The Missing and the Dead (26 page)

‘OK, well, I’m finishing up soon. Make sure Tufty updates his actions
before
he goes back to his tree, or he’s in for a swift kick in the acorns.’

‘Sarge.’

Logan let himself back into the station.

Something closer to home …

He pressed the button again. ‘Deano, do me a favour while you’re up the hospital? Pop in and see if Jack Simpson’s got over his time in Klingon and Gerbil’s attic. If you can’t get me on the Airwave, I’ll be on my mobile.’

Worth a try anyway.

Back to the Sergeants’ Office.

Logan finished updating the actions on STORM. Logged off. Shut down the computer. Stuck his dirty mug in the canteen sink. Unlocked the little blue door to his Airwave locker. More of a sealed pigeonhole than anything, set amongst twenty-eight identical little blue sealed pigeonholes. He pulled out the charging cable.

The Airwave bleeped at him and Deano’s shoulder number appeared on the screen.
‘Sarge, you safe to talk?’

‘Thump away.’

‘Jack Simpson. Docs say he’s going to be under for at least a couple more days. Klingon and Gerbil really did a number on his head with that baseball bat. They’re keeping him sedated till the swelling goes down a bit.’

Because that worked
so
well for Samantha.

‘Thanks, Deano.’

Logan switched the handset off. Plugged in the charging cable. Stuck the lot back in its sealable pigeonhole and locked the door.

Just have to look somewhere else for salvation.

Logan slouched out of the station’s side door. Made sure it was closed. Then stood there on the pavement and let a huge yawn shudder its way up from his knees. Sagged.

So much for finding a case he could crack quickly to get Napier off his back. Nothing was anywhere near big enough to make up for what happened at the Graham Stirling trial. A spate of shoplifting wasn’t even going to put a dent in that.

He dumped his peaked cap on his head and cut across the car park … Then stopped.

A figure was huddled against the wall that separated the road from the beach. Bum on the pavement, knees up against its chest, arms wrapped around itself. Face hidden in the depths of a parka’s periscope hood.

Logan walked over. ‘Are you OK? Hello?’

The figure jerked, then looked up at him. Peeled back the hood to reveal an explosion-in-a-spring-factory haircut. Helen Edwards – the woman with the missing daughter. She blinked a couple of times, then pulled her shoulders in. ‘Cold.’

‘Have you been out here all this time?’ He helped her to her feet.

It took a while, her knees didn’t seem to be working properly. ‘Sorry …’

‘Honestly, you can go back to your hotel, we’ll call you as soon as we know anything.’

She stumbled a little. Grabbed the wall. Stretched out her left leg. ‘Foot’s gone to sleep.’

‘I can give you a lift, if you like?’

‘Don’t have a hotel. I didn’t want to …’ A shrug. ‘What if something happened and I wasn’t here?’

‘So you were going to sit out here, in the dark, all night? And all tomorrow as well? You do know it’s going to take a few days for the DNA results to come in?’

‘What else can I do?’

Logan dug out his keys. ‘Have you eaten anything today?’

‘I know, I’m an idiot.’ Her head dipped. ‘Argh … pins and needles.’

Helen Edwards limped around the kitchen as the microwave burrrrrrred away to itself, and the kettle grumbled to a boil. She stopped in front of the row of framed photos next to the calendar. May’s picture was a cat and a pony playing in a field, executed in crayon and glitter. ‘You’ve got kids?’

Logan dumped teabags in two mugs. ‘Not really. Sort of. It’s complicated.’ The kettle clicked to a stop. ‘You take sugar?’

‘One, please.’

He filled the mugs with hot water. ‘My boss and her wife wanted a kid, so I donated. Jasmine’s six now. Made me the calendar for Christmas. You want to get the milk and spready butter from the fridge?’

‘She’s very talented.’

‘Doesn’t get it from my side of the family.’ He dug the loaf of cheapo white from the breadbin and placed it on the kitchen table.

