All That’s Dead

9

Something horrible and tinny blared out of the clock radio, followed by, ‘Goooooood Morning Aberdeeeeeeen! It’s six o’clock — I know, I know — and you’re listening to OMG it’s Early!, with me, Rachel Gray.’

Urgh...

Logan peeled his eyes open and blinked at the ceiling. The curtains were shut, but bright-white light glowed around the edges, as if the aliens had come to abduct everyone.

‘We’ve got a great show for you this sunny June morning. So wakey, wakey, hands off snakey, it’s time to rock!’

‘Noooo!’ Tara’s hand appeared from beneath the duvet and bashed him on the head. Voice a pained mumble, ‘Make it stop! Make it stop!’

He fumbled with the controls. ‘Gnnn...’

‘Here’s the Foo Fighters with “Learning to Fly”, fight that Foo, guys, we can’t—’

Silence.

Tara grumbled, turned over — taking a good quantity of the duvet with her — and said something very unladylike.

Logan lay there grimacing. Six in the morning. Who got up at six in the morning? Then he sighed, rolled out of bed, and slouched his way through to the shower.

Sod this for a game of soldiers...

Light spilled in through the kitchen windows, making the tabletop glow as Cthulhu sat in the middle of it washing her bum.

Logan stuck the slice of toast in his mouth, holding it there with his teeth as he ripped open a sachet of chicken-and-liver and schloched it into the bumwasher’s favourite bowl. It lay there, in a jellied slab, like some foul internal organ. He put it next to her biscuits and dipped into the fridge for the big Tupperware box of barbecued sausages and the smaller one of leftover fried onions. Chewed on his toast as he carried both out into the hall and dumped them by the front door.

No chance of forgetting them there.

Brushed toast crumbs off his black Police Scotland T-shirt.

Yawned.

Slumped.

Mornings used to be a lot easier.

He fastened his inspector’s epaulettes and stared up the stairs, listening for signs of life.

Nothing. Because they were all still asleep. Because none of them needed to be at work by seven. Jammy buggers.

‘God, I miss being off on the sick...’

He tucked his box o’sausages under one arm, balanced the onions on top and bumbled his way out the front door, into the searing bright morning. The day had barely started and it was already far too hot. Like living in a deep-fat fryer. God knew what it’d be like by lunchtime.

He plipped the locks on his Audi and hurried down the steps.

Froze.

Sod.

Hurried inside again and grabbed his peaked cap off its hook at the bottom of the stairs.

Checked his watch: six thirty-seven.

‘Gah!’

No doubt about it: whoever invented mornings was a sadist.

It wasn’t easy, limping his way up the Bucksburn station stairs, a waxed-paper cup of scalding coffee in one hand, the big box of sausages — topped with the container of onions and his flat cap — in the other. But he hadn’t dropped anything yet.

He was halfway up when Shona burst out of the PSD office, stomping her way down towards him, face flushed and creased, teeth bared. Deep wrinkles slashed their way across her forehead, barely concealed by a sweaty brown fringe. Mid-forties, going on homicidal.

He tried his best cheery voice, ‘Happy birthday, Shona!’

She didn’t stop. ‘Bloody printer hates me!’

‘Oh fine, fine. Thanks for asking. You?’

Shona stomped past him, the muscles bulging in her clenched jaw as she forced the words out, ‘You lot better have chipped together and bought me a sledgehammer! Cos when I get back, that printer’s dead! DEAD!’

He stayed where he was as she growled her way down to the bottom and away through the double doors.

‘Yup. Great to be back.’ Logan limped up to the top and pushed through into the main office.

It wasn’t as busy as yesterday — most of the desks were unpersoned — but Shona’s was really easy to spot. Mylar balloons bobbed in the air above it, streamers hung in rainbow-coloured drapes all over the cubicle walls, a big banner with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!” pinned to the wall.

Subtle.

Logan nodded to a couple of officers in the process of logging on to their computers as he made his way across to his desk. Or at least, it used to be his desk. Someone had colonised it with Lord of the Rings stuff — posters and film stills on every available vertical surface, an ‘Eye of Sauron’ mug, and a tableau of action figures Blu-Tacked in place on top of the monitor: Gandalf and Frodo facing off against Saruman, an Orc, and, for some unknowable reason, Postman Pat.

He stared at the Tolkien shrine. ‘What happened to all my Gary Larsons?’

Probably went in the bin the day after they signed him off on the sick. Insensitive bunch of bastards.

Logan dumped his sausage collection on the desk, adjusted his seat, and powered up his crummy old police computer. Might as well do a bit of digging on—

‘Is Tufty!’

He swivelled his office chair around and there was Tufty, hurrying across the office towards him: eyes wide and twitchy, bags underneath them, a laptop clasped to his chest and a tin of Red Bull in his other hand. Talking much faster than any normal person ought to.

‘Boss, Guv, Sarge! Sarge, Sarge, Sarge, Sarge...’

OK.

‘I’ve been an inspector for two years, you half-baked spud. And shouldn’t you be off interviewing academics?’

‘Too early. Too early. They don’t start till nine and it’s only five to seven and I’ve been up all night and is that coffee?’ He squirrelled his way over to Logan’s desk and stood there, vibrating. A weird grin on his face as he stared at Logan’s latte.

‘How much Red Bull have you had?’

‘Been up all night working on the social media side of things, because I can do that in my spare time, right? Just cos I can’t do it in work time doesn’t mean I can’t do it when it’s home time, so I did it at home. Yes indeedy. Home, home, home, home, home.’ He put his laptop on top of Logan’s sausages and cracked open the Red Bull.

‘No, seriously, you need to stop drinking that stuff.’

‘But I has a success!’ The grin got even more manic. ‘There’s a dark web, lurking below the surface if you know where to look. I did run an algorithm on the first tweet about Professor Wilson and tracked the language usage across a selection of Alt-Nat accounts: Twitter, Facebook, Messageboards. FourChan, ThreeChan, TwoChan, OneChan, we have liftoff!’

‘Right.’ Logan took the tin of Red Bull from Tufty’s hand. ‘This is for your own good.’

‘But see, I did find the same person running multiple accounts!’

‘So you know who they are?’

‘Ah... Not yet. It’s always anonymous usernames and fakeity pseudonyms, and I don’t have enough resources to run through all the social media accounts that aren’t Alt-Naty so I can’t find linguistic markers in the outside real world cos that’ll take a lot of very big computers and all I’ve got’s a laptop and can I have my Red Bull back?’ Reaching for it.

‘Definitely not. You’re wired enough as it—’

‘Course if they’ve geotagged their posts I could use that to cross-reference their location with the nearest cell-towers and did you know you only need four tagged posts to identify an anonymous account with ninety-five percent accuracy?’

‘Great! So, get online and—’

‘You’d have to access the customer dataset of every mobile-phone company in the UK to do it, but you could maybe get a warrant...’ Tufty stuck his bottom lip out, showing off his teeth in some sort of weird bulldog impersonation. ‘Ooh! Or I could try hacking in and—’

‘No! No hacking things!’

He sagged, going from bulldog to dewy-eyed puppy. ‘But Saaa-arge!’

Logan stood and hooked a finger at him. ‘Follow me, Caffeine Boy.’ Marching across the open-plan office with Tufty scampering alongside — laptop clasped to his chest again.

‘Not Caffeine Boy. Caffeine Boy’s a sidekick’s name, I’m... SUPERTUFTY!’

Everyone turned to watch as he did the pose in the middle of the room.

‘Fighting crime, one bad guy at a time!’ Shadowboxing, one-handed. ‘Biff! Pow! Kerrrunk!’

Yeah, there was no way Tufty was ever making sergeant. The top brass had a strict no-weirdos policy. Mind you, Karl had made it all the way to Inspector, so maybe it was more of a guideline?

Logan knocked on Karl’s door, not waiting for an answer before opening it and ushering Supertufty inside.

Karl was perched on his mushroom again, wearing a pair of big magnifying spectacles that made him look like a character in a sci-fi film. ‘Well, well, who’s this invading my sanctuary at this early hour? Hmmmmm?’

‘Oooh...’ Tufty stared at the collected computer kit in its racks and boxes. ‘Cool!’

Logan thumped a hand down on his shoulder. ‘Tufty, this is Inspector Montgomery. Karl, this is Constable Quirrel. He’s weird, but harmless, so you’ve got a lot in common.’

A wave from Tufty. ‘Hello, Boss. Or do you like “Guv” better? We can stick with “Inspector”, if that works? Ooh, Ooh, or how about, “Maz Kanata”?’

Karl peered at him over the top of his big glasses. ‘I have no idea who that is.’

‘It’s this really, really wise old character from Star Wars: The Force—’

Logan hit him.

‘Ow!’

Idiot.

‘Tufty’s been looking into the Professor Wilson social-media thing, and he’s found something, haven’t you, Tufty?’

‘I have, Tufty.’

‘Intriguing.’ Karl patted the worktop beside him. ‘Pull up a stool, kind Sir Tufty, and let us break bread. Well, we can share a Tunnock’s teacake, but symbolically it’s the same thing.’

‘Aye, aye, Inspector!’

Logan shook his head. ‘Don’t let him have any more caffeine. And if you need to put him down for a nap, do it somewhere no one’s going to fall over him.’

Tufty hopped up onto a spare stool and beamed at Karl. ‘Have you heard about using geotagged posts to identify anonymous accounts from mobile-phone-cell-tower records?’

Light the geek touchpaper and stand well back.

Logan reversed from the room. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Closed the door. ‘God, imagine what would happen if they bred...’

A shudder.

Some things were too horrible to contemplate.

Ah well, back to work.

He’d nearly made it as far as his desk, when the main doors opened and someone backed in, arms full: Rennie, getting a bit on the chunky side, with a deep tan and bleached blond hair waxed into spiky curls.

Rennie turned, slow and careful. A big box of doughnuts acted as a tray, heaped up with tinfoil parcels and greasy paper bags and two of those cardboard things designed for carrying six take-out coffees at one time.

Logan nodded at the vast collection. ‘On a diet again?’

‘And I got you a Poseidon’s Surprise too, you ungrateful spudge.’

What the hell was a Poseidon’s Surprise?

Rennie winked at him. ‘How did you enjoy getting up at a proper time this morning? Bit of a strain after twelve months off?’

‘Like riding a bike. Barely even noticed the difference.’

Liar.

‘Aye, right.’ Rennie raised his burden an inch, then lowered it again. ‘Little help?’

Logan unloaded the tinfoil packages, bags, and hot drinks onto the nearest vacant desk. ‘Do me a favour and call DI King. Tell him I’ve commandeered Tufty for the morning. I don’t know if the silly wee sod’s even checked in for work yet.’

‘Tsk...’ Rennie sighed. ‘That’s what you get for recruiting an inferior sidekick. Look what happened last time you were lumbered with that eejit!’ He thumbed himself in the chest. ‘Sergeant Simon Rennie: shaves as close as a blade or your money back.’

‘Maybe, but Bevan won’t let you out to play till you’ve finished all your homework.’

‘Then, the dream team shall ride again!’ He put the box of doughnuts down, picked up a tinfoil package and tossed it to Logan. ‘Exit left, pursued by a bear.’ Rennie grabbed a tinfoil parcel of his own and headed for his desk.

‘Rennie! Where’s the—’

‘On Shona’s desk.’ He threw himself into his seat, unwrapped his breakfast with one hand and grabbed his desk phone with the other, ripping out a bite and dialling as he chewed. ‘Yellow? Yeah, I need to speak to Detective Inspector King.’

Logan paid Shona’s Happy Birthday Grotto a visit. Nodded at the streamers, banners, and balloons. A DIY poster with ‘YOU’RE 46 TODAY!!!’ on it in cheerful chunky letters. ‘Nice to see they kept it classy and low-key.’

All he got in response was a grunt. She didn’t even look up from her copy of that morning’s Scottish Daily Post. An army of squeezy bottles stood to attention beside her monitor: tomato sauce, brown sauce, fluorescent-yellow American mustard, sweet chilli, mayonnaise, barbecue — both smoky and sweet — and a thing of salad cream for the more sophisticated palate.

Rennie’s voice floated across the room. ‘Hello, DI King?... Hi, it’s Sergeant Rennie from Professional Standards... No, no. Nothing’s wrong.’

Another grunt from Shona.

Logan rolled his eyes. ‘Why yes, it is lovely to be back at work, thank you for asking.’

She sighed, then glanced up from her article. ‘You’re feeling better then?’

‘Not at this time of the sodding morning, I’m not.’ He unwrapped his parcel. ‘Ooh, fish finger butty!’ That called for a celebration, so he slathered it in a mixture of salad cream and tomato sauce, then took a bite. Crunchy and fishy and sweet and savoury all at the same time. Munching around the words, ‘Well? How bad is it?’

‘Being forty-six? Awful. I used to be a svelte young thing, Logan, pursued by the sexiest of gentlemen, I went on fabulous holidays and ate in the finest restaurants. And now look at me: it’s a red-letter day if I can get that sodding LaserJet to print double-sided.’

‘No, not being forty-six: DI King. In the paper. How bad is it?’

She frowned at him. ‘Nope, still not getting you.’

‘Front-page splash. You need glasses, Shona, your advanced age is clearly...’

She turned the paper around, so Logan could see the front page. Half of it was devoted to another anti-English arson attack — this time a bike shop in Aviemore — the other half to ‘STRICTLY STARLET’S “BOOZE-AND-DRUGS BINGE HORROR”’. Apparently Professor Wilson’s abduction only merited a tiny sidebar and ‘CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 →’.

‘Oh.’

Shona gave the paper a bash with the back of her hand. ‘What there is, however, is yet another column by everyone’s favourite D-list celebrity nobody, Scotty Meyrick, telling us how Scotland’s a bunch of ungrateful scumbags for not appreciating the benevolence of our Westminster overlords. What a great birthday present that was.’

Logan gave his butty another seeing to. ‘You going to send him a thank-you card?’

‘God save us from bloody “celebs” telling us what to think. Someone eats a kangaroo’s ring-piece on TV and suddenly they’re a political pundit?’

‘Can I have that when you’re finished with it?’

‘Urgh...’ She held the paper out. ‘Here, take the thing. My blood pressure’s bad enough what with birthdays and that buggering printer to deal with.’

