Part 34 (1/2)

'Hold on.' The face disappeared and the door closed. Two minutes later it opened again, and a battered and dazed figure was unceremoniously thrust out into the suns.h.i.+ne: tall, brown hair, sideburns, but the nose wasn't just squint any more: it'd been flattened. Dried blood outlined the nostrils in crumbling black; mouth and cheeks swollen; bruises hiding the man's natural pallor. Duff's right leg was encased in fresh plaster, and so was his left arm, all the fingers splinted together on that hand. Someone had given him a proper going over, but Jimmy Duff felt no pain.

He stood, wobbling on the top step, pupils constricted to tiny black pinp.r.i.c.ks. Insch grabbed him by the collar, dragged him back to the Range Rover, and climbed in after him, shouting at Logan to get a b.l.o.o.d.y move on.

Sighing, Logan climbed in behind the wheel. This would all end in tears, he just knew it.

DI Steel was standing outside interview room one when Logan came back from the canteen with a tray of black coffees. 'You know the DCS is going mental, don't you?'

Logan groaned. 'Don't look at me, I'm-'

'You've got about half an hour before it all hits the fan.' She sniffed, then nodded her head at the interview-room door. 'Going to get a confession by then?'

'Doubt it: Duff's smacked off his t.i.ts.'

The inspector nodded sagely. 'Right, well, let me know when he's back on his t.i.ts again. If we're lucky they'll have suspended DI Fat And Grumpy by then and we can all get on with our lives.' She tipped him a wink, then helped herself to one of his coffees, said, 'Cheers,' and wandered off.

Through in the interview room, Insch was wasting his time. There was no way Jimmy Duff was going to say anything coherent in the state he was in, and whatever he did say wasn't going to be admissible in court.

Duff rocked back and forth in his seat, clutching his broken arm to his chest, trembling and sweating, mumbling about the walls being too loud while the inspector kept hammering on about Jason Fettes. Not surprisingly, four black coffees did nothing to straighten Duff out, they just made him twitch faster.

Steel had underestimated the Detective Chief Superintendent it was only twelve minutes before the knock came on the interview-room door and the DCS barged in without waiting for a reply. 'DI Insch,' he said, voice like a sharpened knife, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at the corridor outside, 'suspend your interview and join me out here, please. Now.'

When the door was closed, Logan sat back in his seat and swore. Insch had really done it this time. The head of CID had looked apoplectic. DI Finnie would be screaming blue murder about his operation being ruined, and all so they could drag a doped-up halfwit in to drink coffee, twitch, and complain about the decor trying to kill him.

Jimmy Duff leaned across the table, his one good hand scratching at the Formica, as if it was itchy, and stared Logan straight in the eye. 'I wanted to be a fireman.'

Yesterday it had been Macintyre's mother shouting the odds in the cell block: today it was Jimmy Duff, screaming about snakes and policemen made of broken gla.s.s. Logan left him to it. There was some sort of 'who can tell the filthiest anecdote' compet.i.tion going on in the CID office, with DI Steel adjudicating: giving points for originality, creativity, and pure s.m.u.t. Which probably meant she was avoiding paperwork and Logan would be lumbered with it instead.

DS Beattie was in the middle of his 'two pokes of chips for a b.l.o.w.j.o.b' story when a familiar polyphonic ring tone sounded in the room. Groans of 'Not a-b.l.o.o.d.y-gain!' and everyone patted their pockets, pulling out various phones and declaring it not to be them. It took Logan nearly eight rings to find his mobile, buried in the nest of wires, plugs and rechargers piled up on the desk by the window. 'McRae.'

'Logan, hi.' It was Rachel. 'I've been onto the bank's legal people. Took some doing, but they've come back with names. I can email them?'

'Please.' He wandered over to the window, looking down on the rear podium car park, watching a pair of seagulls fighting over what looked like a discarded sandwich as she read out a list of names. A large, familiar figure burst out of the rear door, stormed across to a filth-encrusted Range Rover and threw itself in behind the steering wheel. Logan could actually hear the squeal of tyres through the double glazing as DI Insch put his foot down and roared out of the parking lot, nearly flattening a couple of uniforms enjoying a cigarette in the small square of sunlight at the top of the ramp down to Queen Street. The pair stood in the middle of the road, watching the inspector's car long after it had disappeared from Logan's line of sight. Then, shaking their heads, they went back to their f.a.gs.

'... OK?'

'Mmm? Oh, yes, sure.' He'd not been able to see from this distance, but Logan was pretty sure Insch's face would have been a bright, scary purple.

'Good. Oh b.u.g.g.e.ring h.e.l.l, that's my other line. Don't forget: seven sharp!'

f.u.c.k! 'Wait seven? What's...' But she was already gone. Logan pulled the dead phone from his ear and stared at it, horrified.

'You look like someone's hidden a jobbie in your sock.' DI Steel stood right behind him, one hand hauling her trousers up, nearly under her armpits. 'Better watch that: the wind might change and you'll end up with a face like Fat Boy Insch.' She nodded her head in the direction of the corridor. 'Speaking of whom: my office, five minutes. Bring tea and bacon b.u.t.ties. I'm wasting away here.'

53.

Logan sat in the inspector's spare chair fidgeting, distracted, wondering what the h.e.l.l he'd just agreed to do at seven tonight with the Deputy Procurator Fiscal. Steel's news was... mixed. DI Insch might be a huge pain in the neck right now, but you couldn't deny that he put a lot of people behind bars.

