Dying Light

19

Eleven o’clock and they were back in the car again, heading for the HQ of Aberdeen’s main local newspaper. DI Steel sat in the passenger seat, worrying away at her thumbnail, her expression conflicted.

Jamie McKinnon was being kept under close supervision, not even toilet breaks allowed, until Steel’s mate from the Drugs Squad turned up with his long rubber glove. She was determined to pin something on the two thugs from down south. The trouble would be getting any sort of case together. Somehow Logan didn’t see Jamie McKinnon having the balls to stand up in court and say, ‘Yes, Your Honour, those are the men that forced six kilos of heroin up my backside.’ Not if he didn’t want to end up filling a shallow grave out in the Grampian hills somewhere. But you never knew your luck.

Logan took the car up across Anderson Drive and onto the Lang Stracht. The Press and Journal — local news since 1748 — shared a squat, concrete, sprawling box of a building with its sister paper, the Evening Express, on a small industrial estate packed with car dealerships and warehouses. Inside it was all one huge, open-plan office. It always amazed Logan that the place was so quiet, just the ever-present hummmmm of the air-conditioning and the odd muffled conversation overlaying the soft, plastic clickity-clack of people typing on word processors. Colin Miller, however, was hunched over his computer, hammering away at the keyboard as if it had recently called his mother a schemie whore. The desks around him were packed with piles of paper, mugs of congealing coffee and bespectacled journalists. Every head within an eight-desk radius snapped up as Logan tapped Miller on the shoulder and asked for a quiet word.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! Can you no’ see I’m busy?’

‘Colin,’ said Logan in a low, friendly voice. ‘Trust me on this; you want to have a wee chat with us. And it’ll be much nicer if we have it over an early lunch in the nearest pub than down at the station. OK?’

Miller looked from Logan to the article flickering away on his screen — something about a bake sale in Stonehaven, if Logan wasn’t mistaken — before hammering Ctrl-Alt-Delete, locking his computer. ‘Come on then.’ Miller stood and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘You bastards is buyin’.’

They didn’t go into the nearest pub — according to Miller the place would be hoachin’ with nosey-bastard journalists and if there was any chance of a story coming out of this, he wasn’t going to share it with anyone — so instead he made Logan drive them into the centre of town, dumping the car back at Force HQ so they could make the two-minute walk to the Moonfish Café on Correction Wynd. On the other side of the narrow, sunken alley a huge granite wall, at least twenty-foot tall, held back the dirt and graves of the ‘Dead Centre’ — St Nicholas Kirk — the sky an icy blue, trapped between the looming church spire and the twisted willows. They were halfway through ordering when Steel jiggled about in her seat, then dragged out her mobile phone. ‘Got it on vibrate,’ she said with a wink. ‘Hello? What? No, I’m in a restaurant... Yes... Susan! No, that’s not... Look I know you’re upset... but...’ Swearing she stood, grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair and marched outside. ‘Susan, it’s not like that...’

‘So,’ said Logan as the inspector stomped back and forth on the other side of the restaurant’s front window — a freshly lit cigarette leaving wild smoke trails in the wake of her gesticulating hand, ‘Isobel feeling any better?’

The reporter looked alarmed. ‘Better?’

‘Doc Fraser said she’d been sick.’

‘Oh, right. Aye...’ Shrug. ‘Summer cold or somethin’, no’ sleepin’ much, you know?’ An awkward silence settled onto the table, followed by complimentary slices of freshly baked bread. They helped themselves, making small talk about Aberdeen’s chances in the coming match with Celtic, waiting for the inspector to finish what looked like a very loud argument.

Eventually the door banged open and Steel marched in, threw herself into her chair and scowled at the specials board.

‘So whit’s this all about?’ asked Miller as they waited for their sea bass in crayfish butter.

‘You know fine what it’s about,’ said Steel, turning her scowl on him instead. ‘You had breakfast with some wee shite-bag from Edinburgh last week. I want to know who he is. And I want to know right bloody now!’

