was out of focus, bent over a shovel full of squashed rabbit, his wheelie-bin sitting next to him on the road. The two boys smiled out from school photographs. Insch was in full panto get-up.
Above the lot the headline screamed ‘HOUSE OF HORROR: DEAD GIRL FOUND IN PILE OF ROTTING ANIMALS!’ and underneath that ‘KILLER RELEASED FROM POLICE CUSTODY ONLY HOURS EARLIER’. Colin Miller strikes again.
‘Buncha fuckin’ clowns: that’s what they are. Tell you: five minutes alone with this sick bastard. That’ll do me. Got fuckin’ grandchildren that age.’
Logan paid for his paper and left without saying a word.
It had started to snow again. Thick white flakes drifted down from the dark sky, the clouds lit dark-orange, reflecting back the streetlights. All the way up Union Street the twelve days of Christmas glittered and sparkled, but Logan didn’t see any of it. He stood outside the newsagent, reading by the light of the shop window.
There was an in-depth exposé of Roadkill’s life – the schizophrenia, the two-year stay in Cornhill, the dead mother, the collection of dead bodies. Miller had even managed to get hold of some of the crowd that attacked Roadkill outside the primary school gates. The quotes were full of bravado and righteous indignation. The police had treated them like criminals for attacking that sicko, when all the time there was a dead girl lying in that pile of filth!
Logan winced as he read how the police had Roadkill in custody, but DI Insch, recently seen strutting about on stage while children were being abducted, murdered and violated, had ordered his release. Against the advice of local police hero DS Logan ‘Lazarus’ McRae.
Logan groaned. Bloody Colin Miller! Probably thought he was doing him a favour, making him look like the voice of reason, but Insch would blow a gasket. It would look as if Logan had gone to the Press and Journal with the story. As if he was stabbing the inspector in the back.
Peter Lumley’s stepfather was waiting for him when he pushed through the front doors to Force Headquarters. The man looked as if he hadn’t slept for a month and his breath would have made wallpaper curdle: stale beer and whisky. He’d seen the papers. He knew they’d arrested someone.
Logan took him into an interview room and listened as he’d ranted and raved. Roadkill knew where his son was. The police had to make him talk! If they couldn’t, he would! They had to find Peter!
Slowly Logan calmed him down, explained that the man they had in custody might not have anything to do with Peter going missing. That the police were doing everything they could to find his son. That he should go home and get some sleep. In the end it was fatigue that made him consent to a lift home in a patrol car.
By the time the working day had begun Logan was feeling terrible. There was a knot in his stomach, and not just the scar tissue. Half past eight and there was still no sign of Insch. There was a shit-storm brewing and Logan was going to be right in the middle of it.
The morning briefing came and went, Logan handing out the assignments, getting the teams together. One lot to go question every householder within a mile of the children’s last known position, both pre- and post mortem. Had they seen this man – Roadkill – hanging around? Another lot to go through the records for anything and everything relating to Bernard Duncan Philips. And last, by far the largest team, would get the nastiest job of all: digging through a ton of rotting animal corpses, looking for a severed penis. This wasn’t a job for the council’s sanitation department any more. This was a murder enquiry.
No one asked where DI Insch was, or said a single word about the front page spread in this morning’s P&J. But Logan knew they’d all read it. There was an undercurrent of hostility in the room. They’d jumped to the conclusion Logan knew they would: that he’d gone to the press and screwed over Insch.
WPC Watson wouldn’t even meet his eyes.
When the briefing was over and everyone had shuffled out, Logan tracked down DI Steel. She was sitting in her office, feet up on the desk, smoking a fag and drinking coffee, a copy of the morning paper spread over the clutter on her desk. She looked up as Logan knocked and entered, saluting him with her mug.
‘Morning, Lazarus,’ she said. ‘You looking for your next victim?’
‘I didn’t do it! I know what it looks like, but I didn’t do it!’
‘Aye, aye. Shut the door and park your arse.’ She pointed at the rickety chair on the other side of her desk.
Logan did as he was told, politely refusing the offer of a cigarette.
‘If you did go to the press with this,’ she poked the paper, ‘you’re either so fucking stupid you can’t breathe unsupervised, or you’ve got some serious political ambitions. You ambitious, Mr Local Police Hero?’
‘What?’
‘I know you’re not stupid, Lazarus,’ she said, waving her fag in the air. ‘Speaking to the press would always come back and bite you on the arse. But this could kill DI Insch’s career. With him out the way, and the press on your side, you’re a shoe-in for his job. The rank and file will hate you, but if you can live with that, you keep going up the tree. Next stop Chief Inspector.’ She even gave him a salute.
‘I swear I didn’t speak to anyone! I wanted to let Roadkill go too; there was no evidence against him. I even gave him a lift home!’
‘So how come this reporter’s polishing your arse with one hand and spanking Insch with the other?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’ Liar. ‘He thinks we’re friends. I’ve only spoken to him half a dozen times. And DI Insch cleared every word.’ Big fat liar. ‘I don’t think he likes the inspector.’ At least that bit was true.
‘I can relate to that. Lots of people don’t like Inschy. Me? I like him. He’s big. You see an arse like that: you’ve got something to sink your teeth into.’
Logan tried not to form a mental picture.
DI Steel took a deep drag on her cigarette, letting the smoke hiss out through a happy smile. ‘You spoken to him yet?’
‘What, DI Insch?’ Logan hung his head. ‘No. Not yet.’
‘Hmm. . . Well he was in early. I saw his four-wheel-drive girl-mobile in the car park this morning. Probably hatching a plot with the upper brass: getting you transferred to the Gorbals.’ She sat and smiled and for the life of him Logan couldn’t tell if she was joking.
‘I was hoping that maybe you could speak to him—’
The smile turned into a laugh.
‘Want me to ask him if he fancies you?’
Logan could feel the colour running up his neck to his cheeks. He knew what DI Steel was like. Had he actually come in here expecting her to be sympathetic and supportive? Maybe he really was too stupid to breathe unsupervised. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, picking himself out of his seat. ‘I should get back to work.’
She stopped him only when the door was swinging closed. ‘He’s going to be fucking pissed off. Maybe not at you, maybe at this Miller bloke, but he’s going to be pissed off. Be prepared to be shouted at. And if he won’t listen to you, maybe have to think omelettes and eggs. Just because you didn’t start this doesn’t mean you can’t play it out.’
