Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

Logan patted the roof of the car. ‘Drive safely.’

A trembling hand reached up and pulled the safety belt down, and clipped it into place. Then the BMW pulled away from the kerb.

Nicholson zipped her ticket book away in a pocket. ‘If he’d done that in the first place, would’ve saved himself a hundred quid.’

‘… reported break-in at Aberdeen Heritage in Mintlaw, anyone free to attend?’

‘You know what bugs me?’ Nicholson took the patrol car up onto the bridge across the River Deveron. ‘If he’d hit someone coming the other way, he would’ve been through that windscreen like a bowling ball. Splat. Probably dead.’

The dull grey water glinted beneath them. Waves crashed in white arcs at the mouth of the bay. Over the bridge and right, towards Macduff.

‘Aye, this is Sergeant Smith, pit me and King-Kong down as attending.’

‘Hmm …’ Logan sniffed his fingertips — talc and chemicals — then reached for the car radio and clicked it on, poking the buttons till Northsound burbled out of the speakers. Some boy-band nonsense, all bland and anaemic, droning away over the Airwave’s chatter. ‘Can you imagine what that must be like? You hear about a dead girl and you rush up the country with DNA samples.’

‘And do you know what? Odds on, when he goes home tonight, it’s not about us saving his life, it’s about the police screwing innocent motorists for every penny we can. And why aren’t we out there catching real crooks instead of harassing road users?’

‘Do you think she hopes it’s her daughter?’ He frowned out at the water. ‘“Hope” is probably the wrong word. Maybe she’s looking for closure?’

Over the bridge and right as the bland-boy-band was replaced by an identikit replica. The auditory equivalent of wallpaper paste.

Nicholson pulled a face. ‘I remember this one bloke, hit a lamp post. Bang — sixty-to-zero in fourteen inches. Found him twenty feet down the road. Half his scalp came off when he hit the tarmac.’

Of course, it was daft listening to the radio and not just because of the horrible music. Sooner or later the news would come on with details of the Stirling case falling apart. It was like picking at a scab, or a hangnail. Knowing it would hurt and bleed.

Speaking of which, should really get Nicholson to pull over, so he could make that call to Napier. But she was still going on about her car crash.

‘There were these … hairy strips of it everywhere. Course I was the probationer, so I got the job of picking them all up. All cold and slimy.’ A shudder.

Christ only knew what Stephen Bisset’s family were going through. Probably something not too far removed from what Helen Edwards was. That was the thing about violent crime, in the end it always came down to pain and loss.

‘Was almost finished when this cat ran out from someone’s garden and grabbed the last chunk. Wheeched off with it into the gorse on the other side of the road.’ She slowed down. Indicated. ‘I mean, what was I supposed to do, charge in there after it? Sod that.’

Logan stretched out in his seat. ‘Suppose it must’ve looked like a big mouse …’

‘There!’ Logan slapped one hand on his hat, the other grabbing his extendable baton as he hammered past the newsagent’s. A hard, screeching right turn onto Cullen Street. ‘Stevie Moran: come back here!’

The big man glanced over his shoulder, swore, and sped up. Down the hill. Past the post office. Red tracksuit jacket flapping behind him, paint-spattered jeans and dirty trainers. Long greying brown hair streaming out behind him. A face carved from driftwood.

Old-fashioned houses lined the street in various shades of grey. Raw stone and oatmeal harling. The thump of boots on tarmac.

Nicholson appeared at Logan’s shoulder, elbows and knees pumping. Police bowler hat wedged down over her ears. Breath hissing in and out.

And then she was past.

Moran threw a left turn, both arms windmilling to keep himself upright.

Then Nicholson — almost colliding with the stop sign on the corner of Low Street.

Logan gritted his teeth and pushed harder, catching up with her as Moran hopped a waist-high stone wall, scrambled through a long narrow garden, trampling the flowers and bushes, then over the wall on the other side. Nearly went headlong, but managed to stay upright. Thumped into the wall below the Church Street sign.

The houses were even older here — three-storey merchant jobs on one side, ancient featureless slabs on the other.

Moran charged down an alleyway, Nicholson right behind him.

Logan didn’t follow her. He cut down the side of the Shore Inn, skiffed the whitewashed stonework with his shoulder, burst out into the sunshine again.

They’d run out of town.

Now the only thing between them and the North Sea was the harbour.

Stevie Moran sprinted for the harbour wall.

Nicholson lunged. Missed. Went crashing into a brown park bench as Moran hurdled the wall and disappeared.

Logan slithered to a halt on the warm tarmac. Peered over the edge.

On the other side of the wall was a ten foot drop onto shingle and rocks. Stevie Moran lay sprawled on his front. Groaning.

‘All right, Stevie, that’s enough.’

But he levered himself upright and limped towards the water, one arm clutched against his chest.

‘What are you going to do, swim to Norway?’

A pause. Then a slip on the seaweed-covered stone and he was on his knees again at the edge of the lapping water.

‘You’ll sink before you get half a mile out. Give it up.’

His shoulders sagged. ‘Arseholes …’

‘And you’ll never guess who we bumped into in Portsoy: Stephen “Stevie” Moran.’ Logan hung back a bit, following Nicholson and Moran up North High Street, back towards the patrol car.

The pair of them limped and puffed and groaned. Moran with both hands cuffed behind his back, Nicholson with a death grip on the plastic bar between the metal arms. Making sure he didn’t go for the five hundred metres record again.

On the other end of the Airwave, Deano sounded as if he was sitting in an echo chamber. ‘How long’s he been on the run: eight months? Ten?’

‘Silly sod should’ve stayed in Ireland.’

‘Speaking of silly sods, your old guvnor wants a word.’

Steel’s gruff smokey voice boomed out, ‘Hoy, I heard that!’

‘Here.’

And she was on. ‘Why haven’t you called Napier yet?’ A small pause. Then, ‘All right, Constable Smartarse, you can sod off now.’ Another pause. Then the muffled thump of a door closing. ‘Well?You looking to get fired?’

‘Been busy arresting people.’

The road opened up, widening as it joined onto the square, with its regimented grid of white-line parking spaces in the middle.

‘Putting it off’s only making it worse. You know what Napier’s like.’

‘All right, all right, I’ll call him.’ And with any luck, Napier would have gone home for the night. Putting it off for another day.

A grey van rumbled past, the driver ducking his right hand down below the dashboard. As if that would stop Logan from seeing the mobile phone clutched in it.

‘Good. And while we’re on it, your merry band of local nonces — any of them got form for drugs? No’ taking them: slipping them to kiddies. Got a positive off the blood tox screen for phenobarbital.’

‘Maybe … Probably. Pretty sure Dr Gilcomston did something like that. Barbiturates and house-calls? Check the files.’

‘Detective Chief Inspector, remember? What’s the point of keeping flying monkeys if I have to check my own files?’