‘Aaargh!’ Her horrible feet were like bags of frozen peas. ‘If this is your idea of foreplay, you’ve been watching the wrong porn films!’
‘You gave me a key; this is what you get.’ Tara snuggled down. ‘Now stop wriggling and go to sleep. Some of us have work in the morning.’
36
Logan paused on the landing — health and safety first — and took a sip from his wax paper cup. Decent coffee. Proper coffee. Made by Wee Hairy Davie, instead of the Evil Vending Machine. Ahhhh...
He shifted the folder, pinning it beneath his armpit as he started up the stairs again.
The sound of stomping feet clattered down from the floor above, and Jane McGrath, Media Liaison Officer to the stars, thundered around the corner. Her hair and make-up might have been perfect, but she had a face like a wet weekend in Rhynie. She had a folder of her own too, only she was holding it in a strangling death grip.
She thumped past him. ‘Unbelievable!’
‘I think the word you were looking for was “excuse me”.’
McGrath stopped. Turned. Threw her hands in the air — waving the folder like a club. ‘Excuse me, oh great and all-powerful Professional Standards Person.’ She hurled the folder onto the stairs at her feet. ‘Did you see what they splashed all over the front page of the Aberdeen Examiner this morning?’
Oh no.
Colin Bloody Miller.
He promised!
Logan stuck his chest out. ‘I never called Russell Morton a workshy scrounger!’
Her face froze for a moment, eyebrows lowering into a frown. ‘What? No.’ She snatched up her folder and yanked out a sheet of newsprint. Unfolded it. Jabbed it towards him.
The whole front page was given over to a photo of an attractive young woman in a frock, lots of brown hair, looking flirty at the camera. An inset picture sat on the right, by her buttocks: a shed with a collapsed roof. All beneath the banner headline: ‘POLICE PERVS INJURED PEEPING ON PRETTY PAULINE’.
McGrath thrust it towards him again, making the edges crinkle. ‘Look at it. LOOK AT IT! They weren’t injured chasing a burglar: they fell through that shed roof because they were up there ogling an eighteen-year-old divinity student jigging about in her bra and pants!’
‘Ah...’ So not Colin Miller after all.
‘I told the world they were heroes! Listen to this.’ She straightened out the front page and glowered at it. ‘“At the end of a long day’s studying I like to relax by dancing about to my mum’s old Showaddywaddy records, while I get changed. I can’t believe they were out there, night after night. I feel so violated,’ sobbed Pauline, brackets, eighteen.” Eighteen!’ McGrath crushed the front page into a ball. ‘Some neighbour filmed it all on their mobile phone: crash, right through the shed roof! How am I supposed to put a positive spin on that? Police pervs!’ She hurled the front page down and stamped on it, grinding the article into the concrete as her face got darker and darker. ‘Aaaaaaaargh! Why do I bother? Why do I sodding bother?’
Wow.
Logan licked his lips. ‘Erm...’
She stood there, glaring at everything, shoulders heaving, eyes bugging, teeth bared.
PC Guthrie appeared on the landing behind her, smiling up at Logan like a happy potato in a police uniform. ‘Inspector McRae? Have you got a minute? There’s an auld mannie in reception, wants to see you.’
‘Yes. Right.’ He gave McGrath a sympathetic smile and picked his way past her on the stairs. Pausing to pat her on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure it’ll all blow over eventually.’
She took a deep breath and screwed her eyes shut. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’
Dear Lord, what was that smell? Sharp, filthy, and dirty all at the same time. Like someone had piddled in a bucket of mud then left it on a hot radiator all day.
Logan blinked. Breathed through his mouth. And lowered himself into the seat opposite, keeping as far back as he could. ‘So, Mr...’ he checked Guthrie’s Post-it note, ‘Seafield. The Desk Sergeant tells me you’ve got some information?’
Mr Seafield was hunched in the other seat, shoulders curled forwards as if he were afraid someone was going to steal the tank-top-and-tie combination he had on under his suit jacket. A pointy nose stretched out from his jowly face; no hair on top of his head, lots of it growing out of his ears; big round glasses; teeth so white and straight they had to be falsies.
He nodded at the ancient border terrier snuffling away at his feet. ‘It’s not me, it’s Gomez.’
OK. So he was one of those. Great.
Logan’s smile got a bit more difficult to maintain. ‘Your dog has information for me?’
‘No: the smell. Dirty wee sod likes to run under bigger dogs while they’re having a pee.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Slapped it down on the tabletop. ‘I wouldn’t speak to any of those other fannies because they don’t know, do they?’
‘Know what, Mr Seafield?’
Mr Seafield slid the paper across.
Logan unfolded it. Stared.
It was a printout from the Aberdeen Examiner website: ‘HEARTLESS POLICE SLANDER ELLIE’S DAD’ complete with the wee photo of Logan and its subheading, ‘POLICE HERO TURNS CRUEL COP’.
He promised. The dirty, two-faced, lying—
‘That’s right.’ Mr Seafield thumped a hand down on the table. ‘Workshy scroungers, the lot of them!’
‘I never said this!’
‘Course you did, and you know why?’ He leaned forward, bringing with him the sweet woody scent of pipe smoke. ‘Cos it’s true. Russell Morton is a workshy bastard — pardon my French — wouldn’t know an honest day’s graft if it bit his arse for him! Him and that whore of his, living there, right next to decent God-fearing folks. With their parties and their drugs, and their loud bloody music at all bloody hours!’ He bared his false teeth. ‘Scroungers! And it’s about time someone had the guts to say it.’
Logan folded the printout in half, then half again. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘I’ve been complaining about the Mortons for years, but would anyone listen?’ He pointed at the folded paper. ‘Soon as I saw that on the internet I said to my Avril, I said, “Finally! Here’s someone who says it like it is! I’m going down there right now to shake that man’s hand.”’ To prove it, he stuck his hand out, an expectant look on his face.
Urgh...
Logan shook it, the skin dry and sandpapery. ‘It wasn’t—’
‘You want to know what happened to little Ellie? That poor wee girl, growing up with those... animals? He sold her. Russell Morton sold her to buy drugs.’
Of course he did. And thirteen bacon butties were flittering their way over Divisional Headquarters at that very moment. Logan had been right the first time: Mr Seafield was a nutter.
‘He sold her.’ Logan kept his voice nice and neutral. ‘Russell Morton sold his stepdaughter.’
‘To buy drugs.’ Mr Seafield’s eyes were bright as buttons.
Gomez made whimpering yowling noises beneath the table.
A mad man and his stinky dog.
‘Right. Yes. I see. Well, we’ll definitely look into that.’
‘I know you will, because you’re not one of these PC idiots running about mollycoddling scroungers and layabouts.’
Logan stood. ‘Thank you for bringing it to my attention. We better not take up any more of your valuable time.’ AKA: bugger off.