LITMIR.BIZ

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duct tape. ‘Anyone in for a DNA result?’

      Bob grinned. ‘If you’re looking for a sample, I’ve got some body fluids in a handy pump dispenser?’

      ‘Logan, tell Biohazard I wouldn’t touch his knob with a cheese grater.’

      ‘Aw, come on – you’re not still sulking are you?’

      She turned and dumped a small sheaf of papers on Logan’s desk. ‘The blood’s Jenny’s. Ninety-nine point nine eight certainty.’

      Logan flipped through to the conclusions page. ‘Sod…’

      ‘Sorry.’ Samantha draped a warm arm around his shoulders. ‘You going to be late tonight? Big day tomorrow, remember?’

      ‘Aye, well,’ Bob rubbed a finger across his single hairy eyebrow, ‘look on the bright side: imagine if it’d been someone else’s? Then you’d have two kiddies missing.’

      ‘Yeah, probably…’ Logan put the report down on his desk. Jenny’s DNA. Sod and bugger. ‘Did you tell Finnie?’

      Samantha backed off, hands up. ‘Oh no you don’t.’

      ‘Please?’

      ‘Your name’s on the chain of evidence, tell him yourself.’ She gave the length of pipe a little shake. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to get down the store before that idiot Downie comes on. Wouldn’t trust the rotten sod to file his toenails, never mind physical evidence…’ Samantha blushed. Cleared her throat. ‘Sorry.’

      Bob pursed his lips and tutted. ‘See that’s the trouble with support staff these days: always putting their foot in it. Making jokes about toenails when there’s a wee girl’s severed—’

      ‘Screw you, Bob.’

      He grinned. ‘See: you’re talking to me again!’

      She planted a kiss on Logan’s forehead then marched out, giving Bob the finger.

      Bob pointed at his crotch. ‘So … you want a rain-check on that DNA sample?’

      Samantha slammed the door.

      The main CID room was broken up into a cattle-pen of chest-high partition walls, all covered in memos, phone lists, and cartoons cut out of the Aberdeen Examiner. Someone had vandalized the ‘TERRORISM: IT’S EVERYONE’S PROBLEM!’ poster on the wall – by the little recess where the tea and coffee making facilities lurked – the word ‘TERRORISM’ scored out and ‘BOB’S ARSE’ written in its place.

      Logan paused in front of the huge whiteboards at the front of the room, scanning the scrawled boxes of case updates. Apparently Jenny and her mum had been spotted in a Peterhead post office, a pub in Methlick, Elgin Library, the Inverurie swimming pool, Cults church … All utter bollocks.

      Someone had updated the countdown, now it read, ‘8 DAYS TO DEADLINE!!!’

      ‘Sarge?’

      Logan glanced to his left. PC Guthrie was standing beside him, clutching a steaming mug of coffee that curled the smell of bitter burnt-toast into the room. Logan turned back to the board. ‘If you’ve got bad news, you can sod off and share it with someone else.’

      Guthrie handed him the mug, a wee pout pulling his pale face out of shape. With his semi-skimmed skin, faint ginger hair, and blond eyebrows he looked like a ghost that had been at the pies. ‘Milk, two sugars.’

      ‘Oh … sorry.’ Logan took the offered mug.

      The constable nodded. ‘But while I’ve got you, Sarge, any chance you can take a look at tomorrow’s drug bust? McPherson’s SIO and you know what that means…’

      Logan did. ‘When you going in?’

      ‘Half-three.’

      ‘Well, at least it’s an early morning shout. The buggers will still be…’ He could see Guthrie’s face pulling itself into an ugly grimace. ‘What?’

      ‘Not AM, Sarge, PM.’

      ‘You’re going in at half-three in the afternoon? Are you mad?’

      ‘Any chance you could, you know, have a word with him?’

      ‘They’ll all be wide awake and ready for a fight, resisting arrest, doing a runner, destroying evidence—’

      ‘Setting their sodding huge dogs on us, yeah, I know: Shuggie Webster’s just got himself a Rottweiler the size of a minibus.’ Guthrie sidled closer. ‘Maybe you could talk to Finnie? Tell him McPherson’s being a dick?’

      Logan took a sip of coffee. ‘Gah…’ He handed it back. ‘Not that you deserve it, making coffee like that.’

      Guthrie grinned. ‘Thanks, Sarge.’

      Logan pushed through the doors and out into the corridor. He paused outside Detective Chief Inspector Finnie’s office, took a deep breath and knocked just as the door swung open.

      Acting DI MacDonald froze on the threshold, flinching as Logan’s knuckles jerked to a halt just short of his nose. ‘Jesus…’

      Logan smiled. ‘Sorry, Mark, I mean Guv.’

      MacDonald nodded, a blush turning the skin pink around his little goatee beard. ‘Yes, well, if you’ll excuse me, Sergeant.’ Then he pushed past, limped back up the corridor to his new office and disappeared inside, slamming the door behind him.

      Sergeant? Two weeks in the job and Acting DI MacDonald was already acting like a tosser.

      Logan peered into Finnie’s office. The head of CID was behind his desk, face creased into a scowl. Colin Miller, the Aberdeen Examiner’s star reporter sat in one of the leather visitors’ chairs, smoothing the crease on his immaculate trousers. A pile of dirty laundry slumped in the other chair, mouth thrown open in a jaw-cracking yawn.

      Detective Inspector Steel finished with a little burp and a shudder, then sagged even further. Her greying hair stuck up in random directions like a malformed Einstein wig. She ran a hand across her face, pulling the deep-blue-grey bags under her eyes all out of shape. Then let go and the wrinkles took over again. She sniffed. ‘We going to be much longer? Only I’ve got a wean with a temperature to go home to.’

      Finnie drummed his fingers on the desk. The note lay beside his keyboard in a clear plastic envelope, the paper pristine white and shining. He stared at Logan. ‘Yes?’

      Logan held up the report Samantha had delivered. ‘DNA result.’

      Colin Miller sat up straight. ‘Oh aye?’

      Logan looked at Finnie, the reporter, then back to Finnie again. ‘Sir?’

      ‘Some time today would be good, Sergeant, before we all lose the will to live.’

      ‘Ah, right.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s positive. DNA matches Jenny McGregor.’

      Finnie nodded, his thick rubbery lips pressed into a down-turned line. ‘There’s no need to sound so dramatic, Sergeant. Where do you think the kidnappers got the thing from, Toes R Us? Of course it’s Jenny’s.’ He sat back in his seat. ‘What about the envelope and note?’

      Steel held up a hand. ‘Let me guess, sod all.’

      Logan ignored her. ‘Same as all the others: no fingerprints, no DNA, no fibre, no hairs, no dust – no trace of any kind. Nothing.’

      ‘She shoots, she scores!’

      ‘Inspector, that’s enough.’ Finnie peered down at the note on his desk. ‘“We gave them simple, clear, instructions, but they still was late. So we got no other choice: we had to cut off the wee girl’s toe.”’ He pinched his lips together. ‘Mr Miller, I take it we’re going to be seeing this in tomorrow’s paper.’

      ‘Aye, got it all set up for the front page: Jenny Tortured – Kidnappers Hack Off Toe.’

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