Dark Blood

27

DI Steel slouched through the door to her office, carrying a cup of coffee in one hand and a bacon buttie in the other, tomato sauce making a jaunty little goatee on her chin. She froze, staring at the weedy, pointy-nosed bloke digging away at her window lock with a Swiss Army Knife.

‘What the sodding hell do you think you’re doing?’

Angus Black looked up and shrugged. ‘Breaking and exiting.’ The side of his face was a swollen, angry bruise where he’d bounced off the toilet cistern in Dodgy Pete’s.

Logan leant back against the filing cabinet. ‘Call it an early Valentine’s present.’

Angus gave one last grunt, and the window sprang open, letting in a rush of cold air. Snow drifted down in the space between the buildings, big fat flakes that clung to the brickwork and piled up on the window ledge. Five to seven on a dark and freezing Monday morning, and for once Logan actually felt human. No hangover. No feeling queasy. His head didn’t even hurt. Well, as long as nothing touched either of the lumps. Maybe laying off the booze wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Angus creaked the window open and closed a couple of times. ‘Told you. Now, we had a deal…?’

Logan produced a packet of Benson and Hedges.

‘Ace.’ Angus helped himself to one, then frisked through his pockets. ‘Got a light?’

‘Oh no you bloody don’t!’ Steel dumped her coffee on the desk and snatched the packet off Logan. ‘If anyone’s having the first fag in this office, it’s me.’

She lipped one out of the pack, pulled a Zippo from her pocket and sparked it up. The sweet tang of raw petrol was drowned out by the curling smoke. The inspector sighed, eased herself gently into her office chair, and stuck her feet on the desk. ‘Ahhhhhhhhh, Bisto.’ She slumped there, with the cigarette sticking out the corner of her mouth. ‘Laz, make sure the door’s locked, yeah?’

Angus shuffled his feet. ‘Come on, I’m gasping here. He promised…’

Steel took a long drag, aimed smoke at the ceiling tiles, then tossed the pack over. ‘Knock yourself out.’

‘Ta…’ He fired one up, making post-coital noises. ‘Long night in a cell when you’ve got no smokes.’

‘Shouldn’t be a nasty wee drug-dealing turd-burglar then, should you?’

Logan locked the door. ‘Tell the inspector what you told me.’

Angus blew a lazy stream of smoke out into the snow. ‘What’s it worth?’

Steel frowned at Logan. ‘What’s what worth?’

‘Mr Black here wants paid to tell us where he got his drugs from.’

‘Get bent, we’re no’-’

‘I’m saying sod all otherwise. These bastards’ll kill me if they find out — you gotta make it worth the risk.’

Logan pulled out his notebook and flipped back a couple of pages. ‘Dog shit.’

Angus shook his head. ‘No it isn’t, you haven’t seen them, they’re fucking huge.’

‘No, you idiot — “dog shit”. You said you didn’t want to end your days as a big pile of dog shit.’

‘Oh…right. Yeah, their boss’s got this massive Rottweiler. Thing’d have your hand off like that.’ He snapped his fingers, sending a tumble of ash to the carpet. ‘So it’s cash up front, or no deal.’

Steel waved a hand at Logan. ‘How much we pick him up with?’

‘About a grand’s worth of heroin.’

‘Wasn’t mine — I was just holding it for a friend.’

‘Aye, right.’ Steel took a bite of her buttie. ‘McNab’s on the bench today, Angus, how many times has he done you for dealing? Word is he’s looking to set an example. Only way you’re going to see the sun again in the next seven years is if you dob in your suppliers.’

‘Old ones are the best ones, eh Inspector? What’s next: going to terrify us with poofter cellmate stories?’ Angus grinned. ‘Done my time before, can do it again. At least I’ll still be alive when I get out.’

The phone on Steel’s desk started ringing. She peered at the little LCD display. ‘No one important.’ She hit the disconnect button. ‘Start talking, Angus.’

‘Not till I see some cash.’

Steel took her wallet out and slapped two tenners down on her desktop. ‘Twenty quid, take it or leave it.’

‘Twenty quid? You’re taking the piss, right?’

Logan shifted against the filing cabinet. The smell of Steel’s bacon buttie was making him feel hungry and nauseous, all at the same time. It was getting cold in here too, all the heat disappearing out of the open window, along with the cigarette smoke.

He let them haggle for a bit, then pulled a clear evidence pouch from his pocket and gave it a shoogle. ‘Three hundred pounds.’

‘What?’ Angus curled his lip. ‘Three thousand, maybe.’

‘That’s how much you had on you when I picked you up: three hundred pounds in counterfeit notes.’

