Authors: Stuart MacBride
Logan picked his way down Marischal Street, a plastic bag from a nice little Chinese carryout on King Street swinging from one hand. The council hadn’t bothered to grit this bit and the pavement was a treacherous mixture of snow and ice. Which would’ve been bad enough, but the road made a steep descent from Union Street all the way down to the docks, turning the whole thing into a toboggan run.
The wind wasn’t helping any either, hammering icy nails into his face, making his skin throb and ache with cold.
He slithered to a halt outside the building’s front door and fumbled in his pocket for the keys. Could barely see the lock in the gloom…He shifted sideways, letting the streetlight’s yellow glow fall on the scarred wood.
The key skittered around the lock, before finally going in. And then the light disappeared.
‘God’s sake…’ Bulb had probably blown again. The seagulls liked to eat the rubber sealant, letting the water in, because they were rotten evil bastarding things…
Not seagulls. The light hadn’t gone out, it’d been eclipsed by a huge shadow.
‘Been waiting fucking ages for you.’
Oh shit. Reuben.
Logan span around, feet slipping on the ice, staggered, bounced off the damp granite wall and fell on his backside.
Pain jagged across the base of his spine.
The plastic bag made a dull thud as it bounced off the pavement beside him, egg foo yung and prawn crackers going everywhere.
Ow…
He looked up to find Wee Hamish Mowat’s right-hand man standing over him, that scarred fat face twisted into a grin. ‘Classic. Didn’t even have to lay a finger on you.’ In the dim light, the bruises were almost black, the plaster across the bridge of Reuben’s nose a pale grey strip against the swollen skin.
The big man reached inside his thick padded jacket and Logan flinched. Gun? Knife?
Reuben sighed. ‘Moron.’ He pulled out an envelope and threw it in Logan’s face.
It bounced, and fell into his lap.
‘Open it.’
Logan peeled back the self-adhesive flap. More money. ‘I can’t—’
‘Mr Mowat says if you want any more, you go see this man.’ He pulled out a sticky note and slapped it onto Logan’s forehead. Then stood there, grinning as the snow battered down all around them.
Logan pulled the note from his head and scowled at it – ‘J
AMES
C
LAY
’ and an address in the Bridge of Don.
One of Reuben’s massive hands clamped down on the top of Logan’s head. ‘See you around.’ He shoved, sending Logan sprawling on his back.
Logan tensed, waiting for the kicking to start. But it didn’t. Instead he heard a car door slam, then the tractor-rattle of a diesel engine starting up. A car driving slowly away.
He sat up, watching the dented BMW pause at the bottom
of the road, then turn right onto Trinity Quay and disappear into the night.
‘What happened to you?’ Samantha looked up from her spot on the sofa, electric fire blazing, a cup of tea steaming away on the coffee table, some sort of costume drama on the telly, and a book open in her lap.
Logan dumped the plastic bag next to her mug, then struggled out of his jacket. ‘Going to have to share the chow mein.’
The seat of his trousers was soaked through and his left hand throbbed – the palm scraped and stinging. He sucked at it, then scowled at the little beads of red that seeped through the skin.
‘You OK?’
‘Fell on my arse.’ Logan took off his trousers and hung them over the radiator.
‘I’ll get the plates.’ She disappeared, calling through from the kitchen. ‘You’ve got a message on the machine, by the way.’
Oh God, please not another one from Wee Hamish Mowat…
He pulled the envelope full of cash out of his jacket pocket and stuffed the crumpled sticky note in with the tens and twenties. There had to be over a grand in there, maybe two.
‘Logan? You want chopsticks?’
‘Yeah, thanks…’ He pressed the button on the answering machine, standing there in his socks, shirt and damp pants as DI Steel’s voice crackled out of the little speakers.
‘You rotten bastard, I had to walk back to the station!’
Bugger. She’d still have been in the naughty knicker shop when he’d headed off to tell Alan Gardner his car had been used in a jewellery robbery.
‘Was bloody soaked through by the time I got back; had to interview that bastard van driver dripping wet. If I die of pneumonia,
you’re sodding for it!’
There was more, none of it flattering or polite. Logan hit delete.
‘You all right?’
‘Yeah…just cold and tired.’ He didn’t look around.
He could hear her walk into the room, the clatter of plates on the coffee table, then the warmth of Samantha’s body against his back, her arms wrapping around him, her breath hot on the back of his neck. It was nice. Intimate. Maybe they’d be all right after all.
‘God, you
are
freezing, aren’t you?’
