and forth like the head of a snake. ‘Get out of my garden. Now.’
‘And you were stupid enough to video it!’
‘Lies!’ Whyte’s face darkened. ‘You’ve no business being here!’
‘We found it this morning. You abused an eight-year-old boy and you videotaped yourself doing it, you moron. The old sporting injury.’ Logan pointed at the man’s leg. ‘We’re going to match your scar to the one in the film and then I’m going to lock you up where you can’t-’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong!’ The words came out in a small shower of brown spittle. ‘You get out of here, NOW!’ Another step forward, weak sunlight glinting on the chisel’s freshly sharpened edge.
Logan pulled out a canister of pepper spray and levelled it at Whyte’s face. ‘Put the weapon down and step out of the shed.’
Whyte’s eyes darted over Logan’s shoulder, to where Rennie and Rickards stood. No way out. He looked at the canister in Logan’s hand, then dropped the chisel. It fell end over end, landing point down and burying itself in the sodden grass. ‘I want a lawyer, I-’
Logan sprayed the old man in the eyes. He screamed even louder than Sean Morrison had.
54
‘Fuck’s sake.’ DI Steel sat at her desk reading Logan’s report. ‘And he’d no idea Garvie was floggin’ the video to other kiddie fiddlin’ bastards?’
‘We don’t even know if he was. Kevin Massie’s come over all repentant now he’s looking at another stretch in Peterhead — says there were five or six of them, sharing homemade videos and pictures, and stuff they got off the internet. They encrypt it, so only they can see it, and upload it to Garvie’s server. Massie
‘That’s convenient.’
‘Whyte’s not saying anything, but the scar on his leg matches the one in the video. So he’s screwed anyway.’
Steel nodded sagely. ‘See! I told you there was more to this Sean Morrison thing than met the eye.’
Logan didn’t bother answering that — DI Steel’s selective memory strikes again — instead he slouched in his chair and stared out of the nicotine-filmed window. ‘The IB’ve tried the encryption key we found at Daniel Whyte’s place on Garvie’s servers.’
The inspector’s face lit up, all the wrinkles looking excited. ‘Aye?’
‘Twenty video clips, that’s it. It won’t decrypt any of the other files. There’s still thousands and thousands we can’t get into.’
‘Oh …’ The excitement evaporated and Steel’s face fell back into its usual leathery sag. ‘Ah well, win some, lose some. Get all the other fuckwits who paid Garvie by cheque hauled in and we’ll give them a hard time. Meantime,’ she leant back in her chair, swivelling back and forth, ‘I had to cancel the search for Macintyre’s rapemobile. Fuckin’ thing’s nowhere to be seen and the DCS’s been banging his gums about the overtime bill. Apparently,’ she put on a Banff and Buchan Teuchter drawl, ‘DI Finnee’s operation taks precedence.’ She scowled. ‘Glory-hogging bastard. And see if you can get us some tea, eh? I’m gaspin’ here.’
Twenty past four and Logan was staring at the phone, debating the merits of calling Rachael Tulloch back and making up some excuse to cancel whatever he was supposed to be doing with her tonight. A large shadow loomed over him and he flinched, expecting to see DI Insch’s furious purple face. But it was just Big Gary with a pile of incident reports in one hand and a mug of tea in the other, a rowie clamped between his teeth. ‘Mmmwow, gowfffmmm mounnsmmmph.’
Logan just stared at him, so Gary took the cowpat-shaped roll out of his mouth and tried again. ‘Don’t tell Watson, but your girlfriend’s outside.’
‘What?’ How the hell did Gary find out about Rachael? And if Gary knew, it would be all over the station in a matter of minutes. Jackie would have his balls for earrings!
‘Ashley is it? Macintyre’s bint — she’s out front telling everyone what a bunch of shites we are. Only got out of court five minutes ago and she’s already giving bloody press conferences.’
Thank God for that. ‘Oh.’
‘Here,’ Gary said, dumping half of the incident reports on Logan’s desk, ‘Steel says you’re in charge of these.’ He took a big bite of rowie, and lumbered off.
Logan took one look at the pile of paperwork and decided he really couldn’t be bothered. He grabbed his coat and left the building instead: he had a sudden masochistic urge to hear what lies Macintyre’s fiancee was coming out with now.
The camera crews were packing up as he pushed through the front doors. Rickards was standing on the top step, watching the woman from Sky News doing a piece to camera. The welt on his cheek where Debbie slapped him had faded overnight, leaving nothing more than a pitiful, skelped-arse look. He gave a big puppy-dog sigh as Logan stopped beside him.
‘Well, what did Macintyre’s fiancee say?’
Rickards shrugged. ‘The usual.’
Logan scanned the dispersing crowds, looking for Ashley’s telltale brassy blonde hair. She was climbing into a taxi with Macintyre’s mother. ‘If you were …’ he frowned, watching as it pulled away. All that time they’d spent searching the city for the missing little red hatchback, when everyone knew the car would be a burnt-out hulk by now, dumped in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization. But what if everyone was wrong? He grabbed Rickards. ‘Go: get a pool car, now!’
As the constable scurried off, Logan pulled out his mobile and called the inspector in charge of the CCTV room, telling him to get his cameras tracking the Rainbow taxi currently turning right onto Broad Street. ‘And I need backup — a couple of-’
‘
Logan jumped in the passenger seat. ‘What the hell took you so long?’
‘It was-’
‘Well, get a shift on! Out, left on Broad Street …’ he held the phone to his ear again, ‘Schoolhill …’
Rickards put his foot down and the scabby car lurched out onto the road, pausing at the junction to let a huge bendy bus hiss and judder past. The constable strained forward in his seat, looking for a gap in the traffic. ‘I don’t get it: why are we-’
‘They’ve just got out of court, they’re charged with perverting the course of justice, they know the only way we’re going to prove Rob Bloody Macintyre’s guilty is if we find that little red hatchback. No car: no forensic. No forensic: no conviction. If you were them, what would you do?’
‘Oh.’
‘Exactly.’ They followed the trail of CCTV cameras, Logan relaying instructions as Rickards did his best to catch up with Macintyre’s nearest and dearest.
‘There!’ Logan jabbed a finger at the windscreen — the taxi was at the head of a queue of traffic, waiting for the lights to turn green and let them out onto Union Street. Red, amber… and they were off, trailing more than a dozen cars behind. A taxi ahead of them jerked to a halt as a pissed teenager lurched out on to the road, swinging her arms and singing incoherently for the benefit of her equally drunk friends. A sudden braying of horns, some swearing, threats and the vomit-spattered girl staggered back to the kerb, giggling. The traffic started moving again, just in time for the lights to do their slow parade back to red.
Rickards snapped on the siren, the noise wailing out into the rain-speckled afternoon, but nothing happened. The cars were too tightly packed on Chapel Street to get out of their way. By the time the lights were green again the taxi was nowhere to be seen. Logan got an update from the CCTV team and Rickards floored it, siren blaring, nipping between cars and buses as they pulled over to let them past, traumatizing an old lady with a shopping trolley halfway across a pelican crossing on Union Grove.
