Cold Granite (16 page)

'There's no evidence the cases are connected.'

Mil er sat back, sighed and poured himself another glass of chardonnay. 'OK, so you don't trust me yet,' said the reporter. 'I can understand that. So I'l do you a favour, just so's you know I'm a good guy. That bloke you dragged out the harbour, the one with no knees, his name was George Stephenson. Geordie to his friends.'

'Go on.'

'He was an enforcer for Malk the Knife. Heard of him?'

Logan had. Malk the Knife: AKA Malcolm McLennan. Edinburgh's leading importer of guns, drugs and Lithuanian prostitutes. He'd turned himself semi-legitimate about three years ago, if you could cal property development that. McLennan Homes had bought up big chunks of land on the outskirts of Edinburgh and covered them with little boxy houses. Recently he'd been sniffing around Aberdeen, looking to get into the property game here before the arse fel out of the market. Going up against the local boys. Only Malk the Knife didn't play the game like the local developers. He played hard and he played for keeps. And no one had ever been able to lay a finger on him. Not Edinburgh CID, not Aberdeen, not anyone.

'Wel ,' said Miller, 'it seems Geordie was up here making sure Malkie got planning permission for his latest building scheme. Three hundred houses on greenbelt between here and Kingswel s. Bit of the old bribery and corruption. Only Geordie has the bad luck to run into a planner that isn't bent.' He sat back and nodded. 'Aye, that came as a bit of a surprise tae me too. Didnae think there was any of the buggers left. Anyway, the planner says, "Get ye behind me Satan" and that's just what Geordie does.' Mil er held up his hands and made pushing gestures. 'Right in front of the number two fourteen to Westhil . Splat!'

Logan raised an eyebrow. He'd read about someone from the council fal ing under a bus, but there was never any suggestion it was anything other than an accident. The poor sod was in intensive care at the hospital. They didn't expect him to see Christmas.

Mil er winked. 'It gets better,' he said. 'Word is Geordie's got a bit of a problem with the horses. He's been spreading bets round the local bookies like butter. Big money. Only his luck's for shite. Now your Aberdeen bookie's no as...entrepreneurial as the ones down south, but they're no exactly Tel y Tubbies. Next thing you know Geordie's floatin' face down in the harbour an' someone's hacked off his kneecaps with a machete.' The reporter sat back and swigged a mouthful of wine, grinning at Logan. 'Now is that no worth something to you?'

Logan had to admit that it was.

'Right then,' said Mil er, settling his elbows on the tabletop. 'Your turn.'

Logan walked back into Force Headquarters looking as if someone had shoved the winning lottery ticket into his hand. The rain had even let up, al owing him to walk al the way from the Green to the huge Queen Street station without getting wet.

Insch was stil in the incident room, giving orders and taking reports. From the look of things they'd had no joy in locating either Richard Erskine or Peter Lumley. The thought of those two little kids, out there, probably dead, took the edge off Logan's good mood. He had no business grinning like a loon.

He cornered the inspector and asked him who was in charge of the missing kneecaps case.

'Why?' asked Insch, his large face ful of suspicion.

'Because I've got a couple of leads for them.'

'Oh aye?'

Logan nodded, the grin seeping back onto his face as he repeated what Colin Mil er had told him over lunch. When he'd finished Insch looked impressed.

'Where the hel did you get al this?' he asked.

'Colin Mil er. The journalist from the Press and Journal. The one you told me not to piss off.'

Insch's expression became unreadable. 'I said don't piss him off. I didn't say anything about climbing into bed with him.'

'What? I didn't--'

'Is this the first little chat you and this Colin Mil er have had, Sergeant?'

'I'd never seen him before yesterday.'

Insch scowled at him, keeping silent; waiting for Logan to jump in and fil the uncomfortable pause with something incriminating.

'Look, sir,' said Logan, unable to stop himself. 'He came to me. You can ask the front desk. He told me he had something that would help us.'

'And what did you have to give him in return?'

There was another pause, this one even more uncomfortable.

'He wanted me to tel him about the investigation into the abductions and kil ings.'

Insch stared at him. 'And did you?'

'I...I told him I'd have to run any information past you first, sir.'

