Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

It was freezing cold outside and as soon as Logan killed his car lights it was dark as well. He jumped back in the car and dug a flashlight out from under a pile of posters with Peter Lumley's face on them. Please God: let it be him. Don't let it be some other poor little bastard. Not another one.

The torch dispelled just enough darkness for Logan to see where he was putting his feet. The snow was building up in the hollows and potholes, hiding them, making it far too easy to slip and fall. Logan stumbled his way through the grass to steading number two, the fat snowflakes sticking to his jacket.

Inside, it smelled terrible. But not as bad as it had on that first day when he'd made PC Steve drag open the heavy wooden door. The wind took away some of the smell, but it was still bad enough to make Logan gag as he crossed the threshold. Coughing, he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it over his nose and mouth.

Half the carcases were gone and the concrete floor slippery with ooze and decayed body fluids. Doc Wilson, dressed in the regulation white paper boiler suit, was hunched down in front of the pile of corpses, his open medical bag sitting on top of a flattened bin-bag to keep it out of the slime.

Logan pulled on a set of coveralls. 'Evening, Doc,' he said, carefully picking his way across the concrete.

The duty doctor turned. A white mask hid the lower part of his face. 'How come when it's a messy job it's always me gets called, eh?'

'Just lucky I guess,' said Logan. The humour was forced, but the doctor managed a small smile behind his mask.

He pointed at the open bag and Logan helped himself to a pair of latex gloves and a mask. The smell suddenly vanished, replaced by an overwhelming reek of menthol that made his eyes water. 'Vicks VapoRub,' Doc Wilson said. 'Old pathology trick. Covers a multitude of sins.'

'What are we looking at?'

Please God let it be Peter Lumley.

'Difficult to tell. The poor wee sod's nearly rotted all away.'

The Doc lumbered to the side and Logan got his first real look at what had sent Matthew Oswald screaming out into the snow to throw up his Weetabix. A child's head protruded from the mass of animal corpses. There were no real features left, the bone poking out through slimy grey.

'Oh Christ.' Logan's stomach lurched.

'I dinna even know if it's a boy or a girl. We'll no know till we dig the body out and examine it properly.'

Logan looked at the grim head, the empty eye-sockets, the mouth hanging open, the teeth protruding from the shrunken gums. A matted mess of hair was almost indistinguishable from the fur of the animals piled up all around the body. A pair of small pink clasps were embedded in the putrid scalp. Barbie hairgrips.

'It's a girl.' Logan stood. He couldn't take any more of this. 'Come on, Doc. Declare death and leave this for the pathologist.'

The doctor nodded sadly. 'Aye. Perhaps you're right. Poor wee sod…' Logan stood outside in the snow, his face turned into the wind, letting the cold and damp wash away the stench of decay. It didn't dispel his nausea though. Shivering, he watched as Doc Wilson clambered his way through the snow and into his car. No sooner was the door closed than out came the cigarettes and the doctor was wreathed in smoke.

'Lucky bastard.'

He turned his back on the scene and trudged out into the blizzard, making for the farmhouse, the torch's beam a bar of white, swirling and whirling, marking his progress through the long grass. Ten steps and his trousers were soaked to the knee, his shoes full of icy water. By the time he got to the front door his teeth were clattering in his head, the steady clacka-clacka-clacka running counterpoint to his shivers.

Light flickered from the kitchen window, but Logan could only make out silhouettes through the filthy glass. He didn't bother knocking, just heaved and shoved at the swollen door. Inside, the house was even more dilapidated than he'd expected. With no one living here for God knows how long, the place had turned into a mausoleum of mould. He ran the torch over the hallway, picking out the remains of wallpaper and furniture. Here and there the plaster was gone from the walls, exposing the lath beneath. Dark fungus clustered round the holes like flies round an open sore. The staircase was missing rungs and one step was broken, the board snapped in the middle and sticking up at the ends. But there were still photos on the walls.

Logan brushed a clearing in the dust-covered glass of one, and a happy-looking woman smiled back at him. He made the clean patch bigger and a little boy appeared, grinning at the camera, wearing a smart new set of clothes, his hair all combed straight. There was a striking family resemblance. Bernard Duncan Philips and his mother in better times. Before he started collecting dead things. Before there was a little girl's corpse in steading number two.

The kitchen was cramped and dark. Piles of cardboard boxes lined the room, the constant damp making them sag at the corners. Mildew covered the walls, lending the place a smell of desolation. And in the middle of the room sat a tatty kitchen table with two treacherous-looking chairs.

Bernard Duncan Philips, AKA Roadkill, was slumped in one of them, DI Insch leaning against the sink opposite. Between them a small candelabrum flickered. Only two of its five sockets had any candles in them, and they were little more than stubs. No one said a word as Logan entered.

Insch's face was like stone, scowling down at the sagging figure. He must have been thinking the same thing as Logan: they'd had him last night and they'd let him go. And now they had another dead child on their hands.

I've sent the duty doctor home.' Logan's voice was swallowed by the gloom.

'What did he say?' asked Insch, not taking his eyes off Roadkill.

'It's probably a little girl. We don't know how old. She's been dead for a long time. Maybe years.'

Insch nodded and Logan knew he was feeling relieved. If the kid had been dead for years then it didn't matter that they'd let Roadkill go last night. No one had died because of that.

'Mr Philips here has declined to comment. Haven't you, Mr Philips? You won't tell me who she is, or when you killed her. Funny how we've now got two dead girls on our books, isn't it? Even funnier how we've got some sick bastard running round killing little boys and sticking things up their arses. Cutting off their dicks.'

Logan frowned. David Reid had turned up dead and mutilated in a ditch on the other side of the city. Roadkill liked to keep his dead things. He wouldn't leave a prize like that lying out in the open.

'You know,' said Logan, trying to play good cop. 'We could make this a lot easier for you, Bernard. You tell us what happened. In your own words, OK? I'm sure you didn't mean for all this to happen, did you?'

Roadkill slumped forward until his head rested on the scarred tabletop.

'Was it an accident, Bernard? Did it just happen?'

'They're taking them all away. All my beautiful dead things.'

Insch slammed his huge fist down on top of the table, making the candelabrum and Roadkill jump. Hot wax spattered onto the wood. Bernard Duncan Philips slowly sank back down to the tabletop, covering his head with his arms.

'You're going to jail. You hear that? You're going to Peterhead Prison, with all the other sick bastards. The paedophiles, rapists, murderers. You going to be someone's bitch up there? Going to find the love of your life in some hairy-arsed Weegie bastard? 'Cos if you don't start talking to us I'm going to make sure you get shacked up with the skankiest arse-raping bastard they've got up there!'

It was designed to get a response. But it failed. In the uneasy silence Logan could hear a quiet tune. Roadkill was humming something to himself. It sounded like 'Abide with me'.