Cold Granite (19 page)

Darren Caldwel opened the door. His face went from annoyance to panic and then to flustered anger, al in the space of a heartbeat.

'Hel o, Darren,' said Logan, sticking his foot in the door so it couldn't be slammed in his face. 'Mind if we come in again?'

'What the fuck do you want now?'

'Darren?' It was a woman's voice, high and slightly wobbly. 'Darren there's policemen in the back garden!'

Darren's eyes darted to the open kitchen door and then back to Logan.

'Darren!' came the woman's voice again. 'What we going to do?'

The young man's shoulders sagged. 'It's OK, Mum,' he said. 'Why don't you put the kettle on?' He stood back and let Logan and the WPC in.

There was a pile of shopping bags in the middle of the lounge floor. Logan opened one and found brand new clothes for a smal child inside.

A woman in her late forties emerged from the kitchen clutching a tea towel to her chest, working it through her fingers like a set of rosary beads. 'Darren?' she asked.

'It's OK, Mum. It's too late.' He slumped down on the horrible green settee. 'You're going to take him away aren't you?'

Logan motioned for the WPC to block the lounge door.

'Where is he?' he asked.

'It's not fair!' Darren's mother shook the tea towel in Logan's face. It had little dancing sheep on it. 'Why can't I see my grandson? Why can't he stay with his father?'

'Mrs Caldwel --' Logan started, but she hadn't finished yet.

'That rotten little cow took him away and won't let us see him! He's my grandson and I'm not al owed to see him! What kind of mother does that? What kind of mother doesn't let a child see his own father? She doesn't deserve to have him!'

'Where is he?' asked Logan.

'Don't you tel him anything, Darren!'

Darren pointed towards the smal er of the two bedrooms, just visible over the WPC's shoulder. 'He's just gone to sleep,' he said so quietly Logan could barely hear him.

The WPC jerked her head in the direction of the bedroom and Logan nodded. She returned with a sleepy-looking little boy in blue and yel ow tartan pyjamas. He yawned and stared blearily at al the people in the living room.

'Come on, Richard,' said Logan. 'It's time to go home.'

15

A patrol car sat outside the front door of Darren Caldwel 's house, the lights off, the engine slowly ticking over. Inside, one of Logan's commandeered PCs was reading the young man his rights while his mother col apsed in tears on the lime-green sofa. And little Richard Erskine was fast asleep.

Sighing, Logan stepped out into the misty drizzle. It was getting stuffy in there and he was beginning to feel sorry for Darren. He was little more than a kid. Al he'd wanted to do was see his son. Maybe have him to stay for a bit. Watch him growing up. Instead he was going to end up with a criminal record, and probably a restraining order too.

Logan's breath curled away in wisps of white fog. It was getting colder. He hadn't decided what to do about the owner of the Broadstane Garage. Supplying a false alibi: perverting the course of justice. Not that it mattered now they had the kid. Alibi or not, Darren had been caught red-handed.

Stil , perverting the course of justice was a serious offence...

He stuck his hands deep in his pockets and stared out at the street. Silent houses, drawn curtains, the occasional twitch as some nosy neighbour tried to figure out what the police were doing at the Caldwel household.

Warning, or press charges?

He shivered and turned to go back into the house, his eyes sliding over the smal garden with its border of dying roses to the pale blue Volvo. He pulled out his mobile phone and dial ed Broadstane Garage's number from memory.

Five minutes later he was standing in the smal kitchen with Darren Caldwel , the other officers dispatched to the lounge with a cup of tea and puzzled expressions. Darren slumped against the sink, shoulders hunched, staring through his reflection into the dark garden. I'm going to go to prison, aren't I?' The question little more than a whisper.

'Are you sure you don't want to change your statement, Darren?'

The face in the darkened glass bit its lip and shook its head. 'No. No, I did it.' He wiped a sleeve over his eyes and sniffed again. 'I took him.'

Logan settled back against the worktop.

'No you didn't.'

'I did!'

'You were at work. The Volvo you were re-wiring was your mother's. I cal ed the garage back and checked the registration number. You lent her your car. She was the one who grabbed Richard Erskine. Not you.'

'It was me! I told you it was me!'

Logan didn't reply, letting the silence grow. In the lounge someone turned on the television: muffled voices and canned laughter.

'You sure you want to do this, Darren?'

