Cold Granite Part 23

'An' I get full exclusive rights. You don't do this for anyone else.' Miller's smile was positively obscene.

Logan nodded. 'And if you say one bad word about DI Insch I will personally kill you.'

Miller laughed, holding up his hands in mock surrender. 'Whoa there, Tiger. No taking the p.i.s.s out the Pantomime Dame. It's a deal.'

'The constables on duty have been told to answer your questions. As long as they're appropriate.'

'Is that fit-looking WPC of yours going to be here?'

'No.'

Miller shook his head sadly. 'Shame. I had an inappropriate question for her.'

They started by getting into full biohazard boiler suits, complete with gas masks. Then Logan began the tour. Steading number one: empty but for the residue of slime and ooze. Steading number two was where Miller got the first real lungful of the stench. He went surprisingly quiet as they stepped in amongst the decaying, furry corpses.

The scale of the pile was truly staggering. Even with half the dead animals removed to the waste containers outside, there were still hundreds of them in here. Badgers, dogs, cats, rabbits, seagulls, crows, pigeons, the occasional deer. If it had died on Aberdeen's roads, it was here. Decaying slowly.

A hole in the pile was cordoned off. This was where they'd found the little girl.

'Christ, Laz,' said Miller, his voice m.u.f.fled by the breathing mask. 'This is f.u.c.kin' grim!'

'Tell me about it.'

They found the search team in steading number three. They were dressed in the same blue protective suits, working their way through the mound of decaying carcases by hand.

Corpse by corpse they picked them up, placed them on a table for examination and then piled them for disposal in the waste containers.

'Why this one?' asked Miller. 'How come they're not emptying the one where the girl was?'

'Philips kept the steadings sequentially numbered.' Logan pointed out through the door. 'One through five. Six is the farmhouse. His plan must've been to fill them all. One by one.'

A pair of constables pulled a mangy-looking spaniel/labrador cross from the pile and carried it between them to the table.

'This is the building he was in the middle of filling. If he took Peter Lumley, this is where he'll be.'

Logan could see Miller frowning behind his safety goggles. 'If you're looking for another kid, how come you're doing it like this? Why examine all the things one by one? Why no' just turf the s.h.i.te out till you find him?'

'Because we might not be looking for all of him. There's still a bit of David Reid missing.'

Miller looked at the pile of dead things and the police men and women going through the lot by hand. 'Jesus. You're looking for his d.i.c.k? In this? f.u.c.k me, but you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds deserve a medal! Or your heads examined.' Another rabbit was added to the table, given a brief inspection, and then thrown in the pile for disposal. 'f.u.c.k...'

Outside, snow was slowly consuming the waste containers. A thick coating lay on top, drifts climbed the sides. Logan had a nasty thought as he watched a shovelful of examined remains being stuffed into one of the containers.

It wasn't easy running in Wellington boots and heavy snow, but Logan managed to get there just as the last seagull was tipped in. 'Hold it,' he said, grabbing the man with the shovel. No not a man, a woman. It was difficult to tell in the shapeless protective gear.

'Where did you put the original contents?'

She looked at him as if he were mad, snow swirling down all around them. 'What?'

'The original contents: the council were filling these things. Where did you put the bodies they'd already put in there? Have you gone through them already?'

A look of unhappy comprehension appeared on the WPC's face. 's.h.i.t!' She threw her shovel down into the snow. 's.h.i.t, s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t!' Three deep breaths and then, 'Sorry, sir. We've been at this all day. We've just been throwing the bodies in. No one thought about checking the stuff already in there.' Her shoulders slumped and Logan knew how she felt.

'Come on. We'll empty this thing into steading number one and check the contents as we go. One group keeps going where they are, the other goes through this lot.' Fun, fun, fun. 'I'll break the good news to the team.' Why not? he thought to himself, they already hate me. Might as well give them good reason for it.

The news went down every bit as badly as Logan had antic.i.p.ated. The only thing that made them feel any better was that he was prepared to pitch in and help. At least for a while.