He stood there with his mouth hanging open. It wasn’t a good look. ‘Counterfeit…? I sold my bloody car to buy that stuff! Four and a bit grand that crap cost me.’

‘So where’s the rest of it?’

Pause. ‘Rest of what?’

‘You had a thousand pounds’ worth of heroin in the rucksack, where’s the other three?’

The phone started ringing again. Steel raised an eyebrow. ‘Little Miss Popular today.’ She hit disconnect again, settled back in her seat and stuck the smouldering cigarette between her teeth. ‘Laz, get a search warrant. We’re going to do Angus a favour and tidy his house before he gets out.’

‘Erm…Maybe we could come to some sort of understanding? You like iPods, right?’

Logan clapped a hand down on Angus’s shoulder. ‘Not your day, is it?’

‘You try to do a bit of business, and what happens? Everyone screws-’

A thump at the office door. Then the handle jiggled up and down a bit. Someone outside called, ‘Steel? Inspector? Are you in there?’ DCI Finnie.

Steel sprang upright in her seat. ‘Arse!’ She flicked her cigarette through the open window, grabbed a file off her desk and started fanning like mad. Angus obviously wasn’t as daft as he looked. He followed her lead, hurling his fag out into the snow, then, while she was busy clearing the air, grabbed the remains of her buttie and crammed it into his mouth.

‘Inspector?’

She ripped open a pack of extra strong mints and crunched one down, then waved at Logan. ‘Door, door, door!’

Logan unsnibbed the lock, just in time to catch Finnie turning away. ‘Sir?’

The head of CID stared past Logan into the room. ‘I hope you weren’t indulging in some sort of orgy, Inspector.’

‘Ha-ha, very funny, sir.’ She made a show of rearranging a stack of paper on her desk. ‘Just having a quiet word with Mr Black here. He fancies the glamorous life of a paid informant.’

Finnie sniffed. ‘I would have thought you had other, more pressing matters to attend to today.’

Steel shifted in her seat. Looked from Finnie to Logan and back again. ‘Oh aye?’

‘“Oh aye” indeed.’ He pulled a folded newspaper from under his arm and slapped it against Logan’s chest. ‘Do the honours, Sergeant.’

Logan unruffled the front page. It was a copy of that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner with a photo of Richard Knox on page one — not the old stock photo every other paper was using, but a new one, of Knox kneeling in front of his granny’s grave. ‘Oh no…’ The headline screamed: ‘SEX-BEAST LIVES IN ABERDEEN STREET SHOCK.’

‘Exactly.’ Finnie pulled on a thin smile. ‘Perhaps you’d like to read it out for the inspector.’

‘Ah…er…“When the residents of a quiet Aberdeen street went to sleep on Wednesday night, little did they realize that they’d be getting a new neighbour the next morning. But now the Aberdeen Examiner can exclusively reveal that notorious sex beast Richard Knox is living at Thirty-Five Cairnview Terrace, in Cornhill”…’

Steel closed her eyes and swore.

Finnie nodded. ‘Now the first thing I’d be asking myself, Inspector, is where the media got their information from — considering the whole operation’s been on a need-to-know basis. Supposedly under your supervision.’

‘Arsing cock-biscuits…’

‘And the second question I’d be asking is, what’s going on at Thirty-Five Cairnview Terrace right now? What do you think: ticker-tape parade? Bake sale? Auditions for the X Factor?’

Steel scrabbled out of her chair. ‘Laz, get Angus back in the cells, then find us a car: blues and twos. And a couple of Uniform!’ She grabbed her coat and threw it on. ‘Why did no bugger tell me about this?’

‘I’ve been trying to call you for the last five minutes.’

She didn’t even blush. ‘Must be something up with the

phones.’ She paused, then stared at Logan. ‘Well don’t just

stand there, get moving!’

Logan sat in the back with DI Steel, holding his breath and the grab handle above the door every time PC Butler threw the patrol car into another corner. The council gritters must have been out in force overnight, but every now and then the whole car lurched sideways as it flashed across a ridge of dirty slush. Blue lights strobing, freezing snowflakes in mid-fall. The electronic hee-haw of the siren clearing a path through the early-morning traffic.

Steel poked at the newspaper, jabbing her finger into Richard Knox’s face. ‘How the hell did they find out where he’s staying?’ She thrust the newspaper into Logan’s lap. ‘Call him.’

Logan looked down at the photo. ‘What, Knox?’

‘No: that greasy wee journalist mate of yours, Colin Buggering Miller. I want to know who told him where Knox was, and I want whoever it was buggered with a traffic cone!’

