Logan McRae Crime Series Books 7 and 8

by Stuart MacBride

  ‘It’s a bloody disgrace. Who’s going to pay for my suit, that’s what I want to know!’

  ‘Aye, weil, I suppose it does kinda look a bittie like him.’ DC Paul Leggett held the e-fit up next to his computer screen. A familiar wrinkled face stared out of the monitor: Darren McInnes (52) – Exposing Children to Harm/Danger or Neglect, Possessing Indecent Images of Children, Theft by Housebreaking, Serious Assault.

  No wonder he’d looked familiar: he was one of the first registered sex offenders they’d interviewed in the Munro House Hotel.

  Leggett ran a hand through his collar-length hair. ‘Aye, maybe …’

  The stocky wee man wouldn’t have got away with the bohemian look in uniform or CID, but in the Mong Squad it helped not to look like a police officer.

  The Offender Management Unit office was cramped, every available surface covered in box files and bits of paper. The bitter-burnt smell of cheap coffee filled the air; an oscillating fan whirred and clicked its way left to right, ruffling the stack of forms nearest to it.

  Leggett made humming noises. ‘The ears is all tae buggery, and the nose is three times too big, but other than that, it’s him.’

  Logan took the e-fit back, folded it in thirds, and slipped it back into his pocket. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Fit’s he done?’

  ‘McInnes? We think he might’ve snatched Trisha Brown off the street in Kincorth.’

  ‘Trisha Brown?’ Leggett curled his top lip. ‘And Dodgy Darren? Nah, he’s strictly into the younger woman. Did eight years for molesting a three-year-old girl doon the beach. He wouldnae know whit tae do wi’ a fully grown one.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s—’

  ‘Oh, dinna get me wrong, he’s a cantankerous dirty auld bugger and I wouldn’t put anything past him, but …’ Leggett shrugged. ‘Never can tell, I suppose. You want to go gie him a wee knock?’

  Tempting. But then, what if Finnie came back with Stephen Clayton …? Not that Logan would get a look in at the interrogation – not if Superintendent ‘I’m A Prick’ Green had anything to do with it.

  ‘Give me a minute.’ Logan wandered over to the corner of the cramped office, looking out of the window while he dialled. Three storeys down, on the opposite side of the road, someone was peeing into the open top of an illegally parked Porsche in full view of Grampian Police Force Headquarters. You had to admire that level of stupidity.

  The psychologist picked up on the third ring. ‘Dr Dave Goulding?’

  ‘Can you get down to FHQ in about …’ Logan checked his watch. ‘Fifteen, twenty minutes? We’re picking up a suspect in the McGregor case.’

  Ah …’ There was a pause. And how do you feel about that?’

  ‘I feel you should get your arse over—’

  ‘Logan, the thing about being a professional psychologist is that you learn to pick up on the tone of someone’s voice.’

  ‘Can you make it or not? Finnie needs you to do downstream monitoring and advice.’

  ‘Are you‘re feeling excluded?’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  Silence.

  ‘I’ve got a client at half ten. I’ll be—’

  ‘Cancel it.’

  ‘That’s not exactly—’

  ‘We’re talking about saving a little girl and her mum here, Dave.’

  This time the silence stretched on and on and … ‘On one condition: you and I sit down for half an hour to talk. We do that, or you wait till I’m finished with Mrs Reid.’

  Down on the street below, a man in a dark-blue suit stopped in the middle of the road to stare at the Porsche piddler. He dropped the collection of green Marks & Spencer bags he’d been carrying and ran at the guy who was using his pride-and-joy as a urinal.

  ‘That’s blackmail.’

  ‘Sauce for the goose. Take it or leave it.’

  The piddler lurched back and sideways, his legs looking as if they weren’t really under control. And then the Porsche’s owner cracked a fist into his face. The pair of them tumbled to the pavement, arms and rebellious legs flailing.

  ‘Just make sure you tell the front desk you’re here to interview Stephen Clayton. If I’m not about you can start working up some questions.’

  ‘Half an hour, Logan. That’s the deal.’

  A pair of uniform charged across the road, peaked caps held down with one hand. Logan watched them haul the piddler and the piddlee apart.

  Logan glanced over at DC Leggett. He was holding up a set of car keys.

