The Blood Road Read online

  Stacks of more blocks sat off to one side, along with two pallets of bricks and a big pile of something covered by tarpaulins. Probably timber.

  A small caravan was parked halfway down the site, partially surrounded by a wicker fence, its lights shining in the gloomy afternoon. A shadow moved across the drawn curtains. So someone was in.

  Logan pointed through the windscreen. ‘Block the entrance.’

  Tufty did, parking right in front of the driveway. ‘Good cop, bad cop?’

  ‘Good cop, silent cop. And in case you’re wondering which one you are…’ He climbed out into the rain, pulled his peaked cap on and hurried over to the line of fencing.

  A padlock and chain secured one side to the other, but it was slack enough to squeeze through, so Logan did.

  Tufty locked the car and scurried after him, up the driveway, past Danielle Smith’s white Clio and over to the caravan in its wickerwork enclosure.

  The sound of Blink 182’s ‘Miss You’ pounded through the caravan walls, the whole thing rocking slightly as whoever was inside danced and sang along. Logan strode over to the door and did his police-officer knock: three thumps, loud and hard.

  Barking bellowed out from the other side of the door as something massive slammed against it. The song clicked off. More barking, loud enough to rattle Logan’s fillings.

  That dog had to be absolutely sodding huge.

  He backed away from the door a couple of steps, till his legs bumped into a sodden garden table and chairs. He cleared his throat and turned to Tufty, Hissing it through clenched teeth – nice and quiet. ‘Did you bring any Bite Back?’

  ‘I didn’t know we’d be arresting Cujo!’

  The barking faded, and Danielle’s voice boomed out instead. ‘Go away, Jason. I’m not interested!’

  Logan inched forward and knocked again.

  ‘Don’t be a shitebag, Jason. Take the hint or I’ll set Baskerville on…’ She wrenched the caravan door open. Stood there wearing combat trousers, a Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and a frown. She directed it at Logan. ‘What do you want?’

  Behind her, the barking exploded into life again as a huge German Shepherd lunged forward, mouth big and red and full of teeth and oh God why didn’t they bring any Bite Back with them and they were all going to die and—

  Danielle grabbed the dog’s collar, holding it back. ‘Baskerville: enough!’

  Instant silence.

  Logan licked his lips, not taking his eyes off the dog for a second. ‘Can we come in?’

  ‘You got a warrant?’

  ‘Do I need one?’

  She stood there, staring at him, eyes narrowed. Then nodded. ‘I’m getting ready to go out. You can have five minutes.’

  39

  Unlike the TARDIS, Danielle Smith’s caravan was smaller on the inside. Every wall had at least one architectural drawing Sellotaped to it, the built-in shelves groaning with books on building and crime novels.

  She pointed at the front of the caravan, where bench seating bracketed a foldaway table. Baskerville jumped up onto the cushions, padded to the far end, and sat with his mouth hanging open. One paw on the tabletop – as if waiting for his dinner.

  Danielle stared at Logan and Tufty. ‘You two as well. Sit.’

  Logan took the empty bench seat, so Tufty had to squeeze in next to the massive dog. Sitting there, staring at it. Looking about as comfortable as a mouse in a blender.

  ‘So…’ Logan nodded at the plans and elevations. ‘You’re building your own house? That’s got to be stressful. Builders never show up when they say they will.’

  ‘Dear God, it’s like I’m sharing a caravan with Sherlock Holmes!’ Sarcasm dripping from every word. ‘How ever did you deduce that?’ She opened the tiny fridge and pulled out a couple of takeaway containers. ‘Yes, I’m building my own house. What else am I going to do with a degree in mechanical engineering and a tanked oil industry?’

  Now that was impressive.

  ‘You’re actually doing the construction yourself? Wow, that’s—’

  ‘Look, can we skip the fake rapport-building and get on with it? I’ve got places to be.’ She opened the containers’ lids a crack, then stuffed them both into the microwave and set it buzzing.

  ‘OK.’ He stretched his arms along the seat cushions. ‘When we spoke at your office, you said you didn’t know DS Lorna Chalmers.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘Who says I knew her?’

  Logan pulled out Tufty’s phone and tapped at the screen. … Nothing happened. Oh for God’s sake – the thing was locked again. He looked at Tufty. ‘What’s the code?’

