Dark Blood

46

‘I’m not your enemy, Logan.’ The Chief Inspector took a sip of tea, peering at him over the rim of the mug.

‘All I’m saying is I should be out there, searching the house.’

‘Oh, I’m sure DI Steel can manage without you for an hour or so.’ Chief Inspector Young — filling in while Professional Standards’ arch bastard Superintendent Napier was off at a conference somewhere — smiled. He had broad shoulders; short hair greying at the temples; big meaty fists, the knuckles criss-crossed with scar tissue; and small, dark eyes, surrounded by starburst wrinkles. The kind of man you’d want standing in front of you on crowd control, or forcing entry into a drug dealer’s flat.

The Professional Standards Unit wasn’t exactly Logan’s favourite part of Force Headquarters, which was a shame, considering how often he had to visit. Young shared his office with another chief inspector, who’d excused himself as soon as Logan arrived — giving them a bit of privacy for the bit where Chief Inspector Young bent Logan over the desk and, as Biohazard Bob so gleefully put it, proceeded without the aid of lubricant.

Young nodded at the photocopied complaint sitting in the middle of the desk. ‘And you never visited Douglas Walker at his home?’

Logan stared at him. ‘I only interviewed Walker twice. Both times, right here. With all due respect, sir, this is bollocks.’

‘You do know I can just check the custody log?’

‘Good — check it.’

Young glanced down at his notes. ‘His lawyer claims this was part of an “orchestrated campaign of harassment” that started when you dragged Walker into the station under false pretences.’

‘Not this again…’ Logan dragged the bagged notebook from his pocket and peeled it open. The bitter-sharp scent of bile crept out into the room.

Chief Inspector Young recoiled slightly in his seat. ‘What is that smell?’

‘It…kind of fell in some sick.’ The pages were all stuck together on one side, so Logan stole the silver letter opener from the room’s other desk and started flicking them apart, setting a little avalanche of pale yellow flakes free.

Sunday 31^st January:

Attended caravan in steading development. Questioned Danny Saunders and fiancee Stacy Gardner in relation to armed robbery at Henderson’s Jewellers…

‘Sergeant I really don’t think that’s necessary. We-’ ‘Hold on…’ He snicked a few more sheets loose.

Saturday 30^th January:

Attended incident at Richard Knox’s house — Knox agitated and destroying his possessions. No charges made.

A couple more and he had the declaration Walker had signed: the one saying he was coming into the station voluntarily.

‘Look. All done by the book.’ Logan held the notebook out.

Young backed away from the desk slightly. ‘Any chance you can put that back in its bag?’

Logan did, then swept the little pile of yellow flakes left behind into the bin. ‘I showed Walker’s lawyer everything at the time. He’s just chancing his arm.’

The chief inspector sat back in his leather chair, eyes creased, mouth working silently on something. ‘You know, DCI Finnie has asked if we would consider taking you on secondment to Professional Standards.’

Logan stared back. And he’d thought the frog-faced bastard had been joking. ‘Did he?’

‘You look horrified.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘…and he said Finnie wants to palm me off on the rubber-heelers!’ Logan shifted his shoulder, keeping the phone clamped to his ear as he washed the flakes of dried sick off his hands. The smell was getting worse as they rehydrated.

DI Steel made wet chomping noises in his ear for a moment. ‘IB found some decent prints on the window and the bedpost, if we’re lucky they’ll match.’

‘Why the hell would anyone want to join Professional Bloody Standards!’

‘Chase up the lab, OK? I want a definite on the bite marks and saliva by close of play.’

‘First thing I’d do is investigate that sarcastic bastard Finnie.’ ‘Are you even listening?’

‘What? Yeah: bite marks and saliva. Anything else?’

‘Victim’s house is on the south-east corner of Cove, down its own wee driveway. Nothing behind it but fields and the North Sea. I want a fingertip search: hundred metre radius.’

Logan frowned. ‘Does this whole thing sound…off to you?’

‘And tell them to do it properly this time, no fuck-ups.’

‘Knox drugs his Sacro handlers, beats the crap out of them, gets past the surveillance team…Then stops off on the way down the road so he can torture and rape an old man in Cove? Like it’s a service station and he fancies a burger?’ Logan hauled the plug out of the sink, letting the water gurgle away. ‘Do you think he’s the one who snatched Danby?’

He could hear her chewing again. ‘Want to say yes, but…How’s a weedy wee shite like that get the jump on someone like Danby, never mind carry him down the stairs?’

‘So he had help. Would explain where he got the Rohypnol from. Half the heavies in Tyneside are after Mental Mikey’s millions, maybe this is Knox’s price? Help him get revenge on the guy who put him away, and then disappear?’

