Dark Blood

by MacBride, Stuart

  It was a miracle they hadn’t just fired his useless beardy backside.

  Logan even managed to whistle a happy tune on his way down to reception.

  The meeting with Knox was pretty straightforward. The ratfaced Geordie was in a private room at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, with a plainclothes officer from the Offender Management Unit stationed outside – just in case.

  Logan settled back against the wall, letting Dr Goulding take the single seat.

  Knox’s belongings were piled on the wide windowsill, the battered leather suitcase on the bottom, his granny’s quilt folded on top of that. The man himself lay in the bed, beneath the institution-grey covers, family bible clutched to his chest.

  ‘So you see, Richard.’ Goulding reached forward and patted Knox on the arm – the one that wasn’t swathed in bandages. ‘While they admit faking the attack on Jimmy Evans, they’re still denying they had anything to do with the Sacro team.’

  Knox nodded. His face looked even worse than usual – covered in a dark web of purple, green and yellow bruises.

  ‘But, the police have found fibres and DNA from Bruce Lowe, Ellen Hill, and Matthew Evans in the Sacro flat. The Procurator Fiscal’s charging them with both attacks.’

  A tear spattered on the crumpled bed sheets.

  ‘Now.’ Goulding drew his chair up closer. ‘We need to talk about what you’re going to do when you get out of here.’

  Knox looked at Logan. ‘What about Danby?’

  ‘Gone back to Newcastle. Discharged himself yesterday, said he wanted to be with his family.’

  ‘That’s good.’ The bruised man took a deep breath and fiddled with the bible’s cover. ‘No offence, like, but after Aberdeen it’d be nice to go somewhere hot. Can I do that? Spain, or something?’

  Goulding tilted his head to one side. ‘Normally no, but given your actions in helping save DS McRae’s life…We’d need a few more sessions to confirm you’ve got everything under control.’ The psychologist smiled and patted Knox on the arm again. ‘We’ll see. You’re making great progress.’

  ‘Somewhere hot, with no snow.’ He even smiled, hugging the bible to his chest. ‘How great would that be?’

  Logan pushed himself off the wall. ‘We’d better be off.’

  The chair creaked as Goulding levered himself out of it. ‘Yes, right. You call me if you need anything, OK?’

  Logan hovered by the door when the psychologist had gone, staring at the bruised figure on the bed. He cleared his throat. ‘I wanted to say, thanks. Again. For stopping Connelly.’

  Knox shrugged a shoulder – the one without the bandages on it. ‘Thanks for not giving up on us. Again.’

  Nod.

  Silence.

  ‘Yeah, well…’ Logan backed towards the door. ‘Bye.’

  He caught up with Goulding at the lifts. ‘You want to go on ahead? I need to see someone.’

  ‘Ah.’ The psychologist nodded. ‘Of course. Would you like me to wait? I’ve cleared the afternoon to write up Knox’s evaluation reports anyway.’

  It wasn’t as if Logan could drive anywhere by himself – not with his hand full of stitches and swollen up to the size of a small balloon. He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. ‘Actually, you’re OK. Thanks, but I can get a lift back with a patrol car. Not a problem.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure…’

  ‘Yeah, thanks anyway.’

  They said goodbye on the ground floor, Goulding getting out of the lift to walk to the exit, Logan staying on to the first sublevel. He wandered the old familiar chipped and faded corridors to the Maternity Hospital. It wasn’t visiting time for nearly two hours yet, but a flash of his warrant card and some puppy-dog eyes got Logan through the security doors and into the post-natal ward. Where a chubby nurse with squeaky shoes escorted him to a little double room. The curtains were drawn, leaving just the flickering light from a TV mounted above one of the beds, a worn-looking woman staring dark-eyed at the screen. DI Steel was sitting beside the other – empty – bed, one of those plastic nicotine inhaler things clamped between her teeth.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Off having a pee.’ Steel looked up, her face a roadmap of wrinkles and creases, dark purple bags under her eyes. ‘You look like shite.’

