This House of Burning Bones

43

The big fish turned around in the bathtub and looked Logan right in the eye. ‘YOU need TO do SOMETHING about THESE sausages. THEY’RE eating ALL the CARPET in THE living ROOM, and—’

Three loud knocks battered at the walls of the world.

‘Gnnnnphffff...?’ Logan jerked awake. Blinking.

Where the living...

Car.

He was in the pool car; passenger seat fully reclined.

And Sergeant Brookminster was peering in through the window at him, one eyebrow raised.

Logan scrubbed his hands across his face and sat upright, pulling the lever so the seat joined him. Then opened the car door.

Brookminster nodded. ‘Chief Inspector.’

‘Sergeant.’ A yawn popped and crackled free. ‘What time is...’ Squinting at the dashboard clock — 06:41. ‘Sod.’ He climbed out of the car.

The sun continued its relentless climb up the crystal-blue sky, blanketing the land in another layer of dusty heat.

Colin Miller’s red beamer had disappeared from the driveway outside Natasha Agapova’s house, replaced by another patrol car and a Mercedes Benz, black as an undertaker’s hearse.

Well, of course it was, how else would Brookminster get here? And where there was a Brookminster, Chief Superintendent Pine was never far away.

Logan straightened his rumpled black Police Scotland T-shirt. Then turned. ‘Boss.’

She’d been standing right behind him, in the full uniform, be-leafed peaked cap on her head, hands clasped, eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you still here?’

He popped his neck. ‘Supervising the search of the property, Boss. And our victim’s husband lives in Knightsbridge, so I’ve spent half the night “liaising” with the Metropolitan Police, trying to get them to send someone round to his place. And you know what a production they make of everything.’ Another yawn shuddered through. ‘Went to do some emails in the car, round about sun-up and...’ He drooped. ‘Next thing I know — here we are.’

A whole two hours’ sleep, after a twenty-one-hour shift.

Talk about living the high life.

Pine looked up at Agapova’s glass-fronted entrance hall. ‘The Chief Constable is spitting napalm over this one, Logan. We’re facing a massive cluster jobbie, soon as the press finds out.’ A sniff. ‘Surprised they’re not here already.’

‘Ah... About that.’ Deep breath. ‘It was a journalist on the Aberdeen Examiner who discovered she was missing, last night. He was the one who called us in. So it’ll be all over their morning edition.’ Logan checked his watch. ‘Which will be hitting the newsstands right about now.’

Her face creased. ‘Oh for—’

‘But that’s just one, local paper, right? And they’re not going to just give their exclusive away, so none of the others will know about it till it’s published.’

Pine glared off into the distance. ‘At least that buys us a little time.’

‘And I asked the Met to stress: we need Mr Shearsmith to keep all this as quiet as possible; that his ex-wife’s safety probably depends on it; and until we get a ransom demand, we don’t know what we’re dealing with.’

‘Good. The last thing we need is Natasha Agapova turning up bit-by-bit all over the city.’ Pine frowned. ‘I worked a case in Clydebank where the family couldn’t pay the ransom. Every time the postie came, there was another chunk...’ She shuddered. ‘Ever see a uterus wrapped in an episode of The Broons? Never looked at The Sunday Post the same way again. Took us weeks to—’

The rest of her sentence was drowned out by the whumping roar of a helicopter. Only it wasn’t a Super Puma — high in the sky, on its way to an oil rig somewhere — it was a small dark-blue number, just above the treetops, with the BBC News logo on the side. Circling the house. A gimbal camera, mounted on the nose, swivelled as it passed, giving Logan, Pine, and Brookminster a good lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng look.

Bloody hell.

The Chief Super’s mouth pinched, eyes bulging. ‘Thought you told the Met to keep this quiet!’

‘They promised they’d lean on him! Low key, under the sodding radar. How was—’

A second chopper joined the first, howling over their heads. A big silver one this time, with ‘SKY NEWS HD’ emblazoned across it. Gimbal camera searching for the best view of the property. A massive, and no doubt very expensive upgrade from the drone they’d been flying at all the other crime scenes.

Pine jabbed a hand at the thing, going pink in the face. ‘DOES THIS LOOK LOW KEY?’

Oh, and it just got better:

From up here, on the hill, there was a good view down to the main road, and a chunk of the way back towards Peterculter. Where a convoy of grubby hatchbacks, estate cars, and Outside Broadcast Units was chuntering its way towards Natasha Agapova’s house.

No way they only just found out ten seconds ago. And how long would it take to fly a helicopter up here from London? Three hours? Two-and-a-bit with a tail wind?

Logan gritted his teeth as the BBC made another pass. ‘You don’t think Adrian Shearsmith hates his ex-wife so much he hired a publicist, do you?’

Pine scowled up at the chopper. Then out at the line of approaching media. Took a deep breath. ‘Given the level of press interest in this, do you want to remain Senior Investigating Officer?’ She raised a hand. ‘And there’s no judgement if you don’t. This one’s going to be an absolute buggering nightmare, and I know your dance card’s full already.’

If she was volunteering, he wasn’t going to stand in her way.

‘To be honest, Boss, I’m happy not taking the lead on this one.’

Because she was right: it was going to be a buggering nightmare; involve a shedload of meetings, briefings, blame, and recriminations; not to mention a one-hundred-percent chance of getting shredded by the media for every tiny mistake. And once the press got into the inevitable full-on self-referential feeding frenzy, there’d be no stopping them.

Her face sagged. ‘Yeah, thought as much.’ Then she stiffened her spine. ‘Keep working your existing cases. But if I’m going to be SIO here, when I yell “Frog!” I expect you to jump, understand?’

‘Yes, Boss.’

‘Get back to the station. This is now our number one priority. I want Natasha Agapova found before the parcels start arriving!’

He hurried back towards the pool car.

Sky News made another pass, so Pine had to shout over the hammering rotors. ‘AND YOU’RE AN ACTING DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR NOW — DRESS LIKE ONE!’

Yeah...

This was going to be a long day.

The whole team had turned up in uniform, like a colony of rooks, gathered around the whiteboard wall at the front of the office, listening as Logan played the recording again:

‘Karma comes in like a hurricane, Bitch, and it’s going to blow your house of lies right down. See you tonight!’

Doreen clicked the remote and the projector juddered back a couple of PowerPoint slides, swapping a shot of the broken vases and bloodstains for a publicity still of their victim.

Logan looked out across his shrunken congregation. Not quite the full contingent, given another four were off on the sick, and a fifth was standing at the back of the room trying to smother a cough that wouldn’t die. ‘Smithy?’

A hand went up, attached to a stringy PC with a squint nose, squint chin, Clint-Eastwood-squinty eyes, and a brutal haircut that he must’ve cut himself. With a lawnmower. ‘Sarge.’

‘Call was from a withheld number — get on to her phone provider and see if they can help. Same goes for Captain Sleazy and the HMS Loveyacht. I want names and details, OK?’ Logan gave the nod and Doreen shut the projector down. ‘I don’t have to tell you just how much we didn’t need another massive case to work on right now, but, in the immortal words of Rabbie Burns: “God’s an evil bastard and he hates us all.”’

There were a few nods at that.

‘But it doesn’t mean we get to abandon the hunt for Charles MacGarioch. Hands up Operation Iowa?’

About a quarter of the assembled officers put their hands up.

‘OK, I’m counting on you guys: let’s get this murdering racist wee shite found.’ Next up: ‘DI Marshall’s team?’

Another show of hands. Biohazard sat in the middle of them, bum perched against a desk, arms folded. Looking as if his underwear was eating his rectum with big pointy teeth.

‘I know our victim isn’t what you’d call a “sympathetic character”, but I don’t care if he was a rapist or a choirboy — we get justice for the missing and the dead. Whoever bashed Andrew Shaw’s brains out and chucked him in the river is a murderer. We let him get away with it: he’ll do it again.’

Determined nods rippled through the team.

‘Good.’ Logan pointed at Doreen. ‘Everyone see DI Taylor for your assignments. Only exceptions are Steel, Barrett, Lund, Harmsworth, and Quirrel: with me.’ He marched off, making for the door.

Biohazard intercepted him before he got there. ‘Guv? Nightshift say they found Andrew Shaw’s car. Peugeot Two Oh Eight, parked three streets from Duthie Park. You want Forensics to give it a once-over?’

‘Get it towed to Nelson Street first — don’t want the press finding out and making connections that aren’t there. Got enough unwanted attention as it is.’

‘Guv.’

Soon as Biohazard headed off, Rennie scuffed over. Baggy of eyes and runny of nose. He snorked into a hanky. Then blinked and winced at the light spilling in through the windows. ‘Anyone seen my sunglasses?’

Logan backed the hell away. ‘That better be hayfever, because if it’s the lurgie...’

The idiot stifled a cough. ‘Donna and Lola got sent home with it, yesterday. But I’m fine. Dandy. Sharp as a tack and twice as shiny.’ Giving him both thumbs up. Before frowning and patting his pockets. ‘Just need to find my shades and we can hit the road, adventure-bound.’

Nope.

‘“We” aren’t hitting anything. You’re getting yourself a pool car and going to check on the stakeout at Wallace Tower. On your own: no infecting anyone else.’

A bunged-up whine snottered out. ‘But Gu-uv, it’s just a little summer sniffle. Nothing to be—’

‘You heard the doctor:’ Logan poked a finger towards the door, ‘out! Now! Go!’

Looking like a kicked puppy, Rennie blew his nose one more time, then slouched away, muttering to himself. Coughing and spluttering. Like the diseased horror he was.

The marker pen squeaked its way through every letter as Logan printed the words ‘ADRIAN SHEARSMITH’ next to ‘NATASHA AGAPOVA’ on the whiteboard wall.

It was every inch the bland corporate space you’d expect from modern policing — lots of magnolia, with miserable carpet tiles, a flipchart, one of those central tables made up of smaller tables, and a collection of cheap blue office chairs where Lund, Barrett, Harmsworth, and Tufty sat. Taking notes and paying attention.

Steel, on the other hand, had her feet up on the desk, going for a wee rummage in her cleavage. Which wasn’t easy in a tight-fitting black T-shirt that was clearly two sizes too small, so she’d had to go in from the bottom, exposing a belly shiny-pale enough to light the fires of Gondor.

It was hard to take your eyes off it.

Like a pasty car crash.

Logan stuck the cap back on his pen. ‘Lund, Barrett: I need you to have a thorough search through Natasha’s life. Who’s she friends with, who’s her enemies? There’s been a lot of redundancies at the Aberdeen Examiner — is anyone’s nose far enough out of joint to justify abducting her?’ He used the pen as a pointer. ‘Harmsworth, Steel: you’re on the ex-husband. A media mogul like that’s bound to have people out to get him. And given how loaded the guy is, could even be an organised crime thing — can you imagine what kind of ransom he could put together? So, get in touch with SOCT and make a nuisance of yourselves till they tell you who Shearsmith’s involved with.’

Harmsworth curled his top lip. ‘What’s Scene Of Crime got to do with— Ow!’

Steel gave him another thump on the back of the head. ‘“Serious Organised Crime Taskforce”, you snudging spudge-walloper.’

He rubbed at his bald patch. ‘That really hurt!’

Logan chucked his pen at them. ‘Stop arsing about. This is serious!’ He gave them all a stern look. ‘As half the station’s off with The Yuck, until we get some backup from other divisions, Davey: you’re now Acting Detective Sergeant Barrett.’

‘Sweet.’ He grinned at Steel. ‘I’m sure we’ll work together in a supportive and cooperative manner, fellow sergeant.’

‘Hey!’ Not happy.

‘And you’re now officially Acting Detective Inspector Steel.’ Logan folded his arms. ‘I’m trusting you, OK? Do not screw this up. I want progress and an interim report on my desk by lunchtime.’ He headed for the door. ‘Tufty: grab a pool car, we’re going out.’

The wee loon scrambled to his feet. ‘I has being an sidekick?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Woot!’

Yeah. He was probably going to regret this.

44

The pool car headed northwest along the Parkway, past warehouses and car showrooms, joining the trucks and lorries heading to various industrial estates as rush hour in the Bridge of Don set in. Grinding everything to a halt. Tufty behind the wheel, while Logan dozed in the passenger seat. Drifting in and out as the wee loon wittered on:

‘...so I went down to the Forensic IT lab, and I said to them, I said: “You does has a being crap at this computering malarkey!” And they was all like, “No way, we is the bestest!” And I’m like, “Give me Charles MacGarioch’s pooter and I’ll crack it like a Tunnock’s Tea Cake!”’ A pout. ‘And they said, “No.” So I said—’

The first bars of Beethoven’s ‘Ode To Joy’ burst out of Logan’s phone, cutting across Tufty’s riveting anecdote. Oh dear, what a shame.

And it would be rude not to answer it. ‘Hello?’

A tired voice grumbled into Logan’s ear: ‘Dr Drummond.’

‘Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number. This isn’t—’

‘No: I’m Dr Drummond. Critical Care Unit, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary? I’ve got a note here to call a “Logan Mackay” about Spencer Findlater?’

Tufty turned onto Lochside Road, swapping industrial-estate chic for a winding maze of mature trees, wee houses, and bungalows.

‘Has he got a visitor?’ Sitting up a bit straighter.

‘He’s actually survived the night, which is a surprise, given his injuries. People don’t appreciate the damage a car can do, even at thirty miles an hour. Two tons of metal exerts a force of—’

‘Is Spencer going to be OK?’

There was a pause, filled with medical seething. Because if there was one thing people like Dr Drummond hated it was being interrupted. Well, tough — that’s what he got for getting Logan’s name wrong.

Drummond cleared his throat. ‘The important thing is he’s unlikely to drop dead before teatime, so he’s not our problem any more. We’ve transferred him to the Orthopaedic Trauma Unit. Ward two-twelve, in the Pink Zone.’

At the end of the entrance road, a huge sign reared out of the bushes with ‘LOCHSIDE ROAD’ at the top, and ‘LEADING TO’ followed by a list of fourteen different streets, seven on each side.

Tufty took a right.

‘You’ve turfed him out?’ Logan shifted in his seat. ‘Is that not a bit—’

‘Do you have any idea what kind of bed shortages we’re dealing with here? If he’s stable, he’s someone else’s problem.’ A humphing noise. ‘And now that I’ve done my bit and called you, is it OK if I get back to all these half-dead folk? Thank you.’

‘Hold on! Hold on.’ Before the sarcastic bugger could hang up. ‘We left an advisory notice — in case Spencer gets a visitor? It’s important.’

A long sigh. ‘That what all these stupid posters are about?’

‘Can you make sure the new ward knows he’s—’

‘Don’t you think I’ve got more important things to do than run around after you? I’m trying to save lives here!’ And the line went dead.

Logan puffed out his cheeks. ‘I get that the NHS is a marvel, and we’re lucky to have it, and most of the people working there are brilliant, dedicated, selfless individuals, who do their best under incredibly difficult circumstances... but by Christ there’s some complete and utter arseholes.’

He scowled out the window as the pool car wound deeper into the maze.

Had to admit: it was kind of nice here. Green and leafy, arranged around a wee lochan. Like being in the countryside.

Still, there was no time to enjoy the view, not now that Dr Drummond had made life more difficult.

Logan thumbed out a text to Doreen:

SEND.

Tufty took another right, into a nest of branching cul-de-sacs, ending up outside a bungalow with a garage conversion and a brown Volvo on the lock-block driveway.

Stifling a yawn, Logan climbed out.

A white picket fence bordered a flat rectangle of grass featuring an array of garden gnomes, dressed as Darth Vader and his stormtroopers, the alien from Predator fishing in a star-shaped pond, and a knee-high concrete AT-AT that doubled as a bird bath.

Not exactly what you’d call classy.

Tufty locked the pool car, then trotted up the drive and rang the bell. Instead of a good, wholesome ‘ding-dong’ it launched into the Cantina tune from Star Wars. Which was far too jaunty for this time in the morning.

As it tootled out, Tufty gazed at the lawn ornaments with a wistful sigh. ‘See, this is what you miss out on when you live in a flat.’ He gave Logan a wee sideways glance. ‘Sa-arge, I know I is only a lowly sidekick and all that, but... I thought we’re meant to be all about the big newspapery abduction today?’

‘Try it again.’

Tufty poked the button and ‘Doot-da-doot-da-dooda-doo...’ parped out once more.

‘We are.’ Logan stretched his shoulders and back. ‘We’ve got Steel’s lot on background, we’ve got door-to-doors interviewing the neighbours, we’ve got search teams out, people reviewing ANPR and CCTV footage, Forensics going over the house with a magnifying glass, and support staff sticking it all into HOLMES. So instead of getting in the way, we are multitasking. Someone needs to interview the last of Charles MacGarioch’s little friends, and it might as well be us.’

He pointed at the bell, and Tufty did the honours a third time.

‘Doot-da-doot-da-dooda-doo...’

‘Besides: Chief Superintendent Pine is in charge of Operation “Find Natasha Agapova”. I’ve still got everything else to run.’ Lucky sod that he was. Another point. ‘And again.’

‘Doot-da-doot-da-dooda-doo...’

Logan’s phone ding-buzzed.

DOREEN:

He poked out a reply while the Cantina theme launched into its fourth encore. Or was it fifth?

Good leadership is about delegation.

Tufty was reaching for the bell again, when the door finally opened a crack and a bloodshot eye peered out at them.

