'You can't do that!'
'Really?' Steel dragged the warrant out of her pocket and pressed it against the glass. 'Clair Pirie: I have a warrant here to search these premises. You can either… Damn!' The large silhouette had disappeared from the glass. Steel grabbed her radio. 'Heads up, people – she's doing a runner!' She slapped Rennie on the shoulder. 'What the hell you standing there for? Break it down!'
DC Rennie slammed his foot into the wood and the door sprang backwards. At the other end of the hall they could sec the kitchen window, and through that into the hack H.ii den where they had a perfect view of Mrs Pirie's backside as she clambered over the garden fence. Her large rear end froze at the top and then she dropped back into the ruined flowerbed, shoulders slumped – closely followed by ii uniformed constable from Alpha Two Nine. 1)1 Steel steepled her fingers and grinned. 'Excellent.'
The Identification Bureau van arrived at twenty past nine, having just finished up in Garlogie Woods. Gavin Cruickshank's torso was now on its way back to the morgue. They started in the bathroom: bathtubs being a popular location for the hacking up of dead bodies. People were always so keen to not make a mess. Steel left Mrs Pirie in the tender care of DC Rennie while she and Logan went upstairs to watch the IB team work. Willing them to find something.
The bathroom was a mess: a pile of dirty towels lying in the corner; dusty plastic tampon wrappers lying on the floor by the toilet; slivers of old soap decaying in a little dish attached to the shower. Mildew spread grey tendrils across the corner above the medicine cabinet and limescale turned the off-pink tiles a dirty grey. Very homely. 'Manky cow…'
Dirty Moustache was kneeling by the side of the bath, working a cotton swab about in the plughole. It came out darted in pubic hair.
It didn't look as if the bathtub had been used to hack up a body, but when they tested it for blood the thing lit up like a Christmas tree. Little crusts of congealed haemoglobin in the waste pipe, overflow, under the bath's handles, behind the scratched chrome taps.
DI Steel let out a delighted whoop and charged down the stairs to the lounge, where the Pirie woman was fidgeting on a floral-print couch. 'Guess what?' Steel said, leaning over a cluttered coffee table to grin in Clair Pirie's face. 'You're fuckedV DI Steel was determined to interview Clair Pirie on her own.
Logan may have identified the body and given them a suspect, but she still wasn't speaking to him. So he had to stay behind with Rennie and keep an eye on things while she went back to FHQ to take all the bloody credit. As usual.
The search team was already going through the attic, so rather than sit about twiddling their thumbs, Logan and Rennie pitched in, starting with the lounge. They found nothing more incriminating than a couple of roaches down the back of the sofa, still smelling faintly of cannabis resin. The IB was still working in the kitchen so Logan pushed through an unlocked internal door into the garage. It took both of them to get the rusty, up-and-over garage door closed, the metal groaning and squealing as they heaved, shutting out the crowd that had begun to gather from the time Steel had driven off with Clair Pirie. The Evening Express was the first paper to send a journalist, but they were still blissfully free of television cameras so far. Oddly there was no sign of Colin Miller; he was usually pretty quick off the mark whenever the Police tape went up.
Rennie picked his way through a mound of debris piled up against the back wall of the garage, while Logan contemplated the chest freezer. Years of filth and grime had left it a nasty nicotine-stained grey with suspicious brown splodges of rust streaking the surface. It took him two attempts to open the lid, a thick layer of frost and ice cracking and skittering across the garage's concrete floor. Unlike the freezer at Chib's house, this one was packed with mystery meat and long-forgotten packets of sweet corn. He was a third of the way down, fingers burning with cold, when DC Rennie shouted that he'd found something crammed down the back of a pile of old Daily Mails. It was a boning knife with a seven-inch, single-sided blade – scooped near the handle, straight for most of its length and curved at the tip.
