Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

A second security guard – a heavy-set man in his early fifties, with a comb-over and eyebrows like a terrier – was now manning the console. He was swigging from a bottle of Lucozade, his head buried in a copy of the morning's paper. 'Kiddie-Killer Suspect Stabbed To Death!' was splashed across the front page. When Logan told him why they were there, he grunted and waved at a pile of labelled video tapes.

Settling down at a console with a tape player, Logan and Watson started to wade their way through the videos. The search team that had been here before had made things a lot easier, winding the tapes forward to when Roadkill was murdered. Slowly, Logan and Watson worked their way through them all, the security guard slugging away at his Lucozade and sucking his teeth in the background.

Figures jumped and jerked across the screen, the camera only taking one frame every three or four seconds, making everything look like experimental Canadian animation. The faces were pretty blurred, but it was still possible to make people out when they got closer to the camera. Half an hour later Logan had recognized a handful of the hundreds of faces that had drifted through various parts of the hospital: the doctor who'd treated Desperate Doug; the nurse who thought he was a monster for beating up an old man; the PC who was supposed to be guarding the geriatric hitman; the doctor who'd declared death on Roadkill last night; the surgeon who'd spent seven hours stitching Logan's insides back together; and Nurse Henderson, her black eye clearly visible on the tape as she stomped along, dressed in her street clothes – rugby shirt, trainers and jeans, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder.

'How many more tapes have we got to go?' asked Logan as Watson gave a huge yawn and stretch.

'Sorry, sir,' she said, composing herself. 'Two more exit tapes and that's the lot.'

Logan slipped the next one into the machine. A side entrance to the hospital. Faces flashed by, talking and laughing, or people with their heads down as they stepped into the biting wind. Nothing suspicious. The last one was the main A amp;-E reception area. The tape here ran at normal speed, ready to capture the all too common flare-ups of antisocial behaviour that came with a hard night's drinking. Logan recognized more faces here: he'd arrested a lot of them. Peeing in doorways, petty larceny, vandalism. One bloke had been done for 'giving himself a treat' in Union Terrace gardens with a wine bottle. But again, there was nothing out of the ordinary here. Not if you didn't count the sudden explosion as two staggering drunks launched themselves at a huge bouncer who had his arm in a makeshift sling. Screams, overturned chairs, more blood. Nurses trying to pry them apart. And then, at last, a blurry police constable charged into the crowded room and put an end to the whole thing with three liberal doses of CS spray. After that it was mostly rolling about on the ground, screaming. But no sign of Roadkill's murderer.

Logan sat back in his seat and rubbed at his eyes. The time stamp on the video said ten-twenty. The PC with the CS spray stayed to make sure everyone was still alive. Ten twenty-five: PC hero accepts a cup of tea before returning to his vigil outside Roadkill's door. Ten-thirty…Logan was getting bored with this. They weren't going to find anything on the tapes.

And that was when Nurse Henderson came back into view, the black eye a lot more noticeable. Logan frowned and paused the tape.

'What?' Watson squinted at the tableau.

'Notice something?'

WPC Watson confessed that she didn't, so Logan tapped the screen, right on top of Nurse Henderson, still carrying the overnight bag. 'She's wearing her uniform.'

'So?'

'She was wearing her civilian clothes in the other tape.'

Watson shrugged. 'So she got changed.'

'She's still carrying the bag. If she got changed, why didn't she leave her bag in the lockers?'

'Maybe they don't have lockers?'

Logan asked the older security guard if the nurses' changing room had lockers in it.

'Aye,' he said. 'But if you think I'm showin' you a video tape of nurses gettin' changed: you've got another bloody think comin'!'

'This is a murder investigation!'

'I don't care. You're no seein' any tape of naked nurses.'

Logan bristled. 'Listen, sunshine-'

'We've no got cameras in there.' He grinned, showing a perfect set of dentures. 'We tried, but the governors were havin' none of it. Didn't trust us to keep our minds on the job. Shame. I coulda made a fortune floggin' those tapes…'

The administration centre of the hospital was nicer than the bit sick people occupied. Here the smell of antiseptic on squeaky linoleum was exchanged for carpet and fresh air. Logan found himself a helpful young woman with bleached-blonde hair and an Irish accent and sweet-talked her into going through last night's shift records.

'Here you go,' she said, pointing to a screenful of numbers and dates on her computer. 'Nurse Michelle Henderson…Did a double shift last night. Got off at about half-nine.'

'Half-nine? Thanks: thanks a lot. You've been very helpful.'

She smiled back at him, pleased to have been of assistance. If there was anything else she could do for him, just give her a call. Anytime. She even gave him a business card. Luckily Logan didn't see the look on WPC Watson's face as he accepted it.

'Well?' she demanded as they rode the lift back to the ground floor.

'Henderson gets off shift at nine-thirty. Nine-fifty she's on camera, changed and ready to go home. Ten-thirty she's back in her uniform again, leaving the building.' Watson opened her mouth, but Logan carried on, grim triumph in his voice. 'We were looking for someone covered in blood. Mrs Henderson just got changed and walked right out of there as if nothing ever happened.' They grabbed a pair of uniformed officers from the search party and called back to base. DI Insch was not in the best of moods when the call was put through: he sounded as if someone had been massaging his backside with red-hot pokers. 'Where the hell have you been?'he demanded, before Logan could get a word in. 'I've been trying to call you for the last hour!'

'Still at the hospital, sir. All mobile phones have to be switched off…' But mostly he'd switched it off so Colin Miller couldn't call him back.

'Never mind that! Another kid's gone missing!'

Logan felt his heart sink. 'Oh no…'

'Aye. I want you to get your arse over here to Duthie Park: the Winter Gardens. I'm pulling in all the search teams. Bloody weather's getting worse, snow's going to make any evidence we've got disappear. This is now our number one priority!'

'Sir, I'm just on my way to arrest Nurse Michelle Henderson-'

'Who?'

'Lorna Henderson's mother. The kid we found in Roadkill's steading. She was at the hospital last night. She blames Roadkill for her daughter's death and the break-up of her marriage. Motive and opportunity. The Fiscal agrees: apprehension and search warrants.'

There was a moment's silence on the other end of the phone, then a muffled conversation as Insch gave someone else a hard time. And then the inspector was back. 'OK,' he said, sounding as if he was about to clobber someone. 'Pick her up, chuck her in a cell and get your backside over here. Roadkill's not getting any more dead. This kid might still be alive.' They stood on the top step in the snow while Logan rang the doorbell again. 'Greensleeves' started up for the fourth time.

Watson asked Logan if he wanted her to kick it down, her breath fogging in the chilly air, nose and cheeks bright red. Behind them the two uniforms they'd liberated from the hospital search team expressed their agreement. Anything to get out of the freezing cold.

He was just about to give her the nod when the door opened a crack and Nurse Michelle Henderson's face appeared. Her hair looked like a chimpanzee had slept in it.