Dark Blood

34

Logan pushed through the flat’s front door, into the scent of garlic, herbs and cheese. He banged the snow off his feet, took off his shoes, and padded through into the lounge. His head was pounding — they’d had to tie the resurrected Fiat’s bonnet down with hairy string and nearly a whole roll of silver duct tape, driving it back to town in the rattling growl of a broken exhaust. ‘God what a day…’

Samantha looked up from the couch, then away again. She was wearing her pink fluffy robe again, red-and-black stripy socks sticking out of the end. Her nose was deep pink, eyes too. ‘What happened to you?’

‘Raid out by Balmedie — someone got shot.’

‘I waited for you.’

‘Did you?’ He peeled off his jacket. ‘Were we going…’ He stopped.

Samantha sniffed. ‘I can’t do this any more.’

Pause. ‘Do what?’

‘This.’ She waved a hand, staring at the blank TV screen. ‘Playing the tart. Being the good little woman. Never rocking the boat.’

‘Playing the-’

‘Do you have any idea how difficult this is? Watching you destroy yourself. Trying not to say anything. Living with your constant-’

‘Where the hell’s this coming from?’ Logan dumped his jacket on the back of the couch.

‘When was the last time you came home and said something positive? About anything?’

‘Someone rammed my car with a Transit van! What am I supposed to say, “everything’s fucking peachy”?’

She wiped her sleeve across her face. ‘I can’t…’ Stood. Turned to march out of the room.

Logan grabbed her. ‘What happened?’

She wouldn’t look at him. ‘I can’t be your security blanket any more. It’s too much.’

‘I don’t need a security-’

‘Just stop it.’ Samantha placed two hands on his chest and shoved him away. She stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

‘Oh for fuck’s…Samantha!’ Logan followed her through to the bedroom. She was stuffing clothes in a holdall.

‘Can we at least talk about it?’

‘What’s to talk about?’ She rammed a pair of black leather pants in the bag, voice clipped and angry. ‘You’re going to be a father. You’ll have a family. What the hell do you need me for?’

‘What do I need…? I don’t love Steel, or Susan. OK? I love you. I don’t want-’

‘Then why is it always me? Why do I always have to be the one who suggests sex? Why do you never want me?’

‘I do! I’m just…Bloody hell.’ The phone was ringing, a handset warbling away on top of the bedside cabinet. ‘I’m trying to-’

She pushed past, back out into the hall.

‘Samantha, it’s not…’ Through into the lounge again. ‘Will you stand still for two minutes?’

She grabbed a handful of CDs from the pile by the TV. ‘When you figure out what you want you can call me.’

‘I want you!’

The ringing stopped and the answering machine picked up: Logan telling whoever it was to leave a message.

DI Steel’s voice growled out of the speakers. ‘Laz?’

‘I’m sorry, OK? I’m just…everything’s screwed up and I don’t…’

‘Laz, I know you’re there — pick up the bloody phone!’

He reached for her. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘Don’t make me send someone round!’

Samantha wiped her eyes again. ‘You’re supposed to know.’

‘Laz?’

‘I didn’t. I’m sorry.’ This time, when he held her, she didn’t push him away. ‘Stay, OK?’

‘Laz, I’m serious!’

Samantha sighed. Looked away. ‘Go on then. Answer it.’

‘Screw her, it’s-’

‘You know what the old bag’s like — she’ll just keep ringing and ringing till you do.’

Logan snatched the phone out of its cradle. ‘Are there no other bloody police officers in Aberdeen you can annoy?’

‘Get your arse back to the station. Someone’s set fire to Knox’s house.’

There was something strangely comforting about watching a house burning in the middle of a snowstorm. Choking black smoke curled up to meet the low clouds: the sharp smell of bubbling plastics, the soft edge of charring wood. Up close, the snow had melted away, beaten back by the blistering heat, but that didn’t stop more from whipping down from the February night sky.

Logan sidled up next to DI Steel. Her face was all pink and shiny and she’d put on a thick, padded parka, the front unzipped and pulled wide while she sipped at a polystyrene cup of something brown. ‘Hope you brought some marshmallows.’

‘Fire Chief says it’d be out already if it wasn’t for the wind. At least they’ve managed to stop it spreading.’

A pair of huge white fire engines blocked the street, their flickering lights sparkling through the snow, thick jets of water raining down on the burning building.

‘Got any fags? I’m gasping.’

Logan handed her the packet.

‘Ta. Neighbour called it in about nine, seems our conscientious media bastards stood and filmed the place burning; never thought to actually get on the blower and call nine-nine-nine.’

