Cold Granite (36 page)

Mil er shrugged.

'Difficult to tel . No one's sayin' bugger al . Nothin' that makes sense anyway. Maybe a woman, man, boy, girl...'

'You can't just buy people!'

The look Mil er gave Logan was a mixture of pity and contempt. 'You sail up the Clyde in a banana skin? Course you can bloody buy people! Take a strol down the right streets in Edinburgh and you can buy anythin' you like. Guns, drugs. Women too.' He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. 'Did I no tel you Malk the Knife imports tarts from Lithuania?

What you think he does with them?'

'I thought he hired them out...'

Mil er laughed sourly. 'Aye he does. Hires and sel s. You get discount on the shop-soiled ones.'

The disbelieving look on Logan's face made him sigh. 'Look: most of the times it's pimps doin' the buyin'. One of your tarts pops an overdose so off you go to Malkie's Cash & Carry. Get yourself a replacement. One nearly-new Lithuanian whore at bargain basement prices.'

'Jesus!'

'Most of the poor bitches can't even speak English. They get bought, hooked on smack, hired out, used up and chucked back on the street when they're too skanky to turn a decent trick.'

They sat in silence, just the dull hiss of the cappuccino machine and the faint sounds of the storm outside filtering through the double-glazing.

Logan wasn't going back to the office. That's what he told himself when Mil er dropped him off at the Castlegate. He was going to nip along to Oddbins, pick up a couple of bottles of wine, some beer, and then settle down in front of the fire in the flat. Book, wine, and a carryout for tea.

But he stil found himself standing in the dreary front lobby of Force Headquarters, dripping melting snow onto the linoleum.

As usual there was a pile of messages from Peter Lumley's stepfather. Logan did his best not to think about them. It was Sunday: he wasn't even supposed to be here. And he couldn't face another of those desperate phone cal s. So instead he sat at his desk staring at the picture of Geordie Stephenson. Trying to read something in those dead eyes.

Mil er's tale of women for sale had set him thinking. Someone in Aberdeen wanted to buy a woman, and here was Geordie, representing one of the biggest importers of flesh in the country, up on business. Maybe not the same business - property not prostitution - but al the same...

'You real y screwed up, didn't you, Geordie?' he told the morgue photograph. 'Come al the way up from Edinburgh to do a wee job and end up floating face down in the harbour with your knees hacked off. Couldn't even manage to bribe a member of the planning department. I wonder if you told your boss someone was interested in buying himself a woman? Cash. No questions asked.'

Geordie's post mortem report was stil sitting on Logan's desk, unread. What with everything that had gone on this week, there just hadn't been time. He picked the manila folder off the tabletop and started to flick through it when his phone blared into life.

'Logan.'

'Sergeant?' It was DI Insch. 'Where are you?'

'FHQ.'

'Logan, don't you have a home to go to? Didn't I tel you to take a nice WPC out and show her a good time?'

Logan smiled. 'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.'

'Wel , it's too late for any of that now.'

'Sir?'

'Get your arse over to Seaton Park. I've just got the cal : they've found Peter Lumley.'

Logan's heart sank. 'I see.'

'I'l be there in about...God, it's blowing a blizzard out here. Make it thirty minutes to be safe. Maybe forty. Keep it low profile, Sergeant. No blue lights, no sirens and no fuss. OK?'

'Yes, sir.'

*

Seaton Park was a pretty place in the summer - wide banks of green grass, tal mature trees, a bandstand. People picnicked on the grass, played an impromptu game of footbal , made love beneath the bushes. Got mugged after dark. It wasn't a stone's throw away from Aberdeen University's student hal s of residence, so there was a steady stream of naive newcomers with money in their pockets.

Today it was like something out of Dr Zhivago. The sky hadn't lightened as day went on but just hung there, throwing snow down over everything.

Logan trudged across the park, trailing a PC wrapped up like an Eskimo behind him. The rotten sod was using Logan as a windbreak as they fought their way through the snow. Their goal was a low concrete building in the middle of the park, the wal s on one side coated with a crust of white. The public loos were closed during the winter. Anyone caught short would have to make peecicles behind a bush. They went around the side, glad to get out of the bitter wind, to where the ladies' entrance was hidden behind a smal recess.

