Dark Blood

38

‘Fuck.’ This was no way to start a Tuesday morning. Half past eight and the day was already ruined. Logan puffed back up the eight flights of stairs to the fourth floor, then stood at the top, wheezing and dizzy. Got to cut back on the fags.

He straightened up and shambled through the door into the corridor.

Knox’s new flat was part of a huge, ugly development — a long winding terrace that looked more like municipal buildings from the 1970s than modern housing. A developer’s dream: build them cheap, pile them high, and charge a fortune.

There were six flats on the fourth floor, all leading off the main corridor. Alpha Three Nine were second on the scene, so they’d been given the task of going door-to-door, stopping people from getting to work. That and blocking off the elevator with ‘POLICE’ tape.

DI Steel was slouched against the wall outside Knox’s new flat, having a scratch.

Logan waved the plastic packages he’d dug out of the pool car’s boot at her. ‘Smurf time.’

She stuck her hand out. ‘Give.’

They struggled into the white paper oversuits, Logan hopping about like an idiot. Bloody shoes never went down the legs properly, did they? He fought his arms into the sleeves, hauled the hood into place, and zipped the thing up, from groin to chin, then slipped the blue plastic booties on. The elasticated facemask went on over his nose and mouth, he pulled on a pair of purple nitrile gloves, and finished off by sticking a second pair over the top of those.

DI Steel hauled her own zip up and stood there: booted and suited, masked and gloved, just like he was. She sniffed. ‘It’s what all the best-dressed people are wearing this season.’

Logan knocked on the door.

PC Irvine from the Offender Management Unit opened it, wearing the same protective clothing. She made them sign in before she’d let them over the threshold.

Steel picked her way into the hall and Logan followed, avoiding a dark smudge on the oatmeal-coloured carpet in case it was evidence. ‘Any word on the ambulance?’

‘Should’ve been here five minutes ago.’ Irvine pointed a shaky hand at the bathroom. ‘She’s in there.’

Logan peered through the open door. Mandy from Sacro lay on the bathroom floor, her curly brown hair matted to her head with something dark and sticky. A pool of red on the linoleum beneath her. Spatters up the cream tiles, a misting of pink on the underside of the hand basin. ‘Bloody hell…’

Someone had arranged her in the recovery position. And if Logan stared hard, he could just make out her chest rising and falling.

Irvine nodded. ‘Paul and me got here about quarter past eight to run through the matrix again. No answer when we knocked, so we gave it a couple of minutes, tried phoning. Nothing. Paul used the spare key.’

Steel cleared her throat. ‘Where’s the other one?’

‘Second bedroom from the end.’ She glanced down the hall. ‘Can’t believe we bought prawns for him.’

The room was small, a double bed crammed in against the wall, an upturned bedside cabinet, a wicker chair lying cracked and bashed next to it. The eye-nipping, throat-catching, bitter reek of vomit and urine.

‘Oh, Jesus…’

Harry, the other Sacro volunteer, was tied facedown on the bed, a stack of pillows under his groin propping his backside up in the air. Naked. Blood caking the sheets around his ruined face, his back covered in scarlet welts, bite marks, cigarette burns.

Steel blinked. Voice muffled by the mask. ‘Is he…?’

‘He’s alive.’

The inspector turned and smacked PC Irvine on the chest. ‘Then why the bloody hell haven’t you untied him! Fuck is wrong with you?’

‘But we don’t have a camera, and the crime scene-’

‘FUCK THE CRIME SCENE!’ Steel stormed into the room, grabbed the T-shirt tying Harry’s right ankle to the bedpost and hauled.

‘Inspector, I really don’t think this is a good-’

‘He’s been raped, you bloody idiot!’ Steel yanked on the T-shirt again. ‘Laz, into the kitchen: get me a pair of scissors, knife, something.’

‘But-’

‘NOW!’

