22 Dead Little Bodies

by MacBride, Stuart

  Baird ducked into the car and had a rummage in the BMW’s footwells.

  ‘Not their fault. The ANPR camera on George Street only gets traffic coming toward it. The tow truck was in the way.’

  ‘Sod… Any clue where he dumped the kids?’

  ‘Searching the car now. We need to get the SEB up here. See if they can pull fingerprints, or fibres, or something. Maybe get some soil off the floormats and wheech it off to Dr Frampton for analysis? See if she can ID where it came from.’

  ‘Gah.’ A click, then a sooking sound. ‘Going to cost a fortune, but it’s two wee kids we’re talking about. If the boss wants to moan about budgets he can pucker up and smooch my bumhole.’

  Baird stood upright. Shook her head. ‘Sorry, Guv. Loads of bloodstains and empty sweetie wrappers in there, but nothing obvious.’

  Back to the phone. ‘You hear that?’

  ‘I’ll scramble the Smurfs. And—’

  ‘Guv?’ A crease appeared between Baird’s eyebrows. She pointed at the boot.

  ‘—you to make sure everyone keeps schtum. I don’t want—’

  Logan squatted down and peered at the boot lid. A scattering of dark-red fingerprints marked the paintwork beneath the dust. A palm print in the middle, where you’d lean on it to slam it shut. He held his hand out. ‘Give me the keys.’

  ‘Keys? What keys? What are you talking about?’

  Baird pulled off one of her gloves and turned it inside out over the BMW’s fob, sealing it away. Then handed it over.

  ‘Laz? What’s going on?’

  ‘Shut up a minute.’ He placed his phone on the ground and put the key into the boot lock. Or tried to. There was something in the slot already – a wedge of metal, the end matt and ragged, as if someone had snapped a key off in there.

  Making sure it couldn’t be opened.

  Oh sodding hell…

  He looked up at Baird and tried to keep his voice level. ‘There’ll be a boot release in the car. Hit it.’

  She stared at the boot. Then at him. Then the boot again. ‘You don’t think…’ Baird grimaced. Then scrambled around to the driver’s side and ducked in. A dull clunk came from the mechanism, but the boot remained firmly shut. ‘Anything?’

  ‘Try again.’

  ‘Come on you little…’

  Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

  Still nothing.

  The big guy in the too tight overalls sniffed. ‘Got a crowbar if you need it?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Logan picked up the phone as the yard supervisor lumbered off towards a bright-yellow Portakabin festooned with the Abertow logo. ‘There’s something in the boot.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If I knew that I would have said.’

  ‘Don’t you get snippy with me, you wee—’

  ‘Here.’ Mr Overalls was back, carrying a long black crowbar covered in scars. He offered it to Baird, then hesitated, hand still wrapped around it. ‘Here, do I need to see a warrant or something? You know, if you damage the guy’s car—’

  ‘He can sue me.’ Baird pulled the crowbar out of Mr Overalls’s hand. ‘Might want to stand back, Guv.’

  On the other end of the phone, Steel was shouting at someone to get the Scenes Examination Branch up to Altens ASAP, followed by various invasive rectal threats involving her boot, fist, and a filing cabinet.

  Baird wedged the curved end of the crowbar in under the lip of the boot. ‘One, two, three.’ She humphed her weight down on the end. Creak. Groan. A squeal of buckling metal. Then pop and the boot lid sprang open.

  The crowbar clattered to the tarmac.

  Everyone stepped forward and stared down into the boot.

  Then the smell hit. Rancid, cloying, sharp. It dug its hooks into the back of Logan’s throat, clenched his stomach, curdled in his lungs.

  ‘Oh God.’ Mr Overalls slapped a hand over his nose and mouth, staggered off a dozen paces and threw up all over a Peugeot’s bonnet.

  Two small bodies lay curled on their sides in the BMW’s boot. A little boy and a little girl. Heidi and Toby Skinner, barely recognizable. Sunken cheeks, cracked lips, electric cable wrapped around their wrists and ankles. Faces smeared with blood. Still and pale.

  Baird chewed on her bottom lip. Looked away. ‘You shouldn’t have let him jump, Guv. You should’ve dragged that bastard down from the ledge so we could all kick the living shite out of him.’

  Poor little sods.

  Baird was right.