‘Aye, maybe…’ Pause. ‘Listen, get onto Northumbria Police, I want to know what Danby’s been working on, just in case it’s no’ got anything to do with our wee rapist chum. And while you’re doing the rounds: chase up Lothian and Borders. Andrew Connelly must’ve shown his baldy head somewhere by now. Just cos everything’s going to shite, doesn’t mean I’m letting that big bald bastard get away with what he did to Steve Polmont.’

Biohazard Bob was hunched over a pile of paperwork in the Wee Hoose. He looked up as Logan entered, then went back to his forms. ‘Shut the bloody door.’

Clunk. The noise of phones and harassed constables died down.

Logan settled into his chair and called Northumbria Police. Ten minutes later he had reference numbers for every case Danby had worked in the last eighteen months, and a promise that the relevant files would be with him soon as possible. Then he was put through to a Detective Inspector Walsh.

‘You the one told us about Oscar Renwick? Used to share a cell with Richard Knox in Frankland Prison?’ The Newcastle accent was clipped and angry.

Logan frowned at the receiver. ‘Yes?’

‘You got any idea how many man-hours we wasted looking into that?’

‘Wasted? But he was-’

‘He was nowhere near any of them house fires. None. Had castiron alibis, you know what I mean?’

Logan opened the spreadsheet of Knox’s cellmates from Frankland Prison. ‘But Knox said Renwick told him-’

‘Knox’s a sex offender, remember? They manipulate, that’s what they do.’

‘But-’

‘Knox managed to smuggle a mobile phone into his cell, and Renwick sold him out to one of the prison officers. Knox knew Renwick was going to be up for parole soon, so he told you a happy little fairytale about murdered families. Bang: big investigation and no parole for Renwick. Knox was using you to get his own back, and you fell for it!’

‘But I didn’t know-’

‘And now I’ve got me guv’nor breathing down me neck for all the overtime I’ve blown on this, Sergeant. Thanks. Thanks a bloody heap.’

‘But…’

He was talking to a dead line. The DI had hung up.

Logan leant forward, banged his head on the desk, and swore for a bit.

‘You ever think about the job?’

Logan sat up. ‘What?’

‘The job.’ Bob was facing the wall, but he was speaking to Logan. ‘What the point is?’

‘Every sodding day.’

Bob nodded. ‘It’s like the whole bloody city’s on fire, and all we can do is piss on the bit in front of us.’ He thumped his pen down on the desk. ‘I’m fucking sick of getting my pubes scorched off.’

Logan laughed, but Bob wasn’t even smiling.

‘You talked to Deborah, didn’t you.’

‘I arrested someone yesterday. Every time his eleven-year-old daughter got a bad mark on her homework he’d tie her to the hot water pipes in the basement and crank the central heating up full. Arms and legs, covered with these huge weeping blisters. His own daughter.’ Bob’s shoulders sagged. ‘Fuck’s wrong with people?’

‘You want to swap horror stories? Because I’ve got some good ones.’

‘I talked to Deborah last night. Stood there and demanded to know what the fuck was going on. The secret phone calls, the weird messages, the whole lot. You know why she won’t get undressed if I’m in the room? Why she won’t let me fucking touch her?’ He picked up a box file and hurled it across the room. Then sat there staring at the paperwork, fluttering to the carpet.

‘Shit. I’m sorry, Bob.’

‘She’s been seeing a specialist: breast cancer.’ He slumped back in his seat and stared at the ceiling tiles. ‘Found a lump six months ago. She was scared to tell me in case I left her…Can you believe that?’

It went quiet again. And then Bob’s phone rang. He sighed, rubbed his face, then picked up. ‘Bob’s House of Bouncy Boobies, Bob speaking…’

It was like watching someone pretending to be Biohazard Bob Marshall. The crude humour, the language, the mannerisms were all there, but there was no life to the performance.

Logan picked up his own phone and set up Steel’s fingertip search. Then told the media office to get posters with Knox’s face up in all the petrol stations from Aberdeen to London. It was a long shot, but if he had a car, he’d have to stop and fill it up somewhere.

Then Logan downloaded everything he could from the Police National Computer relating to Danby’s case numbers, and sent the lot off to the printer in the corner. He bundled everything into a manila folder, and grabbed his coat.

Logan stood there for a moment, then put his hand on Bob’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

Still on the phone, Bob just nodded.

Logan closed the door behind him.

He headed down to the front desk. Big Gary was on, sucking his teeth and reading his book again, hunched over it like a fat gargoyle.

Logan knocked on the worktop. ‘Any chance of a pool car?’

‘No. Those idiots in night-time CID have written off four of them since Monday. And there’s a waiting list for the rest.’

‘Oh, come on, Gary, I only need it for-’

‘Did you get my message?’

‘What message?’

Big Gary marked his place in the book with a ‘DRINK-DRIVE-DIE!’ leaflet and slammed it shut. ‘Every bloody time.’ He hauled out a sticky note and slapped it on the desktop. ‘You’re not getting on the waiting list till you’ve seen to your prisoners.’

