The Missing and the Dead (33 page)

Napier didn’t flinch. His smile didn’t waver. He sat there, watching.

Logan stood back. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got
real
police work to do.’ He turned and marched for the door.

He was reaching for the handle when Napier’s voice cut through the room.

‘What would you say if I told you we know who killed Stephen Bisset.’

Logan wrenched the door open. ‘If you’re implying it was me, you can—’

‘Hoy!’ Steel barged into the room, hoicking up her trousers with one hand, holding a mobile phone in the other. She glowered at Logan, then at Napier. Then at the little digital camcorder. ‘Someone going to clue me in?’

Napier held up a finger, ‘Sergeant McRae has been assisting us in understanding the slick of destruction he seems to leave behind him like a leaky oil tanker. Dead bodies. People in comas. Things like that.’

‘Well … keep it down. Some of us are trying to work up here. And
you
,’ she poked Logan in the chest, ‘you’re meant to be helping me catch a wee girl’s killer, so say goodbye to your little friends and get your arse in my office. Now.’

Napier stood, the smile never wavering. ‘You didn’t answer my question, Sergeant. Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts last night?’

Steel had another haul at her trousers. ‘Sergeant McRae was with me last night. We were painting his manky house. Magnolia, I think it was.’

Inspector Gibb scribbled down another note.

Her boss licked his lips. Lowered himself back into his seat. ‘I see. Well, in that case, by all means get on with some “real” police work, Sergeant. Our business is concluded for the moment.’

‘Should think so too.’ Steel shoved Logan out of the room, into the corridor. ‘And keep it down in here.’ She thumped the door shut. Then crept along the grey carpet to the next office. Ushered Logan inside.

She closed the door behind her and slumped back against it. Dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Christ on an emu, that was close.’

Steel’s office was furnished with two ancient lockers, a filing cabinet, an office chair, and a desk covered in stacks of paperwork. A laptop, with a screensaver that seemed to consist of kittens peeking out of boots and teapots, sat between the piles and every available inch of wall space was covered in maps and pinboards. The latter plastered with index cards, connected by lines of red twine.

She pulled out her phone and poked at the screen as she made her way behind the desk. ‘You know I’m missing Jasmine’s dance competition for this, don’t you?’

‘How is it
my
fault?’

‘If you hadn’t found that dead wee girl, I’d be sitting in a school gym right now, surrounded by other parents, watching their stinky kids lollop around the floor like drunken elephants …’ A sniff. ‘So it’s not all bad.’ She sank into her chair. ‘Sit.’

The only other seat in the room was a blue swivel job, but the backrest was missing, leaving the support poking up like a broken spine. She pointed at it. ‘Bum. There.’

He did, sticking to the front edge. ‘Thanks for backing me up with Napier. How did—’

‘Shhh!’ Finger to lips. ‘Nosferatu next door’s got ears like an NSA listening station.’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What did I just alibi you for? What are we saying you’ve no’ done?’

‘Kill Graham Stirling.’

Her mouth collapsed, till it was a round, wet, cave. Then snapped shut again. Her eyes widened. ‘You didn’t,
did
you?’

‘Of course I didn’t!’

‘Pfff … At least that’s something.’

Muffled voices came through the wall. Then what sounded like laughter.

Logan turned and stared.

Should march right back in there and introduce Napier’s teeth to Napier’s rectum.

There was the
thunk
of a door closing, then Napier and Gibb’s voices faded down the stairs. The pair of them off to blight someone else’s life.

Logan sank back in his chair. Froze. Yanked himself upright before he went over the broken spine. ‘Gah …’

Steel grinned. ‘Good, isn’t it? Stops the lower ranks from drifting off when you’re bollocking them.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Been doing it to Rennie for months. Sometimes I try and be extra boring, to see if I can get him to cowp over backwards. All you’ve got to do is wheech out a couple of screws and the back comes right off.’

‘No, I meant how did you know I was painting?’

‘Did I no’ say you need someone to protect you?’ She pulled a blank index card from the box on her desk, frowned, then went rummaging through the drawers. ‘Sodding hell, no’
again
. Place is like the Bermuda Triangle for pens …’

‘Told you: it’s Hector.’

The index cards on the board each had the name of a sex offender written on them, along with details of offence and length of time served. Everyone they’d visited on Monday night was there, along with a few others. All caught on the scarlet threads of a spider’s web. With a photo of the dead girl in the centre.