Darren was.

They drove back to Force Headquarters in silence, Darren Caldwel staring out of the window at the shining streets. Logan handed him over to the custody sergeant, watching as the contents of Darren's pockets were stacked in a little blue tray, al signed and accounted for, along with his belt and shoelaces. Nervous sweat sparkled on his face, and his eyes were pink and watery. Logan tried not to feel guilty.

The building was quiet as he made his way up to the main reception area. Big Gary was on the front desk, a phone to his ear and a gleeful expression on his face. 'No, sir, no...aye. I'm sure that must have been a terrible shock...Al over the front of your trousers...Yes, yes I'm taking this al down...' No he wasn't: he was drawing a picture of a man in a suit being squashed by a smiling man in a police car. The man doing the squashing looked like Big Gary and the squashee bore a striking resemblance to everyone's favourite lawyer.

A grin broke over Logan's face. Settling on the edge of the desk, he lugged into Big Gary's end of the conversation.

'Oh, yes. I agree. Dreadful, dreadful...No, I don't think so, sir.' He scrawled the words

'POMPOUS W EE S HITEBAG' across the notepad and then punctuated it with lots of little arrows pointing at the squashed figure.

'Yes, sir, I'l make sure al the area cars are looking for the perpetrator. It'l be our top priority.' He slipped the phone back in its cradle before finishing with, 'Soon as the Lord Provost walks in here and starts giving out free blowjobs.'

Logan picked the doodle-covered pad off the table and examined the happy tableau.

'Didn't know you had an artistic bent, Gary.'

Gary grinned. 'Slippery Sandy: someone threw a bucket of blood al over him. Cal ed him a "rapist lovin' bastard" and fucked off.'

'My heart bleeds.'

'You got some messages by the way: a Mr Lumley. Cal ed about six times in the last two hours. Wanting to know if we've found his son. Poor sod sounds desperate.'

Logan sighed. The search teams had al gone home: there was nothing more they could do until morning. 'Did you get hold of DI Insch?' he asked.

Gary shook his head, sending his jowls wobbling. 'No chance.' He checked his watch.

'Show doesn't finish for...'bout another five minutes. You know what he's like about people cal in' when he's givin' his al for the theatre. Did I ever tel you about the--'

The door at the end of the reception area burst open, banged against the wal and rebounded again. DI Insch stormed through in a flurry of gold and scarlet, his curly-toed boots squishing on the floor tiles. 'McRae!' he bel owed, face furious under a thick layer of make-up.

He wore a stick-on goatee beard, complete with handlebar moustache. When he ripped it off it left a patch of angry pink around his mouth. A white tidemark showed where his turban must have sat, the skin of his bald head shiny under the overhead lights.

Logan jumped to attention. He opened his mouth to ask how the night's performance had gone but DI Insch got there first. 'What the blue fucking hel do you think you're playing at, Sergeant?' He snatched off his clip-on earrings and slapped them on the desk. 'You do not--'

'Richard Erskine. We found him.'

Beneath the make-up, al the colour went out of the inspector's face. 'What?'

'He's not dead. We found him.'

'You're kidding me!'

'Nope. We've got a press conference scheduled in twenty minutes. The mother's on her way in to the station.' Logan stepped back and surveyed the deflating DI in his pantomime vil ain costume. 'That's going to look great on TV.' Wednesday morning started far too early. Quarter to six and the phone was ringing off the hook.

Bleary and confused, Logan fumbled his way out from beneath the duvet and tried to switch off the alarm clock. It just went clunk at him. Logan picked it up, saw what time it was, swore, and sank back into the bed, one hand trying to rub some life into his face.

The phone was stil ringing.

'Bugger off!' he told it.

The phone kept on ringing.

Logan dragged himself into the lounge and snatched up the handset. 'What?'

'That's a great phone manner you've got there by the way,' said a familiar Glaswegian voice. 'Now are you goin' tae open your front door or what? I'm freezin' my nuts off out here!'

'What?'

The doorbel bing-bonged and Logan swore again.

'Hold on,' he told the phone before putting it down on the coffee table and staggered out of his flat, down the communal stairs to the building's front door. It was stil pitch dark outside, but sometime during the night the rain had stopped. Now everything was coated in a crust of frost, reflecting the yel ow streetlights. The reporter - Colin Mil er - was standing on the doorstep, holding a mobile phone in one hand and a white plastic bag in the other. He was impeccably dressed in a dark grey suit and black overcoat.

