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

‘And to think I let you buggers eat my biscuits! Ungrateful sods.’

       24

      One drink turned into two. Two turned into three. Three turned into a curry and four more. By the time Logan said goodnight to DI Insch and WPC Watson, all was right with the world again. OK, with the inspector there he and Jackie couldn’t get up to anything, but Logan got the feeling they might have. If Insch hadn’t been there.

      None of which mattered at four-thirty in the morning when he staggered out of bed to drink his own bodyweight in water before falling queasily back to sleep.

      Lorna Henderson’s post mortem report was sitting on DI Insch’s desk when Logan got in to work. Seven o’clock on the dot, even if it was a Saturday morning. The inspector was already there, sitting behind his desk looking slightly more pink than usual.

      Lorna Henderson had died from blunt trauma. The cracked ribs would have crushed her left lung, the impact to the left temple shattering her skull, the one to the back of her head finishing off the job. The leg break was jagged, just above the knee. A four-year-old girl, beaten to death. Roadkill had really gone to town.

      ‘You think we’re going to get anything out of him?’ asked Logan, turning the pathology photographs face down so that he wouldn’t have to look at them any more.

      Insch snorted. ‘Doubt it. Doesn’t matter though. We’ve got so much forensic evidence there’s no way he’s going to beat this one. Not even Slippery Sandy can get him off. Mr Philips is going to spend the rest of his life in Peterhead Prison with all the other sick bastards.’ He pulled a packet of sherbet fruits from his pocket and offered them round the incident room. That done he settled down to working his way through the remainder. ‘You taking Miller back up to the farm today?’ The reporter’s name came out as if Insch was describing a foul smell.

      ‘No,’ Logan grinned. ‘For some reason he’s not too keen. Can’t think why.’

      Friday’s little expedition had been quite enough for the reporter. Today’s Press and Journal had nothing but nice words for the police. It was much the same as the Evening Express story, only with more editorializing. At least DI Insch was out of the spotlight.

      ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘How’s your floater going?’

      ‘Getting there.’

      ‘DI Steel tells me you’re keen on the McLeod brothers?’

      Logan nodded. ‘It’s their kind of gig. Hands on. Brutal.’

      Insch almost smiled. ‘Take after their dad, that pair. Going to get them for it?’

      Logan tried not to shrug, but he knew it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. ‘Doing my damnedest. I’ve got Forensics crawling all over the clothes they found the body in. Might get something out of it. If not, maybe one of their punters will cough. . .’ He stopped, remembering Duncan Nicholson running into the shop, out of the rain.

      Insch popped something green and fizzy into his mouth. ‘Not likely. Can you imagine anyone stupid enough to rat on the McLeod brothers? They’d tear him apart.’

      ‘What?’ Logan was dragged back from Nicholson: that plastic bag. ‘Oh, yeah. Probably. Simon McLeod said the whole thing was a warning. A message. That everyone in the city knew what it meant.’

      ‘Everyone in the city, eh?’ Insch crunched as he chewed. ‘How come I’ve no’ heard anything about it then?’

      ‘No idea. I’m hoping Miller can shed some light on that one.’

      Twelve o’clock and Logan was sitting down to a big plate of steak-and-ale pie, chips and beans. The Prince of Wales was an old-fashioned place: all wood panelling and real ale, the low ceiling yellowed by generations of cigarette smokers. It was busy, full of men press-ganged into Saturday morning shopping by their wives and girlfriends. This was their reward: a pint of cold beer and a packet of prawn cocktail crisps.

      The pub was made up of little rooms stitched together by short corridors. Logan and Miller sat in one at the front, next to the window. Not that the view was up to much, just the other side of a tall alley, the granite grey and dull and wet from the freezing-cold rain.

      ‘So,’ said Miller spearing a mangetout. ‘Have you got the bastard tae confess yet?’

      Logan munched his way through a mouthful of beef and crispy pastry, wishing he’d gone for a pint of beer to wash it down and take the final edge off his hangover. But drinking on duty was tantamount to raping sheep in the Chief Constable’s eyes, so Logan was stuck with a pint of fresh orange and lemonade. ‘We’re pursuing our enquiries.’ The words came out muffled.

      ‘Nail his bloody arse to the wall. Sick wee shite that he is.’ Miller wasn’t on duty, so he could drink. Only he didn’t have a nice pint of Dark Island, but a large glass of chilled Sémillon Chardonnay with his salmon en croûte.

      Logan watched the reporter take a delicate sip at his wine and smiled. Miller was a weird fish and to be honest, Logan was starting to like him. Even if he had come within a whisker of getting DI Insch fired. The clothes and the wine and the croissants and the chunky gold jewellery just added to the pantomime.

      Logan waited until the reporter had a mouthful of salmon before asking, ‘What about George Stephenson then?’

      ‘Mmmph. . .’ Small flakes of pastry fell down the front of Miller’s delicate ivory shirt. ‘What about him?’

      ‘You said you still had information. Stuff I didn’t know?’

      Miller smiled, letting even more pastry fall free. ‘How ’bout the last place he was seen alive?’

      Logan took a guess: ‘Turf ’n Track?’

      Miller’s smile became impressed. ‘Aye: spot on. Turf ’n Track.’

      Logan knew it would be. Now all they had to do was prove it. ‘One of the McLeod brothers told me, “everyone knows you don’t do what Geordie did”, that it was a warning. Want to fill me in?’

      Miller played with his wine glass, letting the light filter through it onto the wooden tabletop, making a little golden spotlight that danced across the grain.

      ‘You know he was into the local bookies for a fair chunk of money?’

      ‘You said that. How much?’

      ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand, six hundred and forty-two pounds.’

      It was Logan’s turn to be impressed. That was a hell of a lot of money. ‘So how come they killed him? Why not just cripple him a little? He can’t pay up if he’s dead. Not to mention they’re killing off one of Malk the Knife’s boys. I hear Malkie doesn’t take kindly to that kind of thing.’

      ‘Aye, risky. If you do in one of Malkie’s boys without his permission he’s going tae come down on you like a ton of shite.’

      Logan’s heart sank: the last thing Aberdeen needed was a spate of tit-for-tat killings. Gang warfare in the Granite City. Wouldn’t that be fun? ‘So why did they kill him then?’

      Miller sighed and put his knife down. ‘They kilt him because everyone knows that you don’t do what he did.’

      ‘What the hell does that mean?’

      ‘It means. . .’ Miller looked around the little room. A small corridor led off towards where they’d picked up lunch and another, out of sight in the opposite corner, led back through into the bar. Everyone else was chatting away, eating, drinking, enjoying being out of the horrible weather. No one was paying them the slightest bit of attention.

      ‘Listen, you know who Geordie worked for. You don’t piss him off twice, OK? Maybe you can get away with it once, but you do it twice and you’re no’ in for a good time, know what I mean?’