‘I really don’t... I’m not...’
But he does it anyway: pulling a pose and flashing victory Vs at his phone’s camera as it clicks. The two of them captured forever on the screen.
Sally flinches.
He puts his phone back in his pocket. ‘You sure you’re OK?’
A nod. Holding it in. Please go away. PLEASE GO AWAY!
His smile never slips. ‘OK. Great. Well, really nice to meet you. Keep up the good work!’ He gives her a thumbs up, then sticks his headphones on again and lumbers off. ‘Sally MacAuley... Wow!’
Soon as he’s gone, Sally hits herself on the head — thumping her fist into the hair above her ear, making it ring. Then again, harder. And again. ‘Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!’
What the hell was she thinking?
She stands, grabs the stroller and wheels the teddy bear towards the exit. Past the play area with its happy children and mothers too tired, or too stupid to realise that every single moment with their sons and daughters has to be cherished. Because someone can come along and take it all away in an instant.
She scrubs a hand across her eyes as she gets to the car park. Wheels the stroller over to her rusty old Shogun and opens the boot. It’s full of empty feed bags and drifts of orange baler twine, but Sally folds the stroller up and thrusts it inside anyway. Slams the boot shut and stands there, forehead resting against the scratched red bodywork. Scrunches her eyes closed and curls her hands into fists. ‘How could you be so stupid?’
Quarter to seven on a Saturday night and the streets were virtually deserted. Up above, the sky was still its burnt marmalade colour, the clouds lit from underneath by the city lights. But it had actually stopped raining for a change.
Logan took the slip road at the Lang Stracht junction, onto the dual carriageway, heading for Kingswells. Should be there in about, what, five minutes?
An overexcited DJ burbled out of the Audi’s stereo. ‘...is dinner with local crime writer J.C. Williams and the chance to be a character in her next PC Munro book!’
His phone dinged and buzzed, announcing an incoming text.
Well tough. He was driving.
‘And bidding for that stands at two thousand and sixty pounds. Let’s see if we can get it to three grand by the end of the show!’
Right at the roundabout, up the hill past the park-and-ride. Trees crowded both sides of the road, leaves shiny and dark. Glistening in the row of street lights.
This time, his phone didn’t bother dinging, it launched straight into ‘If I Only Had A Brain’. Logan pressed the button on the steering wheel and the radio faded to silence. ‘Simon.’
Rennie’s voice boomed out. ‘First up: Biohazard Bob says thanks for arresting Crowbar Craig. He owes you a pint or two.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘Oh yeah, it’s absolutely lovely. I’m the one got punched in the face! Where’s my pints?... Wait, you sound like you’re in a car. Are you in a car?’
‘What’s second up?’
‘Did you abandon me at the ranch and sod off to do something more exciting instead?’
‘I need to check those antidepressants at Chalmers’ house. You were busy doing things, remember? Now: second up.’
A grunt, a groan, then, ‘OK, OK... Had a word with a mate of mine in DI Fraser’s MIT. They’ve got an address for where DI Bell was staying: the Netherley Arms. They’re keeping it top secret.’
The road skirted Kingswells, orange and grey pantile roofs visible over high garden fences.
‘Odds on it’ll be all over the Aberdeen Examiner tomorrow morning.’
‘And third up, but not least up: I nagged the team looking through the CCTV footage for DS Chalmers’ car, like you asked.’
Left at the junction and into darkest Kingswells. They’d made some effort with the planting, but it was still a sprawling collection of housing estates, bolted together by cutesy-woodsey-named roads.
‘And?’
‘Not great. Automatic number plate recognition only works if you’ve got the car on camera and there’s only so much of Aberdeen that’s covered in cameras.’
‘Hmmm...’ Logan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, How the hell were they meant to find out where Chalmers had been with no clues, witnesses, or evidence?
‘Does it matter where she went? I mean, if she killed herself...?’
‘It matters because she thought she had a lead on the Ellie Morton abduction, but she didn’t want to share it. We need to know.’
‘Ah, OK. In that case, maybe we’d be better off trying to track her mobile phone instead?’
He’d walked right into that one.
Logan grinned. ‘Good idea. Off you go then.’
‘Gah...! But it’s quarter to seven. On a Saturday! I knew I should’ve stayed at home...’
‘You’re SIO now, remember? SIOs get to go home when the work’s done.’
Silence.
Logan took a right, then a left, following the satnav.
A long, grudging sigh huffed out of the speakers. Then, ‘All right, all right. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Let me know.’ Logan thumbed the button and hung up.
The DJ on the stereo got louder again. ‘...twenty pounds from Marion at Chesney’s Discount Carpet Warehouse in Milltimber if I’ll give a big shout-out to all their staff and customers. Done and done, Marion!’
He pulled onto Chalmers’ road, with its collection of boxy wee houses and too-small built-in garages, no two exactly identical, but all cobbled together from the same basic building blocks. As if someone had swallowed a whole bellyful of Lego then vomited it up.
‘You’re listening to Mair Banging Tunes with me, Kenny Mair, and we’re raising money for the Ellie Morton Reward Fund! Next up for auction: dinner for two at Nick Nairn’s—’
Logan killed the radio and parked.
Surprisingly enough, the street wasn’t as dead as it could have been. Maybe because it was a secluded cul-de-sac, far from the main road? But there were actually kids out riding bicycles, playing in the streetlight, people walking dogs. Lights on in every living room but one.
Chalmers’ house was in darkness. No car in the driveway.
Logan got out and walked up the path to the front door.
An old lady and her Dobermann pinscher stopped on the other side of the road to stare. Suppose anyone in a uniform would be big news here today. It wasn’t every Saturday you got to see the police attending a neighbour’s suicide.
Logan rang the doorbell.
No response.
Another go.
Still nothing.
A high-pitched voice sounded behind him. ‘Can I help you?’
He turned.
It was a young man: mid-twenties with a hipster haircut, Skeleton Bob T-shirt, flesh-tunnel earlobes, skinny jeans, and a Kermit the Frog tattoo on his arm — so new it was still swollen and covered in clingfilm. Kermit the Hipster pointed at the house. ‘He’s not in. Brian, Mr Chalmers, he’s not in. Went to stay with friends, I think. Cos of what happened.’ Kermit licked his lips, eyes shining. ‘My mum’s got a key, you know: for watering the plants and things when they’re on holiday. I can let you in, if you like?’
Logan gave the weird little man a nod. ‘Thanks. But I’d better check first.’