Authors: Stuart MacBride
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?’
The photographer’s battered Volkswagen was parked under a streetlight, three doors down from the smouldering remains of Knox’s house. Probably moved to keep its delicate rusty bodywork safe from the riot Colin’s article had caused. The car’s owner was out in the middle of the road, the hood of his parka zipped all the way up, hiding his bald head, a huge camera pressed to the fur-trimmed porthole. Capturing the Fire Brigade’s retreat.
Colin made a loud-hailer with his mangled hands. ‘Hoy, Sandy, you nearly done?’
The man stayed where he was, taking another shot of a massive white fire engine grumbling and hissing its way out through the police cordon, the flash freezing the snow in midair.
Colin pulled a face. ‘God forbid we should interrupt his muse. HOY, BALDY!’
Sandy lowered his camera and turned, scowling away in the depths of his coat. ‘Can we fuck off home now?’
‘You downloaded everythin’ to the laptop yet?’
Shrug. ‘’Cept this lot. Why?’
‘Car keys.’ Colin held out a hand.
‘Bastard…’ Sandy rummaged in his pocket, then dropped
them into Colin’s black-leather palm. ‘I’m never getting home, am I?’
Colin grinned. ‘I’ve seen your wife, you should be thankin’ me. Now away you go back to your wee photos.’
They climbed into the back of the car, while Sandy stomped off towards the burnt-out house, swearing.
‘No pleasing some people.’ Colin pointed. ‘Laptop should be under the seat in front of you.’
So were a bunch of empty crisp packets, and a couple of crumpled Coke cans…Logan’s fingers brushed against a flat rectangle of neoprene. He dragged it out and handed it over.
Colin powered the thing up. ‘Right, let’s see if the wee jobby’s actually put them in the right…Buggering…’ His crooked fingers fumbled with the mousepad. ‘Fine, sod you.’ He hauled his right glove off. The pinkie stopped at the second joint, the finger next to it at the first, the puckered ends shiny and hard looking. He tried again, and the cursor wheeched through the menu structure. ‘Here we go.’
The screen filled with the mob gathered outside Knox’s house, pinched faces, mouths caught open, screaming abuse, placards waving. It was a good photo, very atmospheric. Sandy might have been a miserable sod, but he knew what he was doing with a camera.
Logan scanned the crowd, looking for a black and white bobble hat. ‘Next.’
Colin hit the key and they were looking at the same shot a fraction of a second later. And again. Then another photo of the crowd. The house. A sequence of Knox throwing the curtains wide, then his eyes bulging, then Logan lumbering up in stop motion to drag them shut again. The window shattering. More shots of the crowd.
Logan sat back in his seat. ‘Crap. This is going to take
forever.’
‘How’s he taking it?’
Standing in the hall, Mandy shrugged. ‘Think he misses his electric fire.’
Knox was in the lounge, kneeling in front of the window. Praying. He’d switched off the lights, but a faint yellow glow seeped in from outside, accompanied by the distant hum of traffic on the North Deeside road.
It was a nice little flat, the kind of place they liked to feature on those makeover shows, where the before always looked a hell of a lot better than the after.
Three bedrooms, a galley kitchen, flat-screen telly, and central heating. Bliss.
Harry shifted from foot to foot. ‘You want a cup of tea, or something? I’m making anyway, it’s no problem?’
‘Coffee: black, two sugars.’
Nod. ‘Nice to be warm again, isn’t it? After that bloody great fridge of a place.’
‘The stink of mildew and mould.’
Harry grinned. ‘Those mushrooms growing under the kitchen sink.’
‘All gone up in flames.’
Silence.
‘You know.’ Harry worried at a loose button on his shirt. ‘Would’ve thought he’d be a bit more…upset. Family home, and all that.’
Mandy stepped back and closed the lounge door. If Knox wanted to sneak off through the lounge window – good luck to him. The flat was on the fourth floor, so the fall would probably break his neck. Save everyone a lot of time and trouble.
