All That’s Dead

2

‘Urgh... Look at this place: so bucolic it’s sickening.’

Una pulled her Fiat onto the gravel driveway and grimaced out through the windscreen.

A crumbling farmhouse with a small wood behind it, a bunch of hedges and bushes and flowers and trees and things. Nothing for miles and miles but hills and fields and sheep and trees and whatever the hell that was swooping about through the blue sky. Like bats, only in the daytime. Daybats.

Off to the side, a bunch of outbuildings and barns and the like were in various stages of being done up — one of them caught in a web of scaffolding, the slates stripped off the roof and replaced by blue papery stuff.

Urgh.

Joe’s voice boomed out of her car’s speakers, ‘So is he there?’

She killed the engine, grabbed her phone from its cradle, and climbed out into the... Oh dear Lord, it was like climbing into an oven. One filled with the contented sound of stupid bumblebees staggering their way through the baking air en route to extinction. Barely out of the car thirty seconds and already her nice floaty paisley shirt was clinging to her back.

‘Hello, Una? Helllllo?’

‘Hold on.’ She dipped back into the car for her Frappuccino and sunglasses, pinning the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could plip the locks. Stuck her shades on.

‘So, is the old bugger there or not?’

‘Well I don’t know, do I?’ The gravel scrunched beneath her feet as she marched for the front door. ‘With any luck he’ll be dead in a cupboard with a scarf around his neck, an orange in his mouth, and his cock in his hand.’

‘Oh thank you very much for that image. I’m eating a banana!’

Una mashed her thumb against the bell and deep inside the house something went off like a distant Big Ben. ‘Oh come on, he’s a stranglewank waiting to happen.’

No answer.

‘Going to have nightmares, now.’

Another go.

Una checked her watch. Nearly ten already. ‘For goodness’ sake.’ Because it wasn’t like she had a dozen faculty meetings to get through today, was it?

She tried the handle: locked.

Then Una turned and looked across the drive to a manky old Volvo estate painted a shade of used-nappy brown. ‘Professor Stranglewank’s car’s still here.’

So he couldn’t have gone far.

She thumped the palm of her hand against the front door, making it rattle. ‘NICHOLAS, ARE YOU IN THERE?’ Pause. ‘COME ON: IT’S TOO HOT OUT HERE FOR DICKING ABOUT!’ A bead of sweat tickled its way down her ribs.

‘If it is a stranglewank, fiver says he’s wearing women’s underwear.’

‘Hold on I’ll try round the back.’

She picked her way past the bins and through a patch of grass landmined with small grey jobbies. Around the corner the garden opened up. Well, if you could call it that. The whole thing was a sea of weeds. Oceans of them. Some high as your hip. A strange tiny shed looking about ready to collapse inside a chicken-wire prison. Place was a disgrace.

She took a sip of creamy cold coffee, then pinned the phone with her shoulder again and hammered her fist against the back door.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Joe sighed in her ear. ‘Do you think they’ll let me have his parking space?’

‘In your dreams.’ Another three booming knocks.

Still no answer.

Well, can’t say she didn’t try.

‘God, can you imagine the press release?’

A grin. ‘Aberdeen University is delighted to announce the passing of its least favourite professor, due to sexual misadventure.’

‘He died as he lived, being a wanker.’

OK, one last try: Una turned the handle... and the door swung open.

She stepped over the threshold into a manky kitchen. Dirty dishes in the sink and stacked up on the work surfaces. Piles and piles of dusty books. A half-empty bottle of white wine sitting out on the filthy kitchen table, bathed in sunlight. The stale smell of hot pennies and mouldy food.

No doubt about it, the man lived like a pig.

‘Nicholas?’

She stood there, head cocked, listening.

A faint whining came from the other side of the door through to the rest of the house, accompanied by the scrabble of paws. Urgh... That revolting little dog of his, Satan, or whatever it was. The one responsible for all those landmines.

‘NICHOLAS? IT’S DOCTOR LONGMIRE! NICHOLAS?’

‘Speaking of eulogies, it’s Margaret’s retirement bash on Thursday. You want to give a speech?’

‘Do I jobbies, like.’

She walked towards the scrabbling door... Then stopped. Stared down at the kitchen table with its lonely bottle of Chardonnay, paired with a single, untouched glass. From the doorway, the table had looked filthy, maybe spattered with mud, but from here, closer, it definitely wasn’t mud. It was blood. Lots, and lots of blood.

On the other side of the door, Satan whined.

‘Well they better not ask me to give the old cow’s going away speech. You’ve heard her “opinions” on gay rights. Honestly, that woman can—’

‘Joe...’ Una swallowed and tried again, but her voice still sounded like she was sitting on a washing machine approaching the spin cycle. ‘Call the police, Joe. Call the police now!’

3

Bloody stairs.

Logan lumbered his way up them, peaked cap tucked under one arm, his cardboard-box-full-of-stuff in the other — a spider plant sticking its green fronds out of the open flaps.

They hadn’t updated the official Police Scotland motivational posters on the landing while he was away. Oh, they’d mixed things up a bit with a handful of new memos; regulations; guidelines; and ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?’ posters; but there was no getting away from ‘OUR VALUES’; ‘RESPECT’; and that beardy bloke in his high-viz and his hat, standing in front of the Forth Bridge, looking about as comfortable as a cucumber in a pervert’s sandwich shop: ‘INTEGRITY’.

Two doors led off the landing, one on either side.

Logan stopped in front of the one marked ‘PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS’, straightened his epaulettes, took a deep breath and—

The door banged open and a chunky bloke with sergeant’s stripes burst out, lurching to a halt about six inches from a collision. He flashed a wide grin, showing off a golden tooth, then stuck out a signet-ringed hand for shaking, the other signet-ringed hand holding the door open behind him. ‘The prodigal inspector returns! How’s the...’ He mimed stabbing someone. ‘You know?’

Logan shook the hand and did his best to smile. ‘Leonard. Your kids well?’

‘Rabid weasels would make less mess.’ A sniff. ‘Need a hand with that?’ He reached out and took Logan’s box off him, gesturing with it towards the open door. ‘Looking forward to your first day back at the Fun Factory?’

Not even vaguely.

‘Yeah... Something like that.’

Another grin. ‘Deep breath.’

Logan did just that, then stepped through into the main office. Sunlight flooded the open-plan room. Meeting rooms and cupboards took up one side, with cubicled workstations filling the remaining space. A squealing laser printer, more of those motivational posters, only this lot were ‘personalised’ with sarcastic speech balloons cut from Post-it notes.

Every desk was populated, more officers bustling about, the muted sound of telephone conversations.

Wow. ‘OK...’

Ballantine’s mouth pulled wide and down, keeping his voice low. ‘I know, right? We’re helping our beloved Police Investigations and Review Commissioner look into a couple of Strathclyde’s more recent high-profile cock-ups. And on top of that we’ve got a home-grown botched raid in Ellon that ended up with a geography teacher having a heart attack; and a fatal RTC in Tillydrone last night.’ A grimace. ‘High-speed pursuit between an unmarked car and a drug dealer on a moped. Wasn’t wearing a helmet, so you can guess what’s left of his head.’ Then Ballantine boomed it out to the whole room: ‘Guys, look who it is!’

They all turned and stared. Smiling broke out in the ranks, accompanied by shouted greetings, ‘Guv!’, ‘Logan!’, ‘Heeeero! Heeeero!’, ‘McRae!’, ‘Welcome back!’, and ‘You owe me a fiver!’

Logan gave them a small wave. ‘Morning.’

A matronly woman marched out of a side office, her superintendent’s pips shining in the sunlight. Her chin-length grey bob wasn’t quite long enough to hide the handcuff earrings dangling from her lobes. A warm smile. Twinkly eyes, lurking behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. She popped her fists onto her hips. ‘All right!’ Her full-strength Kiwi accent cut through the chatter like a chainsaw. ‘That’s enough rowdiness for one day. Back to work, you lot.’

Her smile widened as she raised a hand. ‘Inspector McRae, can I see you in my office please?’

Great. Didn’t even get to unpack his box.

Logan followed her inside, past the little brass sign on the door with ‘SUPT. JULIE BEVAN’ on it.

The room was surprisingly homey, with framed pictures of an orange stripy cat; photos of Bevan and what were probably her children, going by the resemblance, in front of London and Sydney landmarks. But pride of place was given to a big frame containing a faded photo of an ancient green-and-white car and what looked like a speeding ticket. The usual assortment of beige filing cabinets played home to a variety of pot plants and a grubby crocheted elephant with its button eyes hanging off.

Bevan settled behind her desk. She was probably aiming for encouraging, but there was no disguising the note of disappointment in her voice: ‘Inspector McRae, I appreciate that it must be a shock to the system, having to get up in the morning after a year recuperating at home, but I really need all my officers to be here at the start of the working day.

Yeah...

Logan eased himself into one of the two visitors’ chairs. ‘You emailed me yesterday and told me not to come in till twelve. It’s eleven fifteen, so I’m actually forty-five minutes early.’

Bevan raised her eyebrows. ‘Did I? Oh...’ Another smile, then she set her grey bob wobbling with a shake of her head. ‘Right, well, let’s say no more about it, then.’ She sat back, watching him. ‘I know we’ve not worked together before, Logan, but I’m sure we’ll get along famously. Superintendent Doig spoke very highly of you in his handover notes.’

‘That was nice of him.’

‘Lovely man.’ She pursed her lips and did a bit more Logan watching. ‘As you can see, this is a very busy time for us. I’ve had to draft in support from N Division, so I’m afraid your desk is currently unavailable. Sorry.’

It wasn’t easy not to sigh at that.

Her smile reappeared. ‘But not to worry! I have something nice and straightforward to ease you back into the swing of things.’ Bevan reached for her Pending tray and pulled out a file. ‘I believe Sergeant Rennie used to be your assistant before you were... injured?’

‘Only if I didn’t move fast enough to—’

‘A fine officer. Credit to the team. I can’t spare Rennie from his ongoing cases at the moment, so you’ll be flying solo on this one.’ She slid the file across the table towards him. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine. After all, you didn’t win a Queen’s Medal for being the station cat, did you?’

Nope, he got it for being an idiot.

Logan accepted the folder with a nod. ‘Thank you.... Boss?’

‘Julie. Please.’

Oh, great: she was one of those.

‘Right.’

‘One more thing.’ Bevan dipped into her Pending tray again, only this time it produced a biro and a birthday card with a teddy bear on it. ‘It’s Shona’s birthday tomorrow, so if you can write something nice in there and don’t forget to bring a plate.’

Logan opened the card. The inside was liberally scrawled with various ball-point wishes and indecipherable signatures. ‘A plate?’

‘I’m making my famous lemon drizzle cake; Karl’s doing his Thai fishcakes, which are super yummy; Rennie’s bringing doughnuts; I think Marlon’s doing devilled eggs. What’s your speciality?’

‘Erm...’ Phoning for takeaway probably didn’t count. ‘I burn a lot of sausages on the barbecue?’

‘Excellent. Then you can bring a plate of those.’

‘OK...’ The pen had ‘BOFFA MISKELL’ printed on it, which sounded like some obscene sexual practice. He clicked out the end, wrote ‘ONE DAY, YOU’LL BEAT THAT PRINTER INTO SUBMISSION!’ and signed it.

‘Thanks.’ Bevan took the card and pen back and consigned them to ‘Pending’ again. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got review boards to organise.’ She pulled her keyboard over and poked at it, frowning at the screen.

