Dark Blood

A fist slams into the side of Graeme’s head. Ringing in his ears. The taste of blood. Lights flashing on and off. Then a throbbing ache.

‘Now, Babe, you need to think really hard about this, because if you get the answer wrong you lose ten points and we move on to the water round. And trust me, you won’t like the water round. Understand?’

Graeme stares at her. Then nods.

‘Good. Neil, you can take the gag off.’

A harsh ripping noise, eye-watering agony. ‘Fuck…’

Elvis holds up the duct tape, grinning. ‘Got half his beard off in one go! Can we do his eyebrows next?’

‘Bastards…’ Breath hissing through gritted teeth.

‘OK, Babe: here’s your starter for ten.’

He can hear her chair scraping closer.

‘Where’s Richard Knox?’

‘No, I can barely hear you.’ Logan stuck his finger in his ear as they juddered up the hill past the truncated concrete pyramid of the Shell building, heading south. A massive eighteen-wheeler passed them in the outside lane, sending filthy grey-brown spray all over the car, the windscreen wipers struggling to clear it, leaving two diarrhoea-coloured rainbows across the glass.

‘I said, where the bastarding hell are you?’

‘Nigg roundabout. Should be with you in ten minutes.’

If the car didn’t die by then.

‘Listen, I found a possible motive for abducting Danby – million-and-a-half in seized—’

‘I don’t care. Just got a call from Susan, she’s got these stomach cramps…’

Oh no.

Logan swallowed. ‘She all right?’

‘Course she’s not, she’s having bloody stomach cramps!’ Silence. ‘What if she loses the baby?’

More silence.

‘I’m sure she’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine.’ That was what you were meant to say, wasn’t it?

Steel coughed. Sniffed. Cleared her throat. ‘Sod it, I’m taking her to A&E. You’re in charge: give the search another couple hours then wind it down. Make it look like we tried.’

‘Do you want…’

But Steel was gone. He was talking to a dead phone.

‘Sod it.’ Logan jabbed the car’s cigarette lighter with his thumb, and when it popped up he pulled a cigarette from the packet and sooked it into life.

Butler immediately started making pantomime coughing noises.

‘Fine…’ Logan ground it out in the overflowing ashtray. ‘Happy?’

‘Bad enough I’ve got to drive this rattletrap without catching your second-hand smoke.’

‘Just drive, OK?’

The gritters were out in force – two of them taking up both lanes of the dual carriageway, huge rusty yellow things topped with flashing orange lights, strafing the road with salt and sand. All the cars hanging back to avoid having the paint battered off their bonnets.

Butler took the second exit at the next roundabout, heading into Cove, weaving through the suburban streets for the south-east corner.

Jimmy Evans’s house sat on its own at the end of a long, rutted driveway, potholes and ice making Logan’s tatty little Fiat slither and jerk as Butler got them as close to the brightly lit house as possible.

A series of patrol cars and police vans snaked back from a snow-covered driveway, blocking the lane.

‘We’ll have to walk from here.’

Sunlight speared down from a crystal blue sky, making the fields glitter, the snow crunchy underfoot, the sound of dogs and police chatter ringing in the crisp air.

The Police Search Advisor met them at the front door, scratching an armpit. With thinning, scraggy blonde hair and a pointy nose, he looked a bit like a meerkat with mange. ‘So.’ He squinted at Logan. ‘It true you’re in charge now?’

‘That a problem?’

‘Hey, long as you sign off on the overtime, I’m happy.’ He held out a stack of reports and Logan flicked through them.

‘You want to summarize this for me?’

More scratching. ‘No sign of Knox anywhere.’

There was a shock. ‘IB?’

The POLSA took his hand out of his armpit for long enough to point at a familiar filthy Transit van. ‘Still doing