Authors: Stuart MacBride
‘Hold on, maybe this’ll help…’ PC Guthrie yanked open the curtains, unleashing a cloud of dust. Pale grey morning light oozed in through the grubby bay window. If anything, it just made the place look worse.
Once upon a time the velvet curtains were probably a rich red, but now they were the colour of dried blood. The wallpaper was a collection of faded roses and vines, the room’s corners infested with the familiar black spider webs of mildew. Standard lamps with tasselled edging, a sagging couch, a nest of tables, a mantelpiece weighed down with dusty porcelain figurines.
The sour taint of ancient cat pee.
Steel wrinkled her nose. ‘No’ exactly
Better Homes and Gardens,
is it?’
Logan had to agree. The whole place looked like the contents of a bring and buy sale, circa 1975. ‘Could do with a bit of a clean.’
Richard Knox stood in the middle of the worn carpet, one hand on the back of a rickety armchair and smiled. ‘I think it’s perfect…’
It was a rundown detached house in Cornhill, with an
overgrown front garden, sagging gutters, moss-covered roof, and peeling paintwork.
A pair of black-and-white photographs hung on the wall above the fireplace, one of a dour-looking man in an old-fashioned suit, the other a severe woman with a fifties haircut and scowl.
‘I never met me real grandfather.’ Knox stared up at them. ‘The Lord took him when me mother was still a little girl. But Granny Murray was a terror, you know? Always banging on about Jesus this, and Bible that.’ Knox smiled. ‘Wish I’d listened to her when I had the chance, like. Bet things would’ve turned out very different for us if I’d found God before the Devil found me.’
Creepy little bastard. Ever since they’d arrived at the manky old house he’d been practically glowing.
They followed him from room to room, opening the curtains, upsetting the dust and mould, ending up in a double bedroom at the back of the house overlooking a long back garden choked with bushes and weeds. The large bed drooped in the middle, its quilted cover pockmarked and cat-clawed. Knox settled on the edge, clutching the same old battered carrier bag to his chest.
A woman’s head poked around the door: John Lennon glasses, chubby cheeks, short curly ginger hair. A hamster in a lumberjack shirt who’d introduced herself as PC Somethingorother from the Offender Management Unit. ‘Seems OK to me, location-wise, but I’m still not happy about Richard staying here. Might be a bit risky with it belonging to a relation and all.’
DSI Danby shook his head. ‘You don’t have to worry about that. Euphemia Murray remarried after Knox’s grandfather died. Even if someone gets hold of his mother’s maiden name, it won’t be the same as the old woman’s.’
Knox smiled. ‘Outlived two husbands, didn’t she? You have to admire that.’
The DSI pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. ‘Before we leave you in the capable hands of Constable Irvine and her team, we have to go through the terms of your SOPO.’
Knox groaned, then flopped back on the quilt, provoking another puff of dust from the ancient fabric. ‘Do we have to? I mean—’
‘Yes we do.’ Danby handed the paperwork to Logan. ‘Do the honours will you, Sergeant?’
Logan cleared his throat. ‘Sexual Offences Prevention Order for Richard Albert Knox, Thirty-Five Cairnview Terrace, Aberdeen. Applied for by Chief Constable Brian Anderson and approved by Sheriff McNab. This order is valid for five years from today’s date and lays out—’
‘How about,’ said Danby, ‘we skip the bumph and get to the conditions?’
‘Oh, right…er…You will not go within two hundred yards of any retirement home or recreation centre where older men might congregate. You will not contact any other registered sex offender.’
Knox gave a theatrical sigh. ‘You know, the power of God
can
change a man. There’s no sinner so desperate that he cannot be redeemed.’
DI Steel laughed, thumbs jabbing away at the keypad on her mobile phone. ‘Aye, right.’
‘You will not consume alcohol outside of your place of residence.’
‘Pffffff…I’m surprised you got
that
one past a judge.’
‘You will not accost any member of the public—’
Frown. ‘What?’
Danby’s voice rumbled out from the corner. ‘It means if you’re alone with anyone, and you make them feel uncomfortable, we can lock you up for five years.’
‘That’s not fair! I can’t control if someone feels uncomfortable, can I?’ Knox waved a hand at him. ‘Anyway, what about confession? Have to be alone with me priest, don’t I?’
