‘You’re sure?’
There was a small pause and then: ‘Course I’m bloody sure. I was there. If he was somewhere else I’d’ve bloody noticed. Now what’s this all about?’
It took another five minutes to get rid of him.
Logan put the phone down and tried to hide the disappointment in his voice. ‘It seems we owe you an apology, Mr Caldwell,’
‘Fucking right you do!’ Darren stood up and pointed at the front door. ‘Now why don’t you get off your lazy arses and go look for my son?’
He was good enough to slam the door behind them.
They trailed off through the drizzle to the rusty Vauxhall Logan had signed for. All this way for nothing. And now he had no good news to give DI Insch. He just had to hope the performance had gone well tonight. Perhaps the inspector would be in a good mood and not to take a bite out of his backside.
The PC behind the wheel turned the engine over, the car windows rapidly steaming up. He cranked up the blowers, but it made little difference. Instead he pulled off his clip-on tie and tried to wipe the worst of the fog away. It just moved the fuzzy moisture around.
With a sigh they settled back to wait for the small patches of clear glass to creep up the windscreen.
‘You think his alibi’s for real?’ asked the WPC in the back.
Logan shrugged.
‘The garage is open twenty-four hours: we’ll check it out on the way back into town.’ But Logan already knew the alibi would hold. Darren Caldwell couldn’t have snatched his son while the five-year-old went to the shops for milk and chocolate biscuits.
But he’d been so sure!
Eventually the blowers made enough of a dent in the fog to see out. The PC clicked on the headlights and pulled away from the kerb. They made a three point turn in the cul-de-sac and went back the way they’d come. Logan watched Darren’s house slide past the passenger window. He’d been so sure.
As they drove through Portlethen, heading for the dual carriageway back to Aberdeen, Logan saw the lights of the big DIY stores and supermarket twinkling up ahead. The supermarket would have alcohol. And right now Logan thought that going home with a bottle of wine was a very good idea. He asked the PC driving to make a short detour.
While the others waited in the car Logan slumped round the shelves, piling crisps and pickled onions into his basket. They’d gone out expecting to find the missing kid alive and well, returning to Force Headquarters as heroes. Instead they were going back empty handed with Logan looking like an idiot.
He threw a bottle of Shiraz in on top of the crisps, cursing as he realized he’d crushed half of them. Looking sheepish he sneaked back to the snack aisle and swapped the salt-and-vinegar-flavoured crumbs for a fresh packet.
Imagine Darren Caldwell living in that little house, not allowed to see his son, still driving around Torry trying to catch a glimpse of him. Poor sod. Logan had never had children. There had been a sticky moment when a girlfriend was two weeks late, but thankfully nothing ever came of it. He could only imagine what it must be like to have a son and be completely excluded from his life.
There were only two checkouts open, one manned by a girl with more spots than skin, the other by an old man with a gnarled face and shaky hands. Neither of them seemed capable of working at much beyond a slow crawl.
The woman in front of him in the queue had bought about every kind of ready-meal imaginable: curry and chips, pizza and chips, chicken chow mein and chips, burgers and chips, lasagne and chips. . . There wasn’t a single piece of fruit or vegetable in her trolley, but there were six two-litre bottles of Diet Coke and a chocolate gateau. So that was all right.
Logan let his attention wander while the ancient man fumbled with the barcode scanner and the pre-packaged dinners. All the little shops – the shoe repair place, the photo-lab, the dry cleaners and the one selling grotesque glass clowns and porcelain figurines – were in darkness, the shutters down. Anyone having a last-minute, life-or-death need for an ornamental Scottie dog playing the bagpipes would just have to come back tomorrow.
He shuffled forward a step as the woman started packing her mound of microwave meals into plastic bags.
A children’s television theme blared out from somewhere near the exit and Logan looked up to see an old woman hovering over one of the children’s rides – a blue plastic railway engine rocking serenely back and forth making ‘chuff-chuff’ noises. He watched the old woman smiling and bobbing in time with Thomas the Tank Engine until the theme tune ended and the railway engine ground to a halt. Granny opened her handbag, pulled out her purse and rummaged unsuccessfully inside for enough change to make the ride start up again. A sad-looking little girl emerged from Thomas’s innards. She took Granny’s hand and walked slowly out the door, all the time looking regretfully back at the engine’s grinning face.
‘. . . to pack?’
‘Hmm?’ Logan dragged his attention back to the man working the checkout.
‘Ah says, do yous want a hand to pack?’ He held up Logan’s packet of crisps. ‘Yer shopping, do yous want a hand to pack?’
‘Oh, no. No thanks.’
Logan stuffed the wine, crisps and pickles into a plastic bag and headed back out to the car. He probably should have bought a few beers for the cold, damp and disappointed constables he’d dragged all the way out here, but it was too late now.
There was a sound of laughter and Logan turned to see the little girl from the supermarket jumping up and down in a puddle while Granny laughed and clapped.
He stood and stared at the scene, a frown creeping onto his face.
If Richard Erskine’s dad wasn’t allowed to see him, chances were his grandparents weren’t either. Everybody loses. . .
The main bedroom hadn’t looked much like the sort of place a twenty-two-year-old man slept in. That crocheted throw and all those jars of moisturiser. The half-naked woman and the computer, that was more like it.
He jumped back in the car, slinging the shopping at his feet.
‘How do you fancy paying Mr Caldwell another visit?’ he asked with a smile.
The dark red hatchback was still on the drive, but now there was a light blue Volvo estate sitting in front of the house, two wheels up on the kerb. That made Logan’s smile widen.
‘Pull up in the same place as last time,’ he told the driver. ‘You two around the back, we’ll take the front.’
Logan gave them a minute to get in position and then strode up the front path and mashed the doorbell with his thumb.
Darren Caldwell opened the door. His face went from annoyance to panic and then to flustered anger, all in the space of a heartbeat.
‘Hello, Darren,’ said Logan, sticking his foot in the door so it couldn’t be slammed in his face. ‘Mind if we come in again?’
‘What the fuck do you want now?’
‘Darren?’