PC Guthrie turned around in the passenger seat. ‘I suppose as it’s pointy, they’d have time to get used to-’

‘Are you looking for a slap?’

Guthrie faced front again.

Logan stuck his hand in his pocket, looking for his phone, and finding a handful of circuit board shrapnel instead. ‘Bloody hell…’ He had to borrow Steel’s mobile to dial Colin’s number.

The Glaswegian’s voice was barely audible over the siren. Logan stuck his finger in his ear and tried again. ‘I said, who told you where Knox was staying?’

‘…freezin’, man. Stop…tea or somethin’…’

‘Colin?’

‘…before…in…’

‘Hello?’ Logan slapped a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Switch off that bloody siren!’

PC Guthrie did. Now there was just the roar of the engine.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello? You still there?’

‘Who told you?’

‘About Knox? Privileged sources, journalistic integrity, etc. So you going to stop past a bakers or what?’

‘Don’t pull that privileged source crap with me: do you have any idea the kind of shit-storm you’ve started?’

‘Story was in the public interest, Laz. People got a right to know if a rapist moves in next door.’

‘There’ll be bloody riots!’

‘Shoulda thought about that before you dumped him on the poor people of Cornhill, shouldn’t you?’

‘I didn’t dump…’ Logan ran a hand across his forehead, gritted his teeth. ‘Where are you?’

‘Outside Knox’s house, freezin’ my nads off, where do you think? And when you go past the bakers get a couple of teas and a wee steak pie or two.’ There was some muffled conversation. ‘Yeah, and Sandy wants a macaroni pie, or sausage roll.’

‘I’m not going to a bloody bakers!’

‘Might tell you where I got the info…?’

Logan told Butler to stop at the next bakery she saw.

‘Took your time.’ Colin Miller swivelled round in his seat as Logan clambered into the back of the ancient beige Volkswagen and slammed the door. The engine was running, so at least it was warm inside.

The bald man in the driver’s seat turned and frowned. ‘Watch the car, yeah?’

Colin smiled. He was immaculately turned out in brand new designer jeans and a leather jacket that probably cost more than Logan’s Fiat. A muscle-bound action figure with a faint whiff of cologne. ‘Laz, this is Sandy. Don’t let the crappy manners fool you, he’s a photographic wunderkind. Aren’t you Sandy?’

‘Sodding thing’s falling apart as it is. You any idea how much it cost to get it through its MOT?’

‘Then buy a decent bloody car for a change.’ Colin held out his black leather-gloved hands. Some of the finger joints didn’t bend, making them look like deformed claws. ‘So…tea?’

Logan dug into the white plastic bag and produced two wax-paper cups with plastic lids. ‘Milk, no sugar.’ Handed them over, then dug out a pair of paper bags, partially transparent with grease.

‘Good man, yersel!’ Colin peeked into the paper bags, then passed one to the driver. ‘Your lucky day, Sandy: macaroni pie and a sausage roll. Say thank you to the nice police officer.’

Sandy grunted and took a bite of his sausage roll. Flakes of pastry tumbled down the front of his baggy green jumper.

Colin gave him one of the teas. ‘Go make yourself scarce for a couple minutes.’

Sandy stopped chewing, looked out at the street with his mouth hanging open. ‘It’s snowing.’

Cairnview Terrace was a winter wonderland. Big fat flakes drifted down from a gunmetal sky, flaring as they passed through the streetlights’ glow, blanketing everything. Predawn light painted the street in shades of blue, making it look even colder.

The photographer’s Volkswagen was parked directly in front of Knox’s house, the patrol car two doors down, behind a blue Volvo estate with ‘BBC SCOTLAND’ down the side, across the road from a Transit Van bearing the SKY NEWS logo, exhaust fumes clouding out into the cold morning.

No signs of a lynch mob waving pitchforks and burning torches. Maybe they were having a long lie?

Colin reached over from the passenger’s side and fumbled with the driver’s door handle. Popped it open. ‘Take your tea for a walk; enjoy the taste of your pie in the great outdoors; bum a fag from the Sky lot.’

Sandy grumbled for a bit. Stuffed his sausage roll in his mouth, grabbed his greasy paper bag and his tea, them clambered out into the early morning and slammed the door even harder than Logan had. But at least he’d left the engine running.

Colin watched Sandy stomp away into the snow, then helped himself to a steak pie. Talking with his mouth full. ‘So what you doin’ about Knox, now his cover’s blown, and that?’

‘Yeah, and who blew it?’ Logan went back into the plastic bag for a milky coffee and a cheese and onion pasty. ‘Who told you?’