A rough voice slithered after it, reeking of stale booze. ‘Frelling smeg. Have you got any idea what time it is?’ There was a cough, and a sniff, then a long, sticky moan as whoever it was twigged. ‘Oh... wank. It’s the cops.’

Either the Cunninghams were a proper bunch of slobs, or they’d thrown some sort of hedonistic rave last night.

The living room was littered with crumpled beer and lager cans, empty wine and alcopop bottles, and overflowing ashtrays. Making everything smell like a pub carpet from the eighties. In what was probably meant to be an ironically retro touch, the remains of a cheese-and-pineapple hedgehog wilted on a fat dinner plate. The hollow bones of Pringle tubes crushed into the floor. Along with what might have been Monster Munch.

Framed film posters adorned the walls — Close Encounters, Alien, Silent Running, Star Trek II and IV, The Empire Strikes Back, The Fifth Element... — and although there wasn’t a single ornament on display, a pair of crossed lightsabers glowed above the fireplace. One red, one blue.

A pair of patio doors were cracked open an inch, letting in the grinding snores of a large man sparked-out in the paddling pool. Lying flat on his back with his arms hanging over the inflatable sides, head dangling towards the house. Greying stubble wrapped around a slightly chubby face.

Going by the flush of angry red spreading across his round, pale, hairy belly and chest, he’d been snoozing out there in the sun for a while.

Tufty bumbled over to the doors, stood on his tiptoes, and peered into the garden. ‘Oooh... They does got a firepit that looks like the Deathstar!’

Of course they did.

Logan swept a scattering of popcorn and cigarette papers onto the floor, then whumped down on the couch, making the black leather squeak.

Which had the added bonus of giving him a clear line of sight into the kitchen, to make sure their host wasn’t doing a runner.

Alexis Cunningham must have partied hearty last night because she shuffled about like a broken banana today. Limp hair hanging over her heavy dark eyebrows, pale washed-out face, dark circles under her eyes, and a large mole on her top lip. Not really dressed for company in a grey ‘NOSTROMO MAINTENANCE CREW’ T-shirt, pink running shorts, bare legs, and fuzzy Yoda slippers.

She thunked the fridge door shut, cracked the ringpull on a fresh tin of Rampant Gorilla — ‘CAFFEINATE TO DOMINATE!’ — and took a big long scoof. Before belching, sagging, and slouching back through into the living room.

Alexis blinked her way over to the lightsabers and flicked a hidden switch, killing the glow. Then turned to survey the devastation. ‘Urgh... Shazbot.’ Another scoof. ‘You here about Charlie?’

Logan checked to make sure Tufty was writing this down. ‘Let me guess: Orphan Grapevine?’

‘Our drums have been pounding in the darkness for days...’ She banged a palm against the patio doors. ‘GRAHAM, YOU DAFT BUGGER: YOU’LL FRY! COME IN!’ More Rampant Gorilla. ‘Swear to God, that man can not drink tequila.’

‘Quite the party last night.’

She pulled her top lip back, exposing little pointy teeth. ‘Well, aren’t we an observant little Samuel Vimes.’

Nope.

No idea what that was supposed to mean.

Tufty looked up from his notepad. ‘He’s the big detective character in Terry Pratchett’s Diskworld novels, Sarge.’

Alexis squinted her bloodshot eyes at the wee loon. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’

‘Any chance we can circle back to Charles MacGarioch?’ Logan pointed at the scattered party debris. ‘Was he here, last night?’

‘Charlie? Nah.’ She crumpled down into a matching black-leather armchair and put her feet on the coffee table. ‘Haven’t seen him since that night in The Hare and Parsnip. Friday before last?’ Her heavy eyebrows scrunched together. ‘Or was it a Wednesday...?’ She balanced her energy drink on the arm of the chair and rummaged a small metal tin from beneath a pile of Empire magazines — popping it open to reveal a pack of Golden Virginia and a thing of rolling papers. Then turned to look through the patio doors. ‘You think it’s OK to leave him out there? You know, with melanomas and drowning and that?’

‘And does the Orphan Grapevine say anything about where Charlie might be hiding?’

‘Hmmm...’ She sprinkled a line of tobacco across a Rizla. ‘Opinion’s split on that one. Some people say, “Talk to the cops, it’s for Charlie’s own good.” Others say, “When does talking to the cops ever help with anything? Fuck ’em!”’ Licking the paper, then rolling it up. ‘No offence, Elijah Baley.’

Tufty held his pen up, before Logan could ask. ‘The homicide detective in Isaac Asimov’s Robot series.’

Alexis turned in her seat to examine him. ‘Takeshi Lev Kovacs.’

‘Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon, 2002. Come on, try a hard one.’

She tilted her head to one side. ‘You sure I don’t know you?’

Logan cleared his throat. ‘Drifting off topic again, people.’ Waiting till they were both looking at him. ‘We really are trying to help Charlie. He could be hurt. And what kind of life’s he going to have, on the run for the rest of his days?’

‘Why are you after him, Master Li?’ Snapping a finger-gun at Tufty. ‘And that makes you...?’

‘Number Ten Ox.’ A shrug. ‘Could be worse.’

She seemed pleased with that, because she smiled. Nodded. Then sparked up her handmade fag and blew a pillar of smoke at the ceiling. ‘Anyone tell you about Wallace Tower in Seaton Park? Used to squirrel off there when his nan was going all Borg Queen on him.’

Which meant they now had corroboration, and Randolph Hay had been telling the truth.

Alexis tapped a flake of ash into the already crowded ashtray. ‘Or you could try Keira’s place?’

‘Thought his grandmother broke them up?’

‘She always was a racist sack of rat shite.’ Another puff. ‘Charlie wasn’t here last night, because this wasn’t an Orphan Outing — just some of Graham’s mates, round for his annual DS9 marathon. Charlie never misses an Orphan Outing.’ Alexis drained her Rampant Gorilla. ‘And I mean you could hack off his leg with a rusty Bat’leth and he’d still drag himself along. Some people are just...’ Her face scrunched up again, and she pointed at Tufty. ‘Were you at Roboticon last year, or something?’

No answer from the wee loon.

Because for once he’d paid attention about staying on topic.

Logan checked his watch — 07:59 — better get shifting if they were going to visit the final name on the list, before this stupid MAPPA meeting. ‘OK, well if Charlie gets in touch, will you let me know? Please.’

He produced a business card and held it out across the coffee table.

Alexis didn’t take it, just looked at the thing as if he’d offered her a sheet of used toilet paper.

Tufty sighed. Then pointed at the framed posters. ‘I was in a sci-fi film once, but the studio binned it before release. Was more profitable to take the tax write-off and pulp every copy.’ Pulling up his shoulders, before letting them sag again. ‘I played a robot-spider-henchperson thing.’

Her bloodshot eyes widened. ‘God, I knew it: you worked for Baroness Grimdark! Arachnox! We watched a bootleg DVD. Wow...’ She ground out her roll-up and scrambled to her flip-flopped feet. ‘Can I get a selfie? God. Wow...’ Backing towards the patio doors. ‘Don’t move! I gotta get Graham — he’ll kill me if he finds out we had a bona fide film star right here, and I didn’t wake him up!’

And Tufty beamed like a lighthouse.

Logan lowered the sun visor, cutting the glare. Sitting on his tod in the passenger seat, phone pressed to his ear. ‘So other than “we have to buy a piano”, what else did we get lumbered with after I left?’

A pair of magpies hopped and cackled across the lawn, then jumped up and down on Darth Vader’s little gnomey head.

Tara groaned. ‘Her art class is doing an exhibition at the Cowdray Hall in October. We’re in for five books of raffle tickets to pay for art supplies.’

‘Lovely... What do we get if we win?’

‘One of the kids’ paintings. Second prize is two paintings.’

He kept his voice flat and dead. ‘You’re hilarious, you know that, don’t you.’

‘Oh, and we met a slightly scary Goth girl who says she knows you?’

A yawn stampeded its way through Logan’s body, cracking his jaw wide, followed by a wee burp, a shudder, and a sag. ‘Sorry. Long night.’

The door to number thirteen opened and Tufty emerged into the sunlight, followed by Alexis and the guy from the paddling pool — now wearing jogging bottoms and a Stargate T-shirt. All three of them grinning away like idiots.

‘Only, apparently, Elizabeth is part of her gang now — like it’s prison or something. They’ll be getting matching tattoos and wearing colours next... Are you sure we can’t afford to send her to private school?’

‘Rebecca’s a good kid, don’t be mean.’

Tufty shook Alexis’s hand, then the bloke — Graham, was it? — lifted him off the ground in a great big bear hug. Laughing.

‘I’d better go — looks like the wee loon’s finished playing Sci-Fi Film Star.’

‘Invite him to the barbecue, you miserable old bumfart.’

‘Go away and... confiscate some counterfeit handbags. I’ve got a killer to catch.’ He hung up.

That would teach her.

Probably not.

But it was the thought that counted.

Logan took out the list of Charles MacGarioch’s associates, and put a line through Alexis Cunningham’s name as Tufty pretty much skipped down the garden path and over to the driver’s side.

The wee loon wriggled in behind the wheel, then waved out the window at his brand-new fans. Who both waved back at him.

Tufty started the car. ‘Weren’t Alexis and her uncle nice?’

Maybe, if you liked weirdos.

‘And she’s promised to help us, now — cos I is a international celebrity of famousness.’

‘Drive.’ Logan pointed back towards town. ‘We’ve only got an hour to wheech over to Broomhill, interview Marshall Carter, and get back to the station in time for that meeting.’

‘Nah.’ Tufty tapped the dashboard clock. ‘Hour and ten, Sarge.’

Logan shot a full-on Paddington across the pool car. ‘Those ten minutes are my pee-and-coffee time. Do not spoil them.’

‘Eeek!’

Tufty drove.

45

Granville Place was a quiet residential street, not far from Broomhill Road, with big grey-granite detached bungalows on one side and big pink-granite semis on the other. Lots of attic conversions and neat little front gardens encased in ankle-high walls, well-trimmed hedges and flowering borders. Where nearly every car was a newish hatchback.

Tufty pulled up outside one of the grey houses, featuring a blue door, a handful of rose bushes, and a water feature. ‘It’s not my fault we had to stop for petrol, Sarge.’

Logan climbed out into the sticky morning. ‘You could’ve picked a car that wasn’t running empty!’

‘No I couldn’t.’ Plipping the locks and following Logan up the path to the front door. ‘Everyone plays “How Low Can The Petrol Gauge Go?” these days. You lose ten points if you have to fill it up again. I’m on minus sixty.’ He scuttled ahead and rang the bell. A wee frown puckered his empty forehead. ‘I sometime worry that we work with a bunch of Trouser Grinches.’

And speaking of idiots...

Logan pulled out his phone and texted Rennie:

SEND.

A deadbolt clunked, then the door swung wide, revealing a young woman in Mr Men pyjama bottoms and a T-shirt emblazoned with ‘THE MIGHTY MR RHODODENDRON’. Long nose, glasses, and huge amount of dark frizzy hair. A bit like Elizabeth’s English teacher, only a lot more suspicious of strangers. She looked them up and down, then pulled her chin in. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Good morning, Miss.’ Logan checked the list. ‘Is Marshall Carter in?’

That produced a grimace. ‘She is. And before you say anything — I know, but it’s too late to change it now.’

Marshall Carter bustled about with mugs and teabags as the kettle rumbled to a boil. ‘...and I tried going by “Marsha” for a while, but it just ended up as “Marshy”, then “Swampy”, then “Swamp Thing”. Then I had to move schools because of fighting, and it was easier to go back to “Marshall” again.’

The kitchen wasn’t bad, with lots of wood and shiny appliances, and a view out over the well-tended back garden.

She peeked into a biscuit tin. Went, ‘Poop.’ Then plonked it back down beside a wee pile of post, today’s paper, and a couple of flyers for ‘RUMPLINGTON BROTHERS’ CIRCUS OF DELIGHTS!’ — complete with photos of strangely un-miserable clowns, acrobats, and a funfair.

Logan leaned back against the worktop. ‘I take it you’ve heard we’re looking for Charles MacGarioch.’

She poured boiling water into all four mugs. ‘Word is he torched that migrant hostel.’

Tufty raised his eyebrows.

‘Really?’ Logan kept his voice nice and neutral. ‘Who told you that?’

‘The first rule of Orphan Club is: you do not clype on other members of Orphan Club.’

‘And you’d be... OK with him burning the hotel down, with people inside? If that’s what he’s done.’

‘Course not.’ Mashing the teabags with a spoon, working her way down the line.

‘But...?’

She dumped the first bag in the sink, then fished out a second. ‘It’s weird. To start with I hated being called an “orphan”. It’s such a heavy word to tie around a child’s neck. “You’re an Orphan now, Marshall, and you have to go live with Pappa Carter.”’

She put on a child’s sing-song voice. ‘“Mar-shall’s an orphan, Mar-shall’s an orphan.”; “Where’s your parents, orphan girl? Oh, that’s right, you haven’t got any!”’

A splosh of milk in everyone’s tea. ‘Sometimes you have to reclaim a word, wear it with pride so the bastards can’t use it to hurt you.’

She handed a mug to Logan. ‘You’ve been to see Keira, right? Charlie never stayed at her house overnight, because his nan would freak if he was out of her sight for that long. Obviously the world’s full of corrupting influences for her nice little white boy.’ A sad little laugh. ‘She’ll be throwing a total wobbly now he’s missing.’

‘So... you think his grandmother radicalised him? He burned the hotel to please her?’

‘Charlie’s been shagging the darkest one of his friends to spite the old cow.’ She passed a mug to Tufty. ‘Sorry, that was unfair. There was probably a bit of spite involved, but Charlie really does love Keira. The only reason he doesn’t have her name tattooed across his chest is his nan would find out.’ Marshall rolled her eyes. ‘And “Oh, the stress would kill her!” Good sodding riddance.’

Marshall picked Mug Number Three off the worktop. ‘’Scuse me. Need to take this up to Grandad.’ Then off she went, shutting the door behind her.

Tufty had a slurp. ‘Sarge: you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘I severely doubt it.’ Frowning out at the garden. ‘Every single one of Charles MacGarioch’s friends swears he wasn’t racist. Or xenophobic. Or a violent prick. So why the arson attack on a migrant hotel?’

The wee loon put on his old-man-doctor voice again. ‘“In times like these, my old friend and colleague, Mr Sherlock Holmes, would go back to the very beginning, because it’s a very good place to start.”’

‘If you burst into song, I’m going to wallop you one.’

There had to be some sort of reason for all this horror and misery. People didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to torch a hotel full of people.

A lovely big ginger cat padded its way across the grass, tail a feather-duster plume against the dark foliage.

A blackbird hurled abuse at it from the branches of a plum tree.

A quartet of bluetits swarmed around a dangly thing of peanuts...

Maybe the wee loon had a point?

‘OK, let’s go back to the very beginning: how did we land on Charles MacGarioch as our suspect? Easy: we got an anonymous tip-off on the Crimestoppers hotline.’ Logan took a sip of tea. Bit peely-wally, but not bad. ‘Can you bring the call up? Play it?’

‘Erm...’ Tufty fiddled with his phone. ‘Might take a while...’

‘So, the informant tells us about some forensic evidence planked in Tillydrone. We go look, and lo-and-behold, there’s Charles MacGarioch’s fingerprints all over a five-litre petrol can. Tests show that bits of foliage from a hedge next to the hotel got trapped when the lid was screwed back on.’ Logan plucked the newspaper from the pile of post by the poopy biscuit tin — that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner. ‘We get a warrant — go in locked-and-loaded — and the next thing you know, we’re pulling an ice-cream van out of the river and Charles MacGarioch’s disappeared.’

He unfolded the paper: ‘NEWSPAPER OWNER ABDUCTED BY SICK WEIRDO’ above a photo of Natasha Agapova, with the subheading ‘POLICE FUMBLE INVESTIGATION AS WORLD PRESS LOOKS ON’.

Bloody Colin Bloody Miller.

‘Oh for...’ Logan thumped the front page. ‘How can we be fumbling it? We only found out last night! Bunch of bastards.’

‘Bingoroonie.’ Tufty pressed something, then held his phone out.

A distorted electronic voice crackled from the wee speaker: ‘I GOT SOME INFORMATION FOR YOU ABOUT THE FIRE AT THAT HOTEL, WITH THEM MIGRANTS. IT WAS CHARLES MACGARIOCH WHAT DID IT. HE BURNED THEM OUT GOOD... AND I GOT EVIDENCE. LOOK IN THE BIG SHARED BINS AT TILLYDRONE COURT... HE’S A DIRTY WEE RACIST BASTARD, WHO HATES IMMIGRANTS AND FOREIGNERS, AND HE DESERVES EVERYTHING HE’S GOT COMING.’

Tufty lowered his phone. ‘That’s the lot.’

The door banged open and Marshall stomped in, finger up, mouth open, looking as if she was ready to give them a shouting at.

But instead of having a go, she stopped in the middle of the kitchen, frowning. Turning on the spot. Looking for something. Or someone...

‘Oh... Thought I heard Spence.’ She shook her head, then helped herself to the last mug of tea. ‘Muscle-headed idiot still owes me fifteen quid for his circus tickets.’ She froze, frowning back at Logan. ‘What?’

He put the paper down. ‘You thought you heard “Spence”? Spencer Findlater?’

