by JD Kirk
The workshop was in a self-contained unit with a bright red door and a roll-down metal shutter covering a second, much larger entrance. Both were locked.
The building had a serious shortage of windows. There were only two that Logan could see, both much wider than they were tall, and situated about ten feet above the ground. Light shone through from the other side, and after a quick search turned up nothing to stand on, Logan clasped his hands together and lowered them to knee level.
“Right. Up you go,” he urged.
Hamza glanced from the hands to the window and back again. “Sure you can hold me up that high, sir?” he asked.
“I could bloody throw you that high, if I wanted,” Logan retorted. “Come on. Horse on. I want to see if the bastard’s in there.”
Hamza nodded, placed a hand on the DCI’s shoulder for balance, then raised a foot. Logan whipped his hands away at the last moment.
“Jesus. Wipe your feet first,” he instructed. “I don’t know where they’ve been.”
Hamza twisted his leg so he could check the sole of his shoe, gave it a rub on the shin of the opposite leg, then raised an enquiring eyebrow. “Alright?”
“I suppose that’ll have to do,” Logan said, adopting the position again. He made no sound whatsoever as Hamza stood on his hands, then gave a grunt as he straightened, hefting the Detective Sergeant up until he was level with the windows. “Christ, you’re heavier than you look,” he admitted. “Can you see anything?”
Hamza clutched the window ledge and peered in through the glass. The lights may have been on, but from that vantage point, it looked like no one was home.
“Can’t see him, sir,” he said. “But I can’t get a good look into the corner. Can you shuffle along to the right a bit?”
With a grimace, Logan shuffled along to the right a bit.
“No, my right,” Hamza said.
Muttering, Logan shuffled back in the opposite direction, one of Hamza’s feet balanced on his hands, the other standing on his shoulder.
“Anything?” the DCI asked.
Hamza clung to the ledge and leaned further still to his right, until he could see enough of the workshop to be sure nobody was hiding in the corners.
“Doesn’t look like he’s here. I mean, there’s bound to be a toilet, he might be hiding in there, but there’s no sign of him in the main part, and none of the equipment is switched on.”
Logan adjusted his stance, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “See anything else?”
“Like what, sir?”
“Like anything that might give us cause to break down the door and go inside,” Logan clarified. “Like a severed human head, or a big puddle of blood. Either of those would do nicely.”
Hamza had to disappoint him. “Afraid not. Nothing out of the ordinary that I can see.”
“Shite,” Logan spat. He squatted low enough for Hamza to step safely down onto the ground, then brushed his hands against one another and gave his shoulder a wipe.
“Any idea where he’ll be?” Hamza asked.
Logan shook his head. “No,” he said, taking out his phone. “But I know someone who might.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Tyler confirmed into the phone that he’d ask Lana Lennon if she knew where her husband might be, and then told Logan he’d call back in five minutes.
He and Sinead were in the foyer of the station, close enough that they could rush out and help DI Forde if things should turn ugly, but far enough away that Tyler’s presence wouldn’t escalate things any further.
Moira Corson stood in front of them, still glugging tea and dunking biscuits. She’d winced as she’d watched Ben go past with his megaphone, before announcing, “They’ll eat him alive,” to nobody in particular.
“What’s all the noise?” Logan asked from the other end of the phone. “Is that a car alarm?”
“Uh, yeah, boss,” Tyler confirmed. “I think… I think it might be, aye. Everything’s fine, though. Nothing for you to worry about. It’s all under control.”
Logan sighed so heavily that even Moira turned to look back at the phone.
“Tell me they’re not all kicking off,” the DCI groaned. “Tell me they’re not going mental.”
Logan and Hamza had taken the back road from Spean Bridge to Banavie, then hung a right and headed out to Corpach, specifically so they’d avoid having to pass the police station. All the cars slowing to get an eyeful of what was happening were causing a bottleneck that the detectives had sought to avoid.
Besides, if a disaster had befallen the place, and Logan didn’t know about it, he couldn’t be expected to sort it out.
