Logan raised his peaked cap a bit and peered out. ‘Who’s “Nosferatuy”?’
‘That was Sergeant Winston from Ellon station: we’ve lost our backup.’ She put her phone away, then dug a hand into her pocket, far deeper than it should have been able to go. ‘They’ve had a shout on a grade-one flag: on their way now with lights and music blaring. Apparently some auld wifie’s tried to kill her husband three times this year, and she’s hoping fourth time’s the charm.’
‘Great. And what are we supposed to do?’
Steel stuck her tongue out one side of her mouth. ‘On the bright side …’ Her hand re-emerged, clutching a packet of Polos, bringing a small cascade of fluff with it. ‘We now have sweeties! There’s a hole in my pocket, so they were stuck down in the lining. Bit hairy, but still sookable.’
King’s left hand appeared between the seats, holding a full packet of extra-strong mints. ‘You should have said: I’ve got about three packets of these.’
‘Oh for …’ She slammed her hairy Polos down on the dashboard. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Logan settled back and put the cap over his face again. ‘No eating in the car.’
Rennie’s voice groaned in his ear. ‘Sorry Guv, haven’t had time yet. And it’s my turn to pick Donna up from swimming. I’m kinda running late as it is.’
Logan sighed. ‘OK. But do it first thing tomorrow.’
‘Guv.’
He hung up. Shook his head. ‘So we still don’t have Haiden Lochhead’s known associates.’
Steel tutted. ‘Cos Rennie, and I mean this with all due respect, is goat-buggeringly useless.’
Harsh but true.
Logan adopted his snoozing vampire position once more. Well, it passed the time …
Maybe he should take his hat to the dry cleaner? That would get rid of the slightly funky smell, wouldn’t it?
Still, it was better than making conversation with Captain Broken Record and Her Royal Wrinkliness.
King was on the phone again, sounding as if he’d just slammed his willy in the car door. ‘How long? … Oh for goodness’ sake! … No, I know … OK, well, do what you can … Yeah. Thanks.’ A growly sigh, then a thud.
The passenger door clicked open and clunked shut as Steel got back in again. ‘I miss anything exciting?’
King gave a little strangled scream.
Steel did some sniffing. ‘Laz hasn’t farted again, has he?’
A finger jabbed into Logan’s shoulder. ‘Sergeant Winston says we’ve lost our Operational Support Unit too. They’ve been rerouted to a bar brawl in Peterhead. Going to be at least another hour and a half.’
Great. Wonderful.
Another hour and a half with the Chuckleless Brothers.
He pulled the hat off his face. ‘Well, what choice do we have?’
Steel’s face darkened, mouth working on something bitter. Then, ‘No. Sod that. Sod them. And sod this whole sloth-buggering wankfest.’ She clambered out again, slamming the passenger door behind her.
Logan sat up, staring as she marched off, past the skip and down the road towards Mhari Powell’s bungalow.
King poked him again. ‘Logan, Logan, Logan!’
Oh no. She wouldn’t.
Would she?
She bloody well would.
20
They scrambled from the car, Logan plipping the Audi’s locks as they hurried after her.
Not fast enough, though: Steel had too much of a lead. She banged through the garden gate and was reaching for Mhari Powell’s doorbell by the time King caught up with her.
He grabbed her arm. ‘Don’t!’
But she jammed her thumb down on the bell anyway.
King hauled her back a step. ‘Are you insane?’
She looked down at his hand, then up at his face. ‘You can either move that, or I’ll make you glove-puppet yourself.’ Voice cold and level. ‘Right up to the sodding elbow.’
Logan pushed himself between them, forcing them apart before the punches started. ‘All right, that’s enough. You’re both supposed to know better!’ He turned to Steel. ‘And you’re …’
The front door opened and there was the small mousy woman from the prison photo. She peered up at them through a curtain of dishwater hair, shoulders hunched, her posture meek and subservient. Cowed and nervous. Which might have had something to do with the bruising at the corner of her left eye. Her voice wobbled. ‘Yes?’
