Dark Blood lm-6

by Stuart MacBride

  His head snaps back. Graeme stumbles, pain bursting inside his nose. ‘Fucking…’ Everything tastes of blood. Another thump, hard in his chest, knocking all the air from his lungs.

  Detective Superintendent Danby staggers against the bed.

  Thump — a stabbing ache in his kidneys.

  He grits his teeth and throws a punch, eyes watering too much to aim, just going on instinct.

  Misses.

  Something hard cracks into the back of his head. The world goes white and crackly, then the carpet rushes up to meet him, slamming into his cheek.

  His phone skitters away under the bed, Val’s voice tinny and far away as she makes plans for their trip to New Zealand. His early retirement. Their happy life together.

  A boot cracks into his ribs. ‘Get up you fat bastard.’ A Newcastle accent. Oh Jesus, no…Not now. Not when he was so close!

  Graeme gets his right arm underneath him and pushes himself to his knees. ‘Fucking bastards…’ The words won’t come out right, his face isn’t working.

  He struggles to his feet, rocking back and forth on his heels. The room swirls around him. Blink. He wipes a huge fist across his blurry eyes. ‘Bloody kill…’

  A shape swims into focus. Woman. Short. Blonde hair cut in a shoulder-length bob. Jacket, jeans, cowboy boots. A werewolf smile. ‘DSI Danby, so nice to see you again. How’s the wife and kids?’

  He staggers back a step. ‘You…?’

  She looks to the side. ‘Neil?’

  Something slams into Graeme’s head.

  Darkness.

  They carry him down the service stairs at the back of the building. Can’t use the lifts, cos of the security cameras.

  Neil grunts, arms wrapped around Danby’s torso. ‘Christ, he weighs a ton.’

  Doesn’t look too great either: his face is all covered in blood, there’s a big lump on the back of his shiny head, and the bruises are already starting to darken.

  They pause on the next landing, catching their breath.

  Danby’s white bathrobe is all stained red down the front. Flopping open.

  Tony frowns. ‘Urgh…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can see his cock.’

  ‘Then don’t bloody look.’

  Julie’s waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs, where there’s a little car park and some industrial-sized wheelie bins. Tony peers out the door at the falling snow.

  ‘Cameras?’

  ‘Don’t sweat it, Babe: all taken care of…’ She frowned. ‘Why’s he got his knob out? Did you guys get all amorous halfway down the stairs?’

  Neil grimaces. ‘No offence, but this bastard’s heavy.’

  ‘Okeydoke.’ She leads the way to the generic white van they stole earlier, the number plates fudged a bit with black electrical tape. Well, you’d have to be a right mentalist to use your own car, wouldn’t you? Some nosey bastard or CCTV camera always sees something.

  Julie pops open the back doors and they tumble Danby inside, hands fastened behind his back with thick black cableties, legs strapped together at the ankle, duct tape gag over that big hairy gob of his.

  She ducks into the passenger seat and comes back with something tartan — a pillowcase from their room. She slips it over Danby’s battered head, then fastens another cable-tie around his neck, just below his chin.

  Tony shifts his feet. ‘Are you sure that’s-’

  ‘Don’t worry, Darling, he’s not going to choke.’ She smiles. ‘You can ride in the back to make sure, if you like?’

  Tony looks at the scarred, rusty metal floor of the van, then at the front seats. ‘Actually, I think-’

  ‘You can ride in the back.’ Julie’s not smiling any more.

  Tony clears his throat. Stares at the ground for a moment. Then clambers up into the cold metal interior and pulls the doors shut behind him.

  Julie and Neil get in the front.

  The van slips out of the car park, windscreen wipers clunking back and forth.

  OK, so it’s uncomfortable and cold in the back, but it’s nothing compared to what’s waiting for Danby, is it?

  Always gotta look on the bright side…

  Moonlight casts a cold white bar across the bed, shining though the gap between the curtains, turning the scratchy tartan blanket monochrome beneath his naked elbows. Hands together. Head bowed in prayer.

  Our Father who art in heaven,

  He can hear the old man swearing in the other room. Has to hurt, all that violence — the whipping, the biting, the punches.

