the locked gate. Then came the voice Logan was waiting for: ‘Laz, ’bout time, man. I’m freezin’ ma nuts off out here!’ Colin Miller, rosy cheeks and red nose, dressed up in a thick black overcoat, thick padded boots, and furry hat. Very Russian.
‘Get in.’
The reporter clambered into the back seat, and another heavily wrapped-up man joined him.
Logan turned sharply, wincing as his stomach reminded him of the staples holding it together.
‘Laz, this is Jerry. He’s ma photographer.’
The photographer peeled a hand out of a thick snow glove and extended it for shaking.
Logan didn’t take it. ‘Sorry, Jerry, but this is a one-man-only deal. There will be official police photographs available for the story, but we can’t have unauthorized photos doing the rounds. You have to stay here.’
The reporter tried his friendliest smile. ‘Come on, Laz, Jerry’s a good lad. He’ll no’ take any gore shots, will you, Jerry?’
Jerry looked momentarily confused and Logan knew that was exactly what he’d been told to take.
‘Sorry. You and you only.’
‘Shite.’ Miller pulled off his furry cap, shaking the snow into the footwell of the back seat. ‘Sorry, Jerry. You go wait in the car. There’s some coffee in a thermos under the driver’s seat. Don’t eat all the gingersnaps.’
Swearing under his breath, the photographer clambered out of the car, into the crowd of journalists and the steadily falling snow.
‘Right,’ said Logan as they drove slowly through the blizzard. ‘Let’s make sure we’re clear on the rules here: we get editorial rights over any story. We supply the photographs. If there’s something we don’t want you to print because it jeopardizes the investigation, you don’t print it.’
‘An’ I get full exclusive rights. You don’t do this for anyone else.’ Miller’s smile was positively obscene.
Logan nodded. ‘And if you say one bad word about DI Insch I will personally kill you.’
Miller laughed, holding up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Whoa there, Tiger. No taking the piss out the Pantomime Dame. It’s a deal.’
‘The constables on duty have been told to answer your questions. As long as they’re appropriate.’
‘Is that fit-looking WPC of yours going to be here?’
‘No.’
Miller shook his head sadly. ‘Shame. I had an inappropriate question for her.’
They started by getting into full biohazard boiler suits, complete with gas masks. Then Logan began the tour. Steading number one: empty but for the residue of slime and ooze. Steading number two was where Miller got the first real lungful of the stench. He went surprisingly quiet as they stepped in amongst the decaying, furry corpses.
The scale of the pile was truly staggering. Even with half the dead animals removed to the waste containers outside, there were still hundreds of them in here. Badgers, dogs, cats, rabbits, seagulls, crows, pigeons, the occasional deer. If it had died on Aberdeen’s roads, it was here. Decaying slowly.
A hole in the pile was cordoned off. This was where they’d found the little girl.
‘Christ, Laz,’ said Miller, his voice muffled by the breathing mask. ‘This is fuckin’ grim!’
‘Tell me about it.’
They found the search team in steading number three. They were dressed in the same blue protective suits, working their way through the mound of decaying carcases by hand.
Corpse by corpse they picked them up, placed them on a table for examination and then piled them for disposal in the waste containers.
‘Why this one?’ asked Miller. ‘How come they’re not emptying the one where the girl was?’
‘Philips kept the steadings sequentially numbered.’ Logan pointed out through the door. ‘One through five. Six is the farmhouse. His plan must’ve been to fill them all. One by one.’
A pair of constables pulled a mangy-looking spaniel/labrador cross from the pile and carried it between them to the table.
‘This is the building he was in the middle of filling. If he took Peter Lumley, this is where he’ll be.’
Logan could see Miller frowning behind his safety goggles. ‘If you’re looking for another kid, how come you’re doing it like this? Why examine all the things one by one? Why no’ just turf the shite out till you find him?’
‘Because we might not be looking for all of him. There’s still a bit of David Reid missing.’
Miller looked at the pile of dead things and the police men and women going through the lot by hand. ‘Jesus. You’re looking for his dick? In this? Fuck me, but you bastards deserve a medal! Or your heads examined.’ Another rabbit was added to the table, given a brief inspection, and then thrown in the pile for disposal. ‘Fuck. . .’
Outside, snow was slowly consuming the waste containers. A thick coating lay on top, drifts climbed the sides. Logan had a nasty thought as he watched a shovelful of examined remains being stuffed into one of the containers.
It wasn’t easy running in Wellington boots and heavy snow, but Logan managed to get there just as the last seagull was tipped in. ‘Hold it,’ he said, grabbing the man with the shovel. No not a man, a woman. It was difficult to tell in the shapeless protective gear.
‘Where did you put the original contents?’
She looked at him as if he were mad, snow swirling down all around them. ‘What?’
‘The original contents: the council were filling these things. Where did you put the bodies they’d already put in there? Have you gone through them already?’
A look of unhappy comprehension appeared on the WPC’s face. ‘Shit!’ She threw her shovel down into the snow. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ Three deep breaths and then, ‘Sorry, sir. We’ve been at this all day. We’ve just been throwing the bodies in. No one thought about checking the stuff already in there.’ Her shoulders slumped and Logan knew how she felt.
‘Come on. We’ll empty this thing into steading number one and check the contents as we go. One group keeps going where they are, the other goes through this lot.’ Fun, fun, fun. ‘I’ll break the good news to the team.’ Why not? he thought to himself, they already hate me. Might as well give them good reason for it.
The news went down every bit as badly as Logan had anticipated. The only thing that made them feel any better was that he was prepared to pitch in and help. At least for a while.
And that was how Logan spent his afternoon. Miller, bless his cotton socks, swallowed his pride and picked up a shovel. The spaniel/labrador was near the top of the pile this time. Last in, first out. But slowly they worked their way through the contents of the waste container.
Logan was sure he’d examined the same burst-open rabbit about thirty times when the screaming started.
Someone came running out of steading number three clutching his hand to his chest. He slipped on the snow and went flat on his back. The screaming stopped for a moment as all the wind was knocked out of him.
The team abandoned their carcases and charged towards the fallen figure. Logan got there just as the screaming started up again.
Blood was oozing out of the constable’s thick rubber glove through a neat puncture mark in the palm. The victim tore off his mask and goggles. It was PC Steve. Ignoring the calls to calm down, he carried on screaming as he dragged the bloody glove off his injured hand. There was a ragged hole in it: right in the meaty bit between his thumb and forefinger. It pulsed dark-red blood, running down the blue plastic boiler suit and into the snow.
‘What