Stuart MacBride - Dark Blood

Logan stared at him. ‘I only interviewed Walker twice. Both times, right here. With all due respect, sir, this is bollocks.’

‘You do know I can just check the custody log?’

‘Good — check it.’

Young glanced down at his notes. ‘His lawyer claims this was part of an “orchestrated campaign of harassment” that started when you dragged Walker into the station under false pretences.’

‘Not this again…’ Logan dragged the bagged notebook from his pocket and peeled it open. The bitter-sharp scent of bile crept out into the room.

Chief Inspector Young recoiled slightly in his seat. ‘What is that smell?’

‘It…kind of fell in some sick.’ The pages were all stuck together on one side, so Logan stole the silver letter opener from the room’s other desk and started flicking them apart, setting a little avalanche of pale yellow flakes free.

Sunday 31 stJanuary:

Attended caravan in steading development. Questioned Danny Saunders and fiancee Stacy Gardner in relation to armed robbery at Henderson’s Jewellers…

‘Sergeant I really don’t think that’s necessary. We-’ ‘Hold on…’ He snicked a few more sheets loose.

Saturday 30 thJanuary:

Attended incident at Richard Knox’s house — Knox agitated and destroying his possessions. No charges made.

A couple more and he had the declaration Walker had signed: the one saying he was coming into the station voluntarily.

‘Look. All done by the book.’ Logan held the notebook out.

Young backed away from the desk slightly. ‘Any chance you can put that back in its bag?’

Logan did, then swept the little pile of yellow flakes left behind into the bin. ‘I showed Walker’s lawyer everything at the time. He’s just chancing his arm.’

The chief inspector sat back in his leather chair, eyes creased, mouth working silently on something. ‘You know, DCI Finnie has asked if we would consider taking you on secondment to Professional Standards.’

Logan stared back. And he’d thought the frog-faced bastard had been joking. ‘Did he?’

‘You look horrified.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘…and he said Finnie wants to palm me off on the rubber-heelers!’ Logan shifted his shoulder, keeping the phone clamped to his ear as he washed the flakes of dried sick off his hands. The smell was getting worse as they rehydrated.

DI Steel made wet chomping noises in his ear for a moment. ‘IB found some decent prints on the window and the bedpost, if we’re lucky they’ll match.’

‘Why the hell would anyone want to join Professional Bloody Standards!’

‘Chase up the lab, OK? I want a definite on the bite marks and saliva by close of play.’

‘First thing I’d do is investigate that sarcastic bastard Finnie.’ ‘Are you even listening?’

‘What? Yeah: bite marks and saliva. Anything else?’

‘Victim’s house is on the south-east corner of Cove, down its own wee driveway. Nothing behind it but fields and the North Sea. I want a fingertip search: hundred metre radius.’

Logan frowned. ‘Does this whole thing sound… off to you?’

‘And tell them to do it properly this time, no fuck-ups.’

‘Knox drugs his Sacro handlers, beats the crap out of them, gets past the surveillance team…Then stops off on the way down the road so he can torture and rape an old man in Cove? Like it’s a service station and he fancies a burger?’ Logan hauled the plug out of the sink, letting the water gurgle away. ‘Do you think he’s the one who snatched Danby?’

He could hear her chewing again. ‘Want to say yes, but…How’s a weedy wee shite like that get the jump on someone like Danby, never mind carry him down the stairs?’

‘So he had help. Would explain where he got the Rohypnol from. Half the heavies in Tyneside are after Mental Mikey’s millions, maybe this is Knox’s price? Help him get revenge on the guy who put him away, and then disappear?’

‘Aye, maybe…’ Pause. ‘Listen, get onto Northumbria Police, I want to know what Danby’s been working on, just in case it’s no’ got anything to do with our wee rapist chum. And while you’re doing the rounds: chase up Lothian and Borders. Andrew Connelly must’ve shown his baldy head somewhere by now. Just cos everything’s going to shite, doesn’t mean I’m letting that big bald bastard get away with what he did to Steve Polmont.’

Biohazard Bob was hunched over a pile of paperwork in the Wee Hoose. He looked up as Logan entered, then went back to his forms. ‘Shut the bloody door.’

Clunk. The noise of phones and harassed constables died down.

Logan settled into his chair and called Northumbria Police. Ten minutes later he had reference numbers for every case Danby had worked in the last eighteen months, and a promise that the relevant files would be with him soon as possible. Then he was put through to a Detective Inspector Walsh.

‘You the one told us about Oscar Renwick? Used to share a cell with Richard Knox in Frankland Prison?’ The Newcastle accent was clipped and angry.

Logan frowned at the receiver. ‘Yes?’

‘You got any idea how many man-hours we wasted looking into that?’

‘Wasted? But he was-’

‘He was nowhere near any of them house fires. None. Had castiron alibis, you know what I mean?’

Logan opened the spreadsheet of Knox’s cellmates from Frankland Prison. ‘But Knox said Renwick told him-’

‘Knox’s a sex offender, remember? They manipulate, that’s what they do.’

‘But-’

‘Knox managed to smuggle a mobile phone into his cell, and Renwick sold him out to one of the prison officers. Knox knew Renwick was going to be up for parole soon, so he told you a happy little fairytale about murdered families. Bang: big investigation and no parole for Renwick. Knox was using you to get his own back, and you fell for it!’

‘But I didn’t know-’

‘And now I’ve got me guv’nor breathing down me neck for all the overtime I’ve blown on this, Sergeant. Thanks. Thanks a bloody heap.’

‘But…’

He was talking to a dead line. The DI had hung up.

Logan leant forward, banged his head on the desk, and swore for a bit.

‘You ever think about the job?’

Logan sat up. ‘What?’

‘The job.’ Bob was facing the wall, but he was speaking to Logan. ‘What the point is?’

‘Every sodding day.’

Bob nodded. ‘It’s like the whole bloody city’s on fire, and all we can do is piss on the bit in front of us.’ He thumped his pen down on the desk. ‘I’m fucking sick of getting my pubes scorched off.’

Logan laughed, but Bob wasn’t even smiling.

‘You talked to Deborah, didn’t you.’

‘I arrested someone yesterday. Every time his eleven-year-old daughter got a bad mark on her homework he’d tie her to the hot water pipes in the basement and crank the central heating up full. Arms and legs, covered with these huge weeping blisters. His own daughter.’ Bob’s shoulders sagged. ‘Fuck’s wrong with people?’

‘You want to swap horror stories? Because I’ve got some good ones.’

‘I talked to Deborah last night. Stood there and demanded to know what the fuck was going on. The secret phone calls, the weird messages, the whole lot. You know why she won’t get undressed if I’m in the room? Why she won’t let me fucking touch her?’ He picked up a box file and hurled it across the room. Then sat there staring at the paperwork, fluttering to the carpet.