Three-Piece folded his arms. ‘That’s the trouble with Yes people. No manners.’
‘Well, Chris Browning didn’t go to Lanzarote. Not without his passport.’
Mr Spots folded his arms too, saltire flags sticking up like offensive weapons. ‘Wait a minute – what makes you think he’s one of ours?’
‘Yeah.’ Mrs Tweed poked Tracksuit in the chest. ‘He was rude to us first.’
‘Don’t you poke me!’
‘How come I can hear fighting?’
‘I’m surrounded by idiots.’ Logan held his phone against his chest. ‘Sod off, the lot of you. I already voted, OK? Go bother someone else.’ Back to Stoney. ‘Get onto the Aberdeen Examiner and find out who fed them the story – I want to speak to their sources. We’ll trawl the docks and see if anyone else saw Chris Browning down there.’
‘You going to be back for the briefing?’
Mr Spots pursed his lips. ‘Can I ask who you voted for?’
‘No, you can’t: sod off.’
‘Guv?’
‘Not you, Stoney, this lot.’
‘So you voted No, then?’
‘It’s none of your business!’ Logan jabbed a finger in the direction of Three-Piece and Tracksuit. ‘And it’s none of their business either. Now, for the last time: SOD OFF!’ Bellowing out the last two words.
The four of them backed off, chins in, eyebrows up.
Three-Piece: ‘Well, there was no need for that, was there?’
Mrs Tweed: ‘No there wasn’t.’
Tracksuit: ‘There’s always someone who lowers the debate to name calling, isn’t there?’
Mr Spots: ‘Honestly, some people think shouting’s the same as democracy.’
Logan screwed his eyes shut. ‘Stoney, if I’m up for four counts of murder tomorrow morning, can you feed my cat for me?’
‘Deep breaths, Guv, count to ten.’
A smoky voice cut through the night. ‘Ta-daaaaa!’ And when Logan opened his eyes, there was Steel, bouncing on the top step with her arms up, like something out of a Rocky film. ‘They canna take our FREEDOM!’
The little knot of idiots transferred their attentions her way.
‘You want me to slide the briefing back a bit?’
Logan checked his watch again. ‘Fifteen minutes. Then we hit the streets.’
3
The bells of some far off church tolled out a dozen chimes. Midnight.
Water Lane was narrow and dark, half the streetlights blown and broken. The cobbles slick beneath Logan’s feet. Not that it’d been raining. No, they were all slippery with … Yeah, probably best not to think about what he’d just trodden in. Or on.
A tall granite building made a wall on one side of the lane, its guttering sprouting weeds, lichen on the lintels, broken windows. Boarded-up doors that opened onto nothing but fresh air on the second, third, and fourth floors. A couple of trees had burst out through the windows high up there, like slow-motion explosions.
The other side was more granite. Cold and unwelcoming. Not exactly the most romantic of spots for an intimate liaison. But then romance probably wasn’t on the cards. Not even Richard Gere’s character from Pretty Woman would have wheeched any of the working girls here off to a swanky hotel for pampering and shopping fun.
Two of them shuffled their feet, then looked away from the missing person poster in Logan’s hand. One looked as if she’d never see sixty again, but was probably barely out of her thirties. Her friend hadn’t been at the drugs as long, so she still had all her own teeth and nowhere near as many pin-prick bruises up the inside of her arms. But they were both pipe-cleaner thin.
Logan sighed and tried again. ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen him?’
The older one shook her head. ‘Now, any chance you can sod off, only we’ve got quotas and that.’
Sugarhouse Lane was even narrower. The Regent Quay end was quiet – probably due to the half-dozen security cameras protecting the office buildings at the mouth of the alley. Further in, it was a different story. Blank granite topped with barbed wire on one side, warehouse-style walls on the other.
A lack of streetlights left the doorways and recesses in shadow.
Logan hunched his shoulders and stepped into the gloom.
The young man couldn’t have been much over eighteen. If that. His red PVC T-shirt was dusty across the shoulders, his jeans torn and grubby about the knees. Every bit as thin and wobbly as the ladies of one street over. He licked his lips and stepped towards Logan. ‘You looking for a good time, yeah?’
