Logan frowned. What bloody meeting?
And then it was Colin, asking to be called back.
Logan hit reply and three rings later the reporter’s Glasgow burr rattled his eardrums.
‘Can’t tonight, got a date with a tattooed lady.’
Logan creaked open the car door.
A security light cracked on, bathing the gravel parking area with harsh white light. Twenty past four and the sun was taking its hat off, packing its bags, and sodding off home, leaving the countryside washed in dull pink and cold blue.
‘I’m kinda off the booze for a bit.’
‘Antibiotics.’ As good a lie as any.
There were no streetlights out here in the sticks. It was a cluster of converted farm buildings between Dyce and the Bridge of Don. Not all of them had been finished, and an old steading sat off to one side, the roof a ribcage of pale pine joists with a tatty-edged chunk of blue plastic sheeting draped over half of it.
At least the wind and sleet had died down. Still bloody freezing though.
‘Colin—’
Logan slammed the car door. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. ‘Subtle, Colin,
‘I’m not giving you info on an ongoing investigation, you know that. Curry and a pint my arse.’
There was silence for a moment, and when Colin spoke again Logan could hear the grin in his voice.
‘Bye Colin.’ Logan hung up. Cheeky bugger.
He pulled out the list he’d downloaded from the Police National Computer – people convicted of robberies involving sledgehammers – and read the summary for number four. Damian Atkinson, AKA: Daniel Francis, AKA: Danny Saunders, AKA: Donny Ferrier. Done for burglary, demanding money with menaces, aggravated assault. And most importantly, for holding up a series of all-night petrol stations with a sledgehammer.
Only two houses in the little development had lights on. The first turned out to be a drunken middle-aged man with a beard and a beer belly. No, he didn’t know any Damian Atkinson, or a Daniel Francis, but Danny Saunders lived over there. He pointed a wobbly finger at a mouldy caravan parked alongside the unfinished farm building.
‘Doin’ it…Doin’ it up hisssself. Yeah?’
Very industrious.
Logan crunched his way across the gravel driveway to the steading. Random construction materials were heaped up on the grass outside: pallets of bricks, boxes of slates, piles of timber. Logan stuck his head through the open door, but it was dark in there. Just the sound of something dripping and the fusty smell of dust and mouse droppings. A pile of tools lurking in the shadows.
Danny Saunders’s caravan wasn’t a big Portakabin-style one like Samantha’s, it was a small two-wheeled model. The kind that always slowed traffic to a funereal crawl on the summer roads, dragged behind a Volvo estate full of unhappy children.
The thing was streaked with dirty green mould, the roof almost black. At some point it had been given a coat of beige paint, but it was blistered and peeling, showing off the rust underneath.
Muted light shone from somewhere in the caravan, so Logan picked his way across the long damp grass and peered in through the side window. It was surprisingly clean inside, the bed stowed away to make room for a Formica table and two bench seats.
A man sat at the table, making notes on a thick pile of paperwork, with his back to the window. Hair thinning a bit at the back, stripy grey jumper, a fading blue DIY tattoo on the back of one hand.
Somewhere, a radio was playing – the end of a Paul Weller track drifting into a traffic update featuring the disastrous roadworks on the Haudagain roundabout.
‘You want tea, Danny, love?’ Female, young-ish.
The man glanced deeper into the caravan. ‘Oh aye, ta. You know, we’re still aboot twa grand short for gettin’ the roof finished.’ Definitely a local lad.
‘Well…we’ll just have to give him another call, won’t we?’
