Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

Insch located an old-looking Murray Mint and popped it in his mouth. 'Keep on it. Someone out there must know who the poor wee sod is. Norman Chalmers had his fifteen minutes in court yesterday: remanded without bail. But the Fiscal's no happy. We come up with something solid, or Chalmers walks.'

'We'll find something, sir.'

'Good. The Chief Constable is worried about all these missing kids. It looks bad. Lothian and Borders have been on "offering their assistance". Even sent us up a preliminary psychological profile.' He held up four sheets of paper, stapled together, the crest of Lothian and Borders Police clearly visible on the covering page. 'If we don't watch out, Edinburgh are going to take over. And we'll all end up looking like sheep-shagging, smalltown halfwits.'

'That's nice,' said Logan. 'What's the profile say?'

'Same thing these bloody things always say.' Insch flipped through the sheets. 'Blah, blah, blah, "crime scene indicators", blah, blah, "pathology of the victim", blah, blah.' He stopped, a wry smile on his face. 'Here we go: "the offender is most likely a Caucasian male, in his early to late twenties, living alone or with his mother. He is most likely intelligent, but does not do well academically. As a result he will have a menial job that brings him into contact with children".'

Logan nodded. It was the standard profile for just about everything.

'You'll like this bit,' said Insch, putting on an academic voice: '"The offender has difficulty forming relationships with women, and may have a history of mental health problems…" Mental health problems! Talk about stating the bloody obvious!' The smile vanished from his face. 'Of course he's got mental bloody health problems: he kills children!' He crumpled up the profile and lobbed it, overhand, at the wastebasket by the door. It bounced off the wall and skittered across the blue carpet tiles, coming to rest under the second row of chairs. Insch snorted in disgust. 'Anyway,' he said, 'it looks like DI McPherson's not going to be back for another month at least. Thirty-seven stitches to keep his head together. Lovely. Nothing like some mad bastard with a kitchen knife to get a couple of weeks with your feet up in front of the telly.' He sighed, not noticing the pained look on Logan's face. 'That means I've got his caseload to carry as well as my own. Four post office break-ins, three armed assaults, two violent rapes and a partridge in a bloody pear tree.' He poked a friendly finger in Logan's chest. 'And that means I'm delegating the Bin-Bag Girl to you.'

'But…'

Insch held up his hands. 'Aye, I know it's a big case, but I've got my hands full with David Reid and Peter Lumley. They might not be connected, but the last thing the Chief Constable wants is a paedophile serial killer running loose, picking up little boys whenever he feels the urge. Every other DI we've got is up to their ears, but you found Richard Erskine without adult supervision, and the media think the sun shines out of your arse. So this one's yours.'

'Yes, sir.' Logan's stomach had already started churning.

'OK,' said Insch, hopping down off the desk. 'You get going on that. I'll go see what kind of Muppets I've inherited from McPherson.' Logan's little office was waiting for him. Expectantly. As if it knew he was carrying the can now. There was a copy of the photo they'd released to the media sitting on his desk. The one they'd taken in the morgue, touched up so she didn't look quite so dead. She must have been pretty when she was alive. A four-year-old girl with shoulder-length blonde hair that curled softly around her pale face. Button nose. Round face. Round cheeks. According to the report her eyes were blue-green, but in the photo her eyes were shut. No one liked looking into the eyes of dead children. He took the picture and fixed it on the wall next to his map.

So far the response to the media appeal had been negligible. No one seemed to know who the little girl was. That would probably change by this evening when her picture went out again on the television. Then there would be a flood of helpful people phoning up to give them a whole heap of useless information.

He spent the next two hours poring over the statements again. He'd read it all before, but Logan knew the answer was in here somewhere. Whoever dumped the body lived within spitting distance of that wheelie-bin.

At last he gave up on the cold mug of coffee he'd been nurturing for the last hour and stretched the knots out of his back. He was getting nowhere. And he still hadn't spoken to anyone about the body in the harbour. Maybe it was time for a break?

DI Steel's office was one floor up, blue scuffed carpet tiles and creaky-looking furniture. There was a sign on the wall with 'No Smoking' written in big red letters, but that didn't deter the inspector. She sat at her desk, the window cracked slightly to let the curling cigarette smoke drift out into the blazing sunshine.

Detective Inspector Steel was Laurel to DI Insch's Hardy. Where Insch was fat, she was thin. Where Insch was bald, Steel looked as if someone had sellotaped a Cairn terrier to her head. Rumour had it she was only forty-two, but she looked a lot older. Years of chain smoking had left her face looking like a holiday home for lines and wrinkles. She was wearing a trouser suit from Markies, in charcoal grey so it wouldn't show the ash that fell constantly from the end of her fag. The burgundy blouse underneath it hadn't fared so well.

It was hard to believe she was the biggest womanizer on the force.

There was a mobile phone rammed between her ear and her shoulder and she talked into it out of one side of her mouth so as not to disturb the cigarette sticking out of the other. 'No. No. No…' she said in a hard staccato. 'You get this: I get hold of you, I will rip you a new arsehole. No…no, I don't care who the fuck you have to screw around. You don't come across with the goodies before Friday, you and I are going to fall out…Fucking right I will…' She looked up, saw Logan standing there and waved him towards a tatty-looking chair. 'Yes…yes, that's better. I knew we could come to an understanding. Friday.' DI Steel snapped her mobile shut and smiled evilly. 'Fully fucking fitted kitchen, my arse. You give these people an inch they'll piss all over you.' She picked a packet of king-size up off her desk and shook it in Logan's direction. 'Fag?'

Logan declined and she smiled at him again.

'No? Aye, you're right: it's a fucking filthy habit.' She winkled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it from the one she was still smoking, before grinding the stub out on the windowsill. 'So what can I do for you, Mr Police Hero?' she asked, settling back in her chair, her head wreathed in fresh smoke.

'Your floater: Mr No Kneecaps.'

Steel raised an eyebrow. 'Listening.'

'I think it's George "Geordie" Stephenson. He was an enforcer for Malcolm McLennan-'

'Malk the Knife? Fuck. I didn't think he was doing business up here.'

'Word has it Geordie was sent up to cut a deal with the planning department: three hundred houses on greenbelt. The planner said no and Geordie pushed him under a bus.'

'I don't believe you.' She even went so far as to take the cigarette out of her mouth. 'Someone from Planning turned down a bribe?'

Logan shrugged. 'Anyway: it seems that Geordie had a liking for the horses. Only Lady Luck is not Geordie's friend. And he was into some of the local bookies for some serious money.'

DI Steel settled back in her seat, picking at her teeth with a chipped fingernail. 'I'm impressed,' she said at last. 'Where'd you hear this?'

'Colin Miller. He's a reporter on the P amp;J.'

She took a long draw on her fag, making the end glow hot orange. Smoke trickled down her nose as she examined Logan in silence. The room was shrinking, the walls obscured by curling layers of tobacco fog until only that glowing orange eye remained. 'Inschy tells me you're running the kid-in-the-bin-bag case now.'