Danby scowled. ‘You’re a Protestant, you don’t
have
confession.’
‘Well…what about the people watching us then? Me keepers?’
PC Hamster fiddled with her glasses. ‘You don’t have to worry about that, Richard, there’s going to be two of them at all times. We’ve got a specialist team from Sacro who’re going to keep an eye on things. You’ll be fine.’
‘You will not drive any vehicle without a member of your supervisory team present.’
Knox shrugged and collapsed backwards until he was lying down, staring at the ceiling, his legs dangling over the side of the bed. The mattress creaked.
‘When I was little, I remember hearing them in here. Granny Murray and Grandad Joe. They must have been in their sixties or seventies, but they still did it every Friday night, regular as clockwork. You could hear the squeak of the springs from me room…’
He swung his legs, making the mattress groan in time to the motions.
‘The pair of them going at it in here while I was in the next room. Don’t think she really enjoyed it like, but it was her duty, you know? Keep the old man’s urges satisfied.’
‘Right.’ DI Steel pushed herself away from the wall and slipped her mobile back in her pocket. ‘I’ve had enough of Creepy Sod Theatre for one morning. We done here?’
Logan checked. ‘Two more: you shall not visit any gay bars, clubs, or associations. And you will not obstruct the efforts of any supervising agency. That’s the lot. Do you understand these restrictions?’
The weedy little man flopped an arm over his eyes. ‘I suppose.’
Logan passed the paperwork back to Danby. ‘You want a lift back to the station?’
‘What?’ Knox sat up. ‘You’re not leaving us, are you
Graeme? You were right quiet on the plane. I was hoping you’d join us for dinner: you know, get a nice curry and some poppadoms? We can catch up a bit, like. Reminisce about the good old days. You, me, and Billy Adams…’
Danby stiffened, then turned to look out of the bedroom window. ‘A lift would be good.’
‘So,’ Steel cracked open the passenger window and flicked a disk of chewed gum at a passing taxi, ‘you want to tell us why a detective superintendent traipses halfway up the country to babysit a manky wee rapist like Richard Knox?’
Danby shrugged, his huge shoulders going up and down as he stared at the passing scenery. ‘Maybe I just fancied a jolly to Aberdeen.’
‘Aye, and maybe my arse is made of Toblerone.’
Sitting in the back with the DSI, Logan tried not to picture that.
They’d let PC Guthrie drive. He joined the queue of traffic waiting to turn left onto Westburn Road, juddering to a halt inches from the back end of a bendy bus.
A park ran along the side of the road, complete with pond and bored-looking ducks, the dark scribble of bare trees. Other than that, the place was nearly empty, just a mother and her small child hauling a yapping terrier across the wide expanse of browny-green.
Danby sniffed. ‘Can’t believe you’ve got no snow. We were up to our ears in Newcastle this morning.’
‘OK, let’s try this another way, shall we?’ Steel produced a packet of nicotine gum and popped a white pellet out of its foil blister. Chewing with her mouth open. ‘Who’s Billy Adams?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Sounded important.’
Danby’s face hardened. ‘Drop it, you know what I’m saying?’
‘That an order, sir?’
‘Call it a request.’ He turned to Logan. ‘These Sacroid people, they up to keeping an eye on Knox?’
‘Sacro: Safeguarding Communities – Reducing Offending. It’s a charity, biggest provider of supported accommodation for offenders in Scotland, got teams of volunteers watching people like Knox all over the country. Well, maybe not
exactly
like Knox, but yeah, they’re up to it.’
Steel rolled her window back up. ‘You know, I’m going to find out eventually, so you might as well spill the beans.’
Silence.
‘See, I’m what you’d call a tenacious wee sod.’
More silence.
‘Seriously, I can be a right pain in the arse when I put my mind to—’
‘That’s
enough
Inspector. You do your job and I’ll do mine, know what I’m saying?’
And this time the silence lasted all the way back to the station.
‘I love a good mystery.’ DI Steel sat behind her desk, one hand stuffed down the front of her shirt, rearranging the contents of her bra. ‘God gave me a nose for a reason – so I could stick it in other people’s business. Who do you think this “Billy Adams” is?’