‘There’s a shock.’ Logan turned on his heel, looking past the blue-and-white ‘POLICE’ tape cordoning off the front garden, to the forest of TV cameras and zoom lenses on the other side. ‘Think they got whoever did it on film?’

‘God, that’s brilliant!’ She slapped a hand against her forehead. ‘Why do you think I dragged you all the way out here, to sing songs round the camp-fire?’

‘Thanks. Couldn’t have got Uniform to do it, could you? No, had to drag me out in the middle of the night. Just because you’re not getting any-’

‘Don’t whinge. Think I want to be here? Should be back at the nick interrogating the wee sods we arrested. Gallagher’s no’ saying anything, but the van driver was beginning to…’ She frowned. Then smiled. ‘You were at it, weren’t you? You and the gorgeous goth! Come on then: blow by blow.’

At it? The way things were going he’d be lucky if she was still there when he finally got home.

Steel pursed her lips. ‘Bet she goes like a bloody steamengine.’

Logan glared at her, then turned around and marched off towards the ranks of cameras, the inspector’s words ringing out behind him: ‘And see if you can’t scrounge up some more tea!’

Half an hour later he was hunched over in the BBC Scotland Outside Broadcast Unit — which was a fancy way of saying ‘Transit Van Stuffed With Weird Bits Of Equipment’. A generator grumbled away somewhere behind a bank of knobs, switches, and flickering lights, just loud enough to be annoying.

‘I’d love to, but it’s company policy.’ The bearded bloke in the polar fleece, blew his nose into a damp hanky; never taking his eyes off the screen in front of him, where a rosy-cheeked reporter was doing a piece to camera, the snow whirling down around her head. ‘…sense of anger in Aberdeen tonight. We spoke to some of Richard Knox’s neighbours…’

‘We’re talking about an arson here.’

The man twisted a dial on his little editing desk. ‘Mate, if it was up to me I would…’

Logan sighed. ‘But?’

‘The BBC has to be seen to be impartial, otherwise no bugger’s ever going to trust us again. I’m not allowed to give you any footage without a warrant.’

Which was the same reply he’d got from every other sod camped outside the cordon of ‘POLICE’ tape.

‘Can you at least show me it?’

Mr Beard puckered up. ‘Give us a second, OK?’ Then he leant forward, clicked a button, and spoke into a little microphone. ‘That was great Janet, now can we try it again? And make sure you mention the campaign to have him deported.’

The woman on screen scowled. ‘You can’t deport someone from Aberdeen to Newcastle, it doesn’t make any sense! And it’s flipping freezing out here.’

‘So say “repatriate”, “forcefully relocate”, or “hound out”. Something. Then you can come in, have a cup of tea, and get ready for the next bulletin: we’re live at twelve past.’ He let go of the button. ‘Bloody prima donnas.’

He span around in his seat, ducking to avoid a dented anglepoise lamp. ‘Going to be on News at Ten anyway, so I suppose I can give you a preview…’

He flicked a switch on the back wall of instruments and a small screen, mounted above what looked like an eight-track recorder, came alive with static.

‘Headphones.’ He pointed at a scabby pair hanging from a bent coat hanger looped through the equipment rack, the cable plugged in next to the screen.

A quick rattle across a dirty keyboard, and the female reporter appeared again. Behind her Knox’s house was ablaze, sheets of orange and yellow billowing out of the lounge window, red sparks mingling with the falling snow, the upper windows glowing with flickering light.

‘This morning notorious rapist, Richard Knox, was escorted from his family home by police-’ The picture cut to familiar footage of the crowd surging outside the house. ‘-after angry scenes. Local residents, and people from as far away as Cheshire, descended on a quiet Aberdeen street when a North East newspaper revealed that Knox was living in the city’s Cornhill district.’

Cut to a puffy-faced man with a strawberry birthmark across one cheek. ‘No’ right is it? Why should we be lumbered with Newcastle’s perverts?’

Then a woman with her hair scraped back in a Torry face lift. ‘Revolting, so it is! It’s an utter disgrace!’

A teenager with more acne than skin, nose like a sharpened pencil. ‘Nasty gay-’ Loud bleep. ‘-shouldnae ever been allowed out o’ prison.’

Back to the reporter. ‘But events escalated this evening, as tensions, already running high, exploded into violence.’

