Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

‘What about the MO? It’s pretty distinctive.’

‘What a great suggestion, Sergeant. I hadn’t thought to run a search on something as bloody obvious as that.’ He gave Logan a withering glance. ‘You think I sailed up the River Don on a used condom? Course I bloody checked. Three other fatal fires where the entrances were screwed shut — Lothian and Borders sent up the investigation reports.’

‘They got any idea who did it?’

Insch gave him that same look again. ‘I don’t know, I forgot to ask. Why, do you think it might be important?’

‘OK, OK, there’s no need to bite my head off; only trying to help.’

Insch rummaged around in his suit pockets, but came up empty handed. He sighed. ‘I know. I’m just pissed off because nothing’s bloody happening. We’ve got someone out there burning people to death, and I haven’t got a clue how to stop him.’ The inspector hauled himself off the edge of the desk. ‘Anyone asks, I’m off to the shops. There’s a big bag of sherbet lemons out there with my name on it.’

Logan watched the inspector go. So much for hiding out with DI Insch until Steel calmed down a bit. Maybe it would be best to make himself scarce. He signed for a CID pool car and headed out into the late morning traffic just as the first specks of rain started to fall. Logan clicked the radio over to Northsound Two, the music fighting a losing battle against the wheeeeeek-whonnnnnnnnk of the car’s windscreen wipers. He drove about more or less at random, trying to figure out what he was going to do for the rest of the day. With Steel pissed off, the murdered prostitute case was pretty much off limits. There wasn’t anything he could do about Chib Sutherland and his mate — even if they could pressure Jamie McKinnon into making a statement about the forced insertion of drugs, he wasn’t going to stand up in court and testify against two of Malk the Knife’s goons. Might as well wrap his willy up in smoky bacon and dance naked in a cage full of rabid Rottweilers. So it was the missing person case or nothing. At least it’d keep him busy. He’d already spoken to the wife and the colleagues, which left the pole-dancer and the neighbour. The strip joint was closer.

Just off Union Street there was a steep cobbled alley, descending rapidly until it disappeared, three storeys down, under Bridge Street. Windmill Brae, home to nightclubs, bars and Friday-night fist-fights. Secret Service was near the bottom of the hill, with not-so-discreet boards in the windows — silhouettes of naked women — protecting the public from seeing anything raunchy going on inside. Logan parked outside on the double yellows. The front door was open, a mop and bucket standing in the space between the narrow pavement and the kiosk where you could buy your ticket. The water in the bucket swirled with disinfectant, trying to overcome the overpowering reek of last night’s vomit.

Inside it was pretty much what he’d been expecting: a long, dark room on three levels, bar on one side, dancing stage with four metal poles and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the other. Just to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Little round tables filled the remaining space, the chairs upturned on top so that a spotty youth could work a floor polisher in between them. The loud wub-wub-wub of the machine punctuated with the occasional clang as it bounced off one of the tables’ central supports. A large man appeared behind the bar, clutching a bottle of detergent, yelling over the noise, ‘How many times I have to tell you to go easy with that thing? It’s no’ a fuckin’ race car!’ Then he noticed Logan standing in the doorway and scowled. ‘We’re closed.’

‘I can see that.’ Logan pulled out his warrant card. ‘DS McRae. You’ve got a dancer called Hayley working here?’

The man didn’t move. ‘Why — what’s she done?’

Logan crossed the still wet floor and leant on the bar. ‘She’s not done anything. I just want to know when you last saw her.’

‘Depends, doesn’t it?’

‘On what?’

‘On why you want to know.’

He pulled out a copy of the photo Mrs Cruickshank had submitted with her missing person report. ‘This man’s been missing since Wednesday afternoon. Someone told me he and Hayley were an item. I need to find out if she knows where he’s gone.’

‘Ha, you’ll be fuckin’ lucky. Didn’t show up for her shift Wednesday night. Hasn’t been in since.’

‘Wednesday?’

‘Aye. She does it every couple of months, disappears off to Ibiza, or some other tourist trap, soon as she’s got enough cash from the tips. Gets them last-minute deals off the internet and buggers off without a word. First we know of it’s when the fuckin’ postcard arrives.’

‘So it’s not unusual for her to just go away like this?’

‘Sometimes one of the other daft cows here goes with her, sometimes she takes a bloke, depends who she’s shagging at the time.’

Logan proffered the photo again. ‘You recognize him?’

The man squinted at the picture. ‘Aye: Gav. In here most nights when Hayley’s dancin’. She’s been doing him for a couple of months.’

Logan took the picture back. It was beginning to sound like Gavin Cruickshank was an even bigger bastard than he’d thought — sodding off to Ibiza with a pole-dancer. ‘You got an address for Hayley?’

‘Let’s see that warrant card again.’ Logan handed it over, and the man squinted at it for a while. ‘OK,’ he said at last, digging about under the bar and coming up with a box of postcards. ‘Just had these printed. You know, showing off the best girls. Going to hand them out in the pubs at closing time, get the punters all hot and bothered for a lap dance.’ He flipped the top card over, scribbling an address and telephone number on the back, before passing it across the bar. The photo showed a very attractive woman in her mid twenties, striking brown eyes, sexy smile, long black hair, black leather bikini, knee-length kinky boots, a small diamond crucifix hanging from her pierced belly button. First Ailsa, then the ScotiaLift receptionist and now this. How the hell did Gavin Cruickshank do it?

The man grinned. ‘Fuckin’ tasty, eh? You wouldn’t kick that out of bed for fartin’.’

Logan gave him a business card. ‘Call me if she gets in touch, OK?’

Outside, the rain was getting heavier and Logan had to make a run for the car. According to the scribbled address, Hayley lived in a flat down the bottom of Seaforth Road. He didn’t expect it to amount to much, but he drove over there anyway, the traffic creeping along in the downpour. The radio burbled away to itself as Logan navigated the drenched streets, wondering if last night meant things were finally starting to go right with Jackie again. It had been a good evening — good food, good wine, and afterwards had been pretty damn good as well. The news came on and Logan turned the radio up, listening to reports of a car crash in Torry, another protest being scheduled for Monday’s planning meeting, and the main story of the day: someone was ‘assisting the police with their enquiries’ into the murder of a number of prostitutes. And lo and behold, there was Councillor Marshall on the radio, telling the world what a great job Grampian Police was doing and how we could all sleep safely in our beds again. A little bit of DI Steel’s blackmail went a long way.

Hayley’s flat was on the second floor of a three-storey granite tenement block. From her front room she’d have a great view of the sprawling Trinity Cemetery with Pittodrie Stadium — home to the intermittently disastrous Aberdeen Football Club — lurking in the background, drab and dreary in the rain. Lovely.

He clambered out of the car and rang the doorbell. No answer, not that he’d really been expecting one. So he tried the neighbouring flats; no one had seen Hayley since Wednesday morning. Later this afternoon he’d put in a call to the local airport, see if they had any record of her and Gavin buggering off to sunny climes in the last week. And if that didn’t turn anything up there was always Inverness, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Prestwick...