The wind wasn't blowing from the west today. It was howling in from the east, straight off the North Sea, and full of icy horizontal rain.
Shivering, Logan wound the car window back up again. He'd parked a little down the road from a compact two-up two-down, the small garden looking half-dead in the battering rain. They'd been there for an hour, him and a bald DC in a parka jacket and there was still no sign of their target.
'So where is he then?' asked the DC, wriggling deeper into his insulated coat. All he'd done since they'd left the station was bitch about the weather. About the fact they were working on a Saturday. That it was raining. That it was cold. That he was hungry. That the rain was making his bladder twitchy.
Logantried not to sigh. If Nicholson didn't turn up soon there was going to be another murder in the papers tomorrow. 'WHINGING POLICE BASTARD THROTTLED WITH OWN GENITALS IN PARKED CAR!' He was just deciding whether it should be an OBE or a knighthood he'd get for killing the moaning wee sod when a familiar, battered, rust-encrusted, green Volvo growled its way past. The driver mounted the kerb in his enthusiasm to park, before scrambling about in the back seat of the car for something.
'Show time.' Logan opened his door and hurried out into the freezing rain. Grumbling, the DC followed.
They got to the Volvo just as Nicholson clambered out, clutching a pair of plastic bags. His face went white when he saw Logan.
'Afternoon, Mr Nicholson.' Logan forced a smile, even though there was icy water streaming down his neck, soaking into his shirt collar. 'Mind if we look in the bags?'
'Bags?' The rain glittered on Duncan Nicholson's shaven head, running off him like nervous sweat. He shoved the bags behind his back. 'What bags?'
The unhappy DC stepped forward and growled from within his parka's fur-lined hood. 'I'll give you what fucking bags!'
'Oh these!' They were produced again. 'Shopping. Been to Tesco, haven't I? Something for lunch. Now if you'll excuse me-'
Logan didn't move. 'They're Asda carrier bags, Mr Nicholson. Not Tesco's.'
Nicholson looked from Logan to the grumpy DC. 'I…I…er…recycling. I recycle my plastic bags. Gotta do our bit for the environment.'
The DC took another step. 'I'll fucking do for your environment-'
'That's enough, Constable,' said Logan. 'I'm sure Mr Nicholson is as keen as we are to get out of the rain. Shall we go inside, Mr Nicholson? Mind, it's nice and dry down at the station. We could give you a lift.'
Two minutes later they were sitting in a small green kitchen, listening to the kettle boil. It was a nice enough house on the inside, if you didn't mind concussing your cat. The walls were covered with patterned wallpaper, borders and friezes, expensive olive carpeting, big, framed, mass-produced oil paintings. Not a book in sight.
'What a lovely home you have,' said Logan, looking at Nicholson. Shaved head, tattoos and enough metalwork in his ears to set off every metal detector from here to Dundee. 'Decorate it yourself, did you?'
Nicholson mumbled something about his wife being keen on those makeover shows. Everything was co- ordinated: kettle, toaster, blender, tiles and oven. All of it green. Even the linoleum was green. It was like sitting inside a huge bogey.
The two carrier bags were sitting on the tabletop.
'Shall we take a look inside then, Mr Nicholson?' Logan pulled one of them open and was surprised to see a packet of bacon and a tin of beans staring back at him. The other one had crisps and chocolate biscuits. Frowning, he tipped them out onto the table. Chocolate and crisps, beans and bacon…And right at the very bottom a pair of thick manila envelopes. Logan's frown turned into a smile.
'What have we here?'
'Never seen them before in my life!'
It wasn't rain dripping down Nicholson's face now: it really was nervous sweat.
Logan snapped on a pair of latex gloves and picked up one of the envelopes. It stank of cigarette smoke. 'Anything you'd like to say before I open these?'
'I just carry them. I don't know what's in them…They're not mine!'
Logan tipped the contents out onto the table. Photographs. Women hanging out the washing; women getting ready for bed. But mostly it was children. At school. Playing in the garden. One in the back seat of a car, looking scared. Whatever Logan had been expecting, it wasn't this. Each of the pictures had a different name written on the back. No address, just a name. 'What the hell is this?'
'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 small 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 really room in the small 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 all bagged and tagged. Envelope number two wasn't full of pictures; it was full of money and little pieces of jewellery.
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 wall, the kind you burn at home, all labelled 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 hell 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 filling 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 finally come to its verdict after four weeks in the media spotlight.
'Not guilty? How the hell 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 full 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 peacefully. There will be no riot shields. This
