Dying Light

26

‘Her name’s Joanna,’ said WPC Caldwell, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at a girl who couldn’t have been much more than sixteen and was having difficulty standing upright. ‘Says she usually meets up with this older woman before the start of their shift. You know, drink strong cider and cheap vodka. Get nice and numb.’ The WPC sniffed and glanced back at the staggering prostitute, probably thinking she was old enough to be the girl’s mother. ‘Only “Holly” didn’t turn up for work tonight. Or last night either.’

Logan nodded. It was a long shot. Holly had probably taken a couple of days off, or was up in the infirmary getting a dose seen to, but you never knew. Joanna had the sunken cheeks and lazy eyes of someone on more than just alcohol. A plague of purple love bites infected either side of her neck, her breasts wobbling at the top of a grubby, petrol-blue basque, the left nipple poking through a hole in the lace. Black miniskirt and high-heeled ankle boots. She’d thrown a threadbare maroon coat over the top of the ensemble. Very stylish: if you were into authentic diseased-junkie chic. ‘Joanna?’

She looked up at him and smiled, hungrily. ‘You looking for a good time?’

‘No. No I’m not.’ And even if he was there was no way in hell he’d be looking for it with her. ‘I want to speak to you about your friend Holly.’

Joanna screwed up her face and spat a glob onto the cobbled street. ‘Cow hasn’t showed up for days! Owes me a pack of fags.’ The shifty look was back. ‘And fifty quid as well.’

‘When did you last see her?’

She shrugged, and dug her hands into her overcoat pockets. ‘Dunno... What day is it today?’ Logan told her it was Friday and she counted backwards on her fingers, taking two attempts to come to the conclusion, ‘Tuesday night. That’s when she begged the fags off me.’ Tuesday night: four days after Michelle Wood was killed. Joanna leaned forward, exposing more of her chest than Logan wanted to see. ‘She’s no’ been back since. No sign of her! Supposed to meet up for a wee drink before... you know, before we go out.’ A car slowed down, then the driver caught sight of all the people hanging about beneath the streetlight and speeded up again. ‘Aw, fuck!’ Joanna stomped a high-heeled foot and stared after the departing car. ‘He was totally going to stop! You bastards have to piss off and leave me alone, or I’ll never make any money!’

‘Soon as you give us a last name for Holly, and an address too.’

Joanna gazed down the empty street, where the car’s tail-lights were just disappearing from view. She licked her lips, then looked back at Logan, that hungry glint in her eyes again. ‘It’ll cost you.’

In the end Logan had to cover Holly’s alleged debt: fifty quid and a packet of fags. The address was for a council flat in Froghall, an area of Aberdeen with a less than spotless reputation. There was no guarantee that Holly from Froghall was actually missing, but it wasn’t worth taking the risk. He called FHQ and asked them to send a squad car round to the address. If she opened the door dressed in a rubber nun’s outfit then at least they’d know she wasn’t dead. He settled back into the passenger seat of the CID car to wait for the report, drifting in and out of sleep while Rennie kept watch on WPC Menzies down the far end of Shore Lane.

He surfaced just after one, stiff and sore from sleeping in the car. According to Rennie, the streets had been pretty quiet. Business wasn’t exactly booming in Aberdeen’s red light district. Logan yawned; thank God he finally had a day off tomorrow — there was no way he could keep this up much longer. He tried to work the crick out of his neck, before radioing round to check in with the rest of the team. Rennie had been right, it’d been a quiet night to begin with, but now it was completely dead.

Control called in at half past one: Alpha Two Zero had been to the address in Froghall but no one was home. Provided nothing more important came up, they were going to try again later, but Logan wasn’t to hold his breath. Operation Cinderella was taking a big bite out of the night-shift as it was. There was a whole city out there that needed patrolling.

By two o’clock in the morning, Davidson and Menzies were playing Eye Spy over their concealed radios, while the rest of the team played If-You-Had-To-Or-Die, picking names like Saddam Hussein, the Queen, Ann Widdecombe, Homer Simpson, Oprah Winfrey, and in one instance, DI Insch. Not surprisingly, more people were prepared to die rather than sleep with him. Finally Logan called the operation to a halt and sent everyone back to FHQ.

