Stuart MacBride - Close to the Bone

‘But I never-’

‘Do you like your kneecaps, Duncan? ’

Silence.

He wriggled in his seat, until Sim pinned him down again.

‘The Inspector asked you a question, Mr Cocker.’

‘I’ve. .’ A cough. ‘I kinda let Ton have the keys to a couple places we’re selling with vacant possession. You know, ones that haven’t shifted for over a year? He does a bit of business there.’

‘Until he ended up staked out and tortured to death in the Abernethy house.’

Cocker squeezed his knees together. ‘Nothing to do with me, I totally swear, I mean totally . I gave Ton the keys, he gave me a shed-load of weed. That’s it.’ He licked his lips and looked up at PC Sim. ‘Er. . All for personal consumption, yeah? I wasn’t selling it or nothing .’

Logan tossed his notepad onto the desk, then followed it with a biro. ‘Addresses.’

He made a little whimpering noise.

Bit his lip.

Then picked up the pen and scribbled down half a dozen of them. ‘You got to promise not to tell Mr Willox, yeah? I mean, you know, it’s my job and he might. . with the keys and everything? ’

Logan pointed at the notebook. ‘Sign it at the bottom. And date it.’

Cocker did. ‘And it don’t have to go any further, right? The other cop swore it’d be OK — you don’t have to drag me into it. She promised .’

Logan took his notebook back. ‘Other cop? ’

‘You know, yesterday? The woman with the curly hair and the boobs? She totally promised.’

He sat forward. ‘ When yesterday? ’

‘Afternoon. . About half three, maybe four? I gave her the addresses, and that was it.’

The leads she was chasing down. The ones she said were dead-ends when she came through to volunteer for soup-kitchen duty.

Cocker cleared his throat. ‘So, I can go now, right? Got to show a couple round a house. .’

‘ A right sodding disaster .’ On the other end of the phone, Steel sounded as if she was chewing on a mouthful of wasps.

Logan leaned against the roof of his rusty Fiat, notebook open in front of him. ‘You’re the one gave the job to Ding-Dong.’

‘ Two injured officers. Armed standoff. Hostages. Bloody press everywhere. . ’

‘What did I tell you? ’

‘ Hostages! How can he screw up raiding a wee cannabis farm? Now it’s all Waco comes to Blackburn. ’

‘Should’ve let me do it then, shouldn’t you? Now pay attention — I need you to get armed response units round to six houses. Have you got a pen? ’

‘ Leith managed to raid his without anyone getting shot. . ’ She paused. ‘ This isn’t more cannabis farms, is it? Because we got in enough trouble last time .’

Good question. ‘No idea. Anthony Chung got keys to a bunch of properties from a friend who works for an estate agent’s. Most of them are out in the sticks. That’s why we could never find out where he and Agnes were staying — they just moved from house to house.’

‘ Six addresses? You want me to get six addresses raided? What part of “Shotgun Hostage Drama in Suburban Cul-de-sac” did you no’ understand? ’

‘And you better get the SEB to go over them too, see if we can find anything else linking Agnes Garfield to-’

‘ Pin back your lugs: I — don’t — have — the — men. Got a sodding crisis going on here. If it’s no’ life or death, it’ll have to wait. ’

‘They might have DS Chalmers.’

Silence.

‘Hello? Can you hear-’

‘ You better be joking, Laz. ’

‘She got the list yesterday afternoon and didn’t tell anyone. For all we know, Agnes has her staked out on someone’s floor right now.’

A barrage of foul language erupted from the earpiece. Then more wasp-chewing. ‘ Fine, I’ll magic firearms teams up out of nowhere. Get them going round the properties. You happy now? ’

Ecstatic.

He gave her the addresses, then she slammed the phone down on him. Like it was his fault Chalmers was a glory-hungry overachiever.

Sim appeared on the other side of the car, her Airwave handset blinking away on her shoulder. ‘Guv? Got Control on the line. They say there’s an NPR hit on Chalmers’s Mini going north on the Inverurie road at half nine last night.’

‘Do they have her going back again? ’

‘Hold on. .’ Sim clicked the button on her handset and repeated the question. Then shook her head. ‘She might have taken one of the back roads? ’

Chalmers would still have come down King Street, or West North Street, or the beach Esplanade to get home, and the Number Plate Recognition system would have picked her up. And, more importantly, she would’ve fed her cat.

‘What about the GSM trace? ’

Sim checked. ‘They say her mobile’s not switched on.’

Logan drummed his fingers on the car roof. Heading north on the Inverurie road. That meant they wanted addresses on the list to the north-west of the city. . And only three fit the bill.

‘Guv? ’

‘Get in.’

They’d just have to do without a firearms team.

The Fiat bumped and ground its way down a dirt track, lined on either side with barbed-wire fences and thick knots of brambles, the ridge of grass in the middle scraping along the bottom of the car every time Sim hit a pothole. And as the track was pretty much all pothole, Logan had to stick his finger in his other ear to hear Rennie at all.

‘What? ’

The radio wasn’t helping: ‘ -siege enters its second hour, Grampian Police have cordoned off Fintray Road, and are asking Blackburn residents to remain indoors. We spoke to Mrs Gilmore, who lives next door. . ’

Mrs Gilmore sounded as if she’d just French-kissed a set of bagpipes. ‘ Aye, and then there was this big bang and a policeman went flying over the hedge into our roses. It’s- ’

Logan switched it off. ‘I didn’t hear a word of that.’

Rennie took a deep breath and came back twice as loud. ‘ I said, the house at Rickarton is clear. Steel’s got the other four-man team on their way to the place outside Stonehaven. But it’s rush hour, so- ’

‘What about the other two houses? ’

‘ Sorry, Guv. We’re going as fast as we can .’

Sim tapped Logan on the shoulder as the car rolled through yet another outbreak of gravel-edged pits in the track. ‘There it is.’

House number two on the north-west of Aberdeen list was an ancient-looking farmhouse set back from the road, partially screened by a patchy beech hedge, the front garden a thicket of weeds. The walls were leper grey, the gable end streaked with rust from a buckled TV antenna. One chimney was missing a chunk off the corner and the slate roof was speckled with yellow lichen. Narrow dark windows glowered out at the surrounding fields. Behind it, a massive steading conversion was all fresh pointing and neat double glazing.

A bright green Willox and Smith ‘FOR SALE’ sign was driven into the jungle of dockens and brambles.

‘Get your team over to the next house and let me know if there’s any sign of Chalmers.’ Logan hung up and put his phone away.

Sim parked the car at the overgrown entrance to a small gravel drive. ‘No sign of a Mini.’

Well, they weren’t going to just leave it outside, were they?

He climbed out of the Fiat. The weeds in the driveway were partially flattened, as if a vehicle had been left there. . Or they’d used it to reverse and turn around on the appalling track.

Sim joined him, pulling on her bowler. ‘What do you think? ’

‘Someone’s been here.’ He pointed. ‘See the trampled path through the weeds to the front door? ’