  ‘I’ll be back soon as I can. Just got to take care of something first.’

  45

  ‘… want to thank all your listeners for their generous donations. Really, on behalf of Alison and Jenny: you guys are terrific. With your help, we‘re going to get them back.’

  The beige council van grumbled to a halt outside a shabby bungalow in Blackburn.

  ‘I’m here with Gordon Maguire of Blue-Fish-Two-Fish. You’re listening to Original FM, and here’s Alison and Jenny McGregor with Wind Beneath My Wings …’

  The van’s engine gave one last diesel rattle, and there was silence.

  DC Leggett pulled the keys out of the ignition. ‘Sure your witness wasn’t taking the piss?’

  ‘Nope.’ Logan climbed out into the warm morning.

  The bungalow’s grey-harled walls were streaked with green and brown; the front garden a jungle of knee-high grass and bright-yellow dandelions, bordered by misshapen bushes. A red helicopter droned by overhead, taking a detour around Kirkhill Forest on the way out to the rigs.

  Logan marched up the path, raised his finger to the doorbell, then stopped. There was an old blue Citroen parked on the driveway beside the house, in front of a single garage with a heavy wooden door.

  Leggett sniffed. Fits up?’

  ‘Edward Buchan – the guy who sat on his arse and watched Trisha Brown getting beaten up and abducted – said they were driving a blue saloon.’

  The doorbell made a dull buzzing noise deep inside the house.

  ‘I’m still no’ seeing Dodgy Darren grabbing a fully grown woman.’ The constable scuffed his shoe through a tuft of green, whipping the head off a daisy, then sighed. ‘His poor auld dad would have a fit if he knew what a state the place wis in noo.’

  Logan tried the doorbell again.

  ‘Nice couple, his mum and dad – could nivver figure out fit they did to end up wi a child molester fir a son.’

  This time he kept his finger on the button, letting the buzz drone on and on.

  ‘Wis his mum who dobbed him in the first time. Found a bunch of filthy photos under his mattress when he was sixteen. Wee girls. No’ pretty.’

  The door yanked open and there he was: Darren McInnes, fists and jaw clenched, lips flecked with spittle, lank yellow-grey hair flying about his head. ‘Bugger off out of it!’ His breath stank like an ashtray.

  He must have had the television and radio turned up full volume, because the noise was almost deafening, a TV advert for toothpaste fighting against Jenny and Alison’s version of Wind Beneath My Wings.

  Strange – they hadn’t heard it through the closed door …

  Logan held up his warrant card. ‘Remember me, Mr McInnes?’

  McInnes took a step back, eyes narrowed, goatee beard jutting out. ‘I told you: I’ve never even met Alison and Jenny McGregor.’

  ‘That’s not why we’re here.’

  DC Leggett waved. ‘Fit like the day, Darren: keepin’ well?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  The constable stepped over the threshold into the hallway, forcing McInnes to back up again. ‘You’ll no’ mind if we come in for a fly cup, eh? Thirsty work keeping tabs on registered sex offenders.’

  ‘On the scrounge, are you? Well you can bugger off. I’m not running a soup kitchen.’

  Leggett backed him up another couple of paces, making enough room for Logan to step inside and close the front door. The hallway w
as crowded with stacks of dusty cardboard boxes, piled up between the doors – high enough to brush the ceiling.

  ‘Now, now, Darren, you’re no’ refusing to cooperate with a supervising authority, are you?’

  ‘You’ve got no business barging in here. This is my home. I’ve got rights.’

  ‘Aye.’ Another couple of steps and they were in the kitchen. A portable radio sat on top of a stained fridge, blaring out the instrumental bit of the song. Leggett flipped the switch, killing the racket. Now it was just the television, shouting to itself in the lounge. ‘And right now you have the right to stick the kettle on and produce a packet of chocolate biscuits.’ He leant back against the working surface as McInnes stuck a dirty kettle under the cold tap, then slammed the thing down on the worktop and plugged it in. ‘Not supposed to be having a visit till next week …’

  Logan stared at him, keeping his face neutral. ‘We know.’

  McInnes froze for a moment, then opened a cupboard and pulled out three chipped mugs. ‘Don’t play clever buggers with me, Sergeant. I’m not some moron you can intimidate and manipulate. I haven’t done anything wrong, and you know it.’ He dropped a teabag in each mug. ‘You’re fishing.’

