Chapter 29
Logan held up a hand as the recovery van reversed perfectly into place, and its brake lights flared. Then the driver hopped out and connected his winch to the glazier’s van.
Normally, just after half five on a Wednesday afternoon, Holburn Street would be a constant stream of traffic.
Instead, it was all ‘ROAD CLOSED ~ ACCESS ONLY’, and ‘DIVERSION →’ from Bloomfield Road to Abergeldie Terrace.
They’d shut off chunks of Balmoral Place and Balmoral Road too, making an inverted crucifix with Mr Muscles playing the part of Christ.
Or at least he had been until the ambulance whisked him away, lights flickering and siren wailing.
Now, the only vehicles left within the cordon were the Toyota Hilux, the glazier’s van, and ‘CAPTAIN TOWAWAY ~ “IF YOU’VE HAD A CRASH, WE’LL COME IN A FLASH!”’
Two patrol cars sat just outside – blocking Holburn Street at either end.
One officer from each car kept the vulgar public away, while the other two swept up all the broken glass.
Carefully avoiding the glistening red puddle slowly baking into the tarmac where Mr Muscles came to an almost-dead halt.
Two Outside Broadcast Units had parked on the City Centre side of the barricade – ITV and Channel 4 – and a few hacks milled about outside the cordon on the Garthdee side, but the only thing that seemed to be actively recording was a BBC drone.
Suppose, once the body was removed, all the exciting news had already happened.
The recovery winch whined and poinged as it hauled the Auchterturra Glazing Company’s van up onto the load bay. Struggling a bit, because the Toyota Hilux had crushed the rear wheel arch and twisted the tyre round nearly ninety degrees.
The Hilux, on the other hand, only had a wee dent in the radiator to show for both impacts. So maybe . . .
Sod.
A familiar black Mercedes purred up to the barrier on Balmoral Road.
Sergeant Brookminster climbed out, scanning the street as if he was on the President’s Secret Service detail, before catching Logan’s eye, nodding, then opened the rear passenger door.
Here we go.
Chief Superintendent Pine stepped into the sun. Hung up on whoever it was she’d been talking to, and marched towards the crash scene, leaving Brookminster to mind the car.
Logan muffled a sigh, then stood a little straighter.
Pine stalked across the road, keeping her voice down. ‘I hope you’ve got a really good explanation for this massive cock-up.’
‘Boss. How nice of you to come out and show your support.’
Her eyes bugged.
Then she grabbed him by the arm and hustled him away, into the mouth of Balmoral Place. Presumably because the head-height walls on both sides of the little road offered a bit of shelter from the press.
She let go and poked him in the chest. ‘Your sarcasm is not appreciated. I’ve got one of the city’s major arteries closed off, a massive incident underway, and an unidentified man who might not live to see the evening news, never mind tomorrow!
’ She jabbed her poking finger at the bloodsplatch. ‘Now what the hell were you thinking?’
Logan bit the inside of his cheek, before anything unwise escaped. Took a deep breath. Then: ‘Our RTC victim was hanging about Balmain House Hotel yesterday. He was back again today, and when he clocked me and PC Kent, he ran. Bang: drops his shopping and sprints off down the road.’
‘You didn’t have to give chase!’
‘Oh, and you’d just let him go, would you? Nothing suspicious to see here?’
Pine glowered back. ‘That’s not the point.’
‘People only run because they don’t want to be caught.’ Actually, you know what? Screw diplomacy. This wasn’t his fault. ‘And it’s not like we chucked the guy in front of that truck! We were shouting at him to stop.’
She marched off five or six paces, then back again. ‘What did he do? Other than run.’
Good question.
‘Don’t know yet. Don’t even have a name – no wallet, no ID on him. Only a couple of fivers, a snotty hanky, and a small bunch of keys.’
‘Urgh . . .’ Pine covered her face. ‘He’s going to be an aid worker, isn’t he. Or a volunteer with handicapped kids . . .’ She dropped her hands, eyes narrowed. ‘Thought I told you “everyone in uniform”?’
‘I’d have nipped home to change, but I’ve been kinda busy.’
‘Oh, haven’t you just.’ She did another half-lap. ‘We can’t paint this guy as a suspect in Operation Iowa. Not till we’ve got some proof he was involved in burning the hotel.’ A frown. ‘He was involved, wasn’t he?’
