Stuart MacBride - Dying Light

What the hell was he supposed to do about Chib and his gimp? ‘Find them and hurt them.’ Yeah, easy for Isobel to say, but he was a police officer. It wasn’t as if he could just roll up unannounced and shoot them — this was Aberdeen, not New York. If Colin Miller wasn’t prepared to testify, there wasn’t much Logan could do...

Not unless he actually caught them doing something. Even then Isobel wouldn’t be satisfied: she didn’t want justice, she wanted revenge. Well, she’d just have to settle for what she could get. He pulled out his mobile and turned it back on again: another three messages, all from DI Steel. Ignoring them, Logan started dialling.

‘Are you sure we should be doing this?’ asked Jackie for what felt like the millionth time in the last half hour. The car was cold and uncomfortable, sitting in a small pool of darkness between two lampposts on the quiet residential road. Once more Logan said no, he wasn’t, and went back to staring through the windscreen at Brendan ‘Chib’ Sutherland’s house. An unofficial stakeout in a purloined CID pool car? Of course they shouldn’t be doing it. Especially as Jackie was technically still on duty for the next thirty-two minutes.

A faint groan came from the back seat and DC Rennie sat up, clutching his head. ‘How you feeling?’ asked Logan, looking at the constable’s green face in the rear-view mirror.

‘Like shite...’ He closed one eye and squinted at the house opposite. ‘Where the hell’s Steve got to?’

Jackie half turned in her seat. ‘Give him a break, OK? He’s not the one been out getting pished.’

‘Zeesh, who rattled your bumhole?’

Logan gritted his teeth. ‘Will you two shut up?’ He scowled into the rear-view mirror and Rennie held his hands up in surrender. Silence settled back into the filthy Vauxhall: Jackie sulking, Rennie rummaging about in the rubbish tip that was the back seat, coming up with one of Councillor Marshall’s pornographic magazines. He flipped through it in the dim yellow glow of a nearby streetlamp, with an amused expression on his face.

Logan turned round and snatched the thing off Rennie, getting a ‘Hey, I was reading that!’ for his pains.

‘Where the hell did you get this?’

Rennie shrugged. ‘It was back here, under all the empty Burger King and KFC boxes.’ Logan shook his head and tossed the magazine back to the constable. This was ridiculous: it wasn’t even the same car they’d had on the stakeout. It looked like Councillor Marshall’s porn collection was doing the rounds all over Aberdeen Command Division — police men and women from Stonehaven to Fraserburgh giggling their way through the man’s anal fetish. Made you proud.

‘You realize I have to go sign out at midnight, don’t you?’ said Jackie, peering over her shoulder at Rennie’s magazine.

‘Tell you what, soon as PC Jacobs gets here you can both go back to the station, sign out, then come back. OK?’

‘What you going to do if Sutherland leaves the house while we’re away?’

‘Follow him.’

Jackie snorted. ‘You can’t follow him: you’ve been drinking. So has Captain Caveman here.’

‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and... oh-ho: company.’ A pair of headlights cruised up the street towards them, pulling up on the other side of the road. A pause, then the lights clicked off. No sign of movement from Chib’s house. A figure got out of the manky old Fiat — PC Steve Jacobs, still wearing his uniform — arms full of takeaway. He clambered into the back beside Rennie.

‘Evenin’ all,’ he intoned, popping the cardboard lid off a huge bucket of chicken. ‘I got some aspirins, one of them bargain family things and — Hey, wait your turn!’ Rennie was already helping himself. ‘Did the inspector get hold of you?’ asked Steve, handing Logan a bag of chips. ‘She said it was urgent: something about a press conference?’

‘We saw it in the pub,’ said Rennie through a mouthful of chicken. ‘Cheeky cow taking all the credit.’ Logan blushed in the darkness and kept his mouth shut. Silence returned to the car as they ate, munching and slurping the only noises, while a huge bottle of Pepsi was passed back and forth. One by one they piled the empty wrappers, napkins and bones back into the bucket, then PC Steve stuffed it down at his feet along with all the other rubbish.

‘Now what?’ asked Rennie, washing down a couple of Steve’s aspirins with greasy Pepsi.

Jackie checked her watch. ‘Now we have to go sign out.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Steve, ‘I got Big Gary to do it for us. Cost me three Mars Bars, but we’re free for the night.’

They spent a while playing Spits-or-Swallows, Logan steering well clear of the game; it just made him think of Colin’s fingers. Then came a wide-ranging philosophical discussion on thongs versus big pants and after that Rennie’s extended monologue on EastEnders ’ villains, past and present. With Steve throwing in the occasional helpful discussion topic like, ‘Who’d win in a nude mud-wrestling match: Marge Simpson or Wilma Flintstone?’ which kicked off yet another round of Spits-or-Swallows. Betty Rubble apparently spits. But eventually silence and boredom descended again.

Half past one and Chib’s lounge was plunged into darkness. Logan stretched in his seat, feeling his back pop and twinge, complaining about sitting here for the last two and a bit hours. His alcohol buzz was long gone, leaving behind a headache and heartburn. The sound of gentle snoring was coming from the back seat, but up front Jackie squinted at Councillor Marshall’s magazine, twisting and turning the page to catch as much of the faint sulphurous street lighting as possible. ‘You know,’ said Logan as the upstairs light flickered on in the house they were watching. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.’

Jackie looked up from what had to be a faked photograph. ‘Thought you said it was the only way we’d get anything on Chib and his mate?’

Logan shrugged, head resting against the misty passenger window. ‘I don’t know.’ Sigh. ‘To be honest I don’t know anything any more...’ He took a deep breath and told her about Colin Miller and what Isobel said had happened. And how it was all his fault.

‘Oh come on, you’ve got to be kidding me!’ She threw a glance into the back seat — where Rennie and Steve were curled up like a pair of gangly spaniels, sleeping peacefully — and lowered her voice to a soft hiss. ‘How could it be your fault? You didn’t hack Miller’s fingers off, did you? No.’ She reached out and took hold of his hand. ‘You’re a good cop, Logan. You caught Dunbar and that Pirie woman — that old cow Steel would have fucked those cases up like she fucks up everything else. What happened to Miller was just bad luck.’ When he didn’t say anything she gave his hand a squeeze. ‘Tell you what, let’s call it a night: tomorrow we go speak to Insch and get a surveillance op set up. That wrinkly-faced bitch might not give credit where it’s due, but Insch will. Solve the Karl Pearson thing and he’ll get you out of Steel’s team like that.’ She snapped her fingers and the snores from the back seat came to an abrupt, snorking halt.

A bleary-eyed PC Steve poked his head through to the front and asked what was going on. Logan was just about to tell him they were going home when the light clicked on above Chib’s front door and a shadowy figure hurried out into the night, carrying a holdall. ‘Heads up,’ said Logan, ‘something’s happening...’ He squinted, wishing he’d got Steve to lift a pair of night-vision goggles. The figure passed beneath a streetlight: black coat, black jeans, black woolly hat, long black hair and moustache. Chib’s mate — the Gimp — walked down to the far end of the street, turning right onto Countesswells Avenue.