Close to the Bone. Stuart MacBride

off a blue Citroën Berlingo in Mannofield.’ Another yawn. ‘Bet you a fiver they abandoned the Golf and torched it before going on in a second car. So we’ll get nothing off it, even if we can find. . .’ He blinked at Logan, then frowned. ‘What? ’ Brushed a hand across his cheek. ‘Have I got pizza on my face? ’

      ‘We found a burned-out VW Golf in the Joyriders’ Graveyard: reported stolen Saturday morning – last seen by the owner, Friday tea-time. It was still warm.’

      ‘Plenty of time to get to the jewellers, cut the alarm cables, get in, tie up the proprietor and his bit on the side, rob everything, then sod off into the night.’

      Logan took a biro from the mess on his desk and tapped it against his chin. ‘Interesting.’

      ‘Ooh,’ Rennie sat forward in the chair. ‘Maybe your victim’s one of the team? Someone got greedy, or they thought he was a snitch? ’

      ‘Would explain the gangland execution, wouldn’t it? ’

      A knock at the door, then DS Chalmers stuck her head in. ‘Guv? ’ A huge grin split her face, teeth all small, pointy, and glinting. ‘We just got DNA back: it’s a match.’

      Looked as if DCI Steel was right after all. There’d be bacon flapping its way past the window any minute now. ‘Get on to the PNC, I want—’

      ‘Criminal record? ’ She held up a manila folder.

      ‘And—’

      ‘Current address? ’ She placed a printout in the middle of Logan’s desk, then stood back, showing off her happy little teeth. ‘And there’s a pool car waiting outside for us.’

      Cocky, ambitious, and efficient. Maybe not such a bad combination after all.

      Chalmers took them out through the city limits, heading north on the Inverness road, sitting in the outside lane of the dual carriageway, doing eighty, with the blue flashers going. ‘. . .and you’d think he’d be a bit more grateful, wouldn’t you? At least now he knows where his precious Range Rover is. But he was a complete arsehole about it.’

      Logan watched the fields go by, fluffy white sheep and big rectangular cows polka-dotting the swathes of almost luminous green. ‘Uh-huh.’

      ‘OK, so it’s a burned-out hulk, but he’ll have third-party fire and theft, won’t he? Don’t know what he’s moaning about, really. Just because we haven’t got a clue who stole it in the first place. . .’

      ‘Right.’ A fortress of pine trees flanked the dual carriageway for a minute, needles shining in the sunlight, the earth below wreathed in brambles and sharp-edged shadow. And then more fields. Aberdeenshire at its bucolic best, sliding by outside the car while DS Chalmers jumped from topic to topic in a perpetual-motion monologue.

      ‘. . .and I know blow’s never really that difficult to get hold of, but it’s everywhere right now. Cannabis as far as the eye can see: Inverness, Aberdeen, Ellon, Keith, Peterhead, it’s like a plague. . .’

      ‘Mmm. . .’

      Down the hill to Blackburn, through the roundabout, and on. The sky was a blanket of sapphire blue, streaked around the edges with misty white. Warm in the car. Logan blinked. The army ants had all congregated in the bridge of his nose, and now the little sods were having a hoedown. In clogs.

      ‘. . .can’t believe the SPSA are still fiddling about and re-organizing stuff. Honestly, can you think of a single person who’s actually in favour of all this? Nothing but cost-cutting pirate bollocks – not surprising the SOCOs are all grumbling about industrial action. . .’

      Sodding Isobel and her ‘analgesics’. Might as well have downed a couple of kiddie Aspirin for all the good they were doing. Should’ve taken some of the proper painkillers from the caravan: the ones that made the world go all fluffy, warm, and soft. Like sleeping on a giant kitten.

      ‘. . .just have to look at this guy – we get a hit on his DNA, but nothing on the fingerprints. You know why? Because they can’t leave well enough alone, that’s why. If it’s not broken, poke and fiddle with it till it is. Honestly. . .’

      ‘Hmm.’ Might be nice to move further out of town. The caravan was OK, not that much smaller than the flat, and it was all on the ground floor – which was a bonus. And the view wasn’t bad out over the fields, and trees, and the River Don. Just had to ignore the sewage treatment plant directly opposite. Other than that it was OK. Be nice to have a bigger place though.

      ‘. . .continual budget cuts. I bet we could catch half the neds in the area if we just stuck a couple of cameras up at the Joyriders’ Graveyard. Make our lives a hell of a lot easier. . .’

      Bennachie humped on the horizon, the mountain rising up between the trees. Not much to look at from a distance, the Mither Tap looking like an abandoned breast: nipple pointing at the sky.

      Silence. Just the sound of the engine, and the tyres growling on the tarmac at eighty miles per hour.

      Logan glanced across the car. DS Chalmers was looking back at him, one eyebrow raised – as if she’d just asked a question.

      He cleared his throat. ‘In what way? ’

      ‘Well . . . can’t they see that it’s interfering with the actual job? Surely that’s more important than saving a few quid? ’

      Ah. He went back to the window. Trees and fields and cows and sheep. ‘Austerity measures. We’ve all got to do our bit. All pulling together, in the same boat, etc. Pick your cliché.’ The sun was warm through the glass. Soporific. He closed his eyes for a minute, just to let them rest. Switch off the lights on the ants’ hoedown. ‘Think yourself lucky – you only have to moan about it. Some of us have to implement this crap.’

      A spaniel loped along the pavement, unaccompanied, sniffing each and every lamppost before cocking a leg and leaving its calling card. Logan looked up from the manila folder’s contents and peered out at a line-up of identikit houses. ‘You sure this is the right street? ’

      ‘No.’ Chalmers turned the wheel and they drifted onto another road lined with yet more pale-cream buildings with the occasional patch of sandstone cladding thrown in for fun. White PVC windows, lockblock drives, satellite dishes, and a tiny garage where a front room should have been. All topped with fresh brown pantiles. Detached homes built so close together you’d be lucky if you could walk between them without your shoulders brushing either side. ‘Place is like a maze. . .’

      She did a three-point turn and headed back the way they’d come. A wee boy on a yellow bike with tassels on the handlebars cycled slowly by, excavating the inside of his nose as if it held buried treasure.

      ‘Has to be around here somewhere. . .’

      According to the Police National Computer, Guy Ferguson was the lucky recipient of umpteen warnings, and three stints of community service. Everything from shoplifting in John Lewis when he was twelve, to drunk and disorderly when he was fourteen. Then there was a string of vehicle offences – theft from opening lockfast places, unlawful removal, vandalism, driving without insurance. . . One count of breaking into the corner shop and making off with the till. Almost went to prison eighteen months ago when he was caught helping himself to the contents of ladies’ handbags in the Kintore Arms.

      And that was the last thing on his record. Either Guy had cleaned up his act, or he’d finally figured out how not to get caught.

      ‘God’s sake. Everything round here’s Castleview: Castleview Place, Castleview Avenue, Castleview Crescent. Where’s the castle? Can you see one? ’

      Logan flicked back to the mugshot at the front of the file. ‘Developers are like politicians – never believe anything they say.’

      In the photo, Guy looked as if he’d just been dragged through an Alsatian, backwards. His left cheek was a patchwork of bruises, his eye swollen almost shut, split lip and swollen jaw. Apparently some bloke objected to Guy stealing things from his wife’s