contents on the little table. About a dozen iPod Nanos, still in their boxes; perfume gift sets from Dior and Gucci; a couple of fancy-packaged hair straighteners.
‘I got receipts for all that, honest.’
There was something wedged in the bottom of the rucksack. Logan gave the whole thing a shake, and a small padded envelope — about the size of a paperback book — thunked onto the pile of merchandise.
Angus groaned. ‘I’ve no idea how that got there.’
‘Sure you don’t.’ Logan flipped the envelope over: it was from Amazon.co.uk, addressed to ‘MR THOMAS BLACK.’
‘Maybe…’ Cough. ‘It…You like music? Cos I got more iPods than I really need for Christmas, and you could-’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’ Logan winkled the flap open and upended the envelope. A handful of little white packages fell out, held together with sticky tape, closely followed by twenties, tens, and fives, all done up in drug-dealer- bundles. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pair of blue nitrile gloves and snapped one on. Picked up one of the packets. ‘Angus, Angus, Angus. Is this what I think it is?’
‘It…I…’ He shifted in his seat, licked his lips. ‘Don’t suppose you’d take cash instead?’
Angus Black was chatty enough on the way back to FHQ, and while the nice Police Custody and Security Officer photographed, fingerprinted, and DNA-sampled him. And while they made themselves comfortable in interview room two with mugs of tea and stale digestive biscuits. But as soon as Logan switched on the audio and video recorders — silence.
Logan struggled on for half an hour, before giving up and terminating the interview. And as soon as the tapes were off, Angus started talking again. Typical.
He shrugged. ‘Exercising my human rights not to incriminate myself, aren’t I?’
‘So come on then,’ Logan led the way down to the cell block, Angus Black in the middle, PC Butler bringing up the rear — carrying the contents of Angus’s rucksack in half a dozen evidence bags — as they clomped down the stairs, ‘where did you get the gear? Wee Hamish?’
‘Off the record?’
‘Off the record.’
Angus made humming noises for a bit. ‘Same place I sorted out Danny’s loan…You meet that bint of his? Face like the back end of a wellington boot, how the daft sod managed to get
Butler gave him a shove. ‘Chauvinist pig.’
Angus staggered down the last couple of steps. ‘Hey, no pushing! Know what you buggers are like for people “falling down stairs”. Tell you-’
‘She’s a human being, not a sex object.’
‘Bloody right she isn’t. I wouldn’t poke her with-’
Logan stepped between them. ‘Enough, OK? These loan-sharks-slash-drug-dealers, where can I find them?’
Angus laughed. ‘No chance. You want that kinda info, it’s gonna cost. I’m not grassing those bastards up for free, they’ll sodding kill me. Don’t fancy ending
They handed him over to the PCSO who’d processed him in the first place, signed him into custody again, then headed back upstairs. Butler set off at a brisk pace, Logan struggling to keep up. He was huffing and puffing after a couple of flights, and by the time they reached the third floor, he was bent double, wheezing.
Butler patted him on the back. ‘You OK, Sarge?’
‘Just need a minute.’
Need to lose some weight. Get some exercise. Cut down on the fags. Lie down and die…
He coughed for a bit, every hack making his head pound. Finally he straightened up, held out his hands for the evidence bags, and told Butler to go see if they’d done a preliminary report on Steve Polmont’s post mortem yet.
As soon as she was gone, Logan pushed through the double doors into the hallowed ground of the Identification Bureau. Or the Scenes Examination Branch. Or whatever the hell it was the Scottish Police Services Authority were calling them these days. It was a long corridor with a scuffed green terrazzo floor; lots of corkboards covered in posters, memos, and holiday postcards; and a collection of wooden doors leading off into each sub- department.
Logan made straight for the little lab, knocked on the door, then stuck his head in.
The FHQ lab wasn’t much bigger than a large kitchen, lined with worktops, chunks of machinery, and a couple of upright fridges. The room was in partial darkness, a single anglepoise lamp shining down on a set of golf clubs. The metal shafts glinted as an IB tech swabbed the striking face of a nine iron with a cotton bud, headphones clamped over their ears. Bum twitching in time to the music.
Logan crept in and gave it a pinch.
‘WhatthefuckinghellRennie!’ Samantha span around, left hand flashing out. Logan danced backwards and the slap went wide.
‘Woah!’
She blushed. ‘Oh…Thought you were someone else.’ Her scarlet hair was stuffed into a baseball cap, the piercings in her ears, nose, and lip glinting in the light from the glowing tabletop. She had a smiley-face badge pinned to her
Logan stiffened. ‘Rennie comes in here and grabs your arse?’
Little bastard.
‘So, where you taking me for dinner?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s that horrible smell?’
‘I’ll bloody kill him.’
She patted Logan on the cheek with a latex glove, talking in a flat, deadpan voice, ‘Oh yeah, you’re so manly and butch. Uh-huh, it really turns me on. Etcetera.’ She dropped her hand. ‘Told him I’d kick his knackers up round his nipples if he does it again.’
‘Why’s he grabbing your arse at all?’
‘Don’t be so jealous.’ She turned back to the light box. ‘He does it then runs away giggling like a schoolgirl. Don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about.’
He was still a little bastard.
Tiny wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows, then she leaned in and sniffed again. ‘It’s you! Why do you smell of sick?’
Logan hefted the evidence bags onto the table. ‘Any chance…?’
Samantha groaned. ‘Might have known. And there was me thinking you’d come to carry me off to a nice romantic restaurant.’
‘I didn’t mean-’
‘What is it anyway?’ She pointed at the clear plastic evidence bag — the one full of Angus’s little white parcels. ‘Heroin?’
‘Hopefully.’
‘Ooooo, these are nice…’ She picked up one of the boxed hair straighteners. ‘Hundred quid in Boots. Make a good Valentine’s Day present for a loved one, don’t you think? You know, if you wanted to let them know you weren’t a tight-arsed skinflint with no prospect of ever getting his leg over again.’
‘Subtle.’
She poked at the other bags. ‘You want the iPods and perfume tested too?’
‘Might as well.’
She frowned at the bag with the money in it, snapped on a fresh pair of gloves, and pulled out one of the bundles. Unfolding the origami shape till it was a stack of battered-looking twenty-pound notes. ‘Jesus, these things are everywhere.’
Logan leant against the central unit. ‘You wouldn’t
‘Got to admire the workmanship.’ She flicked on the light box and held a note against the glowing surface. The metallic strip showed up like a malignant shadow on an X-ray. ‘Clydesdale-Bank-issue Robert the Bruce twenty,
