The Missing and the Dead (2 page)

And she SCREAMED. No words, just a high-pitched bellow, face scarlet, spittle flying, eyes like chunks of granite. Stubble visible through the pancake makeup that covered her thorn-torn cheeks. Breath a sour cloud of grey in the cold air. Hands curled into fists, battering against Logan’s chest and arms.

A fist flashed at Logan’s face and he grabbed it. ‘Cut it out! I’m detaining you under—’

‘KILL YOU!’ The other hand wrapped itself around his throat and squeezed. Nails digging into his skin, sharp and stinging.

Sod that. Logan snapped his head back, then whipped it forward.
Crack
– right into the bridge of her nose.

A grunt and she let go, beads of blood spattering against his cheek. Warm and wet.

He snatched at her wrist, pulled till the hand was folded forward at ninety degrees, and leaned on the joint.

The struggling stopped, replaced by a sucking hiss of pain. Adam’s apple bobbing. Scarlet dripping across her lips. ‘Let me go, you
bastard
!’ Not a woman’s voice at all, getting deeper with every word. ‘I didn’t do anything!’

Logan hauled out his cuffs and snapped them on the twisted wrist, using the whole thing as a lever against the strained joint.

‘Where’s Stephen Bisset?’

‘HELP! RAPE!’

More pressure. ‘I’m not asking you again – where is he?’

‘Aaaaagh … You’re breaking my wrist! … Please, I don’t—’

One more push.

‘OK! OK! God …’ A deep breath through gritted, blood-stained, teeth. Then a grin. ‘He’s dying. All on his own, in the dark. He’s
dying
. And there’s nothing you can do about it.’

The windscreen wipers squealed and groaned their way across the glass, clearing the dusting of tiny white flakes. The council hadn’t taken the Christmas decorations down yet: snowmen, and holly sprigs, and bells, and reindeer, and Santas shone bright against the darkness.

Ten days ago and the whole place would have been heaving – Hogmanay, like a hundred Friday nights all squished into one – but now it was deserted. Everyone would be huddled up at home, nursing Christmas overdrafts and longing for payday.

The pool car’s wheels hissed through the slush. No traffic – the only other vehicles were parked at the side of the road, being slowly bleached by the falling snow.

Logan turned in his seat and scowled into the back of the car as they made the turn onto the North Deeside Road. ‘Last chance, Graham.’

Graham Stirling sat hunched forwards, hands cuffed in front of him now, dabbing at his blood-crusted nostrils with grubby fingers. Voice thick and flat. ‘You broke my nose …’

Sitting next to him, Biohazard Bob sniffed. ‘Aye, and you didn’t even say thank you, did you?’ The single thick eyebrow that lurked above his eyes made a hairy V-shape. He leaned in, so close one of his big sticky-out ears brushed Stirling’s forehead. ‘Now answer the question: where’s Stephen Bisset?’

‘I need to go to hospital.’

‘You need a stiff kicking is what you need.’ Biohazard curled a hand into a hairy fist. ‘Now tell us where Bisset is, or so help me God, I’m going to—’

‘Detective Sergeant Marshall!
Enough
.’ Logan bared his teeth. ‘We don’t assault prisoners in police cars.’

Biohazard sat back in his seat. Lowered his fist. ‘Aye, it makes a mess of the upholstery. Rennie: find somewhere quiet to park. Somewhere dark.’

DS Rennie pulled the car to a halt at the pedestrian crossing, tip-tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as a pair of well-dressed men staggered across the road. Arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. Singing an old Rod Stewart tune. Oblivious as the snow got heavier.

Their suits looked a lot more expensive than Rennie’s. Their haircuts too – his stuck up in a blond mop above his pink-cheeked face, neck disappearing into a shirt collar two sizes too big for it. Like a wee boy playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘You want the court to know you cooperated, don’t you, Graham? That you helped? Might save you a couple of years inside?’

Silence.

Stirling picked a clot of blood from the skin beneath his nose and wiped it on the tattered fabric of his dress.

‘The DI’s serious, Graham, he’s not going to ask you again. Why not do yourself a favour and tell him what he needs to know?’

A pause. Then Stirling looked up. Smiled. ‘OK.’

Biohazard pulled out an Airwave handset. ‘’Bout time. Come on then – address?’

His pink tongue emerged, slid its way around pale lips. ‘No. You and the boy have to get out. I talk to him,’ pointing at Logan, ‘or we go back to the station and you get me a lawyer.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Stirling, we’re not—’

‘No comment.’