Now, though, with alarms blaring down the phone, and the unmistakable sounds of aggression and violence clearly audible in the background, ‘plausible deniability’ was looking less and less like an option.
“I wouldn’t say they’re ‘going mental,’ exactly, boss,” Tyler said.
This was true. They had passed the ‘going mental’ stage and had now ‘gone mental,’ past tense. It was a bloodbath out there now. Pupils were no longer just fighting the press and the Uniforms, some of them had turned on each other. Old rivalries and bottled-up feelings had erupted, and the once clearly drawn sides had splintered until it was essentially every man, woman, and child for themselves.
And DI Forde was striding towards it all, one hand in a pocket, the other swinging his megaphone around by its strap.
“Do you need me to come back?” Logan asked.
Tyler covered the mouthpiece of his phone and turned to Sinead. “Boss is asking if we want him to come back.”
“Can he bring a water cannon?”
“Can you bring a water cannon, boss?”
Sinead tutted. “That was a joke,” she said, holding her hand out for the phone.
“Sorry, boss. That was a joke,” Tyler said, keeping the phone to his ear but leaning closer to Sinead to let her know he was going to hand it over just as soon as he was done. “Here’s Sinead.”
He handed it over before Logan could respond, then went back to watching Ben. The DI had arrived at the edge of the battlefield now, and was easily within range of a careless kick or punch.
“Sir. It’s Sinead. I think we’re fine here. The Chief Inspector’s calling in more Uniforms.”
“What the hell happened?” Logan asked.
“Got a bit ugly when I tried bringing Lana Lennon in. All deteriorated quickly after that.”
“You got her, though?”
“We did. Any joy with the husband?”
Logan told her that there hadn’t been, and gave her the same instruction he’d already given to DC Neish—to get a list of possibilities of where Clyde might be from his wife, then send it over to Logan’s phone.
“You sure you don’t need us back there?” Logan asked once Sinead had confirmed the instruction. “We’re not far away. We could be there in three or four minutes.”
Sinead didn’t answer. Not right away. Instead, she took a step closer to the front door, a smile spreading slowly across her face.
“What’s he doing?” Moira demanded. She sounded annoyed, like what was happening out front wasn’t part of the plan, and risked ruining the entertainment.
“He’s singing,” Tyler said.
And he was. Specifically, he was singing Lady Gaga’s Poker Face into a megaphone, albeit in the style of a crooner from the 1950s. He had it down word for word, though, and with each new line, more and more heads turned to look at him, as everyone in the crowd tried to figure out what the fuck this old geezer was up to.
“Eh, no. No, I think we’re going to be alright, sir,” Sinead said into the phone. “It looks like DI Forde has got it all in hand.”
“Ben? Christ. Did Ben go out there?” Logan asked.
“He insisted, aye. He brought a megaphone,” Sinead said.
“A mega—Oh. Jesus. He’s no’ doing the Time Warp, is he?”
“Uh, no, sir. It’s… He’s doing
Poker Face. Lady Gaga.”
Logan made a sound that might well have been a chuckle. “It’s a crying shame you won’t get to see his dancing, but good that he’s expanding his repertoire, I suppose. Mad old bugger. Always seems to do the job, though. If you can’t beat them, confuse the shite out of them. Works every time.”
Sinead had to admit that it did seem to be doing the trick. The fighting had mostly stopped now, aside from a few fringe skirmishes that teachers were rushing in to stamp out. The press cameras—those that hadn’t been smashed to pieces—had all turned in Ben’s direction.
Some of the teenagers were laughing, and a few even sang along as Ben Frank Sinatra’d his way through the chorus. He raised a hand above his head and waved it back and forth, urging others to join in.
“That’s no’ something you see every day,” Tyler remarked.
Sinead said her goodbyes to Logan, hung up, then handed the phone back to DC Neish. “Right. I reckon he’s got it all in hand,” she announced. “Let’s go talk to Mrs Lennon, and see if she knows where her husband is.”
