‘Fine,’ said Logan. ‘Be like that.’
Steel grinned at him. ‘Never mind, Mr Police Hero, if it all goes tits-up tonight I’ll think about it. If nothing else it’ll make the Chief Constable think we’re doing something. Now why don’t you go pick out a couple of nice, ugly WPCs to be our hookers? Tell them there’s a bottle of vodka in it for them, if they don’t wind up stripped and beaten to death.’
Half past eight and the briefing was winding to a close. DI Steel had laid out the ground rules, walked everyone through the plan – including the Detective Chief Superintendent who gave a five-minute inspirational speech on the risks and rewards of this kind of operation – and detailed the four teams. Team one was the smallest: WPCs Davidson and Menzies, the inspector’s fake prostitutes, neither of whom would win a beauty contest anytime soon. They were already dressed up for their role tonight: short skirts, push-up bras, three inches of make-up and hair like a home perm gone bad. Each one wearing a transmitter/receiver, a secondary backup set – just in case – and a handheld GPS tracker sewn into their formidable underwear. If anything happened they weren’t going to disappear off the face of the earth. Not to mention the tiny canisters of CS gas they both carried. Team two was eight plainclothes officers, two per car. They’d park in the places Logan had identified, where they could keep an eye on Davidson and Menzies plying their trade. Team three was by far the largest, three marked patrol cars, two unmarked CID pool cars, and half a dozen uniforms in the back of an unmarked dark blue Transit Van, lurking on the streets leading to and from the red light district all kitted out with video surveillance equipment and ready to roll as soon as the word was given. Team four would stay at the station and keep all the communication channels open. Relay the messages. Make sure everyone was where they were supposed to be and, in the cases of WPCs Davidson and Menzies, still alive. It was a big operation; lots of manpower, expensive, but the Detective Chief Superintendent assured them all that the Chief Constable was behind them one hundred percent. Steel had sanction for the next five nights, but the DCS was sure they’d get a result long before that. Logan, well aware of just how many holes there were in the plan, kept his mouth shut.
DC Rennie cornered him as the briefing broke up and everyone headed off to their assigned positions. ‘I’ve got that bloke you were looking for.’ Logan obviously looked puzzled, because Rennie felt obliged to explain. ‘The one who’s patrolling the docks at the moment? You wanted me to track him down?’
‘Right, right. Where is he?’
‘Comes in at ten: PC Robert Taylor. Been doing tom patrol for about two years. I left a message with Control that you wanted to speak to him.’ Rennie smiled, as if he was waiting for a sweetie. Logan didn’t give him one.
‘What about the e-fit pictures?’
‘No one recognized the girl but a couple of CID thought the bloke might be called Duncan or Richard or something.’
Logan frowned. The Lithuanian girl had said her pimp was called Steve. ‘No last name?’
‘Nada.’
‘Shite.’
‘Aye.’
The operation started at nine pm on the dot, much to Logan’s surprise. He and the inspector were sat in a rusty old Vauxhall, just inside the gates at the bottom of Marischal Street leading out onto the docks at Regent Quay. They’d parked far enough back not to arouse suspicion if spotted from the street, but with a direct line of sight – through the high fence of grey, cast-iron spikes that enclosed the docks – all the way down Shore Lane, to where WPC Menzies was trolling for business. The inspector even had the good sense to keep one hand cupped over the end of her cigarette so the glowing orange tip wouldn’t give them away. One by one the other teams checked in, and last but not least, the bait. Or the Ugly Sisters as DI Steel insisted on calling them. Not surprisingly she’d named it ‘Operation Cinderella’. Logan was amazed she didn’t get punched on the nose more often.
‘Are you sure this is going to work?’ he asked as WPC Menzies finished complaining that the wind was whistlin’ right up her arse in this bloody short skirt.
‘No,’ said Steel, puffing away, the smoke oozing out through the car’s windows. ‘But it’s all we’ve got right now. If we don’t put a watch on the docks and some other poor tart goes missing we’ll be crucified. And anyway, it’s your bloody plan, so don’t start, OK?’
‘But what if someone goes missing while we’re here?’
Steel shuddered. ‘Don’t even fucking think about that!’
