covered with wax-paper cups and a plate of pastries. He placed it in the middle of the long, polished table and everyone stopped what they were doing to scramble for the jammy doughnuts. Leaving him with a greasy-looking apple turnover, a white coffee, and a sulk.
Bunch of bastards. Complaining about his attitude, like he was the worst person in the whole bloody place. Hell, he wasn’t even the worst person in the room.
Like all Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements meetings the place was packed with people doing their best to come up with ‘defensible decisions’. Decisions they couldn’t get blamed for if anything went wrong. Social Services, the Council, Sacro, and Grampian Police, all covering their arses and hoping to God that Richard Knox would eventually get fed up of Aberdeen and bugger off back down south. Become someone else’s problem.
Detective Inspector Duncan Ingram – in charge of monitoring every pervert, rapist, and paedophile in the north-east of Scotland – stood at the front of the room, writing up the exit strategy for Richard Knox on the whiteboard in squeaky green marker pen. Pausing every now and then to check his thin, military moustache was still obeying orders.
It was a complete waste of time. Knox didn’t need an exit strategy, he needed an exit wound. Preferably from a shotgun to the back of the head.
DSI Danby sat at the other end of the long, polished boardroom table, taking notes. DI Steel slouched in her seat, picking her teeth. And DCI Finnie stood in the corner, holding a murmured conversation with someone on his mobile.
Ingram rammed the cap back on his marker pen, and supervised his moustache again. ‘Now, as you can see from the risk assessment matrix, we’ve got several environmental factors against us where Richard Knox is concerned. The house is within easy walking distance of one sheltered living facility, a bowling green, and Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. All places we can expect old men to be found on a regular basis…’
Logan tuned him out.
How could anyone complain about his attitude?
This was so bloody typical of—
Someone kicked him under the table.
‘Wh…’
Steel was making less than subtle gestures towards the whiteboard. Mouthing, ‘Pay a-fucking-tention!’
‘…and that’s why,’ DI Ingram had written ‘HMP PETERHEAD’ on the board, ‘we have a disproportionately large number of sex offenders to manage. Of the three hundred and twenty-three currently living in the North East, about half are classed as “indefinite”. So they’re on the list for life…’
Logan tuned him out again. It was all rubbish anyway, background info for a nodding DSI Danby. Now there was someone with an attitude worth complaining about. But did they? No, they had to whinge about Logan instead. Obviously, that cock-weasel Beattie was behind it all. Wanted taking out and—
Steel kicked him again. Then turned and announced to the room, ‘How about DS McRae takes us through the surveillance routine?’
Cow.
Logan scowled at her, then stood and marched to the front of the room, snatched a red marker from the tray beneath the whiteboard and scrawled up a rough outline of the house in Cornhill that Knox had inherited. ‘We can’t put surveillance cameras in the house without Knox’s permission, so we’re going to set one on the lamppost opposite…’ Logan sketched in the street. ‘Here, and another one here. This gives us a coming-and-going view the length of Cairnview Terrace. He’ll get level one surveillance for the first week, then—’
‘Just the one week?’ Danby shifted in his chair. ‘He’s not going to suddenly get better, you know what I’m saying?’
Logan shrugged. ‘Budget constraints. One week of level one surveillance: round the clock with two officers in an unmarked van. After that we have to downgrade it to level two. We’ll try to keep an eye on the live video feed … depending on staffing levels.’
‘You’ll try to keep an eye on it?’
‘He’s going to have someone from Sacro with him round the clock anyway, so it—’
‘A bunch of volunteers? That’s not good enough.’
‘They do more support and monitoring of high-risk offenders than any other—’
‘Knox abducts and rapes old men.’ Danby thumped the table with a huge finger punctuating every word, ‘He – needs – constant – police – supervision.’
‘Yeah, well if you wanted him watched twenty-four-seven you should’ve kept him in Newcastle, shouldn’t you?’
Danby’s eyes bugged in his head. ‘What?’
‘Look, we don’t have bottomless pockets up here, OK? Everyone dumps their sodding sex offenders on us and we’re supposed to just bend over and take it.’ Logan jabbed the whiteboard with his pen. ‘This is the best we can do. You want more? Get Northumbria Police to chip in and pay for it. He’s your pervert.’
Steel buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh bloody hell…’
DSI Danby was on his feet, face flushed, fists resting on the tabletop. Voice a thick, dark rumble. ‘I don’t care if everyone here’s used to your crap, Sergeant, but my warrant card says, “Detective Superintendent”. And if you want someone to bend you over, I bloody well will.’
Silence.
‘Er … yes.’ DI Ingram cleared his throat, straightened his moustache again. ‘Anyway, if we’re done with surveillance, maybe we could move on to response times and contingency planning?’
‘Are you out of your bloody mind?’ DI Steel slammed the office door behind her. ‘Did I say you could sit down?’
Logan hauled himself up out of her visitor’s chair. ‘He was being a wanker.’
‘Course he was: he’s a sodding superintendent, it’s his job to be a wanker! But you … you’re making a fucking calling out of it!’ She jabbed Logan in the chest with a red-painted fingernail. ‘What did I tell you outside in the car park?’
‘He started it.’
She threw her hands in the air. ‘That’s it. I give up. You want to screw up your career? Go ahead. Be my sodding guest.’ She barged past and collapsed in her chair, running a hand across her forehead. ‘Get out of my sight. Go on: bugger off and play with the Diddy Men or something. I don’t want to look at you any more.’
Logan let himself out.
The Offender Management Unit offices smelled of new paint and sausages. The walls were papered with mugshots and SOPOs, interspersed with the occasional cartoon clipped out of the Aberdeen Examiner. A whiteboard, mounted above a gurgling radiator, was covered with grey magnetic strips, each one bearing the name of someone on the Sex Offenders’ Register due a trip to court in the not too distant future.
Logan
