Dark Blood (19 page)

‘Bastard!’ Danny swung the thing at Logan’s head. Missed. The sledgehammer crashed into the caravan wall, tearing straight through the aluminium, buckling the doorframe.

Logan scrambled away as Danny tried to haul the sledgehammer’s thick steel head out of the hole he’d made.

Pepper-spray. Why couldn’t he get the lid off the bloody pepper-spray? What the hell was the point of even
having
pepper-spray if you couldn’t get the sodding lid off?

There was a squeal of metal – Danny had finally managed to rip the sledgehammer free.

Time to go.

Logan stumbled to an unsteady run, making for the car. Getting the hell away from that bloody hammer.

It whistled past his left shoulder and Danny swore as it clunked into something.

‘Aya, fuckin’ Jesus…’ Pause. ‘
Fuck.
’ Hissed breath. ‘Ow…My FUCKIN’ FOOT!’

Logan kept going.

The next swing clattered into the steading wall, sending hot yellow sparks flying.

‘Stand fuckin’ still…Ow, ow, ow…’

The security light blared out across the cold gravel as Logan struggled around the corner. He made it as far as his crappy brown Fiat, then turned to see Danny limping after him,
grunting through gritted teeth every time his left foot touched the ground, breath streaming out behind him in a white cloud.

Logan struggled with the cap again. Bastarding thing still wouldn’t budge.

He stuck it between his teeth and twisted – the plastic tasted bitter and biley.

‘Aaaaaaaagh!’ Danny dragged the sledgehammer up and round, swinging one-handed, putting all his weight behind it.

Logan flinched back and the hammer caught the edge of his coat, slamming it through the passenger window in a hard crash of fractured glass. Little cubes of shining diamond sprayed out across the vinyl seats.

He spat the canister’s lid out and pointed the pepper-spray right between Danny’s eyes. ‘Drop it!’

‘Fit did you dee to Stacy, you bast—’

Logan pressed the trigger.

There was a brief moment of stunned silence, then Danny started screaming, fell to the gravel driveway, both hands over his face, legs kicking out in random directions. Leaving the sledgehammer sticking out of Logan’s passenger window like a jaunty wooden erection.

They sat at the caravan table, Logan on one side, Danny Saunders slumped on the other. The windows were all fogged up from the kettle being boiled, emptied, filled, and boiled again, the steam permeating the small space, even thought there was a brand-new hole in the wall and the door wouldn’t close properly any more.

The cloying, bitter stench of sick hung thick in the muggy air.

‘You feeling any better?’ The woman – Stacy – peeled the soggy tea towel off Danny’s face. His skin was almost scarlet, eyes scrunched shut, tears dribbling down his cheeks, snot oozing out of his nose. He raised a hand to his eyes.

Logan grabbed his sleeve. ‘Told you not to rub it. You’ll only make it worse.’

‘Hurts…’

Got to love pepper-spray.

Stacy scowled. One side of her hair was sticking out in random directions, little things stuck in the blonde mess. Whatever perfume she used, it wasn’t up to hiding
Eau de Vomi.
‘Look what you’ve done.’

Logan scowled back, keeping the bag of frozen peas pressed against the back of his skull. ‘You tried to bash my head in with a frying pan, and he tried to take it off with a bloody sledgehammer. Remember?’

She turned and stomped back to the fridge, pulled a carton of whole fat milk out, and sploshed some into the tea towel. ‘It was an accident.’

‘How?
Exactly?’

Silence.

‘Gave you the peas, didn’t I?’ She put the milk back in the fridge, then draped the wet towel over Danny’s face again. ‘You sure this’ll help?’

‘Positive.’

Stacy wrinkled her nose, pulling a chunk of regurgitated something from her hair. ‘Urgh…’ The kettle whistled to the boil. She took it off the gas and poured it straight into a steaming bucket, then checked the temperature with her little finger. ‘I wanted a caravan with a shower, but
no,
that would’ve been too
expensive
…’

She peeled off her jumper then the T-shirt underneath, revealing a none-too-sensible bra and her stretch-mark-rippled pregnant bulge. She sniffed at the stained T-shirt, grimaced, then dumped it in the corner with the spattered jumper. Logan didn’t watch her washing her puke-matted hair in the bucket.

