Cold Granite (23 page)

Logan shifted in his seat and wondered for the umpteenth time where the inspector had got to. 'Do you want another cup of tea, Bernard?' he asked.

Bernard didn't say anything, just went on folding a bit of paper in half and in half again.

And, when it was folded so tight it was a little solid lump that couldn't be folded any more, he unfolded it careful y and started al over again.

'Tea? Bernard? You want some more tea?'

Fold. Fold. Fold.

Logan slumped in his seat and let his head fal back until he was staring at the ceiling.

Off-grey ceiling tiles, the pockmarked kind. The ones that looked like the surface of the moon.

God this was dul . And it was going on six! He was supposed to be meeting WPC Jackie Watson for a quiet drink.

Fold. Fold. Fold.

Logan and the social worker complained about Aberdeen Footbal Club's latest performance for a bit before lapsing into gloom and silence again.

Fold. Fold. Fold.

Six twenty-three and the inspector stuck his head round the interview room door and asked Logan to join him in the corridor.

'You get anything out of him?' asked Insch when they were both outside.

'Only a real y nasty smel .'

Insch popped a fruit pastil e into his mouth and chewed thoughtful y. 'Wel , his statement checks out. The council van drops him off after work in the same place just before four every day. They've been doing it for years. He gets the four twenty-two bus to Peterculter, regular as clockwork. Wasn't hard to find a bus driver who remembered him, the smell's hard to forget.'

'And the bus stop is--'

'Right outside Garthdee Primary School. Apparently he used to go to school there, before he went mental. Probably feels safer with a familiar routine.'

'And did any of our "concerned parents" bother to ask him why he was there every afternoon?'

Insch snorted, and helped himself to another pastil e. 'Did they bol ocks. They saw a ragged-arsed bloke who smel s funny, hanging about outside the school and decided to beat the crap out of him. He's not our kil er.'

So it was back into the smel y interview room.

'Are you sure there isn't something you want to tel us, Mr Philips?' asked Insch, settling back down into his chair.

There wasn't.

'Right,' said the inspector. 'Wel , you'l be happy to know we've managed to corroborate your version of events. I know you're the one who was attacked, but we had to make sure the accusations against you were groundless, OK?'

Fold. Fold. Fold.

'OK. I've asked the council to make sure that you get dropped off somewhere else after work from now on. Further along the road. Nowhere near the school. The people who attacked you aren't very bright. They might decide to have another go.'

Silence.

'We've got their names.' It hadn't been hard, the sil y sods had identified themselves with pride! They'd taken a paedophile off the streets! They'd saved their kids from a fate worse than death! That they'd just committed criminal assault didn't seem to cross their minds. I'd like you to make a statement so we can press charges.'

Logan recognized his cue and pulled out a notepad, ready to take down Roadkil 's complaint.

Fold. Fold. Fold.

The paper was getting loose along the seams where it'd been folded again and again. A perfect square flapped away from one corner and Roadkil scowled at it.

'Mr Philips? Can you tel me what happened?'

Careful y the battered man pulled the square of paper free and placed it in front of him.

It was perfectly lined up with the edges of the desk.

And then he started folding again.

Insch sighed.

'OK. How about the sergeant here writes down what happened and you can sign it?

Would that make things easier?'

'I need my medicine.'

'Sorry?'

'Medicine. It's time for my medicine.'

Insch looked at Logan. He shrugged. 'They probably gave him some painkil ers at the hospital.'

Roadkil stopped folding his paper and placed both hands on the desk. 'Not painkil ers.

Medicine. I need to take my medicine. Or they won't let me go to work tomorrow. They wrote me a letter. I have to take my medicine or I can't go to work.'

'It'l only take a few minutes, Mr Philips. Perhaps--'

'No statement. No minutes. Medicine.'

'But--'

'If you're not going to arrest me, or charge me, I'm free to go. You can't force me to make a complaint.'

It was the most lucid thing Logan had ever heard him say.

Roadkil shivered, hugging himself with his arms. 'Please. I just want to go home and take my medicine.'

