Stuart Macbride - Cold granite

She apologized again and helped him through into the kitchen with the shopping.

'Got some Pot Noodles as well,' he said, emptying the bags onto the counter top. 'You want chicken and mushroom, beef and tomato, or spicy curry?'

Watson grabbed the chicken, Rennie the curry: the sour-faced Mrs Strichen could have what was left. While the noodles were soaking up a kettle of hot water, PC Rennie filled her in on his trip to the shops. One of Insch's cars was parked down at the entrance to the street opposite the shops and he'd spent a couple of minutes speaking to the occupants. They were from Bucksburn, just down the road and didn't think much of their assignment. It was a complete waste of time! Strichen wasn't coming back. But if he did, they were going to kick seven bells out of him for making them sit out there in the freezing cold.

'Did they say how the search was going?' she asked, stirring absently at the rehydrating noodles.

'Bugger all. Lots of buildings and no idea which one he's going to be in.'

Watson sighed, staring out the back window again, watching the snow. 'It's going to be a long night.'

'Never mind,' Rennie grinned, 'she's got EastEnders on tape.'

Watson groaned. As if the day could get any worse! There was no sign of Martin Strichen's Ford Fiesta in Westburn Park. Not for the first time Logan wondered if Strichen wouldn't just hit the main road out of Aberdeen. He had to know they were after him by now. Since leaving the station Logan had heard at least a dozen appeals for information on local radio. If he was Martin Strichen he'd be halfway to Dundee by now. Gradually he let the car drift further out.

Now and then a patrol car would pass in the opposite direction, trawling the streets, just as he was. Maybe Hazlehead would be worth a try? Or Mastrick? In the end he knew it didn't really matter where he went. Little Jamie McCreath was surely already dead. Sighing, he turned the car onto North Anderson Drive.

His mobile phone blared out its offensive ring tone and Logan pulled into the side of the road, the car bumping up onto a ridge of icy snow that hid the kerb.

'Logan.'

'Laz, my man! How's it going?'

Bloody Colin Miller.

'What can I do for you, Colin?' he said with a weary sigh.

'Been listenin' to the news, been readin' the press releases. What's goin' on?'

An articulated lorry thundered past, sending a three-foot wave of slush spattering against the side of the car. Logan watched the tail-lights, twin eyes of red, disappear around the roundabout.

'You know bloody well what's going on! You published your bloody story and cost us our best chance at catching this bastard.' Logan knew he was being unfair, that Miller hadn't meant for it to turn out like this, but right now he didn't care. He was tired, frustrated and wanted someone to shout at. 'He's snatched another kid because you had to tell the world we'd found a poor wee dead…' He trailed off into silence as he finally saw what had been staring him in the face all along. 'Fuck!' He slammed his hand on the steering wheel. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!'

'Jesus, man, calm down! What's wrong?'

Logan gritted his teeth and hammered the steering wheel again.

'You havin' a seizure or something?'

'You always know when someone's dead, don't you? You always fucking know when we find a dead body.' Logan scowled out of the car window as another lorry roared past, buffeting the car with its wake.

'Laz?'

'Isobel.'

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

'She's your mole, isn't she? Ferreting about, bringing you titbits. Helping you sell bloody papers!' He was shouting now. 'How much you paying her? How much was Jamie McCreath's life worth?'

'It's no like that! It…I…' There was a pause. And then Miller's voice returned, sounding very small. 'She comes home and tells me about her day sometimes.'

Logan looked at the phone as if it had just farted in his face. 'What?'

A sigh. 'We're…She does a hard shitty job. She needs someone to share stuff with. We didn't know it would end up like this…I swear! We-'

Logan snapped the phone shut without another word. He should have spotted it a mile off. The opera, the flash car, the clothes, the fancy food, the mouth like a sewer. It was Miller. He was Isobel's 'bit of rough'. Sitting on his own, in the car, in the snow, in the dark, Logan closed his eyes and swore. If WPC Watson had to watch one more bloody soap opera she was going to scream. Now Mrs Strichen had started in on the videoed episodes. Miserable people with miserable lives, buggering about in a miserable, pointless parade of misery. God, she was bored. And there wasn't a book in the house either. So all they had was the television and its endless barrage of bloody soap operas.

She stomped back into the kitchen and stuffed her empty pot noodle carton into the bin, without bothering to turn on the light. This was such a waste of time!

'Jackie? Put the kettle on while you're in there!'

Watson sighed. 'What did your last slave die of?'

'Milk and two sugars, eh?'

Grumbling, she filled the kettle back up again and stuck it on to boil. 'I made it last time,' she said, back in the lounge. 'Your turn to make the tea.'

PC Rennie, looked at her aghast. 'But I'll miss the start of Emmerdale!'

'It's on video! How can you miss the start of Emmerdale if it's on video? Pause the damn thing!'

Sitting in her overstuffed armchair, Mrs Strichen ground another dead cigarette into the pile. 'Do you two ever stop bloody fighting?' she said, pulling out her lighter and her fags. 'Like bloody children.'

Watson gritted her teeth. 'You want tea? You make tea.' She turned to head upstairs.

'Where you going?'

'I'm going for a pee. That OK with you?'

PC Rennie held up his hands in self defence. 'OK, OK. I'll make the tea. Sheesh, if it's that big a deal…' He pulled himself out of the sofa and collected the empty mugs.

With a small smile of satisfaction WPC Watson went upstairs.

She didn't hear the back door opening.

The toilet had one of 'those' flushes. No matter how hard or how often she forced down the handle, it just wouldn't make things disappear. WPC Jackie Watson sat on the edge of the bath and pumped the handle again before peering under the lid. At least all the toilet paper was gone now. Anything left was dilute enough to be unnoticeable.

Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was an icebox. Suppressing a shiver, she washed her hands, took one look at the off-grey towel hanging on the back of the door, and dried her hands on her trousers.

Someone was standing right outside the bathroom door when she opened it. She jumped, her breath catching in her throat. Strichen was back!

She snarled and launched a fist at his face without thinking, only swerving at the last moment when her brain caught up with her vision. Not Martin Strichen. His mother, her eyes wide with shock. They stood looking at each other, blood thudding in their ears.

'Don't do that!' Watson said, dropping the fist back to her side.

'Shift over,' said Martin's mum, her voice shaking slightly, eyeing Watson as if she was an escaped loony, 'my bladder's killing me.' She shuffled past, clutching her cardigan shut with one hand and an Evening Express with the other. 'Your boyfriend's taking his own sweet time making that bloody tea.' She slammed the door, leaving WPC Watson standing alone, at the top of the stairs, in the dark.

'Lovely woman,' she muttered. 'No wonder her kid's a monster.'

She went downstairs thinking about the pint that DS McRae owed her. Much better than yet another cup of tea. Grumbling away to herself, she slumped onto the settee. The opening titles of Emmerdale were flickering on the television screen, paused in the middle of flying over some fields. How nice of them not to start until she'd finished her wee. 'Come on, Rennie!' she called through from the lounge. 'What's taking so damn long? Teabag, water, milk. It's not hard.' She slumped back into the couch and scowled at the telly. 'Oh for God's sake!' She dragged herself up and barged into the kitchen. 'Can you not even make the bloody…'