certain…rumours. Internet chat rooms, news groups, that kind of thing.’
‘Anyone talking about Jenny McGregor?’
He fiddled a line of thin brown curls down the middle of the paper, then ran a pale yellow tongue along one edge. ‘Celebrity child like that … Hmm … It would give things an extra kick, wouldn’t it? Knowing everyone’s out there, looking for her, but she’s all yours. And you can do anything you want…’ McInnes rolled the cigarette into a tight cylinder and pinched the excess tobacco from the ends. ‘Can you imagine what she’d be worth on the open market?’ He cleared his throat. ‘If she wasn’t dead.’
Logan stared at him. ‘You tell me.’
McInnes popped the newly formed cigarette in the tin and produced another rolling paper. ‘I really wouldn’t know. And before you ask: Jenny isn’t my type.’ He smiled, showing off a set of uneven brown teeth. ‘Far too old.’
Sarah Cooper (35) – Lewd and Libidinous Practices and Behaviour, Abduction, Attempted Murder
‘Such an awful thing to happen.’ Sarah Cooper leaned forward in her seat, exposing a cavernous expanse of freckled cleavage, blue silk blouse stretched tight across her swollen belly and massive breasts. Her pork-sausage fingers traced a circle on her short black skirt, the nails as scarlet as her lips. ‘I can only imagine what poor Alison must be going through…’
Rennie did his mirror thing again. ‘Can you tell us where you were last Wednesday night, Thursday morning?’
She blushed, looked away. Pink cheeks clashing with her Irn-Bru-orange hair. ‘To lose a child like that…’
Logan checked his watch. Half-eleven already and they’d only seen four people on the list. If the other teams were going at this rate it was going to take at least another three days to get through everyone on the Sex Offenders’ Register. Assuming DI Ingram and the Diddymen could track them all down. And it was getting hot in here, making his arm itch beneath the wadding. ‘You didn’t answer Constable Rennie’s question, Ms Cooper. Where were you the night Alison and Jenny were snatched?’
Not that she could have had anything to do with it. Her backside was far too large to fit in an SOC suit. Hell, it barely fitted in her seat: if she got up too quickly, she’d be wearing the thing as a bum warmer.
‘I was … with a friend.’ She shifted her buttocks, making the chair creak.
Logan smiled at her. ‘Whom?’
‘I don’t see how that’s any business of—’
‘It’s OK, Sarah,’ Rennie shifted in his seat, arranging himself in a perfect reflection, ‘we just need to eliminate you from our enquiries. You want to help us catch whoever hurt Jenny, don’t you?’
The blush deepened. ‘I … I read all about them, you know. When OK! did that big spread on them: Alison and Jenny at home. Such a cramped little house for such a huge talent.’
‘We need a name, Ms Cooper. And an address.’
‘I don’t…’ She ran a hand across her neck, sweat glistened in the crevasse between her breasts.
‘Where were you?’
‘Come on, Sarah, you can tell us.’
Another wipe of cleavage. ‘Can I have a glass of water or something, it’s very hot in here.’
‘Might as well get it off your chest.’
Her eyes flickered across the room. The door, the window, the bathroom. ‘I … I was babysitting.’ Both hands clenched in her lap. ‘A friend of a friend asked if I could watch her little boys. I didn’t touch them, if that’s what you’re thinking. I didn’t do anything. I just watched them. Nothing happened.’
Lee Hamilton (32) – Rape, Possession of an Offensive Weapon
‘What the fuck would I want with a wee girl? The mother, maybe, but fuck’s sake, the kid was only six!’
Duncan McLean (46) – Indecent Assault, Attempted Rape, Possession with Intent to Supply
‘…would never touch someone like that. I mean, they’re…female. How disgusting would that be?’
Logan hung his jacket on the hook in the bathroom, took off his tie, then unbuttoned his shirt. The wadding taped to the top of his left arm almost glowed, it was so white. He peeled back a corner and grimaced. Skin was still all red and inflamed – so much for ‘it won’t hurt a bit’.
He dug a little tube of antibacterial gel from his jacket pocket, squeezed some into his palm and smoothed it on. Trying not to wince. At least it didn’t look—
A knock at the door.
‘Sarge?’ It was Rennie. ‘Next one’s here.’
Alastair McMillan (42) – Indecent Assault, Possession of Indecent Images, Theft
‘“I want to dedicate this to my husband John; you’ll always be our hero…” I mean, who was she trying to kid? Like rainbows and puppies come out of her arse instead of shite like the rest of us.’ Sniff.
Alastair McMillan leant forward, and tapped a dirty, chewed fingernail against Logan’s knee. ‘She fucking deserves everything she’s got coming to her, know what I mean?’
Ross Kelley (19) – Indecent Assault
‘You have very pretty eyes, Constable…’
Shona Wallace (26) – Taking and Distributing Illegal Images of Children, Lewd and Libidinous Practices and Behaviour, Attempt to Pervert the Course of Justice
‘…shouldn’t really be surprised, should we? There are some very sick people out there.’ Shona Wallace flicked a strand of bleached blonde hair out of her eyes. She shrugged, bony shoulders rising and falling beneath her LITTLE MISS NAUGHTY T-shirt. ‘I mean, it’s like, you know, you stand up and do anything in this country and the weirdoes just latch onto you, don’t they?’
She smiled, her weak chin disappearing into the pale skin of her neck. The kind of girl-next-door you didn’t want living anywhere near you. ‘Oh: do you remember that woman? What was her name, you know, like, she was this big ugly heifer and she was saying all these horrible things about Alison? In the papers and that?’
Rennie nodded. ‘Vicious Vikki?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. God, what a cow. Jealousy, that’s all it is. Me I thought Alison and Jenny were the best thing on Britain’s Next Big Star. I mean, like, they really were, you know: stars. The series is going to be totally crap without them.’
She scooted forward in her seat, until her knees were nearly touching Rennie’s, blue eyes wide, a heavy layer of mascara making them look even bigger. ‘What’s her house really like inside? Is it cool? I bet it’s cool. Bet they hid away all the really cool stuff when they got the cameramen round, you know, for the OK! magazine shoot, yeah? She’s like on the radio all the time, she’s got to have, I don’t know, a jacuzzi and diamonds and champagne and that?’
‘Bloody awful, that’s
