‘So, what do we know about Polmont?’
Steel pulled a face. ‘Came to me through a DI in Edinburgh who owes me a couple of favours. Polmont was his chiz on another Malk the Knife building site – got themselves half a million in cocaine, twenty illegal immigrants, and one thousand cartons of smuggled cigarettes.’
‘Well.’ Logan shrugged. ‘At least you know he’s sound.’
‘Aye…’ Steel picked a flake of ash off her trousers. ‘Sort of.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘Polmont’s got a bit of a drink problem.’
‘He’s a bloody alki, isn’t he?’
Scowl. ‘What, you want to swap tips?’
Logan ignored that. ‘He’s probably off on a bender somewhere. That’s why you can’t get him – too pissed to answer the phone.’
‘Oh, don’t be so—’
‘This is another wild bloody goose chase, isn’t it?’
‘Just shut up and drive.’
Logan put his foot down and the manky Fiat rumbled and rattled up to fifty along the dual carriageway.
All the way out to Balmedie the fields were a soggy patchwork of green-brown, bordered by pale-grey drystane dykes. The occasional flock of sheep breathing clouds of steam into the cold, damp air. And then they got to the signs saying, ‘WORKS ENTRANCE AHEAD’, ‘SLOW VEHICLES TURNING’, ‘NO ACCESS TO BEACH’.
It hadn’t taken the local press long to nickname Donald Trump’s development ‘Trumpton’. A vast swathe of coast was due to disappear under the bulldozers: two golf courses, five hundred houses, a four-star hotel, and nearly a thousand holiday villas. Which kind of put McLennan Homes’ four hundred semi-detacheds into perspective.
Three hundred yards further on a huge billboard sat at the side of the road – ‘MCLENNAN HOMES, BUILDING A BETTER TOMORROW FOR YOU’. Photo of a smiling nuclear family holding hands and staring mistily off into the distance. Very aspirational. Or it would have been if someone hadn’t spraypainted a big blue penis onto one of the kids.
Logan slowed the car. According to the sat-nav, Steel’s map coordinates were off to the left. The Fiat juddered to a halt on the grass verge.
He peered across and through the passenger window at the site entrance – a high chainlink fence, the gates held open with dented oil drums. ‘SITE PATROLLED BY GUARD DOGS’, ‘NO ENTRY TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL’, ‘DANGER OF DEATH’, ‘WARNING: RAZOR WIRE’. A rutted mud track led away into Malk the Knife’s development.
Logan checked the sat-nav again. ‘You sure you got those coordinates right?’
‘Course I’m sure.’ She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. ‘Maybe they’ve got caravans for people living on site?’
‘Maybe…’
Logan eased the car through the gates. The muddy track bumped and slithered under the Fiat’s wheels, taking them closer to the rumble of heavy machinery, the beep-beep-beep of something backing up.
Steel pointed through the windscreen. ‘Over there.’
He pulled up beside a long Portakabin with ‘SITE OFFICE’ stencilled on the side, trying to aim for a bit that didn’t look like the battle of the Somme.
‘Right.’ Steel flicked her cigarette butt out of the window. ‘If anyone asks, you and me are debt collectors. I’m the boss, you’re the hired muscle. Still a chance we can salvage this cock-up, so no telling anyone you’re a cop, understand?’
She pulled the sat-nav off the windscreen and they clambered out into the drizzle.
‘Which way?’
She frowned at the little screen, trying to shield it from the rain with her coat, then did a slow three-sixty. Stopped. And pointed out across the churned-up earth.
No caravans, no Portakabins, not so much as a three-man tent.
Steel took a step forwards, but Logan grabbed her arm.
‘Maybe we should call for a search team. IB. Pathologist. If Polmont’s—’
‘Don’t be so wet.’ She shook herself free and stomped off into the mud.
Logan swore, then followed her.
The going was tough, thick clogs of brown-black earth sucking at his shoes, dirty water oozing in through the lace holes, soaking into his socks. And then his foot disappeared into a puddle, right up to the shin. ‘Fuck…’ Cold and wet, the trouser leg sticking to his skin. He limped after Steel, cursing all the way.
She came to a halt about two hundred yards from the high chainlink fence that surrounded the site, then turned around a few times. The earth here was firmer – still covered in weeds and grass, the vegetation looking pale and unhealthy.
Logan squelched up beside her. ‘Hope you’re bloody happy, my feet are—’
‘Where the hell is he?’ She turned around again, then peered at the sat-nav.
