Part 17 (1/2)

'I'm sure it's nothing, he-'

'You have to find him!'

Trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice, Logan accepted the plastic bag with his gift-wrapped elephants inside it and promised to do what he could.

27.

Two hours later Logan marched into the Globe Inn on North Silver Street, pulled a stool up to the bar and ordered a pint of Stella and a cheese and onion toastie. 'You know,' he said, as the barmaid went off to phone his order through to the kitchen, 'she's doing her nut in down the morgue. It's upsetting the corpses.'

Colin Miller, golden boy reporter on the P&J, tireless campaigner against Grampian Police in general and Detective Sergeant Logan McRae in particular, turned a bleary, bloodshot eye in his direction and told him to f.u.c.k off. He wasn't a tall man even by PC Rickards' standards, but he more than made up for it in width. What had been a lot of muscle was beginning to soften and settle into middle-aged spread on the father-to-be. His usual suit was missing replaced by jeans, heavy tartan s.h.i.+rt, scuffed leather jacket, and the heady stench of alcohol. He clasped the pint of beer on the bar in front of him with black-gloved hands. There wasn't so much as a flash of gold or silver about the man. Not like him at all. And he hadn't shaved.

'Come on, Colin, she's worried about you. You don't come home all night; she thinks something horrible's happened.'

'Aye? Like f.u.c.kin' last time, you mean?' The words were slurred and broad Glaswegian. He held up his hands, wiggling the fingers so Logan could see the joints that wouldn't move any more. The rigid parts showing where prosthetic plastic replaced flesh and bone.

'Colin, she's worried about you.'

'None of yer b.l.o.o.d.y business. Interferin' wee f.u.c.k.'

Logan sighed. 'Look: I'm sorry, OK? For the thousandth time: I'm sorry! I didn't mean for it to happen. It wasn't on purpose. What the h.e.l.l else am I supposed to say?'

'How 'bout you don't say another f.u.c.kin' thing.' Miller stood, threw back the last mouthful of beer, and banged his empty gla.s.s down on the bar top. 'I don't f.u.c.kin' need you, ”Mr Big Police Hero”,' poking Logan in the shoulder. 'So just sod off an' leave me alone.' The reporter turned on his heel and staggered into a marble-topped table, before righting himself and lurching towards the toilets.

Logan pulled out his mobile and called Isobel back, telling her, 'He's OK. Just a bit drunk.' Then hanging up before she could start asking questions or hectoring him. Just to be on the safe side, he switched the thing off again.

The cheese toastie arrived just as Miller came marching back to the bar and ordered another pint of heavy and a double Highland Park. The whisky glittered like amber in the gla.s.s as it was set before him.

'How about I call you a taxi and get you home?'

'How 'bout you f.u.c.k off instead?'

Logan picked up his toastie the pale bread imprinted with a scallop pattern of golden brown and broke it on the diagonal, fingernail-crescents of white onion poking out between the slices. 'Here.' He slid the other half over to Miller.

The reporter stared down at the triangle of bread. 'This doesnae make us f.u.c.kin' even.' But he picked it up and ate it anyway, carefully wrapping the half toastie in Logan's napkin, so as not to get any grease on his gloves. Fastidious even while pished. 'How'd you know I'd be here?'

'You're not the only one who finds stuff out for a living.'

'Yeah. Suppose not...' There was a pause, broken by someone putting an old Deacon Blue song on the jukebox. They listened in silence. 'I'm no' ready for a bairn.' Miller said at last, squinting one-eyed at his own ragged reflection in the mirror behind the bar. 'Can barely look after myself...' he paused, rolling the empty whisky gla.s.s back and forth in his gloved hand. 'And Izzy Jesus, she's terrified of no' workin' any more. That they'll get some other bird in tae hack up the deid bodies while she's away bringin' up junior. She'll no' see her beloved morgue ever again...' A thoughtful pause, then a mouthful of dark brown beer. Then a belch.

'Come on, you'll make great parents.'

Miller didn't even look up. 'What the h.e.l.l would you know?'

'True.' Logan smiled. 'But it's what you're supposed to say, isn't it?'

The reporter nodded, swaying on his bar stool. 'Aye...'

'Come on, Colin, time to go home.'

Logan called for a taxi and poured the reporter into it, flas.h.i.+ng his warrant card at the driver before he could start moaning about not wanting to clean vomit out of his upholstery. He needn't have worried: as soon as Miller's head hit the seat he was out like a light, snoring gently as they drove the five-minute trip to Rubislaw Den. At the other end, Logan paid the man and hauled Colin out into the overcast afternoon.

