Dark Blood

32

Broad Street was like a wind tunnel. The snow not so much falling as hammering sideways. St Nicholas House loomed on the other side of the street, a fourteen-storey slab of concrete and glass, the upper floors hidden by the howling weather.

Cars and buses crept past, headlights on full, windscreen wipers thunking back and forth. Logan hurried across the road, ground his cigarette out in the little receptacle by the automatic door and shivered inside. Stomped his feet on the coconut matting, shook the snow off his coat and the tin of biscuits. Wiped the meltwater from his stinging face.

Five minutes later he was steaming quietly next to the radiator in reception, flicking through a copy of that morning’s Press and Journal, when someone said, ‘You’re late.’

Logan held out the damp tin. ‘Brought biscuits.’

Dildo sniffed. ‘Not digestives are they?’ He popped off the lid, ‘Ooh, Jammie Dodgers…’

He handed Logan a visitor’s pass. ‘Your guv’nor’s a randy old sod, by the way — been trying to chat up Susanna since she got here.’

‘Please, tell me you’re kidding.’ Trust Beattie to find a way to make things even more awkward.

‘I wish.’

Dildo turned on his heel and marched towards the stairs.

Logan didn’t move. ‘Any chance we can take the lifts for a change?’

‘It’s only four floors, you lazy bugger. Anyway, the lifts are playing Russian Roulette again. Anne’s ended up in the basement twice today, doors wouldn’t even open the second time.’

Four flights later, Logan was puffing and wheezing, lurching after Dildo as he pushed through a set of double doors into the dark heart of Trading Standards. Which was about sixteen desks arranged back-to-back in the near left corner, sectioned off from Bereavement Services by a wall of shoulder-height partitions in a grubby shade of burgundy.

The dirty salmon carpet was a crime scene map of dark spills, the ceiling tiles scarred where someone had moved a partition wall. St Nicholas House: proof that ugly wasn’t just skin deep.

‘Thought this was only supposed to be temporary?’

‘Council, isn’t it?’ Dildo grabbed a notebook off the nearest desk — covered, like the rest, in product boxes, plastic bags, and paperwork. ‘You know Anne, Sicknote, Clive, and Hughie?’

Logan gave them a wave.

Everyone waved back, except for the one on the phone — short-sleeved shirt, tie, baldy head — who held up a thumb. ‘No, sir…Yes, I understand, but you’ve got to use lubricant…’

‘We’re in the Grief Counselling room — all I could get at short notice.’

‘Yes…Yes, I’m sure it was very painful, sir, but it’s not an allergic reaction, it’s a friction burn…’

Logan followed Dildo through Bereavement Services to a little meeting room in the far corner of the building, with a projector bolted to the ceiling, and a pull-down screen taking up a large chunk of one wall.

Beattie was sitting at the table, fiddling with a laptop, a winter panorama of Aberdeen stretched out behind him. Rooftops, the back entrance to Markies, bits of Union Street, the defunct Christmas lights swaying in the wind, waiting for someone to take them down.

A familiar gravelly laugh made Logan freeze in the doorway. DI Steel. She was over by the window, talking to a tall blonde woman in jeans and a thick woollen jumper.

Logan opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Dildo gave him a shove, then closed the door behind them. ‘DS McRae, this is Susanna Frayn from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.’

She stuck out a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ One of those jolly-hockey-sticks English public school accents.

Steel grinned. ‘Susanna was just telling me about her photography classes, weren’t you, Susanna? So, do you do nudes?’

Over at the table, Beattie hit something and a PowerPoint slide appeared on the wall. ‘Got it working!’

There was an audible groan from Steel, then everyone took their seats around the table: Steel next to the woman from HMRC, Logan next to Steel, Dildo next to Logan, leaving Beattie stranded on his own on the other side.

‘OK, first item…’ A blue-and-white PowerPoint slide appeared on the screen, the names of everyone present fading up, or sliding on with a different effect, as if they couldn’t tell who was there just by looking around the room. The only name that didn’t have a fancy effect was DI Steel’s, as if she’d been added at the last minute.

Logan leant over and whispered at her, while Beattie pulled up the next slide and read out the agenda. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘What, can I no’ take an interest in ongoing cases?’ Steel gazed at Susanna from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. ‘Wonder if she’d be interested in a full-body-cavity search?’

‘You’re married.’

‘Pfff…No harm in looking, is there? Sides, Laz, right now I’m that horny I’d even do you. Susan’s still no…’

Beattie was staring at her.

‘Don’t you mind me, Gordon: just telling McRae here what a great job you’d done on your presentation. Very professional.’

‘Oh, right. Thanks.’ He actually puffed up a little. Then produced handful of biros and some packets of Post-it notes. ‘Now, if we begin with the counterfeit merchandise, we need to assess what kind of goods are out there, and where they’re coming from. Why don’t we workshop a list of-’

‘Actually,’ Logan just stopped himself sticking up his hand, ‘we have a lead that-’

Something hard slammed into his left shin. ‘Ow! Who bloody-’

‘What Sergeant McRae is trying to say,’ Steel pulled on a smile, ‘is that we’re all committed to getting these hooky goods off the streets.’

The front of his leg was stinging.

Beattie nodded. ‘Yes, exactly. Now, if you all want to take a pad and a pen, we’ll each write down the kind of things we’re seeing being counterfeited at the moment…’

Logan thumped Steel on the sleeve, hissing, ‘What the hell was that for?’