‘He’s got this stupid app on his phone that does voices. You record a message and play it back as... I don’t know: Hannibal Lecter, or the Joker, or... whatsit — killer robot thing from that Netflix show with all the explosions.’ She pulled a face. ‘That one got old really quick.’ Poking the worktop with an angry finger. ‘Well, he’d better show with my money or I’ll jam that hilarious phone of his right up his wankhole. Bastard swore he’d come round yesterday, and did he? Did he bollocks.’

Sod.

Yesterday.

And Marshall’s house was, what, a ten-minute walk from the Balmain House Hotel, where Spencer Findlater had done a runner? Maybe fifteen, tops. He’d been coming here.

Tufty opened his mouth, but Logan cut across him, before he could say anything stupid.

‘I’ll bet. Boys with their toys, eh?’ Taking a swig of tea, nice and casual. ‘So: you’re all going to the circus? I was thinking of taking the family. We’re probably too late to get tickets, though. As it’s the last night.’

She shrugged one shoulder. ‘Probably depends which performance you want to see. I booked ours weeks ago for the eight o’clock. Couple of pints in the Queen Vic first, wander up to Westburn Park, catch the show, then hit the funfair.’ A smile spread across her face. ‘Leave a trail of hotdog-and-candy-floss vomit all the way home.’

Oh, to be young and foolish.

She toasted them with her mug. ‘If Spence doesn’t turn up with my cash soon, I’ll scalp you his ticket if you like?’

Ah...

‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news about that.’ Logan put his tea on the counter. ‘You might want to sit down...’

‘...and flipping bazinga!’ Tufty bounced about in the driver’s seat, as if dancing to some punk-rock tune only he could hear. ‘We does has cracked the case wide open, like an alien chestburster and John Hurt’s chest. Only we is definitely the xenomorph in this scenario and not John Hurt, cos his character did wind up dead, whereas we has wound up victorious investigators!’

Twit.

Carden Place slid by the pool car’s windows, its granite buildings sparkling in the burning sun as Logan poked out a text to Chief Superintendent Pine:

His finger hovered over the ‘Send’ icon.

Yes, but what would getting Forensic IT involved actually achieve? And how long would it take them, given their caseload? Never mind the operational costs — did it make any difference if they could prove the guy in intensive care ratted out his mate?

Assuming they ever got their hands on Charles MacGarioch, they could just play him the recording and let him jump to his own conclusions.

Logan deleted that last sentence and replaced it with:

Because surely the head of A Division would have more luck shouting ‘FROG!’ at them than he had.

Worth a go, anyway:

SEND.

Tufty stopped bum-dancing and had a frown instead. ‘Do you think Marshall’s going to be OK? She took it pretty hard.’

‘At least she’s got her grandad. And her friends.’

Speaking of which...

He brought up Randolph Hay’s last text and fired-off a reply:

Knowing the Orphan Grapevine, every one of Spencer’s friends would know by lunchtime. With any luck, maybe one of them would even check in on his grandad?

Must remember and ask Pine about that care package...

Tufty sighed. ‘It’s a shame we can’t just be the Happy Police. Nothing but good news and handing out sweeties.’

Yeah. That’s how people ended up on the register.

Logan tapped his phone against his chin as the pale spiky mass of a deconsecrated church loomed at the side of the road.

In an ideal world, they’d just head up to ARI and interview Spencer Findlater. But that was a bit tricky, what with him being unconscious and everything.

Just have to find Charles MacGarioch the old-fashioned way.

Still no reply from Rennie about the stakeout, so Logan gave the lazy sod a call. Listening to it ring and ring and ring.

Carden Place turned into Skene Street and one side of the street swapped granite grey for leafy green.

‘You have reached the Triple-Five Messaging Service. Please leave a message after the tone.’

Bleeeep.

Logan did: ‘Where are you?’ Then hung up. ‘Rennie’s not answering his phone.’

Tufty nodded, as if that were only to be expected of a second-rate ex-sidekick. ‘Did I tell you Kate’s moving in tonight? Well, mostly moving in; she’s still got a bunch of stuff at her dad’s. But I does officially has a “lovenest”!’ Dancing in his seat again.

Logan tried Steel instead — it just rang and rang as well.

A grin from the wee loon. ‘Never lived with a woman before. Well, my mum, but that doesn’t count for the purposes of this narrative.’ Looking across the car. ‘When did you get your first lovenest Sarge? Was it—’

‘The hell do you want?’

Charming as ever.

‘Progress report would be nice.’

‘Lunchtime, you said: it’s not even twenty past nine!’

‘Have you guys not done anythingat all?’

‘Course we sodding have, but it’d go quicker without you crawling up my bumhole every five minutes.’

They nipped straight through the lights by Aberdeen Grammar School, just as they changed to amber.

‘Rennie’s not answering his phone.’

‘Then go make his life miserable instead of mine! Gaaaah!’ And with that, she hung up. Because Steel had never really got the hang of being demoted, as if the world should just pretend she still outranked him.

‘You know,’ Logan popped his phone on the dashboard, ‘I’m beginning to regret bumping her up to acting DI again.’

Tufty took them straight across the junction with Rosemount Viaduct, past the Noose & Monkey, and on down the hill — because he clearly wasn’t wild and rebellious enough to drive down Schoolhill, violating its pedestrian-and-cycle zone. ‘If you’re looking for someone to promote, I’m in the market, Sarge. Now that I’ve got a lovenest to support.’

‘Detective Inspector Stewart Quirrel...’ He pantomimed out a massive shudder. ‘That’s a bilious sack of cheese-fuelled nightmares, waiting to happen.’

‘But it would make a great six-part drama for BBC Two. I could play myself, on account of already being an international-film-star-celebrity-type person!’

Do not encourage him.

Logan changed the subject: ‘When we get back to the ranch, I want you to come up with a plan that’ll get me out of this stupid MAPPA meeting, OK? Some sort of breakthrough, like yesterday.’ Hang on... ‘Only no more dead bodies! We’ve got enough crap to wade through as it is.’

46

Forty-five minutes in and still no sign of rescue from Tufty.

Instead, Logan was stuck in the same boring Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements meeting, with the same boring talking points from the same boring people, the same assortment of disappointing biscuits, and the same burnt-plastic-tasting-mouldering-away-in-a-thermos coffee.

Wasn’t easy — pretending to pay attention when the air was treacle-thick, after a scant two-hours’ sleep in the passenger seat of a manky Vauxhall.

Oliver from Waste and Recycling pointed his clicker at the pull-down projection screen and yet another dull graph loomed across the wall. ‘So, we can see that the projected refuse from the event is likely to overspill all bin capacity in the designated area...’

Maybe no one would notice if Logan just shut his eyes for a minute or three. Not as if there was anything worth listening to anyway.

Jessica from the Roads Department swirled the little red dot of her laser pointer across a map of central Aberdeen. ‘...and unless we limit the scope of the march, we’re looking at road closures on Holburn Street, Alford Place, Rose Street, Chapel Street, Bon-Accord Terrace—’

‘All right, Jessica,’ Keith from the Council waved a hand in her direction. ‘I think we can all read the slide.’

Her face pinched. ‘Excuse me, Keith, but I don’t remember interrupting your presentation with passive-aggressive attacks. I am merely trying to illustrate the scale of the challenge presented by the proposed route.’

To be honest, even another dead body would be welcome at this point...

The air in Conference Room One was now so stale you couldn’t even sell it as a roadside-service-station sandwich.

Logan propped his head up with one hand, freeing the other to write the same five words in his notepad, over and over again: ‘KILL THEM. KILL THEM ALL!’

Abby from the Ambulance Service scrubbed her hands across her face, making her silver bob quiver. Even the three-pipped epaulettes on her dark-green, short-sleeved shirt were beginning to wilt as she had another go: ‘Look, I’m sorry if this is inconveniencing everyone, but there’s limited capacity and we’re already looking at a restricted service due to illness. Add in the fact that we’re running out of hospital beds, and this whole thing is a major incident waiting to happen!’

Keith gave her the benefit of a patronising smile. ‘I think what Abby is trying to say is that while there are challenges to overcome, Aberdeen can meet them — with sufficient planning and some smart resource management!’

She curled her hands into claws and bared her teeth at the ceiling tiles. ‘That’s not what I’m saying at all! I’m saying this march is the worst possible thing, happening at the worst possible time!’

Logan’s pen went to work again: ‘KILL THEM. KILL THEM ALL!’

Two and a half hours after it started, everyone filed out of the meeting room. Bustling off to make someone else’s life miserable for a change.

Logan ripped the incriminating pages from his notebook, crumpled them up and lobbed them overhand at the bin.

Ten points.

Which was the first good thing that’d happened since arriving back at the station.

He stepped into the corridor, and there was Captain Useless, waiting for him with a clipboard.

Logan gave Tufty a glare. ‘Where were you, when I needed rescuing in there?’

‘First: Sergeant Rennie’s been sent home with the Snottery Ague.’

Of course he had.

‘So, who’s running the surveillance op?’

‘Sergeant Moore. He says,’ reading from the clipboard, ‘“Still no sign of MacGarioch. Now bored wankless and regretting decision to become a policeman.”’ A shrug. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’ Back to the clipboard. ‘Second: you’ve got a review at one for Operation Hedgehog, two o’clock for Operation Red Dragon, half two for Operation Beholder, three fifteen is Operation Basilisk. Then you’ve got a break till half four and it’s Operation Owlbear, four forty-five: Operation Firedrake, and Professional Standards at five. We shall call that “Operation Necrophidius”, which, as we all know, means “Death Worm”. And DI Marshall wants a word about Operation Disenchanter, soon as possible.’

Logan stared at him. ‘What the utter, goat-buggering hell are you talking about?’

‘I named all the operations, Sarge, so we know which one we’re talking about.’

Unbelievable.

He shook his head, stalking off down the corridor. ‘Halfwits. Just... total...’

Tufty scampered after him. ‘Oh, and Operation Gelatinous Cube are waiting for you now.’ A little wistful sigh whined free. ‘They has got chips!’

They pushed through the door at the end, into reception.

Council workers bustled about, buying sandwiches from a man with a cart, or heading out for a sneaky lunchtime pint or three to get them through the day.

Logan scuffed to a halt. ‘Gelatinous what?’

‘Cube, Sarge. It’s a ten-foot block of acidic ooze that consumes any organic material it finds in the dungeon. Like—’

‘Just... What — is — it: the operation, you ffffff...’ Don’t say it. Calm. Try not to scream at whatever the buggering fuck this was. He scrunched his eyes closed and strangled it down. ‘Please, Tufty, do not screw with me right now. I’ve had nothing to eat, except a couple of manky meeting-room biscuits, since yesterday lunchtime; I’ve had two hours’ sleep; I’m running on caffeine and fumes;’ peeling one eye open to glare at the little twit, ‘and I will genuinely murder you!’

Tufty pulled his chin in. ‘Ah... OK: it’s Acting DI Steel’s team doing background on Natasha Agapova and Adrian Shearsmith.’

‘THEN JUST BLOODY SAY SO!’

The lunchtime buzz evaporated, and everyone turned to stare at the shouty police officer.

Deep breath. ‘Sorry.’ Logan massaged his temples. ‘Can we...’ pointing at the stairwell. ‘Please?’

Going pink from the nape of his neck to the tips of his ears, Tufty scurried over there, unlocked the security door and held it open. ‘Sarge.’

He stomped past into the stairwell. ‘Thank you.’

Halfway up the stairs, in strained silence, and here came Biohazard, clattering his way down towards them. Carnivorous underwear eating his rectum again. Leaving him a little out of breath. ‘Guv! Guv! Oh, thank shite for that. There’s a—’

‘Should you not be elbows-deep in a post mortem right now?’

‘Got called out of it. We have a... situation. Complication. Thing.’

Was there ever anything else?

Logan headed up the steps again. ‘Why me?’

Biohazard hurried after him. ‘You know you got them to run tests on a pish stain at that newspaper woman’s house, right?’

‘If someone wants to whinge about the Forensics budget, tell them to take it up with the Chief Super.’

‘No, Guv, it’s...’ He grabbed Logan’s sleeve. ‘They got DNA off it and there’s a hit in the database.’

‘Finally something goes right! Who was it?’ Turning to shout down the stairs. ‘Tufty: get a car, we’re off to arrest the bastard and save the day!’

‘That’s the complication:’ Biohazard cleared his throat, then looked off into the distance — not making eye contact. ‘DNA matches the guy we pulled out of the river yesterday. It’s Andrew Shaw.’

Logan barged into the tiny incident room and the stomach-growling aroma of hot chips and sharp vinegar. ‘How?’

Biohazard slunk in after him. ‘Well, I don’t know, do I! I got the message: I came to tell you. I’m just the messenger here, I’m not for shooting!’

Contrary to expectations, Steel’s team had actually done some work for a change: the whiteboard wall was covered in notes and lines and boxes, the flipchart even had a checklist of steps on it — most of which had been ticked off. And now, they were all sitting about, munching through their chipfest.

Steel popped a chunk of fish in her gob, chewing with her mouth open. ‘Aye, aye, it’s the Chuckle Brothers. Come to spread a bit of lunchtime cheer?’

Tufty pulled a chair over to the whiteboard wall and climbed up onto it to write ‘OPERATION “FIND NATASHA AGAPOVA”’ at the top, above all the boxes and squiggles.

‘You:’ Logan stabbed a finger at Biohazard, ‘I need a list of last-known associates, right now.’

An embarrassed cough. ‘We’re still working on it, and—’

Logan clapped his hands, turning to face the lunch-munching room. ‘Everybody — change of plan. I need you to stop whatever you were doing and dig into Andrew Wallace Shaw instead.’

‘Urgh...’ Harmsworth made a depressed-frog face. ‘Didn’t I say this was going to bite us on the behind?’

Steel sooked her fingers clean. ‘And do you want to tell us why?’

‘Shaw was in Natasha Agapova’s house — he pissed in her daughter’s bedroom.’

‘Eh?’ Barrett blinked. ‘So, what, we’re saying he kidnapped her?’

Lund ripped the end off a mealie pudding. ‘Didn’t do a very good job of it, though, did he? Ended up dead in the river.’

‘Yeah, I know that, but I thought he was a rapey wee spud, not a kidnappy one.’

A grimace from Biohazard. ‘Oh, he was definitely rapey.’

‘Can we all please...’ Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, but the headache was already beginning to form. ‘That’s why we need a list of Shaw’s associates.’

The silence that followed was only interrupted by the sound of crunching and chewing. Lots of frowns doing the rounds. Hopefully as people thought about the implications.

Biohazard was the first to twig. ‘Hang on: you think Shaw had a rape buddy, right? But there’s no mention of him having a partner for any of the other attacks! Not in the witness statements, anyway.’ He bit his bottom lip, wrinkles growing between his eyebrows. ‘But maybe, when Shaw breaks into Agapova’s house, he’s already decided he won’t just rape-and-run — he’s going to abduct her. Take her somewhere to abuse, for as long as he likes. And that’s why he needs a rape buddy this time.’

Lund curled her lip. ‘Can we not use the words “Rape Buddy”? There’s nothing jolly-ha-ha about it.’

‘But something happens: Shaw and his...’ Biohazard cleared his throat as Lund scowled at him, ‘and his accomplice fall out. They fight, accomplice kills him, dumps his body, makes off with our victim.’

‘Ah...’ A raised eyebrow from Harmsworth. ‘Didn’t want to share the ransom.’ He bit into his mock chop, then paused, mouthful unchewed — making the words all muffled. ‘Hang on. In that case, why phone the answering machine and leave that “karma hurricane” threat?’

Steel crunched some more. ‘The boy’s got a point.’

A bit of mock-chop-chewing, then: ‘Theatrics? Or maybe it’s to throw us off the scent? We’re off looking for a lone-gunman-sort-of-revenge-killer when it’s really a pair of kidnappers?’

Logan pointed at Biohazard again. ‘Does the Chief Super know?’

‘Oh no.’ Backing away, hands up. ‘Just because I’m an acting DI, doesn’t mean I’ve got a death wish. And it’ll sound better coming from you, right, Guv?’

Steel grinned a greasy grin. ‘I’ll do it.’ Then dipped a lump of battered fish into a big sklodge of mayonnaise — munching away as a dollop fell onto her black T-shirt. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with her.’

Yeah, right.

‘No thank you, Monica Spewinsky. Things are bad enough, without you joining in.’

Come on: there had to be a logical way through this...

Logan paced in front of the whiteboard wall. ‘Maybe this kidnap plot didn’t just spring out of nowhere — maybe Natasha Agapova and Andrew Shaw’s paths crossed somehow?’ That made sense, didn’t it? Logan grabbed Biohazard by the shoulder and marched him towards the door. ‘Shaw worked in a hairdresser; she has hair. Start there. And tell Forensics, Shaw’s car is now top priority — could be our abduction vehicle. Strip it down to the bare metal if they have to, but find us something!’ Pausing on the threshold to point at everyone else. ‘The rest of you: less eating, more digging!’

XLVII

Natasha stood as far away from her anchor as the chain would allow, looking out through the crumbling window hole.

The air in her prison was like a giant fist, wrapped around her chest, squeezing every breath as merciless sunlight battered down on the world.

Those bastard flies had multiplied, droning through the sweaty, sticky air. And yeah, she used to shake them off, but what was the point? They just landed again. Feeding on the white tidemarks of salt that crusted her dirty, naked skin.

Mind you, it was hard to tell what was dirt and what was bruising. Everything ached as her battered flesh darkened — fresh blossoms of red and purple spreading out where DS Davis tried to break her ribs last night.

And speaking of the bastard...