  Logan let out a long shuddering breath. Stood upright. Squared his shoulders. Snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. Cleared his throat. ‘Denise, I need you to get on to the Procurator Fiscal. And we’ll need the Pathologist. Better get the Duty Doctor out too.’

  A nod. But she didn’t turn around. ‘Guv.’

  Two little kids. How could any father do that?

  Logan reached into the boot. Brushed the hair from little Heidi Skinner’s face. Seven years old.

  ‘Guv? You shouldn’t touch them. The SEB need to take photos.’

  A flicker. There. That was definitely a flicker.

  You wee beauty!

  Logan scooped Heidi out of the boot.

  ‘Guv!’ Baird grabbed his sleeve, voice low and hard. ‘Have you lost your bloody marbles? The PF—’

  ‘Get the car! Get the sodding car, now!’

  16

  Logan pulled on his jacket, then poked his head into the CID office. Wheezy Doug was hunched over the photocopier, jabbing at the buttons as if the machine had suggested his mother was romantically intimate with donkeys on a regular basis.

  No sign of Stoney. But DS Baird was on the phone, elbows on the desk, one hand pressed to her forehead.

  ‘Uh-huh. … Yeah. … OK, well, let me know.’ She put the phone back in its cradle and looked up. ‘Hospital says Heidi Skinner’s responding well to the IV fluids. Just woke up.’

  ‘What about Toby?’

  ‘Heidi’s freaking out. Three days, locked in a boot with your brother. In a car parked in the sunshine … I’d be freaking out too.’

  ‘Denise: what about Toby?’

  She puffed out her cheeks. Stared down at the phone. ‘He was only six, Guv.’

  ‘Sodding hell.’ Something heavy grabbed hold of Logan’s ribcage and tried to drag him down to the grubby carpet tiles. A deep breath. Then another one. ‘I should’ve checked the car park’s ANPR sooner. I should’ve done it soon as we found out the car was missing. I should’ve…’ He mashed his teeth together. Clenched his fists. Glowered at the filing cabinet. Then took two quick steps towards it and slammed his boot into the bottom drawer, hard enough to rattle the mugs and kettle balanced on top. Hard enough to dent the metal. Hard enough to really regret it five seconds later as burning glass rippled through his foot. ‘Ow…’

  ‘Three days.’ Baird slumped further down in her seat. ‘It’s a miracle she’s alive at all. Doctor said any longer and her internal organs would’ve started shutting down.’

  Wheezy jabbed away at the photocopier again. ‘Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to the pub tonight and getting sodding wasted.’

  Baird nodded. ‘I’m in. Guv?’

  Logan turned and limped back towards the door. ‘I’ll see you there. Got something to sort out first.’

  Marjory stood up and held a hand across her desk for shaking. Her smile looked about as real as the potted plant in the corner. ‘Mr McRae, I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind.’

  Three walls of the office were covered with racks of schedules, complete with photographs of various bungalows, flats, and semidetatched rabbit-hutches in Danestone and Kincorth.

  Logan settled into the chair on the other side of the desk. ‘Been a rough day.’

  ‘Well, not to worry, there’s still time.’ She dug into a tray on her desk and came out with a chunk of paperwork. Passed it across to him. ‘As you’ll see, there are no demands or conditions. They asked for a four-week entry date, but I went back to them with your proposal f
or ten days and they accepted.’ The fake smile intensified. ‘Now, if you need help finding a new property in a hurry, we’d be delighted to help you with that. We’ve got a lot of excellent homes on—’

  ‘I’ve got something sorted, thanks.’ Even if it was a static caravan, equidistant from Aberdeen’s worst roundabout, a sewage treatment plant, and a cemetery. At least the chicken factory had moved somewhere else. That was something.

  And ten days from now, Samantha would be getting the specialized care she needed. Everything else was just noise.

  ‘Oh. Well, I’m sure you know best.’ Marjory handed him a pen. ‘If you sign where I’ve put the stickers, we’ll get everything faxed over to Mr Urquhart’s solicitors and that’s that.’

  Logan skimmed the contract, then scrawled his signature where the big pink stickers indicated.

  ‘Excellent.’ She took the paperwork back. ‘Congratulations, Mr McRae, you’ve sold your flat.’

  It should have been a moment of joy. An excuse to celebrate for a change. But after what happened to poor wee Toby Skinner?