He leaned across the tabletop and lifted the edge of the milky tea towel. ‘Feeling any better?’

‘It burns…’

‘It’s pepper-spray, it’s meant to burn.’ Logan let the towel slap back against the angry skin. ‘You’re a silly bastard, Danny, you know that, don’t you?’

The man on the other side of the table coughed. His voice was all wheezy, slightly muffled by the tea towel. ‘Thought you were here about that…’ He drifted into silence.

Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘Where were you at nine fifteen yesterday morning?’

Stacy took her head out of the bucket, shampoo froth clinging like candyfloss. ‘Don’t you tell him anything. Didn’t read you your rights, did he?’

‘But—’

‘But
nothing,
Danny.’ She raised her chin and stared at Logan. ‘Why you want to know?’

‘Just answer the question: Saturday morning, quarter past nine.’

Silence.

Danny coughed again. ‘We were—’

‘Danny Saunders, don’t you dare!’

‘Fit dis it matter? We werenae up tae anything, were we?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘We were doon the Oldmachar Church, OK?’

Logan laughed. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘Aye we were!’ Danny sat upright, and the cloth fell off his face, splatting onto the Formica tabletop in a little eruption of warm milk. It was working, he was actually able to open his eyes a crack, just enough to glare at Logan. ‘You ask the minister, we were there bang on ten till aboot eleven.’

Logan looked around the cramped caravan with its sledgehammer hole in the wall.
‘You
went to church?’

‘You can gie the minister a call if you dinna believe me.’

‘I don’t.’ He reached into his coat pocket and…Fuck. Fucking…fuck. He came out with a handful of broken plastic and circuit board shrapnel. All that was left of his
phone – caught between Danny’s hammer and the car window. ‘Oh that’s just…’ He thumped it down on the tabletop. ‘That was you and your bloody sledgehammer!’

‘It’s only a phone. You broke my wrist!’

Logan took a deep breath, tried really hard not to lunge across the table and punch Danny in the throat, then stuck out his hand. ‘Give me your mobile.’

Stacy: ‘We don’t have to do any—’

‘GIVE ME YOUR BLOODY MOBILE PHONE, or so help me…’ He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. ‘Please, may I borrow your phone?’

Danny handed over a cheap-looking handset. Logan called the Control room. ‘I want a number for whoever the minister is at Oldmachar Church, Bridge of Don…Yeah, I’ll wait.’

Danny picked the milky tea towel off the tabletop and flopped it back across his face. ‘Reverend Williams. He’s helpin’ us get the wain baptised, you know, when he pops oot?’

Logan dialled the number Control gave him, then sat there, staring at the shattered remains of his phone. He’d only just learned how to programme the damn thing and now he’d have to buy a new one. And would they let him claim it back on expenses? Would they—

‘…
Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?’

‘Can I speak to the minister?’

‘That’d be me. Fit can I dee for you?’

Logan glanced up at Danny’s towel-covered face. ‘What’s your name?’

‘If we’re being formal, it’s Reverend Williams, if not, you can call me Charley.’

‘This is Detective Sergeant Logan McRae: Grampian Police. I need to know if you met with a Danny Saunders and his…’ he looked at the shiny bauble covered with soap on Stacy’s ring finger, ‘fiancée any time in the last week?’

There was a pause.
‘Can I ask fit this is aboot?’

‘Trying to establish their whereabouts.’

‘Oh aye, and why’s that?’

Danny leant forwards, face still making yoghurt underneath the cloth. ‘It’s a-right, Charley, you can tell him.’

So the minister did. Logan told him someone would be round to take a formal statement, thanked him for his time and hung up. Then swore.

Danny held out his hand for the phone. ‘See: told you. We wis doon the church.’

Today just…fucking
wonderful.

‘So you don’t know anything about the jewellers that got knocked over on Crown Street, yesterday?’

Stacy patted her swollen belly. ‘Danny doesn’t do that kind of thing any more, he’s got responsibilities now.’

‘We wis taking care of my wee loon’s spiritual upbringing. Nowhere near Henderson’s.’

