The Missing and the Dead. Stuart MacBride

Pause. ‘Thank you.’

      Warmth spread through his chest, like a sip of malt whisky. ‘Glad I could help.’

      ‘Sergeant McRae, they’re ready for you.’ A frown. ‘And you shouldn’t be using your mobile phone in here.’

       ‘Really, really thank you …’

      ‘It was my pleasure. Wish her well for me.’

      ‘Sergeant McRae, I must insist—’

      ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. I’m in court today.’

       ‘Yes, yes, of course. Thank you …’

      When she’d hung up, he smiled. Switched off his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. Put his peaked cap on his head and marched downstairs to where the Macer was waiting. Patted him on the shoulder. ‘You know, some days, I remember why I joined the police.’

      The courtroom didn’t look anything like the ones on the TV. It was bright and modern, with pale varnished wood and cream-coloured walls. Long and narrow, divided in half by a waist-high partition. A cross-section of Aberdonians had squeezed themselves into the rows of public seating, faces shining in the warm room. The table for the press was packed with hunched men in sweat-ringed shirts, tapping away into laptops or scribbling into notepads.

      In the middle of the partition, an eight-foot-high screen of bullet-proof glass wrapped around three sides of the defendant’s box. Graham Stirling sat flanked by two huge G4S guards. He’d dropped the blue sundress for a sombre suit – his hair longer than it had been, curling around his ears. Looking more like an accountant than a manipulative, vicious, sexual predator. He turned his head, avoiding Logan’s eyes.

      Should think so too.

      A large oval wooden table took up most of the space on this side of the partition. Prosecution team on one side: an Advocate Depute and his junior in their black robes, suits, and ties; and sitting next to them, the Procurator Fiscal in grey pinstripe with matching hair and military moustache. The defence team sat on the other side: the QC and his devil in robes, short wigs, and white bow ties; the instructing solicitor looked as if he should be selling houses in Elgin.

      The court clerk was stationed between them, like a referee in No Man’s Land. The jury lurked behind the defence, facing the witness stand, flanked by flat-screen TVs. Another two huge screens on opposite walls to display evidence on.

      No mahogany. No Victorian pseudo-gothic twiddly bits. No smell of antique cigarettes seeping out of threadbare carpet tiles. The only nod to antiquity was the carved coat of arms hanging over the Judge’s seat and the mace mounted on the wall beside it.

      Well, that and the Judge’s outfit.

      She straightened her white robe – stained a mild shade of pink, presumably because of the two big red crosses on the front of it and a washing machine on too hot a cycle. Her short white wig sat on top of her long grey hair. A pair of severe glasses perched on the bridge of her long thin nose. One hand stroking the tip of her pointy chin, watching as Logan took the stand.

      The Macer waited until Logan was in place, before turning to the Judge. ‘M’Lady, we have witness number six, Sergeant Logan McRae.’

      ‘I see.’ She stood, held up her right hand. ‘Sergeant McRae, repeat after me: I swear by Almighty God, that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’

      ‘So, Sergeant McRae,’ Sandy Moir-Farquharson took off his glasses and polished them on the hem of his black robe, ‘are you seriously expecting the jury to believe it was a coincidence that you happened to be in Cults that evening?’ He slipped his glasses back on and smiled. It emphasized the twist in his nose. Grey hair swept back from the temples, the bald spot at the top covered by the short white wig. A suit that probably cost more than Logan made in six months peeking out between the front of his robes.

      Logan pulled his shoulders back. ‘That’s not what I’m saying at all. Graham Stirling was there, attempting to acquire a second victim, so—’

      ‘Objection.’ He turned a smile on the Judge. ‘Milady, the witness is indulging in supposition.’

      A nod. ‘Sustained.’ The Judge peered down at the witness stand. ‘Sergeant McRae, please restrict yourself to the facts.’

      ‘I am, Milady. Graham Stirling was placing anonymous personal ads in the Aberdeen Examiner, looking for men interested in having a sexual liaison with a pre-operative transsexual. On the advice of our forensic psychologist, we responded to one of them and arranged to meet—’

      ‘We’ll get to that, Sergeant.’ Moir-Farquharson checked his notes. Probably just for show. The slimy little sod would have all this memorized. ‘Now, you claimed in your statement that you’d given chase through the back gardens of Hillview Drive, because there was, and I quote, “Something suspicious about the figure in the blue sundress.” Is that right? In what way suspicious?’

      ‘… and did anyone else hear this alleged confession, Sergeant?’

      The clock mounted on the wall ticked away to itself.

      Motes of dust hung in the light streaming in through the windows.

      ‘Sergeant?’

      Logan flicked over a couple of pages in his old notebook. ‘Graham Stirling said, “Stephen Bisset is dying in the dark and there is nothing you can do about it.”’

      Moir-Farquharson shook his head. ‘No, Sergeant, I didn’t ask you what you claim to have heard, I asked if anyone could corroborate it.’

      Tick. Tick. Tick …

      ‘We were alone in the garden at that point, but—’

      ‘I thought not.’ The smile was wide and white. Good dental work. Couldn’t even see where most of his teeth had been kicked out. ‘So, you assaulted Graham Stirling: headbutting him and breaking his nose. Tried to break his wrist, and then miraculously got this confession that no one else heard.’

      The prosecution’s Advocate Depute was on his feet. One arm jabbed out at his learned colleague. ‘Objection!’ Long grey curls swept back from a high forehead and pinched face. Voice a booming Morningside: ‘Sergeant McRae applied reasonable force in restraining a suspect who was vigorously resisting arrest. To paint this as some sort of confession obtained by torture is disingenuous, to say the least.’

      Moir-Farquharson held up a hand. ‘My apologies, Milady. No such implication was intended.’

      ‘Uncorroborated confessions seem to be something of a trademark of your evidence, don’t they, Sergeant? I refer, of course, to the one allegedly obtained by yourself in the back of the unmarked police car.’

      Tick. Tick. Tick …

      Logan straightened his police-issue T-shirt. ‘Graham Stirling insisted my colleagues leave the car before he would talk.’

      ‘So no corroboration.’

      ‘We believed, correctly, that there was a clear and imminent danger to Stephen Bisset’s life. It was important to—’

      ‘Your statement claims you were told,’ he held up a sheath of paper and peered at it over the top of his glasses, ‘“You will never find the shack without me, it is not on any maps. By the time you find him, Stephen Bisset will be dead.” Is that correct?’

      ‘It is.’

      ‘How very convenient …’

      ‘Tell me, Sergeant McRae, is it normal Police Scotland practice to deny a suspect access to a solicitor on their arrest?’

      God’s sake …

      ‘These were unusual circumstances, Stephen Bisset was seriously injured and dying—’

      ‘You have heard of Cadder versus HM Advocate,