‘Suppose you’ll have to move him. Might be an idea to let him put his side of the story first, you know?’

‘Colin, my boss is sitting in that patrol car over there, thinking up new ways to make my life a living hell, because I talked her into stopping off to get you breakfast. Now who told you where Knox was staying?’

‘And how is Madame Wrinkles the Lesbo Lothario?’

‘Colin!’

‘No one told me.’ Colin took another bite of pie, the hot meaty smell oozing out into the Volkswagen’s interior. ‘See, the thing about bein’ an investigative journalist is you go out and investigate. Should try it some time, be amazed what you can turn up, but.’

Smug git.

Logan creaked the plastic lid off his coffee. ‘How about I tell Isobel where you really were two weeks ago? When she thought you were in Dundee interviewing the idiot who got hypothermia trying to steal that statue of Desperate Dan?’

Colin stared at him. ‘You wouldn’t.’

‘Got till I finish my pasty, then I’m calling her.’

‘You are such a…’ Scowl. ‘OK, OK: when I was down in Newcastle I spoke to a neighbour, who put me onto his old English teacher. Creepy auld wifie with too many cats and a face like a skelpt arse. She says every single one of Knox’s “What I did on holiday” essays was about him comin’ up to Aberdeen and stayin’ with his granny and grandad, while his mum went aff on the pull.’

Colin took another bite of pie, taking care not to get any gravy on his gloves. ‘Offered to sell me one of the essays, you believe that? Soon as they charged Knox with raping that old man she went and dug everythin’ she could out of the school records. Knew it would be worth somethin’ some day.’

He shook his head, took a sip of tea. ‘Report cards, notes from his mum, complaints from the gym teacher…Tell you, makes you proud of the education system, doesn’t it? First thing she thinks of is how much cash she can rake in.’

‘And?’

‘Gonnae be in tomorrow’s Examiner: “Portrait of the monster as a small boy”, kinda deal. Four-page spread.’

‘No, you idiot, how did you get the address?’

‘School kept next-of-kin details on file. Mrs Euphemia Abercrombie-Murray was down as a second point of contact, in case they couldn’t get hold of Knox’s mum.’

At least that meant Finnie could call off his witch hunt.

Logan looked out through the falling snow. Lights were on in Knox’s house, everyone probably woken hours ago by Colin and his grumpy photographer. That was one good thing about the weather: no journalist was daft enough to camp out on the doorstep.

‘Anything else I should know?’

‘Well-’

The driver’s door creaked open and Sandy stuck his head in, snow clinging to the shoulders of his blue parka and the fringe of hair around of his head. ‘God it’s freezing out-’

‘No’ yet, eh, Sandy?’

‘Oh for…’ He threw his arms wide. ‘It’s my bloody car!’

‘Five minutes, mate.’

‘You know what: it’s my bloody petrol too.’ He yanked the key out of the ignition, then slammed the door again and marched off, hauling the parka’s fur-trimmed hood over his bald patch.

Colin dropped his voice to a whisper, ‘Ever heard of someone called Michael “Mental Mikey” Maitland?’

‘Newcastle mobster. If you’re going to tell me Knox was working for him, save your breath. I know.’

The reporter seemed to deflate a bit. ‘Oh.’

‘Anything else?’

‘You know he died Friday night?’

Pause. ‘So?’

The smile was back on Colin’s face. ‘Welcome to Wednesday’s exclusive: Knox was Mental Mikey’s accountant, right? Not someone you’d trust your grandad with, but cash: genius. Word is Mikey got Knox to squirrel away a bit of rainy-day money.’

‘How much?’

‘Millions. Two weeks ago Mikey has himself a wee “cardiac incident” and they wheech him into hospital for observation. He has three more, then a bloody huge one on Friday. Mental Mikey, Terror of Tyneside finally passes away in the wee small hours, surrounded by his nearest and dearest.’

‘Who all now want to get their hands on Mikey’s nest egg.’

Colin tapped the side of his head with a stiff, leathered finger. ‘Aye, but our boy Knox is the only one knows where it is and how to get at it.’

Logan watched a robin bob and hop across Knox’s front garden, leaving little CND footprints. ‘The lying bastard…’

‘Eh?’

‘Nothing.’ He clunked open the back door. ‘Anything else comes up — and I mean anything at all — give me a call.’

Colin shrugged. ‘Aye, and what’s in it for me?’

‘Dundee, Desperate Dan: truth. Remember?’

Logan climbed out into the snow, clunking the door shut on the reporter’s reply.