Miller raised an eyebrow and took a contemplative sip of his Sauvignon Blanc, eyeing up DI Steel over the top of his glass, taking in the saggy neck, pointed features, wrinkles, escaped-loony hair, and nicotine-stained teeth. ‘Jesus, Laz,’ he said at last, ‘I think your mum’s coming on to me.’

Logan tried not to smile. ‘We think your “corporate investment facilitator” assaulted someone in hospital yesterday, maybe even forced him to accept drugs for resale.’

Miller groaned and took another swig of his wine, draining half the glass. ‘I don’t know anythin’, OK?’ He pushed his chair out and stood. ‘I’ll get a taxi back tae the paper—’

Logan grabbed his arm. ‘Look, we’re not going to involve you, OK? We just need a bit of info. Far as anyone else is concerned, you didn’t tell us anything.’

‘Aye, damn right I didn’t.’ The reporter cast a significant glance at DI Steel. ‘And I’m not goin’ tae either.’

The inspector scowled. ‘Listen up, you soap-dodging Weegie bastard: if you like I can drag you into the station and force you to make a statement. Understand?’

‘Oh aye? And how the hell do you think you’re goin’ tae do that, Grandma? I don’t have to tell you shite if I don’t want to. You want to go get a court order, you get off your wrinkly, stinky old arse and get one.’

Steel was up on her feet, leaning over the table, teeth bared. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’

‘Me?’ Miller smacked himself in the chest with a fist. ‘I’m the free-fuckin’-press, that’s who I am. Want to see your haggard old face splashed all over the paper? I’ll screw your career over in a fuckin’ heartbeat!’

That was all Logan needed — if Steel got pilloried in the P&J, Napier’s sage-and-onion threat would stuff Logan out of a job. ‘Inspector,’ he said, placing a hand over her trembling, tobacco-yellowed fist. ‘Why don’t you leave me to speak to Mr Miller? I’m sure you’ve got much more important—’ But Colin Miller wasn’t hanging around. He grabbed his coat off the stand and barged out of the restaurant, slamming the door behind him, rattling the glass.

Steel stared after him. ‘If you need me,’ she said, ‘I’ll be back at the ranch.’ And she too was gone. Logan let his head sink forward until it was resting on the tabletop, the beginnings of a headache sidling up behind his eyes. The woman was a nightmare: all they needed to do was sit down and have a quiet word with the reporter, sound him out, get a name and take it from there. Instead of which, she goes out of her way to piss him off.

‘Er... excuse me?’

Logan peeled an eye open to see a blue apron hovering at his shoulder. Further up there was a pretty brunette attached to it, balancing three large plates. She smiled uncertainly down at him. ‘Sea bass?’

Back at Force Headquarters, DI Steel was in deep conversation with the Assistant Chief Constable when Logan pushed through the incident room’s door. He left them to it — not feeling up to polite conversation, having made a good attempt at eating all three portions of fish out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Brooding as he chewed.

‘Jesus, sir: you OK? You look like sh... erm... dreadful.’ DC Rennie was trying to get into the room bearing a tray covered with coffee and chocolate biscuits. Logan didn’t reply, just helped himself to a mug of mid-brown slurry on his way to the desk he was sharing with the admin officer. One side of the desk was covered in orderly stacks of paper and an ancient-looking computer, the other side belonged to Logan; an expanse of bare Formica with a brand-new yellow Post-it note bang slap in the middle. He picked it up, trying to decipher the biro scrawl. It looked like Aopen WULHIR and an address that could have been SANITTFILD DRIVE, or SUNITHFIULD DRIVE. DC Rennie came past with the biscuits, took one look at the note and said, ‘Smithfield Drive? I had a great aunt lived there when I was wee. Nice old lady: loved Coronation Street.’ He offered Logan a Jaffa Cake. ‘Didn’t miss a single episode till they carted her off to the crematorium. They played the theme tune as she went through the curtains.’

