‘Like riding a bike. Barely even noticed the difference.’
Liar.
‘Aye, right.’ Rennie raised his burden an inch, then lowered it again. ‘Little help?’
Logan unloaded the tinfoil packages, bags, and hot drinks onto the nearest vacant desk. ‘Do me a favour and call DI King. Tell him I’ve commandeered Tufty for the morning. I don’t know if the silly wee sod’s even checked in for work yet.’
‘Tsk …’ Rennie sighed. ‘That’s what you get for recruiting an inferior sidekick. Look what happened last time you were lumbered with that eejit!’ He thumbed himself in the chest. ‘Sergeant Simon Rennie: shaves as close as a blade or your money back.’
‘Maybe, but Bevan won’t let you out to play till you’ve finished all your homework.’
‘Then, the dream team shall ride again!’ He put the box of doughnuts down, picked up a tinfoil package and tossed it to Logan. ‘Exit left, pursued by a bear.’ Rennie grabbed a tinfoil parcel of his own and headed for his desk.
‘Rennie! Where’s the—’
‘On Shona’s desk.’ He threw himself into his seat, unwrapped his breakfast with one hand and grabbed his desk phone with the other, ripping out a bite and dialling as he chewed. ‘Yellow? Yeah, I need to speak to Detective Inspector King.’
Logan paid Shona’s Happy Birthday Grotto a visit. Nodded at the streamers, banners, and balloons. A DIY poster with ‘YOU’RE 46 TODAY!!!’ on it in cheerful chunky letters. ‘Nice to see they kept it classy and low-key.’
All he got in response was a grunt. She didn’t even look up from her copy of that morning’s Scottish Daily Post. An army of squeezy bottles stood to attention beside her monitor: tomato sauce, brown sauce, fluorescent-yellow American mustard, sweet chilli, mayonnaise, barbecue – both smoky and sweet – and a thing of salad cream for the more sophisticated palate.
Rennie’s voice floated across the room. ‘Hello, DI King? … Hi, it’s Sergeant Rennie from Professional Standards … No, no. Nothing’s wrong.’
Another grunt from Shona.
Logan rolled his eyes. ‘Why yes, it is lovely to be back at work, thank you for asking.’
She sighed, then glanced up from her article. ‘You’re feeling better then?’
‘Not at this time of the sodding morning, I’m not.’ He unwrapped his parcel. ‘Ooh, fish finger butty!’ That called for a celebration, so he slathered it in a mixture of salad cream and tomato sauce, then took a bite. Crunchy and fishy and sweet and savoury all at the same time. Munching around the words, ‘Well? How bad is it?’
‘Being forty-six? Awful. I used to be a svelte young thing, Logan, pursued by the sexiest of gentlemen, I went on fabulous holidays and ate in the finest restaurants. And now look at me: it’s a red-letter day if I can get that sodding LaserJet to print double-sided.’
‘No, not being forty-six: DI King. In the paper. How bad is it?’
She frowned at him. ‘Nope, still not getting you.’
‘Front-page splash. You need glasses, Shona, your advanced age is clearly …’
She turned the paper around, so Logan could see the front page. Half of it was devoted to another anti-English arson attack – this time a bike shop in Aviemore – the other half to ‘STRICTLY STARLET’S “BOOZE-AND-DRUGS BINGE HORROR”’. Apparently Professor Wilson’s abduction only merited a tiny sidebar and ‘CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 ’.
‘Oh.’
Shona gave the paper a bash with the back of her hand. ‘What there is, however, is yet another column by everyone’s favourite D-list celebrity nobody, Scotty Meyrick, telling us how Scotland’s a bunch of ungrateful scumbags for not appreciating the benevolence of our Westminster overlords. What a great birthday present that was.’
Logan gave his butty another seeing to. ‘You going to send him a thank-you card?’
‘God save us from bloody “celebs” telling us what to think. Someone eats a kangaroo’s ring-piece on TV and suddenly they’re a political pundit?’
‘Can I have that when you’re finished with it?’
‘Urgh …’ She held the paper out. ‘Here, take the thing. My blood pressure’s bad enough what with birthdays and that buggering printer to deal with.’
‘Thanks.’ Logan tucked it under his arm and headed back to his desk, finishing his butty as he flicked through what passed for news at the Scottish Daily Post. Apparently, unless something happened within an hour of Edinburgh or Glasgow, it really wasn’t worth reporting.