Logan sighed. ‘This is idiotic, it’s—’

‘You heard me: no comment. They get out, or you get me a lawyer.’

Rennie’s face pinched. ‘Guv?’

‘No comment.’

Logan rubbed his eyes. ‘Out. Both of you.’

‘Guv, I don’t think that’s—’

‘I know. Now: out.’

Rennie stared at Biohazard.

Pause.

Biohazard shrugged. Then climbed out onto the empty pavement.

A beat later, Rennie killed the engine and followed him. ‘Still think this is a bad idea.’

Clunk
, the door shut, leaving Logan and Graham Stirling alone in the car.

‘Talk.’

‘The forest on the Slug Road. There’s a track off into the trees, you need a key for the gate. An … an old forestry worker’s shack hidden away in there,
miles
from anywhere.’ The smile grew hazy, the eyes too, as if he was reliving something. ‘If you’re lucky, Steve might still be alive.’

Logan took out his handset. ‘Right. We’ll—’

‘You’ll never find it without me. It’s not on any maps. Can’t even see it on Google Earth.’ Stirling leaned forward. ‘Search all you like: by the time you find him, Steve Bisset will be long dead.’

The pool car’s headlights cast long jagged shadows between the trees, its warning strobes glittering blue-and-white against the needles. Catching the thick flakes of snow and making them shine, caught in their slow-motion dance to the forest floor.

Logan shifted his footing on the frozen, rutted track. Ran his torch along the treeline.

Middle of nowhere.

He wiped a drip from the end of his nose. ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? Let him no-comment till Stephen Bisset dies?’

The track snaked off further into the darkness, bordered on both sides by tussocks of grass, slowly disappearing under the falling snow, glowing in the torchlight.

On the other end of the phone, Steel groaned.
‘Could you no’ have let the nasty wee sod fall down the stairs a few times? We’re no’ allowed to—’

‘You want to tell Stephen’s family we let him freeze to death, all alone, in a shack in the forest, because we were more concerned with following procedure than saving his life?’

‘Laz, it’s no’ that simple, we—’

‘Because if that’s what you want, tell me now and we’ll head back to HQ. You can help Dr Simms pick out a body-bag. Probably still got some nice Christmas paper knocking about, you could use that. Wrap his corpse up with a bow on top.’

‘Will you shut up and—’

‘Maybe something with kittens and teddy bears on it, so Bisset’s kids won’t mind so much?’

Silence.

‘Hello?’

‘All right, all right. But he better be alive. And another thing—’

He hung up and marched over to the pool car.

Biohazard leaned against the bonnet, arms folded, shoulders hunched, one cowboy boot up on the bumper. Nose going bright red, the tips of his taxi-door ears too. He spat. Nodded at the ill-fitting suit behind the steering wheel. ‘The wee loon’s right, this is daft.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve cleared it with the boss, so we’re doing it.’

A sniff. ‘What if Danny the Drag Queen tries it on when you’re out there?’

Logan peered around Biohazard’s shoulder.

Stirling was slumped in the rear seat, blood dried to a black mask that hid the lower half of his face. Bruises already darkening the skin beneath both eyes. The blue sundress all mud-stained and tatty after the chase through the gardens. Shivering.

‘Think I’ll risk it.’ Logan pulled out the canister of CS gas from his jacket pocket, ran his thumbnail across the join between the safety cap and the body. ‘But just in case, get his hands cuffed behind him. And I want the pair of you ready to charge in.’

Logan popped open the back door and leaned into the car. It smelled of sweat and fear and rusting meat. ‘Out.’

Twigs snapped beneath his feet as they picked their way between the grey-brown branches, following the circle of light cast by Logan’s torch. A tiny dot, adrift on an ocean of darkness.

Something
moved
out there. Little scampering feet and claws that skittered away into the night.

Logan flicked the torch in its direction. ‘How much further?’

He jerked his chin to the left. ‘That way.’ The words plumed out from his mouth in a glowing cloud, caught in the torchlight. Curling away into the night. Dragon’s breath.

Down a slope, into a depression lined with brambles and the curled remains of long-dead ferns, already sagging under the weight of snow. More falling from the sickly dark sky.

Stirling’s feet clumped about in Rennie’s shoes, the scuffed black brogues and white socks looking huge beneath the torn sundress and laddered tights.

Up the other side, through the ferns – brittle foliage wrapping around Logan’s trousers, leaving cold wet fingerprints. ‘Why him? Why Stephen Bisset?’

