words.
The four of them backed off, chins in, eyebrows up.
Three-Piece: ‘Well, there was no need for that, was there?’
Mrs Tweed: ‘No there wasn’t.’
Tracksuit: ‘There’s always someone who lowers the debate to name calling, isn’t there?’
Mr Spots: ‘Honestly, some people think shouting’s the same as democracy.’
Logan screwed his eyes shut. ‘Stoney, if I’m up for four counts of murder tomorrow morning, can you feed my cat for me?’
‘Deep breaths, Guv, count to ten.’
A smoky voice cut through the night. ‘Ta-daaaaa!’ And when Logan opened his eyes, there was Steel, bouncing on the top step with her arms up, like something out of a Rocky film. ‘They canna take our FREEDOM!’
The little knot of idiots transferred their attentions her way.
‘You want me to slide the briefing back a bit?’
Logan checked his watch again. ‘Fifteen minutes. Then we hit the streets.’
The bells of some far off church tolled out a dozen chimes. Midnight.
Water Lane was narrow and dark, half the streetlights blown and broken. The cobbles slick beneath Logan’s feet. Not that it’d been raining. No, they were all slippery with … Yeah, probably best not to think about what he’d just trodden in. Or on.
A tall granite building made a wall on one side of the lane, its guttering sprouting weeds, lichen on the lintels, broken windows. Boarded-up doors that opened onto nothing but fresh air on the second, third, and fourth floors. A couple of trees had burst out through the windows high up there, like slow-motion explosions.
The other side was more granite. Cold and unwelcoming. Not exactly the most romantic of spots for an intimate liaison. But then romance probably wasn’t on the cards. Not even Richard Gere’s character from Pretty Woman would have wheeched any of the working girls here off to a swanky hotel for pampering and shopping fun.
Two of them shuffled their feet, then looked away from the missing person poster in Logan’s hand. One looked as if she’d never see sixty again, but was probably barely out of her thirties. Her friend hadn’t been at the drugs as long, so she still had all her own teeth and nowhere near as many pin-prick bruises up the inside of her arms. But they were both pipe-cleaner thin.
Logan sighed and tried again. ‘Are you sure you’ve never seen him?’
The older one shook her head. ‘Now, any chance you can sod off, only we’ve got quotas and that.’
Sugarhouse Lane was even narrower. The Regent Quay end was quiet – probably due to the half-dozen security cameras protecting the office buildings at the mouth of the alley. Further in, it was a different story. Blank granite topped with barbed wire on one side, warehouse-style walls on the other.
A lack of streetlights left the doorways and recesses in shadow.
Logan hunched his shoulders and stepped into the gloom.
The young man couldn’t have been much over eighteen. If that. His red PVC T-shirt was dusty across the shoulders, his jeans torn and grubby about the knees. Every bit as thin and wobbly as the ladies of one street over. He licked his lips and stepped towards Logan. ‘You looking for a good time, yeah?’
Logan pulled out the poster again. ‘Looking for this man. You seen him?’
He lowered his head. ‘Never seen no one …’
After a while, all the alleys blended into one another. Granite walls. Shadows. The smell of furtive sex and shame and desperation and barely-concealed violence.
Logan held the poster up and the woman with the thinning blonde hair shook her head. Same as the last five people he’d talked to.
As she clip-clopped away down the cobbles, Logan pulled out his phone and dialled Stoney. ‘Anything?’
‘Nah. It’s like a Dress-Slutty Party for amnesiacs round here tonight. No one’s seen him.’
‘Well we know two people saw him. Has to be others.’
‘Early days though, Guv. Maybe Elaine Mitchel and Jane Taylor don’t come out till the clubs shut?’
Logan curled his lip and wandered back onto Regent Quay, with its warehouses, fences, and massive supply vessels, caught in the glare of security lighting. ‘Don’t fancy hanging about here till the back of three. Get onto Control – I want home addresses.’
‘Guv.’
Till then, might as well complete the circuit and try Water Lane again.
Two steps in and Logan’s phone launched into ‘The Imperial March’ from Star Wars. That would be Steel.
He pulled the phone out. ‘What?’
‘Too close to call, you believe that?’
‘What is?’
‘The referendum, you moron. They’re showing all the ballot boxes arriving at the counting stations. Exit polls are too close to call.’
‘Glad to hear you’re working hard.’
‘Don’t be a dick. This is important.’
‘Well, while you’re sitting on your bum, watching TV, and eating pizza, I’m out searching the docks for witnesses. So if it’s nothing urgent and police-related, feel free to be a pain in someone else’s backside for a change.’ He hung up and wandered further into the alley.
‘This it?’ Logan stood in the street and looked up. The tower block loomed in the darkness – twelve storeys of concrete and graffiti, a few lights shining from the upper floors. Wind whipped a broken newspaper against the chainlink fence, punishing it for its headline, ‘A Dirty Campaign Of Fear And Lies?’
Stoney checked his notebook. ‘Want to guess what floor?’
A groan. ‘Top.’
‘Yup.’
There was an intercom next to the double doors, half the metal cover missing, wires poking out. Didn’t matter anyway – the door creaked open when Stoney nudged it with his foot. Then he flinched, nose crumped up on one side. ‘Lovely. Eau De Toilette. Incontinence, pour homme.’
Deep breaths.
They marched inside. A faded cardboard sign was duct taped to the lift’s dented doors. ‘Out Of Order’.
Damn right it was.
They took the stairs. Dark stains clustered at every landing, the nipping reek of ammonia strong enough to make Logan’s eyes water. Go faster and be out of it quicker, but then there would be puffing and panting and breathing more of it in …
When finally they arrived on the twelfth floor, Stoney was a coughing, wheezing lump. Dragging air in. And Logan wasn’t much better. By rights, the top floors should’ve been less stinky, shouldn’t they? People would pee on their way downstairs, or on their way back to their flats. No one headed upstairs to pee, did they?
Stoney wafted a hand in front of his face. ‘God’s sake, stairwell must run like Niagara Falls on a Saturday night.’ He coughed a couple of times, then spat. Wiped his mouth. ‘That’s it at the end.’
Flat four still had its number attached to the red-painted door. The word ‘HOORS!’ was sprayed across the wood in three-foot tall letters.