Dark Blood

hurled it at him. Passports, e-tickets, and boarding passes bounced off his SOC suit, fluttering down to the sleet- puddled tarmac.

He watched a duty free receipt flutter away on a gust of wind. ‘Fuck you.’

She froze, eyes bugging. ‘How dare—’

‘I didn’t stab the bastard, did I? You gave me all that shit yesterday about not being a team player and soon as I follow the rules, you throw a hissy fit?’

‘You can’t—’

‘What was I supposed to do: kid-on he’d turned up?’ Getting louder, shouting in her face. ‘And what about you? You could’ve told Finnie to get stuffed, but you didn’t, did you? No, you came trotting back here like a good little girl.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘So don’t blame me because Susan’s pissed off. You had your chance and screwed it up.’

She stood there, scowling at him. ‘I had a sodding bikini wax.’

Logan threw his hands in the air. ‘Then go on bloody holiday! Tomorrow: go to the airport and turn your phone off. Tell Finnie to screw himself. Sod off to Puerto del Whereverthefuck and stop getting on my tits!’

The word ‘tits’ echoed around the car park. The big man stopped in the middle of loading a box of burger buns to stare at them.

DI Steel slumped back against the cash-and-carry wall and hauled at the crotch of her trousers. ‘How am I supposed to tell Finnie to go screw himself if my phone’s turned off?’

Logan picked up the soggy bits of paper. ‘So…Susan’s really pissed off?’

‘Oh Jesus, like you wouldn’t believe.’ Steel sagged even further. ‘Last chance we had to go on holiday too: leave it any longer and the airlines get all wanky about pregnant women flying. Scared she’ll give birth in cattle class, and they’ll have to give the sprog free flights for life.’

‘Thought that was an urban myth.’

He wiped the gritty ice from a burgundy passport, then handed everything back.

Steel sniffed. ‘You know, we’ve no’ had sex in months. Months. Beginning to forget which bit goes where…Thought pregnant women were meant to get all horny.’ She scowled at Logan, then smacked him on the arm. ‘And soon as she pops your sprog, it’s another six months of celibacy! Could you no’ have kept it in your bloody pants?’

‘Ow! For your information, you begged me to get Susan up the stick. Remember? “Oh Logan, please can we have some more sperm? Oh please? Just one more try? This time it’ll work. I promise. I’ll love you forever?” Remember that?’

She shrugged and peered out at the dreich afternoon. ‘Aye, well if your bloody sailors had been any good they would have taken the first time.’

Mr Burger-Van loaded three cases of Diet Coke, then slammed the van’s doors shut, abandoned his trolley in the middle of the car park, and drove off.

‘Lazy bugger.’ Steel had another dig at her parts. ‘You any idea how much it hurts to get a full Brazilian?’

‘What’s Danby doing here?’

‘Only did it cos Susan thinks it’s sexy…’ Scratch, rummage, fiddle.

‘Will you stop doing that!’

‘Itchy.’ She shivered. ‘Bloody freezing too.’

‘He just seems to be taking a lot of interest in Polmont. First the journals, now the PM…?’

Steel pulled out a packet of cigarettes, offered one to Logan, then lit them both. ‘The Ice Queen find anything we can pin on someone yet?’

‘He was tortured with a nail gun, then buried alive.’

‘Poor bugger…Anything else?’

‘Bite marks on his arms and neck. Look like dog.’

The inspector dug her hands deep into her armpits. ‘So we’re looking for a big violent bastard with a huge dog, and access to the building site. Think, think, think.’

Logan nodded. ‘I chased up the lookout request on Andrew Connelly – nothing yet. Lothian and Borders are keeping an eye open, just in case he really has gone off to see his mum.’

‘Warrant?’

‘PF says we don’t have enough for an arrest. If they can get DNA off the body that matches Connelly or his dog—’

‘Whatever happened to the good old days, when you could just kick someone’s door in and beat a confession out of them?’ She smoked in silence for a minute. ‘What about those journals?’

‘Still working on them.’

‘Right.’ She ground her cigarette out against the cash-and-carry wall. ‘I’m taking over here. You go through that stuff we got from Polmont’s flat.’

Steel turned and hobbled back towards the door.