In the Cold Dark Ground (41 page)

Logan sighed.

‘Of course he isn’t.’ The house was graveyard quiet.

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘Thought I told you about that: no plurals.’

‘OK, so what am
I
going to do? Cover for her, or tell the truth?’

‘She’d cover for you.’

‘Maybe she shouldn’t.’ The pillow was soft against his bruised face. ‘You can’t fit people up. If you do, you’re no better than Reuben, or Malcolm McLennan, or Jessica Campbell. The rules are there for a
reason
.’

‘So tell the truth.’

‘I
can’t
.’

‘What did you tell Reuben? We can’t make evidence disappear, the police force doesn’t work that way any more. The law applies to everyone. Him, me, even Steel.’

‘Look, let’s … sleep on it. See how we feel in the morning.’

‘I feel sick.’

Snow clattered against the bedroom window.

‘So do I.’

Detective Superintendent Harper raised an eyebrow. ‘What happened to her?’

Steel slumped at the end of the conference room table, head buried in her hands. Not moving.

Logan shrugged. ‘Coming down with a bit of a cold.’

The sound of voices came from the locker room below their feet, singing from the shower room across the hall, someone coughing a lung up on the landing outside. The sounds of Banff station lurching its way through another day of MIT infestation.

‘Hmm…’ Harper stared at him. ‘And you? Break up another fight outside a pub?’

He pointed at the sticking plasters, freckling his face. ‘Need to buy a new razorblade, this one’s blunt.’

Becky eased her way into the room, holding a tray covered in mugs. She bared her teeth. ‘Right.’ The smile she pulled on wouldn’t have fooled a house brick as she thumped the tray down on the table. ‘Anything else I can get you, or should I go and maybe do some actual police work?’

‘Thank you, DS McKenzie.’ Harper helped herself to a coffee. ‘While we’ve got you, how about an update on Martin Milne?’

‘Climbing up the walls. Worried about his wife and kids. Moaning about how someone should be organizing Peter Shepherd’s funeral.’ She scowled at the tray of mugs as Logan picked up a coffee and a Lemsip for Steel, then grabbed a tea for himself. ‘If we weren’t watching him round the clock, Milne would be off.’

‘Suppose we’d better pay him a visit.’ Harper sipped at her coffee, grimaced slightly. ‘This is great, thanks. If you pass DI Singh on the way down, let him know I’m looking for him.’

‘Yes, Super.’ Becky turned and flounced off, curly brown hair bobbing along behind her like an angry pompom.

Logan nudged Steel’s shoulder. ‘Drink your drinks.’

‘Urgh.’

Harper sniffed. ‘Tell me, Detective Chief Inspector, does your sudden illness have anything to do with the funeral and
wake
yesterday?’

Steel surfaced barely long enough to show off her two black eyes and the bags underneath them. ‘It was howfing it down with snow the whole time. Talk about freezing? Still can’t feel my toes.’ She even threw in a cough or three for good measure.

‘Quite.’ Harper turned to face the whiteboard, where someone had drawn out the harbour at Gardenstown along with the surrounding streets and the only two roads out of town. An assortment of fridge magnets were stuck to the board. ‘Remind me again, who’s the Eiffel Tower?’

Logan checked the list. ‘DI Singh’s team. You’re the penguin in a sombrero, Rennie is the canal boat, DS Weatherford is Thomas the Tank Engine—’

‘I have
never
known a police station that had to resort to stolen fridge magnets.’

‘I’m the Christmas tree, and DCI Steel is the old boot.’

‘Hmmm…’ Harper edged closer. ‘She doesn’t really have a cold, does she?’

‘Been mainlining Strepsils and Lockets all the way up here.’ Which was a lie.

Harper stared at the board. ‘This has to work. The top brass are already complaining about the budget on this investigation, if this is another disaster…’ She bared her teeth. ‘I need a result, Logan. I need it tonight.’

‘It’s only been a week since we turned up Peter Shepherd’s body. Give it time.’

‘A week’s a long time in politics and Police Scotland.’ She folded her arms, narrowed her eyes at the hand-drawn map and the fridge magnets. ‘Are we missing anything?’

‘What about DS McKenzie and DS Robertson? Logan dipped into the Tupperware box. ‘We’ve got a lump of cheese or a sheep playing the bagpipes.’

‘Better make it the bagpipes for McKenzie, she moans enough.’

Logan stuck that magnet on the smaller scrawled map in the corner – Milne’s hotel. The block of cheese went on the other little map – the part-built development where the Milne family home sulked. ‘Shame we can’t co-locate them. Be a lot easier to manage one locus than two.’

