Cold Granite (34 page)

The night had turned from chil y to bitterly cold, a thin dusting of frost glittering on the pavements. As Logan stepped out onto Union Street his breath hung about him in a cloud. It was Baltic.

For a Saturday night the streets were strangely silent. Logan didn't fancy going back to his empty flat. Not yet. So he went to Archibald Simpson's instead.

The pub was crowded with noisy groups of youngsters wrapping themselves around pitchers of cocktails, keeping out the cold by getting as pissed as possible as quickly as possible.

Come chucking out time there would be vomiting, a bit of fighting and, for some, a trip to the cel s. Or maybe A&-E.

'Oh to be young and stupid again,' he muttered, squeezing his way through the throng to the long, wooden bar.

The snatches of conversation he heard on the way were predictable enough. A bit of boasting about how wrecked someone was last night and how much more wrecked they were going to get tonight. But underneath it al there was another theme. The topics of alcohol and sexual prowess were being chal enged by Gerald Cleaver getting off scot-free.

Logan stood at the bar, waiting for one of the frayed-looking Australians to serve him, listening to a fat man in a bright yel ow shirt holding forth to a lanky, bearded bloke in T-shirt and waistcoat. Cleaver was scum. How could the police have screwed up so badly the sicko got away with it? It was obvious Cleaver was guilty, what with al these children turning up dead.

And there they were letting a known paedophile back on the streets!

Little and Large weren't the only ones on the 'stupid police' rant. Logan could hear at least half a dozen others banging on about the same topic. Didn't they know this was where most of Aberdeen's off-duty policemen drank? A lot of the dayshift would be in here, having a pint after work. Bemoaning Cleaver's release. Spending some of that overtime they were al getting.

When he final y managed to get served Logan took his pint of Stel a and went for a wander through the other sections of the huge pub, looking for someone he knew wel enough to talk to. He smiled and waved at clumps of PCs, only vaguely recognizing them out of uniform.

In the far corner he spotted a familiar figure wreathed in cigarette smoke, surrounded by depressed looking detective sergeants and constables. She threw her head back and poured another lungful of smoke into the cloud above her head. As she came back down her eyes locked on Logan and she gave him a lopsided smile.

Logan groaned: she'd seen him. Now he had to go over.

A DC shoogled over, making room for Logan and his pint at the smal table. Above their heads a television burbled away quietly to itself, local adverts for garages, chip shops and double-glazing, fil ing the space between programmes.

'Lazarus,' said DI Steel, the word coming out slightly slurred through a haze of cigarette smoke. 'How you doing, Lazarus? You made Chief Inspector yet?'

He should have never sat down here. He should have grabbed a pizza across the road and gone home. He forced some lightness into his voice and said, 'Not yet. Maybe Monday.'

'Monday?' The inspector laughed like a drain, rocking back and forth with fag ash spil ing from her cigarette down the front of the DC who'd shoogled. '"Maybe Monday". Priceless...' She cast an eye over the glass-crowded tabletop and frowned. 'Drink!' she said, digging an old leather wal et from an inside pocket and handing it to the ash-covered DC. 'Constable, I want you to get another round. People are dying of thirst here!'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Whiskies al round!' DI Steel slapped the tabletop. 'And make them doubles!'

The detective constable headed off to the bar, taking the inspector's wal et with him.

Steel leaned closer to Logan, dropping her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. 'Between you and me, I think he's a bit drunk.' She sat back and beamed at him. 'You know, with Inschy getting kicked for the Roadkil pantomime thing and Cleaver going free, there's bound to be at least one inspector's job coming up!'

Logan didn't have anything to say to that, but DI Steel's face fel .

'Sorry, Lazarus.' She dropped the cigarette and ground it into the wooden floor. 'It's been a shitty day.'

'It's not your fault they let Cleaver go. If anyone's to blame, it's Hissing Bloody Sid.'

'I'l drink to that!' she said, and did, downing a large whisky in a single gulp.

A familiar-looking DC on the opposite side of the table was staring up at the television above their heads. He grabbed the inspector by the arm. 'It's coming on!'

Logan and DI Steel twisted round in their seats as the opening titles of the local news flickered across the screen and the noise level in the pub took a sudden dip, as every off-duty police man and woman in the place turned to face the nearest television.

