feeling a little paranoid. Now I gave you considerable leeway in allowing you to keep Rory Simpson at DI Steel's house, but enough is enough. If we don't nip this in the bud, we're looking at all-out gang warfare. With machine guns!'
'But-'
'I said no, Sergeant.'
'This is stupid!' Logan's voice was getting louder and louder. 'You have to-'
'No I don't!' Bain was on his feet, leaning on the desk. 'I'm beginning to wonder if you're really ready to come back to work.'
Logan opened his mouth, but Steel slapped a hand down on his arm before he could speak.
'Tell you what, Laz,' she said, 'why don't you go get us all a nice cup of tea.'
'I don't want a-'
'Cup of coffee then. Rowie with jam. Photo of Gloria Hunniford with her boobs hanging out. I don't care, just sod off for ten minutes.'
'Fine.' Logan stood and stomped out. Slamming the door behind him.
He kept up the strop all they way out to the rear podium car park, then sparked up a cigarette in the last remaining square of early evening sunlight. Five to five and people were heading back to the station. Beat officers wandering up the steps from street level, patrol cars and CID Vauxhalls competing for Aberdeen's daily 'Who Can Park The Worst' award.
Logan smoked his cigarette right down to the stub, grunting and nodding hellos at the people he knew. Ignoring those he didn't. Brooding the whole time about DI Steel and DCS Bain. Probably up there working out how to get him permanently signed off on the sick.
Indefinite leave, a sorry-to-see-you-go handshake, and a partial pension.
He ground what was left of his cigarette into the tarmac with the toe of his shoe.
Maybe it'd be for the best anyway. Sodding police force. Wasn't as if it was a dream career was it? Getting shouted at, spat at, threatened… and that was just the senior officers, the bloody public were even worse.
Screw the lot of them.
He checked his watch. It'd been eleven minutes since he'd been banished. Time to go back upstairs and face the music.
53
He didn't bother to knock, just pushed straight into Bain's office. The head of CID was sitting behind his desk, scowling, mouth clenched like an angry chicken's bum.
But Steel smiled as Logan entered. 'Ah, about time.' She stood. 'We'll be off then. Don't worry, Bill, you've made the right decision.'
And as they left, Logan could have sworn he could hear the man grinding his teeth from the other side of the room.
Steel led the way down to her own office, waiting until the door was closed before deflating like a week-old party balloon. 'Dear God…'
'What happened?'
'You got any more fags on you?' She waved her hands at him. 'Come on, faster, faster.'
Logan handed one over and she lit it, drawing in a deep lungful before cracking open her window. 'You and me,' she said over the sounds of distant traffic, 'are now running a separate investigation into these Polish gangsters. Finnie knows nothing about it, and no one else gets to either.'
Logan settled onto the edge of her desk. 'How the hell did you manage that?'
She shuddered. 'You don't want to know. But you sodding well owe me one, understand? Maybe two.'
'What did you say to him?
She took another drag and grimaced. 'Next time you go back on the fags, try a man's brand, eh? These are like smoking my granny's pubes.' She picked a thread of tobacco from her lip. 'You're lucky I didn't let Bain fire you: handing out crap cigarettes like these…'
It didn't stop her smoking them though.
'What next?'
'Normally I'd get your e-fits done up as big posters, plaster them all over the place, in the papers… maybe on the telly. This time?' She smoked and frowned. 'Never done a low-key manhunt before.'
They spent the next twenty minutes trying to work out how to run the investigation with no resources, no staff, and no backup, and no one finding out about it. 'It's just no' possible,' said Steel, feet up on her desk as Logan scribbled things on the whiteboard. 'We need at least one uniform. Who's going to make the tea?'
'We could probably get Rennie? He already knows about Rory anyway.'
'And,' said Steel, 'it'll really annoy Detective Inspector Beardy Beattie if we take his plaything off him, so it's win-win!'
Logan scowled and wrote a very rude word on the whiteboard.
She sighed. 'It's no' like I didn't try, OK? Apart from anything else, I'd've won a fortune if they'd promoted you.'
'Beattie. They promoted Beattie. He couldn't investigate his own arse with toilet paper!'
'I argued with Bain till I was blue — aye, and so did that frog-faced tit Finnie — but…' She shrugged.
'Who caught Gilchrist? Who found Rory Simpson? Who ID'd the guys that blinded Simon McLeod? What about those gonzo porn makers? Who caught them?' Logan slashed the whiteboard with the tip of the pen, underlining the filthy word over and over again. 'What's Beattie ever done? Eh? What's he-'
'Enough, OK? I get it: Beattie's a complete nipple. I agree. But you…' She looked away. 'All that shite last year with the Flesher, and the seven-month bad patch, and the whole… attitude thing.'
'But Beattie-'
'You're a good officer, Laz, you really are, but you've got a high fuck-up to brilliance ratio. And Bain…' She stopped. Frowned. Made a face that looked as if she'd just soiled herself. 'Oh God, what time is it?'
Logan rammed the cap back on the whiteboard marker. 'Don't change the subject.'
Steel went scrabbling for her watch. 'Aaaagh!'
She grabbed her jacket and sprinted for the door, screeched to a halt on the threshold, then grabbed Logan by the sleeve. 'We've got to get back to my place!'
'What? But-'
'Rory Simpson: what's Susan going to say when she gets home and there's a bloody paedophile in the living room?' 'It's not my fault they're digging up half of Aberdeen!' Logan followed Steel up the path to her house.
'Should've stuck on the siren like I told you!'
High overhead, a plane left a snail-trail of white across the blue sky. From the nearby houses came the sound of lawn-mowers and the smell of freshly cut grass. And from DI Steel came a long stream of muttered obscenities as she rummaged through her pockets for a key.
'If he's lying on the bathroom floor with his nuts ripped off, you're taking the blame, understand?'
She unlocked the front door and hurried inside, 'Susan? Susan, I can explain!'
Through the hall, past the living and dining rooms, past the staircase, past the downstairs bathroom, into the kitchen…
Rory Simpson was sitting at the breakfast bar, sharing a pot of tea with DI Steel's wife. She was still in her work suit, Rory was still in his yellow and pink ensemble, and still camping it up from the look of things.
He threw his arms wide and said, 'Inspector, darling, so nice to see you again!'
Susan smiled. 'Explain what?'
'I… We…'
'It's all right,' Rory winked at her, 'I told Susan all about it.'
'You did?'
Susan tutted, then filled three mugs from the teapot. 'I don't know why you've got to be so secretive sometimes. It's not like I'm going to tell anyone we've got a key witness in a big London gangland case staying with
