Dark Blood

by MacBride, Stuart

  A new personal low.

  Logan stacked all the notes together into one pile, wrapped it up in kitchen paper, then crept out into the hallway and hid the lot in the airing cupboard, behind the hot water tank.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it’d do till he figured something else out.

  The black Range Rover winds its way slowly north. Newcastle to Edinburgh is the worst bit: the A1’s a fucking disgrace, isn’t it? 121 miles of twisty tarmac with the occasional crawler lane and tiny patches of dual carriageway. Get stuck behind a caravan on this thing and you’re screwed, like.

  Not that it’s a problem at twenty to five on a Saturday morning. Wipers going at a steady creak, keeping the snow confined to the edges of the windscreen. Winter wonderland in Newcastle when they left. Six inches in places.

  They’re making good time, even though Tony’s taking it easy – iPod hooked into the huge car’s stereo, dribbling out that jazz stuff Julie likes so much. It’s not too bad, once you get used to it.

  She’s asleep in the passenger seat, and Neil’s curled up in the back with a coat draped over him like a blanket, mouth open, snoring in time with the bloke playing the saxophone. It’s funny how even the most violent, dangerous bastards can look like little kids when they’re asleep.

  The sat-nav says 102 miles to Aberdeen.

  Tony keeps the needle at a steady sixty-five. No speeding. Nothing that would draw attention to them. Playing it cool. Heading north through the snow.

  Bringing a whole shit-heap of trouble with him.

  14

  ‘Lying bastards!’ A porcelain dog hit the faded wallpaper, and became a starburst of pale shards. ‘All of it…’ Richard Knox grabbed a ballerina from the mantelpiece and sent it crashing into the far wall. Face flushed, teeth bared, spittle flying from his lips. ‘Bloody lies!’

  ‘Jesus, Richard, calm down!’ A large woman – one of Knox’s minders from Sacro – was crouching behind the sofa, popping her head up over the dusty fabric, then ducking down again as a shire horse turned into porcelain shrapnel.

  ‘They’ve no right!’

  Logan froze on the threshold, head pounding. ‘What the hell’s going on here?’

  Knox snatched a Scotty dog from the mantelpiece and drew his arm back to send it flying. Logan stepped forward and grabbed it off of him.

  ‘All right, that’s enough!’

  Knox span around, eyes wide and shiny. Lips twitching across his gritted teeth. ‘Give it back!’

  ‘Constable Guthrie?’

  Guthrie bumbled into the living room, clutching greasy paper bags from the baker’s they’d stopped at on the way over here, a wodge of flaky pastry in his other hand. ‘What?’

  ‘Lying…’ Knox’s eyes darted left, then right, then he snatched up a fishing teddy bear and sent that flying instead. ‘BASTARDS!’

  The constable dumped his baked goods on the ancient couch and grabbed Knox’s arm, twisting it up behind his back, then slamming him into the wall. ‘Behave yourself!’

  Knox struggled, screaming abuse. Guthrie glanced over at Logan, and got the nod. He pulled Knox back a couple of feet, then rammed him forwards again. Making the photos above the mantelpiece rattle.

  ‘Aaagh…get off us!’

  ‘You want another one?’

  Knox didn’t reply, but he did keep wriggling, so Guthrie introduced him to the wallpaper again.

  This time the struggling stopped.

  ‘You want the handcuffs?’

  Silence.

  ‘OK.’ The constable let go and stepped back.

  Knox staggered towards one of the cat-shredded armchairs and collapsed into it, rubbing his wrist and staring at the dead television. ‘Liars…’

  The woman crept around from behind the sofa. ‘Thanks.’ There were little flecks of white china in her hair.

  Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘Richard Knox, I’m arresting you for assault. You do not have to say anything, but if you fail to mention—’

  ‘I didn’t assault anyone.’ He kept his eyes on the ghosts in the TV screen.

  Logan glanced at the woman, raised his eyebrows.

  She shook her head. ‘Didn’t touch me.’

  ‘Where’s your partner? Thought there was supposed to be two of you.’