‘I don’t have any prisoners: Gardner should have been up before the Sheriff by now.’ Logan snatched the note off the desk. ‘For God’s sake Gary, I specifically asked for an early slot for him so he can get his granddaughter back from Social Services!’

‘Mr Gardner was on at nine fifteen, and you’re welcome. I’m talking about the couple you had a lookout request for.’

Blank look.

Gary sighed, straining the buttons on his white shirt. ‘Leadbetter: Wendy and Ian. The brother and sister who torched Knox’s granny’s place?’

‘Oh, that Wendy and Ian Leadbetter. Can’t someone else-’

‘No.’

‘But Steel needs me out in Cove.’

‘Better hope you get a confession quick then, hadn’t you?’

Logan stomped down to the custody area. The place was quiet for a change, just the faint burble of an Airwave handset announcing the comings and goings of Aberdeen’s boys in black and fluorescent yellow. A Police Custody and Security Officer was eating a yoghurt in the office that opened out onto the concrete corridor of the cell block.

She froze as he knocked, the spoon halfway between the yoghurt pot and her mouth, then stood.

Logan waved her back into her seat. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

She shrugged and spooned in another mouthful. ‘You making a deposit or a withdrawal?’

‘Wendy and Ian Leadbetter?’

The PCSO rolled her eyes. ‘Only been here half an hour, and they’re already a pain in the arse.’

Logan flipped through the short stack of unfiled custody forms on the desk, spotting a couple of familiar names amongst them. ‘You hear about the bloke Biohazard Bob brought in last week?’

Her face darkened. ‘The one tortured his own daughter? Oh yeah, I remember him fine. Never met anyone more in need of falling down the stairs a couple of times.’ She dumped her spoon on the desk, then upended the yoghurt pot over her mouth, tapping the bottom and slurping.

Logan waited for her to resurface. ‘Any chance of a squint at the custody log?’

‘Paper or electronic?’

‘Whichever’s easier.’

‘Knock yourself out.’ She hauled a thick ring binder from a shelf and thumped it down next to him. ‘You want me to get the Leadbetters into an interview room?’

‘I’ve got Butler waiting in number four, we’ll start with the sister.’

‘Right, back in a tick.’

Logan opened the custody log, working back in time, skimming through the drunks and drug addicts, the burglaries and random violence. His own name appeared at twenty past seven, Tuesday evening — checking Alan Gardner in for armed robbery.

Then there was the usual mix of daily Aberdeen life: a mugging; a couple cases of shoplifting; two women done for kicking the living hell out of a Rumanian bloke selling the Big Issue outside Boots…

Biohazard’s ‘Father of the Year’ had been signed into custody on Monday afternoon, so with any luck the bastard got Sheriff McNab, and was right now being forced to pleasure some fat fucker in Craiginches.

Serve him right.

Logan went further back. His own name popped up again at quarter to two on Monday afternoon, handing Douglas Walker back into custody after a fifteen-minute interview. Fair enough.

He skipped through the next few pages: domestic violence, drunk driving, assault, another assault, more shoplifting, unlawful removal…And there he was again, checking Douglas Walker out of custody at quarter to ten on the Monday morning.

Logan frowned. Eight pages later and he was checking Walker out at half eight on Sunday evening. Then again at six twenty-two. And four. Ten in the morning. Saturday was just as bad: 17:43, 16:22, 14:12, 12:50. Always against his name.

He stared at the bottom of the last form. It looked like his signature, but there was no way he’d actually signed it.

‘Right, the sister’s in four with Butler.’ The PCSO marched back into the room. ‘Did you know that cheeky sod DS MacDonald tried to grab my-’

‘This is bollocks!’ Logan held the custody log up. Then slammed it back on the desk. ‘I was nowhere near Douglas Walker on Saturday, or Sunday!’

She pursed her lips. ‘OK…’

‘Who’s been screwing with the log?’

She backed off a step. ‘Why would anyone screw with the custody log?’

‘Look at it!’ He thrust the heavy ring binder at her. ‘I interviewed Douglas Walker twice. This thing has me doing it eleven bloody times!’

The PCSO picked her way carefully around the edge of the room, making for her desk. Keeping as much distance between them as possible. ‘Maybe you should-’

‘Check the computer.’

She smiled, but it didn’t go anywhere near her eyes. ‘Yes. I can do that. Right now. Checking the computer…’

Logan thumped the custody log back on the desk. ‘That’s not my signature!’

For the next two minutes the only sound was the rattle-clack of fingers on keyboard, then the PCSO cleared her throat. ‘Ah…You know, your prisoner’s been sitting in the interview room for a while now, and maybe-’

‘What does it say?’

Silence.

‘DI Beattie’s down as the attending officer.’