Dark Blood

52

The development loomed out of the blizzard — skeleton houses, the hunched shapes of machinery. First stop the site office.

The lights were on, but when Logan sent Butler out to try the door it was locked. No one inside.

A little after five and the sun was long gone, now everything beyond the reach of the headlights was enveloped in darkness.

The Police Land Rover bumped over something in the snow, the front end rearing up, then the back. Behind them, Danby groaned again. At least he was still alive. Probably more than they could say for Richard Knox.

Butler let the four-by-four rumble to a halt. ‘Think we’ve run out of road.’

Logan peered into the whirling white and inky black. Last time he was here with PC Martin and her cadaver dog, Wardrobe, the further away from the site office they got, the more complete the houses were. Assuming they hadn’t just staked Knox out to freeze to death in the great outdoors, he’d be in something that at least had a roof on it.

The Land Rover was fitted with a roof-mounted spotlight. Logan grabbed the handle and flicked the switch. A crack sounded above his head and the harsh white beam leapt out through the snow.

He fiddled with the handle, swinging the spotlight about, trying to get a feel for it, then did a slow sweep left to right. Didn’t matter how strong the light was, it could only penetrate so far before the whirling flakes consumed everything.

He pointed towards the nearest property with a roof. ‘That way.’

The Land Rover bumped and rolled its way slowly through the drift-covered landscape. The first house was dark. So was the second one, blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape snapping and writhing outside it. The third was dark too. But a pale glow oozed out from the downstairs window of house number four.

‘There.’

Logan snapped off the spotlight. Butler killed the engine and the headlights. Darkness. Now the only sound was the howling wind and the creak of springs as the Land Rover rocked with each blast.

‘Right.’

They both stayed where they were, in the dark, watching the house through the windscreen.

Butler cleared her throat. ‘We got any sort of plan?’

No.

Logan licked his lips. Melting snow plastered his hair to his head, trickling down the back of his neck and into his collar. ‘I’ll take the front, you go round the back.’ He pulled his damp sleeve back, exposing his watch. ‘What time have you got?’

She checked. ‘Quarter past.’

‘Right, we go in at twenty past. Quietly, understand?’

Butler nodded and they synchronized watches. ‘You sure about this, Sarge?’

‘Nope. You?’

The constable pulled out her extendible baton, undid her seatbelt. Took three deep breaths. Opened the door, and jumped out into the night.

Logan gave her a couple of minutes to get into place, then climbed into the darkness, sinking up to his knees in a drift of soft grey.

He waded his way forward, clambering upwards until the snow only came as far as his ankles, leaching the heat from his damp socks, making his trouser legs stick to his skin. His whole head burning with the cold.

The front door was painted some dark colour, indistinguishable in the gloom, but the little portico offered a little shelter from the whipping snow.

Logan checked his watch. Twenty past in: three, two, one…He grabbed the handle.

Thank God it wasn’t locked.

He threw the door open and stumbled into the house.

A tiny hallway, door leading off to one side — probably a toilet — stairs leading upstairs, set of glass doors to the right. That was where the light was coming from.

He looked through into a small lounge.

They were obviously still finishing off the property. A stack of skirting boards lay beneath the front window; two or three boxes of bathroom tiles; a table-mounted circular saw; rolls of silver-backed Rockwool; a nail gun; drums of thick, grey electrical cable; some stuff for fitting carpets; a toolbox; a plastic bag of screws, the shiny thorns of metal glinting in the glow of a big battery torch that lay on the floor.

Richard Knox was curled up next to it, naked on a rectangle of plastic sheeting, hands behind his back, silver duct tape thick around his ankles, another strip across his mouth.

Where the hell was PC Butler?

Logan checked his watch again. Twenty-one minutes past. Butler should’ve been here by now.

Logan reached for the glass-panelled door and froze. There was someone in the room with Knox. A man, dressed in a thick padded jacket — goatee beard, glasses, comb-over. The project manager: Brett.

Brett crouched down beside Knox with his back to the door, and Logan caught a flash of needle-nosed pliers.