  ‘Planck’s Constant?’

  Nope.

  Tufty rolled his eyes and sighed. ‘Give it here.’ A quick flurry of fingers and he handed it over again, unlocked this time.

  Logan brought up the photos and pointed the screen at Danielle. ‘That’s you and Chalmers doing security at a concert.’

  She turned her back. Took a bowl from a cupboard. ‘And?’

  ‘There’s more pictures, if you like? The pair of you look very cosy.’

  ‘We worked a couple of security gigs together,’ Danielle kept her face to the wall, ‘so what?’

  ‘Then why pretend you didn’t know her?’

  The microwave buzzed.

  Nobody moved.

  ‘Looks as if you were friends to me.’

  Her voice went all bitter. ‘Yeah, well it did to me too.’ The microwave bleeped and she opened the door, turned the containers. Slammed the door shut. Set it buzzing again.

  ‘So you weren’t that bothered when she “hanged herself”?’

  A shrug. ‘What’s for you won’t go by you, will it?’

  And the microwave kept buzzing.

  Tufty fidgeted.

  The dog turned to look at him.

  Tufty sat perfectly still.

  Then the microwave bleeped again.

  Danielle’s shoulders curled forwards. ‘I met Lorna at a Fleetwood Mac tribute act. It was her first security gig. A bit green behind the lugs, but she was OK. She was Job, I was ex-Job, so we hated some of the same people. We got on.’ The containers were retrieved from the microwave and their contents tipped into the bowl. Rice first, followed by something wet and lumpy.

  The warm, spiky scent of Thai green curry filled the caravan.

  ‘We did the Rolling Stones gig at Glasgow SECC together.’ She turned, a smile on her perfectly rouged lips. ‘Man, that was some concert. I’d have worked that one for free…’ Danielle thumped the bowl down on the table, following it up with chopsticks.

  She shooed Logan over, sat, and got stuck into her food. ‘So yeah, I knew her.’

  Pretty proficient with those chopsticks. Ferrying chunks of vegetables in soft green sauce from the bowl to her mouth. Scooping up chunks of rice.

  She stopped and looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Let’s see… There was me, thinking she was my friend, thinking she was a decent human being, sympathising with her because her husband Brian’s a complete dickhat, but we weren’t really friends at all. It was all an act.’

  Tufty waggled his eyebrows. ‘You weren’t…?’

  She stared at him. ‘I will genuinely take you outside and break every single one of your bloody limbs.’

  A low growling noise rumbled out of Baskerville and Tufty edged away from him.

  ‘Eep…’

  Danielle dug into her curry again. ‘Lorna started asking all these questions about Sally MacAuley and loads of other cases we were working on at AberRAD. Next thing you know she’s wanting me to do little favours.’ Her voice changed to a pretty decent imitation of Chalmers’ Highland drawl. ‘“Introduce me to this guy.”, “Introduce me to that guy.”, “What have you found out about so-and-so?”’

  ‘She was using you.’ Logan sat forward. ‘Is that why you had to, how did you put it, “calm her down a bit”?’

/>   ‘Lorna kicked off when I called her out on it. I kicked back.’

  ‘And did you? Introduce her to all those people?’

  ‘Till I realised what she was doing.’

  Interesting.

  ‘You think she joined the security team specifically to target you?’

  Danielle frowned, chopsticks frozen halfway between the bowl and her mouth. ‘No. No, that came later. Wasn’t till…’ She cleared her throat. ‘Look, I’m going to have to change in a minute, so if it’s all the same with you I’d rather finish my dinner in peace.’

  Logan stayed right where he was.

  A big, long-suffering sigh. ‘All right, all right: she overheard me asking the other security guys about Fred Marshall.’

  ‘And why would they know about Fred Marshall?’

  ‘Because they worked for the same agency Marshall did. Why do you think I joined it in the first place: the sexy uniforms?’ She pointed at the window with her chopsticks. ‘Marshall’s out there somewhere and he knows what happened to Kenneth MacAuley. He knows where Aiden is.’

  Tufty sucked air in through his teeth. ‘Yeah… You see: Fred Marshall’s—’

  Logan kicked him under the table.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘And did these security guys tell you anything?’

