‘NLP, my dear Sergeant McRae. Did it when I was on the Interviewer Accreditation Course last month. Got top marks, by the way.’ He slumped back, just like Logan. ‘It puts the subject at ease subconsciously, makes them think they have a connection, an ally in the room.’
‘There’s going to be a bloodstain in the room if you don’t cut it out.’
Rennie sat up straight. ‘What mark did you get?’
‘None of your business.’ Sixty-five percent. ‘How many more on the list for today?’
‘Three. Then it’s DI Bell’s turn.’ He smiled. ‘Hey, maybe we’ll get lucky and crack the case before the end of the day? Interview Superstar Rennie and his sidekick: Sergeant McRae.’
‘You’re a dick, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but only on the TV.’ Henry sat completely still in the hotel chair, knees firmly clamped together, hands clasped in his lap. Someone had dressed him up in his Sunday best — a shiny grey suit that looked like a charity shop special. Didn’t really fit him. Hair that he
Rennie crossed his arms, then uncrossed them again. Rearranged himself into Henry’s mirror image. It didn’t take a perfect score in Neuro-Linguistic Programming to see the technique wasn’t going to work this time.
Not that it made any difference. No one was admitting to knowing anyone at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Albyn, Wood End, Cornhill, or any of the other hospitals in the north-east. And it was the same story with the area’s fifty-eight veterinarian practices.
Mind you, they were only a third of the way through Grampian’s Sex Offenders’ Register, not to mention the six or seven dozen more on DI Ingram’s unofficial list.
But at least they were doing something…
Silence.
It took Logan a moment to realise both Rennie and MacDonald were staring at him. ‘Hmm…’ He cleared his throat. ‘In what way?’
‘Well,’ Rennie shifted in his chair, ‘I mean, it’s not likely, is it?’ Nope, still no clue.
Logan shrugged. ‘You never know.’ Checked his clipboard. ‘Erm … your social worker says you’ve applied for chemical castration?’
MacDonald shrugged, the barest twitch of his shoulders. ‘I don’t like feeling… I…’ A long, hard frown. ‘I don’t want to
Not really.
Logan nodded. ‘Well, if you’re sure. And you’re sure you’ve not heard anything about the McGregors?’
‘It’s like being broken all the time.’
‘OK…’
Rennie cleared his throat. ‘So you’re saying, given the opportunity-’
‘I’d tie Jenny McGregor to a sideboard and fuck her till she split: yes. Might even make her eat her mother out. You know? Do a threesome?’ All said in the same tone of voice normal people reserved for talking about ordering a pizza. ‘I’d probably video it too. You know, so it’d last? I mean, I wouldn’t
Silence.
‘…OK…’ Rennie looked at Logan, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat. ‘Erm, Guv?’
‘How often are you seeing your social worker, Mr Canter?’ That dark-purple tongue made another pass across the thin red lips. ‘Every other week?’
‘Right. I see…’ Logan nodded, and wrote, ‘IMMEDIATE 24HR SUPERVISION REQUIRED!!!’ on the form attached to his clipboard and underlined it three times.
Chapter 14
Logan climbed out into the sunny evening, then slammed the car door shut. Locked up. Followed Steel across the road to the McGregors’ house.
There had to be thirty or forty people standing vigil by the garden fence. Men, women, children: all dressed as if they were just out for an evening stroll, enjoying the sun. An outside broadcast unit was setting up on the opposite side of the road, probably getting ready for the next live news bulletin.
Steel picked her way through the minefield of supermarket bouquets and teddy bears to the front gate.
The crowd turned to stare as she clacked the latch and pushed on through.
A uniformed constable sat on the top step, reading a copy of the
‘No, Gardner, I want to stand about out here like a pillock for a couple of hours. Open the bloody door!’
Constable Gardner’s cheeks flushed bright pink. ‘Yes, Boss.’
‘Divot.’ Steel waited for him to haul open the door, then barged past. ‘And we’re no’ paying you to sit on your arse reading the paper. At least
‘Sorry, Boss…’
Logan waited till they were both inside, and the door had clunked shut again. ‘Was that not a bit harsh?’
‘Laz, what do you think’s going to happen if he’s still sitting there when that bunch of gits from Channel Four turn on their TV cameras?
The hall looked much the same as it had in the video, only a little more depressing. It had that slightly fusty smell that the Identification Bureau always left behind. A mix of fingerprint powder, emptied Hoover bags, and sneaky Pot Noodles.
Logan took a pair of blue nitrile gloves from his jacket pocket, pulled them on and opened the door to the lounge. TV in the corner on a wooden stand, a Freeview box on the top, some sort of DVD recorder/player underneath. A stack of celebrity gossip magazines. A sofa well past its sell-by date, a colourful throw doing its best to disguise the faded brown corduroy. Three drawings were framed above the mantel-piece, bright crayon renditions of a man and a woman holding hands beneath a smiley yellow sun; a vague black-and-green blob with the word ‘Sooty’ printed beside it in scruffy lower-case; a happy family outside a square house with a blue roof and smoke coming out of the chimney — ‘MUMMY, DADDY, ME, DOGGY.’
A square-jawed young man in a black glengarry — with a silver stag’s head cap badge on the side and a wee blue bobble on the top — stared out from a silver picture frame, blue eyes not-quite hiding the beginnings of a smile. There was a black ribbon tied around one corner of the frame, a little sprig of dried heather held in place by the bow.
Steel stuck her hands in her pockets and rocked back and forth on her heels. ‘Doesn’t look like much, for someone who’s on the telly…’
The kitchen was stocked with tins of soup, diet ready meals, the kind of children’s breakfast cereals that came laden with E numbers and sugar. An open bottle of white wine in the fridge.