And then Knox writhed, screaming behind the gag as Brett twisted and pulled and shoved.

Damn it…Now he didn’t have any choice.

Logan eased the door open and crept inside, matching his footfalls to Knox’s muffled yells, eyes darting around the room in case Brett wasn’t working alone.

The project manager sat back on his haunches, staring down at Knox. ‘I’m going to keep doing this until you tell me where the money is. You may have the rest of them fooled, but I know you’ve still got something hidden away, haven’t you?’ He opened the pliers and something metal fell to the floor. ‘Shall we take another one out? I think-’

Logan battered him over the head with the torch.

The project manager slumped sideways, the pliers bouncing out of his hands.

Not the most heroic rescue in the world, but it worked.

He rolled Brett over onto his front and cuffed his hands behind his back.

The plastic sheeting Knox lay on was spattered with droplets of scarlet. About a dozen little dark spines stuck out of his upper arm and shoulder, surrounded by angry red welts, oozing blood. About the same number again were just empty, bloody holes. Just like Steve Polmont.

Logan shifted around until his back was to the wall, then crouched down and patted Knox on the cheek.

The little man’s eyes snapped open. He flinched back, screaming behind his gag.

Logan slapped him, and hissed, ‘Shut up, you idiot! Not going to hurt you.’ He stole another look around the room. ‘Are there any more of them?’

Knox drew a shuddering breath in through his nose and nodded.

Bugger. Where the bloody hell was Butler?

Logan reached down for the edge of the duct tape gag and froze. Might be a better idea to leave it where it was. Get Knox out of here as quietly as possible, before the rest of Malcolm McLennan’s thugs got back.

‘Can you walk?’

No response.

‘I said, “Can you walk?”’

The thin, naked man just blinked at him.

One way to find out.

Logan sneaked over to the toolbox, looking for anything with a decent blade to cut through the duct tape. There was a battered Stanley knife in one of the trays with SP scratched into the handle. Perfect.

The mechanism was stiff, but he managed to slide the rusty triangular blade out, then squatted over Knox’s ankles and started sawing.

‘Wouldn’t bother if I was you.’ A Glaswegian accent, right behind him.

Logan froze.

Where was Police Constable Fucking Butler when you actually needed her?

17:18, six minutes ago

PC Vicki Butler edged her way around the corner of the detached house. She’d abandoned the standard fluorescent-yellow high-vis waistcoat back in the car. Can’t sneak up on anyone when you glow in the dark, can you?

She flexed her hands around the handle of the extended truncheon. Feeling the weight.

Dear Lord it was cold.

She crept along the back wall — ducking under the kitchen window — making for the French doors.

Vicki peeled the cuff of her glove back and checked the time. Thirty seconds to go. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.

Her feet were going numb, even through two pairs of socks.

Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen.

She tightened her grip on the truncheon.

Twelve. Eleven. Ten.

Vicki inched closer to the French doors.

Six. Five. Four. Three.

She placed a black-gloved hand on the door handle.

Zero.

And then she heard it. A low growl, coming from right behind her.

Oh…crap.

She turned, slowly.

There was a dark shape slinking through the snow towards her. Big, muscular — snow sticking to its black fur.

Jesus, that was a big dog.

Vicki backed off, nice and slow. ‘Good doggy?’

The growl became a snarl.

Fuck…

Andy Connelly, AKA: Mr Big-and-Bald, wiped his hands on a wodge of blue paper towels. From above Logan could hear the sound of a cistern filling up again. Completely missed the flush.

Connelly dropped the towels on the floor as Logan stood.

‘Andrew Connelly, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Steven Polmont-’

‘He doesn’t have the money any more.’

Logan pulled out his pepper-spray. ‘Face down, on the ground, do it!’

‘That’s what you’re after, right? Mental Mikey’s little eighteen million pound nest egg?’

‘Eighteen million?’

Shrug. ‘So they say. But the little shite’s frittered it all away, hasn’t he?’

‘On the floor.’

‘Transferred into the offshore bank accounts of Mikey’s successors.’ Connelly frowned. ‘Shame, could’ve done with a couple million, you know? Set me up somewhere warm and sunny till the heat dies down on that Polmont prick.’

