Dark Blood

Clunk. The noise of phones and harassed constables died down.

Logan settled into his chair and called Northumbria Police. Ten minutes later he had reference numbers for every case Danby had worked in the last eighteen months, and a promise that the relevant files would be with him soon as possible. Then he was put through to a Detective Inspector Walsh.

‘You the one told us about Oscar Renwick? Used to share a cell with Richard Knox in Frankland Prison?’ The Newcastle accent was clipped and angry.

Logan frowned at the receiver. ‘Yes?’

‘You got any idea how many man-hours we wasted looking into that?’

‘Wasted? But he was-’

‘He was nowhere near any of them house fires. None. Had castiron alibis, you know what I mean?’

Logan opened the spreadsheet of Knox’s cellmates from Frankland Prison. ‘But Knox said Renwick told him-’

‘Knox’s a sex offender, remember? They manipulate, that’s what they do.’

‘But-’

‘Knox managed to smuggle a mobile phone into his cell, and Renwick sold him out to one of the prison officers. Knox knew Renwick was going to be up for parole soon, so he told you a happy little fairytale about murdered families. Bang: big investigation and no parole for Renwick. Knox was using you to get his own back, and you fell for it!’

‘But I didn’t know-’

‘And now I’ve got me guv’nor breathing down me neck for all the overtime I’ve blown on this, Sergeant. Thanks. Thanks a bloody heap.’

‘But…’

He was talking to a dead line. The DI had hung up.

Logan leant forward, banged his head on the desk, and swore for a bit.

‘You ever think about the job?’

Logan sat up. ‘What?’

‘The job.’ Bob was facing the wall, but he was speaking to Logan. ‘What the point is?’

‘Every sodding day.’

Bob nodded. ‘It’s like the whole bloody city’s on fire, and all we can do is piss on the bit in front of us.’ He thumped his pen down on the desk. ‘I’m fucking sick of getting my pubes scorched off.’

Logan laughed, but Bob wasn’t even smiling.

‘You talked to Deborah, didn’t you.’

‘I arrested someone yesterday. Every time his eleven-year-old daughter got a bad mark on her homework he’d tie her to the hot water pipes in the basement and crank the central heating up full. Arms and legs, covered with these huge weeping blisters. His own daughter.’ Bob’s shoulders sagged. ‘Fuck’s wrong with people?’

‘You want to swap horror stories? Because I’ve got some good ones.’

‘I talked to Deborah last night. Stood there and demanded to know what the fuck was going on. The secret phone calls, the weird messages, the whole lot. You know why she won’t get undressed if I’m in the room? Why she won’t let me fucking touch her?’ He picked up a box file and hurled it across the room. Then sat there staring at the paperwork, fluttering to the carpet.

‘Shit. I’m sorry, Bob.’

‘She’s been seeing a specialist: breast cancer.’ He slumped back in his seat and stared at the ceiling tiles. ‘Found a lump six months ago. She was scared to tell me in case I left her…Can you believe that?’

It went quiet again. And then Bob’s phone rang. He sighed, rubbed his face, then picked up. ‘Bob’s House of Bouncy Boobies, Bob speaking…’

It was like watching someone pretending to be Biohazard Bob Marshall. The crude humour, the language, the mannerisms were all there, but there was no life to the performance.

Logan picked up his own phone and set up Steel’s fingertip search. Then told the media office to get posters with Knox’s face up in all the petrol stations from Aberdeen to London. It was a long shot, but if he had a car, he’d have to stop and fill it up somewhere.

Then Logan downloaded everything he could from the Police National Computer relating to Danby’s case numbers, and sent the lot off to the printer in the corner. He bundled everything into a manila folder, and grabbed his coat.

Logan stood there for a moment, then put his hand on Bob’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

Still on the phone, Bob just nodded.

Logan closed the door behind him.

He headed down to the front desk. Big Gary was on, sucking his teeth and reading his book again, hunched over it like a fat gargoyle.

Logan knocked on the worktop. ‘Any chance of a pool car?’

‘No. Those idiots in night-time CID have written off four of them since Monday. And there’s a waiting list for the rest.’

‘Oh, come on, Gary, I only need it for-’

‘Did you get my message?’

‘What message?’

Big Gary marked his place in the book with a ‘DRINK-DRIVE-DIE!’ leaflet and slammed it shut. ‘Every bloody time.’ He hauled out a sticky note and slapped it on the desktop. ‘You’re not getting on the waiting list till you’ve seen to your prisoners.’

‘I don’t have any prisoners: Gardner should have been up before the Sheriff by now.’ Logan snatched the note off the desk. ‘For God’s sake Gary, I specifically asked for an early slot for him so he can get his granddaughter back from Social Services!’

‘Mr Gardner was on at nine fifteen, and you’re welcome. I’m talking about the couple you had a lookout request for.’

Blank look.

Gary sighed, straining the buttons on his white shirt. ‘Leadbetter: Wendy and Ian. The brother and sister who torched Knox’s granny’s place?’

‘Oh, that Wendy and Ian Leadbetter. Can’t someone else-’

‘No.’

‘But Steel needs me out in Cove.’

‘Better hope you get a confession quick then, hadn’t you?’

Logan stomped down to the custody area. The place was quiet for a change, just the faint burble of an Airwave handset announcing the comings and goings of Aberdeen’s boys in black and fluorescent yellow. A Police Custody and Security Officer was eating a yoghurt in the office that opened out onto the concrete corridor of the cell block.

She froze as he knocked, the spoon halfway between the yoghurt pot and her mouth, then stood.

Logan waved her back into her seat. ‘Don’t let me stop you.’

She shrugged and spooned in another mouthful. ‘You making a deposit or a withdrawal?’

‘Wendy and Ian Leadbetter?’

The PCSO rolled her eyes. ‘Only been here half an hour, and they’re already a pain in the arse.’

Logan flipped through the short stack of unfiled custody forms on the desk, spotting a couple of familiar names amongst them. ‘You hear about the bloke Biohazard Bob brought in last week?’

Her face darkened. ‘The one tortured his own daughter? Oh yeah, I remember him fine. Never met anyone more in need of falling down the stairs a couple of times.’ She dumped her spoon on the desk, then upended the yoghurt pot over her mouth, tapping the bottom and slurping.

Logan waited for her to resurface. ‘Any chance of a squint at the custody log?’

‘Paper or electronic?’

‘Whichever’s easier.’