The Blood Road. Stuart MacBride
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this afternoon. Please call me back.’ He hung up. ‘Not that you will, because you haven’t the last three bloody times.’
Logan balanced another gobbet of macaroni, on the end of a crisp golden chip. Crunching as he scowled at his phone. ‘Fine, there’s more than one way to skin a snake.’ He picked another name from his contacts and set it ringing.
‘Ahoy-hoy?’ What sounded like rain hissed in the background.
‘Tufty? It’s Logan. I need a favour.’
There was a small pause, then, ‘Aunty Jane, how you doing?’
More macaroni, chewing around the words, ‘Have you fallen on your head again?’
‘No, no. I’m at work, though, so I can’t talk for long.’
‘Steel’s there, isn’t she?’
‘That’s right, the party’s tonight, isn’t it? Don’t know if I can make it though, depends on the case.’
‘Fine.’ Logan shook another dash of vinegar into the puddle of cheese sauce. ‘DS Lorna Chalmers didn’t show for her appointment. You’re on the same team: where is she?’
‘Ah… Don’t really know. I could find out though, if you like?’
Then Steel’s voice blared out in the middle distance. ‘Come on, Tufty, you gimp-flavoured spudhammer, make with the chicken curry pies! I’m starving here.’
‘Text me.’
‘Will do. OK, got to go. It’s—’
‘Aren’t you going to tell your aunty you love her, before you hang up, Tufty? How very rude.’
A groan crawled out of the earpiece. ‘OK, Aunty Jane. Love you. Bye.’
‘Should think so too.’
He ended the call and dug back into his macaroni again. Cheesy vinegary crunchy potatoey goodness.
Over by the canteen counter, the lone figure of DI Kim Fraser peeled away from the till and wandered into the middle of the room. Clearly looking for a seat. But everything was taken, except for Logan’s table. Even then she kept looking.
Logan slid one of the chairs out with his foot. ‘It’s OK, I don’t bite.’
She stood there, staring at him for a beat, then settled into the proffered seat. The heady smell of spices wafted up from her plate – heaped with Friday’s curry special: chicken madras, rice, vegetable pakora, and naan bread, according to the board on the wall.
Logan gave her a wee shrug. ‘After all, no one wants to sit with either of us.’
‘People want to sit with me. Why wouldn’t people want to sit with me?’
‘People look at me, all they see is Professional Standards. People look at you and they see fast-tracked graduate-scheme “tosspot”.’ He held up a hand. ‘Not what I see, it’s what they see. We’ve got guys who’ve been on the job for twenty years and they still haven’t made it as far as sergeant. You’re, what, twenty-six?’
A blush darkened her cheeks. ‘Twenty-nine.’
‘And already a detective inspector. Some people feel threatened by that.’
‘Hmmph…’ Fraser crunched down one of the veggie pakora. ‘I take it you saw Ellie’s mum’s press conference.’
‘How can you eat that when there’s perfectly good macaroni cheese and chips on offer?’
‘How is it our fault? Tell me that!’
‘And if you go near my chips I will stab you with a fork.’
‘She’s the one abandoned her three-year-old daughter in the back garden to nip out for booze and fags! If she’d been a halfway decent parent, Ellie wouldn’t have been snatched.’
Logan put down his fork and looked at her. Silent.
Fraser groaned. ‘All right, all right: I know. But still… That doesn’t make it our fault.’
‘Imagine if you were her. Would you want to admit you were responsible? How would you live with yourself?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Fraser chewed on her curry for a bit. ‘And I’m not a “tosspot”, thank you very much. I had to do a law degree to get on the fast-track programme. You try it if you think it’s so easy.’
‘Whoever took Ellie, it has to be someone who knows the area, right?’
‘Back garden’s got a path behind it. Anyone walking past would see Ellie’d been left on her own.’
Logan scooped a chip through the cheese sauce. ‘You run a check on sex offenders living nearby?’
‘And not just Tillydrone. We did Hayton, Hilton, Sandilands, Powis, and Ashgrove too. Interviewed the lot of them. Checked alibis. Nothing.’
Over in the corner someone launched into ‘Happy Birthday to You’. One by one the other tables took it up and belted it out. The only ones not joining in were Logan and Fraser.
She dug into her curry again. ‘Of course the smart money is on the stepfather, but he interviews clean.’
‘Alibi?’
‘Playing video games, drinking Special Brew, and smoking dope at a friend’s house.’
‘Sounds like an excellent role model.’
‘Tell you, Inspector, I’ve scraped things off the bottom of my shoe with more—’
The song reached a deafening climax, complete with operatic wobbling harmonies and a hearty round of applause with extra cheering.
Fraser shrugged when it was quiet again. ‘Five to one, when Ellie’s body turns up, her stepdad’s DNA is all over her.’
‘If her body turns up.’
‘Yeah. If.’ She jabbed a pakora with her fork and gesticulated with it. ‘Course, if we can break his alibi it’s a different story. Assuming DS Chalmers has bothered her backside to even try. And before you say anything: I know. I should’ve sent someone else. She’s had enough last chances.’
Logan put his fork down. ‘Why didn’t you come to me sooner?’
‘Because… When you were in CID, would you have shopped one of your team to the Rubber Heelers? Of course not. No one…’ She cleared her throat. Ate her pakora. ‘Bad example. But the rest of us wouldn’t. Not unless there was no other option.’
‘There wasn’t. And I did it for the same reason you are. Sometimes people don’t leave us any choice.’
His phone dinged, a new message filling the screen.
TUFTY:
It is I, SUPERTUFTY! Scourge of naughty people! A tiny birdy tells me the GPS on DS Chalmers’s Airwave puts her at/near Huge Gay Bill’s Bar & Grill, Northfield.
Logan polished off the last glistening tubes of macaroni and stood. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the pub.’
The building was set back from the road – an oversized mock Northeast farmhouse, long and low, with white walls, gable ends, a grey slate roof, and dormer windows. The Scottish vernacular charm was somewhat undermined by the big neon sign towering over the entrance in shades of yellow and green: ‘HUGE GAY BILL’S BAR & GRILL!’ It steamed and fizzed in the drizzle.
Only two vehicles sat in the large car park, a gleaming Land Rover Discovery and a mud-spattered Fiat. Chalmers’ Fiat. Logan parked two spaces down. Clambered out and hurried into the pub.
Inside, the place