Dark Blood

‘You any idea what the boss would do to us?’

‘Yeah, but-’

‘But what, Darling?’

Neil shuts his mouth, sharpish. They all know what that tone means: that cheery, everything-in-the- garden’s-just-peachy tone Julie always uses before she goes off like a Rottweiler on acid.

Tony keeps his eyes on the road, dead ahead.

Never, ever get involved.

‘Well?’

Neil clears his throat. ‘Sounds like a plan, like.’

‘Good boy, knew you’d see sense.’ She tears another handful of naan from the bag and passes it back between the seats. ‘We stake out the cop shop, we follow Danby home, then we beat the living crap out of him till he talks. Piece of piss.’

‘Hmm.’ The cadaver dog-handler wrinkled her nose, staring out at the building site. ‘Gonnae be a lot more difficult with all that frost and ice.’ Police Constable Fiona Martin dragged her hair back from her face and secured it with a little elastic thingy, leaving a peek-a-boo fringe over her forehead. She turned and wiggled her fingers through the metal mesh separating the two front seats from the back of the little van. ‘Hey Sleepyfish, ready to rock?’

The huge yellow Labrador raised its head from the tartan dog bed and licked her fingers. Then had a yawn, and a stretch, followed by an almost inaudible, ‘Pfffffffffrrrrrp.’

‘What’s his name…?’ Logan stopped, wrinkled his nose. ‘Oh…Jesus!’ It was like a rotten herring wrapped in a rancid nappy. ‘God! Aw, you can taste it!’

He scrabbled at the door handle and clambered out into the cold morning, breathing deeply.

PC Martin stared at him from the driver’s seat. ‘Wardrobe. And it’s no’ his fault he’s got a delicate stomach.’

Logan backed off an extra couple of paces, frozen mud crunching beneath his feet. ‘What have you been feeding him?’

The constable climbed out, wandered around to the back of the filthy van — the Strathclyde Police Crest emblazoned down the side — and popped the double doors open. ‘Yeah, like your farts smell of lotus blossom and strawberries.’ She rattled a choke chain. ‘Come on, you.’

The Labrador’s front end bounded upright, booby-trapped bum still in the dog bed, tail thumping.

‘Who’s a clever boy? Who’s a clever boy? You are, aren’t you?’ PC Martin ruffled the dog’s ears, making the skin shift from one side to the other, as if it wasn’t properly attached to its head. ‘Yes you are!’ She slipped the chain over Wardrobe’s head and clipped on a thick red leather lead.

The dog bounded out into the snow, turning its handler round in a complete circle, before burying its nose in the snow, making snuffling sounds.

Impressive. ‘He’s picked something up already?’

PC Martin stared at Logan, then clunked the van’s back doors shut. Locked them. ‘He’s been cooped up in the back of a van most of the morning, he’s looking for somewhere to pee.’

Wardrobe finished sniffing, then cocked his leg on the van’s rear tyre, making a little cloud of steam.

PC Martin looked over at the building site. ‘It just us?’

‘Trust me: we get something, you’ll be fighting the IB off with a stick.’

She jammed her free hand in her pocket, as Wardrobe raked his front and back paws on the rough ground. ‘Can’t believe you’re still calling them IB. Sarge was right, it’s the bloody dark ages up here.’ She grinned. ‘Shagging sheep rots your brain, eh?’

‘They all cheeky buggers where you come from, Constable?’

‘Pretty much.’ She gave Wardrobe’s lead a little tug. ‘Come on Slobberchops, time to go to work.’

It was like someone had flicked a switch in the dog’s head: sudden stillness, ears pricked.

‘Anyway,’ Logan followed her towards the crescent of part-built houses, ‘calling them “CSI” sounds like wanky Americanized TV bollocks. I mean, have you ever watched that show?’

‘If it’s not EastEnders, Corrie, or Strictly Come Dancing, don’t want to know about it.’

They started at the far end of the street, where the houses were just concrete foundations, PC Martin following behind Wardrobe, the dog’s nose to the frosty ground as it circled the edges of the huge slab.

‘Can he really smell a dead body all the way through concrete?’

Martin didn’t look up. ‘Anyone tells you they can is talking bollocks — most bodies aren’t buried in concrete, they’re buried under it. What he smells is the liquids leaching out of the corpse into the soil. That oozes up through where the concrete meets the earth, and Bob’s your body, Colin’s your cadaver, Sam’s your stiff…’

They moved onto the next set of foundations. ‘If he can smell that, how come he doesn’t choke on his own farts?’

‘How long’s your plumber been missing?’

‘Electrician. And he disappeared Monday.’

She let Wardrobe finish, then led the way through the rutted mud to the next property-to-be. ‘Four days? Not asking much, are you? When it’s cold like this, slows down the decay. Probably won’t be enough putrescence to detect. No leakage: nothing to sniff.’

A line of concrete rectangles stretched ahead of them, each with short lengths of pipe sticking out from the grey surface, capped off with blue plastic.

Further down, the plots actually started to resemble houses, timber frames with that blue plastic sheeting stretched between the uprights.

PC Martin chewed on her bottom lip, looking out at the frozen earth. ‘Might have to come back in a couple of weeks, see if your missing sparky’s rotted down a bit. Four days just isn’t long enough.’

So much for the almighty power of the cadaver dog.

Logan cupped his hands and blew, filling them with steam. ‘Just do your best, OK?’

She shrugged. ‘What the hell, we’re here anyway.’ She set off for the next set of foundations as Logan’s phone started ringing. He pulled it out and peered at the screen.

Don’t let it be Steel, don’t let it be Steel…It wasn’t. It was even worse.

He took the call. ‘McRae.’

‘LoganDaveGoulding.’ Said like that, in a flat Liverpudlian accent, as if it was all one word. ‘What’s up? You running late?’

Logan checked his watch. Sod. ‘Sorry, something came up.’ Which was only partially true — mostly he’d forgotten all about his appointment.

There was a pause, as if the psychologist was trying to decide whether to believe him or not. ‘You got a moment now?’

Logan watched the cadaver dog and handler sniffing their way around the next set of foundations and thought about lying. What the hell. ‘I’ve been having that dream again.’

‘Which one: giant lizards, or the talking shark that steals all your clothes?’

‘Severed heads.’ Logan could hear his own voice echoing back at him. Dr Goulding must have put him on speaker-phone.

‘I see…’ Pause. ‘We’ve not had that one for a while.’

Logan could hear him scribbling something down.

‘You know, I have a recurring nightmare where all the people turn into frogs, and all the frogs turn into people. And the people forget that they used to be frogs, and the frogs forget they were ever anything else. And I’m the only one who knows. Living, surrounded by reptiles…’

Logan didn’t know what to say to that. ‘Erm, did you get a chance to look at the assessment matrix for Richard Knox?’

‘You know, the fact that you’ve not had the severed heads dream for a while probably means something’s unresolved in your psyche. Is there anything causing you stress?’