Outside, Ben reached the end of the song, then took a bow. Incredibly, given the levels of violence that had been on display just moments before, there was a smattering of applause from the assembled crowd.
“Thanks. I’m here all week,” he announced through the megaphone, then he stretched up on his tiptoes so he could be seen up at the back. “Right, can you all hear me?”
There was a general consensus that yes, they all could.
“My name’s Detective Inspector Forde. But you can call me Ben, if you like. We’re all friends here. I’m second-in-command on the investigation into the death of Fergus Forsyth. The first-in-command, Detective Chief Inspector Logan, is currently out pursuing some very promising leads as we speak. He, like all of us involved, are fully committed to finding out who killed Mr Forsyth. And no’ just that. We’re fully committed to bringing them to justice, and making sure that they are punished to the full extent of the law.”
There was some nodding from a few of the pupils.
“Why did you take Mrs Lennon in?” asked one of the girls.
From the corner of his eye, Ben saw a couple of journalists start typing her name into their phones.
“We’ll be talking to all the teachers,” Ben said. A lie, but his motives were pure. “Mrs Lennon just happened to be first on our list.”
“She’s not a suspect, then?” the girl asked.
Ben chuckled. “Of course not! Like I say, we’ll be talking to all the teachers, and many of you lot, too. We’re being very thorough. We’re pulling out all the stops to make sure Mr Forsyth gets the justice he deserves.”
He waited for the electronic echo of the megaphone to fade away, then he lowered it and continued without the added amplification, which forced them all to shut up and listen carefully.
“Because it hurts. Losing someone you care about. Believe me, I know,” he said. “It makes you sad, and angry, and frustrated, and… God. Scared. Weirdly scared. And guilty. And ashamed. You want to blame someone, because if you can blame someone, then you’re not blaming yourself.”
The only sound in the car park now was the rumbling of cars passing on the main road. Ben looked to the sky for a moment, as if seeking inspiration. Or maybe reassurance.
“But you’re not to blame. None of you. Sometimes, and I hate to say this to you, but sometimes bad things happen to good people. Awful things. And it hurts. And it’s not fair. But it’s not our fault. Not one bit of it.” He shook his head. “It’s not your fault that Mr Forsyth is dead. Not remotely. So take all that guilt, and shame, and frustration, and fear, and throw it away. Get rid of it. Because it’s not your fault.”
He let them think on that for a moment.
“But it’s not ours, either,” he continued. “We’re doing everything we can to find who did it. To make things right. You and us? We’re on the same side here. We want the same thing. Justice for Fergus.”
“Justice for Fergus,” chorused a few of the teens, but the words were spoken softly and calmly, and not bellowed at the tops of their voices.
Ben nodded at them, then gestured at the car park they had almost completely taken over.
“Do we think this is helping matters?” he asked. “All this fuss, and fighting, and kicking off at each other. Do we think all this will make it more likely that we find Mr Forsyth’s killer, or less? Hmm?”
The tone in which he asked the question was utterly sincere. There was no blame or fault implied, and so the question came over as a completely genuine one. Because of this, teenagers who might otherwise have automatically jumped straight into ‘angry denial’ mode were instead forced to carefully consider their answer.
And the answer, of course, was obvious.
“Aye. Much less. Exactly,” Ben said. “So, hands up if you think we should be devoting more time to finding the killer, and less time to stopping stooshies in the car park. Come on. Hands up.”
The teachers were first to raise their hands. They thrust them up without any hesitation, a couple of them chiming in with a, “Hear, hear!” and a, “Well said!”
A few older students went next, albeit without the same gusto as the teaching staff. This then, gave some sort of permission to the younger pupils to raise their hands, too.
In moments, Ben was standing before a forest of raised arms. It reminded him a little of those pictures he’d seen of Hitler at the Nuremberg Rallies, but he chose not to dwell on that, and just nodded his gratitude, instead.