‘Gallagher and Yates are mine. I’m no’ handing them over to that beardy buffoon.’

‘Actually.’ Susanna placed her biro on the table with a loud thunk. ‘Perhaps we can move on to discussing what we’re actually going to do about it?’ She flashed Beattie a red-lipped smile. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘Ah, yes…’ Beattie fumbled with his packs of Post-it notes, sending them skittering to the floor, pink rushing up his hairy cheeks. ‘Erm…Right.’ He licked his lips. ‘Well, obviously I don’t want to dictate what…when, erm, bringing various expertise to bear.’ He made a floppy hand gesture, as if he was trying to whisk an invisible egg. ‘Why we’re all here, after all.’

Inspiring.

Dildo slid a folded piece of paper in front of Logan. ‘YOU REALLY SODDING OWE ME FOR THIS!!!’

Logan cleared his throat. ‘We arrested someone-Ow!’

Steel kicked him again. ‘Someone who’d been sold a fake Rolex.’ She turned a crocodile smile in Logan’s direction. ‘Didn’t we, Laz?’

He moved his legs as far away as possible. ‘Yes.’

Beattie wrote ‘Rolex’ on a lonely stickie. ‘Well…the best thing from a policing point of view would be to catch someone in the act of selling the counterfeit merchandise on, and trail them back to their supplier.’

‘Really?’ Dildo sat back in his seat. ‘That’s amazing! We at Trading Standards have been puzzling long and hard about how to trace naughty fake goods. If only we’d asked the long arm of the law to-’

‘All right, Timothy, I think we get the picture.’ Susanna twiddled one of her pearl earrings. ‘I’m more concerned with the movement of counterfeit twenty-pound notes than knock-off hair straighteners. Where have you got with that?’

Beattie harrumphed. ‘Well, we did have a suspect in custody…’ He drifted off, then stared at Logan.

Here we go again. ‘Douglas Walker, eighteen. We arrested him for passing four and a half grand in dodgy twenties, but at least another twenty-three thousand’s passed through his hands. Released on bail till,’ Logan checked his watch, ‘beginning of March, I think.’

Susanna nodded. ‘Did he say where he got it from?’

‘Like interviewing a wooden leg. He-’

‘Wouldn’t tell us anything about where he got the stuff.’ Beattie nodded. ‘He’s obviously covering for someone.’

Steel snorted. ‘Aye, or he’s scared.’

‘Erm…yes, well, we’ll obviously have to follow that up.’ Beattie wrote ‘D WALKER’ on another stickie. ‘Now, can we-’

‘And it’s not just fake twenties any more, there’s tens and fives as well.’

‘I still don’t think-’

‘Tens and fives?’ The lady from HMRC sat forward. ‘We’ve not had any of those in yet.’

Beattie flushed again. ‘Yes, but shouldn’t we be-’

‘Do you have any samples?’

Logan pointed in the vague direction of FHQ. ‘IB’s analysing them now. Rumour is they’re local.’

‘Interesting, interesting…’ She went back to fiddling with her pearl earring.

Steel leaned over and whispered at Logan again. ‘Think she’s got a necklace to go with those, cos if no’ I could give her one. Well, metaphorically speaking.’

Logan grimaced, he couldn’t help it.

Beattie’s meeting limped on until the stroke of five, then the DI shook everyone’s hands, told them how productive it had been, thanked them for coming, then bumbled about, packing away his Post-its, biros, laptop, and cables.

Steel gave a yawn and a stretch. ‘Did I miss anything?’

Soon as Beattie was packed up, they all followed Dildo back down the stairs to Reception and handed in their visitor’s passes.

‘OK.’ Dildo clapped his hands. ‘We’ll be in touch about the-’

‘Wait a minute…’ Beattie thrust his laptop bag into Logan’s hands. ‘Forgot my jacket.’ Then he turned around and hurried towards the lifts.

Logan watched him mashing the up button. ‘Should we tell him?’

‘Should we buggery.’ Dildo stuffed his hands into his pockets. ‘With any luck he’ll get stuck in the basement all night and be eaten by the rats.’

They made for the front door. Outside, thick white flakes of snow drifted down from a dark-orange sky, shining as they passed within reach of the street lights, glowing red behind the cars and buses, settling on the shoulders of people tromping their way home.

‘Right.’ Susanna turned and shook Steel’s hand. ‘Anything comes up on the counterfeit notes, please let me know. I’ll see if I can get someone from our end to look into Walker: you’d be surprised what a sudden tax inspection can turn up.’

Steel still hadn’t let go of Susanna’s hand. ‘Why don’t I walk you to your car? We can swap contact info…?’

Susanna pulled a wee collapsible umbrella from her bag and clacked it up, then picked her way daintily out into the snow, with the inspector close beside her. Three steps out of the door, the woman from HMRC slipped. Steel grabbed her. They both laughed. Then disappeared around the corner.

Dildo smiled. ‘Got to admire her for trying, but Susanna’s way out of her league.’

‘Steel’s married.’

‘And no offence, but Beattie?’

‘Tell me about it. Look, hold off on doing anything, OK? I might have some good news for you in a couple of…’

He trailed off as the lift doors pinged open and Beattie stepped out, still without his jacket, frowned, turned around twice, then stepped back into the lift and pressed a button.

‘They made that a DI, but you’re still a lowly sergeant.’ Dildo put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘You must be so proud.’