Logan gave a little shudder and slipped the envelope up the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Baltic out there.’
‘Right.’ She stepped back, pulled up his shirt-tails and slapped him on his grey Markies pants.
‘Ow!’
‘Get your cold bum in the shower, we can always stick the noodles in the microwave.’
The bathroom filled with steam, the shower hissing and gurgling into the white plastic bathtub, the blower grumbling hot air from the dusty unit mounted on the wall. Logan locked the door and settled onto the toilet lid, pulled Reuben’s envelope from his sleeve, and counted the contents. Two thousand, four hundred and sixty pounds, all in used notes. Less than last time, but then Logan hadn’t actually done anything to deserve it…Unless you counted elbowing Reuben in the face.
He smoothed out the crumpled Post-it note – the name and address of the man to speak to if he wanted more cash from the DIY self-service bribery buffet.
Nearly six thousand pounds, when you added in the envelope hidden away in the back of the airing cupboard. Not that much in the great scheme of things. Not compared with being a corrupt bastard.
Bloody jocks are useless.
Detective Superintendent Graeme Danby sits on the end of the bed wearing the white fluffy bathrobe that came with his tartan hotel room. Remote in one hand, mobile phone clamped between his ear and shoulder so he can have a good scratch at his sack.
‘Don’t really know, Val, love. All depends on how long it takes to sort things out up here, you know what I’m saying?’
Eleven o’clock. There’s a film starting on Sky, but he can’t concentrate for more than five minutes. So he skims through the channels, always ending up with SKY NEWS and their coverage of Richard Knox’s escape.
Hysterical – in both senses of the word.
Graeme slumps back on the bed, dressing gown falling open. Not like there’s anyone there to complain, is there?
‘And I managed to find this lovely blue bikini.’
Her voice goes up and down, in that sexy Fife accent of hers that always gets more pronounced on the phone.
‘It’s going to be so nice to be
warm
again.’
Graeme flicks through the channels: sports, music, documentary about Hitler, American sitcom…then back to the news.
‘You won’t need the top though; don’t want white bits, do you?’
He can hear the smile in her voice.
‘You’re a bad man, Graeme Danby.’
There’s a knock at the door. Graeme groans.
‘What?’
‘Hold on…’
He stands, ties the robe shut and shuffles into the complementary towelling slippers.
‘When are you coming home?’
Graeme marches over to the door and undoes the latch. ‘Told you: when I’m finished here.’
Another knock. ‘Mr Danby? Hospitality management, you have a problem with your shower?’
‘But the flights are booked for
—’
‘Val, it’s not a problem, you know what I’m saying?’ He opens the door. ‘I can always meet you out there, and—’
His head snaps back. Graeme stumbles, pain bursting inside his nose. ‘Fucking…’ Everything tastes of blood. Another thump, hard in his chest, knocking all the air from his lungs.
Detective Superintendent Danby staggers against the bed.
Thump – a stabbing ache in his kidneys.
He grits his teeth and throws a punch, eyes watering too much to aim, just going on instinct.
Misses.
Something hard cracks into the back of his head. The world goes white and crackly, then the carpet rushes up to meet him, slamming into his cheek.
His phone skitters away under the bed, Val’s voice tinny and far away as she makes plans for their trip to New Zealand. His early retirement. Their happy life together.
A boot cracks into his ribs. ‘Get up you fat bastard.’ A Newcastle accent. Oh Jesus, no…Not now. Not when he was so close!
Graeme gets his right arm underneath him and pushes
himself to his knees. ‘Fucking bastards…’ The words won’t come out right, his face isn’t working.
He struggles to his feet, rocking back and forth on his heels. The room swirls around him. Blink. He wipes a huge fist across his blurry eyes. ‘Bloody kill…’
A shape swims into focus. Woman. Short. Blonde hair cut in a shoulder-length bob. Jacket, jeans, cowboy boots. A werewolf smile. ‘DSI Danby, so nice to see you again. How’s the wife and kids?’
He staggers back a step. ‘You…?’
She looks to the side. ‘Neil?’
Something slams into Graeme’s head.
Darkness.
They carry him down the service stairs at the back of the building. Can’t use the lifts, cos of the security cameras.
Neil grunts, arms wrapped around Danby’s torso. ‘Christ, he weighs a ton.’
Doesn’t look too great either: his face is all covered in blood, there’s a big lump on the back of his shiny head, and the bruises are already starting to darken.
They pause on the next landing, catching their breath.
Danby’s white bathrobe is all stained red down the front. Flopping open.