Logan ran through the house, plastic booties slipping on the vinyl floor. He rummaged through the drawers, grabbed a pair of kitchen scissors and a box of freezer bags. Then hurried back to the bedroom.

Steel was kneeling on the floor next to the bed. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Er…’ Constable Irvine glanced at Logan and back again. ‘Harry. Harry Weaver. He used to be a-’

‘Harry? Can you hear me, Harry?’

Logan stopped at the foot of the bed. ‘Anyone got a camera on their mobile?’

‘Yeah, but it’s not-’

‘Harry? It’s going to be OK.’

‘Better than no photos at all, right?’

Irvine unzipped the front of her oversuit and reached inside, coming out with some sort of fancy touch-screen thing, then zipped herself up again. ‘Right…’

She stepped up and held the phone out, pressed something and it went Click, a little burst of flash. Another click, another flash.

‘Does it do video?’

She nodded. ‘You can upload to Facebook and-’

‘Just video the bloody scene.’

‘Harry? Come on, Harry, you’re safe now.’

‘Oh…Right.’

Logan pointed at the T-shirt with his scissors. ‘Close up.’

Irvine did what she was told, then Logan carefully cut through the shirt where it looped around Harry’s ankle. ‘Other leg.’

‘Harry? Come on, speak to me, Harry!’

‘Wrists…’

Finally the naked man was free.

There was a muffled groan.

‘Harry? Can you hear me? You’re safe now.’

His eyes were swollen shut, the skin around them purple and deformed, his nose crooked, the lower half of his face smeared with dark-red clots.

‘He’s got something in his mouth…’ PC Irvine stuck her phone in his face, till Steel batted her away, leaving scarlet smears on her white oversuit.

The inspector cupped one hand around Harry’s forehead, supporting it while she pulled a matted lump of black from his mouth. Logan popped open one of the freezer bags.

‘What are you playing at?’

‘Didn’t have any evidence ones with me.’

She dropped the gag in, then jerked back from the bed, as Harry retched — blood and bile spattering out across the stained sheets.

‘Fuck.’

Someone knocked on the front door. ‘Hello? Anyone in?’

Logan stepped out into the hall. A pair of sweaty paramedics were puffing and panting in the corridor outside. One wiped a hand across his forehead and scowled. ‘You the funny bastard taped off the lifts?’

‘Erm…’

‘Any idea how much one of these bloody stretcher bed things weighs?’

‘Well…could’ve been worse, I suppose.’ DS Mark MacDonald swivelled his chair back and froth a couple of times. ‘I mean, they’re both still alive, right?’

The Wee Hoose was quiet, just Mark and Logan in the little walled-off area, with the door shut, muting the sounds from the busy CID office. Phones going, people bustling about trying to look busy, the occasional bout of shouting. The predictable aftermath of something going seriously wrong.

Mark nodded at the room outside. ‘Media briefing at eleven. You going?’

‘Not if I can help it.’ Logan took the whiteboard eraser and scrubbed off the counterfeit goods investigation. One less thing to worry about.

‘Don’t blame you. Finished that big fraud case yesterday, so Finnie’s got me down for “Information Support”.’ Mark took another sip at his coffee. ‘I bloody hate media briefings, like feeding time at the zoo…And all the animals are bastards.’

Logan went back to his desk and checked his email again. Success: the big IB lab on Nelson Street had rushed through the DNA from the bite marks on Harry Weaver’s back and thighs. Their report was full of the usual disclaimers and bet-hedging, but right at the bottom was the bit Logan wanted: the DNA was a ninety-nine-point-nine-eight percent match for Richard Knox. Not only that, the bite pattern was identical to the teeth marks they had on file from William Brucklay, Knox’s Newcastle victim.

Not exactly unexpected news, but everything that tied Knox to the attack helped.

The rest of the forensic evidence was still being examined — fibres in the bedroom, the soil from a partial footprint in the hallway, something that looked like tears on the back of the victim’s thighs.

Logan turned back to Mark. ‘You talked to Bob recently?’

