Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

Logan stared at her. ‘You got a pay rise? ’

Scowl. ‘Don’t change the subject. You, Logan Bum-Face McRae, need to get your act sorted. Being a DI’s no’ about running all over the place, arresting people and getting punched in the nose: it’s about taking a strategic overview, staying in FHQ at the centre of your wee web of influence and organizing things, making the best use of the available manpower. And solving bloody cases!’

‘Like you ever-’

‘Now get your backside in gear and go see those poor missing kids’ parents!’

Silence settled into the room, then a hiss and click as Steel’s electric cigarette gave another puff of steam.

‘What happened to, “being a DI’s no’ about running all over the place”? ’

‘Parents need to see a senior officer, no’ some junior idiot in uniform wiping their nose on their sleeves. And if you’d done something about it in the first sodding place, you wouldn’t be in this mess.’ She chucked his warrant card back at him. ‘Now sod off before I decide to motivate you some more.’

In the main CID office a lone detective constable was bent over the fax machine, cursing and swearing as she pounded away at the keypad. Other than her, the place was deserted: most of the dayshift would be down at their lockers already, getting changed to go home — or hiding so they wouldn’t have to answer the phones and get dragged into anything at five to five on a Sunday evening — while the backshift were off actually doing things, leaving the little corrals of chest-high partitions and scuffed beech desks to sulk unloved beneath stacks of forms and reports, empty sandwich wrappers and dirty mugs.

Logan tried the small walled-off annex at the side of the room — the one with a brass plaque mounted on the door: ‘THE WEE HOOSE’. Someone had stuck a Post-it note to the thing, with ‘CONDEMNED FOR PUBLIC HEALTH REASONS!’ scrawled across it.

Inside, DS Bob Marshall was frowning at a pile of receipts and an expenses form. His desk looked as if a stationery cupboard had thrown up on it. A big orange-and-black biohazard sign was mounted on the wall in front of him. As if anyone actually needed any warning. .

The other three desks were almost tidy, no sign of their owners, just the shelves laden with box files and manuals, the whiteboards covered with case lists for each DS complete with notes and dates.

Bob scribbled something down on his form. ‘If you’re here to moan about them not catching Reuben yet: don’t. It’s sod all to do with me.’

Logan slumped into his old familiar chair, the one with the wobbly castor and the creaky hydraulic thing, and the coffee stain on the seat that always made it look as if he’d had an unfortunate accident. Loved that chair. He ran a hand along the rough plastic armrest. ‘You’re a jammy sod, Bob.’

‘Mmm. .’ He didn’t look up. ‘Think I can claim for that bottle of whisky I bought for the Levinston stakeout? ’

‘Being a detective sergeant. OK, so you’ve got to put up with all the crap from the DCs and Uniform — and run around after the DIs like you’re their nanny — but it’s not bad, is it? ’

‘Maybe I can kid on it’s for an informant? ’

Logan swivelled left and right, then back again. The bearings groaned underneath him. Just like the old days. . ‘You’re not allowed to have unregistered informants: anything Chiz-related would have to go through the Secret Squirrel Squad. Put it down as a teambuilding expense under Finnie’s “Forward To Tomorrow” cost-code. By the time he gets back from Malaga no one will remember what it was meant to be used for anyway.’

‘Ta.’ Bob’s biro scribbled something down on the form.

Logan creaked the seat around in a full circle, drawing his knees in at the last minute to avoid the leg of the desk. ‘See, that’s what I’m talking about: you’re out on stakeouts with a bottle of Glenfiddich, and I’m up to my ears in spreadsheets, cost centres, and budget plans. I remember when-’

‘Yeah, being dragged about, moaned at, and told to do stuff is just great . At least you get a shot at being DI, when’s my go? ’ He grabbed another receipt from the pile and scowled at it. ‘You want anything in particular, or are you just slumming it for fun? ’

‘Going out to the Garfield and Chung houses — fly the flag for community policing.’ Hydraulics go up, hydraulics go down, hydraulics go up.

‘The missing kids? ’ Bob stood and picked a beige corduroy jacket off the back of his chair. ‘Suppose you want me to drive.’

Logan stopped playing with the chair. Narrowed his eyes. ‘What did you have for lunch? ’

Bob pulled the jacket on. ‘Why? ’

‘Bob. .? ’

‘Cauliflower and lentil curry from that wee place on Belmont Street.’

Which explained the Post-it note on the door.

‘In that case, you can stay here and finish your expenses. No way I’m sharing a car with you.’

‘That’s discrimination.’

‘Self-bloody-preservation more like.’

The Wee Hoose’s door opened and DS Chalmers marched in, carrying a stack of printouts, glasses perched on the tip of her nose. She smiled. ‘Keeping it warm for me? ’ Pause. ‘The chair? ’ Then dumped the paper on the desk behind him.

Right: not his chair any more. Not his desk. He stood. ‘It’s your lucky day, Chalmers — instead of sitting here being gassed to death by Biohazard Bob, I’m rescuing you. Grab your jacket, we’ve got parents to visit.’

Agnes Garfield’s mother glowered at them from the doorway. ‘Well, perhaps if you’d done something when we told you she was missing, she’d be home by now.’ Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she fiddled with the ends, teasing them apart with yellow-tipped fingers. A smoker. But instead of stale cigarettes she stank of Ralgex and spearmint.

Posters festooned Agnes Garfield’s bedroom walls: brooding vampires with greasy hair, mono-browed werewolves, Harry-Bloody-Potter. . Then there were a few for books that looked as if they’d been lifted from the local Waterstones: The Night Circus, Golden Compass, Witchfire, Narnia . . One wall was completely given over to bookshelves stuffed full of paperbacks, the occasional hardback sticking out like a tombstone.

The window was open a crack, letting in the scent of freshly mown grass and the smoky promise of a back-garden barbecue from somewhere nearby. Agnes’s room was at the back of the house, with a view out over the rooftops towards the sprawling housing estates of Danestone on one side, and rolling countryside on the other. Fields of violent-yellow rapeseed shone like burnished gold in the evening light.

Logan stepped back. The computer desk in the window recess didn’t have a single piece of clutter or dust on it. ‘And they haven’t been in touch at all? ’

Agnes’s mum stuck her chin out. ‘If they had, we’d have said something! Think we kicked up all this fuss trying to get you to do something because we thought it would be fun? ’

‘Girls that age. . well, they’re not girls any more, are they? Eighteen years old: they’re adults.’

‘Our Agnes would never run away from home. She loves us. She’s safe here. She knows that.’ The yellowed fingers pecked at her hair, like jaundiced crows going after roadkill. ‘It’s that bloody Anthony Chung. He’s done this. Abducted her. I said so, last time you were round, but you didn’t do anything about it, did you? Bloody police. .’

DS Chalmers patted her on the shoulder. ‘We’re going to do everything we can, Mrs Garfield.’

Agnes’s mother scowled at her. ‘Don’t you patronize me. If you’d taken us seriously and done something in the first-’