‘Why?’ A shrug. The torchlight glinted off the handcuffs’ metal bars, secured behind his back, fingers laced together as if they were taking a casual stroll along the beach. ‘Why not?’ A small sigh. ‘Because he was
there
.’

Logan checked his watch. Fifteen minutes. Another five, and that was it: call this charade off. Call in a dog team. Get the helicopter up from Strathclyde with a thermal-imaging camera. Assuming Steel could pull enough rank to get them to fly this far north on a Friday night in January.

They stumbled on between the silent trees. Fallen pine needles made ochre drifts between the snaking roots, the branches too thick to let the snow through.

He stopped, pulled up his sleeve – exposing his watch again. ‘Time’s up. I’m not sodding about here any longer.’ He grabbed the plastic bar in the middle of the handcuffs and dragged Stirling to a halt. ‘This is a waste of time, isn’t it? You’re never going to show me where Stephen Bisset is. You want him dead so he can’t testify against you.’

Stirling turned. Stared at Logan. Face lit from beneath by the torch, like someone telling a campfire horror story. Tilted his head to the left. ‘You see?’

Logan stepped away. Swung the torch’s beam in an arc across the trees, raking the needle-strewn forest floor with darting shadows …

A sagging wooden structure lurked between the trunks, in a space that barely counted as a clearing, partially hidden by a wall of skeletal brambles.

Stirling’s voice dropped to a serrated-edged whisper. ‘He’s in there.’

Another step. Then stop.

Logan turned. Shone the torch right in Stirling’s face, making him flinch and shy back, eyes clamped shut. Then took out his handcuff key. ‘On your knees.’

A thick stainless-steel padlock secured the shack’s door. It had four numerical tumblers built into the base, its hasp connecting a pair of heavy metal plates – one fixed to the door, the other to the surround. Both set up so the screw heads were inaccessible.

Logan flicked the torch beam towards Stirling. ‘Combination?’

He was still on his knees, both arms wrapped around the tree trunk, as if he was giving it a hug. Hands cuffed together on the other side. Cheek pressed hard against the bark. ‘One, seven, zero, seven.’

The dials were stiff, awkward, but they turned after a bit of fiddling. Squeaking against Logan’s blue-nitrile-gloved fingertips. Clicking as they lined up into the right order. The hasp popped open and he slipped the padlock free of the metal plates. Slipped it into an evidence bag.

Pushed the door.

Almost as stiff as the padlock wheels, it creaked open and the stench of dirty bodies and blood and piss and shite collapsed over Logan. Making him step back.

Deep breath.

He stepped over the threshold. ‘Stephen? Stephen Bisset? It’s OK, you’re safe now; it’s the police.’

Bloody hell – it was actually colder
inside
the shack.

The torch picked out a stack of poles and saws and chains. Then a heap of logs and an old tarpaulin. Then a cast-iron stove missing its door. Then a pile of filthy blankets.

‘Stephen? Hello?’

Logan reached out and picked one of the poles from the stack. Smooth and shiny from countless hands over countless years. A bill hook rattled on the end, the screws all loose and rusted. ‘Stephen? I’ve come to take you home.’

He slipped the hook under the nearest blanket and lifted.

Oh Christ …

Outside. The cold air clawed at the sweat peppering his face. Deep breath.

Logan rested his forehead against a tree, bark rough against his skin. The smell of pine nowhere near strong enough to wash away the shack’s corrupt stench.

Don’t be sick.

Be professional.

Oh God …

Deep breath.

‘I …’ His throat closed, strangling the words. Pressed his forehead into the bark so hard it stung. Tried again. ‘I should kick the living shit out of you.’

Stirling’s voice oozed out from the darkness. ‘He’s beautiful, isn’t he?’

The phone trembled in Logan’s hands as he dug it out and called Steel. ‘I’ve found Stephen Bisset.’

There was a whoop from the other end. Then,
‘Laz, I could French you. Is he …?’

‘No.’ Though if he ever woke up, he’d probably wish he was. ‘I need an ambulance, and an SEB goon-squad, and a Crime Scene Manager, and someone to stop me stringing Graham Bloody Stirling up from the nearest tree.’

Big Tony Campbell slung his jacket over the back of his chair and slumped down. Aberdeen City’s Divisional Commander, the Big Boss, Arse-Kicker In Chief: a large man, with broad shoulders and hands to match. His bald head gleamed in the last rays of a dying sun, seeping across the rooftops of the city and into the office. The only hairs loyal enough to cling on above the neckline were his eyebrows – heavy, black, and bushy.