King stood up straight. ‘Mhari Canonach Powell?’
And she shrank a bit further into herself. ‘Have … Have I done something wrong?’
‘It’s OK.’ Logan gave her the most reassuring smile he could muster. ‘You’ve not done anything wrong, we just want to ask you a few questions, that’s all.’ He pointed past her into the bungalow. ‘Can we come in?’
‘I … no.’ She clutched the door. ‘The house is a mess. I’m …’ Her eyes turned away. ‘What’s this about?’
King loomed. ‘Your boyfriend, Haiden Lochhead. Where is he?’
‘I don’t …’ She shrank away from them. ‘I have to go.’
She went to close the door, but Logan got his foot into the gap before it could shut.
‘You’re not in any trouble, I promise.’
‘Please, I have to go.’ On the verge of tears. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
Steel elbowed Logan and King out of the way. ‘Shift it, you pair of turdhats.’ Then shrugged at Mhari Powell. ‘Never mind them, they’re men. And men are morons.’ She turned and made shooing motions. ‘Bit of privacy while we girls have a chat?’ And when they didn’t move, ‘Go. Away. Sod in the direction of off.’
As if she was somehow the saviour in the cock-up she’d created.
Logan sighed, shook his head. Then walked down the path to the pavement.
It took a couple of beats before King did the same.
Steel leaned in close to Mhari Powell for a muttered conversation that was too quiet to make out from the roadside, nothing but the vague tones of consolation, resignation, and wheedling.
King kept going, across the road to the other side, out of earshot. Stood there, gesturing until Logan joined him. Kept his voice down and nodded towards the house. ‘Did you see those bruises?’
‘Maybe Haiden’s a hands-on kind of boyfriend?’
‘She definitely knows something she’s not telling us. Along with everyone else.’ King pulled out his phone and poked at it. ‘Heather? It’s Frank. Get someone to look into Haiden Lochhead’s known associates … Uh-huh …’ He wandered off, feet scuffing along the kerb. ‘How about Milky, is she still sulk— … Thought she might be … I apologised! … Uh-huh …’ Voice fading as he disappeared behind the skip.
Logan turned and looked across the road, where Steel was still huddling with Mhari Powell and puffed out a breath. ‘“A nice easy case,” she said. “Something to ease you back into work,” she said. Aye, right.’ He pulled out his phone and checked for text messages, scrolling through the usual barrage of rubbish from Tufty, Rennie, and—
A crash sounded somewhere behind Mhari Powell’s house, wooden and splintery, with lots of swearing in a hard-core Ellon accent.
King poked his head out from behind the skip, stared at Mhari’s house, then at Logan. Then he was stuffing his phone into his pocket as he sprinted across the road.
Logan limped after King, a small knot in his stomach hissing at him with every step. That was the great thing about stab wounds – the gift that kept on giving. He gritted his teeth and limped faster. Broke into a run.
King disappeared around the side of the bungalow and Mhari pushed past Steel, waving her hands at them. ‘Where are you going? No! You can’t go in there! You can’t!’
Tough.
Logan pushed harder, squeezing the hissing knot down, bursting into the back garden just in time to see the last boards of what used to be a shed collapsing onto the grass.
Three paces and King launched himself at the fence. Scrambled up it. Looked lef
t and right. Deep breath. ‘STOP! POLICE!’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘It’s him!’ Then King wriggled over the top and dropped down the other side, disappearing from view. ‘I SAID STOP!’
No way Logan was assault-coursing over an eight-foot fence.
He stopped at the remains of the shed: spade, rake, hoe, an open bag of potting compost, tiny orange Flymo … Ah, there!
Logan dug the stepladder out of the wreckage and clacked it open. Rammed the feet into a flowerbed and clambered up, one hand on the aluminium and the other on the fence. Paused at the top.
A weedy overgrown path ran along behind the gardens, between the line of fencing and a drystane dyke that marked the edge of a thin band of woodland with more barley on the other side. No sign of Haiden, but King was just visible – fading into the distance.
