The Missing and the Dead. Stuart MacBride

scowled. ‘This is what happens when they don’t let us carry tasers.’

      ‘Gah …’ Nicholson shoved the gate shut and hauled the pin back, making the spring squeal. Let go and it clacked into place. She spat twice. Then a third time. Wiped a hand through the mud that caked her face from one ear to the other. More covered the front of her high-vis waistcoat. Lumps of it wodged in the armholes of her stabproof. Another gob of muddy spittle. Then a glower in his direction. ‘Where all the cool kids are, my arse.’

      Logan shrugged. ‘You imagine what would happen if someone came round the corner doing sixty and hit that?’ Pointing at the big brown beast, who was at least three shades cleaner than Nicholson. ‘They’d have to scoop you into your body-bag like eleven stone of mince.’

      She wiped her hands down the front of her vest, smearing the filth. ‘You saying I’m fat?’

      ‘Come back here, you wee sod!’ Logan vaulted the low garden wall and sprinted across the lawn, knees pumping. One hand clamping the peaked cap to his head, the other clutching his extendable baton in its holder. Stopping it from jiggling about with every other step.

      The wee sod in question kept on running. Sneakers flashing their white bellies, his arms and legs going like pistons, hoodie flapping behind him like an obscene pink tongue.

      Over into the next garden.

      Crashing straight through a bed of nasturtiums and pansies. The owners sat on a bench against the house, sharing a bottle of wine. On their feet and shaking fists as the Wee Sod battered past.

      A hedge separated this property from the next one. He leapt it, almost lost his footing on the other side. His shoulder bag slipped, thumped into the lawn. Tins of spray paint clattered across the grass like WWII bombs.

      ‘I said, come back here!’

      The Wee Sod risked a grin over his shoulder. Freckled face, no more than twelve. Maybe thirteen. Curly red hair and dimpled cheeks.

      Then THUMP – Nicholson slammed into him from the side with the kind of rugby tackle that would’ve done the nation proud at Murrayfield.

      They went careening across the lawn in a tumble of limbs, coming to rest in a clatter of pots and gnomes.

      Logan slowed to a jog, then a halt as Nicholson scrambled to her feet, then hauled the Wee Sod upright by his hoodie.

      She spat out a blade of grass. ‘When someone yells, “Stop, police!” you sodding well stop.’

      He wriggled a couple of times, didn’t get anywhere, then hung limp.

      ‘Well?’ She gave him a little shake. ‘What’ve you got to say for yourself?’

      He bit his top lip. Then shrugged. ‘It’s a comment on our political elite and the disenfranchisement and disengagement of the common man.’ His voice tried out three octaves along the way.

      ‘Spray-painting willies on a Conservative Party billboard doesn’t count as political commentary.’

      ‘Does too.’

      She pushed him at Logan, then dragged out her notebook. ‘Name?’

      He tensed, as if he was about to bolt again. Logan grabbed him by the shoulders. ‘You want a go in the handcuffs? Because I can arrange that.’

      He looked up, over his shoulder. A blush filled in the pale skin between his freckles. ‘You’re not going to tell my mum, are you?’

      Nicholson poked him with her pen. ‘Name?’

      ‘I mean, they lord it over us from Edinburgh, don’t they? Our political masters. No one really cares what we think any more. We’re like drones to them, only instead of honey they grow fat on our taxes.’

      Logan pulled his chin in. ‘Our taxes? You’re, what, thirteen? When did you last pay any tax?’

      ‘Workers control the means of production.’

      Nicholson poked him again. ‘You’ve got one more chance, then I’m doing you for refusing to give your details. Now: name?’

      He took a deep breath. Stared down at his trainers. ‘Geoffrey Lovejoy.’ Then a sniff, and his head came up again, eyes glinting. ‘I’m a political prisoner. I demand you call the United Nations. Power to the people!’

      Logan looked up from his notebook. ‘And you’re sure you’d recognize her again if you saw her?’

      The shopkeeper nodded, setting a crowd of chins on a Mexican wave. ‘Absolutely. She had half a dozen bottles of Chanel Number Five, a handful of Touche Éclat concealer, Elizabeth Arden, and every single bit of Paco Rabanne we had on display!’ He swept a hand towards the other side of the chemist’s, where the front door was being held open by a little old lady wearing a plastic headscarf. ‘Scooped them up and ran off without so much as a blush. Our Stacey chased her, but …’ A shrug.

      Nicholson’s stabproof was beginning to look as if she’d smeared it with camouflage paint – green grass stains mingling with the mud from their run-in with the escaped cow. It wasn’t a good look. She pointed at the security camera bolted to the wall behind the till. ‘You get it on CCTV?’

      A blush swept across the puffy cheeks. ‘It’s plastic. I bought it off eBay for a fiver.’

      Nicholson pointed. ‘Is that not Liam Barden?’

      On the other side of the road, a chubby man in an Aberdeen Football Club shirt walked into the Co-op.

      Logan frowned as the automatic door closed, hiding the man and his bright-red shiny shirt. ‘You sure?’

      ‘Certain.’ She parked outside the shop. ‘Well … eighty percent. You got the ID sheet?’

      He dug into the glove compartment and came out with four creased sheets of A4, stapled together. Two photos on each sheet, along with names and details of when and where they went missing. Liam Barden was on the third page: grinning away at a Caley Thistle match, both thumbs up, and what looked like a gravy stain splodging the Orion Group logo on his blue-and-red football top. A wee gold thistle glinted on a golden chain around Liam’s neck. Very classy. A proper Ratners special.

      Liam shared the printout with a picture of everyone’s favourite drug-dealing scumbag, Jack Simpson – jagged tribal tattoos on his neck, sunken cheeks, pierced nose and ears.

      He’d also grown a Hitler moustache, a pair of glasses, Frankenstein’s Monster bolts, and a blacked-out tooth. There was even a speech balloon with ‘I HAS A SEXY!!!’ written in it.

      ‘For God’s sake.’ Logan held the sheet out. ‘How many times do I have to tell people not to draw things on missing persons photos?’

      ‘Don’t look at me: don’t even own a blue biro.’

      ‘How would you feel if one of your relatives went missing and someone scrawled all over their picture? Jack Simpson’s a nasty wee git, but he deserves the same treatment as everyone else.’

      ‘It wasn’t me!’

      ‘Like working with a bunch of three-year-olds …’

      Still: had to admit that the photo of Liam Barden did look a bit like the guy who’d gone into the store. Heavyset, balding from the back, toothy smile. ‘Only problem is, what’s happened to his moustache?’

      ‘Maybe he shaved it off?’ Nicholson unbuckled and climbed out into the sunshine. Pulled her hat on. ‘You coming?’

      ‘And why’s he dumped Inverness Caley Thistle for AFC?’ Logan joined her on the pavement. Held out the sheet again. ‘See?’

      She frowned at the picture. ‘Not illegal to support more than one club. Besides, think how stoked his wife and kids will be if we find him.’

      Which was more than could be said for Jack Simpson.