‘What are you doing about it? You printing it?’
‘That’s kinda where you come in. The Examiner doesnae want tarred with that “encouraging copycat crimes” brush your guvnor likes slappin’ about. Last thing we need’s another run-in with them pricks on the Press Complaints Commission after the whole Bondage-gate fiasco.’
Consequences.
Shuggie Webster, you silly, silly bastard. Did he actually think they were going to fall for that one? Kidnap his own girlfriend, send a note to the papers, ransom her for enough to pay off their drug debt and set the pair of them up on the Costa del Sol for the next couple of years.
‘Laz?’
‘I’ll get someone over to pick up the note.’
‘Aye, but should we print-’
Logan hung up.
‘Boss?’
Logan looked up from the stack of interview forms. PC Guthrie was standing in the doorway of the little office, one hand behind his back, the other stroking his trouser leg as if it was nervous and needed comforting. Logan went back to his paperwork. ‘You’ll go blind if you don’t stop doing that.’
‘Got that note from the Aberdeen Examiner, you want it?’ Guthrie held up a clear evidence bag.
Logan closed his eyes. ‘No, I don’t want it. I want you to take it up to the third floor and get the IB to-’
‘Already done it. They lifted prints off the envelope and the note: Bill’s running them now. Blood’s off to the lab, for analysis.’
‘Already?’
A nod. ‘Rennie said you needed it urgently, so…?’
‘They got prints?’
‘Three partials and one beauty from the note, Bill says it’s a near-perfect right thumb.’
See, that was the difference between professionals — like the ones who snatched Alison and Jenny — and idiot copycats like Shuggie Webster and Trisha Brown.
‘Good, thanks Allan. Do me a favour, go chase up the GSM trace on Shuggie Webster’s phone. Who knows, we might actually get a result for a change.’
Soon as Guthrie waddled off like a happy penguin, Logan finished typing up his interview notes. Then checked them against the ones DI McPherson had done. From the look of things McPherson had taken over the campus canteen and arranged for a team of DCs to go through all of Alison’s classmates in alphabetical order. Which meant whoever interviewed Beatrice ‘Single White Female’ Eastbrook had no idea about the stalker’s shrine on her bedroom wall.
The one thing McPherson’s team had done well was to get information from the university on each of the students’ performance, along with some comment from the department head and a couple of the lecturers. Apparently Beatrice was reasonably dedicated, if a little prone to daydreaming, and not the most original thinker in the world. A mediocre student who could perhaps scrape a 2.2 if she really applied herself.
Logan read to the end, then flipped the form over again. McPherson’s team didn’t seem to have checked for criminal records.
Logan logged onto the PNC and ran a search against her name. Just in case.
Three warnings for vandalism, one for sending threatening letters. According to West Midlands Police, Beatrice had taken exception to a mother of two asking her to stop bothering her family. There was talk of a restraining order and that seemed to put an end to it. So Beatrice wasn’t new to the creepy stalker game.
Maybe she’d decided it would be a lot less effort to kidnap Alison and Jenny than follow them about the whole time? And Alison was going to be more famous than ever when she finally got released… Maybe it was all some twisted attempt to help her?
Beatrice Eastbrook wasn’t really the gang-leader-criminal-mastermind type, but Logan picked up the phone and got a patrol car organized to bring her in to ‘help with their enquiries’ anyway. Maybe get Goulding to sit in on the questioning? A bit of steamy psychologist-on-psychologist action.
Then he went back to the list of Alison McGregor’s classmates.
The PNC check on Tanya ‘Tiggy’ Marsden came back clean, even if she had lied about being Bruce’s girlfriend.
According to his lecturers, Stephen Clayton was a straight A student, but his name returned a list of petty crimes from when he was eight all the way up to the age of fourteen. Nothing serious, probably just enough to give mummy and daddy ‘look-at-me!’ palpitations. Which would explain the carefully-crafted rebellious cliche appearance and attitude.
Logan ran PNC checks on everyone in Alison’s class, then added the results to his interview notes.
Rennie grunted and dumped a file box on top of the pile. ‘And that’s the lot…’ Frown. ‘Oh poo.’ He wiped at the dust greying his shirt and trousers. ‘Emma’s going to kill me.’
