tell me where the money is. You may have the rest of them fooled, but I
Logan battered him over the head with the torch.
The project manager slumped sideways, the pliers bouncing out of his hands.
Not the most heroic rescue in the world, but it worked.
He rolled Brett over onto his front and cuffed his hands behind his back.
The plastic sheeting Knox lay on was spattered with droplets of scarlet. About a dozen little dark spines stuck out of his upper arm and shoulder, surrounded by angry red welts, oozing blood. About the same number again were just empty, bloody holes. Just like Steve Polmont.
Logan shifted around until his back was to the wall, then crouched down and patted Knox on the cheek.
The little man’s eyes snapped open. He flinched back, screaming behind his gag.
Logan slapped him, and hissed, ‘Shut up, you idiot! Not going to hurt you.’ He stole another look around the room. ‘Are there any more of them?’
Knox drew a shuddering breath in through his nose and nodded.
Bugger. Where the bloody hell was Butler?
Logan reached down for the edge of the duct tape gag and froze. Might be a better idea to leave it where it was. Get Knox out of here as quietly as possible, before the rest of Malcolm McLennan’s thugs got back.
‘Can you walk?’
No response.
‘I said, “Can you walk?”’
The thin, naked man just blinked at him.
One way to find out.
Logan sneaked over to the toolbox, looking for anything with a decent blade to cut through the duct tape. There was a battered Stanley knife in one of the trays with SP scratched into the handle. Perfect.
The mechanism was stiff, but he managed to slide the rusty triangular blade out, then squatted over Knox’s ankles and started sawing.
‘Wouldn’t bother if I was you.’ A Glaswegian accent, right behind him.
Logan froze.
Where was Police Constable Fucking Butler when you actually needed her?
17:18, six minutes ago
PC Vicki Butler edged her way around the corner of the detached house. She’d abandoned the standard fluorescent-yellow high-vis waistcoat back in the car. Can’t sneak up on anyone when you glow in the dark, can you?
She flexed her hands around the handle of the extended truncheon. Feeling the weight.
Dear Lord it was cold.
She crept along the back wall — ducking under the kitchen window — making for the French doors.
Vicki peeled the cuff of her glove back and checked the time. Thirty seconds to go. Twenty-nine. Twenty- eight.
Her feet were going numb, even through two pairs of socks.
Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen.
She tightened her grip on the truncheon.
Twelve. Eleven. Ten.
Vicki inched closer to the French doors.
Six. Five. Four. Three.
She placed a black-gloved hand on the door handle.
Zero.
And then she heard it. A low growl, coming from right behind her.
Oh…crap.
She turned, slowly.
There was a dark shape slinking through the snow towards her. Big, muscular — snow sticking to its black fur.
Jesus, that was a
Vicki backed off, nice and slow. ‘Good doggy?’
The growl became a snarl.
Fuck…
Andy Connelly, AKA: Mr Big-and-Bald, wiped his hands on a wodge of blue paper towels. From above Logan could hear the sound of a cistern filling up again. Completely missed the flush.
Connelly dropped the towels on the floor as Logan stood.
‘Andrew Connelly, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Steven Polmont-’
‘He doesn’t have the money any more.’
Logan pulled out his pepper-spray. ‘Face down, on the ground,
‘That’s what you’re after, right? Mental Mikey’s little eighteen million pound nest egg?’
‘Eighteen million?’
Shrug. ‘So they say. But the little shite’s frittered it all away, hasn’t he?’
‘On the floor.’
‘Transferred into the offshore bank accounts of Mikey’s successors.’ Connelly frowned. ‘Shame, could’ve done with a couple million, you know? Set me up somewhere warm and sunny till the heat dies down on that Polmont prick.’
Connelly nudged the unconscious project manager with his foot. ‘Course this crawly wee fuck wanted to give it all to the boss, didn’t he? Wanted to make up for all the dodgy goods and drugs you bastards seized.’
‘I’m not telling you again: on the floor,
‘See, if Knox doesn’t have the money any more, he’s fuck-all use to nobody. You want him, you can have him.’
Lying on the floor behind him, Knox mumbled, kicking the floor.
‘Yeah, I want him.’
Shrug. Connelly turned and walked through the lounge door. ‘He’s yours.’
Logan frowned. That was a lot easier than he’d been expecting. He glanced back at Knox, lying trussed up on the floor, opened his mouth to say something, and then Connelly hit him — a side-on rugby tackle that sent them both crashing against the wall. Hard enough to crack the plasterboard.
They went down in a tangle of limbs, Logan gasping for breath as his scarred stomach screamed at him, swinging fists, elbows, knees,
Only Connelly was bigger, heavier, and a hell of a lot stronger.
Less than thirty seconds and he had Logan pinned to the chipboard, face down, with his knee in the middle of Logan’s back. The big man grabbed a handful of Logan’s hair, hauled his head up off the floor, then slammed it down again.
Logan threw an elbow back, but all he got from Connelly was a grunt.
His forehead battered into the chipboard again.
Bright lights chasing darkness. Jackhammers in his brain. Thumping.
And then a hand grabbed his flailing wrist and pinned it to the floor.
‘Never,
‘Fucking get off me!’
The nail gun’s nozzle was cold against the back of Logan’s hand.
‘See, it’s got a pressure safety trigger, have to press down to fire.’
THUNK.