‘Right.’ Logan stood. Picked up the file. ‘I’ll go and...’ He pointed over his shoulder, but she didn’t look up. ‘OK.’

You are dismissed.

Bloody stairs. Again.

Logan limped down them, phone pressed to his ear, trying not to be too overwhelmed with the view out the stairwell windows. It would take a hardy soul not to be moved by the arse-end of Bucksburn station and the car park hiding behind it. A faint heat haze lifting off the vehicles as they slowly roasted in the sun.

Ringing, and ringing, and finally someone picked up: ‘Operation Overcharge?’

Overcharge? Whoever was running the random word generator for naming investigations needed a kick up the bumhole.

‘Hi, I need to speak to DI King.’

There was a pause, then, ‘Can I ask who’s calling?’ The voice was sort of familiar: a Yorkshire burr, starting to warp under the strain of talking to Aberdonians all day.

‘Logan McRae.’

‘Oh.’ Another pause. Then a touch of panic joined the accent blender. ‘Erm... Inspector, didn’t know y’ were back. Feeling better?’

‘Detective Constable Way?’ Logan kept lumbering downwards.

‘We was all worried about you, you know, after the stabbing.’

‘Where is he, Milky?’ Logan pushed through the doors at the bottom of the stairs, into a bland corridor lined with offices and yet more sodding motivational posters.

‘Where’s who?’

‘DI King!’

‘Oh, right. Yes. Erm... You know, it’s a funny thing, but he’s just this minute run out door on an urgent job.’

What a shock. ‘And when will he be back?’

Logan stepped outside. The car park smothered in the heat of a far too sunny day — its surface sticky beneath his boots, the air thick with the scent of hot tarmac and frying dust. He screwed his eyes half shut as the sun drove red-hot nails into them. God, it was more like Death Valley out here than Bucksburn. ‘Milky?

‘Erm...’

Typical: soon as Professional Standards started asking questions, everyone developed amnesia.

‘OK, where’s DI King going, then?’

‘Erm...’

‘And bear in mind I can just call Control and check. Then come pay you a visit.’

‘Oh that DI King! Yes, course, I’ve yon address right here. You got a pen?’

Gorse and broom lined the road, their yellow flowers boiling like flames above the reaching branches. Beyond the conflagration lay swathes of green, carved into an irregular patchwork by drystane dykes. The hills on either side thick with Scots pine, beech, and fir.

All of it slipping past the windows of Logan’s Audi.

A cheery voice brayed out of the radio, trampling all over the tail-end of a song. ‘How does that set you up for a sunny Tuesday? Great. We’ve got Saucy Suzy coming up at twelve, but before that here’s a quick traffic update for you: the B999 Pitmedden to Tarves road is closed following a fire at the Kipperie Burn Garden Centre. So look out for diversions.’

A burst of drums and the howl of guitars started up in the background.

‘Now, here’s Savage Season with their new one, “The Wrecker”. Take it away, boys!’

The road twisted around to the right, revealing a cluster of manky outbuildings in the process of being converted, and a manky farmhouse in the process of being managed as a crime scene.

A throaty voice growled over the music:

Logan switched the radio off and pulled onto the wide gravel driveway.

The Scene Examiners’ grubby white Transit sat right outside the farmhouse, next to an unmarked grey Vauxhall pool car, a Volvo in shades of rust and gastroenteritis brown; and a perky little red Fiat.

He parked next to it, grabbed his hat, and climbed out into... Holy mother of fish.

The burning air caught in his throat, wrapped itself around his Police Scotland uniform, and tried to grind him into the ground.

Bees bumbled their way between the flowering weeds that lined the drive, hoverflies buzzing amongst the thunderheads, house martins reenacting the Battle of Britain — jinking and swooping and diving, while a clatter of jackdaws looked on from the farmhouse roof.

Logan pulled on his hat and limped for the front door.

It wasn’t locked. Or even guarded, come to that.

Which was a bit lax.

He stepped into a dusty hallway, the walls punctuated by dusty photos in dusty frames, between dusty bookshelves stuffed with dusty books. A half-dozen doors led off the hall, most of them open. A staircase leading up, with dusty piles of yet more books at the outside edge of every tread.

The clicker-flash of cameras burst out from one of the doorways, into the hall. Logan paused at the threshold and peered inside.

It was a kitchen, full of yet more books. Stacks and stacks of them. Newspapers too. And a manky bin-bag-left-in-the-sun kind of smell. Two figures, one short and pregnant, one tall and broad, both in full SOC get-up, busied themselves around the kitchen table, taking photos and swabs. Fingerprint powder greyed nearly every other surface.

They’d rigged up a half-hearted barricade by stretching a line of yellow-and-black ‘CRIME SCENE — DO NOT CROSS’ tape across the doorway.

Logan waved at them. ‘Hello?’

The pregnant one looked up from her DNA sampling, features obscured by a facemask and safety goggles. ‘You’re back at work then?’

‘Apparently. DI King about?’

The smile vanished from her voice. ‘His Majesty is swanning about somewhere. If you find him, tell him we’re out of here in twenty. Got other, more important crime scenes to deal with.’

‘Thanks, Shirley.’ Logan carried on down the corridor, past the stairs, past the bookshelves and their dust-furred books — ninety percent of which seemed to be Scottish history with the occasional Mills & Boon thrown in.

A clipped voice came from a room off to one side, as if every word was being throttled to stop it screaming, emphasising the Highland burr. ‘No, Gwen, I didn’t. And you repeating it over and over doesn’t make it true.’

Logan stepped into the doorway of a cluttered study, lined with yet more overflowing bookshelves. One wall was devoted to a cluster of framed photos — proper full-size head-and-shoulder jobs — each one depicting a different grey-muzzled Jack Russell terrier. And crammed in, between everything else, were newspaper clippings, stuck to the wallpaper with thumbtacks. A desk sat in front of the room’s only window, piled high with papers, three monitors hovering above it on hydraulic arms. An ashtray as packed with dog-ends as the bookcases were with books.

And in the middle of all this stood a man in his shirtsleeves. A bit overweight, his swept-back blond hair a bit higher on his forehead, the dimple in his chin a bit more squished up by the fat that gathered along his jawline. Big arms, though, as if he used to be a prizefighter who’d let himself go after one too many blows to the head. His silk tie hung at half-mast and his bright-blue shirt came with dark patches under the arms.

His features creased, as if whoever he was on the phone with had just stabbed him in the ear. ‘No... Because I’m working, Gwen. You remember what that’s like?... Yes.’ Then a longer pause. ‘Yes.’ A from-the-bottom-of-your-socks sigh. ‘I don’t know: later. OK. Bye.’

He hung up and ran a hand over his face.

‘DI King?’ Logan knocked on the door frame. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’

King smoothed himself down, slipped his phone into his pocket, and forced a smile. ‘Inspector McRae. Thought you were still off on the sick?’

‘I get that a lot. So... Missing constitutional scholar?’

‘Can we skip the foreplay, please? You’re not here about Professor Wilson — the call only came in an hour ago, not enough time for anyone to have screwed something up.’ King popped an extra-strong mint in his mouth, crunching as he talked. ‘So come on, Mr Professional Standards, what am I supposed to have done wrong?’

Logan wandered in, hands behind his back as he frowned his way along the articles pinned to the wall. The headlines all followed the same theme: ‘SCOTLAND IS SETTING ITSELF UP TO FAIL.’, ‘RISE UP AND BE THE FAILURE AGAIN.’, ‘WHY THE SCOTS NEED THE UK MORE THAN IT NEEDS THEM.’...

He nodded at them. ‘Looks like the Professor was a man of strong opinions.’

‘The man’s a Brit-Nat tosser. If he thinks Scotland’s so crap, why doesn’t he move back to Shropshire?’

‘Interesting you should say that...’

King stood there, being aftershavey.

Logan skimmed the nearest bookshelf. The whole thing was dedicated to volumes on economic theory and political science. ‘It’s a bit overkill, isn’t it? This is a simple missing person case, wouldn’t have thought it warranted a full-blown Detective Inspector. Especially not one as esteemed as yourself.’

King folded his arms. Chest out. ‘OK, what’s this all about?’

‘Just wondering why they sent you.’

‘When Professor Wilson’s colleague reported him missing at eleven-oh-two this morning, she told Control the kitchen was covered in blood. We thought it might be serious.’

‘Ah. That clears it up.’

A sigh. ‘And it’s politics. He’s been having a go in the media about our handling of these White-Settler arson attacks. Says we’re complacent. Says we don’t care about Alt-Nats burning out English businesses. The brass don’t want anyone saying we didn’t take his disappearance seriously.’ Another extra-strong mint disappeared between King’s crunching teeth. ‘And you still haven’t answered the question.’

‘Alt-Nats?’

‘You know how the Alt-Right is full of white supremacists, gun nuts, racists, and neo-Nazis? Well, Alt-Nats are our own home-grown version. Only without the guns and Nazis. And it’s the English they hate.’

Strange the things you missed being off on the sick for a year.

Logan shook his head. ‘Makes you proud to be Scottish, doesn’t it?’

‘You see “Alt” in front of anything these days, you know what you’re getting: Arrogant Lowbrow Tossers.’ All said without the slightest hint of a smile.

‘Teaching my granny to suck eggs, I know, but have you tried the hospitals? Maybe Professor Wilson cut himself and rushed off to accident and emergency?’

‘Don’t be daft, of course we checked. Besides, that’s his manky Volvo outside, how was he going to get there, fly?’

Good point.

‘Hmmm...’ Logan moved on to the wall of dogs. Nine photos, each with its own little plaque. ‘“Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov — 1966 to 1984.” And this one’s “Lev Davidovich Bronstein — 1985 to 1999”. Bit of a mouthful when you’re calling them in for their dinner. Whatever happened to “Spot” and “Stinky”?’

The muscles tensed along King’s jaw for a moment, his face closed and unhappy. ‘Do they teach you this at Professional Standards School? How to avoid answering questions and be phenomenally annoying.’

If only he knew how close to the truth that was.

Logan gave him a nice bright smile. ‘The Scottish Daily Post emailed us tomorrow’s front page, wanting a comment.’ A couple of swipes and the front page popped up on Logan’s phone screen: a photo of DI King scowled out beneath the headline, ‘TOP MURDER COP WAS IN SCOTNAT TERROR GROUP’.

He turned the phone, so King could see.

It was like watching chunks of ice falling off a glacier as King’s face sagged, eyes wide, mouth open in an expression of complete and utter horror. ‘Oh God...’

Logan nodded and put his phone away. ‘Maybe we should have a wee chat?’

4

The living room wasn’t much better. Books, books, dust, and more books — heaped up on the floor around a tatty leather sofa. A massive stereo system complete with racks and racks of vinyl took up the space where a TV should have been, the speakers big enough to pass for sarcophaguses. Or was it sarcophagi?

King looked as if he was ready to be buried in one of them, anyway. He half-sat, half-collapsed into the sofa, sending a puff of dust billowing out from the underside. Motes of it glowed in the sunlight as he put his head in his hands. ‘They’re going to fire me, aren’t they?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Well, you can see how it looks: here you are, working the disappearance of a prominent Brit-Nat academic, and all the time you were a member of...’ Nope, drawing a blank. Logan pulled out his notebook and checked. ‘“The People’s Army for Scottish Liberation”. Soon as the media get hold of that it’ll be like throwing an injured piglet into a bathtub full of piranhas.’

‘I was sixteen! Sixteen and stupid. And she was pretty and Welsh.’ King sagged even further. ‘I just wanted to impress her.’

