Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

Logan shoved out through the front doors, into Ravendale’s car park. Where the hell was...

There — over by the care home’s battered minibus. Detective Inspector King. On his phone, pacing up and down with one finger in his other ear. ‘Have you spoken to those Alt-Nat groups yet, H?... Well why not? Get your sodding finger out!’

Logan marched over, the heat of the morning just adding to the fires. ‘What the bloody hell was that supposed to be?’

‘Hold on, Heather.’ He put a hand over the phone’s microphone. ‘I’m doing my job.’

‘Lying to a dying old man?’

King’s face darkened. ‘Lochhead knows , OK?’ Jabbing a finger towards the building. ‘He — knows!’

‘SO DO YOU!’

King retreated a step, pulled his chin in. Clearly not expecting a shouting at. ‘I don’t—’

‘Robert Drysdale. He was in the PASL when you were, wasn’t he? He wasn’t in a “different cell”. You knew what they did to him.’

He licked his lips, then raised the phone to his ear again. ‘Heather, I’ll call you back.’ Put his phone in his pocket. ‘Look, I never had any—’

‘Then why bring him up? Why pluck that name at random from the ether?’

‘I...’ King puffed out a breath. ‘OK: Edward Barwell calls me up last night, after work, and says he’s going to tell everyone about Robert Drysdale. That I should take the chance to set the record straight before he did.’

‘ What record? What did you do?’

‘Nothing! I hadn’t even heard of Drysdale till then. I had to google him.’

Logan stepped closer. ‘Then why does Barwell think you were involved?’

‘I... I don’t know.’ King can’t have liked the scowl that got him, because he held his hands up. ‘I don’t! He’s trying to make it look like I’m involved in some way, but I wasn’t. I didn’t even know who Drysdale was till last night!’

They stood there, in silence.

Then Logan turned his back and walked to the edge of the car park, where an eight-foot-high chain-link fence separated Ravendale Sheltered Living Facility from the airport.

A Puma helicopter taxied into position, readying for takeoff. Ferrying those still lucky enough to have a job offshore, away for another stint on the rigs. Which, let’s face it, had to be easier than trying to hunt down violent Alt-Nat nutjobs.

Logan pulled out his phone and scrolled through the contacts till—

What the buggering hell?

The person he’d been looking for was now listed as, ‘THE TERRIFYING TUFTYSAURUS REX!’

Rotten little... He stabbed the button and listened to it ring.

‘Sarge? Got another name for you. He was going as “Inde-pun-dancer”, but his real—’

‘What the hell did you do to my phone?’

‘Your phone?’ If that was meant to be an innocent voice, it needed work. ‘Why would I have done something to your—’

‘You know what, I’ll bollock you later. Right now I want you to look up Gary Lochhead’s wife. Where is she?’

‘Aha, so, we’re playing “Hunt the wife”, are we? Let’s see what we can see...’ The sound of a keyboard being punished rattled down the line. ‘Aha: Tufty wins! You want me to text you the address?’

‘Is it near?’

‘Two miles outside Fyvie: Clovery Woods of Rest. They buried her there six years ago.’

So much for that.

‘OK: give me Gary Lochhead’s known associates. Not just the recent ones — go all the way back about thirty years.’

‘Yes, Sergeant, my Sergeant.’ More keyboard noises. ‘Did you know someone stole my KitKat butty and hazelnut latte? Bloody police station is full of... Got it.’

‘I want someone called Geoff, could be either spelling.’

‘No Gee-offs or Jeffs. But I have a Jeffrey, if that helps?’

Might do. ‘Does he own property in Cruden Bay?’

‘Let’s have a look.’ He bashed his keyboard again. ‘Jeffrey Moncrief. Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, wherefore art thou Jeffery...? Oh. He’s currently doing life in Barlinnie for stabbing an English shopkeeper sixteen times then setting fire to the remains. This was in Argyll and Bute. No chance of parole, because he keeps attacking prisoners born south of the border, down Englandshire way.’ A pause. ‘He’s what we, in the law-enforcement trade, call “a total dickhead”.’

There was a shock.

‘What about property? Does he own something in Cruden Bay?’

‘No mention on the Police National Computer.’

Sod.

‘Well... can we get the Land Registry to rush through a search?’

‘Maybe. Or...’ More keyboarding, this time accompanied by a hummed version of the Countdown clock theme tune. ‘Woot! We’re in luck! But only because I has a genius.’

Whatever came next was drowned out as the helicopter’s engines roared. It pulled forward, gathering speed, then heaved itself into the air on a rib-shaking clatter of blades — the whump-whump-whump fading as it climbed and turned, heading out over Dyce towards the sea.

‘Sarge? Hello? I said, “Aren’t you going to ask what flavour of genius I has?”’

‘Is it my-boot-up-your-bum flavour?’

A sigh. ‘You get more like her every day, you know that, don’t you? No, it’s searching-for-incident-reports-involving-Jeffrey-Moncrief flavour. And amongst the hundreds of entries, there’s sixteen call-outs to the same address in Cruden Bay. And yes, you may compliment the chef.’

‘You, my little fiend, have earned your bum a reprieve and a bag of Skittles too.’

‘Woot!’

‘KING!’ Logan ran for the Audi. ‘GET YOUR BACKSIDE IN THE CAR — WE’VE GOT SOMETHING!’

Fields and fences flashed by the Audi’s windows as Logan roared along the back road towards Balmedie. Lights flickering, siren wailing. He yanked the car out onto the wrong side of the road, changed down a gear, and stuck his foot hard to the floor, overtaking a little grey Skoda with what looked like nuns inside it.

Sitting in the passenger seat, King grabbed the handle above his door, phone in his other hand — pinned to his ear. Belting it out: ‘What?... Heather?... No, I can’t hear you!’

Logan slowed for a sharp bend, throwing King against the door with the change of direction, then hit the accelerator again.

Flames of broom and whin crackled along the drystane dykes. A flickering strobe of fluorescent yellow and dark green.

‘What?’ He stuck the phone against his chest and grimaced at Logan. ‘Can we switch the siren off? Can’t hear myself think!’

‘You want to end up dead? Because if you do I can switch the lights off as well.’ They flew past a couple of tiny cottages.

‘Told you we should’ve taken the bypass!’

‘Eastbound’s closed for a three-vehicle RTC, remember?’ He slammed on the brakes at the T-junction, slithering to a halt on the double dotted lines. Then nipped out ahead of a muck-encrusted Transit, shifting through the gears like a rally driver. Slammed on the brakes again for a hard left, almost bouncing King out of his seat.

‘Gah!’ King braced his legs in the footwell. ‘Speak up H... No... I know I said that, but I need every hand we’ve got out to Cruden Bay.’ He glanced across the car. ‘ETA...?’

‘Twenty, twenty-five minutes.’

A nice long straight bit — the needle hitting ninety-six as Logan floored it. Swathes of barley whipping past. Nipping out to overtake a tractor.

‘Call it twenty-five minutes, H. But sooner you lot get there the better.’