Logan looked at her. ‘What if they’re loyal.’
‘Not worth the risk. Got to cut out the cancer before it spreads.’ She slowed down for a corner, the tyres rumbling over a lumpy mixture of slush and ice. ‘Then you go after the pig.’
Logan turned back to the window. ‘That’s what I was thinking.’
‘He awake yet, Babe?’
‘Dunno. Think he’s faking it?’
‘One way to check.’
Pain lances through Detective Superintendent Graeme Danby’s nipples. His eyes snap open and he roars. Or tries to. There’s something over his mouth. Something over his head, making everything dim and muffled. He rocks back and forth, fire burning across his chest.
‘Gotta love the titty-twister, like.’
Fucking hell that hurts.
Then the woman’s voice is back again. ‘Hello, Sweetheart, remember me?’
Graeme tries to shrink back, but he’s sitting on something:
can’t move his arms or legs…A chair? And it’s freezing in here.
He’d been…He’d been wearing the white fluffy dressing gown he’d found in the hotel room wardrobe — the one with the matching slippers in a little plastic bag. But now he feels a biting draught on his bare stomach and thighs.
Isn’t even wearing any underwear.
He’s tied to a chair, stark bollock naked, with a bag over his head.
With her.
Graeme tries to sit up straight, to bring his chin up. Not to tremble.
‘You’ve been a naughty boy, haven’t you, Danby?’ A man’s voice, Newcastle accent.
And then a fist slams into Graeme’s stomach, wrenching him forwards. Or as far as he can go with his wrists tied to the seat. He tries to breathe through the aching stabs, air whistling in and out through his burning nose. Everything smells of burning copper.
‘You see, Babe, we know what you’ve been up to. You and your pet rapist.’
Oh God, don’t be sick. Be sick and you’ll choke. Choke and die. Naked, tied to a chair with a FUCKING BAG OVER YOUR HEAD!
Slowly, he hauls himself back up, eyes scrunched tight shut. Swallowing it down.
‘Neil? Do the honours will you, Darling, I hate questioning someone when I can’t see their eyes.’
Fumbling. The whoosh of fabric against his face. Then a cool draft of air.
Graeme opens his eyes, blinks. Looks down at his pale, naked body — the big dent in his right leg where the bone poked through years ago.
‘That’s better, isn’t it?’
Julie. She hasn’t changed much since last time: still wearing the same cowgirl jeans-and-boots combo. That polished razorblade smile.
Someone looms into view over his shoulder — Elvis quiff, big nose, tufty eyebrows. ‘Afternoon, Guv. Sitting comfortably?’ Elvis has a tartan pillowcase in his hand. He drops it to the floor.
Julie pulls up a chair, wrong way round, and straddles it. Smiles down at Graeme’s crotch. ‘Didn’t think it was that cold.’
He tries on his best Senior Police Officer Glower, but she just laughs.
‘Neil?’
A fist slams into the side of Graeme’s head. Ringing in his ears. The taste of blood. Lights flashing on and off. Then a throbbing ache.
‘Now, Babe, you need to think really hard about this, because if you get the answer wrong you lose ten points and we move on to the water round. And trust me, you won’t like the water round. Understand?’
Graeme stares at her. Then nods.
‘Good. Neil, you can take the gag off.’
A harsh ripping noise, eye-watering agony. ‘Fuck…’
Elvis holds up the duct tape, grinning. ‘Got half his beard off in one go! Can we do his eyebrows next?’
‘Bastards…’ Breath hissing through gritted teeth.
‘OK, Babe: here’s your starter for ten.’
He can hear her chair scraping closer.
‘Where’s Richard Knox?’
‘No, I can barely hear you.’ Logan stuck his finger in his ear as they juddered up the hill past the truncated concrete pyramid of the Shell building, heading south. A massive eighteen-wheeler passed them in the outside lane, sending filthy grey-brown spray all over the car, the windscreen wipers struggling to clear it, leaving two diarrhoea-coloured rainbows across the glass.
‘I said, where the bastarding hell are you?’
