the dirt leading off up the hill. A uniformed constable examined their warrant cards and waved them through. The track was pitted and slithery with mud; heather bushes grew on either side, their little purple and white spears waving in the breeze as Logan and Rennie picked their way along the verge. Broom grew in dark green profusion to their right, the brown, brittle seed casings rattling in the breeze like a nest of venomous snakes. And on the other side, tall pine trees, the forest floor beneath them carpeted with fallen needles, soaked almost black with the rain, studded with red mushrooms and luminous green ferns. 'You going to this thing tomorrow then?' asked Rennie, as they waded through the wet grass.
Tomorrow?'
The funeral? You know, Trevor Maitland?'
Oh shit. Logan winced; he'd forgotten all about it. How the hell was he supposed to stand there and look Maitland's widow in the eye? What was he supposed to say – I'm sorry I screwed up and got your husband killed? Great bloody comfort that would be. 'What happened with that search on the Pirie woman?' he asked, changing the subject.
'Eh? Oh, right…' Rennie shook his head. 'Jesus, what a mimt she was! The Cruickshanks have filed about twenty complaints against her since Christmas: drunken, abusive behaviour mostly. Even tried for an antisocial behaviour order, but no luck so far. Banned for drink driving about three months .igo – Mr Cruickshank tipped the local station off – done for assault last year, two counts of possession, but she got off with a warning. Rumours she was involved in some sort of kiddie porn ring, all anonymous complaints, but the Westhill station recognized the voice-'
'Gavin Cruickshank again?'
'Bingo.' They reached the top of the hill and started down the other side, still following the rutted tracks in the mud.
'There's piles more, but basically she's a dirty scumbag and Mr Cruickshank's had it in for her ever since she moved in.
Last complaint was made on the Tuesday night when she thumped him one.'
Logan grunted. No wonder Ailsa thought the woman had something to do with her disappearing husband. She certainly would've had a motive. That's if Gavin wasn't screwing a pole dancer on a foreign beach somewhere, while his poor wife fretted and worried.
'What about Ritchie, the Shore Lane Stalker?'
Rennie shrugged. 'Have to ask the inspector about that.
Playing it close to her chest.'
That figured. She wouldn't want to share even the slightest hint of glory…
The forest suddenly opened up into a large, waterlogged dip. This was as far as the Identification Bureau van had got.
It was abandoned halfway down the track, its rear wheels partially submerged in watery brown slime, the sides covered with fresh sprays of mud. There was a line of blue and white Police tape leading off into the trees just up ahead, and Logan and Rennie followed it. Two hundred yards in and they came across the cordon marking the outermost edge of the crime scene. A bored-looking WPC with a clipboard made them change into SOC boiler suits and overshoes before signing them in. The IB had put up a makeshift canopy of blue plastic, stringing it up between the trees on the periphery of the clearing. Smack bang in the middle of this impromptu marquee was a red fabric suitcase, identical to the last one, wedged under the bole of a fallen tree, partially covered by a layer of pine needles and soil, with fern fronds piled on top as camouflage. 'I don't get it,' said Logan, watching as one of the IB team squatted down in front of the case and started delicately clearing off the greenery, needles and dirt into a large evidence pouch. 'Why buy a bright-red suitcase if you're going to hide the damn thing in a forest? I mean, it's always going to stick out like a sore thumb, isn't it? Why not buy a green one, or black? Why red?'
Rennie shrugged. 'Wanted it to be found?'
'Then why take it out into the middle of the bloody woods and hide it under a fallen tree? Why bury it under leaves and stuff?'
A thoughtful pause and then: 'Maybe to make it easy to find, but look like it's hard to find, so you'd find it but think it wasn't meant to be found, even though you only really found it because someone wanted it to be found?'
Logan looked at him. 'Did that make sense when it was inside your head? 'Cos it lost something in translation.'
Doc Fraser was already there, his medical bag sitting next to him on a roll of plastic sheeting while he leant against a tree and read the paper, waiting for the IB to finish taking samples, photographs, video, dusting for prints… He looked up from the P amp;J's farming section and smiled. 'What-ho chaps,' he said in a mock English accent, 'smashing evening for a spot of the old dismembered-corpse routine, don't ya think?'
Logan pointed at the milling throng of IB technicians. 'Any sign of the PF yet?' Doc Fraser shook his head: no one here but us chickens – not even DI Steel, who by rights should
I
have got there before Rennie and Logan. Grumpy Doc Wilson was about somewhere, but given his recently acquired permanent foul mood the pathologist hadn't bothered to make conversation and he'd sodded off into the woods to make some phone calls. There was a crash and a clatter from down the track they'd just walked up and DI Steel emerged, looking a little flustered, hauling at the backside of her boiler suit.
'Call of nature,' she said. 'Don't ask.' The inspector took a quick stroll round the fallen tree, following the IB's little raised path. 'So,' she said to Doc Fraser when she'd made a complete circuit, 'you going to hang about here all day reading the paper, or you planning on actually doing some work?'
The suitcase's lock came off in one piece and was dropped carefully into an evidence bag by a nervous-looking IB techie.
'You know,' said Steel as Doc Fraser gripped the top of the case, 'we're all going to look like a right bunch of idiots if this is a Cocker Spaniel.'
Fraser opened the case.
The smell wasn't a patch on the dismembered Labrador, but it was still strong enough to make them all gag. There, lying in a pool of putrid liquid, was a large, grey-white chunk of meat. Definitely not a Cocker Spaniel. It had the word Ailsa tattooed on its chest.
Rennie drove foot flat to the floor, rallying along the country roads making for Westhill while Logan phoned the Wildlife Investigation Officer who'd worked the dog-torso case. Had he spoken to a Mrs Clair Pirie when he was going through the list of missing black Labradors? No, he hadn't, because Mrs Pirie hadn't reported her dog missing. DI Steel sat up front in the passenger seat, a grin stretching her face wide.
The Procurator Fiscal had been ecstatic – a search and arrest warrant was being rushed through. Her office promised it would be faxed to the Westhill police station by the time the inspector's team got there. Alpha Two Nine was following on behind, having difficulty keeping up with Rennie's driving.
The PF's office was as good as its word and twelve minutes later Rennie pulled up outside Clair Pirie's house in Westfield Gardens. Alpha Two Nine was parked round the back, on the entrance road to Westhill Academy – just in case. Next door, Cruickshanks' Repose was in darkness, no car in the driveway, no answer when Logan phoned. But the television flickered in Clair Pirie's lounge, making bruise-coloured shadows lurch and sprawl across the wallpaper.
'Right,' said Steel, holding a hand out to Rennie. 'Warrants.'
The constable handed over the wad of faxed documents, all duly signed and counter-signed. 'Let's do it.'
Rennie knocked on the front door, forgoing the broken bell, and settled back to wait. Behind him Steel shifted excitedly from foot to foot, like she was a little kid waiting for her turn at the ice-cream van. Eventually, grumbling and swearing, Clair Pirie opened the door, took one look at Rennie standing on her doorstep and slammed it shut again. 'Fuck off!' she shouted through the rippled glass, 'I'm not in.'
Steel shoved Rennie out of the way, squaring up to the closed door. 'Don't be bloody stupid. Open this door now, or I'll have it kicked in.'