At this DI Insch smiled. 'Good lad.' He pul ed a bag of wine gums out of his pocket and offered them to Logan. 'But if I find out you're tel ing me lies I'l break you.'

13

Logan's free lunch had turned into rampant indigestion. He'd lied to DI Insch and hoped to God he wasn't going to get found out. After Colin Mil er had told him all about the man with no kneecaps, Logan had reciprocated, detailing the missing child investigations. He'd been convinced he was doing good: establishing a rapport with an informant, building bridges with the local press. But Insch had acted as if he was sel ing secrets to the enemy. Logan had asked Insch for permission to tel Mil er everything he'd already told him. And in the end Insch had agreed. God help him if the inspector ever found out the exchange had happened before he'd given the OK.

Someone else Logan didn't want finding that out was the inspector from Professional Standards, currently sitting on the opposite side of the interview room table, dressed in an immaculate black uniform. Al paral el creases and shiny buttons. Inspector Napier: thinning ginger hair and a nose like a bottle opener. Asking lots and lots of questions about Logan's return to the force, his recuperation, his status as police hero, and his lunch with Colin Mil er.

Smiling sincerely, Logan lied for al he was worth.

Half an hour later he was back in his commandeered office, looking up at the map on the wal , rubbing at the burning sensation sitting in the middle of his chest. Trying not to think about getting fired.

The blue business card Mil er had given him was sitting in his top pocket. Maybe the reporter was right. Maybe he did deserve better than this. Maybe he could write a book about Angus Robertson: Catching the Mastrick Monster. It had a kind of ring to it...

WPC Watson had been in while he was out having lunch, leaving a fresh stack of printouts next to his witness statements. Criminal and civil records of everyone on his list. Logan sifted through it, not liking what he found. Not one of them had form for kidnapping, kil ing and disposing of young girls' bodies in a bin-bag.

But Watson had been thorough. For each person she'd provided a break-down by age, telephone number, place of birth, national insurance number, occupation, length of time they'd lived at their current address. He had no idea how she'd managed to get hold of al this stuff.

Just a shame none of it was of any use.

Rosemount had always been something of a cultural melting pot and that was reflected in Watson's list: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Newcastle...There was even a couple from the Isle of Man. Now that was exotic.

Sighing, he pul ed the stack of statements over again, the ones he'd marked as being close enough to number seventeen to share a wheelie-bin. He read the bio WPC Watson had produced and then re-read the corresponding statement, trying to get some picture of them from their words. It wasn't easy: every time uniform took a statement they put it into police-statement-speak, a sort of bizarre, stilted English that was so far removed from the way people real y spoke it was almost laughable.

'I proceeded to work that morning,' Logan read aloud, 'having first removed the rubbish bag from my kitchen and placed it into the communal bin outside the building...' Who the hel spoke like that? Normal people 'went to work': 'proceeding to work' was something only policemen did.

He turned back to the front page of the statement to see who had been so weirdly misquoted. The name was sort of familiar: someone from Norman Chalmers's building.

Anderson...Logan smiled. It was the man whose bel they'd rung so that they could get into the building without Chalmers knowing. The one WPC Watson thought was up to something.

According to her write-up Mr Cameron Anderson was in his mid-twenties and hailed from Edinburgh: which explained why he had a first name like Cameron. He worked for a firm of sub-sea engineers making remote operated vehicles for the oil industry. Somehow Logan could picture the nervous young man fiddling about with little remote-control ed submarines.

The next person on the list wasn't much more help and neither was the one after that, but he worked his way slowly through them anyway. If the kil er was here they didn't jump off the page and tel him about it.

Final y Logan put the last statement on top of the pile and stretched, feeling his back pop and crack. A yawn threatened to tear his head in half and he let it rip, ending with a tiny, almost inaudible, burp. It was a quarter to seven and Logan had been poring over these damned statements for most of the day. It was time to go home.

Out in the hal way the building was quiet. The bulk of the administrative work got done during the day and after the admin staff went home the place was a lot less noisy. Logan stopped off at the incident room to see if anything had happened while he'd been cloistered in the office looking at statements.

