Stuart MacBride - The Missing and the Dead

‘No one’s going to complain, OK? The homeowner’s dead. No one else lives here.’

Door number one opened on a living room that must have died years ago. Ancient wallpaper, a sagging couch, a frayed rug on scuffed floorboards.

Steel’s voice dropped to a hard whisper. ‘Why are you breaking into a dead man’s house?’

‘I’m not breaking in. Who said anything about breaking in?’

Door number two opened on a bathroom — white tiles on the walls, white enamel bath, white sink. All the warmth of a fridge.

‘Laz, don’t be a dick! This isn’t-’

‘I got here and I noticed there was a broken pane of glass in the back door. I went inside to make sure no one had stolen anything. All perfectly above board.’

Door number three opened on a bedroom. Double bed, sagging mattress, no pictures or paintings on the walls. The closed net curtains gave it a funeral parlour air.

‘God’s sake … Where are you?’

He tried the bedside cabinet nearest the door. ‘Why?’

Socks. Pants. Hankies. Assorted junk.

‘Because I’m coming over there and kicking your backside for you!’

The other cabinet was much the same, only with a small bundle of well-thumbed porn mags in the bottom drawer.

‘Some of us have work to do, OK?’

Logan flicked through them with his gloved fingers. Nothing too extreme, nothing too kinky, and definitely no kids.

‘We’re supposed to be a team! You, me: the two musketeers, remember?’

The clothes in the wardrobe were grey and dated, sagging on their hangers as if they didn’t want to face another day.

Back into the hall.

‘I’m at Charles Anderson’s house.’

Door number four opened on a child’s bedroom. Blue football wallpaper; posters of bands and film stars; a row of picture books, fading on the windowsill. Bart Simpson duvet cover.

A little shrine to a boy who died five years ago.

His photo sat in a big silver frame on the bedside cabinet. Bright-red hair. Dimpled cheeks. Big grin and a threadbare teddy bear.

‘Who the hell’s Charles Anderson when he’s deid?’

Door number five, at the far end of the corridor, opened on the wooden garage. With no windows, the only light was what filtered through from the hallway behind Logan.

Furniture and boxes lurked in the gloom. Things on the walls.

A light switch was mounted on the wall by the door. He clicked it on and a strip light buzzed, clicked, and pinged its way slowly awake.

‘Laz? Hello? You still there?’

A soft whistle escaped from his lips.

The things on the walls were corkboards, like the one in Steel’s commandeered office at Banff station. And like Steel’s they were covered in photographs and densely scribbled index cards, all linked together with grey string and red ribbons.

A single card sat at the centre of the web, with ‘LIVESTOCK MART?’ printed on it in marker pen and underlined three times.

He blinked a couple of times. The Livestock Mart. Oh, you wee beauty …

‘Logan! What the hell’s going on?’

He stepped in close. Ran his fingers across one of the photos. It was Neil Wood, caught somewhere on a long-lens, paparazzi style. That one over there was Mark Brussels, with the patchwork scars he got in Peterhead Prison. And Dr William Gilcomston, with his grey hair and high forehead, caught in the supermarket. Mrs Bartholomew, the owner of the big Victorian pile on Church Street, putting her wheelie bin out.

There were others too — about two dozen of them, all snapped from a distance. Some familiar faces, some not. All connected to each other with bits of string. All connected to the Livestock Mart.

‘LOGAN!’

He blinked. ‘They’re all paedophiles. Paedophiles and sex offenders.’

The red ribbons led to pictures cut from newspapers and magazines, or printed off the internet. Pictures of children. Each one was connected to at least one grown-up. One little girl to three of them. But one kid was out on his own: a wee red-haired boy, standing on a local beach in shorts and a Bart Simpson T-shirt, playing with a bucket and spade. His grin made puncture-mark dimples in both cheeks. The picture surrounded by a band of black ribbon.

It was the boy from the shrine in the other room.

‘Who’re all …? Have you been drinking?’

Only one other child looked familiar. A young girl, no more than six years old. She’d looked … different when she was alive. Without the big dent in her forehead where someone had smashed her brains in with a metal pipe. Without the sea-bleached tone to her skin.

Her picture wasn’t a cut-out, it was a telephoto snap like the grown-ups. Caught outside somewhere — leaves in the foreground, something black, out of focus behind her. Big, rectangular. A door? Maybe a van? And her red ribbon didn’t go to Neil Wood, it went to Dr William Gilcomston.

‘Charles Anderson was mapping out a paedophile ring.’

Because he was blackmailing it? Because he was part of it?

‘All right, that’s it, I’m getting in the car. Don’t touch anything!’

The corkboard on the opposite wall had children’s drawings and little bits of jewellery pinned to it. Ear rings, a bracelet, a couple of watches, and some necklaces. One was a gold chain with a thistle on it. It glittered in Logan’s palm.

Gold chain with a thistle …

He went back to the photo board. Scanned the faces.

A heavyset balding bloke with a smile full of teeth and a third-world moustache looked out of one picture with shining eyes. It must’ve been taken in a pub somewhere, the pumps on the bar pin-sharp in the background. He was halfway out of his seat, arms coming up, celebrating a goal. Wearing the same blue-and-red Caley Thistle replica shirt and gold chain he had on in his missing person’s pic.

It was Liam Barden, the father of two Nicholson seemed obsessed with spotting on Castle Street.

But Barden wasn’t on the Sex Offenders’ Register — it would’ve come up when they put together the misper file on him. So why was he on Charles Anderson’s pinboard?

Logan turned the necklace over in his hands. The metal was cool through the nitrile gloves. Tiny flecks of dark red clung to the inside of the links either side of the thistle.

Dried blood.

There was more, clinging to the indentations of the inscription on the back. ‘TO LIAM ~ LOVE KATHY ~ FOR EVER!!!’

He cleared his throat. ‘You still there?’

Huffing and puffing came from the earpiece. ‘No.’

‘Yeah, neither am I. Think we’d better get a warrant and come back and discover this officially.’ He slipped Liam Barden’s necklace back onto its pin. Backed out of the room and switched off the light.

As long as Logan was one of the first in when they got the warrant, no one would wonder why his DNA was all over the room. All above board. No breaking and entering and contaminating the crime scene here, thank you very much.

Yes, there’d be the broken pane of glass in the back door, but that’d be easy enough to blame on someone else. Nothing for Napier to complain about …

And all Logan had to do was-

‘Unngh …’ There was a jackhammer in his skull, battering away, trying to separate it from his spine. Forehead pounding. Face prickly. A million bells ringing in his ears. Warm though.

Not warm, hot . All down one side.

Logan peeled one eye open, squinting out at the crackling yellow light.

Gravel dug into his cheek.

Why was he lying down?

What?

It took a couple of blinks to get the world into focus.

He was on his side, next to the Big Car, bathed in the light of Charles ‘Craggie’ Anderson’s burning house. Flames roared from the open windows, crackling and bellowing in the light of the dying sun. Sparks flew like fireflies, swirling away into the bruised sky.