The only exception lurked on page seven. For some reason, Edward Barwell hadn’t named-and-shamed DI King as an ex-Alt-Nat terrorist, instead he’d spent half a page banging on about Professor Wilson’s abduction and how it was undoubtedly connected to someone called Matt Lansdale going missing.
Matt Lansdale …
That journalist at yesterday’s press conference had called Lansdale a high-profile anti-independence campaigner, but other than that? Never heard of him. And clearly everyone was expected to know who he was, because there was sod all detail about that in the article.
Should probably try to find out, just in case it was related.
Logan frowned at the article again, with its accompanying photo of Professor Wilson and ‘ALT-NAT THUGS TARGET BETTERlOGETHER HEROES’ headline. Why hadn’t Barwell outed DI King? It was a juicy story – bound to shift a few papers and stir up a whole heap of controversy – so why bury it?
Rennie slouched across the room and perched on the edge of Logan’s desk. ‘You’ll be happy to hear that I’ve got young Tufters off the hook. And you were right: the silly wee sod hadn’t signed in this morning.’
‘Thought not.’ Logan sooked the tomato sauce and salad cream from his fingers. ‘You ever heard of a “Matt Lansdale”?’
‘Oh, and King says to tell you the SE have been on the phone. No viable DNA at the scene. Said to say, “They were right, the guy’s a ghost.”’
A ghost.
Logan frowned out the window. The rush hour was gearing up, but still a good half hour away from clotting like a fat-filled artery. A bus rumbled past.
‘Guv?’
Their guy was a ghost …
Two cars. A taxi.
‘Guv, you’re not having a stroke or something, are you?’
A Transit van with ‘THE TEENY BEETROOT BAKERY CO. LTD.’ down the side in cheery letters.
‘Hello?’
A ghost.
Soodding hell.
Logan turned back to Rennie. ‘He was wearing a Tyvek suit! That’s why Professor Wilson’s dog went for the Scene Examiners: they were wearing the same SOC kit.’
Rennie puckered his face. ‘Oooh … You know, after the BBC did that big documentary about the scumbags who abducted Alison and Jenny McGregor, it’s a miracle more criminals don’t do it. See if it was me?’
‘No wonder he didn’t leave any forensic traces.’ Logan poked at his keyboard, calling up the Police National Computer to run a search on Matt Lansdale.
‘He’s all dressed in white, he’s a ghost … Maybe we should call our abductor “Casper”?’
‘Only not so friendly. You didn’t see the blood spattered across the kitchen table.’ Logan’s search results popped up on the screen. Well, result singular, because only one entry came back: ‘REPORTED MISSING’ and last Wednesday’s date. Nothing else. ‘OK, back to the topic at hand: Matt Lansdale?’
‘Was he a finalist on X Factor?’
Logan tossed the paper over. ‘Journos are implying his disappearance is connected to Prof Wilson’s. All I’m getting on the PNC is that he’s missing.’
‘Pfffff …’ Rennie frowned at Edward Barwell’s article. ‘Can find out, if you like?’
‘Ta.’
‘And while we’re on the subject: you’ll never guess what I’ve managed to organise for Saturday. Go on, guess. You can’t, but try.’ Wiggling both eyebrows. ‘OK, OK, get this: Princess Unicorn’s Magic Bouncy Castle! How cool is that?’
Logan wheeled his chair back a bit, puttin
g a little more distance between them. ‘Erm …’
‘And Mistress Fizzymiggins is doing a make-your-own-magic-wand-and-fairy-wings thing. And there’s going to be a pony!’
A pony? Why would there be a …
‘Ah, right: Lola’s birthday party!’
‘Donna’s even written a special song for her little sister that doesn’t include the words “Bumface Brain”. Can you help out with the Fairyland pony rides?’
‘Actually—’
‘Great. Right, I’ll go see what I can dig up about Matt Lansdale.’ He sauntered off towards the main doors, taking the Scottish Daily Post with him. ‘And don’t forget, it’s BYOT!’
BYOT?
Logan curled his lip. ‘What the hell is BYOT?’
But the doors thunked shut and Rennie was gone.
The man was a menace.
Logan stood to follow him … and stopped as Superintendent Bevan emerged from her office, holding a blue folder.