‘Welsh?’

‘And I only went to a couple of meetings! Till I found out Cerys was shagging Connor O’Brien behind my back.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘She said it was all about “uniting the Celtic nations to cast out the English oppressors and break the final bonds of imperialist subjugation”.’

Which was probably code for a threesome. ‘Well, she does sound fun.’

‘After all, India managed to win its independence, why couldn’t we?’

‘Only, from what I remember, the PASL weren’t so keen on the peaceful protest approach, were they? More into blowing up statues and abducting politicians. Not very Gandhiesque.’

King waved a dismissive hand. ‘That wasn’t the People’s Army for Scottish Liberation, that was the Scottish Freedom Fighters’ Resistance Front.’

Don’t smile! ‘Splitters.’

‘I didn’t do anything!’

‘The Post says it’s got proof.’

‘I don’t hate the English — my wife’s English, my kids are half English. Hell, Josie was born in Newcastle!’ He curled forwards, knees against his chest, arms wrapped around his head for a muffled scream.

Which, given the circumstances, was understandable.

There was a photo in the hall of a handsome woman in what had to be her late forties. Fiery red hair swept back from a high forehead, green eyes, and a twist to her mouth that made it look as if she was about to burst out laughing at any moment. The wooden frame was worn through, nearly to the glass along the bottom.

Logan ran his fingers along it. Smooth.

King’s voice growled out through the living room door. ‘For God’s sake, Gwen, can you just support me for once in your life?... No. And to be honest, I think it’s the least you could do!’

Probably best to give him a bit of privacy. So Logan eased that door shut and opened the only one he’d not seen inside yet.

Bathroom: and not a huge one, made to feel even smaller by all the towels on the floor, and the overflowing bin, and the skeletal remains of long-dead loo rolls, and the discarded empty boxes and pill packets, and the impressive collection of bleachy / toilet-cleanery bottles around the pan. All smothered by the ever-present geological layers of dust. An archaeologist would have a field day in here...

Was that a scraping noise?

Logan stopped, head on one side, ears straining to pick up the—

Yup, there it was again. Not in here, though.

He backed into the hall, just in time to see the taller, broader, less pregnant of the two Scene Examiners lumber out of the kitchen in his rustly SOC suit, carrying a blue crate with a couple of brown-paper evidence bags in it. He’d pulled down his facemask, revealing a swathe of glowing shiny red skin, coral pink lipstick and a bit too much blusher for the natural look. Grimacing as a drip worked its way down his cheek. ‘Gah... Never join the SE, Inspector. You think it’s bad wearing black in this heat? Try a sodding Tyvek suit. It’s like a waterfall of sweat from my balls all the way down to my socks.’

‘You make it sound so romantic, Charlie.’

‘I squelch when I walk.’ And to prove the point, he squelched away down the hall and out the front door.

That scratching noise sounded again.

And was that a whimper?

Logan peered up the stairs.

Yup, definitely coming from up there.

He climbed up to a tiny landing, where yet more books lay in wait, narrowing a space that was already claustrophobic because of the coombe ceilings. Two doors led off it, one of them rattling slightly as whatever it was scraped and whined.

The noise stopped as Logan turned the door handle.

He pushed it open, revealing a bedroom littered with yet more books. Discarded clothes lay heaped up on a wicker chair in one corner, a laundry basket overflowing in the other. A mound of cigarette stubs, ground out in a saucer. The whole room reeked of stale washing, fags, and a sort of dirty sweaty funk normally reserved for spotty teenagers.

No doubt about it, King’s missing professor was a bit of a slob.

But other than the mess, there was no sign of Captain Scrapey McWhinesalot.

‘Hello? Anyone there?’

Another whimper.

Logan hunkered down onto his haunches. Pitched his voice soft and low. ‘Who’s that?’

A manky old Jack Russell terrier tottered out from underneath the bed — cobwebs in his ears and dust bunnies on his flanks. He wobbled on his stiff little legs, tail going like a manic windscreen wiper as he stared up at Logan with cloudy eyes and whined.

Logan held a hand out for sniffing. ‘Hello, little man, did you get shut in here by mistake?’

The terrier did a shaky lap of him, yipping and yowling.

‘You need a wee, don’t you? I know that dance — Sergeant Rennie does the same one.’ He stood and clapped a hand against his leg. ‘Come on then.’

Then back down the stairs, the dog thump-lumping along behind him, scampering around Logan’s feet as they made their way along the hall to the front door.

Charlie squelched in through it before they got there, evidence crate swinging from one hand, and the ancient terrier went berserk — hackles up, barking and growling, making little feinted charges.

‘AAAARRRRRGH!’ Charlie flinched back against the wall, crate held out like a lion-tamer’s chair, eyes wide. ‘What the hell did you let it out of the room for?’

More barking, tiny brown teeth flashing.

‘He’s only—’

‘GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU LITTLE HORROR!’

Logan picked the poor wee thing up, holding him against his chest. The dog trembled in his arms, still growling at Charlie. ‘He needs a piddle.’

‘He needs a bloody muzzle! Get him out of here!’

‘All right, all right. Keep your squelchy pants on.’

Logan carried Professor Wilson’s dog out through the front door and into the sunshine. Popped him down on the gravel, where he immediately turned around and directed a bark towards the house. Charlie let loose a high-pitched shriek and slammed the door shut, sealing them outside. The terrier stared at it for a moment, then scuffed its back paws on the driveway, announcing that he’d won that argument, then tottered away around the side of the house.

Logan followed him, past the bins, through a patch of grass that had clearly seen a lot of pooping, but no scooping, through a clump of docken that was nearly shoulder-height, and into what might have been a back garden at one point. Now it was just a vast collection of weeds and unmown grass, with the corpse of a hen coop decomposing in its chicken-wire mortsafe. Butterflies danced whirling polkas through the hot air, flitting from one tangled clump of nettles to another. The rat-a-tat-tat of a belligerent woodpecker.

Shirley and Charlie had already done this bit, going by the back door’s liberal coating of fingerprint powder and the spiky white remnants of plaster in the grass where they’d taken casts of footprints.

Just a shame they hadn’t bagged and tagged the disaster area in the rumpled linen suit; grey hair, styled by lightning conductor and earwax; eggy stains on her lime-green shirt — unbuttoned so far it showed off way too much leathery cleavage; wrinkly face turned towards the sun. Basking, like an iguana crossed with a gonk. Phone clamped to her ear with one hand, massive e-cigarette in the other, puffing out plumes of strawberry-scented vape. Voice a gravelly growl, ‘Tell you, my arse is on fire today. It’s like the Battle of the Somme down there, only with fewer soldiers and more explosions. I’m...’ She froze for a moment, then opened one eye and looked at him. ‘Have to call you back.’

Logan sniffed. ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Detective Sergeant Roberta Steel.’

She pocketed her phone as the wee dog snuffled around her feet. ‘Oh it’s you, is it? Those sodding sausages have had my guts like—’

‘“The Somme”. Yeah, I heard. And there was nothing wrong with my sausages yesterday. Perfectly good barbecued sausages.’

‘Then why are my innards trying to become outards?’

The terrier wobbled over to the hen run and cocked an arthritic leg.

‘I think it might have something to do with the Long Island Iced Teas you were knocking back all afternoon. No wonder your eyeballs look like two oysters drowned in Tabasco.’

‘Mmmph...’ She pulled out a pair of sunglasses and popped them on. Then nodded at the house. ‘So, you here for me, or for His Royal Highness? Can’t be me — I’m a paragon of sodding virtue, me.’

Aye, right.

Logan stuck his hands in his pockets. All innocent and casual. ‘So what’s he like to work for, King?’

‘Pff... You asking me to clype on my beloved DI? Cos you can ram that right up your liquorice allsort.’

King’s voice boomed out across the back garden / weed patch. ‘Should think so too.’ He scraped his left foot in the long grass a couple of times, nose crinkled in disgust. Matching suit jacket on over his blue shirt, face all pink and shiny in the heat. He frowned at Steel. ‘Is there any...’ A blink. Then he watched the ancient terrier snuffle his way past. ‘Is that Professor Wilson’s dog?’

‘Yup.’ Logan smiled. ‘He’s having a wee.’

‘OK...’ Back to Steel. ‘Any progress?’

She took another long draw on her fake cigarette — a huge metal tube of a thing with rings and protuberances all along its length, making it impossible to tell if the person who’d designed it had been going for ‘Sonic Screwdriver’ or ‘Steampunk Sex Toy’. Steel puffed out her strawberry fog. ‘Forensics aren’t finding much. Whoever did it, they didn’t break anything on the way in and wiped everything down before they left.’

Steel dug out her phone again and poked at the screen. ‘The Alt-Nat trolls are out in force, mind. And I quote: “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Hope you burn in hell you traitor bastard”, says Tartan Numpty One Three Six. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Where’s your English superiority now?” asks Willy Wallace Was Here.’

King sagged a bit, eyes screwed shut. ‘Great. So it’s already all over antisocial media.’

‘Oh I’m no’ finished yet. “For sale, both of Prof. Wanky Wilson’s balls. He won’t be needing them any more.” Hashtag, “One less English scumbag. LOL.” With three exclamation marks. Cybernat Ninja Thirteen Twenty.’

‘All right, we get the point.’

‘“What do you call one dead constitutional scholar? A bloody good start. ROFL”, according to We All Eight the English. That’s the number eight, not—’

King’s voice grew a sharper edge. ‘Enough! OK? Enough.’ Then he stifled a burp and winced. Crunched down another mint, rubbing at his chest. ‘When does this stuff start showing up in his timeline?’

Steel checked. ‘First one’s yesterday morning, nearly twenty-four hours before he was reported missing.’ She looked left, then right, then dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Which kinda implies someone out there was involved, doesn’t it?’

She had a point. Logan leaned against the chicken wire enclosure. ‘So what’s the plan?’

King pointed at Steel. ‘Right. Once... whatever the dog’s called has had his wee, I want you out there doing something useful. Interview the neighbours.’

Steel stared at him as if he’d just pulled a live squid from his trouser, then she turned on the spot, pantomiming a good hard look at the weeds and the trees and the whole middle-of-nowhereiness of the place. ‘What, the squirrels?’

‘Doesn’t matter how far out in the sticks someone lives, there’s always neighbours. Find them, Sergeant.’

That got him a scowl and a sarcastic, ‘Yes, Boss.’ Then she rolled her eyes at Logan, tucked the old-age terrier under her arm and ruffled the fur on top of its head, till it kind of resembled her own. ‘Come on, little man, let’s take you away from these nasty police officers that stink like a wino’s Y-fronts.’ Marching off around the side of the house.

King shook his head. ‘I swear to God, I’m going to end up killing someone. Probably her...’

‘Ahem.’ Logan waved. ‘Hello? Professional Standards, remember?’

There was a small flinch. ‘Don’t remind me.’ Then King straightened up, all in charge again. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an investigation to run.’

‘Actually, if you don’t mind, I’m going to hang about for a bit and observe.’

A pained look crawled its way across King’s face. ‘I—’

‘You’ll barely notice I’m here. Promise.’

‘Oh for... I didn’t do anything! I told you, I only joined—’

‘To impress a girl. I know. But...’ Logan shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t be doing my job if I just turned up for a quick five-minute chat, then sodded off again, would I?’

A deep and bitter sigh left King looking hollowed out and grey. ‘Right. Well, I suppose I’d better find out what happened to Professor Wilson, then.’

