Cold Granite. Stuart MacBride

so. I’ve written enough of them.’

      ‘He’s representing Gerald Cleaver.’

      Insch sighed again. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Still that’s DI Steel’s problem. Mine is: where’s Richard Erskine?’

       7

      They found the body in the council tip at Nigg, just south of the city. A two-minute drive from Richard Erskine’s house. A party of school children had been out on a field trip: ‘Recycling and Green Issues’. They arrived by minibus at three twenty-six and proceeded to don little white breathing masks, the kind with the elastic band holding them on, and heavy-duty rubber gloves. Everyone wore waterproofed jackets and Wellington boots. They signed in at the Portacabin office next to the skips at three thirty-seven, before squelching their way into the tip. Walking through a landscape of discarded nappies, broken bottles, kitchen waste and everything else chucked out by hundreds of thousands of Aberdonians every day.

      It was Rebecca Johnston, eight, who spotted it. A left foot, sticking up out of a pile of shredded black plastic bags. The sky was full of seagulls – huge, fat bloated things that swooped and screamed at each other in a jagged ballet. One was tugging away at a bloodstained toe. This was what first grabbed Rebecca’s attention.

      And at four o’clock, on the dot, they called the police.

      The smell was unbelievable, even on a wet and windy day like today. Up here on Doonies Hill the rain was bitterly cold. It hammered against the car, gusts of wind rocking the rusty Vauxhall, making Logan shiver even though the heater was going full pelt.

      Both he and WPC Watson were soaked to the skin. The rain had paid no attention to their police-issue ‘waterproof’ jackets, saturated their trousers and seeped into their shoes. Along with Christ knew what else. The car windows were opaque, the blowers making little headway.

      The Identification Bureau hadn’t turned up yet, so Logan and Watson had built a makeshift tent of fresh bin-bags and wheelie-bins over the body. It looked as if it was going to fly apart at any moment, torn to pieces by the howling wind, but it kept the worst of the rain off.

      ‘Where the hell are they?’ Logan cleared a porthole in the fogged-up windscreen. His mood had swiftly deteriorated as they’d struggled with whipping black plastic bags and unco-operative bins. The painkiller he’d taken at lunchtime was wearing off, leaving him sore every time he moved. Grumbling, he pulled out the bottle and shook one into his hand, swallowing it down dry.

      At long last an almost-white, unmarked van slithered its way slowly along the rubbish road, its headlights blazing. The Identification Bureau had arrived.

      ‘About bloody time!’ said WPC Watson.

      They clambered out of the car and stood in the driving rain.

      Behind the approaching van the North Sea raged, grey and huge, the frigid wind making its first landfall since the Norwegian fjords.

      The van slid to a halt and a nervous-looking man peered out through the windshield at the driving rain and festering rubbish.

      ‘You’re not going to bloody melt!’ shouted Logan. He was sore, cold, damp and in no mood for dicking about.

      A troop of four IB men and women grudged their way out of the van into the downpour and swore the SOC tent up over Logan’s makeshift fort. The wheelie-bins and black plastic bags were turfed out into the rain and the portable generators set up. With a roar they burst into life, flooding the area with sizzling white light.

      No sooner was the crime scene waterproof than ‘Doc’ Wilson, the duty doctor, turned up.

      ‘Evenin’ all,’ he said, turning up the collar of his coat with one hand and grabbing his medical bag with the other. He took one look at the minefield of crap that lay between the dirt road and the blue plastic marquee and sighed. ‘I just bought these bloody shoes. Ah well …’

      He stomped off towards the tent with Logan and WPC Watson in tow.

      An acne-ridden IB officer with a clipboard stopped them at the threshold, keeping them all out in the driving rain until they’d signed in, and then watched them suspiciously until they’d all clambered into white paper boiler suits.

      Inside the tent a single human leg rose out of the sea of refuse sacks, from the knee down, like the Lady of the Lake’s arm. The only thing missing was Excalibur. The IB video operator was sweeping his way slowly around the remains, filming as the rest of the team carefully collected rubbish from the bags surrounding the one with the leg in it and stuffed the debris into clear plastic evidence pouches.

      ‘Dees a favour?’ said the doctor, handing his medical bag to Watson.

      She stood silently while he popped the case open and dug out a pair of latex gloves, snapping them on as if he was a surgeon.

      ‘Give us a bittie room then,’ he told the bustling IB people.

      They stood back and let him get at the body.

      Doc Wilson took hold of the ankle with his fingertips, just below the joint. ‘No pulse. Either this is yer genuine severed limb, or the victim’s dead.’ He gave the leg an experimental tug, causing the rubbish in the bag to shift and the IB team to hiss in pain. This was their crime scene! ‘Nope. I’d say that leg’s weil an’ truly attached. Consider death declared.’

      ‘Thanks, Doc,’ said Logan as the old man straightened himself up and wiped his latex gloves on his trousers.

      ‘Nae problem. You want us tae hang around till the pathologist and the Fiscal get here?’

      Logan shook his head. ‘No sense in us all freezing our backsides off. Thanks anyway.’

      Ten minutes later an Identification Bureau photographer stuck his head round the entrance to the tent. ‘Sorry I’m late, some idiot went for a swim in the harbour and forgot to take his kneecaps with him. Jesus, it’s bloody freezing out there.’

      It wasn’t much warmer inside, but at least it was out of the rain.

      ‘Afternoon, Billy,’ said Logan as the bearded photographer unwrapped himself.

      The long, red-and-white-striped scarf was stuffed into a jacket pocket, followed by a red bobble hat with ‘UP THE DONS’ stitched into it. He was bald underneath.

      Logan was stunned. ‘What happened to your hair?’

      Billy scowled as he clambered into his white paper rompersuit. ‘Don’t you bloody start. Anyway I thought you were dead.’

      Logan smiled. ‘Aye, but I got better.’

      The photographer polished his glasses with a grey handkerchief, and then did the same with the lens of his camera. ‘Anybody touched anything?’ he asked, spooling a fresh reel of film into place.

      ‘Doc Wilson gave the leg a tug, but other than that it’s fresh.’

      Billy snapped a huge flashgun onto the top of the camera, smacking it with the side of his hand until it emitted a high-pitched whine. ‘OK, back up ladies and gentlemen …’

      Hard, blue-white light crackled in the confined space, followed by the clatter-whirr of the camera and the whine of the flash. Again and again and again …

      Billy was almost finished when Logan’s phone went off. Cursing, he dragged it out of his pocket. It was Insch, looking for an update.

      ‘Sorry, sir.’ Logan had to raise his voice over the battering rain on the tent’s roof. ‘The pathologist isn’t here yet. I can’t get a formal identification without moving the body.’

      Insch swore, but Logan could barely hear him.

       ‘We’ve just had an anonymous call. Someone saw a child matching Richard Erskine’s description getting into a dark red hatchback this morning.’

      Logan