off up the street, hands behind their backs, feet swinging out with metronome regularity. Not walking: proceeding.

  They’d barely made it halfway up the street before Logan stopped. Popped the carrier bag on a garden wall, and dug out the printouts again.

  ‘Sarge?’

  He handed them to King Kong. ‘What am I not seeing?’

  Frown. Scowl. Peer. ‘No idea. Missing person, maybe? Stolen car? You recognize any of the registrations?’

  ‘No.’ He stuffed them back in his pocket and picked up the bag again. ‘But there’s something.’

  Logan paced away from the kitchen area, then back again, phone pressed hard against his ear. ‘What do you mean, “he’s not there”?’

  ‘Went home for the night.’

  The Fraserburgh station canteen was deserted except for Logan, the TV – on mute – and the howl of the microwave.

  Useless, half-arsed, lazy, lying little tosser.

  ‘He was supposed to get me DNA results for close of play!’

  ‘What can I say? He went home for the night. His shift starts at nine tomorrow morning, so feel free to call up and shout at him then. Me? I’ve got work to do.’

  Logan jabbed his finger at the disconnect button. Stood and glowered at the TV.

  Why could no one do their bloody job?

  Just as well he hadn’t told Helen about chasing up the lab results. Wouldn’t exactly have showered himself in glory there.

  The microwave’s drone climaxed with a ping and Logan dug the plastic containers out with scorched fingertips. ‘Ooh, hot, hot, hot …’ He clunked them all onto one plate, grabbed a fork and hurried back to the canteen table.

  ‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

  Couldn’t even get five minutes to himself.

  He sank into his seat. ‘Bang away.’

  ‘You’ve got a lookout request on the go for a Charles “Craggie” Anderson. He’s been spotted buying pile cream from a chemist’s in Peterhead.’

  ‘That’s a good trick – they found his body on Saturday morning, up in Orkney. So unless it’s a ghost, it’s probably someone else.’ Logan creaked the tops off the containers, letting out a waft of oriental steam. ‘Can you cancel the lookout request?’

  ‘Will do.’

  He stuck the Airwave handset back on the table.

  Licked his lips.

  The spare ribs were almost too hot to touch – silky and spicy and meaty and … God’s sake.

  ‘Sarge.’ Tufty settled into the seat opposite. ‘Ooh, prawn crackers!’ He helped himself.

  Logan sooked the sauce from his fingers and dropped the naked bone onto the plate. ‘Should you not be off home? Shift ended twenty minutes ago.’

  Crunch, crunch, crunch. ‘Wanted to make sure you got the intel. Martyn Baker’s talked to his solicitor, and now he’s sitting in Interview Two, waiting to no-comment everything.’ Little flecks of prawn-cracker dandruff drifted their way down Tufty’s black T-s
hirt. ‘You want me to sit in on the interview? There’s never anything on the telly, Sunday nights.’ Crunch, crunch, crunch.

  Another bone got denuded and dumped. ‘OK, but only because I’m not sending you home with the Big Car.’ He sooked his fingers clean again, and produced the printouts. Tossed them across the table to Tufty. ‘You recognize anyone or anything there?’

  He helped himself to another prawn cracker. Crunched his way through a frown. ‘Is it this?’ He pointed at a blue Kia, driving up Mid Street towards the Kenyan Bar. ‘Number plate’s a bit fuzzy, but it could be the one got nicked from Peterhead? Was on the Monday briefing slides.’

  ‘You remember a number plate from Monday?’

  Crunch, crunch, crunch. ‘It’s easy: you make them into words. This one looks a bit like, “Moontihum”. Want me to run it through the system?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Tufty scribbled the Kia’s registration, make, and colour down in his notebook. Then paused. Looked up, his eyebrows knitted together as if something dramatic had suddenly occurred to him. ‘Sarge?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I have a rib?’

  A little burp worked its way up Logan’s throat, bringing with it the taste of kung po king prawns with special fried noodles and honey chilli ribs.

  Martyn Baker fidgeted on the other side of the interview table. ‘No comment.’

  ‘I only asked you how you’d describe your voice, Martyn. I’m not trying to trip you up.’

  ‘No comment.’

  Logan gave Tufty the nod.

  He placed the small baggie of weed on the table with a flourish. ‘I am now showing Mr Baker the container of cannabis weed I discovered on his person when I searched him this afternoon.’

  Logan gave it a poke. ‘Not a huge amount, is it, Martyn? Thought a big-time dealer from down south would have more on him.’

  ‘No comment.’ It looked as if he’d been at his spots in the cell. Two were now all swollen and red, one an empty crater plugged by a dark-red scab.

  ‘Are you planning on expanding into all of Aberdeenshire, or is it just the bit around Banff?’

  ‘No comment.’ He scowled out from beneath his heavy eyebrows. ‘And I’m not expanding nothing nowhere. I’m up on holiday with me bab and me kid. Three of us been here for weeks.’