  Logan sank into the chair next to her with a grunt. Everything ached. ‘Not exactly page-three material yourself.’

  ‘Cheeky wee shite.’ But she was smiling as she said it. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Been on the phone to SOCA – said they couldn’t comment on any ongoing investigation, assuming there actually was one. Which they refused to confirm or deny. Wouldn’t even tell me if Sergeant Julie Bultitude really exists or not. The bastards could’ve been anyone…’

  ‘Aye, that sounds like SOCA all right.’ Steel creaked her way out of her seat, rubbed the small of her back. ‘Come on, I’ll introduce you.’

  The little intensive care ward was dim behind the glass partition, green lights winking in the gloom on half a dozen microwave-oven-sized plastic incubators.

  Steel cupped her hands to the glass, then leaned her head into the hollow.

  Logan did the same. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Second from the right, third row. Jasmine.’

  A little pink bundle of wrinkled skin with a tube up her nose – taped to her cheek with a white strip. Little fingers. Little toes. Wires stuck to her chest with sticky pads covered in printed teddy bears. ‘God, she’s tiny.’

  ‘Nine weeks preterm. That’s sod all these days. Before you know it she’ll be nicking fags and necking Bacardi Breezers round the back of the shops.’ Steel straightened up and slapped Logan on the back, hard enough to make him wince. ‘Who knew your knob would turn out useful for something, eh?’

  ‘This is a last and final boarding call for flight SZ515 to Plymouth, would all remaining passengers please go to gate number six where this flight is now closing.’

  Detective Superintendent Graeme Danby shuffles another step forward in line. Fast bag drop his arse. What’s the point of doing everything online when it takes half a bloody hour to get your stuff checked in?

  He leans left, favouring his gammy leg, and peers around the two chavs in Nike tracksuits. Looks like the only exercise this pair get is waddling to the door to pay for their home delivery pizza, know what I’m saying?

  Graeme checks his watch. Twenty to three. Plenty of time.

  He shuffles forward another step, teeth gritted, even after half a dozen painkillers.

  Should really be flying business class, bypass all this standing in line crap. Still it’s a lot of money. Hard to break the habit of a lifetime. Even when he’s got four-point-six million split between various offshore bank accounts. That bitch Julie and her thugs tried to beat it out of him, get him to fess up to taking the cash, but he kept his mouth shut, didn’t he?

  Four-point-six million’s worth a couple of broken ribs.

  Mr and Mrs Athletic get to the front of the queue with their overloaded trolley.

  Graeme checks his watch again.

  Always like this when he’s got to fly somewhere. Especially if he’s got to make connections. Newcastle to Charles De Gaulle; Charles De Gaulle to Shanghai; Shanghai to Auckland. Over thirty hours sitting in economy.

  He tries not to think about it. Bad enough flying anywhere – that’s why he’s got sleeping tablets. Pop two when they board in Paris, wake up in the Far East eleven hours later. Valerie and the kids meet him at the airport in Auckland. Tearful reunion. And they all live happily ever after.

  The Tracksuit Twins are arguing with each other about who’s got the passports. Morons. Should have a couple fake ones stashed away, shouldn’t they?

  Never know when you need to get out of the country without those bastards from the Serious Organized Crime Agency finding out, you know what I’m saying?

  Preparation – that’s the key.

  ‘This is a general boarding call for flight BA1333 to London Heathrow. Would all pas
sengers please come forward to gate number two with their boarding cards ready for inspection.’

  Someone taps him on the shoulder, but Graeme doesn’t look round. ‘You can bloody well wait your turn like everyone else—’

  ‘Now, Mr Danby, is that any way to talk to an old friend?’ A deep gravelly voice, the words wafting into his ear on a cloud of extra strong mint.

  Graeme keeps his eyes fixed on the fatties. ‘Alfie. Thought you were doing a six stretch in Holme.’

