The Missing and the Dead. Stuart MacBride

op, so me and Enzo ended up checking suspicious packages down the post office. Got three lots of coke, two of resin, and a teeny-tiny bit of heroin. Probably has a street value of eight pounds fifty, but every little helps.’

      Ding.

      Syd went rummaging in the cutlery drawer and carried the Tupperware back to the table. Pulled out the chair two down from Logan and settled in. Creaked the top off the container. The smell of rich Indian spices wafted out, covering the one of wet dog. ‘Know if they’ve ID’d the girl yet?’

      ‘MIT’s handling it. Think they’d tell me?’

      ‘Probably not.’ A fork dug into the curry, pulled out a mound of chickpeas and onion. ‘What’s happening with your warrant? Me and the hairy loons were looking forward to that.’ He took off his baseball cap, exposing a swathe of shiny scalp, fringed with close-cropped grey. ‘Got nothing special on tomorrow, if you’re up for it?’

      ‘Can’t – got the Stirling trial. Maybe Wednesday? Assuming they’ll give me the bodies with this Tarlair thing going on.’ A spoonful of lentils helps the bitterness go down. ‘Surprised they’ve not got you out there sniffing round the swimming pool too.’

      ‘No one ever calls in the dogs as a first resort.’ Another forkful of chickpeas. ‘More fool them.’

      ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

      Another handset bleep. ‘Control to Bravo India One, safe to talk?’

      Syd pointed at the TV. ‘You watching this pish?’

      ‘Just on for the company, to be honest.’

      The Duty Inspector’s voice yawned out of the speaker: ‘Go ahead.’

      ‘Cool.’ He grabbed the remote and went spinning through the channels. ‘You hear about Barney Massie? Up running that fatal RTA in Kirkwall, when he gets a challenge on his team’s expenses.’

       ‘Co-op in Aberchirder’s had its front window panned in and the Cashline machine taken.’

      A groan came from the Airwave. ‘Not another one …’ A sigh. A pause. Then the Duty Inspector was back. ‘OK. I’ll be right over.’

      ‘Some wee numptie in Tulliallan calls him up to give him a roasting: “What’s all these claims for flights? Did no one even think of taking the train?”’

      Logan stared at him. ‘To Orkney?’

      ‘Exactly.’ More chickpeas. ‘The job is well and truly buggered.’ Another jab at the remote produced a repeat of Chewin’ the Fat – a pair of sailors chuntering out filth while their boat heaved through a storm. ‘Still, only eight paydays to go.’

      ‘Thanks. Rub it in. I’m stuck here till I’m sixty-five.’

      On the TV, the seamen were replaced by Ford Kiernan buying a pie and a Paris bun.

      ‘Got a big farewell bash planned: thirty years of keeping Grampian Police on the straight and narrow.’

      Logan sucked in a breath. ‘Better watch that kind of rebellious talk. There is no Grampian Police, there is only Police Scotland. All bow to our conquering overlords.’

      ‘Ah, screw them. What they going to do, fire me?’

      There wasn’t much to see at Broch Braw Buys at five to midnight on a Monday night.

      It was wedged between the Coral betting shop and a chip shop. Both closed for the evening. The Kenya Bar and Lounge on the corner had its door shut, the metal gate locked over the top. The sound of hoovering rattled out from somewhere inside.

      Logan closed the pool car’s door and crunched his way through little cubes of broken glass.

      They’d obviously used the same tactics to get into the place and steal its cash machine, because the shop’s front window was now boarded up with chipboard. Someone had stapled a poster right in the middle of the raw wood: ‘£1,000.00 REWARD FOR ANY INFORMATION LEADING TO THE BASTARD’S WHO DID THIS GETTING THEIR LEGS BROKEN!!!’

      Logan reached out and tore it down. While a nice sentiment, it wasn’t exactly legal. And besides, that misplaced apostrophe grated.

      He stood on the pavement and did a slow three-sixty.

      Fraserburgh was quiet: no sound but the far-off burr of the occasional vehicle cruising some distant street. Not cold, but not exactly warm either. The roads washed in anaemic sodium light.

      When did the call to the Duty Inspector come through? Couldn’t have been much more than half three. So whoever it was going round nicking cash machines, they were either getting bolder, or stupider. Or maybe they simply had a schedule to keep?

      Four cash machines in three days. If there wasn’t a Major Investigation Team set loose on the case already, there would be by tomorrow morning. Earnest-faced plainclothes officers stomping about the countryside with their hobnail boots and fighting suits. Getting on everyone’s nerves and lording it over the poor sods in uniform who’d have to clear up the mess they left behind.

      Divisional policing, that’s where all the cool kids were …

       10

      The countryside swept past, dark and blurred, the road ahead picked out by the patrol car’s headlights. Glinting back from the cats’ eyes. A pulsing off-and-on glow as Logan tore down the dotted white line.

      A sea of stars stretched from horizon to horizon. The water an expanse of slate grey to the left, bordered by cliffs. The distant glimmer of house lights.

      Logan battered to the end of ‘Started Out With Nothin’’, drove in silence for a minute, then launched into ‘Living Is a Problem Because Everything Dies’. Making up half of the words as he went along.

      Sooner the Big Car was back with its working radio, the better. Honestly, it—

      His Airwave gave the point-to-point quadruple bleep. ‘Shire Uniform Seven, safe to talk?’

      ‘Go ahead, Deano.’

       ‘Got a couple of guys in Gardenstown who think they saw Charles Anderson, Sunday last. Said he was off his face with the drink and spewing his hoop over the side of his boat.’

      ‘Anything else?’

       ‘Been talking in the pub earlier about going up to Papa Bank or Foula Waters, hunting haddies.’

      Better than nothing.

      Logan tapped his fingertips against the stubbly hair above his ear. ‘So, maybe he’s not missing at all. Maybe he’s gone fishing?’

       ‘Still should be answering his radio, unless the power’s gone. Could be adrift, middle of the North Sea?’

      ‘Pretty certain the radio has to have batteries. Health and Safety.’

       ‘True.’

      Round the next bend, and the bright lights of Macduff twinkled in the distance. ‘Tell Tufty to get the kettle on. I’ll be home in five.’

      More dark fields. More cloudy silhouettes of trees. Then ‘WELCOME TO MACDUFF’. Someone had hung a white sheet, with ‘HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY CAZ!!!!!’ splodged across it in black paint, under the limits sign. A couple of gaily coloured balloons were tied to the posts, sagging like a miserable clown’s testes.

      Logan took a quick detour down Moray Street, with its blocky grey buildings. Then stopped at the bottom – the junction with High Shore. Two choices. Right: back to the station, or left: towards the Tarlair Outdoor Swimming Pool?

      The dashboard clock glowed ‘00:30’ at him.

      Wasn’t as if he