Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

‘Onwards and upwards.’ He ushered the Labrador up the stairs.

Logan stuck his head into the living room. Nicholson and Carole were nowhere to be seen, but, sadly, the same couldn’t be said of Klingon.

He was stripped to his pants in the middle of the room, hands cuffed behind his back, palms up. Muscles stood out on his arms and legs like elastic bands, his chest sunken, ribs on show, a proper full-on six pack. Standing there with his shoulders hunched and his back curved, showing off every bump and hollow of his spine. Blue-and-purple bruises rippled across his stomach and up one side. A wonky tattoo of the starship Enterprise and Captain Picard covered one arm from shoulder to elbow. Or at least, it was probably meant to be Captain Picard. It looked more like a constipated potato.

Wafts of bitter onion stink came off him like hungry tendrils. Burrowing their way into Logan’s sinuses.

Mitchell was pulling a second pair of nitrile gloves on over the ones he was already wearing. Not taking any chances. ‘Now, have you banked anything, Colin? Am I going to have to go spelunking here?’

Definitely not planning on hanging around for that. Logan pointed at the kitchen. ‘When you’re done here, try around the cooker. Got a hit from the dog.’

Then out again before the saggy grey pants came off.

Upstairs.

A greasy smear ran along the wallpaper at shoulder height.

Logan kept his hands away from the banister and picked his way down the middle of the landing, staying away from the manky wall. With most crime scenes, no one touched anything in case they contaminated the evidence. Here it was more about not wanting to catch anything.

The master-bedroom door lay open — Syd stood on the threshold and Enzo’s tail was just visible on the other side of the bed. No sheet on the mattress, no cover on the squashed pillow. Both were covered in yellow-brown stains, saggy, threadbare. Mounds of dirty clothes surrounded the bed. A framed picture of Jesus had pride of place on the wall above the headboard.

Syd looked over his shoulder. ‘I’m saving the bathroom till last.’

Yes, because that was going to be such a treat.

They gave Enzo a couple of minutes, then held the wardrobe doors open for him.

Nothing.

The second, smaller bedroom was the same, only messier. A single mattress lay on the floor, a large brown stain covering one side, complete with its own collection of spiralling bluebottles. A windowsill laden with dead flies and wasps.

Other than a bong and a little drift of burnt tinfoil on the windowsill, Enzo didn’t find anything there either.

A stepladder leaned up against the wall, in the corner of the room. Free of dirty socks, pants, T-shirts, or trousers.

Logan nodded at it. ‘Does that look a bit suspicious to you?’

Back onto the landing. Staring up at the ceiling.

A hatch led up into the attic, right outside the single bedroom. The hatch’s edges were filthy with layers and layers of dirty fingerprints.

He pointed. ‘You think we can get Enzo up there?’

‘Not without giving us both a hernia.’

Logan grabbed the stepladder and carried it through. Popped it open beneath the hatch. Climbed up the first couple of steps. Looked down over the side of the banister to the bottom of the stairs. Long way down. ‘Do me a favour and hold the ladder for a minute?’

Better safe than sorry.

He climbed, pushed the hatch up and slid it to the side. Blackness. Logan’s torch sent a beam of white LED light scorching across the roof beams. Another couple of steps and his head popped over the threshold into the loft space. Warm up here. Stuffy too. Partially floored.

He played the torch beam around him: boxes and boxes and shadows and boxes, and …

‘Oh, ho. What have we here?’

It was a baseball bat, duct tape wrapped around the handle, the wooden end scraped and scarred. Smeared with what looked like dark-red jam but had the coppery smell of raw meat. It wasn’t the only smell up here. There was something rank and sewage-like too.

Another couple of steps up, till his whole torso was in the attic.

Boxes and boxes. He popped one open. Grinned.

Syd’s voice came up from below. ‘Anything?’

‘Either Klingon and Gerbil are stockpiling bags of cornflower up here, or we’ve hit the jackpot. It’s …’

What was that?

A hand tugged at his trouser leg. ‘You OK up there?’

‘Shhh …’

He moved his foot to the top rung of the stepladder. Wobbled for a moment. Then a bit of a struggle and he was in the attic, kneeling on the edge of the hatch. One hand on the nearest roof beam, the torch clutched in the other. Swinging the beam slowly left and right, causing the shadows to dance. Catching motes of dust in the stuffy space and making them glow.

There it was again. A sort of scratching snuffling sound.

Rats?

They’d have to be bloody huge if it was.

‘Police. Is somebody there?’

He shuffled forwards. Let go of the roof beam. Reached out and pushed one of the boxes to the side. It fell over with a crash, spilling dusty crockery shrapnel over the chipboard flooring.

A man lay on his side, arms behind his back, ankles held together with a thick binding of duct tape. Gag over his mouth. Dried blood streaked the side of his face nearest the ground. One eye stuck closed with dried gore, the other slitted, only the white showing. Prominent cheekbones, pierced ears and nose. Jagged tribal tattoos on his neck.

In real life he was missing the Hitler moustache, glasses, and bolts out the side of his neck, but there was no mistaking everyone’s favourite drug-dealing scumbag. Only reported missing because he owed his granny money.

Jack Simpson.

So that’s where he’d been all this time …

Logan hunched over the disposable tester, rubbing the tips of his gloved fingers together. ‘Come on, you can do it …’

Silence filled the Sergeants’ Office, only broken by the occasional creak and murmured cough from the gathered hordes. They packed the room — Syd, Sergeant Mitchell and two of his team. Nicholson, Tufty, and Deano were off doing things, but most of the dayshift were squeezed in around the edges, killing the last ten minutes before they could clock off.

Maggie appeared in the doorway. ‘Well?’

Dirty pink spread along the thin display strip that took up one side of the flat, black, pen-sized bit of plastic. ‘Red line, red line, red line …’

And there it was. Right where it was supposed to be, alongside the notch in the tester.

Logan straightened up. Held out the test, so everyone could see it. ‘It’s a boy!’

Mitchell let out a whistle. Stared down at the cardboard box they’d removed from Klingon’s attic. ‘Got to be, what: eighty, a hundred grand’s worth there?’

Syd grinned. ‘More if it’s not been cut yet.’

Logan popped the tester into an evidence bag. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby declare Operation Schofield a massive sodding success.’

Thank God.

Cue smiles. Laughter. Slapping of backs.

He stripped off his stabproof vest and propped it in the corner. ‘Maggie, I need you to get everything bagged up, labelled, in the system, then into the productions store.’

‘My pleasure.’

Logan headed out to the main office and up the stairs to the first floor, taking them two at a time. Whistling ‘We’re in the Money’ all the way.

The sound of phones and voices filtered down from the top floor. That would be the MIT, going through whatever motions they thought would make it look as if they were actually doing something other than generating paperwork and excuses.