‘Got thrown off the set three times. Then she broke in.’ Logan hung his jacket on the back of his chair, then settled in behind his desk. Some sod had dumped a big pile of interview transcripts in his in-tray, as if he didn’t have anything better to do …
Steel clapped her hands together. ‘Well, don’t just sit there: get us a pool car and we’ll go a-visiting!’
Logan stared at her. ‘“Being a DI’s no’ about running around”—’
‘Oh, don’t be such a whinge. You said this Andrea’s a suicide risk, right?’
‘Agnes. Do you ever pay any attention to anything I—’
‘Be derelict in our duty if we didn’t follow up on an important lead that could save a young woman’s life. So get your arse in gear. I’ll come along and … supervise.’
‘I don’t need you holding—’
‘No, no,’ she held up a hand, ‘I insist. A good senior officer knows when to step in and lend a hand with the troops.’
‘How very team-spirited of you.’ He didn’t move.
Steel bounced up and down on the spot, like a horny terrier. ‘Porn, porn, porn, porn, porn!’
Like working in a kindergarten.
He hauled himself up and pulled his jacket on again. ‘If you’re going to do that all the way, you’re going in the boot.’
‘Porn!’ She did a little hop-skip, then turned and trundled down the corridor. ‘Been ages since we’ve seen the chunky monkey. Think he’ll still remember me?’
Logan closed and locked the office door. ‘Wish I didn’t.’
‘I heard that.’ But she didn’t stop.
He followed her down the stairs, through the station’s rear doors, and out onto the rear podium car park. It was bordered on two sides by the concrete bulk of Force Headquarters, the mortuary on the third, and the back side of King Street, turning it into a sun trap.
A couple of uniforms were lounging against the little dividing wall that ran along the ramp down to road level, faces turned to the sky, sunglasses glinting, their bare arms going an angry shade of Barbie pink.
Steel hauled out her cigarettes and popped one in her mouth. Then patted down her pockets. ‘Arsebiscuits …’ She looked at Logan. ‘Well?’
‘Thought you’d given up.’
‘Quitting is for wimps. Besides, if I’m going to be stuck with your miserable mug all afternoon, I’ll need a wee nicotine buzz going. It’s this or the whisky.’ She cupped her hands around her mouth in a makeshift loudhailer. ‘Hoy, Chuckle Brothers, either of you got a light?’
Someone tugged at Logan’s sleeve. ‘Guv?’
He turned, and there was PC Sim, blinking in the sunlight. She sneezed a couple of times, like a shotgun going off in a bath. Then wiped her nose. ‘Sorry.’ Another sneeze. A blink. Pause. ‘Big Gary says you’re not allowed out till you’ve seen your visitor. Sir.’
‘I don’t have any—’
‘Sorry, Guv, it’s …’ She screwed up one side of her face and then the sneezing was back.
Logan left her, doubled over by a battered police van, and hauled out his phone. Punched in the number for Sergeant McCormack. ‘What visitor?’
‘Aye, and hello to you too. Sim get you?’
She was still at it – sneezing and sneezing and sneezing.
‘What visitor, Gary?’
‘The visitor who’s been waiting in the reception room for the last twenty minutes.’
He stared up at the building, looming in black and grey over the car park. ‘You could’ve bloody said! I’ve been in my office for the last—’
‘Your guest’s getting a wee bit tetchy, by the way. Might be an idea to come see them before you sod off with old Wrinklechops.’
‘Who? Who’s waiting for me, Gary?’
A pause. ‘You’ll see.’
By the time Logan had reached reception, Big Gary was standing behind the desk, a huge fat smile on his huge fat face. He grinned through the safety glass, then pointed off to the right. ‘In there.’
The reception-room door was shut. Logan keyed his passcode into the pad mounted on the wall beside it, then stepped inside …
Sod.
Hissing Sid was sitting at the little grey table, arms folded across his chest. Shirt and suit jacket immaculate beneath the scowl. The lawyer checked his watch. ‘I have been waiting here for precisely twenty-two and a half minutes. Do you have any idea how inconvenient this is?’ A sniff. ‘There isn’t even a wireless network for visitors.’
