Logan held up his hands. ‘We’re running tests now, but we don’t think it’s Fred Marshall.’
She scraped her chair back and stood. ‘THEN WHERE IS HE?’
People at the surrounding tables fell quiet. Everyone looking at them.
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ Voice soft and patient. ‘We want to make sure he’s safe, OK?’
Tait got to her feet and wrapped an arm around her colleague. ‘Shhh... It’s all right, Mags. I’m sure it isn’t Freddie.’
‘I’ve known him since he was a little boy.’ She stayed where she was, trembling, the food-court lights sparkling in her wet eyes. ‘I sang at his wedding...’
‘Look, Mrs McCready, Mrs Tait, Fred had a reputation as a thug for hire.’ Another placating gesture. ‘I’m not saying he was one, I’m saying that was his reputation. Do you know who he worked for?’
Tait glanced at Rennie and his notebook again. ‘Are you honestly expecting us to inform on a service user?’
‘He’s been missing for two and a bit years. You and I both know there’s only three possibilities: he’s gone straight, he did something so bad he had to do a runner—’
‘Or he’s dead.’ Mrs McCready lowered herself back into her seat and sagged a bit further.
Tait put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Freddie isn’t a bad person, Inspector, he simply... Look: the last meeting we had he turned up with this lovely lady’s watch for Mags. He’d won some cash on the horses and wanted to treat her. Had the receipt and everything. He was so proud of himself.’
Logan nodded. ‘I still need to know who he was working for.’
‘Freddie didn’t have the opportunities you and I had. Yes, he could be difficult, but he was turning his life around. Getting married to Irene was the best thing he ever did.’
No point pushing it. Instead, Logan let the silence stretch. Sitting there, watching the pair of them.
A couple of wee kids thundered past: the girl in a dinosaur onesie with fairy wings and a tiara, chasing a boy dressed up like a Disney princess complete with wand.
Over in the distance someone dropped a cup or a plate and got a round of applause in reward.
Mrs McCready wiped at her eyes.
Maureen Tait fidgeted.
Logan just watched.
A ragged chorus of ‘The Northern Lights Of Old Aberdeen’ broke out in Yo! Sushi.
Tait groaned. ‘All right, all right.’ Then jabbed a finger at Rennie. ‘But this is strictly off the record and if it comes up in court we’ll deny the whole thing. Are we clear?’
Logan nodded. ‘Agreed.’
‘Aw...’ But Rennie put his pen down anyway.
‘All right.’ She cleared her throat. ‘He might have mentioned something about a broker who put work his way from time to time.’
‘A broker?’
‘Someone called “Jerry the Mole”. And no, I don’t know any more than that.’ Tait picked up the big ring binder and jammed it into her massive handbag. ‘Now if you’ll excuse us, our co-worker’s getting married next weekend, and we’ve a hen party to buy inflatable willies for.’ She snapped out a hand and grabbed Logan and Rennie’s packets of shortbread, stuffing them into her pocket as she flounced off. ‘Come on, Mags.’
Mrs McCready nodded, then hauled herself to her feet and slouched off after her colleague.
Rennie watched them go, then reached across the table and helped himself to the half-eaten sticky bun and raisin whirl. ‘Welclass="underline" waste not, want not.’
The sounds of Divisional Headquarters thrummed along the corridor: voices, phones, laughter, the elliptical dubstep whump-whump-whump of a floor polisher.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake.’ Logan let go and the door to his temporary office bounced off one of the desks crammed inside. Empty. Not a single minion to be seen. Nothing but furniture and carpet stains. So much for DCI Hardie and his we-need-to-coordinate-our-investigations speech.
Logan propelled Rennie inside with a little shove, pointing at one of the ancient computers. ‘You, Gruntmonkey: go find Jerry the Mole.’
‘Gah...’ The boy idiot slouched over to the computer, popping on an Igor-from-Frankenstein voice. ‘Yeth mathhhhhter.’
‘And when you’ve done that: make sure you do your report for the PF. And if anyone asks, I’m off to kick DS Robertson’s backside till I get my promised minions.’
He turned and marched down the corridor, up the stairs, and onto the MIT floor. Past posters and notices. Past a handful of plainclothes officers who scattered away from him like sparrows before a cat. And through into the MIT incident room.
Unlike his office, this one was full of minions. Officers on the phone, officers writing things up on the whiteboards, officers hammering away at their keyboards. Officers doing things.
Detective Sergeant Robertson sat on the edge of someone’s desk, making notes on her clipboard as a Spacehopper-round PC with a Donald Trump tan talked to someone else on the phone. The reconstruction of DI Bell’s face sat in the middle of his monitor.
PC Spacehopper nodded. ‘Uh-huh... Uh-huh... OK... OK, yeah. Hold on...’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Robertson. ‘It’s a match. Definite. Manager says he checked in last Monday.’
She punched the air. ‘Yes! Tell them we’ll be right over.’
‘Hello? Mr Murdoch? Don’t touch anything, we’re on our way.’
Robertson hopped down from the desk and took out her mobile phone. Froze as she saw Logan standing right there in front of her. Then pulled on an uncomfortable-looking smile. ‘Inspector McRae.’
‘George. You promised me some staff to chase stuff up. Where are they?’
‘Ah. Yes.’ Getting quicker with every word. ‘Well, we thought... that is, DCI Hardie thought, that as yours is a historical cold case investigation and we’re hunting an active murderer, we would maybe release someone when there was more time?’ Another go with the smile. ‘Sir.’
Rotten bunch of...
Logan stared at her.
A shrug. ‘Sorry?’
He turned and marched away.
Water gurgled in the downpipes around the back of Divisional Headquarters. Presumably run-off from the mortuary roof, because it had actually stopped raining for once.
A chunk of sunlight snuck through a gap in the clouds to turn this bit of tarmac and granite into a tiny grey suntrap. And, as was traditional in Aberdeen, someone was out enjoying it before it disappeared.
Sheila Dalrymple leaned against the mortuary wall, one long thin leg bent at the knee — its white welly resting against the blockwork, the other smeared with something dark-red-and-brown. She was dressed in her full Anatomical Pathology Technician get-up: blue scrubs, green plastic apron, and fetching grey hairnet. A steaming mug of something in one long-fingered hand, at the end of her long pale arm. Wide flat face turned to the sun.
Logan wandered over. ‘Sheila.’
She didn’t move, just stood there with her eyes closed. Sunning herself. ‘If it’s about that sponsorship money, I’m skint.’
‘DI Bell’s remains.’
A tiny snort. The words hard and bitter: ‘Ah, the duplicitous Detective Inspector Bell. And are we here about the body you exhumed from his grave, or the one you pulled from his crashed car?’
‘Are you feeling all right?’
‘Because if you’re here about that rotting pile of meat and bones, you’re crap out of luck.’
‘You don’t sound all right.’
She cradled the mug against her chest. ‘There are two hundred and six bones in an adult human body, not counting the thirty-two teeth. You know what we got out of that grave? One hundred and fifty-two. As the great man said: “The shotgun is an unforgiving mistress when it practises its art upon the human cranium.”’