‘Check the computer.’
She smiled, but it didn’t go anywhere near her eyes. ‘Yes. I can do that. Right now. Checking the computer…’
Logan thumped the custody log back on the desk. ‘That’s not my signature!’
For the next two minutes the only sound was the rattle-clack of fingers on keyboard, then the PCSO cleared her throat. ‘Ah…You know, your prisoner’s been sitting in the interview room for a while now, and maybe—’
‘What does it say?’
Silence.
‘DI Beattie’s down as the attending officer.’
47
The PCSO had fallen behind after the first two flights of stairs, but Logan wasn’t waiting for her to catch up.
He stormed down the corridor to DI Beattie’s office and barged through the door. It bounced off a filing cabinet with a loud clang and started to swing shut. Logan marched in.
Beattie was sitting behind his desk, eyes wide, phone clamped to his ear. ‘What…?’
Logan slammed the custody log down on the desktop, hard enough to send a mug of tea spiralling to the new carpet. ‘What the hell did you do?’
Beattie shrank back. ‘I’m on the phone!’
‘You’re going to be on your arse in a minute!’
The PCSO’s voice came from the open door behind him: ‘I told you he’d taken it.’
Then a man: ‘Sergeant McRae, would you care to explain yourself?’
Logan didn’t need to look around, he knew it was Chief Inspector Young from Professional Standards, which meant he was probably already screwed.
‘Beattie faked the custody log.’
The DI’s chin came up. ‘I don’t know what you’re—’
‘Here!’ Logan yanked the ring binder open, whipping through the pages until he got to the first forged custody record – the one that said he’d interviewed the art student at quarter to nine on Monday morning. ‘Douglas Walker, checked out of custody at oh-nine-forty-five Monday by DS McRae.’
Chief Inspector Young appeared at Logan’s shoulder. ‘And how does that—’
‘At nine forty-five I was making sure Richard Knox got through the lynch mob outside his house in one piece. You can check with DI Steel, and half a dozen PCs. It was on the bloody telly!’ He flipped back a few pages. ‘Twenty past six, Sunday night: I was arresting Angus Black for possession in Blackburn. This says I was interviewing Walker again. But the computer log says it was Beattie!’
The DI lumbered to his feet. ‘Sergeant, how dare you suggest—’
Logan slammed his hand down on the open ring binder. ‘What, you couldn’t figure out how to fiddle the electronic version? Bit more difficult than faking a signature, was it?’
Beattie looked at CI Young. ‘Chief Inspector, I want to make a formal complaint about DS McRae’s behaviour. You’re a witness, right? You and…’ He pointed at the PCSO. ‘You. He threatened me, and—’
‘I’ll do more than bloody threaten you!’
He lunged, but Young was faster, wrapping one of those huge scarred hands around Logan’s arm. ‘I think we should all calm down, don’t you?’
‘He tried to attack me! You saw him!’
Logan had another go, but Young’s grip was solid.
And then everyone froze as DCI Finnie appeared in the doorway. ‘Tell me gentlemen, am I running a CID department, or a playground for badly behaved children?’
Silence.
Logan tore his arm out of Young’s grip. Pointed at Beattie. ‘Tell him what you did.’
‘DS McRae is being abusive and threatening—’
‘You lying bastard!’
Young had to restrain him again.
Beattie backed away. ‘I want him brought up on charges, and—’
‘THAT’S ENOUGH!’ Finnie’s voice made the paintings rattle on the walls. ‘You will both behave like professional police officers, or I’ll suspend the pair of you!’ He checked his watch. ‘Chief Inspector Young, would you be so kind as to escort DS McRae back to your office for a small chat about appropriate workplace behaviour?’ He turned to face Logan and Beattie. ‘And I’ll expect both of you in my office at five this evening when we shall discuss your conduct. Do you understand?’
Logan stiffened. ‘Sir.’
‘Sir, it’s not my fault, he barged in and—’
‘Do you understand, Inspector Beattie?’
The beardy idiot deflated a bit. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘We’ve got a rapist on the loose, and a missing detective superintendent. I suggest you redirect your energies to getting out there and bloody well finding them!’
