Dark Blood

One more twist and the knife thudded into the snow, blade first, the handle sticking up into the air.

‘Danny! Danny, help me! They’re hurting the baby!’

But Danny just sat on the roof of his house and stared at her.

There was a gunshot sound and Logan’s manky little Fiat puttered to a halt on the rear podium car park, leaving a cloud of grey smoke behind. Should probably get that seen to.

PC Butler killed the engine, before it died on its own. ‘Everyone out. Now!’

‘If my baby’s damaged by carbon monoxide poisoning, I’ll sue!’

Butler turned and stared at her. ‘Shut up. For once in your life. All the way into bloody town!’

Stacy Gardner pouted. ‘You can’t talk to me like that! I—’

‘For God’s sake!’ Sitting next to her, on the threadbare back seat, Danny Saunders gritted his teeth. ‘Give it a rest, Stacy.’

‘That’s right – shout at the pregnant woman in handcuffs! Oh yes, you’re such a big man, aren’t you Danny? Such a big—’

Logan climbed out and slammed the car door shut, cutting off the rest.

PC Butler stood on the other side of the dented Fiat, massaging her temples. ‘Why are we not allowed to gag prisoners any more?’

‘Just get them processed and we’ll head out to Cove. Let someone else listen to her bitch and moan for a while.’

Butler glared at the sky for a moment, sighed, pulled on her peaked cap, then wrenched open the car door and folded the driver’s seat forward. ‘I said everyone out!’

Logan left them to it.

Logan had the Wee Hoose to himself while he waited for PC Butler to get Danny Saunders and his poisonous fiancee photographed, fingerprinted, DNA-sampled, and checked into separate cells.

He spread Danby’s cases out across the desk. The PNC printouts weren’t exactly heavy on detail, more summaries and status reports. A couple of unsolved murders: one drug addict found with a bullet hole in the back of his head; one prostitute kicked to death behind the bins at a nightclub. One Post Office job where the gang had got away with a pathetically small amount of cash after putting a pensioner in intensive care – solved. One blackmail: a bank manager with a thing for Filipino ladyboys – solved. A couple of demanding money with menaces…

Something started ringing. It took Logan a minute to realize it was his new phone. ‘McRae.’

‘LoganDaveGoulding, Just heard back from your CSI boys about the old man who was attacked last night.’ Might have known the psychologist wouldn’t mind using the wanky Americanism.

‘What about him?’ Logan kept on reading.

The last report in Danby’s file was a drug seizure: a shipment of heroin and cocaine, smuggled in through the international ferry terminal in North Shields. Estimated street value of one-point-six million.

‘Knox didn’t rape him. He bit him, he tortured him, he beat him, but there’s no sign of penetration.’

According to the summary three men were due up in court in four weeks’ time, all of them connected to Michael ‘Mental Mikey’ Maitland’s operation.

God rest his soul.

‘So it’s exactly the same as the Sacro handler…Harry Weaver. I thought it might be because Weaver wasn’t old enough, didn’t fit the victim profile, but I’m beginning to wonder if Knox might be impotent.’

Logan skimmed a list of charges. ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

‘Causing pain is how Knox achieves arousal, it’s what gets him off. If he can’t get an erection, he’s just going to try harder. The next victim’s probably going to end up dead. And it won’t be quick either.’

Logan stopped reading. Not so good after all.

‘Any ideas where he’s heading?’

There was a pause.

‘Well…Aberdeen’s been highly traumatic for him, completely out of his comfort zone. He’ll want familiar ground, somewhere he feels safe.’

All roads lead to Newcastle. Which was pretty much what they’d been thinking anyway. Logan thanked the psychologist and hung up.

Logan drummed his fingers on the desk, staring at the blank computer screen.

God: the idea that Knox could get even worse…

‘You should eat more roughage.’

Logan turned to find Doreen settling in behind her desk.

‘What?’

‘You’ve got the same expression on your face my six-year-old gets when he’s constipated.’

‘Actually, I was thinking about Richard Knox.’

‘Join the club. DCI Finnie’s got everyone on either Knox or Danby. It’s an absolute nightmare trying to get