‘Biohazard?’ The DS shuddered. ‘Not since he had that curried mackerel. Jesus, we should get danger money.’

‘You think he’s OK?’

Frown. ‘What’s he done?’

Logan shrugged. ‘It’s probably nothing…’ He swivelled back to his computer. A pile of statements took up most of his desk — the firearms team accounting for what had happened last night and why they’d felt it necessary to shoot Norman Yates three times in the chest. Logan had checked — they all matched, but not in a way that screamed ‘cover up!’ Yates had shot a police officer — it was his own stupid fault.

The statements went into an internal mail envelope, along with his own report, and marked for the attention of DI Steel. With the statements out of the way, there was a rare clear patch on Logan’s desk. The Post-it note about phoning Dildo first thing sat right in the middle of it, staring up at him. Must have fallen off his monitor. Damn.

Logan picked up the phone and dialled Dildo’s extension at Trading Standards, flicking through the rest of his emails as it rang.

The worst was from Professional Standards: Douglas Walker’s estate-agent lawyer had made another official complaint. Apparently his client had been ‘subjected to undue harassment and unwarrantedly heavy-handed interrogation techniques’. Would Logan care to comment?

Yes. Two words: ‘get’ and ‘fucked’.

It wasn’t even as if they’d made a special case of the art student. Just interviewed him once on Friday, stuck him in the cells for the weekend, then had a final crack at him before he went up before the Sheriff on Monday. How the hell was that, ‘undue harassment’?

‘Tim Mair, how can I-’

‘Dildo, it’s Logan. We-’

‘Did you get my email?’

‘Er…’ He skimmed through the next few — and there it was, from Dildo’s official email address, sent about an hour ago and completely ignored. ‘Yeah, got it right here…’

‘What do you think?’

It was some sort of proposal for two-man teams to stake out various dodgy pubs in Aberdeen, looking for people selling counterfeit goods. ‘Yes, very good. Very…thorough.’

‘Cool. We can start with-’

‘Actually, Tim, I’ve been meaning to call you.’

Silence. ‘Did you just call me “Tim”?’ Dildo swore. ‘Come on, what have you done?’

‘No, it’s-’

‘You’ve bloody done something, haven’t you? What is it? What the hell have you lumbered me with this time?’

‘Nothing like that: we arrested a couple of guys late last night…’ He filled Dildo in on the details, leaving out the fact that they’d known about Gallagher and Yates all day. ‘So, you see, we don’t need to do the undercover thing. It’s all taken care of.’

There was a groan. ‘You mean I attended that sodding awful meeting with Beardy the Boy Cretin for nothing?’

‘Well…sort of, but-’

‘You knew all the time, didn’t you? I had to pull in bloody huge favours to get Susanna there, and all the time, you knew!’

‘It wasn’t…Look, the stuff’s in a barn out by Balmedie.’

He gave Dildo the address to go pick it all up, then the Trading Standards officer hung up, but not until after some choice swearwords.

Bugger. That was going to take more than a tin of biscuits to sort out.

He was writing up his notes from Knox’s flat when the door thumped open and DCI Finnie stalked into the room, bringing with him the sound of phones ringing and general pandemonium.

‘Ah, McRae.’ The head of CID pulled a newspaper from a manila folder and thumped it down on Logan’s desk. The banner headline, ‘RAPIST “VICTIM’S” FAMILY STRIKE BACK’ stretched across the front page, above a photo of Wendy Leadbetter hurling the second petrol bomb into Knox’s house. ‘Would you care to tell my why the Aberdeen Examiner knows who the arsonists are before we do?’

‘Actually, sir, we’ve had a lookout request on Ian and Wendy Leadbetter since late last night. In fact, it was Mr Miller who helped me identify them. I filed a report and-’

‘Oh really? Well, why didn’t you say so? That’s just spiffing. Can’t see why anyone would have a problem with that. And tell me, Sergeant McRae, you didn’t think to put some sort of embargo on the details?’

