Stuart MacBride - In the Cold Dark Ground

‘Noooo...’ The thin arms came up over his head.

‘Officer Nicholson will show you back to your cell.’

She snapped her fingers. ‘Come on, Lumpy, on your feet. Maybe we can ask the Custody Sergeant to hose you down before beddy-byes?’

‘All right! All right, I’ll tell you.’

‘What do you think?’ Logan sat back in the visitor’s chair.

The room’s dark-blue carpet was getting a bit scuffed near the door. Large corkboards covered the two walls either side of the desk, one with a street map of Fraserburgh covered in little red, green, and yellow pins; the other with a map of B Division, surrounded with memos and official leaflets. And a poster of a kitten peeking out of an old boot.

‘And you’re sure it’s Ma Campbell?’ Inspector McGregor swivelled from side to side in her seat, chewing on one leg of her glasses. ‘Hmm...’ Her heart-shaped face creased itself into a frown, pulling wrinkles around her eyes. A thick streak of grey hair reached back above each ear, disappearing into a no-nonsense bun that matched the two no-nonsense silver pips on each epaulette fixed to her black Police Scotland T-shirt. She stopped swivelling and pointed her glasses at the only other person in the room. ‘What do you think, Hugo?’

‘What do I think?’ Inspector Fettes shrugged. Standing beneath the overhead strip light, his hair was a spectacular mop of fiery curls. As if Little Orphan Annie had a sex change and joined the rozzers. He folded his arms, hiding a pair of huge hands covered in freckles, like the ones that spattered across his nose and cheeks. ‘Honestly?’ He screwed one side of his face up. ‘I think Logan needs to go on a diet. Crashing through a garage roof? That’s too many pies, that is.’

Logan reached down and rubbed at his swollen ankle. ‘I am not fat.’

A smile twitched at the corner of McGregor’s mouth. ‘I meant, what about Patrick Hay?’

Fettes checked the clock mounted on the desk. ‘You’re still Duty Inspector. Not my problem for five more minutes.’

‘Thanks a heap.’

‘Hey, what happens on dayshift stays on dayshift. When it’s Backshift’s turn to worry about it, I’ll worry about it.’

‘Hmm...’ She went back to swivelling. Picked up a sheet of paper from her desk on the way past. ‘Ma Campbell, real name Jessica Kirkpatrick Campbell. Runs all the drugs, prostitution, and protection rackets from Paisley to East Kilbride.’ McGregor dumped the paper back on her desk. ‘I could do without this woman taking an interest in Banff and Macduff. Assuming Lumpy Patrick isn’t talking out of his crenulated bumhole again.’

Logan just shrugged.

‘It’ll take a lot of money and manpower to dunt in the Welshes’ door, and the budget’s tight enough as it is. If we don’t get a result...’

Inspector Fettes settled on the edge of the desk. ‘Well, if you want my opinion: anything that gets Ricky Welsh and his homicidal wife off the streets has got to be a good thing. It’s worth a punt.’

‘Agreed.’ She checked her watch. ‘Two minutes. Logan, anything else I need to know?’

‘Canteen vending machine’s out of chocolate.’

Fettes’s eyes widened. ‘OK, that I’m going to get right on.’

‘Wise choice.’ Inspector McGregor pulled the keyboard of her computer over and poked at it. ‘And when you’re done, be a darling and get some spare bodies and the Operational Support Unit organized so we can pay Ricky Welsh a visit, OK? Logan, do you have a date in mind?’

‘No way we’ll get it all sorted for tomorrow, not with the MIT barging about all over the place hoovering up resources, and we’re off Friday — Saturday, so... Sunday nightshift? We go in about half ten, eleven, something like that? Give ourselves plenty of time to ransack the place.’

McGregor nodded. ‘Agreed.’ Another glance at her watch. ‘And we’re done for the day. Bravo India is off to do the shopping, long live Bravo India.’ She stood and shuffled out from behind the desk. Picked up a framed photo of two boys, a girl, and a Jack Russell terrier, and slid it into a rucksack as Inspector Fettes settled into the vacated seat.

‘Mmm, still warm.’ He raised his eyebrows at Logan. ‘Right, Sergeant McRae, off you sod. I’ve got important police business to attend to.’ He grabbed the phone and pressed a button. ‘Sophie? Get me the number for those vending machine people...’

Rain pattered against the back door, making streaks on the glass, blurring the view of the car park behind the station. The doorway sat at the bottom of the back stairs, next to the tradesman’s entrance to the cellblock. A pile of Method of Entry equipmant was heaped in the space under the stairs — mini battering rams, hoolie bars, arm, shin, elbow, and kneepads, those horribly uncomfortable helmets with the neck guard that always smelled like someone had peed in them. All sitting behind a sign proclaiming, ‘DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THIS AREA!!!’

Inspector McGregor pulled on her gloves. ‘I don’t like it, Logan. I don’t like it one little bit.’

A shrug. ‘I know. But what are we supposed to do, ignore it?’

She turned and frowned. ‘Ignore what?’

‘Lumpy Patrick’s info.’

‘No, not Lumpy. The body in the woods.’

Ah. Logan jerked a thumb up the stairs. ‘Calamity thinks it’s a serial killer.’

‘That’s all we need. We’ll never get rid of the MIT if it is.’ A shudder. ‘I don’t like Major Investigation Teams stomping all over my division, causing trouble. They’re like locusts.’

OK...

‘She might have a point, though. What about the young woman found outside Inverurie ten days ago?’

‘Nothing like it.’ Inspector McGregor shook her head. ‘Emily Benton was beaten to death with an adjustable wrench. She didn’t have a bag over her head. And she wasn’t naked. So unless the Northeast’s answer to John Wayne Gacy is a bit confused about his MO, it’s not exactly likely, is it?’

‘Probably not.’ Logan checked his watch. Still no sign of Calamity. ‘We were a bit surprised to see you here.’

‘Think I’m welded to my desk back at Banff, do you? Office-bound? There’s more to my job than counting paperclips, Sergeant , thank you very much.’

‘OK, OK...’ Logan backed off, hands up. ‘Only making conversation, Guv. Didn’t mean anything by it.’

She sighed. ‘I was here for a MAPPA meeting, if you must know. Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements my shiny backside. More like Morons And Police Pricking About.’ McGregor dug out her car keys. ‘Four agencies represented, and do you know what startling insight we came to? Apparently Charles Richardson still represents a very real danger to little old ladies who don’t like being raped. Two hours it took us to come up with that.’

Footsteps rattled on the stairs above. Then Calamity appeared, zipping up her high-viz jacket. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’

‘Thought you’d fallen in.’

The Inspector pulled her peaked cap on and pushed the door open, letting in the shhhhhhhhhhhh of rain on tarmac. ‘Do we have any idea who the victim is? The one with the bag over his head?’

‘Nope.’ Logan followed her out into the downpour. ‘PF won’t let them take the bag off till the post mortem. Steel was all for ripping it off then and there, but you know what the Fiscal’s like.’

McGregor stopped beside a shiny grey BMW with mud spattered up around the wheel arches. ‘Suppose it’s just as well. No point compromising any trace evidence left inside the bag.’ She pointed her keyfob and the car’s lights flashed. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance we could solve the whole thing on our own tomorrow, is there? I don’t want to get back to work on Sunday night and find the MIT have moved in permanently. Like ticks on a dog.’