Logan looked at the tattered, bruised figure and put down his pen. Roadkil was right: they couldn't force him to make a complaint against the people who blackened his eye, split his lip, loosened three of his teeth, cracked one of his ribs and kicked him repeatedly in the goolies.

They were his goolies after al . If he didn't want the people kicking them to be punished, it was his call. But Grampian Police weren't about to just turn him loose on the street either. The stupid people would stil be out there. And by now the Press would be too. 'Local Mob Captures Kiddie Fiend!' No, 'mob' sounded too negative. These violent, stupid people were heroes, after al . 'Parents Capture Council Paedophile!' Yes, that was much more like it.

'Are you sure about this, Mr Philips?' asked Insch.

Roadkil just nodded.

'OK. Wel in that case we'l get your possessions returned and DS McRae here wil give you a lift home.'

Logan swore very quietly. The social worker beamed, glad not to have been lumbered with the task. Smiling from ear to ear, he shook Logan's hand and made good his escape.

While Bernard Duncan Philips was signing for the contents of his pockets, Insch tried to make it up to Logan by offering him a fruit pastil e. It would be going on half-seven, eight before he got back into town. He'd have to tel Jackie he was going to be late. With any luck she'd wait for him, but after this afternoon's performance that was far from certain.

'So he's definitely not our boy, then?' said Logan, accepting the sweet grudgingly.

'Nope. Just some poor mad smelly bugger.'

They stood and watched the battered and bruised figure as he painful y bent down and rethreaded his shoelaces.

'Anyway,' said Insch, 'got to go. It's curtain up in an hour and a half.' He patted Logan on the shoulder and turned on his heel, whistling the overture.

'Break a leg,' Logan told the inspector's retreating back.

'Thank you, Sergeant.' Insch gave a cheerful wave, without turning round.

'No seriously,' said Logan. 'I hope you fal and break your bloody leg. Or your neck.' But he waited until the door had closed and Insch was wel out of earshot.

When Roadkil was final y reunited with his personal possessions Logan forced a smile onto his face and escorted him to the car park at the back of the building. A flustered-looking PC

grabbed them just as Logan was signing for yet another car. 'Desk sergeant says you've got another two messages from a Mr Lumley.'

Logan groaned. The Lumley's Family Liaison Officer should have been handling these cal s. He had enough on his plate as it was. He felt guilty almost immediately. The poor sod had lost his son. The least he could do was return the man's phone calls. He rubbed at the headache growing behind his eyes.

'Tel him I'l see to it when I get back, OK?'

*

They went out the back way. The front of Force Headquarters was al lit up, television camera spotlights making everything stand out in sharp relief. There were dozens of them.

Roadkil 's face was going to be al over the country before the end of the day. And it didn't matter if he was innocent or not, by breakfast time tomorrow half the nation would know his name.

'You know, it might be a good idea if you took a couple of weeks off work. Let the idiots forget about it?'

Roadkil had his hands wrapped round the safety belt, tugging it gently every six seconds, making sure it was stil working. 'Need to work. Man has no purpose without work. It defines us. Without definition we do not exist.'

Logan raised an eyebrow. 'OK...' The man wasn't just schizophrenic: he was crazy.

'You say "OK" too much.'

Logan opened his mouth, thought better of it and closed it again. There was no point arguing with a crazy person. If he wanted to do that he could go home and talk to his mother. So instead he drove them through the fading rain. By the time they'd reached Roadkil 's smal farm on the outskirts of Cults it had stopped entirely.

He took the car as far up the drive as there was road. The council clear-up crew had been hard at work al day. Two large metal waste containers loomed in the car's headlights.

They were each the size of a minibus, their yel ow paintwork chipped and scratched, sitting in the weeds next to steading number one. Huge padlocks kept the container doors shut, as if anyone was going to break in to get at the rotting animal corpses inside.

Logan heard a smal sob from beside him and realized the padlocks were probably a good idea.

'My beautiful, beautiful dead things...' There were tears running down Roadkil 's bruised cheek into his beard.

'You didn't help them?' Logan asked, pointing at the containers.

Roadkil shook his head, his long hair swinging back and forth like a funereal curtain. His voice was tortured and low.

'How could I help the Visigoths sack Rome?'