Logan nudged the door shut behind him. ‘Reuben’s guilty and you know it.’
‘If you had any evidence to that effect, you wouldn’t have had to let him go, would you?’
‘He punched me in the face. I was there. I bloody well saw it!’
Hissing Sid brought his chin up. ‘I don’t appreciate your tone, Acting DI McRae.’
‘Think you’ll appreciate my boot up your—’
‘I’d love to sit around listening to threats of police brutality, but thanks to you I’m running behind as it is.’ He reached down beside him and came out with his briefcase. Clicked it open, then pulled out a small brown envelope and placed it on the tabletop. Then went back in for a standard white DL one. He placed it beside the brown one, then pushed them both across the table towards Logan. ‘These are for you.’
Logan backed up a step. ‘A brown envelope, seriously?’
‘If you’re inferring that it contains a bribe, you’re mistaken. The contents should be self-explanatory, but if you’re feeling challenged by any aspect, you can always contact my office and make an appointment.’ He clicked his briefcase shut again. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, our time is up.’
Logan stared down at the pair of envelopes. ‘What is it then, blackmail?’
A small smile slithered around Hissing Sid’s mouth. ‘For blackmail to be effective, the target has to have done something wrong. Otherwise there would be nothing to blackmail them about. Have you done something wrong, Acting Detective Inspector?’
He backed off another step. The door handle pressed into the base of his spine. ‘Of course not.’ At least, nothing that Hissing Sid could have found out about … Could he?
‘Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?’
‘But what—’
‘DI McRae, do you have any idea how much my services cost per hour? While my client had cleared me to brief you on the contents of these envelopes, you kept me waiting so long that the allocated time is now gone. And as my client is an old family friend I am unwilling to charge him more to make up for your tardiness.’
‘But—’
‘Make an appointment with my office.’ Then Hissing Sid stood, staring at Logan with expressionless grey eyes. ‘Now, if you don’t mind …?’
Logan stepped to the side and let him out.
Hissing Sid limped across reception and out through the front doors into the sunny afternoon.
Back in the reception room, Logan closed the door. Two envelopes from a ‘family friend’ of Sandy Moir-Farquharson. Didn’t take a genius to tell who that meant: Wee Hamish Mowat.
Maybe it was a bribe after all – drop the charges against Reuben, and all this could be yours …
Logan picked the envelopes up. Weighed them in his hand. Or maybe—
A bang on the door and he flinched hard enough to jump a foot to the right. Then stood there, pulse throbbing in his ears, making his arms itch.
Steel’s voice blared through the wood. ‘Come on, get a shift on: there’s fresh porn getting all cold!’
Logan stuffed the envelopes into his pocket. Well, it wasn’t as if he could just leave them lying about, was it? God knew what was inside …
‘ … and we’re making substantial progress with the enquiry.’ Steel slouched in the passenger seat, one foot up on the dashboard, one arm dangling out of the car window, mobile phone jammed between her ear and her shoulder as she rearranged her bra.
The s
ecurity guard was a lump of muscle squeezed into a brown polyester shirt. He peered in at Logan, then over at Steel – just in time to catch her digging about in her cleavage with her spare hand.
The guard frowned. ‘You sure she’s police?’
‘Wish I wasn’t.’ Logan pointed past the barrier at the car park, laid out in front of the two-storey office block. It was crammed with vehicles. ‘Anywhere?’
‘ … That’s right, sir, several lines of enquiry are opening up, and now we’ve got that forensic anthropologist on board … Yes, thank you, sir, it was a good idea of mine, but I can’t take all the credit.’
Typical.
The security guard checked his clipboard, then took a couple of steps away from the car and spoke into a two-way radio. Whatever he said, it was too quiet to make anything out. Especially with Steel droning away.
‘ … no, sir, it’s too soon to promise an arrest’s on its way to the media, but between you and me: we’re confident … Yes … Right …’
And then the guard was back, holding a pair of ID cards dangling from fluorescent orange lanyards. He handed them through the window. ‘Make sure your pass is visible at all times. Go round the production block, there’s overflow parking in front of Soundstage One. Five miles an hour, tops.’ He leaned into the car again. ‘Not fifteen, not thirty: five.’
