Стюарт Макбрайд - The Blood Road

‘How is it our fault? Tell me that!’

‘And if you go near my chips I will stab you with a fork.’

‘She’s the one abandoned her three-year-old daughter in the back garden to nip out for booze and fags! If she’d been a halfway decent parent, Ellie wouldn’t have been snatched.’

Logan put down his fork and looked at her. Silent.

Fraser groaned. ‘All right, all right: I know. But still... That doesn’t make it our fault.’

‘Imagine if you were her. Would you want to admit you were responsible? How would you live with yourself?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ Fraser chewed on her curry for a bit. ‘And I’m not a “tosspot”, thank you very much. I had to do a law degree to get on the fast-track programme. You try it if you think it’s so easy.’

‘Whoever took Ellie, it has to be someone who knows the area, right?’

‘Back garden’s got a path behind it. Anyone walking past would see Ellie’d been left on her own.’

Logan scooped a chip through the cheese sauce. ‘You run a check on sex offenders living nearby?’

‘And not just Tillydrone. We did Hayton, Hilton, Sandilands, Powis, and Ashgrove too. Interviewed the lot of them. Checked alibis. Nothing.’

Over in the corner someone launched into ‘Happy Birthday to You’. One by one the other tables took it up and belted it out. The only ones not joining in were Logan and Fraser.

She dug into her curry again. ‘Of course the smart money is on the stepfather, but he interviews clean.’

‘Alibi?’

‘Playing video games, drinking Special Brew, and smoking dope at a friend’s house.’

‘Sounds like an excellent role model.’

‘Tell you, Inspector, I’ve scraped things off the bottom of my shoe with more—’

The song reached a deafening climax, complete with operatic wobbling harmonies and a hearty round of applause with extra cheering.

Fraser shrugged when it was quiet again. ‘Five to one, when Ellie’s body turns up, her stepdad’s DNA is all over her.’

‘ If her body turns up.’

‘Yeah. If.’ She jabbed a pakora with her fork and gesticulated with it. ‘Course, if we can break his alibi it’s a different story. Assuming DS Chalmers has bothered her backside to even try. And before you say anything: I know. I should’ve sent someone else. She’s had enough last chances.’

Logan put his fork down. ‘Why didn’t you come to me sooner?’

‘Because... When you were in CID, would you have shopped one of your team to the Rubber Heelers? Of course not. No one...’ She cleared her throat. Ate her pakora. ‘Bad example. But the rest of us wouldn’t. Not unless there was no other option.’

‘There wasn’t. And I did it for the same reason you are. Sometimes people don’t leave us any choice.’

His phone dinged, a new message filling the screen.

TUFTY:

It is I, SUPERTUFTY! Scourge of naughty people! A tiny birdy tells me the GPS on DS Chalmers’s Airwave puts her at/near Huge Gay Bill’s Bar & Grill, Northfield.

Logan polished off the last glistening tubes of macaroni and stood. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the pub.’

The building was set back from the road — an oversized mock Northeast farmhouse, long and low, with white walls, gable ends, a grey slate roof, and dormer windows. The Scottish vernacular charm was somewhat undermined by the big neon sign towering over the entrance in shades of yellow and green: ‘HUGE GAY BILL’S BAR & GRILL!’ It steamed and fizzed in the drizzle.

Only two vehicles sat in the large car park, a gleaming Land Rover Discovery and a mud-spattered Fiat. Chalmers’ Fiat. Logan parked two spaces down. Clambered out and hurried into the pub.

Inside, the place had a soulless, unloved feel. Like an abandoned Wetherspoons. A soulless mix of polished wood and psychedelic carpet. Lots of small round tables with chairs. Menus everywhere.

Something romantic oozed out of the jukebox.

The only two people in here were slow dancing in front of it — all wrapped up in each other — one a large, white-haired woman, the other a Victoria Wood look-alike. Oblivious to everything else.

Logan went across to the vacant bar and rapped his knuckles on the wood. ‘Shop!’

A grunt preceded a huge, broad-shouldered man who looked like the answer to the question, ‘What do you get if you cross a cage fighter with a gorilla?’ The lump of gristle clinging onto the middle of his face barely qualified as a nose. Somehow, the pristine-white shirt and dark-blue tie made him seem even more dangerous. He nodded at Logan. ‘Inspector.’

‘Bill. How’s Josh?’

Bill bared his teeth — teeny, like Tic Tacs. ‘Joshua is a scum-sucking arsehole.’ He grabbed a bottle of Bell’s whisky and shoved it into an empty optics slot, gripping the thing so tight his knuckles were white. ‘Why do I have to keep giving my heart to arseholes?’ Trembling, face darkening. ‘Tell me that. Go on!’

‘Don’t look at me, my track record’s not much better.’ Logan counted them off on his fingers. ‘One emotionally distant pathologist with intimacy issues; one PC with violent tendencies; a self-harming, Identification Bureau tech, tattoo addict in a coma; and a Trading Standards officer.’

Bill folded his massive arms. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

Good question.

Logan shrugged. ‘Don’t know yet. Early days.’ He pulled a photo from his police fleece and placed it on the bar. Lorna Chalmers. ‘Her car’s parked outside.’

‘The scabby Fiat?’ Bill picked up the photo and squinted at it. ‘This your Trading Standards woman?’

‘No: colleague. I’m worried about her.’

‘Hmph... Well, suppose someone should be. State of her.’ He dumped the photo back down again and jerked his head to the side. ‘Ladies.’

‘Thanks.’ Logan had to detour around the slow dancers in front of the jukebox; they didn’t even look up.

Bill’s voice boomed out after him. ‘And take it from me, the crazy ones might be great in bed, but they’ll screw you over every time! Every — single — time.’

He had a point.

Logan pushed through the grey door marked ‘POUR FEMME’ and into something off of a film set. Dark grey slate tiles, a plush red chaise longue against one wall, individual mirrors in heavy gilt frames above the marble sinks.

A lone figure was hunched over one of the sinks — DS Chalmers. She held her mass of auburn curls back with one hand as she spat something frothy and pink into the marble bowl. Her other hand clutched at her ribs. Holding them in as she washed her face. Grunting and groaning.

Logan settled onto the chaise longue. ‘Having fun?’

She flinched, whipping around with a strangled scream, fists up. Ready.

He held his hands in the air. ‘Whoa. Calm.’

Chalmers lowered her fists, voice all muffled and lispy. ‘Inspector McRae. Oh joy.’ Either she’d fallen under a bus, or someone had given her a serious going-over. Scrapes darkened her cheeks, chin, and forehead. The first flush of bruises beginning to spread around them. Face damp where she’d washed the blood off. Or most of it anyway.

Logan pointed. ‘Want to tell me who did that?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘You were out breaking Russell Morton’s alibi, so it was either him or his mates.’

‘I said it’s nothing. Leave it.’

The awkward silence grew. Then Chalmers turned her back on him and splashed another handful of water on her battered face. Winced. Prodded at her gums.

A tooth clattered into the marble sink.

‘You’ve been married, what, three years? If it wasn’t Russell Morton...?’

She froze. ‘Leave Brian out of this.’