‘Come on, Jamie, don’t be rude: you’ve got visitors! I even brought grapes.’ Steel pulled a tube of sweets from her pocket and tossed them onto the bedspread. ‘Well, wine gums, but it’s the thought that counts, eh?’
Jamie McKinnon rolled over and scowled at her with his one good eye. For some reason his bruised face wasn’t healing much. If anything it was worse than before. ‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘Ah, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie . . . if only I had time. We found this huge dildo last night, but between you and me, it’s a bastard on the batteries.’ She picked up the wine gums. ‘You wanting these or not?’
He snatched them out of her hand and glowered. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘No. . . ?’ Steel faded off into silence, looking over her shoulder at Logan standing at the foot of the bed. ‘For God’s sake get yourself a chair, you look like an undertaker standing there with your face like that.’ Grumbling Logan did as he was told, dragging an orange plastic seat over from the next bed. He was just about to sit down when Steel told him to draw the curtains round the bed.
‘There we go,’ she said when he’d closed them off from the rest of the ward. ‘Much more cosy. Now, Sunshine.’ She poked Jamie in the shoulder. ‘A nice nurse told me you had some visitors last night. And that when they were gone, you pressed your little “help me” button and she had to get your hand X-rayed.’ Logan’s eyes darted to Jamie’s left hand. All four of the fingers were splinted together, wrapped in white gauze bandage.
‘I . . . fell.’
‘You fell.’ Steel nodded. ‘You fell and managed to break four fingers.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Hit your eye on the way down too?’ Steel pointed at the swollen mass of bruised flesh.
‘I fell, OK? I fell on my face and I put my hand out to stop myself and I banged my fingers.’
‘You sure?’
Jamie suddenly found the packet of wine gums very interesting; he fumbled awkwardly at the wrapper with his splinted fingers before giving up and trying with his other hand.
Logan had a bash at being the good cop. ‘Who were they, Jamie? The people who came to see you last night?’
Jamie shrugged, never taking his eyes off the packet in his hands. ‘Just some people I know. You know, friends, like. . .’
The inspector snorted. ‘Bollocks. Tell you what, Jamie, I think your visitors were trying to pass you controlled substances. So, just to be on the safe side, I’m going to call a nice man from the Drugs Squad and get him to perform a full body-cavity search on you. Would you like that?’ She smiled. ‘Would you? Nice big hairy man’s hand all the way up your backside looking for a package of fun? Mmm? Big, big hairy hands?’
‘They didn’t give me nothing, OK? They wanted to, but I wouldn’t take it.’
DI Steel’s smile softened. ‘I wish I could believe you, Jamie, I really do. But you’re going to need to give me more information than that. I want their names.’
‘I don’t know their names!’
Steel shook her head, then mimed pulling on an elbow-length rubber glove, complete with sound effects. Jamie’s eyes darted from the inspector to Logan. ‘I don’t know! They wouldn’t tell me! Please!’
‘What did they want?’
‘They said I had to use them as suppliers. I told them I wasn’t doing that kind of stuff any more, I was going straight. . .’ He held up his hand so Logan could see the bruises in between the fingers where the bandages didn’t quite meet. ‘Then they did this.’
Logan winced. ‘Why didn’t you call for help?’
Jamie laughed painfully. ‘Think I didn’t want to? Big fucker had me pinned to the bed, stuffed a rag in my mouth while his fucking friend giggled and snapped my fingers. Couldn’t even scream.’
‘And no one saw anything?’
‘They pulled the curtains.’
‘You could have said something afterwards.’
Jamie raised his undamaged hand to his swollen eye, touching the puffy flesh with a wince. ‘Said they’d be back. Said they knew where I lived. Said they could have a lot of fun with my sister if I fucked things up for them.’
Steel listened to all this with a thoughtful look on her face. When she was finally certain that they weren’t going to get anything more out of Jamie McKinnon she hopped off the bed and motioned for Logan to follow. ‘Thanks for that, Jamie. Oh, and you’ll be sad to know that some other tart got herself beaten to death on Friday night.’ At that Jamie sat up straight in bed. ‘Nah.’ Steel shook her head. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, we’re treating them as separate incidents. You’re still going down for what you did to Rosie. See, we got the lab results back this morning: Rosie was up the stick with your kid. You knew that. Couldn’t stand the thought of your baby inside her getting poked by strangers’ dicks every night.’ All the blood drained from Jamie’s face and the inspector grinned. ‘You have fun now.’