She followed Harry through to the kitchen, and watched him fill and boil the kettle. ‘I’m still not happy about the security.’
‘Yeah, well.’ He shrugged. ‘They’ll get the CCTV installed outside tomorrow. We can manage for one night, right? You want a biscuit?’
‘What if there’s an auld mannie living next door?’
‘Rocky or Caramel Wafer?’
‘Got any HobNobs?’
Harry handed over the biscuit tin. ‘Even if he gets all horny, he can’t
do
anything about it. Not with you and me here, and that pair from the Perv Patrol sitting out…’ Harry cleared his throat, then pulled on a smile. ‘Richard, you want a cuppa?’
Knox was standing in the doorway, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. ‘Me mam was born in that house.’
‘Mandy’s got chocolate bikkies…?’
The weedy little man took a deep shuddering breath, then helped himself to an orange Penguin. ‘Kind of a relief, like. In a way…’ He peeled back the wrapper. ‘Was tying us to the past, wasn’t it? All them ghosts holding us back…Yeah. Maybe it’s for the best.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Harry spooned bitter-smelling brown granules into three mugs, then sloshed boiling water over the top. ‘Onwards and upwards, eh?’
‘You know,’ Knox opened the fridge and peered inside, ‘’stead of takeaway tomorrow I could whip us up a prawn curry if someone nips down the shops? Feels like I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in months.’
Mandy nudged the fridge door shut again. ‘Maybe later. Need to get stuff organized.’
Knox stared at the vinyl floor for a moment, his cheeks flushing a deep rose pink. Shrug. ‘If you like.’
Harry put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We’re getting another visit from Babs and Paul tomorrow, I’ll ask them to swing by Asda on the way: get the prawns and stuff. I like a nice curry, don’t you, Mandy?’ He stared at her, making his eyes go wide. Like she was supposed to feel guilty about denying Knox his little
MasterChef
moment.
Sometimes Harry could be a bit of a tit.
He nodded, like they’d all agreed it was a
great
idea. ‘Right, you let me know what you need, and I’ll phone Babs.’
Knox smiled. It made his face even pointier, like a shaved rat. Then he scribbled down a long list of ingredients and handed it over. ‘Might as well do it properly like. Not the same if it all comes out of a jar.’
‘Sounds good – back in a tick.’
Knox waited till the kitchen door clunked shut. ‘You don’t like us, do you?’
Mandy shrugged. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘The way you look at us. Like I’m still inside: a rule forty-three. Dirty fucker, who likes to rape old men.’
‘I just want everyone to be safe.’
‘That’s not me any more. God reached out to us in prison. I was standing there, watching this bloke Rupert bleed to death on the landing, and I was thinking, maybe he’s got the right idea, you know? They gave him eight years, cos his home computer was full of photos: little boys getting shagged off the internet. Took a safety razor, snapped it open, and hacked through his veins from elbow to wrist. Couldn’t take the shame and the guilt any more…’
Knox’s eyes were focussed somewhere between the vinyl floor and his knees. Biting his bottom lip.
‘Maybe your mate had the right idea.’
‘And that’s when I heard His voice. “Richard,” He says, “Richard you’re one of Me creatures, and I love all Me creatures. Doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past, like, you’ve got a bit of Us in you. Put you on this earth to do Me work, didn’t I? Can’t go throwing it all away like this idiot.”’
‘Thought God spoke all “thee” and “thou”, like in the bible.’
Knox looked up, staring straight at her with those rodenty little eyes. ‘It’s all God’s work, isn’t it? Everything we do serves His purpose.’
‘Even raping old men?’
‘War, Famine, Pestilence, Death. He made all them things. Ethnic cleansing, suicide bombers, drought, global warming,
AIDS, swine flu, tidal waves, earthquakes…If you took everyone who died in the last hundred years, and stacked all the bodies up, it’d reach from here to the moon, four and a half times.’ A small smile. ‘Not given to us to understand His plans, is it?’
Mandy didn’t know who was creepier, Richard Knox or his god.
