‘Oooh...’ Tufty scooted forwards again. ‘Maybe you could fit everyone with ankle monitors as well? Or tracker chips? Make sure you know where they are at all of the times.’
‘Good idea!’
Logan thumped Rennie on the arm. ‘He’s beingsarcastic, you coagulated Moomin.’
A scowl. ‘Doesn’t stop it being a good idea.’
Soon as they passed the Grammar School, Esslemont Avenue narrowed to a grey trench – four-storey tenements on both sides, facing off across the road. The ones on the right were armed with satellite dishes, all pointing theirantenna spears back towards the town centre, but the left was completely unarmed.
Now there was a metaphor...
Logan folded the list and stuck it back in his pocket. ‘Anywhere you can find a space.’
Rennie squeezed the pool car in behind a pair of huge communal black bins, tightly sealed against the brain-eating seagull menace.
‘Right.’ Logan scrunched around in his seat. ‘You find any rapes in Duthie Park?’
‘Doing my best, Sarge.’ Poking and frowning away at the phone’s screen. ‘Location fields aren’t searchable by geographic proximity...you can only list addresses alphabetically. Whocodedthis? The API’s rubbish!’ Poke, poke, poke. ‘See,thisis why I wanted to go back to DHQ...That and the curry.’
Rennie climbed out of the car, then poked his head back in, smiling like a hungry wolf. ‘Then you’d better sit here and go through them, one by one, hadn’t you,Constable.’ He held up a paw. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll crack a window for you. Wouldn’t want someone calling the RSPCA on me.’ Then thunked his door shut, leaving Logan and Tufty alone in the car.
‘Sa-arge?’ The wee loon curled his top lip. ‘Is healwaysthis much of a snudge?’
‘No barking at passers-by. And try not to chew the upholstery.’ Logan slipped out onto the pavement, wagging a finger through the open door.‘Stay...’
Clunk.
Bloody hell...
The riverbank had been hot, but it was nothing compared to this. All that granite must’ve spent the last few days soaking up the heat, and now the tenements were like massive radiators, pounding out even more warmth as the sun baked down.
Other than the satellite dishes, and occasional downpipe, the flats were devoid of fancy ornamentation. Here and there, windows lay wide open, trying to coax in the non-existent breeze, letting music and TV shows ooze out into the sticky air.
Rennie turned around a couple of times, a Labrador in an ill-fitting suit, looking up at the buildings. ‘Where we going, Guv?’
‘Go easy on the wee loon.’ Heading across the road. ‘Not his fault you’re jealous.’
‘Notjealous.’ Rennie scurried after him. ‘If anyone’s jealous, it’shim. Because I’m so great.’
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
‘And the RSPCA don’t operate in Scotland – it’s theSSPCAup here. If you’re going to make fun of people, at least get your references right.’ Logan stopped outside number sixty-five. Checked the paperwork again. ‘Jericho McQueen: one of Charles MacGarioch’s little friends. We start here then we work our way through the list. Someone’s got to know where the racist wee shite’s hiding. We’re...’
The main door to number sixty-five swung open and an auld mannie in baggy jeans and a polo shirt scuffed out, bald as a boiled egg, hauling a tartan shopping trolley behind him.
‘Here.’ Logan stepped forward, catching the door before it bit into the trolley’s flanks. ‘Let me get that for you.’
Mr Bald-And-Baggy wrestled his trolley free, then gave the pair of them a good squint. ‘You Jehovah’s Witnesses or cops?’ Waving that away before they could answer. ‘Don’t care, long as you give that idiot in Two B a hard time. He’s an ASBO waiting to happen. And a wanker. That’s a sin, right: wanking?’ He waved that away too. ‘Course it is.Everything’s a sin with you miserable bastards.’
With those kind parting words, he shambled off, hiding that shiny head beneath a green woolly bunnet.
‘That was lucky.’ Logan stepped into the building’s lobby,which was nice enough if you liked brown. Brown woodwork, brown tiles on the floor, chocolate-mousse-coloured paint on the walls. A framed picture of a teeny kitten in a teacup hung at the foot of the stairs – a nugget of sweetcorn in a four-storey jobbie.
He popped his head outside again. ‘You just going to stand there gawping, or can we get on with this?’
Rennie stared after the old man. ‘Rude auld bugger. I mean, do Ilooklike a Jehovah’s Witness?’
Not unless they’d really let themselves go.