Jamie was in tears as they pushed their way out of the ward, Steel making the call to her friend on the Drugs Squad to set up Jamie’s full body-cavity search.
Ailsa stood at the kitchen sink washing the breakfast things in hot soapy water. Normally she would have done the washing up straight after breakfast, but she was a bit behind today. Gavin had bought her a dishwasher, he was good like that, but somehow it seemed so wasteful to put it on just for a couple of plates, and she couldn’t bear the thought of the breakfast dishes festering in there all day, so she always did them by hand, staring out of the kitchen window through the fence, watching the schoolchildren troop across the grass and in through the doors. Praying that one day, she’d have one of her own. . . But it was late and they were all gone now, leaving the playground empty and silent, waiting for the morning break to come. She sighed and scrubbed dried-on egg off the good plates.
Gavin had been in a foul mood last night. He’d had to work late yet again – even though he’d promised – and when he finally got home the horrible woman next door was out in the garden. Staggering about, screaming and swearing at her boyfriend. Gavin had dumped his briefcase in the hall and marched right round there to give them a piece of his mind. She had never, ever, heard her husband use language like that before. But it didn’t make any difference to the harpy next door: she just started shouting and swearing at Gavin instead. Then she got violent! Screaming obscenities and swinging punches. . . Gavin came in with the beginnings of a black eye. He called the police, not that it ever did any good. After that he didn’t want to eat the supper she’d made for him, preferring instead to drink a huge amount of whisky. And even though the schedule they’d got from the doctor said they had to try every night while she was ovulating, he said he couldn’t. Not after a long day in the office and the fight. He was going to have another drink and watch the television. So Ailsa had gone to bed alone.
That horrible woman next door had ruined everything. . .
With a sigh, Ailsa stacked the last mug on the draining board. The noise next door was getting worse again, the yelling, the foul language, the sound of something breaking. Then the pointy-faced boyfriend limped out into the back garden, covering his head with his hands as a beer bottle sailed out through the French windows. The horrible woman lurched out after it, drunk at half past ten in the morning, swigging from another bottle. The boyfriend tried to get out of the way, but she grabbed him by the collar and punched him in the face! She was going to beat him up again: right there in the back garden, where everyone could see!
He staggered back, blood streaming from his crooked nose and she tried to swing for him again, missing, collapsing on the grass. Crying. The boyfriend turned and ran into the house, screaming that he was leaving her, that he’d had enough, slamming the door behind him.
Ailsa never saw him again.
The horrible woman rolled over onto her back, like a beached whale in jogging pants, and started to snore. Ailsa shuddered – maybe she should call the police?
But she didn’t. Instead she pi
cked up the dishtowel and started to dry.
The nurse who’d seen to Jamie McKinnon’s fingers wasn’t exactly the most attractive woman ever to don a blue uniform: bobbed brown hair, squinty nose, pointy ears and thinnish lips, but DI Steel was smitten from the outset. She perched on the edge of the nurse’s desk, giving the young woman her undivided attention while she told them all about Jamie McKinnon’s visitors last night. Two men, both neatly dressed in suits. One with really nice teeth and short blond hair, the other with shoulder-length black hair and a moustache.
A little warning bell went off in the back of Logan’s head. ‘They didn’t have Edinburgh accents by any chance, did they?’
They did.