  Hallowed be Thy name,

  A tear plops onto the blanket, swallowed by the darkness.

  Can’t do this any more.

  Don’t want to do this any more.

  Thy will be done,

  That’s the razorblade in the forbidden apple, isn’t it?

  Richard stands, wipes his palm across his wet cheeks. His hand aches, the knuckles swollen and cracked, covered in bruises. Cradling it against his chest, he picks his way through the gloom to the window and stands there with the blade of moonlight slicing down his naked body. The skin so pale it looks dead.

  Thy kingdom come,

  He peers out through the gap in the curtains. There’s a car sitting in the snowy driveway, a new-looking people carrier. Richard doesn’t know if it belongs to the old man or not.

  On Earth as it is in Heaven…

  Doesn’t really matter, does it? Too risky to take it — people would know. The police’ve got them cameras now that photograph your number plate and run it against some sort of database.

  Richard leans forward and breathes on the glass, turning it white, then draws on it with a finger: making a circle with a cross in the middle. It’s not a crucifix unless it’s got Jesus on it, you know? His Granny Murray would have tanned his backside for drawing graven images like, so it’s just a cross.

  Empty.

  Waiting for its sacrificial offering.

  Crying condensation tears.

  Moonlight makes it glow…and then the clouds sweep back in, and the moon’s gone, leaving the world to the shadows. Icy snow rattles the window.

  Richard shivers, his pale, naked skin covered with goose pimples.

  Let there be darkness.

  45

  DI Steel slumped back against the corridor wall, knocking a watercolour of Old Aberdeen squint against the burgundy wallpaper. ‘If you were a chubby Geordie bastard, where would you run off to?’

  Logan peered around the doorframe into the hotel room. Three IB techs, all Smurfed up in SOC-white, were going over the room with fingerprint powder, cotton swabs, and sticky tape. There was a stain of cherry-red on the oatmeal carpet, by the end of the bed.

  ‘Did you get anything useful out of Urquhart? The van driver?’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘I’ve still no’ forgiven you for making me walk back in the bloody snow, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I said I’m sorry.’

  ‘So you should be.’ Sniff. ‘For some reason the silly sod thought he was looking at attempted murder, nearly peed himself to cut a deal. He’s giving us the whole smuggling operation from-’

  ‘Inspector?’ One of the IB techs, on their hands and knees at the side of the bed, dropped until their chest was resting on the carpet, one arm reaching into the space between the bed and the floor, round arse wiggling as they dug about. Logan recognized the view — Samantha. ‘Think I’ve found something…’

  She beckoned one of the other techs over, a bloke with a huge digital camera slung around his neck. He lay down next to her, and took a couple of shots. Then Samantha pulled a small silver mobile phone out from under the bed.

  She flipped it open in her purple-gloved hand and pressed a couple of buttons. ‘Last call was made at five to eleven last night, from “home”: think it’s a Newcastle number. Lasted twenty minutes.’

  Steel stuck her hand out. ‘Give.’

  From the front, Samantha didn’t look much like herself, everything hidden
by that baggy white suit, the hood covering her bright red hair, wearing a facemask and safety goggles. She hesitated for a moment, slipped the phone into an evidence bag, wrote the time, date, location, and other details into the appropriate boxes printed on the outside, then handed it to another tech with a clipboard. Who made some more notes.

  Steel puffed out her cheeks. ‘Today would be nice!’

  The Crime Scene Manager didn’t even look up. ‘Sounds like someone got out the wrong side of bed this-’

  ‘Pete, I’m warning you — my holiday’s been cancelled, my wife’s no’ speaking to me, and I’ve got itchy bits — don’t screw me about!’

  ‘Evidentiary procedures exist for a reason, Inspector.’ He went back to making notes.

  Logan looked up and down the hall. ‘Have you checked the tapes from the lobby and the lifts? I noticed the security cameras when-’

  Steel smacked him one. ‘Course I bloody checked. Nothing. Must’ve taken the service lift, or the back stairs. Got IB looking for trace as we speak. I have done this kind of thing before, you know?’

  Logan wandered off to the end of the corridor, opened the door marked ‘EMERGENCY EXIT’ and stared down the service stairs — bare concrete steps, plain walls. Sod carrying someone like Danby down that lot, be just asking for a hernia.

