Читать книгу The Blood Road - Stuart MacBride - Страница 9

Drizzle misted down from a clay sky. It sat like a damp lid over a drab grey field at the base of a drab grey hill. The rising sun slipped between the two, washing a semi-naked oak tree with fire and blood.

Which was appropriate.

A brown Ford Focus was wrapped around its trunk, the bonnet crumpled, the windscreen spiderwebbed with cracks. A body slumped forward in the driver’s seat. Still and pale.

Crime-scene tape twitched and growled in the breeze, yellow-and-black like an angry wasp, as a handful of scene examiners in the full SOC kit picked their way around the wreck. The flurry and flash of photography and fingerprint powder. The smell of diesel and rotting leaves.

Logan pulled the hood of his own suit into place, the white Tyvek crackling like crumpled paper as he zipped the thing up with squeaky nitrile gloves. He stretched his chin out of the way, keeping his neck clear of the zip’s teeth. ‘Still don’t see what I’m doing here, Doreen.’

Detective Sergeant Taylor wriggled into her suit with all the grace of someone’s plump aunty doing the slosh at a family wedding. The hood hid her greying bob, the rest of it covering an outfit that could best be described as ‘Cardigan-chic’. If you were feeling generous. She pointed at the crumpled Ford. ‘You’ll find out.’

Typical – milking every minute of it.

They slipped on their facemasks then she led the way down the slope to the tape cordon, holding it up for him to duck under.

Logan did. ‘Only, RTCs aren’t usually a Professional Standards kind of thing.’

She turned and waved a hand at the hill. ‘Local postie was on his way to work, sees skidmarks on the road up there, looks down the hill and sees the crashed car. Calls one-oh-one.’

A pair of tyre tracks slithered and writhed their way down the yellowing grass to the Ford Focus’s remains. How the driver had managed to keep the thing from rolling was a mystery.

‘See, we’re more of an “investigating complaints made against police officers when they’ve been naughty” deal.’

‘Traffic get here at six fifteen, tramp down the hill and discover our driver.’

Logan peered in through the passenger window.

The man behind the wheel was big as a bear, hanging forward against his seatbelt, the first rays of morning a dull gleam on his bald head. His broad face, slack and pale – even with the heavy tan. Eyes open. Mouth like a bullet wound in that massive thicket of beard. Definitely dead.

‘Still not seeing it, Doreen.’

She gestured him over to the driver’s side. ‘Course it looks like accidental death, till they open the driver’s door and what do they find?’

Logan stepped around the driver’s open door… And stopped.

Blood pooled in the footwell, made deep-red streaks down the upholstery. Following it upwards led to a sagging hole in the driver’s shirt. So dark in there it was almost black.

‘Oooh…’ Logan hissed in a breath. ‘Stab wound?’

‘Probably. So they call it in and we all scramble out here like good little soldiers. Body’s searched: no ID.’

‘Give the hire company a call. They wouldn’t let him have the car without ID.’

She turned and stared at him. ‘Yes, thank you Brain of Britain, we did actually think of that. Car was booked out by one Carlos Guerrero y Prieto.’

‘There you go: mystery solved.’ Logan stuck his hands on his hips. ‘Now, make with the big reveal, Doreen: why – am – I – here?’

Little creases appeared at the sides of her eyes. She was smiling at him behind her mask. Dragging it out.

‘Seriously, I’m going to turn around and walk away if—’

‘While we were waiting on Trans-Buchan Automotive Rentals to get their finger out and stop moaning about data protection, someone had the bright idea of taking the deceased’s fingerprints with one of the wee live scan machines. We got a hit from the database. Dramatic pause…’

The only sounds were the clack-and-whine of crime-scene photography as she waggled her eyebrows at him.

‘Were you always this annoying? Because I don’t remember you being this annoying.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m surprised you don’t recognise him. OK, so he’s lost a bit of weight and shaved his head, and the Grizzly Adams beard and tan are new, but it’s still him.’

‘Doreen…’

‘Carlos Guerrero y Prieto’s real name is Duncan Bell, AKA: Ding-Dong, late Detective Inspector of this parish.’

Logan stared.

The hairy hands dangling at the end of those bear-like arms. The rounded shoulders. The heavy eyebrows. Take off the beard. Add a bit more hair. Put him in an ill-fitting suit?

‘But … he’s dead. And I don’t mean “just now” dead – we buried him two years ago.’