  ‘Trisha Brown.’

  There wasn’t even a pause. ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘Really? Because we’ve got a witness who saw you assault and abduct her.’

  ‘They’re lying.’ The kettle gave a low growl.

  ‘When we take your car down to the station, how much do you want to bet it’s full of her DNA, hair, fibres, blood?’

  The theme tune to Friends blared out of the lounge.

  McInnes cleared his throat. ‘So what if there is? She’s a prostitute, isn’t she? Maybe I picked her up?’

  ‘Thought you said you’d never heard of her?’

  ‘I don’t have any milk.’

  Leggett shook his head. ‘Darren, you silly sod. She’s no’ even your type.’

  ‘Maybe I like to pick up prostitutes now and then. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Would you rather I was hanging around the school gates like some dirty-mac-wearing pervert?’

  ‘Darren …’

  Logan turned and headed back out into the hall. The TV and radio couldn’t have been on earlier – the only noise coming from inside the house had been the doorbell. That meant McInnes had switched them on and turned the volume up full before he answered the door.

  He was trying to hide something …

  In the lounge, on the telly, a collection of tossers were dancing about in a fountain. Logan picked up the remote and thumbed the standby button.

  Silence.

  The room was littered with newspapers and magazines, a handful of tatty dog-eared paperbacks, the wallpaper and roof stained a mottled orangey-brown. There was a tin of tobacco balanced on the arm of the sagging sofa, empty pouches of Golden Virginia lying on the carpet like fallen leaves.

  Logan closed his eyes, listening.

  He could hear them in the kitchen: ‘If I want to use prostitutes it’s my business, nobody else’s.’

  ‘You swore blind last week you’d no’ had a shag for three years!’

  ‘Why should I indulge your prurient interest?’

  A click and the radio burst into deafening life again, ‘… to say that everyone at Scotia Lift are rooting for Alison and Jenny. We’ve raised two thousand pounds for the fund!’

  Logan stuck his head back into the kitchen. ‘Turn that bloody radio off.’

  ‘This is my home, you can’t come in here and—’

  ‘Where is she? She’s here, isn’t she?’

  ‘And it’s the weather and traffic coming up, right after Bohemian Rhapsody …’

  ‘I want you both to leave. You’ve no right—’

  Logan tried the first door off the hallway: a bathroom, the pale-blue suite streaked with muddy green beneath the taps. The next door opened on a bedroom that had the earthy, choking smell of mildew. Then a single bedroom, the duvet a rumpled heap on top of the sagging mattress.

  McInnes marched out into the hall. ‘What are you doing? You’ve got no right to search my home! I demand you leave—’

  ‘Why’s this one locked?’ Logan gave the door handle a rattle.

  ‘It’s the garage. I don’t want anyone breaking in.’

  ‘Open it.’

  ‘I … I don’t have the key. I lost it.’

  Leggett nodded. ‘That’s nae a problem: I can kick it in for you in a jiffy.’

  ‘No, no, it’s … Hold on.’ He walked over to a little wooden box mounted on the wall, opened it, pulled out a Yale key on a yellow plastic tag and handed it to the constable. ‘This is harassment.’

  ‘Ta.’ A rattle, a clunk, and the door swung open.

  It was a garage. Bare breezeblock walls, concrete floor, a fluorescent striplight dangling from the roof beams. Empty. No Trisha Brown.

  McInnes folded his arms. ‘See?’ His voice echoed back from the featureless space. ‘I told you she wasn’t here. Now I want you to leave my home so I can make a formal complaint to your bosses.’

  Brilliant – another disaster.

  Logan turned on the spot, looking around the box-crowded hallway. ‘Have you got an allotment? Shed? Anything like that?’

  ‘No.’ McInnes pulled his shoulders back, one arm flung towards the front door. ‘Now get out.’

  The sound of Frank Sinatra crackled through a tinny little speaker somewhere in Leggett’s jacket. He dug out a scuffed mobile phone and flipped it open. ‘Guv? … Aye … No, we’re paying Darren McInnes a visit, says he’s sworn off wee girls for prostitutes … Aye, that’s fit I said … Aye …’

  Logan ran a hand through his hair. ‘We’re still going to take your car in for testing.’

