Cold Granite (18 page)

Sitting in the smal lock-block drive was a dark red Renault Clio.

Logan got the driver to park around the corner. 'OK,' he told the PCs, unbuckling his seatbelt, 'we're going to take this nice and easy. You two work your way round the back. Let me know when you're in place and we'l ring the doorbel . If he runs: you grab him.' He turned to the WPC in the back, wincing as the movement pul ed at the scars on his stomach. 'When we get to the house I need you to keep out of sight. If Caldwel sees police on his doorstep he's going to freak. I don't want this turning into a siege. OK?'

Everyone nodded.

It was freezing cold as Logan climbed out of the car. The rain had changed from thick, heavy drops back into a fine, icy drizzle that leached al the warmth out of his hands and face by the time they reached the front door. The two PCs had disappeared around the back.

A couple of lights were on in the house, the sound of a television seeping out from the lounge. A toilet flushed and Logan reached for the doorbel .

The phone blared in Logan's pocket. He cursed quietly and punched the pickup. 'Logan.'

'What's going on?' It was Insch.

'Can I cal you back, sir?' he whispered.

'No you bloody wel can't! I just got a cal from HQ. They tel me you've commandeered three uniforms and are off arresting someone! What the hel is going on?' There were some muffled noises from the earpiece and the sound of a band striking up. 'Shite,' said Insch. 'I'm on.

You better have a damn good explanation when I get off stage, Sergeant, or I'l A woman's voice, terse and insistent, just too faint for Logan to make out the words, and then: 'Al right, al right.

I'm coming.' And then the line went dead.

The WPC stood on the doorstep looking at him with her eyebrows arched.

'He's about to go on stage,' explained Logan, stuffing the phone back in his pocket. 'Let's get this over and done with. If we're lucky we can meet him in the bar after the show with some good news for a change.'

He rang the bel .

A thin bout of male swearing drifted out of the bathroom window. At least they knew someone was home. Logan leaned on the bel again.

'Hold on! Hold on, I'm coming!'

About a minute and a half later a shadow fel over the part-glazed front door and a key was rattled in the lock. The door swung open and a face popped into the gap.

'Hel o?' it said.

'Darren?' asked Logan.

The face frowned, a pair of thick black eyebrows sinking down over eyes that didn't quite look in the same direction. Darren Caldwel might be five and a bit years older than his school photograph, but he hadn't changed that much. His jaw was a little wider and his hair looked styled, rather than cut by his mum, but it was definitely the same man.

'Yes?' said Darren, and Logan gave the door a sudden shove.

The young man staggered backwards, tripped over a little nest of tables and fel ful length on the floor. Logan and the WPC stepped inside, closing the door behind them.

'Tsk, tsk.' Logan shook his head. 'You should get a security chain fitted, Mr Caldwel .

Makes it harder for people to come in uninvited. You never know who's out there.'

The young man scrabbled to his feet, balling his fists. 'Who are you?'

'You have a lovely home, Mr Caldwel ,' said Logan, letting the WPC get between him and the possibility of physical violence. 'You don't mind if we take a look around?'

'You can't do this!'

'Oh yes I can.' Logan pul ed the search warrant out and waved it in his face. 'Now where shall we start?'

The house was a lot smal er on the inside than it looked. Two bedrooms, one with a double bed covered in a yel owy-grey crocheted blanket crammed into it, jars of moisturiser cluttering up the vanity unit; the other with a single bed up against one wal opposite a little computer desk. A barely-dressed young woman pouted from a poster above the bed. Very saucy. The bathroom contained the nastiest avocado-coloured suite Logan had seen in a long time and the kitchen was just big enough for al three of them to stand in, as long as they didn't move about too much. The lounge was taken up by a widescreen television and a huge, lime-green sofa.

There was no sign of the missing five-year-old boy.

'Where is he?' asked Logan, poking about in the cupboards, pulling out tins of beans and soup and tuna.

Darren looked left and right, almost at the same time. 'Where's who?' he said at last.

Logan sighed and slammed the cupboard doors.

'You know bloody wel "who", Darren. Where's Richard Erskine. Your son? What have you done with him?'

'I've not done nothing to him. I've not seen him for months.' He hung his head. 'She won't let me.'