‘Nigg roundabout. Should be with you in ten minutes.’
If the car didn’t die by then.
‘Listen, I found a possible motive for abducting Danby — million-and-a-half in seized-’
‘I don’t care. Just got a call from Susan, she’s got these stomach cramps…’
Oh no.
Logan swallowed. ‘She all right?’
‘Course she’s not, she’s having bloody stomach cramps!’ Silence. ‘What if she loses the baby?’
More silence.
‘I’m sure she’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine.’ That was what you were meant to say, wasn’t it?
Steel coughed. Sniffed. Cleared her throat. ‘Sod it, I’m taking her to A amp;E. You’re in charge: give the search another couple hours then wind it down. Make it look like we tried.’
‘Do you want…’
But Steel was gone. He was talking to a dead phone.
‘Sod it.’ Logan jabbed the car’s cigarette lighter with his thumb, and when it popped up he pulled a cigarette from the packet and sooked it into life.
Butler immediately started making pantomime coughing noises.
‘Fine…’ Logan ground it out in the overflowing ashtray. ‘Happy?’
‘Bad enough I’ve got to drive this rattletrap without catching your second-hand smoke.’
‘Just drive, OK?’
The gritters were out in force — two of them taking up both lanes of the dual carriageway, huge rusty yellow things topped with flashing orange lights, strafing the road with salt and sand. All the cars hanging back to avoid having the paint battered off their bonnets.
Butler took the second exit at the next roundabout, heading into Cove, weaving through the suburban streets for the south-east corner.
Jimmy Evans’s house sat on its own at the end of a long, rutted driveway, potholes and ice making Logan’s tatty little Fiat slither and jerk as Butler got them as close to the brightly lit house as possible.
A series of patrol cars and police vans snaked back from a snow-covered driveway, blocking the lane.
‘We’ll have to walk from here.’
Sunlight speared down from a crystal blue sky, making the fields glitter, the snow crunchy underfoot, the sound of dogs and police chatter ringing in the crisp air.
The Police Search Advisor met them at the front door, scratching an armpit. With thinning, scraggy blonde hair and a pointy nose, he looked a bit like a meerkat with mange. ‘So.’ He squinted at Logan. ‘It true you’re in charge now?’
‘That a problem?’
‘Hey, long as you sign off on the overtime, I’m happy.’ He held out a stack of reports and Logan flicked through them.
‘You want to summarize this for me?’
More scratching. ‘No sign of Knox anywhere.’
There was a shock. ‘IB?’
The POLSA took his hand out of his armpit for long enough to point at a familiar filthy Transit van. ‘Still doing the guest bedroom. Family’s cleared out, so we’ve got the run of the place.’
‘Door-to-doors?’
He blinked, then did a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn, staring out at the snow-covered fields. ‘Erm…There’s no one living anywhere near, if you don’t count the sheep, so-’
‘Back there, where the lane joins the main road. There’s houses overlooking the entrance — they might’ve seen a car coming or going.’
The rest of Constable Meerkat’s face turned as pink as his nose and ears. ‘Ah, OK. I’ll get that organized…’
The Airwave handset clipped to Butler’s shoulder started bleeping and she moved a
way a couple of paces to answer it, then came back and handed the thing to Logan. ‘Control.’
‘McRae.’
‘Aye, hud oan, puttin’ you through…’
Click.
‘Sergeant, it’s Dr Frampton, we met at the-’
‘Steve Polmont crime scene, yes, I remember.’
‘I tried getting in touch with DI Steel, but it seems she’s unavailable?’
‘Yeah…’ According to the paperwork, there wasn’t so much as a footprint beyond the back garden.
‘We’ve got a result from the soil sample we took yesterday, from the flat where Knox escaped. A footprint just inside the hallway?’
‘Uh-huh?’ Logan handed the search reports back to the POLSA. Steel was right — the search was a waste of time, but at least it looked as if they were doing something. Knox was long gone.
‘We ran it against the national soil database, and there’s about a dozen places it could have come from in Aberdeenshire, I’ve emailed the results to you.’