  Knox shifted in his seat, muttering, ‘Got me rights…’

  ‘Harry’s stuck in the bog. Had a dodgy chicken chow mein last night. I was going to send him home if he doesn’t get any better.’

  Logan looked around at the wreckage, then rubbed at his gritty eyes. ‘You want to tell me what the hell this was about then?’

  She pointed at a tattered copy of the Aberdeen Examiner lying against the skirting board. Half the pages were sprawled across the carpet, but the lead story was clearly visible from where Logan stood: ‘SEX-BEAST STRIKES FEAR INTO COMMUNITY’. The photo of Knox was more up to date than the last one the papers used. Someone had been digging.

  Logan bent and picked up the front page, letting the rest of it fall back to the floor.

  Exclusive by Colin Miller

  Everyone knows a leopard can’t change his spots: once a dangerous animal, always a dangerous animal, but the people of Aberdeenshire are being expected to believe that convicted serial rapist Richard Knox can live amongst them without posing a serious risk to the population. Knox (39), a vicious sexual predator, served eight years in a high-security prison for the brutal abduction and rape of Newcastle grandfather William Brucklay (68)…

  It wasn’t exactly the journalist’s best work. Sensationalist, melodramatic, and obviously designed to whip up outrage and panic. Further in it got even worse, with quotes from people in Newcastle, and William Brucklay’s grandchildren: teenagers more than happy to share the family’s anger. Castration’s too good for him, they should bring back hanging. That kind of thing.

  And in Richard Knox’s case, they were probably right.

  Logan folded the page up, then dumped it on the coffee table.

  Knox was clutching his carrier bag again, the thing rustling as he rocked back and forth in his seat, muttering. ‘It’s all lies.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘“Convicted serial rapist”.’ He scowled at the TV. ‘Was convicted of one rape. One. Not a series. Served me time. Found God, didn’t I?’

  ‘Well…’ Logan looked at the chunky woman from Sacro – Margaret, Marge? Something like that. ‘Maybe you’d be better off trying your luck somewhere else? We could organize a midnight flit: get you somewhere further away, where they don’t know you. Devon, Cornwall, something like that?’

  Get you the hell out of Aberdeen before you cause any more trouble, you creepy little bastard.

  ‘This is me home!’ Knox drew back his foot, then lashed out, crashing his heel into the TV screen, shattering it, sending the whole thing clattering over backwards to the floor.

  Marge/Margaret flinched. Swore.

  PC Guthrie loomed over Knox. ‘All right, on your feet.’

  The man didn’t even look up at him, just sat there, clutching his foot. ‘What you going to do, like, arrest me for smashing me own telly? Bloody thing didn’t work anyway.’

  The constable flopped his hands about for a moment. ‘Sarge?’

  Logan shrugged. ‘He’s got a point.’

  Knox closed his eyes, lips pinched tight, breathing in and out through his pointy nose. Then stood, and knelt in front of the ancient electric fire, head bowed, hands clasped together. Mouth moving silently.

  They left him to it.

  ‘Tell you.’ Margaret/Marge filled a new-looking kettle in the sink, and plugged it in. ‘He’s really starting to creep me out.’

  Logan shrugged. ‘Sex offenders can be a bit—’

  ‘Trust me, I know sex offenders. Did six years as a prison officer in Peterhead, I’ve seen every flavour of mong and stot you can think of and none of them weirded me out like Knox.’ She picked four mugs off the draining board and sniffed them, then plopped a teabag in each. ‘There
was this one guy done for snatching women off the streets – blondes usually – bundled them into the back of an old van with the windows blacked out. Liked to rape them while he burned them with the cigarette lighter. Apparently nipples were a particular favourite. Never looked you in the eye when he spoke, always stared right here…’ She pointed at her not inconsiderable breasts. ‘You just knew he was thinking about it: the smell, the sizzling sound. The screams.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Yeah, and even he wasn’t as creepy as Knox.’

  She rinsed a teaspoon under the tap, peering at Logan out the corner of her eye. ‘So…what happened to your face?’

  Logan reached up and touched his right cheek. The skin was all swollen and tender. ‘Cut myself shaving.’

  ‘Right…’

  The sound of flushing came from upstairs.