  ‘I told you – I picked her up and paid for sex.’

  A frown. ‘Fit? Henry MacDonald?’ Leggett stepped back into the kitchen, his voice barely audible over the radio. ‘Did he? Whit, frank and beans? … Just the beans. Ah weil, least he’s left himself something tae pee through.’

  Logan took another look into the garage. How could she not be here? ‘Does this place have an attic?’

  ‘No. And before you ask, there’s no basement either. Now are you going to leave or not?’

  ‘Aye, I think so … Did you?’ Leggett stuck his head out of the kitchen and stared at McInnes. ‘Oh aye …? Hud oan.’ He held the phone against his chest. ‘DI Ingram says he knows you fine, Darren. Says he supervised you when you got oot of Peterheed the first time and they gave you that cooncil hoose in Kincorth.’

  Logan stared at the kitchen doorway, then the next one along. Then at the huge stack of cardboard boxes in between.

  ‘Says you’ve never had a hoor in your life.’

  ‘What would he know about it? The man’s an idiot. I used to go with them all the time. Now are you going to leave, or do I have to call my lawyer?’

  There was something wrong … Logan peered past Leggett into the kitchen, then in through the next door to the manky bathroom. The space between the two doors – the space full of floor-to-ceiling boxes – was too wide. Both rooms should have shared a dividing wall, but they had to be at least eight foot apart. He reached up and took a box from the top of the pile, exposing a section of white-painted architrave. There was another door, hidden away behind the boxes. And these ones didn’t look anywhere near as dusty as the others stacked up in the hallway. As if they’d been recently moved.

  Logan dumped the box on the musty carpet and grabbed another one.

  ‘Aye … I’ll tell him it’s—’

  A dull clunk.

  He stuck the box on top of the first, then hauled the next off the pile. ‘Leggett: give me a hand.’ One more box. ‘Leggett?’

  Another box on the pile. He could just see the door handle. ‘Constable, any time you want to lend a hand, you can …’ Logan
turned.

  Constable Paul Leggett was sprawled out on the kitchen floor, one arm reaching through into the hallway, a patch of dark sticky red oozing down his forehead, his mobile phone lying against the skirting board opposite.

  Shite …

  Where the hell was—

  A shadow, moving fast. He ducked and a whatever it was crumped into a cardboard box, tearing straight through to the insides, sending the whole pile tumbling down on top of him. Its weight battered into him, sending him crashing to the carpet, the bulky shapes thumping into his legs, arms and chest. A clang of hidden metal as a box bounced off his shoulder.

  One of them burst open spilling books across the mildewed carpet, the corner of a hardback cracked into the bridge of Logan’s nose. Sharp flaring pain, a bright yellow glow, and the smell of burning pepper.

  He scrambled backwards, trying to get out from under the pile.

  McInnes grabbed the end of his makeshift club and pulled it free. It was some sort of trophy: a white marble plinth, with a golden pillar, and a little man mounted on the very top. The dusty figurine looked as if he was playing bowls.

  ‘I told you to leave my house.’ McInnes hefted the trophy like a hammer. ‘Told you, but you wouldn’t listen. Nobody ever listens.’

  Logan’s nose was full of burning pepper, his eyes watering. ‘Darren McInnes, I’m arresting you for obstructing, assaulting, molesting or hindering an officer in the course of their duty. You do not have to say anything—’

  The heavy stone plinth took a gouge out of the plasterboard.

  McInnes lunged, swinging the trophy, following Logan down the hall, backing him towards the door, not giving him time to do anything but dodge the next blow.

  ‘Cut it out! Don’t make me—’ The edge caught him just above the right elbow. Burning needles exploded up and down his arm. ‘Agh, fuck!’

  ‘I TOLD YOU TO GET OUT!’

  Logan whipped back his foot, then pistoned it forward, slamming his heel into McInnes’s knee.

  McInnes squealed and collapsed into a stack of cardboard boxes, clutching his knee with one hand, the bowling trophy hanging limp in the other, face creased up, teeth bared.

  Logan struggled upright, grabbed the first thing he saw – the collected works of William Shakespeare – and smashed it into McInnes’s face. The bowling trophy clattered to the floor; blood spurted from the old man’s mouth. He raised a hand, but Logan rammed the book, spine-first, into his nose.