“Good. Thank you,” he said. “Now, if you’d all like to head back to school, we’ll get back to work. I’ll personally assign a liaison who will keep you up to date, but let me finish by saying this: It might take days. It might take weeks. It might even take longer than that. But, we will find who is responsible for the murder of Mr Forsyth. We will find them, and we will charge them, and they will be punished. And that’s a promise.”
Somewhere, not too far away, a couple of sirens grew louder. Reinforcements were on their way. Just what Ben didn’t bloody need.
He checked his watch, then the megaphone gave a squeal as he brought it back to his mouth.
“Now, bugger off, the lot of you,” he instructed. “Some of us have work to do.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lana Lennon had no idea where her husband might be. She didn’t tend to ask him, and he didn’t tend to say. He could be secretive like that. She didn’t think he was necessarily up to anything, but he guarded his privacy fiercely, and had made it very clear over the years that where he went and what he did was nobody’s business but his own.
Sinead had waited for Tyler to text this information to DCI Logan, then had addressed the elephant in the room.
“Why are you still with him?”
Lana sat back a little in her chair, taken aback by the question. She seemed offended by it. Shocked, too, like the thought of leaving him had never occurred to her.
And then… a softening. The knot of her brow untangled. The outrage she had instinctively tried to summon seeped away again, leaving her smaller than Sinead had ever seen her.
“You know, it’s funny,” she said, although her expression said it was anything but. “Sitting with you two… here… I don’t have an answer to that. It’s like… You ask me that question when he’s around, and I can give you a dozen reasons. And I believe them. Then. At the time. I don’t know how, but his… his fucking presence makes me believe it.”
She turned and looked at herself reflected in the interview room’s two-way mirror, but didn’t make eye contact.
“Ask me now, though, and I honestly cannot think of one good reason.”
“Has he hurt you?” Sinead asked.
“No!” Lana said. Then, “Yes. But he doesn’t mean to. He’s not… He’s not a bad person. Not really. He’s just… He had plans. We both did. For adventure. For fun. But life gets in the way, I suppose. It’s frustration, more than anything. He doesn’t mean
to be how he is. It’s not him. Not really.”
“It is, though, Mrs Lennon,” Tyler said, jumping in before Sinead could respond. “Frustration’s no excuse. Everyone gets frustrated sometimes. They don’t all start smacking their loved ones around.”
Lana shrunk further, pulling back into herself, reacting to Tyler’s words like they were some sort of accusation. Like he was putting the blame on her for not seeing what Clyde was years ago, for not doing something about it.
“Tyler, why don’t you go get us all a cup of tea?” Sinead suggested. He opened his mouth to object, but she gave him a pat on the arm and a smile so loaded with meaning it was a miracle that it fit on her face.
He smiled back, not quite sure why he was being made to leave the room, but accepting that—in this instance, at least—Sinead probably knew best.
“Right. Aye. Tea, Mrs Lennon?”
“Please. Thank you.”
“How do you take it?” Tyler asked, rising from his chair.
“I’m not fussy. Just however it comes,” she replied.
Tyler almost challenged her on it. Surely, she had a preferred way of drinking tea?
Wisely, though, he chose not to comment, and instead promised to bring milk and sugar so she could decide for herself.
Sinead waited for him to leave, then said, “He means well,” as a sort of unofficial apology.
“He seems… nice,” Lana said, glancing at the door through which Tyler had left. “Maybe a bit…”
She couldn’t find quite the right word. Then again, she didn’t need to.
“Oh, he’s definitely a bit… alright,” Sinead laughed. “Heart’s in the right place, though.”
“Yes. I’m sure,” Lana said, chuckling along.
She’d been doing that since the conversation had started, Sinead had noticed—mirroring. If Sinead smiled, she smiled. Sinead fiddled with her pen? Lana fussed with her fingers. It was a de-escalation technique that officers were taught during training—subtly mimic the behaviour of someone in a confrontation, and they were more likely to like you—but Lana seemed to be doing it instinctively.