Chapter 37
The pool car whipped up Anderson Drive, lights flickering. Tufty poked the horn, making the siren whonk and whyeeeeeoooow, parting the traffic in front of them like a shortarsed Moses.
He was hunched over the wheel, as if that would make the car go faster.
Logan shifted in his seat, one finger in his ear to block out the excess noise, because it was almost impossible to hear Ralph Hay’s voice over the phone. ‘That’s great, thanks.’
‘No problems. Hope it helps.’
Logan hung up.
Soon as he did, Tufty flipped the switch, setting the siren wailing full time as they shot through the King’s Gate Roundabout.
Right.
Logan waved a hand at the backseat. ‘Rennie: I need a PNC check on one Spencer Findlater.’
‘On it.’
Tufty accelerated up the hill, overtaking a minibus and a Mackie’s lorry, eyes firmly fixed on the road. ‘Sa-arge, not that I’m not enjoying the wheech, but why are we wheeching? I mean, this Spencer bloke hasn’t woken up or anything, so it’s not like we can question him.’
‘Because you heard Randolph Hay – Charles MacGarioch is hyper-loyal to his friends.’ Pointing towards Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. ‘Well, his friend’s just been in a horrible accident; of course he’s going to visit Spencer in hospital.’
‘Yeah,’ Tufty killed the siren, ‘but nobody knows he’s in hospital except us, Sarge. And we only found out thirty seconds ago.’
Logan opened his mouth, then shut it again.
The wee loon had a point.
‘Sod.’
‘OK, got him.’ Rennie poked his head through from the back, reading off his phone.
‘Spencer Findlater, nineteen: handful of warnings for getting into fights; almost ended up in a Young Offenders Institution for torching wheelie bins when he was a kid; bunch of shoplifting; all about the same time.’ A grunt.
‘Guess he didn’t handle losing his parents very well. ’
‘You got an address?’
‘Not a million miles away: Four Arnage Court.’
‘OK.’ Logan gave Tufty a poke. ‘You heard the man.’
Arnage Court wrapped around three sides of a nice big rectangle of grass, dotted with trees and some saggy rhododendrons. Someone had been at the road sign, adding a ‘C’ to the start of the first word.
Three-storey blocks lined the court – each one made up of four or five units, with six flats apiece and a central stairwell.
If you were lucky enough to live on the upper floors, you got a balcony of your very own, but the ground floor had access straight out onto a shared garden area. Where all the recycling bins lived.
There were even more bins lined up along the overgrown hedge outside the first block. About twenty feet of them. All black and wheelie and waiting for collection.
Rennie whistled as they drove slowly by. ‘That’s a lot of bins to burn . . .’
Tufty parked behind a fusty Transit with ‘SANDY THE HOOSE BUILDER’ on the side and a peeling graphic of a cartoon joiner. ‘Think the arson connection’s relevant? You know, with the hotel?’
They climbed out into the stifling heat, and Rennie popped on his stupid sunglasses again. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Everyone goes through a “burning things” phase. Right?’
Logan stared at him.
Tufty raised both eyebrows.
Rennie pulled his chin in. ‘What?’ Following Logan through the knee-high gate and up to the front door. ‘Oh, come on! It’s not just me. Everybody does it.’
‘Enough.’ Logan rang the bell for Flat Four. ‘We’re about to tell some poor sod their grandchild’s been mangled in an accident. Either you’re on your best behaviour, or you’re waiting in the car. But you’re not going up there to act the prick, do I make myself clear?’
Maybe a bit close to the bone, but he deserved it.
Pink scoured its way up Rennie’s neck. ‘Sorry, Guv.’
Should think so too.
A black cat sauntered past, tail in the air, pausing only to mark its territory against a brown garden-waste bin.
A woman tottered along the pavement, coughing and hacking away.
Somewhere in the distance, children were chanting a skipping song:
‘Your dad is a big fat tosser,
He did a wank upon a saucer,
Your mum cooked it for your tea,
With bogies and a big jobbie!
How many jobbies did you eat?
One, two, three, four . . .’
Logan was reaching for the bell again when a man’s voice growled out of the intercom, old and mushy and distorted by the cheap speaker:
‘Yeah, what? . . . Erm . . . What you . . . want?’
‘Mr Findlater?’
No reply.
Tufty raised his hand. ‘You’ve got to press the button, Sarge.’
