The Missing and the Dead (39 page)

Logan grabbed his peaked cap and climbed out into the warm evening. ‘You’re saying it wasn’t an accident?’

‘Best guess: two bottles of whisky, two litres of petrol, and a match. Nothing left but bones and ash. Hell of a way to die.’

And maybe Hell was where Charles Anderson deserved to be.

Logan ran through his warrant request one last time. Changed a couple of words, then emailed it off to Inspector McGregor. OK, so DCI McInnes had been
very
clear about Logan keeping his nose out of Operation Troposphere, but that didn’t mean Klingon, Gerbil, and their new mate Martyn Baker should get away with battering Jack Simpson half to death.

Next up – more paperwork …

The tradesmen’s entrance banged, then the sound of heavy feet thumped along the corridor.

PC Penny Griffiths stuck her head into the Sergeants’ Office. A small woman, red hair pulled back from her round face. Big smile. ‘Evening, Sarge, you want a tea? Joe’s making.’

‘Thanks. How’s it out there?’

She pursed her lips for a moment, eyebrows up. ‘Well, we had to caution a bloke in a stupid porkpie hat for peeing off the harbour wall, but other than that it’s pretty you-know-what.’

Good. And with any luck it would stay you-know-what till the shift ended.

Penny pointed back into the main office, where the newspapers were hung over Maggie’s cubicle wall. ‘You see the late editions? They got someone for killing Stephen Bisset. Mad, isn’t it? Can you imagine what those poor kids must be going through?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

She turned to go. ‘We’ve got doughnuts as well, if you want one?’

‘You’re a star, Penny – and anyone who says different is a moron.’

Soon as she was gone, he wandered out into the main office and helped himself to the
Aberdeen Examiner
. Its headline – ‘P
ERVERT
V
OLUNTEER
A
RRESTED
F
OR
B
ISSET
K
ILLING
’ – sat above a photo of a smiling man with a bald head, soup-strainer moustache, and soul-patch. He was in a bar with a couple of other people, their features pixelated out by the newspaper. It was captioned, ‘M
ARLON
B
RODIE
W
ROTE
A
N
O
NLINE
J
OURNAL
A
BOUT
E
XTREME
S
EXUAL
P
RACTICES
’.

They didn’t give the web address, but it didn’t take long to Google it up.

According to the home page, Brodie was taking his inspiration from a book called
The
Encyclopaedia of Unusual Sexual Practices
by someone called, appropriately, Brenda Love. It looked as if Brodie was flitting his way through the A-to-Z of kinks in no particular order, then arranging his adventures into categories, along with musings and plans for the future.

Logan skimmed through a couple of pages. Pausing to wince at the one about Brodie getting an ex-girlfriend to staple his scrotum to the kitchen table. Then laugh at the photo where he had a bash at anaclitism – anyone who found wearing a nappy sexy had no business posting pictures of themselves doing it on the internet. Another laugh at the failed attempt to negotiate a threesome to check troilism off the list. Another wince for the bee-sting fetish – complete with before and after photos that had Logan crossing his legs. And finally, a rather sad story about Brodie paying a woman he’d met at a party to let him have sex with her armpit. Axillism? Apparently also known as ‘having a bagpipe’.

Took all sorts.

Logan found the button to arrange Marlon Brodie’s posts by date order, rather than topic, and there it was, top of the list: pseudonecrophilia.

Joe appeared in the doorway, mug in one hand, brown paper bag in the other. ‘One white tea, one jammy doughnut.’ He’d dumped his protective gear, leaving a black Police T-shirt stretched tight across a huge barrel chest. The same DIY-style haircut as Logan’s sat above a big square face with a scar through one thick eyebrow.

‘Ta.’ Logan reached for the mug. ‘Did you manage to dig anything up on Charles Anderson?’

‘Other than the fact he’s dead?’

The tea was hot and milky. ‘Well, that’s a good start.’

‘Family man. Coached the under-twelves five-a-side team in Macduff for a couple of years.’

‘Any hints he was doing more than coaching them?’

‘Nope.’

‘But?’ Logan dipped into the brown paper bag, and came out with a sugary disc of squidgy delight.

Joe sat back against the desk, arms folded. ‘Wife divorced him three years ago. Irreconcilable differences.’