Someone a lot less attractive than she could have been was speaking seriously into the camera from behind her news desk. The volume wasn't loud enough to pick out any real words, but a photo of Gerald Cleaver's face appeared over her left shoulder. Then the scene changed to an exterior shot of Aberdeen Sheriff Court. The crowd were thrusting their placards in the air and suddenly a woman in her mid-forties fil ed the screen, clutching her 'Death To Pediphile Scum!!!' placard with pride. She banged her gums with righteous fury for al of fifteen seconds, not one word of it audible in the crowded pub, before being replaced by another shot of the courthouse through the crowd. The big glass doors were opening.

'Here we go!' said DI Steel with glee.

Sandy Moir-Farquharson appeared through the doors and proceeded to read his client's statement. The camera zoomed in, just in time to see a figure lunge from the crowd and smack his fist into Sandy the Snake's face.

A huge cheer went up from the pub.

The newsreader's concerned and serious face reappeared, said something, and then the punch was shown again.

Another huge cheer.

And then it was something about traffic on the Dyce to Newmacher road and everyone went happily back to their drinks.

DI Steel had a misty-eyed smile on her face as she gulped another large whisky. 'Wasn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?'

Logan agreed that it was pretty damn good.

'You know,' said Steel, lighting up another cigarette, 'I would love to shake that kid's hand. Hel , I'd even be tempted to go straight for a night. What a star!'

Logan tried not to form a mental picture of DI Steel and Martin Strichen going at it like knives, but failed. To take his mind off it he glanced back up at the television. Now it was showing a ful screen photo of Peter Lumley, missing since last Tuesday. Ginger hair, freckles and smile. Cut to an exterior of Roadkil 's farm. Then to a press conference with the Chief Constable looking stern and committed.

The good mood slowly ebbed out of Logan as the pictures flickered in front of him. Peter was lying dead somewhere and Logan had the nasty feeling they stil hadn't got the man responsible. No matter what DI Insch thought.

And then it was adverts. A garage in Bieldside, a dress shop in Rosemount and a government road safety thing. Logan watched in silence as the car screeched to a halt, but not before striking the boy crossing the road. The kid was smal , the gril e and bumper catching him in the side, making his legs flail out as he pin-wheeled into the bonnet, crackinghis head against the metal before sailing off to smack into the tarmac. It was in slow motion, every impact horribly clear and choreographed. The legend 'Kil Your Speed, Not A Child' blazed across the screen.

Logan stared up at the screen with a growing look of pain on his face. 'Son of a bitch.'

They'd got it wrong.

It took til eight o'clock to get everyone gathered in the morgue. DI Insch, Logan and Dr Isobel MacAlister, who looked even less happy at being dragged back into work than the inspector, being dressed up to the nines in a long black dress, cut low at the front. Not that Logan was afforded much in the way of gratuitous skin to ogle. Isobel had pulled a luminous orange fleece over the evening dress, hands stuffed deep in the pockets, trying to keep warm in the cold, antiseptic morgue.

She'd been at the theatre. 'I hope this is important,' she said, giving Logan a look which made it clear that nothing could be more important than an evening with her bit of rough at Scottish National Opera's new production of La Boheme.

Insch was dressed in jeans and a tatty blue sweatshirt. It was the first time Logan had ever seen him out of his work suit, not counting his pantomime vil ain outfit. He scowled as Logan apologized for dragging them al down here at this time on a Saturday night. Again.

'OK,' said Logan, selecting the refrigerated drawer that held the remains of the little girl they'd found at Roadkil 's steading. Gritting his teeth, he pulled it open, staggering back as the putrid smel fought against the room's antiseptic tang. 'Right,' he said, his face creased up, trying hard to breathe exclusively through his mouth. 'We know the girl died from blunt trauma--'

'Of course she did!' snapped Isobel. 'I told you that in my post mortem report. The fractures to the front and back of her skul would have caused massive brain damage and death.'

'I know,' said Logan, pul ing the X-rays out from the case file and holding them up to the light. 'You see this?' he asked, pointing at the ribs.

'Broken ribs.' Isobel glared. 'Did you drag me out of the theatre to show me things I bloody wel told you in the first place, Sergeant?' The last word came out dripping in venom.

