Dark Blood

Should really be flying business class, bypass all this standing in line crap. Still it’s a lot of money. Hard to break the habit of a lifetime. Even when he’s got four-point-six million split between various offshore bank accounts. That bitch Julie and her thugs tried to beat it out of him, get him to fess up to taking the cash, but he kept his mouth shut, didn’t he?

Four-point-six million’s worth a couple of broken ribs.

Mr and Mrs Athletic get to the front of the queue with their overloaded trolley.

Graeme checks his watch again.

Always like this when he’s got to fly somewhere. Especially if he’s got to make connections. Newcastle to Charles De Gaulle; Charles De Gaulle to Shanghai; Shanghai to Auckland. Over thirty hours sitting in economy.

He tries not to think about it. Bad enough flying anywhere – that’s why he’s got sleeping tablets. Pop two when they board in Paris, wake up in the Far East eleven hours later. Valerie and the kids meet him at the airport in Auckland. Tearful reunion. And they all live happily ever after.

The Tracksuit Twins are arguing with each other about who’s got the passports. Morons. Should have a couple fake ones stashed away, shouldn’t they?

Never know when you need to get out of the country without those bastards from the Serious Organized Crime Agency finding out, you know what I’m saying?

Preparation – that’s the key.

‘This is a general boarding call for flight BA1333 to London Heathrow. Would all passengers please come forward to gate number two with their boarding cards ready for inspection.’

Someone taps him on the shoulder, but Graeme doesn’t look round. ‘You can bloody well wait your turn like everyone else—’

‘Now, Mr Danby, is that any way to talk to an old friend?’ A deep gravelly voice, the words wafting into his ear on a cloud of extra strong mint.

Graeme keeps his eyes fixed on the fatties. ‘Alfie. Thought you were doing a six stretch in Holme.’

‘Very kind of you to take an interest, Mr Danby. But got out early, didn’t I? Good behaviour.’

The mint smell gets stronger, making Graeme’s stomach clench.

‘Mr Cunningham wonders if you’d like to join him for a drink, Mr Danby? Discuss a certain shipment of his you… intercepted.’

He swallows. Keeping the bile down. ‘Love to Alfie, but I’ve got a plane to catch, know what I’m saying?’

Something hard jabs into his back. ‘RSVP, Mr Danby. We wouldn’t want to make Mr Cunningham invite your wife and kids too, would we?’

He’d do it too, no matter how far away they were.

Fucking hell.

He’d been so close.

Head down, Graeme picks up the handle of his trundle case and follows Alfie out of the queue.

What other choice does he have?

The canteen was quieter than the Wee Hoose, so Logan grabbed a table there. Tin of Irn-Bru, Tunnock’s Tasty Caramel Wafer, making little chocolate shrapnel while he copied notes out of his vomity notebook and into the new one he’d just signed out of stores.

Took a while to cross reference it all back to the original, with page numbers and everything, but at least now he could leave the stinky thing in its plastic bag, buried away in a filing cabinet in case it was ever needed. Instead of carting it about the whole time.

That done he moved onto the scrap of paper he’d liberated from Douglas Walker’s bedroom. Copying the notes he’d made on Jimmy Evans, the Mackenzie and Kerr jewellery heist, and Douglas Walker’s attempted suicide. He flipped it over and gave the art student’s CV a scan. Mediocre pass marks in Maths, French, Physics and English, top marks for Art and Design. Summer job at a graphic design agency. Part time at a printers in Bridge of Don, paying his way through university…

Logan stared at the name written in for a reference. ‘JAMES CLAY’. The same name that was on the yellow stickie that came with the last envelope of cash from Wee Hamish Mowat.

Logan closed his eyes, leant forward, and banged his bruised forehead off the tabletop.

Bloody idiot.

It’s important for the local economy that we all do our bit, don’t you think?

It wasn’t a bribe, it was a tip-off.

Two patrol cars, one police van, and Dildo Mair’s Vauxhall Vectra sat in the little car park outside an unremarkable industrial unit in the Bridge of Don. The sign above the big roller doors proclaimed: ‘JAMES CLAY ~ PRINTING WITH STYLE’ next to a big cartoon exclamation mark with glasses, a cheesy grin, and its hands full of papers.

Classy.

Inside, a huge printing press sat towards the back of the unit, the smell of hot dust and oil-based ink drifting out into the cold afternoon. Reams of paper were stacked on pallets along the walls. A big electric guillotine. A collating and folding machine. In the corner, a kettle was finally coming to the boil, watched by half a dozen of Aberdeen’s finest in full uniform.

A little breezeblock office was built against one wall, full of desks, drawing boards, filing cabinets and paper samples. Logan poked the scan button on a digital radio again and the display cycled round to Original FM. An old Crowded House song bounded out of the speakers.

Sitting on the edge of a half-sized filing cabinet, Susanna Frayn, from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, leant forward and tapped Logan on the shoulder. ‘Turn it up, I like this one.’ Then settled back, singing along