She probably would too.
Logan told Butler to drive the ladies back to the station, then dug out his new phone and dialled the CCTV room at FHQ.
‘Inspector Pearce about, Chris?’
And then the woman in charge of every closed circuit television camera in Aberdeen was on the line, her voice all muffled.
‘DS McRae, ma’am. How are you getting on with the footage for the Mackenzie and Kerr jewellery heist?’
Logan frowned at the phone. ‘Hello?’
‘Surprise me.’
‘That’s great! Can we run a PNC—’
Logan put his hand over the mouthpiece and swore.
‘Yeah, just having a think.’
‘Bugger.’ Logan chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. ‘Who was the car registered to? I mean, someone’s going to have to tell him his car’s been used in an armed robbery, aren’t they?’
‘Er…no. I think as SIO I should really speak to him myself. Get an…erm…you know, details.’ Cough. ‘Or something.’
42
Alan Gardner’s living room was uncomfortably warm, a wall- mounted flame-effect fire blazing away beneath a mantelpiece laden with photo frames. More pictures hung on the wall: a happy family sharing holidays and birthdays.
Alan shifted in his creaky armchair and stared at the fire. ‘Might as well have it up full blast, bloody electric’s getting disconnected tomorrow…’ What little hair he had left was white and tufty, most of it concentrated in two feral eyebrows, the rest holding on for dear life behind his ears. He sighed, looking out at the spartan living room, reflected in the black mirror of the bay window. No television. No sofa. No bookcases.
There wasn’t anywhere for Logan to sit.
He reached for his notebook, top lip curling as his fingers touched the evidence bag he’d stuck it in – locking in all that vomity goodness. It was all cold…‘Can you remember where you parked your car, Mr Gardner?’
The man shrugged, then worried at a hole in his threadbare green jumper. ‘My wife died last year. March. Kidney failure. We were on holiday in Kenya…’
Logan looked above the mantelpiece, finding a happy blonde lady with her balding husband, the pair of them grinning like idiots in the basket of a balloon, pale yellow grass far below. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘At least it was quick.’ He shifted again, making the chair creak. ‘Quick and painful. Doctors said there was nothing they could do. Hit Stacy really hard, losing her mum like that, never getting to say goodbye…’
Silence.
‘About the car, Mr Gardner?’
‘What? Oh…yes. It was parked round the corner. Couldn’t get it out front because that idiot next door always leaves his sodding car outside my house. Rubbing it in, because he’s got a brand-new Audi estate, and I’m driving a third-hand Fiat Panda.’ Gardner tugged at a bushy eyebrow. ‘Surprised he doesn’t park his wife out there too.’
Logan scribbled the details down on the sheet of paper he’d liberated from Douglas Walker’s bedroom.
Have to pick up a new notebook when he got back to the station, one that didn’t reek of art student vomit.
He checked his watch. Nearly quarter past six. Beattie would be long gone – back home to put curlers in his beard, or whatever the hell it was he did when he wasn’t making Logan’s life miserable at work.
‘Right, well, I suppose I should be heading…’
Gardner hauled himself out of his chair and walked Logan to the front door. ‘Are you a family man, Sergeant?’
Logan pursed his lips. ‘It’s kind of complicated.’
