Cold Granite (11 page)

They'd spent the first third of the evening talking in serious tones about the dead and missing children. The second third had been spent bitching about the Professional Standards investigation into the leaking of information to the press. Changing their name from Complaints and Discipline hadn't made them any more popular.

And the last third getting seriously drunk.

One of the PCs - Logan couldn't remember his name - lurched back to the table with another round of beers. The constable was entering that stage of drunkenness where everything seemed very funny, giggling as half a pint of lager went al over the table and down the leg of a bearded CID man.

Logan had no intention of being the responsible adult tonight, so he grabbed his pint and walked, a little unsteadily, across to the bandits.

There was a smal knot of off-duty officers gathered round a quiz machine, shouting and cheering, but Logan walked right past them.

WPC Watson was standing on her own, jabbing away at a bandit. Flashing lights spiral ed round and round the machine's face, glittering and bleeping and dinging away. A half-drunk bottle of Budweiser was clutched in her other hand as she stabbed the flickering buttons, sending the tumblers whizzing round again.

'You look happy,' said Logan as two lemons and a castle appeared on the display.

She didn't even look round. 'Not enough bloody evidence!' Watson hammered the nudge button, getting an anchor for her troubles.

'Have to keep looking,' said Logan, taking a swig, enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling spreading out from the middle of his head. 'Forensics didn't find anything at the flat--'

'Forensics couldn't find shite in a septic tank. What about the bloody receipt?' She stuffed another couple of pounds in the slot and smacked her fist down on the Go button.

Logan shrugged and Watson snarled at the pictures: anchor, lemon, bar of gold.

'We al know he's guilty!' she said, sending the tumblers spinning again.

'And now we've got to prove it. But we wouldn't even have him in custody if it wasn't for you.' Logan had a bit of difficulty with the word 'custody', but WPC Watson didn't seem to notice. He leaned forward and poked her gently in the shoulder. 'That receipt was a damn clever catch.'

He could have sworn she almost smiled as she fed another pound into the machine.

'I didn't spot the Clubcard points. You did that.' She didn't take her eyes off the flashing lights.

'And I wouldn't have if you hadn't found the receipt in the first place.' He beamed at her and took another drink.

She took her eyes off the machine's flashing lights to watch him sway slightly, almost in time with the music. 'What happened to "one four times a day, not to be taken with alcohol"?'

Logan winked. 'I won't tel anyone if you don't.'

She smiled at him. 'Babysitting you is going to be a ful time job, isn't it?'

Logan clinked his pint glass against her bottle of beer. 'I'l drink to that!'

10

Six o'clock and the alarm's insistent bleeping dragged Logan out of his bed and into a blistering hangover. He slumped at the side of the bed, holding his head in his hands, feeling the contents swel and throb. His stomach was gurgling and churning with lurching certainty. He was going to be sick. With a grunt he staggered to the bedroom door and out into the hal , making for the toilet.

Why did he have so much to drink? The pil s said quite clearly they were not to be taken with alcohol...

Afterwards, he leant on the edge of the sink and let his head droop forward to touch the cool surface of the tiles, the acid tang of bile stil burning his nostrils.

He slid one eye open, just far enough to make out the pint glass sitting on top of the cistern. There was stil half a bottle of the painkil ers he'd been given the first time he'd come out of the hospital, when the scars were stil fresh. Logan pulled them out with a trembling hand, struggling with the childproof lid. He fil ed the glass with water, knocked back a couple of the pebble-sized capsules, and slouched into the shower.

He wasn't feeling that much better by the time he was finished, but at least he didn't smel like a cross between a brewery and an ashtray any more. He was halfway across the hal , rubbing a towel through his hair, when he heard a polite cough.

Logan spun around, heart suddenly racing, his hands bal ing into fists.

WPC Watson was standing in the kitchen doorway, wearing one of his old T-shirts and waggling a plastic fish slice at him. Her hair, released from its tight regulation bun, fel over her shoulders in dark brown curls. A pair of bare legs stuck out of the bottom of the T-shirt and they were very nice legs indeed.

'Cold, is it?' asked Watson with a smile and Logan suddenly realized he was standing there in the nip, with everything on show.

He clutched the towel swiftly over his exposed nether regions and a furnacelike blush worked its way from the soles of his feet al the way up to the top of his head.

Her smile slipped a bit and WPC Watson frowned, a smal crease forming between her neat, brown eyebrows. She was staring at his stomach, where the scars covered the skin with little puckered trails.