Logan pulled out the poster again. ‘Looking for this man. You seen him?’
He lowered his head. ‘Never seen no one …’
After a while, all the alleys blended into one another. Granite walls. Shadows. The smell of furtive sex and shame and desperation and barely-concealed violence.
Logan held the poster up and the woman with the thinning blonde hair shook her head. Same as the last five people he’d talked to.
As she clip-clopped away down the cobbles, Logan pulled out his phone and dialled Stoney. ‘Anything?’
‘Nah. It’s like a Dress-Slutty Party for amnesiacs round here tonight. No one’s seen him.’
‘Well we know two people saw him. Has to be others.’
‘Early days though, Guv. Maybe Elaine Mitchel and Jane Taylor don’t come out till the clubs shut?’
Logan curled his lip and wandered back onto Regent Quay, with its warehouses, fences, and massive supply vessels, caught in the glare of security lighting. ‘Don’t fancy hanging about here till the back of three. Get onto Control – I want home addresses.’
‘Guv.’
Till then, might as well complete the circuit and try Water Lane again.
Two steps in and Logan’s phone launched into ‘The Imperial March’ from Star Wars. That would be Steel.
He pulled the phone out. ‘What?’
‘Too close to call, you believe that?’
‘What is?’
‘The referendum, you moron. They’re showing all the ballot boxes arriving at the counting stations. Exit polls are too close to call.’
‘Glad to hear you’re working hard.’
‘Don’t be a dick. This is important.’
‘Well, while you’re sitting on your bum, watching TV, and eating pizza, I’m out searching the docks for witnesses. So if it’s nothing urgent and police-related, feel free to be a pain in someone else’s backside for a change.’ He hung up and wandered further into the alley.
‘This it?’ Logan stood in the street and looked up. The tower block loomed in the darkness – twelve storeys of concrete and graffiti, a few lights shining from the upper floors. Wind whipped a broken newspaper against the chainlink fence, punishing it for its headline, ‘A DIRTY CAMPAIGN OF FEAR AND LIES?’
Stoney checked his notebook. ‘Want to guess what floor?’
A groan. ‘Top.’
‘Yup.’
There was an intercom next to the double doors, half the metal cover missing, wires poking out. Didn’t matter anyway – the door creaked open when Stoney nudged it with his foot. Then he flinched, nose crumped up on one side. ‘Lovely. Eau De Toilette. Incontinence, pour homme.’
Deep breaths.
They marched inside. A faded cardboard sign was duct taped to the lift’s dented doors. ‘OUT OF ORDER’.
Damn right it was.
They took the stairs. Dark stains clustered at every landing, the nipping reek of ammonia strong enough to make Logan’s eyes water. Go faster and be out of it quicker, but then there would be puffing and panting and breathing more of it in …
When finally they arrived on the twelfth floor, Stoney was a coughing, wheezing lump. Dragging air in. And Logan wasn’t much better. By rights, the top floors should’ve been less stinky, shouldn’t they? People would pee on their way downstairs, or on their way back to their flats. No one headed upstairs to pee, did they?
Stoney wafted a hand in front of his face. ‘God
’s sake, stairwell must run like Niagara Falls on a Saturday night.’ He coughed a couple of times, then spat. Wiped his mouth. ‘That’s it at the end.’
Flat four still had its number attached to the red-painted door. The word ‘HOORS!’ was sprayed across the wood in three-foot tall letters. If it was advertising, it wasn’t working. After slogging all the way up here, who’d have the energy to do anything?
Logan knocked.
Waited.
Knocked again.
Had a third go.
Finally, a voice on the other side, thin and muffled. ‘Go away, or I’ll call the police! I know who your mothers are!’
OK …
‘I can save you the trouble – it is the police.’
Silence.
Stoney puffed out his cheeks. ‘Can we not sod about here, madam? It’s a long way to climb and it stinks of pish.’
The door cracked open an inch and a slice of pale skin appeared in the gap. The eye was grey, the iris circled in white. Chamois-leather creases across the cheek. ‘How do I know you’re policemen?’
