uncrossed his legs, then crossed them again. Brushed something from his trouser leg. ‘Not even when they got on the TV?’ He’d been doing this since the start of the interview: every time Baker did anything, Rennie copied it. Like a sunburnt reflection.
‘Dear God, it was a nightmare. Soon as they made it through the first two stages there were reporters everywhere. I couldn’t go out my front door without a half dozen of the grubby little swines pointing cameras in my face. “Do you know Alison and Jenny?”, “What do they like to eat for breakfast?”, “Does Alison have a man in her life?” On and on, every single day.’ He took a deep breath, and Logan watched Rennie do exactly the same thing.
Baker looked out of the window. ‘It’s very … inconvenient for someone in my position to be harassed by the media. It makes me uncomfortable.’
Logan tapped his pen against the clipboard. ‘So you’re saying you never spoke to, interacted with, or had anything to do with Alison and Jenny McGregor?’
Baker closed his eyes, pursed his lips. ‘I don’t know them. I’ve never known them. I don’t want to know them.’
‘Do you watch a lot of television, Mr Baker?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Documentaries, the news, or are you an X-Factor and Britain’s Next Big Star kinda guy?’
Baker gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘OK, OK … I watched them. Every week, up there singing and dancing and getting famous. For what? What the hell was so special about Alison Bloody McGregor and her little girl? Oh, Jenny’s daddy died in Afghanistan, boo bloody hoo.’
‘Iraq, Mr Baker. James McGregor died in Iraq.’
‘Same difference.’ He scowled at the floor. ‘I never touched them. I didn’t kidnap them. I didn’t kill her, or her horrible little child. I wouldn’t dirty my hands…’
Darren McInnes (52) – Exposing Children to Harm/Danger or Neglect, Possessing Indecent Images of Children, Theft by Housebreaking, Serious Assault
‘No, that’s not what I’m saying.’ McInnes brushed his long, greasy yellow-grey hair from his face and tied it in a loose ponytail. He pursed his lips, the folds around his grey eyes deepening behind thick glasses. ‘I’m saying I had nothing to do with them.’
At least he looked like a paedophile. Baker could have passed for a swimming pool attendant, but there was no mistaking Darren McInnes.
McInnes shifted in his seat, Rennie copying his every move. ‘Can I smoke?’ He pulled out a tin of tobacco.
Logan shook his head. ‘There’s a hundred and fifty pound fine for smoking in the hotel, Mr McInnes. Where were you last week: Wednesday night, Thursday morning?’
‘Bloody government. I should be able to smoke if I want to, they’re my bloody lungs.’
Logan banged on the arm of his chair, making the lanky man flinch.
‘Where – were – you?’
‘I don’t know. I was at home. Probably. Watching TV. Maybe I had a couple of beers, it’s not illegal is it?’
‘How well do you know Alison and Jenny McGregor?’
‘We’ve been over this. I don’t, OK? Yes, I was aware of them, but I don’t follow all that reality television shite. Whatever happened to the good old days, eh? When they used to make decent drama and comedy and documentaries? Now it’s all about sticking a bunch of nobodies on the box and raking the cash in with dodgy telephone scams. Makes you sick.’ He produced the tobacco tin again, popped it open and pulled out a packet of Rizla papers.
‘I said no smoking.’
McInnes looked up at Logan. ‘I’m not smoking, I’m rolling, OK? That still allowed in Nazi Britain?’
Rennie pulled a pen from his pocket and fiddled with it. ‘And you never watched Alison and Jenny on the TV, at all?’
‘Oh, I heard them on the radio. Everywhere you go, they’re on the radio, singing that bloody awful song. They didn’t even write it. Cover versions, that’s all people can do these days.’
Logan stood and walked around until he was standing directly behind McInnes. Looming. Up close he smelled of unwashed hair and stale cigarettes. ‘Do you know anyone who’s selling a little girl?’
‘Ah.’ The lanky man pulled a sheet of translucent paper from the little packet, then dug into a pouch of tobacco. ‘Well, sometimes one hears certain…rumours. Internet chat rooms, news groups, that kind of thing.’
‘Anyone talking about Jenny McGregor?’
He fiddled a line of thin brown curls down the middle of the paper, then ran a pale yellow tongue along one edge. ‘Celebrity child like that … Hmm … It would give things an extra kick, wouldn’t it? Knowing everyone’s out there, looking for her, but she’s all yours. And you can do anything you want…’ McInnes rolled the cigarette into a tight cylinder and pinched the excess tobacco from the ends. ‘Can you imagine what she’d be worth on the open market?’ He cleared his throat. ‘If she wasn’t dead.’
Logan stared at him. ‘You tell me.’
McInnes popped the newly formed cigarette in the tin and produced another rolling paper. ‘I really wouldn’t know. And before you ask: Jenny isn’t my type.’ He smiled, showing off a set of uneven brown teeth. ‘Far too old.’
Sarah Cooper (35) – Lewd and Libidinous Practices and Behaviour, Abduction, Attempted Murder
‘Such an awful thing to happen.’ Sarah Cooper leaned forward in her seat, exposing a cavernous expanse of freckled cleavage, blue silk blouse stretched tight across her swollen belly and massive breasts. Her pork-sausage fingers traced a circle on her short black skirt, the nails as scarlet as her lips. ‘I can only imagine what poor Alison must be going through…’
Rennie did his mirror thing again. ‘Can you tell us where you were last Wednesday night, Thursday morning?’
She blushed, looked away. Pink cheeks clashing with her Irn-Bru-orange hair. ‘To lose a child like that…’
Logan checked his watch. Half-eleven already and they’d only seen four people on the list. If the other teams were going at this rate it was going to take at least another three days to get through everyone on the Sex Offenders’ Register. Assuming DI Ingram and the Diddymen could track them all down. And it was getting hot in here, making his arm itch beneath the wadding. ‘You didn’t answer Constable Rennie’s question, Ms Cooper. Where were you the night Alison and Jenny were snatched?’
Not that she could have had anything to do with it. Her backside was far too large to fit in an SOC suit. Hell, it barely fitted in her seat: if she got up too quickly, she’d be wearing the thing as a bum warmer.
‘I was … with a friend.’ She shifted her buttocks, making the chair creak.
Logan smiled at her. ‘Whom?’
‘I don’t see how that’s any business of—’
‘It’s OK, Sarah,’ Rennie shifted in his seat, arranging himself in a perfect reflection, ‘we just need to eliminate you from our enquiries. You want to help us catch whoever hurt Jenny, don’t you?’
The blush deepened. ‘I … I read all about them, you know. When OK! did that big spread on them: Alison and Jenny at home. Such a cramped little house for such a huge talent.’
‘We need a name, Ms Cooper. And an address.’
‘I don’t…’ She ran a hand across her neck, sweat glistened in the crevasse between her breasts.
‘Where were you?’
‘Come on, Sarah, you can tell us.’
Another wipe of cleavage. ‘Can I have