Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

He hung up the office phone.

Tufty was still fiddling with the dial.

‘Are you having fun?’

‘Wonder who’s flitting.’

Logan stared at him. ‘What?’

‘Who’s moving house? The removal van sits there the whole time. Nobody loads anything into it, nobody takes anything out of it. Maybe they’re parked up for the day?’

Logan blinked at the screen. ‘Try one of the other cassettes.’

Tufty hit eject, then slotted in the one that came after the one they were watching. Twisted the dial and set everything whooshing forwards. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Then four men in overalls wandered up Mid Street, carrying brown paper bags that looked as if they might have come from the Wimpy on Hanover Street. They climbed into the removal van, and sat there eating. Then finally buckled their seatbelts and drove away.

‘Just a bunch of gadgies, parked up for lunch.’

Tufty ejected the cassette, and replaced it with the one before the one they’d been looking at before this one. ‘A four-hour lunch break? Tell you, we’re in the wrong job.’ He sent the footage spinning backwards, then hunched forward, nose inches from the screen. ‘If you were the Cashline Ram-Raiders, you’d want to stake the place out, right? Find out when it got stocked up by the bank, or whatever. Maybe we need to find when the security car turns up and look round about then?’

People lurched in reverse across the screen. Cars and bicycles all going backwards too. Everything except that removal van.

Nothing went into it, nothing came out of it.

Then the four men backed across the road and climbed into the van, started it up, and reversed out of shot.

‘… Sarge? Yoohoo, Sarge?’ Tufty was waving at him. ‘You OK?’

‘Get the footage for camera one. Same time-stamp.’

A shrug. But he did what he was told, slotting the new cartridge into place, then spinning the dial until one of the four men walked backwards into Broch Braw Buys: big, with long brown hair and green overalls.

All that time, and the only things they did were buy burgers and visit the shop that got ram-raided the very next day.

Removal van. Removal van.

No …

It was. That was what looked familiar, not the people or the cars.

A slow smile spread across Logan’s face. ‘Tufty, never thought I’d say this, but you’re a genius.’

‘I am? Cool.’ He puffed out his chest. Then frowned. ‘What did I do? And do I get a badge, or something?’

Logan pulled out his notebook and flipped back through to yesterday morning. Found the number for the Portsoy Co-op’s manager, and dialled it.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang, until finally: click. ‘Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of-’ Another click. ‘Hello? Can I help you?’

‘Hi, Stacey? It’s Sergeant McRae, we met yesterday morning. After the ram-raid?’

‘Sorry, I was stocktaking the walk-in freezer. You have no idea how many bags of oven chips we go through.’

‘Can you do me a favour? Take a look on your CCTV footage for a removal van. Might have to go back a couple of days.’

‘If you think it’ll help.’

With any luck …

His Airwave handset crackled away to itself. ‘Anyone in the vicinity of Aberchirder? We’ve got a report of cows loose on the A97 south of Castlebrae …’

‘How does half seven, quarter to eight sound?’ Logan pinned the phone between his ear and shoulder and rummaged through the next shelf down. Why did no one put things back where they came from? The Big Car’s CCTV cartridges were supposed to be ordered chronologically, oldest to newest, on the sodding shelf below the monitor. There was even a sodding label on the sodding shelf saying that.

‘Aye, aye, Control, show Big Paul and the Dreaded Penny attending. On our way.’

Seven o’clock and he had the whole of Banff station to himself. Made a nice change.

Or it would do if he could sodding find anything.

Squeaking rattling noises came from the other end of the phone. God knew what Helen was doing, but it sounded like she was washing a bag of robot mice. ‘Steak, mushroom, onion rings and chips?’

On top of confiscated Chinese?

Never look a gift meal in the mouth.

‘Sounds great.’

Finally — there they were, two shelves down, stuffed in willy-nilly behind a stack of evidence bags. Idiots. Supposed to be one for every day of the fortnight, with one spare. If they were all jumbled up, how was anyone meant to find what they were looking for?

‘I got the hall done. Ceiling above the stairs was a bit of a sod, but it’s looking a lot better now.’

He stacked all fourteen cartridges into a big wobbly pile and carried them back to his desk. ‘You got all that done in one day? You should go into business.’

Now where was the lead to connect them with the computer?

‘Alleged dog attack on Williams Crescent, Fraserburgh. Anyone free to attend?’

It was buried under a slew of triple-A batteries, elastic bands, and paperclips in the bottom drawer.

Whole place was like living with the bloody Borrowers. And it couldn’t all be Hector’s fault.

‘Right, I’ll finish cleaning the roller and brushes, then it’ll be time to get dinner on the go.’

‘Looking forward to it.’ Logan hung up, put all the cartridges into order, then plugged the lead into yesterday’s one. The computer groaned, and creaked, a little green light came on in the cartridge. Whirring. A couple of bleeps. Then the loading bar appeared on the screen.

Might as well go make a cup of tea, this would take a while.

An Aberdeen Sunday Examiner was folded over the edge of Maggie’s cubicle. ‘TRAGIC END FOR MISSING FISHERMAN’ sat above a photo of Charles Anderson with an inset of his boat. Logan grabbed the paper and took it through to the canteen. Spread it out on the table and stuck the kettle on.

Had a bit of a sing as the water grumbled and pinged: ‘Steak for tea, steak for tea, la-la-la-la steak for tea …’

According to the Examiner , Charles ‘Craggie’ Anderson’s life had been blighted by the loss of his son five years ago. There wasn’t much more info than Big Paul had dug up from the official files, but the reporter had sexed it up as much as possible. Anderson’s campaign to find the paedophile he was sure had abducted his wee boy. The collapse of his marriage. The drinking. And his fiery Viking death.

They’d even managed to track down Anderson’s wife, now living in Devon under her maiden name. A tearful quote about lost chances, tragedy, and grief.

The kettle growled to a boil.

No suggestion that Anderson was anything other than a broken man on his way to the inevitable grave. No hint that he was responsible for his son’s death, or that he was the kind of guy who would abduct a little girl, abuse her, then cave her head in with a metal pipe.

Logan made a cuppa, checked to make sure no one was looking, and nicked a Jammie Dodger from Inspector McGregor’s stash at the back of the cupboard. She wouldn’t be in again till tomorrow morning, so nightshift could take the blame.

Maybe it was just a coincidence that Anderson had gone missing at the same time as Neil Wood? And a coincidence that a wee girl’s body washed up at Tarlair Outdoor Swimming Pool not long after.

Or, maybe, Wood and Anderson were in it together. Wouldn’t be the first time a pair of scumbags had teamed up to abuse kids.

‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

Logan checked the screen. It was the Duty Inspector’s shoulder number. ‘Batter on, Guv.’

‘Got a delay on your warrant for Frankie Ferris’s house. Something about operational pressures. They said to try again tomorrow. Meantime, let me know if you need a hand leaning on the Operational Support Unit for extra bodies.’