Julie sits on the end of the hotel bed, feet tucked up under her, watching the telly. It’s Sky’s twenty-four-hour news thing, some plastic-haired bloke being all serious about the situation in Afghanistan.
Tony takes another swig from his mug, the sharp edge of cheap brandy, turning into instant warmth and sweetness. Think Julie would notice if he helped himself to another wrapper of fizzy coke? Probably. Then there’ll be some serious fucking fireworks.
Have to make do with supermarket brandy.
Neil clumps in through the front door, cradling a couple of big brown paper bags from KFC round the corner. The smell of deep-fried chicken wafts out into the cramped room. ‘Bloody freezing…’ He dumps the bags on the bed and wriggles out of his coat.
Julie looks up. ‘Sweetheart, you’re getting snow all over the carpet.’
‘Like Santa’s bloody grotto out there.’
She stretches out a foot and wriggles a pink-and-green-polka-dot sock. ‘Not wearing any shoes, Darling.’
Neil freezes. Scoops up his coat and hurries into the bathroom. Comes back with a bunch of towels and dumps them on the wet carpet. ‘Sorry.’
Tony holds his breath, waiting for it to kick off, but Julie just shrugs and goes back to the telly.
Neil opens one of the bags and peers inside. ‘Who wanted corn on the cob?’
Julie holds up her hand and Neil passes her dinner over.
‘Thanks, Babe.’
Tony gets a Boneless Banquet For One, with a side of beans. Or the ‘Fat Bastard Special’ as Neil calls it. Cheeky bugger – he can talk, like.
Neil pulls out a little wax-paper bag full of thin rustling chips and crams a handful into his gob. ‘Mmmnngfff, mmmnnfffif, fffm mmmnnnt?’
‘Yeah, Knox phoned about half an hour ago. Her nibs took the call.’
Julie holds up a hand. ‘Shhhh!’
That report about Knox’s house burning down is on again. Kicks off with someone silhouetted against the flames, chucking a petrol bomb. Placards. Angry faces. Fire engines. Then some local plod bigwig giving a statement about how Grampian Police don’t like vigilantes.
Tony sucks the grease off his fingers and takes a swig of the Diet Coke that came with his meal, then tops it up with a good glug of that cheap brandy.
Neil holds out his Sprite. ‘Go on then, give us a splash, like.’
‘You’re designated driver.’
‘Aw, come on, that’s not—’
‘Sweethearts, I’m not going to ask you again.’
Silence.
They sit and eat, Tony flicking through Julie’s file on Danby with greasy fingers. Looking for an edge. Thinking about the little plastic baggie of wrappers in her handbag.
The piece on Knox goes back to the studio: a photo of him up in the background while some tree-hugging corduroy types get all worked up about why he was there, why he couldn’t be left alone, why it was costing so much…Blah. Blah. Blah.
And then the weather.
Neil blows his nose on a napkin, getting the Colonel’s face all covered in bogies. ‘What now?’
Julie clicks the TV doofer, and the screen fades to black. ‘Finish up, then we’re heading out.’ She stands, making for the bathroom, picking her way around the soggy towels on the carpet. ‘I’m driving.’
Tony tries not to shudder, then tops up his Coke again. What the hell – he pours a generous measure of cheap brandy into Neil’s Sprite as well. Solidarity.
If Julie’s driving they’ll both need it.
Colin jabbed his stumpy ring finger at the screen. ‘Hello darlin’…’
The woman in the photo had shoulder-length brown curly hair, fierce green eyes, and a ski-jump nose, her face contorted in a snarl. Steam curled from her open lips in the snowy afternoon. She was clutching a placard in her thick blue gloves: ‘
RAPING SCUM OUT
!!!’ with a photocopy of Knox’s face underneath. Logan scribbled down the filename displayed at the bottom of the screen. ‘Right, now we’re looking for her friend.’
Colin blew into his naked hand. ‘Friend?’
‘You try lighting a petrol bomb wearing padded gloves. How do you get the lighter to spark?’