  She plucked a chunk of baby sweetcorn from her bowl, crunching on it. ‘Marshall’s too thick to keep his gob shut. Sooner or later he’s going to make contact with someone. And when he does, we’ll get him.’

  Tufty rubbed at his leg. ‘That hurt!’

  ‘Good.’ Logan watched Danielle polish off the last of her curry. ‘So, this gig you’ve got tonight – anything interesting?’

  The chopsticks froze again. Then, ‘Nah: local-celebrity wedding anniversary party. Got to keep the riff-raff out.’

  ‘Don’t mean to be personal,’ Tufty pointed towards the work surface, ‘but your handbag’s vibrating.’

  ‘Bloody…’ She got up and rummaged through it, producing an iPhone just in time for it to fall silent. ‘Arrrgh.’ She poked at the screen and turned away from them. Put the phone to her ear. ‘Andy?… No. I know. … I said I know! I’m getting ready now. … Yes, I know I’m always late, but— … I’m getting ready!… Yes, when they tell us, I’ll be there. … Because you won’t get off the bloody phone!’ A nod. ‘OK, bye.’

  She stuck the phone in her bag.

  Logan smiled. ‘Andy from work?’

  ‘OK, I’m getting changed now. You’ve got thirty seconds to get out or I set Baskerville on you.’

  Logan scooted down a bit in the passenger seat, watching Danielle’s building plot vanish in the wing mirror.

  Tufty sniffed. ‘Why don’t dogs like me?’

  ‘Can’t shake the feeling that she’s up to something. You hear that pause before she said what she was doing tonight?’

  ‘Maybe she really is working security at a local-celebrity wedding anniversary?’

  He treated Tufty to a wee scowl. ‘Don’t make me kick you again.’

  ‘That really hurt, by the way.’ Tufty pulled onto the main road, joining the crawling traffic. ‘Not much point going straight home to headquarters, is there? Unless you fancy getting stuck in rush hour again. What do you think: try the North Deeside Road this time?’

  ‘Might as well. It’s not as if—’ His phone dinged at him. A new text message.

  IDIOT RENNIE:

  Productn stors jst bean on th phn – sgt Moor fnd th teeth U wz looking 4! 3 uv thm filed in th wrng bx!!! Gtng DNA dn nw!

  What?

  He squinted at the screen. ‘It’s like a foreign language.’

  What the hell did… Aha!

  He grinned at Tufty. ‘They’ve found some teeth from DI Bell’s fake-funeral pyre.’

  ‘Coolio.’

  Logan thumbed out a reply:

  Make sure you stand over them and get those results to me ASAP!

  And what have I told you about texting like a 1990s schoolgirl?!?

  SEND.

  His phone was barely halfway to his pocket before it launched into ‘The Imperial March’, the words ‘HORRIBLE STEEL’ glowing in the middle of its screen.

  Yes, well no thank you.

  He pressed ‘IGNORE’. Stared out of the window at the tiny semidetached houses and oversized bungalows. ‘This whole thing makes me itchy, Tufty.’ He counted them off on his fingers: ‘DI Bell, Sally MacAuley, AberRAD Investigations, Fred Marshall, Lorna Chalmers, Rod Lawson – if that’s who we exhumed… Itchy.’

  A bus stop drifted by on the left, populated by a gang of OAPs with their headscarves, bunnets, shopping trolleys, and wee dogs.

  ‘Erm,’ Tufty glanced across the car, ‘Sarge?’

  ‘Inspector.’

  ‘Yeah, but see if you ever go back to proper police work—’

  ‘Professional Standards is proper police work!’ Cheeky sod.

  ‘Yeah, but see if you do: can I be your sidekick again?’

  They accelerated out through the limits, following a mud-brown baker’s van.

  ‘Thought you were DS Steel’s sidekick now.’

  ‘Yeah, but she’s mean to me. Well, she’s mean to everyone, but if you’re stuck in the car with her, you can’t escape like normal people.’

  ‘True.’

  Fields of barley lined the road – bent, battered, and half drowned by the rain.

  ‘And if I was your sidekick, would it be OK if I requisitioned DI Bell’s laptop? The one they found in his hotel room? Cos we know the forensic IT Smurfs won’t get near it for weeks. Would that be OK?’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  Tufty nodded. ‘Good. Good. Erm… Because I might have said you’d already OKed it. A teeny weeny bit.’