‘Hold on…’ He pulled out the scrap of paper he was using as a surrogate notebook, and pinned it to the roof of the nearest patrol car with the side of his hand, pen poised. ‘Want to give me the edited highlights?’
Pause. ‘The sample has a pH of five-point-five and carbon’s sitting around three-point-six percent. Add in silt at eleven percent and that makes it Cairnrobin. You see, the general SSKIB values for soils like these-’
‘Place names. Honestly, it’ll be quicker if you just give me place names.’
‘Oh. I see.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Yes, well Cairnrobin is a pretty small series — there’s only three hundred and ninty-five hectares in the whole of Scotland — in isolated pockets around Cove, Menie House, and near the mouth of the Ythan at Sleek of Tarty.’
Logan crabbed them out on the paper, then put his hand over the mouthpiece, leant over to the POLSA. ‘Any signs of a break in?’
‘Back door — the lock’s been gouged with a screwdriver.’
He went back to the call.
‘…time. You see, a soil sample is like a fingerprint-’
‘Thanks Doctor. That’s great. I’ll be in touch.’ He hung up before she could launch into anything else.
Logan stood there, tapping the handset against his chin.
Butler raised an eyebrow. ‘Something?’
He turned to the POLSA, and slapped his hand on the roof of the patrol car. ‘You got keys for this?’
Turned out it wasn’t even locked. Logan slipped into the passenger seat and fired up the little grey laptop mounted on the dashboard, using it to log into his Grampian Police email address.
Half a dozen messages from Beattie — which he ignored — and right after them the one from Dr Frampton. He opened it, then clicked on the.jpg attachment, shifting in his seat as the picture file downloaded.
It was a high-resolution map that looked as if it was made from stitched together screenshots. The areas where the soil matched the print in the flat highlighted in red. One cluster of red blobs sat north of Balmedie, near Donald Trump’s golf resort; one was about halfway to Peterhead; but the biggest concentration lay along the coast just south of Cove.
Logan frowned at the screen.
Most were just fields, but two of the blobs had houses in them.
Logan zoomed in on the Cove section. ‘See this?’
Constable Itchy squinted. ‘No, that’s wrong.’ He stuck his finger on the laptop’s screen and drew a little greasy circle inside the red bit. ‘That’s the search area: Steel only wanted a hundred meters. Are we meant to search the rest of it? Only it’s bloody freezing out there, and it’ll be dark soon.’
Why was there mud from around the victim’s home on the carpet of Knox’s Sacro flat?
Maybe whoever helped him escape stopped off on the way up to check on potential targets…?
Logan looked up at the house. ‘I need to speak to the victim, Evans.’
The POLSA shook his head. ‘Like I said — the family’s cleared out. Son took the old man back to Sunderland, said they didn’t want him being on his own, you know, with Knox on the loose.’
Couldn’t blame them. ‘Give him a phone: I need to know if Evans saw anything suspicious — cars, people — over the last couple of days.’
Mind you, they’d have to be pretty open-minded mobsters to find their accountant an old man to torture and rape…
‘Sarge?’
Logan blinked. ‘Right…You two go grab a cup of tea. I’ve got some calls to make.’
48
Richard Knox shivers, standing at yet another bedroom window, wrapped only in his granny’s patchwork quilt. The one that smells of old woman and cat.
The back garden’s pretty, like one of them Christmas cards with robins on it, all plants and snow and ice and that. Fresh flakes floating down like cigarette ash.
His hand hurts even more now. Can barely move the first three fingers, they’re so swollen.
He pulls the quilt tighter around his shoulders, then creeps over to the door and puts his ear against it.
They’re arguing again.
Arguing about him.
‘…out in the middle of nowhere. Let the bastard freeze to death.’
‘That wasn’t the plan!’
‘I’m just saying we don’t have to-’
‘You can’t just…’
Richard goes back to the window. Gives the sash a one-handed tug, even though he knows it’s locked. What’s he going to do: jump down into the garden, clamber over the back fence and run away into the snow with his cock hanging out and a quilt round his shoulders? Like a pervert playing Batman?