‘Just make sure someone knows we’re coming.’
The parking barrier jerked up and Logan eased the pool car over the threshold into tinsel town. Or what passed for it in the north-east of Scotland.
A pair of big grey warehouses sat behind the office block. Logan followed the road around at a glacial five miles per hour.
‘ … aye, sir, you can count on me.’ Steel hung up, then peered out at Soundstage One. It was at least four storeys tall, with a big ‘1’ stencilled up the front in gold paint. ‘You and me are in the wrong business, Laz. Looks like the dirty movies is where the money is.’
‘We’re making substantial progress?’
A tanned young woman in denim shorts and a cut-off T-shirt flip-flopped past pushing a rail of what looked like nuns’ costumes.
Steel grinned. ‘That’s your global recession for you. Every bugger’s got to cut back on the frivolous stuff like food and heating, but they’ll no’ give up their porn.’
Logan pulled up in one of the bays marked out in yellow paint beside the soundstage door, ignoring the ‘REVERSE PARK ONLY’ notice. ‘The ACC’s going to know it was all bullshit. We’re no nearer finding out who necklaced that poor sod than we were two days ago.’
‘The ACC believes what I tell him to believe.’ She slapped Logan on the chest. ‘Now shut up: you’re harshing my pre-porn tingles.’
A thin young man marched over from the office block, a leather satchel slung across one shoulder. Long hair, knee-length shorts, blue plimsoles, ‘BOD IS MY CO-PILOT’ T-shirt, and thick-rimmed glasses. Half a dozen friendship bracelets dangled tatty braided tails from his left wrist. He reached the car as they climbed out. Grinned at them. Then pulled an iPad in a red leather case from his manbag and fiddled with it. Then nodded. ‘Hi, you’re … Logan and Roberta, right? Can I see your passes?’
Logan handed them both over.
‘Right, I actually need you to wear these, OK? And make sure they’re visible. We’ve had a bit of a problem with unauthorized people …’ He gave the passes back.
As soon as Logan put his on, the young man took a photo of him with the iPad. He did the same with Steel. ‘Cool, all in the system. OK, well, my name’s Jack,’ he jiggled his own pass at them, ‘I’m the go-to guy round here, so if there’s anything you need: let me know. Right, let’s do this.’
Jack turned on his heel and marched off around the side of Soundstage One.
Steel licked her lips, a frown creasing up the terrain of her forehead. ‘Why am I getting a bad feeling about this?’
They followed him, past a stack of foam and fibreglass bodies, most of which had bits hacked off.
He looked back over his shoulder. ‘I know, creepy right? You should see them when they’re all wired up by the FX guys, it’s totally amazing. Got to hold onto them till we finish pickups, just in case.’
Steel dropped her voice to a hissing whisper. ‘What kind of porno needs a big pile of mangled corpses?’
Logan stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘Jack, you been here a while?’
‘Since the very start! It’s been … an amazing experience. Seriously, what an introduction to the business, right?’
‘Do you remember an Agnes Garfield?’
‘Oh, my, God.’ He rolled his eyes, one hand pressed against his chest. ‘Could she have been any more of a nutbag? It’s creepy when people get obsessed like that, isn’t it? I mean, it’s only a film, right?’
Steel shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t know.’
‘Right, here we are.’ Jack swept his arms out, encompassing the front of another dirty big warehouse, this one with the number ‘2’ painted in silver all up the front and over the massive sliding doors. If anything it was even larger than the first one. ‘Oh-oh, we’ve got a red light, so we’re going to have to wait here for a minute or two.’
Logan rested his back against the warm metal wall. ‘They had to throw her off the studio lot three times?’
‘I know, and then she broke in! Can you believe it? There’s props missing from the stores and everything.’ A sigh. ‘That’s why we’ve all got to be like super vigilant about passes. Even the actors have to wear them between scenes.’
Steel puckered her lips. ‘What, stark bollock naked with a stiffy and wee ID card dangling about?’
Jack’s smile slipped a little. ‘A … stiffy?’
