Read Online The Missing and the Dead by Stuart MacBride - Free Book Online
Authors: Stuart MacBride
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firing orders at someone in the background – telling someone to get the Scenes Examination Branch to hotfoot it over from the cashline job in Fraserburgh.
Smooth tarmac gave way to scabby potholes. Knee-high grass bordered the sides of the road, punctuated by the searching pink antennae of rosebay willowherb. The patrol car bumped across the pockmarked tarmac, then wallowed as Nicholson slowed. The sound of a mudflap grinding against the uneven surface.
The road gave up in a dead end, just before the entrance to the pool. One way in, one way out. Well, unless you wanted to work your way down the cliff path from the golf course.
Inspector McGregor’s voice went from muffled to full volume again.
‘Logan, I need to know if this was a suspicious death ASAP. Am I calling in an MIT or not? Then secure the scene. I’ll be right there, soon as I get someone to run admin tasks for you.’
Logan stuck his Airwave handset on its clip.
Deano and Tufty’s little police van was parked in the middle of the road, between two jagged lumps of rock, blocking off the entrance to the site. The thing needed a wash, its white paintwork nearly grey with grime, but the stripe of blue-and-yellow blocks along the side glowed in the pool car’s flashing lights.
No sign of either of them.
Nicholson hit the button, killing the blue-and-whites.
Silence.
Logan grabbed his hat. ‘Get the tape out and secure the road. I want it blocked.’ He turned in his seat, then pointed at the top of the hill, where the first hairpin was. ‘Better make it other side of the water-treatment plant. Don’t want some scumbag with a telephoto lens selling snaps to the tabloids.’
‘Sarge.’
As soon as he clunked the passenger door shut again, she was reversing through the potholes. Did a sharp three-pointer, then accelerated off.
He turned. Picked his way around the police van. Punched Deano’s badge number into the Airwave.
But before he could press send, Tufty appeared, scrambling across the pebbled beach, both arms held out as if he was walking the high wire. He paused. Slithered back a couple of steps. Waved. ‘Sarge? Over here.’
Logan followed him across the pebble beach, avoiding the road. Broken kelp roots clung to the high-tide mark, pale and weathered, like a thousand human tibias. Everything smelled of ozone and salt, underpinned by a thin smear of rotting fish. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Guy was down here taking photos for some urban-decay-project-thing. Young lad doing an HND in photography at Aberdeen College. Peed himself. Then battered it over to Macduff on his bike. Saw us at the harbour, and that was that.’
A nod. Pebbles crunched and shifted under Logan’s feet. ‘You confiscate the camera?’
‘Deano got the SD card.’ Tufty pointed off to the right, towards a crumbling concrete embankment. ‘This way.’
‘Why didn’t your student call nine-nine-nine? Thought everyone had a mobile phone now.’
Tufty flashed a wee smile and a shrug. ‘Panicked. Says he couldn’t remember the number. Bit of a climb, sorry …’ He clambered up the embankment, then up onto the grass. Then over an outcrop of lichen-covered rock.
‘You sure you know where you’re going?’
‘Deano said there’s no way anyone would come this way carrying a body. So, you know, common approach path.’ More clambering and scrambling, and they were up on a ridge above the swimming pools. Tufty nodded. ‘Down there.’
The site was split into two halves. In front of the main buildings were a set of wide amphitheatre steps in dark-grey stained concrete, the edges picked out in decaying whitewash. They enclosed a D-shaped shallow pool – dry as an abandoned riverbed – the wall between it and the main swimming area crumbling and partially collapsed. On the other side of the wall, water came halfway up. A stony beach at one side that couldn’t have been an original feature, speckled with broken pipes and other bits of rusting flotsam. Then
Smooth tarmac gave way to scabby potholes. Knee-high grass bordered the sides of the road, punctuated by the searching pink antennae of rosebay willowherb. The patrol car bumped across the pockmarked tarmac, then wallowed as Nicholson slowed. The sound of a mudflap grinding against the uneven surface.
The road gave up in a dead end, just before the entrance to the pool. One way in, one way out. Well, unless you wanted to work your way down the cliff path from the golf course.
Inspector McGregor’s voice went from muffled to full volume again.
‘Logan, I need to know if this was a suspicious death ASAP. Am I calling in an MIT or not? Then secure the scene. I’ll be right there, soon as I get someone to run admin tasks for you.’
Logan stuck his Airwave handset on its clip.
Deano and Tufty’s little police van was parked in the middle of the road, between two jagged lumps of rock, blocking off the entrance to the site. The thing needed a wash, its white paintwork nearly grey with grime, but the stripe of blue-and-yellow blocks along the side glowed in the pool car’s flashing lights.
No sign of either of them.
Nicholson hit the button, killing the blue-and-whites.
Silence.
Logan grabbed his hat. ‘Get the tape out and secure the road. I want it blocked.’ He turned in his seat, then pointed at the top of the hill, where the first hairpin was. ‘Better make it other side of the water-treatment plant. Don’t want some scumbag with a telephoto lens selling snaps to the tabloids.’
‘Sarge.’
As soon as he clunked the passenger door shut again, she was reversing through the potholes. Did a sharp three-pointer, then accelerated off.
He turned. Picked his way around the police van. Punched Deano’s badge number into the Airwave.
But before he could press send, Tufty appeared, scrambling across the pebbled beach, both arms held out as if he was walking the high wire. He paused. Slithered back a couple of steps. Waved. ‘Sarge? Over here.’
Logan followed him across the pebble beach, avoiding the road. Broken kelp roots clung to the high-tide mark, pale and weathered, like a thousand human tibias. Everything smelled of ozone and salt, underpinned by a thin smear of rotting fish. He looked over his shoulder. ‘Guy was down here taking photos for some urban-decay-project-thing. Young lad doing an HND in photography at Aberdeen College. Peed himself. Then battered it over to Macduff on his bike. Saw us at the harbour, and that was that.’
A nod. Pebbles crunched and shifted under Logan’s feet. ‘You confiscate the camera?’
‘Deano got the SD card.’ Tufty pointed off to the right, towards a crumbling concrete embankment. ‘This way.’
‘Why didn’t your student call nine-nine-nine? Thought everyone had a mobile phone now.’
Tufty flashed a wee smile and a shrug. ‘Panicked. Says he couldn’t remember the number. Bit of a climb, sorry …’ He clambered up the embankment, then up onto the grass. Then over an outcrop of lichen-covered rock.
‘You sure you know where you’re going?’
‘Deano said there’s no way anyone would come this way carrying a body. So, you know, common approach path.’ More clambering and scrambling, and they were up on a ridge above the swimming pools. Tufty nodded. ‘Down there.’
The site was split into two halves. In front of the main buildings were a set of wide amphitheatre steps in dark-grey stained concrete, the edges picked out in decaying whitewash. They enclosed a D-shaped shallow pool – dry as an abandoned riverbed – the wall between it and the main swimming area crumbling and partially collapsed. On the other side of the wall, water came halfway up. A stony beach at one side that couldn’t have been an original feature, speckled with broken pipes and other bits of rusting flotsam. Then
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