A rumpled man stuck his hand up: a sagging vulture in a supermarket suit. ‘Michael Larson, Edinburgh Evening Post. “Unsubstantiated,” right? So you’re saying this is all just a big hoax? That the production company-’
Everything else was drowned out: ‘Here we bloody go…’, ‘Hoy, Larson, your dick’s unsubstantiated!’, ‘Tosser…’
Larson’s back stiffened. ‘Oh come on, it’s obviously fake. They’re just doing it to boost record sales, aren’t they? There never was a body, it’s all-’
‘If there are no other sensible questions, I’m…’ Chief Superintendent Bain frowned out into the crowd as a reporter in the middle of the pack stood up. The whole room turned to stare at the short, stocky bloke, dressed in an expensive-looking grey suit, silk shirt and tie, hair immaculately coiffed. As if he’d come shrink-wrapped in a box.
He waited until every microphone and camera was pointed in his direction. ‘Colin Miller, Aberdeen Examiner.’ His broad Glaswegian accent didn’t really go with the fancy clothes. The wee man pulled out a sheet of paper in a clear plastic sleeve. ‘This turned up on my desk half an hour ago. And I quote: “The police isn’t taking this seriously. We gave them simple, clear, instructions, but they still was late. So we got no other choice: we had to cut off the wee girl’s toe. She got nine more. No more fucking about.”’
The room erupted. ‘Is it true? Did you find Jenny’s toe?’, ‘Why aren’t Grampian Police taking it seriously?’, ‘How can you justify putting a little girl’s life at risk?’, ‘Will you hand this case over to SOCA now?’, ‘When can we see the toe?’, ‘…public inquiry…’, ‘…people have a right to know…’, ‘…think she’s still alive?’
Camera flashes went off like a firework display, Finnie, Bain, and the Media Liaison Officer not getting a word in.
And standing there, basking in the media glow: Colin Miller.
Wee shite.
‘Enough!’ Up at the front of the room, Chief Superintendent Bain banged his hand on the desk, making the jug of water and three empty glasses chink and rattle. ‘Quiet down or I’ll have you all thrown out, are we clear?’
Gradually the hubbub subsided, bums returned to seats. Until the only one left standing was Colin Miller, still holding the note. ‘Well?’
Bain cleared his throat. ‘I think…’
The Media Liaison Officer leaned over and whispered something in Bain’s ear and the Chief Superintendent scowled, whispered something back, then nodded.
‘I can confirm that we recovered a toe this afternoon that appears to have come from a small girl, but until DNA results-’
And the room erupted again.
Chapter 4
Shouts; telephones ringing; constables and support staff bustling about the main CID room with bits of paper; the bitter-sweet smells of stewed coffee and stale sweat overlaid with something cloying, artificial and floral. A little walled-off section lurked on one side, home to Grampian Police’s six detective sergeants. The sheet of A4 Blu-Tacked to the door was starting to look tatty, ‘THE WEE HOOSE’ barely readable through all the rude Post-it notes and biroed-on willies. Logan pushed through and closed the door behind him, shutting out the worst of the noise.
‘Jesus…’
He nodded at the room’s only occupant, a slouching figure with an expanding bald spot, taxi-door ears, and a single eyebrow that crossed his forehead like a strip of hairy carpet. Biohazard Bob Marshall: living proof that even natural selection had off days.
Bob spun around in his seat. ‘I had a whole packet of fags in here yesterday and they’ve gone missing.’
‘Don’t look at me: gave up four weeks ago.’ Logan checked his watch. ‘How come you managed to skip the briefing?’
‘Our beloved leader, Acting DI MacDonald, thinks someone needs to keep this bloody department’s head above the sewage-line while you bunch of poofs are off being media hoors.’
‘You’re just jealous.’
‘Bloody right I am.’ He turned back to his desk. ‘See when it’s my turn to be DI? You bastards are going to know the wrath of Bob.’
Logan settled behind his desk and powered up his computer. ‘You got that new pathologist, Hudson’s number?’
‘Ask Ms Dalrymple.’
Logan shuddered. ‘No chance.’
‘Hmm,’ Bob narrowed his eyes. ‘She still playing the creepy morgue attendant?’
‘Three weeks straight. Started doing this weird thing with her fingers too, like she’s got spiders for hands.’