He left DC Rennie to park the car and headed up to Steel’s incident room. No sign of her, she was still interviewing Chib and his friend. Logan checked his watch; they had less than an hour and a bit before the pair of them would have to be formally charged, or released. A bored-looking constable was slouched against the wall outside interview room number three, reading a copy of the Evening Express and muttering under his breath. ‘Mornin’, sir,’ he said when he saw Logan coming up the corridor. ‘You lookin’ for the inspector?’

‘Yeah, she in there?’ Logan pointed at the door over the man’s shoulder.

‘Nope, just that Chib bloke. Inspector’s in number two with the other one.’

‘You know if he’s copped to anything?’

‘Doubt it: this one’s said bugger all the whole night. Been like watching paint dry.’

No surprise there. Logan couldn’t see someone with Chib’s reputation breaking down and confessing all his sins. He knocked on the door to number two, letting himself in without waiting for a reply. DI Steel was slouched back in her seat, arms folded, scowling at the man on the other side of the table. He was wearing one of the IB’s paper boiler suits, but looked comfortable in it, as if he was at a pyjama party for alien abductees. A WPC stood in the corner, looking every bit as bored as the officer outside in the corridor. It seemed Chib’s friend wasn’t much of a talker either. There was a Manila folder sitting on the tabletop in front of the inspector and Logan helped himself to it, flicking through the sheets as Steel carried on her silent war of attrition.

According to the file the suspect had been identified as one Greg Campbell from Edinburgh. There wasn’t much on him: when he was wee he’d served some time in the same borstal as Chib, after that there was a bit of breaking and entering, resetting — flogging stolen car stereos down the pubs by the Edinburgh docks — and when he was seventeen he got into a pub fight and glassed someone. But since then he’d been relatively clean. Or at least he hadn’t been caught, which was a different thing entirely. If Greg was hanging out with Chib, he was working for Malk the Knife. And Malkie didn’t hire choirboys. Not unless he thought he could rent them out to ‘discerning’ priests.

Suddenly DI Steel rocked forwards and slammed her hands down on the tabletop, making the whole thing jump. But Greg Campbell didn’t so much as flinch, just sat there with a misty, faraway look in his eyes. ‘Enough!’ Steel stuck her finger in Greg’s face. ‘You don’t want to talk? Fine.’ She turned and glowered at the bored-looking WPC. ‘Constable, take this sack of shit down to the cells. Charge him: assault, possession with intent to supply... Looking like a child molester.’

For the first time a flicker of emotion showed in Greg Campbell’s face. ‘I am not a child molester.’

‘Jesus Christ on a moped!’ Steel struck a dramatic pose. ‘It talks!’

‘I am not a child molester.’ His voice was low and soft, not threatening, or angry, just matter of fact.

‘Sure you are; long hair and a moustache equals child molester in anyone’s book.’ Steel leant over the table, her face inches from Greg’s. ‘That why you’re up here? Eh? Come to indulge your sick little self? Get some wee kiddies hooked on crack cocaine, so you can have your wicked way with them?’ She winked. ‘Come on, Greggy, you can tell your Auntie Roberta: what you doing up here?’

Greg took a deep breath, closed his eyes and said, ‘I have done nothing wrong. I am cooperating with the police.’ He settled back into his fuzzy gaze, and nothing Steel tried could get him to talk again. She eventually gave up and ordered the WPC to take him back to the cells.

As soon as Greg Campbell was gone Steel exploded, cursing, swearing, snatching the Manila folder out of Logan’s hands and hurling it against the far wall, where it spilled open, scattering its contents across the stinky room. Logan just crossed his arms and sat on the edge of the table, waiting for the tantrum to pass. Eventually she ran out of steam, the torrent of foul language fading to a trickle and then drying up entirely. ‘Christ,’ she said, slumping down in one of the plastic chairs. ‘I needed that — wee shite was doing my head in. Fuckin’ bursting for a fag.’ She pulled out a packet and lit one up, sticking two fingers up at the big NO SMOKING sign screwed to the wall next to the door. Then she saw the little red light winking away on the video camera, swore again and mashed her finger down on the stop button. ‘Damn. Now I’m gonna have to screw about with the tape to get rid of the evidence. Smoking in the workplace, what would the Scottish Executive say?’ She rubbed a tired hand across her face, moving the skin around.

