face was almost completely hidden: the packing tape wrapped tightly around her head. The hands were taped together against her chest, and so were the knees. But it looked as if her killer had run out of tape before they could get the legs secured. That was why the left one had been poking out of the bag for a lucky seagull to nibble on.
He pulled out his phone and called in, asking if they’d had any reports of a missing girl, about three or four years old. They hadn’t.
Swearing softly, he punched DI Insch’s number in to give him the bad news. ‘Hello, sir? Yeah, it’s DS McRae. . . No, sir.’ He took a deep breath. ‘It’s not Richard Erskine.’
There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line, and then, ‘You sure?’
Logan nodded, even though Insch couldn’t see him. ‘Definitely. Victim’s a little girl, three, maybe four, years old, but she’s not been reported missing.’
Foul language erupted from the earpiece.
‘That’s what I said, sir.’
The Identification Bureau team mimed picking up the body and buggering off to the morgue with it. Logan nodded. The one who’d called Isobel a frigid bitch took out a mobile and called for the duty undertakers. It wouldn’t do to cart a dead child about in the back of a grubby van.
‘You think the deaths are connected?’ There was a hopeful edge to DI Insch’s voice.
‘Doubtful.’ Logan watched as the tiny corpse was gently rolled into a body-bag far too big for it. ‘Victim’s female, not male. Disposal’s different: the kid’s been wrapped up in a mile and a half of packing tape. No sign of strangulation. She might have been abused, but we won’t know until the post mortem.’
Insch swore again. ‘You tell them I want that kid done today, OK? I don’t want to spend the night twiddling my thumbs while the media make up horror stories! Today!’
Logan winced, not looking forward to breaking the news to Isobel. In her current mood she was more likely to do a post mortem on him. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get her cleaned up and photographed. I want posters run off: have you seen this girl?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The blue body-bag was picked up by two of the IB team, and carefully placed in the corner of the tent, out of the way. Then they started collecting the rubbish from the bag she’d been dumped in, making sure it was all properly bagged and labelled. Banana skins, empty bottles of wine, broken eggshells. . . The poor little kid hadn’t even been worth the effort of a shallow grave. She’d been thrown out with the garbage.
Logan was promising to call the inspector back as soon as they’d heard anything when WPC Watson shouted: ‘Hold it!’ She darted forward, grabbing a crumpled-up piece of paper from the rubbish that had spilled out onto the plastic sheeting.
It was a till receipt.
Logan asked Insch to wait while Watson unfolded the grimy scrap. It was from the big Tesco in Danestone. Someone had bought half a dozen free-range eggs, a carton of crème fraîche, two bottles of cabernet sauvignon, and a pack of avocadoes. And paid for it with cash.
Watson groaned. ‘Damn.’ She handed the receipt to Logan. ‘I thought he’d’ve paid by credit card, or Switch.’
‘No way we could be that lucky.’ He turned the scrap of paper over in his hands. Eggs, wine, posh cream and avocadoes. . . The line under the last item caught Logan’s eye and a smile began to blossom.
‘What?’ Watson looked annoyed. ‘What’s so funny?’
Logan held the receipt aloft and beamed at her. ‘Sir,’ he said into the phone, ‘WPC Watson’s found a supermarket receipt in the bag with the body. . . No, sir, he paid cash.’ If Logan’s smile were any wider the top of his head would have fallen off. ‘But he did collect his Clubcard points.’
South Anderson Drive was a bastard at this time of day, but North Anderson Drive was even worse. The traffic was nose to tail all the way across the city. Rush hour.
The Procurator Fiscal had finally turned up, bustled about the crime scene, demanded an update on the investigation, complained that this was the second dead child to be discovered in as many days, implied that it was all Logan’s fault, and sodded off again.
Logan waited until he and WPC Watson were safely cocooned within the fogged-up car before expressing what he’d like to do to the Fiscal with a cactus and a tube of Ralgex.
It took them well over an hour to get from the tip at Nigg to the huge Tesco at Danestone. The store was situated in a prime spot: not far from the swollen River Don, within spitting distance of the old sewage works, the Grove Cemetery and the Grampian Country Chickens slaughterhouse; and close to where they’d found little David Reid’s bloated corpse.
The store was busy, all the office workers from the nearby Science and Technology Park picking up booze and ready-meals for another night at home in front of the telly.
There was a customer service desk just inside the entrance, manned by a young-looking man with a long blond ponytail. Logan asked him to get the manager.
Two minutes later a small, balding man with a pair of half-moon glasses arrived. He was wearing the same uniform-blue sweater as the rest of the staff, but his name badge said: ‘COLIN BRANAGAN, MANAGER’.
‘Can I help you?’
Logan pulled out his warrant card and handed it over for inspection. ‘Mr Branagan, we need to get some information on someone who was shopping here last Wednesday.’ He pulled out the receipt, now safely encased in a clear-plastic evidence wallet. ‘He paid cash, but he used his Clubcard. Can you give me his name and address from the card number?’
The manager took the see-through envelope and bit his lip. ‘Ah, well I don’t know about that,’ he said. ‘You see we’ve got to abide by the Data Protection Act. I can’t just go giving out our shoppers’ personal details. We’d be liable.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry.’
Logan dropped his voice to a near-whisper. ‘It’s important, Mr Branagan: we’re investigating an extremely serious crime.’
The manager ran a hand over the shiny top of his head. ‘I don’t know. . . I’ll have to ask Head Office. . .’
‘Fine. Let’s go do that.’
Head Office said sorry, but no: if he wanted access to their customers’ records he’d have to make a formal request in writing or get a court order. They had to abide by the Data Protection Act. There could be no exceptions.
Logan told them about the little girl’s body in the bin-bag.
Head Office changed their minds.
Five minutes later Logan was outside clutching an A4 sheet of paper on which was printed a name, address and total number of Clubcard points earned since September.
Norman Chalmers lived in a tightly-packed, three-storey tenement off Rosemount Place. The long one-way street curved away to the right, the dirty grey buildings looming over the crowded road cutting the sky until it was nothing more than a thin strip of angry clouds, tainted orange by the streetlights. Cars were parked along the kerb, jammed in nose to tail, the only break formed by the massive, communal wheelie-bins, chained together in pairs, each one big enough to hold a week’s rubbish for six households.
The endless rain drummed off the roof of the CID pool car as WPC Watson cursed her way around the block, yet again, looking for a parking spot.
Logan watched as the building slid by for the third time, ignoring WPC Watson’s murmured swearing. Number seventeen looked no different to the rest of the tenement block. Three storeys of unadorned granite blocks, streaked with rust from the decaying