Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

A coffin lay on a set of trestles, at the top of the apse, in front of the altar. A small arrangement of white lilies sat on the lid, their petals turned multicoloured by the light streaming in through a stained-glass window.

‘This way.’ Urquhart led the way down the middle of the church to the second row of pews from the front. He bent and picked two laminated A4 sheets with ‘R ESERVED ’ printed on them from the wooden surface, then sat and tucked them under the bench.

Logan looked around. Set off a bomb in here and you could probably halve Scotland’s organized crime problem. It was a Who’s Who of Aberdonian thuggery too. The McLeod brothers were there, the Flintoffs, Benny the Snake and his sister, and about a dozen others whose faces weren’t so familiar. All sitting there in their Sunday best, waiting for Hamish Mowat’s final outing.

Wait a minute, was that...? Of course it was. Because today wasn’t bad enough already.

A tartan turban bobbed about somewhere near the back row of pews, visible through the heads of the crowd. And if Narveer was here, that meant Detective Superintendent Harper wasn’t far behind.

Great — that made everything so much better.

Why the hell were they here? They couldn’t have followed him, not when he made the trip bundled in the back of a Transit van. And if they had, they’d have intervened and stopped Reuben killing Tony.

Wouldn’t they?

Reuben’s huge rounded bulk loomed in the front row, next to his bride-to-be — a short round lump of hate and gristle, with a peroxide bob so severe it wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Lego figure. And Reuben sat there. Calm as you like. No indication that he’d beaten someone to death with a claw hammer less than twenty minutes ago. Not so much as a spatter of blood on his ugly scarred head.

Raining the hammer down, again and again. The towel keeping the bloody spray to a minimum. The sound of thunking and crunching...

Logan’s hand trembled. He put it in his pocket.

The murmuring died down as Minister Nervous stepped up into the pulpit. Coughed. Then leaned into the microphone. His amplified voice echoed around the granite walls. ‘Lord Provost, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to start by thanking you all for attending this afternoon. We’re here to give thanks for the life of Hamish Alexander Selkirk Mowat, a pillar of the Aberdeen business community, a philanthropist, and a keen gardener...’

‘Thank you for coming.’ The minister shook Logan’s hand, then moved onto the next person shuffling away from the graveside. ‘Thank you for coming.’

The Mowat family plot was marked by a statue of a weeping angel on a large polished granite plinth. The headstone was still missing Hamish’s name, but at least now he’d be reunited with his wife and son. His grave lay open, the coffin at the bottom spattered with handfuls of cold claggy dirt as one by one the mourners paid their final respects.

From here the ground sloped down towards a high stone wall, with nothing on the other side but grey-green fields fading into the haar. It blanked out the horizon, oozing in from the North Sea, reaching its grey arms towards the graveyard.

A knot of large men with short hair stood over by a mausoleum, smoking. Another knot of women passed around a hipflask. Lots of murmured conversations and backslapping going on.

Must be strange being a gangster. There wasn’t much opportunity to network in a social setting. Unless they had conferences and festivals no one had told Logan about. Four nights in an anonymous hotel in the Midlands, watching presentations on the latest way to break someone’s kneecaps, body disposal 101, kidnapping for fun and profit.

That tartan turban appeared again, weaving its way between the headstones, bringing DI Singh with it. He stopped right in front of Logan. ‘Well, well. If it isn’t Sergeant McRae.’

‘Detective Inspector Singh.’

‘Didn’t think we’d see you here, Sergeant. And sitting down the front too.’

The other mourners made a bubble around them, as if going out of their way not to get contaminated by the stench of police.

‘Tell me, Sergeant, were you a close friend of the deceased?’ Narveer’s face was impassive, voice clipped. So much for Mr Nice Inspector.

Harper emerged from the church and stopped next to him. ‘Well, well, if it isn’t—’

‘Your sidekick’s already done that bit.’ Logan crossed his arms. ‘And for your information, yes: I knew Hamish Mowat. I was in Aberdeen CID for ten years, I’ve investigated a lot of the people here. The local ones anyway. Even managed to put a few of them away.’

Harper jerked her thumb at a tree standing guard in the corner of the graveyard. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

She picked her way between the tombstones, with Narveer close behind her. Logan dawdled along at the rear.

He could tell her to mind her own business. Tell her it was his day off and he could do whatever he bloody well liked with it. Tell her to take a running jump into a skip full of broken bottles and rusty nails. Tell her to take Police Scotland and shove it so far up—

He bumped to a halt, as someone walked into him. ‘Sorry.’

It was a short man, with close-cropped hair trying to draw attention away from the spreading swathe of shiny scalp. Hooded eyes looked Logan up and down. Then a smile spread across his face. When he spoke, the accent was pure Morningside: ‘No, my fault. Wasn’t watching where I was going.’ He nodded back towards the church. ‘Lovely service, wasn’t it? Hamish would have been proud, don’t you think, Sergeant McRae?’

Logan pulled his chin in. ‘I’m sorry, have we...?’

The wee man stuck out his hand. ‘Malcolm McLennan. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Malcolm McLennan, AKA: Malk the Knife.

Oh Christ. Harper would love that.

Malcolm McLennan’s smile positively sparkled. ‘I understand you’re looking into the death of that unfortunate gentleman in Macduff, Sergeant. What was his name... Peter Shepherd?’ A sigh. ‘Ah, it’s a terrible thing. The grapevine tells me he was beaten, bagged, and bleached.’

Of course it did.

‘Well, Sergeant, I know imitation is meant to be the sincerest form of flattery, but it’s not so flattering when it brings with it the unwarranted scrutiny of the police. Don’t you think?’

‘Are you saying your people didn’t kill him?’

‘Well, of course they didn’t. My people don’t kill anyone , Sergeant, we build affordable housing for hardworking families. We undertake public construction works. We raise money for Alzheimer’s research.’ A shrug raised the shoulders of what was probably a very expensive suit. ‘We try to do our bit.’

Logan returned the smile. ‘So all that stuff about prostitution, protection rackets, illegal firearms, people trafficking, drugs — that’s, what, a misunderstanding?’

‘Exactly.’ McLennan winked. ‘But if it were true I can assure you we’d have no interest in someone like Peter Shepherd. You’re following a trail of breadcrumbs, through the woods, to the wrong cottage. This one doesn’t lead home.’

No it led to Granny’s cottage, and the wolf was in residence.

‘So the fact that you lent him two hundred thousand pounds was just a coincidence?’

‘Two hundred...?’ Wrinkles appeared between his eyebrows. ‘Who told you that? Why would I lend him money?’

‘Because his company was going bankrupt.’

McLennan leaned in closer. ‘Trust me, Sergeant McRae, I don’t invest in failing businesses. If I’m interested in them I wait for them to fail, then I scoop up the assets once they’ve gone into receivership. I don’t throw money away.’