In the Cold Dark Ground (9 page)

Banff sulked beneath the heavy lid of stone sky, the buildings crouched together in the rain. Tufty took them in through the limits and down the hill. ‘Station?’

‘Pennan.’ Logan pressed the talk button on his Airwave. ‘Maggie, I need you to look someone up for me. Peter Shepherd, lives in Pennan.’

‘
Give me a minute, Sergeant McRae, the MIT are hogging all the bandwidth so everything’s running like a slug.
’

Tufty took a right, onto Castle Street – its rows of old-fashioned buildings giving way to the same buildings but with shops occupying the ground floor. ‘Sarge, should we not… You know, tell DCI Steel that Shepherd’s her corpse?’

‘No guarantee it’s him, Tufty. We’re just doing a bit of legwork. Making sure we don’t waste anyone’s time.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘When Mrs Milne reported her husband missing, did you go talk to everyone at his company?’

‘No one had seen him since Friday. He bunked off early, about half three, which was par for the course.’

‘What about Shepherd?’

He shrugged. ‘Didn’t ask. We were looking for Milne, didn’t even know Shepherd existed.’

Which was fair enough.

A handful of bodies tramped through the rain, bent nearly double under its relentless assault. All the cars had their headlights on, edging along not much faster than the people on the pavement.

‘What about this Brian person, the other partner?’

Something crawled across Tufty’s face, wrinkling bits of it, before fading away, leaving him smooth as a baby’s backside. ‘Got him: Brian Chapman. Financial Director. Big sticky-out mole on his forehead.’

‘That it?’

‘Didn’t know where Milne was, and seemed genuinely worried when I told him we’d found Milne’s car abandoned, Sunday night.’

‘
Sergeant McRae? I’ve got three speeding tickets over the last six years and that’s it.
’

‘Vehicles?’

‘
Two registered at his property: a Mitsubishi Warrior and a Porsche Nine-Eleven.
’

That explained the speeding tickets. Mind you, you’d have to be an optimist to own a Porsche in Pennan. A rear-wheel-drive sports car? And that hill? In winter? Be lucky if you got it out of the garage half the year.

‘
Do you want me to check if he made any complaints?
’

‘Please. And the phone number.’

The sandstone spire of Banff Parish Church went by the passenger window. A group of OAPs, dressed like carrion crows, shuffled in through the door, single file. A couple of floral tributes sat either side of the entrance as the minister shook hands with each and every one of them. Probably holding a sweepy in his head as to who he’d have to bury next.

Tufty chewed on his lip. ‘Sarge, are you
sure
DCI Steel isn’t going to blow a hairy when she finds out we didn’t come clean about Shepherd?’

The road swept around to the left, then past the football pitch and the golf course.

‘Sarge?’

‘Tell me about Martin Milne.’

He blew out a breath. Screwed up his face for a moment. Then, ‘OK. Martin Carter Milne, thirty, BA in business from Robert Gordons University, married to Katie Milne, one child: Ethan, six. Drives a dark-blue Aston Martin DB9. Very swish. Really wanted a go in it, but Traffic pulled rank.’

‘Impounded?’

‘Secure parking in Mintlaw. Mrs Milne can pick it up anytime she likes.’ The Big Car bumped over the bridge. The River Deveron was a swollen grey snake, rasping at its banks below, surging out into the bay. ‘Milne got a caution for aggravated assault three years ago. Fiscal didn’t take it to court because he was wading in to break up a fight at a Bloo Toon, Elgin City match. Left a guy with a fractured cheekbone and a broken arm.’

‘Bit of a bruiser then.’ Logan scanned the barbecue photograph for Milne.

He was in the middle, overseeing the ritual burning of the sausages. Red T-shirt with the same Viking logo as Peter Shepherd, only he’d left his sleeves on. Big arms. Not over-muscled like Shepherd’s, but thick enough to do some damage.

‘
Sergeant McRae? I’ve got records of Peter Shepherd’s house being burgled last year. The thief got away with an antique gramophone and a set of three regency candlesticks. All recovered. He’s made four complaints in the last six months about vandalism. And there’s two ongoing investigations about his business premises being broken into in Peterhead.
’

‘Ongoing since when?’

