Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

‘It’s OK.’

‘He’d run around the garden like a mad thing. We got him a plastic sword and a shield and he’d be Spartacus, or Bilbo, or whoever it was this week. Fighting dragons and skeletons. We always told him to stay away from the far field, because of the cliffs, but …’ Silence. ‘I only turned my back for five minutes. I was making tattie and leek soup for tea, and …’ A small hissing noise escaped from the handset. ‘We found his sword and shield. We’d been looking for Andrew for hours, and there they were, lying against the drystane dyke at the edge of the far field.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘They called the Coast Guard, and they searched the cliffs and the rocks, but there was nothing. Andrew … They told us he’d been swept out to sea.’

Logan’s stomach lurched against his lungs again as Nicholson took them over another bump at speed. ‘Did Charles say anything?’

‘Say anything?’ She gave him a small bitter laugh. ‘That’s all he’d talk about. How it wasn’t right. Andrew wasn’t dead, he was missing. There wasn’t a body, how could he be dead? Someone must’ve snatched him.’

‘But there wasn’t any proof?’

‘He was obsessed. Put posters up everywhere, adverts in the newspapers, handed out fliers at football matches and the supermarkets, till they told him to move on. Two years I made allowances, I lived with it, because he was grieving. But do you know what? I was grieving too.’

Logan sneaked a peek. Fields and trees hammered past, Nicholson put her foot down to overtake a plumber’s van. He closed his eyes again. ‘Did he ever find anything? Ever connect anyone to Andrew’s disappearance?’

No reply.

‘Ms Hay?’

‘I remarried. We’ve got a little girl. Andrew’s dead and I don’t want to speak about it ever again.’ Click. She’d hung up on him.

Nicholson’s voice rose above the roar of the engine. ‘You can open your eyes now, Sarge. We’re here.’

The thirty limit flashed past and she stood on the brakes, taking them down to a more respectable thirty. Then poked the button switching the swirling blue lights off.

A graveyard with plenty of room went by on the left.

Rain battered the Big Car, sounding like a million tiny hammers.

She pulled up outside the church. ‘What’s the plan?’

Logan hit the button again. ‘Shire Uniform Seven to Tango Bravo One Two. Safe to talk?’

‘You made it?’

‘By the skin of our teeth. Any news on the suspects?’

‘Still in the baker’s. Been ten minutes.’

‘What about the one on the phone?’

‘On his third fag, stomping up and down the pavement, jabbing his elbows about as he talks. Looks like he’s giving someone a bollocking … Oh ho. Hold on. He’s hung up and got a set of keys out. … Making for the van. … Come on, Chuckles, do it for Uncle Ed …’

Nicholson bounced up and down a couple of times in the driver’s seat.

‘He’s in. Repeat, Chuckles has got in behind the wheel.’

Logan stuck a hand out and shoved Nicholson back into her seat. ‘What about the other three?’

‘Still in the … Nope, that’s them coming out now. Lots of paper bags and Styrofoam cups.’

Nicholson slipped the Big Car into gear. ‘Here we go …’

‘Which way’s the van facing: south, or north?’

‘They pull out now, they’ll be on the road to Strichen.’

‘OK, they’re not going to do a three-point turn in a removal van. You’re unmarked, right? When they go, I want you ahead of them. We let them get half a mile then you block in front and we block behind.’

‘Chuckles has started the van. OK, we’re heading out first … Nice and slow … He’s following.’

‘Tell me when you’ve cleared the end of town.’

‘There’s four of them, what if they’ve got guns?’

‘You want me to go first?’

‘You saying Traffic’s full of Jessies? … OK, that’s us cleared the limits on the Strichen road. Chuckles is right behind.’

Logan gave Nicholson the nod. ‘Nice and easy.’

She pulled the Big Car onto the High Street.

Little grey houses, all in a straight line, slipped past the windows. Sulking beneath the hammering rain. At the bottom of the road, they took a left, following the sign for Strichen. Past another couple of houses, then around the corner and out into the countryside.

The road stretched out ahead, the boxy black bulk of the removal van sticking out like a lump of coal between fields of waving gold.

Logan pressed the button. ‘Tango Bravo One Two, that’s us cleared the limits. We have visual. Closing on you now.’

‘Roger that. Slowing to a halt. … And we’re blocking the road. Chuckles has stopped.’

Nicholson accelerated, taking them right up behind the van, then slamming on the brakes.

Logan poked the siren button, letting it wail as he unleashed his body-worn video from its elastic band. ‘Let’s do it.’

Out into the downpour. He wedged the peaked cap firmly over his ears — froze for a second and winced as it caught the lump on his head — grabbed a yellow high-vis from the rear seat and hauled it on as the rain trickled down the back of his neck.

Nicholson scrambled out the other side, pulling on her coat as they sploshed through the puddles either side of the removal van. Up to the cab.

The guy behind the wheel, Chuckles, didn’t move. Kept his hands at ten to two. The three men sitting next to him did their best to look relaxed. Nothing to see here. Move along.

The two-person crew of Tango Bravo One Two appeared in their high-vis. Four against four.

Logan reached up and knocked on the driver’s window.

A pause.

Rain thumped out a tattoo on Logan’s peaked cap. Pattered against his fluorescent-yellow shoulders.

Then the window buzzed down.

A smile pulled Chuckles’s cheeks into rosy apples. ‘Something up, Officer?’ Not a local accent, but still Scottish. Dundee maybe? Not sing-song enough for Fife. Big lad, his head almost scraping the top of the cab. Long brown hair. Green overalls.

‘This your vehicle, sir?’

‘Nah, I’m just the driver. Know what it’s like with these removal firms, eh? All we do is drive about and hump the heavy stuff from A to B.’

‘And your name?’

‘And it’s always at the top of the stairs, isn’t it lads? The heavier the bit of furniture, the more flights you’ve got to lug it up.’

His mates nodded. Made agreeing noises that weren’t actually words. All of them in green overalls, all of them big enough to give Constable King Kong McMahon a thump for his money. Larry, Curly, and Moe.

‘Your name , sir.’

‘Yeah, of course. It’s Russell. Russell McNee. Was I speeding or something?’

‘I need you to give me the keys and step out of the vehicle, sir.’

‘Come on, I wasn’t speeding, I know I wasn’t. This is-’

‘Keys. Please.’ Logan stuck his hand out.

No one moved.

Rain.

‘All units, be on the lookout for Terrence and Jon McAuley. Both have apprehension warrants for an aggravated assault on Saturday night.’

More rain.

This was it. Either they came quietly, or-

Moe — the one on the far side — broke. He yanked off his seatbelt and threw the passenger door open. It slammed into Nicholson, sending her crashing back into a barbed-wire knot of brambles. And he was off, jumping the fence and charging into the field of wheat.

It took less than two seconds for Nicholson to swear herself back upright and hammer after him, bowler hat tumbling off as she ran.