'Was it bad?'

Logan cleared his throat and nodded. 'I wouldn't recommend it,' he said. 'Er...I...'

'Do you want a bacon buttie? There weren't any eggs. Or much of anything else come to that.'

He stood, clutching his towel over his embarrassment, feeling the uncomfortable tingle of an approaching erection.

'Wel ?' she asked again: 'Bacon buttie?'

'Er, yeah...Thanks, that'd be great.'

She turned back into the kitchen and Logan ran for the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. God, how drunk did they get last night? Not to be taken with alcohol! He couldn't remember a thing. He didn't even know her first name. How could he sleep with someone when he didn't even know her first name?

He scrubbed himself with the towel, threw it in the corner and fought his stil -damp feet into a pair of black socks.

How the hel could he let this happen? He was a DS and she was a WPC. They worked together. He was her superior officer! DI Insch would have a fit if he started seeing a WPC on his team!

Hopping on one leg, he got his trousers on before realizing he'd forgotten to put on any pants. So off came the trousers again.

'What the hel have you done, you idiot?' he asked the panicking reflection in the mirror.

'She works for you!' The reflection looked back at him, the consternation slowly slipping into a knowing smile. 'Aye, but she's not bad is she?'

Logan had to admit that the reflection had a point. WPC Watson was smart, attractive...And she could beat the shit out of anyone who used her as a one night stand. She wasn't cal ed 'Bal Breaker' for nothing: that's what DI Insch had said!

'Oh God...' A fresh white shirt came out of the wardrobe and he almost strangled himself with a paisley patterned tie before charging back out into the hal . Logan stopped before he got to the kitchen. What the hel was he going to do? Should he come clean and admit he couldn't remember anything? He grimaced. That would go down wel : 'Hi, I'm sorry, but I don't remember having sex with you. Was it good?' Yeah, and oh, by the way: 'What's your name?'

There was nothing else for it: he'd have to keep his mouth shut and let her make the first move. Logan took a deep breath and stepped into the kitchen.

The room smel ed of frying bacon and stale beer. WPC Watson and her lovely legs were standing in front of the cooker, poking about in the frying pan, making the bacon hiss and crackle. Logan was about to say something complimentary to break the ice when someone spoke behind him, making him jump out of his skin.

'Urrrrrrghhhh...Shift over, I don't think I can stand up much longer.'

Logan turned to find a rumpled young man with a rough growth of stubble and bleary eyes, dressed in casual clothes and scratching his arse, waiting for Logan to clear the way to the kitchen.

'Sorry,' Logan mumbled, letting the youth slouch past and col apse into a chair.

'Gnnnnnnnn, my head,' said the newcomer, burying the offending article in his hands and letting it sink to the tabletop.

Watson looked over her shoulder and saw Logan standing there, al done up in his work suit. 'Sit yourself down,' she told him, grabbing a couple of slices of white bread from a new loaf and slapping about half a pack of fried bacon between them. She thumped it down on the tabletop, and chucked more bacon into the pan.

'Er...thanks,' said Logan.

The hungover young man sitting on the other side of the table looked vaguely familiar.

Was it one of the search team? The one who spil ed lager over that bearded bloke from CID?

Watson slammed another bacon buttie onto the table, this time in front of the groaning PC.

'You didn't have to make breakfast,' said Logan, smiling at Watson as she tipped the last of the smoked streaky into the frying pan. A big cloud of hissing steam rose from the pan and she waved it away with the fish slice, little droplets of fat fal ing from the plastic utensil to splatter on the work surface.

'What, you'd rather he did it?' she asked, pointing at the PC. He didn't look as if he'd make it as far as the toilet if the bacon buttie decided to give him any trouble. 'Don't know about you, but I like my breakfast chunk free.'

Another face Logan only partial y recognized appeared around the kitchen door. 'God, Steve,' it said, 'look at the state of ye! If Insch catches you like that he'l have a fit...' He stopped when he saw Logan sitting there in his nice clean suit. 'Mornin', sir. Good party last night. Thanks for putting us up.'

'Er...Don't mention it.' Party?

The face smiled. 'Ooooooh! Nice legs, Jackie! God, bacon butties. Any chance--'

'Bugger al ,' said Watson, grabbing another two slices of white and stuffing them with the last of the bacon. 'MacNeil only got four packs and they're al gone. Anyway, I gotta get ready.' She grabbed the tomato sauce off the counter top and squeezed an indecent amount of thick red into the buttie. 'You should have got out your pit earlier.'

