'Not so fast.' A pained look slid onto the constable's face. 'What?' 'You didn't check the base unit.' 'Oh bloody hell ...' Rennie heaved the mattress back onto the floor again. It took both of them to heave the wooden-framed base up onto its side, and when they did they discovered an Aladdin's cave. Assuming Aladdin had fallen on hard times, and instead of gold, jewels and coins he'd taken to hoarding pens, Post-its, staplers, telephones and four-hole punches. The divan was stuffed with office supplies, some still bearing little 'PROPERTY OF ALABA MEATS LTD.' stickers. There were even a couple of fax machines and a laptop. And right at the back: a holdall that looked eerily familiar. Rennie picked up a packet of Blu Tack. 'Not exactly the great train robbery, is it?' Logan slipped on a second pair of latex gloves and pulled the holdall from the pile of pilfered stationary. It was identical to the one Marek Kowalczyk was carrying on the abattoir's CCTV tape, only it wasn't full of blood and meat, it was full of whiteboard markers and DL envelopes. 'Oh ... bugger.'
41
Logan stood on the B&B's top step, listening to DI Steel swearing a blue streak. 'You sure?' she said, when the well of profanity had finally run dry,'Post-it notes?' 'Loads of them. Envelopes, paperclips, ring-binders, you name it.' More swearing. 'The DCS's going to kill me ...' She took an angry drag on her cigarette. 'He thinks we caught the Flesher, not some silly bugger raiding the stationery cupboard.' 'Nowak didn't say anything when you spoke to him?' 'Course he bloody didn't. Just kept bleating for a lawyer.' Puff, puff, puff. 'Look, you're absolutely positive? No wee chunks of meat in there at all?' 'Not a sausage. Looks like Nowak was trying the same scam he ran back home, probably got Kowalczyk, Wisniewski, and Laszenyk to do the actual stealing. I've told Rennie to go round the local pubs, see if anyone remembers being offered a dodgy fax machine and a load of yellow highlighers.' 'Sodding hell.' Steel was quiet for a moment. 'Can you no' concentrate on solving the main crime for once? We almost had the bastard!' She hurled her cigarette butt to the path and ground it out with her boot. 'It wasn't him though, was it?' 'If you don't stop rubbing it in, I'm going to introduce the point of my boot to the hole in your arse.' 'You're welcome.'
DI Steel was right: DSC Bain wasn't happy to hear the news. 'GRAMPIAN POLICE CATCH ABATTOIR KILLER' had turned into 'MAN FLATTENED BY VOLKSWAGEN GOLF FOR NICKED POST-IT NOTES'. Or it would do as soon as the papers found out Marek Kowalczyk wasn't the Flesher after all. Logan sloped off before anyone found a way to make this all his fault, and went to the canteen for lunch. After all, it was Monday and that could only mean one thing: lasagne and chips, lasagne and chips, lasagne and ... fuck.