Steel protested, but eventually Logan managed to drag her away from the nurses’ station and up to the hospital’s security office, where a lone guard kept an eye on a bank of CCTV monitors. He was dressed in the standard turd-brown uniform with brass buttons and yellow trimmings that looked disturbingly like chunks of sweet corn. It took a little persuasion, but eventually he showed them last night’s tapes. There wasn’t a camera in Jamie McKinnon’s ward, but there was one in the corridor not far from it. Logan ran through the tape, watching the fast-forward flicker of motion as the machine played back yesterday evening. The system was only set up to record an image every couple of seconds and the doctors, nurses and civilians jerked past in a strange stop-motion ballet. Two large figures twitched into view, drifting along the corridor to disappear suddenly outside Jamie’s ward. The timestamp at the bottom of the screen said ten seventeen. Regular visiting hours ended at eight. When they re-emerged the timestamp said ten thirty-one. Fourteen minutes of dislocating Jamie McKinnon’s fingers and threatening his family. Logan hit the pause button. Now the figures were walking towards the camera he had a good view of their faces. The picture quality wasn’t great, but it was good enough: the bloke in the suit with the short blond hair was the same ‘corporate investment facilitator’ Miller had met for breakfast in the pub. And the man at his side was a dead ringer for the driver who’d been waiting in the car outside while Miller agreed to write a puff piece on McLennan Homes’ latest business venture. ‘And we have a winner.’
‘What?’ Steel was slouched in her chair, not really paying attention to the screen, or to the clockwork animation people on it.
‘This one,’ said Logan, poking the screen with his finger. ‘Works for Malcolm McLennan.’
It was DI Steel’s turn to swear. ‘You sure?’
‘Yup. So anything your mate digs out of Jamie McKinnon’s arse belongs to Malk the Knife.’
19
Eleven o’clock and they were back in the car again, heading for the HQ of Aberdeen’s main local newspaper. DI Steel sat in the passenger seat, worrying away at her thumbnail, her expression conflicted.
Jamie McKinnon was being kept under close supervision, not even toilet breaks allowed, until Steel’s mate from the Drugs Squad turned up with his long rubber glove. She was determined to pin something on the two thugs from down south. The trouble would be getting any sort of case together. Somehow Logan didn’t see Jamie McKinnon having the balls to stand up in court and say, ‘Yes, Your Honour, those are the men that forced six kilos of heroin up my backside.’ Not if he didn’t want to end up filling a shallow grave out in the Grampian hills somewhere. But you never knew your luck.
Logan took the car up across Anderson Drive and onto the Lang Stracht. The Press and Journal – local news since 1748 – shared a squat, concrete, sprawling box of a building with its sister paper, the Evening Express, on a small industrial estate packed with car dealerships and warehouses. Inside it was all one huge, open-plan office. It always amazed Logan that the place was so quiet, just the ever-present hummmmm of the air-conditioning and the odd muffled conversation overlaying the soft, plastic clickity-clack of people typing on word processors. Colin Miller, however, was hunched over his computer, hammering away at the keyboard as if it had recently called his mother a schemie whore. The desks around him were packed with piles of paper, mugs of congealing coffee and bespectacled journalists. Every head within an eight-desk radius snapped up as Logan tapped Miller on the shoulder and asked for a quiet word.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! Can you no’ see I’m busy?’
‘Colin,’ said Logan in a low, friendly voice. ‘Trust me on this; you want to have a wee chat with us. And it’ll be much nicer if we have it over an early lunch in the nearest pub than down at the station. OK?’
Miller looked from Logan to the article flickering away on his screen – something about a bake sale in Stonehaven, if Logan wasn’t mistaken – before hammering Ctrl-Alt-Delete, locking his computer. ‘Come on then.’ Miller stood and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘You bastards is buyin’.’
They didn’t go into the nearest pub – according to Miller the place would be hoachin’ with nosey-bastard journalists and if there was any chance of a story coming out of this, he wasn’t going to share it with anyone – so instead he made Logan drive them into the centre of town, dumping the car back at Force HQ so they could make the two-minute walk to the Moonfish Café on Correction Wynd. On the other side of the narrow, sunken alley a huge granite wall, at least twenty-foot tall, held back the dirt and graves of the ‘Dead Centre’ – St Nicholas Kirk – the sky an icy blue, trapped between the looming church spire and the twisted willows. They were halfway through ordering when Steel jiggled about in her seat, then dragged out her mobile phone. ‘Got it on vibrate,’ she said with a wink. ‘Hello? What? No, I’m in a restaurant. . . Yes. . . Susan! No, that’s not. . . Look I know you’re upset . . . but. . .’ Swearing she stood, grabbed her jacket off the back of the chair and marched outside. ‘Susan, it’s not like that. . .’