Their little makeshift office was starting to look a lot more professional — if you ignored the dusty plastic sheeting covering the bare walls, pipes, and conduits. They now had three desks and a trestle table, the latter beginning to sag under the weight of Rennie’s file boxes. Three phones, two laptops, and a printer that sounded like a creaky floorboard every time they sent a file to it.
Logan swivelled his seat around. ‘Kidnappings?’
‘Five years ago.’ He pointed at a small stack of pristine files. ‘Ten years ago, fifteen, and these dirty old sods are twenty. But that’s just the north-east — be months before we get stuff that old from everywhere else.’
‘Probably more than we need anyway. Now go see if they’ve got that GSM trace done yet.’
The constable flounced over to his desk, sank into his chair, and grabbed the phone.
‘Sergeant?’
Logan looked up from his screen. Finnie was standing in the open doorway, his rubbery lips turned down at the edges, eyes narrowed. He looked like a constipated frog.
Green must have been moaning again. ‘Afternoon, sir — I was just about to go looking for you, we-’
‘I understand there’s another ransom note come in.’
‘Trisha Brown, she’s the one involved with Shuggie Webster. Looks like-’
‘And may I enquire why you didn’t see fit to inform me?’
‘I did.’
Finnie frowned. ‘I think I would’ve noticed if-’
‘Emailed you as soon as we got back to the station. I think you were in with Superintendent Green at the time. The kidnapping’s probably a hoax — Shuggie and Trisha’s way of wriggling out of a drug debt.’
‘Oh.’ Finnie swapped the folder under his arm from one side to the other. ‘Yes, well, in that case,’ he held the folder out. ‘I was going to give the investigation to Acting DI MacDonald, but you can keep it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Logan took the folder and peered inside.
It was the fingerprint report. ‘I’ve requested a firearms team. If you can approve it, we’ll get Shuggie Webster picked up as soon as the GSM trace comes in. He isn’t exactly-’
‘Just make sure I have a complete risk analysis on my desk before you do anything. And by the book, understand? The last thing we need is Green getting the idea we can’t do anything right.’
‘Already working on it, sir.’
‘And speaking of Superintendent Green…’
Here we go.
Finnie pursed his lips, looking over Logan’s left shoulder. ‘Professional Standards tell me Green’s been throwing his weight around with some sex offenders? That you’re thinking of putting in an official complaint.’
‘I am?’ Logan backed away a step. ‘Sir, I didn’t-’
‘I think it would be wise to put it all in writing, Sergeant.’
‘Actually, sir, I was going to drop-’
‘I think it would be wise to put it all in writing, Sergeant.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, sir.’
A smile. ‘Now, how are you getting on with your due diligence?’
‘Actually, it-’
‘And the sooner you put it in writing the better.’
Rennie took the phone from his ear and clamped a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Sarge? Got a result
on the GSM trace. Webster’s in Tillydrone.’
‘Excellent.’ Finnie headed for the door. ‘Tell you what: this time, Sergeant, just for fun, let’s try not to let him escape. OK?’
Oh ha-bloody-ha.
Logan waited till the door shut before pulling the report from the folder: whorls, deltas, points of correlation, right thumb…
That wasn’t right.
He turned the sheet over, then back over again. ‘This is definitely the print off the ransom note?’
Rennie shrugged.
According to the database the thumb didn’t belong to Shuggie Webster, it belonged to someone called Edward Buchan.
Chapter 33
‘Any questions?’ Sweat trickled down Logan’s ribs. The unmarked van was unbelievably warm inside, packed full of firearms-trained officers dressed in the traditional ninja ensemble of black trousers, boots, jackets, bulletproof vests, helmets, goggles, gloves, and scarves.
Rennie stuck his hand up. ‘Are we allowed to shoot him?’
‘No. You’re not.’ Logan pointed a finger, swept it around the muggy van. ‘No shooting anyone, understand? This is going to be a clean operation — we go in, we subdue Edward Buchan, we rescue Trisha Brown, and we go home. Got it?’
Everyone nodded.