Doreen nodded, radiating smugness. ‘And that’s why we called you.’

The duty undertakers lifted their shiny grey coffin, slipping and sliding in the damp grass. Two of the scene examiners broke off from collecting samples and grabbed a handle each, helping them carry it away from the crashed Ford.

Logan unzipped his suit a bit, letting the trapped heat out, and shifted his grip on his phone. ‘We’ll need a DNA match to be a hundred percent, but they’ve done the live scan on his fingerprints five times now and it always comes up as DI Bell.’

‘I see…’ Superintendent Doig made sooking noises for a bit. When he came back, his voice was gentle, a tad indulgent. ‘But, you see, it can’t be him, Logan. We buried him. I was at his funeral. I gave a speech. People were very moved.’

‘You tripped over the podium and knocked one of the floral displays flying.’

‘Yes, well. … I don’t think we need to dwell on every little aspect of the service.’

‘If it is DI Bell, he’s been lying low somewhere sunny. Going by the tan and new name, maybe Spain?’

‘Why would Ding-Dong fake his own death?’

‘And having faked his own death, why come back two years later? Why now?’

One of the examiners wandered up and pulled down her facemask, revealing a mouthful of squint teeth framed with soft pink lipstick. ‘Inspector McRae? You might wanna come see this.’

‘Hold on a sec, Boss, something’s come up.’ Logan pressed the phone against his chest and followed the crinkly-white oversuited figure to the crashed Ford’s boot.

A shovel and a pickaxe lay partially unwrapped from their black plastic bin-bag parcels – metal blades clean and glittering in the dull light.

She nodded at them. ‘Bit suspicious, right? Why’s he carting a pick and shovel about?’

Logan inched forwards, sniffing. There was a strange toilety scent – like green urinal cakes undercut by something darker. ‘Can you smell that?’

‘Smell what?’

‘Air freshener.’

She leaned in too, sniffing. ‘Oh… Yeah, I’m getting it now. Sort of pine and lavender? I love those wee plug-in—’

‘Get the pick and shovel tested. He’s been digging something up, or burying it, I want to know what and where.’

The other scene examiner sauntered over, hands in his pockets, glancing up at the hill. ‘Aye, aye. We’ve got an audience.’

A scruffy Fiat hatchback lurked at the side of the road above, not far from where the crashed car’s tyres scored their way down the mud and grass. Someone stood next to it peering through a pair of binoculars. Auburn curls made a halo around her head, tucked out of the way behind her ears. A linen suit that looked as if she’d slept in it. But she wasn’t looking at them, she was following the duty undertakers and the coffin.

‘Bloody press.’ The examiner with the pink lipstick, howked, then spat. ‘It’ll be telephoto lenses in a minute.’

Logan went back to his phone. ‘Boss? DCI Hardie’s running the MIT, any chance you can have a word? Think we need to be involved on this one.’

‘Urgh… More paperwork, just what we need. All right, I’ll see what I can do.’

He hung up before Doig launched into his ‘bye, bye’ routine and stood there. Watching the figure up on the road. Frowned. Then turned away and poked at the screen of his phone, scrolling through his list of contacts. Set it ringing.

The woman with the curly hair pulled out her phone, juggling it and the binoculars, then a wary voice – laced with that Inverness Monarch-of-the-Glen twang – sounded in Logan’s ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Detective Sergeant Chalmers? It’s Inspector McRae. Hi. Just checking that you’re remembering our appointment this lunchtime: twelve noon.’

‘What? Yes. Definitely remembering it. Couldn’t be more excited.’

Yeah, bet she was.

‘Only you’ve missed the last three appointments and I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me.’

‘Nooo. Definitely not. Well, I’d better get back to it, got lots of door-to-doors to do. So—’

‘You’re on the Ellie Morton investigation, aren’t you?’

The woman was still following the duty undertakers with her binoculars. They struggled up the hill with the coffin, fighting against the slope and wet grass. One missed step and they’d be presiding over a deeply embarrassing and unprofessional toboggan run.

‘Yup. Like I said, we’re—’

‘Any leads? Three-year-old girl goes missing, her parents must be frantic.’

‘We’re working our way through Tillydrone as I speak. Nothing so far.’

‘Tillydrone?’

‘Yup, going to be here all morning… Ah, damn it. Actually, now I think about it, I’ll probably be stuck here all afternoon too. Sorry. Can we reschedule our thing for later in the week?’