Tony frowns. ‘Urgh…’
‘What?’
‘Can see his cock.’
‘Then don’t bloody look.’
Julie’s waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs, where there’s a little car park and some industrial-sized wheelie bins. Tony peers out the door at the falling snow.
‘Cameras?’
‘Don’t sweat it, Babe: all taken care of…’ She frowned. ‘Why’s he got his knob out? Did you guys get all amorous halfway down the stairs?’
Neil grimaces. ‘No offence, but this bastard’s heavy.’
‘Okeydoke.’ She leads the way to the generic white van they stole earlier, the number plates fudged a bit with black electrical tape. Well, you’d have to be a right mentalist to use your own car, wouldn’t you? Some nosey bastard or CCTV camera always sees something.
Julie pops open the back doors and they tumble Danby inside, hands fastened behind his back with thick black cableties, legs strapped together at the ankle, duct tape gag over that big hairy gob of his.
She ducks into the passenger seat and comes back with something tartan – a pillowcase from their room. She slips it over Danby’s battered head, then fastens another cable-tie around his neck, just below his chin.
Tony shifts his feet. ‘Are you sure that’s—’
‘Don’t worry, Darling, he’s not going to choke.’ She smiles. ‘You can ride in the back to make sure, if you like?’
Tony looks at the scarred, rusty metal floor of the van, then at the front seats. ‘Actually, I think—’
‘You can ride in the
back.’
Julie’s not smiling any more.
Tony clears his throat. Stares at the ground for a moment. Then clambers up into the cold metal interior and pulls the doors shut behind him.
Julie and Neil get in the front.
The van slips out of the car park, windscreen wipers clunking back and forth.
OK, so it’s uncomfortable and cold in the back, but it’s nothing compared to what’s waiting for Danby, is it?
Always gotta look on the bright side…
Moonlight casts a cold white bar across the bed, shining though the gap between the curtains, turning the scratchy tartan blanket monochrome beneath his naked elbows. Hands together. Head bowed in prayer.
Our Father who art in heaven,
He can hear the old man swearing in the other room. Has to hurt, all that violence – the whipping, the biting, the punches.
Hallowed be Thy name,
A tear plops onto the blanket, swallowed by the darkness.
Can’t do this any more.
Don’t want to do this any more.
Thy will be done,
That’s the razorblade in the forbidden apple, isn’t it?
Richard stands, wipes his palm across his wet cheeks. His hand aches, the knuckles swollen and cracked, covered in bruises. Cradling it against his chest, he picks his way through the gloom to the window and stands there with the blade of moonlight slicing down his naked body. The skin so pale it looks dead.
Thy kingdom come,
He peers out through the gap in the curtains. There’s a car sitting in the snowy driveway, a new-looking people carrier. Richard doesn’t know if it belongs to the old man or not.
On Earth as it is in Heaven…
Doesn’t really matter, does it? Too risky to take it – people would know. The police’ve got them cameras now that photograph your number plate and run it against some sort of database.
Richard leans forward and breathes on the glass, turning it white, then draws on it with a finger: making a circle with a cross in the middle. It’s not a crucifix unless it’s got Jesus on it, you know? His Granny Murray would have tanned his backside for drawing graven images like, so it’s just a cross.
Empty.
Waiting for its sacrificial offering.
Crying condensation tears.
Moonlight makes it glow…and then the clouds sweep
back in, and the moon’s gone, leaving the world to the shadows. Icy snow rattles the window.
Richard shivers, his pale, naked skin covered with goose pimples.
Let there be darkness.
DI Steel slumped back against the corridor wall, knocking a watercolour of Old Aberdeen squint against the burgundy wallpaper. ‘If you were a chubby Geordie bastard, where would you run off to?’
Logan peered around the doorframe into the hotel room. Three IB techs, all Smurfed up in SOC-white, were going over the room with fingerprint powder, cotton swabs, and sticky tape. There was a stain of cherry-red on the oatmeal carpet, by the end of the bed.
‘Did you get anything useful out of Urquhart? The van driver?’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve still no’ forgiven you for making me walk back in the bloody snow, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I said I’m sorry.’
‘So you should be.’ Sniff. ‘For some reason the silly sod thought he was looking at attempted murder, nearly peed himself to cut a deal. He’s giving us the whole smuggling operation from—’
‘Inspector?’ One of the IB techs, on their hands and knees at the side of the bed, dropped until their chest was resting on the carpet, one arm reaching into the space between the
bed and the floor, round arse wiggling as they dug about. Logan recognized the view – Samantha. ‘Think I’ve found something…’
She beckoned one of the other techs over, a bloke with a huge digital camera slung around his neck. He lay down next to her, and took a couple of shots. Then Samantha pulled a small silver mobile phone out from under the bed.
