of there when I see this shiny thing, sparkling in the rain. You know, like a silver chain or something. . .’ He shuddered. ‘I think it’s one of mine. I’m so fuckin’ wrecked I think it’s part of my stash. So I go to pick it up and the thing rolls over. And it’s a dead kid. And I scream and I scream and I scream. . .’
Logan leaned forward. ‘What happened then?’
‘I got the fuck out of there quick as I could. Straight home. Into the shower, try to wash that filthy dead water off me. Called the police.’
And that’s where I came in, thought Logan. ‘What about the thing?’ he asked.
‘Eh?’
‘The shiny thing you found on the body. What was it? Where is it?’
‘Tin foil. It was just a bloody bit of tin foil.’
Insch glowered at him. ‘I want the names of all the poor sods you’ve robbed. I want the loot. All of it!’ He looked down at the pile of photographs in their clear plastic wallet. ‘And I want the names of all the bookies you take photos for. And if anyone in these photographs has been hurt, and I don’t care if it’s just falling off their bicycle, I’m going to charge you with conspiracy to commit assault. Understand?’
Nicholson buried his head in his hands.
‘Well,’ said Insch with a generous smile, ‘thank you for assisting us with our enquiries, Mr Nicholson. Logan, be a good lad and escort our guest here to his cell. Something south-facing with a view and a balcony.’
Nicholson cried all the way.
The preliminary forensic report came in just after six. It wasn’t good. There was nothing tying Duncan Nicholson to David Reid other than the fact that he’d found the body. And he had a cast iron alibi for the time Peter Lumley went missing. Insch had dispatched two PCs to where Nicholson claimed to be hiding his stash. They came back with their patrol car’s boot full of stolen property. It was beginning to look as if Nicholson was telling the truth.
So that meant all bets were back on Roadkill. That still didn’t sit well with Logan. He couldn’t see the man as a paedophile killer, even if he did keep a dead girl in one of his outbuildings.
In the end DI Insch called a halt to proceedings. ‘It’s time to go home,’ he said. ‘We’ve got everyone banged up, they’ll all still be there come Monday morning.’
‘Monday?’
Insch nodded. ‘Yes, Monday. Logan, you have my permission to take Sunday off. Observe the Sabbath. Go watch the footie, drink beer, eat crisps, have some fun.’ He stopped and gave a sly smile. ‘Maybe take a nice WPC to dinner?’
Logan blushed and kept his gob shut.
‘Whatever. I don’t want to see you back here till Monday morning.’
The rain had stopped by the time Logan left Force Headquarters. The desk sergeant had cornered him with another three messages from Peter Lumley’s stepfather who was still convinced they could find his child. Logan tried to lie to him, tell him it was all going to be all right, but he couldn’t. So he promised to call as soon as he heard anything. There was nothing else he could do.
The night had turned from chilly to bitterly cold, a thin dusting of frost glittering on the pavements. As Logan stepped out onto Union Street his breath hung about him in a cloud. It was Baltic.
For a Saturday night the streets were strangely silent. Logan didn’t fancy going back to his empty flat. Not yet. So he went to Archibald Simpson’s instead.
The pub was crowded with noisy groups of youngsters wrapping themselves around pitchers of cocktails, keeping out the cold by getting as pissed as possible as quickly as possible. Come chucking out time there would be vomiting, a bit of fighting and, for some, a trip to the cells. Or maybe A&E.
‘Oh to be young and stupid again,’ he muttered, squeezing his way through the throng to the long, wooden bar.
The snatches of conversation he heard on the way were predictable enough. A bit of boasting about how wrecked someone was last night and how much more wrecked they were going to get tonight. But underneath it all there was another theme. The topics of alcohol and sexual prowess were being challenged by Gerald Cleaver getting off scot-free.
Logan stood at the bar, waiting for one of the frayed-looking Australians to serve him, listening to a fat man in a bright yellow shirt holding forth to a lanky, bearded bloke in a T-shirt and waistcoat. Cleaver was scum. How could the police have screwed up so badly the sicko got away with it? It was obvious Cleaver was guilty, what with all these children turning up dead. And there they were letting a known paedophile back on the streets!
Little and Large weren’t the only ones on the ‘stupid police’ rant. Logan could hear at least half a dozen others banging on about the same topic. Didn’t they know this was where most of Aberdeen’s off-duty policemen drank? A lot of the dayshift would be in here, having a pint after work. Bemoaning Cleaver’s release. Spending some of that overtime they were all getting.
When he finally managed to get served Logan took his pint of Stella and went for a wander through the other sections of the huge pub, looking for someone he knew well enough to talk to. He smiled and waved at clumps of PCs, only vaguely recognizing them out of uniform. In the far corner he spotted a familiar figure wreathed in cigarette smoke, surrounded by depressed looking detective sergeants and constables. She threw her head back and poured another lungful of smoke into the cloud above her head. As she came back down her eyes locked on Logan and she gave him a lopsided smile.
Logan groaned: she’d seen him. Now he had to go over.
A DC shoogled over, making room for Logan and his pint at the small table. Above their heads a television burbled away quietly to itself, local adverts for garages, chip shops and double-glazing, filling the space between programmes.
‘Lazarus,’ said DI Steel, the word coming out slightly slurred through a haze of cigarette smoke. ‘How you doing, Lazarus? You made Chief Inspector yet?’
He should have never sat down here. He should have grabbed a pizza across the road and gone home. He forced some lightness into his voice and said, ‘Not yet. Maybe Monday.’
‘Monday?’ The inspector laughed like a drain, rocking back and forth with fag ash spilling from her cigarette down the front of the DC who’d shoogled. ‘“Maybe Monday”. Priceless. . .’ She cast an eye over the glass-crowded tabletop and frowned. ‘Drink!’ she said, digging an old leather wallet from an inside pocket and handing it to the ash-covered DC. ‘Constable, I want you to get another round. People are dying of thirst here!’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Whiskies all round!’ DI Steel slapped the tabletop. ‘And make them doubles!’
The detective constable headed off to the bar, taking the inspector’s wallet with him.
Steel leaned closer to Logan, dropping her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Between you and me, I think he’s a bit drunk.’ She sat back and beamed at him. ‘You know, with Inschy getting kicked for the Roadkill