Bob nodded. ‘Like it. Dedication.’ He scooted his chair forward. ‘Did I ever tell you about the time-’
The door clunked open, letting in the sounds of barely-controlled chaos. Samantha stood in the doorway, the SOC oversuit gone, revealing a Green Day t-shirt, black jeans, and a mop of scarlet hair, fringe plastered to her forehead. Face all pink and shiny. The metal bar she’d been dusting for prints was slung over one shoulder, wrapped in a swathe of evidence bags and silver duct tape. ‘Anyone in for a DNA result?’
Bob grinned. ‘If you’re looking for a sample, I’ve got some body fluids in a handy pump dispenser?’
‘Logan, tell Biohazard I wouldn’t touch his knob with a cheese grater.’
‘Aw, come on — you’re not still sulking are you?’
She turned and dumped a small sheaf of papers on Logan’s desk. ‘The blood’s Jenny’s. Ninety-nine point nine eight certainty.’
Logan flipped through to the conclusions page. ‘Sod…’
‘Sorry.’ Samantha draped a warm arm around his shoulders. ‘You going to be late tonight? Big day tomorrow, remember?’
‘Aye, well,’ Bob rubbed a finger across his single hairy eyebrow, ‘look on the bright side: imagine if it’d been someone else’s? Then you’d have two kiddies missing.’
‘Yeah, probably…’ Logan put the report down on his desk. Jenny’s DNA. Sod and bugger. ‘Did you tell Finnie?’
Samantha backed off, hands up. ‘Oh no you don’t.’
‘Please?’
‘Your name’s on the chain of evidence, tell him yourself.’ She gave the length of pipe a little shake. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to get down the store before that idiot Downie comes on. Wouldn’t trust the rotten sod to file his toenails, never mind physical evidence…’ Samantha blushed. Cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’
Bob pursed his lips and tutted. ‘See that’s the trouble with support staff these days: always putting their foot in it. Making jokes about toenails when there’s a wee girl’s severed-’
‘Screw you, Bob.’
He grinned. ‘See: you’re talking to me again!’
She planted a kiss on Logan’s forehead then marched out, giving Bob the finger.
Bob pointed at his crotch. ‘So … you want a rain-check on that DNA sample?’
Samantha slammed the door.
The main CID room was broken up into a cattle-pen of chest-high partition walls, all covered in memos, phone lists, and cartoons cut out of the Aberdeen Examiner. Someone had vandalized the ‘TERRORISM: IT’S EVERYONE’S PROBLEM!’ poster on the wall — by the little recess where the tea and coffee making facilities lurked — the word ‘TERRORISM’ scored out and ‘BOB’S ARSE’ written in its place.
Logan paused in front of the huge whiteboards at the front of the room, scanning the scrawled boxes of case updates. Apparently Jenny and her mum had been spotted in a Peterhead post office, a pub in Methlick, Elgin Library, the Inverurie swimming pool, Cults church… All utter bollocks.
Someone had updated the countdown, now it read, ‘8 DAYS TO DEADLINE!!!’
‘Sarge?’
Logan glanced to his left. PC Guthrie was standing beside him, clutching a steaming mug of coffee that curled the smell of bitter burnt-toast into the room. Logan turned back to the board. ‘If you’ve got bad news, you can sod off and share it with someone else.’
Guthrie handed him the mug, a wee pout pulling his pale face out of shape. With his semi-skimmed skin, faint ginger hair, and
blond eyebrows he looked like a ghost that had been at the pies. ‘Milk, two sugars.’
‘Oh … sorry.’ Logan took the offered mug.
The constable nodded. ‘But while I’ve got you, Sarge, any chance you can take a look at tomorrow’s drug bust? McPherson’s SIO and you know what that means…’
Logan did. ‘When you going in?’
‘Half-three.’
‘Well, at least it’s an early morning shout. The buggers will still be…’ He could see Guthrie’s face pulling itself into an ugly grimace. ‘What?’
‘Not AM, Sarge, PM.’
‘You’re going in at half-three in the afternoon? Are you mad?’
‘Any chance you could, you know, have a word with him?’
