Cold Granite (32 page)

'I told you: I don't know nothing about what's in them!' His voice was getting higher, panicky. 'I just carry them.'

The grumpy DC grabbed hold of Duncan Nicholson's shoulders, shoving him back into his seat with a crash.

'You filthy wee shite!' He grabbed a photo of a smal boy, sitting in a sandpit with a stuffed rabbit. 'Was this how you found him? Is it? Did you photograph David Reid? Decide you wanted him? You filthy fuck!'

'It isn't like that! It's nothing like that!'

'Mr Duncan Nicholson, I'm detaining you on suspicion of murder.' Logan stood, looking down at the spread of children's faces, feeling sick. 'Read him his rights, Constable.'

There wasn't real y room in the smal house for four IB technicians, the video operator, photographer, Logan, the grumpy DC and two uniformed officers, but they squeezed in anyway.

No one wanted to wait outside in the driving rain.

The contents of the two envelopes were now al bagged and tagged. Envelope number two wasn't full of pictures; it was full of money and little pieces of jewel ery.

Upstairs there was a cupboard, opposite the bathroom. Three foot long, four foot wide, just big enough to hold a computer, fancy-looking colour printer, and a barstool. And a bolt that only fastened from the inside.

There were shelves of CDs on the wal , the kind you burn at home, al label ed and dated, and boxes of high-quality, glossy printouts under the bench the computer sat on. Women and children; mostly children. They found a top-of-the-range digital camera in the bedroom.

There was a rattling sound from downstairs and everyone suddenly went quiet.

Creak. And the front door opened.

'Dunky? Can you give me a...Who the hel are you?'

Logan poked his head down the stairs to see a heavily pregnant woman dressed in a black leather coat and carrying a stack of shopping bags staring in disbelief at the crowd of policemen fil ing her house.

'Where's Duncan? What have you bastards done with my husband?'

25

The news came over the police radio at three o'clock, just as Logan was getting back to Force Headquarters. The Gerald Cleaver trial had final y come to its verdict after four weeks in the media spotlight.

'Not guilty? How the hel could they find him not guilty?' asked Logan, as the grumpy DC

stuffed their rusty pool car into the parking lot.

'Hissing Bloody Sid,' came the reply. Sandy Moir-Farquharson had struck again.

They hurried out of the car and up through to the briefing area. The room was ful of uniform, most of whom looked soaked to the skin.

'Listen up!' It was the Chief Constable himself, looking sharp as a pin in his neatly pressed dress uniform. 'We are going to have a lot of angry people out there.' That was an understatement: the crowd of protesters had been an almost permanent fixture outside the courthouse. They wanted to see Gerald Cleaver sentenced to life in Peterhead Prison. Letting him go free was like lighting the blue touch paper and stuffing the firework down your trousers.

The police presence outside the court buildings had been minimal, just enough to keep everything under control; but that was about to change. The Chief Constable wasn't taking any chances.

'The eyes of the world are on Aberdeen,' he said, striking an inspiring pose. 'With every day that passes, the anti-paedophile movement grows. And quite rightly. But we cannot let a few, misguided, individuals turn the protection of our children into an excuse for violence. I want this to go peaceful y. There wil be no riot shields. This is a community policing initiative.

Understood?'

There were a few nods.

'You wil be out there representing the best of this proud city. Make sure everyone knows that Aberdeen takes law and order very seriously!'

He paused for a second, as if expecting a round of applause, before yielding the floor to DI Steel who gave everyone their assignments. She looked stressed. She'd been responsible for the Gerald Cleaver case.

Logan wasn't uniform, so his name was left off the list, along with the rest of CID, but he shuffled along after the last team anyway, pausing at the front door to look out at the freezing rain and the angry mob outside the Sheriff Court building.

The crowd was bigger than Logan had anticipated: about five hundred people, fil ing the space in front of the court, spil ing down the stairs and into the 'official business only' car park.

Television crews were visible as tiny islands of calm in the unhappy sea of faces and placards:

'DOWN W ITH E VIL C LEAVER!'

'GIVE C LEAVER T HE C HOP!'

'PERVERT B ASTARD!'

'LIFE M EANS L IFE!'

'DEATH T O P EDIPHILE S CUM!!!'