She flipped it open in her purple-gloved hand and pressed a couple of buttons. ‘Last call was made at five to eleven last night, from “home”: think it’s a Newcastle number. Lasted twenty minutes.’
Steel stuck her hand out. ‘Give.’
From the front, Samantha didn’t look much like herself, everything hidden by that baggy white suit, the hood covering her bright red hair, wearing a facemask and safety goggles. She hesitated for a moment, slipped the phone into an evidence bag, wrote the time, date, location, and other details into the appropriate boxes printed on the outside, then handed it to another tech with a clipboard. Who made some more notes.
Steel puffed out her cheeks. ‘Today would be nice!’
The Crime Scene Manager didn’t even look up. ‘Sounds like someone got out the wrong side of bed this—’
‘Pete, I’m warning you – my holiday’s been cancelled, my wife’s no’ speaking to me, and I’ve got itchy bits – don’t screw me about!’
‘Evidentiary procedures exist for a reason, Inspector.’ He went back to making notes.
Logan looked up and down the hall. ‘Have you checked the tapes from the lobby and the lifts? I noticed the security cameras when—’
Steel smacked him one. ‘Course I bloody checked. Nothing. Must’ve taken the service lift, or the back stairs. Got IB looking for trace as we speak. I
have
done this kind of thing before, you know?’
Logan wandered off to the end of the corridor, opened the door marked ‘E
MERGENCY
E
XIT
’ and stared down the service stairs – bare concrete steps, plain walls. Sod carrying someone like Danby down that lot, be just asking for a hernia.
Someone cleared their throat behind him, and Logan sighed. ‘What now?’
‘Just wanted to say hello…’
Samantha. She had her SOC hood thrown back, exposing a wildfire eruption of scarlet hair, her facemask dangling on the elastic, just beneath her chin.
He pulled on a smile, leaned in and kissed her. ‘Hello.’
Logan nodded back towards the room. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Rough guess? It’s an abduction. If they wanted him dead, there’d be a big pink corpse in there…’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘You see the papers today?’
‘What, “Tyneside Sex-Beast Strikes Again”?’
Richard Knox had attacked an old man living in Cove, just south of the city, and the
Aberdeen Examiner
somehow managed to secure a huge exclusive. Finnie hadn’t exactly been pleased. Especially when it turned out that Danby had gone missing too.
‘Actually…’ A little wrinkle appeared between Samantha’s neatly plucked eyebrows. ‘You know what? It’ll wait.’ She leaned in and planted a soft kiss on his lips.
‘Now I’m really starting to worry…’
She looked away. ‘They found that kid’s suicide note: the art student. He’d posted it on Facebook. Got a two-page spread in the
Examiner,
printed the whole thing. Said he couldn’t live with the constant police harassment.’
Logan stared at her. ‘What bloody harassment? I interviewed him
twice
!’
She backed off, hands up. ‘Hey, I’m only telling you what was in the note.’
‘Little
bastard.
How could he say that?’ Logan buried his face in his hands. ‘You know what this means, don’t you?
Parents make a formal complaint and I get hauled up in front of Professional Sodding Standards again.’
Which explained why Big Gary wouldn’t look him in the eye when he’d signed in at the station this morning.
Steel came lumbering up the corridor. ‘Called the number: Danby’s wife. She spoke to him last night, hung up after the line went quiet for a while. Says he falls asleep in front of the telly a lot.’ Steel looked Samantha up and down. ‘Hey, Red.’
‘Inspector.’
Silence.
‘So, tell me.’ Steel smiled. ‘Collar and cuffs: they match?’
‘…I need to get back to the scene.’ Samantha marched back towards Danby’s hotel room, her cheeks bright pink.
Logan closed the stairwell door. ‘Did you have to do that?’
‘Love-life’s in the crapper, remember? Got to get my jollies where I can.’ She made for the lifts, dragging Logan behind her. ‘Come on, we’ve got an auld mannie to visit.’
Sunlight struggled through the blinds into the over-warm room. Unlike the rest of the hospital, the victim support suite had plush carpets, a soft sofa with stain-free cushions, a coffee table with gaily-coloured coasters and up-to-date magazines. And a camera sitting in the corner on a tripod, the red light glowing to show it was recording.