‘Thanks.’ Logan tucked it under his arm and headed back to his desk, finishing his butty as he flicked through what passed for news at the Scottish Daily Post. Apparently, unless something happened within an hour of Edinburgh or Glasgow, it really wasn’t worth reporting.

The only exception lurked on page seven. For some reason, Edward Barwell hadn’t named-and-shamed DI King as an ex-Alt-Nat terrorist, instead he’d spent half a page banging on about Professor Wilson’s abduction and how it was undoubtedly connected to someone called Matt Lansdale going missing.

Matt Lansdale...

That journalist at yesterday’s press conference had called Lansdale a high-profile anti-independence campaigner, but other than that? Never heard of him. And clearly everyone was expected to know who he was, because there was sod all detail about that in the article.

Should probably try to find out, just in case it was related.

Logan frowned at the article again, with its accompanying photo of Professor Wilson and ‘ALT-NAT THUGS TARGET BETTERlOGETHER HEROES’ headline. Why hadn’t Barwell outed DI King? It was a juicy story — bound to shift a few papers and stir up a whole heap of controversy — so why bury it?

Rennie slouched across the room and perched on the edge of Logan’s desk. ‘You’ll be happy to hear that I’ve got young Tufters off the hook. And you were right: the silly wee sod hadn’t signed in this morning.’

‘Thought not.’ Logan sooked the tomato sauce and salad cream from his fingers. ‘You ever heard of a “Matt Lansdale”?’

‘Oh, and King says to tell you the SE have been on the phone. No viable DNA at the scene. Said to say, “They were right, the guy’s a ghost.”’

A ghost.

Logan frowned out the window. The rush hour was gearing up, but still a good half hour away from clotting like a fat-filled artery. A bus rumbled past.

‘Guv?’

Their guy was a ghost...

Two cars. A taxi.

‘Guv, you’re not having a stroke or something, are you?’

A Transit van with ‘THE TEENY BEETROOT BAKERY CO. LTD.’ down the side in cheery letters.

‘Hello?’

A ghost.

Soodding hell.

Logan turned back to Rennie. ‘He was wearing a Tyvek suit! That’s why Professor Wilson’s dog went for the Scene Examiners: they were wearing the same SOC kit.’

Rennie puckered his face. ‘Oooh... You know, after the BBC did that big documentary about the scumbags who abducted Alison and Jenny McGregor, it’s a miracle more criminals don’t do it. See if it was me?’

‘No wonder he didn’t leave any forensic traces.’ Logan poked at his keyboard, calling up the Police National Computer to run a search on Matt Lansdale.

‘He’s all dressed in white, he’s a ghost... Maybe we should call our abductor “Casper”?’

‘Only not so friendly. You didn’t see the blood spattered across the kitchen table.’ Logan’s search results popped up on the screen. Well, result singular, because only one entry came back: ‘REPORTED MISSING’ and last Wednesday’s date. Nothing else. ‘OK, back to the topic at hand: Matt Lansdale?’

‘Was he a finalist on X Factor?’

Logan tossed the paper over. ‘Journos are implying his disappearance is connected to Prof Wilson’s. All I’m getting on the PNC is that he’s missing.’

‘Pfffff...’ Rennie frowned at Edward Barwell’s article. ‘Can find out, if you like?’

‘Ta.’

‘And while we’re on the subject: you’ll never guess what I’ve managed to organise for Saturday. Go on, guess. You can’t, but try.’ Wiggling both eyebrows. ‘OK, OK, get this: Princess Unicorn’s Magic Bouncy Castle! How cool is that?’

Logan wheeled his chair back a bit, putting a little more distance between them. ‘Erm...’

‘And Mistress Fizzymiggins is doing a make-your-own-magic-wand-and-fairy-wings thing. And there’s going to be a pony!’

A pony? Why would there be a...

‘Ah, right: Lola’s birthday party!’

‘Donna’s even written a special song for her little sister that doesn’t include the words “Bumface Brain”. Can you help out with the Fairyland pony rides?’

‘Actually—’

‘Great. Right, I’ll go see what I can dig up about Matt Lansdale.’ He sauntered off towards the main doors, taking the Scottish Daily Post with him. ‘And don’t forget, it’s BYOT!’

BYOT?

Logan curled his lip. ‘What the hell is BYOT?’

But the doors thunked shut and Rennie was gone.

The man was a menace.

Logan stood to follow him... and stopped as Superintendent Bevan emerged from her office, holding a blue folder.

She gave him a smile. ‘Ah, Logan. Good.’ Then peered past him, at the desk. ‘Oh, are those your sausages? Lovely.’ Bevan marched over and picked up the Tupperware box. ‘We’ll pop these in the fridge, then you can come join me in the conference room.’

Why did that sound as if something horrible was about to happen?

10

Logan shifted in his squeaky leather seat. ‘I don’t know what else you want me to say.’

Detective Superintendent Young frowned back at him from the oversized TV screen mounted on the far wall. To be honest, Young was a bit intimidating in person — being a rugby-player-sized lump with big meaty fists covered in scars. Throw in the small dark squinty eyes and he looked like the kind of person who’d tear your head off for spilling his pint or looking at him funny, and being on screen didn’t really diminish that.

Jane McGrath was sitting next to him, in the boardroom at DHQ, as immaculate as ever, as if she’d been moulded from plastic. The only thing out of place was the expression on her face: as if she really wanted to scrape whatever she’d just stood in off her shoe.

Young picked up his printout of the Scottish Daily Post’s front page, or at least the one that was meant to appear today, but hadn’t. ‘Was he in a terrorist organisation, or not?’

Logan shrugged. ‘He went to a few PASL meetings.’

Jane stared at the ceiling for a beat. ‘God damn it.’ Then sat back in her seat. ‘Well, that’s that, then, isn’t it? We’re screwed: he’s got to go.’

‘Now,’ Superintendent Bevan pulled on a serious schoolteacher voice, the authority undermined a teeny bit by her Kiwi accent, ‘before we do anything rash, perhaps we should take a step back and think about this dispassionately.’

‘“Dispassionately”?’ Jane shook her head. ‘It’s a PR disaster. Forget “Fingerprintgate” or “Sex-In-The-Woods-gate”, every major news outlet will be lining up to jam spiky things up our backsides! Great big spiky—’

Young hit her with his printout. ‘All right, Jane, we get the picture.’

‘I’m talking pineapples here!’

Bevan tried the voice again. ‘That’s no reason to indulge in knee-jerk reactions.’

‘Jane’s right, Julie.’ Young held up a hand. ‘I know, I know. But DI King has become a liability. He’s a diseased limb: we have to amputate before the infection spreads and takes the whole body with it.’

‘Who’s to say a judicious dose of antibiotics couldn’t work every bit as well?’

She had a point.

Logan joined in, going for calm and reasonable: ‘DI King says he only joined the PASL to impress a girl.’

‘Hmph.’ Jane curled her lip. ‘We’ve all done strange things for love, but you should really draw the line at joining a terrorist cell. How am I supposed to spin that?’

‘He was sixteen.’

‘He was an idiot!’

‘Most sixteen-year-old boys are.’

Bevan nodded. ‘All I’m saying is that if we throw DI King to the crocodiles because he was a horny teenager, that’s it for him. The press will tear him apart. No more career. Even if he changes divisions — they’ll find him and drag it all up again.’

‘They’re going to tear him apart anyway. We got lucky today: the Scottish Daily Post bumped their exclusive, but they’re going to print it sooner or later, and when they do...’ She banged a hand down on the table. ‘This is our chance to get ahead of the story and act like we’re on the front foot for a change.’

‘But—’

Jane turned to Young. ‘Suspend him now, and it’ll look like the Post are reacting to our diligent man management. We won’t put up with this kind of thing, etc.’

‘That’s not—’

Young held up his hand again. ‘What’s the point of having a Professional Standards if we can’t use them to hack a festering limb off and cauterise the wound?’ He waved the printout at them. ‘My department’s not coming down with gangrene!’

Logan sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘Seems a little harsh.’

‘Or, alternatively,’ Bevan pursed her lips, frowning, ‘and hear me out here: we could take a different route. What if we do full disclosure? Lay it all out for them in a frank and open interview with DI King. “How I stopped being a bigoted tosspot and learned to love the English.”’

On the screen, Jane narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m listening.’

‘We’re always telling people how racism and homophobia and sectarianism and anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are wrong, yes? Surely, if people are prepared to change we should celebrate that, not keep kicking them because they used to be racist. Celebrate that change.’

There was silence and frowning.

Then Young turned to Jane. ‘Well?’

‘Hmmm... I might be able to sell that, but we’ll need some insulation in case it all goes tits up. Something to stop our fingers getting burned.’

‘Agreed. If DI King can catch whoever abducted Professor Wilson, it’ll vindicate NE Division for keeping him on the case. Even better if he can get the Professor back alive.’ A nod, then a scowl. ‘But if he can’t, we look negligent for not suspending him. And I, for one, am not bending over for a pineappleing.’

Jane bit her top lip for a moment, staring off into the middle distance. ‘How about this: we put someone in to “support” him? That way, if he fails, we’ve at least got plausible deniability.’

Ah the joys of Police Scotland politics. Setting some poor sod up to take the blame if it all went wrong — but the top brass would grab the glory if it all went right. Nothing ever changed.

Logan shook his head. ‘And who’s going to be the lucky scapegoat?’

The smile Jane gave him was half crocodile, half serial killer. ‘Well, who better than someone from Professional Standards? That would show we’re serious about it.’

Bevan stiffened in her seat. ‘Ah... Perhaps that’s not—’

‘And who better than a bona-fide police hero? Someone with a Queen’s Medal?’

What?

Logan stared at her. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute: I only got back to work yesterday!’

‘I like it.’ Young nodded. ‘Yes. McRae brings a lot of press goodwill with him.’

‘But—’

‘This way, if DI King turns out to still be a... what was it, “bigoted tosspot”? You can yank him off the case, Logan. And if he’s not, but he fails anyway, you can vouch that he’s really tried his best.’

Not a chance in hell.

Logan turned to Bevan, eyes wide.

Come on, say something. Tell them!

She took a deep breath. ‘Agreed.’

Agreed?

‘No, not agreed. I’m not—’

‘Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Tulliallan Goon Squad descending in twenty minutes to moan about these arson attacks.’ Young stood, his top half disappearing off the TV. ‘Keep me informed.’

‘Bye.’ Jane’s evil smile widened a couple of inches as she pointed a remote at the camera. Then the screen went blank, leaving Logan and Bevan alone in the room.

He got to his feet. ‘Well thank you very much.’

‘Oh come on, Logan, don’t be like that. You were happy enough keeping an eye on DI King yesterday.’

‘“A watching brief”, you said!’ Throwing his hands out. ‘This isn’t even vaguely the same thing.’

‘Logan, you’re—’

‘You hung me out like a pair of damp socks!’

A sigh. ‘I’m sure it won’t be as bad as—’

‘I only got back to work yesterday and you’ve got me set up as the scapegoat’s scapegoat!’

Bevan went very still. ‘Logan, I know we’ve not worked together before, so I’m going to pretend you didn’t just talk to your superintendent like that. I appreciate things haven’t exactly been easy for you over the last year, but there’s only so far I’m willing to bend. Are we clear?’

Oh great, so now it was his fault?

Bloody, buggering...

He gritted his teeth. ‘Yes, Boss.’

‘There we go. All forgiven and forgotten.’ She stood and clapped her hands. ‘Now, why don’t we go sing “Happy Birthday” to Shona, cut the cake, then you can go support DI King. I’m sure he’ll be glad of the help.’

There was something slightly surreal about a group of twenty officers, all standing about in their Police Scotland black uniforms, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ while wearing gaily-coloured party hats. Pointy ones. As if this was some sort of celebration for ninja gnomes.

As the last note warbled away in questionable three-part harmony, a pink-faced Shona hauled in a breath and blew out the candles on her cake. Everyone cheered. Then a handful of them produced party poppers and set them off, draping her with streamers.

Bevan smiled at them all. ‘All right, all right. You can have a lot of fun without being stupid.’

Speaking of which...

Logan sidled over to Tufty and Karl — both of whom were wearing their party hats at very rakish angles — while Shona cut the cake.

‘Have you pair managed to find anything?’

A pout from Tufty. ‘Karl won’t let me have any more Red Bulls.’

Karl bared his teeth in a big broad smile. ‘I have to say, Logan, your young friend here is quite the kid who whizzes, oh my, yes.’ He gave Tufty a wee playful punch on the shoulder. ‘But I’m afraid we’ve hit an impasse. Brave Sir Tufty’s algorithmic methodology is inspired, but without more computing power, it’s like trying to push a ten-tonne blancmange uphill wearing nothing but flip-flops and an amusing hat.’ He raised his to the height of its elastic, then let go so it pinged back down again.

‘Cake?’ Superintendent Bevan appeared, bearing three paper plates with slabs of yellowy sponge on them. She handed one to Karl. ‘Here we go.’

‘Ooh, my! Is this the sainted cake of lemon drizzle I see before me?’ He helped himself to a mouthful, chewing with his eyes closed. ‘Divine!’

She gave one to Logan and the other to Tufty. ‘Birthday lunch at one o’clock. Logan’s brought enough sausages to feed a battalion.’

Karl slapped him on the back. ‘Good man.’

Bevan wandered off to distribute more slices and Tufty filled his gob, getting crumbs all down himself, mumbling through his mouthful. ‘If we had access to a bunch of high-powered servers we might be able to do something about it.’

‘But, alas, we are deficient in that kind of kit. So I’m afraid we’re done.’

Ah well, it’d been worth a try.

Logan took a bite of cake — sharp and sweet and bursting with lemon. ‘So if I could find you someone with a bunch of dirty big computers, you’d be able to track down whoever sent that first tweet?’

A shrug from Karl. ‘Possibly.’

A cakey grin from Tufty. ‘Definitely!’

‘Well,’ another shrug, ‘we’d stand a much better chance, anyway.’

Logan polished off the last of his cake. ‘Then I know just the person.’

Tufty cracked a yawn that made his head look like an open pedal bin, then shuddered and burped in the passenger seat of Logan’s Audi. Smacking his lips as he settled back again. Another yawn.

Logan took one hand off the steering wheel to give Rip Van Tufty a thump on the arm. ‘If you start snoring and farting, I’m throwing you out of the car.’

Aberdeen slid past the Audi’s windows, the traffic thickening along the bypass like clumps of fat in a swollen artery.

