Authors: Stuart MacBride
Logan’s manky little Fiat grumbled to a halt, the engine making Death Watch Beetle ticking noises as it cooled. The warrant hadn’t been that difficult to arrange, but by the time they’d done the risk assessment and the briefing, and organized a firearms team, it was gone half seven.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Steel tapped two fingers against the black-plastic-bag window. ‘This supposed to be stylish, is it?’
‘You want to walk home?’
They’d parked on a little side road, north of Balmedie, where they’d have a decent view of proceedings. The address Angus Black had given them for Gallagher and Yates turned out to be a smallholding surrounded by miles of nothing. The cottage sat in the darkness, its windows glowing with amber light; a couple of tumbledown outbuildings lay off to one side, spilled granite blocks slowly disappearing under the falling snow; a large barn with a dark-red door. No sign of the unmarked van the eight-man firearms team had turned up in.
‘Why can I no’ see anything?’ Steel shoogled closer to the windscreen, the hot orange glow of her cigarette reflected in the pitted glass.
Logan pointed at a pair of black shapes moving slowly along the line of a drystane dyke. ‘There.’
Steel hauled out her Airwave handset and hit the button. ‘What’s taking so long?’
‘It’s bloody freezing out here.’
‘Boo hoo. Just get your arses in gear. Haven’t got all bloody night.’
Then there was a muttered,
‘Jesus, she’s a sodding nightmare.’
‘I heard that!’
And the connection went dead.
Logan cupped his hands and blew into them. ‘Whatever happened to all that crap you told me about being a team player?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning you turning up to Beattie’s meeting and not letting me tell him about Gallagher and Yates.’
She stuck a cigarette between her teeth and lit it, blowing out a mouthful of smoke that oozed across the windscreen. ‘Beattie’s a moron.’
Unbelievable. ‘How come when
I
say he’s an idiot I’ve got an attitude problem, but when
you
say it—’
Steel smacked the back of her hand against his chest. ‘Shhhhh!’
‘No. It’s one bloody rule for—’
She hit him again. ‘Down there, you twit.’ She pointed through the snow at the main road, where a large Transit van was turning onto the farm track, bouncing and rolling along the icy, rutted surface. Steel fumbled with the handset again. ‘All teams, hold position. We’ve got visitors…’
‘Sodding hell. I’m up to my tits in a snowdrift here.’
‘I don’t care if you’re up to your tits in shark-infested tampons: keep your gob shut and your arse where it is!’
The big van jounced in through the gates, did a tortuous three-point-turn then reversed towards the door of the barn, brake lights flaring red through the falling snow and cloud of diesel exhaust.
Steel flicked ash into the footwell. ‘What do you think: doing a midnight flit?’
The driver hopped down from the cab, then crunched his way over to the cottage, leaving the engine running.
Logan turned the key in the ignition and the Fiat whined and groaned into life.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Being proactive…’ He inched the car along the side road with the headlights off, navigating by the faint reflected glow of the snow. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Driver’s back out…got two mates with him…going round the back of the van…’
A whin bush grated along the side of the Fiat, scratching at Logan’s window.
‘They’ve opened the doors on the cattle barn…light’s on…Shite, can’t see anything – could you no’ get the bloody window fixed properly?’ She thumbed the button on the Airwave handset again. ‘What’s going on?’
‘We’re all getting hypothermia.’
‘Donald, you make me come down there and I’ll jam my boot right up—’
‘Looks like they’re unloading stuff from the back of the van.’
Logan had finally turned out onto the main road, the Fiat’s front wheels skittering from side to side, scrabbling for purchase.
‘Get into position.’
‘Finally!’
Bloody brakes weren’t working. Logan stomped his foot hard to the floor, and the car slithered to a halt, overshooting the end of the farm track. A bit of blind reversing, and the thing was pointing the right way again. He eased into the road.
‘Fuck…’ A ditch ran along one side, the verge invisible as the wind picked up, throwing snow against the windscreen.
‘Team One – good to go.’
‘Team Four – aye, we’re ready an’ a’.’
‘Team Three – in position.’
‘Team Two – Bastard, just stepped in something…’
‘Right, listen up.’ Steel took an inspirational sook on her fag. ‘There will be no getting shot. There will be no shooting anyone else. Most importantly, there will be no extra sodding paperwork for me to do, understand?’
