Dark Blood

by MacBride, Stuart

  Neil’s in the back, plugged into his iPod, little white cables coming out of his ears like his head’s been wired wrong. Which it probably has.

  ‘You know what I think?’ says Tony, even though he knows Neil isn’t listening. ‘I think this is completely fucked up. Waste of time. And effort.’

  He flicks the windscreen wiper and the blades squeak once across the glass, clearing away the speckles of drizzle. Typical Aber-fucking-deen: always bloody raining. Cold as a nun’s tit too. Was warmer back in Newcastle, aye and it was snowing there.

  The passenger door opens, and Julie climbs in, blonde hair all frizzy from the rain. Five-foot-five of Home Counties English, in jeans, cowboy boots, and a black leather jacket. ‘Miss me?’ She dumps a white carrier bag on the arm rest between the heavy leather seats, then digs a brush out of that huge handbag of hers and has a go at taming the beast.

  Tony checks the rearview mirror, watching one of them parking wardens grumping along the line of cars in the rain. ‘Any joy?’

  Julie points at the bag. ‘Chicken Rogan Josh, balti lamb, king prawn korma for the big girl’s blouse in the back—’

  Neil sticks his middle finger up at her. So he must be listening after all.

  ‘—three pilaf rice, and a couple of naan bread. One garlic, one cheese.’

  Tony groans. ‘Not curry again.’ No wonder his guts are giving him grief. ‘What about Danby?’

  Julie’s face turns down at the edges: it takes a lot of the pretty away. ‘Bloody Sacro wouldn’t talk to me. Said anything to do with Richard Knox was strictly need-to-know.’

  Neil leans forwards, sticking his big head between the seats. He’s done that thing with his hair again, makes him look like a greying Geordie Elvis, only with a much bigger nose. ‘Sort of fuckin’ name is “Sacro” anyway?’

  ‘Don’t get me started…’ She rummages in the plastic bag, tearing free a chunk of greasy naan. ‘Who’s hungry?’

  ‘Ta.’

  She hands the wodge to Neil, while Tony gets the car moving before that traffic warden comes close enough to take a note of their number plate. ‘Why didn’t you flash one of those warrant cards of yours?’

  ‘Sweetheart, there’s no way I’m letting a bunch of sodding Sweaties know I’ve been asking questions. Got no intention of anyone finding out I’m up here. Can you imagine the shit-storm if Northumbria plod got wind of it?’

  Neil nods. ‘Point.’

  ‘So I went in as Jocelyn Bygraves, social worker.’ She flashes one of the collection of fake IDs from her handbag. ‘Think there’d be a bit more honour amongst lefty tree-huggers, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Nah, never trust a social worker.’ Neil reaches forward and helps himself to another chunk of bread, speaking with his mouth full. ‘So what we going to do about Danby, like?’

  Julie frowns for a bit. ‘The fat bastard’s going to be around here somewhere, right? Hotel, B&B, something like that?’

  ‘No chance,’ Tony eases on the breaks, coasting up to the red lights, ‘you got any idea how many B&Bs there are in Aberdeen? Thousands. It’s all these buggers coming up to work in the oil, isn’t it?’

  Neil nods again. ‘Point.’

  Bloody right – point. ‘What’s Knox saying till it?’

  Julie pops the lid off a plastic container, filling the car with the rich smell of Indian spices. ‘Says he doesn’t know where Danby’s staying.’

  ‘What, so we’ve got to go grubbin’ all round town, cos that OAP-rapin’ bastard can’t keep his end of the bargain?’ Neil licked the grease off his fingertips. ‘That’s bloody typical, that is.’

  ‘It is what it is, Babe. If you were Danby, would you tell someone like Knox where you were staying?’

  ‘Point.’

  ‘Anyway, Detective Superintendent Danby’s bound to turn up at the local cop shop sooner or later.’

  Sitting in the back Neil laughs. ‘You wanna stake out police headquarters?’

  She shrugs. ‘Why not? Bunch of Sweaties won’t notice, will they? Be too busy shagging sheep, or whatever it is they do up here.’

  ‘Just cos they’re jocks, don’t mean they’re idiots. They’re gonna spot a fuckin’ huge Range Rover parked outside the front door for a week.’

