Chapter 9
Now that Charles MacGarioch’s living room wasn’t stuffed full of police officers and a happy barky dog it looked larger. But not much.
DCI Rutherford slumped on the sofa, in a suit so sharp you could shave with it.
Which would probably help, because a heavy seven-o’clock shadow rampaged across his miserable face.
Hair tussled at the front and fanned out at the back, where it pressed against a starched antimacassar.
Bags under his eyes. Looking stretched, knackered, and defeated.
Logan turned to look out the window instead.
A handful of kids were out, playing on their scooters, pretending not to watch as a forensic tech from ‘Scenes’ lugged a blue plastic evidence crate to the grubby Transit.
They weren’t the only ones keeping an eye on things – two photographers had their cameras out, snapping away, while a lone TV news crew filmed a bloke in a suit.
Had a perfect view of his bald spot from up here.
All shiny and strawberry-coloured in the baking sun.
‘Just . . .’ Logan glanced back at Rutherford, ‘forewarned, OK?’
The DCI slapped both hands over his face. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. We’re on the top floor!’
‘That’s what I told her.’
A groan, followed by more slumping.
Rutherford didn’t look as if he’d be surfacing anytime soon, so Logan pulled out his phone and checked his text messages instead. Scrolling back to where he was so rudely interrupted earlier.
TARA:
Got our timeslot for parent/teachers tonight: 1850.
I vote CHIPS for tea!
Followed by his unsent reply:
Motion carried – chips it is.
I’m at a crime scene, but I think
He deleted the whole thing and tried again – tick-tick-tickticktick:
Sorry, change of plan – got to do a press conference (3-line whip).
We’re having ‘a day’.
I’ll explain when I get home.
SEND.
That would go down well. Like a condom full of sick at a balloon-modelling party.
Rutherford still hadn’t moved.
‘You OK?’
There was a teeny whimpering sound, then a muffled, ‘Do you have any idea how many cases I’m juggling right now?’
One of the many joys of climbing the greasy pole – higher up you got, the more crap they made you carry.
Logan leaned back against the windowsill. ‘Assuming Charles MacGarioch made it out of the ice-cream van alive, and he swam ashore, what do we think: other side of Gordon Brae bridge? Or would you tread water till Hillhead? Put a bit of distance between you and the crash?’
‘First DI Vine comes down with the lurgie, so I get his cases. Then it’s Evans. And McPherson. And Findlay. So I get theirs too!’ Really pressing those hands into his face as a frustrated howl rang out. Followed by a little cough.
‘I’ve called for a search team, but we’ll be lucky if we get half a dozen bodies. Everyone’s stretched thin.’
‘Thin? I’m bloody anorexic here!’ Rutherford’s arms flopped sideways. ‘Could sleep for a week.’
‘Thought we were meant to get backup from other divisions?’
‘Ha! They’ve all got the sodding plague too.
’ He levered himself forward, sagged, then smothered a couple more coughs.
‘We’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got.
’ Pointing at Charles MacGarioch’s bedroom.
‘They’ve got his computer in for analysis – I want you up their arseholes like a pineapple suppository till they find something.
And we need to interview all known associates.
And . . .’ He frowned. ‘What am I forgetting?’
‘Chasing up the Fire Investigation Unit?’
Rutherford nodded. ‘OK – consider yourself volunteered.’
Great.
That’s what Logan got for being helpful.
‘And there’s the press conference at seven.’ Logan checked his watch – 18:34. ‘Better get moving.’
‘Yeah . . .’ Another groan as Rutherford levered himself out of the racist old lady’s couch. ‘Because apparently this crap isn’t hard enough.’
Logan finished the last sentence from his prepared statement. ‘. . . a full recovery, thanks to the quick actions of officers on the scene.’
‘No. No, no, no, no, no.’ PC Nigel Sweeny bustled around the media liaison office, grabbing sheets of paper from the printer and whacking staples into them.
‘Never say someone’ll “make a full recovery”.
What if he comes down with MRSA, or something?
Or has a stroke?’ His mean little mouth crunched its way through yet another Gaviscon tablet as he gathered his papers into a six-inch-thick pile.
The wee mouth didn’t really go with the over-generous nose and enthusiastic chin, sort of Mr Punch Joins the Police Force.
He grimaced. ‘Way my luck’s going, our ice-cream man will be dead just in time for Breakfast News. ’
The office wasn’t much bigger than MacGarioch’s living room.
Only instead of portraits of the King, shelves crowded in from every wall – making the room feel even smaller – jam-packed with folders and lever-arch files.
