In the Cold Dark Ground (46 page)

Narveer sucked on his teeth for a bit. Then shook his head. ‘A right cocking mess.’

Really? What gave it away?

A pair of ambulances blocked the road with their boxy white bodies, blue-and-white lights flickering on and off – catching the snow as it fell.

Logan ducked under the yellow-and-black cordon of tape: ‘
C
RIME
S
CENE
D
O
N
OT
E
NTER
’. He pointed at the ambulance furthest away. ‘I’m going to take her home, if that’s OK?’

The DI puffed out his cheeks. ‘Professional Standards are on their way. Going to be the mother, father, and maiden aunt of all internal investigations.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Logan looked back along the road, where someone in a white SOC suit was photographing Detective Sergeant Becky McKenzie’s body. ‘Been a rough night all round.’

Torches swung along the slope below them, wielded by more figures in oversuits – ghosts in the dark, hunting for evidence.

A patrol car sat inside the cordon, behind the Big Car. The woman in the back seat glowered out at them, knitted bunnet wedged down over her ears. Not bright enough to do a runner before reinforcements turned up. Reuben certainly knew how to pick them.

She bared her teeth at Logan, through the glass.

He waved back. ‘Hope your handcuffs are so tight your fingers fall off.’

Narveer shook his head. ‘She can’t hear you.’

‘It’s the thought that counts.’

‘Yeah… You really need some time off, don’t you?’ He put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and steered him towards the ambulances. ‘Go. Get the boss home before she starts trying to take over the investigation.’

Logan ran a hand over his face. ‘Suppose we’ll both be suspended from active duty, till it’s dealt with.’

‘Probably.’

By which time he’d probably be in a cell looking at sixteen years.

Logan limped along the road, past the Range Rover with the shattered back window, and on towards the ambulances.

The one nearest had its back doors firmly shut, and he stuck up two fingers as he hobbled past to the other one.

Harper sat on the tailgate, a bottle of water in her hand and a silver blanket around her shoulders as if she’d just run a marathon. She blinked at him, then batted the paramedic away. ‘Get off.’

The wee man in the green overalls dumped a stained clump of cotton wool into a kidney dish, then pulled out another, using it to clean the blood off Harper’s cheek and forehead. ‘You’ve probably got concussion. Any idea how serious that can be? Because the answer’s
very
.’

The other ambulance growled as it pulled away. Accelerating as it passed them, its siren cutting through the snowy night.

Logan groaned to a halt. ‘Touch and go, but they’ll do their best.’

Harper sniffed. ‘Can’t believe you shot him in the head.’

‘Think I should’ve let him kill the pair of us instead?’

‘It’s going to take
weeks
to shampoo him out of my hair.’

‘Look into the light.’ The paramedic knelt in front of Harper and shone a pencil torch in her eyes. ‘Can you hear any—’

‘Seriously, if you don’t sod off right now, I’m going to arrest you.’

‘Fine. If that’s what you want.’ He put the torch away. ‘It’s your funeral.’

She climbed down onto the snow. The ambulance tyres had left four lines of black tarmac showing through, but everything else was slowly disappearing under a pall of white.

A roar of rotor blades
whupped
by overhead, a spotlight from the helicopter catching the trees in freeze-frame.

Logan led her over to one of the patrol cars arrayed along the road. ‘How’s the head?’

‘Sore. Yours?’

He touched the wad of gauze taped over the egg growing out of his skull. ‘Yes.’ He opened the door and helped Harper up into the passenger seat, then limped around to the driver’s side. Sagged for a minute, then started the engine. Clicked the headlights up full beam.

She turned in her seat, looking back towards the cordons and the vehicles and the ghosts. ‘What did you mean?’

Logan pulled the car away from the verge, one back wheel
vwipppping
on the snowy grass till the tyre took hold. ‘You can stay in the spare room tonight. Paramedics said you’re not supposed to be alone in case you die.’ At least it was safe to go home now, and he and Cthulhu were spared having to live out of a series of anonymous bed-and-breakfasts.

‘You told him, I wasn’t the one who screwed him over and made him look like an idiot.’

‘The paramedic?’

‘The big ugly fat guy with the scars.’ She tugged at a clotted coil of hair. ‘Mr Wash-And-Go.’

‘No I didn’t.’

A very clean grey van appeared over the crown of the hill, with ‘
B
EATON AND
M
ACBETH
’ in discreet lettering on the side. Andy and George waved at him as they passed. With one body at the foot of the cliff and another on the roadside, it was going to be a busy night for the duty undertakers.

Harper faced front again. ‘You did, I heard you.’

‘No, I said I made him look like a moron.’

‘And?’

As they crested the hill, Logan’s phone started dinging and bleeping – text messages coming in after all that time in the gully.

‘And I was trying to piss him off. Get him angry and distracted.’

‘Yes, but why pick that?’

‘Worked, didn’t it?’