  Logan scraped back his chair and stood.

  Time to go to the pub. Meet up with the team. And try to drink away the horror of two little bodies, locked in a car boot.

  The celebration could wait.

  — boxes, bins, and dead little bodies —

  17

  ‘Gah…’ Steel pulled the e-cigarette from her mouth and made a face like a ruptured frog. ‘Look at it. Could you no’ have picked a better day to move?’

  Rain rattled against the kitchen window. Wind howled across the extractor fan outlet – mourning the end of an era.

  Logan wrapped a strip of brown parcel tape around the last box. ‘Don’t know what you’re moaning about.’ He printed ‘BOOKS’ across the top in big black-marker-pen letters, then put it with the other two by the front door. ‘Not as if you’ve actually been helping.’

  ‘Supervising’s helping.’

  ‘Not the way you do it.’ Logan stuck the marker back in the pocket of his jeans.

  His footsteps echoed from the laminate floor to the bare walls and back again as he checked the bedroom for the final time. Empty. Then the living room. Empty. Then the kitchen. Empty. And the bathroom. Every trace of him was gone – packed away over the last ten days and carted out to the removal van. Nothing but echoes and three packing boxes left to show he was ever there at all.

  Steel slouched along behind him. ‘You’ve got OCD, you know that, don’t you? Place is cleared out.’

  The front door clunked open and Duncan was back. Rain had darkened the shoulders of his brown boilersuit, plastered his curly fringe to his forehead. A smile. ‘Nearly done.’ He stacked two of the last boxes, hefted them up with a grunt, then headed back down the stairs again.

  Logan turned on the spot. One last slow three-sixty.

  No point being sentimental about it. It was only a flat. A container to live in. Somewhere to sleep and brood and occasionally drink too much.

  Still…

  Steel sniffed. Dug her hands into her pockets. Stared off down the corridor. ‘Susan says you can always come stay with us for a bit, if you like. Don’t have to be trailer trash, down by the jobbie farm.’

  Logan grabbed the final box. ‘It’s a lovely offer. But can you imagine you and me living together? In the same house? Really?’

  ‘No’ without killing each other.’

  He pulled a thin smile. ‘Thanks though. Means a lot.’

  She thumped him on the arm. ‘Soppy git.’ Then sniffed. ‘Well, suppose I better get back to it. Got a rapist to catch.’

  Logan followed her out onto the landing, then pulled the door shut with his foot. The Yale lock clunked. And that was it. No more flat.

  Steel thumped down the stairs.

  Look on the bright side: at least now he could pay for Samantha’s care.

  Deep breath.

  He nodded, then followed her. ‘Any closer to catching the scumbag who killed Gordy Taylor?’

  ‘Pfff … I wish. No’ exactly doing my crime figures any good. Nearly a fortnight, and sod all progress.’ They got to the bottom and she held the building’s front door open. Then screwed up one side of her face. ‘Sodding hell. Going to get soaked.’

  Rain bounced back from the grey pavement, darkened the granite tenement walls of Marischal Street. Ran in a river down the steep hill, fed by the overflowing gutters.

  The removal van was parked right outside, the back door open as Duncan strapped the fridge-freezer to the wall.

  Steel stayed where she was, on the threshold just out of the rain. Pulled a face, then dug into her coat and pulled out a copy of that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner. A picture took up half of the front page – a smart young man, standing to attention, with medals on his chest and a beret on his head. ‘WAR HERO “LET DOWN BY POLICE” SAY GRIEVING PARENTS’

  She gave it a wee shake as rain drops sank into the newsprint. ‘Apparently it’s our fault he ended up dead behind the bins. Well, us and those shiftless sods in Social Services. Oh, and the NHS. Don’t want to be greedy and claim all the guilt for ourselves.’

  ‘What were we supposed to do?’

  ‘Every morning it’s like waking up and going for a sodding smear test.’ She produced her phone and poked at the screen with a thumb. ‘I’ve had two reviews, three “consultancy” sessions with a smug git from Tulliallan, supervisory oversight from Finnie and Big Tony Campbell, and we’re no closer than we were when Gordy turned up dead behind the bins. Rennie’s latest theory is we’ve got a serial killer stalking the streets, knocking off tramps.’

  ‘Well…’ A frown. ‘He could be right, I suppose. Maybe?’