The big bloke with the grey hair’s right: he’d freeze to death.
So instead Richard settles back on the edge of the bed and clutches his granny’s old bible to his naked chest.
He sniffs, wipes his nose with the palm of his good hand, then smears the silvery slime on the bare mattress. At least it’s stopped bleeding.
Not exactly what he’d had in mind, is it? Naked in some strange bedroom, waiting for them to decide how they’re going to make him suffer.
03:10, Yesterday morning
There’s a knock at the door.
Richard stands there in the bedroom of his bland little Sacro flat, eyes closed, swearing. Then hauls his trousers up again.
Mood’s ruined now.
He gathers his things — the quilt Granny Murray made, the suitcase with Grandad Joe’s clothes in it, the plastic bag.
Lying on the bed, Harry just cries.
Richard hauls everything he owns to the front door and opens it.
There’s a man standing in the corridor outside: pale leather jacket, black ski-mask over his head, sawn-off shotgun in his hands. Very sinister. Richard hands him the suitcase. ‘You’re early.’
Someone else steps up, done up in IRA chic like his mate. ‘Where are they?’
‘You can put the guns away. I’ve taken care of me minders. Now-’
A fist slams into Richard’s stomach. His knees give way and he thumps to the carpet, arms wrapped around his aching innards. Breath coming in ragged gulps.
No — this wasn’t the deal. This isn’t right!
The first man shoves past, and his mate steps up and kicks Richard in the chest, hard enough to flip him over onto his back. It’s like being shot, but all he can do is gasp, can’t even struggle as they drag him back into the flat.
Clunk, the door closes.
Man Number Two stops dead, staring into the bathroom. Then he peels off his ski-mask, exposing a face like skimmed milk. His jaw falls open, eyes wide. Then he turns to Richard. ‘You dirty…’
Another kick, this one hard enough to make Richard fold up like a fortune cookie, clutching his aching balls, moaning, tears streaming down his face.
The other one says, ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’
‘Bathroom. Look in the bathroom.’
‘Fucking hell…’
Another
kick.
‘There’s someone else in here!’
Silence.
‘Fuck…’
And then they’re back, dragging him through into the bedroom.
‘Look what you’ve done! You sick piece of shit…’ A punch in the kidneys, making him squeal. Then another one.
‘Fucking hell, Evans. Is he…?’
They cluster around Harry — still tied to the bed, naked, face down, with his pasty backside propped in the air.
Richard closes his eyes. Grits his teeth. Then forces himself over onto his stomach. Waves of fire ripple out from the small of his back, groin aching, chest burning.
Get out of here. NOW. Arm over arm, crawling along the oatmeal-coloured carpet.
‘HEY! Get back here you little sod.’
Rough hands grab him, haul him back towards the bed and Harry’s naked body. ‘This what gets you off, is it?’
A backhand slap snaps Richard’s head sideways and he starts to cry.
They’re going to kill him.
They’re going to beat him to death in some crappy council housing flat for sex offenders.
The one in the pale leather jacket backs up a step. ‘You know what? This works. Fuck it, this works really well.’
‘Got to call an ambulance, police-’
‘Grab him.’
‘Lowe, look at the guy on the bed. We have to-’
‘Fine, I’ll do it myself.’
Those rough hands again, dragging Richard across the carpet, shoving his face against Harry’s naked thigh.
Richard struggles, but the guy digs his knuckles into the back of his neck.
‘Bite him. Go on, bite him like you did my dad, you fucking freak!’
‘I don’t…don’t…Please…’
He hauls Richard’s head back, then rams it forward into the hairy, clammy skin.
‘You do as your told, or so help me God I’ll break every fucking bone in your fucking body.’
‘I don’t…’ Pain, rips through his hand, bones grating against each other as the big man stamps on Richard’s knuckles, crushing them against the carpet.
‘Fucking bite him!’
Richard opens his mouth wide and sinks his teeth into Harry’s cold flesh.
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