Logan winced as he read that last one. Nothing like stupid people with righteous fury and a mob on their side. Last time there had been this kind of fervour three paediatricians had their surgery windows smashed. Now it looked like they were after the foot fetishists.

Things were already beginning to get ugly.

They chanted and shouted abuse at the court building: men, women, parents and grandparents, al gathered together, baying for blood. The only things missing were the pitchforks and burning torches.

And then the crowd went quiet.

The large glass doors swung open and out into the rain came Sandy Moir-Farquharson.

Gerald Cleaver wasn't with him: there was no way Grampian Police were going to turn Cleaver out into that mob, no matter how guilty they thought he was.

Sandy the Snake smiled at the crowd as if they were old friends. This was his moment in the sun. Television cameras from around the world were here. Today he would shine on the global stage.

A forest of microphones leapt up al around him.

Logan stepped out into the rain, morbid curiosity dragging him on until he was close enough to hear the lawyer's words.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Moir-Farquharson, pul ing folded sheets of paper from his jacket pocket, 'my client wil not be available for comment at this time but he has asked me to read the fol owing statement.' He cleared his throat and stuck his chest out. '"I wish to thank everyone for their kind words of support during this ordeal. I have always maintained my innocence and today the good people of Aberdeen have vindicated me."'

At this the silence became punctuated with angry noises.

'Oh Christ,' muttered a uniform standing next to Logan, 'could they no have got him to keep his mouth shut?'

'"Now that"...' Sandy the Snake had to raise his voice to be heard, '..."Now that my good name has been cleared I wil "--' He didn't get any further.

A huge scruffy young man lunged out of the crowd, shoved his way through the ring of reporters and clobbered the lawyer one. Right on the nose. Sandy the Snake staggered back, tripped, and went down. The crowd roared in approval.

A ring of black uniforms appeared out of nowhere, grabbing the scruffy man before he could real y put the boot into the fal en lawyer. They picked up a bleeding Sandy Moir-Farquharson and helped him back into the court building, frogmarching his attacker in behind him.

Nothing else happened for half an hour. Nothing but the freezing rain. Most of the crowd gave up and dispersed to the bars and their homes until there were only a handful of protesters left to see an unmarked minibus with tinted windows pull out onto the road and head away towards the centre of town.

Gerald Cleaver was free.

Back at Force Headquarters Logan joined a long queue of dripping, sniffing, police men and women. Up at the head of the line the canteen staff ladled out steaming bowls of Scotch broth. Standing next to the cutlery, the Chief Constable shook everyone's hand and told them what a great job they'd done of preventing trouble.

Logan accepted the soup and the handshake with equal magnanimity, then squelched down over to a table by the fogged-up window. The soup was hot and tasty and a damn sight more use than the handshake. But at least the soup was free.

A delighted Detective Inspector Insch plonked himself down on the other side of the table, between a couple of drenched PCs. He sat beaming at everyone and everything. 'Right on the nose!' he said at last. 'Bang! Right on the nose.' He grinned and dug a spoon into his soup.

'Whap!' He put the spoon back down. 'Did you see it? Slippery little sod stands there and spouts his drivel and someone gets up and twats him one. Bang!' He slammed a huge fist into a huge hand, making the PC sitting next to him jump and miss his mouth with the spoon, sending a cascade of soup down the front of his tie. 'Sorry, son.' Insch offered the spluttering PC a napkin.

'Right on the bloody nose!' He stopped and the grin got even wider. 'It'l be on the news tonight!

I'm going to record it and whenever I feel like a laugh--' he mimed pointing a remote control, stabbing his finger down on a pretend button. 'BANG! Right on the nose.' He sighed happily.

'Days like this I remember why I joined the force.'

'How's DI Steel taking it?' asked Logan.

'Hmm? Oh...' Insch's smile faded. 'Wel she's happy about the nose-punching but wel pissed off they let that slimy little pervert go free.' He shook his head. 'She spent ages getting the victims to testify. Poor buggers had to stand there and tel everyone what that pervert did to them. Hissing Sid humiliates them. Cleaver goes free, and al that pain was for nothing.'

Silence settled over the table, everyone concentrating on their soup.

'You want to go see him?' asked Insch when the last of Logan's soup was gone.

'What, Cleaver?'

