Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

It was Logan's turn to be impressed. That was a hell of a lot of money. 'So how come they killed him? Why not just cripple him a little? He can't pay up if he's dead. Not to mention they're killing off one of Malk the Knife's boys. I hear Malkie doesn't take kindly to that kind of thing.'

'Aye, risky. If you do in one of Malkie's boys without his permission he's going tae come down on you like a ton of shite.'

Logan's heart sank: the last thing Aberdeen needed was a spate of tit-for-tat killings. Gang warfare in the Granite City. Wouldn't that be fun? 'So why did they kill him then?'

Miller sighed and put his knife down. 'They kilt him because everyone knows that you don't do what he did.'

'What the hell does that mean?'

'It means…' Miller looked around the little room. A small corridor led off towards where they'd picked up lunch and another, out of sight in the opposite corner, led back through into the bar. Everyone else was chatting away, eating, drinking, enjoying being out of the horrible weather. No one was paying them the slightest bit of attention.

'Listen, you know who Geordie worked for. You don't piss him off twice, OK? Maybe you can get away with it once, but you do it twice and you're no in for a good time, know what I mean?'

'We've been over that!'

'Aye, we have.'

Miller was looking increasingly uncomfortable. 'You know how come I ended up in sunny Aberdeen?' He waved his fork at the dreich weather on the other side of the window. 'How come I gave up a post on the Sun tae come to this shite-hole?' But he dropped his voice, so no one would hear him call Aberdeen a shite-hole. 'Drugs. Drugs and whores.'

Logan raised an eyebrow.

Miller scowled. 'No me, you dirty bastard. I was doin' a story about all this crack comin' intae Glasgow from Edinburgh. They wis smugglin' it over from Eastern Europe inside prossies. You know: the old plastic-bag-up-the-fanny routine. Do it when they're on the blob and the sniffer dogs don't smell it. An' even if they do smell some-thin' everyone's too fuckin' embarrassed to say anything.' He took another sip of his wine. 'And you'd be surprised how much crack cocaine you can stuff up a Lithuanian tart's minge. Fuckin' heaps of the stuff.'

'What's this got to do with Geordie?'

'I'm comin' to that. So anyways, I'm doin' my Clark Kent routine: diggin' up the dirt, really fuckin' great stories. I mean I'm gettin' nominated for awards left right and centre. Investigative Journalist of the Year, book deals, the whole works. Only I find out who's runnin' the scam, don't I? I come up with a name. The big man in charge of flyin' all these tarts, packed full of drugs, into the country.'

'Let me guess: Malcolm McLennan.'

'These two great big fuckers grabbed me on Sauchiehall Street. In broad daylight, but! Bundles me into a big black car. I am politely requested to drop the story like a radioactive tattie. If I'm fond of my fingers. And my legs.'

'And did you?'

'Course I fuckin' did!' Miller emptied half his wine glass in a single gulp. 'No bastard's hackin' off my fingers with a butcher's knife.' He shivered. 'Malk the Knife put the word about and next thing I know I'm out of a job. No paper in the central belt'd touch me with a bargepole.' He sighed. 'So here I am. Don't get me wrong: it's no that bad a place to wind up. Good job, lots of front page inches, nice car, flat, met a nice woman…Money's no what I'm used to, but still…An' I'm still alive.'

Logan settled back in his seat and examined the man sitting opposite him: the tailored suit, the gold baubles, the silk tie, even on a pissing-down Saturday in Aberdeen.

'So that's why I've not seen anything in the papers about Geordie's body turning up in the harbour with no knees? You're scared to publish anything in case Malk the Knife finds out about it?'

'I go putting his business on the front page again and it's goodbye to all ten little piggies.' The reporter waved his fingers at Logan, the rings sparkling in the pub's overhead lights. 'No, I'm keepin' my mouth shut on this one.'

'Then why are you talking to me?'

Miller shrugged. 'Just 'cos I'm a journalist, it don't mean I'm an amoral, parasitic wanker. I mean it's no like I'm a lawyer or anything. I got a social conscience. I'm givin' you information so you can catch the killer. I'm keepin' my head down so it doesn't cost me my fingers. Come time for court you're on your own: I'm off to the Dordogne. Two weeks of French wine and haute cuisine. I'm no tellin' any bugger anythin'.'

'You know who did it, don't you?'

The reporter finished off his wine and smiled lopsidedly. 'No. But if I find out you'll be the first to know. No that I'm lookin' any longer. Got safer fish to fry.'

'Like what?'

But Miller just smiled. 'You'll read about it soon enough. Anyway, gotta dash.' He stood and shrugged his way into his thick black overcoat. 'I've got a meetin' with this bloke from the Telegraph. Lookin' for a four-page spread in tomorrow's Sunday supplement. "In Search Of The Dead: Catching The Aberdeen Child-Killer." Very classy.' Danestone had started out as farmland, like most of the outer regions of Aberdeen, but it had held out against the developers longer than the rest. So, by the time its green fields fell beneath the bulldozer, the mantra was build 'em quick and build 'em close together. The traditional grey granite blocks and gunmetal roof slates were nowhere to be seen: here it was all oatmeal harling and pantiles, winding cul-de-sacs and deadend roads. Just like every other anonymous suburb.

But unlike the middle of Aberdeen, where the tenements and tall granite buildings cut the daylight down by an hour, the sun shone in abundance, the whole development sitting on a south-facing hill along the banks of the River Don. The only drawback was the proximity of the chicken factory, paper mills and sewage treatment plant. But you couldn't have everything. As long as the wind didn't blow from the west you were fine.

The wind wasn't blowing from the west today. It was howling in from the east, straight off the North Sea, and full of icy horizontal rain.

Shivering, Logan wound the car window back up again. He'd parked a little down the road from a compact two-up two-down, the small garden looking half-dead in the battering rain. They'd been there for an hour, him and a bald DC in a parka jacket and there was still no sign of their target.

'So where is he then?' asked the DC, wriggling deeper into his insulated coat. All he'd done since they'd left the station was bitch about the weather. About the fact they were working on a Saturday. That it was raining. That it was cold. That he was hungry. That the rain was making his bladder twitchy.

Logantried not to sigh. If Nicholson didn't turn up soon there was going to be another murder in the papers tomorrow. 'WHINGING POLICE BASTARD THROTTLED WITH OWN GENITALS IN PARKED CAR!' He was just deciding whether it should be an OBE or a knighthood he'd get for killing the moaning wee sod when a familiar, battered, rust-encrusted, green Volvo growled its way past. The driver mounted the kerb in his enthusiasm to park, before scrambling about in the back seat of the car for something.

'Show time.' Logan opened his door and hurried out into the freezing rain. Grumbling, the DC followed.

They got to the Volvo just as Nicholson clambered out, clutching a pair of plastic bags. His face went white when he saw Logan.

'Afternoon, Mr Nicholson.' Logan forced a smile, even though there was icy water streaming down his neck, soaking into his shirt collar. 'Mind if we look in the bags?'

'Bags?' The rain glittered on Duncan Nicholson's shaven head, running off him like nervous sweat. He shoved the bags behind his back. 'What bags?'

The unhappy DC stepped forward and growled from within his parka's fur-lined hood. 'I'll give you what fucking bags!'