Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

Logan smiled. 'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.'

'Well, it's too late for any of that now.'

'Sir?'

'Get your arse over to Seaton Park. I've just got the call: they've found Peter Lumley.'

Logan's heart sank. 'I see.'

'I'll be there in about…God, it's blowing a blizzard out here. Make it thirty minutes to be safe. Maybe forty. Keep it low profile, Sergeant. No blue lights, no sirens and no fuss. OK?'

'Yes, sir.'

*

Seaton Park was a pretty place in the summer – wide banks of green grass, tall mature trees, a bandstand. People picnicked on the grass, played an impromptu game of football, made love beneath the bushes. Got mugged after dark. It wasn't a stone's throw away from Aberdeen University's student halls of residence, so there was a steady stream of naive newcomers with money in their pockets.

Today it was like something out of Dr Zhivago. The sky hadn't lightened as day went on but just hung there, throwing snow down over everything.

Logan trudged across the park, trailing a PC wrapped up like an Eskimo behind him. The rotten sod was using Logan as a windbreak as they fought their way through the snow. Their goal was a low concrete building in the middle of the park, the walls on one side coated with a crust of white. The public loos were closed during the winter. Anyone caught short would have to make peecicles behind a bush. They went around the side, glad to get out of the bitter wind, to where the ladies' entrance was hidden behind a small recess.

The door was open, just a crack, the wood splintered and torn where a padlock was meant to keep it shut. Instead the big brass lock hung uselessly from its metal clasp. Logan pushed the door open and stepped into the female toilets.

It actually seemed colder in here than it had outside. A pair of uniform kept an eye on three well-wrapped-up children between the ages of six and ten, their breaths fogging the air. The kids looked excited and bored in turn.

One of the uniforms looked up from his charges. 'Cubicle number three.'

Logan nodded and went to take a look.

Peter Lumley wasn't alive any more. Logan knew it as soon as he opened the black-painted cubicle door. The child was lying on the floor, curled up around the bottom of the toilet, as if he were giving it a cuddle. The fiery red hair was dull and pale in the cold light, the freckles almost indiscernible against the waxy, blue-white skin. The little boy's T-shirt was pulled up, covering his face and arms, leaving the pale skin of his back and stomach exposed. He wasn't wearing anything else.

'You poor wee sod…'

Logan frowned, peering at the child's exposed body, unable to get any closer in case he contaminated the crime scene. Peter Lumley wasn't like the little boy they'd found in the ditch. Peter Lumley was still anatomically intact. The loos were getting a little crowded. Insch had turned up red-faced and swearing just after the duty doctor and the Identification Bureau. The IB lads had turned up, as instructed, in their own clothes, leaving the white van with all its gear in the car park next to St Machar's Cathedral where it wouldn't draw attention to itself.

As Insch stomped the snow off his boots, the IB team and everyone else struggled into their white overalls, shivering in the frigid air and bitching about how cold it was.

'So what's the score?' asked Insch as the duty doctor peeled off his paper coveralls and tried to wash his hands in one of the sinks.

'The poor little lad's dead. Dunno how long for. He's pretty much frozen solid. Weather like this plays merry hell with the old rigor mortis.'

'Cause of death?'

The doctor wiped his hands dry on the inside of his fleecy jacket. 'You'll have to get confirmation from the Ice Queen, but it looks like ligature strangulation to me.'

'Same as last time.' Insch sighed and dropped his voice so the children who weren't dead couldn't hear him. 'Any sign of sexual assault?'

The doctor nodded and Insch sighed again.

'Righty ho.' The doctor wrapped and tucked and zipped himself into his many-layered thermal insulation. 'If you don't need me any more, I'll bugger off somewhere warmer. Like Siberia.'

With death declared the IB team set about collecting everything they could get their glove-covered hands on. Lifting fibres, dusting for prints. Photographer clicking and whirring away, video operator recording everything and everyone. The only thing they didn't do was move the body. Not one of them wanted to incur the wrath of the pathologist. Isobel had got herself quite a reputation since Logan had returned to the force.

'One week today, isn't it?' asked Insch as they stood against the wall and watched the Identification Bureau work. Logan admitted that it was. Insch dug a packet of jelly babies from his coat pocket and offered them around. 'What a great bloody week it's been too,' he said, chewing. 'You thinking of taking a holiday anytime soon? Let the crime statistics get back to normal again?'

'Ha bloody ha.' Logan stuck his hands in his pockets and tried not to think about how Peter Lumley's stepfather would look when they told him what they'd found.

Insch nodded at the three children, slowly turning blue in the crowded ladies lavatory. 'What about them?'

Logan shrugged. 'They say they were out making snowmen. One of them needed a wee, so they came in here, and that's when they found the body.' He looked over at them: two girls of eight and ten and a boy, the youngest at six. Brother and sisters. They all had the same ski-jump nose and wide brown eyes.

'Poor kids,' said Insch.

'Poor kids, my arse,' said Logan. 'How do you think they got in here? Took an eight-inch screwdriver to the clasp on the door, wrenched the padlock clean off. A passing patrol caught them at it.' He pointed at the two frozen PCs. 'The little sods would have done a runner if these guys hadn't shown up and grabbed them.'

Insch switched his attention from the kids to the two uniforms. 'A passing patrol? In the middle of Seaton Park? In this weather?' He frowned. 'Sound a bit far-fetched to you?'

Logan shrugged again. 'That's their story and they're sticking to it.'

'Hmmm…'

The PCs shifted uncomfortably under Insch's gaze.

'Think anyone saw the body being dumped?' he said at last.

'No. I don't.'

Insch nodded. 'Nah, me neither.'

'Because the body wasn't dumped: it was stored. The kids had to break in. The door was padlocked with the body inside. That means the killer put the padlock on. He thought the body was safely locked away. Ready for him to come back to, whenever he felt the urge. He's not claimed his trophy.'

An evil smile spread across the inspector's face. 'That means he's coming back. We've finally got a way to catch this bastard!'

And that's when Dr Isobel MacAlister arrived, stamping into the toilets in a thick woollen coat, a flurry of snow, and a foul mood. Standing in the entranceway, she took in the scene, her face falling even further into a scowl upon seeing Logan. It looked as if she was bearing a grudge: not only had Logan ruined her evening at the theatre, he'd proved her wrong about the child being beaten to death. And Isobel was never wrong. 'Inspector,' she said, completely blanking the man she used to sleep with. 'If we can make this quick?'

Insch pointed at cubicle number three and Isobel swept off to examine the body, her Wellington boots flapping and slapping as she walked.

'Is it just me,' whispered Insch, 'or did it suddenly just get colder in here?' They broke the news to Peter Lumley's parents that evening. Mr and Mrs Lumley didn't say a word. As soon Logan and the Inspector appeared they knew. They just sat side by side on the sofa in silence, holding each other's hands as DI Insch intoned the fateful words.

Without saying a word Mr Lumley got up, picked his coat off the hook, and walked out.