  Julie swivels around in her seat. ‘You want to just give up? Turn round and go home empty handed? That sound like a better idea to you?’

  Oh God, here we go.

  ‘I’m not saying that, it’s—’

  ‘You any idea what the boss would do to us?’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘But what, Darling?’

  Neil shuts his mouth, sharpish. They all know what that tone means: that cheery, everything-in-the-garden’s-just-peachy tone Julie always uses before she goes off like a Rottweiler on acid.

  Tony keeps his eyes on the road, dead ahead.

  Never, ever get involved.

  ‘Well?’

  Neil clears his throat. ‘Sounds like a plan, like.’

  ‘Good boy, knew you’d see sense.’ She tears another handful of naan from the bag and passes it back between the seats. ‘We stake out the cop shop, we follow Danby home, then we beat the living crap out of him till he talks. Piece of piss.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The cadaver dog-handler wrinkled her nose, staring out at the building site. ‘Gonnae be a lot more difficult with all that frost and ice.’ Police Constable Fiona Martin dragged her hair back from her face and secured it with a little elastic thingy, leaving a peek-a-boo fringe over her forehead. She turned and wiggled her fingers through the metal mesh separating the two front seats from the back of the little van. ‘Hey Sleepyfish, ready to rock?’

  The huge yellow Labrador raised its head from the tartan dog bed and licked her fingers. Then had a yawn, and a stretch, followed by an almost inaudible, ‘Pfffffffffrrrrrp.’

  ‘What’s his name…?’ Logan stopped, wrinkled his nose. ‘Oh…Jesus!’ It was like a rotten herring wrapped in a rancid nappy. ‘God! Aw, you can taste it!’

  He scrabbled at the door handle and clambered out into the cold morning, breathing deeply.

  PC Martin stared at him from the driver’s seat. ‘Wardrobe. And it’s no’ his fault he’s got a delicate stomach.’

  Logan backed off an extra couple of paces, frozen mud crunching beneath his feet. ‘What have you been feeding him?’

  The constable climbed out, wandered around to the back of the filthy van – the Strathclyde Police Crest emblazoned down the side – and popped the double doors open. ‘Yeah, like your farts smell of lotus blossom and strawberries.’ She rattled a choke chain. ‘Come on, you.’

  The Labrador’s front end bounded upright, booby-trapped bum still in the dog bed, tail thumping.

  ‘Who’s a clever boy? Who’s a clever boy? You are, aren’t you?’ PC Martin ruffled the dog’s ears, making the skin shift from one side to the other, as if it wasn’t properly attached to its head. ‘Yes you are!’ She slipped the chain over Wardrobe’s head and clipped on a thick red leather lead.

  The dog bounded out into the snow, turning its handler round in a complete circle, before burying its nose in the snow, making snuffling sounds.

  Impressive. ‘He’s picked something up already?’

  PC Martin stared at Logan, then clunked the van’s back doors shut. Locked them. ‘He’s been cooped up in the back of a van most of the morning, he’s looking for somewhere to pee.’

  Wardrobe finished sniffing, then cocked his leg on the van’s rear tyre, making a little cloud of steam.

  PC Martin looked over at the building site. ‘It just us?’

  ‘Trust me: we get something, you’ll be fighting the IB off with a stick.’

  She jammed her free hand in her pocket, as Wardrobe raked his front and back paws on the rough ground. ‘Can’t believe you’re still calling them IB. Sarge was right, it’s the bloody dark ages up here.’ She grinned. ‘Shagging sheep rots your brain, eh?’

  ‘They all cheeky buggers where you come
from, Constable?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ She gave Wardrobe’s lead a little tug. ‘Come on Slobberchops, time to go to work.’

  It was like someone had flicked a switch in the dog’s head: sudden stillness, ears pricked.

  ‘Anyway,’ Logan followed her towards the crescent of part-built houses, ‘calling them “CSI” sounds like wanky Americanized TV bollocks. I mean, have you ever watched that show?’

  ‘If it’s not EastEnders, Corrie, or Strictly Come Dancing, don’t want to know about it.’

  They started at the far end of the street, where the houses were just concrete foundations, PC Martin following behind Wardrobe, the dog’s nose to the frosty ground as it circled the edges of the huge slab.

  ‘Can he really smell a dead body all the way through concrete?’