House martins massed over the outbuildings, chasing bugs, as Logan followed King along a dusty path. Past scaffolding and stacks of slates. Timber and bags of sharp sand. A cement mixer with teeth painted around the mouth, as if it were a World War Two fighter plane.

Most of the steading was an empty shell, stripped back to the bare granite, but the unit nearest the farmhouse was much nearer being completed. A crisp new roof and a coat of off-pink harling. The double glazing still had the blue sticky plastic on, but the hollow studwork was clearly visible through it. Watertight, but nowhere near finished.

King led the way between an overflowing skip and the remains of a cattle byre, to a stack of breeze-blocks where a middle-aged woman in a floaty paisley shirt sheltered out of the sun. She looked up from her phone when King cleared his throat.

‘Dr Longmire?’

She put her phone away. ‘Can I go now? Only I’ve got a faculty meeting at two and it’s my turn to bring the milk...’

‘It’s OK.’ King forced a smile. ‘My colleague and I just want to ask a couple of questions. Professor Wilson: did he have any enemies?’

‘Nicholas?’ A laugh sent her hair jiggling. ‘Did the man have anything but?’

Yeah, that wasn’t normal. Normally people shovelled on praise for the missing and the dead. Lifelong dicks were suddenly transformed into beloved role models and all it took was getting stabbed, strangled, bludgeoned, or abducted.

Dr Longmire sniffed. ‘Oh, don’t look at me like that. Nicholas Wilson will argue water isn’t wet for the sheer joy of winding someone up. Never met anyone who relishes a fight more, and I’ve been married twice.’

Logan leaned back against the byre. ‘He seems to have a lot of trolls on Twitter.’

‘Nicholas isn’t the kind of man who keeps his opinions to himself. All that hate hammering in his direction every day — any sensible person would’ve shut down their account and burned their computer, but not Nicholas. Not when he could call people “knuckle-dragging nationalist morons” in two hundred and eighty characters or less.’

King shot Logan a look that wasn’t exactly subtle: shut up, this is my investigation. ‘Are you saying Professor Wilson isn’t popular at work?’

‘He isn’t popular anywhere. I’m only here because I drew the short straw. And I mean that literally: we drew straws and I lost.’ She sighed and stood, picked up an empty plastic container that looked as if it’d housed an iced coffee in happier times. ‘Look, I’m not saying I wanted him dead or anything — and before you ask, yes I do have an alibi — but if someone were to rough him up a bit I wouldn’t exactly complain, OK?’

5

The kitchen still smelled like a butcher’s shop, the air in here thick and heavy and stifling. Uncomfortably warm.

Logan stood at the kitchen window, giving Dr Longmire a wee wave as her Fiat pulled out of the drive and disappeared down the lane.

King watched her go. ‘You’d better believe we’ll be checking her alibi.’

Bless his little sweaty socks.

Shirley and Charlie packed their equipment away in more blue plastic crates, the top halves of their SOC suits stripped down to the waist, sleeves tied around their middles. Showing off sweaty red faces and sodden Scottish Police Authority polo shirts.

Charlie’s blusher was all smudged by the heat, and his lipstick didn’t look much better. His eyeshadow and mascara might have started out as a perfectly crafted smoky eye, but they’d ended up more Heath-Ledger’s-Joker-meets-drunken-panda.

Shirley pulled off her Alice band and had a hearty scratch at her long blonde hair. ‘Gah... When I get back to the shop I’m going to climb into a cold shower and stay there till I evolve gills.’

Logan gave her a smile. ‘So... crime scene?’

She pointed at the table. ‘Just between you and me? That’s a lot of blood. Not a fatal amount, but you’d notice you were missing it. Want to know what else is missing?’ Shirley left a dramatic pause... ‘Fingerprints. And I don’t mean whoever-it-was-wore-gloves, I mean every surface that’s not covered in books or crap has been wiped. Don’t quote me, but from the lemony-fresh smell I’d put money on those disposable antibac wipes.’

King folded his arms. ‘You check the bin?’

‘No, because I’ve never done this before.’ She turned back to Logan. ‘Whoever it was, they weren’t your usual thickie. The two footprints we pulled from the garden are flat rumply things. No tread.’

‘So...?’

‘Take a bit of cardboard, cut it to the same shape as your shoe’s sole, then put it in a wee blue plastic bootie like this.’ She lifted one leg, showing off the blue plastic bootie on the end of it. ‘All you leave are the rough outline and some crinkles from the plastic.’

Great.

She nodded. ‘We managed to lift some good fingerprints from the study, just in case, you know: for elimination purposes. But there’s nothing in here to eliminate them against.’ A sigh. ‘Maybe we’ll get some DNA, but I doubt it. Your boy’s forensically aware.’

Scottish crime fiction had a lot to answer for.

King tried exerting his authority again. ‘What about fibres?’

Didn’t work though, because Shirley kept her eyes on Logan. ‘There’s something really... careful about this. We’ll do everything we can, but my gut says your guy’s a ghost.’

Charlie wiped a hand across his shiny forehead, smearing what little foundation he had left up there. ‘Aye, and as long as he wants to stay a ghost, we’re not going to find sod all.’

King’s nose came up. ‘That’s a double negative.’

‘So’s your mum.’ Then Charlie barged out the kitchen door, taking his crate with him.

Always nice to have a happy workplace.

Logan tried not to sigh, he really did. ‘What about photos?’

‘Technically I’m not allowed to give you anything unless you go through official channels, in triplicate, but here...’ she pulled a cheap iPad-knockoff from her crate, poked at the screen and handed it over. ‘You’ve got till we’re tidied up. After that you’ll have to wait till the report’s done and the Gods of Pointless Paperwork and Half-Arsed Procedures have been appeased.’ She stood there, giving King a look that could’ve curdled holy water, then turned and marched off with her crate. Leaving the two of them alone in the kitchen.

Logan watched him seethe for a bit. ‘You made a lovely impression there. They really like you, I can tell.’

‘They’ve still not forgiven me for that Martin Shanks disaster.’ He stuck a hand out, for the fauxPad. ‘My crime scene, remember?’

Yes, it was his crime scene, but he was being a dick, so no.

Logan put the fauxPad on the work surface between them and flicked through the photos to the ones of the kitchen, stopping at a shot of the bloody tabletop with its half-full bottle of wine and accompanying glass...

Now that was interesting.

He turned and stared at the table. A thick oak job, with scarred legs — probably where generations of Russian Revolutionary Jack Russells had scratched the wood raw. Logan hunkered down and had a damn good frown at the blood-spattered surface. Three dried circles marred the red-brown stains, two were perfectly smooth, but the third was dotted around its circumference. That would be the bottle’s dimpled bottom.

Logan took out his phone and snapped half a dozen shots of the tabletop and the blood spatters. ‘Did you see this?’

King snorted. ‘If you’re planning on amazing everyone with your Sherlock Holmes impression, don’t. Obviously Professor Wilson knew his attacker. You don’t open a bottle of Jacob’s Creek and swig it with a complete stranger.’

‘Hmmm...’ Three circles, pressed into the blood.

‘We need to work our way through his colleagues at the university — you heard Dr Longmire: they all hated him. But this must’ve been someone he felt comfortable with. Someone who hid it. Pretended to be his friend. Someone he’d invite into his house and crack a bottle of wine for.’

Logan stayed where he was. ‘Check out the table: tell me what you see.’

‘It’s a table.’ He took one look at Logan’s face and sighed. ‘OK, OK. It’s oak. It’s old. It’s a bit manky. Lots of blood spatters.’

‘What about the wine glass?’

Sounding bored now. ‘They took it away for testing.’

‘I know that. I’m asking what happens if you put a glass down on the table, then someone does whatever it was they did to get blood everywhere.’

Another sigh. ‘Do we really have to play—’

‘Humour me.’

King tramped over and examined the tabletop. ‘Well, there’d be...’ And finally the penny dropped. ‘Oh sod and buggeration.’

‘That’s what I was thinking.’

‘The glass would act as a mask, or a windbreak: there’d be a clear patch on the table where the blood wouldn’t spatter. The bottle too.’ King swivelled around, facing the door. ‘So our attacker gets in, attacks Professor Wilson, gets blood all over the table, then pours him a glass of wine? Well that’s just perfect: we’re dealing with a nutjob.’

‘Looks like there was enough wine out the bottle for two, maybe three glasses.’

King narrowed his eyes, then marched over to a scuffed off-white dishwasher, snapped on a single blue nitrile glove, and pulled the door open.

It was empty, except for a single wine glass.

He took the glass out and held it up to the light, where it sparkled and gleamed, sending chips of rainbow swirling around the kitchen. Not a single smudge or smear on it. ‘Our attacker does... whatever it was, then pours them both a glass of wine and has a drink. Puts his glass in the dishwasher, cleans up, and walks right out of here taking Professor Wilson with him, leaving not a single forensic clue behind.’ King returned the glass to the dishwasher. ‘This is going to be an utter bastard of a case, isn’t it?’

It certainly looked like it. But, on the bright side, it was King’s utter bastard of a case and not Logan’s.

Which made a nice change.

They hadn’t given King one of Divisional Headquarters’ swankier incident rooms. No fancy-pants digital whiteboards and projector systems here, this was old-school. Which in police parlance meant ‘scruffy, bland, and a bit tattered around the edges’. The ceiling tiles sagged in one corner, and the handful of cubicles lining the walls looked as if they’d been installed sometime around the end of the last ice age. The whiteboards — analogue, not digital — had been used and cleaned so often they’d taken on a manky shade of grey that looked like a dead person’s dentures.

Two plainclothes officers and a uniformed PC were gathered in the middle of the room, sitting on creaky office chairs, watching King finish his briefing.

Logan perched his bum on one of the desks at the back of the room. Doing his best to stay out of the way. To be inconspicuous. Didn’t work, though. That was the trouble with being Professional Standards — the uniform might be the same as everyone else’s, but it exerted a strange gravitational pull that grabbed people’s attention. Like a black hole, lurking at the edge of the room. Sinister, dark, and all devouring.

King risked a glance in Logan’s direction, before dragging himself back to his tiny team. ‘So, right now, that’s all we know.’ He folded his arms. ‘Any questions?’

A wee nyaff with a pale-ginger crewcut stuck his hand in the air. ‘Are we sure he’s been abducted? Maybe he cut himself and—’

‘Wheesht, Tufty.’ One of the plainclothes officers chucked a crumpled-up Post-it at his furry head. She was an older woman with a soft Weegie accent, greying brown bob, lilac jacket, jeans and a shirt. Stylish and relaxed. As if she was off to audition for a TENA Lady advert. ‘Don’t be such a neep. Why would he pour himself a glass of wine afterwards?’

‘Heather’s right.’ The other PC punched Tufty on the arm. ‘Shut yer cakehole, you twonk.’ Milky: mid-twenties, in black jeans and a Klangers T-shirt, her shoulder-length hair dyed an unnatural shade of mahogany. ‘He’d have got bloody fingerprints on the bottle too.’ She hit him again, for luck.

Heather nodded. ‘Exactly. And...’ She swivelled her ancient office chair around till she was frowning at Logan. Then back to King. ‘No offence, Boss, but are we really doing this in front of Professional Standards?’

Logan smiled at them all. ‘Don’t mind me.’

‘I mean it’s a bit... you know. If we have to take a care every time we open our mouths, it’s going to stifle the free flow of information and ideas. Plus he’ll write it all down and use it against us later.’

‘Try to pretend I’m not here.’

King grimaced. ‘If only.’ He pointed at Tufty’s tormentor. ‘What about you?’