‘Hmmph.’ Logan pressed the button. ‘Mr Findlater, can we come in, please? We need to talk . . .’
‘Oh for . . . erm . . . fuck’s sake.’
But he buzzzzzed them in anyway.
Mr Findlater must’ve been a bear of a man when he was younger, but now he was bent like a paperclip as he shuffled back to his baggy armchair.
Most of his hair had gone, leaving a straggly collar-length droop behind, but his face was a thing to scare children – lumpen craggy features and a nose that had been broken so many times it barely counted as a nose any more.
His burgundy cardigan had faded to the colour of old blood, and even though it had to be in the mid-thirties outside, he was bundled up in a shirt and jumper too.
His brown cords were worn through at the knees, much like the carpet.
There was a second armchair – clearly part of the same set, but a lot less scuffed, dusty, and sagging – and a wooden dining chair, all three facing a small TV. Though it wasn’t on.
A bookcase lurked in the corner, stuffed full of record-your-own video tapes. Each one carefully labelled in faded ink along the spine.
Having completed his wobbly journey, the old man collapsed into his seat.
Logan sat on the edge of the wooden chair. ‘Mr Findlater, I’m—’
‘Frank.’ Now that it wasn’t filtered through the intercom’s wiring, his voice was a low, dark rumble. ‘S’ Frank.’
‘Frank. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.’
Blank look.
‘Your grandson, Spencer? He was hit by a car this afternoon and he’s in hospital.’
‘Hospital? . . . Man . . .’ He shook his head, blinking, as if trying to get spots out of his vision. ‘I’ve been . . . having . . . erm . . . tests.’
Rennie wandered over to the other armchair, lowering himself into—
‘NO!’ Mr Findlater was on his feet, no longer folded over and trembling, but huge and broad and powerful. ‘DON’T YOU FUCKIN’ DARE!’
Rennie scrambled out of the seat, before his bum could even touch down. ‘OK, it’s OK.’
‘YOU STAY OUT OF HER CHAIR!’
‘OK, I’m sorry!’ Hands up in surrender. ‘Won’t go near it. See? Promise.’ He backed away from the seat.
‘Nobody sits there.’ Glowering at the empty space.
As the anger faded, so did Mr Findlater – the towering monster shrinking until only the trembling old man remained.
He juddered his way back into his own chair.
Well, that was . . . Yeah.
Logan cleared his throat. ‘Mr . . . Frank, is there anyone we can call? A carer, or somebody?’
‘Spencer takes . . . Spencer’s my grandson . . . . He takes care of me.’
‘But Spencer’s in hospital, Frank.’
A frown crumpled that monolith brow. ‘I . . . erm . . . I been in hospital . . . . They ran . . . tests.’
‘Tell you what, Frank, why don’t I make you a nice cup of tea?’ Logan stood. ‘Would you like a tea?’
But Mr Findlater seemed to have drifted away, squinting at the blank TV instead, as if something was already playing there.
‘Right.’ Heading for the living-room door.
Tufty scurried over. ‘I’ll get the teas in, if you like?’ Playing the good sidekick.
‘You stay here and keep an eye on Sergeant Rennie. Just in case.’ Then Logan slipped out into the hall.
It was an awkward, fat ‘L’ shape, with a mess of eight doors leading off.
The first one opened on a cupboard full of dusty bed linen.
The second revealed a kitchen that was more like a corridor, lined with grunky, old-fashioned cupboards and cabinets.
Logan closed the door and tried again: another cupboard, full of boxed crap this time.
Number four led out onto the balcony, where a knackered bicycle slowly decomposed, along with a couple of clothes horses and some tins of paint. But then they’d squeezed past those when they’d come through the door at the far end, from the stairwell. So that was no use.
Fifth: a bathroom, with an ancient, stained, salmon-pink suite and peeling lino floor.
Which left two to try.
Eenie, meenie . . .
Logan tried the one furthest away: an old-fashioned bedroom with floral pillows-and-bedspread that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in a while, and a view out over the rear green.
Which left door number eight.
Logan stepped into a small bedroom, that clearly belonged to a much younger person.
Like Charles MacGarioch and Andrew Shaw, Spencer Findlater had papered his walls with posters, but instead of films, soft-porn popstars, and computer games, he’d gone with oiled-up bodybuilders – men flexing away in their swimming trunks, showing off their veiny muscles and leathery tans.