‘They’ll all be wide awake and ready for a fight, resisting arrest, doing a runner, destroying evidence-’
‘Setting their sodding huge dogs on us, yeah, I know: Shuggie Webster’s just got himself a Rottweiler the size of a minibus.’ Guthrie sidled closer. ‘Maybe you could talk to Finnie? Tell him McPherson’s being a dick?’
Logan took a sip of coffee. ‘Gah…’ He handed it back. ‘Not that you deserve it, making coffee like that.’
Guthrie grinned. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’
Logan pushed through the doors and out into the corridor. He paused outside Detective Chief Inspector Finnie’s office, took a deep breath and knocked just as the door swung open.
Acting DI MacDonald froze on the threshold, flinching as Logan’s knuckles jerked to a halt just short of his nose. ‘Jesus…’
Logan smiled. ‘Sorry Mark, I mean Guv.’
MacDonald nodded, a blush turning the skin pink around his little goatee beard. ‘Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, Sergeant.’ Then he pushed past, limped back up the corridor to his new office and disappeared inside, slamming the door behind him.
Sergeant? Two weeks in the job and Acting DI MacDonald was already acting like a tosser.
Logan peered into Finnie’s office. The head of CID was behind his desk, face creased into a scowl. Colin Miller, the Aberdeen Examiner’s star reporter sat in one of the leather visitors’ chairs, smoothing the crease on his immaculate trousers. A pile of dirty laundry slumped in the other chair, mouth thrown open in a jaw-cracking yawn.
Detective Inspector Steel finished with a little burp and a shudder, then sagged even further. Her greying hair stuck up in random directions like a malformed Einstein wig. She ran a hand across her face, pulling the deep-blue-grey bags under her eyes all out of shape. Then let go and the wrinkles took over again. She sniffed. ‘We going to be much longer? Only I’ve got a wean with a temperature to go home to.’
Finnie drummed his fingers on the desk. The note lay beside his keyboard in a clear plastic envelope, the paper pristine white and shining. He stared at Logan. ‘Yes?’
Logan held up the report Samantha had delivered. ‘DNA result.’
Collin Miller sat up straight. ‘Oh aye?’
Logan looked at Finnie, the reporter, then back to Finnie again. ‘Sir?’
‘Some time today would be good, Sergeant, before we all lose the will to live.’
‘Ah, right.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s positive. DNA matches Jenny McGregor.’
Finnie nodded, his thick rubbery lips pressed into a downturned line. ‘There’s no need to sound so dramatic, Sergeant. Where do you think the kidnappers got the thing from, Toes R Us? Of course it’s Jenny’s.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘What about the envelope and note?’
Steel held up a hand. ‘Let me guess, sod all.’
Logan ignored her. ‘Same as all the others: no fingerprints, no DNA, no fibre, no hairs, no dust — no trace of any kind. Nothing.’
‘She shoots, she scores!’
‘Inspector, that’s enough.’ Finnie peered down at the note on his desk. ‘“We gave them simple, clear, instructions, but they still was late. So we got no other choice: we had to cut off the wee girl’s toe.”’ He pinched his lips together. ‘Mr Miller, I take it we’re going to be seeing this in tomorrow’s paper.’
‘Aye, got it all set up for the front page: Jenny Tortured — Kidnappers Hack Off Toe.’
‘I see…’ Finnie steepled his fingers. ‘And you sure it’s wise to print something like that? The public are already very upset, and-’
‘Naw, you know the deal here: I have to print it. Just like I had to read it out at that bloody press conference. You think I wanted to do that? Jesus, man, I’d’ve kept it secret till the paper came out tomorrow mornin’. Now I’ve got no exclusive and every bastard tabloid and broadsheet in the country’s goin’ to run it. No’ to mention it’s probably already on the bloody telly.’ The reporter shrugged. ‘Got no choice, but. I publish, or Jenny and her mum die.’
Finnie ran a hand through his floppy brown hair. ‘Then the least you can do is put our side of things. We weren’t given enough time to respond to the call, given the conditions. And the toe was severed long before we got there.’ He looked up. ‘Wasn’t it, Sergeant?’
Logan nodded. ‘We were set up.’
The reporter had his notepad out. ‘That a quote?’
Finnie coughed. ‘Call it, “sources close to the investigation”.’
‘Gonnae give us details?’
‘DS McRae can fill you in on the way out — the usual restrictions apply. Now unless there’s anything else…?’ The DCI turned back to his computer.