Logan gave her a shrug.
‘Wonderful.’ Pine stared up into the pale blue sky. ‘Was our caseload not bad enough without you complicating everything? One dead body a day not sufficiently challenging without . . .’ waving her arms about, ‘this?’
‘Sorry, Boss.’
She drooped. ‘I know, I know.’ Sigh. ‘Where’s PC Kent?’
‘Sent her back to the station; doing a formal statement and incident report. If it helps, she’s got the whole chase on her BWV.’
‘Suppose that’s something.’ Pine went back to pacing, one finger tapping away at her forehead. ‘You’d better head off and do the same. I’ll hold down the fort here, till we get the road opened again.’
Good grief: a senior officer who was actually prepared to help. ‘Thanks, Boss.’ He flashed her a pained smile and got out of there before she changed her mind.
He’d barely gone a couple of paces up Balmoral Place before her voice rang out behind him:
‘And no more complications!’
Well, you never knew your luck, did you . . .?
Logan slumped along Balmoral Place, sticking to the pavement this time.
The dented Porsche was gone, along with its angry driver, and so had the quarrelling OAPs.
Leaving behind the chirp of birdsong and the sound of violins and a choir, coming from one of the houses – mournful, dark music that clashed with the vibrant gardens and flowering shrubs.
And fitted today perfectly.
A voice from across the road: ‘Aye, aye.’
Great.
Colin Miller lurked against a tree, suit jacket hooked on a finger, over his shoulder, as if out for a stroll on the piazza in Venice. He gave Logan a wee salute with his free hand. ‘Miss me?’
Nope.
Logan kept going. ‘Can we not, today? Haven’t got the energy for sparring.’
‘Busy day for you, the day.’ Colin fell in beside him. ‘It’s no’ bad going, though: murder-victim-discovered-in-the-river mid-morning, ID’d by teatime.’
‘We haven’t ID’d anyone.’
Wink. ‘Course you haven’t.’
‘Thought you were meeting your new owner.’
‘Aye, right. The great Ms Agapova still hasnae shown. Probably off swanking it up with her posh-and-or-rich chums.’ A sniff.
‘She’s just doing it to torture me.’ Then Colin put on an Australian accent so bad it would strip the hair off a koala at thirty paces: ‘“Nah-but-yeah, keep the poor bugger hangin’, he’ll be fair-dinkum sweating through his Grundies, waitin’ for the chop. Rippa!”’
Logan frowned. ‘Didn’t know she was Welsh.’
They wandered past the metal signs – one blocking the road, the other directing traffic to go down Braemar Place instead – and the funereal melody faded away, replaced by the squeals and shrieks of little children playing instead.
‘And how come you can still churn out your squalid little rag without an editor?’
‘Editors are like colonoscopies. Aye, sometimes they might be necessary, but most of the time they’re just a pain in the arse.’ Colin gave Logan the side-eye. ‘This barbecue invite: better no’ be some sort of half-arsed bribe, so I’ll go easy on youse in the paper.’
‘Told you – it was Isobel’s idea.’ Shrug. ‘But it wouldn’t hurt you to be less of a dick about everything.’
‘It’s my job to be a dick about everything.
See: it’s your job to catch bad guys and impose the will of the state.
I’m there to hold you to account. Otherwise, who’s gonnae keep you buggers honest?
’ The screeching got louder, followed by a flotilla of shimmering bubbles, wafting out from behind a high wall.
‘So your deid man in the river’s Andrew Shaw. ’
Logan stopped and stared at him.
Grin. ‘People phone and email the paper all the time. They see all youse daft buggers in your SOC suits, tramping in and out of their neighbour’s house? They tend to notice something’s up.’
‘We search lots of houses, all the time. Doesn’t mean it’s—’
‘Andrew Wallace Shaw: thirty-two. Gigolo-Joe-looking motherfucker – all Botox and Brylcreem. Works at Brenda’s Hair and Beauty Palace on Chapel Street, doing perms and colouring. Very good at it, so I’m told.’ Frown. ‘No’ any more, like. On account of him being deid.’
Logan headed off again. ‘You’re fishing, Colin.’
‘Nah, I’m no’.’ Radiating smugness.
‘One of your little birdies?’
‘Gotta protect my sources, but. Only thing I can tell you is: it’s no’ Isobel. She wouldnae tell me shite, even if my job was on the line. Which it probably is, byraway.’