A collection of free weights were neatly stacked beneath the window. The single bed wore an old Transformers duvet cover.
But what was most striking about the place were the heaps and heaps and heaps of dirty-big tubs of whey protein. Each one large enough to hold a child’s severed head.
There had to be at least two hundred of them in here. Lots of different brands, most still in their shrink-wrapped pack-of-six cases – complete with delivery notes.
Logan snapped on a pair of gloves, hefted a multi-pack off the nearest stack, and turned it over to read the delivery address.
It was the sports shop on Thistle Street – the one getting its windows replaced this afternoon.
Hmmm . . .
Bet every delivery note in here would turn out to be from a sports shop that’d been broken into.
Which at least solved that one . . .
Logan opened the built-in wardrobe and searched through the clothes. Other than yet more tubs of whey protein, stashed under piles of athletic leisure wear – most of which still had the security tags attached – there was nothing exciting.
So he tried the mattress instead.
Levering it up from the bed frame exposed a bunch of magazines with titles like Muscle Mag and Flex and UK Beef. Which sounded like gay porn, but a quick rifle through proved that although they were full of oiled-up men in their pants, it was all about bodybuilding.
And yeah, teenaged boys were known to have a one-track mind, but this was ridiculous.
Just to be safe, Logan knelt on Optimus Prime’s face and peeled back the posters above the bed. But there were no hidden photos, or anything else. Just a couple of startled spiders.
He checked under the bed instead.
Ooh, a holdall.
That looked a bit more promising.
Logan pulled the thing out and unzipped it.
A black tracksuit sat on the top. And when Logan lifted it out, there was a hammer, a pair of black trainers with little sparkling cubes of broken glass embedded in their treads, and a pair of black leather gloves. All carrying a faint . . . unleaded smell.
Sod.
OK.
He put everything back where he’d found it, zipped the holdall up again, and slid it under the bed.
Stood.
Snapped off his gloves and pocketed them. Before retreating from Spencer Findlater’s bedroom and closing the door behind him.
Logan eased back into the living room, carrying a mug of tea and a digestive biscuit on a wee plate.
Someone had turned the TV on, and now Tufty, Rennie, and Mr Findlater sat there, watching some old boxing match.
Well, Mr Findlater and Tufty were sitting – the old man in his sagging armchair, the wee loon on the dining-room chair – while Rennie stood off to one side.
Clearly not wanting to risk another shouting-at.
The picture was a bit grainy, and there was a stripe down one side, but that didn’t seem to bother them as two huge men battered the living crap out of each other in the ring.
Mr Findlater’s shoulders twitched in time with every punch thrown by the guy in the red shorts.
Rennie looked up from the screen. Reaching for the mug in Logan’s hand. ‘Cheers, Guv.’
‘Not for you.’
‘Oh . . .’ The idiot drooped for a second, then perked right up again.
‘Anyway, you’ll never guess: but we’re in the company of genuine sporting greatness.
This,’ Rennie put on an OTT announcer’s voice and shoogled both hands towards their host, ‘is the one, the only: Francis “Big Frank” Findlaterrrrrrrrrrrr!’
Never heard of him.
Logan handed ‘Big Frank’ the mug and the old man took it without moving his eyes from the screen.
‘Thought I recognised the name when we came in, but then I saw all the videos.’ Rennie hooked a thumb at the bookcase. ‘Big Frank had golden gloves, man. He could put a guy twice his size on his arse in three rounds. Biff, bang, crash, wallop!’
Logan hunkered down beside Mr Findlater’s armchair. ‘Frank, do you know where Spencer was on Sunday night, Monday morning? Can you remember for me?’
Nothing. Not even a frown.
‘Course it all went south after the Roxborough fight. Roxborough was aye a cheating bastard, though. Got a six-month ban for what he did, but poor Frank never fought again.’
‘Frank? Where was Spencer on Sunday night? Was he out?’
Something flickered inside Mr Findlater and he resurfaced from the boxing ring. ‘Spencer’s in hospital . . . . He’s . . . Police came round . . . erm . . . came round and told me . . . Spencer’s in hospital.’ His forehead furrowed. ‘They do all these . . . tests . . .’
Logan patted his arm. ‘I know, Frank. I’m sorry.’
And then he was gone again.