‘They say what those differences were?’ The first bite of doughnut was yieldingly soft and sweet, with a wee squirt of raspberry jam in the middle. Mince and tatties, a burger,
and
a jammy doughnut, all in the same day. It was like having Christmas in May.

‘They had a son: Andrew. Went missing five years ago. Thinking was he’d been playing on the edge of the cliff by the family home and gone over the edge. Officers found a couple of toys up there, but no sign of the body – must’ve washed out to sea. Andrew was four.’

Poor wee sod.

A slurp of hot milky tea to wash the stodgy mouthful down. ‘No suggestion the father was involved?’

Joe shook his head. ‘Opposite. He was
convinced
someone had snatched his kid. Banged on about it to anyone who’d listen. Got bits in the paper, put up posters, but …’ A shrug. ‘Wee Andrew wasn’t that photogenic, so eventually everyone forgot about it.’

‘Except Charles “Craggie” Anderson.’

‘And there’s your irreconcilable differences. Ex-wife lives in Devon now. She wanted to up sticks and start over somewhere else. He wouldn’t budge.’

Another bite of squidgy doughnut. ‘If it was your kid, would you?’

A smile spread across Joe’s big square face. All teeth and menace. ‘If someone touched one of my kids, I’d rip their leg off and jam it up their backside like a lollypop stick.’ The smile faded. ‘You want to know the spooky coincidence? Andrew died five years ago, yesterday.’

The same day Charles Anderson set fire to the
Copper-Tun Wanderer
and gave himself a Viking’s funeral.

Did that make it more, or less likely that he’d been responsible for killing the little girl at Tarlair Swimming Pool? He might have been overcome with the grief of losing his son, or it might have been guilt …

Difficult to tell.

‘Sarge?’

Blink. Logan sooked the sugar off his fingertips. ‘Sorry, thinking. Thanks, Joe.’

‘No probs.’

Soon as he was alone, Logan read the last entry posted on Marlon Brodie’s exploration of kinky sex. Drummed his fingertips against the desktop. Frowned at the screen some more. Swore. Then logged into STORM.

A couple of clicks brought up the personnel working on the Major Investigation Team looking into Stephen Bisset’s death. Logan picked the DCI in charge from the list, poked her number into the phone and let it ring.

No answer. But then, it
was
nearly nine o’clock on a Saturday night. Have to find someone further down the pecking order who might actually still be working.

Logan dialled the next in line.

Luckily, the DI had a better work ethic than his boss.

He picked up on the fifth ring.
‘For God’s sake, what
now
?’

‘Detective Inspector Jackson? Sergeant McRae, B Division. I need to talk to you about the guy you’ve got in custody for killing Stephen Bisset.’

The rustling of paper came down the line.
‘McRae, McRae, McRae … Ah, right. It’s you. Wondered when you’d come sniffing about.’
Pause.
‘If you’re looking to put your oar in: don’t. You’ve done quite enough.’

‘It’s important. Did—’

‘Case should have been airtight and you blew it. Now if there’s nothing else, I’ve got work to do.’

Logan stuck two fingers up at the phone. ‘No, you’re fine. Good luck with your miscarriage of justice.’ He thumped the handset down.

One, one-thousand.

Two, one-thousand.

Three, one-thousand.

Right on cue, the desk phone rang. He picked it up. ‘Banff station.’

‘What do you mean, “miscarriage of justice”?’

On the other end of the phone, Jackson groaned. Swore. Puffed out a sigh.
‘But we’ve got his DNA …’

‘Yeah, and I’ll bet you anything you like, if you get the IB to take surface swabs from the other coma patients, you’ll find traces of Marlon Brodie’s semen.’

More swearing.

‘It’s all there on his sexblog. He’s been trying his hand at pseudonecrophilia. Only he doesn’t have to pay someone to pretend to be dead, he’s got loads of them lying about in the hospital for free.’

‘Well …’
The faint sound of drumming filled the silence, as if DI Jackson was beating out a tattoo with his fingers.
‘Maybe he decided to take it all the way? No more “pseudo”. Holds a pillow over Stephen Bisset’s face so he’s got a real live dead body to have sex with?’

‘There’s no mention of murder on his blog. He writes about what he’s done and what he’d like to do. I think he saw an opportunity and he took it.’

‘But we’ve got his DNA, and … Bloody hell. It’s all circumstantial, isn’t it?’

