Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

Steel kicked him again. ‘Someone who’d been sold a fake Rolex.’ She turned a crocodile smile in Logan’s direction. ‘Didn’t we, Laz?’

He moved his legs as far away as possible. ‘Yes.’

Beattie wrote ‘Rolex’ on a lonely stickie. ‘Well…the best thing from a policing point of view would be to catch someone in the act of selling the counterfeit merchandise on, and trail them back to their supplier.’

‘Really?’ Dildo sat back in his seat. ‘That’s amazing! We at Trading Standards have been puzzling long and hard about how to trace naughty fake goods. If only we’d asked the long arm of the law to-’

‘All right, Timothy, I think we get the picture.’ Susanna twiddled one of her pearl earrings. ‘I’m more concerned with the movement of counterfeit twenty-pound notes than knock-off hair straighteners. Where have you got with that?’

Beattie harrumphed. ‘Well, we did have a suspect in custody…’ He drifted off, then stared at Logan.

Here we go again. ‘Douglas Walker, eighteen. We arrested him for passing four and a half grand in dodgy twenties, but at least another twenty-three thousand’s passed through his hands. Released on bail till,’ Logan checked his watch, ‘beginning of March, I think.’

Susanna nodded. ‘Did he say where he got it from?’

‘Like interviewing a wooden leg. He-’

‘Wouldn’t tell us anything about where he got the stuff.’ Beattie nodded. ‘He’s obviously covering for someone.’

Steel snorted. ‘Aye, or he’s scared.’

‘Erm…yes, well, we’ll obviously have to follow that up.’ Beattie wrote ‘D WALKER’ on another stickie. ‘Now, can we-’

‘And it’s not just fake twenties any more, there’s tens and fives as well.’

‘I still don’t think-’

‘Tens and fives?’ The lady from HMRC sat forward. ‘We’ve not had any of those in yet.’

Beattie flushed again. ‘Yes, but shouldn’t we be-’

‘Do you have any samples?’

Logan pointed in the vague direction of FHQ. ‘IB’s analysing them now. Rumour is they’re local.’

‘Interesting, interesting…’ She went back to fiddling with her pearl earring.

Steel leaned over and whispered at Logan again. ‘Think she’s got a necklace to go with those, cos if no’ I could give her one. Well, metaphorically speaking.’

Logan grimaced, he couldn’t help it.

Beattie’s meeting limped on until the stroke of five, then the DI shook everyone’s hands, told them how productive it had been, thanked them for coming, then bumbled about, packing away his Post-its, biros, laptop, and cables.

Steel gave a yawn and a stretch. ‘Did I miss anything?’

Soon as Beattie was packed up, they all followed Dildo back down the stairs to Reception and handed in their visitor’s passes.

‘OK.’ Dildo clapped his hands. ‘We’ll be in touch about the-’

‘Wait a minute…’ Beattie thrust his laptop bag into Logan’s hands. ‘Forgot my jacket.’ Then he turned around and hurried towards the lifts.

Logan watched him mashing the up button. ‘Should we tell him?’

‘Should we buggery.’ Dildo stuffed his hands into his pockets. ‘With any luck he’ll get stuck in the basement all night and be eaten by the rats.’

They made for the front door. Outside, thick white flakes of snow drifted down from a dark-orange sky, shining as they passed within reach of the street lights, glowing red behind the cars and buses, settling on the shoulders of people tromping their way home.

‘Right.’ Susanna turned and shook Steel’s hand. ‘Anything comes up on the counterfeit notes, please let me know. I’ll see if I can get someone from our end to look into Walker: you’d be surprised what a sudden tax inspection can turn up.’

Steel still hadn’t let go of Susanna’s hand. ‘Why don’t I walk you to your car? We can swap contact info…?’

Susanna pulled a wee collapsible umbrella from her bag and clacked it up, then picked her way daintily out into the snow, with the inspector close beside her. Three steps out of the door, the woman from HMRC slipped. Steel grabbed her. They both laughed. Then disappeared around the corner.

Dildo smiled. ‘Got to admire her for trying, but Susanna’s way out of her league.’

‘Steel’s married.’

‘And no offence, but Beattie?’

‘Tell me about it. Look, hold off on doing anything, OK? I might have some good news for you in a couple of…’

He trailed off as the lift doors pinged open and Beattie stepped out, still without his jacket, frowned, turned around twice, then stepped back into the lift and pressed a button.

‘They made that a DI, but you’re still a lowly sergeant.’ Dildo put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘You must be so proud.’

Logan’s manky little Fiat grumbled to a halt, the engine making Death Watch Beetle ticking noises as it cooled. The warrant hadn’t been that difficult to arrange, but by the time they’d done the risk assessment and the briefing, and organized a firearms team, it was gone half seven.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Steel tapped two fingers against the black-plastic-bag window. ‘This supposed to be stylish, is it?’

‘You want to walk home?’

They’d parked on a little side road, north of Balmedie, where they’d have a decent view of proceedings. The address Angus Black had given them for Gallagher and Yates turned out to be a smallholding surrounded by miles of nothing. The cottage sat in the darkness, its windows glowing with amber light; a couple of tumbledown outbuildings lay off to one side, spilled granite blocks slowly disappearing under the falling snow; a large barn with a dark-red door. No sign of the unmarked van the eight-man firearms team had turned up in.

‘Why can I no’ see anything?’ Steel shoogled closer to the windscreen, the hot orange glow of her cigarette reflected in the pitted glass.

Logan pointed at a pair of black shapes moving slowly along the line of a drystane dyke. ‘There.’

Steel hauled out her Airwave handset and hit the button. ‘What’s taking so long?’

‘It’s bloody freezing out here.’

‘Boo hoo. Just get your arses in gear. Haven’t got all bloody night.’

Then there was a muttered, ‘Jesus, she’s a sodding nightmare.’

‘I heard that!’

And the connection went dead.

Logan cupped his hands and blew into them. ‘Whatever happened to all that crap you told me about being a team player?’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning you turning up to Beattie’s meeting and not letting me tell him about Gallagher and Yates.’

She stuck a cigarette between her teeth and lit it, blowing out a mouthful of smoke that oozed across the windscreen. ‘Beattie’s a moron.’

Unbelievable. ‘How come when I say he’s an idiot I’ve got an attitude problem, but when you say it-’

Steel smacked the back of her hand against his chest. ‘Shhhhh!’

‘No. It’s one bloody rule for-’

She hit him again. ‘Down there, you twit.’ She pointed through the snow at the main road, where a large Transit van was turning onto the farm track, bouncing and rolling along the icy, rutted surface. Steel fumbled with the handset again. ‘All teams, hold position. We’ve got visitors…’

‘Sodding hell. I’m up to my tits in a snowdrift here.’

‘I don’t care if you’re up to your tits in shark-infested tampons: keep your gob shut and your arse where it is!’

The big van jounced in through the gates, did a tortuous three-point-turn then reversed towards the door of the barn, brake lights flaring red through the falling snow and cloud of diesel exhaust.