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Partners in Crime:
Logan and Steel Short Stories
Stuart MacBride
This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
First published as an anthology by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012
DI Steel’s Bad Heir Day first published in the Evening Express 2010
http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk
Stramash first published on JuraWhisky.com 2011
Copyright © Stuart MacBride 2012
Close to the Bone extract © Stuart MacBride 2012
Stuart MacBride asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Ebook Edition © November 2012 ISBN: 9780007494729
Version 2015-07-08
Table of Contents
December 23rd
‘Sod...’ DI Steel stood on one leg in the doorway, nose wrinkled up on one side. ‘Thought I smelt something.’ She ground her left foot into the blue-grey carpet, then dragged it along the floor behind her as she lurched into the briefing room: a hunchless wrinkly Igor in a stain-speckled grey trouser suit. Today, her hair looked like she’d borrowed it from an angry hedgehog.
DC Allan Guthrie chucked another spoon of coffee in a mug and drowned it with almost boiled water. Topped it up with milk, and chucked in a couple of sugars. No point asking if she wanted one. ‘Guv?’
She stopped, mid-scrape. Standing completely still. Not looking at him.
Half past four and the CID room was quiet, everyone off dealing with Christmas shoplifters and snow-related car crashes, leaving the little maze of chest-high cubicles and beech-Formica desks almost deserted. The whole place smelled of feet and cinnamon.
Allan dumped the teaspoon on the draining board. DI Steel just stood there, like one of those idiots who appeared every summer outside the St. Nicholas Centre, spray-painting themselves silver and pretending to be statues. ‘Guv, is everything OK?’
Someone’s phone rang.
Allan cleared his throat.
She still hadn’t moved.
‘Guv?’
Not so much as a twitch.
‘Guv, you all right?’
‘If I stay really still you can’t see me.’
Mad as a fish.
‘OK...’ He held out the mug. ‘Two and a coo.’
She sighed, shoulders drooping, arms dangling at her sides. ‘See, this is what I get for no’ bunking off home after the Christmas shopping – accosted by chunky wee police constables.’
‘I’m not chunky. It’s a medical condition.’
‘It’s pies.’ She took the coffee, sniffed it, then scowled up at him. ‘I just stood in something that smells better than this.’
He pulled the envelope from his pocket – a thick, ivory, self-sealing job with the DI’s name in spidery script on the front. ‘Courier dropped it off about ten.’
‘Don’t care.’ She snatched a roll of sticky-tape from the nearest desk, turned on her heel, jammed her shoe down again, and lurched back towards the door. ‘Two hours of fighting grumpy auld wifies for the last pair of kinky knickers in Markies has left me all tired and emotional. Soon as I’ve finished pinching everyone’s Sellotape, I’m offski. Taking the wee one to the panto tonight and there’s no way in hell I’m going sober.’
Allan waggled the envelope at her. ‘Looks kinda important.’
She stuck her fingers in her ears, singing as she scraped her shoe across the carpet tiles. ‘Jingle Bells, Finnie Smells, Rennie’s hair is gay...’
Detective Constable Rennie stuck his head up above his purple-walled cubicle, blond mop jelled into spikes, eyebrows pinched together in a frown. ‘Hey, I heard that!’
Steel disappeared down the corridor, still doing her Quasimodo impersonation. Then came the slam of an office door. Then silence.
Woman was an absolute nightmare.
Allan slipped the envelope back in his pocket. Just have to try again tomorrow when she was in a better mood. That was the thing about detective inspectors, you had to manage them like little children, or they stormed off in a huff and spent the rest of the day thinking up ways to make your life miserable.
A thump