'If you don't like it, you shouldn't interfere with little girls, should you?' She took a handful of yellow sweatshirt and frogmarched him to the door. 'Come on, Gaylord. Time to sing for your supper.' 'God,' said Steel, lying on the couch, grey-socked feet dangling over the arm, 'why's it taking so long?'
They'd decamped to the living room, Logan and Rory working at the coffee table while the inspector slumped about like a badly designed cat. 'They built the sodding pyramids quicker than this!'
Rory licked his lips. 'Well, maybe if I had a little smackerel of something wet it would help? Like a brandy…?'
'When you're finished.' She lifted her head and scowled at him. 'Now get back to work, or you'll get a swift snifter of my boot up your backside.'
Logan went through every combination of nose, eyebrows, ears, mouth and chin the e-fit software had, until they finally came up with two faces. One was angular, with a broad forehead, the hair receding at the front and shoulder-length at the back. The other had hard eyes, a nose that listed to the left, and short grey hair.
'You're sure?' said Logan, mouse hovering over the 'SAVE' button.
'Hmm… Well… maybe… No. This one had a scar or something, on his chin. About…' he leant forward and tapped the screen, 'there.'
Logan selected a scar from the menu and moved it into place. 'Like that?'
'Perfect.' Rory hopped down from his chair, and struck an I'm-A-Little-Teapot pose in his lemon and pink ensemble. 'And now, His Royal Gay-For-A-Dayness demands a brandy!'
Steel peeled herself off the couch. 'We'll see if you deserve one first.' She loomed over Logan's shoulder and squinted at the e-fits. 'Recognize them?'
He closed the laptop with a small click. 'I think we're all going to need a drink.' 'You took your sodding time!' Steel scowled at Detective Constable Rennie as he hobbled into the kitchen, bent under the weight of a massive, lumpy holdall.
He dumped it on the floor. 'Any chance of a cuppa? I'm parched.'
'Do I look like a sodding char lady?' She hoiked a thumb at the kettle. 'You know where it is.'
Logan nudged the holdall with his foot. It rattled. 'What's this?'
'Videos and DVDs. And for your information, I got here as soon as I could.' Rennie filled the kettle from the tap. 'You only called half an hour ago. Takes that long to find a sodding parking space.'
The inspector peered at the bag. 'Videos, eh? Better no' be porn… Is it porn? If it's porn you can leave it here.'
'It's not porn, it's CCTV footage and you're welcome to it.' He stuck a teabag in a clean mug. 'Anyone else want one?'
Steel stood. 'Who knows you're here?'
'No one: Secret Squirrel all the way. They think I'm off questioning security guards about the Sperminator case. Mind you, Beattie isn't happy about it. Bastard thinks I've got nothing better to do than run about after his beardy arse all day. Rennie, do this; Rennie, do that; like I'm his bloody sidekick!'
'Boo hoo.' She grabbed her car keys from a pegboard by the fridge, then shouted, 'RORY!'
A muffled voice came from somewhere upstairs: 'I'm in the toilet.'
'A NICE CONSTABLE'S HERE TO LOOK AFTER YOU. DON'T SOD HIM ABOUT!'
The sound of flushing. 'OK.'
'AND PUT THE BLOODY SEAT DOWN THIS TIME!'
Clunk.
Rennie went for another rummage in the cupboards. 'If you're going back to the ranch, Finnie's looking for you.' He emerged with a packet of Jaffa Cakes. 'Tell you, ever since that bloody drugs bust on Friday he's been insufferable.'
'OK, first off,' said Logan, 'since when did you start using words like, 'Insufferable'?'
'Emma says I need to improve my vocabulary if-'
'And second: what drug bust?'
'Big consignment of heroin from Leeds. Couple of old farts in a motor home packed with the stuff. Been dropping off consignments for dealers every couple-hundred miles. Finnie caught them making a delivery to our friendly neighbourhood Triads.'
Logan frowned. 'He did?'
'Aye, Metropolitan Police and SOCA are going mental: been trying to crack that supply chain for three years. Finnie's so full of himself it's not real!'
Steel grabbed Logan and dragged him towards the door. 'All right, that's enough of the Frog-Face Appreciation Society. We've got work to do.' 'And you're sure about this, are you?' Detective Chief Superintendent Bain sat back against the windowsill in his office, arms crossed.
Logan nodded and laid the e-fits side by side on the DCS's desk. 'Positive.' He poked the picture with the receding mullet. 'That's the man who shot at us in Torry.'
'And the other one?'
'I can't be a hundred per cent, but I think it's the man we were warned about in Poland. Just before the… Well…' He coughed. Tried not to fidget. One leg starting to tremble. 'The… em… The only photo I saw was about forty years old. But…' Shrug. 'Maybe. The eyes are right.'
'Name?'
'Vadim Mikhailovitch Kravchenko. Worked for the Secret Police in Krakow and Nowa Huta under the Communists: torturing dissidents. Word is he's freelancing for Warsaw gangsters now.'
'Hmm…' Bain ran a thoughtful hand over his shiny head. 'Inspector?'
'Makes sense. Been hearing rumours of Eastern Europeans trying to muscle their way in for ages. Simon McLeod won't play nice, so they carve his eyes out and burn the holes. Same crap they've been pulling back home since the seventies. It's no' revenge, it's a warning to everyone else.'
'Right.' The DCS picked up his phone and started to dial. 'Let's get Finnie in here and-'
Logan stabbed his finger down on the cut-off button. 'Actually, sir, it might be better to keep this low- key.'
Bain stared at him. 'Sergeant McRae, I understand you've been through a lot recently, but DCI Finnie needs to be here.'
'You can't-'
'One: he's in charge of the Oedipus investigation. And Two: until DI McPherson gets back from sick leave, Finnie's looking into that caravan full of guns.'
'That's got nothing to do with-'
'They finished processing all the prints from our weapons cache. The fingerprint recovered from that empty shell casing at the Krakow General Store matches latents on weapons and the caravan. If you've got an ID, he needs to know.' Bain looked down at the phone, then up at Logan again. 'Now move your finger.'
'We…' Logan licked his lips. 'I think Finnie's dirty.'
'Don't be ridiculous-'
'I saw him taking a brown envelope from one of Wee Hamish's goons. I–C-One male: green hair, spots, late teens, early twenties.'
Steel whistled. 'Johnny Urquhart? Thought he was still in borstal?'
Bain put the phone down. 'Are you seriously accusing Detective Chief Inspector Finnie of taking bribes from Hamish Mowat?'
Silence.
'I know what I saw.'
'Finnie's got the highest rate of drug busts in the force, he's like a sniffer dog. Last week: three-quarters of a million in heroin from that motor home case. If he's on the take, why does he arrest so many people?'
'I don't know… maybe he's overcompensating?'
'Aye,' said Steel, 'and how comes he drives that crappy Mondeo? It's an estate, for God's sake.'
DCS Bain shook his head. 'I don't see it.'
'Well… what about Rory Simpson? He said he heard a police officer talking to Kravchenko when they wrecked his flat, and-'
'Sergeant McRae, I will not let Polish gangsters run amok in my city, just because a wanted paedophile is