Those fat buzzzzzzzzzzzzzing bluebottles weren’t the only sound; a diesel growl came from behind the barn, joined by a rattling crack, clank, scrape, and rumble.

And there, just visible through the gap between the barn’s concrete wall and the other crappy outbuilding, was a sliver of rusty yellow digger. The excavator arm swung back for another go, gouging a huge clod of earth from the weed-choked field. Lifting it high, then swinging it around to dump onto a growing pile.

You’d think the sonofabitch would be out in his patrol car, beating up suspects and soliciting bribes, or arresting people for telling the truth on social media, but here he was: digging a hole.

Or, more likely, a not-so-shallow grave.

And no prizes for guessing who that was for.

Natasha opened her water and took a small sip. Just enough to wet the inside of her mouth. There was still about a third of it left, but there was only so long you could nurse one tiny little bottle.

She struggled the top back on and placed it on the ground at her bare feet — not easy with both wrists cuffed to this stupid bloody collar — then hauled in a deep breath.

Took hold of the chain.

Braced herself.

And pulled.

And pulled.

And pulled...

But the galvanised bucket was stuck firm, wedged up against that bloody line of buried stone.

She gave it one last haul, legs trembling with the effort, jaw clenched, snarling out a strangled scream as black-and-yellow spots flickered across her prison’s bare stone walls. ‘BASTARD, WANKING... FUCK!’

Natasha let go of the chain and staggered, folding over with the effort, blood whump-whump-whumping in her ears.

God, how great it would be to take a sledgehammer and smash the living crap out of the thing, till the concrete shattered and the chain came free and the bin was covered in dents. Then go hunting for DS Bloody Davis.

Instead, all she could do was bare her teeth, stick her heel against the bucket’s lip and shove.

‘Fucking thing!’

Another shove, harder this time.

‘AAAAAAAAAAARGGH!’

It rocked back on its base.

Not far, maybe only an inch, before slamming down again with a heavy whump and a puff of dust. But it moved.

That was something, right?

Oh, that was more than something.

Right now, that was everything.

She peered through the window hole again.

The digger arm swung and gouged. Which meant Davis was probably going to be busy for a while.

Natasha dropped down on her bum, scooting forward till she could place one foot onto the bucket’s rim, then tipping over onto her back to get the other foot in place. Like she was lying on a doctor’s table, waiting for a smear test.

Another deep breath.

Then she shoved. And strained. And swore...

And the bucket bloody moved — slowly tipping backwards as her legs trembled with the effort. Then it was past its tipping point and the thing thumped over onto its side.

Yes!

She rolled over and clambered upright again. Breathing hard as she stood over the felled bucket. Then put her heel against the warm metal and pushed.

It was still bloody heavy, but it rolled.

A couple more and she’d even managed to get it over the buried rock.

By shoving at different points along her anchor, it was easy enough to make the bucket go left or right.

And yeah, it’d be way easier if she could push the thing about with her hands, but there was no chance of that while her wrists were attached to this bloody collar round her neck.

It was still a gigantic step forward, compared to ten minutes ago.

Now all she needed was for DS Davis to go walkabout for a few hours, so she could make use of her newfound freedom. Bastard had to go to work sometime, right?

Maybe she’d find a hacksaw, or a file, or a pair of bolt-cutters lying about the place? Anything that would break this bloody chain and set her free.

Assuming he wasn’t planning to finish digging that grave, then drag her straight out there and bury her alive. Screaming and scratching away inside her coffin. Hidden — deep in the cold dark ground — where no one would ever find her...

48

The conference room was packed. They’d even had to draft in extra chairs from the council offices. And now the noise was borderline deafening, as the assembled press fidgeted in their seats, shouting to each other, checking their equipment, yelling down the phone because it was so sodding loud.

Oh yes: a fatal arson attack on a migrant hotel, and a murdered body in the river, were sort of newsworthy enough, in their way, but a missing Media Tycoon was a STORY!

Logan scanned the room again.

No sign of the Chief Super, but PC Sweeny had taken shelter behind the cluster of flipcharts in the corner, crunching Rennies like they were on special offer, a stack of paper clutched to his chest, and a worried look on his face.

Logan slipped around the edge of the seating area and joined him. ‘Where’s the Boss?’

‘She’ll be here.’ A look of horror slithered across his face. ‘Why? Did someone say she wouldn’t be? Has something happened?’ Juggling his paperwork and dragging out his phone. ‘God’s sake, no one ever tells me anything...’

‘Far as I know, the briefing’s still on. I’m just looking for her.’

Sweeny scowled. ‘Don’t do that.’ He poked at his screen. ‘The one-o’clock feeding frenzy is going to be insane. We’ve got CNN and Fox News and Al Jazeera and... some stations from France, Germany, and Italy I can’t pronounce. Then there’s the Australian broadcasters and New Zealand and Mexico and Canada and I just want to go back to CID and be a proper policeman again...’

The door opened and in marched Chief Superintendent Pine.

Some of the less experienced newshounds perked up the moment she appeared — microphones, cameras, and notebooks at the ready — while the more practised hands kept right on doing what they were doing, safe in the knowledge that sod-all would happen till the briefing officially started.

Pine marched across the room to Sweeny’s flipchart fortress, and raised an eyebrow at Logan. ‘Don’t remember shouting “frog”.’

Sweeny checked his watch. ‘We’re going to be late.’

‘Been trying to get hold of you, Boss. Didn’t reply to any of my texts.’

‘Texts?’ A frown. ‘What texts? Are you sure you...’ She produced her phone, flipped the cover open, then sagged. ‘Bloody battery’s flat.’

So, it wasn’t just him.

‘That’s what I get for never being off the damn thing today.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Thought I told you to dress the part.’

Eh?

Full black uniform, peaked cap under the oxter, shiny black shoes. ‘But—’

‘You were trying to get hold of me?’

Sweeny made wafting gestures towards the podium, with its covered table and garland of microphones. ‘I’m sure whatever DCI McRae has to say, it can wait till after the briefing. Can’t keep the world press waiting!’

‘Boss: we have a complication.’

‘Oh God...’ Pine’s head fell back, and she winced at the ceiling. ‘I knew it was going to be a crap day the moment I got up...’

For a building that was so Gothic and over-the-top on the outside, Marischal College’s quad was strangely antiseptic and austere. There wasn’t a single bush or tree or bit of green in evidence. Just grey granite walls and big flat paving slabs.

The only things breaking the monochrome monotony were a line of uncomfortable-looking benches, and one of those stupid paint-a-fibreglass-statue-of-some-random-animal-or-cartoon-character-in-whacky-colours-to-express-your-civic-pride things. A large multicoloured haggis in this case, complete with tammy, bagpipe legs, and massive grin.

Somehow, it just made the bare space seem even more grim.

Logan and Chief Superintendent Pine stood in the sunlight, but Sweeny lurked in the nearest shadow. Like an indigestion-prone Gollum.

‘Christ.’ Pine covered her face with her hands. ‘That went well...’

‘Hardly your fault, Boss. It’s one of their own who’s missing — they were always going to turn this into a three-ring-circus of shite.’

‘Could’ve done without Adrian Shearsmith recording a sodding video address “for immediate release”.’

Yeah...

That definitely hadn’t helped.

Buried deep in his trouser pocket, Logan’s phone ding-buzzed at him. But he left it where it was, because Chief Superintendents were even worse than teachers when it came to things like that.

Sweeny tapped his watch. ‘Hate to rush you, Boss, but you’ve got a one-on-one with Channel Seven News in fifteen minutes. All the way from Australia.’

It was a bit underhand, but Logan floated the idea anyway: ‘Don’t suppose we can leak that Shearsmith’s putting his ex-wife’s life at risk with all this publicity?’

‘No!’ Sweeny reached for the antacids again. ‘Can you imagine what would happen if they found out we’d briefed against the victim’s family? Absolutely not.’

Pine shrugged. ‘Though we could have a private word with him? Try to make him see sense. All on the same side; pulling together as a team. Appeal to his conscience.’

‘He’s a media mogul. They don’t have one.’ Sweeny checked his watch again. ‘Fourteen minutes.’

‘I would really appreciate some sort of breakthrough on this one, Logan. A morsel of chum to throw to the sharks?’

Suppose this was her officially shouting ‘frog’.

OK.

Logan dug out his notebook. ‘We need door-to-doors on the road where Shaw’s car was found — canvass the whole area. Maybe he was thick enough to park near where they’re hiding Agapova?’

‘Could be worth a try.’ Though she didn’t sound convinced. ‘But why—’

‘SARGE!’

Everyone turned, and there was Tufty scampering across the quad like an excited squirrel, while Steel sashayed along behind him — playing it cool, pulling on a pair of massive sunglasses that looked suspiciously like the ones Rennie had ‘lost’.

‘Sarge, Sarge, Sarge, Sarge, Sarge!’ The wee loon skidded to a halt, ogled at Pine for a second, then tugged his forelock. ‘Oh, and Boss, of course.’

Steel caught up with him, waggling her eyebrows at the Chief Super. ‘Hey, Sexy.’

Pine stiffened. ‘Are you going to be like this till you retire?’

‘Probably worse, if anything.’ Big smile. ‘But I’m sweetly pretty and come bearing good news, so I’m sure you’ll indulge me.’ Wink. She turned to Logan. ‘Remember that bollocks you were on about: “Shaw worked in a hairdresser, Agapova has hair”? Well—’

‘We did find an connection!’ Tufty bounced on the spot. ‘She was one of his clients! Got a trim and her roots done, last week.’

Steel thumped him one for spoiling her big surprise. ‘We’re on our way to check the place out, if anyone’s interested?’

‘Go.’ Pine gave Logan the nod. ‘See who else is on Shaw’s books. And if anyone knows about an accomplice.’

Which sounded like a massive waste of time, but a wise frog did what he was told. ‘Boss.’

Steel sidled closer. ‘Why don’t you come, Roslyn? Be a bit crowded in the car, but you could sit on my lap? Wink, wink.’ Dropping her voice to a saucy whisper. ‘If you like, I can get the wee loon to drive over all the potholes. Bump-bump, jiggle-jiggle...?’

‘You do know I can have you suspended?’

‘Aye: on full pay.’ Adopting a damsel-in-distress pose: one arm out and down, the back of her other hand to her forehead. ‘Lawd have mercy — how ever will ah cope?’

Sweeny showed everyone his watch. ‘Twelve minutes. Look, it really would help to meet the reporter and crew first. Establish a rapport before they start filming? Please?’

Right: it was time for someone to take charge.

Logan poked a finger at Steel. ‘You: put your wrinkly libido back in its box.’ Then Tufty. ‘You: get a car.’ Then Sweeny. ‘You: you’re a police officer! Stop whining and grow a truncheon.’ Then Pine. ‘And you...’ He lowered his pointing finger. Cleared his throat. ‘We’ll get right on that. Boss.’

Biohazard’s voice whined out of Logan’s phone, as the pool car drifted up Union Street. ‘Oh, in the name of pish! How? I’ve got three more work-shy bastards signed off on the sick since yesterday — barely coping as it is...’

To be honest, Aberdeen’s main street was a bit depressing these days, dressed in all its boarded-up-and-To-Let-/-May-Sell finery, where charity shops and mobile phone places rubbed shoulders with vape stores, bookies, and the occasional chain outlet. A few local businesses had bucked the trend, but it was nothing like it used to be.

Tufty — doing the driving — was probably too young and teuchtery to remember it in its glory days, and Steel — parked in the back, like Lady Muck — was too demob-happy to care.

‘Come on, Guv: where am I supposed to find extra bodies for door-to-doors?’

‘That’s why they pay you the big bucks, Acting Detective Inspector Marshall. And you’d better PNC check everyone living in a two-street radius as well. Never know your luck...?’

The Doric-columned pomp of the Music Hall went by on the right, draped with banners for the Aberdeen International Book Festival.

On the other side of the road, a busker wanged away on her guitar outside Burger King, singing about how meat is murder and the monarchy are all a bunch of chinless parasites anyway.

‘Still there?’

Biohazard groaned. ‘Being a DI sucks balls.’ He hissed out a long breath, then: ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Good lad.’ Logan hung up.

Probably wouldn’t do any good, but at least it would look as if they were doing something. And with some investigations that was half the battle — making sure no one noticed you were just keeping busy until a lucky break popped up.

And who knew, maybe Andrew Shaw really had been thick enough to park his Peugeot outside wherever it was they were keeping Natasha Agapova?

This whole thing could be solved by teatime.

‘Sa-arge?’ Tufty waved across the car at him. ‘Do you think I should have a housewarming, Sarge? Well, another one. I mean I did has one when I moved into the flat, but—’

‘Ha!’ Steel reached through from the back and thumped him one. ‘A forty-eight-hour Dungeons and Dragons marathon isn’t a party. A party has booze, nipples, nibbles, and car keys in a bowl.’

Logan scowled at her in the rear-view. ‘Do you have to?’

‘You’re just jealous.’

‘I am not. I just don’t see why you’ve got to get randier and lechier with every passing day.’

Ding-buzz.

COLIN MILLER:

Steel stroked her chin. ‘It’s impending retirement that does it. Thirty years I’ve given this job. Thirty sodding years. I’ve got a lot of repressed angst to get rid of.’

Straight across at the lights, where Waterstones and Ottakar’s used to be — replaced by a New-York-style eatery and a Pret A Manger respectively. Because that was ‘progress’.

Ding-buzz.

COLIN MILLER:

Cheeky bastard. As if he and his stupid newspaper hadn’t made everything worse.

‘Aye, wait, did I say “repressed angst”? I meant “mischief”.’ Steel flashed an evil grin. ‘Soon as I’m retired, who am I going to wind up: Susan? She doesn’t deserve that.’

‘But we do?’

‘Trust me, Laz: you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.’

‘Like a peptic ulcer.’

The car drove past more boarded-up units and estate-agents’ signs. Then a bit of a highlight with Gilcomston Church — all pointy and fancy, shining in the afternoon sun. A couple of homeless gentlemen sat on the steps outside: Oliver Sharples, scoofing tins of Special Brew; while his associate, Eddy Dunn polished off a two-litre bottle of Strongbow, in contravention of Aberdeen City Council Bylaws 2009. They toasted the pool car as it pottered along.

Logan thumbed out a reply to Colin’s text:

That would teach him.

The wee loon slowed for the junction ahead, smiling away to himself. ‘You’d’ve been very proud, of Old Romantic Tufty, Sarge. Have I telled you the tale of how I did go down on one knee and gived Kate a wee jewellery box with her very own flat key in it?’ Wriggling in his seat. ‘It was an special key off the interwebs, what you can has cut at a Timpsons or the like, with a happy Totoro on it!’

Nope.

Logan looked over his shoulder. ‘Do you have any clue what he’s on about?’

‘To be honest, you kinda tune it out after a while. It’s sort of soothing in a way. Like white noise. Or geeky whale song.’

They stopped at the lights, alongside a bus full of schoolkids, who all looked as if someone had just told them Peppa Pig was off down the abattoir to be made into sausages.

Ding-buzz.

COLIN MILLER:

Great.

The lights changed and Tufty hooked a right, abandoning Union Street for the delights of Chapel Street, where takeaways faced off against boutique stores. ‘Ooh, nearly forgot, Kate wants to know: should we bring anything for the barbecue on Sunday?’

‘Nooooooo...’ Steel wrapped her arms around her head. ‘Tell me you didn’t invite him!’

‘Tara insisted.’

‘Ooh, ooh: how about mac-’n’-cheese, Sarge? Or pasta salad? Or a really big bag of oven chips? Everyone likes chips.’ He pulled into a parking space, across the road from a hairdresser’s with pink-and-purple signage: ‘BRENDA’S HAIR & BEAUTY PALACE ~ WE DO THAT VOODOO TO YOUR GO-TO HAIRDO!’

The whole front of the shop was glazed, so passers-by could watch people getting their hair cut — though all the chairs were empty right now. A trio of posters were taped on the inside of the glass: one offering a loyalty programme, ‘SIGN UP FOR MONTHLY HAIR-COLOURING AND GET FORTNIGHTLY ROOT-TOUCH-UPS FOR FREE!’; one advertising that circus in Westburn Park; and one for a ‘CHARITY HEN NIGHT!!!’, whatever that was, at the Hilton DoubleTree.

Logan climbed out into the scalding sunlight. ‘No one likes pasta salad, it’s like “yuck” mixed with “blah” in a bin-bag full of “meh...”’ And that was being polite.

A pair of seagulls screeched at each other from the top of adjoining communal bins, though it was hard to tell which one was winning: Landfill or Mixed-Recycling.

Tufty waited for Steel to slouch out from the back, then locked the car. ‘OK, but everyone loves macaroni-cheese, right?’

‘Long as you don’t put tomatoes in it.’

Steel fiddled with her uniform. ‘We have fried onions and bacon bits in ours.’ Digging at the crotch of her black Police Scotland trousers. ‘But then we’re very sophisticated.’

Tufty scampered across the road and opened the hairdresser’s door for them, with a little bow. Which looked bloody ridiculous in the full stabproof-and-high-vis kit.

Inside, Brenda’s Hair & Beauty Palace was... pink. With a pink-and-black tiled floor, pink walls, black work surfaces, and a row of circular mirrors reflecting the pink-and-chrome barber’s chairs. Even the sinks were pink. And the whole place had a disturbingly gynaecological air.

