Cold granite lm-1 Page 6

  Logan smiled. 'Aye, but I got better.'

  The photographer polished his glasses with a grey handkerchief, and then did the same with the lens of his camera. 'Anybody touched anything?' he asked, spooling a fresh reel of film into place.

  'Doc Wilson gave the leg a tug, but other than that it's fresh.'

  Billy snapped a huge flashgun onto the top of the camera, smacking it with the side of his hand until it emitted a high-pitched whine. 'OK, back up ladies and gentlemen…'

  Hard, blue-white light crackled in the confined space, followed by the clatter-whirr of the camera and the whine of the flash. Again and again and again…

  Billy was almost finished when Logan's phone went off. Cursing, he dragged it out of his pocket. It was Insch, looking for an update.

  'Sorry, sir.' Logan had to raise his voice over the battering rain on the tent's roof. 'The pathologist isn't here yet. I can't get a formal identification without moving the body.'

  Insch swore, but Logan could barely hear him.

  'We've just had an anonymous call. Someone saw a child matching Richard Erskine's description getting into a dark red hatchback this morning.'

  Logan looked down at the pale blue, naked leg sticking up out of the garbage. The information had come too late to save the five-year-old.

  'Let me know as soon as the pathologist gets there.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  *

  Isobel MacAlister turned up looking as if she'd just stepped off a catwalk: long Burberry raincoat, dark-green trouser suit, cream high-collared blouse, delicate pearl earrings, her short hair artistically tousled. Wellington boots three sizes too big for her…She looked so good it hurt.

  Isobel froze as soon as she was inside, her eyes fixed on Logan dripping away in the corner. She almost smiled. Placing her medical case down on top of a bin-bag, she got straight to business. 'Has death been declared?'

  Logan nodded, trying not to let his voice show how much the sight of her disturbed him. 'Doc Wilson did it half an hour ago.'

  Her mouth turned down at the edges. 'I got here as soon as I could. I do have other duties to perform.'

  Logan winced. 'I wasn't implying anything,' he said, hands up. 'I was just letting you know when death was declared. That's all.' His heart was hammering in his ears, drowning out the pounding rain.

  She stood her ground, staring at him, her face cold and unreadable. 'I see…' she said at last.

  She turned her back on him, covered her immaculate suit with the standard white boiler suit, pulled on her tiny microphone, recited the standard who, when and where, and got down to work.

  'We have a human leg: left, protruding from a refuse sack from the knee down. Big toe has been subject to some form of laceration, probably post mortem-'

  'A seagull was eating it,' said Watson, getting a cold smile for her pains.

  'Thank you, Constable.' Isobel turned back to the stiff leg. 'Big toe shows signs of predation by a large sea bird.' She reached forward and touched the pale, dead flesh with her fingertips. With pursed lips she started pressing her thumb into the ball of the foot, feeling the toes with her other hand. 'I'll need to get the remains out of the bag before I can give you any estimated time of death.' She motioned for one of the IB team to come over and made him spread a fresh plastic sheet on top of the shifting floor of rubbish. They dragged the bag with the leg sticking out of it from the pile and onto the sheet. All the time Billy flashed and whirred away.

  Isobel hunkered down in front of the bin-bag and slit it open with one smooth pass of a scalpel. Rubbish spilled out of the sack, caught by the plastic sheeting. The naked body was curled in a ball, held in the foetal position with brown packing tape. Logan caught a glimpse of pale-blond hair and shivered. Dead children looked smaller than he'd remembered.

  The skin was a delicate shade of milk-bottle white between the swathes of brown sticky tape, faint patches of purple forming over the shoulders. The poor little sod had been upside-down in the bag and the blood had pooled in the lowest parts.

  'Do you have an ID?' Isobel asked, peering at the small corpse.

  'Richard Erskine,' said Logan. 'He's five.'

  Isobel looked up at him, a scalpel in one hand an evidence bag in the other. '"He's" not anything,' she said, straightening up. 'This is a girl. Three to four years old.'

  Logan looked down at the bundled-up body. 'You sure?'

