Cold Granite (33 page)

You just cough to it al and tel us what you've done with Peter Lumley's body.'

But Nicholson just ran a hand across his shaved head, making scratching noises as he wiped the sweat away. He looked awful - shaking, sweating, arms wrapped around himself, eyes darting from Logan to Insch to the door.

Insch popped open a clear plastic wal et and pul ed out a photo of a little boy on a tricycle. The child was in what looked like a back garden, the strut of a whirly washing line visible between an out-of-focus towel and a pair of jeans. Insch held up the photo with the image facing away from him so he could read the name in biro on the back. 'So tel me, Mr Nicholson, who's Luke Geddes?'

Nicholson licked his lips and darted a nervous glance at the door, the wet WPC, everywhere but the child on the bike.

'Is he one of your little victims, Nicholson? Next on your list for picking up, kil ing and screwing? No? What about this one--' Insch dug another photo out of the wal et, a little blond boy in his school uniform, walking down a street alone. 'Stir any memories? Stir anything else?

Get you hard, does it?' He pulled out another photo. 'What about this one?' Little boy sitting on the back seat of a car, looking scared. 'This your car? Looks like a Volvo to me.'

'I didn't do anything!'

'Bol ocks you didn't. You're a lying wee scumbag and I am going to send your arse to jail til you die.'

Nicholson swal owed hard.

'We have some other photographs,' said Logan. 'Would you like to see them, Mr Nicholson?' He turned over a manila folder and took out the pictures of David Reid's post mortem.

'Oh God...' Nicholson went grey.

'You remember little David Reid, don't you, Mr Nicholson? The three-year-old you kidnapped, strangled and raped?'

'No!'

'Surely you remember him? You went back for bits of him didn't you? With a pair of secateurs?'

'No! God, no! I didn't do it! I only found him! I didn't touch him!' He grabbed at the table as if he were about to fal off the floor and slam into the ceiling. 'I didn't do anything!'

'I don't believe you, Duncan.' Insch gave his crocodile smile again. 'You are a filthy wee shite and I am going to put you away. And when you're up in Peterhead Prison you're going to find out what happens to people like you. People who fiddle with kids.'

'I didn't do anything!' Tears streamed down Nicholson's face. 'I swear I didn't do anything!'

A half hour later DI Insch suspended the interview, using the excuse of a 'comfort break'.

They left Duncan Nicholson in the interview room with the soggy WPC and strol ed back to the main incident room. Nicholson was a wreck, sobbing, wailing, trembling. Insch had put the fear of God into the man and now wanted him to stew in his own juices.

Logan and Insch passed the time drinking coffee, eating fizzy jel y shapes and talking about the dead girl they'd dug out of Roadkil 's steading. The teams had been back up there al day, working their way through the piles of dead things, finding nothing.

Logan opened his folder again, taking out a school photograph of David Reid - a happy-looking lad with slightly squint teeth and a mop of hair that no amount of combing would tame.

Nothing like the swol en, dark, rotting face in his post mortem photos. 'You stil think he did it?'

he asked.

'Roadkil ?' Insch shrugged and chewed. 'Doesn't look likely any more, does it? Not with laughing boy up there, with his col ection of kiddie pics. Mind you, maybe they've got some sort of paedophile ring thing going.' He scowled. 'That'd be great, wouldn't it? A whole bunch of the sick bastards out there.'

'None of the kids in Nicholson's photos are naked, though. Nothing smutty.'

Insch raised an eyebrow. 'What, you think they're just artistic?'

'No. You know what I mean. It's not kiddie porn, is it? It's bloody sinister and creepy, but it's not porn.'

'Maybe Nicholson doesn't like to look at them that way. Maybe this is just his selection process. Fol ow some kids, take some pictures, pick a lucky winner for the paedophile sweepstakes.' He made a gun with his fingers and picked off an imaginary child. 'Gets his kiddie porn first hand, in the flesh. Real and immediate.'

Logan wasn't convinced, but he kept his mouth shut.

At last a PC stuck his head round the door and told them a Mr Moir-Farquharson wanted to see them. And was going to make himself a pain in everyone's backside until he had. Insch pursed his lips, thought about it, and final y asked the PC to show Sandy the Snake into a detention room.

'What do you think Hissing Sid wants?' asked Logan as the PC left.

Insch grinned. 'A whinge, a moan...Who cares? We get to poke fun at the wee shite while he's in pain.' He rubbed his hands together. 'Sometimes, Logan my lad, God smiles on us.'