Logan smiled. ‘I never said anything about Henderson’s.’

Stacy squirted more shampoo into her hand. ‘Nice try,
Inspector Rebus,
but it’s been on the radio all day.’

Bugger.

Bloody snow.

Logan sat on the upturned milk crate outside the steamed-up caravan and watched the first tiny flakes drifting down from a dark black sky.

He shivered and took another drag on his cigarette, then hissed the smoke out through his teeth. The bag of frozen peas was starting to go all soggy and limp. Logan knew how it felt. He pulled it away from his aching head and probed the lump underneath with his fingertips. Winced. Put the bag back.

All he’d wanted was one little success to prove everyone wrong. Was that really too much to ask for? Just one measly case closed, out of the dozens littering the whiteboard in the CID office. And all he’d ended up with was a bash over the head, a broken car window, and a smashed mobile phone.

He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and stared at the glowing orange tip. No point in putting it off any longer. Logan pinged the butt away into the darkness. ‘Right…’

‘Made you a tea.’

He looked up to see Stacy standing over him, clutching a steaming mug. She’d changed into a baggy hooded top that didn’t reek of vomit. She held the mug out. ‘I didn’t spit in it, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

What the hell.

‘Thanks.’ Logan took an experimental sip. Hot. Milk, three sugars. ‘How’s he doing?’

Stacy wrapped her arms around herself. Shuffled her feet. Looked off into the middle distance. ‘Sorry about belting you one.’

‘Me too.’ Logan hauled himself up, handed her the bag of defrosting peas, then pulled out his handcuffs. ‘Time to go.’

Stacy’s mouth fell open. ‘But…We…I thought we’d—’

‘You assaulted a police officer with a frying pan. He did it with a sledgehammer. We’ve been over this.’

‘That’s not fair!’

‘Stacy…’ Logan stopped. ‘What’s your full name?’

‘Get stuffed.’

‘Fine, we’ll add “giving false details” to the list of charges.’

‘You can’t do that!’

‘Listen, Stacy, right now I’m looking at a buggered phone, a broken car window, and a fucking big lump on the back of my head, OK? You’re under arrest.’

She threw a finger at the ragged-edged hole by the caravan door. ‘What about our bloody wall?’

‘Your boyfriend did it, not me.’

She stomped her foot. ‘But I’m
pregnant
!’

‘I didn’t do that either.’

Stacy glared down at him for a moment, then dropped her eyes again. ‘We…Maybe we could come to some sort of understanding?’ Twirling her fingers through the ends of her damp hair. ‘You know, as we didn’t have anything to do with that jewellers got knocked over?’

‘Soon as Danny knew I was CID he tried to do a runner, and you tried to cave my head in.’ Logan took another mouthful of hot sweet tea. ‘Doesn’t matter if you raided Henderson’s or not, you’ve been up to something: we’ll find out what down the station. Now, I want your full name and address.’

‘It was…’ She coughed. The snow was getting heavier, beginning to settle on her bleached hair. ‘We had to borrow some money for the roof on the steading. The people…well, they’re not regulated by the FSA, if you know what I mean?’

‘I’ll get your last name when we process you anyway. Might as well save the extra six months on your sentence.’

‘Danny’s a bit behind on his payments, OK? These guys don’t come round and repossess your telly, they repossess your kneecaps.’

Logan looked up at Stacy. Standing there in the snow, with the security light behind her, she had a glowing halo of little sparkly flecks, like an angel who’d forgotten to use a condom. ‘Names.’

‘OK, OK. Jesus…Stacy Gardner. You happy now?’ She folded her arms over her swollen belly, muttering, ‘Fascist Nazi bastard.’

‘No,
the people you borrowed money off: what – were – their – names?’

‘Oh…Right. I…ahem…don’t really know.’

‘Fine.’ Logan stood. ‘Stacy Gardner, I’m arresting you for assaulting a police officer—’

‘I don’t know, OK? Danny sorted it all out.’

After being outside in the snow, the caravan was cosy and steamy, the gas heater hissing away to itself. Logan tried to shut the door behind him, struggling to get it into the buckled frame. Danny was hunched over the little kitchen sink, face down in the soapy water.