Logan stuck the note under the constable’s nose. ‘What about that bit?’ he said, pointing at AOPEN WULHIR.

Rennie squinted. ‘Looks like “Agnes Walker” to me... Oh, is that Skanky Agnes? I did her once: drunk and disorderly down the docks. Puked all over the back of the van, dirty cow.’

That sounded about right. ‘You busy?’ he asked. Rennie shook his head. All he’d done that morning was file paperwork and get the teas in.

They picked out one of the newer CID pool cars, Rennie driving as Logan slumped in the passenger seat. It was warm in the car, the sunlight seeping in through the windshield — a soporific blanket that wrapped itself around him adding to the effects of a large lunch. He drifted off, not quite asleep, but not quite awake either as Rennie drove them through the centre of town, dribbling on and on about how someone from Home and Away was in EastEnders now, playing someone else’s uncle. Logan tuned him out, head lolling against the window, letting the city’s summer streets slide by as Rennie took them past Victoria Park and up Westburn Road. The lights were against them at the junction to the hospital and Logan felt a pang of guilt: he’d still not been to see PC Maitland. Not paid his respects to the nearly dead... Red, amber, green and they were on their way again, leaving the hospital behind.

Smithfield Drive was on the other side of North Anderson Drive, overlooking the dual carriageway where it dipped down the final hill and died at the Haudagain Roundabout. The buildings were standard Aberdeen City Council fare, no different to the other schemes of rectangular granite slabs all over the city. Skanky Agnes’s building was a two-storey block of four flats, hiding behind a front garden that groaned under the weight of gnomes, wishing wells and ornamental trellis smothered in vivid-yellow climbing roses. Not exactly what Logan had been expecting. Agnes’s flat was top right, behind a pristine red front door with the name ‘SAUNDERS’ on it. He stifled a yawn and got Rennie to lean on the doorbell. It took two more goes before the red door opened and a creased face blinked out at them. Early thirties; bleached-blonde curly hair, flat on one side and sticking up on the other; black-and-gold kimono clutched half-heartedly closed at the waist, exposing an expanse of cleavage at the top end, and a pair of sturdy legs at the other. Mascara smudged around both eyes on a hardened, but still attractive, professional face. Definitely not Skanky Agnes. ‘What fuckin’ time you call this?’ Rennie told her it was twenty to two. ‘Oh for fuck’s sake...’ A yawn, big enough to take a full-grown cat. ‘What is it with you police bastards? Can you no’ let a body sleep?’

Rennie bristled, obviously a little flustered at being ID’d as a copper so easily. ‘What makes you think I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness?’

She sighed, looked him up and down once more, then pulled the kimono a little tighter, hiding the cleavage, but exposing a dangerous amount of upper thigh. ‘Christ, you’re not, are you?’

‘No, but I could have been.’

The woman laughed and released her grip on the kimono, causing it to fall back into exactly the same position it had occupied in the first place, only more open. ‘Aye. That’ll be shinin’. You got copper written all over you. What you want?’

‘Ms?’

‘Saunders.’

‘Right, Ms Saunders, we’re looking for Agnes Walker. We understand she lives here?’

The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

‘We... er... that is...’ Rennie passed a panicked look back at Logan, who hadn’t actually told the constable what they were doing here.

‘We want to speak to her about an assault that happened two weeks ago.’

Ms Saunders shifted her attention from Rennie to Logan as he told her that Agnes wasn’t in any trouble, they wanted to find out who beat her up, so they could stop him from doing it again.

The woman folded her arms, making the hem of her kimono rise a good four inches. ‘And how come you’re suddenly so bloody interested in Agnes’s welfare? Eh? Where the hell were you when he was beatin’ the shite out of her?’ She squared her shoulders. ‘Come to think of it, how come it’s taken you this long to take a bloody interest?’

