high-heeled ankle boots, and stockings with more ladders than your average fire station. Someone had broken her nose.
'Oh,' she said, 'it's you…' Tracey stuck out her hand and Logan pulled her to her feet, where she wobbled on four-inch heels. As she bent to grab the parka she'd been sitting on, he caught a flash of skin between her skirt and her top. It was a collage of bruises and welts.
'Been waiting, like, forever.' She ran a hand through her bleached blonde hair. 'Haven't got a fag, have you? I'm gasping.'
'Gave up years ago. What happened to your face?'
She turned and squinted across Union Street at a small flurry of pigeons fighting over a discarded kebab. 'I was wrong, you know? About what happened. It… it wasn't Colin McLeod battered Harry.'
'What?'
'It wasn't him. It was someone else. Colin didn't touch him.'
'You can't just change your statement-'
'I was wrong, must've been off my face or something, you know? Colin was nowhere near the place when Harry got his head caved in.'
'And all of a sudden he's 'Colin', not 'Creepy'? Tell me, Tracey, would this have anything to do with your new black eye?'
'I was wrong, OK? It wasn't Colin, you gotta let him go!'
'We found a claw hammer in Colin McLeod's garage with traces of Harry Jordan's blood on it.'
'It… We…' She rubbed at her arms. 'You must've planted it. You know? To fit him up, like.'
'You got a visit from Agnes McLeod last night, didn't you? That or a couple of her son's associates, and they helped change your mind about what happened.'
'No! I just remember it better now. It wasn't Colin. It wasn't…' She grabbed for Logan's hand. 'You've got to let him go.'
'We can't do that, it's-'
'How about a blowjob? Right now, on the house like? No? I got girlfriends, we could, you know, put on a show for you? Like an orgy or something? You could do whatever you like, we wouldn't tell no one…' She licked her chapped lips, leaving a smear of saliva behind. The effect wasn't exactly erotic. 'You know you want to…'
'No I bloody well don't.' Logan got a cappuccino and a rowie with butter and jam from the canteen. And as a rowie was, more-or-less, just a croissant that had really let itself go, technically it counted as a continental breakfast. Chewing, he made his way to the morning briefing.
With any luck all that salt and saturated fat would kill him before he had to tell Finnie that Tracey was changing her story.
Halfway down the stairs Logan's phone started ringing. He juggled hot coffee and greasy pastry. 'Hello?'
'Hello? Yes?' A man's voice. 'Is this Detective Sergeant Mackie?'
'McRae.'
'Is it? Oh, sorry. This is Father John Burnett, Sacred Heart… Well, Saint Peter's now I suppose. Erm… I know it's early, but you left a message asking me to call you back?'
Two minutes later Logan was hurrying out of the side door, dragging a moaning Constable Karim with him.
'But I'm supposed to be at the briefing; you know what Finnie's like!' Karim was dressed in the standard Grampian Police uniform: black T-shirt, black stab-proof vest, black peaked cap, black trousers, black boots, and a fluorescent yellow waistcoat with 'POLICE' across the back. Which kind of spoiled the whole ninja ensemble.
Logan punched the keycode into the gate that lead out onto Lodge Walk. 'We're only going to be fifteen minutes.'
'But-'
'You can blame me if it makes you feel any better.'
'Damn right I'm blaming you.' He followed Logan out of the shadowy alleyway and onto Union Street. The sunshine was blinding. 'Jesus!' Karim grabbed his hat and pulled it as far down as it would go, hiding in the shade of the brim — making his ears stick out at right angles. 'Like a sodding microwave out here…'
They crossed the road and headed into the Castlegate, a wide-open plaza of cobbles and pigeon droppings, with the Mercat Cross sitting in the middle like a dirty granite carousel. A pair of tramps were slouched against the hoarding that surrounded the Salvation Army Citadel, basking in the morning sun and sharing a breakfast of white spirit and cigarettes. They waved and cheered as PC Karim went past.
Logan waved back. 'Didn't know you had family in Aberdeen.'
'Oh ha, ha.' The constable sniffed. 'That's Dirty Bob and his mate Richard. Saved them from a kicking last year. They might stink, but at least they're grateful, unlike some people. Broke up a fight outside the McDonalds last night: rival hen parties. Matron of honour called me a Paki bastard and tried to take my head off with a plastic tray. Said I should go back where I bloody came from.'
'What: the exotic, sun-soaked shores of Fraserburgh?'
'Makes you proud to be Scottish, doesn't it?'
St Peter's Catholic Church was hidden away at the end of the Castlegate, between a card-shop-come-printers and a defunct hairdressers. A little recess led between the buildings into a tiny courtyard that stank of bleach and disinfectant.
A pair of big blue doors sat off to one side — beneath a lancet window of unstained-glass — posted with the standard welcome for this part of town: 'NOTICE ~ THESE PREMISES ARE PROTECTED BY CLOSED CIRCUIT TELEVISION SECURITY SYSTEMS'.
Karim marched straight past them and up to the battered wooden door of the parochial house. It opened on a clean, but shabby hallway: primrose walls, white ceilings — the paint blistering and cracked, showing the grey plasterwork beneath. The whole place had an air of neglect Logan hadn't been expecting. It was a long, long way from the opulence of the Vatican. Like a dying relative no one wanted to talk about, let alone visit.
The constable opened a part-glazed door into the main building, and shouted, 'Anyone home?'
A disembodied voice replied, 'Hello? I'm in the kitchen.'
Logan followed Karim into a large room dominated by a big wooden table and units that had seen better days. Possibly during the Crimean War.
There was a man sitting at the table, in front of an open laptop. Early forties; bouffant hair starting to grey at the temples; thin, blue cardigan over a black priest shirt; glasses. 'Constable! How nice to see you again. Did you manage to catch him?'
He stuck out his hand, and Karim shook it, smiling.
'Not yet, Father.'
'Oh, that's a pity… Still, I'm sure you're all doing your best.' He half rose from his seat and offered Logan a handshake too. 'Have we met?'
'DS McRae. Are you Father Burnett?'
'Guilty as charged. Now why don't you both grab a pew and we can have a chat.' Logan and PC Karim sat, listening to the kettle grumbling its way to a boil while Father Burnett went hunting through the fridge.
'Trouble is, we've got an open-door policy, and people will insist on leaving the milk out. Ah, excellent…' The priest emerged with a plastic carton of semi-skimmed. 'Where was I?'
Logan pointed at a framed photo on the kitchen wall: it was Father Burnett, in full vestments, standing in front of Sacred Heart, Torry.
'Right, right. Well, it's been in pretty poor repair for years, but we've finally got the money together to have the place done up properly. So, while it's closed for refurbishment, I came down here to lend a hand. Be four months next Friday.'
Teabags, hot water, milk. He waggled a mug at Logan. 'That about the right colour for you?'
'Perfect. What about your congregation?'
'Ah, therein lies a tale…' He brought the teas back to the table, followed by a tin of Marks & Spencer fancy biscuits. 'Last year we started doing Mass in Polish, twice a week — thought it would make our European friends feel more at home, if they could attend services in their native language. Help them integrate. Trouble is, pretty soon they'd only go to the Polish Masses, so instead of helping them get to know the locals we ended up with a segregated Catholic community that didn't mix at all.'
