Steel snorted. Then grabbed the microphone from Logan’s hand. ‘Yeah, good one, Ding-Dong, really smooth. He’s bound to tell you now.’

‘My client hasn’t killed anyone, Inspector Bell. My client is a law-abiding citizen and resents the accusation.’ Hissing Sid clicked his briefcase closed again. ‘Might I just warn you that Grampian Police are already looking at one count of wrongful arrest: I really wouldn’t go throwing about accusations like that without some serious proof.’ He unfolded his long limbs and stood, towering over the table. ‘Now as you clearly have nothing relevant to discuss with us, and no evidence, I suggest you release my client immediately. This interview is over.’

Chapter 15

15

CLANG – the wastepaper basket clattered against the wall and rebounded, spewing napkins, eviscerated crisp packets, chocolate-bar wrappers, and empty Pot Noodle cartons all over the stained carpet tiles of the viewing suite.

DS Chalmers flinched, spinning her chair around, eyes wide. She blinked a couple of times, then took off her headphones. ‘Frightened the living Jesus out of me. . . Good job I’ve got excellent bladder control, or it’d be like Niagara Falls in here.’

The viewing suite was even smaller than the downstream monitoring one – jammed into a space barely big enough to qualify as a cupboard with a huge grey security cabinet for police van CCTV hard drives against one wall, and a little wall-mounted work surface on the other. Two sets of AV equipment sat side-by-side on it, grainy footage of Aberdeen flickering away on a pair of tiny flat-screen TVs.

Chalmers sat in front of them, with a stack of ancient-looking VHS cassettes piled up on the work surface beside her.

Logan ran a hand across his eyes. ‘Sorry.’ Then he squatted down, picked up a dead packet of prawn cocktail and dumped it back in the dented bin. Followed it up with a chicken-and-mushroom Pot Noodle carton. ‘Been one of those days.’

‘I’ve been trying to find Agnes Garfield and Anthony Chung on the city-centre CCTV footage from this morning. Which is a complete nightmare. But. . .’ She pressed a button on the console, then spun what looked like a volume knob. On the screen, people rushed into rewind, backing rapidly across Union Street as the lights changed. ‘I did manage to track down that cash-machine transaction.’

‘Bloody European Court of Human Rights. No, you can’t do things the sensible way any more, the way they’ve been done for years, now you’ve got to have the scumbag’s slimy lawyer mouthpiece in the room when you interview them. As if the job wasn’t difficult enough as it is.’ He rammed a cheese-and-onion corpse in the bin, then a Mars Bar, pickled-onion Monster Munch, beef-and-tomato. ‘And people wonder why Scotland has a reputation for the unhealthiest diet in Europe. . .’

‘Hold on, I’ll get it up.’ She ejected one tape and replaced it with another.