Then the head of CID turned a thin smile on the PCSO. ‘And Marie, I hate to be a stick in the mud, but the custody log is not supposed to leave the custody area.’
Pink crept up from the white collar of her shirt. ‘But—’
‘Don’t let it happen again.’
‘We didn’t do nothing.’ Wendy Leadbetter folded her arms across her chest. The white Tyvec SOC suit they’d given her to wear, while her own clothes were being examined, made rustling noises as she shifted in her seat. Up close she looked older than he’d been expecting, her face hard and cold, scowl lines already beginning to etch themselves around her eyes and mouth.
‘I am now showing Ms Leadbetter exhibits three, four, five, and six.’ Logan laid the photos out on the interview-room table, starting with the figure throwing the petrol bomb, then moving on to the reference shots of Wendy and her brother Ian in the crowd outside Knox’s home.
She shrugged. ‘Could be anybody. Got their face covered, like.’
‘We found traces of petrol on your jacket, your gloves, your jeans, and your shoes Wendy. See, petrol’s funny that way, it’s like glue: sticks to everything.’
‘Maybe I was filling up me car? Had a bit of an accident. Ever think of that?’
Logan packed the photos away again. ‘Fine. Lie. See if I give a toss.’ He stood. ‘We’ve got you on camera, we’ve got witnesses, we’ve got forensics, and we’ve got motive. You want to play the hardnut? Go right ahead, see how much it helps when you’re banged up for eight years.’
He glanced over Wendy Leadbetter’s shoulder to where PC Butler was leaning against the wall. ‘Get her out of here. We’ll do her brother for conspiracy, then we can all sod off to the pub.’
Butler stepped forward. ‘Up.’
She didn’t move. ‘Ian wasn’t involved in nothing.’
‘Yeah, right. He’s an innocent little lamb with…’ Logan flicked through the file. ‘Look at that: eighteen counts of criminal damage, six public order offences, and four warnings for sending threatening letters.’ He looked at Butler again. ‘Cells.’
‘I said, on your feet.’
‘Who says Ian had anything to do with it? Knox didn’t just rape our grandad, did he? Loads of families up for doing him a bit of harm.’
‘Yeah, well, you’re the only ones in Aberdeen, so—’
‘Shows how much you know.’ She rapped her knuckles on the chipped Formica. ‘Seen at least two others outside Knox’s house. Could’ve been any of them, like.’
‘You really expect me to believe…’ Logan trailed to a halt. Then pulled out the photos and laid them out on the tabletop again – along with all the others he’d printed off – until there was just a big sea of angry faces staring up into the interview room. ‘Prove it.’
Leadbetter sniffed. Then leaned forward and stared, her hard green eyes sweeping back and forth. ‘Him.’ Her finger jabbed a pale-skinned older man in a leather jacket, red Man U scarf around his neck, mouth open shouting something. ‘Lowe, or Lovie, something like that. Knox raped his dad.’ Thirty seconds later she’d picked out another one: a heavy-set woman snarling beneath a ‘DIE – KNOX – SCUM!’ placard. ‘No idea what she’s called.’
Logan waited, but she couldn’t pick out anyone else.
Wendy Leadbetter scowled at him. ‘Our grand
ad was a good man, and that sick bastard tortured and raped him. You let Knox go, and now he’s out there, doing it to other families.’ She finally got to her feet. ‘They should’ve killed him in prison. More than he fucking deserves.’
And she was probably right.
While Butler was sticking Leadbetter back into custody, Logan apologized to Marie, the PCSO. Sorry for nicking her custody log. Sorry for getting her in trouble with Finnie. But mostly he was sorry for not breaking DI Beattie’s nose.
Butler was waiting for Logan outside the cells, running a hand through her short spiky blonde hair. ‘You want me to go get the brother now?’
Logan shook his head. ‘One mental family member at a time is enough for me. We need to go and…’ Logan frowned.
He pulled out the plastic bag with his crusty notebook in it, snapped on a pair of latex gloves and picked through the sour-smelling pages. Something about mental family members…
‘Sarge? I said, where are we going?’
‘Hmm? Oh…Cove: got to help DI Steel search for signs of Knox.’
