company logo appeared and Logan couldn’t help laughing: CROCODILDO FILMS LTD! featuring what could only be described as a rampant, battery-operated reptile. And then the titles started, along with a thinly-veiled pastiche of the James Bond music.
Rickards stabbed the buttons on the remote control, and everything whirred into fast forward: sports car, house, what looked like Balmedie beach, people whizzing about at sixty-four times normal speed. Suddenly the screen filled with pink and the inspector shouted, ‘Play! Press play!’, but Rickards didn’t.
‘It’s coming up in a minute.’
‘But I want to see this bit!’ More cars, a fancy house, a brunette in a bikini, a fat man with a goatee, and then more pink. ‘Oh come on! Let us see something!’
‘Just a … this is it!’ Rickards hit play and the jerking figures settled into something more recognizable. And explicit. It was clearly meant to be a take-off of the old ‘Secret Agent is captured and tortured for information before being left alone to escape’ routine. Only this time the man in the tuxedo was being strapped, face down, onto a customized massage table by a very busty redhead in a rubber nun’s outfit. And then spanked. ‘Here …’ said Rickards, tapping the screen as the nun ripped James Bondage’s trousers and pants off. ‘The henchman.’ A figure emerged from the shadows – mid-twenties, short blond hair, dark glasses – dressed like a priest.
The man pulled off his shades and said, ‘There’s no point in resisting, Mr Bondage, you will tell us everything!’ as the nun stopped spanking and pulled on a neon-blue strap-on. Rickards hit pause and everything stopped. ‘See – it looks just like him!’ He held up one of the IB’s touched-up morgue photos. Logan had to admit he had a point.
‘What about the scar?’
PC Rickards hit fast forward again, much to DI Steel’s displeasure. Pink, more pink, figures whooshing about, and play: the priest-henchman thrusting away at the back-end of the nun while the front end was busy with Mr Bondage’s erection. In, out, in, out, in, out – freeze. Caught mid-stroke the crescent-shaped scar was easy to spot. Rickards looked expectantly at them. ‘Well, what do you think?’
Logan checked the post mortem file: the victim’s scar was identical to the one currently filling the television screen. ‘It’s definitely him.’
‘So who is he?’
Logan didn’t think it was possible, but Rickards actually went redder as he said, ‘According to the credits he’s called Dick Longlay.’
‘Aye, that’ll be bloody shinin’. “Dick Long Lay”? Porn star name if ever I heard one. Might as well call himself “I’ve got a huge cock”.’ She squinted at the DVD case again. ‘You got an address for this lot?’
Rickards nodded, and Steel stared at him for a moment, before saying, ‘I’m not bloody clairvoyant: where are they?’ Rickards told her and she smiled. ‘Well, get a shift on then! I fancy a trip to Crocodildo Films.’
‘You sure this is the right place?’ Steel took two steps back and stared up at the small industrial unit, hidden away down a small alley off Hutcheon Street. The sign on the wall said CLARKRIG TRAINING SYSTEMS LTD.
PC Rickards checked his notes again. ‘Should be. It’s their registered office anyway.’
Inside it was all potted plants and framed shots of oil rigs and people posing with safety equipment. Two large, ancient-looking projectors sat on mahogany plinths in the middle of the floor, locked away in matching glass cases, like an exhibit at the Natural History Museum. The receptionist – a bloated woman in her sixties – put down her copy of Hello and smiled at her visitors. ‘Can I help you?’ Like someone’s mum putting on a posh voice for the telephone.
Logan flashed his warrant card. ‘We need to speak to someone about …’ he paused, not quite sure how to ask her about Crocodildo Films. She looked like the type that would shock easily. ‘Er …’
‘Oh for goodness sake,’ said Steel pushing past him. ‘We want to talk to someone about the porn.’
‘Aye?’ said the receptionist, dropping the posh voice. ‘Hud oan and I’ll give the boss a bell.’ She punched a number into her switchboard, listened to it ring for a while, then a pop and crackle came from the speakerphone and a less than happy voice said, ‘Oh for God’s sake: what now? I told you we’re filming!’
The receptionist puffed up. ‘Alexander Lloyd Clark! Don’t you dare talk to your mother like that!’
A pause, then a long-suffering, ‘What can I do for you, Mother?’
‘You’ve got visitors.’
‘Can you tell them to sod off? I’m busy. If they—’
DI Steel leaned over the desk and shouted, ‘It’s the police.’
Another pause. ‘Mum, have you got this on speakerphone again? How many times do I have to tell you—’
‘We need to talk to you, Mr Clark.’
‘Is it about the break-in? Because it’s about bloody time!’
Steel mouthed ‘break-in?’ at Logan, but he just shrugged. ‘No, it’s about—’
‘Look, come back tomorrow. I’m busy today. Make an appointment. I—’
Steel cut in before the receptionist could get out the diary. ‘Listen up Sunshine, you can either assist us with our enquiries, or I can arrest your pornmongering arse and drag it down the station. Up to you.’
‘Oh, bloody hell. OK, OK, I’ll come back to the office.’
A broad smile slid across the inspector’s face. ‘No, you stay where you are and we’ll come to you.’
‘Fine, OK, whatever …’ He gave them the address – a container yard in Altens – then hung up.
Steel beamed. ‘Always wanted to see a porn film getting made. Think they’ll let me audition?’
Altens wasn’t exactly scenic: a collection of industrial units on the southern edge of the city; hideous oil company buildings; storage yards; vans selling fast food; and the abandoned back ends of articulated lorries, some stacked with lengths of drilling pipe, others carrying nothing more than a couple of greasy coils of blue rope. They found the film crew set up by a stack of the huge metal containers used to transport goods offshore. Lights, cameras, and not a lot of action.
‘Which one of you’s Clark?’ Steel shouted. Nearly everyone pointed at a large bloke in a massive padded jacket, woolly hat and greying goatee beard, drinking something from a polystyrene cup – the steam coiling up around his strange little rectangular glasses. He wasn’t quite as big as DI Insch, but it was close. The man froze, as if he’d been caught doing something naughty, then pulled on an ingratiating smile.
‘Zander Clark, with a Z,’ he said, sticking out a gloved hand. ‘Hi. You must be …?’
‘The police. So …’ she looked at the camera, the lights, and then the small cluster of people huddling round a script, ‘when does the shagging start?’