‘I…’ No, he hadn’t. Logan cleared his throat. ‘Well, perhaps this will help us pick them up? If people see them in the…paper.’

Mark made a big show of going back to his burglary forms.

‘And while we’re on the subject of “the paper”.’ Finnie flipped through the pages, until he came to a full page spread: ‘COUNTERFEIT CASH THREATENS LOCAL ECONOMY’.

Logan looked up at the DCI. ‘Well, it’s not-’

‘Tell me, Sergeant McRae, how clever are Grampian Police going to look when it gets out that the only suspect we had was released on bail yesterday, and we still don’t have a clue where this stuff is coming from? Hmm? Think the local media are going to run a two-page spread on how great we are? Or will they tell everyone we’re a bunch of incompetent amateurs?’

‘But it’s-’

‘Oh, and I see from the crime board,’ he pointed at the whiteboard with all the DSs’ names on it, and their list of open cases, ‘that the counterfeit cash job is one of yours.’

‘I’ve been-’

‘Where are we with the investigation?’

Logan glanced round at Mark, but he had his head down over his keyboard. No help there.

‘It’s been deprioritized.’

‘Deprioritized?’ Pause. ‘I see. And what about all the other cases you’re currently not solving, have they been “deprioritized” too? Have you “deprioritized” the armed robbery at Henderson’s Jewellers? Because I think it might be kind of fun if you actually managed to solve that one, don’t you?’

And then he made Logan go through each of the cases on the board under his name.

Jewellery heist: no progress.

Counterfeit money: no progress.

Stolen cars: no progress.

Cemetery flasher: no progress.

OAP burglaries: no progress…

The list went on, and on, but the result was always the same: no progress.

‘I see.’ Finnie pursed his wide, rubbery lips. ‘And if you were me, Sergeant, what would you do?’

Logan’s chin came up. ‘I’d maybe wonder why one of my team was being given so many cases to work on. I’d ask how he was supposed to get anything done with a workload that big. Sir.’

Finnie nodded. ‘Hmm…And yet you’ve still found time to help Northumbria Police with one of their unsolved crimes from twenty years ago?’

Bloody hell. Only Finnie could make solving the murder of an entire family sound like a bad thing.

‘Perhaps, Sergeant, you’d find it a little easier to deal with your own caseload if you weren’t so busy helping others with theirs. Do you think?’ The DCI poked the newspaper again. ‘You’re supposed to be a detective sergeant. Get out there and detect something!’ And then Finnie was gone, slamming the door behind him.

Logan collapsed into his seat. ‘Christ…’

Mark sniffed. ‘Don’t mind Finnie. His arse is knitting buttons because Knox is missing. Give it a couple of weeks and it’ll all blow over.’ The DS shook his head. ‘Why didn’t you tell him about all the dodgy goods you seized last night?’

‘Didn’t get the chance.’ Every time he’d tried, Finnie had moved on to the next stalled case.

‘Word to the wise — never take a case off the board till Finnie’s there to see you do it.’

Logan made a few calls — chasing up the investigations Finnie had moaned about — then sodded off to the canteen for a cup of coffee and a sticky bun.

Biohazard Bob had taken a table by the window, gazing out at the grey lump of the mortuary on the other side of the rear podium car park.

Logan settled in beside him. ‘Please tell me that’s not beans on toast…’

Bob shrugged and shovelled in another mouthful. ‘Why should I be the only bastard suffering?’

There was a pause. ‘OK, I’ll bite.’

‘You’re looking at the lucky recipient of another junkie drug dealer with the shite kicked out of him. They found the poor sod about one this morning — nearly died of hypothermia. Which brings us to my next moment of joy.’ He scooped up more beans and chewed as if they were poisonous. ‘You remember Big Willie, the tramp used to hang about on George Street, occasionally getting his knob out for the tourists? Turned up behind the recycling bins at Sainsbury’s, stiff as a board. Got his post mortem in twenty minutes.’