Sandy Moir-Farquharson was waiting for them in a ground-floor detention room. He didn't look very happy. There was a thin white plaster crossing the, now squint, bridge of his nose and there were dark circles beneath his eyes. If they were lucky those bags would settle into a pair of beautiful black eyes.

His briefcase was sat in the middle of the table in front of him and he drummed his fingers impatiently on the leather surface, glowering at Insch and Logan as they entered.

'Mr "Far-Quar-Son",' said the inspector. 'How nice to see you up and about again.'

Sandy the Snake scowled at him. 'You let him go,' he said in a low, threatening voice.

'That's right. He made a statement and has been bailed to return here on Monday at four.'

'He broke my nose!' The words were punctuated with a fist, slammed down on the tabletop, making the briefcase jump.

'Oh, it's not that bad Mr Far-Quar-Son. In fact it lends you a rugged, manly air. Doesn't it, Sergeant?'

Logan kept his face straight and said that it did.

Sandy frowned, but couldn't tel if they were taking the piss or not. 'Real y?' he said at last.

'Yes,' said Insch, poker-faced. 'Someone should have broken your nose a long time ago.'

The lawyer's frown became a scowl. 'You do know that someone's been sending me death threats? That someone threw a bucket of blood over me?'

'Yes.'

'And that this Martin Strichen has form for violence?'

'Now, now Mr Far-Quar-Son, Mr Strichen was in police custody when you were attacked with that blood. And we've analysed your death threats. There are at least four people sending the letters and none of them were postmarked Craiginches Prison. So it's probably not Mr Strichen.' He smiled. 'But if you like we could take you into protective custody? I have a number of lovely cel s downstairs. A couple of throw cushions, some flowers, it'l be just like home!'

A silent scowl was the only reply he got.

Insch beamed. 'Wel , if you'l excuse us, Mr Far-Quar-Son, we have real police business to attend to.' He stood and motioned for Logan to do the same. 'But if anyone makes good on any of those death threats, you make sure and give me a cal . DS McRae wil show you out.' His smile widened. 'Try and keep him from stealing the silverware, Logan: you know what these lawyers are like.'

Logan walked the lawyer al the way to the front door.

'You know,' said Sandy, scowling at the rain hammering down out of the ash-coloured sky. 'I have children too. The way that fat bastard goes on, you'd think I lived to put perverts back on the streets.'

Logan raised an eyebrow. 'You got Gerald Cleaver off.'

The lawyer buttoned his coat. 'No I didn't.'

'Yes you did! You picked the bloody case to pieces!'

Moir-Farquharson turned and looked Logan in the eye. 'If the case had been solid I couldn't have picked it apart. I didn't let Cleaver off: you did.'

'But--'

'Now if you'l excuse me, officer, I have other matters to attend to.'

Back in the interview room Duncan Nicholson was fidgeting as if someone had stuck a mains cable up his bum. His shirt was drenched with sweat and his eyes roamed the room in perpetual motion, never settling on one thing for more than a moment.

Logan went back to the seat nearest the tape machine and got the thing ready to start recording again.

'I...I want protective custody!' said Nicholson, before Logan had managed to press the record buttons.

'Craiginches secure enough for you?' asked Insch. 'Just til you go to Peterhead of course.'

'No! Like on the films: protective custody. Somewhere safe...' He scrubbed at his sweat-drenched face. 'They'l kil me if they find out I've talked!' His bottom lip trembled and for a moment Logan thought he was going to dissolve into tears again.

Insch dug his packet of fizzy shapes out and stuffed a couple into his mouth. 'No promises,' he said around a mouthful of orange-and-straw-berry dinosaurs. 'Start the tape, Sergeant.'

Nicholson hung his head, staring fixedly at his hands, trembling away on the tabletop in front of him. 'I...I've been working for some bookies, moneylenders, you know...' His voice cracked and he had to take a deep breath before he could go on. 'Kinda like a debt control researcher, you know: I fol ow people who won't pay up. Take photographs of them and their families. I...I print them out at home and give the pictures to the people they owe money to.' He drooped even further in his seat. 'The bookies use the pictures to threaten them. Encourage them to pay up.'

Insch curled his lip. 'Your mum and dad must be so proud!'

A tear ran down Nicholson's cheek and he wiped it away with the back of his sleeve. 'It's no il egal to take photos of people! That's al I did. Nothing else! I didn't touch any kids!'