Logan shrugged and dumped the plastic bag from Marks & Spencer on the inspector’s desk. ‘They didn’t have any of the big ones left.’ He cleared a space between the burglary reports and trial-preparation documents, then pulled out two little boxes of sushi, a packet of cheese and onion, and a bottle of Diet Coke.
Steel popped open the crisps, stuffed a handful into her mouth, then followed it up with a California roll. ‘Maybe he’s Danby’s boyfriend?’
Logan dug into the bag again: prawn salad and a sparkling mineral water.
Steel scowled at him. ‘Salad? Jesus, all this time and I never knew you were turning into a shirtlifter. Still,’ a smile spread across her face, ‘if that means your tasty IB tart’s up for a bit of extracurricular…?’
‘I’m on a diet, OK?’
‘Bout time. You’ve turned into a right porky wee sod.’ Something in her pocket went
‘bleep’
and Steel pulled out her mobile phone, frowning at the screen. ‘Sodding hell…Thought it was my chiz. Been trying to get hold of him all day.’ She washed a salmon nigiri down with a mouthful of Diet Coke. ‘Finish your gayboy salad, then get digging: I want to know who this “Billy Adams” is, and I want to know how he’s connected to DSI Fat-and-Shouty: anything you can find.’
‘Beattie wants me to—’
‘Don’t care.’ She stuck her fingers in her ears. ‘La-la-la-la-la. Can you see me no’ caring?’
‘You’re not the one he’s whinging at the whole bloody time.’
‘Which part of “La-la-la-la-la” do you no’ understand?’ She popped a fingernail of wasabi into her mouth and made dog’s-bum faces for a minute. ‘Then we’re going to have to go do something about these counterfeit twenties.’
‘I mean, why did they bother promoting him? My arse would make a better DI.’
‘Get onto that bank. Tell them I want security camera footage, see if we can’t find out who made the deposit.’
‘Do you never read the stuff I give you?’ Logan went digging through the pile of paperwork in the inspector’s in-tray, coming out with the printouts he’d slapped down on her desk before the morning briefing. ‘Here.’ He tried to pass them over, but Steel had a cucumber maki in one hand and a bunch of cheese and onion crisps in the other.
‘Eating. You read it.’
‘We’ve already got an ID – the guy tried to deposit the cash into his own account. Kevin Middleton. Only prior he’s
got is for drink driving twelve years ago, wrapped his Jag around a lamppost in Cults after some charity auction.’
Steel smiled as she chewed. ‘Perfect. Arrest the silly bugger, then we can all get on with our lives. You thought any more about being Godparent, by the way?’
Logan almost choked on his salad. ‘I…Erm…’ Mouthful of water. ‘I don’t know if…Ahem.’ Pause. ‘Anyway, how come the Perv Patrol aren’t dealing with Knox? How come this is our problem?’
The inspector’s eyes narrowed, making all the wrinkles stand out. ‘Our lord and master DCI Finnie thinks the Offender Management Unit need someone senior to personally oversee Knox’s case.
Apparently
it’s too high profile.
Apparently
I have experience with sexual predators.
Apparently
I’m the best person to support the Diddy Men in this difficult and delicate operation.’
She scrunched up her empty crisp packet and hurled it at the bin. Missed. ‘Which means Frog-Face Finnie knows Knox is an odious wee shite, and if anything goes wrong, I’ll be the one carrying the can.’
‘Maybe it won’t be that bad?’
‘Course it bloody will: Knox’ll need someone watching him till the day he dies. So I’ll no’ get shot of him till I retire. It’s the gift that keeps on sodding giving.’ Steel scowled. ‘But don’t you worry: I
shall
have my revenge. Meantime, you go see what you can get on this Billy Adams bloke Danby’s being so secretive about.’
‘Aw, Jesus, not
again
!’ Detective Sergeant Mark MacDonald wrinkled his nose, then slapped a hand over his face, hiding his wee goatee beard. ‘Ack…’ He grabbed a folder from his desk and fanned it back and forth, sending paperwork fluttering across Logan’s desk.
‘What are you…’ Logan frowned, and then the smell hit him. ‘Bloody hell, Bob!’