  Marge/Margaret looked up and smiled. ‘Harry’s arse must be in tatters by now.’

  She was fishing the teabags out of the mugs when a balding, middle-aged man groaned in through the door, clutching both sides of his little pot belly. Face all pale and sweaty. ‘I think I might have died…’

  ‘You want tea?’ She pointed at the greasy paper bags, sitting on the work surface. ‘The nice policemen brought doughnuts.’

  He grimaced. ‘Mandy, please, just dig a hole in the back garden and bury me.’

  ‘Told you that chow mein looked dodgy.’

  ‘Bloody thing wasn’t even past its sell-by date.’ He forced a smile, then held his hand out to Logan. ‘Hi, I’m Harry—’ Something deep inside him gurgled, and he grimaced. ‘Oh God, not again…’

  And then he was off, scurrying back up the stairs, moaning and swearing.

  Logan leant back against the cooker. ‘If you’re worried about Knox, maybe—’

  ‘It’s not like I’m scared of him, or anything. I mean, come on.’ She pointed at her breasts again. ‘These are “get out of jail free” cards, far as he’s concerned. He’s just…not right, you know?’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s going to—bugger.’ Logan dragged out his warbling phone. ‘McRae?’

  DI Steel’s voice came through from the other end. ‘Did you chase up that cadaver dog like I told you?’

  ‘Did it first thing. Should be here round about eleven.’

  ‘Believe it when I see it. Tell you, those Strathclyde bobbies—’

  Logan put his hand over the mouthpiece, mimed smoking a cigarette, and pointed towards the back door. Mandy nodded and offered him a doughnut.

  The handle turned, but the door wouldn’t budge. Logan balanced his tea on the windowsill and gave the wood a bump with his shoulder. It bounced, but didn’t open.

  ‘What about that fat tit Danby, you manage to dig up any dirt on him?’

  ‘No. You told me to look into his mate, Billy Adams.’

  Another shove and the door creaked in its frame. One more and it popped open. The back garden was a riot of dead thistles and knee-high yellowy grass, the broken brown spears of docken flowers jabbing up into the grey morning. A holly bush sprawled out from the back corner, beside a bloated and crumbling shed.

  ‘You have actually heard of the word “initiative”, right?’

  Logan stepped out onto a patio made up of cracked concrete slabs, wet grass poking up through the joins. ‘There’s no way Danby came all the way up here just to hold Knox’s hand: he’s a superintendent, they don’t babysit rapists, doesn’t matter how well known they are. Something’s up.’

  He balanced the doughnut on top of his tea and lit a cigarette, the smoke spiralling away into the cold air.

  ‘You thought about what I said yesterday? The attitude, the drinking, the being a pain in the arse?’

  ‘I am not a pain in the arse.’

  ‘It’s my arse and you’re in it. Being a pain.’ There was a pause. ‘Case in point: Douglas Walker’s brief’s downstairs right now, kicking up shite about his client being denied his human rights.’

  Logan closed his eyes and massaged his pounding forehead. ‘Sodding hell – please tell me you didn’t just leave him in the interview room!’

  ‘Oh no you don’t: he was your bloody arrest! Why didn’t you charge him?’

  Bloody typical.

  ‘Because you ordered me to go supervise the Perv Patrol after the MAPPA meeting! Then you dragged me off to the building site and Polmont’s flat…’ He let his head fall back until he was staring straight up into the low grey sky. ‘Walker was only in on a volley, his lawyer’s going to have a field day.’

  Steel let the awkward silence drag out for a couple of beats. ‘Don’t be so sodding daft: course I didn’t just leave him there. What do you think I am, an amateur? Interviewed him, charged him, packed him off to a cell for the night.’

  ‘Oh…OK.’

  ‘Point is, you should’ve bloody well checked first thing this morning, shouldn’t you? ‘Stead of waltzing off with no’ a care in the world.’

  ‘I didn’t waltz anywhere! You told me to go check up on Knox, so I checked up on Knox. How am I supposed to sodding do everything?’ Logan flicked the ash off the tip of his cigarette. ‘And in case you’re interested, Knox threw a wobbly when he saw the morning paper.’

