Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin. Stuart MacBride

      ‘Get your coat, Mr Chalmers, you’re going for a little ride.’

      Interview room three was oppressively hot. The radiator pumped heat into the little beige space and Logan couldn’t get it to stop. It wasn’t even as if they could open a window. So instead they suffered the heat and the stale air.

      Present: DS Logan McRae, WPC Watson, Norman Chalmers and DI Insch.

      The inspector hadn’t said a word since entering the room, just stood at the back, leaning against the wall, working his way through a family-sized bag of liquorice allsorts. Sweating.

      Mr Chalmers had decided not to help the police with their enquiries. ‘I told you I’m not saying a bloody thing till you get my lawyer in here.’

      Logan sighed. They’d been over this time and time again. ‘You’re not getting a lawyer until we’ve finished the interview, Norman.’

      ‘I want a bloody lawyer now!’

      Gritting his teeth, Logan closed his eyes and counted to ten. ‘Norman,’ he said at last, tapping the investigation file against the tabletop. ‘We’ve got Forensics going through your house right now. They’re going to find traces of the girl. You know that. If you talk to us now it’ll look a damn sight better for you when you get to court.’

      Norman Chalmers just stared straight ahead.

      ‘Look, Norman, help us to help you! A wee girl is dead—’

      ‘Are you deaf? I want my fucking lawyer!’ He folded his arms and sat back in his chair. ‘I know my rights.’

      ‘Your rights?’

      ‘I have a legal right to legal council. You can’t interview me without a lawyer present!’ A self-righteous smile spread over Chalmers’s face.

      DI Insch snorted, but Logan almost laughed. ‘No you don’t! This is Scotland. You get to see your lawyer after we’ve finished with you. Not before.’

      ‘I want my lawyer!’

      ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ Logan hurled the file down on the tabletop, causing the contents to spill out onto the Formica. A photo of a little dead body wrapped up in parcel tape. Norman Chalmers didn’t even look at it.

      At last DI Insch spoke, his voice a low bass rumble in the crowded room.

      ‘Get him his lawyer.’

      ‘Sir?’ Logan sounded as surprised as he looked.

      ‘You heard me. Get him his lawyer.’

      Forty-five minutes later they were still waiting.

      DI Insch stuffed another multicoloured square in his mouth and chewed noisily. ‘He’s doing this on purpose. The slimy little git’s doing it just to piss us off.’

      The door opened, just in time to catch the inspector’s complaint.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’ said a voice from the door, with obvious disapproval.

      Norman Chalmers’s legal representative had arrived.

      Logan took one look at the lawyer and suppressed a groan. He was a tall, thin man wearing a luxurious overcoat, expensive black suit, white shirt, blue silk tie and an earnest expression. His hair had more grey in it than the last time Logan had seen it, but the man’s smile was every bit as annoying as he remembered. When the lawyer had cross-examined him, trying to make out that he’d fabricated the whole case. That Angus Robertson, AKA the ‘Mastrick Monster’, was the real victim.

      ‘Don’t worry, Mr Moir-Farquharson.’ Insch pronounced it as it was spelt – ‘Far-Quar-Son’ rather than the traditional ‘Facherson’, because he knew it annoyed him. ‘I was speaking about some other slimy git. How nice of you to join us.’

      The lawyer sighed and draped his overcoat over the back of the last spare seat at the interview table. ‘Please tell me we don’t have to go through all this again, Inspector,’ he said, pulling a slender, silver laptop from his briefcase. The soft purr of it powering up was almost inaudible in the crowded little room.

      ‘All what, Mr Far-Quar-Son?’

      The lawyer scowled at him. ‘You know very well what. I am here to represent my client, not listen to your insults. I don’t want to have to make yet another complaint to the Chief Constable about your behaviour.’

      Insch’s features darkened, but he didn’t say anything.

      ‘Now,’ said the lawyer, picking away at the laptop’s keyboard, ‘I have a copy of the charges against my client. I would like to confer with him in private before we make a formal statement.’

      ‘Aye?’ Insch left his perch against the wall and leaned his huge fists against the tabletop, looming over Chalmers. ‘Well, we’d like to ask your “client” why he murdered a four-year-old girl and threw her body out with the garbage!’

      Chalmers jumped out of his seat.

      ‘I didn’t! Will you bastards bloody listen? I didn’t do anything!’

      Sandy Moir-Farquharson laid a hand on Chalmers’s arm. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to say anything. Just sit back down and let me do the talking, OK?’

      Chalmers looked down at his lawyer, nodded, and slowly sank back into his seat.

      Insch hadn’t moved.

      ‘So, Inspector,’ said Moir-Farquharson, ‘as I said: I’d like to speak to my client in private. After that we will help you with your enquiries.’

      ‘That’s no’ how this works.’ Insch scowled at the lawyer. ‘You have no legal right of access to this wee shite whatsoever. You are here as a courtesy only.’ He leaned in so close there was barely a breath between them. ‘I’m running this show, not you.’

      Moir-Farquharson smiled calmly up at him. ‘Inspector,’ he said in his most reasonable voice, ‘I am well aware of the vagaries of Scottish law. However, as a sign of good faith, I’m asking you to let me speak to my client in private.’

      ‘And if I don’t?’

      ‘Then we sit here till the cows come home. Or your six hours’ holding time run out. It’s up to you.’

      Insch glowered, stuffed the liquorice allsorts back in his pocket and left the room, trailing Logan and WPC Watson behind him. Out in the corridor it was a lot cooler, but the air contained a lot of swearing.

      When he had finished cursing the lawyer to the four winds, Insch told Watson to keep an eye on the door. He didn’t want either of them doing a runner.

      She didn’t look too impressed. It wasn’t a glamorous task, but that’s what you got when you were a lowly WPC. One day she’d make CID, then she’d be the one telling uniforms to guard doorways.

      ‘And, Constable,’ Insch leaned in closer, his voice becoming a conspiratorial whisper. ‘that was a damn fine bit of police work today: the supermarket receipt. I’ll be putting in a good word for you on that one.’

      She grinned. ‘Thank you, sir.’

      Logan and the inspector left her to it, working their way back to the incident room.

      ‘Why did it have to be him?’ asked Insch, parking himself on the edge of a desk. ‘I’m supposed to be at the dress rehearsal in twenty minutes!’ He sighed: there was no chance he’d make it now. ‘We’re going to get bugger all out of Chalmers now. God save us from crusading lawyers!’

      Sandy Moir-Farquharson was notorious. There wasn’t a single criminal defence lawyer in the whole city who could hold a candle to him. Aberdeen’s best solicitor advocate, qualified to stand up and defend the guilty in open court. For years the Crown Prosecution Service had been trying to get him to come over to their side, act as a public prosecutor, help put people away, instead of getting them off. But the slippery