‘Your girlfriend?’ Helen Edwards pointed at one of the photos that hung squint on the wall. Logan and Samantha eating ice cream outside the Inversnecky Café down at Aberdeen beach. Samantha’s hair was post-box scarlet, a dribble of vanilla snaked down her hand, chocolate flake posed at a jaunty angle. Big smile. Logan grinning. As if the world wasn’t a cruel, dark, hollow, pit of a place.

Helen straightened the frame. ‘She’s pretty.’

Ah … ‘That’s complicated too.’ He fished out the teabags and put the mugs next to the loaf.

‘It always is.’ She got the milk and the butter. ‘I remember when it was like that for Brian and me. The smiles and the chips and the lazy Sunday mornings … Before the shouting and the swearing and the constant criticism eating away at you like acid.’

The microwave gave its triumphant bleeps of completion. The bowl was almost too hot to touch, but Logan got it onto the kitchen table with only second-degree burns to the fingers. ‘Sorry, it’s only lentil.’

‘I like lentil.’

‘Gets a bit samey after a couple of weeks.’ He handed her a plate and a spoon. Then slopped some milk in his mug and took it over to the sink. Rinsed out the soup tin.

‘It’s lovely, thank you.’ The slurp and crunch of soup and toast sounded behind him as she tucked in. ‘Very good.’

‘It’s complicated, because Samantha was in a coma for four years.’

Silence.

He stuck the tin on the draining board. ‘She’s what they call “minimally conscious” now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

A long slow breath made his shoulders sink. ‘She can’t speak. Can’t move on her own. And there’s a big hole in her skull so her brain doesn’t swell up and kill her.’

‘Must be hard.’

‘Don’t even know if she’s in there any more. I mean, I talk to her, but …’ Yes, well. No point going down that road. A small laugh forced its way out, leaving a bitter taste behind. ‘Sorry. Must be my turn to play Captain Gloom and Doom.’ He gave himself a small shake. ‘Anyway, would you like some hot sauce? Perks a bowl of lentil up no end.’

‘Are you sure it’s OK?’

Logan handed her the pillow. ‘It’s fine, seriously. You look reasonably honest, and I’ve got sod all worth stealing anyway.’

She lay back on the couch and pulled the duvet up under her chin. ‘Thank you.’

Click
, and the room was plunged into darkness. He stepped out into the hall. ‘I’m not on duty tomorrow, so it won’t be an early start.’

Her voice came from the dark. ‘Logan?’

‘What?’

‘You remember what I said? About knowing what it’s like to love someone who’s completely lost? And if they were dead you could start moving on?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I am too.’

He closed the door, and headed upstairs to bed.

A yawn. A stretch. A scratch. Then Logan slumped back into his pillow.

Sunlight glared around the border of the curtains, revealing the peeling wallpaper around the window in all its hideous glory. Have to get that stripped off today. Well, it was that or paint the living room. Or the stairs. Or do one of the other hundred jobs that—

What was that?

He sat up, ears straining to catch the noise again.

A clunk came from somewhere downstairs.

There was someone in the house.

Need a weapon. Extendable baton. Not as good as a shotgun, but it’d do.

His hand fumbled down the side of the mattress, fingertips searching for the equipment belt and …

Idiot.

Of course there was someone in the house: Helen Edwards. She was going to the toilet, wasn’t she. There wasn’t one on the ground floor, so she’d climbed the stairs.

Who was it going to be, Freddy Krueger?

He lay back. Slow calm breaths, until the thudding beat in his chest faded a bit.

Idiot.

Five more minutes: then up.

Logan hauled the T-shirt over his head and scuffed his way downstairs. A handful of fliers for the local takeaways lay scattered beneath the letterbox, along with a collection of canvassing leaflets for the upcoming by-election. Vote for me, I’m not a scumbag!

Yeah, right.

He scooped the lot up and carried them through to the kitchen.

Helen Edwards stood at the sink, elbow-deep in suds. Pots and pans were piled up on the draining board, while what looked like every plate in the place was stacked on the other side.

Logan stopped at the doorway. ‘Is everything really that filthy?’

