pulled a packet of cigarettes from a kitchen drawer and lit one. Shook the packet at Logan.
‘Given up.’
Shrug. ‘Suit yourself.’ She sent a plume of smoke crashing against the extractor hood. ‘Course, we used to be real tight … Best friends. Used to tell me everything. We were something special back then; sixteen years old, sexy as hell, men throwing themselves at us.’ A smile oozed across Victoria’s face, then disappeared. ‘Now look at me.’
The kettle rumbled to a boil. Logan filled a mug. Fished the teabag out with the handle of a fork. ‘So what happened?’
A long smoky sigh. ‘Doddy McGregor happened. She thought he was just this big stupid lump of muscle, but he knew a good thing when he saw it.’ Victoria rubbed two fingers up and down the side of her face, pushing the skin into folds. ‘Walked in and caught us at it, didn’t she? Doddy says he’s just getting it out of his system, before the wedding. Invites her to join in, says it’d be hot. And she’s standing there: six months pregnant. Fuck, I thought she was going to kill him.’ Victoria laughed. ‘Thought she was going to kill me too. Never spoke after that.’
Logan poured the last dribble of semi-skimmed into his mug. ‘So you haven’t seen them recently?’
‘Course I have.’ She curled back her top lip, exposing little brown teeth. ‘They’re fucking everywhere: on the telly, in the papers, can’t turn on the radio and they’re playing that bloody song. She gets a tribute show with Robbie Williams, what do I get? Fucking diabetes.’
Quarter to three. Forty-five minutes to go. Logan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. One sex offender due diligence interview down, two to go. Should really go visit the vet’s Frank Baker volunteered at, make sure DI Steel had followed it up properly. Be a good little boy.
He rode the clutch down to the roundabout, joining the queue waiting to get over the King George VI Bridge.
Superintendent Napier … Why did it have to be him? At least with Chief Inspector Young you got a decent chance to explain your side of things.
Forward another couple of car-lengths. A huge eighteen-wheeler with the Baxters’ logo down the side hissed and juddered around onto Great Southern Road. A taxi blared its horn at a massive four-by-four, then it was Logan’s turn on the roundabout.
He accelerated out, turned right … and kept on going, right around the roundabout and back the way he’d come. Sod Superintendent Sodding Green and his sodding due diligence.
Five minutes later Logan was standing outside the house where they’d dropped off Trisha Brown’s wee boy so he could spend the night with his drug addict granny. It was worth a try.
The front door was scuffed, the wood dented, as if it’d been given a bit of a kicking. It wasn’t a bad neighbourhood, just a bunch of bland granite houses a few streets over from where Alison and Jenny McGregor lived. Logan tried the doorbell. No answer. Then he tried the handle, and the door swung open.
The Browns’ hallway was a minefield of broken furniture. A ratty purple sofa was twisted onto its side, half in and half out of the living room door. A glass-topped coffee table made glittering mosaic shards on the carpet.
When Shuggie said his Yardie mates had trashed the place, he wasn’t kidding …
‘Hello?’ Logan pressed the bell again, and a dull clunking buzz sounded somewhere down the hall. ‘Anyone home?’
Glass scrunched under his shoes. ‘Anyone?’
He peered into the lounge. More damage: TV smashed, armchairs broken, the floor littered with CDs. Fleetwood Mac lying by the door, the cover cracked.
Shattered jars and bottles littered the kitchen floor, covering the dirty linoleum with glass and sticky liquid. Pickled onions amongst a shattered jar of beetroot, like tiny eyes swimming in a sea of blood. Cupboard doors ripped from the units, the fridge dented and buckled.
It wasn’t random destruction, it was systematic.
The stairs creaked as he climbed.
Bathroom: toilet smashed, grey-pink pedestal mat soaking wet. Sink cracked. The bath’s front panel kicked in, the mixer shower ripped from the wall.
Bedroom one: mattress gutted, its innards burst across the bare chipboard floor. Ripped clothes. A chest of drawers turned into a Picasso sculpture. A wardrobe lurching drunkenly against the headboard. Curtains torn down.
The second bedroom wasn’t so bad. It actually looked as if someone had tidied up in here. A small pile of clothes sat in the corner: other than that, the floor was relatively clean. OK, so the wardrobe was living testimony to the miraculous powers of silver duct tape, and the mattress lay on the floor instead of a bed, but it had sheets and an almost-clean duvet cover … About four drawers were stacked, one on top of the other, by the window, overflowing with bras, socks, and pants.
Logan walked over to the room’s cracked window and looked out across the road at the houses on the other side. The neighbours must love it here. You save hard, buy your very own council house, and then Helen Brown moves in. Next thing you know you’ve got three generations of drug users living next door. Breaking into your house, shed, garage, car, anywhere they can nick something to sell and feed their habit.
And then a pair of Yardies turn up and wreck the place. Do a bloody good job of it too.
Ah well …
It’d been a long shot. Shuggie Webster wasn’t lying low at his girlfriend’s mum’s house. He was probably off licking his wounds in a squat somewhere. If the Yardies hadn’t killed him.
Logan checked his watch again. Twenty-five minutes to get back to the station in time for his bollocking. He turned and … stopped. Frowned.
The wardrobe – a cheap-looking flatpack job, all veneer-covered chipboard, papered with tatty photos cuts from the pages of Hello! and Heat and Bella – was creaking. It was moving too. Not much, just a little trembling back and forth motion, but it was definitely moving.
A smile crawled across Logan’s face. Shuggie Webster, you predictable little shite …
Time to come out of the closet.
Logan pulled out his pepper-spray, and popped the top off. He crept over to the rocking wardrobe. Grabbed the wooden handle. Threw it wide open. ‘You enjoying Narnia then, Shug—’
Something slammed into Logan’s stomach and he went staggering backwards. Then over, the room flipping through ninety degrees, and then thump. Flat on his back. Cold, sharp pain, as if six-inch metal screws were being twisted into his guts.
A small bare foot flashed past Logan’s nose. A hand, a blue sleeve. The rancid piddly smell of stale clothes, left too long in the washing machine. Scrabbling, swearing, then the slapping sound of naked feet on floorboards.
Logan shot a hand out, groping … Not finding anything. He rolled over onto his side, forced himself upright and lurched to the bedroom door. It sounded as if there were snakes in the hallway below – hissing and writhing. He stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the wallpaper
