Stuart MacBride: The Missing and the Dead

The pool car’s wheels hissed through the slush. No traffic — the only other vehicles were parked at the side of the road, being slowly bleached by the falling snow.

Logan turned in his seat and scowled into the back of the car as they made the turn onto the North Deeside Road. ‘Last chance, Graham.’

Graham Stirling sat hunched forwards, hands cuffed in front of him now, dabbing at his blood-crusted nostrils with grubby fingers. Voice thick and flat. ‘You broke my nose …’

Sitting next to him, Biohazard Bob sniffed. ‘Aye, and you didn’t even say thank you, did you?’ The single thick eyebrow that lurked above his eyes made a hairy V-shape. He leaned in, so close one of his big sticky-out ears brushed Stirling’s forehead. ‘Now answer the question: where’s Stephen Bisset?’

‘I need to go to hospital.’

‘You need a stiff kicking is what you need.’ Biohazard curled a hand into a hairy fist. ‘Now tell us where Bisset is, or so help me God, I’m going to-’

‘Detective Sergeant Marshall! Enough .’ Logan bared his teeth. ‘We don’t assault prisoners in police cars.’

Biohazard sat back in his seat. Lowered his fist. ‘Aye, it makes a mess of the upholstery. Rennie: find somewhere quiet to park. Somewhere dark.’

DS Rennie pulled the car to a halt at the pedestrian crossing, tip-tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as a pair of well-dressed men staggered across the road. Arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. Singing an old Rod Stewart tune. Oblivious as the snow got heavier.

Their suits looked a lot more expensive than Rennie’s. Their haircuts too — his stuck up in a blond mop above his pink-cheeked face, neck disappearing into a shirt collar two sizes too big for it. Like a wee boy playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘You want the court to know you cooperated, don’t you, Graham? That you helped? Might save you a couple of years inside?’

Silence.

Stirling picked a clot of blood from the skin beneath his nose and wiped it on the tattered fabric of his dress.

‘The DI’s serious, Graham, he’s not going to ask you again. Why not do yourself a favour and tell him what he needs to know?’

A pause. Then Stirling looked up. Smiled. ‘OK.’

Biohazard pulled out an Airwave handset. ‘’Bout time. Come on then — address?’

His pink tongue emerged, slid its way around pale lips. ‘No. You and the boy have to get out. I talk to him,’ pointing at Logan, ‘or we go back to the station and you get me a lawyer.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Stirling, we’re not-’

‘No comment.’

Logan sighed. ‘This is idiotic, it’s-’

‘You heard me: no comment. They get out, or you get me a lawyer.’

Rennie’s face pinched. ‘Guv?’

‘No comment.’

Logan rubbed his eyes. ‘Out. Both of you.’

‘Guv, I don’t think that’s-’

‘I know. Now: out.’

Rennie stared at Biohazard.

Pause.

Biohazard shrugged. Then climbed out onto the empty pavement.

A beat later, Rennie killed the engine and followed him. ‘Still think this is a bad idea.’

Clunk , the door shut, leaving Logan and Graham Stirling alone in the car.

‘Talk.’

‘The forest on the Slug Road. There’s a track off into the trees, you need a key for the gate. An … an old forestry worker’s shack hidden away in there, miles from anywhere.’ The smile grew hazy, the eyes too, as if he was reliving something. ‘If you’re lucky, Steve might still be alive.’

Logan took out his handset. ‘Right. We’ll-’

‘You’ll never find it without me. It’s not on any maps. Can’t even see it on Google Earth.’ Stirling leaned forward. ‘Search all you like: by the time you find him, Steve Bisset will be long dead.’

The pool car’s headlights cast long jagged shadows between the trees, its warning strobes glittering blue-and-white against the needles. Catching the thick flakes of snow and making them shine, caught in their slow-motion dance to the forest floor.

Logan shifted his footing on the frozen, rutted track. Ran his torch along the treeline.

Middle of nowhere.

He wiped a drip from the end of his nose. ‘Well, what was I supposed to do? Let him no-comment till Stephen Bisset dies?’

The track snaked off further into the darkness, bordered on both sides by tussocks of grass, slowly disappearing under the falling snow, glowing in the torchlight.

On the other end of the phone, Steel groaned. ‘Could you no’ have let the nasty wee sod fall down the stairs a few times? We’re no’ allowed to-’

‘You want to tell Stephen’s family we let him freeze to death, all alone, in a shack in the forest, because we were more concerned with following procedure than saving his life?’

‘Laz, it’s no’ that simple, we-’

‘Because if that’s what you want, tell me now and we’ll head back to HQ. You can help Dr Simms pick out a body-bag. Probably still got some nice Christmas paper knocking about, you could use that. Wrap his corpse up with a bow on top.’

‘Will you shut up and-’

‘Maybe something with kittens and teddy bears on it, so Bisset’s kids won’t mind so much?’

Silence.

‘Hello?’

‘All right, all right. But he better be alive. And another thing-’

He hung up and marched over to the pool car.

Biohazard leaned against the bonnet, arms folded, shoulders hunched, one cowboy boot up on the bumper. Nose going bright red, the tips of his taxi-door ears too. He spat. Nodded at the ill-fitting suit behind the steering wheel. ‘The wee loon’s right, this is daft.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve cleared it with the boss, so we’re doing it.’

A sniff. ‘What if Danny the Drag Queen tries it on when you’re out there?’

Logan peered around Biohazard’s shoulder.

Stirling was slumped in the rear seat, blood dried to a black mask that hid the lower half of his face. Bruises already darkening the skin beneath both eyes. The blue sundress all mud-stained and tatty after the chase through the gardens. Shivering.

‘Think I’ll risk it.’ Logan pulled out the canister of CS gas from his jacket pocket, ran his thumbnail across the join between the safety cap and the body. ‘But just in case, get his hands cuffed behind him. And I want the pair of you ready to charge in.’

Logan popped open the back door and leaned into the car. It smelled of sweat and fear and rusting meat. ‘Out.’

Twigs snapped beneath his feet as they picked their way between the grey-brown branches, following the circle of light cast by Logan’s torch. A tiny dot, adrift on an ocean of darkness.

Something moved out there. Little scampering feet and claws that skittered away into the night.

Logan flicked the torch in its direction. ‘How much further?’

He jerked his chin to the left. ‘That way.’ The words plumed out from his mouth in a glowing cloud, caught in the torchlight. Curling away into the night. Dragon’s breath.

Down a slope, into a depression lined with brambles and the curled remains of long-dead ferns, already sagging under the weight of snow. More falling from the sickly dark sky.

Stirling’s feet clumped about in Rennie’s shoes, the scuffed black brogues and white socks looking huge beneath the torn sundress and laddered tights.

Up the other side, through the ferns — brittle foliage wrapping around Logan’s trousers, leaving cold wet fingerprints. ‘Why him? Why Stephen Bisset?’

‘Why?’ A shrug. The torchlight glinted off the handcuffs’ metal bars, secured behind his back, fingers laced together as if they were taking a casual stroll along the beach. ‘Why not?’ A small sigh. ‘Because he was there .’