And that was how Logan spent his afternoon. Miller, bless his cotton socks, swallowed his pride and picked up a shovel. The spaniel/labrador was near the top of the pile this time. Last in, first out. But slowly they worked their way through the contents of the waste container.

Logan was sure he'd examined the same burst-open rabbit about thirty times when the screaming started.

Someone came running out of steading number three clutching his hand to his chest. He slipped on the snow and went flat on his back. The screaming stopped for a moment as all the wind was knocked out of him.

The team abandoned their carcases and charged towards the fallen figure. Logan got there just as the screaming started up again.

Blood was oozing out of the constable's thick rubber glove through a neat puncture mark in the palm. The victim tore off his mask and goggles. It was PC Steve. Ignoring the calls to calm down, he carried on screaming as he dragged the b.l.o.o.d.y glove off his injured hand. There was a ragged hole in it: right in the meaty bit between his thumb and forefinger. It pulsed dark-red blood, running down the blue plastic boiler suit and into the snow.

'What did you do?'

PC Steve went on screaming so someone slapped him one. Logan couldn't be sure, but it looked like the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Simon Rennie.

'Steve!' Rennie said, preparing to haul off and smack him again, 'What happened?'

PC Steve's eyes were wild, darting between the steading and his bleeding hand. 'Rat!'

Someone dragged their belt out from underneath their boiler suit and wrapped it around Steve's wrist, pulling hard.

'Jesus, Steve,' said the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Simon Rennie, peering at the hole in his friend's hand. 'That must've been one big rat!'

'f.u.c.king thing was like a Rottweiler! Ah, b.a.s.t.a.r.d that hurts!'

They stuffed a plastic bag with snow and stuck Steve's bleeding hand into it, trying not to notice as the snow inside slowly turned from white to pink and then to red. Logan wrapped the whole lot in a spare boiler suit and told PC Rennie to take him to the hospital, lights and music all the way.

Miller and Logan stood side by side as the lights flickered into life on top of the patrol car. It did a messy three point turn on the slippery road before creeping off into the blizzard, siren blazing.

'So,' said Logan as the flashing lights were swallowed by the snow. 'How are you enjoying your first day on the Force?'

23.

Logan stayed at the farm as long as he could, examining animal carcases with the rest of the team. Even with all that protective gear on he felt dirty. And everyone was on pins and needles after the rat attack. No one wanted to join PC Steve in A&E waiting for a teta.n.u.s and rabies shot.

In the end, he had to call it a day: he still had work to do back at Force HQ. They dropped an ashen-faced Colin Miller off at the gate to the farm track. He was knackered, going straight home to drink a bottle of wine. Then he was going to climb into the shower and exfoliate until he bled.

The gaggle of reporters and television cameras outside the farm had thinned out. Now only the hardcore remained, sitting in their cars with the engines running and heaters going full blast. They leapt from the warm safety of their vehicles as soon as Logan's car appeared.

No comment was all they got.

DI Insch wasn't in the incident room when Logan got back to FHQ. Getting an update from the team manning the phones was an uncomfortable experience. Even after the inspector's speech they obviously still thought Logan was s.h.i.te in a suit. No one actually said anything, but their reports were curt and to the point.

Team one: door-to-door 'Have you seen this man?' had generated the usual raft of contradictory statements. Yes, Roadkill had been seen talking to the boys, no he hadn't, yes he had. The Hazlehead station had even set up a roadblock to ask drivers if they'd seen something on their way into and out of town. A long shot, but worth a try.

Team two: Bernard Duncan Philips's life story. They'd been the most successful. There was a large manila folder sitting on the inspector's desk containing everything anyone knew about Roadkill. Logan perched himself on the edge of the desk and flicked through the collection of photocopies, faxes and printouts. He stopped when he got to the report on the death of Bernard's mother.

She'd been diagnosed with bowel cancer five years ago. She'd been ill for a long time, unable to cope. Bernard had come home from St Andrews, leaving a PHD behind, in order to look after his sick mother. Her GP had insisted she get help, but she refused. Bernard was on mummy's side and chased the man off the family farm with a pickaxe. Which was when they spotted the mental problems.