‘Actually, sir,’ Logan nodded towards the CID room, ‘I need to have a quick word with you. About another operation?’
Steel hauled herself out of her chair, then stood there, bent almost double for a moment, before straightening up with a sigh. ‘Come on, Weegie Boy, you can walk us to the front door while the lovers here have their wee tryst.’ She lowered her voice to a theatrical whisper. ‘That means they’re going to have a shag.’
‘Thank you, Inspector, that will be all.’
Logan waited until the door clunked shut. ‘No offence, sir, but I’d rather keep our relationship platonic.’
Finnie glowered at him. ‘I allow Steel a little latitude because, despite everything, she’s an effective detective inspector. You however…’
‘Sorry, sir.’ He sank into the chair Colin Miller had just vacated. ‘It’s about DI McPherson — you know he’s got a drug bust on tomorrow? He’s planned it for the middle of the afternoon.’ There was a silent pause. ‘When the targets are going to be-’
‘Yes, Sergeant, I’m well aware of what drug dealers do in the afternoon.’ Finnie sat back, tapped the flat tips of his fingers against his rubbery lips. ‘And what do you propose to do about it?’
‘Well, you could speak to McPherson, let him know…’ Logan blinked. Licked his lips. Shifted in his seat. ‘Sorry, what do I propose to do…?’
‘Well, clearly you know better than a DI with nine years’ experience. What are you going to do with your drug bust?’
Oh bloody hell. ‘I really … with the … and it’s … erm…’ Logan checked his watch. Just after seven. ‘OK, well, I’m back in on Friday and-’
‘I believe in striking while the iron’s hot, don’t you, Logan? How else are you going to get the creases in your jeans nice and straight?’
‘But I’ve got a … thing on tomorrow. And it-’
‘Where are we with the post mortem on the toe?’
‘You see, I booked the time off so-’
‘Do try to pay attention, Sergeant: post mortem.’
Logan could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. ‘I phoned the pathologist, Hudson — spoke to his wife. Apparently he’s not left the toilet all day. “Tube of toothpaste” was the term she used. She thinks he’ll either be dead by the morning, or back to work.’
‘Good.’ Finnie clicked a button, bringing his monitor back to life. ‘Now you trot along. I’m sure you’ve got a great deal of organizing to do.’
Chapter 5
‘…confi rm, we are in position. Over?’
Logan scrubbed a hand ac
ross his gritty eyes and squinted out at the semi-detached house at the end of the quiet culde-sac. The neighbourhood had that slightly rundown feel to it: the grass left too long so it was going to seed, a battered washing machine sitting next to a pair of dented wheelie bins. The whole scene turned monochrome in the sodium glow of a dozen streetlights.
He keyed the button on his Airwave handset. ‘OK, listen up people: we have three, possibly four, IC-One males inside. This has to be quick and clean — no sodding up, no getting hurt, no hurting anyone else. And Shuggie Webster’s meant to have a new Rottweiler, so keep an eye out. We clear?’
‘Team Two, Roger.’
‘Team One, Rover.’
‘Just don’t come crying to me when there’s a huge dog chewing your knackers off, OK?’ Logan tugged his jacket sleeve back, exposing his watch. ‘And we’re live in: eight, seven, six-’
‘Aww… who farted?’
‘-three, two, one. GO!’
PC Guthrie shifted in the passenger seat. ‘Don’t see why I have to be-’
‘You wanted me to do something about it, I did something about it.’
‘But-’
‘Don’t push it, Allan. Wasn’t for you I’d be snuggled up at home with my intended.’
Down at the far end of the cul-de-sac torches sprang into life, sweeping the front garden of a nondescript two-storey. White BMW 3 Series in the drive.
The dull crack of a mini battering ram slamming into a UPVC door.
‘Fucking thing…’
A dog barking.
Another crack.
Then another.
‘Why can’t we use bloody explosives?’
A light clicked on in an upstairs bedroom.
Another crack. ‘Open, you fucker!’
A muffled scream from somewhere inside.
Guthrie turned in his seat. ‘You know, I saw this video on the internet once. Welsh police took twelve minutes to get through one of these modern UPVC front doors. Bloody stuff’s tougher than steel, if you-’
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