Another yawn from the passenger seat. ‘Tufty needs caffeine.’

‘Well, what did you expect, staying up on a school night? You knew you had work today.’

‘But I was beavering for the greater good!’

‘Lucky Rennie covered for you, otherwise you’d be up for a spanking, you silly wee—’ Logan’s phone vibrated in his pocket, then the car’s hands-free system got hold of the call, flashing ‘SUPT. BEVAN’ on the central display and blasting his generic ringtone out of the speakers. On, and on, and on, and on.

Tufty reached for the display. ‘Aren’t you going to—’

Logan slapped his hand away. ‘No.’

‘Oh.’ He pulled on a sappy look. ‘She does make a lovely lemony drizzle cake, though.’

Traffic was backed up around the next exit, giving everyone plenty of time to stare down into other people’s gardens. Logan changed lanes, bypassing the bypass’s vehicular clot.

Tufty puffed out his cheeks. ‘Saaa-aaarge? You know there’s all this controversy surrounding—’

‘If this is about loop quantum gravity again, I swear to God I’m going to pull this car over and stuff you in the boot.’

‘Ooh, I do like a bit of loop quantum gravity, but no, it’s like, you know all this stuff going on with Alt-Nats hating Unionists? Well, this guy on the BBC website was blatant racism, yeah? But the English aren’t a different race, are they?’

‘I should’ve taken Karl with me. At least he’s fractionally less annoying.’

‘No, but listen,’ Tufty turned in his seat, bleary little eyes all shiny and dark, ‘you can’t tell someone’s English by looking at them, can you? And what does being English even mean? Rennie says Berwick-upon-Tweed used to be part of Scotland, right? So if you were born there on the twenty-third of August 1482 you were Scottish, but if you were born on the twenty-fourth you were English, but you’d still be the same person, wouldn’t you?’

Logan groaned. ‘I’ve changed my mind: go to sleep. I don’t care if there’s snoring and—’

His phone burrrrrrred again, but this time it was ‘IDIOT RENNIE’ that appeared on the dashboard display as ‘If I Only Had a Brain’ from The Wizard of Oz burst out of the speakers. Well, tough: he wasn’t getting answered either.

‘So it can’t be racist to hate the English, it’s nothing more than good old-fashioned Scottish bigotry. Like when Rangers and Celtic supporters hate each other, because one lot don’t like the other lot’s flavour of Christianity.’

The tune faded away into nothing. Either Rennie had hung up, or it’d gone through to voicemail. ‘Tufty, am I not having a bad enough day as it is?’

‘I was supposed to be born in Glasgow, but my mum and dad didn’t want me growing up with all that, so they moved up to Banff instead and raised us secular, because—’

‘Please shut up, before I kill you.’

‘No, but you see—’

It was Tufty’s phone’s turn, warbling out something cheery in a brass-band kind of way. ‘Hey, hold on.’ He dug it out and took the call. ‘Hello?... Ooh, Sergeant Rennie, cool. I was telling the Sarge what you told me about Berwick-upon-Tweed and how it— Ah... No. Yes... Sorry.’

Logan raised an eyebrow. ‘Wish I knew how to get you to shut up that quickly.’

‘Yes, he’s here... OK... OK, I’ll ask him.’ Tufty put his hand over the phone. ‘It’s Sergeant Rennie. He says Superintendent Bevan wants to know why you’re not at DHQ helping DI King. Apparently, she’s not angry, just disappointed.’

Of course she was. Once a schoolteacher, always a schoolteacher.

‘Tell him to tell her we’re on our way now.’

A puzzled look stumbled across Tufty’s face. ‘But we’re not, we’re—’

‘Well Rennie doesn’t need to know that, does he? And if we get access to a load of high-end computers it is helping King out, isn’t it?’

His eyes widened. ‘Oh yeah...’ Back to the phone. ‘Hi, uh-huh, we’re on our way there now, so tell her not to worry... No, there wasn’t anything suspicious about the length of that pause... Nope... OK, bye.’ Tufty hung up. Grinned. ‘Didn’t suspect a thing.’

If that was true, there was no hope for Police Scotland.

11

Logan pulled into the visitors’ parking area, stopping in front of an Avril Lavigne clone in skinny jeans, Converse trainers, ripped Nickelback T-shirt; pierced nose, ears, and eyebrow; and the kind of hair that would’ve got you locked up in less enlightened times. She had a clipboard and a little knot of lanyards with her. Big Colgate smile.

Oh God... She was going to be perky, wasn’t she?

Quarter past eight on a Wednesday morning was far too early for perky.

Logan killed the engine and climbed out into the sauna formerly known as Aberdeen.

Four huge grey warehouses were gathered around the car park, all snug and secure behind an extra-high chain-link fence, guardhouse, and heavy-duty traffic barrier. Each of the warehouses had a number painted on it — 1 to 4 — but the biggest of the lot was home to the company logo too. A huge woodlouse silhouette — at least twenty foot tall — rendered in shiny gold-coloured plastic. Never mind the rest of Altens, you could probably see the thing from Lerwick. If not orbit.

Tufty clambered out of the car, tucked his laptop under one arm and stared up at the buildings. ‘Ooooh... Cool.’

Avril bounded up to them. Oh, she was definitely perky. ‘Inspector McRae, and Constable Quirrel?’ She thrust the lanyards at them. ‘Great to have you here?’ The sentence went up at the end, as if it was a question. ‘Now, I need you to wear your passes at all times?’ Another not question. ‘Can you do that for me? That’s great?’

Like, totally?

Was it wrong to have an almost unbearable urge to borrow Tufty’s pepper spray and give her a damned good seasoning?

Tufty made a little squeaking noise as he put on his lanyard. ‘This is so cool!’

‘I know, right? I love working here?’ She actually did a couple of hoppity-skippity dance steps. ‘Come on, guys, follow me to where the magic happens?’ Avril led the way to the main doors, holding them open and wafting them through into a wide room, decorated to look like an opulent cinema foyer.

Film posters lined the walls, the floor dotted with display cases full of movie props, awards, and trophies. A big mahogany-and-chrome reception desk dominated the space, with an old woman lurking behind it. Huge and pasty, with a round happy face, unnaturally brown hair. Arms like ham-hocks. Clutching a copy of Hello! magazine in her sausagey fingers.

Avril bounced around in a circle. ‘You should’ve been here last week, we had Joanna Lumley and Hugh Grant in for pickups?’ She put a hand on her heart. ‘Career highlight?’

The old lady looked up from her magazine. ‘Hey, Misty.’

Avril / Misty beamed at her on the way past. ‘Hey, Mrs Clark, got the boss-man’s visitors for him?’ She pointed at them. ‘You want anything from the canteen when I’m done?’

A big smile dimpled Mrs Clark’s cheeks. ‘Wouldn’t say no to a Tunnock’s or two.’

‘You got it!’ She pushed through a set of double doors, disappearing. Then poked her head into the room again. ‘Come on, guys?’

Yeah, definitely far too perky.

They followed her into a bland corridor, magnolia paint slapped on breeze-block walls, the polished concrete squeaking under Misty’s trainers. Grey doors lined the space, each one with a job or department title on a white plastic plaque. It all looked very... Hollywood.

Misty looked over her shoulder at them as she bounced along. ‘Mr Clark’s got a video conference with New Zealand at eight forty-five, so don’t be offended if I have to throw you out then? Nothing personal?’

At the end of the corridor, she swiped her ID through a card reader and ushered them into a cavernous space. You could’ve stored a jumbo jet in here and still had room for a dozen double-decker buses. The walls were that eye-nipping shade of green they used for special effects, but the space in between was filled with big chunks of scenery — what looked like the inside of spaceships, space stations, grungy futuristic street scenes and a weird red forest thing.

Misty marched them past a prison block to where a large man stood, facing the other way, hands on his hips as he watched a team of overalled techs dismantling some kind of fighter cockpit. Tall and wide with it, broad shoulders and a Peaky Blinders haircut styled into a greying shark’s-fin quiff. ‘Be careful with that, Quin! I don’t want to have to start again from scratch if this turns into a franchise.’

One of the dismantlers gave him a thumbs-up.

Misty pounced to attention beside the big man. ‘Mr Clark? I’ve got your visitors?’

He turned, a smile dimpling his cheeks. Definitely his mother’s son. Except he had a Vandyke with an elongated white goatee and red-framed glasses. ‘Logan McRae! As I live, breathe, and exude sheer sexual chemistry.’ He stepped forward and swept Logan up in a bear hug, lifting him off the ground. ‘How are you? God, that thing last year! Completely gobsmacking.’

Barbed wire twisted beneath the skin of Logan’s stomach, digging its metal spikes deep inside.

He had to force the words out between gritted teeth: ‘Let me go, let me go, let me go!’

‘Oh, yes, the stabbing! Sorry.’ Mr Clark let go and stepped back, grimacing. ‘Are you OK? Do you need something?’

Logan bent double, one hand pressing against his midriff, hot air burning in his lungs as he swallowed a couple of deep breaths.

‘I’ve got painkillers! Naproxen, Tramadol, Co-codamol, you name it.’ Mr Clark waved at their perky guide. ‘Misty, grab some Vicodin and a bottle of water, would you, honey?’

Logan raised a hand. ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’ He straightened up, slow. Hissing all the way. ‘You caught me off guard, that’s all.’

Misty perkied at him. ‘It’s no trouble, really? I can totally go get you some?’

‘No. No drugs. Thanks. I’m good.’ Liar.

‘OK.’ She did a couple of bounces for Mr Clark. ‘I’m getting your mum some Tunnock’s? You want?’

‘Can’t: diet.’

‘All-righty then.’ She turned and skipped off, back the way they’d come.

Weirdo.

Mr Clark put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and steered him past a killer robot as Tufty scurried along behind. ‘Oh, Logan, Logan, Logan...’ The hand squeezed. ‘Anyway, about last year: you haven’t done anything about the film rights yet, have you?’

‘Well, serving police officers can’t really—’

‘I’m thinking a hundred-and-twenty-minute thriller with David Tennant playing you. Well, it’s him or Ewan McGregor.’

‘It’s just we’re not allowed to—’

‘What do you think about Tilda Swinton for Steel?’ They passed the weird red forest, with its asymmetric leaves and twisted scarlet branches. ‘Too tall? I think she’s too tall. It’s so great to see you again!’

Logan cleared his throat as they made for the nearest exit. ‘I didn’t get to thank you for the fruit baskets. They were—’

‘I love Helen Mirren, but then she brings all that Prime Suspect baggage to a crime drama, doesn’t she?’ Mr Clark pushed open a bland grey door and propelled them into another magnolia breeze-block corridor. Only this one was lined with whiteboards, covered in scrawled schedules and bits of storyboard. More grey doors. ‘Or how about Michelle Gomez? Because Steel’s got that...’ He made a theatrical gesture with one hand. ‘You know?’

No. Logan most certainly didn’t.

‘I really—’

‘There’s something a bit sexy about her, isn’t there? She’s got that frisson of something almost animal in her magnetism.’

Don’t think about her naked. DON’T THINK ABOUT HER NAKED! Too late — the image was seared across the back of his mind again, in hideous pink-o-vision. And after all the effort he’d gone to, trying to forget...

Logan shuddered. ‘I’ve never noticed.’

Through another door into a stairwell. Up they went.

Tufty’s voice echoed in the enclosed space. ‘I noticed once. In the pub. But then she beat me about the head and neck with a packet of Quavers and that was that.’

Mr Clark gave Logan’s shoulder another squeeze. ‘And we’ll need to invent a good sidekick for you. It’s a trope of the genre, after all.’

‘Ooh, ooh!’ Tufty scurried up alongside. ‘I’d make a great—’

Logan jabbed him with an elbow. ‘Thanks for agreeing to help us find whoever posted that first tweet, Mr Clark.’

‘It’s Zander, Logan. Zander. You know that.’ At the top of the stairs he pushed out into another corridor, but a much fancier one this time: plastered and decorated, carpets on the floor, pictures on the walls. ‘And if Golden Slater Productions can help, it’s my pleasure.’ Zander opened a door marked ‘VISUAL FX’ and swept them into a large room, broken up into cubicled workstations.

No two were the same, as if there’d been a competition to see who could customise theirs the most. A pirate ship, a jungle, cowboys, aliens, My Little Ponies, cavemen...

Post-it notes and lines of coloured string covered the walls, intermingled with schedules, storyboards, concept sketches... Another display case full of awards over by the fancy coffee machine. A big screen nearly covered the end wall, filled with some very plastic-looking figures lumping their way through a scene. Like a really cheap video game.

Half a dozen people in shorts and assorted geekdom T-shirts were gathered around the storyboards, another four poking away at their computers.

Zander leaned in close to Logan, dropping his voice as if he was about to impart a state secret. ‘You’ve timed it well — we finished post-production on a hardcore sci-fi serial-killer thriller, last week. Spectacular stuff, redefines the genre.’

Oh ho.

Logan raised an eyebrow.

Zander rolled his eyes. ‘Not that kind of “hardcore”.’

Tufty wandered off, peering into the trophy cabinet, like Charlie getting his first glimpse of the Chocolate Factory.

And no, that wasn’t a euphemism.

Logan pointed at the computers. ‘So...?’

‘We’ve just started pre-viz on a steampunk blockbuster — which will completely blow both your socks off, then come back for your toes — meaning I’ve got about thirty / forty servers sitting idle you can play with. State of the art. Spared no expense.’ Then he turned, raising his voice so it carried across the room. ‘Hoshiko? Got a minute?’

A short, middle-aged woman in an American baseball shirt, jeans, and trainers looked up from where she was working on the storyboards. The slightest hint of a Japanese accent as she looked Logan up and down. ‘This them?’

Zander nodded. ‘Yup.’ He gave Logan a wink. ‘Hoshiko’s worked for Hayao Miyazaki, Peter Jackson, and Katsuhiro Otomo. I was so lucky to get her!’

She didn’t smile. ‘Damn right you were.’ Then she stuck her hand out to Logan, palm up. ‘You got an algorithm for me?’

‘Tufty?’

‘Hmmm?’ The daft wee sod was still staring at the trophies. ‘Are these really AVN and XBIZ awards?’

Zander popped his eyebrows up, and gave his head a little waggle. ‘Far be it for me to blow my own you-know-what, but there’s a fair few Prowlers and F.A.M.E.s in there as well.’

At that Hoshiko did smile. ‘We wiped the floor, every year we entered.’