  Isobel slipped her scalpel back into its case, straightened up slowly and looked at him as if he was an idiot. 'Medical degrees from Edinburgh University might not be all they're cracked up to be, but one of the few things they did teach us was the difference between little boys and little girls. The whole absence-of-a-penis thing is kind of a giveaway.'

  Logan went to ask the obvious question, but Isobel cut him off.

  'And no, I don't mean it's been removed like the Reid boy: it was never there in the first place.' She picked her medical case up off the bin-bag floor. 'If you want a time of death, or anything else, you'll have to wait until I've done the post mortem.' She waved a hand at the IB officer who'd rolled out the plastic carpet for her. 'You: get all this crated up and back to the morgue. I'll continue there.'

  There was a quiet 'Yes, ma'am' and she was gone, taking her bag with her. But leaving a chill behind.

  The IB officer waited until she was well out of earshot before muttering, 'Frigid bitch.'

  Logan hurried out after her, catching up as she clumped back to her car. 'Isobel? Isobel, wait.'

  She pointed her keyring at the car: the indicators flashed and the boot popped open. 'I can't tell you anything more till I get the body back to the morgue.' Hopping on one foot, she pulled off a Wellington and dropped it into a plastic-lined box, replacing it with a suede boot.

  'What was that all about?'

  'All what about?' She went to work on the other Wellington, trying not to get too much garbage on her nice new shoes.

  'Look we're going to have to work together, OK?'

  'I am well aware of that,' she said, tearing off the boiler suit, flinging it in with the wellies, and slamming the boot shut. 'I'm not the one with the problem!'

  'Isobel-'

  Her voice dropped twenty degrees. 'Were you purposely trying to humiliate me back there? How dare you question my professionalism!' She wrenched open the car door and climbed in, slamming it in his face.

  'Isobel-'

  The window slid down and she looked up at him, standing in the pouring rain. 'What?'

  But Logan couldn't think of anything to say.

  She glowered at him and started the car, doing a three-point turn on the slippery road, before roaring off into the darkness.

  Logan watched the car's tail-lights disappear, cursed under his breath, and trudged back into the tent.

  The little girl was lying where Isobel had left her, the IB team too busy bitching about the pathologist's departure to carry out her orders. Logan sighed and hunched down in front of the pathetic, taped-up bundle.

  The child's face was almost completely hidden: the packing tape wrapped tightly around her head. The hands were taped together against her chest, and so were the knees. But it looked as if her killer had run out of tape before they could get the legs secured. That was why the left one had been poking out of the bag for a lucky seagull to nibble on.

  He pulled out his phone and called in, asking if they'd had any reports of a missing girl, about three or four years old. They hadn't.

  Swearing softly, he punched DI Insch's number in to give him the bad news. 'Hello, sir? Yeah, it's DS McRae…No, sir.' He took a deep breath. 'It's not Richard Erskine.'

  There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line, and then, 'You sure?'

  Logan nodded, even though Insch couldn't see him. 'Definitely. Victim's a little girl, three, maybe four, years old, but she's not been reported missing.'

  Foul language erupted from the earpiece.

  'That's what I said, sir.'

  The Identification Bureau
team mimed picking up the body and buggering off to the morgue with it. Logan nodded. The one who'd called Isobel a frigid bitch took out a mobile and called for the duty undertakers. It wouldn't do to cart a dead child about in the back of a grubby van.

  'You think the deaths are connected?' There was a hopeful edge to DI Insch's voice.

  'Doubtful.' Logan watched as the tiny corpse was gently rolled into a body-bag far too big for it. 'Victim's female, not male. Disposal's different: the kid's been wrapped up in a mile and a half of packing tape. No sign of strangulation. She might have been abused, but we won't know until the post mortem.'

  Insch swore again. 'You tell them I want that kid done today, OK? I don't want to spend the night twiddling my thumbs while the media make up horror stories! Today!'

  Logan winced, not looking forward to breaking the news to Isobel. In her current mood she was more likely to do a post mortem on him. 'Yes, sir.'

