This House of Burning Bones

82

The van radio miserabled away in the background, while Barrett and Lund played snap with risqué cards; Harmsworth squinted his way through a dogeared paperback: PC Munro and the Candlemaker’s Bane; and Tufty tried, yet again, to balance a pen on his pointy nose.

Everyone was in stabproof vests and high-vis this time, even Logan and Steel — no riot gear though, because apparently that ‘sent out the wrong message’.

Probably just as well, though, because the van was sweaty enough without adding in crash helmets, heavy leather gauntlets, and all that extra padding.

They’d parked between the ‘ROAD AHEAD CLOSED’ and ‘ACCESS & EMERGENCY VEHICLES ONLY’ signs on Union Terrace Gardens, with the Transit’s nose pointing towards Union Street.

Every now and then, a march steward wandered by in their orange high-vis tabard, making sure everything was OK for the impending mob.

‘Aye, hang on a minute,’ Steel looked up from that morning’s edition of the Aberdeen Examiner — ‘NEWSPAPER TYCOON SLAMS “INCOMPETENT” POLICE AS PLUCKY NATASHA ON BRINK OF DEATH’ above a photo of Adrian Shearsmith ranting away at last night’s briefing — ‘are we keeping an eye on the ASDA wanks, or is that Spudgun’s idiots?’

‘Snap!’ Barrett clacked down a topless knave of spades. ‘That’s a quid in the swear jar.’ Gathering up his winnings. ‘And it’s ASDG, the Anglo Saxon Defence “Group”, not “Association”.’

A nod from Lund. ‘Well, you can see the supermarket would probably get a bit litigious if they went with “Association”. That would be begging for a lawsuit. People wouldn’t know if they’d popped in to buy a loaf of bread or commit hate crimes against minorities.’

‘Oh aye?’ Steel glowered at the rear-view mirror. ‘One: the swear jar is officially suspended till Monday, and two: shut up. And three: are we watching the slithery bum-plukes or aren’t we?’

Harmsworth turned the page. ‘I heard they weren’t coming.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah, whatshisface, thingy: Graeme Anderson, he’s off to the US; gladhanding it with a bunch of right-wing senators and techbros. Wants funding for a political wing.’

‘Christ, that’s all we need. More spunknuggets running for parliament.’

Logan checked the dashboard clock: twenty to nine. Time to make a move. ‘All right, everyone, let’s keep sharp!’ Shoving the passenger door open. ‘No hitting people with sticks. No fighting. No swearing. No doing anything that makes us look like unprofessional pricks. And especially not on sodding video!’

Steel folded her paper and dumped it on the dashboard. ‘Owen: that means no picking your bum in front of the protestors. Let’s leave some magic and romance, eh?’ Drumming her hands on the steering wheel, bongo-style. ‘Go, go, go!’

The side door rattled back and Tufty, Harmsworth, Lund, and Barrett piled out. Ready to rock.

Steel grinned across the van at Logan. ‘You ready?’

‘No. But that’s never stopped me before.’

He climbed into the scorching morning sun and clunked the door shut behind him.

Off in the middle distance, the shreeeep-shreeeep-shreeeep of whistles and rat-a-trum-trum of approaching drums grew louder as the protest made its way along the west end of Union Street. Five, maybe ten minutes away?

‘OK.’ Logan straightened his peaked cap. ‘Let’s do this.’

After all, what choice did they have...?