‘He saying anything about why he did it?’

‘His solicitor’s told him to “no comment” everything.’
More drumming.
‘Could still be him. Gah … If it isn’t him, who is it?’

‘You think you’ve got it bad: my girlfriend was in a coma there for four years. Don’t know how many times he was in her room, unsupervised.’ Logan’s jaw tightened.

OK, so they couldn’t do Marlon Brodie for murder any more, but they could do him for sexually exploiting vulnerable people.

And with any luck, someone in prison would rip the damn thing off and make him eat it.

‘No, just wanted to see how you’re getting on.’ Logan drifted the Big Car along Rundle Avenue again. Still no sign of anyone coming or going from Frankie Ferris’s drug den.

On the other end of the phone, Helen coughed.
‘Sorry, paint fumes are getting to me a bit.’

‘Then stop. Put your feet up. Read a book.’ He slowed down and took a left into a small cul-de-sac. Did a three-point turn.

‘Is there any news?’

‘They’re still working on it.’ Logan turned off the engine and sat there, parked beneath a streetlight, with a perfect view of Frankie Ferris’s front door. ‘Helen, when you’ve been to crime scenes before, have they tried tracking down your ex-husband? Done tax searches, Land Registry, benefits office, pensions, things like that?’

‘And every mortuary, hospital, and graveyard. Brian’s disappeared.’

‘Got to be somewhere.’

An old man scuffed past on the pavement opposite, being taken for a walk by a tiny Staffordshire Bull Terrier puppy.

‘How was your tea?’

A sigh.
‘The MIT don’t have any leads, do they?’

Not a single one.

‘Early days yet.’

Silence.

The dog snuffled around a lamppost for a bit while its companion poked away at a mobile phone.

‘Helen?’

‘The living room’s nearly done. One more coat on the skirting boards to go.’

‘We’ll get there. I promise. We’ll find—’

‘Don’t.’
There was a catch in her voice, as if something had got stuck.
‘Don’t promise something you can’t.
Please
. I’ve been here too often.’

The line went quiet again. Only when Logan checked his mobile’s screen it showed the call was over. She’d hung up.

And she was right. He had no business promising anything, because there was sod all he could do.

‘… break-in at New Pitsligo. Anyone free to attend?’

He turned the key in the lock. It was a new shiny brass Yale job, set into a bog-standard blank UPVC door that opened on the stinking hovel Colin ‘Klingon’ Spinney called home.

Logan stepped over the threshold into the enveloping reek of rotting garbage, stale body odour, and greasy filth. Closed the door behind him. Clicked on the lights.

The lounge was as they’d left it on Wednesday after the raid, but in the kitchen, someone had pulled the cooker away from the wall. Probably DCI McInnes’s Major Investigation Team, giving the place another going over. They’d done the same with the fridge-freezer, getting the white goods out of the way so they could search behind them.

A door off the hall led into the garage. A gloomy, dusty space full of cobwebs and discarded beer tins. Cigarette butts. Roaches. Shelves all higgledy-piggledy with cardboard boxes, paint tins, and filthy gardening equipment.

Dark-brown stains covered the middle of the concrete floor, beneath the fluorescent strip light. That would be where Jack Simpson got used for batting practice, before they stuffed him in the attic ready for tomorrow’s beating.

Back into the house proper. Up the sticky stairs.

Logan’s Airwave gave its point-to-point beeps as he reached the landing. He unhooked it and wandered into the smaller of the two bedrooms. ‘Safe to talk.’

‘McRae? It’s DI Jackson.’

Here we go. ‘How did you get on with Marlon Brodie?’

Piles of clothes and dirt and bin-bags. The view through the window would have been great in daylight – out across the rooftops to the sea – but the moon had been smothered by clouds, leaving everything shrouded in darkness beyond the streetlight’s glow.

Jackson sighed.
‘He says Stephen Bisset was dead when he got there.’

‘What happened to “no comment”?’ Back onto the landing.

‘Brodie had a change of mind when we told him we’d read his blog.’

‘Uh-huh?’ Should’ve done that in the first place.

The bigger bedroom had all its filth piled up in one corner and the mattress leaning against the wardrobe. The painting of Jesus was squint on its nail. Logan walked over to the window and pulled the curtain back.