‘Of course, that was back when we still had time to make adult films.’ Zander smiled at Tufty. ‘If you’re a big porn fan, I can probably dig you out a few comps on DVD if you like?’

Tufty spun around, face going a hot shade of pink. ‘Me? Porn? No, no, I was... I like to keep up with social trends and... Ahem...’

‘Nonsense, no trouble at all.’ He whipped out his phone and poked the screen. ‘Misty? Can you find me a copy of Crocodildo Dundee for one of our police officer guests, please?’

‘That’s really not... It...’ The blush had officially gone nuclear. ‘But...’

Now, the kind thing to do would be to change the subject and spare the wee lad any more embarrassment.

Nah.

Logan grinned. ‘Say “thank you” to the nice gentleman, Tufty.’

It looked as if the tips of his ears were about to combust. ‘Thank you?’

Zander spread his arms wide. ‘My pleasure. Now, Hoshiko?’

She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at a vacant workstation. ‘Come on, Porno Boy, we’ll get you set up, then you can tell me about this algorithm of yours...’

Zander’s office was huge — the meeting table that ran down the middle big enough to seat twenty. It was lined with movable electronic whiteboards and flipcharts, displays plastered in yet more storyboard drawings. He perched on the edge of a fancy-pants desk, with a large leather chair behind it, a couple of monitors on cantilevered arms, some flowers in a vase. The whole thing reeked of power.

A pair of small raggedy cats chased each other across the meeting table. Pausing every now and then to stare at Logan as if he might be edible.

But by far the most impressive thing about the room was the floor-to-ceiling window that made up one entire wall, overlooking Soundstage 1 in all its gloomy glory.

Zander caught one of the cats as it battered past, holding it against his chest so it could chew at his goatee. ‘When the oil industry took a tanking, I was able to get this whole thing for a song. Had to soundproof everything and expand out the back, but still. Much better than our last place.’

Logan looked down through the huge window. ‘Do you still see DI Insch?’

The dismantlers were loading the chunks of fighter cockpit onto trolleys and wheeling them away.

‘What, David? Oh yes. He’s off doing second unit scouting for the new film. Iceland.’

Logan nodded. ‘Tell him I said, “Hi,” OK?’ Seemed a bit inadequate after all these years, but what else was there?

Zander’s reflection stepped up beside Logan’s in the glass, one of the cats perched in his arms, on top of his belly. ‘You think whoever sent that first tweet abducted Professor Wilson?’

‘Maybe. Whoever it was, they knew he was missing a day before we did, so...?’

‘Hmmm. It’s a shame Wilson was such a tit.’ A sigh. ‘You know, when I first came up to Aberdeen, I had a boss who called me an F.E.B. for two whole years. “I don’t know, ask the FEB.”, “Hey, F.E.B., get the teas in, yeah?”, “You know, Zander, you’re my favourite F.E.B.”’

Nope. Never heard of that one.

‘F.E...?’

‘“Fucking English Bastard”.’ Zander shook his head. ‘Said it was “only a bit of banter”. You try replacing “English” with “black”, or “Jewish”, or “gay” and see how bantery it feels then. Hate’s hate.’

‘Sounds like a lovely man.’

Zander waved that away. ‘Oh, I rose above it. Showed him there were no hard feelings last year by buying the company and firing him.’ A smile. ‘I know it sounds vindictive, but he was stealing equipment and sexually harassing the young man on reception. Only had himself to blame, really.’

Down below, the last chunk of cockpit was wheeled away for storage.

‘So how did you know Professor Wilson?’

‘Is he really dead?’

Logan shrugged. ‘Hope not.’

Zander rubbed his goatee on the cat’s head, setting it purring. ‘Made the mistake of hiring Professor “Acquired Taste” Wilson for Witchfire, thought it’d be good to have a genuine constitutional scholar involved: bring a bit of authenticity to the way society operated in the film. Just because it’s alternative-history, doesn’t mean it has to be fake nonsense.’ His expression soured. ‘What a pain in the arse that man was.’

‘Yeah, I’m hearing that a lot.’

‘Could start a fight in a bowl of soup. And not lumpy soup either: consommé. I bet you could boil socks and he’d—’

Logan’s phone burst into ‘If I Only Had a Brain’ again, and he slumped. Pulled the damn thing out. ‘Sorry, I’d better...’ He answered it. ‘Rennie, if you’ve called up to nag, don’t. We’ll be in when we’ve—’

‘Boss, there’s a package turned up at the BBC. You need to get over there, ASAP!’

Yes, because that didn’t sound like he was being set up for something horrible, did it?

‘What kind of package?’

‘Didn’t say, but I know King’s on his way now. Lights and music, so it must be a biggie!’

A package delivered to BBC Scotland. Well, if King was hotfooting it over there, then it had to be connected to the Professor Wilson Case. And if it was connected, then Logan had to get there sharpish too. Because the scapegoat’s scapegoat had no intention of letting the original-issue scapegoat screw things up and land him in it.

‘OK, OK. I’m on my way.’ He hung up and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

Zander’s shoulders curled forward, the cat clambering up onto them. ‘I’m guessing Gilbert and Sullivan had it right about a policeman’s lot?’

‘Got to go. Can you...?’ Pointing through the door and down a bit, where the Visual FX department probably was.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after the little lad for you. Make sure he stays out of trouble.’

‘Yeah, good luck with that.’ Logan made for the door. ‘And don’t let him have any more caffeine!’ After all, things were bad enough as it was.

12

A large Jiffy bag, torn open at one end, sat on the desk. And not just any old desk, this was the one used for on-camera interviews. The one with a grainy out-of-date photo of Aberdeen in the background — the ugly warty lump of St Nicholas House still clearly visible in the shot, even though it’d been torn down years ago.

The tiny studio was barely bigger than a single bedroom, with ancient audiovisual equipment piled up against the walls, filling the space behind the remote-operated camera where it couldn’t be seen. Lights hung from a ceiling rig, all of them angled to point at the Jiffy bag, making it glow against the grey Formica. A sickly shade of yellow-orange.

Logan had a squint at the address label, laser printed onto a plain white sticky square:

Muriel Kirk adjusted the sunglasses perched on top of her greying hair and bounced from foot to foot, as if she was about to climb into the ring and punch someone. A visual reinforced by the trainers, joggy bottoms, and ‘I RAN THE MELDRUM MARATHON!’ T-shirt. Not an ounce of fat on her.

Her producer was a saggy man with a receding hairline, grey beard, and blue cardigan — even in this heat. Sweat shone on his top lip as he fiddled with his cardie pockets.

King popped an extra-strong mint, crunching as he stared at the package. ‘And no one else has touched this?’

Mr Cardigan shook his head. ‘It came in the morning post, but it was addressed to Muriel and she’s not on air till one, so—’

‘Yes.’ Muriel Kirk rolled her shoulders. ‘It’ll have been touched by the postie, Al on reception, Graham here, and me.’ Her eyes shone. ‘I was the one who opened it.’

Logan got out his notebook. ‘Right, well. We’ll have to take statements and—’

‘Hold on, I need to get Barry in here.’ She stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled: deafening in the small space.

The heavy studio door creaked open and in came what had to be Barry, a camera on his shoulder, one eye pressed to the viewfinder, the other screwed shut as he framed the shot. ‘And we’re rolling.’

Muriel turned to the camera and pointed at the Jiffy bag, putting on a voice that was nearly an octave down from the one she’d just been using. A lot more refined too. ‘When this package arrived at the BBC Scotland studios in Aberdeen earlier today, everyone thought it was simply another piece of mail.’ She reached for the package. ‘But when I opened it—’

‘Wait, wait, wait, wait!’ King barged in front of Barry, blocking the camera. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘You’re kidding, right?’ Muriel bounced on her feet again, limbering up. ‘This is going to be the lead story on the lunchtime news. We’re—’

‘No. No you’re not. This is an ongoing investigation!’ He stuck a hand in the middle of Barry’s chest and pushed him towards the heavy door. ‘Come on, you: out.’

Barry peered from behind his camera. ‘Muriel?’

King jabbed a finger at her and Captain Cardigan. ‘You two as well. This is a police matter. Off you go.’

She curled her hands into fists. ‘But this is our studio. It was addressed to me!’

‘And I want to thank you on behalf of Police Scotland for bringing it to our attention.’ He gave Barry a shove, sending him staggering backwards. ‘Now: out.’

‘Graham, are you going to let them throw us off our own story?’

Cardigan fluttered his hands. ‘Perhaps we should all calm down a bit and discuss this like—’

‘Quite right.’ Logan pulled on his best all-in-this-together voice. ‘That sounds like an excellent idea. But first, can you do me a favour and dig up any CCTV you’ve got of the package being delivered? That’ll be a huge help.’ Ushering Cardigan out of the door. ‘Thanks.’

‘Oh. Yes. I suppose...’

Logan turned to Muriel. ‘And Mz Kirk, I know it’s hard, but we’ve got to be extremely careful about DNA and cross-contamination. I’ll have a word with the Chief Superintendent and see if we can get you exclusive coverage, OK? OK.’

‘But—’

Guiding her out. ‘You’re helping us make a real difference, thanks. That’s great.’

Soon as she was outside, Logan pulled the door shut and snubbed the lock. Then frowned at the remote-operated camera facing the desk. Held a hand out to King. ‘Give me your jacket.’

‘What?’

‘Your jacket: I need your jacket. Please.’

‘Oh for...’ But King shrugged his way out of it, showing off the stains beneath the arms of his shirt.

Logan draped it over the camera and dropped his voice to a whisper — in case they had the microphones activated. ‘They were only doing their jobs.’

‘Bollocks.’ Not even trying to keep his voice down. ‘God save us from bloody journalists.’

Then King snapped on a pair of blue nitrile gloves and turned the package on the desk, so the open end faced them. Reached inside.

No, no. no!

Logan grabbed his arm. ‘What the hell are you doing? We’re not exactly in sterile conditions here!’

‘It’s been opened at least once.’ King shook his arm free. ‘You really think they’ve not filmed the thing already?’

‘Are you insane?’

King pulled something covered in crumpled tinfoil from the Jiffy bag: vaguely rectangular, four or five inches thick. Smears of dark reddish-brown on the shiny metal. Yeah, that was definitely blood. ‘Twenty quid says they’re through there, editing a piece starting with, “Some viewers may find this report distressing.”’

The foil package had a curled edge at the top, like a Cornish pasty. King unrolled the first corner.

‘Don’t! If you compromise the evidence we’ll—’

‘What?’ He bared his teeth, chest out. ‘What do you care? This is my investigation, OK? MINE!’ Spittle flying, deep creases around his pink eyes. ‘You shouldn’t even be here!’

Logan backed off a pace, sniffing. There was something there, beneath all the mint and the outrage. Something sharp and sour. ‘Have you been drinking?’

‘I’m on duty, you idiot! And I don’t need Professional Standards sticking their nose into my case!’

Here we go.

‘I’m not “sticking my nose in”, I’m here to support you.’

‘You’re what?’

‘They didn’t tell you?’ Oh great. Well that explained a lot.

‘All hail the mighty Inspector Logan McRae and his Queen’s Medal! What, you think just because you were stupid enough to get yourself stabbed—’

‘Look, it wasn’t my idea, OK? All I wanted was a nice straightforward little investigation, ease my way into things, not... this!’

King closed the gap between them. Poked him with a finger. ‘I don’t need supervised by some jumped-up—’

‘I’m not supervising, I’m assisting.’ Logan stared him down. ‘And you can blame Jane McGrath, thank you very much. The brass wanted to fire you — this,’ pointing at the pair of them, ‘was all her idea. I could be in Bucksburn now, eating KitKats.’

King glared at him.

Sigh. ‘Look: if we cock this up, they’ll throw us both in the blender, OK? Career-and-jobbie smoothies for everyone.’

No response.

But at least no one had thrown a punch yet.

Logan softened his voice a bit. ‘Now put the package back where it came from and let’s try to pretend we have a clue about evidentiary procedure.’

King stared at him in silence, breath hissing in and out through his nose... Then he closed his eyes. Shook his head. And slid the tinfoil pack into the Jiffy bag again. Cleared his throat and looked away, the colour fading from his face. ‘I need to solve this case, Logan. I need to solve it soon. The press are going to... hammer dirty big nails into me if I don’t, and our top brass are going to let them.’

‘Not if I can help it.’ He tried for a reassuring smile. ‘Now come on, let’s get that package to the mortuary. And cheer up: we’ve finally got some forensic evidence!’

Logan shifted in his horrible SOC suit, setting it rustling. A trickle of sweat traced its way down his spine and into his underwear.

Normally the mortuary was the only cool room in Divisional Headquarters, but for some reason, today it was like a toaster. Or perhaps it was just the horrible Tyvek oversuits, trapping his body heat, not letting any moisture escape in case it contaminated the evidence. Turning his pants into a sauna.

King was pink-faced and shiny next to him, glancing up at the clock every two minutes.

Creepy Sheila Dalrymple seemed comfortable in her own SOC suit, her white wellies shiny against the mortuary’s off-grey tiles. A smile on her wide flat face that didn’t go as far as the eyes hiding behind her spectacles. Her long thin fingers in constant motion at the end of her long thin arms, as if they lived a life of their own, independent to the rest of her. She must have caught King looking at the clock again, because she turned her hollow smile on him. ‘Not long now... gentlemen.’

Even her pauses were creepy.

Another trickle of sweat joined the first.

Logan rustled a bit more.

Harsh overhead lights sparkled from the stainless-steel cutting tables and worktops. Dented, but clean. A couple of laptops, screensavers birling away. The low growl of the extractor fans. The harsh scent of bleach and formaldehyde undercut by something dark and bowel-like. Eau de Mortuary, pour cadavre.

And then, bang on the dot of ten, the cutting room door opened and Professor Isobel McAlister lurched in. Her SOC suit stretched taut over her swollen bulge, face a bit flushed, welly boots turned out at the toes to compensate for the extra weight growing inside her. She didn’t even look at Logan or King. ‘Well?’

‘All is prepared... Professor.’

About bloody time too.

Isobel pointed at the Jiffy bag. ‘Sheila, if you would?’

‘As you wish... Professor.’ All she needed was a lightning flash and the sound of nervous horses. Lacking that, Sheila slunk over to the nearest worktop — returning with a stainless-steel tray that had a couple of scalpels, a pair of pliers, three tweezers, and a spoon on it. She placed the tray beside the Jiffy bag, then laid out the implements on the cutting table as if she was setting it for dinner.