Then her brother, who'd found her face down on the kitchen floor, made her go to the hospital. Exploratory surgery and bingo: cancer. They tried treating it, but the cancer had spread to her bones by February. And in May she was dead. Not in the hospital, but in her own bed.

Bernard shared the house with her for two months after she died. A social worker had gone to check on Bernard. The smell had met her at the farmhouse door.

So Bernard Duncan Philips got a two-year spell in Cornhill, Aberdeen's only 'special needs' hospital. He responded well to the drugs so out he had gone into the care of the community. Which roughly translated meant they wanted the bed freed up for some other poor sod. Bernard buried himself in his work: sc.r.a.ping dead animals off the road for Aberdeen City Council.

Which explained a lot.

Logan didn't need an update on team three: he'd seen enough at first hand to know they weren't getting anywhere fast. Making them go through all that stuff in the waste containers hadn't helped, but at least now they knew they hadn't missed anything. At the rate they were going it'd be Monday at the earliest before they'd worked their way through all three steadings-worth of animal corpses. Providing the superintendent authorized the overtime.

Logan's mini incident room was empty by the time he got there. The lab results had come back on the vomit Isobel had found in the deep cut in the little girl's body. The DNA didn't match the sample from Norman Chalmers. And Forensics still hadn't come up with anything else. The only thing tying him to the girl was the supermarket till receipt. Circ.u.mstantial. So they'd had to let Norman Chalmers go. At least he'd had the good sense to go quietly, rather than in a barrage of media attention. His lawyer must have been gutted.

There was a neatly typed note sitting on Logan's desk, summarizing the day's sightings. He scanned through them sceptically. Most looked like utter fantasy.

Next to it was the list of every female TB sufferer under the age of four in the whole country. It wasn't a big list; just five names, complete with addresses.

Logan pulled over the phone and started dialling.

It was gone six when DI Insch stuck his head round the door and asked if Logan had a moment. The inspector had a strange look on his face and Logan got the feeling this wasn't going to be good news. He put one hand over the phone's mouthpiece and told the inspector he'd just be a minute.

The other end of the phone was connected to a PC in Birmingham who was, at that moment, sitting with the last girl on Logan's list. Yes she was still alive and was Logan aware that she was Afro-Caribbean? So probably not the dead white girl lying on a slab in the morgue then.

'Thanks for your time, Constable.' Logan put the phone down with a weary sigh and scored off the final name. 'No luck,' he said as Insch settled on the edge of the desk and started rummaging nosily through Logan's files. 'All children in the right age group treated for TB are alive and well.'

'You know what that means,' said Insch. He had hold of the statements Logan had picked out as being nearest to Norman Chalmers and his wheelie-bin. 'If she's had TB and been treated, it wasn't in this country. She's-'

'-not a British national,' Logan finished for him before burying his head in his hands. There were hundreds of places in the world still regularly suffering from TB: most of the former Soviet Union, Lithuania, every African nation, the Far East, America... A lot of the worst places didn't even keep national records. The haystack had just got an awful lot bigger.

'You want some good news?' asked Insch, his voice flat and unhappy.

'Go on then.'

'We've got an ID on the girl we found at Roadkill's farm.'

'Already?'

Insch nodded and placed all of Logan's statements back in the wrong order. 'We looked through the missing persons list for the last two years and ran a match on the dental records. Lorna Henderson. Four and a half. Her mother reported her missing. They were driving home from Banchory, along the South Deeside road. They'd had a row. She wouldn't shut up about getting a pony. So the mother says: "If you don't shut up about that d.a.m.n pony you can walk home".'

Logan nodded. Everybody's mum had done that at one time or another. Logan's mother had even done it to his dad once.

'Only Lorna really, really wants a pony.' Insch pulled out a crumpled bag of fruit sherbets. But instead of popping one in his mouth, he just sat there and stared morosely into the bag. 'So the mother makes good on the threat. Pulls the car over and makes the kid get out. Drives off. Doesn't go far, just around the next bend. Less than half a mile. Parks the car and waits for Lorna. Only she never shows up.'

'How the h.e.l.l could she put a four-year-old girl out of the car?'

