Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

‘How’s the leg?’

He glanced down at the hole in his trousers, where a scabby knee showed through. ‘My own silly fault for rugby-tackling him.’ King Kong stepped to the kerb. ‘You filling in for Davey Muir again?’

‘For my sins.’ Logan picked up the carrier bag from behind the garden gate, then they set off up the street, hands behind their backs, feet swinging out with metronome regularity. Not walking: proceeding.

They’d barely made it halfway up the street before Logan stopped. Popped the carrier bag on a garden wall, and dug out the printouts again.

‘Sarge?’

He handed them to King Kong. ‘What am I not seeing?’

Frown. Scowl. Peer. ‘No idea. Missing person, maybe? Stolen car? You recognize any of the registrations?’

‘No.’ He stuffed them back in his pocket and picked up the bag again. ‘But there’s something.’

Logan paced away from the kitchen area, then back again, phone pressed hard against his ear. ‘What do you mean, “he’s not there”?’

‘Went home for the night.’

The Fraserburgh station canteen was deserted except for Logan, the TV — on mute — and the howl of the microwave.

Useless, half-arsed, lazy, lying little tosser.

‘He was supposed to get me DNA results for close of play!’

‘What can I say? He went home for the night. His shift starts at nine tomorrow morning, so feel free to call up and shout at him then. Me? I’ve got work to do.’

Logan jabbed his finger at the disconnect button. Stood and glowered at the TV.

Why could no one do their bloody job?

Just as well he hadn’t told Helen about chasing up the lab results. Wouldn’t exactly have showered himself in glory there.

The microwave’s drone climaxed with a ping and Logan dug the plastic containers out with scorched fingertips. ‘Ooh, hot, hot, hot …’ He clunked them all onto one plate, grabbed a fork and hurried back to the canteen table.

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

Couldn’t even get five minutes to himself.

He sank into his seat. ‘Bang away.’

‘You’ve got a lookout request on the go for a Charles “Craggie” Anderson. He’s been spotted buying pile cream from a chemist’s in Peterhead.’

‘That’s a good trick — they found his body on Saturday morning, up in Orkney. So unless it’s a ghost, it’s probably someone else.’ Logan creaked the tops off the containers, letting out a waft of oriental steam. ‘Can you cancel the lookout request?’

‘Will do.’

He stuck the Airwave handset back on the table.

Licked his lips.

The spare ribs were almost too hot to touch — silky and spicy and meaty and … God’s sake.

‘Sarge.’ Tufty settled into the seat opposite. ‘Ooh, prawn crackers!’ He helped himself.

Logan sooked the sauce from his fingers and dropped the naked bone onto the plate. ‘Should you not be off home? Shift ended twenty minutes ago.’

Crunch, crunch, crunch. ‘Wanted to make sure you got the intel. Martyn Baker’s talked to his solicitor, and now he’s sitting in Interview Two, waiting to no-comment everything.’ Little flecks of prawn-cracker dandruff drifted their way down Tufty’s black T-shirt. ‘You want me to sit in on the interview? There’s never anything on the telly, Sunday nights.’ Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Another bone got denuded and dumped. ‘OK, but only because I’m not sending you home with the Big Car.’ He sooked his fingers clean again, and produced the printouts. Tossed them across the table to Tufty. ‘You recognize anyone or anything there?’

He helped himself to another prawn cracker. Crunched his way through a frown. ‘Is it this?’ He pointed at a blue Kia, driving up Mid Street towards the Kenyan Bar. ‘Number plate’s a bit fuzzy, but it could be the one got nicked from Peterhead? Was on the Monday briefing slides.’

‘You remember a number plate from Monday?’

Crunch, crunch, crunch. ‘It’s easy: you make them into words. This one looks a bit like, “Moontihum”. Want me to run it through the system?’

‘Thanks.’

Tufty scribbled the Kia’s registration, make, and colour down in his notebook. Then paused. Looked up, his eyebrows knitted together as if something dramatic had suddenly occurred to him. ‘Sarge?’

‘What?’

‘Can I have a rib?’

A little burp worked its way up Logan’s throat, bringing with it the taste of kung po king prawns with special fried noodles and honey chilli ribs.

Martyn Baker fidgeted on the other side of the interview table. ‘No comment.’

‘I only asked you how you’d describe your voice, Martyn. I’m not trying to trip you up.’

‘No comment.’

Logan gave Tufty the nod.

He placed the small baggie of weed on the table with a flourish. ‘I am now showing Mr Baker the container of cannabis weed I discovered on his person when I searched him this afternoon.’

Logan gave it a poke. ‘Not a huge amount, is it, Martyn? Thought a big-time dealer from down south would have more on him.’

‘No comment.’ It looked as if he’d been at his spots in the cell. Two were now all swollen and red, one an empty crater plugged by a dark-red scab.

‘Are you planning on expanding into all of Aberdeenshire, or is it just the bit around Banff?’

‘No comment.’ He scowled out from beneath his heavy eyebrows. ‘And I’m not expanding nothing nowhere. I’m up on holiday with me bab and me kid. Three of us been here for weeks.’

‘How do you know Colin “Klingon” Spinney and Kevin “Gerbil” McEwan?’

‘No comment.’

‘How do you know Francis “Frankie” Ferris?’

‘No comment.’

‘So was this wee bag a sample or something? Are you drumming up business?’

‘No comment.’ His fingers wouldn’t sit still, they skittered back and forth along the edge of the scarred tabletop.

‘All right.’ Logan dug into the folder and came out with a little cardboard box. The form printed on it was filled out in blue biro — where the phone had been seized, by whom, where, and when. Maggie had managed to spell his last name wrong again. He opened the box, took out the big Samsung. ‘This is your phone. Remember it? We confiscated it because you were using it while driving.’

Baker licked his lips. Kept his eyes on his twitchy fingers. ‘No comment.’

‘When we send it down to get analysed, what do you think we’re going to find? Lots of little secrets and deals, I’m betting. Lots of …’

Baker’s head drooped, then his shoulders quivered. Once. Twice. Three times. Then a sob burst free. Followed by a moan. Little drops of water exploded between his trembling fingers.

Bit extreme.

Then again, maybe he’d finally realized that he was going down for attempted murder.

Logan tapped on the table. ‘Something you want to tell us, Martyn? We know it all anyway, might as well put your side of the story.’

Martyn Baker seemed to get three sizes smaller, his back hunched, shoulders up around his scarlet ears, hands curled against his chest. ‘Wasn’t meant to happen. Was only meant to be a warning …’

‘Kind of heavy-handed for a warning, wasn’t it?’ Battering someone with a baseball bat didn’t exactly reek of subtlety.

‘Meant to be a warning . Stay the hell off our turf. I didn’t want it to … It was an accident.’

An accident. With a baseball bat?

‘Are you kidding? How do you accidentally-’

‘Bullet must’ve, I don’t know, bounced off something. I wasn’t aiming for her, I swear.’ He looked up with bloodshot eyes. ‘On my little girl’s life , it was an accident.’

Bullet? OK, not exactly what was expected.