  Martin didn’t look up. ‘Anyone tells you they can is talking bollocks – most bodies aren’t buried in concrete, they’re buried under it. What he smells is the liquids leaching out of the corpse into the soil. That oozes up through where the concrete meets the earth, and Bob’s your body, Colin’s your cadaver, Sam’s your stiff…’

  They moved onto the next set of foundations. ‘If he can smell that, how come he doesn’t choke on his own farts?’

  ‘How long’s your plumber been missing?’

  ‘Electrician. And he disappeared Monday.’

  She let Wardrobe finish, then led the way through the rutted mud to the next property-to-be. ‘Four days? Not asking much, are you? When it’s cold like this, slows down the decay. Probably won’t be enough putrescence to detect. No leakage: nothing to sniff.’

  A line of concrete rectangles stretched ahead of them, each with short lengths of pipe sticking out from the grey surface, capped off with blue plastic.

  Further down, the plots actually started to resemble houses, timber frames with that blue plastic sheeting stretched between the uprights.

  PC Martin chewed on her bottom lip, looking out at the frozen earth. ‘Might have to come back in a couple of weeks, see if your missing sparky’s rotted down a bit. Four days just isn’t long enough.’

  So much for the almighty power of the cadaver dog.

  Logan cupped his hands and blew, filling them with steam. ‘Just do your best, OK?’

  She shrugged. ‘What the hell, we’re here anyway.’ She set off for the next set of foundations as Logan’s phone started ringing. He pulled it out and peered at the screen.

  Don’t let it be Steel, don’t let it be Steel…It wasn’t. It was even worse.

  He took the call. ‘McRae.’

  ‘LoganDaveGoulding.’ Said like that, in a flat Liverpudlian accent, as if it was all one word. ‘What’s up? You running late?’

  Logan checked his watch. Sod. ‘Sorry, something came up.’ Which was only partially true – mostly he’d forgotten all about his appointment.

  There was a pause, as if the psychologist was trying to decide whether to believe him or not. ‘You got a moment now?’

  Logan watched the cadaver dog and handler sniffing their way around the next set of foundations and thought about lying. What the hell. ‘I’ve been having that dream again.’

  ‘Which one: giant lizards, or the talking shark that steals all your clothes?’

  ‘Severed heads.’ Logan could hear his own voice echoing back at him. Dr Goulding must have put him on speaker-phone.

  ‘I see…’ Pause. ‘We’ve not had that one for a while.’

  Logan could hear him scribbling something down.

  ‘You know, I have a recurring nightmare where all the people turn into frogs, and all the frogs turn into people. And the people forget that they used to be frogs, and the frogs forget they were ever anything else. And I’m the only one who knows. Living, surrounded by reptiles…’

  Logan didn’t know what to say to that. ‘Erm, did you get a chance to look at the assessment matrix for Richard Knox?’

  ‘You know, the fact that you’ve not had the severed heads dream for a while probably means something’s unresolved in your psyche. Is there anything causing you stress?’

  Logan rubbed a hand over his bruised face. ‘Everything causes me bloody stress. Everyone causes me stress. It’s like they’re holding a competition to see who can piss me off the most.’

  ‘I see…’ More scribbling. ‘Have you been doing your breathing exercises?’

  ‘Course I have.’ Which was a lie.

  ‘Knox strikes me as a rather conflicted character.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘He’s got this deep-seated religious belief system which has to be in complete contradiction to his psycho-sexual landscape.’

  Logan watched Wardrobe drag his handler on to the next plot. ‘You don’t think the whole God-bothering thing is just a front?’

  ‘Don’t see what he’d gain from it. To be frank, I’m more worried that he’s gone out and got himself an omnipotent invisible friend.’ There was a pause. ‘Who’s stressing you the most?’

  ‘Bloody DI Steel. She’s got it into her head that I’ve got an attitude problem. That I’m too cynical. That I drink too much.’

  Silence.

  Logan scowled. ‘What?’

  ‘And how does that make you feel?’

  ‘Stressed. Remember? That was the point of the—’

  ‘Do you drink too much?’

  ‘No! OK, so I have the odd glass of wine, but—’

  ‘Maybe you’re angry with her because you think she’s right.’

  ‘She is not right!’