Another cut: night, snowing. The crowd had thinned down to the hard-core, frozen few. Then someone emerged from off camera, a lit petrol bomb in their hand. It sizzled across the screen, leaving a trail of glowing white, and the camera swung around to watch it explode against the granite wall of Knox’s house. The flash was bright enough to overload the camera for a moment, and then it was back in focus, just in time to catch the second bomb being thrown. It burst on the sill of the broken lounge window — sending burning petrol all over the curtains.

‘With Knox moved to an undisclosed location, the police are appealing for calm, but it seems unlikely that local anger will be defused so easily.’ Another shot of the reporter, staring straight at the camera. ‘This is Janet Milton, BBC News, Aberdeen.’

The screen went blank.

Logan pulled up one side of his headphones. ‘How do I rewind?’

‘Big black knob to your right.’

The Transit’s side door slid open and there was the reporter. She froze, one foot up on the van’s floor, thick flakes of white specking her shoulders and hair; nose and ears a deep shade of pink. Her forehead creased. ‘Where am I supposed to sit?’

Logan turned his back on her, twisting the big black knob till she appeared on screen again.

‘Come on, Greg, this is ridiculous.’

‘Shut the door, eh, Janet? Freezing me nuts off here.’

‘You’re freezing yours off? What about mine?’

‘There’s a thermos in the cab…’

Logan stuck the headphones back on and set the report running again. Shutting out the argument.

‘But events escalated this evening, as tensions, already running high, exploded into violence.’

The first petrol bomb was too quick — the cameraman didn’t have time to catch much more than the rough shape of someone wrapped up in a padded jacket hurling the bottle. But the second time he’d got the camera around in time to catch the thrower centre frame.

Logan hit pause.

It was either a very effeminate man, or a slightly butch woman. Difficult to tell with all the padding. They had a black-and-white bobble hat pulled down over their ears, wisps of dark hair sticking out of the bottom. Eyes screwed up, nose crinkled. A checkered scarf covered the lower half of their face, and they were wearing what looked like a blue North Face jacket — the logo just visible on the left chest — with matching gloves.

So that probably meant no prints on the bottle.

Logan frowned, then took off the headphones and hung them back on the improvised hook. ‘Do you have any other shots of who threw the petrol bomb?’

‘You’re bloody impossible, Gavin! How am I supposed to work under these conditions?’ The reporter stormed out and slammed the side door shut.

Gavin rubbed his hands across his face. ‘No idea. Maybe in the crowd shots?’

‘Any chance you could-’

‘Mate, I’ve got a live bulletin on in ten, a…’ He lowered his voice, ‘A reporter with PMT who won’t deliver her bloody lines properly, a dodgy sound desk, and about three thousand other things I’ve got to do before we hand over to the London studio. What do you think?’

Logan sighed. ‘OK, OK. I’ll get a warrant.’

The man nodded. ‘Good idea. Now, if you don’t mind…?’

Logan stood off to the side, watching the woman from BBC Scotland doing her live broadcast for the News at Ten. ‘It’s too early to tell yet, Simon, but Grampian Police issued the following statement this afternoon…’

Behind her, Knox’s house was a blackened shell, steam and thin ribbons of greasy smoke rising from the blackened windows while the Fire Brigade rolled their hoses up.

A fake English accent sounded at Logan’s shoulder. ‘’Allo, ‘allo, what’s all this then?’

He didn’t even have to check. ‘Evening Colin.’

The wee reporter rubbed his leather-gloved hands together, the rigid finger joints sticking out at odd angles. ‘Brass monkeys, but.’

‘Isobel give you a late pass, did she?’

‘Why, fancy a pint later?’

‘Can’t: on the wagon.’

‘Fuck me, must be serious.’ Colin blew into his cupped, gloved hands, wreathing them in a white cloud. ‘Any off-the-record statements you’d like to make for your old mate?’

Logan frowned for a minute. ‘Yeah. Can you say: “sources close to the investigation think the media are a bunch of sketchy bastards for standing about filming Knox’s house burning down when they should have been calling the Fire Brigade”?’

‘Ah…’ Colin bit his top lip and stared at his shuffling feet. ‘It was…Well, you always think someone else must’ve…Ahem.’

‘Yeah, I’ll bet you do.’

Logan hunched his shoulder. Now the fire was out, winter was reclaiming the street.

‘You still got Grumpy the Photographer with you?’

‘Driving us mental with his moanin’. You’d think he’d be happy to get a nice juicy story like this, wouldn’t you? Got to be better than coverin’ some crappy cow auction at Thainstone.’

Logan glanced back along the street to where DI Steel was slumped in the passenger seat of a pool car, cigarette smoke drifting out into the frigid night.

‘How’d you like to help the police with their enquiries?’