Milky sucked her teeth for a moment, then let her Yorkshire drawl loose on the world once more. ‘I’m worried ’bout all these death and rape threats.’

Tufty shifted in his seat. ‘But we can’t risk it, can we? Say I’m right—’

‘Which you’re not.’ Heather lobbed another crumpled Post-it at him.

‘Yeah, but say I’m right and Professor Wilson’s slit his wrists then wandered off to die somewhere. We’re going to look a right bunch of spuds if his body turns up in the woods, two hundred yards from the house, aren’t we?’

Milky groaned. ‘Media will love that.’

‘Agreed. It’s not worth the risk.’ King crunched his way through another mint. ‘Heather: get a dog team organised. I want those woods search-and-sniffed ASAP.’

A lopsided smile. ‘We could take Gibbs instead? He could do with the exercise.’

‘A proper dog team, H, not you and your mental cocker spaniel again.’

She sighed. ‘Guv.’ Then pulled out her phone and went to stand in the corner, one finger in her ear as she made the call.

‘Good.’ King pointed at Milky and Tufty. ‘And you two: Professor Wilson’s colleagues need interviewing. We’re looking for enemies, fights, threats. Was he depressed? Do they think he might have harmed himself? Make sure you check every single alibi — you know what academics are like.’

Tufty’s hand shot up again. ‘Ooh, ooh! What about the social-media side of things, Guv? There’s all these Alt-Nat accounts gloating about the Professor being dead, and all these Unionistas wading in to do battle against them. It’s Keyboard Armageddon out there.’

‘What about it?’

A slightly puzzled look. ‘We need to investigate, don’t we? Who are they? How did they know something happened to Professor Wilson before we did? A sticky digital trail of clues could lead us straight to the murderer!’

Milky rolled her eyes. ‘It’s like he’s been half drowned in Idiot Juice...’ She checked her watch. ‘We could ask the forensic computer-geek team?’

‘Have you seen their backlog?’ King shook his head. ‘We’ll have died of old age by the time they get anywhere near it.’

Tufty still had his hand up, but now he was bouncing in his seat too. ‘I can do it! I can! I has resources and mad skillz and stuff!’

King scowled at him. ‘You’re interviewing academics for the rest of the day and liking it.’

‘But—’

‘Interviews!’

The wee loon sagged in his seat, all the bounce taken out of him. ‘Guv...’ To be honest, he only had himself to blame.

Logan waved at King. ‘We’ve got someone at PSD who might be able to take a look. Does all our computer forensics.’

A little bounce made its way back into Tufty. ‘Honestly, I could do it. It’s no trouble.’

‘Go.’ King pointed at the door. ‘Away with you.’

And the last bounce died. ‘Guv.’ Tufty scuffed his way from the room.

Milky stood. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye ont lad.’ Then she followed him out.

King turned to Logan. ‘This IT guy of yours, is he...’

A kerfuffle in the doorway made them both look as DS Steel appeared, arms out, stopping Detective Constable Way from escaping. ‘Hope you’re off on a tea run, Milky. Two and a coo for me.’ A suggestive wink, then she stepped aside, letting Milky squeeze past.

There was a pause as King pulled himself up to his full height, chest out. Frowning down at Steel. ‘Well?’

She stuck both hands in her pockets and sauntered in. ‘What-ho, sharny bumholes?’

King stiffened. ‘Is that how you speak to superior officers?’

Apparently.

‘I’ve finished your stupid door-to-doors and you know what I got? Go on: guess.’

Heather emerged from the corner, stuffing her phone back in her pocket. ‘Guv? I’ve managed to sort us a dog unit, but we’ll need to wait till they’ve finished in Banff. They’re dunting a druggie’s door in at half one.’

‘What I’ve got,’ Steel stuck a hand down the front of her shirt and had a rummage — rearranging things, ‘is sore feet, midge bites, and a sweat-sticky cleavage. It’s like a teenager’s wet dream down here.’

Logan shuddered. ‘Urgh...’

King turned his back on her. ‘They give you an ETA, Heather?’

‘Minimum two hours, plus travelling time.’

Steel extracted her hand and wiped it on her suit trousers, leaving a damp smear. ‘Did a three-mile radius and you know how many houses I found? Six. Six houses full of weird wee teuchtery people with webbed feet and no chins cos Mummy married Uncle Daddy.’

‘Two hours?’ King sighed. ‘Not ideal, but it’ll have to do.’

Heather tried her lopsided smile again. ‘Sure you don’t want to give Gibbs another go?’

‘Inbred old gits didn’t have a pair of teeth between them. Whole place reeked of banjos and “squeal piggy!”’

‘We’ll need to get on to the Superintendent: try and drum up some more bodies.’ King took out his phone ‘Have a word with—’

‘HOY!’ Steel banged a hand down on the nearest desk. ‘Are you tossers even listening to me?’

They might not have been before, but they were now.

King’s eyes bugged. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Should think so too.’ She stuck her nose in the air. ‘And you’ll be delighted to know that the media have got hold of your professor’s disappearance. Bloody Aberdeen University issued a press release.’

With that, all the indignation hissed out of King like a deflating turnip. He sank into one of the recently vacated office chairs and sagged back, staring up at the baggy ceiling tiles. ‘Great.’

Then his phone launched into ‘Fairytale of New York’ again. He groaned and curled into himself, arms wrapped around his head.

Steel grinned at Logan. ‘What you doing here?’ Then pointed at the groaning King. ‘Going to fire the wee man?’

‘Just popped in on my way to the canteen.’

‘Hmph. Nice for some, swanning about like something off Darth Vader’s glee club.’

‘So you didn’t find out anything useful at all?’

‘From the Teuchter Patrol? Nah.’ She plonked herself down in a chair. ‘“Professor Wilson is a loner”, “Professor Wilson is a pain in the hoop”, “Professor Wilson never puts his bins out on the right day”. Only thing we know for sure is he went missing sometime between eighteen past eleven on Sunday night and twenty to ten, Monday morning.’

Heather raised an eyebrow. ‘How can you possibly—’

‘Last tweet he sent was eleven eighteen; first Alt-Nat tweet crowing about his death was twenty to ten. It’s no’ exactly Celebrity Eggheads, is it, H?’

A blush spread itself up Heather’s neck and across her cheeks.

Steel pulled out her phone. ‘Honestly, you buggers forget I used to be a Chief Inspector, don’t you?’ She poked at the screen, eyes all narrow and squinty. ‘Here you go: “Corrupt Brit-Nat mouthpiece, Professor Wilson, has stained our proud country with his lies and filth for the last time. Death was too good for him. Enemy of the people!” Exclamation mark. Hashtag: “Rise up and be the nation again”, hashtag: “Scotland first”.’

Logan peered over her shoulder at the screen. ‘They leave a name?’

‘Aye: “Wally Knieve 1314”.’

‘OK.’ He straightened up. ‘So we do a PNC check for—’

‘It’s from Burns.’ Heather pulled her chin up, stressing the words as if trying to redeem herself after Steel made her look like a numpty. “‘Address to a Haggis”. And I quote:

She held up a hand and curled it into a fist. ‘This is my “walie nieve”.’

King let his arms fall by his sides and stared at the ceiling again. Voice little more than a funeral dirge:

Heather nodded. ‘And 1314 was the battle of Bannockburn.’

‘Oh...’ Steel put her phone away. ‘In that case, no. He didn’t leave a name.’

‘Course he didn’t.’ King sagged a bit further. ‘H?’

‘I can get in touch with Twitter, but don’t hold your breath.’

King didn’t move. ‘Thanks. And now, unless anyone else has a—’

The door burst open, banging against the wall, and in marched a short man. A bit tubby about the middle, small round glasses and a hairline that looked as if it was planning on parting company with its host any day now. A scowl etched into his pasty face. DCI Hardie stopped in the middle of the room as King scrambled to his feet.

‘Boss.’

‘You’ve heard about the university?’

‘Press release.’

‘Which means we’re going to have to do a media briefing. And by “we” I mean “you”. Two o’clock sharp. Try to make it sound like we know what we’re doing.’

King nodded. ‘Boss.’

Then Hardie stared at Logan. ‘Inspector McRae, good to have you back after...’ Suspicion replaced the scowl as he looked from Logan to King. ‘Is there something here I should know about?’

Logan put a hand on Steel’s shoulder. ‘Just popped by to see how Detective Sergeant Steel’s getting on. Make sure she’s keeping her nose clean.’

She gave him a full dose of the evil eye. ‘Hoy!’

‘Good luck with that.’ Hardie turned on his heel, snapping his fingers above his head as he marched from the room. ‘Two o’clock sharp!’

As soon as the door banged shut, King collapsed into his seat, hands over his face again. ‘Aaaargh...’

Yeah, that pretty much summed it up.

6

Logan plipped the locks on his Audi and hurried across the furnace masquerading as Bucksburn station’s rear car park. Trying to avoid the stickier patches of tarmac.

Inside, it was a bit cooler, but not a lot. He limped his way up the stairs to Professional Standards, sweat prickling between his shoulder blades. Who decided it was OK for the weather to be so bloody hot? The temperature was never meant to hit twenty-six in Aberdeen — what was the point of living nearly a degree and a half north of Moscow if it was going to be twenty-six in the shade? Might as well live in a microwave oven.

At least the air conditioning was on in the main office.

Someone he didn’t recognise was lowering the blinds, cutting out the glaring sun and the lunchtime ‘rush’. The traffic was barely moving — crawling along Inverurie Road and bringing most of Bucksburn to a grinding halt. Then the blinds clunked down and it was gone.

Whoever-it-was waved at Logan and he waved back.

Yup, no idea at all who you are, mate.

Logan lumbered his way along the line of offices to the one marked, ‘FORENSIC I.T.’ A laminated sheet of A4 sat underneath it, covered in clipart cartoon characters depicting some sort of bloody Aztec ritual with the legend, ‘THE MIGHTY KARL CARES NOT FOR YOUR VIRGIN SACRIFICES: BRING CAKE!’

OK, so a packet of Rice Krispie squares wasn’t quite the same thing, but it was near enough. Right?

He shifted the pack to his other hand and knocked.

A slightly high-pitched voice sounded on the other side of the door. ‘Abandon all hope and enter.’

Logan let himself in.

The Mighty Karl’s domain was an eclectic collection of IT equipment, all of it labelled and most of it stored on the floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined the room. Laptops, desktops, evidence crates full of mobile phones and tablet computers.

More clipart cartoons were pinned up all over the walls and shelves. A halo of them made a wee shrine around a framed photo of Karl shaking hands with the First Minister. Only someone had given her a Post-it note speech balloon with, ‘OH KARL, YOU SEXY BEAST OF A MAN, YOU!’ on it.

The ‘Sexy Beast of a man’ sat at the workbench that bisected the room.

Perched on a high stool, with a thin grey cardigan on over his Police Scotland uniform T-shirt, thick-rimmed round glasses, and salt-and-pepper hair in desperate need of a cut, he was just a hookah pipe and a fez away from being the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.

He clambered down from his mushroom and beamed. ‘Logan of the Clan McRae! I heard rumours of your...’ His nostrils twitched and he curled forwards, peering at the packet in Logan’s hand. ‘Ooh, do these ancient eyes deceive me, or are you bearing votive offerings for my humble self? Hmmmmm?’

Logan popped the Rice Krispie squares on the desk and Karl snaffled them up, sniffing the wrapper.

