Heather backed away from the wall - her foot caught on the edge of the mattress and she stumbled backwards, arms flailing out for balance as she fell. BANG: the back of her head bounced off the bars. Muffled noises. 'Heather?' '
Rennie stifled a yawn. Stretched. Shivered. Then had a bit of a scratch at his trousers. 'God I'm knackered ... You see the papers this morning?' Logan looked up from the chest of drawers that lurked in the corner of the little room. 'Did you check under the mattress?' The Turrabrae Guesthouse was the most depressing B&B he'd ever been in: the walls were covered with cheap woodchip wallpaper; water stains on the ceiling; threadbare brown and orange carpet that was probably fashionable back in the seventies and hadn't been changed since; a single bed that wouldn't have looked out of place in a medieval torture chamber. So far this morning they'd visited two of the three abattoir workers who'd provided Marek Kowalczyk with an alibi for the night Tom and Hazel Stephen were snatched. And Turrabrae Guesthouse was easily the worse. Piotr Nowak - alibi number three - wasn't exactly living in the lap of luxury. Rennie sniffed. 'You ever thought about getting married?' Logan pulled out the bottom drawer and carefully picked through the pile of paired-off socks. 'You're not my type.' 'I've been thinking about it a lot. You know, with Laura?' 'Mattress!' 'Eh? Oh, aye ...' The sound of rummaging. 'Course it wouldn't be for a while yet. Have to save up for a house.' The sock drawer contained nothing but socks. Logan gave the whole thing one last tug - pulling it out of the unit and onto the swirly brown carpet - then peered into the hole. Two magazines, both explicit, but nothing illegal. He stuck the magazines back where they'd come from and replaced the drawer, then stood at the little window, looking out at the dismal day in all its grey glory. Twenty to eleven on a cold November morning and it was probably warmer outside than in here. He could see DI Steel standing half-way down the garden path, smoking cigarettes and fiddling with her underwear. Logan let the curtain fall back. 'You come all the way from Poland looking for a better life and what do you get? A manky box-room in a crappy little B&B and a job shovelling sheep heads into a skip.' 'Give us a hand ...' Rennie was fighting with the saggy mattress, its stripy fabric stained and fraying round the edges. Logan helped him raise it all the way up, where gravity promptly folded it in half. Swearing, Rennie struggled it to the floor beside the single bed. It was a divan and the base unit looked just as bad as the fusty mattress. Logan's phone made strangled metal chicken noises - Control calling to say they couldn't get through to DI Steel, but Logan was to tell her the Polish police had just faxed over details on Kowalczyk and the three abattoir workers who'd alibied him. Only Piotr Nowack had prior, and it wasn't for cannibalism - he was part of a gang who broke into industrial estates and stole anything not nailed down. Logan hung up as Rennie wrestled the saggy mattress back where came from, grumbling about bedbugs and pee stains.