‘You’re in Tillydrone?’

‘Yup.’

‘That’s odd… Because I’m standing in a field a couple of miles West of Inverurie, and I could swear I’m looking right at you.’ He waved up the hill at her. ‘Can you see me waving?’

‘Shite…’ Chalmers ducked behind her car. ‘No, definitely in Tillydrone. Must be someone else. Er… I’ve got to go. The DI needs me. Bye.’

The line went dead. She’d hung up on him.

Those auburn curls appeared for a brief moment as she scrambled into her car, then the engine burst into life and the hatchback roared away. Disappeared around the corner.

Subtle. Really subtle.

Logan shook his head. ‘Unbelievable.’

Something rocky thumped out of the Audi’s speakers as it wound its way back down the road towards Aberdeen. Past fields of brown-grey soil, and fields of drooping grass, and fields of miserable sheep, and fields flooded with thick pewter lochans. On a good day, the view would have been lovely, but under the ashen sky and never-ending rain?

This was why people emigrated.

The music died, replaced by the car’s default ringtone.

Logan pressed the button and picked up. ‘Hello?’

‘Guv? It’s me.’ Me: AKA Detective Sergeant Simon Occasionally-Useful-When-Not-Being-A-Pain-In-The-Backside Rennie. Sounding as if he was in the middle of chewing a toffee or something. ‘I’ve been down to records and picked up all of DI Bell’s old case files. Where do you want me to start?’

‘How about the investigation into his suicide?’

‘Ah. No. One of DCI Hardie’s minions already checked it out of the archives.’

Sod.

‘OK. In that case: start with the most recent file you’ve got and work your way backwards.’

‘Two years, living it up on the sunny Costa del Somewhere and DI Bell comes home to dreich old Aberdeenshire? See if it was me? No chance.’

‘He had a pick and shovel in the boot of his car.’

‘Buried treasure?’

A tractor rumbled past, going the other way, its massive rear wheels kicking up a mountain of filthy spray.

Logan stuck on the wipers. ‘My money’s on unburied. You don’t come back from the dead to bury something in the middle of nowhere. You come back to dig it up.’

‘Ah: got you. He buries whatever it is, fakes his own death, then sods off to the Med. Two years later he thinks it’s safe to pop over and dig it up again.’

‘That or whatever he buried isn’t safe any more and he has to retrieve it before someone else does.’

‘Hmm…’ Rennie’s voice went all muffled, then came back again. ‘OK: I’ll have a look for bank jobs, or jewellery heists in the case files. Something expensive and unsolved. Something worth staging your own funeral for.’

‘And find out who he was working with. See if we can’t rattle some cages.’

A knot of TV people had set up outside Divisional Headquarters, all their cameras trained on the small group of protestors marching round and round in the rain. There were only about a dozen of them, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for with enthusiasm – waving placards with ‘JUSTICE FOR ELLIE!’, or ‘SHAME ON THE POLICE!’, or ‘FIND ELLIE NOW!’ on them. Nearly every single board had a photo of Ellie Morton: her grinning moon-shaped face surrounded by blonde curls, big green eyes crinkled up at whatever had tickled her.

Logan slowed the Audi as he drove by. Someone in a tweed jacket was doing a piece to camera, serious-faced as she probably told the world what a useless bunch of tossers Police Scotland were. Oh why hadn’t they found Ellie Morton yet? What about the poor family? Why did no one care?

As if.

The Audi bumped up the lumpy tarmac and into the rear podium car park. Pulled into the slot marked ‘RESERVED FOR PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS’. Some wag had graffitied a Grim Reaper on the wall beneath the sign. And, to be fair, it actually wasn’t a bad likeness of Superintendent Doig. Always nice to be appreciated by your colleagues…

Logan stuck his hat on his head, climbed out, and hurried across to the double doors, swerving to avoid the puddles. Along a breeze-block corridor and into the stairwell. Taking the steps two at a time.

A couple of uniformed PCs wandered downwards, chatting and smiling.

They flattened themselves against the wall as Logan approached, all talk silenced, both smiles turned into a sort of pained rictus.

The spotty one forced a little wave. ‘Inspector.’

Logan had made it as far as the third-floor landing when his phone dinged at him. Text message.

He pulled it out and frowned at the screen.

The caller ID came up as ‘HORRIBLE STEEL!’ and his shoulders sagged a bit. ‘What do you want, you wrinkly monster?’