‘Aye, well, maybe she—’
‘What, took the gloves off, set the wick, lit it, then put her gloves back on to chuck the thing?’
The reporter stared at him. ‘You’d be surprised what you get used to when you have to wear gloves all the time.’
Sigh. ‘Yes: it was all my fault and I’m sorry. Happy?’
‘I’m just—’
‘Every damn time…’ Logan reached over and poked the laptop’s ‘next’ button a couple of times, flicking through
the photographs. ‘Anyway, she chucked
two
petrol bombs, there wasn’t time to get her gloves off and on between them.’ He flicked through to the end of the sequence, then back again.
Someone was standing next to Miss Black-and-White-Bobble-Hat in every single photograph. A young-ish man with the same curly brown hair; the same green eyes; the same snub nose; the same expression on his face.
Lynch mob, a game all the family can play.
Colin leaned forward, staring at the faces. Then gave a low whistle.
‘What?’
He pointed at the screen.
‘And?’
‘Do you lot no’ do
any
research?’ He tapped the young man right between the eyes. ‘That’s Ian Leadbetter. See his grandad? Supposed to be one of Knox’s earlier victims. What the hell was it…’ Colin screwed up one side of his face. ‘Seventy-six-year-old, Parkinson’s, went missin’ from a park. Cops found him six hours later on a patch of waste ground, bashed and bruised. Wouldn’t talk about it. Wouldn’t take a rape kit.’
Another poke. ‘The kids’ parents were all for keepin’ it quiet, but wee Ian here’s been shootin’ his mouth off to anyone who’ll listen. Wants Knox strung up for what he did to his grandad.’
‘Any proof?’
‘Says the old man saw Knox’s picture in the paper when he was released a couple years ago and wouldn’t come out of his room for a week. Got blootered a month later and told Ian all about it.’
‘He could still make a formal complaint.’
Colin shrugged. ‘Bit difficult when you’re sittin’ in a wee brass urn on the mantelpiece. Pneumonia, three months ago.’
Good point.
‘Can you email me a copy of the photos?’
‘Do you one better…’ Colin dug about in his jacket with his stumpy-fingered hand, and produced a little blue USB stick with ‘T
HE
A
BERDEEN
E
XAMINER
,
S
ERVING THE
N
ORTH
E
AST SINCE
1856’ printed on the side.
Snoring rattled the windows of the CID pool car. Steel was slumped back in the passenger seat, a dead cigarette butt dangling from her open mouth, stuck to her lower lip – a slug-trail of ash tumbling away down the front of her padded jacket.
Logan tried the door handle.
Locked.
The street was almost deserted: the media hadn’t hung around after the fire engines had gone. A burning house was news. A burnt-out shell was
old
news. One by one they’d drifted off till all that was left was Sandy the photographer’s antique Volkswagen, and DI Steel’s pool car.
Logan tried the door again, just in case it had magically unlocked itself in the last ninety seconds.
It hadn’t.
He knocked on the passenger window. Steel jerked upright in her seat, blinking, the cigarette butt still stuck to her bottom lip.
Logan knocked again.
The inspector wiped a hand across her mouth, sending the butt tumbling into her lap, then frowned at him.
‘Come on, it’s bloody freezing out here!’
She leaned over and opened the driver’s door. Logan scrambled in behind the wheel and turned the engine over, then cranked up the heat – treadling the accelerator, trying to get it to warm up faster.
‘Was having this really…
weird
dream about Gloria Hunniford, and she was wearing this huge black cloak, and carrying a scythe…’
Logan held up the little USB drive Colin had given him. ‘Got the arsonist and her accomplice on film.’
‘And she had this massive red strap-on, and she wanted—’
‘You still got that Airwave handset on you?’
Steel blinked again. Then shuddered. ‘How long does it take to get hypothermia?’
‘Mobile phone’ll do.’
Steel passed over her little Nokia, and Logan punched in the number for Control, then waited for someone to pick up at the other end.
