Chapter 4
The van’s occupants scrambled to slam all the doors shut, windows buzzing into place as the Transit’s engine roared.
‘Let’s catch us a murderer!’ Steel clicked on her seatbelt with one hand, zipping herself up with the other as Harmsworth handed out the crash helmets.
Tyres squealing on the library tarmac, the van leapt forward, ripping out of the car park, turning right, then right again. Accelerating past the McColl’s, lights flickering on. Siren: silent.
They wheeched past the library, where mothers with pushchairs stopped to watch them go by. Then a sharp left onto Gort Road, making the tyres screech again.
‘Hoy!’ Logan grabbed the handle above his door, holding tight as the seatbelt dug into his side. ‘Like to get there in one piece!’
A grin. ‘Don’t be such a starchy gusset . . .’
They shot past the bookies, juddering over the traffic control bumps, going at least double the speed limit.
A patrol car whooshed past the playing fields, heading straight towards them, lights blazing as it scraiked around the corner onto Gort Lane, just in front of the Transit.
‘Yeeehaw!’ Steel hauled the wheel hard right, following it into a canyon between two terraced rows of three-storey flats, with big communal bins outside and alternating stairwells painted blue or orange.
Another patrol car howled in from the other end of the road, followed by a Dog Unit van. Because there was nothing like swarming in mob-handed.
The second patrol car performed a handbrake sideways slide, blocking that side of the road. The one Steel was following did the same.
Putting it broadside to their speeding van.
Which was definitely going to plough straight into it . . .
Logan tightened his grip on the handle and said a little prayer.
And as if in answer – Steel slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel right, mounting the kerb, then bouncing onto the strip of grass outside the flats as the ABS juddered. Not coming to a halt until they’d crashed into a ‘RESIDENTS PARKING ONLY’ sign and bent it flat.
She unclipped her seatbelt. ‘Everyone remember where we parked!’ Then she was out of the van and into the blistering sun, pulling on her crash helmet as she ran for the entrance to Block Four.
The patrol cars’ doors sprang open and the uniformed officers made for the same block, swiftly followed by the rest of Steel’s team. Harmsworth huffing and puffing at the back of the pack, carrying the Big Red Door Key, struggling under the mini-battering-ram’s weight.
Logan, on the other hand, took his time – strolling up the path to the stairwell door at a far more leisurely pace. After all, Steel’s team had their riot gear on – if anything nasty happened, they were dressed for it. He wasn’t.
The uniforms from the patrol car took up positions: two on either side of the door.
Staying back as a saggy bloke in scruffy black cargo pants and a moth-eaten Police Scotland baseball cap appeared.
PC MacLauchlan. Squint nose. Jagged little teeth.
As if he’d recently crawled out from under a bridge to steal some children. And eat them.
He was being dragged towards the flats by a massive hairy Alsatian, straining at her leash, ears pricked, plumey tail wagging away as she bared every pointy tooth in her pointy head.
MacLauchlan grinned like a troll at the assembled officers. ‘Don’t worry, PD Branston doesn’t bite. Do you, girl?’
Branston let out a short-sharp bark that made it clear she did indeed bite, enjoyed doing it, and was quite ready to demonstrate her skill in this department on anyone willing to volunteer. And possibly a few people who weren’t.
Off in the middle distance, that ice-cream van tinkled its way through ‘Greensleeves’ again. Luring little kiddies for MacLauchlan and Branston to devour.
It sounded as if there were a bunch of them shrieking away behind the building, playing with something that went ‘thud-adudadududa . . .’ over and over again. Unaware of the hairy scary stranger danger.
The intercom beside the door had seven buttons – one for each flat, and an extra one marked ‘SERVICES’.
Barrett tapped the label for Flat E: ‘MACGARIOCH’. ‘This is us: Charles MacGarioch.’ Pronouncing it ‘Mac-Gar-eee-och’ with a gritty coffee-machine hiss for the ‘och’ as in ‘loch’.
Steel shook her head. ‘It’s “Mac-Geeee-reeee”, you spudge-nugget.’
A frown. ‘“Mac-Gee-reee”? You sure? Because—’
‘Ahem!’ Logan pointed. ‘Can we get on with this please? Before someone notices there’s a dirty big police van parked on their lawn!’
‘All right, all right. Keep your pants on.’ Steel poked a finger onto every single button, except for ‘FLAT E’, and held them down, making the intercom growl.
Everyone stared at the speaker’s dirty little grille.
Even Branston.
Then a woman’s voice crackled out: ‘What the buggering hell is it now?’
Steel put on her broadest teuchter voice. ‘Aye, aye. It’s Ina fae the cooncil. Says here yer hivin’ trouble wi some rats?’