'You've been seen, Darren. People reported your car.' Logan tried to peer out through the kitchen window, but al he could see was himself staring back, reflected in the glass.

'I...' Darren sniffed. 'I used to drive round there. See if I could get a glimpse of him, you know, out playing or something? But she wouldn't let him out, would she? Wouldn't let him be like the other kids.'

Logan flicked the light-switch off, plunging the kitchen into darkness. Without the light turning the window into a mirror he could see out into the back garden. The pair of policemen he'd dispatched to watch the back were there, shivering away in the cold drizzle. There was a shed in one corner.

Smiling he snapped the lights back on, making everyone squint.

'What?'

'Come on,' he said, grabbing Darren by the col ar, 'let's go take a look in the shed.'

But Richard Erskine wasn't in there. Just a Flymo, a couple of trowels, a bag of fertilizer and a pair of secateurs.

'Arse.'

They stood in the lounge, drinking piss-poor tea. The room was crowded with two soggy PCs, the WPC, Darren Caldwel and Logan. The man of the house sat on the sofa, looking more and more unhappy with every minute that passed.

'Where is he?' asked Logan again. 'You're going to have to tel us sooner or later. Might as wel be now.'

Darren scowled at them. 'I haven't seen him. I've got no idea what you're talking about.'

'OK then,' said Logan, perching on the arm of the lime-green settee, 'where were you yesterday morning at ten a.m.?'

Darren sighed theatrical y. 'I was at work!'

'And you can prove this, can you?'

A nasty grin burst into life on Darren's face. 'Fuckin' right I can. Here--' he snatched the phone off the low coffee table and thrust it at Logan, before dragging a copy of the Yel ow Pages out from beneath a pile of Hel o! magazines. 'Broadstane Garage,' he said, pul ing the thick, yel ow directory open and flicking through it with angry fingers. 'Cal them. Go on: speak to Ewan. He's my boss. Ask him where I was. Go on.'

As he took the phone and the Yel ow Pages, Logan had a nasty thought: what if Darren was tel ing the truth?

Broadstane Garage had a display ad: something cheesy with a smiling spanner and a happy nut and bolt. The advert said 'Open 24 Hours' so Logan dial ed the number. The ringing tone sounded in his ear, over and over and over. He was just about to hang up when a gruff voice shouted: 'Broadstane Garage!' in his ear.

'Hel o?' said Logan, when his hearing had returned. 'Is this Ewan?'

'Who's this?'

'This is Detective Sergeant Logan McRae of Grampian Police. Are you Darren Caldwel 's employer?'

The voice on the other end of the phone became instantly suspicious. 'What if I am?

What's he done?'

'Can you tel me where Mr Caldwel was between the hours of nine and eleven yesterday morning?'

Darren sat back on the settee smiling his smug smile and Logan got that sinking feeling again.

'Helping me rewire a Volvo. Why?'

'You're sure?'

There was a smal pause and then: 'Course I'm bloody sure. I was there. If he was somewhere else I'd've bloody noticed. Now what's this al about?'

It took another five minutes to get rid of him.

Logan put the phone down and tried to hide the disappointment in his voice. 'It seems we owe you an apology, Mr Caldwel ,'

'Fucking right you do!' Darren stood up and pointed at the front door. 'Now why don't you get off your lazy arses and go look for my son?'

He was good enough to slam the door behind them.

They trailed off through the drizzle to the rusty Vauxhal Logan had signed for. Al this way for nothing. And now he had no good news to give DI Insch. He just had to hope the performance had gone wel tonight. Perhaps the inspector would be in a good mood and not to take a bite out of his backside.

The PC behind the wheel turned the engine over, the car windows rapidly steaming up.

He cranked up the blowers, but it made little difference. Instead he pulled off his clip-on tie and tried to wipe the worst of the fog away. It just moved the fuzzy moisture around.

With a sigh they settled back to wait for the smal patches of clear glass to creep up the windscreen.

'You think his alibi's for real?' asked the WPC in the back.

Logan shrugged.

'The garage is open twenty-four hours: we'l check it out on the way back into town.' But Logan already knew the alibi would hold. Darren Caldwel couldn't have snatched his son while the five-year-old went to the shops for milk and chocolate biscuits.

But he'd been so sure!

