The constable pulled out her extendible baton, undid her seatbelt. Took three deep breaths. Opened the door, and jumped out into the night.
Logan gave her a couple of minutes to get into place, then climbed into the darkness, sinking up to his knees in a drift of soft grey.
He waded his way forward, clambering upwards until the snow only came as far as his ankles, leaching the heat from his damp socks, making his trouser legs stick to his skin. His whole head burning with the cold.
The front door was painted some dark colour, indistinguishable in the gloom, but the little portico offered a little shelter from the whipping snow.
Logan checked his watch. Twenty past in: three, two, one…He grabbed the handle.
Thank God it wasn’t locked.
He threw the door open and stumbled into the house.
A tiny hallway, door leading off to one side – probably a toilet – stairs leading upstairs, set of glass doors to the right. That was where the light was coming from.
He looked through into a small lounge.
They were obviously still finishing off the property. A stack of skirting boards lay beneath the front window; two or three boxes of bathroom tiles; a table-mounted circular saw; rolls of silver-backed Rockwool; a nail gun; drums of thick, grey electrical cable; some stuff for fitting carpets; a toolbox; a plastic bag of screws, the shiny thorns of metal glinting in the glow of a big battery torch that lay on the floor.
Richard Knox was curled up next to it, naked on a rectangle of plastic sheeting, hands behind his back, silver duct tape thick around his ankles, another strip across his mouth.
Where the hell was PC Butler?
Logan checked his watch again. Twenty-one minutes past. Butler should’ve been here by now.
Logan reached for the glass-panelled door and froze. There was someone in the room with Knox. A man, dressed in a thick padded jacket – goatee beard, glasses, comb-over. The project manager: Brett.
Brett crouched down beside Knox with his back to the door, and Logan caught a flash of needle-nosed pliers.
And then Knox writhed, screaming behind the gag as Brett twisted and pulled and shoved.
Damn it…Now he didn’t have any choice.
Logan eased the door open and crept inside, matching his footfalls to Knox’s muffled yells, eyes darting around the room in case Brett wasn’t working alone.
The project manager sat back on his haunches, staring down at Knox. ‘I’m going to keep doing this until you tell me where the money is. You may have the rest of them fooled, but I
Logan battered him over the head with the torch.
The project manager slumped sideways, the pliers bouncing out of his hands.
Not the most heroic rescue in the world, but it worked.
He rolled Brett over onto his front and cuffed his hands behind his back.
The plastic sheeting Knox lay on was spattered with droplets of scarlet. About a dozen little dark spines stuck out of his upper arm and shoulder, surrounded by angry red welts, oozing blood. About the same number again were just empty, bloody holes. Just like Steve Polmont.
Logan shifted around until his back was to the wall, then crouched down and patted Knox on the cheek.
The little man’s eyes snapped open. He flinched back, screaming behind his gag.
Logan slapped him, and hissed, ‘Shut up, you idiot! Not going to hurt you.’ He stole another look around the room. ‘Are there any more of them?’
Knox drew a shuddering breath in through his nose and nodded.
Bugger. Where the bloody hell was Butler?
Logan reached down for the edge of the duct tape gag and froze. Might be a better idea to leave it where it was. Get Knox out of here as quietly as possible, before the rest of Malcolm McLennan’s thugs got back.
‘Can you walk?’
No response.
‘I said, “Can you walk?”’
The thin, naked man just blinked at him.
One way to find out.
Logan sneaked over to the toolbox, looking for anything with a decent blade to cut through the duct tape. There was a battered Stanley knife in one of the trays with SP scratched into the handle. Perfect.
The mechanism was stiff, but he managed to slide the rusty triangular blade out, then squatted over Knox’s ankles and started sawing.
‘Wouldn’t bother if I was you.’ A Glaswegian accent, right behind him.
Logan froze.
Where was Police Constable Fucking Butler when you actually needed her?
17:18, SIX MINUTES AGO
PC Vicki Butler edged her way around the corner of the detached house. She’d abandoned the standard fluorescent-yellow high-vis waistcoat back in the car. Can’t sneak up on anyone when you glow in the dark, can you?
She flexed her hands around the handle of the extended truncheon. Feeling the weight.
Dear Lord it was cold.
She crept along the back wall – ducking under the kitchen window – making for the French doors.
Vicki peeled the cuff of her glove back and checked the time. Thirty seconds to go. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight.
