… it’s what she said, OK?’ Logan backed off, hands up.
Insch gritted his teeth and seethed for a moment. Then, ‘You tell her I want those remains analysed and I want them analysed now. I don’t care how many favours she has to call in, this takes top priority.’
‘Ah … maybe that’d sound better coming from you, sir? I—’ The look on Insch’s face was enough to stop Logan right there. ‘Fine, I’ll tell her.’ Isobel was going to kill him. If the inspector didn’t do it first. The big man looked like an unexploded bomb.
Logan had a bash at defusing him. ‘According to the cash and carry’s records the meat in the container came from a butcher’s shop in Holburn Street: McFarlane’s.’
‘McFarlane’s?’ A nasty smile twisted Insch’s face.
Logan pulled out the docket. ‘Two sirloins, half a dozen sides of bacon, a pack of veal …’
But the inspector was already marching towards the exit, uniformed constables and IB technicians scurrying to get out of his way. ‘I want a search warrant for that butcher’s shop. Get everyone over there soon as it’s organized.’
‘What? But we haven’t finished here yet.’
‘The remains came from McFarlane’s.’
‘But we don’t know that. This place isn’t exactly difficult to get into. Anyone could have—’
‘And I want an arrest warrant for Kenneth Wiseman.’
‘Who the hell is—’
‘And tell the press office to get their backsides in gear: briefing at ten am sharp.’
An hour and a half later Logan and Insch were sitting in a pool car outside McFarlane’s butcher’s shop, ‘GOOD EATS GOOD MEATS’ according to the sign above the big dark window.
Holburn Street was virtually deserted, lonely traffic lights changing from red to green and back again with no one to watch them but a couple of unmarked CID Vauxhalls, a police van full of search-trained officers, a once-white Transit van belonging to the Identification Bureau, and two patrol cars. All waiting for the Procurator Fiscal to turn up with the search and arrest warrants.
Insch scowled at his watch. ‘What the hell is taking so long?’
Logan watched him fight his way into a small jar of pills – thick, sausage-like fingers struggling with the child-proof lid – then throw a couple of the small white tablets down. ‘Are you OK, sir?’
Insch grimaced and swallowed. ‘How long’s it going to take you to get to the airport from here?’
‘Depends if the Drive’s busy: hour, hour and a half?’
‘There’s a Chief Constable Faulds coming in on the BMI red-eye. I want you to pick him up and bring him back here.’
‘Can we not just send one of the uniforms? I’m—’
‘No, I want you to do it.’
‘I should be helping organize the search, not playing taxi driver!’
‘I said NO!’ Insch turned on him, voice loud enough to make the car windows rattle. ‘Faulds is a slimy tosser – a two-faced, backstabbing bastard – but he’s a Chief Constable, so everyone scurries round after him like he’s the bloody Messiah. I do not want some idiot PC in the car with him telling tales out of school.’
‘But—’
‘No. No buts. You go pick him up and you don’t tell him any more than he needs to know. And with any luck we’ll have this whole thing wrapped up before he even gets here.’
Anderson Drive stretched across the city: from a horrible roundabout at Garthdee to an even more horrible one at the other end. Half past seven and Logan was stuck in the middle of a snaking ribbon of scarlet tail-lights shuffling their way towards the Haudagain roundabout. Dawn was little more than a pale yellow smear, its faint light making no difference to the thick pall of grey cloud that loomed over the city.
Some halfwit had broken the car’s stereo, so all he had to listen to was the clack and yammer of the police radio – mostly people hustling to and fro, trying to keep out of DI Insch’s way as ‘Operation Cleaver’ was thrown together. The fat git had been a pain in the backside ever since he’d started on that stupid diet. Eighteen months of tiptoeing about, trying not to set the man off on one of his legendary rants.
‘This is Alpha Nine One, we are in position, over.’
It sounded as if they were ready to go.
‘Alpha Three Two, in position.’
‘Aye,’ is is Alpha Mike Seven, we’re a’ set tae go too. Just gie the word.’
Logan should have been with them, kicking down doors and taking names, not babysitting some tosser from Birmingham.
By the time he was leaving the city limits a light drizzle had started to fall, speckling the windscreen with a thin, wet fog, making the tail-lights of the taxi in front glow like volcanic embers as DI Insch gave his motivational speech.
‘Listen up: I want this done by the numbers, understand? Anyone steps out of line, I’ll tear their balls off and shove them up their arse – do I make myself clear?’
No one was daft enough to answer that one.
‘Right. All units, in five, four, three, two … GO! GO! GO!’
And then there was shouting. The sound of a door being battered off its hinges. Bangs. Thumps …
Logan turned the radio off, sat in the long line of traffic waiting to turn towards Aberdeen Airport, and sulked.
The airport was busy this morning: the queue for security backed up the length of the building – nearly out the front door – business commuters and holidaymakers nervously checking their watches; clutching their boarding passes; worrying about missing their planes while the tannoy droned on about not leaving baggage unattended.
The BD672 was supposed to have landed eight minutes ago, but there was still no sign of anyone getting off the thing. Logan stood on the concourse, next to the twee tartan gift shop, holding up a sheet of paper with ‘CC FAULDS’ scribbled on it in big biro capitals.
Finally, the doors at the far end opened and the passengers on the 07:05 flight from London Heathrow staggered out.
Logan didn’t think Faulds would be too hard to spot, he was a Chief Constable after all. He’d be in full dress uniform – hoping it would let him cut through security and get extra packets of peanuts on the plane – with some obsequious Chief Superintendent in tow to carry his bags and tell him how clever and witty he was.
So it came as something of a surprise when a gangly man in jeans, finger-tip-length black leather jacket, Hawaiian shirt, shark’s tooth necklace, and a little salt-and-pepper goatee beard stopped, tapped the sign in Logan’s hands and said, ‘I’m Faulds. You must be …?’
‘Er
