Urgh...
Logan shuddered. ‘There’s an image.’
Rennie added his boxes to the pile. ‘So that’s us now got every case DS Chalmers worked on in the last three years.’
‘Two:’ Steel held up both fingers, ‘I am no’ your sodding sidekick. Understand?’
‘You want me to start going through the files, Guv?’
Logan opened the nearest box, pulled out about half a dozen folders and dumped them into Rennie’s arms. ‘Pass them round: most recent files first. Maybe someone in here decided to get revenge and kill her.’
‘Three:’ two fingers on one hand, one on the other, ‘I’m not driving you about like a bloody chauffeur.’
The office door bumped open again and in swanned Tufty — dressed in jeans and an original-series Star Trek T-shirt. ‘Morning fellow travellers on the highway to justice!’
Steel gave him the benefit of her three fingers. ‘Oh, shut your twit-hole.’
Logan clapped his hands. ‘Right, listen up, people. We are nowhere near enough bodies for a Major Investigation Team, but for the next two days we’re all we’ve got.’
Tufty settled into an office chair and pulled out his notebook and pen. Keen.
Steel sniffed. ‘We’d better be getting overtime for this.’
‘Detective Sergeant Lorna Chalmers was found hanged in her garage, yesterday morning.’ Logan picked up a sheaf of paper. ‘She’d been seriously assaulted at least twice on Friday. Preliminary forensic report says she was stuffed full of alcohol and probably antidepressants too. Marks on her arms and legs look like they were caused by someone restraining her while she died.’
Tufty put his hand up. ‘What about the husband?’
‘Brian Chalmers has no previous, but he was planning on leaving his wife the day after her birthday. Claims he didn’t see her suicide-note text till the next morning, then went downstairs and found her. I want him brought in and questioned.’
A grin. ‘I’ll grill him like sausages!’
‘No you won’t. Rennie will.’
Rennie nodded. ‘I went on a course.’
‘Tufty: you’re going over to Chalmers’ house and looking for her mobile phone.’
‘No sausages?’
‘No sausages. She texted her alleged “suicide” note at ten thirty on Friday night, so where’s her phone?’
Rennie perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Maybe she sent the message from somewhere else first, then went home and killed herself?’
Steel threw a whiteboard marker at him. ‘Well it’s no’ like she could’ve sent it afterwards, is it?’
Honestly, it was like being in charge of a kindergarten, full of delinquent drunken monkeys.
Logan pointed at Tufty. ‘Go through her bins, search the garage, kitchen, bathrooms, car. It has to be somewhere.’ Then pointed at Steel. ‘You worked with her on the Ellie Morton case.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘Chalmers was very cagey about who assaulted her, but she said she’d recently interviewed the stepfather. I want to talk to him.’
Steel crossed her arms. ‘Russell Morton? Can’t drag him in: press would have a field day.’
‘Then we go to him.’
Steel gripped the steering wheel, as if she was trying to murder it. ‘You’re a rotten, scum-filled, pus-faced—’
‘Privilege of rank.’ Logan stretched out in the passenger seat. ‘That’s what you used to tell me when I had to ferry you all over the place.’
Outside the pool car’s windows, playing fields drifted by on the left. And on the right: Aberdeen University’s contribution to brutalist architecture, AKA: the Zoology Building. A narrow-windowed block of crenellated concrete stuck on top of what looked like a double-storey car park.
Steel gave the steering wheel an extra murder. ‘That’s no’ the point!’
‘Yes it is. Tell me about Russell Morton.’
‘I won’t be a detective sergeant forever. I’ll get promoted to DCI again, and see when I do? Revenge!’
Logan smiled at her. ‘And until then, you’re my sidekick.’
The playing fields gave way to communist-style tenements, arranged in squares.
‘I’m no’ your sodding sidekick!’
‘And I shall call you “Binky” and if you’re a good little sidekick you shall have a sweetie.’
The muscles bunched and pulsed in her jaw.
Trees reached up on either side of the road now, naked branches dancing in the wind, a cluster of tiny wee houses jammed in behind them.
She jerked the car into a left turn, opposite a development of pink-and-white flats. ‘You’re enjoying this far too much, you know that don’t you? Gloating turdmagnet.’
‘Now: Russell Morton.’
She rolled her eyes, driving deeper into Tillydrone. More terraced housing — painted in slightly different shades, as if that would disguise how ugly they were. Terraces. Small blocks. More terraces. ‘Russell Morton is the kind of guy who’s never earned an honest bob in his life. Benefits, gambling, and a bit of B-and-E. Closest he’s come to a proper job was growing cannabis in a polytunnel up Mintlaw way.’
‘Violent?’
‘Officially? Couple of drunken assaults, other side dropped the charges both times.’
A squat tower block loomed in the distance in shades of grey and brown. Windows glinting in the sunlight. Glowing like a burning brick.
‘And unofficially?’
Steel shrugged. ‘Him and Ellie’s mum have been knocking lumps off each other for years. Serious lumps as welclass="underline" I’m talking the odd week in hospital for both of them.’
‘What about Ellie?’
‘Battering her, you mean? If they are, no one’s noticed it.’
The pool car turned into a parking area between two rows of tenement flats. Six flats to a communal door. Bland and a bit shabby. Someone had tried the different-coloured-paint trick here as well. It hadn’t worked.
A handful of fancy four-by-fours sat outside one of the communal front doors, all occupied. Conspicuous amongst the hatchbacks and rusty white vans.
‘Aye, aye.’ She parked a few doors down. ‘Our mates from the press are still hanging about, then.’
Logan undid his seatbelt. ‘And if we’re really lucky, we won’t have to talk to any of them...’
The living room was crowded with furniture — more than it could really cope with — two floral sofas and a pair of matching armchairs almost filled the space between a pair of sideboards, a Welsh dresser, and a TV unit topped by a massive set. Every single flat surface covered in floral tributes, cards, and teddy bears.
Not bad going for a two-bedroom flat. Even if there was barely enough space to squeeze sideways through the gaps.
Russell Morton had the armchair with its back to the window, the light framing him as if the chair was a throne and he was King of Laura Ashley Land. Tall and thin. Long fingers. Shoulder-length brown hair and mid-cheek sideburns. A polo shirt and paint-spattered jeans.
He curled his lip at them. ‘So how come you’ve not found our Ellie yet?’
The sound of someone singing along to a boiling kettle rattled through the open door to the kitchen.
Steel slouched on one of the couches, knees akimbo. She smiled at Logan. ‘I think you should answer that one. Seeing as I’m just the sidekick.’
Logan eased himself into the space in front of the TV. ‘You spoke to one of our colleagues a few days ago: Detective Sergeant Chalmers.’