Стюарт Макбрайд - 22 Dead Little Bodies and Other Stories

‘HOY!’

The pool car swept out and around a Transit van, then back in again. Slowed briefly for the junction outside the Grammar School, catching the lights at red, and back to full-speed-ahead, tearing up Carden Place. Granite. Granite. Granite.

She poked a finger at the windscreen. ‘THERE!’

St Mary’s Episcopal Church loomed on the left of the road. A vast, grand structure with lancet windows and buttresses. No tower. It occupied the triangular wedge between two roads, with expensive-looking cars parked along its kerbs.

Rennie slammed on the brakes and wrenched the steering wheel left. The back end kicked out for a moment, then they were lunging through the narrow gap between two spiky granite posts and scrunching to a halt on the gravel beyond. He flashed his watch. ‘You’ve got one minute.’

Steel scrambled out of the car, sprinting across the gravel and in through the door marked ‘POLLING STATION’.

‘Cheeky old bag. I am a real police officer.’

‘Sure you are.’ Logan climbed into the warm night. Pulled out his phone and called Stoney back.

A couple of Yes campaigners stood off to one side, a couple of No on the other. Both sets waving Scottish flags and smiling at him. As if a flash of dodgy teeth and a bit of plastic stapled to a stick was going to make a difference. Both sets marched toward him.

The Yes lot got there first — a young man with spots and a goatee. ‘Good evening. Can I ask how you’re planning to vote?’

‘I’m on the phone.’

‘Yes, but it’ll only take a minute, won’t it?’

His companion stuck her hands in the pockets of her tweed trousers. ‘Going to have to get a shift on.’ She pointed at the door. ‘Polls close at ten.’

‘Guv?’

Mr and Mrs No had appeared. One in a tracksuit, the other in a three-piece suit. Three-Piece turned his smile up an inch. ‘Can we help?’

‘I’m — on — the phone .’ Logan turned his back and walked off a couple of paces. ‘Stoney.’

Tracksuit sniffed. ‘No need to be rude. We’re only trying to help.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been quizzing the dayshift. Got a couple of sightings, but don’t think they’re up to much. One’s in Torquay, one’s in Nairn, and the other’s in Lanzarote.’

Three-Piece folded his arms. ‘That’s the trouble with Yes people. No manners.’

‘Well, Chris Browning didn’t go to Lanzarote. Not without his passport.’

Mr Spots folded his arms too, saltire flags sticking up like offensive weapons. ‘Wait a minute — what makes you think he’s one of ours?’

‘Yeah.’ Mrs Tweed poked Tracksuit in the chest. ‘He was rude to us first.’

‘Don’t you poke me!’

‘How come I can hear fighting?’

‘I’m surrounded by idiots.’ Logan held his phone against his chest. ‘Sod off, the lot of you. I already voted, OK? Go bother someone else.’ Back to Stoney. ‘Get onto the Aberdeen Examiner and find out who fed them the story — I want to speak to their sources. We’ll trawl the docks and see if anyone else saw Chris Browning down there.’

‘You going to be back for the briefing?’

Mr Spots pursed his lips. ‘Can I ask who you voted for?’

‘No, you can’t: sod off.’

‘Guv?’

‘Not you, Stoney, this lot.’

‘So you voted No, then?’

‘It’s none of your business!’ Logan jabbed a finger in the direction of Three-Piece and Tracksuit. ‘And it’s none of their business either. Now, for the last time: SOD OFF!’ Bellowing out the last two words.

The four of them backed off, chins in, eyebrows up.

Three-Piece: ‘Well, there was no need for that, was there?’

Mrs Tweed: ‘No there wasn’t.’

Tracksuit: ‘There’s always someone who lowers the debate to name calling, isn’t there?’

Mr Spots: ‘Honestly, some people think shouting’s the same as democracy.’

Logan screwed his eyes shut. ‘Stoney, if I’m up for four counts of murder tomorrow morning, can you feed my cat for me?’

‘Deep breaths, Guv, count to ten.’

A smoky voice cut through the night. ‘Ta-daaaaa!’ And when Logan opened his eyes, there was Steel, bouncing on the top step with her arms up, like something out of a Rocky film. ‘They canna take our FREEDOM!’

The little knot of idiots transferred their attentions her way.

‘You want me to slide the briefing back a bit?’

Logan checked his watch again. ‘Fifteen minutes. Then we hit the streets.’

The bells of some far off church tolled out a dozen chimes. Midnight.

Water Lane was narrow and dark, half the streetlights blown and broken. The cobbles were slick beneath Logan’s feet. Not that it’d been raining. No, they were all slippery with... Yeah, probably best not to think about what he’d just trodden in. Or on.

A tall granite building made a wall on one side of the lane, its guttering sprouting weeds, lichen on the lintels, broken windows. Boarded-up doors that opened onto nothing but fresh air on the second, third, and fourth floors. A couple of trees had burst out through the windows high up there, like slow-motion explosions.

The other side was more granite. Cold and unwelcoming. Not exactly the most romantic of spots for an intimate liaison. But then romance probably wasn’t on the cards. Not even Richard Gere’s character from Pretty Woman would have wheeched any of the working girls here off to a swanky hotel for pampering, shopping and semi-wholesome fun.

Two of them shuffled their feet, then looked away from the missing person poster in Logan’s hand. One looked as if she’d never see sixty again, but was probably barely out of her thirties. Her friend hadn’t been at the drugs as long, so she still had all her own teeth and nowhere near as many pin-prick bruises up the inside of her arms. But they were both pipe-cleaner thin.

Logan sighed and tried again. ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen him?’

The older one shook her head. ‘Now, any chance you can sod off, only we’ve got quotas and that.’

Sugarhouse Lane was even narrower. The Regent Quay end was quiet — probably due to the half-dozen security cameras protecting the office buildings at the mouth of the alley. Further in, it was a different story. Blank granite topped with barbed wire on one side, warehouse-style walls on the other.

A lack of streetlights left the doorways and recesses in shadow.

Logan hunched his shoulders and stepped into the gloom.

The young man couldn’t have been much over eighteen. If that. His red PVC T-shirt was dusty across the shoulders, his jeans torn and grubby about the knees. Every bit as thin and wobbly as the ladies of one street over. He licked his lips and stepped towards Logan. ‘You looking for a good time, yeah?’

Logan pulled out the poster again. ‘Looking for this man. You seen him?’

He lowered his head. ‘Never seen no one...’

After a while, all the alleys blended into one another. Granite walls. Shadows. The smell of furtive sex and shame and desperation and barely-concealed violence.

Logan held the poster up and the woman with the thinning blonde hair shook her head. Same as the last five people he’d talked to.

As she clip-clopped away down the cobbles, Logan pulled out his phone and dialled Stoney. ‘Anything?’

‘Nah. It’s like a Dress-Slutty Party for amnesiacs round here tonight. No one’s seen him.’

‘Well we know two people saw him. Has to be others.’

‘Early days though, Guv. Maybe Elaine Mitchel and Jane Taylor don’t come out till the clubs shut?’