'No, the hero of the hour!' He raised his hands in the classic fisticuffs pose. 'He who floats like a butterfly and stings like a fist to the nose.'

Logan smiled. 'Why not?'

There was a smal crowd outside the holding cel s. Al happy and chattering. With a growl, DI Insch sent them packing. Didn't they know this was highly unprofessional? Did they want people to think it was OK to go committing assault? Shamefaced, the uniformed onlookers dispersed, leaving just Logan, Insch and the custody sergeant outside the blue-painted door. The sergeant was scribbling a name on the board next to the cel and Logan frowned. It looked familiar, but he couldn't work out why.

'Mind if we pay your boy a visit?' asked Insch when the scribbling was done.

'What? No, sir, you go ahead. Are you in charge of the investigation?'

Insch beamed again. 'I bloody wel hope so!'

The room was smal without being cosy: brown lino floor, cream wal s and a hard wooden bench-seat running along the wal . The only natural light came from two smal frosted panes of heavy-duty glass set into the top of the outside wal . The whole place smel ed of armpits.

The cel 's occupant was curled up on the wooden bench, lying on his side in the foetal position. Moaning quietly.

'Thank you, Sergeant,' said Insch. 'We can take it from here.'

'OK.' The custody sergeant backed out of the cel and winked at Logan. 'Let me know if Mohammed Ali here gives you any trouble.'

The cel door shut with a dul clang and Insch settled down on the bench next to the curled up figure. 'Mr Strichen? Or can I cal you Martin?'

The figure shifted slightly.

'Martin? Do you know why you're here?' Insch's voice was soft and friendly, completely unlike any tone Logan had ever heard him use on a suspect.

Slowly, Martin Strichen levered himself up until his legs were hanging over the edge of the bench, his socks making damp footprints on the lino. They'd confiscated his shoelaces and his belt and anything else dangerous. He was huge - not fat - but large everywhere, arms, legs, hands, jaw...Logan stopped when he got to the pockmarked face. Now he knew where he recognized the name from: Martin Strichen was WPC Watson's changing-room wanker, the one he'd given a lift back to Craiginches Prison. The one who'd been giving evidence in the Gerald Cleaver case.

No wonder he'd smacked Slippery Sandy on the nose.

'They let him go.' His voice was little more than a whisper.

'I know they did, Martin. I know. They shouldn't have, but they did.'

'They let him go because of him.'

Insch nodded. 'And that's why you hit Mr Moir-Farquharson?'

A muffled mumble.

'Martin, I'm going to write up a little statement and then I'm going to ask you to sign it, OK?'

'They let him go.'

Gently, Insch took Martin Strichen through the events of the afternoon, taking special delight in the moment of impact, getting Logan to write it all down in tortured police-speak. It was an admission of guilt, but Insch had taken great pains to make it sound as if it was al Sandy the Snake's fault. Which it was anyway. Martin signed it and Insch released him from custody.

'Do you have anywhere to go?' asked Logan as they walked him through reception to the door.

'Staying with my mother. The court said I have to, while I do my community service.' His shoulders sagged even further.

Insch patted him on the back. 'It's stil raining; I can get a patrol car to give you a lift if you like?'

Martin Strichen shuddered. 'Said she'd kil me if she saw another police car outside the house.'

'OK. If you're sure.' Insch extended his hand and Strichen shook it, his huge paw engulfing the inspector's. 'And, Martin,' he looked into the lad's troubled hazel eyes, 'thank you.'

Logan and Insch stood at the window, watching Martin Strichen disappear into the rainy afternoon. Only four o'clock and it was already dark outside.

'When he was on the stand,' said Logan, 'he swore he'd kil Moir-Farquharson.'

'Real y?' Insch sounded thoughtful.

'You think he'l try something?'

A smile broke across the inspector's face. 'Let's hope so.'

There were no smiles in interview room number three. It was packed to the gunwales with DI Insch, DS McRae, a damp WPC, and Duncan Nicholson. The tapes in the recording unit whirred away to themselves, the red light on the video camera winking away in the corner of the room.

Insch leaned forward and smiled the kind of smile crocodiles reserve for sick wildebeest.

'Sure you don't just want to come clean, Mr Nicholson?' he asked. 'Save us al a lot of trouble.