  Someone cleared their throat behind him, and Logan sighed. ‘What now?’

  ‘Just wanted to say hello…’

  Samantha. She had her SOC hood thrown back, exposing a wildfire eruption of scarlet hair, her facemask dangling on the elastic, just beneath her chin.

  He pulled on a smile, leaned in and kissed her. ‘Hello.’

  Logan nodded back towards the room. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Rough guess? It’s an abduction. If they wanted him dead, there’d be a big pink corpse in there…’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘You see the papers today?’

  ‘What, “Tyneside Sex-Beast Strikes Again”?’

  Richard Knox had attacked an old man living in Cove, just south of the city, and the Aberdeen Examiner somehow managed to secure a huge exclusive. Finnie hadn’t exactly been pleased. Especially when it turned out that Danby had gone missing too.

  ‘Actually…’ A little wrinkle appeared between Samantha’s neatly plucked eyebrows. ‘You know what? It’ll wait.’ She leaned in and planted a soft kiss on his lips.

  ‘Now I’m really starting to worry…’

  She looked away. ‘They found that kid’s suicide note: the art student. He’d posted it on Facebook. Got a two-page spread in the Examiner, printed the whole thing. Said he couldn’t live with the constant police harassment.’

  Logan stared at her. ‘What bloody harassment? I interviewed him twice!’

  She backed off, hands up. ‘Hey, I’m only telling you what was in the note.’

  ‘Little bastard. How could he say that?’ Logan buried his face in his hands. ‘You know what this means, don’t you? Parents make a formal complaint and I get hauled up in front of Professional Sodding Standards again.’

  Which explained why Big Gary wouldn’t look him in the eye when he’d signed in at the station this morning.

  Steel came lumbering up the corridor. ‘Called the number: Danby’s wife. She spoke to him last night, hung up after the line went quiet for a while. Says he falls asleep in front of the telly a lot.’ Steel looked Samantha up and down. ‘Hey, Red.’

  ‘Inspector.’

  Silence.

  ‘So, tell me.’ Steel smiled. ‘Collar and cuffs: they match?’

  ‘…I need to get back to the scene.’ Samantha marched back towards Danby’s hotel room, her cheeks bright pink.

  Logan closed the stairwell door. ‘Did you have to do that?’

  ‘Love-life’s in the crapper, remember? Got to get my jollies where I can.’ She made for the lifts, dragging Logan behind her. ‘Come on, we’ve got an auld mannie to visit.’

  Sunlight struggled through the blinds into the over-warm room. Unlike the rest of the hospital, the victim support suite had plush carpets, a soft sofa with stain-free cushions, a coffee table with gaily-coloured coasters and up-to-date magazines. And a camera sitting in the corner on a tripod, the red light glowing to show it was recording.

  An old man crouched in a floral-print armchair, his clawed fingers picking at the seam of his trousers. His face was a mess of green and purple bruises, a bite mark clear on the wrinkled skin of his left wrist. Even so, the doctors said he’d got off lightly compared to Harry from Sacro. Small mercies.

  His voice was barely a whisper. ‘Want to go home.’

  ‘I know, Jimmy, I know. We just need to ask you a few more questions…’ The Family Liaison officer shifted on the sofa. ‘Can you describe the man who attacked you?’

  ‘Don’t want to be here. Want to go home.’

  Sitting in the little observation room next door, Logan watched DI Steel reach forward and take one of Jimmy’s hands. ‘It’s OK, Jimmy, we’ll take you home soon. We just want to make sure we catch whoever hurt you.’

  Her voice came from a small speaker bolted to the wall on the dark side of the two-way mirror.

  Logan settled back in his plastic chair and picked up the copy of that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner, abandoned on the little desk where the DVD recorder and TV screen sat. The front page headline screamed, ‘TYNESIDE SEX-BEAST STRIKES AGAIN — RICHARD KNOX ON RAPE RAMPAGE IN THE NORTH EAST’ above a photo of Jimmy Evans’s bruised face. Christ knew how Colin Miller managed to get his hands on the victim before the police.