  'Get her cleaned up and photographed. I want posters run off: have you seen this girl?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  The blue body-bag was picked up by two of the IB team, and carefully placed in the corner of the tent, out of the way. Then they started collecting the rubbish from the bag she'd been dumped in, making sure it was all properly bagged and labelled. Banana skins, empty bottles of wine, broken eggshells…The poor little kid hadn't even been worth the effort of a shallow grave. She'd been thrown out with the garbage.

  Logan was promising to call the inspector back as soon as they'd heard anything when WPC Watson shouted: 'Hold it!' She darted forward, grabbing a crumpled-up piece of paper from the rubbish that had spilled out onto the plastic sheeting.

  It was a till receipt.

  Logan asked Insch to wait while Watson unfolded the grimy scrap. It was from the big Tesco in Danestone. Someone had bought half a dozen free-range eggs, a carton of creme fraiche, two bottles of cabernet sauvignon, and a pack of avocadoes. And paid for it with cash.

  Watson groaned. 'Damn.' She handed the receipt to Logan. 'I thought he'd've paid by credit card, or Switch.'

  'No way we could be that lucky.' He turned the scrap of paper over in his hands. Eggs, wine, posh cream and avocadoes…The line under the last item caught Logan's eye and a smile began to blossom.

  'What?' Watson looked annoyed. 'What's so funny?'

  Logan held the receipt aloft and beamed at her. 'Sir,' he said into the phone, 'WPC Watson's found a supermarket receipt in the bag with the body…No, sir, he paid cash.' If Logan's smile were any wider the top of his head would have fallen off. 'But he did collect his Clubcard points.' South Anderson Drive was a bastard at this time of day, but North Anderson Drive was even worse. The traffic was nose to tail all the way across the city. Rush hour.

  The Procurator Fiscal had finally turned up, bustled about the crime scene, demanded an update on the investigation, complained that this was the second dead child to be discovered in as many days, implied that it was all Logan's fault, and sodded off again.

  Logan waited until he and WPC Watson were safely cocooned within the fogged-up car before expressing what he'd like to do to the Fiscal with a cactus and a tube of Ralgex.

  It took them well over an hour to get from the tip at Nigg to the huge Tesco at Danestone. The store was situated in a prime spot: not far from the swollen River Don, within spitting distance of the old sewage works, the Grove Cemetery and the Grampian Country Chickens slaughterhouse; and close to where they'd found little David Reid's bloated corpse.

  The store was busy, all the office workers from the nearby Science and Technology Park picking up booze and ready-meals for another night at home in front of the telly.

  There was a customer service desk just inside the entrance, manned by a young-looking man with a long blond ponytail. Logan asked him to get the manager.

  Two minutes later a small, balding man with a pair of half-moon glasses arrived. He was wearing the same uniform-blue sweater as the rest of the staff, but his name badge said: 'COLIN BRANAGAN, MANAGER'.

  'Can I help you?'

  Logan pulled out his warrant card and handed it over for inspection. 'Mr Branagan, we need to get some information on someone who was shopping here last Wednesday.' He pulled out the receipt, now safely encased in a clear-plastic evidence wallet. 'He paid cash, but he used his Clubcard. Can you give me his name and address from the card number?'

  The manager took the see-through envelope and bit his lip. 'Ah, well I don't know about that,' he said. 'You see we've got to abide by the Data Protection Act. I can't just go giving out our shoppers' personal details. We'd be liable.' He shrugged. 'Sorry.'

  Logan dropped his voice to a near-whisper. 'It's important, Mr Branagan: we're investigating an extremely serious crime.'

  The manager ran a hand over the shiny top of his head. 'I don't know…I'll have to ask Head Office…'

  'Fine. Let's go do that.'

  Head Office said sorry, but no: if he wanted access to their customers' records he'd have to make a formal request in writing or get a court order. They had to abide by the Data Protection Act. There could be no exceptions.

  Logan told them about the little girl's body in the bin-bag.

  Head Office changed their minds.

  Five minutes later Logan was outside clutching an A4 sheet of paper on which was printed a name, address and total number of Clubcard points earned since September.