There was a replying chorus of,
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Who are we no’ at home to?’
‘Mr Fuck-Up!’
‘Right. Russell, they’re all yours.’
Logan could hear the lead firearms officer giving his team instructions as the little Fiat juddered and snaked up the track. When he was roughly halfway to the cottage, Logan tapped the brakes again, grinding to a halt. He hauled on the handbrake. ‘Roadblock.’
Steel shrugged. ‘Good an idea as any.’
Probably unnecessary, but at least now they couldn’t do a runner in the Transit van.
‘All teams, move in on my mark. And…mark!’
The inspector wiped at the windscreen with her sleeve. ‘Can you see anything?’
‘No.’ Just the halo of the van’s headlights and the glow from the cottage. Everything else was swallowed by snow and darkness.
‘Police! Hands where I can see them!’
‘Susan asked if you want to be there.’
‘Where?’ Logan killed the engine.
‘I said, keep your bloody hands where I can see them!’
‘You know, when she…When the baby comes.’
In the dark of the car, Logan grimaced. ‘Never really thought about it.’
‘On the ground. On the ground now!’
‘Well, it’s technically your kid too, so if—’
‘SHITE!’
A bright flash, followed by a hard pop.
‘Live fire! Officer down!’
Three answering flashes, and then the Transit van shot forward, headlights sweeping towards the farm track.
‘Laz…?’
Logan fumbled with his seatbelt. ‘Out!’ He snapped on the hazard lights, hauled open the door and scrambled out into the snow. The van was picking up speed, barrelling down the road towards them.
Oh, crap. No way that was going to stop.
He lunged for the drystane dyke, pulling himself up the slippery stones. The top course gave way and Logan tumbled down the other side into a bank of freezing white, boulders thumping down all around him.
BANG! The sound of shattering glass. The squeal of tortured metal.
Swearing.
Logan hauled himself upright, hands and face stinging with the cold, and peered over the wall. The Fiat was at least six feet back from where he’d abandoned it, wedged across the track – the back end in the ditch, one headlight smashed, front bumper hanging off, the bonnet crumpled into a sneer of metal. The Transit van looked as if nothing had happened.
Behind the steering wheel, the van’s driver blinked and shook his head. A lumpy man with rough features and Lemmy-from-Motorhead stubble.
‘You dick!’ Logan stumbled across the scattered wall stones, through the snow, and round to the driver’s door. ‘That was my car!’ He hauled the door open and dragged the man out into the snow.
Resisting the urge to kick him in the goolies, Logan produced his warrant card and rammed it in Lemmy’s face. ‘POLICE!’ Then flipped him over onto his front and cuffed his hands behind his back. ‘You’re nicked.’
Lemmy just lay there and groaned.
That’ll teach him not to wear a seatbelt…Logan jumped to his feet. Steel – where the hell was Steel? He hurried over to the car. She wasn’t in the passenger seat. She wasn’t in the ditch ether.
Then he heard the swearing again.
‘Inspector?’ Logan waded through the snow in the ditch and peered over the wall into the field beyond. Steel was lying flat on her back with the cigarette sticking straight up out of her mouth, smoke trailing away into the sky. ‘Inspector? You OK?’
She didn’t get up, just raised a hand. ‘Either I’m having one of them sympathetic pregnancies and my water’s just broke, or I’ve peed myself a little.’
Steel slumped back against the barn wall and ran a hand over her face. ‘He going to be OK?’
‘He’s a lucky sod – shotgun wasn’t close enough, so the vest took most of it. Got some pellets in his arms and chin, but other than that, yeah.’ Which was more than could be said for Norman Yates.
‘The other one?’
‘Depends how quickly the ambulance gets here. Did you see the state of my bloody car?’
‘What did I tell them? No getting shot, no shooting anyone. Why does no
bastard
ever listen?’ She kicked one of the many boxes littering the barn, but instead of the thing sailing off into the shelves that lined the rough stone walls, her foot thumped through the cardboard, leaving her stuck. ‘Arse…’
‘Not like they had any choice, is it? They identified themselves; he opened fire; they took him out.’
‘Get this bloody thing off me!’ She hopped on one foot. ‘And what sort of moron takes a shotgun to a firearms team anyway?’
