this the silence became punctuated with angry noises.
‘Oh Christ,’ muttered a uniform standing next to Logan, ‘could they no’ have got him to keep his mouth shut?’
‘“Now that”. . .’ Sandy the Snake had to raise his voice to be heard, ‘. . . “Now that my good name has been cleared I will”—’ He didn’t get any further.
A huge scruffy young man lunged out of the crowd, shoved his way through the ring of reporters and clobbered the lawyer one. Right on the nose. Sandy the Snake staggered back, tripped, and went down. The crowd roared in approval.
A ring of black uniforms appeared out of nowhere, grabbing the scruffy man before he could really put the boot into the fallen lawyer. They picked up a bleeding Sandy Moir-Farquharson and helped him back into the court building, frogmarching his attacker in behind him.
Nothing else happened for half an hour. Nothing but the freezing rain. Most of the crowd gave up and dispersed to the bars and their homes until there were only a handful of protesters left to see an unmarked minibus with tinted windows pull out onto the road and head away towards the centre of town.
Gerald Cleaver was free.
Back at Force Headquarters Logan joined a long queue of dripping, sniffing, police men and women. Up at the head of the line the canteen staff ladled out steaming bowls of Scotch broth. Standing next to the cutlery, the Chief Constable shook everyone’s hand and told them what a great job they’d done of preventing trouble.
Logan accepted the soup and the handshake with equal magnanimity, then squelched down over to a table by the fogged-up window. The soup was hot and tasty and a damn sight more use than the handshake. But at least the soup was free.
A delighted Detective Inspector Insch plonked himself down on the other side of the table, between a couple of drenched PCs. He sat beaming at everyone and everything. ‘Right on the nose!’ he said at last. ‘Bang! Right on the nose.’ He grinned and dug a spoon into his soup. ‘Whap!’ He put the spoon back down. ‘Did you see it? Slippery little sod stands there and spouts his drivel and someone gets up and twats him one. Bang!’ He slammed a huge fist into a huge hand, making the PC sitting next to him jump and miss his mouth with the spoon, sending a cascade of soup down the front of his tie. ‘Sorry, son.’ Insch offered the spluttering PC a napkin. ‘Right on the bloody nose!’ He stopped and the grin got even wider. ‘It’ll be on the news tonight! I’m going to record it and whenever I feel like a laugh—’ he mimed pointing a remote control, stabbing his finger down on a pretend button. ‘BANG! Right on the nose.’ He sighed happily. ‘Days like this I remember why I joined the force.’
‘How’s DI Steel taking it?’ asked Logan.
‘Hmm? Oh. . .’ Insch’s smile faded. ‘Well she’s happy about the nose-punching but well pissed off they let that slimy little pervert go free.’ He shook his head. ‘She spent ages getting the victims to testify. Poor buggers had to stand there and tell everyone what that pervert did to them. Hissing Sid humiliates them. Cleaver goes free, and all that pain was for nothing.’
Silence settled over the table, everyone concentrating on their soup.
‘You want to go see him?’ asked Insch when the last of Logan’s soup was gone.
‘What, Cleaver?’
‘No, the hero of the hour!’ He raised his hands in the classic fisticuffs pose. ‘He who floats like a butterfly and stings like a fist to the nose.’
Logan smiled. ‘Why not?’
There was a small crowd outside the holding cells. All happy and chattering. With a growl, DI Insch sent them packing. Didn’t they know this was highly unprofessional? Did they want people to think it was OK to go committing assault? Shamefaced, the uniformed onlookers dispersed, leaving just Logan, Insch and the custody sergeant outside the blue-painted door. The sergeant was scribbling a name on the board next to the cell and Logan frowned. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t work out why.
‘Mind if we pay your boy a visit?’ asked Insch when the scribbling was done.
‘What? No, sir, you go ahead. Are you in charge of the investigation?’
Insch beamed again. ‘I bloody well hope so!’
The room was small without being cosy: brown lino floor, cream walls and a hard wooden bench-seat running along the wall. The only natural light came from two small frosted panes of heavy-duty glass set into the top of the outside wall. The whole place smelled of armpits.
The cell’s occupant was curled up on the wooden bench, lying on his side in the foetal position. Moaning quietly.
‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ said Insch. ‘We can take it from here.’
‘OK.’ The custody sergeant backed out of the cell and winked at Logan. ‘Let me know if Mohammed Ali here gives you any trouble.’
The cell door shut with a dull clang and Insch settled down on the bench next to the curled up figure. ‘Mr Strichen? Or can I call you Martin?’
The figure shifted slightly.
‘Martin? Do you know why you’re here?’ Insch’s voice was soft and friendly, completely unlike any tone Logan had ever heard him use on a suspect.
Slowly, Martin Strichen levered himself up until his legs were hanging over the edge of the bench, his socks making damp footprints on the lino. They’d confiscated his shoelaces and his belt and anything else dangerous. He was huge – not fat – but large everywhere, arms, legs, hands, jaw. . . Logan stopped when he got to the pockmarked face. Now he knew where he recognized the name from: Martin Strichen was WPC Watson’s changing-room wanker, the one he’d given a lift back to Craiginches Prison. The one who’d been giving evidence in the Gerald Cleaver case.
No wonder he’d smacked Slippery Sandy on the nose.
‘They let him go.’ His voice was little more than a whisper.
‘I know they did, Martin. I know. They shouldn’t have, but they did.’
‘They let him go because of him.’
Insch nodded. ‘And that’s why you hit Mr Moir-Farquharson?’
A muffled mumble.
‘Martin, I’m going to write up a little statement and then I’m going to ask you to sign it, OK?’
‘They let him go.’
Gently, Insch took Martin Strichen through the events of the afternoon, taking special delight in the moment of impact, getting Logan to write it all down in tortured police-speak. It was an admission of guilt, but Insch had taken great pains to make it sound as if it was all Sandy the Snake’s fault. Which it was anyway. Martin signed it and Insch released him from custody.
‘Do you have anywhere to go?’ asked Logan as they walked him through reception to the door.
‘Staying with my mother. The court said I have to, while I do my community service.’ His shoulders sagged even further.
Insch patted him on the back. ‘It’s still raining; I can get a patrol car to give you a lift if you like?’
Martin Strichen shuddered. ‘Said she’d kill me if she saw another police car outside the house.’
‘OK. If you’re sure.’ Insch extended his hand and Strichen shook it, his huge paw engulfing the inspector’s. ‘And, Martin,’ he looked into the lad’s troubled hazel eyes, ‘thank you.’
Logan and Insch stood at the window, watching Martin Strichen disappear into the rainy afternoon. Only four o’clock and it was already dark outside.
‘When he was on the stand,’ said Logan, ‘he swore he’d kill Moir-Farquharson.’
‘Really?’ Insch sounded thoughtful.
‘You think he’ll try something?’