‘You know there’s going to be an inquiry.’

And he was screwed whether Reuben regained consciousness or not. Gavin Jones would probably last about fifteen minutes before spilling his guts, and it would all be over for Sergeant Logan Balmoral McRae. ‘Good.’

He flicked the windscreen wipers up a notch, clearing the glass as the snowfall thickened.

The world was a swirling mess of white and grey – visibility down to a dozen feet. Logan dipped the headlights. It helped a bit.

She cleared her throat. ‘Thank you. For not letting him blow my head off.’

A shrug. ‘What are big brothers for?’

The wipers squealed and groaned.

The grey-white world slid by.

‘Logan? When—’ Harper’s Airwave handset gave four beeps.

‘
DS Robertson to Detective Superintendent Harper, safe to talk?
’

She sighed, then pulled it out and pressed the button. ‘Go ahead, Robertson.’

‘
Yeah, listen, Boss: are you still needing us to lockdown the Milne place? Only my guys were meant to be off-shift half an hour ago. Someone coming to relieve us?
’

Harper turned and widened her eyes at Logan, giving him a flash of teeth. ‘You stay where you are, Robertson – I’ll OK the overtime. Sergeant McRae and I are on our way.’

‘
Boss.
’

Logan sighed. ‘We’ve been involved in a fatal shooting. They won’t want us on active duty. We—’

‘Has anyone
officially
said you can’t take part in an active investigation?’

‘Not officially, no.’ He kept his eyes on the road. ‘Sure you don’t want to go home?’

‘Oh I’m absolutely positive. I’ve had a
very
bad day, and Martin Sodding Milne is going to find out what that feels like.’

Logan pulled up outside number six, Greystone View.

The lights of Whitehills were blocked out by the blizzard, thick sheets of heavy snow howling in on a wind that hammered the trees and gardens. A gust rocked the patrol car on its springs. He killed the engine.

Snow moaned and hissed against the roof.

Another patrol car was parked in front of them and the passenger door popped open, disgorging a skeletal lump in a high-viz jacket. DS Robertson hurried over, bent almost double by the wind. He rapped on the car window and Logan clicked the keys in the ignition far enough to buzz it down.

The wind growled.

‘Thought you’d forgotten about us.’ Flakes of white clung to his ludicrous sideburns, weighing them down.

‘Any movement?’

‘Sod all. Light’s been on all night, but the curtains have barely twitched. No one in or out, as per.’

Harper clunked her door open and climbed into the snow. Stuck her hand out. ‘DS Robertson, can I have your cuffs?’

A shrug. ‘Don’t see why not.’ He passed them over as Logan buzzed up the window and creaked his way out of the car. It was as if his joints had all rusted on the twenty-minute drive over here. The muscles in his arms and legs ached, his back complaining as he struggled his way into a high-viz jacket. He puffed out a breath and waited for the worst of it to pass.

‘You OK?’ Robertson was frowning at him. ‘Only you look like crap.’

‘Yeah. Hang on for ten minutes, OK? Just in case.’ He turned his shoulder to the wind and fought his way up the drive, cold leeching through his damp boots into his damp socks.

Harper stamped along beside him, using him as a windbreak.

Logan leaned on the bell. Turned his back on the blizzard. Snow thumped into his shoulders, threatening to tear the peaked cap from his head. ‘Samantha was right, I should have gone to Spain.’

‘What’s in Spain?’

‘Complications.’

The door remained firmly closed.

He tried the doorbell again, keeping his thumb on it.

Harper moved in closer, so she was sheltered from the snow. ‘Sod this. Not standing out here like a pair of idiots while Milne sits in there laughing at us.’ She nodded at the door. ‘Sergeant, I have reason to believe Martin Milne’s family is in danger and we should force entry. Agreed?’

Logan tried the handle.

Locked.

He mashed the bell again. ‘Don’t think I’m really up to kicking it down.’

‘Hold on.’ Harper put a hand on his arm as a shadow fell across the glass beside the door.

There was a
click
, and then the shadow faded again.

This time, when Logan tried the handle, the door swung open, letting a flurry of snow twirl into the hall.

They hurried inside, shutting the door behind them, just in time to see Katie Milne disappear into the kitchen, what looked like a bottle of champagne in one hand.

Logan followed her, pausing to check the lounge and the downstairs bathroom on the way. No sign of Milne.

Katie had her back to them as they entered the kitchen, putting two mugs down in front of the rattling kettle. ‘Is tea all right? I don’t have any coffee.’ Her voice was soggy – slow and muffled – as if her mouth wasn’t working properly. She raised the bottle of champagne and swigged from it. ‘Or there’s wine, if you’d rather?’

Logan unzipped his jacket. ‘Mrs Milne, where’s your husband?’

She turned. Her chin was covered in dried blood, bottom lip all swollen and cracked. Which explained the voice. A single white tooth sat on a saucer by the sink. ‘He’s in the garage.’ She pointed at the far wall, then took another swig. Blinked in slow motion. ‘Would you like biscuits?’

