forklift truck. A radio somewhere inside one of the yards, playing Northsound 2.
Pirie kicked an empty plastic bottle, sending it spinning down the dusty pavement. 'So… did you really get blown up?'
'That why you're helping me get back into Finnie's good books? Pity?' The further down the road they walked the newer the buildings got, until they were just partially constructed shells.
'Nope.' They'd caught up with the plastic bottle, and Pirie gave it another kick.
Logan's phone started ringing. Again.
'You going to answer that?'
'It'll be Steel, telling me I'm supposed to be in with Professional Standards.'
The ringing stopped, there was silence, and then it started again.
'It's kinda irritating.'
Logan pulled the thing out and switched it off. 'Happy now?'
One more kick and the bottle clattered against the fence surrounding RigSpanTech's almost-finished warehouse. A length of chain was looped through both sides of the gate, but the padlock wasn't shut.
Logan followed Pirie into the building site. They hadn't even started laying the road yet — everything was hard-packed dirt and rubble.
Pirie shaded his eyes against the sun, staring at the half-built office unit and the warehouse beyond. 'Look, over there — black BMW. Least we know someone's about.' He took two steps towards it, then stopped. Logan's pocket was making ringing noises again. 'Thought you switched that off?'
'I did…' And then Logan realized it wasn't his phone, it was the one Kravchenko had given him. He fumbled it out and checked the display: 'NUMBER WITHHELD' His innards clenched. 'I have to take this.'
Pirie shrugged. 'Catch up when you're done then.' He wandered away, whistling Scotland the Brave, and leaving a cloud of pale yellow dust in his wake.
Logan punched the green button. 'Hello?'
67
'Aye, I thought as much.' It wasn't Kravchenko, it was Steel. 'What the hell do you think you're doing, screening out my calls? Where are you?'
'Altens.'
'Altens? You're supposed to be getting bent over a desk by that knob-end Napier, no' swanning about in sodding Altens.'
'Got a lead on Kostchey International Holdings, I'm checking it out with Pirie.' He started walking again. The black BMW was parked at the far side of the unfinished office unit, beside a couple of pallets of breeze blocks and some pantiles. No sign of the driver.
No sign of Pirie either.
'They suspend you?'
'Are you kidding, I'm like the queen of sodding Teflon Town — nothing sticks to Detective Inspector Roberta Steel. But the bastards made me call the Warsaw police and tell them your mate Wiktorja was missing.'
Logan peered in through one of the office windows, or at least the hole where one would be fitted. Nothing but bags of cement and a mixer. 'Yeah?'
'She doesn't work there anymore.'
The doorway was a big open space, so he tried inside, his shoes scuffing on the gritty concrete floor. It was just a collection of empty rooms. 'I know.'
A flight of pre-cast stairs led up to the first floor. Logan climbed them and found more unfinished rooms: bare breeze block walls, gaping doorways, carefully piled boxes of building materials.
Where the hell was Pirie?
'What do you mean, you know?'
'She told me.'
A noise echoed up from downstairs.
'She told you?'
Logan peered down the hole where the stairs were, opened his mouth to shout hello, then swore very, very quietly. The person walking past on the ground floor — heading for the front of the office unit — was built like a rugby player, with angular features and hair that was receding at the front but a full-on mullet at the back. Kravchenko's henchman, Grigor.
Son of a rancid bitch.
It looked as if Pirie's informant was right; only Kostchey International Holdings Limited hadn't cleared out a week ago, they were still here.
'What do you mean she told you?'
Logan crept back out of sight of the stairwell. Straining his ears to follow Mr Mullet's progress on the floor below. It sounded as if he was heading for the front door.
'Hello?'
Logan whispered as loud as he dared, 'They're here!'
'They're…? What? Have you been drinking again?'
'I've just seen Kravchenko's thug go past downstairs.'
Logan followed him, one floor up, risking a peek out of the empty window frame at the end of the corridor. Grigor was standing just outside the building, a mobile phone clamped to his ear, talking in rapid Polish.
He was huge, and probably armed as well.
Bloody hell. Where was Pirie when you needed him? And then Logan got the nasty feeling he knew exactly where Pirie was — lying battered in a corner somewhere, both hands tied behind his back, waiting for a visit from Kravchenko and his Swiss Army knife.
Logan sneaked another peek over the window ledge. 'I think Pirie might be hurt.'
'That's all I need. Where is he?'
Outside, Grigor was facing away from the building, still on his mobile, staring out towards the chain-link fence.
Logan ducked down again. 'Haven't seen him since I got here. I'll go look-'
'No! You stay where you are, you hear me? I'll get a firearms team out there.'
'I've got an idea.'
'No, no ideas!'
Logan snuck back into the shadows, pulled his Airwave handset out of his pocket and clicked it on. The upper floor was almost symmetrical around the stairwell, blank offices on either side. He picked one at random — full of scaffolding poles, bags of cement, boxes of nails — and stuck the handset in the far corner, behind a stack of wooden two-by-fours.
'Are you listening to me?'
Logan crept out of the room and into the one opposite, pausing to grab a chunk of wood on the way. 'Right,' he said, flattening himself against the wall by the door, 'call me on my Airwave thing.'
'No chance. You want to get yourself killed? I'm no' helping.'
'Just call the bloody thing.'
'No.'
'Fine, I'll get Rennie to do it.'
There was a pause and some swearing, and then, 'OK, OK. But you better get Susan pregnant for this…'
Through in the other room, Logan's Airwave handset started ringing: a high-pitched electronic warble, volume turned up full. He peered around the door frame. Come on, come on… Bingo. Grigor was charging up the stairs.
Logan ducked back, listening to the big man's footsteps on the concrete floor, then Grigor marched into the other office.
Trying not to make any sound at all, Logan inched his way out into the corridor, clutching the length of wood