‘
Three years.
’

So for ‘ongoing’ read, ‘no one has a clue’.

‘Just in case, better give me his work number too.’ Logan turned to Tufty. ‘What are they called?’

‘GCML: Geirrød Container Management and Logistics, Peterhead.’

‘You get that, Maggie?’

‘
Do you want me to text them through to your phone?
’

‘Thanks.’

‘
And are you coming back to the station anytime soon, Sergeant McRae? Only the MIT are being … difficult.
’

‘Sorry. It’s oot-and-aboot for me and the loon. If anyone asks, we’re chasing up a misper.’

And with any luck, Steel would believe it.

‘And you’ve not seen Mr Shepherd since Friday?’ Logan pinned his phone between his ear and his shoulder as he wrote the details down in his notebook. Leaning into the corners as the Big Car wheeched along the winding road.

‘
Yup, he’s off seeing a supplier in Chesterfield.
’

Oh no he wasn’t. He was dead.

‘But you haven’t heard from him?’

‘
Nah. Don’t usually when he’s off on his travels. Likes to keep a low profile does our Pete, so it’s all text messages and emails.
’

‘OK, well, if you hear from him, tell him we’d like a word.’

‘
Will do.
’

Logan hit the button and ended the call. ‘GCML say Shepherd’s off down south, buying them some new containers.’

Tufty overtook a tractor with mud-spattering tyres. ‘So
maybe
it isn’t him we found. Maybe it’s someone else. Maybe he’ll turn up tomorrow with a bunch of containers and a confused look on his face.’

‘Maybe.’ But it wasn’t likely.

Logan tried the other number again. Got the answering machine again.

‘
Hello, you’ve reached Pete Shepherd. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks.
’ Then a pause.
Bleeeeeeeep
.

He hung up.

‘Shepherd’s still not answering his mobile.’

A nod from the driver’s seat. ‘Well, he can’t, can he? Not if he’s dead. Roaming charges are probably extortionate from the afterlife.’

‘…but that’s nonsense, isn’t it? Of course time exists. And do you know what I think?’

Logan ruffled the copy of the
Aberdeen Examiner
he’d taken from Mrs Milne. ‘Nope.’ Wasn’t interested either, but there was no point telling Tufty that, he’d only sulk again.

So instead, Logan skimmed an article on the new development going into the gap where Aberdeen’s Saint Nicholas House used to be. Not exactly riveting, but it was better than listening to Tufty rambling on about physics. ‘“
W
E’LL
N
EVER
S
TOP
P
ROTESTING
A
GAINST
T
HE
E
VIL
C
ONCRETE
R
UBIK’S
C
UBE!”
S
AYS
L
OCAL
C
AMPAIGNER
.’ Who bore an uncanny resemblance to a scrotum in a shirt and tie.

Outside the car windows, rain lashed the fields and bushes and trees, making the tarmac shine in the Big Car’s headlights as they wound their way along the Fraserburgh road.

‘I think time’s an emergent property of an entropic field. You know, like the Higgs boson is caused by vibrational ripples in the Higgs field?’

‘Hmm…’ Then there was an article about a project to get big, painted, fibreglass sheep installed across the city. Because all the dolphins weren’t enough.

‘And just as the Higgs field gives particles their physical mass, the entropic field gives particles their
chronological
mass.’

Next up, a long piece on Emily Benton’s death. Quotes from her parents and friends about how lovely she was and how everyone liked her and she didn’t have any enemies. Which obviously wasn’t true, because someone battered her to death. The
Examiner
had gone out and done a vox pop in Inverurie – little photos of cold-looking shoppers above banal statements about how that kind of thing shouldn’t happen and their prayers were with her family.

‘So time is actually a boson. You see?’

‘Hmm…’

Then there was a half-page on Banff Academy raising money for Macduff lifeboat station after one of the pupils nearly drowned on a fishing trip.

‘And that’s why the faster you move, the slower time gets. The entropic field is like cornflour – go slow and you pass through it without noticing, go fast and it seizes up.’

Logan turned the page, where there was an opinion piece on the number of bodies being found in woods about Aberdeenshire. ‘Of course, you know what this means, don’t you?’