  Logan stared at him. ‘You’ve been hanging round DS Steel too long, she’s starting to—’

  ‘The Imperial March’ started up again.

  ‘Oh sod off…’ He hit ‘IGNORE’.

  ‘Maybe it’s something important?’

  Aye, right. ‘She’ll be wanting a moan. It’s all she ever does.’

  ‘But what if—’

  Tufty’s pocket launched into ‘Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead’. He dug a hand in and produced his phone. Grimaced across the car at Logan. ‘Can you get it? I’m driving.’ He poked his thumb at the screen, unlocking it, then held it out. ‘Please?’

  ‘Like I’m his secretary…’ But Logan took it anyway. Held it up to his ear. ‘PC Quirrel’s phone?’

  Steel’s voice growled out at him. ‘Oh I see. That’s how it is, is it?’

  ‘Urgh… It’s you.’ Well, at least that explained the ringtone.

  ‘Ducking my calls. Very mature. Thought you were supposed to be SIO on this one?’

  He glared at Tufty. The little sod knew it was her and tricked him into answering it.

  Tufty kept his face forwards, not making eye contact.

  ‘If you’ve phoned up to whinge, you can—’

  ‘You bunch of spunghammers were given the opportunity to bask in the glory of my magnificence, and did you?’

  ‘Moan, whinge, gripe, whine…’

  ‘You want to know what I dug up or no’?’

  ‘We’ll be there in twenty minutes. Plenty of time for you to dig out some biscuits and get the kettle—’

  ‘It’s happening tonight.’

  Logan pulled his chin in. ‘What is?’

  ‘Ah, see: now you’re interested.’

  More fields of ruined barley, a huge puddle of water spreading out from beneath a five-bar gate onto the road.

  The baker’s van slowed, sending up big curls of dirty water.

  Tufty hummed a wee song to himself as they surfed through after it.

  Logan puffed out a breath. ‘And are you actually going to tell me?’

  ‘You were banging on about missing kids, so I spoke to a pervert of my acquaintance: Barry the Nonce. Took a bit of leaning, but he’s been away speaking to his slimy wee pals and guess what
he’s just told me. Go on, you’ll no’ guess, but have a go for your Auntie Roberta.’

  ‘OK, I’m going to hang up now.’

  ‘You’re even less fun than you used to be, you know that, don’t you?’ There was another pause as she milked whatever it was. ‘It’s no’ Santa Claus that’s coming to town tonight, it’s the Livestock Mart. And I mean the Livestock Mart.’

  Logan sat upright, eyes wide. Turned to Tufty. ‘Stop the car!’

  ‘Aaaaaaargh!’ He slammed on the brakes and the car slithered to a halt in the middle of the huge puddle. ‘What? What’s happened?’ Looking around, frantic. ‘Did I hit something?’

  Behind them, someone leaned on their horn.

  Logan shifted his phone to the other ear. ‘Where and when?’

  ‘Nah, we’re no’ that lucky. Whole thing runs on an invitation-only basis. From what Barry hears: if you make the cut, you get a text with the when so you’re ready to go and, a couple of hours later, another one with the where.’

  Tufty stuck a hand against his chest and slumped in his seat. ‘Nearly gave me a heart attack!’

  A Ford Escort drove around them, the driver sticking up one finger and mouthing obscenities as he passed.

  ‘And Barry the Nonce…?’

  ‘He’s no’ on the list. But it’s still happening tonight. What we gotta do is figure out where.’

  So that was why Chalmers wanted him to keep DI Fraser out of her hair for seventy-two hours. She knew when the Livestock Mart was scheduled.

  He turned in his seat and stared out through the rear window. The line of traffic behind them was getting shorter as each one gestured and swore their way past. They couldn’t be more than a couple of miles from Danielle Smith’s caravan. There was still time.

  Logan faced front again and thumped Tufty on the arm. ‘Do a U-turn and get back to that building site ASAP. Wherever Danielle Smith’s off to: that’s where we’re going too.’

  Tufty hauled the wheel around.

  40

  Danielle tapped her nails against the tabletop, staring at her iPhone. Hurry up and ring.