The Big Man Upstairs: A Scottish Crime Thriller (DCI Logan Crime Thrillers Book 7) Read online

  The Big Man Upstairs

  A DCI Jack Logan Thriller

  J.D. Kirk

  Zertex Crime

  Copyright © 2020 by J.D. Kirk

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published by Zertex Crime, an imprint of Zertex Media Ltd

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  DCI Logan Returns in…

  Go Behind the Scenes

  Also by J.D. Kirk

  For Lindsay Jarret, whose strength knows no bounds.

  Chapter One

  The path was not a path. Not this evening. It was an inhospitable desert. A vast Arctic ice floe. The Valley of Death itself. It would take him hours to cross it. Days. Weeks.

  He hoped so, at least. He wanted to delay it, to push it away to some far-off date, to someplace and sometime he wouldn’t have to think about too much. Not now, at least. Not yet.

  But it was too late for that. There was no delaying it, no holding it back, no escaping it. He no longer had that choice.

  He creaked open the gate, but didn’t yet take a step. Instead, he just stood there, the drizzle matting his hair to his head. The high winds that had battered him on his walk back to the house had died away, like the night itself was holding its breath.

  Waiting. Watching him. Damning him with its silence.

  The path was not a path. It was the Gaza Strip. A World War I trench. A river of molten lava. Crossing it would be the end of him. By the time he reached the front door, the old him—this him—would be dead, and whatever version of himself still existed would have to live forever with what he’d done.

  The wind returned. The hand of God Himself, pushing him on. Urging him to get it over with. To face up to his sins.

  His legs moved. He didn’t want them to, but they did it anyway. One foot, then the other, plodded him up the impossibly long path to the cottage way, way off in the distance.

  There were lights on, despite the relative earliness of the evening. The rainclouds had cast a shadow over him, and the house, and the town around. The gloom was entirely appropriate. All it needed was a flash of lightning and a boom of thunder to fully set the stage.

  He’d seen the house a thousand times. More. It was different now, knowing what he knew. Knowing what awaited him inside. And what would await him after he had done it. After he had rent the world asunder with his next awful act.

  There would be a lot of questions. A lot of accusations. He would have an endless amount of explaining to do.

  Despite the impossible distance he had to cover, he arrived at the front step after just a few seconds. His heartbeat was thumping in his head, and his legs, and his stomach, and his throat. His chest, strangely, felt empty. Hollow. A void, filled with nothing at all. No air. No heart. No soul.

  His keys rattled in his shaking hand, the metal scratching and scraping around the lock as he struggled to insert the front door key in the dim light of the porch.

  A car passed, the beam of its headlights moving through the gaps in the hedge like dancing fairies. He took the opportunity to slot the key into the lock, but otherwise didn’t move until the vehicle had continued on along the street and around the corner at the far end.

  Even when it was gone, he didn’t turn the key. Not yet. He wasn’t ready.

  Instead, he placed a hand on the door, like he could feel through it to the rooms on the other side. He ran his fingers across the smooth wood, caressing it and savouring the moment. Right here and now, it was still his house. Still his home.

  When he opened it, that would all change.

  Everything would change.

  He took a breath. He choked back a sob.

  And then, the Reverend Gareth Mann opened his front door and stepped inside to face the raw, awful horror of what he was about to do.

  Chapter Two

  The once-Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan had cracked the case less than five minutes after the ferry had left the terminal. The ex-wife had done it. Caved her former husband's head in with a garden gnome, then had it fixed up and repainted.

  The gnome, that was. Not the head.

  It was obvious. Far too obvious. All the clues were there in the folder he’d been given back at the pub. He’d been out of the polis for the better part of a year, but he’d been able to spot the killer a mile-off on a skim read of the first few pages. Anyone who couldn’t, had no bloody business issuing parking tickets, much less being involved in murder investigations.

  Logan dropped the folder on the table Sinead Bell was sitting at. The weather had taken a turn for the worse while they’d waited for the boat to come in, and everyone in the lounge—including himself—was leaning left and right to compensate for the choppiness of the water.

  Sinead had recently moved to the Major Investigations Team from Uniform and was now a fully-fledged Detective Constable. Logan had pegged her as one-to-watch from the moment he’d met her. She was smart. Competent. Thought outside the box, and quickly, too.

  He saw from the way her eyes went to the folder that she understood. She knew the plan was a bust. They’d been well and truly rumbled.

  “I’m assuming she confessed?” Logan grunted, lowering himself onto the hard plastic chair across the table from Sinead.