He pointed at it. ‘You getting anywhere?’

‘Do I look like I’m getting anywhere? Does this look like the buzzing hub of a successful investigation?’ She printed something on the card. ‘All I do is tramp round sex offenders’ houses and rescue silly-sod sergeants who should know better.’

He dropped his gaze to the carpet. ‘Thanks for alibiing me in there. You took a big risk, guessing like that.’

‘Pfff … You’ve got wee speckles of paint on your ears and in that kiwi-fruit-skin shambles you call a haircut. How else would they get there?’ A smile. ‘Plus, I lugged at Napier’s door for a bit before barging to the rescue.’

‘He says they know who killed Stephen Bisset.’

‘Found out an hour ago.’ She shifted a pile of paper and turned her laptop around, so the screen was facing Logan, then poked a couple of keys. ‘Look.’ The kittens disappeared, replaced by a window that took up most of the desktop. CCTV footage. What was probably a wall-mounted camera in a hospital – people marching about in scrubs with clipboards, or in pyjamas being wheeled about in porter’s chairs. Everyone looking miserable and defeated. The time-stamp in the corner of the image put it at Wednesday night. Seven minutes after eight. ‘This is outside the ward where Bisset was.’

Steel poked another button and the footage spooled forward at double speed, then eight times, then twelve. Doctors, nurses, and patients whizzed in and out of shot. What looked like Bisset’s kids whooshed past, going in with a big bunch of flowers, then out again. Poor wee sods.

Then Steel leaned forward and poked the keyboard again, setting the speed back to normal. ‘There.’

The time-stamp clicked over to ten p.m.

‘Where?’

A sigh. ‘Seriously? Rennie spotted it right off.’

Logan peered at the screen. What the hell was he supposed to … ‘The guy in the long coat? Must be sweltering: Aberdeen Royal Infirmary keeps the heating cranked up to stifling.’

‘Nurses didn’t think anything was unusual, because this bloke’s been volunteering at the hospital for years. Talks to coma patients, plays their favourite music, reads them their favourite books. That kind of thing. Been visiting Stephen Bisset almost every day for the last month and a half.’

Exactly what Logan had spent nearly four years doing with Sam. ‘How do you know it’s him?’

A fire-hazard smile burned across her face. ‘Elementary, my dear Logan: he’s a pervert. Marlon Brodie. Got one of those websites where he writes about bizarre fetishes and freaky kinks. What do they call it, sexblogging?’ The smile crackled brighter. ‘Rennie spotted him, and
you
didn’t. Beaten by Rennie, how rubbish can you be?’

He scowled at her. ‘How about the fact I haven’t seen the footage till now, and I don’t visit sexbloggers’ websites.’ He poked at the keyboard, zooming in on the figure in the long overcoat. An unremarkable man: average height, average build, features slightly blurred and pixelated. ‘And the DNA …?’

‘Course it does. Finnie got Ding-Dong to drag him in, test him, and one rush-job later: bingo. It’s Marlon Brodie’s semen on Stephen Bisset’s dead body.’ She sank back into her chair, swivelled it left and right a couple of times. ‘Course, Finnie’s trying to claim credit for it, but I’ll figure something out.’

Logan closed the laptop. ‘You got a one-hour test? What about Helen Edwards? She’s been waiting since
Wednesday
.’

‘Yeah, well, if you hadn’t been such a damp blouse and let me leak it to the papers we could’ve had it by now. But no, Mr Morals knows best.’ She spun the laptop back around to face her. ‘Happy?’

‘Oh, don’t start. You know I’m right, or you’d have gone ahead and done it anyway.’ He turned to look up at the board with its index cards and paedophiles. ‘Does the family know? About Marlon Brodie?’

‘So much for Detective Sergeant Barmy Becky’s theory. The
kids
did it. Moron.’

‘You should go easy on her. Keep treating her like the village idiot and she’ll turn into one. More carrot, less stick.’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Steel waved a hand, as if wafting away a foul smell. ‘Marlon Brodie denies suffocating Stephen Bisset, but what do you expect? And what kind of sadist calls their kid “Marlon” anyway? Asking for trouble. No wonder he turned into a killer. And a pervert. You seen his website? Got stuff on there that’d make
me
blush.’