Stacy pulled off her thick-rimmed glasses and wiped them on the hem of her hoodie. Then slapped her fiancé on the back. ‘Danny, tell him about the blokes you got the money off.’

He rose from the basin, dripping wet, his red face covered with soapy bubbles. His eyes were still scrunched up, all pink
and swollen, but he did a swift scan around the room before saying anything. ‘You ken whit these guys are like, I can’t—’

She hit him again. ‘Do you
want
to see me in prison, is that what you want?’

‘But they’ll—’

‘Your pregnant girlfriend, in handcuffs?’

‘Stacy, love, we—’

‘Sharing a cell with some junkie lesbian scumbag?’

‘But—’

‘God, I
hate
you!’ She turned her back and stomped over to the hole in the wall, making the whole caravan rock on its windy-down legs.

‘Come on, Pooks, don’t be like that…’

Her shoulders came up. ‘Don’t you “Pooks” me.’

Danny turned his swollen squint on Logan. ‘I dinna know their names. Got introduced by a friend of a friend.’

Logan held up the handcuffs again. ‘No deal.’

‘Honest, I dinna remember, it’s—’

‘How’s the face?’ Logan stepped forward and peered at the bright-pink skin. ‘Looks sore.’

Shrug. ‘Soapy water’s helping, but it—’

Logan reached out, placed the back of his thumbnail against Danny’s cheek, then raked it downwards.

‘What the hell was that…?’ Danny’s swollen eyes bugged, he gasped, then went, ‘AAAAAAAAAAGH!’ Clutching his hand over the new scarlet line down his face. Deep breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAAGH!’

He plunged his head back into the sink, sending soap suds spattering up the walls, across the working surface, and out onto the carpet. Gurgling and glubbing.

Stacy turned, sniffed, then thumped herself down on the bench by the table. ‘Serves you right.’

‘Burns, doesn’t it?’ Logan settled back against the wall. ‘That’s why you’re not supposed to rub – it opens up the capillaries and lets the capsicum oil in. Disco inferno.’

Danny surfaced, dragged in a deep breath, then dived in again.

Logan grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him out. ‘Who loaned you the money?’

‘My face…’

‘You’re a Christian, right Danny? Feel like turning the other cheek?’ Logan held his thumb up again.

‘NO! No…I’ll…It was these two new blokes with posh accents, Angus Black put us on till them, they was in the snug at Dodgy Pete’s—’

‘Names, Danny, Mr Thumb’s getting itchy again.’

‘Gallagher and Yates, that’s all I know, I didn’t get first names, please it—’

Logan let go and he splooshed into the sink again, sending another mini tidal wave crashing to the carpet.

Stacy folded her arms under her swollen breasts. ‘And if you think I’m cleaning that up, Danny Saunders, you’ve got another think coming!’

Logan looked around for something to dry his hands on, but all the tea towels smelled of yoghurt. ‘He’d better be telling the truth, or I’ll be back for the pair of you, understand?’

Stacy just stuck her nose in the air.

Logan let himself out.

He hauled the car up onto the pavement behind a dented blue skip overflowing with battered kitchen cabinets, swathes of plaster, and a stained mattress. A streetlight washed the road in sulphur-yellow light. Like God had peed on everything.

The back of Logan’s head stung if he touched it, and throbbed when he didn’t. It felt as if there was a rat gnawing on the back of his eyeballs with sharp little teeth.

He clambered out into the cold, dark night. No point locking the car. A: there was nothing there worth stealing, not even the car. B: the passenger-side window was missing. C: it was a piece
of crap, ancient, brown Fiat, and if anyone
was
stupid enough to nick it, they’d be doing him a favour.

Fat snowflakes drifted down in a slow-motion ballet. When they touched the tarmac they disappeared into off-brown sludge, but it wouldn’t be long before they started to lie and the whole city ground to a standstill.

He turned up his collar and lurched up the street through the snow.

Bucksburn was one of those strange little self-contained areas of Aberdeen, stranded out on the north-east corner of the city, on the end of Auchmill Road. The kind of place people from Blackburn, Kemnay, and Inverurie drove through on their way to a long delay at the Haudagain roundabout.

