Sacro. Knox was still in the lounge, on his knees on the hearthrug, praying to a broken electric fire.
Logan turned his back on the open doorway. ‘Ever taken the test yourself?’
A lopsided smile pulled Leggett’s face out of shape. ‘Apparently I’m a “High Risk” offender.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Chronic masturbation means mair than fifteen times a month. I’m off the bloody scale on that one.’
Uncomfortable silence.
Logan fidgeted.
‘Anyway…’
Constable Irvine appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘All set.’
Leggett opened the front door, motioning them out into the cold, drizzly afternoon. ‘Fit’s the live-in help saying till it?’
‘He’s not been out of the house. Keeps himself to himself. Does a lot of praying.’
‘Aye, weel, going to take a lot mair than
They hurried down the path towards the grubby van parked at the kerb. By the time they clambered inside Irvine’s glasses were opaque with tiny water droplets. She turned the key in the ignition, pumping the accelerator until the engine caught.
PC Leggett cranked up the blowers. ‘Fit did
Irvine took off her glasses and dried them on a corner of her tartan-tea-towel shirt. ‘He’s hiding something.’
Logan scooted around in his seat. ‘Do I need to up the surveillance?’
She shrugged, then pointed through the slowly clearing windscreen at a black box mounted on a streetlight a couple of houses away, then at another rusty van in the old Aberdeen City Council burgundy livery. It was sitting beside a coned-off rectangle of tarmac and looked at least ten years older than the one they were currently sitting in. ‘Got level one surveillance, CCTV both ends of the street, two people staying with him full time, regular visits from Paul and me…What else can we do?’
Richard Knox stands at the living room window, watching the grimy white van drive off into the damp afternoon.
He checks the lounge doorway — no one there — then pulls the mobile phone from his pocket. The phone he’s not supposed to have, just in case he uses it to make contact with other perverts.
Like he’d want to speak to those filthy bastards.
He scrolls down through the address book until he comes to the number of a certain gentleman in Newcastle. A very
‘Hi, Aunty Maggie, just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Yer present’s in the post, like.’ Pause. ‘It’s all going good here, you know? Settlin’ in and that. Speak to you later.’ And then he hangs up.
Checks the doorway again.
Slides the phone back into its dark hiding place.
Happy birthday.
The police aren’t the only ones who’ve got an exit strategy.
10
The manky little Fiat made a horrible grinding noise every time Logan tried to put it into third. He mashed the clutch to the floor and shoved the gearstick into place, pretending he couldn’t smell something burning. Heading back along the dual carriageway towards the Horrible Haudagain roundabout, next stop: FHQ, to find somewhere quiet to hide until his shift was over.
The radio hissed and crackled, never latching onto any station for more than three or four minutes at a time. It gave a burst of static, then music — Katrina and the Waves, ‘Walking on Sunshine’. Logan’s stomach lurched, his mouth filling with warm saliva. Heart pounding. He stabbed the off button and the radio was silent.
Jesus…
He rolled down the window. Cold air, laced with drizzle and exhaust fumes.
Deep breaths.
Just a song. Nothing to worry about. Just a song.
When his mobile phone rang he flinched. Logan checked the display: DI Steel. His thumb hovered over the off button…then he hit pick up, holding it to his ear as he pulled into a little layby off the dual carriageway with half a dozen small industrial units in it. Majestic Wines, Pizza Hut, that kind of thing.
Logan killed the engine. ‘You said get out of your sight.’
‘I’m stuck in Bucksburn.’ Which was a lie. ‘Can’t you take somebody-’
‘You told me to go see the Diddy Men, remember?’
Another pause.
‘You’re a bloody idiot, you know that, don’t you?’
Logan just shrugged. Outside the car windows, King Street was a study in miserable grey. People clomped along through the drizzle, collars up, mouths down. A few of the more optimistic ones huddled beneath umbrellas: the misty rain just soaked them from the shoulders down.
DI Steel wrestled with the passenger door, winding her window down. ‘And could you no’ have got a decent pool car?’
‘You said come pick you up, I picked you up.’
‘Smells like old lady farts.’ She dug out a cigarette and lit it, then shoogled the pack at Logan.
‘Danby still throwing a wobbly?’
‘What do you think? Lucky he didn’t have you kicked you off the case.’ She dug a sat-nav out of her bag and fiddled some sort of clip thing onto the back, then huffed a smoky breath onto the suction cup and stuck it to the windshield. Where it promptly fell off again. ‘Buggering hell…you ever clean this thing?’
She breathed on the windscreen, fogging up a patch, then scrubbed at it with the sleeve of her jacket. This time, the sat-nav stuck. ‘Nicked it out of lost-and-found.’
‘Would a map not have been-’
‘Bloody GSM trace on Polmont’s mobile came back with latitude and longitude, OK?’ She switched the thing on and poked away at the screen, pale-yellow tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth. ‘Straight on at the roundabout.’
Logan drove them through the Bridge of Don and out past the Exhibition and Conference Centre, rain shimmering on its bizarre curvy glass bridge and fake airport control tower. Following the green arrow on the sat- nav’s screen.
‘So, what do we know about Polmont?’
Steel pulled a face. ‘Came to me through a DI in Edinburgh who owes me a couple of favours. Polmont was his chiz on another Malk the Knife building site — got themselves half a million in cocaine, twenty illegal immigrants, and one thousand cartons of smuggled cigarettes.’
‘Well.’ Logan shrugged. ‘At least you know he’s sound.’
‘Aye…’ Steel picked a flake of ash off her trousers. ‘Sort of.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘Polmont’s got a bit of a drink problem.’
‘He’s a bloody alki, isn’t he?’