Logan had to admit she had a point. ‘She told me it was an accident.’

‘An accident?’ She snorted. ‘Are you kiddin’ me? You see the state of her? That was no accident, some bastard tried to strangle the poor cow! Four days she was laid up in her bed, pissing blood half the time. Sheets were in a hell of a mess.’

‘Did she tell you who did it?’

‘She didn’t know. She did, I’d’ve been round there in a shot with a pair of rusty shears, cut the bastard’s prick right off!’

Logan peered over her shoulder into the darkened flat. ‘Look, can we talk about this inside—’

‘No you fuckin’ don’t: I don’t do freebies. And definitely no threesomes!’

‘I’m not looking for a “freebie”, OK? And neither is he,’ Logan jerked a thumb in Rennie’s direction. It was difficult not to notice that the constable was spending an inordinate amount of time staring at the flesh appearing beneath the woman’s slipping kimono. ‘Give us a description — did Agnes tell you what her attacker looked like?’

She shrugged. ‘Medium height, brownish hair, ordinary looking.’ When Logan didn’t say anything, just stood there silently, she sighed again. ‘Look, I don’t know, OK? Said he had a flashy motor, one of them big BMWs. That’s all I can remember. You want any more, you’ll have to ask her yourself.’

‘I will. Where is she?’

‘No idea.’

A man’s voice echoed out from inside the flat — hoarse, deep and sounding of Fraserburgh: ‘Whit is it?’ She turned and shouted back, ‘It’s nothin’. Start on yer own, I’ll be in in a minute,’ before turning back to Logan. ‘She didn’t come back this morning.’

The man’s voice again, ‘Are you fuckin’ comin’ or what?’ and Ms Saunders sighed. ‘In a fuckin’ minute!’ She stuck out her hand to Logan. ‘Give us your card. She’ll call you when she gets back, and if she doesn’t, I will. Wee shite did that to her deserves all he gets.’ And as soon as Logan handed over his Grampian Police business card the door was slammed in their faces.

‘So,’ said Rennie on the way back to the car. ‘You want to tell me what that was all about?’

‘Agnes Walker had the crap beaten out of her about twelve days ago. Four days later, give or take, Rosie Williams is beaten to death. Four days after that it’s Michelle Wood’s turn.’

‘So?’ Rennie flipped the locks and clambered in behind the wheel.

‘What if Rosie Williams wasn’t the guy’s first?’ said Logan, getting into the passenger seat. ‘Suppose he’s been out there hunting before, only victim number one puts up a fight and he can’t finish the job. He learns from his mistakes and out he goes again. He tries Rosie, and she’s not as strong as the first one, or maybe he’s just better prepared this time: he kicks and punches her till she’s dead. Four days later he’s back again. He did Rosie right there in the street; anyone could come along — too risky. This time he snatches his victim. Instead of killing her at the scene, he takes her away somewhere quiet and secluded where he can enjoy himself a bit more. Less chance of discovery.’ Rennie did a three-point turn and headed back towards Anderson Drive as Logan fought with the seatbelt. ‘The more he does it, the better he gets. So far, Skanky Agnes is the only one who’s seen him and lived. Soon as we’re back at FHQ get a lookout request out for her. We need to know what he looks like.’

Rennie whistled, waiting for his turn at the roundabout onto the dual carriageway. ‘So that definitely puts the kybosh on Jamie McKinnon killing Rosie...’

‘If it’s the same man.’

The car lurched onto the roundabout as Rennie floored it, nipping out before an articulated lorry could flatten them. He drove straight across the Drive, heading back into town. ‘You think it’s the same man, don’t you?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Either that or it’s a huge bloody coincidence...’ He watched the houses on Rosehill Drive go by for a moment, before coming to a conclusion. ‘Change of plan: drop me off at the Journals. I’ve got to see a man about some drugs.’