The door was open, just a crack, the wood splintered and torn where a padlock was meant to keep it shut. Instead the big brass lock hung uselessly from its metal clasp. Logan pushed the door open and stepped into the female toilets.

It actual y seemed colder in here than it had outside. A pair of uniform kept an eye on three wel -wrapped-up children between the ages of six and ten, their breaths fogging the air.

The kids looked excited and bored in turn.

One of the uniforms looked up from his charges. 'Cubicle number three.'

Logan nodded and went to take a look.

Peter Lumley wasn't alive any more. Logan knew it as soon as he opened the black-painted cubicle door. The child was lying on the floor, curled up around the bottom of the toilet, as if he were giving it a cuddle. The fiery red hair was dul and pale in the cold light, the freckles almost indiscernible against the waxy, blue-white skin. The little boy's T-shirt was pul ed up, covering his face and arms, leaving the pale skin of his back and stomach exposed. He wasn't wearing anything else.

'You poor wee sod...'

Logan frowned, peering at the child's exposed body, unable to get any closer in case he contaminated the crime scene. Peter Lumley wasn't like the little boy they'd found in the ditch.

Peter Lumley was stil anatomical y intact.

The loos were getting a little crowded. Insch had turned up red-faced and swearing just after the duty doctor and the Identification Bureau. The IB lads had turned up, as instructed, in their own clothes, leaving the white van with al its gear in the car park next to St Machar's Cathedral where it wouldn't draw attention to itself.

As Insch stomped the snow off his boots, the IB team and everyone else struggled into their white overal s, shivering in the frigid air and bitching about how cold it was.

'So what's the score?' asked Insch as the duty doctor peeled off his paper coveral s and tried to wash his hands in one of the sinks.

'The poor little lad's dead. Dunno how long for. He's pretty much frozen solid. Weather like this plays merry hel with the old rigor mortis.'

'Cause of death?'

The doctor wiped his hands dry on the inside of his fleecy jacket. 'You'l have to get confirmation from the Ice Queen, but it looks like ligature strangulation to me.'

'Same as last time.' Insch sighed and dropped his voice so the children who weren't dead couldn't hear him. 'Any sign of sexual assault?'

The doctor nodded and Insch sighed again.

'Righty ho.' The doctor wrapped and tucked and zipped himself into his many-layered thermal insulation. 'If you don't need me any more, I'l bugger off somewhere warmer. Like Siberia.'

With death declared the IB team set about col ecting everything they could get their glove-covered hands on. Lifting fibres, dusting for prints. Photographer clicking and whirring away, video operator recording everything and everyone. The only thing they didn't do was move the body. Not one of them wanted to incur the wrath of the pathologist. Isobel had got herself quite a reputation since Logan had returned to the force.

'One week today, isn't it?' asked Insch as they stood against the wal and watched the Identification Bureau work. Logan admitted that it was. Insch dug a packet of jel y babies from his coat pocket and offered them around. 'What a great bloody week it's been too,' he said, chewing. 'You thinking of taking a holiday anytime soon? Let the crime statistics get back to normal again?'

'Ha bloody ha.' Logan stuck his hands in his pockets and tried not to think about how Peter Lumley's stepfather would look when they told him what they'd found.

Insch nodded at the three children, slowly turning blue in the crowded ladies lavatory.

'What about them?'

Logan shrugged. 'They say they were out making snowmen. One of them needed a wee, so they came in here, and that's when they found the body.' He looked over at them: two girls of eight and ten and a boy, the youngest at six. Brother and sisters. They al had the same ski-jump nose and wide brown eyes.

'Poor kids,' said Insch.

'Poor kids, my arse,' said Logan. 'How do you think they got in here? Took an eight-inch screwdriver to the clasp on the door, wrenched the padlock clean off. A passing patrol caught them at it.' He pointed at the two frozen PCs. 'The little sods would have done a runner if these guys hadn't shown up and grabbed them.'

Insch switched his attention from the kids to the two uniforms. 'A passing patrol? In the middle of Seaton Park? In this weather?' He frowned. 'Sound a bit far-fetched to you?'

Logan shrugged again. 'That's their story and they're sticking to it.'

'Hmmm...'

The PCs shifted uncomfortably under Insch's gaze.

