the hell was Steel playing at? Logan could see the shutters coming down: they weren’t going to get anything out of her now! Steel should have played it cool, pretended it was nothing important, not gone charging in with both bloody feet! No wonder she was in charge of the Screw-Up Squad.
‘Tell you what,’ said Steel, handing over a dog-eared Grampian Police business card. ‘You have a wee think about it and give me a call, OK?’ She stood and lit another cigarette, coughing as the smoke worked its way into her lungs.
Suzie told the inspector exactly what she could do with her business card, threw back the last of her lager, and stormed off.
Logan waited until the girl was out of earshot. ‘Why did you tell her Rosie was dead? She’s never going to tell us where Jamie is now!’
DI Steel’s smile became predatory. ‘That’s where you’re wrong, Mr Police Hero. She’s going to tell us exactly where he is. She just doesn’t know it yet.’ The inspector stood up on her tiptoes, following Suzie McKinnon’s progress up Union Street. ‘Come on then, we don’t want to lose her.’ She marched straight across the street, narrowly missing getting squashed by a bus, with Logan in nervous pursuit. On the other side of the road she clambered into the passenger seat of an illegally parked Vauxhall. DC Rennie was behind the wheel, wearing a pair of trendy sunglasses, and as soon as Logan was ensconced in the back, they were off.
They spotted Suzie easily enough – her black leather get-up and pink hair stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the summer clothes – she crossed the road, just shy of the Music Hall’s Doric columns, hurrying off down Crown Street. Rennie kept well back, trying not to look like a kerb crawler. Ten minutes later they were parked opposite a basement flat in Ferryhill. The street wasn’t in the best of shapes, a collection of pothole pockmarks and different coloured patches of tarmac making it look like Frankenstein’s monster with acne. A rusty old Ford Escort was dying at the kerbside, bleeding oil. A quick PNC check confirmed it belonged to one James Robert McKinnon. Steel smiled at Logan. ‘Do you want me to say, “I told you so” now or later?’
The door to the building wasn’t locked, so Logan and DI Steel pushed straight through to the stairs leading down to the basement apartment. DC Rennie stayed out front, in case Jamie tried to do a runner.
Down in the mildew-smelling corridor Steel was just about to knock when a thought occurred to her. ‘Are you up to this?’ she asked Logan. ‘What with your Achilles stomach and all.’
‘It was nearly two years ago!’ he hissed. ‘I’m fine.’ Liar. The scars on his stomach still hurt when the weather changed, or he bent down too quickly.
DI Steel knocked gently on the door, putting on a Fife accent to ask if Jamie had seen her cat. A key rattled in the lock and a stressed-looking man, wearing a rumpled Burger King uniform, opened the door. Spiky, bleached-blond hair, bloodshot eyes, slightly overweight, podgy nose, daft little beard thing clinging on to the end of his chin for dear life.
‘I haven’t seen any bloody…’ His eyes went wide. ‘Shite!’ And the door was slammed shut. Or would have been if DI Steel didn’t have her boot jammed into the gap. She swore as the wood mashed into her foot and Jamie McKinnon bolted back into the flat.
‘Ayabastard!’ Hopping in the corridor, Steel clutched her injured foot while Logan charged past, through into a grotty hallway. A door at one end of the hall led to the lounge – Suzie was standing in the middle of the room, a fresh tin of Red Stripe in her hand and a shocked expression on her face. No sign of Jamie. Logan spun around to see the door to a filthy little bathroom lying open, and at the far end the door to the kitchen bouncing off the wall and swinging itself shut again.
Cursing, he sprinted for the kitchen. Why couldn’t Jamie have made a break for the front, where DC Rennie could have clobbered him one? He burst through the door just in time to see Jamie’s backside disappearing through the open kitchen window. The back door was blocked by an ancient washing machine, so Logan had no choice but to clamber through the window after him, and up a small set of steps into the back garden. Jamie was hoofing it hell for leather across the yellowing grass, towards the six-foot-high back wall, where the buildings backed onto the next row of tenements. Gritting his teeth, Logan chased after him.
For once luck was on Logan’s side; as Jamie got within lunging distance of the wall his feet tangled in the trailing end of a clothesline. He went down hard, banging his face on a huge, abandoned red plastic fire engine. Swearing, he clasped a hand over his nose – blood welling up between his fingers – and struggled to his feet. Just in time for Logan to tackle him and send them both sprawling to the scabby-yellow grass again.
The impact was enough to set the scar tissue screaming across Logan’s stomach, leaving him hissing in pain while Jamie scrambled to his feet and jumped for the back wall. He had one leg over the top when Logan grabbed the other one and yanked him back into the garden. Jamie’s chin caught the top of the wall, snapping his head back as he clattered straight down into the rosebush growing at the bottom, breaking the fall with his face, sending pink petals flying.
Breathing hard, Logan jumped on him, twisted Jamie’s arm up behind his back and snapped on the handcuffs. As the swearing started, Logan slumped against the wall and tried to convince himself that his stomach didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as it really did. When the pain finally settled down, he hauled Jamie to his feet.
Burger King weren’t going to be too happy about the state of their uniform. Blood ran freely from Jamie’s squashed nose and torn lip, his face a network of thin scratches that oozed red. He looked as if he’d done ten rounds with Mike Tyson’s cat. Swearing, he spat a mouthful of blood out into the rosebush. ‘You made me bite my fuckin’ tongue!’
‘Jesus, Logan,’ said Steel when he finally dragged Jamie back into the basement flat. ‘I told you to arrest him, not beat the crap out of him.’
Something sly weaselled its way onto Jamie’s face. ‘Aye, he beat me up! Police brutality! I want my lawyer! I’m gonnae sue you bastards for all you’re worth!’
Steel told him to shut his mouth. Suzie was sat on the edge of a tatty settee, worrying at an ever-expanding hole in the cushion with her finger, exposing the plaque-yellow foam rubber. She wouldn’t look at anyone.
‘You silly bitch.’ Jamie spat out another mouthful of blood onto the carpet. ‘You led them straight here!’
Suzie just kept on digging.
‘Right then, Sunshine.’ Steel pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes and lit one up, dribbling the smoke contentedly down her nose. ‘You don’t mind if we take a little peek round your place do you?’
‘Yes I fuckin’ well do mind!’
Steel’s smile got bigger. ‘Well tough shite, ’cos I’ve got a warrant.’ She flicked a little nub of grey ash from the end of her fag onto the coffee table. ‘Anything you want to tell us before we go a-wandering?’ Silence. ‘No?’ More silence. ‘You sure?’ Outside a truck rumbled past. ‘OK, you’re the boss.’
Of course Steel didn’t do any of the actual searching herself. Not when she had a detective sergeant and a detective constable to do it for her. They found two small wrappers of heroin, a half-empty box of disposable needles and a lump of cannabis resin the size of a Mars Bar. It was Logan who found the box full of uniforms in the bedroom cupboard.
Back in the lounge he asked Jamie how his career in the fast-food industry was going. Jamie scowled back at him. The nosebleed was drying up, leaving a crust of reddish-brown across the lower