The usual collection of newspapers and magazines were piled up on a coffee table for the patrons’ reading pleasure, while a wall-mounted telly displayed afternoon TV with the sound turned off, so you could really enjoy the piped Bananarama jingling out of the salon’s speakers.

A grid of headshots graced the wall above the till — each one grinning or smouldering for the camera. Andrew Shaw was middle-left, doing his best Blue Steel with that big plastic face of his.

Down here, on the salon floor, a gangly young man was sweeping up a fuzzy drift of brown-and-grey hair, in skin-tight black jeans and a floaty pink shirt. His curly blue locks held back in a bouffant ponytail.

‘Welcome to chez moi!’ A plump middle-aged woman — Brenda, presumably — swept out from behind the desk, all smiles and open arms: pedal-pushers, wedge heels, a pink leopard-print blouse, and immaculate hair. She gave all three of them a good look, then wafted a hand in Logan and Tufty’s direction. ‘Well, I’m not sure even I can do anything about you two,’ pouncing on Steel to froof her fingers through the rampant chaos of sticky-out grey hair. ‘But this, I can work with!’

Steel’s eyes went wide, flicking from Logan to Brenda and back again. ‘Help...?’

No chance.

She was on her own this time.

49

Logan nodded at the wall of photos, above the till. ‘Andrew Shaw works here.’

‘Andy?’ Brenda let go of Steel’s mane and grabbed her shoulders instead. Steering her towards a seat. ‘Well, sort of. He hires a chair. Not been in today, though. Or yesterday, come to that. But it’s his money he’s wasting, right?’ She plonked Steel down and froofed her hair some more. ‘Have you ever thought of a bit of colour? I mean, you’re rocking the grey, but auburn would be nice with your complexion. Ooooooh: or a nice rich chestnut!’

Logan tried again. ‘Do you have a list of his clients?’

‘Hold on.’ Looking over her shoulder. ‘EMMA? EMMA SWEETIE, CAN YOU HELP THESE GENTLEMEN WHILE I GLAM UP THIS NICE LADY?’

A young woman emerged from a door at the back of the shop, with blonde hair down to the middle of her back and a wad of chewing gum on the go. All dressed up in pink and black.

Brenda clapped both hands down on Steel’s shoulders. ‘Now: how do you feel about a curly pixie with shaved sides?’

‘Ermm...’ Looking a bit like a hedgehog caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.

Emma slouched up to Logan and Tufty. Gave their haircuts a quick once-over, then rolled her eyes. ‘Yup?’ Sounding as bored as she looked.

‘Hi.’ Logan tried a friendly smile. ‘We need to see your appointments book, going back about eight wee—’

‘Six months would be great.’ Tufty tilted his head on one side. ‘Your hair is amazing, by the way. It’s like molten gold!’

‘Oh.’ And she locked right in, giving the wee loon a little hair flip and a giggle. ‘Why thank you. You’re so sweet.’ Emma slipped her arm into Tufty’s. ‘You come with me, and we’ll get you logged on to the computer.’

Logan did a slow three-sixty. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got CCTV, do you?’

She pointed with her free hand, lowering her voice to a whisper, even though there was no one else here. ‘Cameras are fake.’ Then squeezed Tufty’s arm. ‘Would you like a coffee?’ And led him away, back through the door she’d emerged from.

Didn’t sodding ask Logan if he wanted a coffee though, did she. Just snuck off with the wee loon.

Because women were essentially weird.

Meaning Logan had been abandoned, all alone, in the middle of the salon.

Pfff...

He wandered over to the coffee table and had a squint at the newspapers. The Aberdeen Examiner blared out its completely unfair ‘POLICE FUMBLE INVESTIGATION AS WORLD PRESS LOOKS ON’ nonsense, but because they’d scooped everyone on the Natasha Agapova story, none of the other publications were covering it. Yet. Instead, most of the tabloids hawked some variant of ‘SOAP STAR SIGOURNEY’S COCAINE SHAME’, except for the Scottish Daily Post which screamed ‘ILLEGAL MIGRANTS ROBBING OAP GRAVES’. Because when racists were lobbing Molotov cocktails, why not give them tokens for free petrol?

Bunch of bastards.

Logan abandoned the papers and went for a frown out through the shop windows at Chapel Street’s various comings and goings instead. Which wasn’t exactly thrilling.

Worse yet, the shop looked straight into the dining room of the hotel opposite, where a bunch of people were tucking into lunch.

His stomach snarled, like a wee gurgly wolf.

Well, it wasn’t as if he was doing anything right now.

Might as well make use of this time to achieve something...

Logan emerged from the Chapel Bakery — EST. 1954 — the proud owner of a takeaway coffee and two wee paper bags, promisingly spotted with grease.

Soon as his foot hit pavement he opened one of the bags, shoogling the pie inside upwards, until half of it poked out. Took a bite of mince-and-mealie. Whoopha-whoompha-whoomphing his breath around the blisteringly hot, but delicious mouthful.

Then scuffed his way down the street, munching away, trying not to burn his mouth as the sun battered down from its dusty blue sky.

Probably should’ve put on sunscreen this morning, because the skin on his cheeks was already starting to tighten.

When he got to the pool car, Logan popped his coffee on the roof and went to do the same with his other paper bag. But some sort of evil seagull radar must’ve tipped off Landfill and Mixed-Recycling to its contents, because the pair of them stopped screaming at each other and glared across the road with envious eyes.

Well, they could sod right off.

He kept a jealous grip on both bags. Munching away, and talking to himself, as he reread the posters in Brenda’s shop window. ‘What the hell is a “Charity Hen Night”?’

A voice cut through the warm air, almost directly behind him: ‘It’s kinda like bring-a-party-to-a-party, only with screaming drunken women, and male strippers.’

Logan swallowing his bite of pie before turning around.

It was the gangly young guy from the salon.

Mr Blue-Hair had swapped sweeping-up for fiddling with a bicycle-handlebar-sized vape. ‘And inflatable willies, of course. Lots and lots and lots of inflatable willies.’ Fiddling finished, he took a sook on the thing, puffing out a dragon cloud of fruity steam. ‘I worked behind the bar at one. Could’ve scraped oestrogen off the walls — thick as cream cheese it was.’

Logan finished off his pie. ‘You been at Brenda’s for long?’

‘Man and boy.’

‘Suppose you know Andrew Shaw?’

‘Andy? Yeah. Got a wicked touch with the colouring. His cuts need work, but that man can take you from a Three-PB Deepest Espresso Brown to a Ten-B Extra-Light Beige Blonde without even breaking a sweat.’ Another gargantuan tutti-frutti cloud puffed into the sky. ‘Total respect, like. Dude’s game’s got crackle, you know?’

Nope.

Why did young people have to talk a load of shite these days? When did words stop meaning what they’re meant to mean? And how OLD had Logan become since Elizabeth was born?

He creaked the lid off his coffee and took a sip. ‘Andrew have a lot of friends?’

‘Nah. Well, maybe down the gym. But think he kinda mostly keeps himself to himself. If we’re off for a cocky-T after work, he’s like half-a-lager and goneski.’

‘I see.’ Logan partially unwrapped Pie Number Two and had a bite. Mmmm: chicken curry. ‘Are you his friend?’

The young bloke chewed on the inside of his cheek for a bit. ‘Depends what he’s done. You being polis and everything.’

‘Ever hear him talk about his female clients?’

‘What, in a pervy way? Naaaaaahhhhh. Andy isn’t like that.’ A huge sook on the vape produced a volcanic cloud. ‘Only time I ever seen him completely tinfoiled was at the Christmas party. We all pile into The Groove Machine, for drinks-and-dancing after dinner, and he snogs some subsea engineer called Duncan. Said he only did it for a joke, but they were joking hard, you know? Tongues and,’ miming cupping someone’s crotch and giving it a squeeze or two. ‘Pretty sure he got noshed-off in the gents, after.’

Logan bit into the crisp pastry and savoury filling. ‘Just goes to show: you never know with people.’ Munch, munch, munch. ‘So, what about you?’

His mouth pinched, chin rising an inch with a sniff. ‘Just cos I work in a hairdresser’s, doesn’t make me gay.’

‘I meant, “are you Andrew’s friend?”’

‘And it doesn’t make Andy gay, either. He’s just... flexible. Besides, all our clients are middle-aged wifies; you’ve seen the bloke — he must be beating them off with a stick.’

Logan scarfed down the last mouthful. ‘Oh, you have no idea.’ He crumpled up his paper bags, scoofed his coffee. Frowned across the road at Brenda’s Hair & Beauty Palace. ‘What gym did he go to? Where he might have friends.’

‘Wellheads Fitness Studio, but you’re wasting your time. Wanna know who Andy’s best friend in the whole-wide-world is? His mum.’

With Steel keeping the salon’s owner occupied, and Tufty off mining Emma for information, Logan retreated to the pool car. Sitting in the passenger seat with the windows rolled down, notebook out in front of him and a worried Biohazard Bob in his ear:

‘Far as I can tell, they’ve all got alibis. And you know how you can always tell when someone’s a murdering bastard, but trying to cover it up? Not getting that from any of them.’ A sad little breath grunted down the phone. ‘Might be wrong, but I’d put a crate of baked beans on whoever killed Andrew Shaw not being one of his victims. Or their family.’

‘Could’ve hired someone to do it.’

‘Yeah, if you’re an idiot. That’s perfect blackmail material for life, isn’t it. Someone goes out and kills for you: next thing you know, you’re putting their kids through private school and buying them a five-berth caravan. Sides: you’ve still got all that guilt by association.’ Biohazard put on a tortured voice: ‘“I’m responsible for this guy getting beaten to death...”’ Then back to normal again. ‘Hard for everyday folk to live with something like that.’

True.

Mixed-Recycling and Landfill must’ve declared some sort of truce, because the pair of them were sharing a half-eaten Mars Bar at the side of the road.

At least, hope it was a Mars Bar...

Probably best not to think about it too closely.

‘You coming back to the ranch anytime soon, Guv? Only the Chief Super’s giving me the willies.’

‘As long as they’re not inflatable.’

Silence.

‘Never mind.’ Logan tapped his pen on his notebook, where ‘VICTIMS = KILLER(S)?!?’ was underlined three times. ‘Don’t suppose they found any other DNA at Natasha Agapova’s house, did they?’

‘Nah, because that would be helpful. Normally, you’d think hot-and-dry weather equals long-lasting DNA, but our kidnap victim was a great believer in humidifiers. We were lucky to get what we got from the pish stain.’

Now that they’d finished the ‘Mars Bar’, Landfill and Mixed-Recycling were at it again — screeching and flapping and screaming at each other.

Of course, maybe they weren’t fighting? Maybe it was a mating dance? Couldn’t be any more ridiculous than snogging a subsea engineer in a nightclub and pretending it was just a ‘joke’.

‘You still there, Guv?’

‘Look: go through the ANPR again — see if anything pops out at you. This bastard’s out there somewhere.’ Logan flicked back a couple of pages in his notebook, to the scribbles about Andrew Shaw’s gym membership. ‘And get someone to check out Wellheads Fitness Studio. Our victim was a frequent flyer, might have met his killer and-or kidnapping-accomplice there.’

‘Urgh...’ As if Logan had just plopped a ‘Mars Bar’ on Biohazard’s desk. ‘Guv.’

Logan hung up. Frowned out the window at the quarrelling/amorous seagulls.

Time to go check on his team.

He buzzed up all the windows, then climbed into the gritty afternoon heat. Jogging across the road between a taxi and a gaily painted florist’s van.

Ding-buzz.

Safe on the other pavement, he checked his texts under the baleful eye of Landfill and Mixed-Recycling.

Four messages, waiting and unread. Lined up most recent to last.

BEARDY BEATTIE:

Oh, bloody hell. When did Tufty say that was meant to start — two o’clock or something?

Bugger.

Didn’t change the fact that Beattie was a dick, though...

TARA:

THE ICE QUEEN:

And last, but not least:

DS ROBERTSON:

As that was the oldest message of the four, it meant Logan was very, very late for the meeting indeed.

And unlike Beardy Beattie, Robertson wasn’t a dick.

He drifted to a halt outside Brenda’s Hair & Beauty Palace and thumbed out a quick reply:

SEND.

And while he was at it, might as well get back to Tara as well:

SEND.

The reply dinged back before he’d even put his phone away, so clearly, Tara wasn’t having a busy day at Trading Standards:

Probably. But that was kids for you.

His thumbs tick-tick-tick-tickticktick-ticked across the screen:

And that shit was important in life.

SEND.

He looked up from his phone, and there was that advert for the ‘RUMPLINGTON BROTHERS’ CIRCUS OF DELIGHTS!’, in Westburn Park. The poster was a cluttered mélange of puppet animals and real clowns and acrobats, with a big top in the background and a red-clad ringmaster in the middle, posing as if he were the most important man in the world.

And tonight was the last night...

‘...you’ll never find anyone more loyal...’

‘Charlie never misses an Orphan Outing.’

‘...depends which performance you want to see. I booked ours weeks ago for the eight o’clock.’

Worth a go, wasn’t it?

Logan scrolled through his contacts and called Chief Superintendent Pine.

She answered with a sigh. ‘If this is more bad news: don’t, OK? Just heard McCulloch, Porter, and Pearce are down with the bloody plague. There’ll be no one left at this rate!’

‘I’ve been thinking about—’

‘And the sodding press are all over us like a sticky sneeze. Did you hear the drubbing we got on the lunchtime news? You’d think someone had kidnapped the Dalai Lama, way they’re going on about it.’

‘Boss, there’s a possibility—’

‘And do you know what happened when I got on to head office for more backup? To help us find Natasha Agapova?’ A bitter laugh. ‘Aye, right. Remember all those officers I’ve been promised from other divisions? Not any more. They can’t spare anyone — most of them are off on the sick anyway.’ Pine puffed out another long unhappy breath. ‘If you’ve got your heart set on a nationwide crime spree, now’s the perfect time.’

Well, there was one easy win:

‘So, cancel the protest march.’

A groan. ‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘We didn’t have enough staff to start with, but now? It’s a public-order disaster waiting to happen. Imagine the headlines if something kicks off and we’ve got rioting on Union Street.’

‘Instead we’ll have “Fascist Cops Crush Right To Protest!” Any other civil liberties you’d like to abolish while we’re at it?’

Landfill and Mixed-Recycling scrawked into the air, a squabbling tornado of feathers and malevolence.

‘No, but I would like to run an undercover op this evening. I know it’s short notice for all the oversight, managerial, and risk-assessment stuff, but I think half a dozen plainclothes officers should do it. Eight would be better, but six would do.’

The seagulls battered away at each other, then Mixed-Recycling wheeled off to divebomb a woman eating a Cornish pasty outside the dry cleaner’s.

Chief Superintendent Pine’s voice went all thin and suspicious. ‘An undercover operation to achieve what?’

The woman flailed her arms, but Landfill swooped in to attack from the other side, and that was her pastyless, left with nothing to do but shake her fists and swear at the avian larcenists.

Logan looked back at the poster. ‘I was thinking a fun night out at the circus...’

50

Brenda was still wrestling Steel’s unruly mop into shape, with a hairdryer and set of curling tongs, when Logan stepped back into the salon.

The Crenellated Horror herself was fast asleep in the barber’s chair, and by the look of things, she was in for a bit of a shock when she woke up. Which would be nice.

Tufty stuck his head out through the door at the back and gave Logan a wave. ‘Sarge? Got something.’ Then disappeared again.

Logan followed the vanishing twit into a cramped space with boxes and boxes and boxes of shampoo and conditioner and colourant and every other kind of hairy malarkey stacked up against the walls, two or three deep in places.

No sign of Emma.

A small desk was wedged in beneath a couple of shelves laden with lever-arch files. And that’s where Tufty was sitting, fiddling about with a denture-beige desktop PC. ‘I went through every appointment for three-and-a-bit years.’

Logan leaned his bum against a carton of hair gel. ‘Thought you said six months?’

‘Yes, but then I did find things. So I went back further and keeped finding things. Till three-and-a-bit years ago, which is when...?’ Eyebrows up.

‘Let me guess: Andrew Shaw started working here.’

‘Not saying he was definitely responsible, but in addition to the victims we already knew about, I found eleven more. And that’s just the ones who reported a sexual assault. Otherwise...’ The wee loon puffed out his cheeks. ‘I know it’s wrong to be glad someone’s dead, but Andrew Wallace Shaw was an utter shite.’ A droop. ‘Bad Tufty: pound in the swear jar.’

Eleven more victims...

‘Think we’ll let you off with that one.’ Logan pointed at the computer. ‘You got a list of names?’

‘Should be sitting in your inbox. But just in case:’ he hit three buttons on the keyboard and a teeny, old-fashioned ink-jet printer stuttered into life — screeking back and forth as it slowly clunked out a sheet of A4. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll purge the print queue soon as it’s done.’ Swivelling his chair from side to side. ‘Not sure if Shaw was being careful or not, but they weren’t all his clients. He was working at least one day when the victim was in here getting their hair cut by someone else, though.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Logan plucked the printout from the machine, scanning the names. ‘How did no one notice the connection?’

‘Don’t think anyone looked, Sarge.’ A frown. ‘To be fair, when someone’s been sexually assaulted and we take their statement, we don’t usually start with, “Ooh, where do you get your hair done?”’ Tufty poked some more keys and ‘DELETING PRINT HISTORY’ appeared on the screen. He stood. ‘Hope when they bury Horrid Andrew Shaw they plumb his grave up with a flush, because there’s going to be a lot of people widdling on it.’

