'Have you told the Media Office to make up 'have you seen this woman' posters?'
'Well… no.'
And at that, Finnie did turn round. 'Why not? Use your initiative, for goodness sake.'
'You told me not to do anything without clearing it through you first.'
'What are you, twelve? You sound like my niece.' The DCI held his hand out. 'Photograph.'
Logan handed over the eight-by-ten glossy showing their Jane Doe lying in her hospital bed, complete with ventilation tube and drips. It wasn't exactly the best head-and-shoulders shot in the world.
Finnie threw it back. 'This is useless. Get it up to Photographic. Tell them to edit out all the tubes and lines, give her skin a bit of colour, lose the panda eyes… Make her look like a person someone might actually recognize.'
'Yes sir.'
'Sometime today would be nice, Sergeant. You know, if you're not too busy?' The technician in the 'BARNEY THE DINOSAUR FOR PRESIDENT' T-shirt made some disparaging comments about the quality of the photograph, then said she'd see what she could do. No promises though.
Logan left her to it and headed back down to the CID office for a cup of tea and a bit of a skive. Not that he got any peace there — his in-box was overflowing with new directives, memos, reminders about getting paperwork completed on time, and right at the top — marked with a little red exclamation mark — yet another summons from Professional Standards. Apparently there were some discrepancies between his version of events and PC Guthrie's — would he care to discuss them at half ten tomorrow morning?
No he wouldn't. But he didn't exactly have any choice, did he?
There was a little fridge in the corner of the CID office. Logan helped himself to the carton marked 'DUNCAN'S MILK ~ HANDS OFF YOU THIEVING BASTARDS!' and made himself a cup of tea, taking it back to his desk, where he sat staring out of the window: watching a pair of seagulls rip the windscreen wiper blades off a Porsche parked on the street below. Wishing he'd been able to dig up a couple of biscuits.
'…the labs yet?'
'Hmm?' Logan swivelled his seat round till he was facing the newcomer — Detective Sergeant Pirie, back from the Sheriff Court, swaggered across the room.
'I said, 'do you have that photo back from the labs yet'?'
'What's with the smug face?'
'Richard Banks got eight years. Bastard tried to plea-bargain it down, but the PF stuck him with the whole thing.'
'Congratulations.'
'Photo?'
'They're still working on it.'
'Rape kit?'
'Same answer.'
'Ah…' Pirie ran a hand through his ginger, Brillo-Pad hair. 'The boss isn't going to like that.'
'Really? That'll make a change.'
'Yes, well… email me everything you've got on our Jane Doe then you can go back to running about after that wrinkly disaster area Steel.'
Logan stared at him. 'Do you really want a 'whose DI is the biggest arsehole' competition?'
'Fair point.' Pirie settled onto the edge of Logan's desk. 'Finnie tells me you tried to take our victim's prints with a water glass…' His eyes roved across the piles of paperwork and then locked onto the plastic evidence bag with the glass in it. 'And here it is! I thought he was just taking the piss.' He picked up the bag and grinned. 'What are you, Nancy Drew?'
'Ha bloody ha.' Logan snatched it back and stuffed it into his bottom drawer, burying it under a pile of Police Review magazines, then slammed the drawer shut.
'I don't get it: why's he got it in for me? All he ever does is… moan.'
'That's easy,' Pirie stood, turned, and sauntered out the door, 'he doesn't like you.'
The phone on Logan's desk started ringing, cutting off his opinion on what DS Pirie could do with his foreskin and a cheese grater.
'McRae?'
'You still working for Frog-Face Finnie?' DI Steel, sounding out of breath.
'Not any more, Pirie's taken over the-'
'Then get your arse downstairs. We've got a riot on our hands!' The Turf 'n Track wasn't the sort of place you'd put on a tourist map. Unless it was accompanied by a big sticker saying, 'AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!' It sat in a small row of four grubby shops in the heart of Sandilands, surrounded by suicidally depressed council flats. A pockmarked car park sulked in front of the little retail compound, complete with burnt-out litter bin, the vitrified plastic oozing out across the greying tarmac. There was a grocers on one side, the dusty corpse of a video store on the other — its windows boarded up with plywood — and a kebab shop on the end. Everything was covered in layer upon layer of graffiti, except for the Turf 'n Track. Its blacked-out windows and green-and-yellow signage were pristine. Nobody messed with the McLeods. Not more than once, anyway.
The whole area had a rundown, neglected air to it, even the handful of kids clustered on the borders of the car park, watching the fight.
Logan screeched the pool car up onto the kerb and leapt out into the warm afternoon, shouting, 'POLICE!'
No one paid the slightest bit of attention.
DI Steel hauled herself from the passenger seat and sparked up a cigarette, blowing out a long plume of smoke as she surveyed the scene. Six men were busy trying to beat the crap out of one other. 'You recognize anyone?' she asked.
They were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, all swinging punches and kicks with wild abandon. Someone would rush in, throw a fist at someone else, then retreat fast. Amateurs.
The inspector pointed at one of the combatants — an acne-riddled baboon with a bloody lip — as he took a swing at a fat bloke with a bowl haircut. 'Him: Spotty. I'm sure I've done him for dealing.'
Logan tried again: 'POLICE! BREAK IT UP!'
Someone managed to land a punch and a ragged cheer went up from the spectators.
'I SAID BREAK IT UP!'
Steel laid a hand on Logan's arm. 'No' really working, is it: the shouting?'
Logan took two steps towards the mass of flying fists and trainers. The inspector tightened her grip. 'Don't be an — idiot they might be a bunch of Jessies, but they'd tear you apart.'
'We can't just sit back and-'
'Yes we can.' Steel hoiked herself up onto the bonnet of the pool car, her shoes dangling a foot off the ground. 'Come on: none of them's got any weapons. Sit your backside down and enjoy the show. Uniform will be here soon enough with their Freudian truncheons and batter the lot of them.' She flicked an inch of ash onto the tatty tarmac. 'You eat that curry yet?'
'Yeah… Had it for lunch.'
'And?'
'Tell Susan it was very nice. Bit spicy, but nice.'
'You're such a wimp. Next time I'll get her to make you a nice girly korma.'
Another fist hit its target and this time DI Steel joined in the celebration, clapping her hands and shouting, 'Jolly good! Well done that man! Now kick him in the goolies!' She checked her watch. 'Where the hell's Uniform got to? Bunch of lazy-'
Right on cue a siren wailed in the distance, getting closer.
'Ahoy, hoy,' the inspector pointed across the car park at the front door of the Turf 'n Track. A large man stood on the threshold, half in shadow: mid-thirties, face like a bowl of porridge, missing a chunk of one ear, huge shoulders, a lot of muscle just starting to turn into fat. 'Looks like the guvnor's in. Shall we go say hello, perchance to partake in a cup of tea and a garibaldi?'
'You'll be lucky. Last thing Simon McLeod offered me was a stiff kicking.'
'Watch and learn…' She wiggled her way down from the car bonnet, then sauntered around the punch-up,
