Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

Logan just stared at him.

Silence.

Another sigh. ‘Billy Adams was my friend, and that…and Knox killed him.’

‘Thought Knox was in prison when Adams killed himself.’

‘Nah, he didn’t stick the gun in Billy’s mouth, or pull the trigger, but he might as well have done. See I got Knox on the forensic evidence from William Brucklay, but how do you think I knew to look at him in the first place?’

Logan frowned. ‘You said Adams heard rumours Mental Mikey’s accountant was into-’

‘I knew because he raped Billy. Must’ve found out he wasn’t really on the take — or Billy slipped up somewhere — but Knox had him in that basement for three days. I saw him after he escaped, bruised to hell, back all covered with bite marks and cigarette burns.’ Danby let the metal pole clatter to the ground. ‘Wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t press charges, wouldn’t even let me tell anyone. And three months after we put Knox away for what he did to William Brucklay, Billy drove off into the middle of nowhere with a shotgun…’

The DSI kicked a lump of charcoaled wood down the hall. ‘That’s why I’m here. So that bastard Knox can’t get away with it again.’

The old man screams, high pitched and angry. ‘Aya, fucking poof bastard!’

Richard Knox bites him again — on the buttocks, hard enough to break the skin, tears rolling down his face. Then he does it again.

Doesn’t have any choice, does he? Like with that prat Harry from Sacro: doesn’t want to do it, but has to.

Cos this is the path God has chosen for him.

‘AAAAAAAGH…!’

The room’s cold, a crappy little bedroom in a crappy little house out in the countryside, surrounded by sheep and snow. It’s got puffy patterned wallpaper — painted a rancid-butter yellow — and a double bed with one of them tartan blankets on top, scratchy beneath Richard’s naked skin.

Maybe it’s the old man’s house. Maybe he was just visiting. Doesn’t really matter, does it?

‘AAAAAAAGH… Fuck that hurts !’

It’s a test. Has to be: another test from God.

Richard stifles a sob, face pressed against the old man’s thigh, and bites down hard.

‘Any luck?’

Steel didn’t look up from the paperwork heaped on her desk. ‘Bugger all.’

Fair enough.

Logan added another couple of sheets to the pile. ‘I got them to pull all the security camera footage for any business within half a mile of the Sacro flat, like Danby wanted. No sign of Knox.’

Steel was a dead jellyfish in her chair, staring at the ceiling tiles, limbs hanging loose. ‘Finnie’s going mental, the newspapers and TV are milking it like a pregnant hoor, peasants are revolting, and we’ve still got sod all clue where Knox is.’

‘You speak to Finnie and Beattie yet?’

‘Susan won’t talk to me, my career’s a used sodding tampon, I’ve got itchy bits, and I’m out of fags.’ Scowl. ‘If there is a God, He’s a rotten bastard.’

Logan dug out a packet of Silk Cut and chucked it onto the desk. ‘I’m cutting down.’

She just flopped there. ‘Why am I even bothering?’

‘Gallagher’s up in front of the Sheriff at half three, want to have another go at him? Or the van driver?’

‘Never makes any bloody difference, does it?’ She winkled out one of Logan’s cigarettes and opened her office window. ‘Where’s Danby?’

Logan stared at her. ‘Are you going to speak to Finnie and Beattie, or not?’

‘I’ll talk to them. Jesus: nag, nag, nag. You’re worse than bloody Susan.’

‘Do you want to get me fired?’

‘I said I’ll talk to them!’ She reached into a drawer, then threw something across the desk to him. A mobile phone. ‘Not that you deserve it.’

It was one of those touch-screen jobs, all new and shiny. It must have cost a fortune. Logan felt his face flush. ‘Thanks.’

‘Nicked it from the lost-and-found. Get your mate the van driver in an interview room and I’ll go see Lord Volderfinnie.’

The sim card was about the only bit of Logan’s mobile still in one piece. He popped the back off his new — slightly stolen — phone, slipped it in, and turned the thing on. There was a small pause, then the dings and bleeps started. ‘YOU HAVE 57 NEW MESSAGES’.

Logan switched it off again. Sod that.

He headed downstairs instead, signed the van driver out of custody and stuck him in interview room number two. The one with the broken radiator, that stank of cheesy feet.

Arnie Urquhart cupped his hands to his mouth and blew. He had ‘HATE’ tattooed between both sets of knuckles, a blue swallow on the side of his neck, a spider’s web on his wrist, and eyes that darted left and right every time anyone in the room moved.

Logan sat on the other side of the interview room table, the audio and video tapes all set up and ready to go as soon as DI Steel arrived. PC Butler was on looming duty, just over Urquhart’s shoulder.

The van driver licked his lips. ‘Always this cold in here?’

Logan stared at him. ‘Did I say you could speak?’

Urquhart shrank back in his seat. ‘Sorry.’

So much for the hard man act.

He was right though, the little room was freezing.

Logan thumped an evidence bag down on the tabletop. There were two rectangular packages inside, both about the size of a house brick, wrapped in light-brown packing tape. One was slit open, showing the hard-packed powder within. ‘Uncut heroin. About six hundred and fifty thousand quid’s worth.’

Urquhart squirmed. ‘It’s-’

‘Did that sound like a question to you?’

He pressed his lips together. Looked down at his tattooed hands. Shrugged.

‘This stuff came from Fraserburgh, didn’t it? Saturday night.’

Urquhart fidgeted.

‘You can answer that.’

‘It…I don’t…’

‘A DI was stabbed, Arnie. That’s attempted murder, and you’re an accomplice.’

He flinched, as if he’d been slapped. ‘But…’

Logan suppressed a smile. Now all they needed was Steel to get her finger out and-

The door opened. Speak of the devil. The inspector stood just outside the room, lips pressed into a thin, downturned line. ‘Stick him back in his cell.’

Logan got to his feet. ‘Mr Urquhart was just about to-’

‘I don’t care. Our wee art student friend with the counterfeit twenties: his mum and dad just got back from Corfu, found him in his bedroom. Gin and sleeping tablets.’

‘He was in here.’ The PC opened the door.

The familiar smells of turpentine, oil paint, and bitter vomit curled around Logan as he followed Steel into the room. The house was silent, just the tick-tock of a clock somewhere on the floor below.

The constable flicked on the light, turning the window into a mirror.

Douglas Walker’s bedroom looked much the same as it had the last time Logan was there: the same half-sketched painting on the easel, the same unmade single bed, the same flat-pack wardrobe, the same little computer desk and cheap swivel chair.

The only difference was the puddle of sick on the floor, next to an empty litre bottle of Plymouth gin and a little white packet from a chemists. Logan snapped on a pair of gloves, squatted down, picked up the empty packet and read the label. ‘Temazepam.’

Steel wrinkled her nose. ‘Can we no’ open a window or something?’

Logan levered up the edge of the mattress, peering between it and the bed frame. Nothing.

The inspector’s voice came from over by the wardrobe. ‘If you’re looking for porn, I can bring some in tomorrow. You like Dutch gay hardcore, right?’

‘Looking for counterfeit money, actually. If he was getting more in for Middleton it’ll be around here somewhere.’ He let the mattress fall back and Steel sat on the end.