‘Aye, between scenes. When they’re no’ humping?’
His mouth fell open a half-inch. Then clacked shut again, and the insincere smile was back. ‘Well, that’s us got a green light now. Shall we?’
17
Steel stood in the doorway and stared. Soundstage Two was massive, broken up into different sets. The biggest was a four-storey block of flats in partial cutaway, the rooms full of battered furniture and grubby wallpaper, with what looked like a water tank at the bottom. Three people in dirty coveralls and facemasks were spray-painting stains onto one of the rooms.
Then there was a shanty town at the foot of a cliff, and the inside of what might have been a fishing boat. They all backed onto vast sweeps of green fabric marked with little yellow crosses. But other than a handful of people doing set-dressing, the locations were deserted. All the real activity was taking place around the set in the far corner – a sort of circular House of Commons, with raked green leather bench seating and carved woodwork, arranged around a central island of red carpet and a massive brass lectern.
Half of the set was green-screen, but they’d built a segment of wall with more benches, a couple of balconies, and a curved ceiling painted blue with gold stars.
Two figures walked towards the middle of the round floor. One was wearing a black robe speckled with gold embroidery, his bald patch surrounded by thick grey hair that cascaded down to the middle of his back. The other was … stunning: long ginger curls, elfin face, little upturned nose, and a perfect bow of a mouth. Nichole Fyfe. Much more impressive in the flesh than she was on the TV yesterday morning. A dark scar jagged down through her pale skin, starting at her left temple, across her big blue eye, and all the way down her cheek, separating the freckles. Black jeans, black leather frock coat, red silk shirt, black leather gloves. A long-handled old-fashioned pipe jutted out between her teeth – just like the one he’d found in Agnes Garfield’s Harry Potter hideaway – puffing smoke signals out in the studio lights.
A camera dolly followed them along the track – its operator sitting on the round stool mounted to the metal framework, fiddling with knobs and buttons, while someone else pushed the thing back into place.
A voice crackled out through speakers, hidden somewhere on the set.
‘OK, that was great, but this time, Nichole, can you break in across Charles’s line about the bodies all bearing the devil’s mark? You’re not interested in his superstitious nonsense.’
Jack pulled a face, then jerked his head towards a cluster of monitors and cables. ‘Oops, better be quick.’ He hurried over, beckoning Logan and Steel after him.
Enthroned on a folding director’s chair, at the heart of the nest of cables, was a huge man – tall and wide, with a bizarre hairstyle that looked as if he’d attached a lopsided shark’s fin to his head then sprayed it scarlet. The goatee beard was an unnatural shade of Just-For-Men black. His thin rectangular glasses glinted in the reflected light of a little TV screen. ‘OK, everyone, we’re running scene three-sixty-two …’
‘Excuse me, Zander, sir, you’ve got visitors.’
The big man didn’t look up from the monitor. ‘I’ve told you, Jack, you don’t have to call me “sir”. We’re all artists here … Aaaaaaaaaand: action!’
The whole place went silent.
Then a voice crackled through the speakers. ‘Three-sixty-two, take four.’ Followed by a clack.
Nichole Fyfe looked up at the man in the robes. ‘She has to be stopped.’
A sigh. ‘I understand your concerns, but she’s a good finder. One of the best we have.’
‘She’s a psychopath! A monster!’ Nichole’s blue eyes blazed. ‘She’s worse than the people we’re hunting.’
Steel tugged at Logan’s sleeve, then warm stale cigarette breath whispered in his ear. ‘Is the shagging going to start soon? Only I’m no’ looking forward to the old git getting his knob out. Even if he manages to get it up, it’ll be all grey and wrinkly.’
‘You have to understand: we have an obligation to uphold the peace.’
‘You can’t do that by murdering people!’ Nichole turned and marched towards the camera as it backed off along the dolly track. ‘I didn’t join the Fingermen for this.’
Steel made a small moaning noise. ‘Mind you, if she wants to get her kinky on I’m all for it.’
‘Will you shut up?’
‘Rowan!’ The man in the robes limped after her. ‘Mrs Shepherd found the Devil’s mark on every one of those—’
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 7 and 8 Page 53