'Two weeks?' asked Logan as Steel wiped a blob of tomato sauce from her chin.

'Yup. CC didn't think a slap on the wrist covered it this time. Who knows: maybe he'll come back a better person? But my money's on an even grumpier f.u.c.k than usual. And in the meantime, guess who has to carry his b.l.o.o.d.y caseload?' She stuck a hand up, just in case Logan had lost all grasp of irony. 'And guess who gets to help me?'

Logan groaned and Steel snorted, cramming the last chunk of b.u.t.tie into her mouth and chewing round the words, 'Don't know what you're whinging about: I've got all Jinx McPherson's cases too.' She dug about in her in-tray, retrieving a manila folder and throwing it across the desk to Logan, then went hunting through her drawers. 'You read. I want to know what I've been stuck with.'

So Logan opened the folder and read through a summary of Insch's caseload, with Steel stopping him every now and then to ask questions. But most of the time she just said, 'Nope, you can have that one too,' while she fought her way into a new packet of nicotine patches. The only investigations she seemed even remotely interested in were Jason Fettes and Rob Macintyre.

'If we can get Macintyre on the rapes,' she said, rolling up her sleeve, exposing a length of pasty-white skin, 'maybe the press'll forget all about him being in a coma and the CC will get off my back for not catching whatever public-spirited citizen kicked the c.r.a.p out the wee s.h.i.+te.' She slapped another patch in place, then peered at the packet. 'Meantime you better go poke the IB got to be something we can use from those bushes we found him in: fibre, fingerprints, DNA, ouija boards, I'm no' fussy... f.u.c.k, can you believe I've got to wait another four hours before the next one?'

'Jason Fettes.' Logan held up the report. 'Duff's still out of his face, but I-'

'Still?' Steel checked her watch. 'Jesus, that's no' bad goin'. Better get on to the court: slide him back to last call tomorrow, or he'll be out before he's straight enough to interview.'

'I've also got a lead on Frank Garvie, he was the one who-'

'Ex-p.o.r.n star, dodgy secret computer stuff, hung himself. Believe it or not I was actually paying attention. You deal with it, I'm up to my ears as it is and I'm no' needing any more s.h.i.+te shovelled on the top.' She waved a hand at the pile of case notes. 'Palm as much off as you can: got a whole CID department to choose from, but Rennie'll do in a pinch. Do him good to get the h.e.l.l away from me before I kill him.'

Logan gathered up DI Insch's cases and slid them back in the folder, trying not to sigh. 'Yes, ma'am.'

'And don't sulk. We're two DIs down: this could be your chance to s.h.i.+ne, sparkle, stand out from the crowd. Long as you don't f.u.c.k things up...'

His fellow CID officers whinged and complained but eventually Logan managed to palm off all the cases Steel didn't want, then printed off the email from Rachael, hoping there would be some clue about seven o'clock tonight. There wasn't. Instead he had a list of names of people who'd paid money into Frank Garvie's bank account on a regular basis. He was willing to bet this was only the tip of the iceberg anyone with an ounce of sense would have paid Garvie in cash, making sure there was nothing leading back to them if anything went wrong.

But some people just weren't that bright. Like Kevin Ma.s.sie: forty-five, tall, hair like a loo brush and hands like a child molester. Which was why he was on Grampian Police's register of s.e.x Offenders.

The house was immaculate, not a speck of dust to be seen in the two-bedroom semi-detached in Northfield. According to his social workers Kevin Ma.s.sie had been a good boy ever since he'd been let out of Peterhead Prison three and a half years ago. He'd done all the S.T.O.P. courses, was in therapy, didn't a.s.sociate with anyone dodgy, and followed his supervisory order to the letter. He was about as cured as anyone convicted for molesting their seven-year-old nephew could be.

Logan sent Rickards off to make the tea while he, Kevin Ma.s.sie and his social worker sat in the lounge, listening to the pop-click of the gas fire. Kevin sat on the couch, knees clamped firmly together, wringing those small, sweaty hands of his, smiling. 'So,' he said, filling the silence, pointing at the grey-haired woman sitting opposite. 'Laura said you wanted to speak to me?' Logan didn't even nod. Kevin cleared his throat, looked up at the framed print above his fireplace, then down at his hands. Coughed. 'I ... yes, well, I've been doing good. I got a job with a little accountancy firm in Dyce, it's nice...' More silence. 'Er ... do you fancy our chances this weekend? It's only Dundee, but with Rob Macintyre gone we-'

'Frank Garvie.'

Kevin licked his lips, and the hand-rubbing intensified, squeezing all colour from the pink knuckles. 'I was saying to Laura that the Dons really have to pull their socks up if we're going to get to the finals-'

'You rented encrypted server s.p.a.ce from him.'

'I ... we...' He looked at his social worker, pulling on a sickly smile. 'We like the football, don't we?'

Her face didn't move. 'You need to tell Sergeant McRae what happened, Kevin.'

'Ah, well ... it was...'

Logan leant forward. 'Garvie was in receipt of stolen goods: that makes him a criminal and you've been a.s.sociating with him. That's against your supervision order.'

'I...' Kevin jumped to his feet as Rickards came in, carrying four mugs of tea. 'I... biscuits! I'm sure I've got biscuits somewhere.'