No ladder for the other side, so the only choice was …
Logan hopped over the top and dropped onto the path. That knot went from hissing to bellowing, coils of frozen wire jabbing all the way through to his spine. Yeah, let’s not do that again.
Pulling out his phone, he run-hobbled after King. Breathing hard. Thumbing through the on-screen menus till he got to the contact entry stored as ‘HORRIBLE Steel!’ Poked the call icon. Ran past a slimy drift of grass clippings someone had dumped over their fence.
And finally she picked up. ‘What the hell was—’
‘It’s Haiden! Get your backside in the car and see if you can cut him off!’
‘Sodding …’ A scrunch-whurch-scrunch noise, which was probably her hurrying away from Mhari’s house. ‘Which way?’
‘Right, towards the main road.’ The motion was doing his scar tissue a bit of good, loosening it up. That or it was the adrenaline.
The path turned, following the woods as it skirted the houses of the next street over. ‘First left you can take!’
‘OK, I’m at the car …’
Logan dodged another impromptu compost heap of rotten grass clippings and bits of hedge. A hard right as the path turned again. Every laboured breath tasted of dust. ‘He’s making for the … for the main road! … I think … If you hurry … you can still catch him!’
‘Where’s the sodding car keys?’
‘Oh you have got … to be kidding me!’ They were in his pocket. Of course they sodding were.
‘You want me to break a window and hotwire it?’
‘Don’t you dare!’
Around another corner and—
Brakes! Brakes! Brakes!
Logan skidded to a halt, inches away from crashing into King. Silly sod was just standing there, panting, looking left and right along the line of painted fencing, where the path split in two, one side following the woods and drystane dyke, the other curving its way between two sets of rear gardens, disappearing into the overhanging darkness of spreading trees.
King grabbed his knees, hauling in breaths. ‘I don’t … don’t know … which … which way.’
‘You go left, I’ll go right.’
A sweaty-faced nod and King puffed away, along the side of the woods.
Logan limp-hobbled down the other path, into the shadows cast by those backyard branches.
Steel’s voice crackled out of the phone. ‘Aye, wee word of advice?’
As if he had enough breath for a sodding lecture. ‘Can we not—’
‘See if you do catch up with Haiden Lochhead? Let Kingy do the tackling, fighting, and arresting, eh? Haiden’s liable to be violent and I’d rather no’ lose my resident babysitter.’
This time, getting up any speed was a struggle. His legs were full of burning sand, feet full of concrete, lungs full of boiling mud. ‘I’ll … do my … do my … best …’
The path opened up and Logan burst out between the fences and onto a strip of short dying grass, then a path, then the main road. He stopped, both hands on his stomach, dragging in claggy evening air as he turned on the spot.
Nothing.
No cars, no people, and no Haiden Lochhead, just blue sky and sticky tarmac.
They’d lost him.
Logan limped down the road. Long shadows reached out from the houses on either side, the light growing gold and orange as the sun sank towards the horizon.
King joined him at the junction with Mhari Powell’s street, hobbling along, one hand clutching his side, face all pink and sweaty where it wasn’t smeared with dark brown and green. More on his shirt. He’d torn his trouser leg too. Breathing hard. ‘Remind me why we thought it was a good idea to join the police?’
‘Are you sure it was him?’
‘Positive. Well, not positive. But … kind of. I didn’t see his face, but who else could it be?’
Logan wiped a hand across his forehead, it came away dripping.
They passed Logan’s Audi, then the skip, emerging from the other side to a slow handclap: Steel was waiting for them at Mhari’s garden gate.
‘Oh aye. Very impressive. Well done.’
King’s face darkened a shade. ‘And where the hell were you?’
‘I was supervising, Kingy.’
‘We wouldn’t be in this position if you hadn’t gone off half-cocked in the first place!’
‘Oh aye?’ She stepped closer, chin out. ‘Don’t blame me. No’ my fault you couldn’t catch syphilis in a brothel.’