Harper nodded. ‘Sergeant, invite Mr Milne to join us.’

Logan limped back out into the hall, following the vague direction of the pointed finger down to a door at the far end. It opened on a breezeblock garage, with a dark-blue Aston Martin parked in it.

Milne was on the floor.

He lay face-down on the concrete, naked, with both hands tied behind his back. Torso and legs covered in bruises. Wine bottles lay scattered around him, a couple of them broken, the heady winey smell mingling with the butcher-shop tang of blood and offal. A black plastic bag was duct-taped over his head.

Katie Milne ran a finger along the countertop. ‘They came in the back way, over the garden wall. Didn’t see them till they were barging in through the French doors.’

Two cups of tea sat on the table, untouched.

Harper stared. ‘And they killed him? Right there, in front of you?’

‘They said I had to watch as punishment.’ She reached into a pocket and came out with a small white plastic tub. The kind that pills came in. ‘I had to tell everyone what happened to people who couldn’t be trusted.’

‘Notebook, Sergeant.’ Harper snapped her fingers at Logan. Back to Katie. ‘Can you describe them?’

She shook her head. ‘They were wearing … I don’t know, masks or something.’ Katie dropped the container into the bin. Took another swig of champagne then went to put the bottle down, but missed the worktop. It hit the floor and shattered, spattering out frothing wine that hissed and fizzed against the tiles.

Logan didn’t bother with the notebook. ‘And then you cleaned the kitchen?’

‘What?’ Katie turned towards the fridge and its display of childish drawings.

‘Where’s Ethan?’

‘Didn’t you hear me? They killed my husband.’

He pointed at the floor. ‘You say they came in from the garden, which is under about two feet of snow, but the tiles are bone dry.’ Well, everywhere except for the bit covered in champagne. ‘So’s the laminate in the hall
and
the garage floor.’

She took a picture of a cow jumping over a rainbow from the fridge door. ‘Ethan’s always been very sensitive.’

‘Mrs Milne? When all this happened, why didn’t you alert the patrol car parked right outside?’

‘They always tell you children are so resilient, don’t they? That they can get over anything, given enough time.’

‘Did you kill your husband, Mrs Milne?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Her voice was getting slower. More slurred.

‘Logan?’ Harper picked up four bits of paper from the kitchen table. It looked as if they used to be a single sheet, torn into ragged quarters, one side covered in neat blue handwriting. ‘Listen to this: “Dear Katie. I can’t go on like this. I’m tired of being scared all the time, I’m tired of the threats and the violence. I’m tired of never knowing what’s going to set you off. By the time you read this, Ethan and I will be long gone.”’

Katie shook her head. ‘No.’

‘“I should never have lied for you. As soon as we’re out of the country I’m going to tell the police that gangsters didn’t murder Peter, it was you. I’ll tell them I only helped you cover it up because you threatened to kill yourself and my son.”’ Harper looked up from the torn letter. ‘“You need help, Katie. You need to tell the police what you’ve done. Ethan deserves better than this.”’ She lowered the fragments to the table. ‘“Martin”.’

‘How could he be so
selfish
.’ Katie held the picture against her chest. ‘Taking my baby from me. My baby.’

Logan’s eyes flicked to the bin. The empty tub of pills.

Oh no…

‘Where’s your son, Mrs Milne? I need to see him right now.’ Logan waved a hand at Harper. ‘Go: search the bedrooms.’

‘You should have seen Ethan’s face when he found out about his father.’ She stared down at her hands. ‘Broke my heart.’

Harper scrambled out into the hall, pulling out her Airwave. ‘DS Robertson, I need you in here!’

A copy of the
Aberdeen Examiner
sat on the worktop, by the kettle. Someone had been having a bash at the crossword. Katie flicked it over, exposing the front page. ‘
H
UNT
C
ONTINUES
F
OR
S
TUDENT
E
MILY’S
K
ILLER
’ above a photograph of a young woman in a leather jacket grinning away outside a pub somewhere.

Katie picked it up and knelt by the broken champagne bottle, spreading the newspaper out beside her and dropping shards of green glass onto it. Wine soaked into the paper, darkening it. ‘He told me it was only the one time. That it was a mistake, he loved
me
. We were a family.’

‘Mrs Milne, please: where’s Ethan? Is he safe?’

‘I mean, Peter Shepherd? Martin and Peter, together? He’d been in my house
so
many times. He was Ethan’s godfather. How could they
do
that?’ She shook her head. ‘They were going to take my baby from me.’

‘LOGAN!’ Harper’s voice boomed out from somewhere deep inside the house. ‘LOGAN, CALL AN AMBULANCE!’

Katie Milne wadded up the newspaper and dumped it in the bin. Then put the drawing back on the fridge. ‘He was always so sensitive.’