Dark Blood

She ripped open a pack of extra strong mints and crunched one down, then waved at Logan. ‘Door, door, door!’

Logan unsnibbed the lock, just in time to catch Finnie turning away. ‘Sir?’

The head of CID stared past Logan into the room. ‘I hope you weren’t indulging in some sort of orgy, Inspector.’

‘Ha-ha, very funny, sir.’ She made a show of rearranging a stack of paper on her desk. ‘Just having a quiet word with Mr Black here. He fancies the glamorous life of a paid informant.’

Finnie sniffed. ‘I would have thought you had other, more pressing matters to attend to today.’

Steel shifted in her seat. Looked from Finnie to Logan and back again. ‘Oh aye?’

‘“Oh aye” indeed.’ He pulled a folded newspaper from under his arm and slapped it against Logan’s chest. ‘Do the honours, Sergeant.’

Logan unruffled the front page. It was a copy of that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner with a photo of Richard Knox on page one – not the old stock photo every other paper was using, but a new one, of Knox kneeling in front of his granny’s grave. ‘Oh no…’ The headline screamed: ‘SEX-BEAST LIVES IN ABERDEEN STREET SHOCK.’

‘Exactly.’ Finnie pulled on a thin smile. ‘Perhaps you’d like to read it out for the inspector.’

‘Ah…er…“When the residents of a quiet Aberdeen street went to sleep on Wednesday night, little did they realize that they’d be getting a new neighbour the next morning. But now the Aberdeen Examiner can exclusively reveal that notorious sex beast Richard Knox is living at Thirty-Five Cairnview Terrace, in Cornhill”…’

Steel closed her eyes and swore.

Finnie nodded. ‘Now the first thing I’d be asking myself, Inspector, is where the media got their information from – considering the whole operation’s been on a need-to-know basis. Supposedly under your supervision.’

‘Arsing cock-biscuits…’

‘And the second question I’d be asking is, what’s going on at Thirty-Five Cairnview Terrace right now? What do you think: ticker-tape parade? Bake sale? Auditions for the X Factor?’

Steel scrabbled out of her chair. ‘Laz, get Angus back in the cells, then find us a car: blues and twos. And a couple of Uniform!’ She grabbed her coat and threw it on. ‘Why did no bugger tell me about this?’

‘I’ve been trying to call you for the last five minutes.’

She didn’t even blush. ‘Must be something up with the

phones.’ She paused, then stared at Logan. ‘Well don’t just

stand there, get moving!’

Logan sat in the back with DI Steel, holding his breath and the grab handle above the door every time PC Butler threw the patrol car into another corner. The council gritters must have been out in force overnight, but every now and then the whole car lurched sideways as it flashed across a ridge of dirty slush. Blue lights strobing, freezing snowflakes in mid-fall. The electronic hee-haw of the siren clearing a path through the early-morning traffic.

Steel poked at the newspaper, jabbing her finger into Richard Knox’s face. ‘How the hell did they find out where he’s staying?’ She thrust the newspaper into Logan’s lap. ‘Call him.’

Logan looked down at the photo. ‘What, Knox?’

‘No: that greasy wee journalist mate of yours, Colin Buggering Miller. I want to know who told him where Knox was, and I want whoever it was buggered with a traffic cone!’

PC Guthrie turned around in the passenger seat. ‘I suppose as it’s pointy, they’d have time to get used to —’

‘Are you looking for a slap?’

Guthrie faced front again.

Logan stuck his hand in his pocket, looking for his phone, and finding a handful of circuit board shrapnel instead. ‘Bloody hell…’ He had to borrow Steel’s mobile to dial Colin’s number.

The Glaswegian’s voice was barely audible over the siren. Logan stuck his finger in his ear and tried again. ‘I said, who told you where Knox was staying?’

‘…freezin’, man. Stop…tea or somethin’…’

‘Colin?’

‘…before…in…’

‘Hello?’ Logan slapped a hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Switch off that bloody siren!’

PC Guthrie did. Now there was just the roar of the engine.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello? You still there?’

‘Who told you?’

‘About Knox? Privileged sources, journalistic integrity, etc. So you going to stop past a bakers or what?’

‘Don’t pull that privileged source crap with me: do you have any idea the kind of shit-storm you’ve started?’