‘Ah, the delights of puffed rice and assorted sweetly sticky things...’ A sigh, long and wistful. ‘I miss Norman, don’t you? He used to prepare decadent baked treats that would tempt even the most parsimonious of souls.’ Karl ripped the pack open. ‘I remember once he baked a batch of scones with Mars Bar bits, Gummy Bears, and jelly beans, that—’

‘Can I beg a favour?’

Karl tore off a sticky corner and popped it in his mouth, chewing through a big smile. ‘Mmmm... You have made sacrifice to the all-mighty, all-seeing, all-knowing Oracle, so ask away, Brave Traveller.’

‘I need you to track down some Twitter accounts for me.’

‘Names, addresses, inside-leg measurements — that kind of thing?’

‘As much as you can get.’

A nod. ‘Luckily, my dear Logan, the only things I have on this afternoon are a pair of tattered pants and a second-hand bobble hat.’ He sooked his fingers clean. ‘Consider your tweetists found!’

And with any luck they’d have whoever abducted Professor Wilson in a cell by the close of business.

Superintendent Bevan sat behind her desk, hands busy with a ball of multicoloured wool and a crochet needle. Making something that looked disturbingly like a huge willy warmer.

Logan tore his eyes away from it and settled in his seat. ‘I’m going to have to go over some of his cases, speak to a few of his colleagues to be sure, but I get the feeling DI King is telling the truth. It was a long time ago and he’s genuinely changed.’

She frowned for a moment, crocheting away, then nodded. ‘Better safe than sorry, Logan. Better safe than sorry.’

Yup, that was looking more like a willy warmer with every passing second. She’d got as far as the testicley bits... OK, no way that was appropriate for an office environment.

Logan cleared his throat. ‘Course, it would help if we knew what the Scottish Daily Post had on him. Be easier to manage.’

Bevan didn’t look up. ‘“Manage” is perhaps the wrong word. We’re not here to put a positive spin on things, we’re here to find the truth and resolve the situation. For good or ill.’

‘I don’t think he’s going to be a risk to the Professor Wilson investigation, anyway.’

‘I hope not, Logan. I really do. Politically, there’s a lot riding on this one and if DI King slips up...’ A pained expression pulled her mouth down. ‘Keep an eye on him for me, will you? Be his shadow for a day or two. Actually, better make it three, just in case. Because the fallout would be horrific.’

Not quite as horrific as what she was making. Those testicular bits were getting bigger...

Look at something else!

Anything else!

How about... that big frame on the wall, the one with the ancient green-and-white car and the speeding ticket?

‘Err... so you’re into classic cars?’ Pointing at it.

‘Hmm?’ She glanced up from her crocheted codpiece. ‘Oh, no. I keep that as a reminder. Oh, I used to love that Hillman Minx. Got done for speeding, when I was nineteen. Five K over the speed limit, so that’s about...’ Working it out. ‘Three miles an hour too fast? But the cops in Auckland were very strict about that kind of thing.’ More testicalling. ‘So I keep it as a reminder.’

Crochet, crochet, crochet.

OK...

‘Of what?’

‘I was nineteen, I was in teachers’ college, and I was in a hurry to get home after yet another day’s placement at Blockhouse Bay Primary School — “going on section” we called it, part of the training.’ A sigh. ‘So I broke the speed limit. And now look at me!’ She tugged at the ball bags, flattening them out. ‘It reminds me that we all make mistakes, Logan. We all deserve a second chance.’

Fair enough.

‘Like DI King?’

‘Exactly.’ She looked up from her willy warmer. ‘I don’t like our officers being savaged by the press, Logan. I don’t like it one little bit.’

‘Have you tried calling the journalist: see if they’ll tell you what they’ve got on King?’

‘Tricky. You give credence to the allegations just by questioning them. Next thing you know, the press is full of stories about how Professional Standards are investigating him. That, or accusing us of being involved in a cover-up.’ Creases appeared between her eyebrows as she added another layer to the crocheted horror. ‘I suppose, if you think you can pull it off? But try not to stir up more trouble than we’re already in, OK?’

Lovely: a poisoned chalice, all of his very own.

Logan pointed at the door. ‘So, should I...?’

There was a ding, then a buzz, and Bevan’s huge iPhone skittered on the desktop. She peered over the top of her glasses at the screen. Sighed and shook her head. ‘Honestly! Some husbands send their wives dick picks, what do I get?’ She let go of the wool and turned the phone around, so Logan could see.

It was a photo of a man’s mid-section, bit of trousers, belt, and waist. A big yellow banana poked out of his flies.

‘I swear that man is sixty-one going on twelve.’

So that’s who the willy warmer was for.

Logan stood. ‘Well, I’d better be—’

‘Sergeant Rennie says you taught him all he knows.’

Typical Rennie: rotten little clype was probably trying to spread the blame.

‘That depends on what he’s done.’

‘Inspiring people is always a good thing.’ She smiled. ‘Have you considered what you’re going to do when your tour of Professional Standards is over? Which branch of NE Division you’d like to move into?’

‘Erm...’

‘And you’re not restricted to NE Division — now that we’re all one big happy Police Scotland family, you could take your pick: Tayside, Highlands and Islands, Fife? I’m sure your Queen’s Medal will open all manner of doors.’

‘Hadn’t really thought about it.’

‘You should, Logan. You should. The next ten months will fly by and then... poof! Professional Standards’ loss will be someone else’s gain.’ She held up the multicoloured willy warmer, letting the dangly bit... dangle. ‘I think it’s coming along nicely, don’t you?’

Urgh!

‘I really don’t think I—’

‘Now I’ve got the trunk and the ears done I can move on to Mr Haathee’s body and legs.’

Logan looked from the dangly bit to the dirty crocheted elephant perched on top of the filing cabinet with one of its button eyes hanging off.

Oh thank God for that.

‘Anyway, I won’t keep you.’ She went back to her non-willy-warming elephant. ‘Let me know how you get on with your journalist.’

No idea whose desk this was, but they had a serious Twilight problem. The cubicle walls were covered in posters of various greasy-looking sparkly vampires and shirtless young men smouldering for the camera. Not exactly wholesome.

Logan drew smiley faces on half a dozen Post-its and stuck them over the actors’ pouts, giving the desk a much more festive air. Then he logged on to his email and pulled up the front page of the Scottish Daily Post they’d been sent. The one with DI King’s face and ‘TOP MURDER COP WAS IN SCOTNAT TERROR GROUP’.

According to the byline, it’d been written by ‘SENIOR REPORTER, EDWARD BARWELL’ along with a mobile number and ‘HAVE YOU GOT A BREAKING STORY?’

Logan pulled over the desk phone and dialled.

While it rang, he called up a web browser and googled Barwell. The Post’s website showed an earnest-looking man in his early twenties, hair slicked back on top and very, very short at the sides. The kind of person who thought a checked waistcoat and a tweed jacket made him look both trendy and respectable, but came off more middle-aged Rupert the Bear. The list of articles that accompanied the photo suggested—

A voice in his ear: ‘Edward Barwell.’

‘Mr Barwell? It’s Inspector McRae from North East Division. Have you got a minute to talk about DI Frank King?’

‘On or off the record?’

‘Off.’

‘Why? What don’t you want people to know about?’

Nope, not playing that game.

‘OK. I’m sorry for bothering you. Bye.’ Logan had the handset halfway to the cradle when Barwell’s voice belted out of the earpiece:

‘Wait, wait! OK, off the record it is.’

Better.

‘You emailed through tomorrow’s front page and I’m looking into your allegations.’

‘Allegations?’ A laugh. ‘You’re kidding, right? They’re not allegations, Inspector...?’

‘McRae.’

‘Right, and is that M.A.C. or M.C.?’

‘It’s spelled: “off-the-record”, remember?’

‘Force of habit.’ There was a pause. Then, ‘Your DI King was in a Scottish Nationalist terrorist cell. I’ve enough dirt to run this for three or four days.’

Well that complicated things.

Logan opened his notebook and dug out a pen. ‘You’ve got proof he was involved in terrorist activities?’

‘You’re investigating him, you tell me.’ Then, when Logan didn’t, ‘The People’s Army for Scottish Liberation were big on blowing up statues and guest houses, weren’t they? And now there’s all these Alt-Nat arson attacks going on. Makes you wonder if someone like King should be out there investigating crimes, doesn’t it?’

‘Who told you he was involved?’

‘So you’re admitting he was in the SPLA?’

‘No, I’m asking who told you he was. If I told you Donald Trump was a Mensa member, it wouldn’t make it true, would it?’

‘You want me to hand over my sources to the police? Yeah, that’s going to happen. Let me saddle up my unicorn and I’ll ride over with the information.’

Rupert the Bear does sarcasm.

Logan sighed. ‘Look, I’m trying to get to the bottom of this, OK? Maybe it’s not a great idea to trash a guy’s career without a proper investigation?’

‘That a threat?’

‘No, it’s me wondering why you’re so interested in DI King.’

You could hear the big evil smile in his voice, it practically dripped from the handset. ‘Read the paper, you’ll find out.’ There was some rustling, a clunk, then a swell of voices in the background, as if Barwell had just stepped into a busy room. ‘Gotta dash — your media briefing’s about to kick off and I don’t want to miss a single minute.’ Then he hung up.

Logan put the phone down. Swivelled in his borrowed chair. Frowned at the now smiley-Post-it-faced vampires. ‘That could’ve gone better.’

He opened a new tab on the browser and called up Silver City FM’s website, ‘THE VOICE OF THE NORTHEAST SINCE 2008!’, following a link on their ‘NEWS UPDATE!’ page to a livestream of DCI Hardie’s press conference.

The picture was completely frozen and pixelated — the media briefing room at Divisional Headquarters. The bottom of the screen was taken up with the back of journalists’ heads, with a small podium in front of them. It played host to a projection screen, a backdrop covered in Police Scotland logos, and a desk covered with blue cloth. A row of uncomfortable-looking officers behind it — DCI Hardie in the middle, DI King to the left, and the Media Liaison Officer on the right. All three of them sharing a single microphone. Then the circular icon that meant the media player was buffering appeared, whirled for a bit, and finally the video started playing.

King was on his feet, mouth open. ‘... ask anyone with any information to come forward. Thank you.’

He sat back down and the Media Liaison Officer nodded at the assembled press pack as the words ‘JANE MCGRATH’ materialised at the bottom of the screen. Immaculate in her suit, with hair and makeup so perfect she could’ve been presenting the news. Polished to the point of being slightly creepy in an uncanny valley kind of way. Her voice was much the same. ‘Any questions?’

A flurry of hands went up.

It was difficult to tell who was who, going by the back of their heads, but a few of those journalistic haircuts were familiar, especially the trendy short sides and slicked top of Edward Barwell. Sitting there, between someone from the BBC and the Aberdeen Examiner.

Jane pointed at one of them. ‘Yes: Bob?’

‘Aye, Bob Finnegan, Aberdeen Examiner. Is Professor Wilson’s disappearance connected to Matt Lansdale going missing?’

She pulled on a smile that probably wasn’t meant to look as patronising as it did. ‘Not that we know of, Bob. But again, we urge anyone with information to get in touch. Who’s next?’

‘Only, see, Lansdale’s a high-profile anti-independence campaigner, just like the Professor. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’

The smile got even worse. ‘Again: we’re not currently aware of any connection. Yes: Olivia.’

The woman sitting next to Barwell lowered her hand. ‘Olivia Ward, BBC News. What about all these arson attacks? Isn’t it likely that Professor Wilson’s murder is part of a coordinated campaign of domestic terrorism?’