He opened the message:

Come on, you know you want to.

Nope. Logan thumbed out a reply as he marched past the lifts:

Told you – I’m busy. Ask someone else.

He pushed through the doors and into a bland corridor that came with a faint whiff of paint fumes and Pot Noodle.

A tiny clump of support officers were sharing a joke, laughing it up.

Then one of them spotted Logan, prompting nudges and a sudden frightened silence.

Logan nodded at them as he passed, then knocked on the door with a white plastic plaque on it: ‘DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR STEPHEN HARDIE’.

A tired voice muffled out from inside. ‘Come.’

Logan opened the door.

Hardie’s office was all kitted out for efficiency, organisation, and achievement: six whiteboards covered in notes about various ongoing cases, the same number of filing cabinets, a computer that looked as if it wasn’t designed to run on coal or hamster power. A portrait of the Queen hung on the wall along with a collection of framed citations and a few photos of the man himself shaking hands with various local bigwigs. Everything you needed for investigatory success.

Sadly, it didn’t seem to be working.

Hardie was perched on the edge of his desk, feet not quite reaching the ground. A short middle-aged man with little round glasses. Dark hair swept back from a high forehead. A frown on his face as he flipped through a sheaf of paperwork.

He wasn’t the only occupant, though. A skeletal man with thinning hair was stooped by one of the whiteboards, printing things onto it in smudgy green marker pen.

And number three was chewing on a biro as she scanned the contents of her clipboard. Her jowls wobbling as she shook her head. ‘Pfff… Already got requests coming in from Radio Scotland and Channel 4 News. How the hell did they get hold of it so quickly?’

Hardie looked up from his papers and grimaced at Logan. ‘Ah, Inspector McRae. I would say “to what do we owe the pleasure?” but it seldom is.’

Number Three sniffed. ‘Only positive is they don’t know who our victim was.’

Number Two held up his pen. ‘Yet, George. They don’t know yet.’

George sighed. ‘True.’

Logan leaned against the door frame. ‘I take it Superintendent Doig’s been in touch?’

‘Urgh.’ Hardie thumped his paperwork down. ‘You know this is going to be a complete turd tornado. Soon as they find out we’ve got a murdered cop who faked his own death, it won’t just be a couple of TV crews out there. It’ll be all of them.’

‘Did you ever hear rumours about DI Bell? Backhanders, evidence going missing, corruption?’

‘Ding-Dong? Don’t be daft.’ Hardie folded his arms. ‘Now: we need to coordinate our investigations. PSD and MIT.’

‘Honest police officers don’t run off to Spain and lie low while everyone back home thinks they’re dead.’

‘You can have a couple of officers to assist with your inquiries.’ Hardie pointed at his jowly sidekick. ‘George will sort that out.’

She smiled at Logan. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t lump you with the neeps.’

‘Should think not. And I could do with a copy of the investigation into DI Bell’s so-called suicide, too.’

‘I think Charlie’s got that one.’

Sidekick number two nodded. ‘I’ll drop it off.’

Logan wandered over to the whiteboards and stood there, head on one side, running his eyes down all the open cases.

Hardie was trying on his authoritative voice: ‘My MIT will be focusing on catching whoever stabbed Ding-Dong. You can look into … his disappearance.’

Logan stayed where he was. ‘You’re running the search for Ellie Morton?’

‘I expect you to share any and all findings with my team. You report to me first.’

Aye, right. ‘And Superintendent Doig agreed to that? Doesn’t sound like him. I’d probably better check, you know: in case there’s been a misunderstanding.’

A harrumphing noise from Hardie. Busted.

Logan gave him a smile. ‘Ellie’s been missing for, what: four days?’

DS Scott tapped his pen on the whiteboard. ‘DI Fraser’s working that one. My money’s on the stepdad. Got form for indecent exposure when he was young. Once a pervert…’

A nod. ‘I’ll give Fraser a shout.’

Hardie harrumphed again. ‘If I can drag you back to the topic for a brief moment, Inspector: DI Bell’s files. Where are they?’

‘DS Rennie’s going through them.’ Logan turned and pulled on a smile. ‘You wanted us to look into the historic side of things, remember? Bell’s disappearance?’

A puzzled look. ‘But I only just told you that.’

Logan’s smile grew. ‘See: we’re already acting like a well-oiled machine.’