Dark Blood

Stacy wrinkled her nose, pulling a chunk of regurgitated something from her hair. ‘Urgh…’ The kettle whistled to the boil. She took it off the gas and poured it straight into a steaming bucket, then checked the temperature with her little finger. ‘I wanted a caravan with a shower, but no, that would’ve been too expensive…’

She peeled off her jumper then the T-shirt underneath, revealing a none-too-sensible bra and her stretch- mark-rippled pregnant bulge. She sniffed at the stained T-shirt, grimaced, then dumped it in the corner with the spattered jumper. Logan didn’t watch her washing her puke-matted hair in the bucket.

He leaned across the tabletop and lifted the edge of the milky tea towel. ‘Feeling any better?’

‘It burns…’

‘It’s pepper-spray, it’s meant to burn.’ Logan let the towel slap back against the angry skin. ‘You’re a silly bastard, Danny, you know that, don’t you?’

The man on the other side of the table coughed. His voice was all wheezy, slightly muffled by the tea towel. ‘Thought you were here about that…’ He drifted into silence.

Logan pulled out his notebook. ‘Where were you at nine fifteen yesterday morning?’

Stacy took her head out of the bucket, shampoo froth clinging like candyfloss. ‘Don’t you tell him anything. Didn’t read you your rights, did he?’

‘But—’

‘But nothing, Danny.’ She raised her chin and stared at Logan. ‘Why you want to know?’

‘Just answer the question: Saturday morning, quarter past nine.’

Silence.

Danny coughed again. ‘We were—’

‘Danny Saunders, don’t you dare!’

‘Fit dis it matter? We werenae up tae anything, were we?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘We were doon the Oldmachar Church, OK?’

Logan laughed. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘Aye we were!’ Danny sat upright, and the cloth fell off his face, splatting onto the Formica tabletop in a little eruption of warm milk. It was working, he was actually able to open his eyes a crack, just enough to glare at Logan. ‘You ask the minister, we were there bang on ten till aboot eleven.’

Logan looked around the cramped caravan with its sledgehammer hole in the wall. ‘You went to church?’

‘You can gie the minister a call if you dinna believe me.’

‘I don’t.’ He reached into his coat pocket and…Fuck. Fucking…fuck. He came out with a handful of broken plastic and circuit board shrapnel. All that was left of his phone – caught between Danny’s hammer and the car window. ‘Oh that’s just…’ He thumped it down on the tabletop. ‘That was you and your bloody sledgehammer!’

‘It’s only a phone. You broke my wrist!’

Logan took a deep breath, tried really hard not to lunge across the table and punch Danny in the throat, then stuck out his hand. ‘Give me your mobile.’

Stacy: ‘We don’t have to do any—’

‘GIVE ME YOUR BLOODY MOBILE PHONE, or so help me…’ He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. ‘Please, may I borrow your phone?’

Danny handed over a cheap-looking handset. Logan called the Control room. ‘I want a number for whoever the minister is at Oldmachar Church, Bridge of Don…Yeah, I’ll wait.’

Danny picked the milky tea towel off the tabletop and flopped it back across his face. ‘Reverend Williams. He’s helpin’ us get the wain baptised, you know, when he pops oot?’

Logan dialled the number Control gave him, then sat there, staring at the shattered remains of his phone. He’d only just learned how to programme the damn thing and now he’d have to buy a new one. And would they let him claim it back on expenses? Would they—

‘…Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?’

‘Can I speak to the minister?’

‘That’d be me. Fit can I dee for you?’

Logan glanced up at Danny’s towel-covered face. ‘What’s your name?’

‘If we’re being formal, it’s Reverend Williams, if not, you can call me Charley.’

‘This is Detective Sergeant Logan McRae: Grampian Police. I need to know if you met with a Danny Saunders and his…’ he looked at the shiny bauble covered with soap on Stacy’s ring finger, ‘fiancee any time in the last week?’

There was a pause. ‘Can I ask fit this is aboot?’

‘Trying to establish their whereabouts.’

‘Oh aye, and why’s that?’