Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

They were almost halfway through the pile in this building. One-and-a-half down, one-and-a-half to go. Then it would be a long shower, a season ticket and drinking till he puked. He was going to get so wasted when this was over!

Thinking such happy thoughts, Matthew rammed his shovel into the mound of festering meat and fur. The pile slithered and slipped as he worked. Cats and dogs and seagulls and crows and fuck knows what else. Gritting his teeth, he hefted the mound of dead things on the end of his shovel. And then he saw it.

Matthew opened his mouth to say something – to call over the nervous bloke from the council who was supposed to be running things here, tell him what he'd found. But what came out was a high-pitched scream.

He dropped his shovelful of dead things and raced outside, slipping, slithering, falling to his knees; ripping off his breathing mask, throwing up his Weetabix into the snow. Logan was parked on the other side of the road from the Turf 'n Track, watching the betting shop through the sleet and a pair of binoculars. The weather was horrendous. The delicate fall of snow he'd seen this morning had let up for a while and then this had started. Thick globs of sleet hammering down out of the filthy sky, cold and wet and treacherous. It was already getting dark.

He'd phoned every health authority in the country, asking them for details of any little girls they'd treated for TB in the last four years. Like DI Insch he was optimistic; this should be a straightforward bit of policing. She'd had TB and now she was better. Which meant that she must have been treated at one of the health authorities. She'd be on their books. And Logan would have a name.

The latest jingly jangly tune finished on the radio and the DJ announced the mid-afternoon news. Logan stuffed an extra strong mint into his mouth and turned it up slightly.

'Closing arguments continue today in the case of Gerald Cleaver, the fifty-six-year-old from Manchester accused of sexual abuse while working as a male nurse at Aberdeen Children's Hospital. With almost three weeks of testimony behind them, most of which has been extremely graphic and disturbing, the jury is expected to retire late tomorrow evening. Police security has been stepped up following a number of threats to Cleaver's life. Cleaver's lawyer, Mr Moir-Farquharson, who has himself been the target of death threats during the trial, was assaulted two nights ago when someone threw a bucket of pig's blood over him.'

Logan gave a small cheer and a one-man Mexican wave in the driver's seat of the rusty pool car.

'I will not be intimidated by the work of a tiny, misdirected, minority.' The new voice was Sandy the Snake's. 'We have to make sure that justice is done here-'

Logan drowned out the rest with booing and loud raspberries.

There was movement across the road and he sat up straight, peering through his binoculars. The front door to the shop opened and Desperate Doug stuck his head out, took one look at the weather and stuck his head back in again. Thirty seconds later Winchester, the large Alsatian who'd been desperate to take a chunk out of Logan yesterday, was unceremoniously booted out into the sleet. The dog tried to get back in, was belted with Dougie's walking stick, then stood dejected as the door closed in its face. It stayed there for a minute, the sleet soaking into its greying fur, staring at the shop and then loped down the concrete steps into the car park. It circled a few times: sniffing the lampposts, the metal banister, peeing on some, ignoring others. Then at last it bunched its backend in under itself and gingerly coiled a huge turd in the middle of the car park.

That done, it turned and barked its head off at the Turf 'n Track's front door until Desperate Doug got up to let it in again. Two steps inside the betting shop and the Alsatian shook itself dry, sending a flurry of water and melting sleet all over its owner.

Suddenly Logan liked the dog a lot more. He settled back in his seat and let the radio's music wash over him.

A rust-green estate car lurched past his window, turned right into the small collection of shops, and slid to a halt in the newly beturded car park. It was the same car WPC Watson had hurled all that abuse at. Logan sighed. He was back to thinking of her as WPC Watson. Not Jackie of the Lovely Legs any more. And all because he had to tell her off for swearing at the driver of that ruddy car.

The estate car's driver rummaged about for something on the back seat, then hopped out clutching a plastic carrier bag and nearly fell on his backside in the slush. He had the collar of his jacket turned up and a newspaper held over his shaved head, trying to keep the worst of the weather off. He slipped and slid his way up the disabled ramp to the bookies.

Logan frowned and turned the binoculars on the newcomer as he pushed his way through the door into the shop. The man's ears were festooned with piercings and he had a haunted look that was instantly recognizable: Duncan Nicholson. The same Duncan Nicholson who'd just happened to fall over the murdered body of a three-year-old boy. In a waterlogged ditch, hidden beneath a sheet of chipboard in the dark, in the pouring rain.

'What are you doing here, you little toerag?' Logan asked himself quietly.

Mastrick wasn't local for Nicholson. He lived in the Bridge of Don, well across the city. Big journey to make on a shitty day like this.

And then there was that carrier bag. Or what was in it.

'I wonder…'

But Logan's trail of thought was shattered as the police radio spluttered into life. They'd found another body. It was dark by the time Logan reached the farm on the outskirts of Cults. The gate was open, a patrol car parked next to it containing a pair of unhappy-looking constables, just visible through the fogged-up windscreen. They were blocking access to the farm road. Logan pulled up next to them and rolled down his window. The PC in the driver's seat did the same.

'Afternoon, sir,'

'What's the story?'

'DI Insch is here, so's the Fiscal. Duty doctor's just arrived. IB are stuck in traffic. And there's about six blokes from the council in one of the steadings. We had to restrain them from killing the property's owner.'

'Roadkill?'

'Yup. He's holed up in the farmhouse with Insch. The inspector doesn't want him going anywhere till death's been declared.'

Logan nodded and started to wind up his window. The sleet was beginning to blow into the car.

'Sir?' asked the PC behind the wheel of the patrol car. 'Is it true we had him in custody last night and let him go?'

Logan felt a sickening lurch in the pit of his stomach. He'd been thinking the same thing ever since he'd heard. Worrying all the way over from Mastrick. They'd released Roadkill without charge and now another child was dead. He'd even given the guy a lift!

The sleet was thickening, turning into flurries of real snow as Logan slithered the pool car up the rutted driveway towards Roadkill's farm. The steadings loomed out of the dark, the car's headlights picking out the open doors.

Blue police tape was stretched across the doorway of steading number two. The one they'd been emptying today.

Logan pulled up behind the duty doctor's car. There was another patrol car here, empty this time. Its occupants would be taking statements from the guys who'd found the body. Stopping them from tearing Roadkill to pieces. The only car not parked next to the snow-shrouded waste containers was DI Insch's Range Rover. The big four-by-four was the only one that could handle the rutted drive in the snow. It was abandoned in front of the farmhouse. A faint yellow light flickered in one of the downstairs windows.

Logan looked from the steading with its warning tape to the farmhouse, fading in and out of view through the growing blizzard. Might as well get the nasty bit over and done with.