Quite right too.

The funeral home wouldn’t even need to preserve Shaw’s body in formaldehyde: his corpse would be pickled in urine.

Logan pocketed the list. ‘Meanwhile: let’s go see if we can’t achieve something on the Natasha Agapova case. Think the Chief Super could do with a bit of good news today.’

Especially after the email he was about to send her.

As he stepped back out onto the salon floor, Brenda had the wee rectangular mirror out — showing Steel what the back of her own neck looked like — full of hairdressery pride. ‘It takes years off you.’

Difficult to know if Steel agreed though, because she just sat there, in the pink-and-chrome chair, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, blinking at herself.

Her hair was shorn incredibly short at the sides and back, tapering outwards as it rose, towards a big wedge of curls on the top of her head — swept forwards so they coiled over her right eyebrow. Grey at the nape of her neck, darkening to a rich chocolaty brown.

Had to admit it was a huge improvement. Especially as her barnet normally looked as if someone had stuck a pound of Semtex up a badger.

‘Time to go.’ Logan handed Brenda a business card. ‘Thanks for your cooperation. We’ll be in touch if there’s anything else.’

Tufty lowered his voice and leaned towards her. ‘Word of advice — you might want to take this one down,’ pointing at Andrew Shaw’s portrait, ‘and burn it.’

She looked a bit confused at that, but she’d find out soon enough...

Logan gave his email one last readthrough, then sent it off to Chief Superintendent Pine, with Tufty’s list attached.

The windows were down in the pool car, but there was precious little breeze to stir the muggy air as they sat outside Brenda’s Hair & Beauty Palace waiting for Steel.

Tufty had his phone propped up against the steering wheel, scrolling away and reading from the screen. ‘So, we’ve missed the case reviews for Operation “Housebreakings Across Rubislaw”; Operation “Car Thefts”; and unless we break the sound barrier, Operation “Break-ins At Sports Shops” will have to start without you. But—’

‘Nope. I already solved that one: it was Spencer Findlater. He’s been feeding his protein-powder addiction. Evidence is all piled up in his bedroom.’

‘Oh. Coolio. Tick that one off the list...’ Poke, fiddle, scroll. ‘Which means, if we leave now, you can still make Operation “Drugs In Lithuanian Teddy Bears”, Operation “Camper Vans Stolen To Order”, Operation “Food Van Turf War”, before talking to Professional Standards about Princess Crumpled-Bum McGrumpy-Lumps.’

Speak of the Devil.

The back door opened, and Steel thumped into her seat, with a scowl on her face and brand-new curls bouncing away on top of her head. ‘Better no’ be talking about me, you pointy-nosed wee fart!’

Hang on...

Logan turned to Tufty. ‘Camper vans? Food vans? No, no, no, no, no: those aren’t Rutherford’s investigations.’

‘Yeah.’ He bared his top teeth. ‘They were DCI McCulloch’s, only now he’s off on the sick as well, so...?’

‘Of course he is.’ Sagging back in the passenger seat. ‘Yet more sodding work.’

Steel checked herself in the rear-view mirror. ‘Are you seriously going to slog your way through a bunch of sharny review meetings? When we could be out there: catching crooks and showing off my swanky new hairdo?’

‘God’s sake...’ Logan scrubbed a hand across his face. ‘I have responsibilities. I can’t just—’

‘You’re such an idiot, Laz. Did you no’ learn anything all the years I was your boss?’ Tousling her curls as she preened in the mirror. ‘You’re an acting DCI now — you don’t do your own case reviews! You pick some hapless halfwit DI and you make them do it. And if they whinge, you say it’s a “career-path development opportunity” and you’re doing them a favour.’ Waving a hand as if it was all settled. ‘Tell them they have to produce a one-page summary for each meeting — in case some tosser further up the tree asks you about it — and everyone’s happy.’

Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea.

‘Know what? I’m going to take your advice and palm my case reviews off on a hapless DI.’ He pointed at her primping reflection. ‘Here’s a “career-path development opportunity” for you, Acting DI Steel.’

‘Aye, nice try. Doesn’t work if the victim knows what you’re up to.’ Steel clicked her seatbelt on. ‘So: where we going?’

Ah well, it’d been worth a try.

‘Altens. Time to have a rummage through our missing newspaper tycoon’s work-life.’

The patrol car drifted south along Great Southern Road — which was a very grand name for a tooty-wee stretch of dual carriageway strung between two roundabouts.

Duthie Park was almost invisible behind a granite wall and bank of trees on the left, but a veritable henge of headstones popped above the eight-foot-high enclosure on the other side of the road. Which was, hopefully, tall enough to keep all the dead folk from breaking out of Allenvale Cemetery anytime soon.

Steel had moved on from admiring herself in the rear-view mirror to taking puckered-lips selfies, like a teenager.

Tufty nodded along to whatever song was playing in his hollow little head.

While Logan had a quick peek at his phone’s screen to make sure the call hadn’t been disconnected.

Doreen finally found her voice again: ‘Are you sure, Guv?’

‘Think of it as a reward for all the sweaty searching. Plus, it’s a great career-path development opportunity: shows the bosses you’re ready to step up to DI full-time, if a vacancy opens up.’

‘Thanks, Guv! I won’t let you down.’

‘I know: I trust you. Just make sure you’ve got those one-page summaries done by close of play, OK? Right, off you go. First meeting’s in thirty-eight minutes.’

Logan ended the call and sat back in his seat.

Not feeling guilty about it in the slightest.

Not even a tiny bit.

Nope.

Tufty kept his eyes front, mouth pinched shut, not noggin-dancing any more. Radiating... judgement.

‘Well, it is a good career opportunity.’

Still nothing.

‘Oh... shut up.’

The park’s high boundary wall gave way to more decorative wrought-iron railings, but the cemetery maintained its eight-foot barrier to contain the dangerous dead.

Tufty’s stomach broke the judgemental silence with a popping grumble. ‘Sarge, after we’ve been to the newspaper, can we go back to the ranch? I has not had no lunch, and there’s still delicious curry in the CID fridge from yesterday.’

Steel stopped taking her own photograph for long enough to grin. ‘No there isn’t.’

‘Sarge!’ The wee loon pouted across the car. ‘Saaa-aarge: tell her!’

‘Don’t be such a snidge.’ She posed for another snap. ‘How was I supposed to know it wasn’t free to a good home?’

‘It had a note on it: “Is Tufty’s Lunch! Hands Off Thieving Bumheads!” with three exclamation marks!’

‘You know the rules: any food left in the CID fridge overnight is fair game.’ A happy sigh. ‘And a very nice breakfast it made.’

‘Saaaaaaaaa-aaaaaarrrrrrrrge!’

Logan shrugged. ‘Sorry, Tufty, but rules is rules. You should’ve...’

Ding-buzz.

The pool car coasted to a stop at the roundabout onto King George IV Bridge, behind a Fiat Punto that some naughty person had prised the ‘P’ off and replaced with a ‘C’.

Logan brought up his messages.

COLIN MILLER:

Bloody hell, what now?

Whatever it was, it would probably be bad news. Because when was it ever anything else?

He dialled the bugger back anyway.

Colin picked up on the second ring. ‘News desk.’

‘What story?’

There was a wee pause.

‘Why Acting DCI McRae, how lovely to hear your dulcet tones, and that.’

‘Don’t be an arse: we were on our way to see you anyway. Well, not you. Thought you’d resigned.’ The car inched closer to the roundabout. ‘What story, Colin?’

‘That guy you got flattened by a truck, yesterday — turns out he’s one of Charles MacGarioch’s mates. Kind of looks like Police Scotland’s deliberately targeting these poor benighted orphans.’

Sod. That was quick.

‘“Benighted”? Since when did you use big long words like—’

‘Or maybe you mean the story about Iain Grant suing Police Scotland for reckless endangerment, causing psychological distress, and the infliction of life-changing injuries?’

What?

‘Who the hell is Iain Grant?’

The swirl of cars paused, and Tufty nipped out onto the roundabout, following that Fiat You-Know-What-O, onto the bridge over the River Dee.

Couldn’t be far from here to where they’d found Andrew Shaw’s body, but that bit of the riverbank was hidden behind a bend in the river.

‘Iain Grant, AKA: Mr FreezyWhip. Owner of that ice-cream van you high-speed chased into the River Don, two days ago.’

‘He’s suing us? I pulled him out the water! I saved his life!’

Ungrateful bastard.

‘Or it might be the serial rapist you found floating facedown in the Dee, yesterday. You know the one: Andrew Wallace Shaw. With his head bashed in. Ring any bells?’

Logan clamped a hand over his eyes. ‘Who’s feeding you this stuff?’

‘What can I say: I’m a good listener; people like to tell me things.’ You could hear the smug smile in his voice. ‘So, where d’you want to start: “City Cops’ Orphan Vendetta”, “‘Reckless Police Tried To Kill Me’ Says Local Businessman”, or “Vigilante Ends Serial Rapist’s Vicious Spree”?’

‘Colin...’ Logan gave his head a squeeze, because it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell members of the press where they could stick their bloody newspaper.

‘Aye: and what do you mean, you’re on your way to see me?’

‘Your missing boss. I need access to her work stuff.’

‘Ah, you mean: “Clueless Cops Can’t Find Missing Mother”?’

‘Again with the being a dick.’ Deep breath. ‘How about “Weegie Reporter Impedes Investigation — Gets Uninvited To Barbecue”?’

Silence.

The pool car crossed the bridge, parting company with the Fiat Rudeness as it took a right — around the roundabout, heading towards Garthdee and the road south — while Tufty took the first exit, following a sign for ‘TULLOS & ALTENS IND. EST.’

Eventually, a sniff came down the line. ‘Suppose I could wait till you’ve been here. But I report without fear or favour, understand?’

At least it was a start.

‘OK.’

‘Besides, I’ve just bought five kilos of steak mince, and four dozen burger buns...’

Logan, Steel and Tufty sat on squeaky plastic chairs, looking up at the dusty atrium as Dougie In The Aifterneen burbled away on a hidden radio.

‘...cos I ayeways wondered fa it was, deen that. It’s a fair scunner fan ye find oot, isn’t it? An mind that feel loon fae EastEnders, wie a gammy leg and face like a crackit chuntie? Weil, he’s jist released a charity single...’

The Aberdeen Examiner had invested as much into its reception area as it had in its journalistic integrity. Which was why the place was a depressing hole, with magnolia walls and a beige soul. The collection of plastic pot plants was on its last legs, and the framed front pages needed dusting, while the brown carpet tiles needed taking out and burning.

The only redeeming feature was Glenda: the big smiley round lady, with rainbow-striped hair and a ring through her nose, who’d come out from behind the desk to make everyone coffee and offer them a dip in the Quality Street tub while they waited on Colin Sodding Miller to stop playing the diva and come get them.

Ding-buzz.

SMITHY SMITH:

Great.

So zero help there, then.

Ding-buzz.

SMITHY SMITH:

Assuming PAYG was ‘Pay As You Go’, that meant Captain Sleazy was using a burner phone to proposition women, probably behind his wife’s back. Might have a hard time convincing the Sheriff that was worth a warrant to trace the scumbag’s physical location so they could swoop in and unmask him, though.

Besides, there was an easier way to find out who he was: call him back.

Logan fired off a quick reply:

SEND.

Glenda threw a pained smile in their direction, phone to her ear as she poked at the switchboard. ‘I’m sorry; don’t know what’s keeping Colin.’ She clunked the handset back into its hook. ‘Still not answering.’ Then stood. ‘Tell you what, would anyone like another coffee?’

Tufty sat up straight. Eager as a little black Labrador. ‘Do you have any biscuits, because someone stole my lunch and...’

The door through to the inner sanctum opened and Colin Miller strutted in. He was in grey linen today, with a pastel-blue shirt — top three buttons open to show off a jangle-clank of golden jewellery and some greying chest hair. ‘Aye, aye. If it’s no’ Aberdeen’s answer to Cagney and Lacey: Crappy and Lumpy.’

‘Colin Archibald Miller!’ Glenda poked the reception desk with an indignant finger. ‘You apologise to these nice people right now.’

And just like that, all of Colin Miller’s swagger evaporated and his cheeks flushed bright pink. Those black-gloved fingers curling in front of his chest.

Logan grinned. ‘“Archibald”? You kept that one quiet.’

‘Aye, well...’ He cleared his throat. Jerked his chin at the door. ‘You better come with me.’

51

‘Don’t get me wrong — it’s nice to see you useless buggers doing some work for a change — but shouldn’t you be out knocking heads together and asking questions, like?’ Colin Miller twisted a key in the lock, then pushed the door open, revealing a large office with a sacrificial-altar-sized desk that played host to a huge leather office chair and a dour portrait of an overweight man in rolled-up shirtsleeves, waistcoat, and clichéd cigar.

Two, much shorter, far less comfortable chairs sat in front of the desk, so any visitor would be at an automatic disadvantage.

A line of CCTV monitors offered grainy windows onto the Bullpen, Advertising, and Picture Desk, along with four different views of heavy machinery in the print room.

Rows of framed front pages filled the space between the windows — blinds down, casting the room into fusty gloom — while a bank of filing cabinets sat across from a triple-length table with downlighters above it.

Colin yanked on a cord, sending the nearest blind crashing upwards. A beam of light slashed into the room. Making the dust motes glow.

Logan stopped in the middle of the room, doing a slow three-sixty. ‘Your new boss: how long’s she been here?’

Another blind thundered up. ‘Three weeks. Three long, shitey weeks.’

‘She make any enemies in that time?’

Steel scuffed in, followed by Tufty — the melodramatic wee spud holding his tummy as it popped and gurgled an empty song.

‘Other than all the poor twats she fired?’ Colin clattered the last blind open, brushing dust off his gloves. ‘Oh, aye. This isnae the Parish Gazette — we rattle buggers’ cages here.’

Logan commandeered the throne behind the desk and snapped on a pair of blue nitriles. ‘We’re going to need a list.’ Testing the first drawer — unlocked, but full of pens and assorted stationery. ‘She doesn’t show for work, two days running, and no one thinks to go check on her?’

‘What, cos we all love her so much? Natasha Agapova makes friends like Jeffrey Dahmer makes pies.’

Tufty sidled over, leaning in close, keeping his voice low: ‘Don’t look now, but there’s a very nervous-looking burglar waiting outside.’

He wasn’t wrong.

A thin bloke in a beard and black-and-white stripy jumper, fidgeted on the threshold, carrying a bunch of black cardboard rectangles under one arm, looking as if he was trying to work up the courage to knock.

Colin rolled his eyes. ‘Oh for...’

Mr Stripy shuffled his feet and peered into the office. ‘Is Mrs Agapova in?’

‘She’s gone missing, you daft wobbler! Have you no’ seen the paper today? We went with it on page one, three, seven and nine!’

Pink flushed above the beardline. ‘I... don’t always have time to—’

‘No’ to mention it’s all over the TV, and the radio, and the internet!’

The feet shuffled some more. ‘So, she’s not in?’

Colin grimaced at Logan for a moment, then back to Mr Stripy. ‘Just stick your mock-ups on the table, OK? I’ll see she gets them when or if she ever returns... Assuming she’s no’ already deid.’

Mr Stripy looked down at his sheets of card, then at the table, then at Colin, then licked his lips, then nodded, and hurried over to the long table — laying out six front-page mock-ups, side-by-side so they were all visible. Then stood back to admire his handiwork.

Colin thumped a hand down on Mr Stripy’s shoulder, making him jump. ‘Now do us all a favour and sod off, aye?’

The pink flushed darker. ‘I’ve got... lots to be getting on with.’ And away he scurried.

‘Next time, read the sodding paper!’ Colin hissed out a long breath. Shaking his head as the jittery bloke disappeared. ‘Is it like this in the polis? Swear to God they get younger and more clueless with every passing year.’

‘Yup.’ Steel parked her bum on the table. ‘And whinier too.’

Logan tried the next desk drawer: a worms’ nest of cables and phone chargers. ‘Did she mention getting any hate mail, death threats, things like that?’

‘I mean, what sort of half-arsed “newspaper” can you put out when you fire all the proper journalists?’ Colin worked his way along the filing cabinets, to the bottom left, rattling out the final drawer. ‘Think interns could’ve broken Watergate? Or Partygate? Or all that dodgy shite about right-wingers swimming in Kremlin cash?’ He pulled out a cardboard box — just about big enough to keep Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in — and clumped it down on the desk. ‘There youse go.’

Logan frowned at it. ‘What’s this?’

‘Hate mail.’

Opening the top revealed a massive stash of envelopes and printouts. Had to be hundreds of them in there. ‘How many months’ worth is this? I only need the stuff sent to Natasha Agapova.’

‘Aye, that’s just since she got here. Apparently there’s another eight boxes back at her place.’

‘Eight...?’

‘Told you: we rattle buggers’ cages. Her more than most.’ Colin plucked a handful of hate mail from the box and sank into one of the visitors’ chairs, leaning back to put his feet up on the desk. ‘Had an editor once, liked to frame the worst ones and stick them on the wall. “Colin,” he says, “Colin, you no’ doing your job right if nae bastard hates you.”’ Turning to the first letter, scrawled in red ink on lined paper. ‘Here we go: all in easy-to-read block capitals. “Dear Stupid Bitch, I hope you die a slow, sucking-chest-wound death and dogs rape your dead body and then eat it and shit it out. Ranger’s Football Club are the best football club in the world and you’re too stupid to know it.” Not a single bit of punctuation, if you don’t count the... four, five, six exclamation marks at the end.’