DS Bob Marshall just grinned. If God existed, He hadn’t been paying a lot of attention when He’d put Bob together. Big ears stuck out at right-angles from a square head with a bald patch at the back and a single, thick eyebrow at the front. Arms like hairy string. A monkey in a machine-washable suit.
‘Christ!’ Mark blinked, then hauled the door open. ‘What’ve you been eating?’
Bob patted the sides of his stomach. ‘Can’t beat cauliflower cheese and chips.’
‘Oh no it’s
everywhere
…’ Logan stood, backing away into the corner of the little walled-off section of the CID office, built to house the detective sergeants. Six desks – four for dayshift, two for night – all but one covered in drifts of paperwork and ring binders, monitor, keyboard, and overflowing
in-tray. The walls were just about visible between the procedural flowcharts, a corkboard covered with mugshots and memos, a whiteboard with each DS’s name written above a list of active cases, another one with a schematic of some drug dealer’s house scrawled in blue marker pen. And a yellow-and-black biohazard triangle mounted above Bob’s desk.
Mark wafted the door open and closed, and open and closed…‘Never mind fucking Iraq, bloody United Nations should invade your arse. That’s a weapon of mass destruction, right there!’
‘I can’t help it if I’m talented.’
Gradually the smell faded, and people got back to work.
Logan finished a report on two indecent exposures in Trinity Cemetery – you’d have to be a brave man to wave your willy about in January in Aberdeen – then called up his internet browser and went looking for Billy Adams. 12,900,000 results in Google.
He refined the search criteria, narrowing it down to Newcastle. 358 results. Apparently there was a featherweight boxer called Billy Adams in the fifties, a guitarist with Dexys Midnight Runners in the eighties, a bunch of businessmen, some football fans…Then Logan included Knox’s name in the search.
An article from the
Newcastle Evening Chronicle
was top of the list: ‘M
ISSING
O
FFICER’S
B
ODY
F
OUND
.’
There were more links to the
Newcastle Journal, News Post Leader, Sunday Sun, Morpeth Herald,
and
Whitley Bay News Guardian.
Even a few of the national broadsheets had got in on the act. Logan clicked on the
Chronicle
link.
Under the headline was a photo of a blue SOC tent, the kind you put up to preserve a crime scene. It was surrounded by patchy bushes with some trees and the leg of a pylon in the background, an IB technician in protective gear walking towards the camera, carrying a black plastic box. Further
down the article there was another photo: a smiling man with short blond hair, squint nose, blue eyes. According to the caption, it was ‘D
ETECTIVE
I
NSPECTOR
B
ILLY
A
DAMS
(42)’
Apparently they’d found his body in the family Ford Mondeo on a patch of wasteland to the north of Newcastle. The story didn’t have a lot of detail on the cause of death – not surprisingly – concentrating instead on how police search teams had been looking for Adams since he’d gone missing from his home the Wednesday before. There was a quote from his wife. One from the detective inspector who’d headed up the search. Another from the young man who’d found the car. And a small potted history of DI Adams’s career. Drug seizures, three murder enquiries, one high-profile kidnapping that ended in disaster…
Logan dug the phone out from under a pile of partially completed crime reports and called Northumbria Police Headquarters.
‘Well?’ Detective Inspector Beardy Beattie’s office was crowded with box files – piled up on the carpet, the shelves, the windowsill, even the visitor’s chair. So Logan had to stand. The only place not covered in boxes was Beattie’s desk. That was covered in biscuit crumbs and paperwork.
Logan handed over the indecent exposure report. ‘He’s done it twice that we know of, probably more. Young mothers with pushchairs every time.’
Beattie sat forward, eyebrows raised. ‘Maybe he’s not flashing the mothers at all, you think of that?
Maybe
he’s flashing the kids!’ The DI smiled, obviously pleased with his deductive reasoning. Like a podgy Sherlock Holmes, who’d been dropped on his head as a child.
‘Don’t be daft George. He’s picking victims he knows aren’t going to chase after him. You going to abandon your baby in a graveyard to go running after some pervert who’s just shown you his dick?’
‘Oh.’ Beattie picked at a coffee stain on his new desk. ‘What about the counterfeit goods?’