‘Rats? Ghhhaaaagh . . . We’ve got rats?’
The door buzzed, then clicked.
Steel shoved it open. ‘Cheers, min!’ Then let go of the buttons and waved Harmsworth through. ‘You waiting for an engraved invitation?’
Harmsworth hefted the Big Red Door Key and lurched into the building, followed by Steel and her team, then PD Branston and PC MacLauchlan.
Good.
Logan thumbed the button on his Airwave. ‘Entered main property.’ Then nodded at the uniformed officers, and stepped into the manky stairwell.
Not piddly manky, but manky nonetheless.
The stairs doglegged around between each floor, and the first landing made a small cupboard-like space on the ground level, where residents had abandoned three knackered bicycles, a broken pushchair, and a doorless washing machine stuffed full of junk mail. That kind of manky.
The scrum bustled up the stairs, with Steel second from front – whipping Harmsworth before her. ‘Come on, Lumps-And-Bumps, shift it!’
Logan jogged up the steps behind them, not stopping on the first floor with its pronounced sharp fug of uncleaned litter tray.
Rutherford’s voice fizzed through the Airwave again. ‘Eyes open, people – we want a result here.’
Around the landing and on, up to the top floor, where Harmsworth was already going a sweaty-beetroot shade of red. Meaning his complexion clashed with his mini-battering-ram.
‘And no heroics! We know this guy’s dangerous.’
The rest of the team crowded into the narrow balcony, leaving Logan loitering on the top step, contemplating a strange little shrine, erected in the corner, outside Flat F – complete with joss sticks and drippy candles.
Only instead of a Buddha, Madonna, or statue of Shiva, there was a plastic Gary Lineker being worshipped by a semicircle of garden gnomes.
Steel smacked a hand down on Harmsworth’s shoulder. ‘Dunt it.’
Everyone else shuffled back a couple of feet, giving him enough room to swing the Big Red Door Key.
The first blow boomed into the door, setting the whole stairwell ringing like a bass drum. The second rattled it in its frame. And the third swing smashed the whole thing free, sending it tumbling into the flat with a crackle of splintering wood.
Job done, Harmsworth collapsed back against the wall, breathing like a leaky space hopper as the team rushed inside. Followed by a very excited PD Branston and her hobgoblin handler.
Logan stepped away from the shrine as shouts echoed out from the ruined doorway.
Steel: ‘POLICE! NOBODY MOVE!’
Barrett: ‘YOU! ON THE FLOOR! ON THE FLOOR NOW! . . . COME BACK HERE!’
Followed by some enthusiastic barking.
Then an old lady’s voice screeching obscenities, somewhere inside.
Tufty: ‘LEFT! LEFT! LEFT!’
Harmsworth wiped a heavy leather glove across his soggy strawberry face and grimaced at Logan. ‘When . . . when are . . . the sodding . . . Operational Support . . . Units . . . coming back . . . to work?’
‘When they’re feeling better. Now:’ making shooing gestures, ‘in you go.’
A groan, a droop, then Harmsworth dropped the Big Red Door Key, and staggered inside.
Tufty: ‘SARGE! SARGE, HE’S IN HERE!’
Logan followed Harmsworth into a short hallway that probably hadn’t been redecorated since the Coronation.
And not the latest one. Faded Union Jack bunting drooped in disappointed-grey strands, criss-crossing the ceiling, which gave the place a birthday-party-in-a-funeral-home kind of vibe, but really set off all the framed portraits of the late Queen on the walls.
Some with Phil, some with other family members.
Not sure Her Majesty would’ve approved of the old-lady filth howling from the first room on the right, though.
Logan peered in through the open door, and there was Lund: standing in an Antiques Roadshow bedroom, complete with Union Flag duvet cover and a big photo of the King over the bed.
‘OK: it’s OK.’ Lund had both hands out, doing her best to sound calming and authoritative while being subjected to a torrent of OAP-flavoured abuse. ‘Everything’s going to be OK. I need you to put the stick down, Victoria.’
Victoria had to be in her mid-eighties, but that didn’t stop her swearing like a drunken soccer casual – swinging an NHS-issue walking stick about like Excalibur, trying to take Mordred’s head off.
And you could tell she was up for the fight, because she’d rolled up the sleeves of her brown cardigan, exposing the thin, pale, tattooed arms beneath.
Down at the end of the hall, Steel’s voice was just audible between Victoria’s bouts of profanity and anatomically impossible instructions: ‘So get him out.’
Tufty: ‘Yeah, but the door’s locked or something.’
‘Then break it down! HARMSWORTH! Where’s that useless fat snudge?’
Well, it looked as if Lund had everything under control here – as the walking stick made another decapitatory attempt – so Logan left her to it.