‘Exactly. Time is the physical manifestation of a non-Newtonian-fluid-like field.’

Logan looked at him over the top of the paper. ‘No, it means we’re going to have to release details of the bodies, or the papers will start screaming, “Serial Killer!” Surprised they haven’t already.’

‘Oh. Right. Well, anyway, so the entropic field only allows travel in one direction or it violates the second law of thermodynamics, right? And—’

‘The chronology’s interesting, isn’t it?’

Tufty beamed. ‘That’s what I think. Entropy, thermodynamics, the time boson—’

‘Emily Benton’s body is discovered in woods ten days ago. Then Martin Milne disappears a week after Emily was found. And Peter Shepherd turns up battered to death with a bag over his head, in different woods, three days after that, when he’s meant to be in Chesterfield buying containers.’

The sign for Gardenstown flashed by on the left, and the sea was back – a thin line of charcoal on the horizon.

‘So…’ That thinky frown worked its way across Tufty’s face again. ‘Milne killed Emily,
and
his business partner? Thought the MO was meant to be different?’

‘Her skull was bashed in with an adjustable wrench. We’ve got no idea what happened to Shepherd’s head: there’s a bag over it.’ Logan went back to the paper, frowning at an article about childcare services getting cut in Ellon. ‘Maybe that’s why they’re different? Emily was killed in situ. Imagine you’ve just gone berserk on someone’s skull with a wrench, and now you’ve got to dump the body. That head’s going to leak blood and fluid and bits of brain all over your boot. So you stick a bin-bag over it and duct-tape it tight around the neck so nothing oozes out.’

‘Ooh. That has a sensible.’

‘Then you get the hell out of Dodge, before the police come looking for you.’

The windscreen wipers droned across the glass, clearing a path that immediately vanished to be cleared again.

Tufty coughed. ‘Mind you. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? Shepherd’s death just happens to be exactly the same MO as this Edinburgh gangster?’

‘Hmm…’ There was that.

‘And why kill Emily Benton?’

There was that as well.

A big four-by-four rattled past in the opposite direction, its driver oblivious on her mobile phone, big Dulux dog in the back seat.

More fields drenched with rain.

‘How long till Pennan?’

Tufty peered at the dashboard clock. ‘Five minutes?’

Trees swallowed the road, thumping heavy droplets from their sagging branches. Then out the other side.

Next: an article on diesel thefts around Turriff.

OK, so the evidence was circumstantial at the moment, but Milne’s disappearance made him look guilty. If he had nothing to do with Shepherd’s death, why did he run? Innocent people didn’t vanish three days before their business partners turned up dead in the woods.

And then there was Milne’s obsession with crime fiction and TV shows. All those stories telling him how not to leave forensic evidence behind.

Couldn’t deny that it fit.

Martin Milne killed Peter Shepherd, dumped the body, covered his tracks, then did a runner.

Logan wriggled in his seat, getting comfortable. Steel had a team of what, twenty officers? Maybe thirty? And she didn’t have a clue. Here he was, with nothing but Tufty for backup, and he’d already solved the murder.
Two
murders, if Milne killed Emily Benton as well.

Tufty was right: Steel wasn’t going to be very happy. But you know what? Tough.

He flipped the page.

Sometimes the gods smiled upon…

Oh.

No.

The breath curdled in his lungs. His fillings itched. A wave of electricity riffled the hairs on the back of his arms and neck, finally settling in his bowels.

There, sandwiched between something on house prices in Strichen and a bit about a new music festival in Fraserburgh, was a photo of Wee Hamish Mowat.

All the moisture disappeared from Logan’s mouth as his throat closed up.

‘
L
OCAL
B
USINESSMAN’S
C
HARITY
L
EGACY
’

The newspaper trembled in his hands.

Under the photo, the caption was: ‘
P
HILANTHROPIST
H
AMISH
A
LEXANDER
S
ELKIRK
M
OWAT
P
ASSED
A
WAY
I
N
H
IS
S
LEEP
L
AST
N
IGHT.
’

How the hell did the
Aberdeen Examiner
get the news out so fast? What did Reuben do, hire a publicist?