'Don't tell me you've lost him!'
'We didn't really lose him. I'm sure he's just gone out for a walk. He'll be back as soon as it gets dark…'
Logan looked at his watch. It was three-thirty. It was already dark. 'Have you looked for him?'
'DC Harris's out there now. I'm staying here, in case he comes back.'
Logan banged his head off the table again.
'Hello? Hello? Is something wrong?'
'He's not coming back.' The words came out through gritted teeth. 'Have you told Control he's missing?'
Another embarrassed pause.
'Oh for God's sake,' said Logan. 'I'll let them know.'
'What do you want me to do?'
Logan was a gentleman and didn't tell her.
Ten minutes later every patrol car in Aberdeen knew to keep an eye out for Roadkill wandering the streets. Not that Logan needed psychic powers to know where he would be going. He'd be making for the farm and its buildings full of dead things.
It was a fair walk to Cults from Summerhill, especially in the driving snow, but Roadkill was used to long walks. Pushing his own portable morgue along the highways and byways of the city. Collecting dead animals along the way.
But Bernard Duncan Philips didn't get that far. He was found three and a half hours later, lying in a pool of slowly freezing blood, in Hazlehead Woods. The woods were fairytale black and white, old twisted trees frosted with ice, blanketed in snow. A single-track road twisted its way through the centre of the park and Logan crept his pool car along it, keeping the speed down trying to keep the thing from sliding off the road and into a tree.
A mile and a half into the woods there was a rough car park, no tarmac, just dirt compacted over years and years of use, hidden beneath the snow. A single, large beech tree sat in the middle, bedecked in winter and surrounded by policemen milling about with no real obvious purpose, breath pluming out into the bitter air. Freezing their nuts off.
Logan pulled up next to the grubby IB van, killed the engine and clambered out into the slippery, hard-packed snow. The cold air was like a slap in the face. He shivered his way to the crime scene tent, hoping to God it would be warmer inside. It wasn't. Blood was spattered out from the middle of the tent, where a big pool of dark red was thickening with ice crystals, making the surface glitter. There were footprints everywhere and a man-shaped depression, straddling the pool of blood. Roadkill had been lying on his side. Bleeding his life out into the snow.
Logan grabbed the photographer. It was Billy: the balding AFC fan who'd taken photos at the tip. He was still wearing the same red-and-white bobble hat.
'Where's the body?'
'A amp;-E.'
'What?'
'He's no dead.' The photographer looked down at the crimson stain and then at Logan. 'No yet anyway.'
Which was how Logan ended up back at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary for the second time that day. Bernard Duncan Philips had been admitted with a fractured skull, broken ribs, broken arms, one broken leg, fractured fingers and internal injuries consistent with someone repeatedly stamping on his stomach. He'd been taken straight into surgery, but the mob had done a thorough job this time. Roadkill wasn't expected to survive.
Logan waited at the hospital, because there wasn't really anywhere else for him to go. He wasn't going to go back to FHQ and wait for his suspension to become official. At least if he was out here, with his phone switched off, he could pretend it wasn't going to happen.
Four hours later a serious-looking nurse appeared and escorted Logan through the maze of corridors to intensive care. The doctor who'd dealt with Desperate Doug was standing at Roadkill's bed, reading a chart.
'How is he?'
The doctor looked up from his clipboard. 'You back again?'
Logan looked at the battered, bandaged figure. 'Is it as bad as it looks?'
'Well…' There was a sigh. 'He's suffered some brain damage. We won't know how much for a while yet. He's stable for now.'
They stood watching Roadkill's shallow breaths.
'Is there any chance?'
The doctor shrugged. 'I think we caught the internal bleeding in time. I can tell you one thing for sure though: he's not going to have any more children. Both testicles ruptured. But he'll live.'
Logan winced. 'What about the man I came in with earlier? Mr MacDuff?'
'Not good.' He shook his head. 'Not good at all.'
'Is he going to be OK?'
'I'm afraid I can't discuss that. Patient confidentiality. You'd have to ask Mr MacDuff.'
'OK I'll do that.'
The doctor shook his head again. 'Not tonight. He's an old man; he's been through a lot today. It's nearly midnight. Let him sleep.' He raised sad eyes to Logan's face. 'Trust me: he's not going anywhere.' Outside, the snow had stopped and the sky was clearing: a bowl of inky-black, the stars blurred by the city's lights. Logan walked out of A amp;-E and into the icy night.
An ambulance carefully pulled up to the entrance, its lights flashing away.
Turning his back on the scene, Logan climbed into his pool car, his breath instantly fogging up the windscreen, dug out his mobile phone and switched it back on. Might as well face the music, now that it was too late for anyone to be calling him.
He had five messages. Four of them were from Colin Miller, desperate to know what had happened to Roadkill. But one was from WPC Jackie Watson asking if he didn't have anything better to do that is, if he would, but it was OK if he didn't, like to maybe go see a film, or maybe not a film, maybe just have a drink, because it had been a rough day…And if he did want to, you know, do something, then he could maybe give her a call back? The message was left at eight. Right about when Logan was sitting down to wait for Roadkill to come out of surgery.
He stabbed her number into the phone. It was late: after midnight, but maybe not too late…
It rang and rang and rang. At last a tinny, metallic voice told him that the number he had called was not available, please try again later.
For the second time that day he punctuated a list of obscenities by banging his head on something. The steering wheel made little boinging noises as he bounced his forehead against the plastic.
It had not been a good day.
When the windscreen finally cleared Logan revved the engine, spinning the car out of the hospital car park in a foul mood. With his teeth gritted he slammed on the brakes as the car sailed up to the junction, taking grim pleasure as the car's back end decided it wanted to overtake the front. He floored the accelerator and steered into the skid, whipping the car back in line as it drifted round the corner and on to the main road. There was a truck stopped at the lights up ahead and Logan had the sudden desire to put his foot down and plough right into the back of it.
But he didn't. Instead he swore quietly to himself and slowed the car down to a crawl.
The sound of his mobile screeching in his jacket pocket made him jump. It was Jackie, WPC Watson calling back! Grinning, he scrabbled the phone out and up to his ear. 'Hello?' he said, sounding as upbeat as he could.
'Laz? That you?' It was Colin Miller. 'Laz, I've been trying to get hold of ye for hours, man!'
Logan sat with the phone against his ear, watching the traffic lights change from red to amber. 'I know. I got your messages.'
'They beat the shit out of Roadkill. Did you hear? What happened? Spill the beans!'
Logan said no.
'What? Come on, Laz, I thought you and me was friends here?'
Logan scowled out at the cold, empty night. 'After what you did? You're no bloody friend of mine!'
There was a stunned silence.
'After what I did? What you talking about? I've no put the boot into your pantomime dame for ages! I did your damn puff-piece! What the hell more do you want?'
The light finally went green and the truck pulled away, leaving Logan and the pool car behind.
'You told everyone we'd found Peter Lumley's body.'
