Logan held up his hands. 'Nothing to do with--' 'In the meantime I want a rundown of all sex offenders over forty with a history of serious assault.' Logan checked the clock on the wall. Twenty past four, forty minutes to go till he was off duty. 'Actually, sir, I'm in the middle of something for--' 'Did that sound like a request to you, Sergeant?'
Getting together a list of sex offenders over forty years old was only the start of it: Insch wanted them all cross-referenced to see who'd done time in prison since 1990 - when the first batch of murders stopped - and he didn't just want them for Aberdeen either, Logan had to do it for the whole of the UK. He sent another query running on the computer, then pasted the results into a spreadsheet. Now he had data from every police force in the nation with electronic records going back far enough to be of any use; the others would take days, if not weeks to respond to the inspector's request. But right now it was twenty past five. Logan sent the list of names to the CID office printer. He'd dump them on Insch's desk and slope off before anyone noticed. Chance would be a fine thing. DI Steel stopped him on the stairs. He was going down: clutching his folder full of sex offenders, she was going up: clutching her left breast through her charcoal-grey blouse. 'Where's your boyfriend, Faulds then?' 'He ... er ...' Trying not to watch what she was doing. 'Got this new bra from Markies, it's all weird bits of plastic. Feels like a ballistic missile.' 'Er ... he's off back to Birmingham. Rennie's taking him to the airport.' 'Oh aye?' She stopped fiddling with herself. 'So how come you've no' sloped off early then?' Logan held up his folder. 'Going through the sex offenders list for Insch, trying to find an alternative suspect.' 'Bloody hell,' said Steel, faking a swoon,'Fatty McFatfat's considering other suspects? Did a herd of pigs just fly by the station window?' She helped herself to the folder and riffled through the printouts, then tossed the lot back at him. 'Waste of sodding time, but I suppose it'll keep Chief Constable Knobjob happy.' She turned and started back down the stairs again. 'Well, come on then - after you slap your pervy bastards on Insch, you and me are going on a little field trip.' Logan followed her, trying to get his list back in some sort of order. 'Is it to the pub? Because if it isn't--' 'Have I ever steered you wrong?' He didn't answer that.
Insch was in the main incident room, surrounded by a blizzard of paperwork. The phones were going non-stop, harassed support personnel answering them, taking details, and moving onto the next caller. DI Steel skulked in the doorway while Logan snuck in, slipped the file into Insch's in-tray, and turned to leave. A deep bass rumble caught him before he'd gone more than a couple of feet:'And where do you think you're going?' Damn. 'My shift finished twenty minutes ago, sir.'