King leaned forward into the microphone. ‘For the record: there’s no evidence that Professor Wilson’s been murdered. This is a missing persons inquiry.’

Edward Barwell didn’t even bother putting his hand up. Cocky little sod. ‘Are you sure, Detective Inspector?’

Logan sat back in his seat. ‘Oh God, here we go...’

‘You see, the Alt-Nat trolls are all over social media saying he is.’ Because cocky wasn’t bad enough, he had to be smug with it. ‘You have seen the tweets and posts, haven’t you?’

‘As I said, the inquiry is ongoing and we ask anyone with—’

‘Information to come forward. Yes.’ A nod. Difficult to be a hundred percent certain, only seeing the back of his head, but going by the voice? Logan would’ve put money on Barwell’s smile being even more patronising than Jane McGrath’s. ‘I’ll bet you do...’

7

The keyboard creaked and rattled as Logan picked out a conclusion for his report on Professor Wilson’s disappearance. Blah, blah, blah, forensically aware, blah, blah, blah, unknown perpetrator, blah, blah, blah, ongoing investigation focusing on—

His mobile launched into its generic ringtone.

Great.

‘Can’t even get five minutes peace.’ He pulled the thing out and answered it. ‘McRae.’

King’s voice growled in his ear. ‘I take it you saw that.’

So he’d called up to moan. Oh joy.

‘Watched it online.’

‘What’s he waiting for then? Barwell. Smarmy little git.’ King’s voice sounded... odd. As if he was being strangled, making the words slightly sharp and mushy at the same time.

‘Are you OK?’

Maybe he was having a stroke?

‘Oh, fine. Fine. I mean, I’m being investigated by Professional Standards, a national newspaper is threatening to tell the world I was a member of a terrorist organisation, my main case is a booby-trapped nightmare full of burning crap, and my wife’s...’ He cleared his throat. ‘You lied to Hardie. When he came into the office, you told him you were there to see Steel.’

‘I’m not your enemy, Frank. Hardie doesn’t need to know we’re—’

‘Investigating me.’

‘Do you want him to know?’

‘He’s going to find out sooner or later.’ A bitter sigh. ‘Soon as Barwell prints his front page, everyone will.’

The rattling kettle spewed steam in the tiny kitchen area. They’d managed to squeeze a microwave, toaster, teeny fridge, and a couple of cupboards in here, but there wasn’t any room left over for a sink — instead, a couple of two-litre bottles of supermarket water loitered on the windowsill.

Add to that one Logan and a Superintendent Bevan, and the place was packed.

She dropped a teabag into each of the mugs on the work surface. ‘And Barwell didn’t say anything about King’s PASL past?’

‘Not a word. Just sat there being smug the whole time.’

The kettle finished its juddering song and fell silent.

Logan filled the mugs. ‘Best guess? He’ll publish tomorrow. Don’t see him holding off now he knows King’s investigating an abducted unionist.’

‘I think it might be wise to get the media department to draft a statement. Better to be prepared than caught with our pants round our ankles. And we’ll want to present a united front.’ She pulled out a spoon and mashed away at the teabags, as if they’d been naughty. Not looking at Logan. ‘And you’re sure he’s not still involved?’

‘“Sure” sure, or “kind-of-certain-but-don’t-quote-me-on-that” sure?’

‘Then go digging, Logan. Go digging. Because if we’re going to stand up there and say he’s clean, he damn well better be.’

Ah, the delights of Interview Room Three, with its stained ceiling tiles, scraped walls, and a chipped Formica table covered in badly spelled biro graffiti. It was enough to make you nostalgic for the good old days.

The blinds were open, letting sunlight flood the room, glinting off the recording equipment and the camera mounted in the corner above the door.

For a change, Logan sat on the suspect side of the table — the one where the chairs were bolted to the floor, the one facing the camera, the one where the window was behind him. Meaning that Detective Constable Collins, had to sit opposite, squinting against the sunlight, sweat prickling out across his forehead, the stains under his arms darkening as he wriggled and fidgeted. Wee Bernie Collins: a shaved chimp in a brown shirt, his tie hanging loose like a Labrador’s tongue.

Logan gave him a reassuring smile. ‘It’s OK, Bernie; nothing to worry about. I’m trying to get a feel for DI King’s management style, that’s all; talking to people who’ve worked with him. You were on a team of his eight months ago, right? That attempted murder in Kemnay?’

‘Erm...’ Bernie’s eyes drifted up to the camera in the corner.He licked his lips. Blinked a couple of times. ‘Sorry, what was the question again?’

Ladies and gentlemen: Aberdeen’s finest.

‘How do you think DI King gets on with his English colleagues?’

Wrinkles appeared across that sweaty head. ‘What, other forces down south?’ Sometimes, with Wee Bernie, it was difficult to tell if he was being obtuse, or genuinely thick.

‘No, his colleagues here. Ones who’re English. Does he treat them differently?’

‘Oh.’ The wrinkles deepened. ‘He doesn’t like Soapy Halstead much. But then Soapy’s a bit of a wanker, so no one does. He likes Milky, though, and she’s all “Eee-bah-goom”, flat caps, and whippets.’ A shrug of simian shoulders. ‘Other than that? Nah, King was a good boss.’

Heather squinted against the sunlight and scooted her chair over a bit, till Logan’s shadow fell across her face. Then leaned back in her chair. ‘Ooh, now you’re asking.’ She brushed the grey fringe from her eyes. ‘Not so I’ve noticed. I mean, you wouldn’t, would you? Because he isn’t.’ A pause stretched for a couple of breaths. ‘That I know of, anyway.’

Nothing like covering your own arse.

Logan tilted his head to one side, exposing Heather to the light again. ‘OK: what about these arson attacks, has he said anything about them?’

She shoogled her chair over a bit more. ‘Only that he really hopes it isn’t domestic terrorism, or Spevoo are going to be all over us like a wet cocker spaniel.’

OK, no idea. ‘Spevoo?’

‘Scottish Preventing Extremism Violence Unit. Spevoo. You know what these specialist task forces are like — they’ve seen one too many episodes of NCIS and think they’re all Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.’ Heather scrunched her face up. ‘When most of them barely qualify as Timothy McGee. And I mean Season One, Timothy McGee, not Season Fourteen.’

He had to ask, didn’t he?

Detective Constable Sharon ‘Milky’ Way chewed on the inside of her cheek for a bit. ‘What, you mean like, “is he a racist?”’

‘Has he ever done, or said, something that’s made you feel uncomfortable?’

‘This is DI King we’re talking ’bout, in’t it?’ She frowned at Logan. ‘Why are you asking?’

Logan shrugged, the sunlight warm against his back. ‘You know what things are like these days. We just want to make sure everyone’s supported at work and no one’s feeling—’

‘“Uncomfortable”. Yes, you said.’ She sat back in her seat. ‘King’s OK, but I’ll tell you who does make us feel uncomfortable: Detective Sergeant Brogan. Him with Kevin Keegan perm and permanent sniff. Always ogles me boobs when he thinks I’m not looking, every — single — time.’

‘Does he now?’ Logan got out his notebook and wrote, ‘TALK TO DS BROGAN ABOUT SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE!’ then underlined it three times. ‘I’ll have to have a word with him about that.’

‘And make sure you tell him twas me tipped you off. Disgusting sniffy little pervert that he is.’

DS Robertson made a big show of thinking about it. Serious frown. Fingertips stroking his bony chin. A whippet in a charity-shop suit, with horrible sideburns, and droopy eyes.

Logan sighed. ‘Come on, Henry: you worked with him on the Martin Shanks investigation, didn’t you?’

Robertson shuddered. ‘Don’t remind me. And before you say anything, the internal inquiry cleared us both, OK?’

‘Does DI King treat his English team members differently or not? It’s a simple enough question.’

‘Oh yes, it’s a simple enough question, it’s the answer that’s complicated. See, there’s no way I want to land someone in it with the Rubber Heelers.’ He raised a stick-insect hand. ‘No offence. And there’s no way I’m lying to the Rubber Heelers either.’ The hand went up again. ‘No offence. But you people make me nervous, you know?’

‘Just be honest and you’ve got nothing to worry about.’ It was an effort keeping the reassuring smile in place, but Logan did his best.

‘Hmmm... Well, he doesn’t like Soapy very much, but neither does anyone else. He’s even more of a tosser than your lot.’ Up went the hand.

‘Yeah, I know: no offence.’

PC Oliver ‘Soapy’ Halstead lounged in his seat, looking at Logan with one eyebrow raised, as if that was the stupidest question he’d ever been asked. Oh the arrogance of youth. Only twenty-four and he was clearly under the impression that he already knew everything about everything, with his neat little beard, architect’s glasses, and Young Conservative haircut. Even his loosened tie looked arrogant. Probably didn’t help that his Home Counties accent made him sound as if he was sneering at everything: ‘Oh no, I haven’t seen anything like that, Inspector. When we’re out arresting the great unwashed, we are a unit. A team. A tightly knit band of brothers, if you will.’

Logan tried not to sigh, he really did. ‘Because I wouldn’t want you to think you couldn’t talk to me, or one of my colleagues, if someone was making you feel uncomfortable.’

‘Oh, dear me, no.’ He had a little preen. ‘I think you’ll find that I’m quite capable of fighting my own battles, thank you very much.’

Logan stared back at him.

Silence.

Halstead shifted in his seat. Picked at the tabletop. Cleared his throat.

More silence.

‘All right, I admit that it can be a bit... challenging from time to time.’ He straightened the cuffs on his pinstriped shirt. ‘I see how members of the public look at me sometimes. There I am, arresting some drug-addled junkie who’s been sick all over himself, and they’re looking down their nose at me, because I’m English and I’ve had a decent education? That hardly seems fair, does it?’

The arrogant expression had slipped, replaced by one that looked a bit... sad. And disappointed. And a little hurt. Maybe ‘Soapy’ wasn’t quite the dick that everyone thought?

‘You do know that you can report hate crimes against you, Oliver? We won’t put up with that stuff.’

He waved it away. ‘Racism is a by-product of ignorance, Inspector. Are we to punish people for being stupid, now? If we did that, three quarters of the country would be behind bars.’

‘And has DI King ever treated you differently to your non-English colleagues?’

A long sigh. Then: ‘He’s all right, I suppose.’ Halstead stared down at the tabletop. ‘I’m aware that he doesn’t like me very much, but at least he doesn’t give me all the terrible menial jobs.’ A small bitter laugh broke free. ‘I only ever wanted to be a police officer. Father wanted me to read Classics at Cambridge, like he did. Rather broke his heart when I told him I was running off to Scotland to “join the Rozzers” instead.’

Logan reached across the table, put a hand on Halstead’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘Listen to me, Oliver: if anyone gives you crap for being English, you let me know. I’ll make their next prostate exam feel like a teddy bear’s tea party.’

Why could Police Scotland never get any decent computers in? Why did they all have to be steam-powered monstrosities the colour of skin grafts? Well maybe not all of them, but the one in the tiny office he’d commandeered certainly was.

Tiny grubby office.

God knew who’d had it last, but they’d left the bin overflowing with sandwich wrappers, crisp packets, and scrunched-up copies of the Daily Mail.

A pile of printouts sat beside the ancient computer. Logan wrote ‘FOLLOW UP ON DRUG MONEY? CHECK WITH ARCHIVIST?’ on the top sheet, then turned back to the screen. Squinted at the reflected glare. Swivelled his chair around and lowered the blind, shutting out the sun. Then clicked the next link on his search results.