  “Who?” she asked, her brow creasing into a frown. He saw through the look of confusion right away.

  “It’s a good job you’re a decent copper, Detective Constable, because you’d make a shite actress,” Logan told her. “You know full bloody well who.”

  For a moment, it looked like Sinead was going to maintain the pretence, but then she smiled sheepishly at him and gave a little shrug. “She did, sir, aye. Couple of days after the body was found. Admitted to the whole thing. Turned out she’d thought she’d get the life insurance. We had her down as the culprit from the get-go.”

  Logan nodded, then sat back in his chair. The floor undulated beneath him, and he shifted his weight to compensate. “Aye, well I should bloody hope so. You’d have to be blind not to see what she was up to,” he said. “And I told you, don’t call me ‘sir.’ I’m not your boss. I’m no’ even on the Force.”

  Sinead nodded while fighting to stay straight-faced. “Right. Aye. Whatever you say.”


  “This Ben’s idea, was it?” Logan asked, tapping the folder. “Tell me there’s some big mystery, try to tempt me back in with it?”

  Sinead picked up the folder and slipped it into her briefcase.

  “Kind of a joint team decision,” she said, giving nothing away. She chewed her lip for a moment as she buckled the bag closed. “You’re not angry, are you?”

  “What, that my former colleagues all got together and conspired to deceive me?” Logan asked. It came out more harshly than he’d intended, and he offered a thin, lopsided smile by way of an apology. “No. I’m not angry. Truth be told, I’ve been thinking about coming back. For a while now, actually. The job… it gets its hooks into you, I suppose, and…” He sighed. “God. I don’t know.”

  “Admit it, sir. You missed us.”

  Logan gave a dry chuckle. “Aye, like a hole in the head.”

  He looked around the small passenger lounge. It was busier than he’d expect for a Wednesday. There were a dozen or so people spread out around the tables. Most of them were reading newspapers or had their noses buried in books.

  A young couple sitting together near one of the windows had their phones raised, searching for a signal. To the best of Logan’s knowledge, they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since stepping aboard.

  There was a small arcade area down a corridor. He could see Sinead’s brother, Harris, shooting wildly at a screen with a bright blue plastic revolver.

  “Speaking of holes, where’s Tyler?” Logan asked.

  “He’s out on deck for some fresh air,” Sinead said, indicating a door that led outside. “He gets seasick.”

  “Jesus Christ, is there any mode of transport that boy doesn’t have some bloody issue with?” Logan asked. “Still, least it’s no’ my upholstery that’s in the firing line, this time.”

  “He says it’s an inner-ear problem,” Sinead explained.

  “Fair enough. I’m not sure what kind of inner-ear problem makes you nearly shite yourself in a helicopter, mind you. But then, I’m no’ a doctor,” Logan said.

  “Sinead! Have you got any more money?”

  Logan turned in his chair to see Harris come stumbling across the rolling lounge, wild-eyed with excitement.

  “I gave you all my change already,” Sinead told him, and the boy flinched like he’d been struck.

  “Aw, but I’ve nearly got the bad guy!” Harris groaned, bouncing up and down with excited frustration. “I’m so close, but I’ve died. I’ve only got sixty seconds to put more money in. I’ve had to leave the gun sitting on the floor so it doesn’t reset!”

  “You cleaned me out,” Sinead told him. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t stop the bad guys, Detective Constable. Have they taught you nothing?” Logan said, getting to his feet. He shot her a reproachful look as he fished in his trouser pockets. “Come on, son. Let’s you and me go show this bugger who’s boss.”

  When they disembarked at Thurso, DC Tyler Neish was the first down the ramp onto dry land. He stumbled the last few steps, staggered as he adjusted to the motionless solidity of the ground beneath his feet, then clung to a lamp post until everything stopped spinning.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” he insisted, although the colour of his face—or rather, the complete lack of it—said otherwise. “Just give me a second, and I’ll be right as rain.”

  It was a fitting choice of words. The rain was coming down in sheets now, making the town of Thurso look even greyer and more miserable than usual, which was no mean feat.

  Up above, seagulls called their screeching laments, keeping their beady eyes peeled for any poor, hapless bastards emerging from the ferry with a bag of chips in hand.

  “I’m freezing,” Harris said, pulling his thin jacket around himself. “Can we go to the car?”

  Logan stepped aside to let the smattering of other passengers disembark. Vehicles were trundling down a separate ramp beside them, their drivers dry and warm inside.

  “Aye, get your finger out, and pull yourself together, son,” Logan scolded. “We’re getting soaked to the knickers here.”