There was a smal contingent of uniform in the room: two of them answering the phone while the remaining two got on with filing the reports generated by the last shift. He wasn't surprised to hear they'd had exactly the same amount of success as him. Bugger al .

Stil no sign of Richard Erskine, no sign of Peter Lumley, and no one had come forward to identify the little girl lying on a slab in the morgue.

'You stil here, Lazarus?'

Logan turned to find Big Gary standing behind him, a couple of mugs in one hand and a packet of Penguin biscuits in the other. The large policeman nodded in the direction of the lifts.

'We've got someone downstairs looking for whoever's in charge of the missing kid investigation.

I thought you was al away.'

'Who is it?' Logan asked.

'Says he's the new kid's stepfather.'

Logan groaned. It wasn't that he didn't want to help, it was just that he wanted to go find WPC Watson and discover whether or not they'd had sex last night. And if they had, was she up for a rematch?

'OK, I'l see him.'

Peter Lumley's stepfather was pacing the pink linoleum floor in reception. He'd changed out of his overal s and into a dirty pair of jeans and a jacket that looked as if it wouldn't stop a sneeze, let alone a howling gale.

'Mr Lumley?'

The man spun around. 'Why have they stopped looking?' His face was pale and rough, blue stubble making the skin look even more sal ow. 'He's stil out there! Why have they stopped looking?'

Logan took him into one of the smal reception rooms. The man was shivering and dripping wet.

'Why have they stopped looking?'

'They've been out looking al day, Mr Lumley. It's too dark to see anything out there...You need to go home.'

Lumley shook his head, sending smal droplets of water flying from his lank hair. 'I need to find him! He's only five!' He sank slowly down into an orange plastic seat.

Logan's phone started blaring its theme tune and he dug it out, switched it off and stuck it back in his pocket without even looking. 'Sorry about that. How's his mother holding up?' he asked.

'Sheila?' Something almost approaching a smile touched Lumley's mouth. 'The doctor's given her something. Peter means the world to her.'

Logan nodded. 'I know you probably don't want to think about this,' said Logan, working his words careful y, 'but has Peter's father been told he's missing?'

Lumley's face closed up. 'Fuck him.'

'Mr Lumley, the boy's father has a right to know--'

'Fuck him!' He wiped a hand across his face. 'Bastard fucked off to Surrey with some tart from his office. Left Sheila and Peter without a fuckin' penny. You know what he sends Peter for Christmas? For his birthday? Fuck al . Not even a fuckin' card! That's what he sends his son.

That's how much he cares. Fuckin' bastard...'

'OK, forget the father. I'm sorry.' Logan stood. 'Look, we're going to have al the area cars keeping an eye out for your son. There's nothing more you can do tonight. Go home. Get some rest. First light tomorrow morning we'l be searching again.'

Peter Lumley's stepfather slid his head into his hands.

'It's OK,' said Logan, placing a hand on the man's shoulder, feeling the shivering turn into silent sobs. 'It's OK. Come on, I'l give you a lift home.'

Logan signed for one of the CID pool cars, another battered-looking Vauxhal in need of a wash. Mr Lumley didn't say a word al the way from Queen Street to Hazlehead. Just sat in the passenger seat staring out of the window, searching for a five-year-old child.

No matter how cynical you were, it would be impossible not to see the genuine love the man had for his stepson. Logan couldn't help wondering if Richard Erskine's dad was stil out, searching for his missing son in the dark and the rain. Before remembering the poor sod had died before Richard was born.

He frowned, working the dirty pool car round the roundabout that lead into Hazlehead proper. Something was nagging at him.

Now he came to think about it: al the time they'd been in that house no one had mentioned the father. Al the photos on the wal were of the missing child and his suffocating mother. You would have thought there would have been at least one of Richard's dear departed dad. He didn't even know the man's name.

Logan dropped Mr Lumley at the front door to his block of flats. It was hard to say,

'Don't worry, Mr Lumley, we'l find him and he'l be fine...' when he was one hundred percent sure the child was already dead. So he didn't, just made vague reassuring noises before driving off into the night.

As soon as he was out of sight, Logan pulled out his mobile, turned it back on, and cal ed the incident room. A harassed-sounding WPC answered the phone.