Insch laughed, but it was humourless. 'There speaks someone who's never had kids. Soon as the little b.u.g.g.e.rs learn to talk they don't stop till their hormones kick in and they become teenagers. Then you can't get a b.l.o.o.d.y word out of them. But a four-year-old will moan all day and all night if it really wants something. So in the end the mother snaps and that's it. Never sees her daughter ever again.'

And there was no way she was ever going to now. When the body was finally released for burial it would be a closed casket affair. They wouldn't let anyone see what was inside that box.

'Does she know? That we've found her?'

Insch grunted and stuffed the untouched sherbets back in his pocket. 'Not yet. That's where I'm off to now. Tell her that she let her kid get caught by a sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d. That he battered her to death and stuffed her body in a pile of animal carcases.'

Welcome to h.e.l.l.

'I'm taking WPC Watson with me,' said Insch. 'You want to come?' The words were flippant, but the voice wasn't. The inspector sounded low. Not surprising given the week they'd just had. Insch thought he could bribe Logan into coming by dangling WPC Watson in front of him. Like a carrot in a police uniform.

Logan would have gone without the bribe. Telling a mother her child was dead wasn't something he was looking forward to, but Insch looked as if he needed the support. 'Only if we go for a drink afterwards.'

They pulled up at the kerb in DI Insch's Range Rover, the ma.s.sive car towering over all the little Renaults and Fiats that lined the street on either side with their white hats of pristine snow. No one had said much on the trip out. Except for the Family Liaison Officer, who'd spent the whole trip making 'Who's a pretty girl?' noises at the smelly black-and-white spaniel in the back of Insch's car.

The area was nice enough: some trees, a bit of gra.s.s. You could still see fields if you climbed on the roof. The house was at the end of a two-up, two-down terrace, all done out in white harling, the little white chips of stone and quartz sparkling in the streetlights, mimicking the snow.

The blizzard had turned into the occasional lazy flake, drifting slowly through the bitter night. They tramped through the ankle-deep snow to the front door together. Insch taking the lead. He pressed the doorbell and 'Greensleeves' binged and bonged from somewhere inside. Two minutes later the door was opened by a displeased, damp woman in her mid-forties, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe. She wore no make-up, the faint remains of mascara smearing outwards from her eyes towards her ears. Her hair was wet, hanging over her face like damp string. The look of irritation on her face vanished as she saw WPC Watson's uniform standing at the back.

'Mrs Henderson?'

'Oh G.o.d.' She clutched at the front of the robe, twisting the neck tightly shut. All the colour went from her face. 'It's Kevin isn't it? Oh G.o.d ... he's dead!'

'Kevin?' Insch looked fl.u.s.tered.

'Kevin, my husband.' She stepped back into the tiny hall, her hands all a flutter. 'Oh G.o.d.'

'Mrs Henderson: your husband's not dead. We-'

'Oh, thank the Lord for that.' Instantly relieved, she ushered them through the hall into a pink, candy-striped living room. 'Excuse the mess. Sunday's usually my day for the housework, but I had a double shift at the hospital.' She stopped and surveyed the room, moving a discarded nurse's uniform off the sofa and onto the ironing board. The half-empty bottle of gin was swiftly tidied away to the sideboard. Above the fireplace was a framed fake oil painting, one of the ones photographers churn out. A man, a woman and a fair-haired little girl. A husband, a wife and a murdered child.

'Of course Kevin doesn't live here right now... He's having a break...' There was a pause. 'It was after our daughter went missing.'

'Ah. That's why we're here, Mrs Henderson.'

She waved them towards a lumpy brown sofa, the leather covered up with pink-and-yellow throws. 'Because Kevin doesn't live here? It's only temporary!'

Insch pulled a clear plastic envelope from his pocket. There were two pink hairclips in it. 'Do you recognize these, Mrs Henderson?'

She took the envelope, peered in at the contents and then back at Insch and went pale for the second time. 'Oh G.o.d, these were Lorna's! Her favourite Barbie hair things. She wouldn't go out of the house without them! Where did you get them?'