Dr Isobel MacAlister's love nest was a lot bigger than Logan's one-bedroom flat. Three storeys of very expensive granite in Aberdeen's moneyed district, the road packed with flashy sports cars and huge four-by-fours. He rummaged about in Miller's pockets until he found the keys, then let them in through the front door.

A wailing chorus of bleeps erupted in the small hallway. Miller fumbled his way to a small side cupboard and punched in the disarm code. Zero Five One Zero. Isobel's birthday, fifth of October. Logan supposed it was her way of making sure the reporter never forgot.

'Got it put in ... put in after the thing...' Colin held up his hands and wiggled them at Logan again. 'Just in...' a small 'ulp'ing noise, a worried look, then a couple of deep breaths. 'Just in case, like.' He lurched off towards the kitchen, calling, 'Come on, got some ... Laga ... Lagavulinin, linin, in...' over his shoulder.

'You sure you wouldn't rather have a nice cup of coffee?' Logan asked, following him.

'Whisky, whisky, whisky...' Two tumblers came from the cupboard next to the kettle, ringing like tiny crystal bells as Miller fumbled them onto the kitchen table, then went hunting for the bottle. Logan stuck the kettle on.

'You know, Laz,' said the reporter, from the depths of the pantry, 'I used to ... used to really like you...' He emerged, twisting the cork off the top of a half-empty bottle of single malt. 'You was always a bit ... bit of an a.r.s.e, like, but you ... you was my mate.' He slumped into one of the chairs by the kitchen table, scowling. 'Why'd you have tae f.u.c.k it up?'

'It was an accident, Colin.' Logan raided the dishwasher for a mug, heaping it with instant coffee and sugar, before topping it up with boiling water. 'I never wanted it to turn out the way it did. You know that-'

'Tada!' The reporter whipped his right glove off, dropping it on the tabletop. The third finger was missing its top two joints, the pinky everything above the second segment. The stumps pink and s.h.i.+ny. 'f.u.c.king things itch ... itch like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d sometimes.' He screwed up one eye and peered at the bottle of whisky, carefully slopping a huge measure into each gla.s.s. Then pulled off his other glove, revealing another pair of s.h.i.+ny stumps, rubbing them against his stubbled chin.

Logan placed the coffee in front of him, but the reporter ignored it. Colin picked up one of the huge whiskies instead and held it aloft in a toast, 'Here's tae sunny Aber-f.u.c.kin'-deen.' He waited for Logan to raise the other gla.s.s then clinked them together. 'Sheep-s.h.a.ggin' b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!'

Twenty minutes later and Logan was locking Isobel's front door and popping the key back through the letterbox, leaving Miller snoring away on the couch in the lounge. Two things were certain: Colin would have one h.e.l.l of a hangover tomorrow, and Isobel would kill him. There but for the grace of G.o.d... Logan smiled and headed back into town.

He didn't even get as far as the Queen's Cross roundabout before his phone started ringing: an irate DI Insch wanting to know where the h.e.l.l he'd got to. 'It's my day off, sir, I'm-'

'Where are you?'

'What? Queen's Road, heading back into-'

'Hold on...' There was some muted conversation Logan couldn't make out, but finally the inspector came back on the line: 'Stay where you are, there's a patrol car coming for you.'

'But-'

'We're going to Dundee.'

Insch sat in the back with Logan, pa.s.sing him sheets from the Macintyre rape case while the dual carriageway south flashed past the car's windows. The traffic cop driving seemed to be making an attempt on the land speed record, overtaking everything else on the road: saloons, hatchbacks, sports cars, and lorries. 'I still don't see why we have to drop everything and rush down the road,' said Logan, accepting another victim statement.

The inspector scowled at him. 'You want Macintyre out there raping more women? Sooner we catch him the sooner he's off the b.l.o.o.d.y streets.'

Fair point. Logan scanned the statement, having difficulty taking it in. 'You sure we'll be back in time? Only I've got-'

'For the last time, yes! You'll make your b.l.o.o.d.y party. Now pay attention,' he poked the sheets in Logan's hand with a fat finger, 'Christine Forrester: Macintyre's last Aberdeen victim.'

Logan skimmed the form. 'Jesus.'

'He gets worse with every one.' It had taken the surgeons seven hours to st.i.tch Christine Forrester's face and neck back to something approaching normal. The attached photograph was enough to make Logan look away, not certain if he was feeling sick because of the picture, or because he was trying to read a whole case file in the back of a police car flying down the road at ninety miles an hour as the sun set.