Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

‘You killed Samantha this morning, remember?’

‘So what: you want I should be home brooding instead?’

‘Yes!’ A nod. ‘At home, right now, not dicking about in Bucksburn station, helping Napier get Steel up on charges. Should be getting utterly and completely hammered...’

A shudder rippled its way through him. Hammered wasn’t a term to use today. Not after what happened to Tony Evans.

Deep breath.

The whole top floor was strangely quiet. In most police stations the place would be a barely controlled din of phones and voices and printers. People hanging out in the corridor gossiping and passing on info. But this was like visiting a hospital ward, where the cubicles were full of the soon-to-be dearly departed.

Logan made himself another cup of tea, then headed back to his temporary office. The place was full of photos — a happy woman looking increasingly rounded, finishing off with what must have been a baby shower. He sank behind the desk. Had a sip of too-hot tea, and frowned at the open file.

Jack Wallace: twenty-nine, blond with a wide nose and big chin. In the attached picture, his eyes were partially hidden by a pair of glasses. Oh, and he’d turned up the collar of his polo shirt, presumably because he wanted to look like a dickhead.

Mission accomplished, Jack.

Logan tapped his fingers on the pile of forms and statements.

Jack, Jack, Jack.

Nothing in there suggested he was into sexually abusing children. No, Jack the Lad was a ladies’ man, whether they liked it or not. As long as he was bigger and stronger than them. And it wasn’t just the two failed prosecutions for rape — there were about a dozen complaints of sexual harassment and assault. Everything from copping a feel in the lift at work, to ripping off a stranger’s blouse in a nightclub toilet then breaking her nose.

No denying it: Jack Wallace was a charmer.

But a paedophile?

All those pictures, hidden away on his laptop. Hidden away and password protected.

Hmmm...

Logan pulled out his phone and flicked through his own photos. There was Samantha, at a beach party in Lossiemouth, grinning like a slice of Edam. Another with her peeling the clingfilm off a new tattoo. One with her lying on her back, on the bed, in her leather corset, grinning up at him.

‘And before you say it, I know, OK?’ He put the phone down on the desk. ‘If you were here, you’d agree with the idiot in the mirror. Well, you’re both right. And I don’t care.’

No reply.

‘And don’t look at me like that. What was I supposed to do?’ He shifted in his seat. ‘I tried, OK? I tried to kill him and the gun didn’t work.’

Samantha’s picture sat there. Not moving. Not saying anything.

‘Yes, all right: it was cowardly, I admit it. You happy now? I tried to talk Urquhart into doing my dirty work for me, because I haven’t got the balls to do it myself.’

Logan scrubbed his hands across his face. ‘I don’t want to kill anyone.’

Mirror Logan was right, he shouldn’t be here, he should be home getting hammered.

Hmmm...

A frown.

The desktop computer came on with a bleep when Logan wiggled the mouse. Typical — its owner had been away on maternity leave for two months, and no one had thought to switch her computer off. No wonder Police Scotland was having trouble saving money.

He logged into the system and ran a search for Tony Evans.

It looked as if Urquhart had been telling the truth. Evans was a small-time drug dealer, never caught with more than nine hundred and ninety quid on him — a tenner shy of getting the lot seized as proceeds of crime. His criminal record was predictably repetitive: possession, possession, possession with intent, aggravated assault, possession, theft from a motor vehicle, possession with intent, theft by opening lockfast places, possession...

And right now, he was probably working his way, in very small pieces, through the digestive system of a couple dozen pigs. No body. No witnesses.

Well, yes, OK — there were witnesses, but Smiler, Mr Teeth, and Captain ABBA weren’t going to roll over on Reuben, were they? Not a chance. Urquhart wouldn’t rat either.

Which left Logan.

He glanced at the phone. Samantha’s picture had disappeared, replaced by a blank black screen.

‘What am I supposed to do, march up to Napier and tell him I watched Reuben batter Tony Evans’s head in? Oh, and by the way, I didn’t stop him. I just stood there like a squeezed pluke.’

No reply.

He put on a passable imitation of Napier’s clipped oily tones: ‘And tell me, Sergeant McRae, why exactly did you leave it this long to inform anyone of Reuben’s heinous crime?’

‘Well, your Ginger Ninja-iness, that’s a very good question. Makes me look a bit suspect, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘As if I made the whole thing up?’

‘Did you, Sergeant?’

‘Wonderful...’ Logan sat back in his borrowed seat. ‘Maybe I could tell him I’m suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? What with the horror of killing my girlfriend this morning, then witnessing a murder.’

Yeah, that would work.

He poked the phone. ‘Where are you? I sound like a nutter talking to myself like this. At least when you—’

A knock on the door, then Karl stuck his head into the room. ‘Sorry, thought you had visitors. I come bearing gifts!’ He scuffed in on tartan slippers, then dug into his cardigan pocket and produced a USB stick. ‘Ta-daaaaaaa...’

Professional Standards definitely had a weirdo-hiring policy.

Karl leaned over the desk and plugged the stick into a slot on the front of the computer. ‘You’re very welcome.’

‘What is it?’

‘Ah, an excellent question. For ten points, and a chance to come back next week, who managed to dig out a copy of the last interview DCI Steel did with Jack Wallace?’

Logan forced on a smile. ‘Would it be you?’

‘Bing! Correct, you move on to the next round. Thanks for playing.’ He stuck his hands in his cardigan, stretching it out of shape. ‘I can’t get hold of the earlier one, and, to be perfectly honest, I shouldn’t have been able to get hold of this one either. Still, ask no questions, nudge-nudge, etc.’

A couple of clicks had the video file playing full screen. It was one of the interview rooms at Aberdeen Divisional Headquarters — number three going by the beige Australia-shaped stain on the wall by the window. Three figures were visible, two sitting with their backs to the camera — one blond spiky haircut and one that looked like a badger who’d been run over by a combine harvester. DS Rennie and DCI Steel. Which meant the man on the other side of the table, facing the camera, had to be Jack Wallace.

His clothes must have gone off for testing, because he was wearing a white SOC oversuit with the hood thrown back. Not a big man, in any sense of the word. Thin, with a pencilled-in beard and narrow eyes, hair scraped forward in a failed attempt to cover a receding hairline. Long tapered fingers fiddled with the elasticated cuffs of the Tyvek suit. He opened his mouth, but nothing seemed to come out.

‘What happened to the sound?’

Karl poked a button on the keyboard and the computer’s tiny speakers crackled into life.

‘ ...comment. ’ Wallace shut his mouth again.

‘It was on mute, dear fellow. Mute.’ Karl straightened up and rubbed at the small of his back. ‘Just drop the USB stick off when you’re done with it. Things are like gold dust here.’

Steel opened the folder in front of her. ‘ And do you live at twenty-seven Cattofield Crescent, Kittybrewster, Aberdeen? ’

‘ No comment. ’ The voice was flat and expressionless, as if he couldn’t really be bothered.