Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

‘Have you been out here all this time?’ He helped her to her feet.

It took a while, her knees didn’t seem to be working properly. ‘Sorry …’

‘Honestly, you can go back to your hotel, we’ll call you as soon as we know anything.’

She stumbled a little. Grabbed the wall. Stretched out her left leg. ‘Foot’s gone to sleep.’

‘I can give you a lift, if you like?’

‘Don’t have a hotel. I didn’t want to …’ A shrug. ‘What if something happened and I wasn’t here?’

‘So you were going to sit out here, in the dark, all night? And all tomorrow as well? You do know it’s going to take a few days for the DNA results to come in?’

‘What else can I do?’

Logan dug out his keys. ‘Have you eaten anything today?’

‘I know, I’m an idiot.’ Her head dipped. ‘Argh … pins and needles.’

Helen Edwards limped around the kitchen as the microwave burrrrrrred away to itself, and the kettle grumbled to a boil. She stopped in front of the row of framed photos next to the calendar. May’s picture was a cat and a pony playing in a field, executed in crayon and glitter. ‘You’ve got kids?’

Logan dumped teabags in two mugs. ‘Not really. Sort of. It’s complicated.’ The kettle clicked to a stop. ‘You take sugar?’

‘One, please.’

He filled the mugs with hot water. ‘My boss and her wife wanted a kid, so I donated. Jasmine’s six now. Made me the calendar for Christmas. You want to get the milk and spready butter from the fridge?’

‘She’s very talented.’

‘Doesn’t get it from my side of the family.’ He dug the loaf of cheapo white from the breadbin and placed it on the kitchen table.

‘Your girlfriend?’ Helen Edwards pointed at one of the photos that hung squint on the wall. Logan and Samantha eating ice cream outside the Inversnecky Café down at Aberdeen beach. Samantha’s hair was post-box scarlet, a dribble of vanilla snaked down her hand, chocolate flake posed at a jaunty angle. Big smile. Logan grinning. As if the world wasn’t a cruel, dark, hollow, pit of a place.

Helen straightened the frame. ‘She’s pretty.’

Ah … ‘That’s complicated too.’ He fished out the teabags and put the mugs next to the loaf.

‘It always is.’ She got the milk and the butter. ‘I remember when it was like that for Brian and me. The smiles and the chips and the lazy Sunday mornings … Before the shouting and the swearing and the constant criticism eating away at you like acid.’

The microwave gave its triumphant bleeps of completion. The bowl was almost too hot to touch, but Logan got it onto the kitchen table with only second-degree burns to the fingers. ‘Sorry, it’s only lentil.’

‘I like lentil.’

‘Gets a bit samey after a couple of weeks.’ He handed her a plate and a spoon. Then slopped some milk in his mug and took it over to the sink. Rinsed out the soup tin.

‘It’s lovely, thank you.’ The slurp and crunch of soup and toast sounded behind him as she tucked in. ‘Very good.’

‘It’s complicated, because Samantha was in a coma for four years.’

Silence.

He stuck the tin on the draining board. ‘She’s what they call “minimally conscious” now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

A long slow breath made his shoulders sink. ‘She can’t speak. Can’t move on her own. And there’s a big hole in her skull so her brain doesn’t swell up and kill her.’

‘Must be hard.’

‘Don’t even know if she’s in there any more. I mean, I talk to her, but …’ Yes, well. No point going down that road. A small laugh forced its way out, leaving a bitter taste behind. ‘Sorry. Must be my turn to play Captain Gloom and Doom.’ He gave himself a small shake. ‘Anyway, would you like some hot sauce? Perks a bowl of lentil up no end.’

‘Are you sure it’s OK?’

Logan handed her the pillow. ‘It’s fine, seriously. You look reasonably honest, and I’ve got sod all worth stealing anyway.’

She lay back on the couch and pulled the duvet up under her chin. ‘Thank you.’

Click , and the room was plunged into darkness. He stepped out into the hall. ‘I’m not on duty tomorrow, so it won’t be an early start.’

Her voice came from the dark. ‘Logan?’

‘What?’

‘You remember what I said? About knowing what it’s like to love someone who’s completely lost? And if they were dead you could start moving on?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I am too.’

He closed the door, and headed upstairs to bed.

A yawn. A stretch. A scratch. Then Logan slumped back into his pillow.

Sunlight glared around the border of the curtains, revealing the peeling wallpaper around the window in all its hideous glory. Have to get that stripped off today. Well, it was that or paint the living room. Or the stairs. Or do one of the other hundred jobs that-

What was that?

He sat up, ears straining to catch the noise again.

A clunk came from somewhere downstairs.

There was someone in the house.

Need a weapon. Extendable baton. Not as good as a shotgun, but it’d do.

His hand fumbled down the side of the mattress, fingertips searching for the equipment belt and …

Idiot.

Of course there was someone in the house: Helen Edwards. She was going to the toilet, wasn’t she. There wasn’t one on the ground floor, so she’d climbed the stairs.

Who was it going to be, Freddy Krueger?

He lay back. Slow calm breaths, until the thudding beat in his chest faded a bit.

Idiot.

Five more minutes: then up.

Logan hauled the T-shirt over his head and scuffed his way downstairs. A handful of fliers for the local takeaways lay scattered beneath the letterbox, along with a collection of canvassing leaflets for the upcoming by-election. Vote for me, I’m not a scumbag!

Yeah, right.

He scooped the lot up and carried them through to the kitchen.

Helen Edwards stood at the sink, elbow-deep in suds. Pots and pans were piled up on the draining board, while what looked like every plate in the place was stacked on the other side.

Logan stopped at the doorway. ‘Is everything really that filthy?’

She turned. Pink spread across her cheeks. ‘It … No. I just …’ She pushed a dirty-blonde curl out of her eyes with a soapy finger. ‘I was sitting about and I thought, I know, I’ll do something useful — I’ll clean the kitchen.’

He clicked the kettle on. ‘You want tea?’

‘Please.’

For a minute, the only sound was the clicking rattle of the water boiling.

Logan cleared his throat.

Cthulhu padded into the room and hopped up onto the windowsill in one fluid motion. Arched her back, then sat down, tail in the air, front paws at ten to two, like a small fuzzy ballet dancer. Logan reached out and scratched her behind the ears, getting a deep rumbling purr for his troubles.

Behind her, sunlight washed the face of Banff police station. Gave its sandstone cheeks a rosy glow.

An old man went by on a bicycle.

Helen cleared her throat.

Yeah, this wasn’t awkward at all.

Click .

Logan made the tea. ‘I’m heading off to see Samantha later.’

‘Do you … Do you think they’ll hear about the DNA today?’

‘Probably not. They’re upgrading the equipment in Aberdeen so everything’s going to Dundee instead. And they’ve always got a backlog these days — rapes, murders, severed feet. It’s Thursday now. Lucky if it’s done before the weekend, to be honest.’

‘Oh.’ Helen’s head drooped.

‘DCI Steel will be kicking up a fuss, try to get it prioritized, but there’s only so much she can do.’