‘Yeah, I need you to run a PNC check on one Ian Leadbetter, Newcastle, late teens/early twenties. While you’re there, see if he’s got a sister, or a female cousin.’
‘Hud oan a mintie…’
He pinned the phone between his shoulder and his ear, flipped his notepad open, and pulled the lid off his biro with his teeth. ‘Uh-huh…’ Scribbling down the details as Control gave him everything the Police National Computer had on Ian and Wendy Leadbetter.
‘Right, I need you to get a lookout request on both of them.’
‘Fit for?’
‘Arson – Richard Knox’s house.’
‘Oh aye? You sure we shouldnae gie them a medal instead?’
‘Just get them picked up.’ He snapped the phone shut and handed it back.
‘Got any fags?’
‘All out.’ He clicked on the headlights and pulled away from the kerb, the Vauxhall’s wheels crunching through the snow.
‘In that case, you can drop us off at home on your way back to the station.’
Logan groaned. ‘It’s nearly eleven! I’m not going back to the—’
‘You’ve got to sign the pool car back in, you idiot. And while you’re at it, check on the search teams. I want to know what else is lurking in Gallagher and Yates’ Grotto O’Fun.’
‘But—’
‘And tell Big Gary I said to put us both down till midnight on the overtime. Got a kid on the way, after all.’
Night-time CID were all gathered around the middle set of desks in the office, drinking tins of Irn-Bru and sharing two coffee-table-sized pizzas, the smell of garlic, tomato and spicy sausage hanging in the air – Detective Inspector Bell handing out the food and telling stories of the good old days.
Logan turned down a slice, and slumped over to the DSs’ cubbyhole. Someone had stuck up a sheet of A4 on the wall, with ‘T
HE
W
EE
H
OOSE
’ printed on it. The door was locked.
‘Oh for fuck’s…’ He closed his eyes, screwed up his face. Then placed a hand against the wood.
Know what: who cared? Steel would just have to wait for her update. It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it till the morning anyway. And at least this way he’d be home before midnight – hopefully to find Samantha still at the flat.
Logan turned on his heel, and the door clunked open behind him.
Crap.
He turned back and pushed through into the little room.
Doreen’s desk was as immaculate as ever, Mark’s was covered with dusty cardboard boxes from the archives, but Biohazard Bob’s was a disaster area. He was sitting with his back to the door, ruffling a sheath of paper into some kind of order.
Logan paused. ‘You weren’t in here playing with yourself, were you, Bob?’
The DS cleared his throat. Didn’t look around. ‘Just getting caught up on some paperwork.’
‘With the door locked?’
Shrug. He ran a hand across his face. ‘What you doing here? Thought your shift ended six hours ago.’
‘You and me both.’ Logan collapsed into his office chair, jabbed a finger at the computer’s power button. ‘Ding-Dong’s got pizza out there if you fancy it?’
Another shrug. ‘Not hungry.’
Silence. Just the whirr and bleep of the machine coming online.
‘You OK, Bob?’
Pause.
‘Yeah. Fine. Never better.’
‘OK…’ Logan logged into the crime management system and called up the Police Search Advisor’s contact details, then dug out the Airwave handset from under a pile of junk in his top drawer and punched in her warrant number.
‘Aye, just finishing up now – got a couple kilos of heroin in the back of the cottage, and twa bin-bags of ecstasy.’
‘What about the IB?’
‘Done a wee whilie ago. Now they’re awa’ building a snowman.’
All right for some. Logan thanked her and hung up, then called the hospital for an update on Norman Yates. Still critical, but stabilizing. Which wasn’t bad for someone who’d been shot three times.
Logan cobbled together a quick incident report on the fire at Knox’s house, and how they’d identified Ian and Wendy Leadbetter, then sent it off to the printer. While it was chuntering away to itself he called up his emails and checked to see if anything interesting had come in.
