a band striking up. ‘Shite,’ said Insch. ‘I’m on. You better have a damn good explanation when I get off stage, Sergeant, or I’ll. . .’ A woman’s voice, terse and insistent, just too faint for Logan to make out the words, and then: ‘All right, all right. I’m coming.’ And then the line went dead.
The WPC stood on the doorstep looking at him with her eyebrows arched.
‘He’s about to go on stage,’ explained Logan, stuffing the phone back in his pocket. ‘Let’s get this over and done with. If we’re lucky we can meet him in the bar after the show with some good news for a change.’
He rang the bell.
A thin bout of male swearing drifted out of the bathroom window. At least they knew someone was home. Logan leaned on the bell again.
‘Hold on! Hold on, I’m coming!’
About a minute and a half later a shadow fell over the part-glazed front door and a key was rattled in the lock. The door swung open and a face popped into the gap.
‘Hello?’ it said.
‘Darren?’ asked Logan.
The face frowned, a pair of thick black eyebrows sinking down over eyes that didn’t quite look in the same direction. Darren Caldwell might be five and a bit years older than his school photograph, but he hadn’t changed that much. His jaw was a little wider and his hair looked styled, rather than cut by his mum, but it was definitely the same man.
‘Yes?’ said Darren, and Logan gave the door a sudden shove.
The young man staggered backwards, tripped over a little nest of tables and fell full length on the floor. Logan and the WPC stepped inside, closing the door behind them.
‘Tsk, tsk.’ Logan shook his head. ‘You should get a security chain fitted, Mr Caldwell. Makes it harder for people to come in uninvited. You never know who’s out there.’
The young man scrabbled to his feet, balling his fists. ‘Who are you?’
‘You have a lovely home, Mr Caldwell,’ said Logan, letting the WPC get between him and the possibility of physical violence. ‘You don’t mind if we take a look around?’
‘You can’t do this!’
‘Oh yes I can.’ Logan pulled the search warrant out and waved it in his face. ‘Now where shall we start?’
The house was a lot smaller on the inside than it looked. Two bedrooms, one with a double bed covered in a yellowy-grey crocheted blanket crammed into it, jars of moisturiser cluttering up the vanity unit; the other with a single bed up against one wall opposite a little computer desk. A barely-dressed young woman pouted from a poster above the bed. Very saucy. The bathroom contained the nastiest avocado-coloured suite Logan had seen in a long time and the kitchen was just big enough for all three of them to stand in, as long as they didn’t move about too much. The lounge was taken up by a widescreen television and a huge, lime-green sofa.
There was no sign of the missing five-year-old boy.
‘Where is he?’ asked Logan, poking about in the cupboards, pulling out tins of beans and soup and tuna.
Darren looked left and right, almost at the same time. ‘Where’s who?’ he said at last.
Logan sighed and slammed the cupboard doors.
‘You know bloody well “who”, Darren. Where’s Richard Erskine. Your son? What have you done with him?’
‘I’ve not done nothing to him. I’ve not seen him for months.’ He hung his head. ‘She won’t let me.’
‘You’ve been seen, Darren. People reported your car.’ Logan tried to peer out through the kitchen window, but all he could see was himself staring back, reflected in the glass.
‘I. . .’ Darren sniffed. ‘I used to drive round there. See if I could get a glimpse of him, you know, out playing or something? But she wouldn’t let him out, would she? Wouldn’t let him be like the other kids.’
Logan flicked the light-switch off, plunging the kitchen into darkness. Without the light turning the window into a mirror he could see out into the back garden. The pair of policemen he’d dispatched to watch the back were there, shivering away in the cold drizzle. There was a shed in one corner.
Smiling he snapped the lights back on, making everyone squint.
‘What?’
‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing Darren by the collar, ‘let’s go take a look in the shed.’
But Richard Erskine wasn’t in there. Just a Flymo, a couple of trowels, a bag of fertilizer and a pair of secateurs.
‘Arse.’
They stood in the lounge, drinking piss-poor tea. The room was crowded with two soggy PCs, the WPC, Darren Caldwell and Logan. The man of the house sat on the sofa, looking more and more unhappy with every minute that passed.
‘Where is he?’ asked Logan again. ‘You’re going to have to tell us sooner or later. Might as well be now.’
Darren scowled at them. ‘I haven’t seen him. I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘OK then,’ said Logan, perching on the arm of the lime-green settee, ‘where were you yesterday morning at ten a.m.?’
Darren sighed theatrically. ‘I was at work!’
‘And you can prove this, can you?’
A nasty grin burst into life on Darren’s face. ‘Fuckin’ right I can. Here—’ he snatched the phone off the low coffee table and thrust it at Logan, before dragging a copy of the Yellow Pages out from beneath a pile of Hello! magazines. ‘Broadstane Garage,’ he said, pulling the thick, yellow directory open and flicking through it with angry fingers. ‘Call them. Go on: speak to Ewan. He’s my boss. Ask him where I was. Go on.’
As he took the phone and the Yellow Pages, Logan had a nasty thought: what if Darren was telling the truth?
Broadstane Garage had a display ad: something cheesy with a smiling spanner and a happy nut and bolt. The advert said ‘OPEN 24 HOURS’ so Logan dialled the number. The ringing tone sounded in his ear, over and over and over. He was just about to hang up when a gruff voice shouted: ‘Broadstane Garage!’ in his ear.
‘Hello?’ said Logan, when his hearing had returned. ‘Is this Ewan?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘This is Detective Sergeant Logan McRae of Grampian Police. Are you Darren Caldwell’s employer?’
The voice on the other end of the phone became instantly suspicious. ‘What if I am? What’s he done?’
‘Can you tell me where Mr Caldwell was between the hours of nine and eleven yesterday morning?’
Darren sat back on the settee smiling his smug smile and Logan got that sinking