Logan showed her his warrant card, then Stoney did the same. She peered myopically at them, then grunted and closed the door again. Unlatched the chain. A pink cardigan slumped over a thin, hunched frame. Pink scalp showing through thin yellowy hair. She turned and led the pair of them through a stripped-bare hallway into the living room.
No carpet. No underlay. A tatty brown couch against one wall, a pile of dirty washing against the other. And in-between, a panoramic window that looked out across Aberdeen. A sky of ink, the streetlights glowing firefly ribbons. It would have been breathtaking, if the climb and sudden smell of cat hadn’t already taken care of that.
An overflowing litter tray bulged in the corner, like a heaped display of miniature black puddings.
A large ginger cat sat in the middle of the couch, bright orange with a shining white bib and paws, as if he’d been painted with marmalade and Tipp-Ex. How the cat managed to stay so clean in this manky hole was anyone’s guess. It raised its nose and sniffed at the scruffy pair of police officers, somehow implying that Logan and Stoney were the ones responsible for the horrible smell.
The woman sat down next to her cat and stroked its back, getting a deep rumbling purr in return. ‘Whatever they told you, I didn’t do it.’ She kissed the cat’s head. ‘Did I, Mr Seville? No, Mummy didn’t do nothing.’
Stoney took out his notebook. ‘Didn’t do what?’
She sniffed and looked out of the window. ‘They shout horrible things at me when I get my messages. I’m not well. They could kill me. One of the wee shites tried to kick Mr Seville! What kind of person does that? Should be locked up.’
Logan went to lean back against the wall, then caught himself and stood up straight again before anything could stain. ‘Elaine Mitchel and Jane Taylor. They live here?’
Hard to believe that anyone lived here.
‘I’m an old woman. I deserve better than this.’
A rat deserved better than this.
‘Are they in?’
A shrug. ‘They come and go, I’m not their mother.’ She pulled up the sleeve of her cardigan for a scratch, and there they were: the tell-tale bruises and scabs of a long-term intravenous drug user. ‘Were supposed to get me some cider and ciggies.’ She scratched. Licked her lips. Scratched again. ‘You got any ciggies?’
Stoney dipped into his pocket for a packet of menthol, then cracked open a window, letting in the gentle hum of the city. Lit one of the cigarettes and handed it over.
She took it and pulled, cheeks hollow, the end glowing and sizzling. Holding the smoke in for a beat, before letting it out in a post-orgasmic sigh. ‘They’re good girls. They look after their Aunty Ina.’
Stoney put his cigarettes away. ‘How long they been on the game?’
‘Go’ to make ends meet, haven’t we? God knows we get sod all off the welfare state.’
Logan opened his mouth, then closed it again. Her use of the plural there wasn’t exactly conjuring up a happy image. ‘We need to speak to them. They’re not in trouble, we just need to ask them some questions about something they saw.’
The eyes brightened. ‘There a reward?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ She sat back again and stroked her pristine cat. ‘Are you sure?’
‘The Imperial March’ blared out from Logan’s pocket. ‘Sorry,’ he pointed over his shoulder at what looked like the kitchen door, ‘can I take this in there?’
‘Free country. Long as your pal gives us another ciggie.’
Logan slipped through into a galley kitchen that looked as if it’d been decorated by someone on a dirty protest. Though, presumably, it was food smeared up the walls. Please let it be food. A bin was heaped with ready-meal cartons and boxes, spilling out onto the floor and worktop. Cheap supermarket value own-brand lasagne, burgers, sausages, shepherd’s pie … Mystery meat and gristle with added sugar and salt.
The sink was heaped with dishes and cutlery. A thick dusting of dead bluebottles on the windowsill filled the space between empty supermarket-whisky bottles. A single clean patch was reserved for a placemat on the floor with three bowls on it. One water, the others heaped with glistening brown food. Going by the empty pouches on the cooker, Mr Seville was eating better than the people. The cat’s meals certainly cost a lot more.
Logan stood as far away from the units and surfaces as possible and pulled out his phone. ‘What?’
‘Sodding Clackmannanshire, that’s what! Fifty-four percent “No”, forty-six percent “Yes”. What’s wrong with people?’
He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. ‘Did you call me up to tell me that?’
‘First result and it’s a “No”. Half one and we’ve already got a sodding deficit of nearly three thousand votes to make up!’