  ‘Well, we can always talk more about that at your next session.’ There was a click and line became a lot clearer – Goulding must have taken him off speaker-phone again. ‘The thing about religious obsessives – I mean the proper card-carrying have-you-accepted-Jesus-into-your-life neurotics – is that they’re often buying into a belief system that justifies their lifestyle choices. Homophobia, misogyny, exclusion. For Knox to join in, given his past is…well, let’s call it “worrying”.’

  ‘I mean, I don’t wake up wanting to get blootered, do I? Just been under a lot of pressure recently.’

  ‘I think there’s a very real chance he’s going to offend again and sooner rather than later.’

  ‘It’s not like I’m an alcoholic or anything.’

  ‘Can you get me in to see him?’

  ‘What? Oh, erm…possibly. I’ll have to check.’

  ‘Good. Now you and I need to get a proper session organized. I’ve got a cancellation on Monday you can have.’

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘Yes, twelve noon. And don’t forget – I need to see Knox ASAP.’ Another pause. ‘And maybe it wouldn’t hurt to try laying off the booze for a bit, OK? Might make you a bit less edgy.’

  Logan hung up and rammed the phone back in his pocket. Liverpudlian git. Why did everyone have to bang on about his drinking? OK, so he was only just crawling out from under a gargantuan hangover, but that wasn’t his fault, was it? Having to deal with Knox, Steel giving him a hard time, beating Reuben up, the bribe…Enough to turn anyone to drink.

  God it was cold.

  He stomped his feet, scanning the building site for PC Martin and Wardrobe the Wonder Dog. The pair of them had almost made it to the first part-built house – a bare timber frame reaching up into the cold grey sky.

  Logan wandered over, hands twitching through his pockets, looking for a pack of cigarettes. Only the second one today. Which was a bit of a record, considering how crappy—

  ‘Excuse me, exactly what do you think you’re doing?’ It was the man from the site office, not Big-and-Bald, but the other one: ridiculous trimmed beard, comb-over hidden beneath a bright orange hard hat.

  Logan pulled out the sheet of paper they’d picked up at the Procurator Fiscal’s office on Guild Street on their way over and kept on walking. ‘Mr…?’

  ‘This is a private development. I’m going to have to ask you to—’

  ‘I have a warrant here to search—’

&n
bsp; ‘—leave, or do I have to call site security…?’ The man trailed off, staring at the handcuffs dangling from Logan’s index finger.

  ‘Police.’

  He curled his top lip. ‘I thought you said you were a debt collector for some sort of local bookies.’

  The man obviously thought Logan was an idiot. Mr Big-and-Bald had looked him straight in the eye and called him ‘Officer’. They knew fine what he was.

  ‘Speaking of “site security”, where is he? Your bald mate with the big dog?’

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with—’

  Logan thrust the warrant at him. ‘I think I’ll decide what’s relevant, don’t you, Mr…?’

  ‘Joseph Brett, project manager.’ He raised his chin. ‘And may I ask exactly why you feel it necessary to search a perfectly legitimate—’

  ‘Don’t mind me.’ PC Martin clumped past, dragged along behind a panting Wardrobe, then disappeared around the corner. Doing a lap of the perimeter.

  ‘And you say you haven’t seen Stephen Polmont since Monday?’

  Pink rushed up the man’s cheeks, clashing with his orange hard hat. ‘I didn’t say anything of the sort. I said he was suspected of stealing electrical equipment and disappeared before we could contact the police.’

  ‘Right…’ Logan turned and watched the constable and the Labrador work their way across to the next house in line. The ground floor was already clad in a skin of pale-yellow brick, partially hidden behind a web of scaffolding. Two men in padded overalls and thick woolly hats were laying down the next course, their paint-spattered radio blaring out Radio 2. ‘Big development: four hundred houses. That’s a lot of money.’

  ‘It’s—’

  ‘Course, it’s nothing compared with how much your boss rakes in from drugs, loan sharks, and prostitutes, is it?’

  The project manager stared out across the rutted mud. ‘Is this little search of yours going to take long? A development this size doesn’t run itself.’

  ‘Might want to tell Mr McLennan it’s not a good idea to go muscling in on someone else’s territory. Burning bridges with the local community.’ Logan jammed his hands deeper in his pockets. ‘Aberdeen doesn’t need any more scumbags, Mr Brett, we’ve got enough of our own.’