A gaudy web page popped up, festooned with cheesy animated gifs and saltire flags. Whoever maintained PASL-MANIFESTO-FOR-A-FREE-SCOTLAND.COM wasn’t exactly blessed with graphic design skills.

The office door creaked open and Steel poked her head in. ‘Hoy, Limpy: you still here?’

He went back to the screen. ‘No. Went home hours ago.’

She sauntered over, pausing only to kick the door shut behind her, pulled out an envelope and tossed it onto his desk. It landed with a clattery thump. ‘Whip-round.’

‘What, for me?’

‘No’ for you, you spungbadger, Ailsa Marshall. You know them woods in Rubislaw Den? Poor cow’s been sleeping rough there for months. Someone found her this morning, face-down in the burn. You’re chipping in for a headstone.’

‘Here.’ He added a fiver to the collection and handed the envelope back.

‘Ta.’ Steel stuck it in her jacket. ‘Don’t fancy babysitting tonight, do you? I could go an evening in the pub, kebab, and a bit of the old wriggly fun.’

‘No chance.’

‘Spoilsport.’ She hauled the blind open again, turning Logan’s computer screen into an eye-watering blare of light.

‘Argh...’ He backed away from it, squinting.

‘Sitting here in the dark like a wee troll.’ She cracked the window open, letting in the diesel growl of buses and the seagulls’ mournful cries. ‘It’s no’ good for you.’ The tip of her e-cigarette / sonic screwdriver glowed as she sooked. A huge cloud of watermelon vape drifted its way around Logan’s head, glowing in the sunlight. ‘Come on then, what you doing?’

‘Investigating.’ Logan held up a hand, blocking the glare from his screen. ‘Or at least I’m trying to.’

‘I know that, you idiot; investigating what?’

‘People’s Army for Scottish Liberation. Apparently they had ties to the Scottish People’s Liberation Army, the Scottish Freedom Fighters’ Resistance Front, End of Empire, and Arbroath Thirteen Twenty. AKA nutters so extreme that even Settler Watch didn’t want anything to do with them.’

Another cloud of fruity smelling fog. ‘It’s Womble-funting dick-muppets like that who give good old-fashioned Scottish Nationalists a bad name.’

‘The whole lot were supposed to get together in the eighties and launch a coordinated attack — you know, tear down that big Duke of Sutherland statue, burn out English-run guest houses, blow up HM Customs and Excise offices so as to “cripple the revenue gathering apparatus of the imperialist oppressor” — but it led to so much infighting they couldn’t organise a pervert in a scout hut.’

‘You sure you don’t want to babysit?’

Logan tapped the top printout on his pile. ‘So the People’s Army for Scottish Liberation decided to go their own way: did a big bullion job and walked off with two point six million pounds. Word is they were raising money for an armed insurgency. Their leader nips over to Belfast, looking to buy a whole shedload of machineguns from dissident republicans, only he gets picked up by the local plod. Kerb crawling for rent boys.’

She rested her bum against the windowsill. ‘I could drop Naomi and Jasmine off at yours. You wouldn’t even have to feed them.’

‘Turned out he had thirty-two thousand quid’s worth of heroin in the boot to pay for the guns.’

‘Make sure they do their teeth, then pop them off to bed. You’ll barely even know they’re there.’

‘If he hadn’t fancied a knee-trembler in the back of a Vauxhall Astra we could’ve had our very own version of the Troubles.’

Steel sent another cloud of watermelon in Logan’s direction. ‘Or are you worried it’ll interfere with whatever heterosexual filth you and Ginger McHotpants get up to on a Tuesday evening?’

‘Kind of makes you ashamed to be Scottish...’ He frowned at her. ‘And stop calling Tara “Ginger McHotpants”!’

A grin. ‘How about Kinky McSpankypants instead?’

He turned his frown into a scowl.

Steel shrugged, pocketed her e-cigarette, shut the window, then bumped his chair with her hip. Voice soft and kind, ‘Come on, time for home. No point wearing yourself out on the first day back, is there?’

Pfff... She was probably right.

Logan powered down the computer. ‘Suppose not.’ He gathered up his printouts as the machine whirred and beeped itself to sleep.

‘There you go.’ She wrapped an arm around his shoulders as he stepped out from behind the desk. Gave him a squeeze. ‘Now, about that babysitting...’

Ah, so that explained the ‘nice’ act.

‘Not a chance in hell. I’m going home to a handful of painkillers, a soak in the tub, and barbecue some sausages for tomorrow.’ He poked a finger at her. ‘I am not babysitting!’

8

‘DIE! DIE AND BE DEAD!’ Jasmine thundered across the patio, shooting her little sister with a sci-fi blaster. She’d spiked her brown hair up with far too much gel for an eleven-year-old. Ribena stains splotched down the front of her horsey T-shirt, grass stains on her jodhpurs. Definitely took after Steel, that one.

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’ Naomi tore after her, lumbering a bit from side to side on her tiny little legs, big grin on her face, scuffs on her bare knees, pink and green stripes in her dirty blonde hair. She had Captain Bogies clasped to her chest with one hand, the octopus’s legs flopping about as she shot at her sister with the other. ‘PEW! PEW! BOOOOM!’

Not exactly restful.

Logan took a swig of IPA from the bottle and turned over a couple of sausages, the warm comforting scent of charcoal and charring fat wafting out into the garden. It’d taken most of the year, but it was looking pretty damn good, thank you very much — a riot of colour and textures, flowers, bushes, trees, and a lawn. An actual lawn, not a collection of dandelions, moss, and other assorted weeds. OK, so the rickety old shed probably wouldn’t survive another winter, and the greenhouse needed cleaning, but other than that? Domestic bliss.

He popped his beer back on the wrought-iron table, wiped his fingers on his apron, and poked the chicken thighs.

Turned some more sausages.

Naomi and Jasmine screeched their way past again.

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’

‘You two monsters: go wash your hands for dinner.’

‘DIE, SPACE FIEND!’

And they were gone again.

Typical.

A voice behind him: ‘Sure you’ve got enough sausages? Think the supermarket might still have a couple left.’ Tara stepped out through the patio doors, carrying a bowl of salad and four plates. The cowboy boots made her even taller — a clean white T-shirt and spotless blue jeans rounding off the cowboy-who’s-never-been-near-a-horse-in-his-life look. Her wolf-blue eyes narrowed in the sunlight, making tiny wrinkles on her heart-shaped face. Her long mahogany hair glowing like— ‘Is there something wrong?’

Logan blinked. ‘Wrong?’

‘Only you’re staring at me like I’ve got a bogey hanging out of my nose.’

‘Oh. Right. No.’ A smile. ‘The only bogies here are the octopussy kind.’

She popped the salad and plates on the table as the kids battered past again.

‘PEW! PEW!’

‘You heard your dad: wash up, horrors!’

They didn’t listen to her, either.

Tara helped herself to a swig of his beer. ‘I swear to God, those kids take more after Steel than they do Susan. They’re like drunken wolverines with ADHD and no volume control.’

Yup.

He grabbed a pork-and-apple sausage with his tongs, and held it up. ‘You want yours fruity, spicy, or Cumberlandy?’

She stepped up behind him and slipped her hands into the pockets of his apron. Gave him a very suggestive smile. ‘I do like a spicy sausage!’ And then her hands went a-wandering.

‘Arrgh!’ Logan danced away a couple of steps, clacking his tongs at her in self-defence. ‘Hands off the cook’s sausage, you pervert. This is a food preparation area!’

She polished off his beer. ‘You hear about this missing constitutional scholar? Professor Watson?’

‘Wilson.’

‘Met him at an Aberdeen University do last year. I know we’re not supposed to talk ill of the dead, but by God that man was a dick.’

Logan shifted some of the more cooked sausages off onto a plate and opened another packet of Cumberlands. ‘Was?’

‘Well, you know, what with him being dead and all.’

The thick pink tubes sizzled as they hit the hot grill. ‘Don’t believe everything you read on social media. There’s no proof he’s dead, just a bunch of Alt-Nat trolls out flapping their gums.’

‘Alt-Nat, Brit-Nat, Unionistas, Independunces, Remoaners, Brexshiteers...’ She toasted him with the empty bottle. ‘Got to love civilised discourse in the modern age.’

‘Well, there’s always—’

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’

Naomi and Jasmine battered across the garden, once around the patio furniture, and disappeared into the house again. Squealing and screaming and laughing.

Logan sighed. ‘Think it’s too late to call animal control and have them taken away?’

‘Probably.’

Cthulhu burst out through the patio doors, only slowing when she realised she was being watched and it might not look cool for a big stripy cat to be running away from an eleven-year-old girl and her three-and-a-bit-year-old sister. Cthulhu popped up onto the table and settled down for a wash, licking her big furry white paws, massive plumey tail held out at a jaunty angle.

Tara ruffled the fur between Cthulhu’s ears, setting her purring. ‘You ever think about having a kid of your own?’

‘Are Tweedlehorror and Tweedlemonster not enough?’

‘Wanking into a cup, so your Lesbian Lothario boss could impregnate her wife with a turkey baster doesn’t count.’ Tara lowered her head, looking up at him through her eyelashes. ‘So... what would you think?’

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Stared at her. ‘You’re not... I mean, we... Are you...?’

She put a hand on her lower stomach and smiled at him — wide eyed, sappy, and serene. ‘The seed of our love has taken root, Logan, and soon it will blossom for all the world to see!’

Oh God.

‘I... We... But...’ Wait a minute. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

She grinned.

‘I nearly had a heart attack then! Are you trying to kill me a third time?’

‘You should’ve seen your face, it was an absolute—’

‘PEW! PEW! PEW!’ Naomi stampeded out of the patio doors again, shooting everyone with her laser gun. ‘PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW!’

Tara grabbed her, sweeping her up, turning her upside down and dangling her head-first over a wooden planter full of herbs. ‘Have you washed your hands yet?’

Naomi shrieked, giggled, and wriggled. ‘You’ll never take me alive, copper!’

‘Go wash your hands or there’s no sausages for you.’

The little monster went limp. ‘It’s a fair cop.’

‘Darn tootin’ it is.’ Tara set her down, the right way up.

Naomi smiled at her, all sweetness and light. Then scampered off. ‘Sayonara, suckers!’

Tara shook her head. ‘Yeah... On second thoughts, let’s not have kids. There’s enough horror in the world already.’

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Nicholas threw back his head and howled his pain into the gloom.

Fire burned up and down his arms, pulsing in waves that matched the beat of his heart. Up and down and up and down. Searing. Scorching. Urgent.

Tears spilled down his cheeks; his chest ached with sobbing, every breath tasting of bitter sweat and hot metal.

He kicked out against the lid again, slamming his foot into it. The thing barely moved, held fast by the padlocked chain around the outside.

A white plastic box, smeared with blood. His blood. It saturated the bandages that covered his arms from the elbow down, the damp surface busy with the fat greasy bodies of bluebottles.

They glittered in the thin sliver of light that crept through the one-inch gap where the lid had been propped open. One inch: just enough so he wouldn’t suffocate. Because that would be quick, wouldn’t it? Too easy. Much better to make him endure a slow lingering hard death. Trapped in this hideous box. His small plastic coffin — too short to lie down flat in, not deep enough to sit up properly, the sides pressing in against his burning shoulders.

A lifetime spent studying constitutional law and legislation. Lecturing. Educating. Trying to make people understand the truth about how democracy and civilisation really work. And this is how it will end.

In a gloomy plastic box.

Eaten alive by bluebottles and pain.

Nicholas dragged in another foul breath and screamed.