Read Partners in Crime: Two Logan and Steel Short Stories for Free Online Page A

stash of drugs. They’ll probably want to give me an OBE.’
    Logan sooked his fingers clean, dug the plastic case from his pocket, and dumped it in her lap. The iPrint kit was about the same size as a paperback book. Steel cracked it open as Logan broke his way into one of the woodlice.
    She sniffed. ‘You got any idea how to work it?’
    ‘Instructions are inside.’ He held up a little curl of white meat. ‘What is this, exactly?’
    ‘God’s sake... Who wrote these instructions? Sodding handwriting’s appalling.’
    ‘Put your glasses on.’
    ‘I don’t
need
glasses. And it’s a squat lobster. Eat it, it’s good for you.’ She laid the contents of the kit out along the dashboard: a scratched iPhone; a length of curly black cable; a plastic thing – like a matchbox with a metal strip down the middle; a soft-bristled blusher brush; a little plastic tub of Aluminium powder, and one of Amido Black.
    Steel squinted at the sheet of paper for a while. ‘Nah, it’s no good – you’ll have to do it.’
    ‘I’m
eating
.’
    ‘Aye, and while you’re out here stuffing your face, there’s a murderer in there playing pool and...’ She stared out of the driver’s window, then scrubbed at it with her sleeve, clearing away the fog. ‘Him! There – look, look, look!’
    ‘I can’t even have lunch, can I? OK, OK: I’ll do your bloody fingerprints.’ Logan wiped his hands on a napkin, then reached into his jacket for a pair of nitrile gloves.
    ‘No, you divvy – look!’ She tapped at the window. ‘Big bloke, tartan bunnet, parking the van.’
    Couldn’t keep her mind on one thing for more than two minutes...
    Logan leaned across the car and peered through the clean patch. It was the rusty Transit van from the ferry this morning, driven by the same rotten sod who wouldn’t give him a lift.
    The man clambered out into the rain. He was wearing orange overalls, stained brown and black around the cuffs and knees. Clunky work boots. Big. Broad. Hands like dinner-plates. He pulled the tartan cap firmly down over his ears as another gust of wind shook the van, driving him back a step.
    Steel whistled. ‘Kevin McGregor. Thought he was dead...’ A frown. ‘I’m
sure
he’s dead.’
    ‘Doesn’t look dead.’
    McGregor grabbed a holdall from the passenger seat, and lumbered off into the bar.
    ‘Oh, he’s dead all right: burned to a crisp in a house fire five years ago. Post mortem said he’d been shot twice in the back of the head, execution-style. Had to ID him from dental records.’ She shrugged. ‘I crashed the funeral and the wake. Tried to cop off with his sister, but she was having none of it.’
    The legendary Kevin McGregor – no wonder he looked familiar.
    And was that...? Logan pointed through the clear bit at two hard-looking women with ginger crewcuts and black-rimmed glasses, struggling to origami an OS map back into shape. ‘Camper van, four o’clock. That’s the Riley Sisters: Brigid and Niamh. Belfast drug dealers. You name it, they’ll blow it up; knees capped while you wait.’
    Steel sat back in her seat. ‘What is this, a sodding conference for toerags and gangsters? Scumfest?’
    ‘Wait a minute...’ Logan stuck his plate on the dashboard. ‘Did Kevin McGregor not beat old Liam Riley to death six years ago because he tried to move in on his turf? Think they’re here to kiss and make up with the bloke who murdered their dad?’
    Steel closed her eyes, pursed her lips, then banged her forehead off the steering wheel. ‘Susan’s going to kill me.’
    ‘You got any of that sticky toffee pudding left?’ DI Steel clambered back into the little MX-5.
    ‘Bugger off – first hot thing I’ve had today.’
    ‘Ungrateful sod.’ She fidgeted with her left boob, hauling at the underwire. ‘That’s another four turned up. So far we’ve got three scheemie toe-rags from Glasgow, Badger and Weasel, a pair of scary bitches kicked out of the provisional IRA for being too violent, two