Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

‘Confiscated them from a van in Macduff. Counterfeit handbags.’ She pointed. ‘Might have something that’ll go with your outfit, but you’ll need nicer shoes.’

‘Did Inspector McGregor speak to you about my dunt?’

She grinned. ‘It’s my dunt now, Laz. I’ll be getting all the credit.’

‘You remembering it’s Ricky and Laura Welsh?’

‘There is that.’ Beaky pulled her lips in and chewed on them for a bit. ‘I’ve got a fiver on no one gets hospitalized, which is about as likely as Scotland winning the next World Cup. But what can you do? Got to at least pretend it’ll all go to plan.’

‘Keep me in the loop though, eh?’

‘Anything else I should know about?’

‘Tufty’s got one shift to go till he’s a proper police officer. Try and keep him out of trouble on Sunday night.’

‘They grow up so fast, don’t they?’

‘Oh, and can you and your hired thugs do me a favour? Keep an eye on Portsoy tonight. Some wee sod’s been setting fire to people’s wheelie bins. Be nice to catch him before he graduates to houses.’

‘Think I can manage that. We’ve got—’

A knock on the door, then it opened. One of Beaky’s PCs loomed on the threshold, his shoulders hunched and his face in need of a shave. ‘Sorry, Sarge, but Sergeant McRae’s got a visitor.’

Beaky wafted a hand at him. ‘Tell whoever it is to park their bum. We’re doing important handovery stuff here.’

‘Yeah...’ He grimaced. ‘No offence, but Sergeant McRae’s visitor is way above my pay grade.’ The constable held a hand six inches over his own head. ‘Like way above.’

Logan raised an eyebrow. That would be Steel’s babysitter, the Superintendent, arrived from C Division ahead of schedule and itching to take over. Probably wanted to debrief him in person, after all, he was the one who ID’d the victim and the killer. ‘Ah well.’ He stood, stretched.

Sergeant Ashton tucked her hands into her fleece pockets. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your team while you’re off playing cops and robbers.’

‘Thanks, Beaky, yir a fine quine.’

‘You’re a knapdarloch yourself, Laz.’

Whatever that meant.

The PC flattened himself against the doorframe, and pointed past the photocopier, at the corridor. ‘He’s in the canteen.’

He? Didn’t Steel say it was a she?

Still, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d got that wrong.

Logan crossed the corridor and into the canteen.

A table stuck into the middle of the room like a breakfast bar, with three chairs on either side and what looked like an empty box from the baker’s on top. Doughnuts, going by the crime-scene trail of blood-red jam on the black tabletop and the trails of castor sugar.

His visitor was in the corner, with his back to the room, pouring boiling water into a mug. Full Police Scotland black outfit — the shoes, the trousers, the fleece — but instead of the expected three pips on the epaulettes, there was one pip and a crown. His red hair was swept back, not quite covering the expanding bald patch at the back.

Not Steel’s babysitter after all. Something far worse.

Sod.

He was humming a wee tune to himself, away in his own happy little world.

It wasn’t too late. Could back away right now and sneak off. Get in a car and...

Chief Superintendent Napier turned around and raised his mug. ‘Ah, Sergeant McRae, the very man I wanted to see.’ His long thin nose twitched. ‘Do you have any milk?’

Logan cleared his throat. ‘Milk. Right.’ He crossed to the fridge, opened it, and pulled out the big four-litre plastic container of semi-skimmed. Gave it a shoogle. Empty. ‘Sorry, sir, the MIT must have drunk it.’

‘Oh now, that is disappointing.’ He poured the contents of the mug down the sink. ‘I think, in that case, we should go for a walk, don’t you? That might lift our spirits on a cold February afternoon. We could buy the station some more milk.’

‘Milk. Right.’

Napier’s smile wouldn’t have been out of place on a serial killer. ‘You said that already.’

‘Yes.’

Oh bloody hell.

He pointed a long thin finger at the windowsill, where a piggybank sat next to a white concrete gnome. Someone had painted angry black eyebrows on the gnome and stuck a little paper dagger in his hand. ‘Shall I put thirty pence in the bank, or do you think buying the milk will cover it?’

Logan licked his lips. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

Wind growled along Banff Bay, whipping the water into lines of white peaks. Bringing with it the smell of seaweed and death.

The tide was out, and Napier’s thin feet left bullet-shaped marks in the wet sand. ‘Bracing, isn’t it?’ He’d pulled on a peaked cap — complete with waterproof shower-cap-style cover — and a high-viz jacket. Rain pattered against the fluorescent yellow material.

Logan trudged along beside him, suit trousers rippling against his legs, water dripping from his own high-viz gear. No condom on his hat though, thank you very much. Might have been practical, but it made you look a complete tit. ‘No offence, sir, but you didn’t come all the way up here to walk about in the freezing rain.’

‘Perceptive as ever, Sergeant.’ A sigh. ‘I’ve spent most of my thirty years in Professional Standards, Logan. Oh, I did my stint in CID, the GED, on the beat, in the control room, even a short period seconded to the Home Office. But when I joined Professional Standards, I knew this was what I wanted to do with my career.’

A young woman in a stripy top went by the other way, long curly dark hair streaming out behind her like a flag, a wee Scottie dog bounding along at her side — its black fur clarty with wet sand and mud.

‘It was my first case that did it: investigating a sergeant who’d taken money from a local businessman to look the other way in a rape investigation. The businessman had broken a poor woman’s jaw and nose, cracked three of her ribs, and dislocated her shoulder. Then he raped her three times. She was nineteen.’

Out in the distance, the lights of a supply vessel winked, probably tying up to ride out the storm.

‘Imagine that. There you are, supposedly investigating a serious sexual assault, and you know who did it, but instead of building a case, arresting, and prosecuting the criminal, you stick your hand out and demand three thousand pounds. And three thousand pounds was a lot of money in those days.’

Napier stopped, and stared out to sea. ‘That’s what I’ve spent my career doing, Logan. Tracking down the bribe-takers, the constables that steal from crime scenes, the officers who think it’s perfectly acceptable to beat a confession out of someone, or to demand sexual favours in return for facilitating prostitution. Money. Drugs. Violence. Privilege.’

Logan turned his back on the wind, hunching his shoulders. The young woman was a faint figure in the distance, the dirty wee Scottie dog nearly invisible.

A smile twitched at Napier’s lips. ‘We police the police. We make sure the force can hold its head up high and say to the people, “Believe in us. Trust us. Because no one is above the law, not even us.”’ He shrugged. ‘And instead of being grateful that we weed out the rot in their midst, our fellow officers call us Rubber Heelers, and sinister bastards, and all sorts of pejorative nicknames. Make the sign of the cross when they think we’re not looking.’

There had to be a reason for this strange little heart-to-heart.

Logan’s stomach clenched.

Oh God. What if he’d found out about the trip to Wee Hamish’s deathbed? What if Reuben had decided to screw him over after all? What if Napier knew all about Urquhart buying Logan’s flat for twenty thousand pounds over the asking price? Or that he’d agreed to pick up Steve Fowler’s mystery package?