Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride Read Free Book Online

wasn't the worst bit of the city, but was in the top ten. This was where Aberdeen's fish processing factories were. Tons of white fish landed every week, al to be gutted and fil eted by hand. Good money if you could handle the cold and the smel . Huge blue plastic bins of discarded fish guts and bones squatted on the roadside, the rain doing nothing to dissuade fat seagul s from swooping in to snatch a fish head or a beakful of innards.

    'What you think?' asked Watson, sticking her hands deep in her pockets, trying to keep warm.
    Logan shrugged, watching water overflowing the seat of a bright yellow digger. 'The house been searched?'
    Watson pulled out her notebook. 'We got the cal at eleven oh five. Mother was hysterical. Control sent round a couple of uniforms from the local Torry stationhouse. First thing they did was go through the place with a fine-toothed comb. He's not hiding in the linen cupboard and his body's not been stashed in the fridge freezer.'
    'I see.' That digger was way too smal for a five-year-old. In fact a lot of the toys looked as if they belonged in the age three-and-up bracket. Maybe Mrs Erskine didn't want her little baby growing up?
    'You think she kil ed him?' asked Watson, watching him stare out at the drenched garden.
    'No, not real y. But if it turns out she has and we didn't look...the press would crucify us.
    What about the father?'
    ' Cording to the neighbour he's been dead since before the kid was born.'
    Logan nodded. That would explain why the woman was so overprotective. Didn't want her son going the same way as his father. 'So what's the state of the search?' he asked.
    'We've phoned his friends: no one's seen him since Sunday afternoon.'
    'What about his clothes, favourite teddy bear, that kind of thing?'
    'Al present and accounted for. So he's probably not run away.'
    Logan gave the discarded toys one last look and went back into the house. The inspector would be here soon, looking for an update. 'Er...' He looked at Watson out of the corner of his eye as they walked through the kitchen and down the hal way towards the front door. 'You've worked with DI Insch before, right?'
    WPC Watson admitted that she had.
    'So what's with the--' Logan mimed stuffing his face with fizzy cola bottles. 'He trying to give up smoking?'
    Watson shrugged. 'Dunno, sir. Maybe it's some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder?'
    She paused, brow furrowed in thought. 'Or maybe he's just a big fat bastard.'
    Logan didn't know whether to laugh or look shocked.

    'Tel you one thing though, sir, he's a damn good policeman. And you don't fuck with him twice.'
    Somehow Logan had already come to that conclusion al on his own.
    'Right.' He stopped at the front door. The hal way was festooned with photographs, just like the lounge. 'Get that picture down to the nearest newsagents. We'l need about a hundred photocopies and--'
    'The local boys have already done it, sir. They've got four officers going door to door al along the route Richard would have taken to the shops, handing them out.'
    Logan was impressed. 'They don't hang about.'
    'No, sir.'
    'OK, let's get half a dozen uniform down here to give them a hand.' He pul ed out his mobile phone and started dial ing, his finger freezing over the last number. 'Oh, ho...'
    'Sir?'
    A flash-looking motor had pulled up at the kerb and out bustled a familiar, short figure, al wrapped up in a black overcoat, wrestling with a matching umbrel a.
    'Looks like the vultures are circling already.'
    Logan grabbed a brol y from the hal way and stepped out into the rain. The icy water thrummed off the umbrel a as he stood and waited for Colin Mil er to climb the stairs.
    'Sergeant!' said Mil er, smiling. 'Long time no see! You stil carting that tasty...' The smile became even broader as he saw WPC Watson scowling from the doorway. 'Constable! We was just talking about you!'
    'What do you want?' Her voice was even colder than the grey afternoon.
    'Business before pleasure, eh?' Mil er dug