Eventual y the blowers made enough of a dent in the fog to see out. The PC clicked on the headlights and pul ed away from the kerb. They made a three point turn in the cul-de-sac and went back the way they'd come. Logan watched Darren's house slide past the passenger window. He'd been so sure.

As they drove through Portlethen, heading for the dual carriageway back to Aberdeen, Logan saw the lights of the big DIY stores and supermarket twinkling up ahead. The supermarket would have alcohol. And right now Logan thought that going home with a bottle of wine was a very good idea. He asked the PC driving to make a short detour.

While the others waited in the car Logan slumped round the shelves, piling crisps and pickled onions into his basket. They'd gone out expecting to find the missing kid alive and wel , returning to Force Headquarters as heroes. Instead they were going back empty handed with Logan looking like an idiot.

He threw a bottle of Shiraz in on top of the crisps, cursing as he realized he'd crushed half of them. Looking sheepish he sneaked back to the snack aisle and swapped the salt-and-vinegar-flavoured crumbs for a fresh packet.

Imagine Darren Caldwel living in that little house, not al owed to see his son, stil driving around Torry trying to catch a glimpse of him. Poor sod. Logan had never had children. There had been a sticky moment when a girlfriend was two weeks late, but thankful y nothing ever came of it. He could only imagine what it must be like to have a son and be completely excluded from his life.

There were only two checkouts open, one manned by a girl with more spots than skin, the other by an old man with a gnarled face and shaky hands. Neither of them seemed capable of working at much beyond a slow crawl.

The woman in front of him in the queue had bought about every kind of ready-meal imaginable: curry and chips, pizza and chips, chicken chowmein and chips, burgers and chips, lasagne and chips...There wasn't a single piece of fruit or vegetable in her trol ey, but there were six two-litre bottles of Diet Coke and a chocolate gateau. So that was al right.

Logan let his attention wander while the ancient man fumbled with the barcode scanner and the pre-packaged dinners. Al the little shops - the shoe repair place, the photo-lab, the dry cleaners and the one sel ing grotesque glass clowns and porcelain figurines - were in darkness, the shutters down. Anyone having a last-minute, life-or-death need for an ornamental Scottie dog playing the bagpipes would just have to come back tomorrow.

He shuffled forward a step as the woman started packing her mound of microwave meals into plastic bags.

A children's television theme blared out from somewhere near the exit and Logan looked up to see an old woman hovering over one of the children's rides - a blue plastic railway engine rocking serenely back and forth making 'chuff-chuff noises. He watched the old woman smiling and bobbing in time with Thomas the Tank Engine until the theme tune ended and the railway engine ground to a halt. Granny opened her handbag, pulled out her purse and rummaged unsuccessfully inside for enough change to make the ride start up again. A sad-looking little girl emerged from Thomas's innards. She took Granny's hand and walked slowly out the door, al the time looking regretfully back at the engine's grinning face.

'...to pack?'

'Hmm?' Logan dragged his attention back to the man working the checkout.

'Ah says, do yous want a hand to pack?' He held up Logan's packet of crisps. 'Yer shopping, do yous want a hand to pack?'

'Oh, no. No thanks.'

Logan stuffed the wine, crisps and pickles into a plastic bag and headed back out to the car. He probably should have bought a few beers for the cold, damp and disappointed constables he'd dragged al the way out here, but it was too late now.

There was a sound of laughter and Logan turned to see the little girl from the supermarket jumping up and down in a puddle while Granny laughed and clapped.

He stood and stared at the scene, a frown creeping onto his face.

If Richard Erskine's dad wasn't al owed to see him, chances were his grandparents weren't either. Everybody loses...

The main bedroom hadn't looked much like the sort of place a twenty-two-year-old man slept in. That crocheted throw and al those jars of moisturiser. The half-naked woman and the computer, that was more like it.

He jumped back in the car, slinging the shopping at his feet.

'How do you fancy paying Mr Caldwel another visit?' he asked with a smile.

The dark red hatchback was stil on the drive, but now there was a light blue Volvo estate sitting in front of the house, two wheels up on the kerb. That made Logan's smile widen.

'Pul up in the same place as last time,' he told the driver. 'You two around the back, we'l take the front.'

Logan gave them a minute to get in position and then strode up the front path and mashed the doorbel with his thumb.