LITMIR.BIZ

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hour. If we’ve not found anything by then we’re calling it a day.’ The inspector proffered the almost-empty bag of sweets and the PC took one, popping it into his mouth with obvious delight. ‘No one can say we’ve not taken the search seriously.’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ he mumbled, still eating.

      DI Insch dismissed the munching constable and beckoned Logan and WPC Watson over. ‘Post mortem,’ he said without preamble, listening to Logan’s account of the desecration of David Reid’s body in the exact same way he’d listened to the search team progress reports. Silent. Impassive. Stuffing his face. He finished off the cola bottles and brought out a packet of wine gums.

      ‘Wonderful,’ he said when Logan had finished. ‘So we’ve got a paedophile serial killer running around Aberdeen.’

      ‘Not necessarily,’ said Watson, accepting a little orange lozenge with ‘SHERRY’ embossed on the top. ‘There’s only one body, not a series, and the killer may not even be local …’

      Insch merely shook his head.

      Logan took a ‘PORT’. ‘The body lay undisturbed for three months. The killer even went back, long after rigor mortis had set in, and took a souvenir. He had to know his hiding place was safe. That screams “local”. The fact that he came back and took a bit of the body means this is something special to him. Your man’s not done this on a whim: he’s been thinking about it for a long time. This is some sort of ritual fantasy he’s acting out. He’s going to do it again. If he hasn’t already.’

      Insch agreed. ‘I want all missing child reports for the last year pulled. Get the list up on the wall over there. Chances are some of them may have crossed this sick bastard’s path.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Oh and, Logan,’ said the DI, carefully folding the wine gum packet shut and stuffing it back in his pocket. ‘I had a call from the Journal. They tell me you’ve been up there leaning on their new golden boy.’

      Logan nodded. ‘Colin Miller: used to work on the Scottish Sun. He’s the one that—’

      ‘Did I ask you to go antagonizing the newspapers, Sergeant?’

      Logan’s mouth snapped shut. Pause. ‘No, sir. We were in the neighbourhood and I thought—’

      ‘Sergeant,’ said DI Insch, slowly and deliberately. ‘I’m glad you’re thinking. That’s a good sign. Something I encourage in my officers.’ There was a big ‘but’ coming: Logan could feel it. ‘But I don’t expect them to go off and annoy the local press without permission. We’re going to have to put out appeals to the public. We’re going to have to do damage limitation if someone screws something up in the investigation. We’re going to need these people on our side.’

      ‘This morning you said—’

      ‘This morning I said I’d nail whoever spoke to the press. And I will. This is our screw-up, not the paper’s. Understand?’

      He’d screwed up. WPC Watson suddenly took a great deal of interest in her shoes as Logan said, ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

      ‘OK.’ Insch picked a sheet of paper off the desk and handed it to a suitably chastised Detective Sergeant McRae. ‘The search teams haven’t found a thing. Surprise, surprise. There’s an underwater search unit doing the river, but the rain’s made it almost impossible. The damn thing’s already broken its banks in about a million places. We’re lucky the body was found at all. Another couple of days and the river would’ve swamped the ditch and whoosh …’ He swept his hand past, the fingertips sparkling with little grains of sugar from the cola bottles. ‘David Reid’s body would’ve been washed right out into the North Sea. Next stop Norway. We’d never have found it.’

      Logan tapped the post mortem report against his teeth, his eyes focused on a spot just above DI Insch’s bald head. ‘Maybe it’s too much of a coincidence?’ he said, frowning. ‘David Reid’s been lying there for three months, but if no one finds him before the river bursts its banks, he’s never going to be found.’ His eyes drifted back to the inspector. ‘He gets swept out to sea and the story never hits the papers. No publicity. The killer can’t read about his achievements. There’s no feedback.’

      Insch nodded. ‘Good thinking. Get someone to drag the finder …’ He checked his notes. ‘Mr Duncan Nicholson. Get him in here and give him a proper grilling, not the half-arsed one he got last night. If the man’s got any skeletons in his closet I want to know about them.’

      ‘I’ll get an area car to—’ was as far as Logan got before the door to the incident room burst open and a breathless PC screeched to a halt.

      ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Another kid’s gone missing.’

       6

      Richard Erskine’s mother was overweight, overwrought and not much more than a child herself. The lounge of her middle terrace house in Torry was packed with photos in little wooden frames, all showing the same thing: a grinning Richard Erskine. Five years old. Blond hair, squint teeth, dimpled cheeks, big glasses. The child’s life was mapped out in the claustrophobic room, from birth right through to … Logan stopped that thought before it could go any further.

      The mother’s name was Elisabeth: twenty-one, pretty enough if you ignored the swollen eyes, streaked mascara and bright red nose. Her long black hair was scraped back from her round face and she paced the room with frantic energy, eating her fingernails until the quicks bled.

      ‘He’s got him, hasn’t he?’ she was saying, over and over again, her voice shrill and panicky. ‘He’s got Richie! He’s got him and he’s killed him!’

      Logan shook his head. ‘Now we don’t know that. Your son might just have forgotten the time.’ He scanned the photograph-laden walls again, trying to find one in which the child looked genuinely happy. ‘How long has he been missing?’

      She stopped pacing and stared at him. ‘Three hours! I already told her that!’ She flapped a chewed hand in WPC Watson’s direction. ‘He knows I worry about him! He wouldn’t be late! He wouldn’t.’ Her bottom lip trembled and tears started to well up in her eyes again. ‘Why aren’t you out there finding him?’

      ‘We’ve got patrol cars and officers out there right now looking for your son, Mrs Erskine. Now I need you to tell me what happened this morning. When he went missing?’

      Mrs Erskine wiped her eyes and nose on the back of her sleeve. ‘He was supposed … supposed to come straight back from the shops. Some milk and a packet of chocolate biscuits … He was supposed to come straight back!’

      She started to cross the lounge again, back and forth, back and forth.

      ‘Which shops did he go to?’

      ‘The ones on the other side of the school. It’s not far! I don’t normally let him go on his own, but I had to stay in!’ She sniffed. ‘The man was coming to fix the washing machine. They wouldn’t give me a time! Just some time in the morning. I never would have let him out on his own otherwise!’ She bit down on her lip and the sobbing intensified. ‘It’s all my fault!’

      ‘Have you got a friend or a neighbour who could stay with …’

      Watson pointed at the kitchen. A used-looking older woman emerged carrying a tray of tea things: two mugs only. The police weren’t expected to stay for tea, they were expected to get out there and start looking for the missing five-year-old.

      ‘It’s a disgrace, so it is,’ said the older woman, putting the tea tray down on top of a pile of Cosmopolitans on the coffee table. ‘Letting perverts like that run around! They should a’ be in prison! It’s no’ as if there’s no one handy!’ She was talking about Craiginches, the walled prison just around the corner from the house.

      Elisabeth Erskine

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