This side of the dual carriageway was lined with little shops, most of them closed for the evening. The lights flickered off in a newsagents as he passed, the owner rattling down the security grill over the window. A few doors down, the smell of garlic, frying onions and sesame oil wafted out from a Chinese takeaway. Logan’s emptied stomach growled.

A little alleyway led between two of the shops. He lifted the catch on a wrought iron gate and stepped into orange-tainted gloom, feet squelching through puddles of slush. A light was fixed to the wall above his head, but it couldn’t seem to muster much beyond a faint glow.

He skirted a cluster of wheelie bins, past a featureless metal door with reggae music thumping out from somewhere inside, and turned the corner.

The pub sitting at the end of the alleyway wasn’t called Dodgy Pete’s. Not officially anyway. The sign above the chipped red door said ‘T
HE
B
URNING
B
UCK
’, complete with a demonic
Monarch of the Glen
illustration.

Logan pushed through into the muggy interior.

At least it wasn’t one of those places where everyone stopped talking and turned to stare when someone new entered. No one in Dodgy Pete’s cared.

It was a traditional, old-fashioned Scottish pub: cracked vinyl seats; a dart board; a puggy machine in the corner, flickering away to itself; a cigarette machine with an ‘O
UT
O
F
O
RDER
’ sign Sellotaped to it; a short wooden bar; and a smell of stale beer and damp dog.

Logan levered himself up onto a barstool. ‘Quiet tonight, Pete?’

The barman looked up from the copy of
Private Eye
he was reading. Grunted. His chest-length white beard was flecked with little grey streaks of cigarette ash, the hair around his wide mouth stained a dirty yellow. Large nose with red veins capering around the tip, a shock of unruly white hair. Half-moon spectacles. He looked like Santa Claus after a particularly nasty divorce.

‘Usual?’ He was already reaching for the Stella tap.

Logan licked his lips.

Prove it. Go a week without getting hammered every night.

The DIs are fed up with you complaining all the time and stinking of booze.

Maybe you’re angry with her because you think she’s right.

Damn.

‘Make it a fresh orange and lemonade. Pint.’

Pete raised a snowy eyebrow. ‘Oh…you’re on
duty.’
He shuffled off to get the drink.

Logan turned his back to the bar, scanning the low room. A couple of old men were slumped over a game of dominos by the fire, a young woman in a Royal Bank of Scotland uniform was getting herself outside a pint of Guinness and a packet of prawn cocktail while a bloke in a soggy hoodie tried to chat her up. No sign of Danny Saunders’s friend.

‘Angus Black about?’

Pete squirted lemonade from the gun into a pint glass. ‘What you reckon to Scotland’s chances in Antigua then? Daz says three nil, but you know what he’s like.’

‘I need to have a word.’

‘Three nil. Pffff. Daz wouldn’t know his cock from a bicycle pump if he didn’t keep yanking the damn thing.’

‘What about two posh-sounding blokes: Gallagher and Yates? Supposed to be new in town?’

‘Caught him having a tug in the ladies’ bog last week.’

Logan swung back round to the bar. ‘Come on Pete, I just want to talk to Angus. Nothing serious, just a quick word.’

The big man stuck the glass in front of Logan, foam dripping down the side. ‘I mean, Daz is OK, you know, for a registered sex offender, but…’ He shrugged.

‘Got anything for a headache?’

Pete stuck his hand under the bartop and came out with a small blue packet, placed it next to the glass.

Logan reached for his wallet, but Pete gave him a broad smile.

‘Nah, on the house,
Officer.
’

And in the mirror behind the bar, Logan saw a man framed in the open doorway to the gents freeze – eyes wide – then disappear back into the toilets. Angus Black.

Logan took a sip, then knocked back a couple of Pete’s paracetamol. ‘Bog windows still got bars on them?’

Another shrug.

Logan picked up a beer mat and stuck it on top of his pint glass. Then turned and wandered across the sticky linoleum to the sign marked ‘B
UCKS
’. Stopped for a moment outside. Then pushed the door open.