Logan hauled the box off, then took a look around the
barn: shelves on all four walls, stacked with cartons and containers; pallets on the floor, keeping more stuff off the compacted dirt. There was a whole section devoted to Grant’s Vodka. He tore a case open, pulled out a bottle and read the label. ‘Counterfeit.’
‘Bollocks.’
Logan handed it over. ‘See anything suspicious?’
Frown. ‘That’s not how you spell “Distillers”.’
‘Oh…’ She’d got there a lot faster than he had. ‘I’m guessing most of this is dodgy, if not all of it.’
‘Yes, well done Sherlock, I think I might have worked that one out on my own.’ She cracked open another box. ‘Fancy some knock-off Calvin Klein’s Obsession?’
‘No.’
Steel stuck the carton back in the box. ‘Well, one thing’s for certain, Malk the Knife’s no’ going to be too pleased with Mr Gallagher when he finds out he’s lost a whole shipment of dodgy goods. Poor baby.’ She grinned. ‘Want to go rub it in?’
Outside the barn a crumpled trail of boxed hair tongs, digital radios, and other assorted goods stretched away to the open back doors of the abandoned Transit van. As if Hansel and Gretel had been shoplifting.
Logan followed Steel through the snow to the little cottage. The whole place smelled of curry and the bitter-sweet sweaty tang of cannabis.
Gallagher was in the lounge, handcuffed and sitting in a wooden dining chair at gunpoint – three grim-faced constables all aiming at various portions of his anatomy. He was a chunky lump of muscle with a spade-shaped head, tattoos poking out from the neck of his dark-brown fleece, one eye swollen and already starting to turn purple. ‘I want a fucking lawyer.’ His voice had a surprisingly high-pitched Fife lilt.
‘And I want Helen Mirren to slather me in chocolate and
eat me like a Curly Wurly, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.’ Steel slumped into the couch. ‘Who you working for?’
‘I’m saying nothing.’
‘We know anyway, just want to hear you say it.’ She pulled out her cigarettes and offered the packet around to everyone except Gallagher. ‘Think Malk the Knife’s going to be happy with your wee performance tonight?’
‘Police brutality. You fuckers killed that bloke.’
So much for honour among counterfeiters and drug dealers.
‘“That bloke”?’ Logan crossed over to the wood-burning stove, burning merrily in the fireplace. ‘No way to speak about your friend Norman Yates, is it? According to Lothian and Borders the pair of you have been joined at the hip since you did over that Post Office in Leith.’
Steel nodded. ‘Very romantic.’
Sniff. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’
Steam was starting to rise off of Logan’s trousers. ‘Where’s Andrew Connelly? Big bald bloke with a huge dog? Supposed to be your boss?’
Gallagher stared at him with one blue eye. ‘I only stopped here to ask directions. Never seen any of these guys before in—’
‘Your life, aye, we get it.’ Steel stood. ‘This mercenary wee shite’s no’ going to tell us anything. Get his arse back to the station.’
It took four burly police officers, their van, a tow rope, and a lot of swearing to get Logan’s battered Fiat out of the ditch. It thumped down on the snowy track, and the front bumper fell off, the bonnet flapping open and closed like the car was laughing at him.
‘Fucking hell…’ Logan stared at the buckled mess.
The lead firearms officer patted him on the shoulder, grinning. ‘It was a mercy killing.’
‘Bugger off, Russell.’
Russell waved at the rest of his team. ‘We’ll drag it back to the farm, you can give it a decent burial later.’
Logan hauled open the driver’s door and threw the dented bumper into the back, then stood there, looking down at the keys, still dangling from the ignition. He reached in and gave them a twist.
The Fiat’s starter motor made whining, gurning noises.
‘God, you’re hopeful, aren’t you?’ Russell blew into his hands. ‘Come on, give it up. Ambulance needs—’
The engine spluttered, then gave a painful growl.
‘Bloody hell.’ The firearms officer stepped back, and threw his arms in the air, spotlit by the Fiat’s one remaining headlight. ‘IT’S ALIVE! ALIVE!’
Logan stared at him. ‘You’re a dick, you know that, Russell, don’t you?’
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 ‘P
OLICE
’ 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 ‘P
OLICE
’ 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?’