Logan reached in and pulled out a stack of the things. ‘She got all this in three weeks?’

Mr Rangers-Are-The-Best was placed facedown on the desk and Colin moved on to the next. ‘Ahem: “Fuck you, you fucking...” well, I’m definitely no’ gonnae say that word with ladies and weans present, “You fucking bleep, badgers have more right to life than you do. You’re the one spreading bleeping diseases, whore.” Blah, blah, et cetera. “Kill yourself.”’ He waggled the letter. ‘See, this moron didn’t just submit their hate via the website, or email it in, they got a sheet of paper, and a green biro and they scrawled it all out by hand, then found an envelope, paid for a stamp, and stuck it in the postbox. That’s dedication for you.’

Logan stuffed everything back in the box, held it out so Colin could do the same, then carried the lot over to the long table. ‘Constable Quirrel: I need these in date order. We’re looking for anything connected with the message on Mrs Agapova’s answering machine: “karma”, “hurricane”, “house of lies”, and, or, “bitch”.’

‘Sarge.’ Tufty tidied away Mr Stripy’s mock-ups and laid the hate mail across the table, shifting individual letters forward and backwards — tongue poking out the side of his mouth.

Steel sniffed. ‘What about all the electronic stuff?’

‘Aye: in the box. We print every nasty wee message out — in case we need to give it to you lot. You know: if something like this happens. So you can do sod-all about it.’

A knock rang out from the open door, only it wasn’t the weedy bloke in the burglar’s top — back for another round of Humiliate Mr Stripy — it was a scruffy-looking woman in hiking gear and a bandana. As if ready to go on an Amazonian hike, or climate protest, at the first toot of a pan pipe.

She had a fat grey laptop clutched in both hands. ‘Yo, Colin: I hear you’re Interim Editor now.’

A frown. ‘Says who?’

‘Louis.’ She held her laptop out. ‘You wanna OK the spread for tomorrow’s lifestyle section or not?’

Colin put his head on one side, scrunched his lips into a lump, then nodded. ‘What the hell.’ Patting the desk as he plonked his short arse in the leather throne. ‘Henry, these are the cops. Cops, Henry.’

She gave them a wave, then put the laptop down and opened it, bringing up a photo gallery. Swiping through shots of people at the beach and kids playing in the park; some office workers in bikini tops at lunchtime, lounging beneath the trees; more kids eating candyfloss and gazing in wonder at the circus lights.

Colin reached for the screen with a leather-gloved finger, but nothing happened. ‘Sodding hell...’ He pulled the glove off, curling the stumps into a truncated fist, out of sight, and tried again. This time, the images wheeched past beneath his fingertip. ‘OK: this one, this, this, not that, or that, this, nope, nope, nope, that one’s OK, and...’ He drifted to a halt, then looked up at Logan — looming over the pair of them. ‘You after something?’

‘Go back a couple.’

Henry took control of the screen again. ‘Hold on...’ Swipe, swipe. ‘This one?’

‘Hmmm.’ Colin frowned at the photograph. ‘Aye: I like the general composition, but shoulda gone up a couple of f-stops for a longer exposure and got a bittie motion in the dodgems.’

‘Can always fix it in post.’

‘Shouldn’t have to, but.’ He reached out to swipe past the image again, but Logan grabbed Colin’s hand before he could.

‘Get off!’ Snatching his naked fingers away.

Steel sauntered over. ‘What?’

‘Ooh,’ Henry pointed, ‘like the hair! Very swish.’

‘This old thing?’ Steel had a wee preen.

‘No touching.’ Colin forced his hand back into its black-leather prison.

‘Sorry.’ Logan leaned in.

The photo showed a pair of grown-ups on the dodgems, each with a toddler strapped-in next to them, as they wheeched around the ring. Everyone smiling; having a wholesome family day out at the circus.

Behind them, the big top’s outer wall was in perfect focus: red, white, and blue stripes.

‘When was this taken?’

‘Last night.’ Henry stuck her thumbs in her belt loops. ‘Went with Brent and the kids. Westburn Park?’

Thought so.

He opened his phone and scrolled through to the photo hidden away in Charles MacGarioch’s bedroom. The dodgem cars were identical, and so were the trees off to one side. And the stripy red-white-and-blue background. ‘How long’s the circus been there?’

‘Dunno. Week, I think.’ Henry’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

Ah.

Probably best not to tip the press off.

‘No reason.’ A nonchalant shrug. ‘Just... thinking of taking the family tonight.’ Quick: change the subject. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got any photos from that SME charity-auction-ball thing, do you?’

‘Oh. Yeah: we did one of those cheesy “out and about” features. Like anybody gives a toss.’

She fiddled with the laptop, bringing up a different slideshow.

With Colin in the editor’s chair, Logan was demoted to one of the short ones in front of the desk, perching on the edge to swipe through the awkwardly posed group shots of various numpties from various oil-sector-support companies, in various posh frocks or nearly identical dinner suits. Fake grins and not-so-fake tans.

There were more photos of people at tables, raising their glasses, pretending to have a good time. Then some of the auction for ‘things money can’t buy’ — because no one would sodding want them — followed by a whole bunch of the dancing afterwards.

Logan swiped back and forth, forehead creased, peering not just at the figures in the foreground, but the ones further back. Searching.

Steel reached over his shoulder and tapped the screen. ‘Take it that’s who you’re looking for?’

Natasha Agapova, in an elegant black ballgown, sitting at a table with a sign on it proclaiming, ‘ABERDEEN EXAMINER!’, and a whole slew of empty wine bottles.

She was trapped between that oversized teddy bear of hers and an earnest, rosy-cheeked, shiny-faced middle-aged man.

He had one hand on a nearly full glass of red wine and the other on Natasha’s bare shoulder, leaning in and talking. While she looked like someone trying not to appear as bored as she really was.

Another swipe and there they were again, still sitting at the same table, in the background of another dancing shot. Him telling some sort of hysterical anecdote with his arms thrown wide — clutching a whisky this time — while Natasha Agapova pretended to smile, and the bear grinned away.

Wonder if her boring dinner companion was Captain Sleazy of the HMS HumpYacht?

Logan zoomed in. ‘We have any idea who the guy is?’

‘Hold on.’ Henry vanished, leaving her laptop behind.

Tufty waved at them from the long table. ‘Sarge? I has a finished.’

Might as well, as they were waiting.

The wee loon had made a neat job of laying all the hate mail out — a mixture of A4 printouts, lined sheets torn from various notepads, and random scraps of paper — some of which now boasted little tabs made of orange Post-it note. Tufty pointed at both ends of the table: ‘Oldest to newest. One bit of sticky for each keyword.’

It wasn’t hard to spot the sheet of A4 with seven bits of bright orange stuck to it. Must’ve come through the website, because the printout came complete with a wodge of metadata at the top, with things like the user’s IP address, time, date, and referring URL.

Tufty poked the page. ‘I know “see you soon” wasn’t on your keyword list, but I marked it up anyway, cos I has an initiative.’

Logan checked the ‘DATE SUBMITTED’, then scowled at Colin. ‘Two weeks ago! And you didn’t tell us?’

‘What, I’m supposed to know the content of everyone’s Hate Box, now?’

Henry reappeared, holding an issue of the Aberdeen Examiner. ‘Got it.’

Colin raised a hand. ‘Hoy, Henry, you got anything exciting in your Hate Box?’

‘Me? Nah.’ She opened her paper and spread it across the desk, displaying a whole heap of those uncomfortable group shots of people in suits and gowns, with a list of names under each photograph. ‘My hate mail’s the usual boring collection of misogynists, pricks, and people who want to know why I made them look “so fat” in that photo about the thing. Oh, and men who won’t take “Sod off, I’m married!” for an answer. Why?’

‘Plod here think we should be intimately familiar with every piece of hate mail that comes into the building.’

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘All right: that’s not what I—’

‘Hell with that. Be here all week!’ She squinted at the laptop. ‘Right, let’s see who Mr Pink-And-Sweaty is...’ Running a finger over the paper, one photo at a time.

‘What I meant is: why don’t you report the hate mail?’

‘God, you’re right!’ Colin clapped a hand to his forehead. ‘Cos if we did that, you guys would rush round here with all guns blazing and solve the crime! Would you? Really? Course you sodding wouldn’t.’

‘Got him.’ Henry poked a gathering of numpties in their charity-ball finery. ‘Nick Wilson, director at NorrelTech Wellhead Intervention Limited — and before you ask: no. No idea. They donated a fortnight’s timeshare in New Orleans, if that helps?’

Logan picked up the paper, closed and folded it, then tucked the thing under his arm. ‘OK. Thanks for your help.’ Pointed at Tufty and Steel. Turned. And marched for the door, taking the Post-it clarted printout with him.

‘Hoy!’ Colin stood behind his Interim Editor desk. ‘Aren’t we forgetting something?’

Sod.

Logan paused on the threshold. ‘Off the record? Mr FreezyWhip is an ungrateful bastard; the OAPs are only milking it for attention; you might want to soft-pedal on painting Spencer Findlater and Charles MacGarioch as poor wee orphans, unless you want to end up looking like a serious twat; and we’re still contacting Andrew Shaw’s victims, so tread lightly. Going to be hard enough on them as it is.’

Colin’s chin came up. ‘And on the record?’

Good question...

‘This shit isn’t easy, but we’re doing our best.’

52

‘Oh noes...’ Tufty scuffed his little feet to a standstill, gazing across the car park, bottom lip all a-tremble as a large man in T-shirt-and-shorts locked up a food trailer with ‘DORIC DAVE’S DEVOURABLE DELICIOUSNESS!’ painted all over it.

The Aberdeen Examiner’s exterior was every bit as depressing as the inside had been: a large bland grey warehouse, surrounded by other large bland grey warehouses, in the middle of a large bland grey industrial estate.

A wedge of the North Sea was just visible in the distance — down the hill, between an oilfield-digital-services company and an industrial-equipment supplier — sparkling blue beneath the searing sky. But other than that, pretty much everything was a depressing mix of concrete and steel.

Logan marched over to the pool car, digging his phone out on the way. Scowling through a quick Google search. ‘Haven’t seen MacGarioch in months, my arse...’

Steel slouched up behind him. ‘So: we off to noise-up this Sweaty Wilson prick?’

‘Turns out Rennie was right — shock, horror — Keira Longmore has been lying to us.’ He pressed the ‘CALL’ button.

They picked up on the third ring: ‘The Star-Sprinkled Heavens. How can I help you this lovely afternoon?’

Logan forced a smile. ‘Hi. Is Keira working today?’

There was a small pause, then a pinch of suspicion seasoned the maître d’s voice. ‘Can I ask who’s calling?’

‘Detective Chief Inspector McRae, we met yesterday? Got a couple of follow-up questions I need to ask her. Nothing serious.’

And just like that, the salty edge mellowed. ‘I’m afraid Keira’s not in till tomorrow night. She’s going out with friends.’

Surprise, surprise.

‘OK. No problem. Like I said, it’s nothing serious. I’ll try again tomorrow. Thanks.’ He hung up, tried the passenger door handle.

Locked.

Where the hell was...?

The wee loon was still rooted to the spot, mourning the loss of devourable deliciousness.

‘HOY, TUFTY!’

He jerked back to the real world, scurrying across the sticky tarmac to unlock the pool car. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’ Getting in behind the wheel. ‘NorrelTech-Wellhead-Intervention-Limited-ho?’

‘No.’ Logan yanked his door open. ‘Think it’s about time we mobbed round to Keira Longmore’s address and see what else she’s been lying about.’

Most of Gairn Terrace was given over to the kind of pale post-war housing that normally featured south of the border, but this end of it played host to a ten-storey tower block on one side, and a big lump of flats on the other.

They clustered together in a sort of flattened horseshoe of large beige-and-breeze-block-coloured buildings — four floors each, with Dutch-barn roofs and communal stairwells. The one calling itself ‘Allenvale Court’ was partially hidden beneath a skin of scaffolding and tarpaulin, where all the harling had been chipped off the front walls, exposing the breeze blocks underneath.

A pair of guys in bum-crack jeans were busy fitting a new UPVC window to one of the properties.

So at least Keira had been telling the truth about that.

Mind you, she didn’t know Rennie was listening in, so it didn’t count.

Logan strode towards the stairwell door, leaving Tufty to plip the locks and hurry after him while Steel strolled along behind, hands in her pockets.

Up the steps — two at a time. Then one at a time. Then puffing his cheeks out and using the handrail. Getting slower and slower. Because two hours’ sleep, in a pool car’s passenger seat really wasn’t enough when stairs were involved.

Meaning Tufty had no problems keeping up now, even weighed down by the full stabproof-and-utility-belt kit.

Not so Acting DI Steel — instead she whistled a jaunty tune from somewhere down below, echoing around the bland concrete stairwell. Apparently unbothered about joining them anytime soon.

On the second floor, outside Flat Fourteen F, Logan crumpled back against the banister. Legs like boiled string. And nodded at the doorbell.

Tufty nodded back and gave it a poke.

A good old-fashioned dinnnnnggggg-donnnnngggg sounded inside.

Downstairs, the whistling grew fainter, followed by what sounded like a door closing, then silence. The lazy sod hadn’t even bothered climbing the first flight of stairs — just sodded off out the back. No doubt to vape and pose for yet more stupid selfies. Because being demob-happy meant you didn’t have to do any bloody work.

Well, she was in for a nasty surprise when they finished up here. Let’s see how she liked being demoted, yet again.

The wee loon was looking at him. ‘You OK, Sarge?’

‘Just tired. Give it another go.’

But before Tufty could ring it, clunks came from inside, then the door inched open — brought up short by the chain fixed on the inside.

A small, wrinkly old man, with skin the colour of midnight and hair pale as the moon, squinted out at them. Wearing an AFC replica top, grey joggy-bots, furry slippers, and the kind of Aberdonian accent you could plough fields with. ‘Aye, aye, it’s the polis. Youse here aboot them minkers doonstairs?’

Logan flashed his warrant card. ‘Keira in?’

A wet sigh. ‘Aye. Fit’s she deen, noo?’

‘Can we come in, please?’

‘Gie’s a mintie.’ The door clunked shut, there was a rattle of chain, then it opened again. Only their host was already scuffing off down the hall. ‘The quine’s in her room.’ Before vanishing into the lounge. ‘Ah’m nae mackin’ tea, mind!’

The hallway was almost the full depth of the building, with two doors off each side and one at the end.

Wasn’t hard to guess which one was Keira’s. R&B thrummed out through the slab door, making the glittery stickers and ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED’ sign vibrate.

Logan pulled his shoulders back and gave it the police officer’s hard three: knuckles rapping against the trembling wood.

A female voice slashed out from inside. ‘I already told you, Nana Kweku: go away! I’m busy!’

‘Police. Open up, Miss Longmore, we need to talk.’

Drums and bass rattled out.

‘Miss Longmore?’ Logan knocked again. ‘You’re going to have to come out eventually.’

‘Gah...’ Sounding every inch the stroppy teenager. ‘I’m just out the shower, OK? Can I put my pants on? That all right with you?’

He did a quick three-sixty.

The door on the far right was the living room, where Keira’s grandad had gone, so that left three more.

The one at the end of the hall opened on a linen cupboard. The one next to Keira’s was another bedroom — old-fashioned, but nice enough. Number three revealed a compact shower room, with white toilet and sink, a soggy towel on the floor, and a medicine cabinet, all misted-up with steam. It smelled... familiar in here. Not just the general post-shower soapy fug, but something distinctly citrusy. Like a mandarin shagging a block of sandalwood.

Just the sort of thing a young man would liberally squirt himself with, because the adverts liked to pretend it attracted women like black trousers attract cat hair.

Bloody hell.

Logan grabbed Tufty, shoving him towards the front door. ‘Go! Back of the building: right now!’

The wee loon legged it, banging out into the stairwell as Logan grabbed the bedroom door handle.

Locked.

‘Keira?’ Rattling the thing. ‘I know he’s in there!’

Nothing but R&B.

Not today.

Logan took a step back and slammed his boot into the door, just beneath the lock.

BOOM.

The thing flew open, and he stumbled into a messy pit with clothes on the carpet, and a collection of hairy mugs mouldering away on a kid-sized desk. There was a zoo’s-worth of stuffed animals spilled across the floor, as if some sort of massacre had occurred.

A striped flag hung above the unmade bed — one band each of red, yellow, and green, with a black star in the middle. The sheets were crumpled, the pillows in disarray.

And the whole place reeked of Lynx Africa, sex, cigarettes, and shampoo.

In normal times, the room’s only window would’ve looked out over the parking area at the back of the block, but the rear of the building was clad in scaffolding too, hiding the view behind metal poles, tarps, and scaff-boards.

The window lay wide open; no sign of Keira Longmore.

Bloody hell.

Logan lunged over there and clambered out onto the scaffolding boards.

They’d braced the whole structure against the wall with wooden batons in every other window opening, wedging it into place. One of those orange-plastic-chute things zig-zagged down to a rubble-filled skip. A ladder sat off to the right, going up to the top floor and down to the first.

And there was Keira: clambering down it to the next level, wearing a biker jacket and a ‘NUCLEAR KILL SYNDROME’ T-shirt, a pair of jeans clutched in one hand, a pair of red trainers in the other.

‘HOY!’

Her head snapped up and she froze, top half poking up through the gap in the boards.

