Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

‘Negative.’

Three cars, a bus, a removal van, and a tanker — all coming the other way — pulled into the side of the road, giving them a clear run at it. More than could be said for the idiot with the caravan blocking this side of the road.

Nicholson thumped the steering wheel. ‘Out of the way you mouldy old sod!’ Soon as they’d cleared the tanker she wrenched the Big Car onto the other side of the road and accelerated past the caravan. ‘Can’t have missed them by much …’

Logan clicked his Airwave again. ‘Where’s everyone else?’

‘Units are on their way. Closest is fifteen minutes away.’

‘Tell them to hit the A98 soon as they can. We’re looking for a blue four-by-four. No make or model known, but the back end will be all dented in.’

A petrol station whizzed by on the left, then a plumber’s, then the fringe of a housing estate. The speedo hit ninety as they flashed through the limits and out into the countryside again.

‘Roger that.’

Ten seconds later the lookout request crackled from the Big Car’s radio. ‘All units be on the lookout for a blue four-wheel-drive vehicle heading west on the A98 …’

With any luck, this time, they were actually going to catch them.

‘Anything?’

Nicholson looked up from her Airwave and shook her head. ‘No sign of them anywhere.’

Logan tied the end of the ‘POLICE’ tape to the downpipe between the two parts of the Co-op. On one side it took up the bottom floor of a three-storey granite building, but the main entrance — the side that had been raided — was a single-storey extension, painted white with green buckled frontage. A red post box positioned by the entrance. The other end of the blue-and-white cordon was wrapped around it, like the ribbon on a very boring present, then stretched out to an orange cone in the middle of the road in front of it, and on to another in front of the downpipe. A nice big rectangle, protecting the scene.

The Big Car blocked the other side of the road, its lights spinning in the sunshine.

A bleep from his Airwave. Then, ‘Sarge, it’s Deano. Safe to talk?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Me and Tufty have been round the burglaries in Pennan. No witnesses. Got some pretty odd stuff gone missing though. There’s the usual iPads and DVDs and phones, bit of cash and jewellery, but one lot’s missing a bible from 1875, a First World War bayonet, and a Georgian vase. House next door’s missing paintings from the 1920s. One next to that’s lost a crystal decanter set from the Cutty Sark .’

Logan hauled open the Big Car’s boot. ‘M.O.E.?’

‘Popped a pane of glass in the back doors. Thing is, Sarge, how’d you know to take a decanter set and ignore a CD player?’

‘Stealing to order maybe? That or he’s got an interest. Run a check on the PNC, maybe we can get a quick result on this one.’ Logan pulled the dustpan and long-handled broom from the boot. ‘Keep me up to date, OK?’

‘Will do.’

He handed the broom and dustpan to Nicholson. ‘And before you start moaning, it’s not because you’re a woman, it’s because you’re a constable.’

Her face drooped. ‘Sarge.’

‘Clear this side of the road. Soon as it’s done, shift the car and get traffic moving again. Don’t sweep up anything inside the cordon.’ He picked his way through the scattered debris into the store. Inside, it looked as if a bomb had gone off. Ground Zero was the gap where the two windows had been, spreading impulse-buy items, tins, and lottery tickets out in a fan of destruction. A display stand of newspapers was smashed in half, canted over — spilling out its collection of red-top tabloids, gossip magazines, and issues of Farmers Weekly .

A handful of breezeblocks from the caved-in sill.

The manager sat behind the counter, cup of tea and packet of Rennies in front of her, mobile phone to her ear. Green shirt and black fleece. ‘STACEY’, according to her name badge. Round-shouldered, going grey, and smelling of peppermint. She crunched down another antacid. ‘I don’t know, Mike. It’s up to the police. But the whole place …’ She stared out at it. Sagged a little further. ‘I’ll let you know soon as I do.’

Logan stood at the counter, amongst the drifts of newsprint and lotto tickets.

It could be you.

But today it was Stacey.

She blinked up at him. ‘Got to go.’ Hung up. Put her phone down. ‘Sorry. Head office. Wanted to know if everyone was OK.’

Logan nodded at the hole where the two windows used to be. The rest of them were blocked off with shelves and display units. ‘Where was the cash machine?’

She pointed over the counter at a clean rectangular patch on the floor, with four sheared bolts and a snapped length of electrical flex. ‘It was like … I don’t know. The window exploded and there was glass and things everywhere and it was over so quickly.’ Stacey wrapped her hands around her tea. ‘Thought everything was supposed to slow down, but: whoosh .’ A shudder.

‘How about CCTV?’

A nod. Then a deep breath. ‘Yes. CCTV. We can do that.’

She led him through the wreckage to much cleaner aisles. Past the crisps and cat food to a double door. Pushed into a backroom store full of cages of breakfast cereal and tatties. A little office sat on one side. Stacey opened the door and ushered him inside. ‘Three cameras cover the front of the shop: two inside, one out.’

A worktop desk ran along two walls, complete with computer, two phones, and a pair of office chairs. A monitor was mounted in the corner, above a bank of digital recording stuff. Eight views of the shop filled the screen, each with a little timer ticking over in the corner. Only one view was nothing but static.

Stacey picked a remote from the top of the recording boxes and sank into one of the chairs. She poked at the buttons, sending the timers clattering backwards.

Ten minutes. Twenty. Thirty. Forty — and the static disappeared, replaced by a view of the shop from a point above the display stand where people were meant to fill out their lottery tickets.

‘Here we go.’

The screens froze.

Camera four showed an old man juggling a basket and a two-litre bottle of Irn-Bru. Six had a young girl dangling a teddy bear by its leg, while an older woman weighed up the difference between two loaves of bread. Camera one was an exterior shot from above the front door. And camera two had Stacey, sitting behind the counter hunched over some sort of paperwork.

Play.

The old man dropped the basket. The little girl skipped along the aisle.

A big blue four-by-four reversed into shot on camera one, swung round and its rear-end smashed into the window beside the door.

Camera two filled with exploding glass and dust, flying tins and packets. All in perfect silence.

Debris blocked the view of cameras two-to-three, but the others showed shelves shaking. The older woman clasping the bread to her chest like a parachute.

Camera three went to static.

It took a couple of seconds for camera two to clear, and when it did the back half of the huge four-by-four jutted into the shop. Not a Range Rover or a sporty job, a proper huge one with a loadbay and canopy. Toyota Hilux, or a Mitsubishi Warrior? Difficult to tell from this angle. Maybe it was an Isuzu? Something like that. The sort of thing you could chuck bales of hay or a couple of sheep into.

Ceiling tiles and tins lay on top of the canopy.

Camera one: the car’s back doors popped open and two figures swarmed out and into the shop, climbing through the shattered hole where the windows used to be. Black ski masks, gloves, tracksuits. One had a length of heavy-duty chain in his hands. He wrapped it around the base of the cash machine, while his mate clipped the other end onto the four-by-four’s towbar.