She turned. Pink spread across her cheeks. ‘It … No. I just …’ She pushed a dirty-blonde curl out of her eyes with a soapy finger. ‘I was sitting about and I thought, I know, I’ll do something useful – I’ll clean the kitchen.’

He clicked the kettle on. ‘You want tea?’

‘Please.’

For a minute, the only sound was the clicking rattle of the water boiling.

Logan cleared his throat.

Cthulhu padded into the room and hopped up onto the windowsill in one fluid motion. Arched her back, then sat down, tail in the air, front paws at ten to two, like a small fuzzy ballet dancer. Logan reached out and scratched her behind the ears, getting a deep rumbling purr for his troubles.

Behind her, sunlight washed the face of Banff police station. Gave its sandstone cheeks a rosy glow.

An old man went by on a bicycle.

Helen cleared
her
throat.

Yeah, this wasn’t awkward at all.

Click
.

Logan made the tea. ‘I’m heading off to see Samantha later.’

‘Do you … Do you think they’ll hear about the DNA today?’

‘Probably not. They’re upgrading the equipment in Aberdeen so everything’s going to Dundee instead. And they’ve
always
got a backlog these days – rapes, murders, severed feet. It’s Thursday now. Lucky if it’s done before the weekend, to be honest.’

‘Oh.’ Helen’s head drooped.

‘DCI Steel will be kicking up a fuss, try to get it prioritized, but there’s only so much she can do.’

The last pot got added to the clean pile. ‘Can I see it?’

‘See what?’

She took the first plate from the stack and slipped it into the foamy deep. Kept her face turned away from him. ‘The swimming pool. Where they found her.’

Logan pulled up at the brow of the hill. From here the North Sea was a polished slab of blue slate, edged with white where it hushed against the pebble beach below.

The coastline stretched away ahead – the reaching cliffs paling and turning blue as they faded into the distance. Stone fingers reaching for the horizon.

Tarlair Outdoor Swimming Pool’s nest of white cubist buildings nestled in the depths of the rocky bowl, walls shimmering in the morning sun.

His rusty Clio’s engine sounded like a screwdriver scraping along a breezeblock.

‘You sure you want to do this?’

Helen nodded.

‘OK.’ He put the car into gear and slid them down the hill, around the dog-leg bend, and onto the patchwork stretch of potholes and rutted tarmac.

A Police Pod sat in the car park, in front of the burned-out remains of the bin, but the door was shut. No sign of life.

He parked next to it. ‘If you feel uncomfortable, or sick, or anything like that, let me know and we’ll get you out of here. It’s not a problem.’

‘Right. Yes.’ She unclipped her seatbelt. Blew out a breath. Brushed the curls from her face. ‘You can do this …’ Then opened the door and stepped out into the sun.

Logan joined her. Locked the car – as if anyone would be desperate enough to steal a rattly heap like that.

A line of blue-and-white ‘P
OLICE
’ tape stretched across the gap in the rock that acted as a gateway to the site. He pulled it up and ushered her through.

She glanced back at the pod. ‘This is all right, isn’t it? We’re not going to get into trouble?’

‘I called DCI Steel – they’ve finished the search. The barrier tape’s there to stop weirdoes and grief-tourists snooping.’

She picked her way along the path, past the pebble beach with its stone archway and kelp bones. Stopped in front of the Aberdeenshire Council sign:

She stared at it for a while. Then took a deep breath and walked past, making for the boxy art deco buildings.

‘You’re sure you’re OK?’

A nod. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’ She wrapped her arms around herself. Holding it in. Stopped at the top of the apron.

Three wide tiers of dark concrete, edged in white, led down to the inner pool. Little more than a rock-strewn swathe of cracked grey.

Helen puffed out her cheeks. There was no inflection in her voice at all. ‘Where did you find her?’

He pointed at the corner of the outer pool. The water level had gone down since Monday evening – evaporated in the sun, or drained out through cracks in the sea wall.

She followed him, past the main building with its grime-streaked walls, around the edge of the amphitheatre space, and out onto the side apron.