hands in her pockets, whistling a jolly tune, right up to the betting shop's front door. 'Afternoon, Simon, how they hanging?'
He wrinkled his nose. 'Do I smell bacon?'
'No, Chanel Number Five.' Steel smiled sweetly. 'Anyway, from the look of things, you smell pies.' She stopped and poked him in the stomach. 'Lots and lots of pies.' She nodded back towards the brawl. 'These your boyfriends then? Fighting over who gets to take you to the dance?'
'Fuck you.'
'Lovely offer,' she said, holding up her left hand with its sparkly wedding ring, 'but my wife doesn't like me playing with podgy gangsters.'
The first of the patrol cars appeared, slithering to a halt on the hot tarmac. Simon McLeod uncrossed his huge arms and took a couple of steps forward, shouting, 'Get out of it, you stupid bastards: police are here!'
Spotty the Baboon turned someone's nose from flesh and bone to blood and meat paste. The man sat down hard, and got a kick in the head for his trouble. But as soon as the first uniformed officer jumped out — extending her truncheon with a flick of the wrist — the fight started to break up.
The bright ones ran for it: Bowl Haircut and Hippy with a Limp made for the council housing estate. Tattooed Gimp sprinted back towards the roundabout. And Low-Budget Porn Star scarpered down the road, a uniformed officer chasing after him, shouting, 'Come back here!'
Mr Meat Paste for a Nose lay on the ground, curled up in a ball with his arms protecting his head as Spotty the Baboon tried to kick him to death. The other officer from Alpha One Four waded in with her truncheon.
Logan watched Spotty fight back, before being battered into submission. Steel was right: Uniform could look after themselves.
He turned back to the doorway, expecting to see Simon McLeod still arguing with the inspector, but there was no sign of either of them. Right now McLeod was probably turning DI Steel into lesbian tartare. Logan swore, dug out his little canister of pepper-spray and hurried through the door.
Out of the sunshine and into the heart of darkness.
Inside, the Turf 'n Track was shabbier than it looked from the car park. The only natural light oozed in through the door, and even that was too scared to go more than a couple of feet over the threshold. The woodwork was black as a smoker's lung, coated in the accumulated tar from countless cigarettes. A pair of televisions were bolted to the wall at either end of the counter, flickering away to themselves: a race meeting in Perthshire, with the sound turned off. The door to the back office was open.
Maybe Simon McLeod had dragged the inspector back there and put her out of everyone's misery?
The linoleum floor stuck to Logan's feet as he hurried round behind the counter and — WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?
He froze.
A deep bass growl rumbled up from somewhere to his left. The kind of growl that came with lots of teeth and ripping and tearing and running for your life. Logan turned around slowly, until he was facing an ancient-looking Alsatian, lying in a tartan dog bed. 'Nice doggy…' Logan frowned. 'Wait a minute, is that…?'
Simon's voice blared out from the back office, 'Winchester: fuck's sake, shut up!'
Winchester — Jesus, surely the thing was dead by now? It'd been ancient when Desperate Doug MacDuff had owned it. The dog looked in the vague direction of his new master's voice, eyes white and rheumy. Then Winchester yawned — showing off a lot of big brown teeth — and rested his grey muzzle back down on his paws.
It wasn't quite the scene of carnage in the back office that Logan had been expecting. A large desk sat opposite the door, beneath the mounted head of a two-tonne Rottweiler called Killer, the last known resting place of Simon McLeod's missing half ear. A collection of girly calendars dotted the walls, some going back as far as 1987. DI Steel was flicking through them while Simon McLeod made two mugs of tea.
'Bloody hell,' she said, peering at Miss March 1996, 'this one's got nipples like champagne corks. Could hang your coat on those.'
Simon handed her a mug. 'Milk, two sugars.'
'Ooh, ta.' She took an experimental sip. 'So, Simon… why are a bunch of drug dealers having a barney outside your shop?'
'No idea what you're talking about.'
'No?' Steel scratched her head. 'What a strange coincidence. You see, a little birdie told me there was a gang of Eastern Europeans trying to muscle in on your territory.'
'I don't have a 'territory', I'm a legitimate businessman.'
'Aye, aye, and Miss Stiff Nipples here is a brain surgeon. I'm no' having a turf war in my city, Simon.'
'You're not listening, Inspector. I don't know anything about it.'
Steel nodded. 'Well, hypothetically speaking, if you or your brother did know anything about it — say you were both into protection, loan sharking, prostitution, supplying class A drugs… hypothetically speaking, would you tell your Auntie Roberta who these Eastern Europeans were?'
There was a pause.
'Like I said, Inspector, I'm a legitimate businessman. Now if you've finished your tea, you can fuck off. I've got work to do.'
4
'That went well,' said Steel, sauntering back out into the sunshine. 'No biscuits though… You'd think a 'legitimate businessman' could rustle up a chocolate digestive, wouldn't you?'
Logan looked back in through the Turf 'n Track's front door at the dark interior. 'How the hell did you manage that? I thought he hated the police?'
'The McLeod brothers like to think they're old-school gangsters… Well, Simon does, Colin's just a bloody thug. You ever met their mum? She'd tan their arses if she found out they'd hit a woman.'
'You remembering what happened to Gabrielle Christie? Broken jaw, cracked ribs, fractured leg-'
'Aye, but she wasn't a woman, was she? She was a hoor.' Out came the inspector's cigarettes, the smoke spiralling up into the bright blue sky. 'It's no' the same to these people. Prostitutes aren't women, they're property. And before you say anything, I know, OK? It's just the way they think.'
Outside the bookmakers, the pre-pubescent mob had dispersed. Now there was just a single grubby child, watching as Mr Meat Paste for a Nose was loaded into Alpha One Four.
Another two patrol cars had arrived, their white paintwork sparkling in the sunshine. Spotty the Baboon was in the back of one, looking woozy and bruised from all that resisting arrest.
The other officer from Alpha One Four was limping back up the road, his black uniform trousers all torn at the knee. It looked as if Low Budget Porn Star had got away.
'Two out of six,' said Steel, leaning on the roof of the empty patrol car, 'no' exactly a brilliant arrest rate.' She smoked in silence for a moment, staring at Spotty and his swollen face. 'Right,' she said at last, pinging her fag end away, 'let's go see what the Clearasil Kid has to say for himself.'
Logan dragged out his phone. 'I'll get them to set up an interview room, we can-'
'Don't be so wet. Here,' the inspector dug into her pocket and pulled out a handful of change, 'go get some ice-lollies.' By the time Logan returned from the little grocers, Steel was lounging in the back of Alpha One Six with Spotty. Logan clambered in on the other side, sandwiching him in.
Steel leaned across the prisoner and looked at Logan. 'What did you get?'
'Strawberry Mivvi, Orange Maid, and a Chocolate Cornetto.'
She stuck her hand out. 'Cornetto — gimmie.' She un wrapped it and took a happy bite, talking with her mouth full, 'What about you, Derek? Fancy an orange lolly? Nah, better no' it'd clash with your ging-er hair. Strawberry Mivvi for Derek here, Laz.'
Logan held it out, but Spotty the Baboon, AKA: Derek, didn't take it. Which wasn't that surprising, his hands were cuffed behind his back.
'Give it here,' said Steel. She took the lolly and held it against Derek's cheek. 'There you go, that'll keep the