She gave Isobel a small nod, then pulled on a facemask and reached into the bag, easing out the tinfoil package and placing it in the middle of the now vacant tray.

Isobel frowned at the package, then at the room with its grubby tiles and shiny worktops. ‘Where’s my photographer? I specifically requested a photographer! How am I supposed to carry out any sort of examination without it being properly recorded?’

‘They haven’t turned up... Professor.’

‘Well we’re not going any further until they do.’

Logan groaned.

King shook his head. ‘Not acceptable.’

She glared at him. ‘A proper photographic record is vital. How am I supposed to present evidence in court without photographs?’

King held her gaze, then threw his hands up. ‘Fine! Get the camera and I’ll take the photographs.’

‘This isn’t a children’s birthday party, you can’t—’

‘I did the SIO course refresher last week and they had a module on crime scene photography.’ He stuck his hand out in Sheila’s direction. ‘Camera.’

Sheila looked at Isobel. ‘Professor?’

‘Very well, but if these pictures are of inferior quality it’s your investigation you’ll be ruining.’

Sheila rummaged in one of the cupboards and emerged with a chunky digital camera, turned it on, then presented it to King. ‘You have to press this button here to—’

‘I do know how a camera works, thank you.’ He removed the lens cap, fiddled with the settings, and took a couple of test shots. ‘Right: where’s the scale?’

She clicked a black-and-white ruler down alongside the package.

King rattled off half a dozen more, prowling around the table to get a variety of angles. The camera’s flash bounced off the shiny surfaces.

Isobel held out a gloved hand. ‘All right, let’s see what you’ve done.’

He turned the camera around and showed her the viewing screen.

‘Acceptable.’ She nodded. ‘Sheila, proceed.’

Those thin fingers took hold of the crimped top of the tinfoil pasty and unrolled it, spreading the sides open. Revealing a pair of severed human hands. The skin was pale as candlewax where it wasn’t clarted in dark red-brown stains.

They’d been put in the package one on top of the other, palms together, fingers interlaced. As if they’d been severed mid-prayer.

King lowered the camera. ‘Bloody hell...’

The butcher’s-shop smell of iron and bone joined the mortuary scent.

Isobel snapped her fingers. ‘You did a course, remember?’

King puffed out his cheeks and snapped off a few more pics as Isobel leaned in and had a good sniff.

‘Well, they’re reasonably fresh — no discernible trace of cadaverine.’

Sheila produced a second tray and prised the top hand free. It made a sticky, crackling noise, like damp Velcro. She turned the hand, showing it off so King could get some shots, then did the same with the other one. As if she was modelling them for a catalogue. They both went palm-up, side-by-side, on the new tray.

‘Hmmmm...’ Isobel hunched over them, peering and prodding. ‘The wounds imply the use of a short, tapered blade. Wedge shaped. Possibly a hand axe — if you’ll excuse the irony. Two blows for the right hand, one for the left. Our perpetrator may have been getting his “eye in” with the first cut.’

Logan nodded. ‘The blood in the kitchen.’

‘I couldn’t comment, because despite repeated requests we still can’t get photographs out of... that.’ She turned her sneer towards a computer, stuck on top of a stainless-steel worktop, that looked as if it might have been cutting edge sometime in the late Cretaceous Period. ‘How many times do I have to tell Police Scotland and the SPA that context is key?’

King lowered the camera. ‘Preaching to the choir, Professor.’

‘Before this ridiculous centralised nonsense, we used to get glossy eight-by-tens of the crime scene. Now we’re expected to work with low-resolution snaps on a low-resolution screen. We can’t even zoom in!’

‘Erm... Hold on.’ Logan dug out his phone, unlocked it, and scrolled through the photographs to the ones he took in Professor Wilson’s kitchen. ‘Try these.’

She took the phone and squinted at the screen, then put her fingers on it and zoomed in. Out. In again. Swiped through to the next one and did the same thing, all the way through till: ‘Now it’s just pictures of your cat.’

‘She’s a very pretty cat.’

A raised eyebrow, then Isobel swiped through the photos of Wilson’s kitchen again. ‘From the quantity of blood and the way it’s pooled, I would say some sort of tourniquet was used. Otherwise you’d be looking at arterial spray all up the wall and probably ceiling too. Going by the state of the table, they must have used something as a chopping board, wedged it in under Professor Wilson’s arms before the blow.’ She returned Logan’s phone, leaving little sticky red fingerprints on the screen.

Urgh...

King frowned at her. ‘Hold on. Chopping board?’

‘Well of course, “chopping board”. If they didn’t use one, there’d be deep gouges in the tabletop, wouldn’t there? From the axe head.’

‘Oh.’ King pointed. ‘What’s the chance of surviving something like this?’

‘A bilateral amputation proximal to the radiocarpal joint?’ She pursed her lips, humming as she frowned at the stumps. Then: ‘Under sterile conditions, with trained staff, proper equipment, and anaesthetic: almost guaranteed.’

Yes, but Professor Wilson hadn’t had any of those things.

‘Hacked off with an axe in a kitchen?’ Isobel pushed the tray towards Sheila. ‘You’re opening yourself up to primary and secondary infection. Without some very strong antibiotics it’ll be septicaemia, then sepsis, then septic shock, multiple organ failure, and death.’

Sheila picked the right hand up and scraped out the dirt beneath the index fingernail. ‘Assuming he isn’t... dead already.’ She wiped the black gunge into a small glass container and moved on to the next finger.

Maybe Professor Wilson would be better off if the initial shock killed him? If it was that or slowly dying from the pus-filled wounds where his hands used to be, what would be kinder? Quick and painful, or slow, drawn out, and tortuous, praying for a rescue that never came?

And talking of where Professor Wilson’s hands used to be...

‘Hold on.’ Logan pointed at the stained tinfoil package. What looked like a folded sheet of paper sat in a thick clotted puddle of congealed blood ‘There’s something else in there.’

‘So there is.’ Isobel picked up a pair of tweezers and leaned in. ‘Presumably a message of some kind?’ She unfolded it as King clacked and flashed. ‘A4, white, probably laser-printer or photocopy paper. Heavily stained.’

But the words in the middle were still clearly visible: ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’.

King appeared from behind his camera again. ‘What’s that supposed to...?’ Then it must’ve dawned, because his mouth clicked shut. ‘Oh. Yes.’ More photographs.

Logan tapped Isobel on the shoulder, then tipped his head towards the severed hands. ‘Can we fingerprint those? I know they’re probably Professor Wilson’s, but just in case?’

‘Sheila?’

‘I’ll fetch the Livescan machine... Professor.’ She did, returning with something the size of a box of cat treats. Switched it on. Bashed her palm against it a couple of times when nothing happened. Then smiled and pressed the scanner against the tip of the right hand’s index finger. She did the middle finger and the thumb too.

The Livescan machine bleeped in Sheila’s hand, then one of the laptops let out a tinny ding.

‘We have a match... Professor.’ She fiddled with the laptop’s keyboard. ‘Hands belong to one Professor Nicholas Wilson. The prints are in the system marked, “for elimination” and “from the professor’s study, bathroom, and bedroom”.’

Shirley and her Scene Examiners ride again.

Logan huffed a breath on his bloodstained phone screen and scrubbed it against his SOC suit’s sleeve. ‘Whoever it was wiped the kitchen down with antibacterial wipes. No prints where it happened.’

‘Then I think we can safely assume that the remains do indeed belong to Professor Wilson.’ Isobel raised an eyebrow. ‘Or, at least, the right hand does. Let’s not make assumptions until we’ve checked them both.’

Logan shook his head. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’

King grimaced. ‘For his sake, I certainly hope so.’

13

Logan followed King out through the side doors and up the steps to the Rear Podium car park. Windscreens and bodywork gleamed in the blazing morning sunshine, but this part was painted dark with shadows. At least it cut the heat a bit.

King stopped at the top. ‘So we’ll be looking for a dead body in a couple of days.’

‘If he’s not already dead.’

‘Because things weren’t difficult enough.’ King covered his face with his hands for a moment, curling forward from the waist. ‘Hardie’s going to pop an artery.’

‘We can’t not tell him it’s probably murder.’

King stood up straight again, arms hanging loose at his side. Strings cut. ‘Maybe we can tell him it’s a good thing? Let’s be honest: a dead Professor Wilson will kick up a lot less fuss than a live, angry, bitter one with no hands.’

Wow.

‘You do know you said that out loud, right?’

‘Oh come off it. The dead don’t give press conferences telling everyone what a useless bunch of turds NE Division are.’

True. But still...

King checked his watch. ‘Look, I’ve got to go brief the team. Any chance you can pop past Hardie’s office and let him know?’ Then without waiting for an answer: ‘Great, thanks.’ And with that he marched off, hurrying in through the station’s back doors. They swung shut behind him with an ominous clunk.

Coward.

‘OK, will do.’ Logan stuck his phone back in his pocket and wandered into King’s MIT office. Just in time to rake over the dying embers of the team briefing.

King was at the front of the room, holding up a full-colour copy of the bloodstained ‘DEVIL MAKES WORK’ message, the whole team gathered around, staring at it. Well, everyone except for Heather, who was presumably off doing something important. Hopefully getting a round of teas in.

King lowered the printout. ‘Soon as the media get hold of this you know what’ll happen. It’ll be like wading through a septic tank full of alligators. So go: achieve!’

Chairs squeaked as they rose and bustled out, faces grim, determined, until only Logan, King, and Steel were left.

As soon as the door closed, King sagged forward until he was nearly bent in two. Shuddered. Scrubbed his face with his hands. Mumbling through his fingers. ‘We’re completely and utterly screwed...’ He looked up at Logan. ‘What did Hardie say?’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Hardie got dragged into a three-hour review meeting with Detective Superintendent Young about two minutes after I got there. So we’ve got a little breathing space.’

‘At least that’s something.’

Steel stuck her feet up on the nearest desk. ‘Aye, well Horrible Hardie can poke it up himself if he thinks he’s blaming us for this. We’re no’ the ones hacked Professor Wilson’s hands off.’

King sagged even further. ‘Try telling the media that.’

The door swung open and in strutted Heather, clutching an evidence bag, smiling like she’d just discovered quilted toilet paper. Nodding at them. ‘Boss, Guv, Roberta.’

‘Please tell me you’ve found something?’

She held up the evidence bag. ‘Lab’s been over the Jiffy bag: only viable fingerprints on the outside are the BBC receptionist, presenter, and producer. Everything else is too smudged.’

King sat up at that. Eyes wide, eyebrows up. ‘But on the inside...?’

‘None at all. And only the presenter’s prints on the tinfoil package. Nothing on the hands themselves or the note. Our boy was bright enough to wear gloves. They’ve swabbed for DNA, but given the crime scene—’

‘Aye.’ Steel shook her head. ‘You were right the first time, Kingy: you’re screwed.’

He stared at the ceiling tiles, mouth moving as if he was swearing away inside his head.

‘But I have managed to trace the package back to the Post Office it was sent from. First class, yesterday morning.’ Hence the smugness.

‘Pfff...’ Steel had a big stretch, showing off a toad-belly pale slice of stomach. ‘Aye, but they could’ve posted it from any postbox in the collection area. There could be thousands and thousands of houses covered by the one Post Office. No’ to mention Happy Harry the Hand Hacker-Offer probably wouldn’t use his friendly neighbourhood postbox. He’d drive somewhere out of the way and use theirs.’

Heather gave Steel’s arm a little squeeze. ‘No, dear, you’re not listening: the hands were in the tinfoil palm to palm, yes?’ She put the evidence bag down and gave them a demonstration. ‘So that makes the package too thick to jam in through a postbox slot. You’d need to drop it off in person.’

Steel narrowed her eyes. ‘Nobody likes a smartarse.’

‘So I got on to a friend of mine who works at the Huntly depot and he traced the postmark for me.’ She checked her notebook. ‘Package was sent from the Westhill Post Office, yesterday, at nine twenty-three.’

King stared at her. ‘Do they have...?’

‘They’re digging out the CCTV for us now.’

‘Ha!’ He punched the air. ‘DS Steel: get a car. Heather: get—’

‘Can it wait till I’ve given Gibbs his walk?’

‘We’re against the clock, H.’

‘Well I can’t leave him in the car, what if he has an accident?’

King screwed his face up for a breath. ‘OK, OK. You stay here and coordinate things. I’ll take Milky.’

‘But—’

‘You did great, H.’ He gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘We’re going to catch this bastard!’

Westhill shopping centre hadn’t taken well to modernisation. The bulk of it was an old-fashioned grey-beige blockwork affair, with the shopfronts nestled in behind a covered walkway, but they’d bolted a knock-off strip-mall to one end, sticking out like a broken limb to line the far end of the car park.

A car park that was nearly solid 4x4s. None of which looked as if they’d ever been further off-road than the local Costco. Every now and then, a slightly older hatchback denoted some teenager’s first car — usually complete with ‘ironic’ furry dice, oversized exhaust, and completely unnecessary ironing-board-sized spoiler. But mostly, it was 4x4s.

‘... described it as a “terrible shock”. We spoke to her soon after the grisly discovery.’

Milky pulled in next to a Range Rover Discovery, with a ‘Bugger Off Brussels!’ sticker in the rear window, as Muriel Kirk’s voice purred out of the radio, in full-on presenter mode. ‘We get a lot of fan mail at the Muriel Kirk Show, so I didn’t think anything of it until I opened the package.’

King leaned forward in the passenger seat, staring at the radio. ‘Don’t say it, please don’t say it.’

In the back seat, Steel nudged Logan. ‘She’s going to say it.’

‘Inside was a tinfoil parcel.’

‘Don’t...’

‘And inside that, was a pair of severed hands.’

‘Told you.’

The car erupted as everyone had a simultaneous rant: ‘For God’s sake!’, ‘It’s a murder investigation!’, ‘Don’t tell everyone that!’

The original newsreader made a ‘thinky’ noise. ‘And what did the police say?’

‘Clearly they’re playing it very close to their chests, but we need to make sure everyone understands how serious this is. If anyone out there has any information that could help find whoever’s responsible, please get in touch with either the police or the Muriel Kirk Show, on the air from one o’clock.’

‘Thank you, Muriel.’

