The Missing and the Dead. Stuart MacBride

Colin ‘Klingon’ Spinney’s mum was in for a bit of a shock when she got back from Australia.

      Logan’s Airwave bleeped.

      ‘Sarge?’ Deano.

      ‘Safe to talk. Where are you? Grab Tufty and get back here, we’ve got an op to plan. Big drugs—’

      ‘Aye, no.’ Deep breath. ‘Sarge, I need you down at Tarlair Swimming Pool. Right now.’

      ‘Don’t be daft, it’s—’

       ‘Sarge, we’ve got a body. It’s a wee girl.’

      Bloody hell … A missing paedophile and a dead little girl, all in the same day. He grabbed his hat. ‘We’re on our way.’

       7

       ‘… What do you mean, “The drugs raid’s on hold”?’

      Logan took hold of the grab handle above the passenger door as Nicholson floored it along High Shore, past the boxy terraced houses of Newton Drive, siren wailing and lights flashing.

      Inspector McGregor sounded as if she was chewing a wasp. ‘Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull to get you extra officers, a van, and a dog? Never mind the warrant, it’s—’

      ‘We’ve got reports of a young girl’s body at Tarlair Swimming Pool.’

      The houses with their red pantile roofs faded in the rear-view mirror. Now there was nothing keeping the car company but the chain-link fence between it and the cliffs that hugged the left-hand side of the road.

      A hissed breath. ‘Should you not have led with that?’

      ‘Sorry, Guv. Constables Scott and Quirrel are securing the scene. We’ve got an ETA …?’ He looked at Nicholson. Raised both eyebrows.

      She changed down and threw them around the corner. ‘Going as fast as I can …’

      The needle hit ninety.

      ‘Call it two minutes.’

      The wastewater-treatment plant flashed by on the left, and Nicholson slammed on the brakes, swinging the car round into a steep hairpin bend. A squeal of tyres.

      Tarlair Outdoor Swimming Pool appeared in the distance. A collection of boxy art deco buildings – not much bigger than a handful of Portacabins – were surrounded on three sides by cliffs, the fourth open to the sea. Their whitewashed walls going grey with neglect, caught by the evening sun. The two outdoor pools empty and decaying in front of them.

       ‘Have we got an ID?’

      Logan switched off the siren. ‘Not yet. We’ve no support staff in Banff after five. Can you spare someone?’

      The road dipped steeply down to another hairpin – gorse bushes like a sheet of rolling flame on the right, the bay on the left. Dark rocks making broken submarines and stranded ships in the glittering water. White foam marked the outward edges as the waves tried to shoulder them up onto the grey stony beach.

       ‘Any idea if it’s accidental, or …?’

      ‘I hope so. We’ve got a missing paedophile on the books: Neil Wood. Disappeared three days ago. His father only reported it today.’

      ‘That’s all we need …’ The sound became muffled, as if she’d stuck her hand over the microphone, partially blocking her firing orders at someone in the background – telling someone to get the Scenes Examination Branch to hotfoot it over from the cashline job in Fraserburgh.

      Smooth tarmac gave way to scabby potholes. Knee-high grass bordered the sides of the road, punctuated by the searching pink antennae of rosebay willowherb. The patrol car bumped across the pockmarked tarmac, then wallowed as Nicholson slowed. The sound of a mudflap grinding against the uneven surface.

      The road gave up in a dead end, just before the entrance to the pool. One way in, one way out. Well, unless you wanted to work your way down the cliff path from the golf course.

      Inspector McGregor’s voice went from muffled to full volume again. ‘Logan, I need to know if this was a suspicious death ASAP. Am I calling in an MIT or not? Then secure the scene. I’ll be right there, soon as I get someone to run admin tasks for you.’

      Logan stuck his Airwave handset on its clip.

      Deano and Tufty’s little police van was parked in the middle of the road, between two jagged lumps of rock, blocking off the entrance to the site. The thing needed a wash, its white paintwork nearly grey with grime, but the stripe of blue-and-yellow blocks along the side glowed in the pool car’s flashing lights.

      No sign of either of them.

      Nicholson hit the button, killing the blue-and-whites.

      Silence.

      Logan grabbed his hat. ‘Get the tape out and secure the road. I want it blocked.’ He turned in his seat, then pointed at the top of the hill, where the first hairpin was. ‘Better make it other side of the water-treatment plant. Don’t want some scumbag with a telephoto lens selling snaps to the tabloids.’

      ‘Sarge.’

      As soon as he clunked the passenger door shut again, she was reversing through the potholes. Did a sharp three-pointer, then accelerated off.

      He turned. Picked his way around the police van. Punched Deano’s badge number into the Airwave.

      But before he could press send, Tufty appeared, scrambling across the pebbled beach, both arms held out as if he was walking the high wire. He paused. Slithered back a couple of steps. Waved. ‘Sarge? Over here.’

      Logan followed him across the pebble beach, avoiding the road. Broken kelp roots clung to the high-tide mark, pale and weathered, like a thousand human tibias. Everything smelled of ozone and salt, underpinned by a thin smear of rotting fish. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Guy was down here taking photos for some urban-decay-project-thing. Young lad doing an HND in photography at Aberdeen College. Peed himself. Then battered it over to Macduff on his bike. Saw us at the harbour, and that was that.’

      A nod. Pebbles crunched and shifted under Logan’s feet. ‘You confiscate the camera?’

      ‘Deano got the SD card.’ Tufty pointed off to the right, towards a crumbling concrete embankment. ‘This way.’

      ‘Why didn’t your student call nine-nine-nine? Thought everyone had a mobile phone now.’

      Tufty flashed a wee smile and a shrug. ‘Panicked. Says he couldn’t remember the number. Bit of a climb, sorry …’ He clambered up the embankment, then up onto the grass. Then over an outcrop of lichen-covered rock.

      ‘You sure you know where you’re going?’

      ‘Deano said there’s no way anyone would come this way carrying a body. So, you know, common approach path.’ More clambering and scrambling, and they were up on a ridge above the swimming pools. Tufty nodded. ‘Down there.’

      The site was split into two halves. In front of the main buildings were a set of wide amphitheatre steps in dark-grey stained concrete, the edges picked out in decaying whitewash. They enclosed a D-shaped shallow pool – dry as an abandoned riverbed – the wall between it and the main swimming area crumbling and partially collapsed. On the other side of the wall, water came halfway up. A stony beach at one side that couldn’t have been an original feature, speckled with broken pipes and other bits of rusting flotsam. Then the sea wall, and then the blue expanse of the North Sea.

      A dark shape was hunched at the far side of the pool, a line of black-and-yellow tape trailing from one hand: ‘CRIME SCENE – DO NOT ENTER’. Deano. He stuck both arms up and waved them. ‘Sarge!’

      It