  ‘After a heavy night on the Guinness – with a dodgy kebab, a box of Liquorice Allsorts, and a bag of dried prunes – I’d still trust a fart before I’d trust one of Rennie’s theories. My bet? Gordy fell out with one of his mates and they poisoned him.’ She hoiked up her trousers. ‘That, or the silly sod thought rat poison would be a great way to get high…’ Steel frowned at her phone. ‘Buggering hell.’ She held it out. ‘Speaking of DS Useless, look at that.’

  Guv. We got anuthr vctim 4U @ Cults.

  U cming Ovr??

  Wnt me 2 snd U a car??!?

  ‘I swear, his spelling’s getting worse.’ She thumbed out a reply. ‘You sure you don’t want me to transfer him back to CID? Be a valuable addition to your team.’

  ‘Bye.’ Logan squeezed past her into the rain. Hurried around to the back of the removal van and handed the box of books up to Duncan. ‘That’s the lot, we’re done.’

  ‘Good stuff.’ He put it with the others, strapped it into place, then hopped down to the ground and hauled the rolling door shut. ‘Right. See you over there.’

  Logan stepped back onto the pavement. Gave the van a quick wave as it pulled away from the kerb and grumbled its way up the hill.

  Rain seeped into the shoulders of his sweatshirt.

  Well, that was that then. Fourteen years in the same flat. A stone’s throw from Divisional Headquarters, two bakers, three chip shops, and loads of good pubs. And now he’d have to fight his way around the sodding Haudagain Roundabout at least twice a day. Oh joy of joys. It was—

  ‘Mr McRae?’

  He turned, and there was Marjory from the solicitors, sheltering beneath a golf umbrella with the firm’s name plastered around the outside.

  Logan dug into his pocket and came out with the flat’s keys. ‘Was on my way up to see you.’

  She smiled her fake smile. ‘That’s very kind, but at Willkie and Oxford we want to make everything as easy as possible for you.’ She held out her hand, palm up.

  Fourteen years.

  He passed her the keys.

  ‘Excellent. Thank you.’ She turned and waved at an Audi TT, parked a little bit up the hill. ‘I’ll give these to Mr Urquhart, and we’re all done. Congratulations, Mr McRae, I hope you’ll be very happy in your new home. And if you ever decide to sell it,
I do hope you’ll think of Willkie and Oxford.’ One last go on the smile, then she marched up to the Audi.

  The driver buzzed open the window and she bent down, had a brief chat, handed over the keys, shook his hand, then marched off towards Union Street.

  Ah well, might as well head over to the caravan and get unpacking.

  He unlocked his manky old Renault Clio. Pot plants and picture frames filled the back, but a large cat-carrier sat on the passenger seat – the seatbelt threaded through the handle on the top, bungee cords securing the whole thing into place.

  Cthulhu pressed up against the carrier’s door and yowled, a pitiful wailing noise that sank its claws in his chest. Her fur poked out through the bars in grey and brown tufts, one paw scratching at the hinge.

  ‘I know, shhh … We’ll be in our new home soon, I promise.’ He slipped a finger between the bars and stroked her on the head. ‘Shhh … it’s OK. Daddy’s here.’

  There was a brief honk, and Logan peered out through the rain-rippled windscreen. The Audi had pulled into the space where the removal van used to be. Its driver grinned and waved at him.

  The guy looked familiar. No idea why, though.

  Logan gave Cthulhu another stroke. ‘Wait here, Daddy will only be a minute.’

  He climbed back out into the rain and closed the door on her tortured wails.

  Mr Audi stepped out and popped a collapsible brolly up above his head. Expensive-looking black suit, lemon shirt open at the neck, neat brown hair, flashy stainless-steel watch. Couldn’t have been much more than twenty, twenty-five tops. Little pockmarks covered both cheeks, the ghosts of acne past. He stuck out his hand. ‘Mr McRae, no’ seen you for ages, yeah?’

  OK…

  Logan took the proffered hand and shook it. Tilted his head to one side. Nope, still no idea. ‘Mr Urquhart?’

  He grinned again, showing off small white teeth separated by little gaps. ‘It’s the hair, isn’t it? Finally grew out of dying it green. You like the suit?’ He did a little catwalk two-step. ‘Got it made special like.’

  Green hair?

  No. Couldn’t be.