Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

‘Told you: it’s Hector.’

The index cards on the board each had the name of a sex offender written on them, along with details of offence and length of time served. Everyone they’d visited on Monday night was there, along with a few others. All caught on the scarlet threads of a spider’s web. With a photo of the dead girl in the centre.

He pointed at it. ‘You getting anywhere?’

‘Do I look like I’m getting anywhere? Does this look like the buzzing hub of a successful investigation?’ She printed something on the card. ‘All I do is tramp round sex offenders’ houses and rescue silly-sod sergeants who should know better.’

He dropped his gaze to the carpet. ‘Thanks for alibiing me in there. You took a big risk, guessing like that.’

‘Pfff … You’ve got wee speckles of paint on your ears and in that kiwi-fruit-skin shambles you call a haircut. How else would they get there?’ A smile. ‘Plus, I lugged at Napier’s door for a bit before barging to the rescue.’

‘He says they know who killed Stephen Bisset.’

‘Found out an hour ago.’ She shifted a pile of paper and turned her laptop around, so the screen was facing Logan, then poked a couple of keys. ‘Look.’ The kittens disappeared, replaced by a window that took up most of the desktop. CCTV footage. What was probably a wall-mounted camera in a hospital — people marching about in scrubs with clipboards, or in pyjamas being wheeled about in porter’s chairs. Everyone looking miserable and defeated. The time-stamp in the corner of the image put it at Wednesday night. Seven minutes after eight. ‘This is outside the ward where Bisset was.’

Steel poked another button and the footage spooled forward at double speed, then eight times, then twelve. Doctors, nurses, and patients whizzed in and out of shot. What looked like Bisset’s kids whooshed past, going in with a big bunch of flowers, then out again. Poor wee sods.

Then Steel leaned forward and poked the keyboard again, setting the speed back to normal. ‘There.’

The time-stamp clicked over to ten p.m.

‘Where?’

A sigh. ‘Seriously? Rennie spotted it right off.’

Logan peered at the screen. What the hell was he supposed to … ‘The guy in the long coat? Must be sweltering: Aberdeen Royal Infirmary keeps the heating cranked up to stifling.’

‘Nurses didn’t think anything was unusual, because this bloke’s been volunteering at the hospital for years. Talks to coma patients, plays their favourite music, reads them their favourite books. That kind of thing. Been visiting Stephen Bisset almost every day for the last month and a half.’

Exactly what Logan had spent nearly four years doing with Sam. ‘How do you know it’s him?’

A fire-hazard smile burned across her face. ‘Elementary, my dear Logan: he’s a pervert. Marlon Brodie. Got one of those websites where he writes about bizarre fetishes and freaky kinks. What do they call it, sexblogging?’ The smile crackled brighter. ‘Rennie spotted him, and you didn’t. Beaten by Rennie, how rubbish can you be?’

He scowled at her. ‘How about the fact I haven’t seen the footage till now, and I don’t visit sexbloggers’ websites.’ He poked at the keyboard, zooming in on the figure in the long overcoat. An unremarkable man: average height, average build, features slightly blurred and pixelated. ‘And the DNA …?’

‘Course it does. Finnie got Ding-Dong to drag him in, test him, and one rush-job later: bingo. It’s Marlon Brodie’s semen on Stephen Bisset’s dead body.’ She sank back into her chair, swivelled it left and right a couple of times. ‘Course, Finnie’s trying to claim credit for it, but I’ll figure something out.’

Logan closed the laptop. ‘You got a one-hour test? What about Helen Edwards? She’s been waiting since Wednesday .’

‘Yeah, well, if you hadn’t been such a damp blouse and let me leak it to the papers we could’ve had it by now. But no, Mr Morals knows best.’ She spun the laptop back around to face her. ‘Happy?’

‘Oh, don’t start. You know I’m right, or you’d have gone ahead and done it anyway.’ He turned to look up at the board with its index cards and paedophiles. ‘Does the family know? About Marlon Brodie?’

‘So much for Detective Sergeant Barmy Becky’s theory. The kids did it. Moron.’

‘You should go easy on her. Keep treating her like the village idiot and she’ll turn into one. More carrot, less stick.’

‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Steel waved a hand, as if wafting away a foul smell. ‘Marlon Brodie denies suffocating Stephen Bisset, but what do you expect? And what kind of sadist calls their kid “Marlon” anyway? Asking for trouble. No wonder he turned into a killer. And a pervert. You seen his website? Got stuff on there that’d make me blush.’

‘Well … at least it’s-’

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

‘God’s sake.’ Logan slumped, ‘Aaargh …’ caught himself before he tipped over the back of the broken chair, and sat upright again. Scowled at Steel. ‘You trying to get me killed?’ Clicked the button on his Airwave. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Sergeant McRae? It’s Maggie. I’ve got a tip-off from your friend about dealing on Rundle Avenue again. Says there’s been three of them in and out in the last fifteen minutes.’

‘Thanks, Maggie. Is Nicholson back yet?’

‘Just walked in.’

‘Good. Tell her to get the Big Car fired up, we’re going trawling for druggies.’ Though knowing the way his luck was going these days …

Steel stood. Grabbed her suit jacket. ‘What we waiting for?’

He backed towards the door. ‘It’s some local thing. Not important. You’ve got a dead wee girl’s killer to catch, remember?’

‘Oh no you don’t. Every time I let you out of my sight, you get in trouble. And I call shotgun.’

Of course she did.

‘Pfffff …’ Steel wriggled further down into her seat, shoulders barely clearing the car windowsill. ‘Is this it ? Is this all you do?’

Nicholson took them round the corner, onto Rundle Avenue again. Grey harled semidetacheds on one side, a Morse code of short wood-panelled terraces on the other. Like oversized garden sheds, painted Cuprinol Brown. Knee-high garden walls holding back an onslaught of gravel, lawns, and associated shrubbery, depending on the property.

The speedo barely nudged fifteen miles an hour.

Sitting in the back, Logan peered up and down the road. No sign of anyone. ‘You didn’t have to come.’

Steel puffed out another sigh. ‘I’m bored.’

‘We can’t kick the door in, because we don’t have a warrant. So we cruise round and pick up anyone we see coming out of the place, and search them.’

‘As if anyone’s going to be daft enough to go buy drugs when they see you circling in a dirty big patrol car.’

The shed-style terraces gave way to white harled ones.

Nicholson took a left, across Tannery Street and onto Alberta Place. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’

Off in the distance, a small wedge of North Sea peeked out between two houses in another street. Crystal blue beneath a shining sky.

Logan tapped a finger against the back of Nicholson’s seat. ‘When they were interviewing Klingon, do we know if he said anything about his mother? Where she was, when she’d be back, anything like that?’

‘No idea. Last time I spoke to the Custody Sergeant up there he said it was like something off a spy thriller. Everyone stomping about in sunglasses and suits. No talking to the prisoners. Top hush secret.’ She stuck the car in reverse and did a three-point turn, going back the way they’d come.