Steel bared her teeth, sooking air through them. ‘Oooh, that’s no’ good. Think they’ll be dragging the Chief Superintendent out of his meeting now? He’ll want to polish his arse-kicking boots.’

‘Weather now, and this heatwave’s set to continue on to the weekend at least, with temperatures—’

Milky killed the engine. ‘I don’t normally indulge in bad language, but as Heather would say, Muriel Kirk can... “sex and travel”.’

King made a little growling noise, then hauled in a couple of deep breaths. Stuffing it down.

Couldn’t blame him. Milky was right, Muriel Kirk really could ‘sex and travel’.

Logan sighed. ‘It was going to come out eventually. At least we’ve got a lead to follow, now.’

Steel reached between the seats and patted King on the shoulder, voice soft and kind. Completely unlike her. ‘Laz is right. Come on, Frank: we can do this.’ She checked her watch. ‘Still got nearly two and a half hours: how hard can it be?’

Another deep breath, then King nodded and climbed out of the car. Stopped to look back inside. ‘So what are you all waiting for?’

The Post Office was hidden away at the back of the local Co-op, just past the tinned vegetables and baby food. A bespectacled auld mannie with a baldy head and hairy ears sat behind the safety glass, watching with baggy eyes as a dumpy wee lady in a granny cardigan and fur-lined boots counted out a big pile of loose change onto his counter.

There was a queue: another pair of wee dumpies shuffling at the front of it, while a couple of spotty teenagers brought up the rear — the two of them fiddling with their phones and piercings.

King marched straight past the lot of them and up to the counter. Making friends as usual.

‘Hoy!’ One of the old ladies waved a bag-for-life at him. ‘There’s a queue!’

‘You tell him, Babs.’ Old Lady Number Three jerked her chins up. ‘No swicking in, fatty!’

Logan squeezed past. ‘Sorry about this. Police business...’

Steel and Milky followed him to the counter.

The lady counting out change didn’t look up from her coins. Not even when King knocked on the safety glass.

‘Hmm?’ The auld mannie behind the counter blinked at them. According to his nametag — ‘HELLO, MY NAME IS ANDREW’ — they were supposed to ‘ASK ME ABOUT TRAVEL INSURANCE!’ He pursed his lips. ‘I’m sorry, but there’s a queue, so can you—’

King slapped his warrant card against the glass. ‘I need to speak to the manager. Now.’

Mrs Bag-For-Life gave it another wave. ‘Bloody disgrace, that’s what this is!’

Mrs Chins nodded, setting her wattle swaying. ‘We were here first!’

Andrew peered at King’s warrant card, then over King’s shoulder at Logan, Steel, and Milky. ‘Oh. Right. I’ll get Geraldine.’

Mrs Bag-For-Life raised a walking stick and took a wee hurpley step forward — brandishing it like a cutlass. ‘Someone needs to teach you a bloody good lesson!’

‘You tell them, Babs!’

Steel turned and smiled a cold hard smile. ‘Hands up everyone whose road tax, council tax, and TV licence are up to date.’

Silence.

Then everyone developed a sudden and profound interest in whatever was on the nearest shelf.

Steel nodded. ‘Aye, thought as much.’ She leaned in close to Logan and dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Got that one from a Hamish Macbeth book.’

A row of small monitors took up most of the Co-op’s CCTV room, mounted to the wall above a narrow workbench littered with paperwork and a rack of hard drives. Barely space for the single office chair, the woman sitting in it, King, and Logan. Steel and Milky peering in from the corridor outside.

The woman swivelled her chair and plucked a wireless keyboard from on top of the hard drives. Late thirties, with a fashionable haircut, suit and tie. ‘HELLO, MY NAME IS GERALDINE’ above the word ‘MANAGER’. She poked at the keys and the screen in front of her jumped to a frozen shot of the shop floor, the camera pointing towards the front doors. Newspapers on one side, a display of fruit and crisps on the other, sandwiches in a chiller... ‘I set it to play from when he comes into the store.’ Geraldine tapped the screen, where a blurry figure was just visible through the automatic doors. ‘This is the chap here.’

She pressed another key and the scene came to life: the doors slid open and in walked a man wearing the standard-issue hoodie-and-baseball-cap security-camera-avoidance outfit. He’d made the extra effort and donned a pair of sunglasses as well, for that exotic out-of-town look. So no way of making an ID of his face. The baggy grey clothes were pretty indistinct too. One thing was certain, though: whoever he was, the guy was massive. And it wasn’t fat, either. Going by the way he moved, arms out from his sides, elbows turned, he was lugging a lot of muscle around. Broad of shoulder and short of neck. A Tesco carrier bag, with something bulky inside, dangling from one hand.

Geraldine moved her finger to where the sandwiches lurked. ‘You can see Linda there, following him around.’

A security guard appeared from behind the lunchtime deals and followed Mr Hoodie towards the camera.

‘Standard operating procedure for anyone dressed in this season’s Shoplifter Chic.’

The pair of them disappeared off the bottom of the screen.

Click, they were caught on another camera, walking past the fruit and veg — Mr Hoodie acting all casual and calm, Linda, the security guard following at a discreet distance.

‘Down fresh produce...’ The camera jumped again. ‘Past tinned fish...’ Another jump. ‘Dried goods...’ One more. ‘And into our Post Office zone.’

The camera was positioned behind the counter, catching Mr Hoodie as he stopped at the ‘PLEASE WAIT HERE’ sign.

An old man was being served — his moustache twitching with concentration as he filled out a form. The woman helping him was a furry blob in the bottom left corner, only the top of her head visible. And all the time, Mr Hoodie stood there, still as a lamppost. Didn’t fidget. Didn’t check his watch. Just stood there.

King folded his arms. ‘Cool customer.’

Captain Twitchy Moustache handed over his form and shuffled away out of shot, then Mr Hoodie stepped up to the counter. Put the plastic bag down in front of him.

‘We haven’t got sound, I’m afraid,’ Geraldine wrinkled her nose, ‘but Shauna says he was definitely Scottish. Asked her to send the package first class.’

On the screen, Mr Hoodie’s mouth moved in complete silence, then he placed the plastic bag on the scales. Took it off and slid it through the access window.

The woman-behind-the-counter reached for the bag. Opened it. Slid the Jiffy bag out onto the counter in front of her and applied the postage sticker.

‘Clever boy.’ Logan pointed. ‘He never touches it.’

The woman crumpled up the plastic bag and passed it back through the opening, where Mr Hoodie stuffed it straight into his pocket. Leaving no physical evidence behind. Other than the Jiffy bag, which was, according to the lab, pretty much sterile.

He counted out a handful of pound coins and the woman scooped them up. Then he smiled at her, nodded, waved, turned and walked away.

Geraldine poked at her keyboard again, tracing his route back the way he’d come — camera to camera, the security guard following him at a discreet distance — to the front doors. They slid shut behind him and he was gone.

The security guard shrugged, then sloped off to lurk in wait for someone else.

‘And that’s it, I’m afraid.’

‘Hmmm...’ King scowled at the final image. Then turned to the door, where Milky was still watching. ‘Go round the other shops, hoover up all the security camera footage you can. Where’s DS Steel?’

‘Gone for a vape, Guv.’

‘Oh for... Fine. Tell her I said she has to find out who’s in charge of CCTV for the shopping centre. See if we can track this bastard to a car or something.’

A nod from Milky. ‘Guv.’ Then she scurried off.

Logan pulled out his notebook and wrote down the names of the security guard and the woman on the Post Office counter. ‘We’re going to need to talk to Linda and Shauna.’

‘I thought you might.’ Geraldine stood. ‘They’re in the break room, waiting for you.’

A colourful collection of watercolours dotted the three break room walls that weren’t covered in beige lockers. Two round tables, some plastic chairs, a fridge, and a microwave. Nice. The air sweet-sharp with the scent of lemon floor cleaner.

Linda the security guard was squarer in real life, her shoulders and forehead making it look as if someone had built her out of Lego blocks. Shauna, the lady whose back had featured in the CCTV footage, looked different too. Going by the expression on her face, her front half hadn’t enjoyed itself for at least the last thirty years.

The pair of them sat opposite Logan and King, Shauna picking her teeth, Linda folding and unfolding her arms, as if she didn’t quite know what to do with them.

King doodled a circle on his notebook. ‘And you didn’t recognise his voice at all? Maybe he’d been in before and—’ His phone blared into life and he dug it out. Frowned at the screen and grimaced. Then put it face down on the table. ‘Sorry about that. Where were we?’

Shauna finally worked whatever it was free and pinged it away under the table. ‘No, I didn’t recognise him. We get a lot of regulars in, but he was... a bit strange? Weirdly still, you know: immobile. Like he was made of plastic or something.’

‘And he didn’t say anything—’

This time it was Logan’s phone, belting out its generic ringtone. He pulled it out while everyone stared at him. The words, ‘SUPT. BEVAN’ sat in the middle of the screen.

Yeah. Thanks, but no thanks.

He pressed ‘IGNORE’ and switched his phone off.

King raised an eyebrow.

Logan shook his head.

King sighed.

Shauna wiped her damp finger on her uniform shirt. ‘Look, can I go now? Only Andrew gets all stressed if he’s left on the counter by himself.’

‘We’re done here anyway.’ King’s smile wasn’t even vaguely convincing. ‘Thank you both for your help.’

Their chairs’ rubber feet scronnnnked on the lino as they scraped them back and stood. A couple of awkward smiles. Then Shauna and Linda sloped off to work again.

Soon as the door shut behind them, King slumped. ‘So close...’

Logan pointed at King’s phone. ‘Who was it?’

‘DI Hardie. You?’

‘Superintendent Bevan. So much for two and a half hours.’

‘Yeah.’

Scronnnnk.

Logan followed him out into a bland corridor, the painted breeze-block walls scarred with scuffs and bashes. Past a couple of cages full of crushed cardboard boxes. ‘We can say we had our phones turned off because we were interviewing witnesses. It’s not lying, because mine is and we were.’

King’s phone dinged, and he frowned at the screen. ‘Voicemail.’

No doubt a message of encouragement from DCI Hardie.

They pushed through the double doors on to the shop floor. A handful of people were in filling their trolleys and baskets — one of the lippy auld wifies stocking up on cat food and spiced rum, while the other worried away at half a dozen scratchcards.

Logan and King didn’t stop to say hello on the way to the exit. But as they passed the drinks aisle, King stopped. Patted his pockets.

‘I’ll meet you outside — want to get some more mints.’

And why did all those bottles of wine and spirits make him think of that?

Logan nodded, and walked out through the doors, pausing only to wave at Linda, on guard by the ‘MEGA LUNCH-DEAL!’ sandwiches, crisps, and drinks.

‘Bloody hell...’ The midday heat hit him like an iron, sizzling away at his eyes and ears. And that was underneath the covered walkway; in the full glare of the sun it would be unbearable.

He stuck to the shadows. Turned to look in through the Co-op window as a pair of kids rattled past on scooters. And there was King, marching towards the checkouts with two half-bottles of vodka in one hand and a four-pack of extra-strong mints in the other.

King froze, then juggled his purchases into one hand so he could dig out his phone and pull a pained face at the screen. Closed his eyes and moved his lips as if he was swearing away to himself. Then answered it.

Two half-bottles of vodka. Both the perfect size to hide in your jacket pockets if you were—

‘Fit like, Limpy McMoans-A-Lot?’

Great. Steel.

Logan turned. ‘Can you at least pretend you care about—’

‘Guess what I’ve got, go on: guess.’ She wiggled her eyebrows at him. ‘Guess!’

‘Worms?’

‘I found a nice man called Johnny. Johnny works the security cameras for all the shopping centre’s communal areas.’ She pointed at one of the shiny black half-globes, protruding from the walkway’s ceiling like a kraken’s eye. ‘Wave hello to lovely Johnny.’

She did, but Logan didn’t.

‘Aye, and guess what me and Johnny found when we went looking through yesterday’s footage?’

Logan stared at her. ‘You didn’t.’

The grin turned a little bit obscene. ‘We sodding well did!’ Steel whipped out her phone and poked at it. ‘Got him to email me the footage. Our boy might be able to manufacture a forensic-free abduction scene and Jiffy bag, but know what he didn’t bank on?’

She turned the screen to face Logan.

On it, a muscle-bound lump of a man marched past Marks & Spencer, walking towards one of the cameras. Mid-twenties. Not the prettiest of guys, with a heavy forehead and wide jaw. Wearing a grey hoodie. Something in a plastic bag, tucked under his arm. He reached into his hoodie’s pocket, took out a pair of sunglasses, put them on. Then did the same with a baseball cap. Pulled his hood up. And his transformation into Mr Hoodie was complete.

‘They stuck a new security camera on the Citizen’s Advice Bureau yesterday morning, cos some manky scummer keeps smearing shite all over their windows. If our boy, Chuckles, had posted those hands on Monday, he’d’ve got away with it.’

Logan looked up from the screen to the grinning Steel. ‘I could sodding well kiss you.’

‘Aye, well, better no’.’ Deadpan. ‘Don’t want you undermining years of dedicated lesbianism.’

They had him. They had an actual face for Professor Wilson’s abductor. ‘We need to get this out to every station, in every division in Scotland.’

‘No’ be quicker doing a public appeal?’

She had a point.

‘Maybe, but if we can find out who he is before the brass put on a press conference, we’ll—’

‘Your boy King might not get his arse handed to him in a damp paper bag?’ She peered over Logan’s shoulder at the Co-op. ‘Ahoy-hoy, thar he blows.’

And there he blew — slouching out through the automatic doors with no sign of his vodka or extra-strong mints, still on the phone, one hand massaging his forehead. ‘Yes, Boss, but—... I know that... Yes. But if you’ll just— OK...’

Steel leaned in closer to Logan, not bothering to whisper. ‘Think he’s getting a spanking? Sounds like a spanking to me.’

‘Do you always have to make everything worse?’

‘Part of my charm.’

King stopped. Sighed. ‘Yes... I will. Yes.’ Another sigh. ‘Bye.’ He hung up and thumped back against one of the walkway’s pillars. Didn’t look at them. ‘Apparently, the Chief Superintendent isn’t happy about Professor Wilson’s severed hands being all over the one o’clock news, so he kicked Superintendent Young’s backside about it. And Superintendent Young kicked DCI Hardie’s backside. And now DCI Hardie is kicking mine.’ King deflated even further. ‘God’s sake...’ He gave Logan a pained look. ‘They’re holding a press conference at four. Our attendance is mandatory.’