DI Insch snorted. 'What a load of bollocks!' He leaned forward in his chair, planting his huge fists on the table. 'I want to know what you were doing in a ditch in the Bridge of Don with the mutilated body of a three-year-old boy. I want to know why you had an envelope ful of cash and jewel ery.' He stood. 'You're a dirty wee shite, Nicholson. You deserve to go down for the rest of your miserable little life. You can stay here and lie al you want; I'm going to speak to the Procurator Fiscal. Get him al fired up to nail your arse to the wal . Interview suspended at--'

'I slipped.' Nicholson was in floods of tears, the panic clear in his eyes. 'Please! I slipped!'

Logan sighed. 'You told us that already. What were you doing there?'

'I...I was on a job.' Nicholson stared into Logan's eyes, and Logan knew they'd broken him.

'Go on.'

'I was on a job. Little old lady. Widow. Keeps a bit of cash in the house. Some silver. Bit of jewel ery?'

'So you ripped her off?'

Nicholson shook his head, teardrops fal ing like diamonds to explode against the dirty Formica tabletop. 'Didn't get that far. I was out of my face. Way too stoned to do a house. Been keeping the stuff I nicked under a tree on the bank above the river. You know. Keeping it out of the way in case you lot come round and search the house.' He shrugged, his voice becoming more and more of a mumble. 'I was rat-arsed. Wanted to count it before I did the old lady's house. It was pissing with rain. Slipped and fel al the way down the bank. What, twenty foot? In the dark, in the bloody rain. Ripped my jacket, jeans, nearly cracked my head open on a big fuckin' rock. Ended up in the ditch. Tried to pul myself out with this big dod of chipboard, only it's loose. It moves and there's this thing bobbing about in the water.' He started to sob. 'First I'm thinking it's a dog, you know, a bul terrier, or something...'Cos...'cos it's al black. So I'm about to get the hel out of there when I see this shiny thing, sparkling in the rain. You know, like a silver chain or something...' He shuddered. 'I think it's one of mine. I'm so fuckin' wrecked I think it's part of my stash. So I go to pick it up and the thing rol s over. And it's a dead kid. And I scream and I scream and I scream...'

Logan leaned forward. 'What happened then?'

'I got the fuck out of there quick as I could. Straight home. Into the shower, try to wash that filthy dead water off me. Cal ed the police.'

And that's where I came in, thought Logan. 'What about the thing?' he asked.

'Eh?'

'The shiny thing you found on the body. What was it? Where is it?'

'Tin foil. It was just a bloody bit of tin foil.'

Insch glowered at him. 'I want the names of al the poor sods you've robbed. I want the loot. Al of it!' He looked down at the pile of photographs in their clear plastic wal et. 'And I want the names of al the bookies you take photos for. And if anyone in these photographs has been hurt, and I don't care if it's just fal ing off their bicycle, I'm going to charge you with conspiracy to commit assault. Understand?'

Nicholson buried his head in his hands.

'Wel ,' said Insch with a generous smile, 'thank you for assisting us with our enquiries, Mr Nicholson. Logan, be a good lad and escort our guest here to his cel . Something south-facing with a view and a balcony.'

Nicholson cried al the way.

26

The preliminary forensic report came in just after six. It wasn't good. There was nothing tying Duncan Nicholson to David Reid other than the fact that he'd found the body. And he had a cast iron alibi for the time Peter Lumley went missing. Insch had dispatched two PCs to where Nicholson claimed to be hiding his stash. They came back with their patrol car's boot full of stolen property. It was beginning to look as if Nicholson was tel ing the truth.

So that meant al bets were back on Roadkil . That stil didn't sit wel with Logan. He couldn't see the man as a paedophile kil er, even if he did keep a dead girl in one of his outbuildings.

In the end DI Insch cal ed a halt to proceedings. 'It's time to go home,' he said. 'We've got everyone banged up, they'l al stil be there come Monday morning.'

'Monday?'

Insch nodded. 'Yes, Monday. Logan, you have my permission to take Sunday off.

Observe the Sabbath. Go watch the footie, drink beer, eat crisps, have some fun.' He stopped and gave a sly smile. 'Maybe take a nice WPC to dinner?'

Logan blushed and kept his gob shut.

'Whatever. I don't want to see you back here til Monday morning.'

The rain had stopped by the time Logan left Force Headquarters. The desk sergeant had cornered him with another three messages from Peter Lumley's stepfather who was stil convinced they could find his child. Logan tried to lie to him, tel him it was al going to be al right, but he couldn't. So he promised to cal as soon as he heard anything. There was nothing else he could do.