Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

‘I wasn’t crying, I was calling for—’

‘Key was snapped off in the lock. Had to kick the door in.’ She didn’t look capable of kicking the skin off a bowl of custard, so God alone knew how she’d managed that. ‘And there he was.’

‘I wasn’t crying!’

Logan took out his notebook. ‘Did you see who took Gary Lochhead?’

The black eyes narrowed. ‘Oh I saw her all right. She—’

‘It was that Mary Sievewright. Can you believe it?’

The nurse turned a squinty glower at her. ‘Can I tell—’

‘She was such a nice wee thing when she worked here. Never said boo to a duck.’

Wait a minute: ‘Mary Sievewright? Who’s Mary—’

‘She hit me!’ Black Eyes slapped Granny Cardigan’s hand away and she lowered the ice pack, revealing a round circle of red, about the size of a golf ball, bruised into the skin between his bloodshot eyes. ‘Could’ve fractured my skull!’

Tufty wandered over, stuffing his phone into his pocket. ‘DS Steel’s on her way, Sarge. So’s Sergeant Rennie.’

Logan nodded at him. ‘Have you heard of a Mary Sievewright?’

‘Sievewright?’ Tufty pulled his phone out again and poked at it. ‘Sievewright, Sievewright... Yup. Mary Sievewright’s one of her social media aliases.’ He handed it to Logan.

A Facebook page filled the screen. The username might have been ‘MARY SIEVEWRIGHT’ but the profile pic was definitely Mhari Powell, only blonde and wearing glasses.

Tufty pointed at his phone. ‘Alt-Brit-Nat account. Very sweary.’

‘Sweary?’ Granny Cardigan pulled her chin in. ‘Oh, that doesn’t sound like our Mary at all. She made a lovely sticky toffee pudding.’

A harrumph from Nurse Black Eyes. ‘Bet I’ve got concussion now.’

Logan showed him the profile pic. ‘This her?’

‘ Bitch . She snuck up on me! Otherwise...’ He mimed strangling someone.

Yeah, he looked the type.

Logan turned the phone’s screen so Granny Cardigan could see it. ‘I need her employment records.’

PC Guthrie leaned against the wall of Gary Lochhead’s room, hands tucked into the armholes of his stabproof vest. Smiling like a cheerful potato, with a number two haircut and a big sex-offender moustache in various shades of grey. ‘She got in through the fire door down the corridor.’

‘Hmm...’ Logan flipped through Mary Sievewright’s file again. No disciplinary notes, always on time for work, excellent rating for her six-month appraisal.

‘The duty nurse keeps the alarm turned off so he can sneak out for a,’ Guthrie gave Logan a knowing wink, ‘“cigarette” whenever he fancies. She nicks a wheelchair and bashes Mr Nursey on the forehead with the heel of her knife.’

Top marks on the internal training courses. Commendation for saving a resident’s life by administering CPR.

Guthrie sniffed. ‘He’s lucky she didn’t use the stabby end.’

Logan stared at him and he shrugged.

‘No offence, Guv.’

‘Mhari’s face has been on every news broadcast and front page for days. How come Nurse Black Eyes didn’t recognise her?’

‘Nurse...? Ah, OK, you mean the dick with the broken arm. There’s a very good reason for that: he works nights and is a bit thick.’

Tufty appeared in the doorway and gave Guthrie a wee wave. ‘Hey, Al.’ Then slouched over. ‘I did a search for “Mary Sievewright”: no criminal record and the address she gave the care home is a rental bedsit in Stoneywood.’ He pulled a face. ‘The current tenant was not chuffed with me phoning at ten past five in the morning.’

‘Current tenant?’

‘Been there two months.’

Logan closed the file. ‘So about the same time Mhari stopped working here.’

‘Yup. It’s like she adopts a new persona every time she needs something, then ditches it and moves on to the next. Well, except online. She collects those.’

Hmmm...

On the other side of Gary Lochhead’s window, through the chain-link fence, Aberdeen Airport was winding up for its first flight of the day. Wee trucks bumbling about, people in high-viz doing their best to look busy. Logan watched a couple of them manoeuvre what had to be a fuel tanker alongside a 747. ‘Why would Mhari abduct her own father?’

Guthrie held up a finger. ‘Ah, but maybe she doesn’t know he’s her dad.’

‘Bit of a coincidence if she doesn’t.’

‘Ooh!’ Tufty’s turn. ‘Maybe it’s an escape attempt?’

Behind them, someone cleared their throat. Everyone turned to face the door.

Nurse Black Eyes stood there, with his ice pack, sling, and scowl. ‘Janice wants to know if you want tea or coffee. Like I’m a sodding tea boy.’ He tucked the ice pack under his arm and fingered the lump growing between his eyes. ‘And it can’t have been an escape, cos there’s nothing to escape from. Gary Lochhead’s free to go at any point — he’s not being detained here, it’s palliative care. At the taxpayer’s expense, by the way.’

Interesting. ‘How palliative is palliative?’

‘If he’s not snuggled down in his coffin by next week, it’ll be the week after. I’ve seen enough OAPs kick the bin to know “end-stage” when I see it.’

Heartless little sod.

Logan gave him a cold smile. ‘In that case, we’ll have two teas and a coffee. Milk in all three, two sugars in the coffee. And see if you can rustle up a packet of biscuits, eh? Constable Guthrie is partial to Jaffa Cakes.’

The scowl deepened, then Black Eyes turned and stomped off. ‘Like I’m a sodding tea boy; I’m badly injured here...’

Tufty puffed out his cheeks. ‘Nice to see compassion is alive and well in the private healthcare sector.’

A nod from Guthrie. ‘Told you the man’s a dick.’

Logan waved a finger around the room. ‘You searched all this yet?’

‘Not so much as a porn mag under the mattress, Guv. That’s the problem with the internet, it’s killed the joy of discovering unexpected boobs, willies, and exciting combinations thereof.’

Damn.

Logan did a slow three-sixty: door, en suite shower room, bedside locker, hospital bed, visitors’ chairs, wheelie-table thing, window, and last, but not least, Gary Lochhead’s painting of that recumbent stone circle. ‘What about this? Did you search it?’

‘Funny you should say that, Guv,’ all innocent, ‘but I was just about to when you came in.’

‘I’ll bet you were.’ He reached up and unhooked the painting from the wall.

Nothing hidden behind it. So he turned it the other way around. Nothing tucked into the frame either. ‘LOUDON WOOD STONE CIRCLE’ was printed on the bare canvas in black Sharpie, above Gary Lochhead’s signature, a Saint Andrew’s cross, the word ‘BARLINNIE’, and ‘4TH MAY 2016’ — presumably the date it was painted. So no sodding use at all.

Worth a try.

Logan hung it on the wall again.

Guthrie raised an eyebrow. ‘No porn?’

‘If you’re Mhari Powell, and you’ve abducted your terminally ill father, where do you take him?’

‘Ah, now you’re asking.’ A big happy potato smile. ‘I’ve always fancied going back to Padova.’ Sigh. ‘There’s this wee restaurant, Corte dei Leoni, does a gnocchi in salsa di formaggio that’s—’

Tufty hit him. ‘Meanwhile, in the real world: Gary Lochhead’s dying, right? Maybe he wants to do it somewhere special? Maybe that’s why Mhari got him out of here? I mean, most people want to die at home, right? Only he can’t, because he doesn’t have one any more, but maybe...’

There was something about the painting. Not just the colours, or the light. Something special.