She gave him a smile. ‘Ah, Logan. Good.’ Then peered past him, at the desk. ‘Oh, are those your sausages? Lovely.’ Bevan marched over and picked up the Tupperware box. ‘We’ll pop these in the fridge, then you can come join me in the conference room.’
Why did that sound as if something horrible was about to happen?
10
Logan shifted in his squeaky leather seat. ‘I don’t know what else you want me to say.’
Detective Superintendent Young frowned back at him from the oversized TV screen mounted on the far wall. To be honest, Young was a bit intimidating in person – being a rugby-player-sized lump with big meaty fists covered in scars. Throw in the small dark squinty eyes and he looked like the kind of person who’d tear your head off for spilling his pint or looking at him funny, and being on screen didn’t really diminish that.
Jane McGrath was sitting next to him, in the boardroom at DHQ, as immaculate as ever, as if she’d been moulded from plastic. The only thing out of place was the expression on her face: as if she really wanted to scrape whatever she’d just stood in off her shoe.
Young picked up his printout of the Scottish Daily Post’s front page, or at least the one that was meant to appear today, but hadn’t. ‘Was he in a terrorist organisation, or not?’
Logan shrugged. ‘He went to a few PASL meetings.’
Jane stared at the ceiling for a beat. ‘God damn it.’ Then sat back in her seat. ‘Well, that’s that, then, isn’t it? We’re screwed: he’s got to go.’
‘Now,’ Superintendent Bevan pulled on a serious schoolteacher voice, the authority undermined a teeny bit by her Kiwi accent, ‘before we do anything rash, perhaps we should take a step back and think about this dispassionately.’
‘“Dispassionately”?’ Jane shook her head. ‘It’s a PR disaster. Forget “Fingerprintgate” or “Sex-In-The-Woods-gate”, every major news outlet will be lining up to jam spiky things up our backsides! Great big spiky—’
Young hit her with his printout. ‘All right, Jane, we get the picture.’
‘I’m talking pineapples here!’
Bevan tried the voice again. ‘That’s no reason to indulge in knee-jerk reactions.’
‘Jane’s right, Julie.’ Young held up a hand. ‘I know, I know. But DI King has become a liability. He’s a diseased limb: we have to amputate before the infection spreads and takes the whole body with it.’
‘Who’s to say a judicious dose of antibiotics couldn’t work every bit as well?’
She had a point.
Logan joined in, going for calm and reasonable: ‘DI King says he only joined the PASL to impress a girl.’
‘Hmph.’ Jane curled her lip. ‘We’ve all done strange things for love, but you should really draw the line at joining a terrorist cell. How am I supposed to spin that?’
‘He was sixteen.’
‘He was an idiot!’
‘Most sixteen-year-old boys are.’
Bevan nodded. ‘All I’m saying is that if we throw DI King to the crocodiles because he was a horny teenager, that’s it for him. The press will tear him apart. No more career. Even if he changes divisions – they’ll find him and drag it all up again.’
‘They’re going to tear him apart anyway. We got lucky today: the Scottish Daily Post bumped their exclusive, but they’re going to print it sooner or later, and when they do …’ She banged a hand down on the table. ‘This is our chance to get ahead of the story and act like we’re on the front foot for a change.’
‘But—’
Jane turned to Young. ‘Suspend him now, and it’ll look like the Post are reacting to our diligent man management. We won’t put up with this kind of thing, etc.’
‘That’s not—’
Young held up his hand again. ‘What’s the point of having a Professional Standards if we can’t use them to hack a festering limb off and cauterise the wound?’ He waved the printout at them. ‘My department’s not coming down with gangrene!’
Logan sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘Seems a little harsh.’
‘Or, alternatively,’ Bevan pursed her lips, frowning, ‘and hear me out here: we could take a different route. What if we do full disclosure? Lay it all out for them in a frank and open interview with DI King. “How I stopped being a bigoted tosspot and learned to love the English.”’
On the screen, Jane narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m listening.’
‘We’re always telling people how racism and homophobia and sectarianism and anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are wrong, yes? Surely, if people are prepared to change we should celebrate that, not keep kicking them because they used to be racist. Celebrate that change.’
There was silence and frowning.
Then Young turned to Jane. ‘Well?’
‘Hmmm … I might be able to sell that, but we’ll need some insulation in case it all goes tits up. Something to stop our fingers getting burned.’
