Стюарт Макбрайд - The Blood Road

Clicking on her name brought up a big list of interactions — the most recent being a call on Thursday, the day before they found Bell’s body, lasting forty-nine minutes and eighteen seconds.

The office door bumped open and Tufty reversed in, carrying a tray with teas and biscuits on it. He clunked a mug down in front of Logan. ‘Got an update on the Sally MacAuley interview. She’s now denying she had anything to do with stabbing DI Bell. Says he was like that when he turned up at her door, and she tried to help him.’

She lied to them. Sergeant Rose Savage, lied .

Tufty wiggled a packet of Jammie Dodgers at him. ‘You want a biscuit?’

The rotten, dirty, scheming—

‘Are you OK, Sarge?’

Logan curled his hands into fists. ‘I want you to go find Sergeant Rose Savage and I want you to bring her here. Right now .’

Sergeant Savage sat on the other side of the table, dressed in her civvies, hair hanging down around her shoulders. Arms crossed. Big Gary hulked next to her in all his porky glory — chest, shoulders, and belly straining his Police Scotland T-shirt to near bursting point. The sergeant’s epaulettes on his shoulders looked tiny in comparison. And, for once, he wasn’t smiling.

Tufty had his notepad out, the little red light on the recording apparatus winking away next to him. Pen wriggling as he wrote down Logan’s question.

Savage shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘It’s over, OK?’ Logan shifted in his seat, but the burning embers wouldn’t settle. They wanted to ignite.

She turned to Big Gary. ‘Do you know what he’s talking about?’

‘Don’t look at me.’

Logan tapped the tabletop. ‘When I spoke to you at the Mastrick station, you told me you hadn’t seen DI Duncan Bell since you identified his body two years ago. Would you like to amend that statement?’

Her expression didn’t change. ‘I haven’t seen him.’

‘Well, that is odd. Constable Quirrel?’

Tufty produced his phone and poked at the screen.

The Skype ringtone binged and booped out from Savage’s pocket.

Logan pointed. ‘It’s OK, you can go ahead and answer that.’

She did. ‘Hello?’

Her voice crackled from Tufty’s phone. ‘Hello?’

Big Gary shook his head, setting his jowls wobbling. ‘So she’s on Skype. There a point to this?’

‘I wanted to make sure that the Skype address we had was actually yours, Sergeant Savage. Would you like to know where we found it?’

‘You’re my Federation rep, Gary, do I have to put up with this, or can I leave?’

A huge rolling shrug. ‘Wouldn’t advise it at this stage.’

‘We found your address on DI Bell’s laptop. You spent forty-nine minutes and eighteen seconds on Skype with him on Thursday evening.’

Tufty checked his notes. ‘Call started at twenty-five past seven and ended at eight fourteen.’

She stared. ‘I don’t...’

‘So,’ Logan spread his hands out on the tabletop, ‘I’m going to ask you again: would you like to change your statement?’

‘Bloody...’ She took a deep breath. ‘So, the thing is—’

‘Before you launch into another lie, Sergeant, bear in mind we’ll find out the truth anyway. And it’ll look a lot better for you if you cooperate.’

She covered her face with her hands and screamed at the tabletop. Then sagged. Sat back. Let her hands fall. And stared at Logan. ‘Ding-Dong wasn’t a bad cop, he just...’ She shook her head. ‘The MacAuley woman had him wrapped so tight he was about to pop. He was talking about leaving Barbara for her. Thought she was this noble warrior queen...’

The only sounds were Tufty’s pen scratching at his notepad and the distant-thunder growl of Big Gary’s stomach.

‘So he’s all guilty that we can’t get anything to stick on Fred Marshall and he goes round there and he blubs the whole thing out to her. What we knew, what we suspected. And two days later he gets this call from her — she’s drunk and she’s sorry and she needs his help. And what does Ding-Dong find when he rushes over there like a lovesick spaniel?’

Tufty glanced up from his pad. ‘Fred Marshall?’

‘Frederick Albert Marshall, looking like something out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . So Ding-Dong takes care of it. Buries the body on some pig farm he knows about, where it’ll never be found. To protect her.’

Logan sat forward. ‘What about Rod Lawson?’

‘Ah.’ She bit her lip. Frowned at the tabletop. ‘Ding-Dong was consumed with guilt. After all: if he’d kept his big mouth shut she wouldn’t have killed Fred Marshall. He bottles it up for weeks and weeks, but he’s getting worse, you know? Calls me in the middle of the night and he’s talking about ending it all.’ Savage huffed out a breath. ‘Eight days later he’s following up a lead on a batch of heroin that’s been cut with scouring powder, and there’s Rod Lawson — lying on his back in this manky squat, all on his own, dead as a breeze block. Hadn’t been dead for long — rigor mortis not even set in yet — but it’s too late to save him. So Ding-Dong decides to fake his own death using Rod Lawson’s body, then slips away to start a new life in Spain.’

‘And DI Bell did this all on his own, did he?’

The car lurches and bumps into the clearing, its headlights catching a manky old caravan. Rusty, and forgotten. Which is what makes this the ideal spot.

Ding-Dong’s Volkswagen Passat is already sitting there, parked opposite, the engine running.

Rose pulls up next to it.

He’s behind the Passat’s wheel, wiping the heel of his hand across his eyes. As if now was the time to start getting squeamish. Nope. Too late for that.

She hauls on the handbrake, gets out, and walks over to the Passat. Opens the driver’s door. ‘Ready?’

Ding-Dong just nods. Probably doesn’t trust himself to speak without blubbing.

Typical.

‘Leave your wallet and the suicide notes on the passenger seat.’

He bites his bottom lip and does what he’s told.

‘Come on, Guv: best get it over and done with.’ She snaps on a double pair of blue nitrile gloves and leads him around to the boot of her car. Well, not her car. The car she ‘borrowed’ from outside Rod Lawson’s house. The one that’s going straight to the dismantlers, soon as they’re done here.

Rose pops the boot open and frowns down at the star of the show: Rod Lawson, groaning and grunting away. Ugly, hairy sod that he is, all dressed up in Ding-Dong’s Tuesday best. Hands cuffed behind his back, high-viz limb restraints securing his knees together. Well: no point taking any risks, is there?

‘Grab his legs.’

Ding-Dong doesn’t move.

‘I’m not doing this all myself. It’s your arse I’m saving here!’

Finally, he nods, and together they wrestle Lawson out of the boot, across the litter-strewn clearing, and into the caravan.

The car’s headlights ooze through the grimy windows. Not enough light to read by, but enough for what they need. Inside, the caravan’s filthy: most of the units twisted and broken, graffiti and stains on the walls, the door torn off the chemical toilet. The burnt stubs of roaches and scraps of scorched tinfoil make it pretty clear what this place has been used for.

Rose kicks an empty two-litre of supermarket-brand cider out of the way, sending it skittering and booming its hollow plastic song under the table, where it bounces off the pile of firewood stacked there.

Between them, they get Lawson propped up on the table. He wobbles a bit, but he stays there. It’s OK: doesn’t have to be for long.