‘Good. Teams one and two: in the front. Teams three and four: back door. One and three stay downstairs, two and four take the first floor. Weapons check.’
The harsh click and clack of slides being drawn back and released filled the van’s interior. Logan ejected the magazine of his Heckler amp; Koch MP5, checked that all the rounds he’d signed for were still there, stuck it back in, then did the same with the small chunky Glock.
He looked up. ‘We good to go?’
More nods.
‘Doors.’
The two ninjas sitting at the back popped them open and they all swarmed out into the evening sunlight. Half-five and the sky was delicate sapphire blue, a white slash of cloud following an aeroplane on its way west.
A little kid on a scooter stopped at the end of the pavement, mouth hanging open, watching as the firearms team scurried into position. Edward Buchan’s house was in the middle of a terrace of six two-storey buildings: grey harling on the ground floor, weatherboard cladding above that. The roof and first floor stretched from one end of the tenement to the other, but little passageways punched through between every other building, leading to the back gardens.
Teams Three and Four lumbered up the stairs and disappeared into the passageway: the sound of their heavy boots thumped back a distorted echo. Logan led Team One and Team Two up to the front door, motioning them to flatten out along the wall on either side.
It was less than two minutes’ walk away from where Trisha Brown’s mum lived.
Rennie’s voice sounded in his earpiece. ‘Sarge? You sure we shouldn’t, you know, seal off the street and evacuate everyone?’
Logan glanced back at the kid on the scooter. ‘Element of surprise, remember? Don’t want this turning into a hostage situation.’
He waved a large black-clad figure forward.
PC Caldwell slipped the holdall from her shoulder. ‘Big Red Door Key?’
‘In five.’
‘Ferguson,’ Logan pointed at the constable second in line, ‘have you got the hoolie bar with you this time?’
The constable raised it above his head. ‘Right here, Sarge.’ Wonders would never cease.
Logan clicked the button that transmitted to everyone in all four teams. ‘And we’re live in: five, four-’
PC Caldwell rested the tip of the battering ram against the front door, directly across from the lock. Glanced back over her shoulder. ‘Watch and learn, Greg.’
‘-one. GO!’
BOOM — the Big Red Door Key battered into the UPVC. The whole thing shook and juddered. The second blow landed two thirds of the way up, and this time the top half parted with the doorframe. The third blow was at ankle height and the whole thing crashed open — the hinges hanging broken bent and twisted.
‘We’re in.’
Logan charged through into the hallway, the rest of Team One and Team Two swarming in behind him. ‘POLICE: ARMED OFFICERS! ON THE GROUND NOW!’ Stairs on the left, open door to the right, closed door at the far end through to what was probably the kitchen. No sign of anyone.
The sound of hammering came from the back of the house, then a crash and, ‘POLICE! NOBODY MOVE!’
Logan burst through the open doorway, PC Caldwell right behind him. Living room: red carpet, two red sofas, yellow walls. Sort of a rhubarb and custard theme.
A man was sitting on the couch in front of the television, with a plate balanced on his lap, cutlery in his hands, staring at them. A baked bean dripped from the chunk of toast on the end of the fork, leaving a little bloodstain on his white T-shirt.
The rumble of boots came from the hallway, as Constables Ferguson and Moore charged up the stairs.
PC Caldwell pointed her submachine gun right between Mr Beans-On-Toast’s eyes. ‘DROP THE KNIFE!’
‘Eek…’ He dropped the knife. It bounced off the edge of his plate and went twirling to the carpet. He swallowed, sending a huge Adam’s apple bobbing up and down his scrawny neck. ‘I… I…’
‘THE FORK TOO!’
Edward Buchan had aged a bit since his mugshot was taken — drink driving in the company Mondeo seven years ago. His dark hair was receding, hints of grey flecking the temples, the stubble on his pointy chin almost white beneath his long nose.
From upstairs came the sound of a scuffle. ‘OW! FUCK…’ Then, ‘ON THE BLOODY FLOOR!’
Buchan glanced up towards the sound. ‘We didn’t-’ Logan hauled him off the couch, the plate of beans bouncing off the floor, sending them everywhere. ‘ON YOUR KNEES, HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!’