‘Go away.’
‘Laz, have you got any idea—’
He hung up, but the phone blared its Imperial theme at him again. He hit the button. ‘I’m working.’
‘Dundee turnout’s only seventy-nine percent. If every bugger had bothered their arse and showed up, that’d be another twenty-five thousand votes, right there! It—’
He hung up again. Scrolled through the menu system before she could call back and blocked her number.
At least now he might get some sodding peace.
Back in the living room, Aunty Ina was well down her second cigarette, while Stoney leaned back against the windowsill. The cat paused, then went back to washing an immaculate pink-padded paw.
Stoney nodded at the kitchen. ‘Something important, Guv?’
‘No.’ He stood in front of the couch. ‘We any nearer?’
‘Ina here says we can search Elaine and Jane’s room for twenty quid.’
She smiled. ‘Seeing as they’re family, and that.’
4
Stoney had a wee shudder as he straightened up and made rubber spiders with his blue-nitriled fingers. ‘I’m not even going to try to describe what it’s like under the bed.’
Aunty Ina stood in the doorway, another one of Stoney’s cigarettes poking out of the side of her mouth, the big ginger cat clasped to her chest like a purring baby. ‘Aye, they’re a bit manky right enough.’
A bit manky?
The room was an open landfill site for dirty clothes, takeaway containers, and abandoned gossip magazines. They made drifts in the corners, were piled up around the double bed, avalanched out of the battered wardrobe. It smelled like the inside of an old sock in here, one that had been marinated in cannabis resin and sweat.
Logan tried his luck with the chest of drawers in the corner. The top one creaked out with a groan. Nothing but cheap-looking frilly pants. Some of which hadn’t been washed.
‘Course, they take after their mum. Never met a bigger slag in your life than Morag.’
Next drawer: socks tied in tight little bundles.
‘So Morag’s up the stick with Elaine, and she and Whatsisnam
e get married. Registry office. Couldn’t wear white, could she? Not when half the school’d had a go.’ Aunty Ina took a drag and blew a lungful of smoke at the stained ceiling. ‘Didn’t last. Well, hard to be a dad when you’ve got a paper round, isn’t it?’
Next drawer: baby toys. Rattles, dummies, shaky things in the shape of flowers, a stars-and-moon mobile still in the packaging. A pink fuzzy cat. A tiny romper suit with orange and black stripes like a tiger. He pulled the tiger costume out and held it up. ‘Does Elaine or Jane have a child?’ Because if they did, Social Services were getting a call to rescue it from this rancid hovel.
Aunty Ina stuck the cigarette back in her mouth and shifted her grip on her cat. ‘Naw, that’s Elaine’s. Silly cow thinks she’ll be a wonderful mummy someday. As if. Collects this crap the whole time. Got bags of it in the wardrobe.’
Yeah, because that wasn’t creepy.
‘Anyway,’ Ina rubbed Mr Seville’s tummy, ‘then along comes Shuggie and sweeps Morag off her feet. Come with me, baby, we’ll see the world …’ A sigh. ‘Real looker he was too.’
Last drawer. It was full of carrier bags.
‘Course, she’s full of herself. “Oh, he loves me. Oh, he’ll do anything for me. Oh, we’re so happy.” And six weeks later, she’s got a broken arm, a broken nose, she’s pregnant – again – and Shuggie’s shacked up with some other poor cow.’
Logan tipped the first one out on the bare mattress. An assortment of watches spilled out onto the stained fabric. A few still had the price stickers attached.
‘Eight years later, and she’s overdosed in a squat and I’m lumbered with her bloody kids. Some sister, eh?’
The next bag contained cheap jewellery, the kind sold at the tills in Markies and BHS. All plastic and shiny bits. All still pinned to rectangles of cardboard.
‘Lucky the wee buggers didn’t end up in care.’
Logan looked around the horrible little room Elaine and Jane shared in the horrible little flat, with their horrible little aunt. ‘Yeah, really lucky.’
Bag number three was full of cosmetics from Boots – own-brand stuff, probably snatched off the shelves while no one was looking.
45% Hangover [A Logan and Steel novella] Page 2