Logan turned right at the crossroads, heading up Broomhill Road, back towards the Mobile Command Unit. On the other side of the road, a wee man was out changing the display on the newsagent’s sandwich board to ‘CITY CAR CHASE ENDS IN CARNAGE!’
Colin scowled. ‘I mind the day when being a journalist meant something. Now we’re all bloody “Content Creators” and “Engagement Engineers”.
I shite you not – “Engagement Engineers”!
’ A snort. ‘Used to be about digging out the facts, no fear or favour; speaking truth to power, sticking up for the little guy . . . Now it’s all “How many tweets did you put out the day?”, “How many likes and retweets did you get?”, “How many bloody comments?”’
‘You saying that headline wasn’t you?’
‘Course it sodding wasn’t. Think I don’t know the difference between an ice-cream van and a car? Can’t have a car chase with a pair of sodding vans. And you never ever put a dog’s cock on a headline!’
OK . . .
No idea what that meant, and no desire to find out.
The wee man unfurled a new poster for the sandwich board’s back face, too: ‘UK brACED FOR MORE RACE RIOTS’.
Colin snarled, shoulders up. ‘And don’t get me started on that bollocks. Whipping up fear while simultaneously promoting the bloody thing you’ve just told everyone to be afraid of! Tell youse, it’s—’
‘Hello?’ A voice honked out, right behind them. One of those teenage-boy noises that wobbled about from bass to treble mid-word. ‘Out of the way! Excuse me. Thanks.’
Logan stepped aside and a young man trundled past, wheeling a pushchair and talking on a mobile phone at the same time.
His AFC tracksuit was two sizes too big, flapping about in his wake as he clomped away at speed, on massive trainers, heading up Broomhill Road.
Taking his World War One haircut, yodelly voice, and schoolboy zits with him.
‘No! . . . Because it’s your turn to change the nappies!
I always change the nappies . . . . Yeah, well I want to go on the school trip to Belgium too – how about we prioritise my needs for a change, Sharlene? ’
Kids today . . .
Colin dug his free hand deep in his pocket. ‘And when did it become OK to dumb down everything? Who decided we’re all thick as breeze blocks?’
‘Did you just come here to whinge?’
‘Hmmm? Oh.’ A frown. Then Colin jerked his head back, over his shoulder. ‘Yeah: yer man, back there, Mr Tarmac Tartare. This mean youse’ve finally got a suspect for the hotel fire?’
‘Off the record?’
A nod.
‘Can’t say. And I don’t mean that in a police “we can’t talk about ongoing investigations” way: we don’t know. He was standing right there,’ Logan pointed at the pavement, opposite the burnt-out hotel, ‘watching the place, and when he saw us, he legged it. Don’t even know who he is.’
‘What is it with you bastards and chasing folk till something shitey happens?’
They crossed the end of Balmoral Terrace, slowing up as the crime scene loomed. The pool car was still tucked in behind the MCU, so at least Rennie and Tufty hadn’t sodded off with it when he’d sent them back to the station.
Small mercies.
Colin pulled his lips in, as if tasting a fine wine. Then spat out, ‘I was thinking . . . steak. How many people you got coming to this thing, Sunday?’
‘About twenty, twenty-five?’
‘Aye, maybe burgers, then. And some beer. No point wasting quality wine on you bunch of philistines.’
‘Speaking of whipping up fear – you heard any rumours about this protest march? Rumblings? Plots?’
‘What: racist arse-nuggets versus anti-fascists; climate change deniers versus eco nutters; pro-war – anti-war; far-right wankers – woke socialist tossers; sharks and the jets . . .?’ He bared his teeth.
‘Hope you’ve got the Fire Brigade standing by.
Isobel and me are barricading the doors and sheltering-in-place till it’s all over. ’
Logan headed across the road. ‘Thanks for that. Very helpful.’
‘I’m no’ an informer, Laz. Got to keep my shiny shield of impartiality polished to an impeccable sheen.’ A quick shifty glance, left and right. ‘But wouldn’t hurt to have a wee lookie at Graeme Anderson. You know, on the off chance . . .?’
The name was familiar, but not sure why.
Find out soon enough, though.
‘OK. Thanks, Colin.’
‘Aye, well – one: you didn’t hear it from me, and two: you owe me. Again. And don’t you forget it!’