'Think anyone saw the body being dumped?' he said at last.

'No. I don't.'

Insch nodded. 'Nah, me neither.'

'Because the body wasn't dumped: it was stored. The kids had to break in. The door was padlocked with the body inside. That means the kil er put the padlock on. He thought the body was safely locked away. Ready for him to come back to, whenever he felt the urge. He's not claimed his trophy.'

An evil smile spread across the inspector's face. 'That means he's coming back. We've final y got a way to catch this bastard!'

And that's when Dr Isobel MacAlister arrived, stamping into the toilets in a thick wool en coat, a flurry of snow, and a foul mood. Standing in the entranceway, she took in the scene, her face fal ing even further into a scowl upon seeing Logan. It looked as if she was bearing a grudge: not only had Logan ruined her evening at the theatre, he'd proved her wrong about the child being beaten to death. And Isobel was never wrong. 'Inspector,' she said, completely blanking the man she used to sleep with. 'If we can make this quick?'

Insch pointed at cubicle number three and Isobel swept off to examine the body, her Wel ington boots flapping and slapping as she walked.

'Is it just me,' whispered Insch, 'or did it suddenly just get colder in here?'

They broke the news to Peter Lumley's parents that evening. Mr and Mrs Lumley didn't say a word. As soon Logan and the Inspector appeared they knew. They just sat side by side on the sofa in silence, holding each other's hands as DI Insch intoned the fateful words.

Without saying a word Mr Lumley got up, picked his coat off the hook, and walked out.

His wife watched him go, waiting for the door to shut behind him, before final y bursting into tears. The Family Liaison Officer hurried over to offer her a shoulder to cry on.

Logan and Insch let themselves out.

28

The plan was simple. Everyone coming to, or going from, the murder scene would keep a low profile. The number of people visiting the lavatories would be kept to a minimum, the padlock re-fixed to the door. The body would be taken out in secret and a pair of PCs left behind to watch the loos. This would be done from the safety and warmth of a pool car, parked up out of the way, with a clear sight of the ladies. The relentless snow had wiped clean the morass of footprints around the toilets, making everything a smooth, rounded white, leaving no sign that anyone had ever been there. The three kids who had found the body would not be charged with breaking and entering, just so long as they kept their mouths shut. No one was to know that Peter Lumley's body had been found. The kil er would come back with his scissors, looking to take his souvenir, and the PCs would arrest him. What could possibly go wrong?

Mil er's puff-piece on the tragic life and times of Bernard Duncan Philips, AKA Roadkil , was relegated to page four, along with a bit on new tractors and a charity jumble sale. It was a good article, no matter how deeply it was buried in the paper. Mil er had turned Roadkil into a sympathetic character, his mental health problems caused by the tragic death of his mother. An intel igent man, abandoned by society and making the best sense he could of the confusing world around him. It went a long way towards making Grampian Police look as if they knew what they were doing when they let him go.

And if that had been the only story Mil er had written for the P&J that morning, everyone at Force Headquarters would have been a lot happier.

Mil er's second story was spread across the front page under the banner headline:

'Child-Kil er Strikes Again! Boy's Body Found In Toilet.'

'How the hel did he find out?' Insch slammed his fist down on the tabletop, making cups, papers and everyone in the briefing room jump.

The plan to catch the kil er returning for his trophy was official y screwed up beyond repair. Every single gory detail was spread across the front page of the Press and Journal in tones of indignant outrage.

'That was the best chance we had of grabbing this bastard before he kil s again!' Insch grabbed his copy of the paper, shaking with fury as he shoved the front page spread at them al .

'We could have caught him! Now some other kid is going to wind up dead because some stupid bastard couldn't keep their bloody mouth shut!'

He hurled the paper across the room. It spiral ed through the air, exploding into a flurry of pages as it hit the far wal . Behind him, Inspector Napier stood in full dress uniform, looking like a ginger-haired Grim Reaper. He didn't say a word, just glared at them al from under his furrowed eyebrows as DI Insch fumed.

'I'l tel you what I'm going to do,' said Insch, digging in his pocket. He produced a thick, brown leather wal et, opened it and dragged out a handful of cash. 'First person who comes to me with a name, gets it.' He slapped the money down on the table.