Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

Milne stared at her.

‘ I can have prints made, if you think that might jog your memory? ’

Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘That reminds me.’ She pulled out her phone and poked at the screen. Held it to her ear. ‘Robertson? Where’s my big list of everyone in Shepherd and Milne’s home porno pics?... No, I don’t think you can give it a miss now we’ve got Milne in custody. Finger out, you sideburn-wearing seventies-throwback waste of skin... No, I want that on my desk tomorrow... You heard.’ She hung up. Stuffed her phone away. ‘Anyway, I didn’t need to fit Wallace up, the dirty wee sod did it all himself. Didn’t even try to hide it either, like he was proud of his collection.’

‘ Nothing to say, Mr Milne? ’ Harper tilted her head to one side. ‘ Did Peter Shepherd tell you he loved you? Did he promise the photos were just for him? ’

‘ All right, that’s enough. ’ The solicitor knocked on the interview room table again. ‘ Martin, I have to advise you to answer these intrusive and insulting questions with “no comment” from now on. ’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Steel sat up straight. ‘ Now he tells him!’

‘Anyone?’ Detective Superintendent Harper sat back against the desk, arms folded, as Logan eased in through the door.

Fraserburgh’s Major Incident Room had fancy interactive whiteboards on the walls and a long conference table down the middle — lined on either side with the MIT’s senior officers. AKA: everyone from the rank of sergeant up, dragged over here from Banff. They all had their notebooks out, serious expressions on their face.

Logan lowered his tray onto the table. Ten mugs clinked against one another, beige contents sloshing from side to side.

Join the police, see the world. Make it coffee.

Harper helped herself without so much as a thank you. ‘Come on, someone must have some idea. How are Milne and Shepherd connected to Malk the Knife?’ She took a sip, then grimaced. Spat it back into the mug. ‘This is revolting.’ Harper held the mug out towards Logan. ‘Do it again, properly this time.’

Don’t rise to it.

Count to ten.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

‘ Now , Sergeant.’

Logan took a deep breath, then the mug. ‘Yes, sir .’

‘Try and get something right, Sergeant.’

A spit and bogie special coming right up.

He slipped out into the corridor and closed the door behind him. Then stuck two fingers up at it, before turning and stamping away down towards the canteen. The floorboards creaked and rocked beneath him, like an ill-fitting coffin lid.

The sound of laughter came from the other side of the canteen door. It died as soon as Logan entered. Two uniforms sat on the sofa in front of the telly with Martin Milne’s solicitor. At least they had the good sense to blush.

One of them — the lanky one with the side parting and pointy chin — stood. ‘Sarge.’

His partner nodded at the solicitor. She was a proper farmer’s daughter, with a ruddy complexion and arms that could probably bench-press a tractor. ‘We were just discussing a case with Mr Nelson. Dog fighting in Peterhead. Someone lost a leg.’

Logan marched over to the kitchen area. ‘Well, at least that explains the hilarity.’

‘Right.’ PC Lanky shuffled sideways. ‘Suppose we’d better get back to it.’

‘Yeah. No rest for the wicked.’

They bustled out of the room.

Milne’s solicitor — Nelson, wasn’t it? — took a pair of glasses from his pocket and polished them. ‘It’s not their fault. I was gasping for a cuppa and I forced them to make me one. At gunpoint.’

‘And where is this firearm now, sir?’ Logan tipped Harper’s coffee down the sink.

Nelson made a gun out of the fingers of his right hand, holding it up as if he was about to fire a warning shot into the ceiling. ‘I’ll come quietly.’

Logan turned his back and let a gobbet of spittle splash into the bottom of the mug. Then buried it with a teaspoon of coffee granules. ‘How’s Martin?’

‘Confused, frightened, grieving. Take your pick.’ Nelson slipped his glasses on. ‘I’ve been Martin’s solicitor for ten years. I held his hand when he was executor for his father’s estate. I helped him buy his house. I did the contracts when he and his friends set up GCML. I know him.’

Logan turned away again, slipped a finger up his nose, had a quick rummage, then wiped the results on the mug’s insides, below the high-tide mark.

‘There’s no way he killed Peter, it simply isn’t possible. He’s not that kind of person.’

The mug went under the boiling-water tap, steaming liquid going instantly brown as it hit the granules. Hiding all manner of sins.

‘And I’m not saying that because I’m his solicitor, I’m his friend too. He doesn’t even fiddle his taxes, for God’s sake.’

A dollop of semi-skimmed added to the lies. ‘You know he’s not doing himself any favours, don’t you? All this “I can’t remember” nonsense just makes him look guilty.’

‘Sergeant, he got me to draw up divorce papers last week. Martin wouldn’t kill Peter. He loved him.’

‘That’s what they all say.’

‘ Are you coming home tonight or not? ’ There was an edge to Samantha’s voice. Disapproval, mixed with resignation.

Logan stopped at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the balustrade, phone pressed against his ear. ‘Still waiting on Steel.’

The car park behind Fraserburgh station was full — Steel’s MIT convoy taking up the usually empty spaces. That thin drizzle was back, casting halos of yellow around the rear lights.

‘ How much life have you wasted waiting on that woman? She takes advantage of you, Logan, always has. ’

‘What am I supposed to do, abandon her?’

‘ She can get a lift back with the rest of the team. Why does it have to be you? Let someone else suffer for a change. ’

He let his head slip forward, until it rested against the cool glass door. ‘I know.’

‘ You don’t want to come home, do you? You want to string this out as long as possible. ’

A patrol car pulled into the car park, ignoring the only free space and stopping right outside the rear entrance to the cells instead.

‘Of course I want to come home, it’s not—’

‘ You don’t want to come home, because the sooner you do, the sooner you go to sleep, and then you wake up, it’s tomorrow, and you have to kill me. ’

The passenger door opened and the lanky PC who’d been watching TV with Milne’s solicitor scrambled out.

‘I’m not killing you. I’m...’ A sigh. Yes he was. Calling it a ‘decision to withdraw medical treatment’ didn’t change the facts.

‘ So you work through. Put off going to bed. It just means you’re knackered tomorrow. ’ Her voice softened. ‘ Think that’ll make it any easier? ’

Officer Lanky opened the back door and reached inside.

‘Probably not.’

A bellow from inside the patrol car was followed by a thud and swearing — then a pair of feet lashed out of the patrol car and bang , PC Lanky was lying on his back, peaked cap bouncing off into a puddle. A huge man erupted out of the car, shirt ripped on one side, spattered with blood on the other, hands cuffed behind his back. He wobbled. One leg still, while the other walked itself around in a little circle. Then he lurched forwards and slammed his boot into Lanky’s leg.

‘Got to go.’

Logan burst out through the door, into the rain. Reached for his extendable baton... Only his hand closed on thin air. Wonderful. Why did he have to take off his stabproof vest and equipment belt?