Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

'We've got you, Mr Nicholson. You're only kidding yourself if you think you're going to talk your way out of it. I think a little time in the cells is going to do you the world of good. We'll talk again when you're ready to start telling the truth. Interview terminated at thirteen twenty-six.'

He got WPC Watson to escort Nicholson down to the cellblock, hanging on in the interview room until she returned.

'What do you think?' he asked.

'I don't think he did it. He's not the right type. Not smart enough to lie convincingly.'

'True.' Logan nodded. 'But he's lying all the same. No way he was down there having a bit of a late night stagger. You get plastered, you don't go stomping about down the riverbank in the pissing rain for a laugh. He was down there for a reason, we just don't know what it is yet.' Aberdeen harbour slid by the car window, grey and miserable. A handful of offshore supply vessels were tied up along the docks, their cheery yellow-and-orange paintwork dulled by the pouring rain. Lights glinted in the semi-darkness of the afternoon as containers were winched off lorries and onto the waiting boats.

Logan and WPC Watson were heading back to Richard Erskine's house in Torry. Someone had actually remembered seeing the missing boy. A Mrs Brady had seen a small blond boy wearing a red anorak and blue jeans crossing the waste ground behind her house. It was the only break they'd had.

The half past two news was about to come on and Logan turned the car radio on, catching the end of an old Beatles track. Not surprisingly Richard Erskine's disappearance was given top billing. DI Insch's voice boomed out of the speakers asking members of the public to come forward with information about the child's whereabouts. He had a natural flair for the dramatic, as everyone who'd seen him in the annual Christmas panto knew, but he managed to keep it in check as the newsreader asked the obvious question:

'Do you think Richard has been taken by the same paedophile who killed David Reid?'

'At this moment we're just looking to find Richard safe and sound. If anyone has any information please call our hotline on oh eight hundred, five, five, five, nine, nine, nine.'

'Thank you, Inspector. In other news: the trial of Gerald Cleaver, the fifty-six-year-old former male nurse from Manchester, continues today under tight security following death threats made to the accused's solicitor, Sandy Moir-Farquharson. Mr Moir-Farquharson spoke to Northsound News…'

'Here's hoping it's not just an idle threat.' Logan reached out and snapped the radio off before the lawyer's voice could come through the speakers. Sandy Moir-Farquharson deserved to get death threats. He was the weaselly little shite who'd argued leniency for Angus Robertson. Who'd tried to claim that the Mastrick Monster wasn't entirely to blame. That he'd only killed those women because they'd reacted violently against his advances. That they'd dressed provocatively. That they'd been, basically, asking for it.

The media presence outside the door of little Richard Erskine's house had almost doubled by the time they got there. The whole road was packed with cars. There were even a couple of outside broadcast vans. WPC Watson had to park miles away, so they trudged back through the rain, both sheltering under her umbrella.

BBC Scotland had been joined by Grampian, ITN and Sky News. The harsh white television lights bleached colour from the pale granite buildings. No one seemed to take much notice of the winter rain, even though it was battering down from the sky in sheets of frigid water.

The blonde woman with the big boobs from Channel Four News was doing a piece to camera, standing far enough down the street to get the house and the rest of the pack in the background.

'…have to ask: does the media's attention on a family's pain, at a time like this, really serve the public interest? When-'

Watson marched right through the shot, her blue and white umbrella completely obscuring the woman from camera.

Someone yelled: 'Cut!'

'You did that on purpose,' whispered Logan as the sounds of a swearing television journalist erupted. WPC Watson just smiled and barged her way through the crowd gathered at the foot of the stairs. Logan hurried after her, trying not to hear the howls of complaint mixed in with the shouted questions and demands for comment.

A Family Liaison Officer was through in the living room with Richard Erskine's mother and the bitter old woman from next door. There was no sign of DI Insch.

Logan left Watson in the lounge and tried the kitchen, helping himself to an open packet of Jaffa Cakes lying on the worktop next to the kettle. A half-glazed door led from the kitchen out into the back garden, the light blocked by a large figure standing outside.

But it wasn't Insch. It was a sad-looking, overweight detective constable with half-past-two o'clock shadow, chain-smoking under the tiny porch.

'Afternoon, sir,' said the DC, not bothering to straighten up, or put his cigarette out. 'Shitty weather, eh?' He wasn't a local lad: his accent was pure Newcastle.

'You get used to it.' Logan stepped out onto the back step next to the DC to do as much passive smoking as he could.

The constable took the cigarette out of his mouth and stuck a finger in, working a nail up and down between his back teeth. 'Don't see how. I mean I'm used to rain like, but Jesus this place takes the fucking biscuit.' He found whatever it was he was digging for and flicked it away into the downpour. 'Think it's going to keep up till the weekend?'

Logan looked out at the low, dark-grey clouds. 'The weekend?' He shook his head and took in another scarred lungful of second-hand smoke. 'This is Aberdeen: it won't stop raining till March.'

'Bollocks!' The voice was deep, authoritative and coming from directly behind them.

Logan twisted his head round to see DI Insch standing in the doorway with his hands in his pockets.

'Don't you listen to DS McRae, he's pulling your leg.' Insch stepped out onto the already crowded top step, forcing Logan and the DC to shuffle precariously sideways.

'Won't stop raining till March?' Insch popped a fruit sherbet into his mouth. 'March? Don't lie to the poor constable: this is Aberdeen.' He sighed and stuck his hands back in his pockets. 'It never stops fuckin' raining.'

They stood in silence, watching the rain do what rain does.

'Well, I've got a bit of good news for you, sir,' said Logan at last. 'Mr Moir-Farquharson is receiving death threats.'

Insch grinned. 'Hope so. I've written enough of them.'

'He's representing Gerald Cleaver.'

Insch sighed again. 'Why doesn't that surprise me? Still that's DI Steel's problem. Mine is: where's Richard Erskine?'

They found the body in the council tip at Nigg, just south of the city. A two-minute drive from Richard Erskine's house. A party of school children had been out on a field trip: 'Recycling and Green Issues'. They arrived by minibus at three twenty-six and proceeded to don little white breathing masks, the kind with the elastic band holding them on, and heavy-duty rubber gloves. Everyone wore waterproofed jackets and Wellington boots. They signed in at the Portacabin office next to the skips at three thirty-seven, before squelching their way into the tip. Walking through a landscape of discarded nappies, broken bottles, kitchen waste and everything else chucked out by hundreds of thousands of Aberdonians every day.

It was Rebecca Johnston, eight, who spotted it. A left foot, sticking up out of a pile of shredded black plastic bags. The sky was full of seagulls – huge, fat bloated things that swooped and screamed at each other in a jagged ballet. One was tugging away at a bloodstained toe. This was what first grabbed Rebecca's attention.