‘Agreed. If DI King can catch whoever abducted Professor Wilson, it’ll vindicate NE Division for keeping him on the case. Even better if he can get the Professor back alive.’ A nod, then a scowl. ‘But if he can’t, we look negligent for not suspending him. And I, for one, am not bending over for a pineappleing.’
Jane bit her top lip for a moment, staring off into the middle distance. ‘How about this: we put someone in to “support” him? That way, if he fails, we’ve at least got plausible deniability.’
Ah the joys of Police Scotland politics. Setting some poor sod up to take the blame if it all went wrong – but the top brass would grab the glory if it all went right. Nothing ever changed.
Logan shook his head. ‘And who’s going to be the lucky scapegoat?’
The smile Jane gave him was half crocodile, half serial killer. ‘Well, who better than someone from Professional Standards? That would show we’re serious about it.’
Bevan stiffened in her seat. ‘Ah … Perhaps that’s not—’
‘And who better than a bona-fide police hero? Someone with a Queen’s Medal?’
What?
Logan stared at her. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute: I only got back to work yesterday!’
‘I like it.’ Young nodded. ‘Yes. McRae brings a lot of press goodwill with him.’
‘But—’
‘This way, if DI King turns out to still be a … what was it, “bigoted tosspot”? You can yank him off the case, Logan. And if he’s not, but he fails anyway, you can vouch that he’s really tried his best.’
Not a chance in hell.
Logan turned to Bevan, eyes wide.
Come on, say something. Tell them!
She took a deep breath. ‘Agreed.’
Agreed?
‘No, not agreed. I’m not—’
‘Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a Tulliallan Goon Squad descending in twenty minutes to moan about these arson attacks.’ Young stood, his top half disappearing off the TV. ‘Keep me informed.’
‘Bye.’ Jane’s evil smile widened a couple of inches as she pointed a rem
ote at the camera. Then the screen went blank, leaving Logan and Bevan alone in the room.
He got to his feet. ‘Well thank you very much.’
‘Oh come on, Logan, don’t be like that. You were happy enough keeping an eye on DI King yesterday.’
‘“A watching brief”, you said!’ Throwing his hands out. ‘This isn’t even vaguely the same thing.’
‘Logan, you’re—’
‘You hung me out like a pair of damp socks!’
A sigh. ‘I’m sure it won’t be as bad as—’
‘I only got back to work yesterday and you’ve got me set up as the scapegoat’s scapegoat!’
Bevan went very still. ‘Logan, I know we’ve not worked together before, so I’m going to pretend you didn’t just talk to your superintendent like that. I appreciate things haven’t exactly been easy for you over the last year, but there’s only so far I’m willing to bend. Are we clear?’
Oh great, so now it was his fault?
Bloody, buggering …
He gritted his teeth. ‘Yes, Boss.’
‘There we go. All forgiven and forgotten.’ She stood and clapped her hands. ‘Now, why don’t we go sing “Happy Birthday” to Shona, cut the cake, then you can go support DI King. I’m sure he’ll be glad of the help.’
There was something slightly surreal about a group of twenty officers, all standing about in their Police Scotland black uniforms, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ while wearing gaily-coloured party hats. Pointy ones. As if this was some sort of celebration for ninja gnomes.
As the last note warbled away in questionable three-part harmony, a pink-faced Shona hauled in a breath and blew out the candles on her cake. Everyone cheered. Then a handful of them produced party poppers and set them off, draping her with streamers.
Bevan smiled at them all. ‘All right, all right. You can have a lot of fun without being stupid.’
Speaking of which …
Logan sidled over to Tufty and Karl – both of whom were wearing their party hats at very rakish angles – while Shona cut the cake.
‘Have you pair managed to find anything?’
A pout from Tufty. ‘Karl won’t let me have any more Red Bulls.’
Karl bared his teeth in a big broad smile. ‘I have to say, Logan, your young friend here is quite the kid who whizzes, oh my, yes.’ He gave Tufty a wee playful punch on the shoulder. ‘But I’m afraid we’ve hit an impasse. Brave Sir Tufty’s algorithmic methodology is inspired, but without more computing power, it’s like trying to push a ten-tonne blancmange uphill wearing nothing but flip-flops and an amusing hat.’ He raised his to the height of its elastic, then let go so it pinged back down again.
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