‘Yeah?’ Logan took a sip of coffee. ‘Well, I just got my arse handed to me by Finnie for solving a twenty-year-old murder in Newcastle.’

Bob picked up his milky tea and held it out. ‘I hereby call to order, the inaugural meeting of the World’s a Bag of Shite Club.’

They clinked mugs and drank.

Bob cleared his throat. ‘I think…Deborah’s having an affair.’

Silence.

‘You sure?’

‘She’s out all the time, she’s never interested in sex…Won’t even get undressed if I’m in the room. He ran a hand across the bald patch at the back of his head. ‘Then there’s the secret phone calls. Cryptic messages on the machine.’

‘Well…maybe…’ Logan blew a breath at the ceiling. Searching. ‘Maybe you should talk to her?’

A short, bitter laugh. ‘What if she says “yes”? I can’t-’

‘God, you’re a happy looking pair of monkeys.’

Logan looked up to see Samantha standing over him, carrying a tray of wax-paper cups and tinfoil parcels. She slid the tray onto the table, then plonked herself down in the seat opposite.

Today’s outfit was black jeans, black boots, and a black hoodie top over a Ragamuffin T-shirt, her scarlet hair sticking out at improbable angles. Her smile looked forced, the cheerful voice a little strained. As if she was trying too hard. ‘So come on, what’s up? Did naughty Mrs Steel touch you two and make you feel dirty?’

Bob patted her hand. ‘Sammy, my dear, if you ever get tired of this pudding-faced loser, I’ll happily abandon the wife and kids for you. OK, so I’m not the prettiest, but I make up for it with an unfeasibly large dick and ear-breathing techniques.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ She stole a scoof of Logan’s coffee. ‘Urgh, that’s cold. Listen, I got the results back on that second batch of forged notes you dropped off. Fingerprints aren’t up to much, but if you can get me a printing press I can match the ink.’

‘If I ever come up with a suspect I’ll let you know.’

Samantha sat back. ‘Boy, you do have a dose of the dark-and-moodies, don’t you?’

‘Been one of those days…’ Mistake.

When was the last time you came home and said something positive?

He cleared his throat. ‘Well, it’s…you know.’ He tried a smile. ‘This Knox thing’s just getting to me a bit.’

Bob held out his tea again. ‘Welcome to the World’s a Bag of Shite Club.’

‘No thanks, I’m what you’d call a happy-go-lucky kind of goth.’ She stood and picked up her tray again.

‘If it makes you feel any better, I hear on the grapevine that our home-grown counterfeit twenties are being spotted as far away as Carlisle. Who says local business can’t make a difference?’

Great, so now Cumbria Constabulary would be moaning to Aberdeen’s Chief Constable, who’d pass it on, till it dolloped onto Logan’s head in a great steaming pile. Hurrah.

‘God…Now you look even worse.’ A frown creased her forehead, making the piercing in her eyebrow sparkle. ‘Listen, Knox escaping: it wasn’t your fault.’

‘Doesn’t help Harry Weaver, though, does it? Poor bastard was tied to the bed, beaten and raped.’

‘No he wasn’t.’

‘I was there, I saw him. Covered in burns and bites and-’

‘No, I mean he wasn’t raped. They did the tests up at the hospital and it came back negative. No semen, no lubricant, no anal bruising. Looks like your boy Knox couldn’t get it up. Probably explains why he went to town on the burning and biting.’

Bob held up a finger. ‘Maybe it’s because Harry Weaver wasn’t old enough? Knox likes oldies, yes?’

Samantha reached out, grabbed Bob’s finger, and pulled. ‘Got to go.’ Then ran away, giggling.

Logan shrank back as the smell of rotten eggs wafted out from under the table. ‘Bob! You dirty-’

The canteen doors banged open. DI Beattie stormed in, paused for a second, then bellowed, ‘MCRAE! MY OFFICE! NOW!’