like a baseball bat.
Grigor was stalking across to the far corner, gun out, pointing at the sound of the ringing. When he got to the stack of two-by-fours he stopped, stood there for a moment, then peered into the corner.
Logan waited for him to reach for the handset, then tried to take the bastard's head off with the length of wood. It crashed into Grigor's skull, just above his left ear and the big man went sprawling. The gun flew out of his hand, clanging into a neat pile of scaffolding poles.
That should hold him…
Oh God, he was getting up again.
Grigor fought his way to his knees, and then to his feet. Logan smacked him in the head a second time, but he just staggered around, blood streaming from a three-inch gash in his forehead. 'Moje jaja! Pierdolona sukinsyn…'
'What the hell are you made of?'
His face was all twisted up, teeth bared, hissing out obscenities in Polish as he scanned the floor for the gun. And then the big man lunged, going for the pile of poles.
Logan swung the two-by-four again: missed. Grigor wasn't just big, he was fast too. He was bent double throwing scaffolding poles left and right, hunting for the gun, his backside sticking up in the air. So Logan dropped the chunk of wood, took a run up, and did his best to kick the bastard's testicles into orbit. It wasn't quite as effective from the back, but it produced a high pitched squeal. If in doubt — go for the balls.
Grigor collapsed face-first into the metal poles, one hand clutching his groin, the other still feeling for the gun.
Logan picked up a scaffolding coupler from the pile — like a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs held together with swivelling bolts — about the same weight as a bag of sugar. 'Hey, ugly!'
'Kurwa mac…' Grigor gave up on the gun and grabbed a length of scaffolding pole instead. He threw himself onto his back, swinging the pole hard and fast. It whistled past, a couple of inches from the end of Logan's nose, clanged against the breeze block wall and bounced out of Grigor's hand.
Logan jumped on him, grabbed him by the throat, and smashed the scaffolding coupler off his forehead. THUNK. The skin broke, and a fine spray of blood misted out into the sunny afternoon.
'You-' Logan hit him again, '-are-' And again, '-under — ' One last time for luck, '-arrest!'
Logan sat back, breathing hard, the coupler heavy in his hand. Grigor wasn't moving anymore. The big man's head looked like a ruptured sausage, but at least he was still breathing.
Logan rolled him into the recovery position, then handcuffed his hands behind his back. And then lurched off into the corner to throw up.
68
'You still alive? Hello? What the hell's going on?' DI Steel's tinny voice rattled out of the phone as Logan slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. 'Hello? Are you dead?'
'No.' He took out a fresh pair of latex gloves — struggled to pull them on over his trembling, blood-stained fingers — then bent down and picked up the gun. It was almost as heavy as the scaffolding coupler, but looked lot more dangerous. Black, scuffed and functional. Logan pressed the release button and slid the magazine out of the handle. Eighteen slugs of dull metal with shiny brass casings. He slapped the magazine back in place and hauled the slide back to cock it. Then made sure the safety was on. Three settings: one white dot, one red dot, and three red dots. Logan went for the white dot, hoping that meant the thing wasn't going to suddenly go off at random and take some portion of his anatomy with it.
Just in case, he wasn't sticking it in the waistband of his trousers.
'Right, I'm going to find Pirie and Wiktorja.'
'Firearms team is on its way. Don't do anything stupid, OK?' He could hear her puffing and panting as she spoke, as if she was running or something.
Logan took the stairs back down to the ground floor.
'Thanks. Your confidence in me is really reassuring.'
'Hey, I'm no' the one let that bloody Polish tart into my house.'
Logan scowled at the phone. 'That 'bloody Polish tart', is a missing police officer!'
'No she's not. You said you knew-'
'Wiktorja told me all about it, OK? They suspended her because of what happened when I was there. It wasn't her fault.'
The office unit had a single door at the back that opened out onto the warehouse structure. No more surprises. Logan snicked the safety catch from one white dot to one red dot. Then nudged the door open.
'Don't be a divvy.' There was the sound of a car engine starting on the other end of the phone, swiftly followed by the wail of a police siren. 'She wasn't suspended, she was fired. Two years ago, for taking backhanders from some German crime lord called Ehrlichmann.'
Logan froze. 'What?'
'You heard: she's bent. And no' in the good way.'
'How can she be… But… No, she was there — Ehrlichmann's goons shot her!'
'I'm just telling you what her sergeant told me. She sabotaged a bunch of high-profile drug busts. Nearly went to prison for it.'
'But they shot her…'
A voice sounded behind him: 'What the hell are you doing?'
Logan spun around, the gun snapping up till it was inches away from DS Pirie's nose. 'What-'
'Ah, Jesus!' Pirie danced backwards, tripped over a drum of electrical cable and went crashing down onto his backside.
'You moron.' Logan lowered the gun. 'I could've killed you!'
'Fuck… Think I've just shat myself.' The detective sergeant stuck out a hand and Logan pulled him to his feet. Pirie's nose wrinkled. 'What smells of puke?'
'Where have you been?'
'What's going on? Hello?'
'It's Pirie, he's not dead.'
'Tell him no' to let you do anything stupid! He-' Logan hung up on her. Then switched the phone off so she couldn't call him back.
Pirie brushed cement dust from his backside. 'Where did you get the gun?'
'Big Polish bloke called Grigor, works for Kravchenko. I bashed his head in with a scaffolding coupler.'
Pirie's face went even paler than normal. 'Is he dead?'
Logan put a hand on the door. 'There's a firearms team on its way. You can stay here and wait for it, or you can come with me.' He pushed through into the warehouse.
The place was cavernous, just a big empty space with a freshly laid concrete floor. Piles of building equipment made little islands in the huge room, bathed in the sunlight that streamed in through a set of open roller doors.
'Ah, Detective Sergeant, what take you so long?' Kravchenko stepped out from behind a stack of dark orange I-beams, each one marked-up with chalk hieroglyphics. He was wearing a baggy linen suit and a white shirt. Even had a tie on. 'Did you get lost, yes?'
Logan pointed the gun right between the old man's eyes. 'Vadim Mikhailovitch Kravchenko, I am arresting you for the attempted murder of one Rory Simpson.'
'I see…' He smiled. 'You have gun. OTs-33 Pernach: Russian, sturdy, like machine gun. Is good choice, but not so accurate I am thinking.'
Logan took three steps forward. 'Face-down on the ground, hands behind your head, now!'
'You are forgetting something, yes?' He dragged Senior Constable Wiktorja Jaroszewicz out from behind the stack of I-beams. Her hands were tied behind her back, a livid bruise spreading a purple, green and yellow stain across her cheek. She was groaning and swearing behind a gag made of duct tape.