Butler wilted slightly. ‘Oh God, not more tramping about in the snow.’
‘Might have to make a little diversion on the way…Nip upstairs and get us a pool car, will you?’
She stomped off as he worked his way backwards through the notebook, looking for his visit to Danny Saunders’s caravan. Then Logan went into his other pocket for the pilfered CV he’d been scribbling notes on since yesterday afternoon, and compared the two.
He closed his eyes and groaned. What a bloody idiot.
Logan’s rusty Fiat bumped to a halt outside the part-completed steading. PC Butler hauled on the handbrake and killed the engine, then sat there, looking at the peeling steering wheel, the dented dashboard, the passenger-side window covered in a patchwork of black plastic bag and duct tape, the buckled bonnet. ‘Bet you pull all the girls in this thing.’
‘Should have tried harder for a pool car then, shouldn’t you?’
‘I was doing fine till I told Big Gary it was for you.’
Logan peered out through the chipped windscreen. Danny Saunders had managed to cover all the roof joists with a skin of marine-ply. Right now he was balancing at the top of a long ladder, nailing batons down over some sort of black material.
‘Like driving an oil tanker. You never heard of power steering?’
‘Lucky the damn thing’s still going at all.’ Especially after being shunted into a ditch by a dirty big Transit van. At least the duct tape and string was still holding the bonnet in place…though the engine had developed a worrying burning smell to go with the growling exhaust.
Logan clambered out onto the crunchy snow. The sky was a bright blue lid with dark-grey clouds massing over the North Sea. Probably going to be another horrible night.
Especially if DCI Finnie had anything to do with it. The lecture on not attacking your colleagues from Chief Inspector Young had been bad enough, but the one from the head of CID would be a lot worse.
Logan slammed the car door.
Standing on top of the ladder, Danny flinched, the hammer and a plastic pouch of nails skittering down across the marine-ply, then off the edge of the roof. ‘Ah, shite!’
He turned, the expression freezing on his face when he saw who it was.
Logan picked his way through the snowy tufts. ‘Morning, Danny.’
‘I didn’t rob that jewellers on Huntly Street!’
‘Yeah, I know. I arrested someone for that yesterday.’
Behind him Logan could hear PC Butler climbing out of the car, scrunching over to back him up.
‘Oh aye?’
‘Funniest thing, but the guy was called “Alan Gardner”. Ring any bells?’
Danny coughed, then glanced over the ridge of the steading roof at the moss-streaked caravan, just visible around the corner. ‘Never heard of him.’
‘You told him you’d break his daughter’s legs if she didn’t pay off her drug debt.’
‘Got to get back to work. The roof gets all warped if it’s not—’
‘Danny? Why can’t I hear hammering?’ A woman’s voice, coming from the caravan. Logan turned to see the pregnant fiancée standing there with her hands on her hips, face flushed, mouth a hard line. ‘You know we need that roof waterproofed before it snows again. Don’t make me come up there!’
‘Oh Jesus…’ He straightened up and shouted back. ‘It’s the police.’
Logan clumped through the snow towards her. ‘Stacy Gardner?’
‘You know fine well it is. What do you want?’
‘I had a very interesting chat with your dad, Stacy. Says he’s sorry he hasn’t come up with more money, but he kind of got arrested doing over a jewellery shop on Huntly Street. He hopes your dealer,’ Logan nodded at the man balancing on the roof, ‘will give him a bit more time before hurting you.’
Stacy throttled the dishcloth in her hands. ‘No idea what you’re talking about.’
Danny sighed. ‘Stacy, love, it’s not—’
‘You shut up, Danny Saunders, I’m dealing with this.’ She took a step out onto the snowy ground. ‘The old man can’t cope since he got mum killed. Lives in a little world of his own.’
‘Stacy, we—’
‘I said I’m dealing with it!’ She turned a cold smile in Logan’s direction. ‘So you see, you can’t trust a word he says. He’s lost it.’
Logan nodded. ‘But you still trust him to look after Nicole, don’t you? What is she, two, three? We had to put her into care.’
The pregnant woman stiffened. ‘She’s not my daughter any more. I’m making a new life.’
