Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

‘ Do I need to boo-hoo you again? ’

Left onto Lindsay Street, leaving the cobbles for a Frankenstein’s patchwork of tarmac and potholes.

‘You’re getting as bad as Steel.’

A pause. ‘ You take that back, Logan McRae, or there’ll be no kinky bedtime fun for you ever again! ’

Then right onto Golden Square. Tall granite buildings faced out onto what was the bastard child of a roundabout and a car park. Rows of cars ringed a wrought-iron fence with more of them on the inside, facing out. Then another row behind that, circling the statue in the middle. The handful of trees dotted around the place looked in need of a decent drink.

‘ Logan, I’m warning you. ’

‘All right, I take it back.’ Sigh. ‘And I’ll do something about the shower.’

‘ That’s better. Now run along and see your lawyer, it’s nearly teatime here, and they’ve been boiling the cauliflower since last Thursday in my honour. Don’t want to miss that.’ Then she hung up on him.

The receptionist scowled up at him from behind her mahogany fortifications. The glasses balanced on the end of her nose had little wings on the top corners. They went with her purple cardigan. ‘Our office hours are nine to five. If you wish to make an appointment to see Mr Moir-Farquharson, I can-’

‘Is he in or not? ’

The smile looked forced, making tiny wrinkles around her narrowed eyes. She glanced sideways at a door on the far side of the room. ‘Mr Moir-Farquharson is with a client and isn’t to be. . Hey: you can’t go in there!’

Logan hauled the door open. ‘What the hell are you playing at? ’

Sunlight gilded the wood-panelled room, glinting off the bald head of a shaven gorilla in an expensive suit with ‘HATE’ tattooed on one set of knuckles and ‘PAIN’ on the other. Scars knitted their way over the back of his scalp, like cracks in an eggshell. He didn’t look around as Logan barged in, just sat there, silent as a slab of meat.

Sitting behind the wide oak desk, Hissing Sid sighed and closed his eyes — pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Mrs Jefferies!’

Logan shook a fistful of brown envelope at him. ‘Attempted bribery of a police officer is an offence under the Criminal Justice, Scotland-’

‘How many times do I have to tell you: it’s not a bribe.’

‘Don’t give me that shite!’ He hurled the envelope across the desk. It hit the lawyer on the chest and fell to the floor. ‘Think I don’t know a bribe when I see one? ’

The receptionist appeared at his elbow. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Moir-Farquharson, I told him you were with a client.’

The hulk of muscle in the suit sniffed, then hooked a thumb over his shoulder. His voice was a nasal Borders growl. ‘You want I should, you know, remove him from the premises, like? ’

Another sigh. Then Hissing Sid pushed his chair back, bent down and picked the envelope from the ground. ‘Will you excuse me for a couple of minutes, Mr Harris? I’m afraid DI McRae requires things to be explained to him slowly and with pictures wherever possible.’ He stood. ‘Mrs Jefferies, will you fetch Mr Harris a pot of tea? I’ll be in the conference room with our uncivilized visitor.’

Sandy Moir-Farquharson settled into a chair at the end of the long table, sitting with his back to the window. Sunshine cast dappled shadows on the cars parked around Golden Square, rippling gently as wind brushed through the leaves of the parched trees.

The lawyer placed the brown envelope on the table in front of him and smoothed it out with careful fingers. ‘DI McRae, I don’t appreciate you coming in here and making a nuisance of yourself when I’m with a client. Or any other time, come to that. If you wish to see me, you can make an appointment with Mrs Jefferies like everyone else.’

‘Thirty thousand pounds! And what the hell is this ? ’ Logan dug out the power of attorney forms and slapped them down on the table. ‘Get it through your pointy little head, I am not for sale. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? ’

Hissing Sid pulled the cheque from the envelope. Held it up. ‘As you will see, the payee section has been left blank. Mr Mowat has no interest in bribing you, he merely wishes you to select a worthy cause you’d like to support.’ The lawyer went back into the envelope and pulled out a Post-it note covered in cramped handwriting. ‘As you would have known if you’d bothered to read my message. All you have to do is fill in the missing details.’

Logan stared at the note. Bloody thing must’ve been stuck to the inside of the envelope. . Still, that wasn’t the point, was it? ‘So you’ll have my handwriting on a huge cheque from Wee Hamish Mowat? Do you think I’m stupid .’

Hissing Sid puckered his lips and raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m certainly coming to that conclusion.’ He laid the cheque on the table. ‘It’s really not that complicated. Name the cause you wish to support and I’ll have someone complete the relevant details for you.’

‘I’d. . it’s thirty thousand pounds!’

‘With keen observational skills like that, it’s no wonder you made detective inspector. Now, is there anything else? Or can I get back to my client? ’

‘It. . What’s with this power of attorney bollocks? ’

Hissing Sid did the sighing and nose-pinching thing again. ‘We could have discussed all this when I came to see you at the station, but instead you had to play your little power games and keep me waiting in that room without so much as a glass of water.’

Heat spread out across Logan’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t even know you were there.’ He sank down into the nearest chair. ‘Someone was playing silly buggers.’

‘Mr Mowat has recently updated his will, and has named you as sole executor. That means on the sad event of his demise you will be responsible for disposing of his assets and ensuring the distribution of behests according to his wishes. If, on the other hand, he becomes incapacitated due to illness he has granted you continuing and welfare power of attorney. That means you are authorized to look after his property and assets, and if necessary make end-of-life decisions.’

‘And by “assets” you mean “criminal empire”. What am I supposed to do with it: divvy the drugs operation up between Wee Hamish’s lieutenants? Give the prostitutes and people-trafficking to someone else? Devolve power to the loan sharks? ’

A sniff. ‘I really couldn’t comment. And you should be careful about making accusations of legal impropriety about Mr Mowat if you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a suit for slander.’

‘I can’t do it. I’m a police officer.’

Hissing Sid slipped the cheque back into the envelope. ‘Then there is the matter of his bequest to you: six hundred and sixty-six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six pounds. And sixty-six pence.’

Oh God. . thirty grand was bad enough.

‘I’ll admit the amount of the bequest is unusual, but I’m sure Mr Mowat has his reasons for giving you two-thirds of a million pounds.’

Logan’s bowels churned. ‘He can’t do that.’

‘My dear Mr McRae, Mr Mowat can leave whatever he wants to whomever he wants. And for some unfathomable reason he’s seen fit to leave you a rather large sum of money.’

‘But. .’

‘Of course, it doesn’t have to be deposited straight into a UK bank account, or handed over in cash. In order to avoid questions of impropriety it can be discreetly placed in a trust to await such time as you cease being a police officer. Think of it as a nest egg to support you in your retirement.’

‘But if someone finds out-’