  “Sorry, Boss,” Tyler said. He gulped down some salty air, and tentatively released his grip on the lamp post.

  They all watched him swaying on the spot for a few seconds, before he smiled, nodded, and gave a thumbs up. “Right, that’s me,” he announced.

  And then, he turned away, coughed, and what little was left of his stomach contents splattered onto the ground at his feet.

  “No. Tell a lie,” he managed to wheeze before the next heave trembled through him, and the hungry seagulls cried out with glee.

  Logan sighed. The two-and-a-half-hour drive to Inverness suddenly seemed like a very daunting prospect.

  Four hours and multiple pitstops later, Sinead pulled into the Burnett Road Station car park, cut off the engine, and pressed the buttons that wound up all four windows.

  The journey had been a cold and wet one, but it was better that than the smell.

  It had also been arse-numbingly uncomfortable. Technically, Sinead and Tyler were not on official polis business, so they’d taken Sinead’s car.

  Logan didn’t think he’d ever been in a Vauxhall Corsa before, and he hoped to Christ he was never in one again. Or, if he was, he was going to make a point of not being in the back seat.

  Tyler had insisted that he’d feel better if he was sitting up front. If that was the case, Logan thought, he’d have hated to see what the bastard would’ve been like in the back.

  Logan had squeezed in there next to Harris, his knees jammed up against the back of Tyler’s seat, his head at an angle so it wasn’t sticking up through the roof.

  Harris had fallen asleep a few minutes into the drive. Logan didn’t think he’d ever been more jealous of anyone in his life and had contemplated nudging the boy awake multiple times throughout the drive, if only so he had someone else to share his misery with.

  As she’d driven, Sinead had filled Logan in on what he’d missed since he’d left. For the most part, this involved her complaining about DCI Sam Grant—Snecky, as he was more commonly known—who had come running back from the Central Belt with his tail between his legs just as soon as his old job had become available.

  Tyler had chimed in with his own remarks about Snecky, as and when his rigorous vomiting schedule had allowed. It was safe to say neither Detective Constable liked the man. This came as no surprise. Logan had not yet met anyone on the Force with a kind word to say about Snecky, beyond someone once remarking that they quite liked his new shoes.

  A job had opened up with CID in Aberdeen, and Snecky was keen to make the transfer out east. First, they needed to find his replacement, and the new Detective Superintendent overseeing the MIT team was keen for it to be ‘someone familiar with the role,’ and ‘a safe pair of hands.’

  Logan was certainly the first of those things. He wasn’t so sure about the second.

  “She, eh, wants you to go in as soon as you’re here,” Sinead said. “Detective Superintendent Mitchell, I mean.” She turned in her chair and looked around at him, all squashed up and crooked-necked. “She said to say that if you don’t go and see her, you can forget the whole thing. So… yeah. You should probably go see her, eh? You think?” She looked to Tyler for support. “He should probably go and see her.”

  With some effort, Tyler turned in his seat. Logan hissed and drew back at the sight of his bleary red eyes and green-tinged skin.

  “Holy shite, son,” Logan said. “Are you sure you survived that journey? You look like a bloody zombie.”

  “I’m actually feeling much better now, Boss,” Tyler said, although this was not supported by how he looked, or the way his voice rasped through his dry, aching throat. He smiled weakly. “But, aye. You should go talk to her, pronto. Take it from me, she does not like to be kept waiting.”

  Chapter Three

  It was a strange feeling for Logan to walk into Hoon’s old office and not find himself on the recei
ving end of a torrent of abuse, or some creatively offensive personal insult.

  Detective Superintendent Chuki Mitchell sat behind the same desk Hoon had used for years, and yet it was barely recognisable. It looked bigger, for one thing. This was partly because the person sitting behind it was considerably smaller, but also because the desktop wasn’t hidden beneath teetering stacks of paperwork, notebooks, mould-infested coffee cups, and the general clutter that Hoon had been happy to live with.

  Now, Logan could see the actual top of the desk itself, which was something of a first. The Out Tray was almost as full as the In Tray. Hoon had rarely, if ever, used the Out Tray, other than as a makeshift bin when the cleaner hadn’t come round to empty his wastepaper basket.

  Logan had met the new DSup a handful of times over the years, but had never really got the measure of her beyond the very basics. She was a good five or six years older than he was, he estimated, and she was a clear foot shorter.

  But then, most people were.

  She’d risen through the ranks pretty quickly, which had led to a fair amount of gossip. He’d done his best to ignore it, but hadn’t been able to avoid hearing occasional snatches of it over the years.