‘Mate, I’ve seen faked Tetley tea bags, Surf washing powder, Heinz baked beans.’ Dildo held his hands against the radiator’s peeling paint. ‘Boots were selling fake Colgate in 2008.
Logan stood there for a minute, staring at the boxes and boxes from Polmont’s flat. Then down at the pile of hair straighteners, still in their original – fake – packaging. They were the kind that made a good Valentine’s Day present for a loved one, if you wanted to let them know you weren’t a tight-arsed skinflint…
‘Dildo?’
‘I don’t think this thing’s working.’ He slapped the radiator.
‘Fancy a cup of tea?’
Logan lowered the two mugs carefully down on top of a case of not-Grant’s Vodka. Then pulled out the evidence bags he’d wedged under his arms.
Dildo pulled a face. ‘What, did you fly to India and pick the tea leaves yourself? I’m freezing here.’
‘Don’t moan. Couldn’t find the milk.’ Which was a lie. What he’d had difficulty locating were the items confiscated from Angus Black when he’d been picked up. The IB had signed them back into evidence after checking for fingerprints and PC Sniffles had promptly filed them in the wrong place.
Logan stuck the evidence bag on one of the shelves. ‘Did you get anything out of our friend the used car salesman, by the way?’
Blank look. ‘Remind me?’
‘Kevin Middleton, got a dealership out by Kirkton of Skene?’
‘Oh, yeah: Sicknote paid him a visit yesterday. Impounded one cut-and-shunt, a pair of “unsafe for road use”, and three clocked four-by-fours. Result.’
‘Speaking of results…’ Logan held up the evidence bag with the hair straighteners in it. ‘These look fake to you too?’
Dildo groaned. ‘Have I not got
‘Humour me.’
‘Tea.’ He helped himself to a mug, wrapping his gloved hands around it, shrouding his face in steam. Getting condensation in his goatee beard. ‘Open the box and check the grub screws on the handle. If they’re hexagonal heads, the thing’s real.’
Logan did, getting Amido black fingerprint powder all over his hands. ‘Phillips screwdriver.’
‘Fake.’
They went through the same process with the rest of Angus Black’s merchandise – Dildo drinking his tea and straddling the radiator, calling out instructions and occasionally asking to see something. Everything was counterfeit.
‘Perfect.’ Logan smiled and downed the rest of his lukewarm tea. ‘I’ve got to get back to the station, you be OK here?’
‘In the cold? On my own? You ungrateful sod.’
‘And you won’t need a lift back, will you? I mean, you’ll have to get the Shop Cop van down here to cart all this stuff away when you’re finished, right?’
Dildo stared at him. ‘You’re a rotten bastard, McRae, I ever tell you that?’
Logan scooped everything back into their respective evidence bags and hurried off. ‘Thanks, Dildo.’
He weaved his way through the stacks of seized items with Dildo’s parting shot echoing around him.
Logan barged through the door and clunked it shut behind him, finding himself in a little airlock festooned with posters for local bands he’d never heard of, the doormat soggy with melted snow. He stomped his feet, adding to the mush, then pushed through into the pub proper.
The Tilted Wig was once the exclusive drinking hole of lawyers and their assistants from the Sheriff Court across the road, but ever since the High Court had taken over the old Clydesdale Bank building on the corner of Marischal Street and Union Street – next door – the clientele had become a little less exclusive. Now they let anyone in.
Logan brushed the snow off his shoulders and scanned the faces. Just after twelve and one or two were making serious efforts to not see any more of the afternoon if they could possibly help it. Like Angus Black, sitting at a scuffed wooden table, basking in the glow of the one-armed bandit, a pint of heavy, and three empty shot glasses. He polished off a fourth and added it to the graveyard.
‘It didn’t go well then?’ Logan settled into the chair opposite.
Angus looked up, closed his eyes, and swore. ‘Have you not done enough damage?’ He took a bite out of his pint, then went back to staring at the table.
‘Nope.’ Logan dumped the evidence bag with the iPod Nanos in front of him. ‘Recognize these?’
‘Trial’s in six weeks. My brief says I’m looking at fourteen years. You believe that? For a little bit of H? Who’s it hurting?’ He went back to his pint. ‘Like living in Nazi Germany.’
Logan poked the bag. ‘You said you got these from your Edinburgh friends: Gallagher and Yates. They tell you they were all fake?’
