Stuart MacBride - Shatter the Bones

‘I have to work here.’

‘Oh. Oh, I see .’ The superintendent winked. ‘They don’t know you’re a pervert. That you like to interfere with little boys-’

‘Keep your voice down!’

‘A filthy kiddie-fiddling paedophile, who-’

‘SHUT UP! SHUT YOUR DIRTY MOUTH!’ Baker grabbed the handle of his arc welder.

Green leaned in close. ‘Or what , Frank?’

Tears sparked in the corner of Baker’s eyes.

A huge man in filthy overalls wandered over, a baseball cap turned the wrong way around on his massive head, face creased with dirt around a clear patch where his safety goggles must have sat. ‘Everything OK, Frankie?’

Baker bit his lip. ‘Yeah… Thanks, Spike.’

Spike stared at them for a bit. ‘Any trouble, give us a shout.’ Then he turned and lumbered away.

Baker waited till he was well out of earshot. ‘I told them: I volunteer at a vet’s in town every Saturday. It’s not illegal, OK? It’s not against my SOPPO. I’ve not done anything wrong. So go away and leave me alone !’

‘No, no, no, Frank — that’s not how it works.’ Green smiled. ‘You tell me everything I want to know, or I’ll make sure every sweaty-arsed bastard in this place knows your grubby little secret.’

‘Sir?’ Logan cleared his throat. ‘That’s not really-’

‘You want that, Frank? You want them all to find out what you do to little boys?’

‘This isn’t fair!’

‘You think what’s happening to Alison and Jenny is fair?’ Baker closed his eyes and sagged. ‘Please, I just want to be left alone…’

Green leaned on the roof of Rennie’s pool car. Staring off into the middle distance, chin up. Posing. Again. ‘Well, that was … interesting.’

Logan hauled open the door and threw his notebook onto the driver’s seat. ‘That is not the way we do things.’

It had stopped raining, though from the look of the deep-grey layer of cloud blanketing the city that probably wouldn’t last. Still freezing as well.

Superintendent Green curled his top lip. ‘Really? What a shock: something else Grampian Police doesn’t do. Tell me, Sergeant, what do you do?’

‘Frank Baker is a registered sex offender — do you have any idea what’ll happen to him if his workmates find out?’

‘That’s hardly my-’

‘They’ll beat the shit out of him; he’ll get fired; and he’ll disappear ! How are we supposed to manage him if we don’t know where he is?’

Green’s eyes narrowed. ‘Sergeant McRae, are you always this resistant to the chain of command?’

‘You had no business storming in there like something off the bloody Sweeney !’

The superintendent drummed his fingers on the roof.

‘When Chief Inspector Finnie told me you were “wilful” I wasn’t expecting full-on insubordination.’

Logan gritted his teeth. ‘I thought we were meant to be on the same side.’

‘Did you now?’

‘Yes, sir .’ Logan glanced towards the huge warehouse. Spike, Baker’s huge friend was standing in the doorway, staring back at him. Then he turned and melted away into the shadows. ‘Anything else?’

There was a pause. A cold smile. ‘Well, I’d better get back and check on the team. We need a strategy for Thursday — hostage exchange tends to be where you end up with dead bodies.’ Green stepped back from the car. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’

Logan clambered into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. ‘Not if I fucking see you first.’

Rennie looked up from his book. ‘Sarge?’

‘Nothing.’ He hauled on his seatbelt. ‘I want that GPS fix on Charlie Delta Seven now .’

‘Already doing it.’ He stuck the book on the dashboard and dug out his Airwave handset.

Logan tilted his head sideways, frowning at the title. ‘ The Accidental Sodomist ?’

‘It’s literature: shortlisted for the Booker this year. Emma says I need to broaden my horizons, and- Hold on. Aye, Jimmy, how you getting on finding Charlie Delta Seven for me? … Uh-huh… No. Still no sign of him… Yeah, if you can…’ Rennie put a hand over the mouthpiece and nodded at the book in Logan’s hands. ‘You can borrow it when I’m finished. It’s about this concert pianist from Orkney who moves to Edinburgh ’cos he’s in love with his cousin, and ends up shagging a bunch of mental… Yeah? It is? Cheers, thanks Jimmy.’

‘Well?’

Rennie cranked the key in the ignition. ‘We have a winner.’

‘There … over by the trees.’

Logan squinted through the rain-flecked windscreen. ‘Where? It’s all bloody trees.’

Gairnhill Woods lay three-and-a-bit miles west of the city, part of a little conjoined network of Forestry Commission land. Quiet and secluded.

Pale grey cloud curled around the tops of Scots pines and spruce, the light flat and lifeless as a thin drizzle made the undergrowth shine.

The windscreen wipers squealed their way across the glass again.

‘There,’ Rennie poked a finger at a little car park off to the right of the road. Charlie Delta Seven, AKA: Logan’s crappy blue Vauxhall, sat in the far corner, under a drooping branch.

No other car to be seen.

Rennie smiled. ‘This where you left it?’

‘You’re an idiot, you know that, don’t you?’ Logan undid his seatbelt. ‘Block it in, then we’ll go take a look.’

The constable licked his lip. Looked from Logan to the abandoned pool car. ‘You want to tell me what’s going on? Just in case?’

‘Shuggie Webster; dirty big dog. If you see him, arrest the bastard. Try not to get bitten.’

‘OK…’ Rennie eased his car up the dirt track and parked directly across the back of Charlie Delta Seven.

Logan opened the door and climbed out into the rain. It misted on his face, making his breath steam out around his head. Got to love summer in Aberdeen.

He pulled out his pepper spray and inched his way around to Charlie Delta Seven’s driver’s door. Peered in through the window.

Empty. ‘Think he’s done a runner?’ Rennie appeared on the other side. ‘Might have nipped into the woods for a slash?’

‘If he hasn’t taken a dump in the driver’s seat…’ Logan hunkered down and peered up at the space behind the door handle. Then took a pen from his pocket and clacked it about in there.

A faint shadow fell across him. Then Rennie sniffed. ‘No offence, Sarge, but you look like a spaz.’

‘When I joined CID there was a DI: right bastard, always storming about shouting at everyone. Had to deliver a death message to this drug dealer’s family — their son managed to choke on his own vomit in custody.’ Logan stood. ‘So while DI Cole’s inside breaking the bad news, their other kid nips outside and jams a wodge of chewing gum right up under the door handle where you can’t see it.’

The constable shrugged. ‘Could be worse, dog shite would-’

‘Then he stuck a dirty razorblade in the chewing gum. DI Cole swapped the tips of two fingers for a dose of Hepatitis C.’ Logan clunked the car door open. ‘Never hurts to check.’

Inside, Charlie Delta Seven looked every bit as crappy as it had when Shuggie nicked it. Only now it stank of wet dog.

‘So, you think he’s still about somewhere?’ Rennie clacked open his extendible baton. ‘SHUGGIE! SHUGGIE WEBSTER: COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!’

Logan stood. Laid a hand on the bonnet. It was cold. ‘Car’s been here at least an hour.’ He turned around, looking out at the damp brown earth of the car park. ‘Must have had a back-up vehicle here… Or maybe someone was off having a walk in the woods, and he nicked theirs instead. Or he was meeting someone…’