He assumed the position, trembling. ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God…’
Caldwell grabbed Buchan’s left wrist, twisted it around, slapped the handcuffs on, then did the same with his right, fastening them behind his back.
Logan towered over him. ‘Where is she?’
‘Oh God…’
‘TRISHA BROWN! WHERE IS SHE?’
Buchan stared up at him, a drip forming on the end of his nose. ‘I… I don’t… Oh God…’
Rennie appeared in the doorway. ‘House is clear, Sarge. We’ve got his missus upstairs: kneed Henderson right in the hairy-funbags. Searched the attic and the garden shed too. No sign of the victim.’
‘I said, where — is — she?’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t know.’ He bit his bottom lip. ‘Please.’
‘You sent a ransom note to the Aberdeen Examiner — and don’t pretend you didn’t, the thing’s covered in your fingerprints.’
Buchan stared at the bean-stained carpet. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘Didn’t mean…? You wanted a hundred and fifty thousand pounds!’ Logan poked him in the shoulder with the barrel of his H amp;K. ‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know! Someone took her.’
‘Who? Who took her?’
‘I was in the garden and she was staggering down the road and there was this car. And it pulled up and maybe they pretended they were asking for directions or something, but she goes over and the guy driving opens the passenger door and she gets in. I don’t know, maybe she knew him?’
Buchan hunched his shoulders. ‘And she’s there for about a minute, then they argue or something. Then suddenly, for no reason, he punches her in the face, really hard, you know? She tried to get out of the car, but he dragged her back in. Hit her a couple more times. Then drove off…’
Logan stared at him. ‘And you didn’t report it?’
He sniffed. ‘Linda thought we could, you know, if we sent in a ransom demand before anyone else did… I got made redundant last year, and ever since-’
‘The note had blood on it.’
‘It was on the road, after he drove off. Must’ve been when she tried to ge
t out of the car. I … sort of rubbed the paper in it.’
‘You saw a woman being assaulted and abducted, and instead of trying to help her, or calling the police, you sat down and figured out a way to make money out of it?’ Logan curled his top lip. You nasty, opportunistic, crappy excuse for a human being. ‘What did he look like?’
‘I can’t really-’
‘What kind of car did he drive?’
‘It was a sort of blue saloon thing, but I don’t-’
‘WHEN DID IT HAPPEN!’
Buchan flinched. ‘It wasn’t my fault, OK? She was a nightmare — her and her bloody mother, always nicking things so they could buy drugs. Lurching about pissed or stoned out of their brains. Shouting at people, swearing. They shouldn’t be allowed to live near decent people!’
PC Caldwell grabbed the handcuffs and hauled Buchan to his feet. ‘You’re not decent people. Because of you her wee boy had to sleep on his own in a bloody wardrobe, in an empty house! She might be dead!’ Caldwell gave the handcuffs another haul. ‘Now answer the bloody question: when?’
‘Ow! You’re hurting me! Saturday, it was Saturday evening, after that tribute show for Alison and Jenny.’ He stared at the carpet and its bloodspatter of beans. ‘That’s… That’s sort of where we got the idea from.’
Logan couldn’t look at him any more. ‘Get him out of here.’ PC Caldwell shoved the trembling man towards the living room door. ‘Edward Albert Buchan, I’m arresting you for attempting to pervert the course of justice…’
‘Sarge?’ Rennie let his MP5 dangle on the end of its strap. ‘Might still be Shuggie, then? Maybe she wasn’t cool with the plan so he smacked her about a bit. Wouldn’t be the first time.’ He paused, head on one side. ‘Or maybe it was all staged, you know? Make sure there’s a couple of witnesses and put on a show. They call the police, and that way when the papers get the ransom note it all looks legit!’
Logan looked down at the mess on the living room floor. Alison McGregor’s face stared back at him from the cover of a glossy magazine. ‘WHY I’M BACKING THE “HOPE FOR HEROES” CAMPAIGN.’
‘There hasn’t been a ransom note, remember? It was all that tosser Buchan.’
‘Oh … right.’
Shatter the Bones lm-7 Page 23