  ‘Aw, boo-hoo. Is the widdle wapist upset? Diddums. Tell him I’ll come over and kiss it all better with the toe of my boot.’

  ‘You know, you could help for a change: get the Press Office to tell the media to back off Knox for a bit.’ Logan dropped his cigarette and ground it out against the wet paving slab with his foot.

  ‘Fuck him.’ Steel sniffed. ‘Get your arse back to the ranch and deal with Walker’s bloody bum-faced brief. I want it all sorted out by the time I’m finished at Polmont’s flat.’

  Logan hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket. The doughnut had left a greasy film on the surface of his tea. He poured it out onto the waterlogged grass, not in the mood any more.

  Bloody DI Steel – why did everything always have to be his fault?

  Back inside, he dumped the mug on the draining board, said thank you for the tea, then made for the front door. He glanced in through the lounge door on the way past, and stopped. Knox was standing in the bay window, looking out at the dreich clay-coloured sky, hugging that carrier bag of his like a hot water bottle for the soul.

  He turned, saw Logan watching him, and looked away. ‘I’m sorry about acting the spaz, like. Just gets a bit much sometimes, everyone hating us, you know?’

  Logan did. ‘It’s…Don’t worry about it.’

  Knox nodded, and turned back to the grimy glass. ‘Do you have a guardian angel, Sergeant?’

  Logan laughed. ‘If I do he’s shite at his job.’

  ‘I’ve got one. God sent someone to look after us. Even when I was in prison he kept an eye out. Kept us safe so I could learn me lesson.’

  Logan took his car keys from his pocket. ‘Yeah, well—’

  ‘See, God’s always testing us, isn’t He? Getting caught, going to prison, that was all part of His plan for us. If He hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have found Him, would I?’ Knox reached out a hand and drew something on the dirty window with a fingertip. ‘He’s made us the man I am, like.’

  Now there was something to be proud of.

  The snow’s coming. Richard can feel it in his bones. His arm aches where they broke it at that first group therapy session. Doing all the STOP programme bollocks: everyone sitting about like a bunch of fannies, whinging on about how their mummies and daddies didn’t love them. Didn’t like him taking the piss, did they? No. And ever since then, his arm aches when it’s cold.

  The first lesson from God: know when to keep your mouth shut.

  Course, then they all had little accidents, didn’t they? And God said unto them, never fuck with a man who works for Mental Mikey – the holy word delivered by a couple of screws who owed the big man a favour.

  Guardian angel, see?

  Richard watches the policeman hunch his way down the garden path, through the
rusty gate, and into a little brown Fiat that looks like a motorized turd.

  Stared at him like he was mad, didn’t he? Didn’t believe Richard was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So. Help. Him. God.

  It’s all a test. It’s all a lesson. How you deal with things is important to Him, isn’t it? Stands to reason. Otherwise He wouldn’t make things happen the way He does.

  And God loves Richard Knox.

  Richard places his hand against the glass and scrubs away the picture he drew in the grime. Smiles to himself.

  Soon. Very, very soon…

  15

  It was nearly half ten by the time Logan got back to the CID room. The place was packed – plainclothes and uniformed constables sitting in every seat, working the phones. The almost constant murmur of conversation and electronic ringing.

  ‘Yes, sir, I know you’re worried about your father but—’

  ‘In Kincorth? I see…And what makes you believe it was Richard Knox?’

  A constable stuck her hand over the mouthpiece and offered the phone to Logan. ‘Sarge, there’s a bloke on the phone says he was attacked by Knox last night, do you want to deal?’

  Logan looked out across the crowded, noisy room. ‘Is every nutjob in the city calling in?’

  ‘Pretty much. So, you want it?’

  ‘Do I buggery.’ He hurried through into the little sergeants’ alcove, before anyone else tried to lumber him with their loony, closed the door – shutting out the babble – and collapsed into his seat. Rubbed at his thumping forehead.

  He had the little office to himself, no one to see him rummaging through everyone’s desks on the hunt for painkillers. OK, so he was a bit hungover but after Reuben and everything he’d deserved a drink, hadn’t he? Even if the late night vodka hadn’t been the best of ideas.