  According to the paper, Jimmy Evans was a retired shipbuilder from Sunderland, who’d moved to the north-east of Scotland after the death of his wife. An unremarkable man who’d lived an unremarkable life, right up until yesterday afternoon. He’d come home and discovered someone breaking into his garage, tried to be a have-a-go hero, and ended up with Richard Knox.

  There was a lurid account of the attack, and then a little tagline saying, ‘COMMENT ON PAGE 6’.

  Sod the commentary, Logan flipped through the rumpled newsprint, looking for Douglas Walker’s suicide note. He found it on pages nine and ten, printed like a screen-grab, complete with the first few replies and comments from the art student’s Facebook friends.

  Steel had been right, a chunk of it was in poetry. According to the accompanying article, Walker was a naive young man who’d got caught up in things he didn’t understand and been persecuted by the police because of it.

  The note claimed he’d been interviewed all weekend, never allowed to sleep, pressured to make a confession. And the harassment had kept up once he’d been released on bail. Never ending. Poking and prodding. Until Douglas Walker just couldn’t take it any more.

  He was sorry.

  Lying tosser.

  Twice. Logan had interviewed him twice. And never at home.

  Through in the victim support lounge Steel and the FLO were still trying to tease information out of Knox’s latest victim.

  Logan pulled out his phone, grimacing as his fingers touched the evidence bag with his puke-stained notebook in it. He pulled that out too and dumped it on the desk.

  Should really throw the thing out. But it had Douglas Walker’s statement in it, his handing over of the holdall full of counterfeit notes, and his agreement to come into the station voluntarily. All the stuff Professional Standards would need to see.

  He picked up his new mobile and called Colin Miller.

  ‘Laz, foos yer doos, my sheepshaggin’ friend?’

  ‘Where did you get the exclusive?’

  ‘What, no witty repartee?’ Sigh. ‘Which one? Got three in the paper the day: Sex Scandal Rocks Local School, Drug Dealers’ Vigilante Fears, or Tyneside Sex-Beast-’

  ‘That one: how did you get hold of Jimmy Evans before we did?’

  ‘The auld mannie? His son emailed me.’

  Logan flipped back to the paper’s front page. Colin’s Aberdeen Examiner email address was printed under his by-line. ‘Email?’

/>   ‘Member of the BlackBerry generation, Laz. Online twenty-four-seven. Found out just in time to get it in: hold the front page, the whole works. Brilliant, so it was.’ Pause. ‘So…what do you think? Knox has to be escalatin’, right? First his Sacro handler and now the old boy. Two in two days.’

  ‘I’m not giving you a quote, Colin.’

  ‘Aw, come on, man. I’ll make it, “sources close to the investigation” if you like?’

  Logan put the paper back on the tabletop. ‘Tell me about Jimmy Evans and I’ll think about it.’

  ‘The son’s up visitin’ from Sunderland with his wife — they come back from some party, and there’s the old man in the back garden, wanderin’ in the snow, wearing nothing but his jim-jams. They bundle him into the car and drive him straight to A amp;E. Son emails me from the waiting room, cos he’d seen my stuff in the papers.’

  ‘They didn’t search the house?’

  ‘Laz, if your dad was workin’ on a dose of hypothermia with his face all battered, would you?’

  46

  ‘I’m not your enemy, Logan.’ The Chief Inspector took a sip of tea, peering at him over the rim of the mug.

  ‘All I’m saying is I should be out there, searching the house.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure DI Steel can manage without you for an hour or so.’ Chief Inspector Young — filling in while Professional Standards’ arch bastard Superintendent Napier was off at a conference somewhere — smiled. He had broad shoulders; short hair greying at the temples; big meaty fists, the knuckles criss-crossed with scar tissue; and small, dark eyes, surrounded by starburst wrinkles. The kind of man you’d want standing in front of you on crowd control, or forcing entry into a drug dealer’s flat.

  The Professional Standards Unit wasn’t exactly Logan’s favourite part of Force Headquarters, which was a shame, considering how often he had to visit. Young shared his office with another chief inspector, who’d excused himself as soon as Logan arrived — giving them a bit of privacy for the bit where Chief Inspector Young bent Logan over the desk and, as Biohazard Bob so gleefully put it, proceeded without the aid of lubricant.