‘But all we’re doing is watching two WPCs done up as pros. What if one of the real tarts gets in our man’s car? How’re we going to know? He could be anybody!’
‘I know, I know.’ She pulled the last gasp from her cigarette and chucked the tiny glowing nub out the window. ‘It’s a shite plan, but what else can we do? Rosie Williams got herself killed Monday last, Michelle Wood got it on Friday. Four days.’ She counted them off on her fingers. ‘Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. That’s tonight. If he sticks to his pattern another one’s going missing today or tomorrow.’
‘If he hasn’t already got one and we just don’t know about it yet.’
Steel scowled at him. ‘Am I missing something, Sergeant? Are you making helpful suggestions here, or just bumping your bloody gums?’ Logan kept his mouth shut. ‘Aye,’ said the inspector, ‘thought as much.’ An uncomfortable silence.
Logan sat staring out at the street, thinking. ‘Had an interesting chat with Inspector Napier this morning,’ he said at last.
‘Oh aye?’ Suspicious.
‘Yeah. He said you have to come out of this case smelling of roses or I’m for the chop.’
‘“The chop?” That doesn’t sound like Napier. Thought he was more of a “De blood is de life, hah, hah, haaah!” kind of guy,’ she said in a dreadful Transylvanian accent.
‘Well he dressed it up in an allegorical story about a farmer, a fox and a chicken, but that was what he meant.’
‘Which one were you?’
‘The chicken.’
‘Nice.’ She was grinning.
‘How come you’ve got him looking out for you?’
The grin didn’t falter as the inspector dug out another cigarette and lit it. ‘Let’s just say that Napier and I have an understanding, and leave it at that.’ Of course Logan didn’t want to leave it at that, but Steel had no intention of telling him anything more, so they sat in silence again.
After what felt like hours, WPC Menzies’ voice crackled out of the speaker, ‘Car comin’!’ A set of headlights sparked at the far end of Shore Lane. Static and rustling from the radio, and Logan pulled out the night-vision goggles, struggling with the focus until he had a good, close-up view of the entrance to the one-way alley. WPC Menzies with her hands on her hips, chest out, leaned forward to peer in the driver-side window. ‘Hey, darlin’,’ she said suggestively, ‘lookin’ for a good time?’ Logan couldn’t get a good look at the man behind the wheel: Menzies had picked one of the few working streetlights to stand under, and the reflection bounced right off the windshield, hiding the driver’s face. Some muffled conversation, too distorted to make out – she seemed to have got the tiny microphone caught up in the lace of her bra and every time she moved it scratched against the pickup, overwhelming everything with a grating hiss. ‘How about you an’ me… AYA BASTARD!’ Steel sat bolt upright in her seat. The suspect’s car roared into life. Through the night-vision goggles Logan could see WPC Menzies clutching at her left breast. She bent down, disappearing from sight as DI Steel grabbed up the radio and shouted ‘Go-go-go!’ And then Menzies was back up again, hurling something at the departing car. A loud bang and the car screeched to a halt on the cobbles. The driver had his door open in a flash and was out, staring at the smashed rear windscreen. He was too busy storming back up the alley to notice the two unmarked CID pool cars skidding to a halt at each end of Shore Lane, blocking it off.
Logan could hear the man shouting at WPC Menzies, the words picked up loud and clear,
even over the bra-crackling. ‘You filthy bitch!’ He drew back a fist, but Menzies didn’t give him time to use it. Instead she floored him with a single, roundhouse kick. She wasn’t on the division’s kick-boxing team for nothing. By the time Logan and Steel arrived he was cuffed, lying prostrate on the filthy cobbled street in a pool of darkness, screaming blue murder and demanding a lawyer while Menzies held him down.
‘Ah, Jesus… Stitch…’ The inspector, bent double from the effort of running the three hundred yards from where they’d parked the car, clutched at her side and grimaced. ‘Menzies,’ she asked through gritted teeth, ‘you OK?’