He got out of the car and walked over the trampled weeds and grass to the steading.

The door was lying open, letting Logan's headlights fal on the bare concrete floor. The piles of dead animals were gone. One steading down, two more to go.

Logan left him sobbing gently outside the empty farm building.

19

The evening didn't go exactly as Logan had planned. WPC Jackie Watson was stil at the pub when he final y got there, but she was also stil smarting from his reprimand. Or maybe there was a lingering smel of Roadkil about him, even though he'd had the car windows open al the way back? 'Oh, how the stench of you clings Whatever it was, she spent most of her time speaking to the Bastard Simon Rennie and a WPC Logan didn't recognize. No one was rude to him, but they didn't exactly fal over themselves to make him feel welcome. This was supposed to be a celebration! He'd found Richard Erskine. Alive!

Logan cal ed it a night after only two pints and sulked his way home, via the nearest chip shop.

He didn't see the dark grey Mercedes lurking under the streetlight outside his flat. Didn't see the heavy-set man get out of the driver's seat and pul on a pair of black leather gloves.

Didn't see him crack his knuckles as Logan balanced the cooling fish supper in one hand while the other hunted for his keys.

'You didn't cal .'

Logan almost dropped his chips.

He spun around to see Colin Mil er standing with his arms crossed, leaning back against a very expensive-looking automobile, his words wreathed in fog. 'You were supposed to cal me by half-four. You didn't.'

Logan groaned. He'd meant to speak to DI Insch, but somehow never got around to it.

'Yeah, wel ,' he said at last. 'I spoke to the DI...He didn't feel it was appropriate.' It was a barefaced lie, but Mil er wouldn't know that. At least it would sound as if he'd tried.

'No appropriate?'

'He thinks I've had quite enough publicity for one week.' Might as wel be hung for a lying bastard as a lamb. 'You know how it is...' He shrugged.

'No appropriate?' Mil er scowled. 'I'l show him no' a-fuckin'-propriate.' He pul ed out a palmtop and scribbled something onto it.

The next morning started with about a dozen road traffic accidents. None of them fatal, but al blamed on the inch of snow that had fal en overnight. By half-eight the skies were gunmetal-grey and low enough to touch. Tiny flakes of white drifted down on the Granite City, melting as soon as they hit the pavements and roads. But the air smel ed of snow. It had that metal ic tang which meant that a heavy fal wasn't far away.

The morning's Press and Journal had hit Logan's doormat like a tombstone. Only this time the funeral wasn't his. Just his fault. Right there on the front page was a big picture of Detective Inspector Insch done up in his pantomime vil ain outfit. It was one of the show's publicity shots and Insch had on his best evil snarl. 'D.I. P LAYS T HE F OOL W HILE O UR C

HILDREN D IE' ran the headline.

'Oh God.'

Under the photo it said: 'IS P ANTO R EALLY M ORE I MPORTANT T HAN C ATCHING T HE

P AEDOPHILE K ILLER S TALKING O UR S TREETS?'

Colin Mil er strikes again.

Standing at the sink, he read how the inspector had been 'prancing around on stage like an idiot, while local police hero Logan McRae was out searching for little Richard Erskine'. And the rest of the article went downhil from there. Mil er had done a first-rate hatchet job on DI Insch. He'd made a wel -respected senior police officer look like a cal ous bastard. There was even a quote from the Chief Superintendent saying that this was 'a very serious matter that would be thoroughly investigated'.

'Oh God.'

'COUNCIL W ORKER A TTACKED B Y C ONCERNED P ARENTS' barely made it onto page two.

*

As soon as the briefing was over Logan scurried away to his little incident room, doing his best not to look guilty. He only had one WPC today: the one womanning the phones. Every other available officer was going to spend today looking for little Peter Lumley. Someone had stuck a rocket up Insch's backside and he was determined to share the experience. So it would be just Logan, the WPC, and the list of possible names.

The team he'd had working their way through Social Services' 'at risk' register had turned up exactly nothing. Al the little girls were right where they should have been. Some of them had 'walked into the door' and one had 'fal en down the stairs after burning herself on the iron', but they were al stil alive. A couple of the parents were now facing charges.