Connelly nudged the unconscious project manager with his foot. ‘Course this crawly wee fuck wanted to give it all to the boss, didn’t he? Wanted to make up for all the dodgy goods and drugs you bastards seized.’

‘I’m not telling you again: on the floor, now!’

‘See, if Knox doesn’t have the money any more, he’s fuck-all use to nobody. You want him, you can have him.’

Lying on the floor behind him, Knox mumbled, kicking the floor.

‘Yeah, I want him.’

Shrug. Connelly turned and walked through the lounge door. ‘He’s yours.’

Logan frowned. That was a lot easier than he’d been expecting. He glanced back at Knox, lying trussed up on the floor, opened his mouth to say something, and then Connelly hit him — a side-on rugby tackle that sent them both crashing against the wall. Hard enough to crack the plasterboard.

They went down in a tangle of limbs, Logan gasping for breath as his scarred stomach screamed at him, swinging fists, elbows, knees, anything to get the bastard off.

Only Connelly was bigger, heavier, and a hell of a lot stronger.

Less than thirty seconds and he had Logan pinned to the chipboard, face down, with his knee in the middle of Logan’s back. The big man grabbed a handful of Logan’s hair, hauled his head up off the floor, then slammed it down again.

Logan threw an elbow back, but all he got from Connelly was a grunt.

His forehead battered into the chipboard again.

Bright lights chasing darkness. Jackhammers in his brain. Thumping.

And then a hand grabbed his flailing wrist and pinned it to the floor.

‘Never, ever, take your eyes off the prize.’ Connelly reached out with his other hand, and Logan watched him drag the nail gun over.

‘Fucking get off me!’

The nail gun’s nozzle was cold against the back of Logan’s hand.

‘See, it’s got a pressure safety trigger, have to press down to fire.’

THUNK.

Logan screamed, even though the pain hadn’t kicked in yet. It…He stared at his hand. The nail was sticking through his sleeve, pinning it to the chipboard.

THUNK. Another nail on the other side.

Kneeling on top of him, Connelly laughed. ‘What? You thought I was going to put a nail through your fuckin’ hand? What kind of animal do you think I am? Sides, get blood on the floor, have to hack up that whole chunk of chipboard and replace it…’

‘GET THE FUCK OFF ME!’

‘Ah well, it’s only chipboard.’

THUNK.

Silence.

There was a half inch of dark grey metal sticking up out of the back of Logan’s hand. Fire raced up his arm. ‘FUCK! AAAGH! FUCKING…FUCK!’

‘Fancy another one? Piercin’s all the rage these days, but.’

THUNK.

‘FUCK!’

‘See: did that one at an angle so your hand’s stuck. Chippies call it dovetailin’ the nails. Is that no’ interestin’?’

Warm red trickled out between Logan’s palm and the chipboard.

The weight shifted on his back.

‘We going to do your right hand next? Or shall we just stick a couple through your forehead?’

Logan whipped his head to the side, eyes raking the floor for something to…The rusty Stanley knife. He threw his right hand out, groping for the handle.

Connelly leaned down and grinned in his face. ‘No fuckin’ way, big man. Nice try though-’

Something dirty-pink slammed into Connelly’s bald head. He lurched forwards and the feet hit him again, both together, heel-first, cracking his nose. Then again, bouncing his head off the flooring.

It was Knox, writhing on the blood-streaked plastic sheeting, driving his feet down on Connelly’s head again, both legs still duct-taped together at the ankles. Face screwed up, hissing behind the gag.

One more time and that was it — he collapsed back against the plastic sheeting, sobbing. But Andrew Connelly wasn’t moving any more.

The kitchen door nearly exploded off its hinges, the handle making a deep gouge in the plasterboard wall.

PC Butler lurched in, left trouser leg torn and tattered, blood oozing down her shin, little flecks of red all over her face, waving her extendible baton. ‘POLICE! Nobody fucking move!’

She stood there, wobbling for a moment, frowning at the scene. ‘What did I miss?’