The new face creased up with unconcealed envy as WPC Jackie Watson ripped a huge bite out of her buttie. She chewed away contentedly with a large tomato sauce smile plastered across her face.

Not one to give up easily, the man Logan stil couldn't place sat himself down on the last remaining chair and lent his elbows on the tabletop. 'God, Steve,' he said, his voice dripping with concern, 'you real y look rough. Are you sure you're OK to eat that?' He pointed at the bacon buttie sitting on the tabletop. 'It looks real y, real y greasy.'

Watson's mouth was ful of food, but she stil managed to mumble round the edges,

'Don't you listen to him, Steve. Do you the world of good that wil .'

'Yeah,' said the PC with no name. 'You get that down you, Steve. Nice hunks of sliced dead pig. Fried in its own grease. Dripping with fat. Just the thing you need to settle a queasy, heaving stomach.'

Steve was starting to go grey.

'Nothing like a bit of lard to settle the old...'

The newcomer didn't have to go any further. Steve lurched up from the table, slapped a hand over his mouth and sprinted for the toilet. As the sounds of retching and splattering echoed out of the bathroom the newcomer grinned, snatched up Steve's forgotten buttie and rammed it into his gob. 'God that's good!' he declared, grease running down his chin.

'You're an utter and complete bastard, Simon Rennie!'

The bastard Simon Rennie winked at WPC Jackie Watson. 'Survival of the fittest.'

Logan sat back from the table, chewing on his bacon buttie, trying to remember what the hel happened last night. He couldn't remember any party. Everything was pretty much a blank after the pub. And some of the stuff before that was none too clear either. But apparently he'd had a party and some of the search team had crashed at his place. That made sense. His flat was on Marischal Street: two minutes' walk from Queen Street and Grampian Police Headquarters. But he stil couldn't remember anything after they were chucked out of the pub.

The PC currently throwing up in his toilet - Steve - had stuck Queen's 'A Kinda Magic' on the jukebox and promptly taken off al his clothes. It couldn't be cal ed a striptease. There was no teasing and too much staggering round like a drunken lunatic.

The bar staff had kindly asked them to leave.

Which explained why half of Aberdeen's constabulary were either in his kitchen wolfing bacon, or in his bathroom chucking their guts up. But it didn't shed any light on WPC Jackie Watson and her lovely legs.

'So,' he said, watching as Watson tore another huge mouthful out of her buttie. 'How come you ended up with cooking duty?' It was a neutral subject. No one would be able to discern the subtext: did we sleep together last night?

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and shrugged. 'My turn. If it's your first time on a sleepover you have to make the butties. But it's your flat, so it goes to the next one in line.'

Logan nodded as if that made perfect sense. It was too early in the morning and he wasn't up to thinking speed yet. He just smiled in a way that he hoped didn't say anything negative about whatever had happened last night.

'Wel ,' he stood, dropping his crusts in the bin. 'I've got to go. The briefing's at half-seven, sharp, and I've got some pre-work to do.' Nice and businesslike. No one said anything, or even looked up. 'OK, wel , if you can make sure and lock up I'l see you al there...' He stopped, expecting some sort of signal from WPC Watson. Jackie! Not WPC Watson: Jackie. He didn't get one. She was too busy eating. 'Yeah. Right,' he said, backing towards the door. 'See you later.'

Outside it was stil dark. This time of the morning wasn't going to see the sun for another five months at least. The city was starting up as he climbed Marischal Street to the Castlegate. The streetlights were stil on, and so were the Christmas lights. The twelve days of Christmas: Aberdeen's favourite, strung al the way from here to the far end of Union Street.

Logan stopped for a moment, breathing in the cold morning air. The torrential downpour was gone, replaced by a misting drizzle that made the Christmas lights hazy and blurred. Ivory-white light sculpted into lords a-leaping and swans a-swimming against the gunmetal-grey sky. The streets were slowly fil ing up with cars. The Union Street shop windows offered a riot of Christmas cheer and cheap tat. Above these, grey granite reached up for three or more storeys, the windows dark where offices were yet to open, people yet to wake. The whole scene was washed with amber and sparkling-white from the festive lights. It was almost beautiful. Sometimes the city reminded him why he stil lived here.