The WPC growled at the handcuffed, swearing figure. ‘Bastard grabbed my fucking nipple: nearly tore the damn thing off!’ She peeled down the top of her indomitable bra to show the inspector, but Steel told her it was OK, she had two of her own and didn’t need to see anyone else’s right now. As soon as there was any threat of WPC Menzies getting her breasts out, Logan made himself scarce, choosing to examine the man’s car instead. It was a dowdy MPV thing, lots of seats and boot-space, with a sticker saying ‘MUM’S TAXI’ in what was left of the back window. There was a lump of rust-crusted metal sitting in the middle of a dog’s bed, surrounded by tiny cubes of broken safety glass. Logan dug out his mobile phone and called Force Headquarters for a PNC check on the vehicle’s registration.
Somehow DI Steel thought a cigarette would help her get her breath back. Coughing and spluttering, she dragged Logan away from the car and told Menzies to get the suspect on his feet. In the darkness of the alley it was difficult to make out his face; the fact that he was filthy from being pinned to the alley floor didn’t help. ‘Name,’ demanded the inspector, taking the cigarette from her mouth so she could spit something dark and nasty out onto the cobbles.
The man’s eyes darted left and right. ‘… Simon McDonald.’
The inspector frowned, head on one side like a cat examining a juicy hamster. ‘How come you look familiar, Simon? Have I done you for something?’
‘I have never been in trouble with the police!’
Logan’s phone went: Control, telling him that there was no vehicle of that make and registration in the system. Was he sure he’d got the number right? Logan walked back to the car and squatted down by the back bumper. Now he looked closely, there was something dodgy about the registration: it didn’t reflect the torchlight. Someone had taped a bit of laminated paper over the top of it. From a distance, in the dark, it was pretty convincing, but up close it had obviously been produced on someone’s home computer with a colour printer. He peeled off the fake number plate and gave Control the real registration hidden underneath, a grin spreading across his face as he heard the result. He swaggered back to where the inspector was giving WPC Menzies’ attacker a hard time, questioning him on his whereabouts last Monday and Friday nights. Logan waited until she’d finished before asking, ‘Don’t you know it’s an offence to give a false name to the police, Mr Marshall? Not to mention driving with falsified number plates.’
The suspect flinched and DI Steel grabbed him by the lapels and dragged him under one of the few working streetlights, letting out a low whistle as she finally recognized him: Councillor Andrew Marshall, chief spokesman for the Grampian-Police-Are-Useless-Tossers brigade. An obscene smile ripped across Steel’s face, like a fire in a nunnery.
‘Well, well, well, a member of the city council, as I live and breathe,’ she said with obvious relish. ‘You are well and truly fucked!’
Councillor Marshall spluttered, panic and indignation fighting for control. ‘You have no right to treat me like this!’
‘No?’ DI Steel winked at him. ‘Indecent assault, resisting arrest, giving a false name, driving with false number plates… Think we’ll find anything else incriminating when we search your car?’ The councillor suddenly wouldn’t meet her eyes and she nodded. ‘Thought as much. Think you and me need to have a little chat, don’t you?’
DI Steel wrapped an arm around the shivering man’s shoulders and led him away.
17
DI Steel didn’t want anyone else present while she ‘interviewed’ Councillor Marshall, didn’t even want to take him into the station until she’d had a chance to talk to him. In private as it were. So Logan was sent off to swear the rest of the team to secrecy and search the councillor’s car, discovering a number of scary-looking marital aids and a couple of specialist magazines so hard-core the pictures made his eyes water. But he’d collected the lot, sealing them away in clear plastic evidence pouches, not wanting to touch anything he’d found.
Steel had commandeered Logan’s pool car, parking it further down the docks where she could talk to Councillor Marshall without being disturbed. Now the only signs of life inside the rusty Vauxhall were the fiery-orange tip of the inspector’s cigarette and the smoke slowly curling its way out of the open car window. Logan, on the other hand, sat in the councillor’s people carrier, bundled up against the cold wind whistling in through the ruined back window. He’d driven it out from the alley to the harbour’s entrance, where he could keep one eye on the Vauxhall and the other on Shore Lane.