Logan sighed. 'Look, we al thought the injuries were caused by Roadkil beating the girl-

-'

'The damage is consistent with a beating. I said so in the post mortem! How much more time do we have to spend going over this? You said you had new evidence!'

Logan took a deep breath and stacked the X-rays end on end so they formed the skeleton of a complete child. Broken hip, leg, ribs, fractured skul . The image was less than four feet tal . Dropping down onto his knees, Logan held the skeleton image so that its feet were touching the floor. 'Look at the ribs,' he said, 'look how far they are off the ground.'

DI Insch and Isobel did. Neither of them looked impressed.

'And?'

'What if the damage isn't down to a beating?'

'Oh come off it!' Isobel said. 'This is pathetic! She was beaten to death!'

'Look how far the broken ribs are off the ground,' Logan said again.

Nothing.

'Car,' said Logan, moving the X-rays like a macabre shadow puppet. 'The first point of impact is the hip.' He twisted the image around the waist, lifting it as he turned the top half clockwise. 'The ribs hit the top edge of the radiator.' He moved the X-ray girl again, bending the head hard right. 'Left hand side of the skul smacks into the bonnet. Car slams on the brakes.' He pul ed the X-ray upright and rotated it back towards the morgue's floor. 'She hits the tarmac, the right leg snaps. Back of her head caves in as it hits the deck.' He laid the X-rays on the floor at his feet.

His audience looked on in silence for a ful minute before Insch said, 'So how come she ends up in Roadkil 's house of horrors then?'

'Bernard Duncan Philips, AKA Roadkil , comes along with his shovel and his wheelie-cart and does what he always does.'

Insch looked at him as if he'd just plucked the dead child's rotting corpse from its refrigerated drawer and proceeded to do the Dashing White Sergeant round the room with it.

'It's a dead girl! Not a bloody rabbit!'

'It's al the same to him.' Logan looked down at the contents of the drawer, feeling a heavy weight pressing down between his ribs. 'Just another dead thing scraped off the road. She was in steading number two. He'd already fil ed one building.'

Insch opened his mouth. Looked at Logan. Looked at Isobel. And back to the X-rays lying on the floor. 'Bastard,' he said at last.

Isobel stood in silence, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her bright orange fleece, an unhappy expression on her face.

'Wel ?' Logan asked.

She drew herself up to her full height and, with a voice like frozen bleach, agreed that the injuries were consistent with the scenario described. That it was impossible to tel what order the injuries occurred in, because of the state of decay. That the injuries had looked consistent with a severe beating. That she'd made the best cal she could, based on the state of the body. That she couldn't be expected to be clairvoyant.

'Bastard,' said Insch again.

'He didn't kil her.' Logan slid the refrigerated door shut, the dul clang echoing off the cold, white tiles. 'We're back to square one.'

Bernard Duncan Philips' 'appropriate adult' turned up after an hour and a half of frantic telephone cal s, looking like something the cat dragged in. It was the ex-schoolteacher, Lloyd Turner, again, smel ing strongly of mint, as if he'd been drinking alone and didn't want anyone to know about it. Ten o'clock shadow blurring the edges of his thin moustache. He fussed with his papers as Logan went through the standard details for the tape.

'We want you,' said DI Insch, now dressed in his spare suit, 'to tel us about the dead girl, Bernard.'

Roadkil 's eyes darted round the room and the ex-teacher gave a long-suffering sigh.

'We have been over this already, Inspector.' His voice was old and tired. 'Bernard's not wel . He needs help, not incarceration.'

Insch screwed his face up. 'Bernard,' said Insch with careful deliberation, 'you found her, didn't you?'

Lloyd Turner's eyebrows shot up his head. 'Found her?' he asked, looking at the stinking, tatty figure sitting next to him with barely concealed surprise. 'Did you find her, Bernard?'

Roadkil shifted in his seat and stared down at his hands. Smal , burgundy clots covered his fingers like parasites. The skin was raw around the fingernails where he'd been picking and chewing his hands into submission. He didn't even look up, and his voice was smal and broken.

'Road. Found her on the road. Three hedgehogs, two crows, one seagull, one tabby cat, two long-haired cats, black-and-white, one girl, nine rabbits, one roe deer...' His eyes misted up, his voice becoming rough, 'My beautiful dead things...' A sparkling tear escaped his eye, clearing the long eyelashes, to run down the weathered skin of his cheek and into his beard.