Logan pulled out his phone and called Steel, wandering through the house as it rang. It bleeped over to voicemail .ind he left a message about the knife. That, plus the body and the blood in the bathroom meant there was no way Pirie was ever going to be able to wriggle out of this. Not even Hissing Sid could get her off. Next he tried Jackie's mobile, hoping to spend a couple of minutes not talking about work or bloody soap operas with Rennie. No answer, so he dialled Collin Miller and settled back against the kitchen table, looking out through the French windows at the silent bulk of Westhill Academy – lit up in the darkness by a row of streetlights. The phone rang and rang and rang and rang before a recording of Miller's Glaswegian crackled in Logan's ear, telling him that if he left his name, number and a short message the reporter would get right back to him. 'Colin, it's Logan. Wanted to know if you were still alive after Isobel got her hands on you, you dirty stop-out. I-'
A rectangle of light blossomed in the back garden next door. Ailsa Cruickshank was home. 'Damn.' He hung up. No one had been able to track her down; she didn't know her husband was dead yet. And with DI Steel gone Logan was the senior officer on site.
With a sigh, he headed next door and broke the news as gently as he could, taking a WPC from the search team with him for moral support. Her husband wasn't on some foreign beach with a pole-dancer after all; his torso was lying on a slab in the morgue. Logan didn't know which was worse discovering your husband was a lying, adulterous bastard, or a dismembered corpse.
Back at FHQ the mood was grim but optimistic. DI Steel hadn't managed to get a confession out of the Pirie woman yet, but it was only a matter of time. Half past ten and the rest of the team were in the pub. Archibald Simpson's sat at the eastern end of Union Street, a hop, skip and a stagger away from Force Headquarters, a popular hangout for off duty policemen in need of something to take the day away.
The Procurator Fiscal bought the first round, told everyone what a great job they'd done getting a suspect into custody so quickly, and that they were going to put Clair Pirie away for a very, very long time. She raised her glass and Logan, Rennie and Rachael Tulloch chinked their drinks off it, selfconsciously, trying to kid on they didn't feel ridiculous. The PF left after the first one, but her deputy stayed behind, face covered in a huge smile as she got the second round in. Then it was Rennie's turn to buy and the conversation started drifting away from work. By the time Logan was lurching back from the bar with two lagers and a large gin and tonic, things had started to get a bit fuzzy round the edges – the effect of three pints on an empty stomach and no decent sleep for a fortnight. Back at the table Rachael told a joke about two nuns on holiday in a Mini Metro, fluffing the punch line by giggling too much. Rennie told one about two nuns in a condom factory and Logan thought the deputy PF was going to wet herself. She howled with laughter and slapped Logan's thigh, letting her hand linger there as she wiped the tears from her eyes…
He eventually crawled back to the flat just after midnight, dropping his clothes on the hall floor as he stripped off on the way to the toilet. Bleary urination followed by roughly brushed teeth and two Dints of water. He staggered into the bedroom, curled up under the duvet and was snoring away within minutes. He didn't even hear Jackie coming in off the back shift half an hour later.
The music was probably supposed to be soothing, but came off more gloomy than anything else – a low-key set of hymns on the church organ as the place slowly filled up with police officers. Sitting up at the back, Logan tried not to look as bloody awful as he felt. Monday morning had arrived on the wings of a hangover, beating in time with his lurching stomach. He'd not been sick yet, but there was still time.
Half past eight was way too early for a funeral.
Jackie looked up from the order of service as We Plough the Fields and Scatter wheezed to a halt. 'Good turnout.' The place was packed – one of the benefits of getting seen off at this ungodly hour was that the night shift were able to attend after knocking off for the day. PC Trevor Maitland had spent a lot of time on the night shift, and the dark, wooden pews in Rubislaw Church were full of his colleagues, friends, family and the man who'd got him shot. A sudden hush as the priest stepped up to the lectern and thanked them all for coming.
The service was every bit as depressing as Logan had expected. His stomach lurched all the way through the eulogies, each one a glowing character reference for the recently deceased. Then the Chief Constable got up and made a speech ibout how dangerous the life of a police officer was and how brave everyone was who stepped up to that challenge. And how the courage and sacrifice made by their families was every bit as great, while Maitland's widow cried quietly.
Then the music started, Whitney Houston warbling her way through I Will Always Love You as the funeral directors picked up the floral tributes and piled them carefully on top of the coffin before wheeling it out of the church and into the hearse.