Couple of memos. A new directive about Stop And Search procedures. Something from DC Rennie inviting him to a stag night in Amsterdam at the end of the month. One from a DI in Northumbria Police, saying they’d been to see Knox’s cellmate, Oscar Renwick, in Frankland Prison about the four house-fire murders Logan had identified. Renwick had been up for probation in three weeks, but with this on the go, it looked as if he’d be waiting at least another sixteen years before he set foot in the real world again. And the DI would
be writing to Aberdeen’s Chief Constable to tell him how it wouldn’t have been possible without Logan’s help.
Logan grinned: result.
Then there were a couple from someone offering to ‘E
MBIGGEN
Y
OURE
T
ROUSER
B
EAST
A
ND
T
HE
W
OMENS
W
ILL
Q
UEUING
U
P
!’
And right at the bottom, an email from Beattie, CC’d to Dildo and the woman from HMRC, saying how pleased he was they’d made so much progress at the meeting that afternoon. So the rats in the basement hadn’t eaten him alive.
Shame…
Logan closed his eyes. ‘Bugger.’ He’d forgotten to call Dildo about Gallagher and Yates. Too late now. He scribbled himself a note and stuck it on his monitor, then powered the computer down and grabbed the sheets of paper from the printer. He stopped with one hand on the door handle. ‘You
sure
you’re OK, Bob?’
‘What are you, my mum now?’ Bob turned around for the first time, eyes red-rimmed and swollen. A forced smile. ‘Go on, sod off home. Give that redhead IB tech of yours a good seeing to from me.’
Logan didn’t anwer that.
He pushed into the flat and flicked on the hall light. Silence. The whole place was in darkness. ‘Sod…’ He peered into the bedroom, closed his eyes, sighed, then shut the door, gently. Samantha was still there. She hadn’t abandoned him for her static caravan.
At least that was something.
He dumped his coat on the hook and wandered into the kitchen. Stared at the contents of the fridge for a while, before helping himself to a tin of Irn-Bru. Opening it on the way through to the lounge.
Maybe watch a little telly to help him unwind.
The curtains were drawn, the only light coming from the
LEDs on the TV and PlayStation, and the blinking one on the answering machine.
Logan closed his eyes and groaned.
Probably Steel. Or even worse – his mother. He took a scoof of vaguely fruity fizzy juice and hit the button.
‘M
ESSAGE ONE
: Hello, Logan, it’s Hamish. I
—’
‘Fuck!’ A mouthful of sticky Irn-Bru sprayed out over the sideboard.
Logan scrabbled for the voulume control, turning it down in case Samantha woke up and heard Aberdeen’s biggest crime lord leaving a message ON HIS BLOODY ANSWERING MACHINE.
He squatted down and hit play again.
‘M
ESSAGE ONE
: Hello, Logan, it’s Hamish. I notice you’ve not done anything with your money yet.’
Oh
fuck.
What the hell was Wee Hamish Mowat thinking?
‘It’s important for the local economy that we all do our bit, don’t you think? Don’t leave it too long, eh? Oh, and do let me know if you need any more.’
Beeeeeeep.
‘E
ND OF MESSAGES.
’
He flipped open the cover and hauled the little cassette out. What if someone found out? What if Samantha picked up his messages? How the FUCK was he supposed to explain it?
He dug his fingernails into the cassette, tugging out the tape and unreeling the whole thing until there was a spaghetti mess of shiny brown-black ribbon curled across the sticky sideboard. Then dropped the plastic case and stomped on it.
Still not enough. The IB could just wind it back onto another cassette.
Logan scooped the lot up and carried it through to the kitchen, dumped it into the empty sink, then went rummaging through the cupboards for the methylated spirit and drenched the lot.
Better be on the safe side…
He tore a dozen pages out of that morning’s
Press and Journal
and mixed them through the slippery mess, before throwing the window open and dragging out his lighter.
Whooomp: the stainless steel sink filled with purple-blue flame, the newspaper crackling as the tape melted and shrank. Until there was nothing left but curls of ash, a lump of brittle plastic slag, and a gnawing coldness in the depths of Logan’s stomach.