King’s eyes bugged. ‘In a …?’ He threw his arms out. ‘YOU BLEW THIS WHOLE THING! YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE GONE TO THE HOUSE!’ Then he shoved her, hard enough to send her staggering back a couple of paces. ‘YOU SHOULD’VE STAYED IN THE BLOODY CAR LIKE YOU WERE ORDERED!’
Oh even more joy.
Steel surged at him, fists curled. ‘That’s it, you’re getting—’
Logan stepped between them. Again. ‘All right, enough!’ He poked King in the chest. ‘You: go stand over there and cool down.’ Then poked Steel too. ‘You’re out of order, Detective Sergeant! Threatening a senior officer? Are you trying to get busted down to constable? Wasn’t the last demotion enough?’
She glowered at him. Then at King. Then sniffed. Stuck her hands in her pockets and her bottom lip out. Looked away. ‘He started it.’
‘I don’t care who—’
‘He pushed me.’
‘You’re a police officer, not a six-year-old!’ God’s sake. Logan marched up the path to the front door, where Mhari was still cowering just inside, one hand clutching her throat. Eyes wide as she bit her bottom lip.
He stopped in front of her and had a go at firm-but-reasonable. ‘I don’t want to arrest you, I really don’t. But if you harbour an escaped prisoner …’ Sigh. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
Her face puckered, eyes shining as the tears threatened. ‘I can’t … I’m sorry. You don’t know what he’s like. Please.’
‘Then help me to help you. He’s violent, isn’t he?’ Because men like Haiden always were. ‘He hit you – I can see the bruises.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘He loves me.’
And you know what? Maybe he did. Maybe Haiden really did love her in his own twisted fashion. But that wouldn’t stop him beating her to a pulp for looking at him the wrong way, or contradicting him, or burning the toast, or just because his football team lost. Dickheads like him thought it was their right.
‘I know it’s not easy, but there are things we can do: support, women’s shelters. Better yet, we can put him in prison again, where he belongs.’
Tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘Please don’t ask me that. I can’t. I can’t.’
And maybe next time Haiden would put her in the hospital. Or the mortuary.
God, this job was depressing sometimes.
Logan nodded, then slipped a Police Scotland business card out of his wallet – printing his mobile number in biro on the front. ‘Here. You can call me any time, day or night. You don’t have to live in fear of him, Mhari. We can help.’
She took the card, still not meeting his eyes.
‘And if Haiden tries to get in touch again, tell him we’re watching the hou
se. That’ll keep him away.’
She wiped a palm across her face, sniffed, then closed the door on them.
And that was that.
Logan turned away from the bungalow and marched over to where Steel was sulking. ‘I can’t even begin to describe how much trouble you’re in right now.’
Steel shrugged. ‘Come on, don’t be like—’
‘If you hadn’t charged off on your own because you couldn’t be arsed waiting, Haiden Lochhead wouldn’t have got away!’
She just stared at him.
Well, you know what? She wasn’t wriggling out of it this time.
‘What do you think the media are going to make of it? What do you think the top brass are going to do?’
‘I was only trying to—’
‘Professor Wilson could die because of this!’ Putting a bit of force behind it.
She pursed her lips. Stared down at her boots. ‘I’m sorry.’
Yeah, that probably wasn’t going to cut it this time.
21
Parched countryside rippled past the windows in shades of yellow and grey, the air shimmering above heat-hazed tarmac, as they headed towards town. Steel banished to the back seat, King sitting up front. Scowls and frowns all round.
King glowered at the rear-view mirror. ‘I still say we should’ve arrested her.’
Steel snorted. ‘Aye, and I still say you should ram it up your spudhole.’
‘Sergeant—’
‘All right!’ Logan raised a hand off the steering wheel. ‘All right. God’s sake …’ Why him? Why couldn’t they bugger off and annoy someone else instead? ‘We couldn’t arrest her, because we couldn’t prove she’d done anything wrong.’
King slapped a hand down on the dashboard. ‘She was harbouring Haiden Lochhead!’
‘And how are we going to prove that? You didn’t even see his face, could’ve been any random numpty disappearing off into the sodding sunset.’
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