Tony wanders over to the window of the room they’ve rented in the same hotel as that tit Danby. Place is nice enough, if you like tartan. He hauls up the net curtains, letting in the view: skeletal trees scratching at the grey sky, some sort of park sunken way below street level, a railway line, a dual carriageway, a bunch of granite buildings… Grey, grey, grey. Like no bugger ever invented colour.
Snowing again too.
‘Well?’ Neil’s lying on the double bed, feet dangling over the edge so Julie doesn’t shout at him for putting his shoes on the covers. ‘What’s the plan now, then?’
Tony sniffs. ‘Need to find out where they’re moving him to.’
Julie doesn’t even look up. ‘Sweetheart, where would we be without your lightning-sharp intelligence?’
‘Only saying.’
And it’s
Neil yawns. ‘We still going after Danby the night?’
‘I’d love to, Babe, but Danby’s useless without Knox.’ She frowns at the TV. ‘Supposed to pick them both up at the same time, can’t do that if we don’t know where Knox is.’
‘Maybe he’ll phone, like?’
Tony settles back on the windowsill. ‘Might not get the chance. They’ll be keeping him under the thumb till things calm down.’
‘Doesn’t stop us grabbing Danby, does it?’
Julie sighs. ‘If we grab Danby first they’ll know something’s up. Knox’ll be locked up tighter than a Scotsman’s wallet.’
A vacuum cleaner rumbles down the corridor outside, someone whistling along to a pop tune Tony almost recognizes as it goes by. On the TV the local plod bundle a quilt-covered figure into the back of a police van.
Julie pulls on a scuffed tan cowboy boot, the drug dealer’s blood all washed away. ‘OK, new plan: if we don’t hear from Knox, we just have to stick with Danby. Sooner or later he’s going to lead us right to him. Bish, bash, and indeed: bosh.’
Tony sticks up his hand. ‘Bags not first to trail Danby.’
Julie: ‘Second.’
Too slow off the mark, all Neil can do is lie there looking out at the snow. ‘Ah…fuck.’
31
Logan waved a thank you to the patrol car and struggled through the snow, up the slippery steps, across the front podium – brown with sand and salt – and in through the front doors of FHQ.
Big Gary was sitting behind the reception desk, his head propped up with one hand, a battered paperback lying on the desk in front of him.
‘Any messages?’
The big man reached beneath the desk and thumped a pile of Post-its on the counter. Never even took his eyes off the page.
‘Anything important?’
‘I’m
Logan flipped through the stack of yellow stickies. ‘Rennie, Rennie, Beattie, Rennie, Beattie…’ These went in the ‘when hell freezes over’ pile – there was no way Logan was talking to DI Beardy Beattie until Dildo called back. And he’d still not forgiven Rennie for grabbing Samantha’s bum.
Then there were a couple of burglary victims looking for an update; someone wanting to know why no one had found his missing Mercedes yet; a woman from the
A summons to her office.
He stuck the Post-its back on the desk. ‘Any idea what Steel’s after?’
Big Gary sighed, his jowls inflating and deflating like a pair of ruptured space hoppers. He marked his page with a Curly Wurly wrapper, then slammed the book shut. ‘Why can’t you buggers leave me alone for five minutes?’
Logan stared at him. ‘Sorry for interrupting your reading time, Gary. My apologies, mate, I thought you were manning the
The sergeant narrowed his eyes. ‘Meant to be on my break, but that useless tit Jordan’s still in the bog.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Where’s that PC I sent you off with?’
‘Butler? Left her up at A&E watching a used-car dealer.’
‘For how long?’
Shrug. ‘Till the doctors give us the all clear to bang him up.’
‘Oh for…’ Big Gary pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘You really are in a foul sodding mood today, aren’t you? Not my fault Jordan’s got the squits.’
