All That's Dead

by Stuart MacBride

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

  Right.

  He took out his phone and sent Tufty a text:

  Any news on that first tweeter yet?

  No response.

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

  Still nothing from Tufty.

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

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

  And ring.

  And ring.

  And ring.

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Too late.’

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

  Might as well.

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

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

  Ah, that Matt Lansdale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  So far, so boring.

  ‘Still waiting for a connection.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Eek! Give him something decaf!’

  ‘The connection.’

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

  ‘Is that it?’ He lowered the fork.

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

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

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

  Ah … Yes, the happy DCI Hardie.

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

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

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

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

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

  True.

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

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

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

  Also true.

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

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

  Aha …

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

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

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

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

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

  So wherever Lansdale went, he went without any cash.

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

  Logan dug into the next coat.

  Frowned. ‘More car keys.’

  So no cash, and no car.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Logan closed the cupboard door. ‘Last room.’

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Suicide.’ Was the obvious conclusion.

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

  ‘You try the hospitals?’

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

  Nope.

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

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

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

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

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

  OK, time to try the street.

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

  Still nothing.

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

  Other side of the road.

  Yet more nothing.

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

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

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

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

  One last go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  15

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

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

  ‘Well, maybe we—’

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

  What?

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

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

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

  He had an idiot, more like.

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

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

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

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

  ‘How long?’

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