‘True. It would free up bodies for the swoop as well.’ Harper picked up a marker pen and twirled it between her fingers and across her knuckles, like a tiny baton. Back and forth, back and forth. ‘Give McKenzie a shout and tell her we want Milne back in the family home whether the wife likes it or not. I doubt anything’s going to happen, not right away. Malk the Knife will want a few days to work on his revenge. Robertson can run the babysitting team.’

Logan settled on the edge of the conference table, next to her. ‘Assuming it’s actually Malcolm McLennan behind it.’

She turned and frowned at him. ‘Why do you always do that?’

‘I’m only saying we should keep an open mind.’

‘No, not that. You never call him Malk the Knife, it’s always Malcolm McLennan.’

‘An old friend once told me you shouldn’t use silly nicknames for your enemies: it’s disrespectful. And when you treat your opponent with disdain, you underestimate them. And when you
underestimate
them, you give them an advantage.’

She looked him up and down. ‘Might not be as daft as you look, Logan Balmoral McRae.’

‘Thanks, sir.’

Back to the map. ‘Anyway, it’s not as if we’ve got anything on the
Jessica
Campbell angle. Ricky and Laura Welsh still aren’t talking.’ She stood. ‘Get a car. When I’ve spoken to Narveer, we’ll go make sure Milne isn’t trying to wimp out on us.’

Harper grabbed a folder from the table and marched off.

As soon as the door shut behind her, Logan sagged. Dug out a packet of paracetamol and washed three of them down with a swig of tea. They did nothing to blunt the ache radiating across his chest.

Steel hadn’t moved.

‘Drink your Lemsip.’

‘Urgh…’

‘Don’t know why you bothered coming into work today.’

Steel raised her head from the conference table. ‘I’m dying.’

‘What did I tell you this morning? Stay home, call in sick. But
no
, you had to play the brave little soldier.’

‘Be nice to me, I’m
dying
.’

‘And what happened? You snored, gurgled, and farted all the way up here. It was like sharing a car with a malfunctioning septic tank.’

She wrapped her hands around the mug of Lemsip and slurped at it. Then frowned at him with bleary bloodshot eyes. ‘Did we
do
anything last night?’

Logan turned his back on her and fiddled with the fridge magnets on the whiteboard instead. ‘Do anything?’

‘Yeah, I had this weird feeling we got in a fight or something. And when I woke up my dressing gown was all soggy.’

‘No. Don’t remember that.’

‘I can’t have peed myself, ’cause it was only wet on the front.’

Logan repositioned the old boot, putting it further away from the Christmas tree. How could she not remember admitting she’d fitted up Jack Wallace? ‘Right. Well, I’d better go get that car sorted.’ He hobbled out of the room, nearly colliding with DS Robertson in the corridor.

Robertson backed off a couple of paces, a manila folder held against his chest as if that was going to save him from the impending bollocking when Steel got her hands on him. He nodded at the Major Incident Room door. ‘Is the Creature from the Lesbian Lagoon in?’

Logan grimaced. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. She’s likely to go off like Semtex this morning.’

‘Not
again
.’ He shifted his grip on the folder and fiddled with one of those ridiculous sideburns of his. ‘I’ve got IDs and interviews for some of Milne and Shepherd’s sex partners.’

‘Only some?’

‘Not my fault it’s taking forever, is it? You try getting members of the public to identify someone based on a photo of them humping two blokes. Not as if you can go on
Northsound
and say, “We’re looking for a double-jointed busty brunette, with a caesarean scar and a hairy mole on her bum, who enjoys kinky threeway fun,” is it?
And
I’ve got Milne’s family to look after.’

Logan glanced up and down the corridor, then leaned in and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘This goes no further than you and me, OK? But…’ Another check. ‘Have you thought about actually going and
asking
Martin Milne?’

‘But Steel—’

‘Doesn’t need to see your working, she just wants results.’

Which was how she’d got into trouble with Jack Wallace in the first place.

He had a quick check in the corridor outside the locker room. No one about. Then ducked inside. The room was packed with tall, thin lockers in varying shades of battleship grey, green, blue, and beige. They lined the walls, with an island stretching out between the two windows. A hanging rail was set up behind the door, festooned with stabproof vests and high-viz waistcoats, all bearing their owner’s numbered epaulettes.

Logan flicked through them till he got to the vest that used to belong to Deano. Well, he was retired now, he didn’t need it. One last check to make sure no one was watching, then Logan unbuttoned the epaulettes and replaced them with his own.

No one would ever know. Well, unless they did a stock check, and even then there was no evidence that he’d been the one who nicked it.

His own stabproof would quietly disappear, taking with it its tattered front-piece and dented armour plate. Like the cagoule, gloves, plastic bags, and bullet casings had. Leaving nothing to tie him to last night’s fiasco.