‘So, you didn’t get anything out of Tweedledee then?’

Steel laughed, a short barking sound borne on wings of second-hand smoke. ‘That wee outburst you witnessed was the most he’d said all bloody night. Beginning to think the bastard was mute.’

‘You touched a nerve with that child molester thing though.’

‘All the bloody good it did.’ She slumped back against the wall and puffed her cigarette down to a tiny stump, grinding the remains to death beneath her shoe. ‘Come on, let’s go tell Mr Sutherland some dirty, stinking lies.’

Brendan ‘Chib’ Sutherland looked somewhat the worse for wear. Five and a bit hours in captivity had left him with bags under his eyes and a peachcoloured fuzz on his chin. He made a big show of yawning and stretching as DI Steel settled down on the other side of the table. She was grinning like a Halloween lantern. ‘Sergeant McRae, do the honours, would you?’ and Logan went through the usual rigmarole of getting the tapes in place and performing the introductions: Chib Sutherland, DI Steel, DS McRae and the bored PC from the corridor. Then Steel bounced up and down in her seat, like an excited schoolgirl. ‘Chib, Chib, Chibbity, Chib-Chib-Chib... Guess what a wee birdie just telt us!’ She gripped the edge of the desk and leaned forward. ‘Go on, guess. No, you’ll never guess, but try anyway!’ Silence. ‘OK.’ The inspector gave a big leering wink. ‘I’ll give you a clue. We’ve been talking to your mate, Greg the Kiddie Fiddler, and he’s been telling us all sorts of funny stories about you, two condoms full of crack cocaine and Jamie McKinnon’s backside!’

Chib’s face was like a stone. ‘He’s not a bloody child molester. I won’t tell you again.’

‘Poor old Chib, here you are looking after your mate’s best interests and all the time he’s been through there fitting you up.’ Cording to him, you did the whole lot: you broke Jamie’s fingers and then you forced some crack-filled condoms up between his plump little bum cheeks.’ She stuck a finger in the side of her mouth and flicked it out with a loud pop. ‘Says you really enjoyed doing it too. That you’re into that kind of thing...’ Chib’s face was getting darker and darker, like a storm gathering. Steel beamed. ‘Oh! Oh — I know! I’ve got some magazines you’d love! Took them off someone who’s into it too, but just between you and me, I think it’s a bit rude to stuff things up someone else’s bum, unless you’ve at least bought them dinner first.’

‘I have done nothing wrong, I am cooperating with the police.’ Chib’s voice was trembling with the effort of staying calm and level. The vein in his forehead throbbing in time to the clenching of his jaw.

Steel scooted her chair closer to the table. ‘So, how come it was crack then? Did you no’ know heroin was the drug du jour up here? You trying to start a new trend?’

‘I have done nothing wrong. I am cooperating—’

‘With the police.’ Steel finished for him. ‘Yeah, we’ve heard it before. Your mate the paedophile trotted it out at least a dozen times before he turned on you.’

‘HE IS NOT A BLOODY PAEDOPHILE!’ Chib was halfway out of his seat before the PC grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back down.

‘Chibbly.’ The inspector smiled at him. ‘You don’t want to go getting yourself all riled up like that, could cause yourself an injury. Now why don’t you tell us your side of the story, eh? Do a bit of damage limitation.’ Cos as it stands, when we go into court later today and tell the nice sheriff what’s been going on, you’re gonna be screwed. Right now, your buddy goes free and you go down. I ask you: is that fair?’

Chib glowered at DI Steel and said, ‘I have done nothing wrong. I am cooperating with the police.’ After that, his lips were sealed.