Chapter 30 #2
Tufty whipped his phone out. ‘Sarge.’
Logan looked across the car. ‘This restaurant Charles MacGarioch’s girlfriend works at – think it’ll be open by now?’
Rennie popped his oversized shades back on. ‘I could eat.’
A long, flat-fronted, granite terrace curved along one side of Bon-Accord Crescent.
Two storeys up and one storey down – where each basement level was set back behind its own little lightwell, with steps leading down below road level.
Mullioned windows and grand double doors; olde-worlde lamp-posts and iron railings.
Looking out over a verdant triangle of parkland.
Even if most of it was hidden behind a swathe of trees.
The restaurant menu was mounted to the railings, beside an open gate and stairs down to a welcoming mini-courtyard with sculptural pot plants and a wee seating area.
Rennie leaned in for a good squint at the glazed frame as Logan locked the car and joined Tufty on the pavement.
The wee loon held up his phone. ‘Graeme Anderson: forty-three, Libra, history of DV and possession-with-intent. Got four years for putting a junior doctor in a wheelchair.’
‘Doesn’t he sound nice.’
‘I had a sneaky wee look at his socials, Sarge. He does not has a very nice at all.’
Rennie whistled. ‘Sodding hell . . . “Tempura haddock, with triple-cooked chips, crushed petit pois, and sauce gribiche” – guess how much.’
‘Here.’ Logan tossed him the car keys.
‘Oh no. I’m not keeping a dog and barking.’ He lobbed them at Tufty instead. ‘You can play chauffeur.’
‘Eeek . . .’ There was a bit of juggling as Tufty fumbled the catch.
Then a clatter as they hit the deck. Then some scrambling to pick them up again.
‘Bad keys: naughty!’ He pocketed the things.
‘Anyway, so Anderson’s always liking horrible posts from Vision for Britain and the Anglo Saxon Defence Group and the People’s Sovereign Army.
He’s what nice polite people call a complete arseholish turd-wit. ’
‘Seriously,’ Rennie pointed at the menu, ‘thirty-six quid. For a fish supper!’
Logan descended the steps into the little suntrap, where heat radiated from its granite walls, making his forehead prickle with sweat. ‘THE STAR-SPRINKLED HEAVENS’ gleamed in gold letters above the restaurant door.
Tufty bimbled down after him. ‘Think Anderson might even be treasurer of the local ASDG chapter . . .’ A pause. ‘Ooh, ooh! Can we go arrest him for something?’
‘Don’t know yet.’
He opened the door and stepped into air-conditioned opulence.
It was all low lighting, polished wood, decorative glass, and dark-blue walls in here. Something soothing and classical wafted out from hidden speakers, while a constellation of LEDs glittered in the midnight ceiling.
The ma?tre d’ stood up behind her desk, smiling as Logan entered. White-haired and maternal, arms open wide. ‘Welcome to the Star-Sprinkled Heavens. Can I take your coats and ask what name your table is reserved under?’
Logan presented his warrant card. ‘I understand Keira’s working tonight?’
‘Oh dear . . .’
‘It’s OK, she’s not in any trouble. We just think she might’ve seen something that can help with a case we’re working on.’
A prim little nod. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’ Off she bustled, through a door behind the reception desk, leaving Logan and Tufty alone.
Until Rennie squeezed in. ‘And you won’t believe what they want for a steak.
Eighty-seven quid for a ribeye! And you don’t even get tatties – you have to buy all your vegetables and sauces on top of that.
’ Curling his lip as he looked around. ‘Me and Emma found a place in Union Square last week and it was sixteen ninety-nine a head. All-you-can-eat.’
Somehow doubt it would be quite the same dining experience as this place . . .
Tufty noodled on his phone.
Logan counted the LED stars.
No one paid any attention to Rennie.
So he had to spoil the silence: ‘And another thing—’
Thankfully, that was as far as he got, because the door through to the dining room opened, releasing the murmur of conversation and clitter-scraik of cutlery on plates as the early-dinner crowd got stuck-in to their overpriced meals.
A young woman slipped into reception, wearing a smart white shirt, tweed waistcoat, black trousers, and the half-apron of a French waiter.
Keira looked a lot younger and shorter in real life, especially without the heavy make-up.
Her long black hair was pulled back in a neat French pleat, and she shuffled her sensible brogues on the carpet. Not meeting anyone’s eyes.
Logan tried a non-threatening smile. ‘Keira?’
‘Hello?’ Sounding even younger still, a wee nervous tremor in her voice as she snuck a look at Tweedle-Spud and Tweedle-Twit in their police uniforms.
‘It’s OK: we just need to ask you a few questions, then you can get back to work.’
She bit her bottom lip at the ma?tre d’. ‘Is it OK?’
A matronly nod. ‘Of course it is. Why don’t you take them out the back? Give yourself a bit of privacy.’
Which no doubt had the added benefit of getting the police out of reception before any guests saw them and started suspecting something was very wrong in Restaurantland.
Keira gave her a little curtsey, then swept a hand towards a small, unassuming door, as if leading them to their table. ‘Please, follow me, gentlemen.’
‘The back’ turned out to be a narrow gully between the kitchen’s extractor ports, the outer wall of the toilets, and the bins.
Marinating in the smell of mouldering food waste.
Beyond that, the neighbouring properties’ eight-foot-high walls enclosed a small ‘STAFF ONLY’ car park jammed with rusty old hatchbacks – festering in the blistering sunshine.
A stringy wee bloke squatted atop a couple of old veg boxes, knees level with his shoulders, sooking on an old-fashioned cigarette and fiddling with his phone. Getting ash all down his long black waterproof apron. Fingers chapped red and raw, like uncooked beef sausages.
He looked up and scowled as Keira stepped out through the emergency exit, then went back to his mobile. ‘Tell Benny to sod off: I’m on my statutory break.’
She held the door open for Logan and his halfwits. ‘Bruno, can you give me a minute, please? I . . . I need to speak to someone.’
‘Then you can sod off too. I’m – on – my – break!’
A cruel smile twisted Keira’s face, and just like that, the trembling, shy little girl vanished, replaced by a much harder version. ‘Either you do one, or I tell the nice policemen here all about what you’ve got hidden in the bottom of your locker.’
Bruno’s head snapped up at that. Eyes widening as he saw Rennie and Tufty, standing there in the full Police Scotland getup. He scrambled to his feet. ‘All right, all right! Jesus. You’re such a beeeee-atch!’
She clicked her fingers at him. ‘Give us a fag, too. Don’t be a stingy prick.’
He slumped and flumped, then tapped a cigarette from his pack and handed it over.
Glowering as he lit the thing. ‘Can I go now?’ Bruno stuck out his weedy little chest, nose in the air as he squeezed past Logan.
‘I ain’t got nothing in no locker. She’s just being a biatch.
’ Then off he scurried, no doubt keen to get rid of whatever it was he definitely didn’t have planked in his locker.
‘He’s the bitch.’ Keira took a long slow draw on the cigarette she’d bullied out of the kitchen’s pot washer. She whoomphed a lungful of smoke in Logan’s direction. And her transformation from a polite little girl into an arrogant wee shite was complete.
Her chin came up. ‘What? You never see a Nubian goddess before?’
OK . . .