‘Did you speak to Trading Standards, like I told you?’
‘I…erm…was hoping we could go over there together. You know, show a united front?’
‘Just call them, OK? We shouldn’t even be dealing with it: hookie goods is a job for the Shop Cops.’
‘Yes, but the sheer volume of—’
‘Still their job.’
‘Finnie wants us to do that Interagency Cooperation thing: us, Trading Standards and Customs.’ Beattie shuffled through some of the mess on his desk. ‘It shouldn’t take long, just a couple of hours and—’
‘You’ll have to take it up with Steel. I’ve got stuff to do for her all day.’
Beattie’s bottom lip protruded, his eyebrows pinching up in the middle. The ‘lost puppy’ look. ‘But Finnie wants to see progress.’
‘Then go get Biohazard Bob or Mark to help. Or Doreen. Eh? How about giving her some sodding work for a change instead of lumping it all on me?’
‘Fine.’ The inspector went back to his files, face turning pink. ‘I’ll call Trading Standards myself.’
Logan left him to it.
‘Bloody thing…’ DI Steel jabbed at the latch of her office window with a fork, digging the tines into the mechanism.
Logan closed the door and slumped in the visitor’s seat. ‘Tell me
again
why they promoted Beardy Beattie?’
‘It’s no’ safe making the windows so you can’t open the bastards more than an inch. What if there’s a fire?’
‘Useless tosser couldn’t investigate a septic tank for jobbies.’
She jabbed the fork into the catch again. ‘Give us a hand, eh?’
‘Thought you were supposed to be cutting down on the fags?’
‘This is an infringement of my human rights…Open you bastard!’
They struggled with the mechanism for a minute, before Steel managed to stab herself in the thumb with her fork. ‘Fffffffffffffffffff…’ She screwed her face up, then hurled the stainless steel thing in the bin. ‘FUCK!’ Steel slumped into her office chair and stuck her bleeding thumb in her mouth.
‘Why can’t you go outside for a cigarette, like a normal person?’
Steel just scowled at him.
‘Whatever.’ Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘Billy Adams. AKA: Detective
Inspector
Billy Adams, Northumbria Police. Did a lot of anti-gang stuff, and some undercover work on a big Newcastle mobster called Maitland. Killed himself about six weeks after Knox got sent down. And I mean
seriously
killed himself.’
She pulled her thumb out of her mouth. ‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’
‘According to the sergeant I spoke to, DI Adams swallowed enough antidepressants to cheer up a whole bouncy castle full of goths, a bottle of gin, and the barrel of a shotgun.’
‘No sodding about for our Billy, then.’
‘Blew a big hole in the roof of the family Mondeo, in the grounds of some disused factory. Been there four days in the sun before they found the body. The magpies had been at him.’
Steel went back to sucking her thumb, mumbling around the digit, ‘So why’s Danby being all touchy about it?’
‘No idea.’ Logan shifted forward in his seat. ‘I went for a dig in Knox’s file too, in case there was a connection there. He’s got big chunks marked “restricted”. No details.’
‘That’ll be those other rapes Danby was waffling about. Would’ve been before the Soham murders, back when we all thought we had to be so sodding sensitive about unsubstantiated accusations going on some dirty bastard’s permanent record. Bloody Data Protection Act bollocks.’
Logan shrugged. She was probably right.
Silence.
Then she stood. ‘Get your coat, we’re off to see a man about some dodgy twenties.’
‘Nah, business is shite, truth be told.’ The man in the oil-smudged blue boilersuit spoke over his shoulder while a scabby kettle grumbled to a boil. ‘Bloody recession barely made a dent in Aberdeen, but suddenly no one wants to buy a car. You know? Hypocritical bastards.’
The office faced out onto what looked like an old cattle yard, the grey concrete floor host to a multicoloured array of second-hand cars crammed in bumper-to-bumper with ‘D
EAL
O
F
T
HE
W
EEK
!!!’ signs taped to the windscreens. A couple of calendars hung on the white breezeblock walls, all featuring spanners and bits of mechanical equipment. DI Steel finished flipping through one and pulled a face, before perching herself on the edge of the battered desk. ‘Whatever happened to nudie women?’
‘Milk, two sugars, right?’ He ladled coffee granules into three mugs, lined up along the windowsill.
