Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

She looked up at Andy. Then round at Logan. Raised an eyebrow.

I’m the boss, you’re the hired muscle…

Logan stared at the huge slab of a man. Screw that.

He stuck out his hand for Andy to shake. ‘No hard feelings.’

The big man paused for a second, then took it, his big fingers dwarfing Logan’s, squeezing, a vice made of flesh and bone. Logan grabbed the hand with his left, digging his nails in. ‘Woa, easy, Tiger!’

Andy grinned. ‘You have a nice day now, Officer.’

‘You’re a big, sodding, wet, Jessie bastard, you know that, don’t you?’ Steel stomped to a halt at the Fiat’s rusty passenger door. ‘Couldn’t throw your weight around for two bloody minutes!’

‘Did you see the size of him?’ Logan stopped behind her, both hands held up like a surgeon, waiting for a nurse to glove him up. ‘He’d’ve torn my head off and crapped down the stump. Anyway, he knew we were police.’

‘You’re such a girl.’ She nodded her head at the car. ‘Well? Unlock the sodding thing; bloody freezing.’

Logan stuck one hip out. ‘Keys are in my front trouser pocket.’

She glanced down. ‘So?’

‘You’re going to have to drive.’

Her top lip curled. ‘Aye, that’ll be shining. Detective Inspector, mind? You drive, I…passenge.’

‘Can’t. Did the hostage trick when I shook with Baldy Andy. You need to bag my hands till we get back to the station.’

Steel took another look at his trousers. ‘I’m no’ going digging about in your breeks, what if you get a stiffy?’

‘Just…don’t flatter yourself, OK?’

‘Bloody hell.’ Logan had one last bash at getting a cigarette out of the packet, then gave up. ‘Can you…?’

Steel shifted down and the Fiat whined around the outside of a massive tractor hauling a trailer full of cattle down the dual carriageway. ‘You’re like a wee kid.’ She took the pack from his slippery plastic-bagged hands, tapped one out against the steering wheel, stuck it between her teeth, and lit it with the car’s cigarette lighter. The edges of her scarlet lips cracked out like spider veins as she sooked. Then she held it out — a bright-red print on the filter — so Logan could sit forwards and pluck it from between her fingers with his mouth.

It tasted of burning perfume and Vaseline.

‘Thanks.’

Steel went back to squinting into the rain, windscreen wipers squealing and groaning across the pockmarked glass. ‘Either Polmont’s buggered off, or he’s dead.’

‘And if he was stealing electrical supplies from Malk the Knife, doesn’t matter where he runs to. Sooner or later…’

‘Silly bugger.’

‘You know,’ Logan tried to take the cigarette out of his mouth to tap the ash off, but couldn’t work the clear plastic bags into a position that wouldn’t burn a hole in them, ‘if you were going to kill someone for nicking your electrical wiring, there’s plenty of places to bury the body on a building site: mechanical diggers, concrete…’

‘Aye.’ Steel reached over and took the fag from Logan’s mouth, flicked the ash out of the open window, took a sneaky puff, then stuck it back between his lips. ‘Get onto Strathclyde when we get back, tell them I want a cadaver dog up here first thing tomorrow morning. And don’t take any crap. Rotten Weegie bastards never want to travel north of Perth. Better get the Time Team organized too: ground-penetrating radar, trowels, beards and silly hats. You know the drill.’

‘Warrants? Budget?’

Steel pulled her mouth into a thin line. ‘You do your bit, I’ll sweet talk Finnie. Worst comes to worst I’ll go rummaging through his trouser pockets.’

‘Yeah,’ Logan nodded. ‘That’s the kind of threat that’ll make him cooperate.’

‘Still say this is a bad idea…’

‘Just shut up and keep an eye out.’ DI Steel squatted in front of the dark-blue door and peered in through the letterbox. It was a nondescript tenement building in Northfield, three stories of damp grey granite with six flats arranged either side of a central stairwell.

Logan leant on the balustrade, the plastic bags on his hands crinkling as he peered down from the top floor. ‘We need to get back to the station before the samples deteriorate. And you know what else we need?’

Steel stuck her hand through the letterbox, then her wrist, then as much of her arm as she could, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. ‘You to shut up?’

‘A warrant. We need a warrant.’

They’d got the address on the way back into town, Steel telling Control to do a reverse lookup on the telephone number they’d got from Steve Polmont’s mobile.

‘Come on you wee bugger…’ She had her face flat against the door now, teeth clenched, one eye squinted shut. ‘Shitebags.’ She slumped. ‘Can’t reach.’

Logan nodded. ‘Good, now we can go get a warrant, and come back and do it properly.’

Steel wriggled her arm free. ‘Don’t need a bloody warrant. Polmont could be in there, dying right now.’

‘But-’

She stuck a finger to her lips and shushed him. ‘Did you hear that? Someone crying for help?’

‘God, you are such a cliche.’

Steel stood, took two steps back, then slammed her high-heeled boot into the door, by the lock. She hopped away, swearing and clutching her ankle. The door hadn’t even moved. She crumpled against the wall, wobbling on one leg. ‘Well, don’t just bloody stand there!’

Sigh. Logan squared up to the lock, raised his damp, mud-spattered foot, and kicked. The door juddered. On the second go it flew open in a burst of splintered wood. ‘Happy now?’

Steel limped forward as the front door to the next flat burst open. A man in a tatty blue dressing gown lurched out onto the landing, brandishing a massive monkey wrench. Hair flat on one side, sticking up on the other.

‘Right, you little bastards…’ He staggered to a halt. Stared at Logan and Steel. Then at the kicked-in door. Backed up a step.

The inspector jerked a thumb at Polmont’s flat. ‘When did you last see the guy who lives here?’

He let the arm clutching the wrench fall to his side. ‘I work nights.’ He shuffled backwards until he was inside his own flat. ‘Try to keep the noise down, yeah?’ And closed the door.

‘So much for Neighbourhood Watch.’ She hobbled past Logan into Steve Polmont’s home.

It looked like the kind of place that got rented out fully furnished, which meant a random collection of shabby furniture and mismatched crockery scrounged up from second-hand shops. No paintings or pictures on the walls. Carpets that hadn’t seen a hoover since the turn of the century. Just about bearable if you were going to be working on a building site for the next year and a bit.

The lounge and kitchen were two halves of the same room, filled with a sharp, rancid smell. Two clothes horses sat in the middle of the carpet, covered in socks and pants, a pair of jeans, and a threadbare checked shirt.

Empty whisky bottles stood guard along the kitchen work surfaces, a regiment of empty Grant’s vodka bottles on the greasy windowsill.

A dirty bowl sat on the little kitchen table with the pale pink husks of shrivelled Rice Crispies clinging to the edge, a half-full bottle of Bell’s sitting next to it.

The breakfast of champions.

Logan fumbled the fridge door open with his plastic-bagged hands. A couple of microwave ready meals, a carton of milk past its sell-by date, a block of cheddar going green and hairy. ‘Polmont’s not here.’

‘Shut up and help me look for clues.’ She limped back down the corridor. The first door opened on a small bathroom thick with the bitter tang of old sick. Next was a bedroom, with an unmade double bed, an overflowing ashtray, a tub of hand cream, and a copy of Butt-Mania magazine — a couple of used tissues lying by the side of the bed.