Piles and piles of newspapers. There was barely room for the three desks, or the trio of flatscreen TVs.
Each one tuned to a different twenty-four-hour rolling-news channel.
Two of them were covering a ‘Vision For Britain’ rally in Trafalgar Square – chinless wankers with beer guts and poorly spelled placards – while Sky News featured drone footage of the River Don as Steel’s crane lifted a waterlogged Mr FreezyWhip from the depths.
Sweeny grabbed another antacid from the pack.
‘Tell them he’s “doing well” and doctors are “pleased with his progress”.
That way, if he snuffs it, it’s their fault not ours.
’ Then rammed a peaked cap on his head, and stuck a manila folder on top of his stapled pile, pausing for a moment to check his own reflection in a little mirror mounted by the office door.
‘Come on, Nige – only six more months and you’re back in CID.
’ Popping one last Gaviscon, before hurrying out into the corridor, leaving Logan to catch up.
He scurried across the open-plan space, with its little warren of cubicles and desks, checking his watch every thirty seconds on the way to the double doors at the end. ‘Late, late, late, late, late . . .’
A handful of cubicles were populated by wilted officers and support staff, grinding their way through a back shift. Off in the distance, someone sneezed. Someone else coughed.
‘Like a bloody ghost town in here, isn’t it?’ Sweeny fumbled with his folder. ‘What was wrong with the old place? Lots of lovely hideyholes in Queen Street. Not like this . . . panopticon bollocks.’
They thumped out through the doors into a bland corridor, with a smoked-glass view of Broad Street and lots of cheery motivational posters about ‘PROFESSIONALISM’ and ‘PUBLIC SERVICE’.
Sweeny checked his watch again, swore, and scurried faster. ‘If any of the buggers ask about the protest march this weekend, don’t engage, OK?’ Battering into the stairwell. ‘We’re officially on lockdown till the Boss decides what the hell we’re doing for bodies to police the bloody thing.’
Clattering down the steps, ignoring the posters demanding ‘INTEGRITY’ and ‘HONESTY’.
Shoving through the doors at the bottom as his phone boomed out the BBC News theme tune.
He juggled his papers and answered it as they strode across the short corridor, to the security-controlled entrance to the main lobby.
‘Boss! How— . . . Yes, yes: I know it starts at seven.’ A grimace as he poked the keycode into the lock.
‘I know . . . Yes . . . . I’ve been working on DI McRae’s—’ Pink bloomed in his cheeks. ‘Yes, Boss . . . Sorry.’
Logan followed him across the Police Scotland crest set into the lobby floor – the words ‘SEMPER VIGILO’ already getting a bit scuffed by all the foot traffic.
‘We’re on our way now . . . Yes, Boss . .
. Just about to walk through the door.’ Sweeny performed a bit of human origami to pin the folder and papers to his chest and the phone to his ear as he fumbled with his lanyard – bending almost double to clack it against the automatic turnstile beside the reception desk. ‘Honestly. We’re like right there.’
The gate glowed green and beeped.
Sweeny shoved through, marching fast. ‘I know I said— . . . Yes, Boss . . . Sorry, Boss. But it’s—’ Disappearing through the door marked ‘CONFERENCE SUITES’.
Logan shared a nod with Big Gary – perched behind the desk, like an evil Buddha, with a sudoku book – and beeped himself through the turnstile.
The ‘Conference Suites’ door opened on yet another corridor, where a row of portraits displayed every Chief Constable from the old Grampian Police days, then every Chief Superintendent since Police Scotland came in and spoiled all the fun.
Down at the end, Sweeny was disappearing through into the main conference room. ‘Yes, Boss . . . No, Boss . . . Honestly: I’m here, I’m here.’
Logan stopped outside the door. Straightened his suit jacket. Then his shoulders. Took a deep breath. And pushed into Bedlam.
A sea of journalists and cameras stared at the three of them, sat at the front of the conference room – the chatter falling silent as DCI Rutherford stood to address the mob.
He’d had a shave and combed his hair, put on a fresh shirt and tie, looking every bit the professional police officer. Almost unrecognisable from the wrung-out, despondent lump, drooping away on MacGarioch’s sofa.
He was flanked by Sweeny on one side and Logan on the other, while Chief Superintendent Pine was nowhere to be seen.
Having buggered off at the first available opportunity; putting a bit of distance between herself and whatever omnishambles was about to unfold.
Because it wasn’t going to be easy spinning this as anything less than a monumental cluster-wank.