Logan strode over there. ‘There’s police officers at the bottom, waiting for you, so you can clamber down the ladder with your pants on show, if you like.’ Shrug. ‘Might be a little more dignified going down the stairs with your trousers on?’

Keira closed her eyes, pressed her forehead against the ladder’s rung, and swore and swore and swore and swore...

Logan marched Keira out through the stairwell door at the front of the building — now all glammed-up in trousers, trainers, and this season’s must-have accessory: handcuffs — to find Steel waiting for him. Glowering.

Bits of twig and leaves poked out of her nice new hairdo, and she looked even more rumpled than normal. ‘Blah!’

He steered Keira towards the pool car. ‘Where the hell were you?’

Steel spat out a sliver of greenery. ‘Waiting round back, just in case. Cos, unlike you, I remember what happened at MacGarioch’s flat.’

‘Then where is he?’

‘Some bugger landed on me! Didn’t see anything but a naked hairy arse, and bang: I’m facedown in the bloody undergrowth.’ She pulled a twig from her curls. ‘Then that stupid wee spud’s sprinting past, going “Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo!” chasing after the bastard.’

Another quality A Division operation...

And speaking of disasters:

Tufty limped back along the road, red-faced and breathing like a leaky space hopper, one hand pressed against his ribs. A weeping red scrape arced across his cheek.

No Charles MacGarioch.

The wee idiot staggered to a halt. ‘Couldn’t... couldn’t catch... wasn’t...’ Wheezing and coughing. ‘Got... away from... from me!... Pfff...’ He sagged against the car. ‘Argh... Puff... Pant... Et cetera.’

Keira stuck her nose in the air. ‘Told you: haven’t seen Charlie for ages.’

‘Really?’ Logan opened the rear passenger-side door. ‘So who was the naked bloke slathered in Lynx Africa in your bedroom, then?’

No answer.

‘It was Charles MacGarioch, wasn’t it.’ Logan put a hand on her head, so she wouldn’t brain herself on the door frame, and plonked her into the car. Produced his phone and scrolled through to the secret photograph. ‘This was taken at the circus in Westburn Park. And you, Miss Longmore, have been lying to us.’

Her eyes narrowed, jaw clenching — making the zits writhe. ‘I’m not saying anything else without a lawyer.’

The Police Custody and Security Officer printed the words. ‘VERY SARKY!!!’ on the little wipe-clean noticeboard mounted to the cell door, then clacked the viewing portal closed. Shutting Keira away.

Twin rows of identical, heavy blue doors sealed off each cell in the custody suite’s female wing. Though most of them had things like ‘BITES!’ and ‘SPIT RISK!’ written on them.

The Police Custody and Security Officer was broad of shoulder and short of leg, with a no-nonsense haircut going grey at the temples, and thick-soled comfortable shoes. She turned back towards the custody desk. ‘She’s a cool one, eh? You sure she hasnae got a criminal record?’

Tufty poked at the scabbing scrape across his cheek. ‘Clean as a whistle, far as we know.’

‘Aye, and my arse squirts finest prosecco.’ The PCSO checked her watch. ‘You’ll be waiting here a while: nearest duty solicitor’s in Dundee on a double murder.’

Logan groaned. ‘Oh, for...’

‘Every bugger’s got the lurgie. Entire criminal justice system’s dropping like flies.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘All right, all right. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thanks.’ He turned and headed back up the stairs again.

‘But you owe me a pie or something!’

Which was fair enough.

The stairwell was every bit as awe-inspiring as a stairwell in a police station could be, only less so. Bare breeze-block walls, concrete steps, and a ‘motivational’ poster hanging on every landing.

Tufty followed him up. ‘Do you think our half-naked bloke really was Charles MacGarioch, Sarge?’

‘If you hadn’t lost him we wouldn’t have to guess.’

The wee loon drooped. ‘I got wanged by a minibus!’ He held up a pair of pinched fingers. ‘Came this close to getting squished. And I’m too young to be squished — I has a bidie-in and a lovenest to support.’ Poking at his scabs again. ‘By the time I’d picked myself up out the bushes, there was no sign of the scrunk-wadger...’ Then Tufty scuffed his feet on the bare steps, head hanging. ‘Sorry, Sarge. I should’ve caught him.’

Urgh...

Yeah, well.

Suppose it wasn’t entirely his fault.

Logan waved it away. ‘If there’s one thing Charles MacGarioch’s good at, it’s scarpering.’

And burning poor bastards alive...

53

Back at the station, Logan suppressed a yawn and pushed through the double doors, back into the open-plan office. Normally the place would be humming — reverberating with the clatter of keyboards as people slunk in to do ‘completely necessary paperwork activities’ in the run-up to home time. But today, Divisional Headquarters had a decidedly Flying Dutchman feel to it — with only a cursed skeleton crew left to man the ship while storms and sea monsters battered at the hull...

And even then, one of the dwindling support staff was hacking and coughing and spluttering all over the printer.

No wonder the bloody thing never worked properly.

Tufty poked and fiddled with his phone, walking to heel like a good little sidekick. ‘We’ve got time to grab a coffee, then sit in on the review for Operation “Camper Vans Stolen To Order” if you like?’

‘I most certainly don’t like. Besides: wouldn’t want Acting DI Taylor to think we were checking up on her.’ Pausing at the coffee machine, he poked the buttons till it whirred and grumbled out a frothy wax-paper cup of burnt-toast-flavoured yuck. Yum, yum, yum.

Logan handed the scalding beverage to Tufty. ‘That hate mail from “Anonymous One-Two-Three”, can you trace the IP address?’ Going in for another poke at the machine.

‘Already did, Sarge, while we were waiting on Keira Longmore being processed. It’s a VPN node in London.’

Nope.

‘Worry not, I has an explaining: it does mean Virtual Private Network — hides who you are, where you’re connecting from, and encrypts everything in-between. Mr One-Two-Three am being an ghostie.’

‘Of course he sodding is.’ Logan took a sip of hot brown. Which tasted every bit as awful as it smelled. ‘In that case, you’d better get on to Spudgun — see if anything’s cooking at Wallace Tower. Now we’ve raided his girlfriend’s boudoir, MacGarioch might go to ground again.’

‘Sarge.’

‘And if he’s still unfindable, we’ve got the Orphan Circus Outing to fall back on. Which means we’re going to need at least a half-dozen tickets. Assuming the Chief Super actually gives us enough bodies to...’

Bugger.

Sergeant Brookminster entered through the far door, stood there for a moment, looking around, then homed-in on Logan. Striding between the cubicles, with an iPad tucked under his arm as if it were a swagger stick. ‘DCI McRae.’ He gave Tufty a nod. ‘Constable.’

The wee loon stuck his hand out for shaking. ‘Greetings fellow comrade in this Great Fraternity of Sacred Sidekicks!’

Brookminster looked at the hand, eyebrows puckering into a one-up-one-down frown. ‘Yes, well... DCI McRae, the Boss would like a word, if you’ve got a moment?’

Which sounded like an invitation, but clearly wasn’t.

Fair enough.

Logan gave Tufty a nudge. ‘Constable: put your hand away and go chase-up Sergeant Moore. Then see if you can get your hands on those tickets.’

‘Aye-aye, Sarge.’ A quick salute and click of the heels, then off he scampered.

‘Bizarre...’ Brookminster led the way through the desks, towards the Forbidden Corridor, where all the bigwigs’ offices lurked. ‘Is there a reason Constable... Quirrel, is it? — refers to you as “Sarge”? I mean, he does know you’re an acting detective chief inspector, doesn’t he?’

‘I was the boy’s first sergeant when he was doing his probation. Up in B Division. When B Division still existed.’ Ah: the good old days. Sort of. ‘Suppose it’s a weird term-of-endearment, slash, nickname.’

The Forbidden Corridor was much nicer than the main bit of the office, with a view out over the old Divisional Headquarters on Queen Street, in all its seven-storey grey-and-black liquorice-allsort-striped glory. Which, presumably, someone would be demolishing soon to make way for an even uglier office block.

The corridor also had a couple of large pot plants that looked suspiciously non-plastic, and instead of standard-issue losing-the-will-to-live motivational posters, there were a handful of nice paintings on the walls.

‘Yes...’ Brookminster’s free hand made spiders in the air. ‘He certainly seems a little... odd.’

‘Oh, to a band playing.’

They stopped outside the door marked ‘CHIEF SUPT. ROSLYN PINE OBE’, where Brookminster plucked the nasty coffee from Logan’s hand. ‘Trust me: it’s for the best.’ Then knocked. And marched off again, leaving Logan standing there. Coffeeless and blinking.

Kind of got the feeling that today wasn’t about to get any better.

Pine’s voice barked through the door: ‘Come.’

Back straight.

Deep breath.

And in we go...

Her office seemed weirdly out-of-place for a police station: no filing cabinets or whiteboards; no coffee-stained carpet tiles; no ceiling tiles that looked like a map of Europe, painted in dysentery. What she did have were some nice bookshelves, a nice desk, a nice big office chair, a couple of nice armchairs, a nice coffee table, a nice view over the Marischal College quad — even if it was all grey and empty — and a nice sideboard thing with a pod-coffee machine gleaming away on top of it.

The head cop for Aberdeenshire and Moray sat behind her desk, flipping through a file. She looked up as Logan stepped inside and closed the door behind him. ‘Ah, good. Have you seen the Aberdeen Examiner’s latest nonsense?’ Grabbing that morning’s edition from her in-tray and waving it at him.

‘Just been there, actually — got a possible line of inquiry for you.’ He took the proffered paper and pointed at her armchairs. ‘Can I...?’ Then avalanched into one of them, sagged, puffed out his cheeks, and unfolded Colin’s hatchet-job handywork.

Logan sniffed. ‘You can always rely on Colin Miller for a run-on sentence and a buried lead. And “most popular newspapers”? I wouldn’t use the Scottish Daily Post to line my cat’s litter tray.’ Skimming the text. ‘Blah, blah, blah...’

Bloody hell.

‘“Modest”? It’s massive. She’s got four bedrooms, a home gym, a sauna, and a steam room. Plus, he was there before we were! How are we supposed to search a property before we know a crime’s been committed?’

Then another chunk of melodramatic crap about bloodstains and ‘the lonely smile of an abandoned teddy bear’ before the boot was landed right into A Division’s testicles:

He slapped the paper shut and thumped it down on Pine’s desk. ‘Blah, blah, wankity wank, wank...’ Then sat up, heat blooming in across his ears. ‘Sorry, Boss.’

‘Hmmmph...’ She stood, busying herself with the coffee machine. Setting it whirring. ‘I think “wank” is putting it mildly, to be honest. Only upside is no one else got the story in time to make the morning editions. Tomorrow it’ll be everywhere.’ She fiddled with little cups, keeping it casual, but the hope was clear in her voice. ‘You said you have a possible lead?’

‘Second-last person to see Natasha Agapova — Nick Wilson, director at something called NorrelTech. Sat next to her at the charity-auction, Monday night. You’ve already spoken to the taxi driver?’

She let loose a long, kind-of-pissed-off sigh, then placed a tiny cup on the desk, in front of Logan. ‘Espresso. You look like you could use it.’

‘Thanks, Boss.’ Taking the teeny cup of evil. ‘We did speak to the taxi driver, didn’t we?’

‘Of course we did. He didn’t see anything, didn’t suspect anything, didn’t do anything. And he’s still managed to sell his story to “one of Scotland’s favourite newspapers”.’ A grimace. ‘Meanwhile that ridiculous “Penny Thistle” woman got interviewed in her bikini for Channel 5 and just about every news outlet south of the equator. Topless for the Venezuelans.’ Pine yanked the spent pod from the machine and hurled it into the bin. ‘This whole thing’s a disaster: the First Minister’s office called six times today, Tulliallan are nipping my head on an hourly basis, and the world press are quite happy to paint this division as a bunch of useless, half-witted, flat-footed, couldn’t-find-their-fat-arseholes-with-a-compass-and-a-team-of-sherpas clowns, because apparently we should’ve found Natasha Agapova by now! We are dead, Logan, if we can’t catch whoever did it and rescue her, ASA-frigging-P!’ The Chief Super rammed another pod in the machine, slammed it shut, and set it whirring. ‘And quite frankly, we could do without the Aberdeen Examiner giving us a kicking too!’

Logan took a sip of espresso, dark and bitter and fruity all at the same time. The effects clearly weren’t instant, though, because a massive yawn rattled free. He shivered in his seat then slumped a little further. ‘Sorry.’ Blink. Blink. ‘Maybe we could give them something? A little exclusive to get the buggers onside.’

She frowned down at him. ‘When did you last sleep?’

‘Think I got ten minutes in the pool car, this afternoon?’

‘Right: home. And that’s an order. I want you sharp and focussed for tonight’s op. We are not letting Charles MacGarioch get away again, just because you can’t keep your eyes open.’ She reached across the desk and confiscated Logan’s coffee.

‘But I was—’

‘Go!’ Pointing at the door. ‘Get some sleep. And I expect you to be properly dressed when you get back.’

‘Eh?’ He looked down at his perfectly serviceable uniform. ‘But I’m wearing the—’

‘Standards matter, Logan.’ The Chief Super glanced at her watch. ‘Briefing’s at seven, so you’d better get moving. Longer you sod about here, the less time you’ve got.’

He abandoned his car in the driveway, plipping the locks over his shoulder as he scuffed to the front door and let himself in. Hung his peaked cap on the newel post and kicked off his boots, padding upstairs in his socks — pulling off his Police Scotland T-shirt on the way.

Bathroom: teeth, quick wee.

Bedroom: close curtains, dump clothes on wicker chair, timber into bed, wriggle under covers.

Swear.

Wriggle out again.

Set alarm on phone for 18:30.

Back under covers.

Swear again.

Text Tara:

SEND.

Back under covers.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep...

Cthulhu hopped up onto the bed, treadled her way up the duvet, then thumped down on the pillow next to Logan. Reached out a paw — big, fluffy, with a faint biscuity whiff — and placed it against his head. Purring her way to sleep.

A smile tugged at Logan’s lips. He sighed, closed his eyes, and joined her.

LIV

The rattle-clank-roar of the JCB’s backhoe stuttered to an end, and silence settled over the crappy collection of outbuildings.

But it wasn’t really silent, was it: the digger’s noise had drowned them out, but now the bluebottles’ buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz filled the hot sticky air again.

Natasha stood beside her mobile anchor — rolled as close to the window hole as she could get it — for a slightly better view of the field.

DS Davis climbed down from the JCB’s cab, and brushed the dust off his jeans with his work gloves. Sweat darkening the fabric of his faded ‘BLODHØST DØDSULV’ T-shirt.

She flattened herself against the wall, peering around the edge of the hole — keeping as low a profile as possible.

Don’t come back here.

Don’t come back here...

Shit.

That’s exactly what the bastard was doing.

He was going to squeal open that door and stab her, or shoot her, or bash her brains out with a fucking axe or something, then stick her in that bloody hole he’d been digging for hours.

Thing must be halfway to Sydney by now...

Most people: they buried a body, maybe only two or three feet down. There were tell-tale signs, like the ground sagging as the body decomposed, and weird patterns of extra growth where the plants feasted on human compost.

But a hole that deep?

Davis was making sure nothing would ever be found.

But maybe he wouldn’t kill her?

Maybe it wasn’t a grave?

That was possible, right?

Maybe he was just doing some... fucking farmwork, or something? Sorting out the drainage in the lower field — that kind of shit.

Oh Christ...

She hopped on one foot, using the other to shove at the anchor, rolling the bucket back towards where it was supposed to be all this time.

Fuck.

DS Davis was in the courtyard already, and she was nowhere near getting everything back the way it should be.

There was a clunk, then a rattling squeal of ancient metal rollers on steel brackets.

But her prison door remained firmly closed.

Natasha closed her eyes and sagged, knees curling, threatening to dump her on the hard-baked dirt.

It wasn’t her door.

She took a deep breath, then coaxed the galvanised bin towards the window again as quietly as possible.

The door to the other outbuilding was wide open; no Davis.

He reappeared a lifetime later, dragging something.

A man’s body — stripped down to the underwear. Skin thick with bruises and scrapes. Head covered by a heavy leather gimp mask that laced up the back; eyes and mouth, zipped shut. His wrists weren’t fixed to a metal collar, though, they were handcuffed behind his back.

Davis had his gloved hands hooked in under the body’s arms. Can’t have been all that heavy, though — you could see every one of the poor bastard’s ribs, and his arms and legs were nothing but battered bones. Like he’d been chained-up in there for a long, long time.

His corpse got dumped on a pile of pallets, then Davis unlaced the mask and pulled it off the guy’s pummelled head. The face underneath was distorted and swollen, discoloured with purples and yellows and greens. Doubt even his mum would recognise him now.

Davis placed the mask to one side.

Well, these things were probably expensive — wouldn’t want it going to waste.

Which kinda made you wonder how many other people had died in the one Natasha now wore...

Davis rolled the dead man off the pallets, and when that tortured body hit the ground it groaned, one skeletal leg twitching as Davis hauled the poor bastard across the makeshift courtyard and out towards the field.

‘Fuck me...’ Natasha covered her mouth with both hands, staring.

He was still alive.

Davis dragged him away, then they disappeared out of sight — hidden by the barn.

Not long after that, Detective Sergeant Davis marched across the gap and clambered up into the JCB’s cab again.

The engine sputtered and roared.

The backhoe jerked and swung.

And DS Davis buried the poor bastard alive.