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

near the school. The people who attacked you aren’t very bright. They might decide to have another go.’

      Silence.

      ‘We’ve got their names.’ It hadn’t been hard, the silly sods had identified themselves with pride! They’d taken a paedophile off the streets! They’d saved their kids from a fate worse than death! That they’d just committed criminal assault didn’t seem to cross their minds. ‘I’d like you to make a statement so we can press charges.’

      Logan recognized his cue and pulled out a notepad, ready to take down Roadkill’s complaint.

      Fold. Fold. Fold.

      The paper was getting loose along the seams where it’d been folded again and again. A perfect square flapped away from one corner and Roadkill scowled at it.

      ‘Mr Philips? Can you tell me what happened?’

      Carefully the battered man pulled the square of paper free and placed it in front of him. It was perfectly lined up with the edges of the desk.

      And then he started folding again.

      Insch sighed.

      ‘OK. How about the sergeant here writes down what happened and you can sign it? Would that make things easier?’

      ‘I need my medicine.’

      ‘Sorry?’

      ‘Medicine. It’s time for my medicine.’

      Insch looked at Logan. He shrugged. ‘They probably gave him some painkillers at the hospital.’

      Roadkill stopped folding his paper and placed both hands on the desk. ‘Not painkillers. Medicine. I need to take my medicine. Or they won’t let me go to work tomorrow. They wrote me a letter. I have to take my medicine or I can’t go to work.’

      ‘It’ll only take a few minutes, Mr Philips. Perhaps—’

      ‘No statement. No minutes. Medicine.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘If you’re not going to arrest me, or charge me, I’m free to go. You can’t force me to make a complaint.’

      It was the most lucid thing Logan had ever heard him say.

      Roadkill shivered, hugging himself with his arms. ‘Please. I just want to go home and take my medicine.’

      Logan looked at the tattered, bruised figure and put down his pen. Roadkill was right: they couldn’t force him to make a complaint against the people who blackened his eye, split his lip, loosened three of his teeth, cracked one of his ribs and kicked him repeatedly in the goolies. They were his goolies after all. If he didn’t want the people kicking them to be punished, it was his call. But Grampian Police weren’t about to just turn him loose on the street either. The stupid people would still be out there. And by now the Press would be too. ‘LOCAL MOB CAPTURES KIDDIE FIEND!’ No, ‘mob’ sounded too negative. These violent, stupid people were heroes, after all. ‘PARENTS CAPTURE COUNCIL PAEDOPHILE!’ Yes, that was much more like it.

      ‘Are you sure about this, Mr Philips?’ asked Insch.

      Roadkill just nodded.

      ‘OK. Well in that case we’ll get your possessions returned and DS McRae here will give you a lift home.’

      Logan swore very quietly. The social worker beamed, glad not to have been lumbered with the task. Smiling from ear to ear, he shook Logan’s hand and made good his escape.

      While Bernard Duncan Philips was signing for the contents of his pockets, Insch tried to make it up to Logan by offering him a fruit pastille. It would be going on half-seven, eight before he got back into town. He’d have to tell Jackie he was going to be late. With any luck she’d wait for him, but after this afternoon’s performance that was far from certain.

      ‘So he’s definitely not our boy, then?’ said Logan, accepting the sweet grudgingly.

      ‘Nope. Just some poor mad smelly bugger.’

      They stood and watched the battered and bruised figure as he painfully bent down and rethreaded his shoelaces.

      ‘Anyway,’ said Insch, ‘got to go. It’s curtain up in an hour and a half.’ He patted Logan on the shoulder and turned on his heel, whistling the overture.

      ‘Break a leg,’ Logan told the inspector’s retreating back.

      ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ Insch gave a cheerful wave, without turning round.

      ‘No seriously,’ said Logan. ‘I hope you fall and break your bloody leg. Or your neck.’ But he waited until the door had closed and Insch was well out of earshot.

      When Roadkill was finally reunited with his personal possessions Logan forced a smile onto his face and escorted him to the car park at the back of the building. A flustered-looking PC grabbed them just as Logan was signing for yet another car. ‘Desk sergeant says you’ve got another two messages from a Mr Lumley.’

      Logan groaned. The Lumley’s Family Liaison Officer should have been handling these calls. He had enough on his plate as it was. He felt guilty almost immediately. The poor sod had lost his son. The least he could do was return the man’s phone calls. He rubbed at the headache growing behind his eyes.

      ‘Tell him I’ll see to it when I get back, OK?’

      They went out the back way. The front of Force Headquarters was all lit up, television camera spotlights making everything stand out in sharp relief. There were dozens of them. Roadkill’s face was going to be all over the country before the end of the day. And it didn’t matter if he was innocent or not, by breakfast time tomorrow half the nation would know his name.

      ‘You know, it might be a good idea if you took a couple of weeks off work. Let the idiots forget about it?’

      Roadkill had his hands wrapped round the safety belt, tugging it gently every six seconds, making sure it was still working. ‘Need to work. Man has no purpose without work. It defines us. Without definition we do not exist.’

      Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘OK. . .’ The man wasn’t just schizophrenic: he was crazy.

      ‘You say “OK” too much.’

      Logan opened his mouth, thought better of it and closed it again. There was no point arguing with a crazy person. If he wanted to do that he could go home and talk to his mother. So instead he drove them through the fading rain. By the time they’d reached Roadkill’s small farm on the outskirts of Cults it had stopped entirely.

      He took the car as far up the drive as there was road. The council clear-up crew had been hard at work all day. Two large metal waste containers loomed in the car’s headlights. They were each the size of a minibus, their yellow paintwork chipped and scratched, sitting in the weeds next to steading number one. Huge padlocks kept the container doors shut, as if anyone was going to break in to get at the rotting animal corpses inside.

      Logan heard a small sob from beside him and realized the padlocks were probably a good idea.

      ‘My beautiful, beautiful dead things. . .’ There were tears running down Roadkill’s bruised cheek into his beard.

      ‘You didn’t help them?’ Logan asked, pointing at the containers.

      Roadkill shook his head, his long hair swinging back and forth like a funereal curtain. His voice was tortured and low.

      ‘How could I help the Visigoths sack Rome?’

      He got out of the car and walked over the trampled weeds and grass to the steading. The door was lying open, letting Logan’s headlights fall on the bare concrete floor. The piles of dead animals were gone. One steading down, two more to go.

      Logan left him sobbing gently outside the empty farm building.

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