‘Aye.’
Logan shook his head. ‘Just milk for me.’
‘OK…’ He poured in the hot water, steam turning the window opaque, blocking out the forecourt. The garage was hidden away down a country road, somewhere between Westhill and the Loch of Skene, surrounded by trees and fields full of grumbling cattle.
‘Mr Middleton.’ Logan watched him sniffing a carton of semi-skimmed milk. ‘Are you
sure
you wouldn’t recognize the man who gave you the cash?’
Middleton sploshed milk into their coffees. ‘Dunno. Never saw him before.’
Steel accepted her mug, wrapping her hands around it and breathing in the hot steam. ‘If I was a suspicious wee
sod – which I am – I’d be tempted to say your mystery man with a handful of dodgy twenties never existed. It was just you, trying to launder the stuff.’
Kevin Middleton stiffened. ‘You think I’d be daft enough to pay counterfeit cash into my own bank account? How thick would I have to be?’
Steel shrugged. ‘Maybe you thought they’d be good enough to pass the bank’s tests?’
Middleton laughed, then settled into the swivel chair behind his desk. ‘You’re kidding, right? If I wanted to clean some money, I’d go down the bookies. Or the casino. Or to one of them dog nights in Dundee.
Somehow
I get the feeling a bank would know what to look for.’
‘Right, right.’ Steel looked at him, her head tilted to one side. ‘You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Come on, you don’t think it’s a wee bit odd: some tadger comes in here with over four thousand pounds in crisp new twenties wanting to buy one of your manky motors?’
‘A lot of people doing business in readies now. No bugger trusts them thieving dicks in the banks any more. Safer keeping it under the mattress.’
‘And if it’s cash, you can
accidentally
forget to mention it to the tax man, right?’
Middleton’s face darkened. ‘I’m the victim here, OK? Four and a half grand I’m down! Not to mention one Honda Civic.’
Logan took a sip of instant coffee: bitter, burnt tasting, little beads of fat glimmering on the surface. ‘If you sold the car, you’ve got the buyer’s details, yes? On the registration documents?’
Middleton coughed, swivelled back and forth in his chair, stared at a parts catalogue. ‘Look, maybe this is all going a bit too far. I mean the bloke probably didn’t know the cash was—’
Steel cut him off. ‘Don’t talk shite. Give us the guy’s details,
or I’m dragging you down the station and doing you for passing counterfeit money and trying to poison a police officer with crap cheapo coffee.’
Middleton glowered in silence for a bit, then stood and muttered his way to a beige filing cabinet in the corner of the office. He went rummaging through one of the drawers, and came out with a registration document. He held it out and Steel snatched it off him, gave it a cursory glance, then chucked it to Logan. ‘Read.’
Logan opened it up and scanned the new keeper section, carefully printed in blue biro. ‘You know you’re meant to send this off to the DVLA, right?’
‘How come you bastards aren’t out there arresting paedophiles and bloody muggers, eh?’
‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Steel took another sip and grimaced. ‘We got an address?’
‘Car’s registered to a Douglas Walker in Peterculter.’
‘There you go, wasn’t so difficult now, was it?’ Steel clunked her mug down on the desk and stood, rubbing the seat of her trousers. ‘Come on Sergeant, let’s get out of here before Mr Middleton threatens to make more coffee.’
Logan followed her out onto the forecourt, buttoning up his jacket against the cold. Brambles scratched along the drystane dyke that bordered the lot, their dark-brown skeletons speckled with frost where the weak sun hadn’t managed to reach yet. He dug his hands deep into his pockets, then froze, staring at one of the vehicles: a red Honda Civic.
He checked the registration documents again. ‘Inspector?’
Steel kept on walking, pulling out her phone.
Behind him, Logan could hear Kevin Middleton locking the garage up. Then the man was hurrying past, weaving his way between the used cars towards a Range Rover parked at the kerb.
Logan shouted across to him. ‘Where,
exactly,
do you think you’re going?’
‘Erm, dentist appointment?’
Steel leant back against the CID pool car, poking away at her phone’s keypad. ‘Hurry up; sodding perishing out here. My nipples get any pointier they’ll put someone’s eye out.’