  ‘Very kind of you to take an interest, Mr Danby. But got out early, didn’t I? Good behaviour.’

  The mint smell gets stronger, making Graeme’s stomach clench.

  ‘Mr Cunningham wonders if you’d like to join him for a drink, Mr Danby? Discuss a certain shipment of his you…intercepted.’

  He swallows. Keeping the bile down. ‘Love to Alfie, but I’ve got a plane to catch, know what I’m saying?’

  Something hard jabs into his back. ‘RSVP, Mr Danby. We wouldn’t want to make Mr Cunningham invite your wife and kids too, would we?’

  He’d do it too, no matter how far away they were.

  Fucking hell.

  He’d been so close.

  Head down, Graeme picks up the handle of his trundle case and follows Alfie out of the queue.

  What other choice does he have?

  The canteen was quieter than the Wee Hoose, so Logan grabbed a table there. Tin of Irn-Bru, Tunnock’s Tasty Caramel Wafer, making little chocolate shrapnel while he copied notes out of his vomity notebook and into the new one he’d just signed out of stores.

  Took a while to cross reference it all back to the original, with page numbers and everything, but at least now he could leave the stinky thing in its plastic bag, buried away in a filing cabinet in case it was ever needed. Instead of carting it about the whole time.

  That done he moved onto the scrap of paper he’d liberated from Douglas Walker’s bedroom. Copying the notes he’d made on Jimmy Evans, the Mackenzie and Kerr jewellery heist, and Douglas Walker’s attempted suicide. He flipped it over and gave the art student’s CV a scan. Mediocre pass marks in Maths, French, Physics and English, top marks for Art and Design. Summer job at a graphic design agency. Part time at a printers in Bridge of Don, paying his way through university…

  Logan stared at the name written in for a reference. ‘JAMES CLAY’. The same name that was on the yellow stickie that came with the last envelope of cash from Wee Hamish Mowat.

  Logan closed his eyes, leant forward, and banged his bruised forehead off the tabletop.

  Bloody idiot.

  It’s important for the local economy that we all do our bit, don’t you think?

  It wasn’t a bribe, it was a tip-off.

  Two patrol cars, one police van, and Dildo Mair’s Vauxhall Vectra sat in the little car park outside an unremarkable industrial unit in the Bridge of Don. The sign above the big roller doors proclaimed: ‘JAMES CLAY ~ PRINTING WITH STYLE’ next to a big cartoon exclamation mark with glasses, a cheesy grin, and its hands full of papers.

  Classy.

  Inside, a huge printing press sat towards the back of the unit, the smell of hot dust and oil-based ink drifting out into the cold afternoon. Reams of paper were stacked on pallets along the walls. A big electric guillotine. A collating and folding machine. In the corner, a kettle was finally coming to the boil, watched by half a dozen of Aberdeen’s finest in full uniform.

  A little breezeblock office was built against one wall, full of desks, drawing boards, filing cabinets and paper samples. Logan poked the scan button on a digital radio again and the display cycled round to Original FM. An old Crowded House song bounded out of the speakers.

  Sitting on the edge of a half-sized filing cabinet, Susanna Frayn, from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, leant forward and tapped Logan on the shoulder. ‘Turn it up, I like this one.’ Then settled back, singing along quietly.

  She did the same for the next song. And then it was the news – a bit about Richard Knox; investigations proceeding into the body discovered at McLennan Homes’ Balmedie development earlier this week; a new goalkeeper signed for Aberdeen Football Club; weather – more snow on its way; and then the travel. According to which, Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic was terrible. Surprise, surprise.

  A large window separated the office from the print shop. Dildo gazed out at the constables searching the place. He stuck his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. ‘We got a call today, from this bloke who wants us to get him a refund from a prostitute calling herself “Big Eleanor”, works down the docks. Says he entered into an oral contract with her in good faith.’ Dildo made hand-and-mouth gestures, poking his tongue into his cheek to sell the mime. ‘Only now he’s heard a rumour that she’s really a man, thinks he’s been a victim of misrepresentation and fraud.’