‘No need to look so glum, Kingy-boy.’ Steel slapped his shoulder. ‘It’s your lucky day: Roberta Steel to the rescue! Again.’

His eyes widened. ‘You mean... we got a face?’

‘Now let’s talk about the extra-large fish suppers you’re buying us all for lunch. As a wee reward for my detectivey genius.’

14

The dual carriageway wheeched past the pool car’s windows as DI King drove them into town, the soft comforting smell of hot batter and sharp-spined vinegar thick in the air, even with the windows open.

Milky leaned across from the passenger seat, a couple of golden chips in her hand. ‘Sure you don’t want any, Guv?’

He shook his head. ‘Not hungry.’

Sitting in the back, Steel sooked her fingers sort of clean and dug her phone out. Squinted at the screen. ‘That’s Tufty sent the video out to everyone and her dog in Police Scotland.’ A chunk of haddock went the way of all flesh as she chewed with her mouth open. ‘Dirty wee scumbag says he’s having beef Wellington in the studio canteen.’ She stuffed in some more chips. ‘All right for some.’

King nodded. ‘Better make sure the media department get a “have you seen this man” done up before the press conference.’

Logan took a bite of pickled onion, chasing it down with a nugget of crispy batter. Whoever invented fish suppers was a genius. Sod haggis, this was Scotland’s proper national dish, not some unmentionable mush of sheep innards stuffed into another bit of sheep innards, with four tons of herbs and spices added so you didn’t have to taste what you were actually eating.

Haddock plus batter plus potatoes, plus salt, plus vinegar, equals genius.

He crunched through a perfectly golden finger of deep-fried potato, then leaned forward, into the gap between the front seats. ‘There’s something else we’re going to need to talk about before the briefing.’

‘It’s not—’

‘Just so we’re prepared. There’s no way Edward Barwell’s going to pass up the opportunity.’

Milky dipped a chip in her little splat of mayonnaise. ‘Who’s Edward Barwell?’

King tightened his grip on the steering wheel. ‘No one. He’s—’

‘Journo.’ Little bits of batter fell down Steel’s front as she chewed. ‘Scottish Daily Post. He’s the one dug up that dirt on Kingy’s Alt-Nat terrorist past.’

The only noises were the engine, the fluttering roar of air passing by the windows, and Steel munching.

Then Milky turned in her seat. ‘He what? Wait: what terrorist past?’

King glared at Logan in the rear-view mirror. ‘How did she find out? You’re supposed to be—’

‘Oh no.’ Logan held up a greasy hand. ‘Don’t look at me!’

Steel smiled. ‘Nah, I keep my ear to the grindstone, Kingy. Works wonders.’

More silence.

Milky stared at him. ‘Guv?’

King took a deep breath, shoulders dropping an inch. ‘I was going to tell you all before the briefing.’

‘You were an Alt-Nat terrorist?’ She hit him: not a playful slap — a full-on back-hand wallop, right in the chest. Voice hard and bitter. ‘I’m English! Yorkshire’s in England, remember? And you want to chuck me out country?’ She hit him again. ‘Going to burn down me house as well?’ Once more for luck, putting her weight behind it.

‘Ow! Can we not do this now. Please?’ Staring across the car at her. ‘It was nothing. It was years ago. I never did anything.’

Steel stuffed in a mouthful of chips. ‘That’s the spirit!’ She turned a mushed-potato grin on Logan. ‘Glad I came now: Wednesdays are usually a lot more boring than this.’

The pool car rumbled up the ramp and onto the Rear Podium car park. Tucked around the back of Divisional Headquarters, the rectangle of tarmac was a suntrap, bordered on two sides by the bulk of DHQ, the mortuary on the third, and the rear of King Street on the fourth — a wall of dirty granite, punctuated by sash windows and black downpipes.

King took the only available space, next to the smokers’ station with its overflowing bin, cigarette butts littered around it like tiny dead bodies after a massacre.

As soon as he hauled on the handbrake, Milky wrenched open the passenger door, face like a squeezed pluke, jaw clenched as she clambered into the sunlight.

King scrambled out after her. ‘Oh, come on, Milky, it was years ago!’

She kept her face turned towards DHQ. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a report to write.’

Milky marched across the shiny black tarmac to the building’s doors, yanked them open and stormed inside.

Steel leaned across Logan, looking up at King. ‘You made a right cat’s arsehole of that one, Kingy.’

His mouth moved for a bit. Then he shrugged. ‘She’ll come round. Eventually.’

Milky reappeared in the doorway, grabbed the open doors and, turning inside again, slammed them shut behind her.

Steel sucked air in through her teeth. ‘Aye, don’t hold your breath.’

King hunched his shoulders. ‘Is there any way we can speed up the ID process?’

Noticeboards lined the corridor, between the doors, covered in memos, thank you cards, and yet more bloody motivational posters. As if everyone working in Divisional Headquarters was hell-bent on doing a crap job, if not for a photo of some baldy lump in a high-viz vest, grinning away beneath the words ‘COMMUNITY FOCUSED!’

Steel sniffed. ‘Public appeal.’

Not this again. Logan shook his head. ‘We’ll get swamped by every well-meaning half-wit out there.’

‘Aye, but it’d be quicker.’

King nodded. ‘We need to...’ He scuffed to a halt, staring down the corridor.

DCI Hardie was standing in his office doorway, staring back at them. Then he stuck out one hand and made a come-hither gesture. His face a hard, angry scribble. ‘DI King.’

A little groaning noise escaped from King, followed by a very quiet, ‘Crap.’

‘A moment of your valuable time, please.’

King stood up straight. ‘I was just—’

‘In my office. Now!’

Steel patted him on the back. ‘Been nice knowing you.’

A deep breath, then King raised his chin and marched off.

Hardie pointed past King at Logan and Steel. ‘And you two: go do something useful for a change!’ Then he stepped aside, so King could enter the office, gave them one last glare, and slammed the door closed.

Steel puckered her lips. ‘Yeah... He’s dead.’

And then some.

‘In the meantime...’ Logan turned on his heel. ‘Go chase up the media department. And the other stations too. We need to know who posted that sodding package.’

She made little wrinkles between her eyebrows, then shrugged. ‘Ah, why no’.’ Stuck her hands in her pockets and shoved through the double doors into the stairwell. ‘Still say we should do a public appeal!’ And she was gone.

Right.

He took out his phone and sent Tufty a text:

No response.

A couple of uniforms giggled their way down the corridor, clutching something in a brown paper bag. When they saw Logan the laughter died and they ramrodded past him, arms swinging as if they were expecting to salute a flag at some point. And as soon as they reached the doors at the far end, the giggling started up again.

Still nothing from Tufty.

‘You better not be asleep, you lazy wee sod...’

He poked the ‘CALL’ icon and listened to it ring instead.

And ring.

And ring.

And ring.

‘You has reached the Tuftinator! A message you may leave, after the bleep.’

‘What’s happening with that first tweeter — have you found anything yet, or are you sitting on your backside up there watching porn? Because if you are—’

‘Guv.’ Rennie appeared at Logan’s shoulder. No noise, nothing. Just suddenly: Rennie, standing there with a blue folder under one arm.

‘Gah!’ Logan flinched. ‘Are you on castors or something?’ He hung up.

‘They don’t call us the Rubber Heelers for nothing.’ A grin. ‘Saw you pull into the car park. Quick heads-up: DCI Hardie is on the warpath, so steer clear, OK?’

‘Too late.’

‘Our beloved Superintendent Bevan has decided that since Professor Wilson’s hands have turned up in the post, you could probably do with a... well, you know: hand.’ He snapped to attention and saluted. ‘Sergeant Simon Rennie, reporting for duty!’ Then slumped. ‘Anyway, you wanna grab a coffee? I’m parchified. I can fill you in on Matt Lansdale on the way?’

Might as well.

Logan headed back down the corridor. ‘Matt Lansdale?’

Rennie loped along beside him. ‘Journalists keep asking about him? “Is Professor Wilson’s disappearance linked to Matt Lansdale’s?” You wanted me to look into it?’

Ah, that Matt Lansdale.

They pushed through into the stairwell and the smell of boiled cabbage, fried chips, and sweaty feet.

Rennie held up his folder. ‘I dug out the files. Councillor Matt Lansdale was reported missing last Wednesday morning by one of his colleagues.’ He opened it as they started down the stairs and passed a printout to Logan.

It was a photo of a saggy-faced man in his fifties, thinning on top and squidgy of nose. The kind of man who looked as if he’d knock back three pints of lager then start banging on about immigration.

‘And I don’t mean, like, therapy councillor, I mean town. Tory. Divorced last May, lives alone, one-bedroom flat in Kittybrewster.’

Logan handed the photo back. ‘What’s his connection with Professor Wilson?’

‘When Lansdale didn’t come in on Monday, they thought he was just having “one of those whisky-and-pity-party weekends”. The head of a committee he’s on tried calling him Tuesday, cos he’d missed a vote, but it went to voicemail.’

So far, so boring.

‘Still waiting for a connection.’

They turned left at the next landing, making for the canteen doors.

‘So the chairperson calls Lansdale’s ex-wife. Turns out he was meant to pick up their kid for his regular every-other-weekend, but he was a no-show.’

A handful of officers were in, sitting in a clump at one of the tables, curled over plates piled high with stovies and mince and tatties and deep-fried things with chips. None of your salad nonsense here, thank you very much.

Wee Hairy Davie stood behind the counter in his tabard, wiping the surfaces with a blue cloth. Whatever nature had intended for Wee Hairy Davie, it probably should have quit while it was behind. The unfortunate results made a very convincing argument for birth control and spaying your pets.

Rennie wandered into Wee Hairy Davie’s domain. ‘See, Lansdale kinda disgraced himself with a sext scandal last year. Sent pictures of his “electoral mandate” to someone on the Accounts Oversight Committee. Hence the divorce and the whisky-and-pity-parties.’

‘I’m not kidding, Rennie.’ Logan pointed at the array of stainless-steel cutlery poking out of a grey plastic tray, sitting next to the cash register. ‘I’m going to grab a fork and stab you with it, if you don’t get to the point.’

‘Oh, yeah, right: the connection.’ He waved at Wee Hairy Davie. ‘Large cappuccino with a shot of hazelnut, chocolate sprinkles, and semi-skimmed, please, Davie.’ Then turned to Logan. ‘Guv?’

Logan grabbed a fork and brandished it. ‘You were warned!’

‘Eek! Give him something decaf!’

‘The connection.’

Hands up. ‘Lansdale was chairman of “No To Independence” and a big pro-Brexit campaigner. Massive.’

‘Is that it?’ He lowered the fork.

‘I’m not the one saying their disappearances are linked, am I? You know what the press are like: someone farts on a Tuesday, by Thursday it’s “Ebola panic grips nation!”’

‘What about his house: any sign of forced entry? Blood?’

‘Don’t think anyone looked.’ Rennie shrugged. ‘I can probably get the keys if you want? You know, if we’re after an excuse to make ourselves scarce before Hardie comes looking for us?’

Ah... Yes, the happy DCI Hardie.

‘Not a bad idea. And I’ll have a macchiato.’

‘Kinda thought it’d be grander than this.’ Rennie curled his lip and turned on the spot, no doubt taking in the glory of Councillor Matt Lansdale’s living room.

It was nearly all taken up by a single black leather couch, a glass coffee table, and a huge wall-mounted TV. No bookshelves. No pictures. Only one thing stopped it being the perfect bachelor pad: it didn’t have a poster of that tennis player scratching her bum. Lansdale had missed a trick there.

Logan peered out through the blinds at the block of flat’s car park, two storeys below. It was the usual collection of Aberdeen hatchbacks and 4x4s, with an identical Monopoly-hotel-inspired block of flats on the other side. ‘Just because he’s pro-Brexit and pro-union, doesn’t mean he’s been snatched.’

‘To be honest, after the sext scandal, no one’s really all that surprised he did a runner. Probably embezzled a heap of cash too. You know what politicians are like.’

True.

Logan stepped out into the tiny hallway — barely big enough to hold the five doors leading off it: living room; bedroom; kitchen; bathroom; and a small coatrack, festooned with jackets, next to the front door.

There weren’t any scratches around the Yale lock, the glass panel was intact, and the door frame wasn’t splintered. ‘No sign of forced entry.’

Rennie shrugged. ‘Ah, but there wasn’t at Professor Wilson’s, was there?’

Also true.

Logan snapped on a pair of gloves and went through one of the jackets’ pockets. ‘Imagine living the kind of life where no one cares if you disappear or not.’

‘You know,’ Rennie leaned against the wall, a big sappy smile on his face, ‘I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really enjoying PSD.’

Aha...

Logan pulled a set of keys out of the pocket and held them up. ‘Car keys.’

‘I always thought Professional Standards were a bunch of sinister bastards — same as everyone else does — but it’s really cool, isn’t it?’

‘Course he might have a spare set...’ Next up was a patched leather jacket that smelled of fried onions. ‘Maybe not a spare wallet, though.’

It was a small brown leather job, scuffed and battered. Logan opened it and flicked through the contents: sixty quid in cash, two credit cards, a debit card, some receipts, and a handful of business cards.

Rennie nodded. ‘Let’s face it, we, we brave few, we band of sinister bastards, we keep the whole thing going, don’t we?’

So wherever Lansdale went, he went without any cash.

‘I mean, if you don’t have PSD, you’ve got no one keeping the system honest.’

Logan dug into the next coat.

Frowned. ‘More car keys.’

So no cash, and no car.

Rennie followed him into the flat’s bathroom. ‘Cos if the system isn’t honest, then everything falls apart, doesn’t it?’

No way that bath was big enough for a grown man to lie down in, but there was a shower mounted on the wall above the taps... No shower curtain, though. A rail, but no curtain.

Mind you, that was the least of the room’s problems. A thick layer of grey fur coated the top of the cistern, and the back of the pan, where the hinges were. More dust on pretty much every other surface. The carcasses of shampoo bottles littered the edge of the bath, empty boxes of paracetamol and effervescent powders, empty toothpaste tubes, and a squirrel’s nest of used dental floss heaped up by the overflowing bin.

But there should’ve been mould, shouldn’t there? You can’t fit in the bath, but there’s no shower curtain so if you have a shower the water would spray everywhere. Soak things. And those things would go mouldy...