‘Well … at least it’s—’

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

‘God’s sake.’ Logan slumped, ‘Aaargh …’ caught himself before he tipped over the back of the broken chair, and sat upright again. Scowled at Steel. ‘You trying to get me killed?’ Clicked the button on his Airwave. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Sergeant McRae? It’s Maggie. I’ve got a tip-off from your friend about dealing on Rundle Avenue again. Says there’s been three of them in and out in the last fifteen minutes.’

‘Thanks, Maggie. Is Nicholson back yet?’

‘Just walked in.’

‘Good. Tell her to get the Big Car fired up, we’re going trawling for druggies.’ Though knowing the way his luck was going these days …

Steel stood. Grabbed her suit jacket. ‘What we waiting for?’

He backed towards the door. ‘It’s some local thing. Not important. You’ve got a dead wee girl’s killer to catch, remember?’

‘Oh no you don’t. Every time I let you out of my sight, you get in trouble. And I call shotgun.’

Of course she did.

‘Pfffff …’ Steel wriggled further down into her seat, shoulders barely clearing the car windowsill. ‘Is this
it
? Is this all you do?’

Nicholson took them round the corner, onto Rundle Avenue again. Grey harled semidetacheds on one side, a Morse code of short wood-panelled terraces on the other. Like oversized garden sheds, painted Cuprinol Brown. Knee-high garden walls holding back an onslaught of gravel, lawns, and associated shrubbery, depending on the property.

The speedo barely nudged fifteen miles an hour.

Sitting in the back, Logan peered up and down the road. No sign of anyone. ‘You didn’t have to come.’

Steel puffed out another sigh. ‘I’m bored.’

‘We can’t kick the door in, because we don’t have a warrant. So we cruise round and pick up anyone we see coming out of the place, and search them.’

‘As if anyone’s going to be daft enough to go buy drugs when they see you circling in a dirty big patrol car.’

The shed-style terraces gave way to white harled ones.

Nicholson took a left, across Tannery Street and onto Alberta Place. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’

Off in the distance, a small wedge of North Sea peeked out between two houses in another street. Crystal blue beneath a shining sky.

Logan tapped a finger against the back of Nicholson’s seat. ‘When they were interviewing Klingon, do we know if he said anything about his mother? Where she was, when she’d be back, anything like that?’

‘No idea. Last time I spoke to the Custody Sergeant up there he said it was like something off a spy thriller. Everyone stomping about in sunglasses and suits. No talking to the prisoners. Top hush secret.’ She stuck the car in reverse and did a three-point turn, going back the way they’d come.

Logan leaned forward and tried Steel instead. ‘You must have heard something. You and all your MIT buddies.’

A sniff. ‘You’re kidding, right? Only way you get info out of another team is if you use a lead pipe and pliers.’

‘Do me a favour then – ask about. See if it came up.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why? What are you up to?’

Shrug. ‘Just a hunch.’

Left, onto Tannery Street, then a quick right. No houses here: a line of about thirty garages, with identical blue up-and-over doors, lined either side of a short dead-end road. No sign of anyone.

Steel puffed out a breath. ‘I’m still bored.
And
hungry. Time for lunch.’

Another three-point turn.

Logan twisted his Airwave from its clip. ‘We’re working.’

‘Lunch, lunch, lunch, lunch, lunch!’

‘Shire Uniform Seven, you there, Maggie?’

‘Safe to talk.’

‘We got any more descriptions?’

‘Last one was an IC-one female, wearing grey joggies and an orange hoodie. Ugg boots.’

Now there was a fashion statement.

The street slipped past the window. Quiet suburbia. Manicured gardens and pedicured cars – their owners out giving them their Saturday once-over with sponge and shammy.

‘Lunch, lunch, lunch, lunch, lunch!’

Logan closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘If we stop at the baker’s, will you
promise
to shut up?’

The smell of chicken curry pies filled the Big Car with earthy notes of cardamom and cumin, playing off against Scotland’s real national dish: chips. Steel stuffed a couple into her mouth, chewing through the words, ‘Told you.’

Sitting in the driver’s seat, Nicholson ripped a bite out of her pie. Then made ooking monkey noises, mouth open in a little circle. ‘Hot …’

Logan sat in the back, stomach grumbling. ‘Ten minutes, then we’re back looking for druggies to spin.’

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

‘Thump away, Maggie.’