An old man crouched in a floral-print armchair, his clawed fingers picking at the seam of his trousers. His face was a mess of green and purple bruises, a bite mark clear on the wrinkled skin of his left wrist. Even so, the doctors said he’d got off lightly compared to Harry from Sacro. Small mercies.
His voice was barely a whisper.
‘Want to go home.’
‘I know, Jimmy, I know. We just need to ask you a few more questions…’
The Family Liaison officer shifted on the sofa.
‘Can you describe the man who attacked you?’
‘Don’t want to be here. Want to go home.’
Sitting in the little observation room next door, Logan watched DI Steel reach forward and take one of Jimmy’s hands.
‘It’s OK, Jimmy, we’ll take you home soon. We just want to make sure we catch whoever hurt you.’
Her voice came from a small speaker bolted to the wall on the dark side of the two-way mirror.
Logan settled back in his plastic chair and picked up the copy of that morning’s
Aberdeen Examiner,
abandoned on the little desk where the DVD recorder and TV screen sat. The front page headline screamed, ‘TYNESIDE SEX-BEAST STRIKES AGAIN – R
ICHARD
K
NOX
O
N
R
APE
R
AMPAGE
I
N
T
HE
N
ORTH
E
AST
’ above a photo of Jimmy Evans’s bruised face. Christ knew how Colin Miller managed to get his hands on the victim before the police.
According to the paper, Jimmy Evans was a retired shipbuilder from Sunderland, who’d moved to the north-east of Scotland after the death of his wife. An unremarkable man who’d lived an unremarkable life, right up until yesterday afternoon. He’d come home and discovered someone breaking into his garage, tried to be a have-a-go hero, and ended up with Richard Knox.
There was a lurid account of the attack, and then a little tagline saying, ‘C
OMMENT
O
N
P
AGE
6’.
Sod the commentary, Logan flipped through the rumpled newsprint, looking for Douglas Walker’s suicide note. He found it on pages nine and ten, printed like a screen-grab, complete with the first few replies and comments from the art student’s Facebook friends.
Steel had been right, a chunk of it
was
in poetry. According to the accompanying article, Walker was a naive young man who’d got caught up in things he didn’t understand and been persecuted by the police because of it.
The note claimed he’d been interviewed all weekend, never allowed to sleep, pressured to make a confession. And the harassment had kept up once he’d been released on bail.
Never ending. Poking and prodding. Until Douglas Walker just couldn’t take it any more.
He was sorry.
Lying tosser.
Twice. Logan had interviewed him twice. And
never
at home.
Through in the victim support lounge Steel and the FLO were still trying to tease information out of Knox’s latest victim.
Logan pulled out his phone, grimacing as his fingers touched the evidence bag with his puke-stained notebook in it. He pulled that out too and dumped it on the desk.
Should really throw the thing out. But it had Douglas Walker’s statement in it, his handing over of the holdall full of counterfeit notes, and his agreement to come into the station voluntarily. All the stuff Professional Standards would need to see.
He picked up his new mobile and called Colin Miller.
‘Laz, foos yer doos, my sheepshaggin’ friend?’
‘Where did you get the exclusive?’
‘What, no witty repartee?’
Sigh.
‘Which one? Got three in the paper the day: Sex Scandal Rocks Local School, Drug Dealers’ Vigilante Fears, or Tyneside Sex-Beast
—’
‘That one: how did you get hold of Jimmy Evans before we did?’
‘The auld mannie? His son emailed me.’
Logan flipped back to the paper’s front page. Colin’s
Aberdeen Examiner
email address was printed under his by-line. ‘Email?’
‘Member of the BlackBerry generation, Laz. Online twenty-four-seven. Found out just in time to get it in: hold the front page, the whole works. Brilliant, so it was.’
Pause.
‘So…what do you think? Knox has to be escalatin’, right? First his Sacro handler and now the old boy. Two in two days.’
‘I’m not giving you a quote, Colin.’
‘Aw, come on, man. I’ll make it, “sources close to the investigation” if you like?’
Logan put the paper back on the tabletop. ‘Tell me about Jimmy Evans and I’ll think about it.’
‘The son’s up visitin’ from Sunderland with his wife – they come back from some party, and there’s the old man in the back garden, wanderin’ in the snow, wearing nothing but his jim-jams. They bundle him into the car and drive him straight to
A&E.
Son emails me from the waiting room, cos he’d seen my stuff in the papers.’
‘They didn’t search the house?’
‘Laz, if your dad was workin’ on a dose of hypothermia with his face all battered, would you?’