There wasn’t much business being done tonight. The presence of multiple plainclothes police officers had pushed the genuine working girls into the surrounding streets, leaving Shore Lane completely under WPC Menzies’ dominion. WPC Davidson had performed a similar trick on James Street, doing more to clear prostitution from Aberdeen’s red light district than months and months of community policing. So there was the answer: you want to cut down on the sex trade, don’t bother with initiatives and public awareness campaigns, just put a couple of unattractive WPCs out there selling their wares on the streets, and back them up with about two dozen plainclothes CID pimps. Problem solved.
Logan turned up his collar and shivered. Summer was in the process of buggering off and autumn wasn’t going to hang about for long. It was going to be another cold, wet end of year. Still, he thought, at least he wasn’t done up in stockings, suspenders and a push-up bra that would put Hannibal Lecter off his sausages. Right on cue, WPC Menzies reported in, complaining about the cold and her sore nipple and wishing death and hellfire on every slimy wee bastard out trolling the docks at this time of night. Did they really have another four and a half hours of this to go?
At long last the inspector’s passenger door cracked open and a hunched, cowed figure stepped out. He turned and said something before marching, head down, towards the harbour gates and his damaged car. Logan jumped out and held the driver’s door open for him, grinning. The man crawled sheepishly in behind the wheel and started the engine, almost squealing in terror as Logan called out a cheery, ‘Drive safely, Councillor!’
Eyes darting and fearful, the man raced away from the scene of his disgrace as fast as the speed limit would allow. Logan stood there, waving, until the car disappeared from view, then picked up the bagful of seized pornographic material and hurried over to the waiting, smoke-filled Vauxhall. ‘Christ, it’s freezing out there!’ he said, cranking the heaters up and wringing his hands over the vent. ‘You get much out of Mr Marshall?’ DI Steel didn’t answer, just asked him what he’d found when he’d searched the councillor’s car. Logan held up the plastic bag and started digging evidence pouches out of it, listing the things off as he went, finishing with the pièce de résistance: a huge red rubber phallus with separate power/motion control, covered with spines and nobbles. Steel set them twitching, vibrating and rotating by playing with the dials and buttons. The whole thing buzzed and throbbed in its clear plastic evidence pouch, like some sort of malevolent insect larva struggling to get free.
‘Classy,’ said Steel, reading the device’s name off the side: ‘THE ANAL ADVENTURER. Fun for all the family.’ She pushed another button and the end started to pulse and judder. ‘Jesus.’ She nearly dropped it. ‘It’s alive! ALIVE!’ Grinning she clicked the thing off and threw it over her shoulder into the back of the car. ‘So nothing illegal then, just hella-dodgy?’
Logan agreed. ‘What about you? You get anything out of our friend on the council?’
‘Yup.’ Steel’s smile was almost as obscene as the huge, battery-operated rubber willy now lying on the back seat, but she didn’t say any more.
‘Going to share?’ Logan asked at last.
‘Nope.’
Half past eleven came and went without much happening. By the time midnight was sounding on the St Nicholas Kirk bells WPC Menzies had only been propositioned three times, including Councillor Marshall. WPC Davidson hadn’t fared much better either, netting a total of four. Not one of the blokes looked like a good fit for the killer, but they’d been detained anyway. Tomorrow morning someone would check out their alibis for the Monday and Friday nights. Logan didn’t hold out much hope.
Stifling a yawn, he asked DI Steel if she wanted him to pick up something to eat while they were waiting? After all, they’d been on duty since about eight yesterday morning…
‘Eight?’ She snorted. ‘I started at seven. Mind you, had a couple hours’ kip in the afternoon. Makes the world of difference.’
Logan looked at her. ‘I wouldn’t know. I was at a crime scene with DI Insch for most of the morning and then in a post mortem till half five.’
Steel frowned at him. ‘What the hell did you do that for? You knew we were going to be out here all night!’
‘You told Insch I’d help him!’
‘Did I?’ The inspector shrugged. ‘Ah well, never mind.’ She dug a hand into her jacket pocket, coming out with a stained neoprene wallet from which she extracted a twenty. ‘Go make yourself useful. White pudding supper with extra salt and vinegar… oh, and a pickled egg. And some tomato sauce if they’ve got it. And get something for yourself, if it’ll wipe that skelped-arse expression off your face.’
Dying Light Page 15