Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

‘On and on. I was terrified, wasn’t I Nora?’

‘Look at the state of the place, it’s all ruined!’

Logan held up his hands. ‘Did either of you get a good look at him?’

‘I mean, you read about these things in the papers, but you never think they’ll happen to you, do you?’

‘Terrible.’ Nora Mackenzie fingered the pearls around her throat. ‘He was a big man, broad shouldered, and he had a thing…’ She waved a hand in front of her face. ‘Didn’t he Peggy?’

‘Glasses and a big pink nose. And one of those bristly moustaches.’

‘And a mole, on his cheek.’

‘Oh yes, a mole. And a wee toddler in a pushchair.’ Peggy picked at the slice of carrot cake in front of her. ‘Poor little mite. What’s she going to think, growing up with a father like that?’

‘It’s a disgrace so it is.’

Logan looked at Guthrie. ‘You checked with CCTV yet?’

The constable nodded. ‘They’re running the footage back at HQ.’

Nora tugged at her pearls. ‘You will catch him, won’t you?’

Logan pointed through the door at the bombsite shop. ‘You’ve got a security camera?’

Peggy raised her not inconsiderable frame and lumbered over to a little telly and video recorder, mounted on a bracket in the corner. ‘My nephew James put it in last year.’ She pressed a couple of buttons and the machine whirred for nearly a minute. Then clunked. Then started to play.

The shop interior appeared on the TV: Peggy rearranging something in a glass-fronted display cabinet. The picture was jerky, probably shooting one frame every two seconds, meaning a single tape would last the whole day. The time stamp at the bottom of the screen said ‘15:28:36’.

‘I’ll fast forward.’ She fiddled with the recorder and everything lurched into super-speed. Nora’s grey-haired head appeared behind the counter, swooshing back and forth. A young man came in, bought something, left. More footage of nothing happening. ‘There!’

The picture slowed to normal speed. A large man wearing a baseball cap had just stepped in from the snowy street, hauling a pushchair after him. Logan watched him bend to talk to the child strapped in the chair, pull something from beneath the blanket and casually stick it between the closing door and the frame. Exactly the same MO as last time.

Nora and Peggy descended on the little child, smiling and making goo-goo faces.

The man glanced around the shop while they were busy and the security camera got a perfect shot of his face: big nose, big glasses, big moustache. He was wearing one of those Groucho Marx kits — the only thing missing was the cigar.

Logan tapped the screen. ‘You didn’t think he looked a bit odd?’

Nora shrugged. ‘Well, they do these days, don’t they? When my children were wee you gave them a box of plasticine, told them not to eat it, and stuck them in the back garden while you got on with the housework. These days it’s all television, and happy meals, and keeping them entertained the whole time.’

On screen, Nora turned away from the pushchair, frowned, then picked up the floppy-eared bunny the man had dropped between the door and the frame, and handed it back to the toddler with a smile.

Peggy waddled over to the counter, where the man was peering into the display case. All nice and friendly.

Then the sawn-off sledgehammer came out. Peggy backed off, mouth open, hands in the air. Glass went everywhere. Groucho’s gloved hand scooped rings and watches and chains into an Adidas holdall.

‘He told me to open the till or he’d break Nora’s legs.’

On screen, the woman in twinset and pearls crouched down behind the pushchair, hands over her ears. Peggy stop-motion marched to the till and pinged out the cash drawer, flinching back against the wall as he stuffed everything into his bag.

‘Of course.’ She raised the uppermost of her chins. ‘I tripped the silent alarm.’

Bag full, the man hurried for the exit, grabbed the door handle and pulled. Nothing happened. He tugged and yanked, then turned and shouted something at the large woman behind the counter.

Back in real life Nora shivered. ‘His language was appalling, and in front of a wee girl too!’

The sledgehammer battered against the door: once, twice, three times, turning the clear glass into a sagging web of fractures. But it still wouldn’t open. He scrambled into the window display and swung the hammer again. The whole thing shattered, exploding outward in a shower of glittering cubes. Then the man hopped back down on the carpet, and manhandled the pushchair out of the window and onto the street.

Peggy lumbered around the counter and stared out through the shop front, then Nora stood and swept the much bigger woman up into a hug. Kissed her on the cheek. Then Peggy kissed her back on the lips, and they stood that way for at least a minute, locked together at the mouth, hands in each other’s hair, while the time stamp at the bottom of the screen flickered past.

Logan cleared his throat and looked away.

The shop door groaned open and clunked shut, the sound of someone walking over broken glass. ‘Dear Lord it’s cold…’ A red-nosed, red-eared PC Butler appeared in the kitchen doorway. Thick flakes of snow clung to her fluorescent-yellow high-vis ‘POLICE’ vest, and the black jacket underneath.

‘Hello, Sarge.’ She stomped her feet, and rubbed her hands. ‘Any chance of a cuppa?’

Nora filled the kettle from the tap over the tiny sink, and its steamy rumble soon had Butler standing over it, warming her hands over the spout. ‘Been up and down the street: no witnesses.’

Logan nodded. ‘Right, Guthrie you stay here: watch the shop till someone comes and boards up that window. Get them to do the door too. Ladies, you’ll need to come down to the station. We’ll get you to do an e-fit of the robber, make a formal statement, that kind of thing. Nothing to worry about.’

Peggy stood, her expansive bosom straining the stitches of all that tweed. ‘Oh I’m not worried. You give me five minutes alone with the animal who did this and I’ll give him something to worry about!’

She probably would too.

Logan told Butler to drive the ladies back to the station, then dug out his new phone and dialled the CCTV room at FHQ.

‘Fit like’ i day?’

‘Inspector Pearce about, Chris?’

‘Hud oan…’

And then the woman in charge of every closed circuit television camera in Aberdeen was on the line, her voice all muffled. ‘Who’s this?’

‘DS McRae, ma’am. How are you getting on with the footage for the Mackenzie and Kerr jewellery heist?’

‘Mmmmph, mmfff mnpmmph nmppph.’

Logan frowned at the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Sorry, coconut cake. Hang on…’ Pause. ‘You want the good news, or the bad news?’

‘Surprise me.’

‘We’ve got a man fighting a pushchair into a red Fiat Panda on Summer Street, three minutes after the silent alarm was tripped. Got a perfect shot of the registration.’

‘That’s great! Can we run a PNC-’

‘Bad news is the car was registered stolen at half nine this morning.’

Logan put his hand over the mouthpiece and swore.

‘You still there?’

‘Yeah, just having a think.’

‘While you’re thinking.’ Her voice went all cake-muffled again, ‘a little word to the wise: DI Beattie’s been combing the station for you. I’ve had him down here twice in the last hour asking if we’ve seen you on any of the monitors.’

‘Bugger.’ Logan chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. ‘Who was the car registered to? I mean, someone’s going to have to tell him his car’s been used in an armed robbery, aren’t they?’