Watson jumped out into the wet night, splashing between two parked cars to the pavement, the rain bouncing off her peaked cap. Logan followed, cursing as a puddle engulfed his shoe. He squelched his way to the tenement door: a dark-brown, featureless slab of wood set back behind an elaborate architrave, though the carved woodwork was so heavily coated in years of paint that little detail remained. A steady stream of water splattered off the pavement to their left, the downpipe from the guttering cracked halfway up.
Watson squeezed the transmit button on her radio, producing a faint hiss of static and a click. ‘Ready to go?’ she said, her voice low.
‘Roger that. Exit from the street is secure.’
Logan looked up to see Bravo Seven One idling at the far end of the curving street. Bravo Eight One confirmed that they were ready too, watching the Rosemount Place end, making sure no one was going to do a runner. Bucksburn station had loaned Logan two patrol cars and a handful of uniforms with local knowledge. The officers in the cars were doing a lot better than the ones on foot.
‘Check.’
The new voice sounded cold and miserable. It would be either PC Milligan or Barnett. They’d drawn the short straw. The road backed onto another curved avenue of tenements, the back gardens sharing a high dividing wall. So the poor sods had to clamber over the back wall from the adjoining street. In the dark and the mud. In the pouring rain.
‘We’re in position.’
Watson looked at Logan expectantly.
The building didn’t have an intercom, but there was a row of three bells on either side of the doorway, the buttons clarted round the edges with more brown paint. Little labels sulked beneath them, each one giving the name of the occupant. ‘NORMAN CHALMERS’ was written in blue biro on a square of bloated cardboard sellotaped over the name of the previous owner. Top floor right. Logan stepped back and looked up at the building. The lights were on.
‘OK.’ He leaned forward and rang the middle buzzer, the one marked ‘ANDERSON’. Two minutes later the door was opened by a nervous man in his mid to late twenties, big hair and heavy features, with a large bruise riding high on his cheekbone. He was still dressed from work: a cheap grey suit, the trousers all shiny at the knee, and a rumpled yellow shirt. In fact most of him looked rumpled. His face went pale when he saw WPC Watson’s uniform.
‘Mr Anderson?’ said Logan, stepping forward and sticking his foot in the door. Just in case.
‘Er . . . yes?’ The man had a strong Edinburgh accent, the vowels going up and down in the middle. ‘Is there a problem, officer?’ He backed off into the airlock, his scuffed shoes clicking on the brown-and-cream tiles.
Logan smiled reassuringly. ‘Nothing for you to worry about, sir,’ he said, following the nervous young man into the building. ‘We need to speak to one of your neighbours, but his bell doesn’t seem to be working.’ Which was a lie.
A weak smile spread across Mr Anderson’s face. ‘Oh. . . OK. Yeah.’
Logan paused. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, that’s a nasty bruise you’ve got there.’
Anderson’s hand fluttered up to the swollen, purple-and-green skin.
‘I . . . I walked into a door.’ But he couldn’t look Logan in the eye as he said it.
They followed Mr Anderson up the stairs, thanking him for his help as he disappeared inside his first floor flat.
‘He was hell of a nervous,’ said Watson when the door latch clicked shut, the deadbolt was driven home, and the chain rattled into position. ‘Think he’s up to something?’
Logan nodded. ‘Everyone’s up to something,’ he said. ‘And did you see that bruise? Walked into a door, my foot. Someone’s belted him one.’
She stared at the door. ‘Too scared to report it?’
‘Probably. But, it’s not our problem.’
The faded stair-carpet gave out at the middle floor; from here on up it was bare wooden boards that creaked and groaned as they climbed. There were three doors on the top landing. One would lead up to the communal attic, one to the other top floor flat; but the third belonged to Norman Chalmers.
It was painted dark blue and a brass number six had been fixed just below the peephole. WPC Watson flattened herself against the door, keeping herself and her uniform out of the line of sight.
Logan knocked lightly, just as a nervous downstairs neighbour might if he wanted to borrow a cupful of crème fraîche, or an avocado.
There was a creak, the roar of a television set, and then the sound of a deadbolt being drawn back. A key being turned in the lock.
The door was opened by a man in his early thirties with long hair, a squint nose and neatly trimmed beard. ‘Hello. . .’ was as far as he got.
WPC Watson lunged for him, grabbed his arm and showed him a way nature never intended it to bend.
‘What the. . . hey!’
She forced him back into the flat.
‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You’re breaking my arm!’
Watson pulled out a pair of handcuffs. ‘Norman Chalmers?’ she asked, slapping the cold metal bracelets into place.
‘I haven’t done anything!’
Logan stepped into the small entrance hall, squeezing past WPC Watson and her wriggling captive so that he could get the door closed. The tiny triangular entrance hall offered three panelled-pine doors and an open doorway leading to a galley kitchen looking more like a rubber dinghy than a galley.
Everything was painted in eye-wateringly bright colours.
‘Now then, Mr Chalmers,’ said Logan, opening a door at random and discovering a compact bathroom in luminous green. ‘Why don’t we go sit down and have a nice little chat?’ He tried another door, this time revealing a large orange lounge with a brown corduroy couch, a fake gas-fire, home cinema system and a computer. The walls were covered with film posters and a huge rack of DVDs.
‘What a lovely home you have, Mr Chalmers; or can I call you Norman?’
Logan settled himself down on the nasty brown couch before realizing it was clarted in cat hair.
Chalmers bristled, his hands cuffed behind his back, WPC Watson still holding on to him, stopping him from going anywhere. ‘What the hell is this all about?’
Logan smiled like a shark. ‘All in good time, sir. WPC Watson, would you be so kind as to read this gentleman his rights?’
‘You’re arresting me? What for? I haven’t done anything!’
‘No need to shout, sir. Constable, if you please. . .’
‘Norman Chalmers,’ she said, ‘I am detaining you on suspicion of the murder of an unidentified four-year-old girl.’
‘What?’ He struggled against the handcuffs as Watson went through the remainder of the speech, shouting over and over again that he hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t killed anyone. This was all a mistake.
Logan let him run out of steam before holding up a set of duly signed and notarized papers. ‘I have here a warrant to search these premises. You were careless, Norman. We found her body.’
‘I didn’t do anything!’
‘You should have used a fresh bin-bag, Norman. You killed her, and just threw her out with all your other rubbish. But you didn’t check for incriminating evidence, did you?’ He held up the clear plastic wallet with the supermarket till receipt in it. ‘Avocadoes, cabernet sauvignon, crème fraîche and a dozen free-range eggs. Do you have a Tesco Clubcard, sir?’
‘This