'Jesus, it's fuckin' freezing!' The words came out in a cloud of fog. 'You lettin' me in or what?' He raised the plastic bag up to eye level. 'I brought breakfast.'

Logan squinted out into the dark. 'Do you have any idea what time it is?'

'Aye. Now open up before al this shite gets cold.'

They sat at the kitchen table, Logan slowly coming back to life, Mil er helping himself to the contents of Logan's cupboards while the kettle grumbled and rattled to a boil. 'You got any proper coffee?' he asked, slamming one set of doors and moving on to the next.

'No. Instant.'

Mil er sighed and shook his head. 'Bloody place is like a third world country. Never mind.

I can slum it...' The reporter dug out a couple of huge mugs and spooned in dark brown granules and sugar. He suspiciously examined the carton of semi-skimmed milk lurking in the fridge, but after sniffing it once or twice thumped it down on the table along with a tub of spread-able butter.

'I wasnae sure what kind of breakfast you'd like so we've got croissants, sausage rol s, steak pies and Aberdeen rol s. Help yourself.'

Logan dug a couple of rowies out of the bag and slathered one with butter. He took a big bite and sighed happily.

'Don't know how you can eat that shite,' said Mil er, handing Logan a coffee. 'You know what's in them?'

Logan nodded. 'Fat, flour and salt.'

'No, not fat: lard. Only a fuckin' Aberdonian could come up with a rol that looks like a cowpat. There's half a ton of saturated animal fat and half a ton of salt in that! No surprising you're al dropping dead of heart attacks.' He pul ed the bag over and helped himself to a croissant, tearing off a chunk, spreading it with jam and butter and dipping it in his coffee.

'You can talk!' Logan watched a thin film of sparkling grease float to the surface of the reporter's mug. 'Your lot invented deep-fried pizzas!'

'Aye, touche.'

Logan watched him rip, spread and dip another chunk of croissant, waiting until the reporter's mouth was full of soggy bread before asking him why he'd come round at this ungodly hour.

'Can a friend no pop round tae have breakfast with another friend?' The words came out muffled. 'You know, nice and social...'

'And?'

Mil er shrugged. 'You did good last night.' He reached into the bag and came out with another croissant and a copy of that morning's Press and Journal. The front page held a big photo of the press conference. 'P OLICE H ERO F INDS M ISSING C HILD' said the headline in big, bold letters. 'Found that little kiddie al by your ownsome. How'd you do it?'

Logandug a steak pie out of the bag, surprised to find it was stil warm from the baker's oven. He munched down on flaky pastry, coating the newspaper with crumbs as he read and ate at the same time. He had to admit: it was a good story. There wasn't much in the way of fact, but Mil er had managed to weave what there was into something a lot more interesting than it should have been. It looked as if the reporter was the paper's golden boy for a reason. There was even a recap of Logan's capture of the Mastrick Monster, just so everyone would know that DS Logan McRae was worthy of the title 'Police Hero'.

I'm impressed,' Logan said, and Mil er smiled. 'Al the words are spel ed right.'

'Cheeky bastard.'

'So why are you real y here?'

Mil er settled back in his seat, cradling his mug of coffee close to his chest, but not close enough to stain his nice new suit. 'You know damn fine why: I want the inside story. I want the scoop. This stuff,' he poked the photo on the paper's front page, 'it's no got a long shelf life.

Today, tomorrow, an' that's yer lot. Kiddie's turned up safe and wel and it was nothin' more than his dad. A domestic. No blood an' guts for the punters to get al shocked an' horrified about. If the kid was dead, it'd run for weeks. As it is, day after tomorrow no one wil want to know.'

'Bit cynical.'

Mil er shrugged. 'Cal it like Isee it.'

'That why your col eagues don't like you?'

Mil er didn't even flinch, just popped a swol en chunk of coffee-stained bread into his mouth. 'Aye, wel ...No one likes a smart arse, no when it makes them look bad.' He put on a passable Aberdonian accent: '"Yer nae a team player!", "That's no the way we dae things up here!", "You keep this up and you're oot!" 'He snorted. 'Aye, they don't like me, but they publish my stuff, don't they? I've had more front pages since I got here than most of them old buggers have had in their whole bloody lives!'