‘So,’ said Logan as the inspector stomped back and forth on the other side of the restaurant’s front window – a freshly lit cigarette leaving wild smoke trails in the wake of her gesticulating hand, ‘Isobel feeling any better?’
The reporter looked alarmed. ‘Better?’
‘Doc Fraser said she’d been sick.’
‘Oh, right. Aye. . .’ Shrug. ‘Summer cold or somethin’, no’ sleepin’ much, you know?’ An awkward silence settled onto the table, followed by complimentary slices of freshly baked bread. They helped themselves, making small talk about Aberdeen’s chances in the coming match with Celtic, waiting for the inspector to finish what looked like a very loud argument.
Eventually the door banged open and Steel marched in, threw herself into her chair and scowled at the specials board.
‘So whit’s this all about?’ asked Miller as they waited for their sea bass in crayfish butter.
‘You know fine what it’s about,’ said Steel, turning her scowl on him instead. ‘You had breakfast with some wee shite-bag from Edinburgh last week. I want to know who he is. And I want to know right bloody now!’
Miller raised an eyebrow and took a contemplative sip of his Sauvignon Blanc, eyeing up DI Steel over the top of his glass, taking in the saggy neck, pointed features, wrinkles, escaped-loony hair, and nicotine-stained teeth. ‘Jesus, Laz,’ he said at last, ‘I think your mum’s coming on to me.’
Logan tried not to smile. ‘We think your “corporate investment facilitator” assaulted someone in hospital yesterday, maybe even forced him to accept drugs for resale.’
Miller groaned and took another swig of his wine, draining half the glass. ‘I don’t know anythin’, OK?’ He pushed his chair out and stood. ‘I’ll get a taxi back tae the paper—’
Logan grabbed his arm. ‘Look, we’re not going to involve you, OK? We just need a bit of info. Far as anyone else is concerned, you didn’t tell us anything.’
‘Aye, damn right I didn’t.’ The reporter cast a significant glance at DI Steel. ‘And I’m not goin’ tae either.’
The inspector scowled. ‘Listen up, you soap-dodging Weegie bastard: if you like I can drag you into the station and force you to make
a statement. Understand?’
‘Oh aye? And how the hell do you think you’re goin’ tae do that, Grandma? I don’t have to tell you shite if I don’t want to. You want to go get a court order, you get off your wrinkly, stinky old arse and get one.’
Steel was up on her feet, leaning over the table, teeth bared. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’
‘Me?’ Miller smacked himself in the chest with a fist. ‘I’m the free-fuckin’-press, that’s who I am. Want to see your haggard old face splashed all over the paper? I’ll screw your career over in a fuckin’ heartbeat!’
That was all Logan needed – if Steel got pilloried in the P&J, Napier’s sage-and-onion threat would stuff Logan out of a job. ‘Inspector,’ he said, placing a hand over her trembling, tobacco-yellowed fist. ‘Why don’t you leave me to speak to Mr Miller? I’m sure you’ve got much more important—’ But Colin Miller wasn’t hanging around. He grabbed his coat off the stand and barged out of the restaurant, slamming the door behind him, rattling the glass.
Steel stared after him. ‘If you need me,’ she said, ‘I’ll be back at the ranch.’ And she too was gone. Logan let his head sink forward until it was resting on the tabletop, the beginnings of a headache sidling up behind his eyes. The woman was a nightmare: all they needed to do was sit down and have a quiet word with the reporter, sound him out, get a name and take it from there. Instead of which, she goes out of her way to piss him off.
‘Er . . . excuse me?’
Logan peeled an eye open to see a blue apron hovering at his shoulder. Further up there was a pretty brunette attached to it, balancing three large plates. She smiled uncertainly down at him. ‘Sea bass?’
Back at Force Headquarters, DI Steel was in deep conversation with the Assistant Chief Constable when Logan pushed through the incident room’s door. He left them to it – not feeling up to polite conversation, having made a good attempt at eating all three portions of fish out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Brooding as he chewed.
Logan McRae Crime Series Books 1-3: Cold Granite, Dying Light, Broken Skin (Logan McRae) Page 57