  8

  Norman Chalmers lived in a tightly-packed, three-storey tenement off Rosemount Place. The long one-way street curved away to the right, the dirty grey buildings looming over the crowded road cutting the sky until it was nothing more than a thin strip of angry clouds, tainted orange by the streetlights. Cars were parked along the kerb, jammed in nose to tail, the only break formed by the massive, communal wheelie-bins, chained together in pairs, each one big enough to hold a week's rubbish for six households.

  The endless rain drummed off the roof of the CID pool car as WPC Watson cursed her way around the block, yet again, looking for a parking spot.

  Logan watched as the building slid by for the third time, ignoring WPC Watson's murmured swearing. Number seventeen looked no different to the rest of the tenement block. Three storeys of unadorned granite blocks, streaked with rust from the decaying drainpipes. Light seeped out through the curtained windows, the muffled sound of after-work television just audible under the downpour.

  On the fourth time around Logan told her to give up and double park in front of Chalmers's flat.

  Watson jumped out into the wet night, splashing between two parked cars to the pavement, the rain bouncing off her peaked cap. Logan followed, cursing as a puddle engulfed his shoe. He squelched his way to the tenement door: a dark-brown, featureless slab of wood set back behind an elaborate architrave, though the carved woodwork was so heavily coated in years of paint that little detail remained. A steady stream of water splattered off the pavement to their left, the downpipe from the guttering cracked halfway up.

  Watson squeezed the transmit button on her radio, producing a faint hiss of static and a click. 'Ready to go?' she said, her voice low.

  'Roger that. Exit from the street is secure.'

  Logan looked up to see Bravo Seven One idling at the far end of the curving street. Bravo Eight One confirmed that they were ready too, watching the Rosemount Place end, making sure no one was going to do a runner. Bucksburn station had loaned Logan two patrol cars and a handful of uniforms with local knowledge. The officers in the cars were doing a lot better than the ones on foot.

  'Check.'

  The new voice sounded cold and miserable. It would be either PC Milligan or Barnett. They'd drawn the short straw. The road backed onto another curved avenue of tenements, the back gardens sharing a high dividing wall. So the poor sods had to clamber over the back wall from the adjoining street. In the dark and the mud. In the pouring rain.

  'We're in position.'

  Watson looked at Logan expectantly.

  The building didn't have an int
ercom, but there was a row of three bells on either side of the doorway, the buttons clarted round the edges with more brown paint. Little labels sulked beneath them, each one giving the name of the occupant. 'Norman Chalmers' was written in blue biro on a square of bloated cardboard sellotaped over the name of the previous owner. Top floor right. Logan stepped back and looked up at the building. The lights were on.

  'OK.' He leaned forward and rang the middle buzzer, the one marked 'Anderson'. Two minutes later the door was opened by a nervous man in his mid to late twenties, big hair and heavy features, with a large bruise riding high on his cheekbone. He was still dressed from work: a cheap grey suit, the trousers all shiny at the knee, and a rumpled yellow shirt. In fact most of him looked rumpled. His face went pale when he saw WPC Watson's uniform.

  'Mr Anderson?' said Logan, stepping forward and sticking his foot in the door. Just in case.

  'Er…yes?' The man had a strong Edinburgh accent, the vowels going up and down in the middle. 'Is there a problem, officer?' He backed off into the airlock, his scuffed shoes clicking on the brown-and-cream tiles.

  Logan smiled reassuringly. 'Nothing for you to worry about, sir,' he said, following the nervous young man into the building. 'We need to speak to one of your neighbours, but his bell doesn't seem to be working.' Which was a lie.

  A weak smile spread across Mr Anderson's face. 'Oh…OK. Yeah.'

  Logan paused. 'If you don't mind my saying so, that's a nasty bruise you've got there.'

  Anderson's hand fluttered up to the swollen, purple-and-green skin.

  'I…I walked into a door.' But he couldn't look Logan in the eye as he said it.

  They followed Mr Anderson up the stairs, thanking him for his help as he disappeared inside his first floor flat.

  'He was hell of a nervous,' said Watson when the door latch clicked shut, the deadbolt was driven home, and the chain rattled into position. 'Think he's up to something?'

  Logan nodded. 'Everyone's up to something,' he said. 'And did you see that bruise? Walked into a door, my foot. Someone's belted him one.'