Nothing except two eye witnesses, one of whom might well be dead by now. The other of whom would be plotting a very nasty, very bloody, revenge.

Logan pulled the new stabproof vest on, fiddling with the big Velcro tabs until it fit. All those years and it had adapted to Deano’s body shape. It’d take a while to train it to his own. And for some reason, the pockets were full of Starburst wrappers.

He ditched them in the bin, then nipped downstairs to the Sergeants’ Office.

Beaky wasn’t in, so Logan slipped into the seat and logged onto the computer. Scanned through the notifications for the last twelve hours. No sign of anyone being admitted to hospital for gunshot wounds in Aberdeenshire, or Aberdeen City.

Well, there wouldn’t be, would there. Reuben had his own private wee NHS to take care of himself and his people. Go to a hospital with a nine-millimetre hole in you and the doctors were obliged by law to inform the police. Much better to go private.

So was John Urquhart alive or dead?

Logan stared at the screen for a bit, then logged out. Grabbed the Big Car’s keys from the box, and
almost
made it outside.

‘Sergeant McRae?’

He turned, and there was DS Weatherford, still looking sweaty and harassed. The bags under her eyes had darkened, matching the stains beneath her arms. She shuffled her feet. ‘DS Robertson tells me the guvnor’s a bit … delicate this morning?’

Understatement of the year. ‘One way of putting it.’

Weatherford glanced over her shoulder. ‘It’s not my fault. I’ve tried everything. They won’t prioritize the DNA results unless we fast-track them, and there’s no budget for it. How am I supposed to catch the people who assaulted the pair of you?
How
?’

Logan patted her on the shoulder. ‘Take a deep breath. Then go upstairs and tell Steel she needs to put up the extra cash, or stop being a pain in your backside. She’ll appreciate the honesty.’

‘Really?’ Weatherford’s eyebrows went up an inch. Then she licked her lips and nodded. ‘OK. Honesty. Pain in the backside. I can do this.’

‘And if she shouts at you, try to think nice thoughts till she stops.’

With any luck, given the state of Steel’s hangover, any yelling would hurt her more than it hurt Weatherford. If nothing else it would keep the ensuing bollocking to a minimum.

‘Oh God…’ The DS turned and fidgeted her way back along the corridor.

Logan shook his head and stepped outside.

The air was crisp and harsh, biting at his ears as he unlocked the car and climbed in behind the wheel. Took out his mobile phone and called John Urquhart’s number.

Listened to it ring.

‘
Yellow?
’

‘John? It’s Logan.’

‘
Mr McRae? You OK? Reuben said—
’

‘Thought you might be dead.’

‘
Nah, just a scratch. Didn’t get far enough away from the Reubenator’s shotgun. My own stupid fault. Couple of stitches and I’m right as rain.
’ A sigh. ‘
More than I can say for the Armani, though. Whole suit, completely ruined. Overcoat too.
’

‘What about Reuben?’

‘
Ah… Yes. Reuben.
’ Urquhart made a hissing noise. ‘
He’s a wee bit hacked off. You know, what with you shooting him and everything.
’

‘I tried, I really did.’

‘
Never seen him so angry. I mean, we’re talking Chernobyl in green overalls here.
’

Of course he was.

Well, it wasn’t really that surprising, was it? If you shoot someone twice they were hardly likely to be your bestest friend forever.

‘
Might be a good idea for you to get out of Scotland for a bit, Mr McRae. Somewhere far away, where Reuben can’t get his hands on you. Cos if he does, it’s going to be long and slow and horrible. Trust me, I’ve seen it.
’

The side door to the station opened and Harper marched out with Narveer trailing in her wake. Today’s turban was a cheery yellow-and-black check, like Rupert Bear’s trousers.

‘
And you better keep that gun on you till you go, you know what I’m saying? He’s pulling in favours.
’

Not much chance of that. Harper and Narveer were hardly going to let him nip home for five minutes. What? Oh, nothing much: got to feed the cat and pick up a firearm in case a gangster needs shooting. Again.

Yeah, probably not.

Narveer opened the back door. ‘Morning, Logan.’

Logan gave him a wave, keeping his voice neutral. Nothing to see here, just a standard-issue innocent phone call. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to go. But if you hear anything, let me know, OK?’

‘
Stay safe, Mr McRae. Safe and far, far away.
’

Logan hung up and slipped the phone into his pilfered stabproof vest as Harper climbed into the passenger seat. ‘All set?’

She nodded at him. ‘Let’s go pay Mr Milne a visit.’

DS McKenzie sat on the end of the bed, munching her way through a wee packet of complimentary shortbread, getting crumbs down her shirt. She’d released her hair from its angry pompom, letting it curl and coil around her scowling face.