  Susanna smiled. ‘What does he want, his deposit back?’

  Logan shook his head. ‘Thanks for lowering the tone.’

  ‘Hey, could be worse.’ Dildo grinned. ‘At least I didn’t tell you about the DVDs we seized last week. There was this one with two midgets, a redhead, a jar of Vaseline, and a Shetland pony they—’

  ‘Dildo!’

  The man from Trading Standards sighed. ‘You were a lot more fun before you became a dad. Remember that time we…’

  Dildo drifted to a halt. There was a constable standing on the other side of the window holding a sheet of A1 paper against the glass. It was covered in a rainbow of bank notes: pink, purple, brown, and blue – fifties, twenties, tens, and fives. Had to be three or four hundred quid’s-worth on the one sheet.

  The constable stuck his head around the door. ‘Found a huge stack of them under a pile of annual reports. We’re millionaires! Bwahahaha…’

  Susanna was staring at him with one eyebrow raised.

  ‘We’ll…erm…start loading them into the van.’

  Dildo wrapped an arm around Logan’s shoulder. ‘Laz, my man, I may just have to buy you a pint tonight.’

  ‘Can’t.’ He held up his bandaged hand. ‘Antibiotics.’

  And by the time he was off them it’d be three weeks without a single drink. One by willpower, the rest by doctor’s order. Now if could just cut out the cigarettes and learn to eat meat again, he’d be back where he was two and a half years ago.

  Still, it was better than nothing.

  Richard Knox stands at the window of his hospital room, looking out at the snow-covered world. The car park’s busy, so are the roads, gritted from pristine white to glistening black.

  Richard smiles – been a while since he’s had a good day. And OK, it feels like he’s been run over by a minibus and the antibiotics turn his stomach…But he’s getting better, you know? That psychologist Goulding said so: responding to therapy. Changed man.

  Been telling them that the whole time.

  Found God, didn’t he. Or God found him.

  Doesn’t really matter in the end.

  Long as you tell them what they want to hear.

  He hugs the threadbare bible to his chest. All those notes and scribbles. Exodus 29.45, 18.20; Nehemiah 9.12; Ezekiel 38.03. Doesn’t take long till you’ve got bank account numbers, sort codes, authorization passkeys. Everything you need to hide large sums of money. Ten million pounds worth, even after expenses and buying that double-crossing bastard Danby off.

  Jet off to Spain, disappear after a couple of months, start a new life somewhere exotic. Aberdeen’s ruined the northern hemisphere for him. He wants somewhere warm to get back to God’s work.

  Richard smiles down at all the little people scurrying about beneath his hospital window.

  He’d been telling the truth when he’d told them getting caught was a lesson. It taught him he wasn’t ready. Danby only found him cos Billy Adams went crawling to him, covered in bruises, his pants full of blood. Stupid mistake: he’d let Adams live.

  Simple.

  And that was God’s real lesson: he’d been sloppy. Lazy. So God sent
him to prison with all the killers and perverts and paedos and rapists. People who could teach him how to break into houses. How to dispose of bodies. How to kill and torture and rape and not leave any traces for them CSI bastards to find.

  A seven-year masterclass in how to get away with murder.

  And Richard Knox is a fast learner.

  By Stuart MacBride

  Cold Granite Dying Light Broken Skin Flesh House Blind Eye Dark Blood

  Writing as Stuart B. MacBride

  Halfhead

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental. The only exceptions to this are the characters of Julie Bultitude, Zoë Butler, Graeme Danby, Susanna Frayn, Dave Goulding, Allan Guthrie, Ian Haffenden and Fiona Martin, who have given their express permission to be fictionalized in this volume. All behaviour, history, and character traits assigned to these individuals have been designed to serve the needs of the narrative and do not necessarily bear any resemblance to the real people.

  HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010

  FIRST EDITION

  Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2010

  Stuart MacBride asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work