Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

Good view from here, though. Well, as long as you enjoyed supply boats, warehouses, a patch of scabby grass and the North Sea. Which, today, was a deep shade of sparkling sapphire, beneath a lid of glowing blue.

Steel sniffed. ‘Could you have parked further away from the entrance if you tried?’

Nope.

‘Walk will do you good.’ He grabbed his peaked cap and climbed out into the roasting heat. You’d think there’d be a sea breeze or something to cut it down a bit, but it was stifling. Like wading through burning treacle. Which the car park tarmac was beginning to resemble.

It screlched beneath his feet as he marched towards the entrance, Steel and King lumbering along behind him.

‘Urgh...’ She caught up, both arms held out from her sides. ‘Going to be Sweat Central under my boobs in five, four, three... Oh there it is.’

King grimaced. ‘Do you have to?’

Logan shuddered. ‘ Please don’t talk about your breasts in the prison. People here are suffering enough.’

‘Cheeky sod.’

The entrance was a huge wall of tinted glass, with ‘HMP & YOI GRAMPIAN’ in white letters above it. Very grand. The main door slid open and a young man wheeled a pushchair out into the glaring sunlight. He had tattoos up his neck, a spider’s web by his eye, bruising all over his face, a toddler in the chair and a three-year-old on reins. Sniffling back tears as he marched past them.

Logan turned to watch him go. Then stepped through into the blissful embrace of air conditioning.

The reception area was double height, complete with balcony, a waiting room off to one side, a bank of lockers, a wooden-slatted desk like the prow of a square ship flanked by matching pairs of turnstiles, airport-security-style X-ray machines, and metal-detecting arches. One set marked ‘STAFF’, the other ‘VISITORS’. Two prison officers sat behind the desk: an angular woman reading a manual, while her lumpy male colleague slurped tea from a ‘WORLD’S SEXIEST GRANDAD’ mug.

A tall thin man leaned against the ‘STAFF’ turnstile — pastel-yellow shirt, dark-blue tie, grey suit trousers and unbelievably shiny shoes — smiling as he walked towards Logan and his dysfunctional little team. There was something weirdly cat-like about him. Maybe it was the almond-shaped green eyes, or maybe it was the pointy sharp-toothed smile. Hopefully he’d leave off purring and licking his own bum until they’d gone.

He stuck his paw out for shaking. ‘Inspector McRae? Daniel Sabre, such a pleasure. I followed your story in the papers — I hope you’re feeling better now?’

‘This is DI King and DS Steel.’

Sabre let go of Logan’s hand and took Steel’s instead. ‘Yes, we spoke on the phone.’ He did the same with King, then turned and gestured towards the metal detectors. ‘Shall we? I just need you to empty your pockets for security first...’

The Main Street rang with the sound of prisoners moving from one part of HMP Grampian to the other. A clattery rabble of men in their uniform blue sweatshirts and navy joggy bottoms slouched past on the lower level — Sabre leaned over the safety rail and waved. ‘Archie!’

A spotty man with a cratered face and Incredible Hulk muscles stopped and looked up at them. Raised a hand of his own. ‘Mr Sabre?’

‘Congratulations on your National Five English! Very proud of you.’

A big grin. ‘Cheers, Mr Sabre.’

They kept going, past a couple of inmates touching up scuff marks on the walls with lime-green paint.

Sabre shook his head at Logan. ‘Haiden’s disappearance was completely unexpected — which, I know, goes without saying. If we’d expected him to run off we wouldn’t have allowed him out on work placement. But still...’ He waved at a wee scrote with one leg in a cast hobbling along on a pair of crutches. ‘Afternoon, Jimmy, how’s the leg?’

‘Aye, no’ bad, Mr Sabre. Itchy, like.’

And they were past.

‘What’s worse is that Haiden had been doing so well up to that point. Model resident, never on a charge, went through the in-house catering programme with flying colours. Could whip up a broccoli-cheese soufflé you’d give your mother’s ears for.’ Sabre shook his head. ‘We got him on a work programme — three days learning how to make pies and pasties at a local baker’s — and boom: disappears through a back window. No trace.’

Sabre led them off the Main Street into a more modest corridor. Through a security door. ‘To be honest, I was shocked Haiden could even fit through the window. Like many of our offenders, he spent most of his spare time in the gym, bulking up. Came in a twelve-stone weakling, went out looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.’

Another corridor, this one a plain magnolia.

‘What’s really strange is he’d made it halfway through his six-year sentence without a single incident. He was eligible for early release on licence in September — that’s why he was on the bakery programme — so why throw it all away for the sake of six weeks?’

Maybe he found out about his dad dying of lung cancer?

But then, Gary Lochhead said Haiden hadn’t visited him in years. Not in prison, not in Ravendale.

Assuming “Gaelic Gary” Lochhead was telling the truth.

Have to get someone to look into that.

One last turn and they stood in front of a closed office door. ‘This is us.’ Mr Sabre unlocked it and ushered them inside.

A medium-sized room, with two desks against opposite walls. The ubiquitous filing cabinets. One motivational poster with a mountain top and ‘TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME AND YOU CAN SCALE ANY PEAK!’ on it, and another with a kitten in a teacup: ‘YOU’RE DOING GRRRRREAT!’

Wankity, wank, wank, wank.

The window overlooked the exercise yard, where a trio of topless inmates were picking up litter in the sunshine. Arms, chests, and backs turning an angry shade of scarlet.

Sabre pointed at a couple of ratty plastic chairs. ‘Sit, sit.’ He pulled out a swivel chair and parked himself on it as King and Steel sank into the creaky plastic ones. Smiled. ‘Now, you wanted to know about Haiden’s visitors. I checked the logs and, other than his Criminal Justice Social Worker, only five people have come to see him since he arrived here.’ A photo appeared from Sabre’s in-tray. He handed it to Logan — a smiling wrinkled face, with bright-yellow hair and a two-inch line of grey roots. ‘One was old Mrs Hogarth — she likes to adopt a different offender every year. Knits them things. Comes in once a month. Between you and me, she’s been lonely since her husband died.’

Another photo — this one a boot-faced woman in her mid-twenties, red hair pulled back from her face in a punishing ponytail. A big wide face and ruddy complexion, scowling at the camera as if the photographer had just insulted her dad’s tractor. A proper farmer’s quine — big and bracing. ‘Haiden’s wife and son visit from time to time, though, to be honest, they act more like complete strangers than family.’

Photo number three: An old man with very little hair on the top of his head, but lots poking out of his nose and ears. ‘He’s an ex-teacher of Haiden’s. Comes here every couple of months to express his disappointment at the way Haiden turned out.’

Strange.

Logan frowned down at Captain Hairy Nostrils. ‘Why did Haiden put up with that?’

‘Said something about it “only being fair”. No idea why, though.’ Sabre dug out a young woman. The word ‘mousy’ could’ve been invented specially for her. Dishwater-blonde hair, glasses, grey cardigan, a crucifix on a chain, not making eye-contact with the camera, but looking off to one side with worried little creases between her pale eyebrows. If Haiden’s ex was angry at everything, this one was scared of it. ‘By far Haiden’s most frequent visitor: Mhari Canonach Powell. That’s “Mhari” spelled the Gaelic way. She was here once, sometimes twice a week.’