‘He’s sold everything for you, you know that don’t you? Car, furniture, telly, cashed in his pension – even the house is up for sale, because he thinks you’re in trouble.’
Stacy turned and reached back into the caravan for something, keeping whatever it was hidden by her pregnant bulge. ‘So he sends me money every now and then. Not like I don’t deserve it, is it? Just my share of mum’s inheritance.’
‘It’s extortion.’
She swivelled round, both hands behind her back, and sniffed as if fighting back a tear. ‘It wasn’t my idea. Danny made me do it!’
Up on the roof, her fiancé’s mouth fell open. ‘You lying cow!’
‘Where do you think Daddy got the idea to use a sledgehammer? That was Danny’s trick.’
‘I was the one tried to talk you out of it!’
Stacy took a step forward, biting her bottom lip. ‘Sorry, Danny, but I can’t cover for you any more. It was all his fault, Officer. He made me do it.’
Logan looked back at the roof.
Mistake.
Stacy lunged, hands coming out from behind her back – eight inch carving knife in one hand, steaming kettle in the other. The kettle lashed past, close enough for Logan to feel the heat on his cheek.
He staggered back, arms over his head as the knife slashed down, the point tearing through the sleeve of his jacket.
Logan’s heel caught something buried in the snow and he went crashing down on his backside for the second time in two days. Looking up at someone who wanted him dead.
And then a blur of black and fluorescent yellow: PC Butler charged across the rutted ground, her peaked cap flying off. Stacy snarled and swung the knife again in a huge overhead slash.
Butler darted in, arm up. She blocked Stacy’s stab, reached through with her other hand in some sort of weird jujitsu limb origami, and pulled, forcing the pregnant women’s arm to bend in ways it really wasn’t designed to.
Stacy’s eyes bulged, then she screamed and lurched back into the wall of the caravan. ‘You’re breaking my arm!’
‘Drop the knife, or I’ll pop it right out of the socket!’
‘Get off me you bitch!’
One more twist and the knife thudded into the snow, blade first, the handle sticking up into the air.
‘Danny! Danny,
help me! They’re hurting the baby!’
But Danny just sat on the roof of his house and stared at her.
There was a gunshot sound and Logan’s manky little Fiat puttered to a halt on the rear podium car park, leaving a cloud of grey smoke behind. Should probably get that seen to.
PC Butler killed the engine, before it died on its own. ‘Everyone out. Now!’
‘If my baby’s damaged by carbon monoxide poisoning, I’ll sue!’
Butler turned and stared at her. ‘Shut up. For once in your life. All the way into bloody town!’
Stacy Gardner pouted. ‘You can’t talk to me like that! I—’
‘For God’s sake!’ Sitting next to her, on the threadbare back seat, Danny Saunders gritted his teeth. ‘Give it a rest, Stacy.’
‘That’s right – shout at the pregnant woman in handcuffs! Oh yes, you’re such a big man, aren’t you Danny? Such a big—’
Logan climbed out and slammed the car door shut, cutting off the rest.
PC Butler stood on the other side of the dented Fiat, massaging her temples. ‘Why are we not allowed to gag prisoners any more?’
‘Just get them processed and we’ll head out to Cove. Let someone else listen to her bitch and moan for a while.’
Butler glared at the sky for a moment, sighed, pulled on her peaked cap, then wrenched open the car door and folded the driver’s seat forward. ‘I said everyone out!’
Logan left them to it.
Logan had the Wee Hoose to himself while he waited for PC Butler to get Danny Saunders and his poisonous fiancée photographed, fingerprinted, DNA-sampled, and checked into separate cells.
He spread Danby’s cases out across the desk. The PNC printouts weren’t exactly heavy on detail, more summaries and status reports. A couple of unsolved murders: one drug addict found with a bullet hole in the back of his head; one prostitute kicked to death behind the bins at a nightclub. One Post Office job where the gang had got away with a pathetically small amount of cash after putting a pensioner in intensive care – solved. One blackmail: a bank manager with a thing for Filipino ladyboys – solved. A couple of demanding money with menaces…
Something started ringing. It took Logan a minute to realize it was his new phone. ‘McRae.’
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