Logan stared up at the dust-free stainless-steel rail that went from wall-to-wall above the bath. ‘What happened to the shower curtain?’

‘Maybe he didn’t get around to putting one up? These crazy bachelors and their lack of personal hygiene, eh?’

‘He got the curtain hooks up.’ A whole row of them: plastic circles with nothing held in their grasp.

‘I went a whole term at university eating every single meal out of a cereal bowl with Tony the Tiger on it. Only bit of crockery I owned.’

‘Kitchen.’ Logan led the way, but there wasn’t room for Rennie to follow.

It was even smaller than the bathroom. Not so much a galley kitchen as a dinghy. Everything was crammed in. No room to eat. Barely room to turn around. It had the funky, gritty smell of mould that had been missing in the bathroom... And a quick glance into the sink showed why: a couple of plates, a bowl, and a mug sat in the bottom, crawling with furry black and green growths.

The only concession to washing up was the single whisky tumbler on the draining board.

A trio of hairy takeaway containers lurked beside the microwave — what was left inside all green and sprawling. As if Lansdale had got a curry in, woke up the next day, and decided to walk away from his flat and his life.

Rennie poked his head in from the hall. ‘Anyway, yeah, so we’re the ones that keep everything working. Without PSD there’d be no rule of law.’

A fridge sat under the tiny worktop. Logan squatted down and opened it. Milk and beer. Butter and cheese. Some unidentifiable green sludge in the salad drawer. A packet of sausages on the shelves two days past its sell-by date.

‘The law only exists as long as the general population have faith in it. We’re the ones maintaining that faith.’

He tried the washing machine, rearing back as the hard sharp stench of wet clothes left in there too long jabbed out. ‘Urgh...’ He clunked the door shut again.

‘Yeah, I hate it when the towels go all widdly like that. Who wants to dry themselves on something that smells like a tramp’s peed on it?’

The cupboard next to the washing machine was full of whisky bottles, the vast majority of which were supermarket own-brand, all of them cheap looking, and none of them with more than a dribble left in the bottom.

Logan stood. ‘What’s your impression of DI King?’

‘Oh yes.’ Rennie rolled his eyes, then put on a decent impersonation of King’s Highland burr. ‘“Sergeant, there’s five hundred and thirty-three English MPs and only fifty-nine Scottish ones.”’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘What a shock: England gets more MPs than we do. There’s ten times more people living down there than live up here, what do you expect? Pfff... Man’s a broken record.’

Logan closed the cupboard door. ‘Last room.’

The flat’s only bedroom wasn’t exactly huge. A wall of mirrored wardrobes did their best to make the place look larger, but it was an uphill struggle. A double bed took up most of the floor, the only other bit of furniture being a chair in the corner covered in discarded clothes. There wasn’t even space for a bedside cabinet.

Logan pointed at their reflections. ‘Check the wardrobe.’ Then dug into the pile of clothes, fabric squeaking against his nitrile gloves. Socks, pants, trousers, shirts, all needing a wash.

‘So, where was I?’ Rennie went for a rummage. ‘Ah, right: without Professional Standards you get anarchy, rioting, looting, chaos, dogs and cats living together...’ Silence.

‘What?’ Logan looked over from the pile of rumpled clothes. ‘Find something?’

‘Nah.’ Rennie’s reflection frowned back at him from the wardrobe door. ‘You know what I think?’

‘Suicide.’ Was the obvious conclusion.

‘Only we’ve not had any John Does turn up at the mortuary. I checked.’

‘You try the hospitals?’

His head disappeared inside the wardrobe again. ‘If I said yes, would you believe me?’

Nope.

Logan dumped the last shirt on the floor, then heaved up the corner of the mattress and peered underneath. Nothing. He let it fall back again with a spring-echoing whump. ‘Let’s go see if we can find Councillor Lansdale’s car.’

You had to be a special kind of soulless monster to work in the Aberdeen Planning Department — it was the only explanation possible. Surely no human being would’ve granted permission to build houses and flats this bland, depressing, and lifeless.

A few forlorn trees wilted in the heat, leaves curling at the edges. The tiny squares of grass, little more than yellowy scrub. Nothing in the car park outside Lansdale’s building responded to the fob on his car key.

Logan pointed it at the other side and tried again. None of the lights flashed.

Rennie ran a finger around the collar of his black T-shirt. ‘God it’s boiling...’

OK, time to try the street.

Logan walked out into the middle of the road and pressed the button.

Still nothing.

‘Urgh...’ Rennie fanned himself with his peaked cap. ‘Remember the good old days when it got warmer gradually and you had the chance to acclimatise?’

Other side of the road.

Yet more nothing.

Maybe Lansdale had parked somewhere else? Got drunk and took a taxi back to the flat?

‘Nowadays: today it’s hot, tomorrow it’s cold, then tepid, then baking, then cold again. How are you supposed to get used to that?’

Logan turned the corner, where the depressing flats gave way to depressing houses — all tiny and squeezed in.

Rennie scuffed along beside him. ‘Scotland’s not meant to have twenty-five-degree heat, it’s not natural. We’re a race of gingery people! Anything past eighteen degrees and we melt.’

One last go.

Logan held up the fob, pushed the button, and an old, black, Ford Mondeo flashed its lights in reply. Bingo.

He marched over and peered in through the window. Lansdale’s car was a lot tidier than his flat.

Rennie kicked the front tyre. ‘Well, at least we know he didn’t perform the old hose-from-the-exhaust trick.’

‘Just to be on the safe side.’ Logan unlocked the Mondeo’s boot and popped the lid... Holy mother of stink! A rancid tsunami crashed out of the boot, the sweet stomach-churning stench of rotting meat burying him as he staggered backwards, waving a hand in front of his face, the other clutched over his nose and mouth. It was so strong you could taste it — bitter and rancid.

Rennie blanched. ‘Oh no... It’s not a dead body, is it?’

‘Jesus...’ Logan blinked, turned his head away for a clean breath of air, then tried again.

Asda carrier bags filled the Mondeo’s boot, their contents slumped and oozing. What was left of a free-range chicken clearly visible in all its swollen mouldy glory. ‘He’s left his weekly shop in the boot, in this heat, for a week.’

Rennie took one look, gagged, then retreated. ‘Ooh, I’m gonna be sick.’

Logan clunked the boot closed again. Backed away. ‘Check the hospitals.’

15

Grey granite buildings slid past the Audi’s windows, sparkling in the sunlight. The people, not so much. Oh, they’d embraced the summer with T-shirts and shorts, but seemed to have forgotten the sunscreen. It was like driving through a city populated by lobsters.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Rennie nodded. ‘OK, thanks. Bye.’ He stuffed his phone in his pocket. ‘No sign of Councillor Lansdale anywhere. The only John Doe I could find in the northeast was an auld mannie who got hit by a bus in Elgin.’

‘Well, maybe we—’

Logan’s phone launched into ‘Space Oddity’ and seconds later ‘BEHOLD THE GREAT TUFTINO!’ appeared on the centre console, as the hands-free kit connected.

What?

Why ‘BEHOLD THE GREAT TUFTINO!’? Pretty certain the wee spud was filed under ‘Tufty’ in his contacts list.

Logan shook his head and thumbed the button on the steering wheel. ‘Tufty? Have you done something to my phone?’

His voice boomed out of the car’s speakers. ‘Loop quantum gravity’s even weirder than I thought, it’s totally awesome. I has a fascinated!’

He had an idiot, more like.

‘Have you found out who sent the first tweet yet, or not?’

‘Oh, the tweet: no. No, we’re still running that.’

Some days, people just begged for a kick up the backside. ‘Have you done any work at all?’

‘See, diffeomorphism invariance and background independence mean there’s a definable minimum size to things like time and space and—’

‘How long?’

‘Ten to the minus thirty-five metres, but the smallest volume is ten to the minus hundred and five cubic metres, and that means—’

‘No, you idiot, how long before you find out who sent that tweet?’

There was a pause as more Lobster People from the Planet Too-Ginger-To-Be-In-The-Sun went by.

‘Tufty?’

‘No way of knowing. We’ve got forty-two massive servers churning their way through Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. But it could take months.’

‘Oh for... Months? How can it take months? Get your finger out!’

Lazy little sod.

A sigh hissed out from the speakers. ‘About six thousand tweets get sent every second, that’s five hundred and eighteen million, four hundred thousand a day. Fifty-five million Facebook updates. Ninety-five million photos added to Instagram. Every — single — day. That’s why months.’

Logan pulled up at the traffic lights, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while a Lobsterwoman wheeled a buggy across the crossing, fag poking out of the corner of her mouth, phone in one hand. Ignoring her Lobsterchild as it hurled a crisp packet out into the sunshine, followed by a Capri Sun and what was left of a Mars Bar.

No way they could wait months for a result.

Fifty-five million Facebooks. Ninety-five million Instagrams. It was too much.

‘Sarge?’

‘Fine. Ditch Facebook and Instawhatsit. If our boy’s tweeting about Professor Wilson’s attack, he’s tweeting about other things too. Focus there.’

‘Pfff... OK, OK: I’ll reconfigure the search.’

‘And soon as you’ve set it up, get your bum back to the station. We’re not paying you to sit about talking nonsense with film people.’

‘But physics isn’t nonsense, it’s—’

Logan thumbed the button again, hanging up on him.

Rennie smiled. ‘Bet you’re glad you got yourself a top-of-the-range Simon Rennie sidekick, now, aren’t you?’

Swap one idiot for another.

‘Get a lookout request set up for Councillor Matt Lansdale. Maybe he hasn’t killed himself, maybe he’s done a Reginald Perrin?’

‘Already done it. Top-of-the-range, remember? Doubt we’ll get anything back, though. After all, who cares about a disgraced middle-aged missing city councillor?’ Rennie sniffed. ‘Could be anywhere by now.’

Look at the state of this shitehole.

Haiden kicks a lump of plaster, sending it skittering away like a rat across the bare floorboards. A crappy old room, the lathe sticking out of the crumbling walls like bones. Peeling wallpaper, the ugly pattern lurking beneath blooms of fungus-black and mildew-grey. Childish crayon drawings of crude stick-figures humping. Two windows, with chunks of broken glass poking out of their frames like jagged teeth. Letting the sunlight slash in. Casting thick dark shadows.

Bet there’s rats in here. Big ones.

The five dirty-white chest freezers make a line from the door, most of the way round the room, each one marked with red spray paint that’s run and dripped like blood: ‘THREE MONKEYS’, ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’, ‘SPITE’, ‘JUDAS’, and ‘WALLACE’.

A little green light glints in the gloom as the compressor on ‘THREE MONKEYS’ kicks in again, humming away to itself. It’s the only one that’s turned on, cos there’s no point wasting electricity, is there? Environmentally responsible and all that.

Streaks and splots of rusty brown stain the white plastic surface around the lid.

Should really clean that up, but sod it.

The chest freezer next to it has the same kinda stains, but no rattle and hum. Instead, the sound of sobbing jags out into the hot stale air. Ungrateful sod should be thanking him. He propped the lid open, didn’t he? Wedged a bit of skirting board in there so there’s a wee gap for air to get in.

OK, so there’s a thick chain and heavy padlock stopping it from opening any further than about ten mill, but hey, it’s better than nothing, right? Any wider and the rats might get in.

Fat bluebottles waltz through the gap, their heavy bodies glowing in the sunlight.

Haiden kicks ‘THE DEVIL MAKES WORK’ with the side of his boot, hard enough to rock the whole thing on its feet.

A cloud of the little buzzing fatsos erupt from the gap, accompanied by a muffled scream.

Better.

He takes off one of his gloves and stuffs it in his pocket, pulls out his phone instead — thumbing through to the camera app. Unlocks the padlock.

The chain hits the floorboards with a clattering rattle as he yanks the chest freezer’s lid open.

More bluebottles, swarming up from what’s left of the man inside, bringing with them the cloying scent of stale meat, sharp piss, and dirty-brown shite.

Haiden holds his phone out, filming as Professor Wanky Wilson cowers away from the light. Not nearly enough space for him to stretch out, so he’s curled up on his side with his knees against his chest, wriggling around, onto his back.

Not so big now, is he? Lying there, bawling like a bairn, snot and tears all over his face, piss stains on his trousers, crap in his pants. Ankles and elbows tied with thick blue string. Bandages round the stumps of his wrists, darkened with dried and fresh blood.

Suppose it’s no wonder he’s shat himself.

Course, he’s not wearing a blindfold, but he’s got his bloodshot eyes screwed shut as he blubbers. ‘Please! Please, I haven’t seen anything! I can... I can just go away, forget this ever happened. Please!’

Aye, right.

Haiden moves his phone closer, filling the screen with that terrified face.

‘You don’t have to do this! I’ll do whatever you want!’ A sob wracks him, making his chest jerk and spasm. The words short and breathless between tattered breaths. ‘I’m... sorry! Whatever... I did, I’m... I’m sorry!... Please... please let me... go... PLEASE!’

No chance, pal.

Haiden slams the lid down again and inside, Professor Wanky Wilson screams.

Tough.

Doesn’t take long to padlock the freezer again, making sure he doesn’t get fingerprints on anything. Cos he’s not stupid.

Then out — through the crappy hallway and into the fresh air.

Eyes closed, face turned to the warm sun.

Got to love summer...

Still, better get back to work.

He pulls the front door shut, all those brand-new Yales locking with a clunk. Leaves the crappy old house, with its second skin of ivy and brambles. Marches across what’s left of the front garden — if you can call a collection of rambling broom, nettles, and gorse a garden — to the ancient white Nissan Micra that’s parked next to a battered grey Transit. The van’s paintwork filthy and streaked with rust.

Haiden pops open the Nissan’s driver’s door and digs out his phone again, turning the brightness up so the video is visible out here.

Wanky Wilson’s voice crackles out of the phone’s speaker. ‘Please! Please, I haven’t seen anything! I can... I can just go away, forget this ever happened. Please!’

He looks even smaller on the screen. More pathetic as he begs for his worthless lying little life.

‘You don’t have to do this! I’ll do whatever you want!’ Then the sobbing. ‘I’m... sorry! Whatever... I did, I’m... I’m sorry!... Please... please let me... go... PLEASE!’

Perfect.

Haiden nods. Smiles. Sticks his phone in his pocket. Gets in behind the wheel and pulls out onto the rutted track.

Wanky Wilson’s about to go viral, and it serves him bloody right.