Chapter 13
Something went ‘Gnnnnnnnnnnnnn!’ . . . ‘Gnnnnnnnnnnnnn!’ in the darkness. Then David Bowie barged into Logan’s bedroom and tried to radio an astronaut.
Urgh . . .
Logan cracked open one eye and squinted up at the ceiling.
Blinked a few times. Smacked his lips, because apparently the Jobbie Fairy had paid his mouth a visit sometime during the night.
Shame it hadn’t tidied up before leaving, because the room was a bit of a mess: hardback books piled up by the chest of drawers, clothes piled up on the wicker chair in the corner, shoeboxes and assorted gubbins piled up on top of the freestanding wardrobes, and seventy-five percent of the duvet piled up on top of Tara. Because she was a thieving sod.
Leaving all of Logan’s naked bits on show.
The curtains were drawn, but bright light spilled in around the edges, making the walls glow a cheery yellow.
And still ‘Space Oddity’ wibbled on.
God’s sake.
Logan’s hand quested across his bedside cabinet, past the lamp and the alarm-clock radio, to grab the mobile phone making all the racket. Stabbing the button with his thumb. ‘What?’
Silence.
Then a wee whispery voice: ‘Sarge? It’s Tufty. Erm . . . Where are you?’
‘About to jam a cactus up your Large Hadron Collider!’ Glowering at the clock. ‘It’s five past seven!’
‘Yeah. And Morning Prayers start at seven, and you’re—’
‘Having a long lie!’
At which point, Tara rolled over, peering out from Fort Duvet, nose all wrinkled, mouth pinched tight, hair frizzing every-which-way like a ruptured gonk. ‘Don’t make me kill someone!’
‘It’s bloody Tufty.’ Back to the phone. ‘What – do – you – want?’
‘Only DCI Rutherford’s a no-show and we’re all kinda twiddling our thumbs, wondering what we’re meant to do today. You know: Operation Iowa?’
Wonderful.
No prizes for guessing why Rutherford hadn’t turned up this morning. After all that coughing yesterday? The bugger was off sick.
‘I thought maybe The Princess Of Darkness would take charge, but she does has a feet up on the table and reading the paper. Oh and a scratching under the bra.’
Logan scrunched his eyes shut again. ‘Who else is there?’
‘We’ve got Harmsworth, and Lund, and Barrett, and—’
‘Senior officers, you corrugated Fraggle. Anyone over the rank of sergeant?’
A wee fuzzy monster hopped up onto the end of the bed, big floofy tail pluming in the air as she padded along the sliver of duvet Tara hadn’t annexed yet.
Cthulhu clambered onto Logan’s scar-scrambled stomach.
Pausing to blink at him with lovely amber eyes.
Before tiptoeing across his chest and headbutting his chin. Purring all the way.
‘Oh, I see . . . No. It’s like a haunted pirate ship here this morning. Arrrrrrr . . . Avast, me absent hearties!’
Cthulhu rubbed her cheek against Logan’s phone, claiming it as her own, then gnawed at his wrist to make him put down her property. And those cat teeth were sharp.
‘Ow! You little horror . . .’
Tufty’s voice drooped. ‘Sorry, Sarge.’
‘No, not . . .’ Logan swapped his phone to the other hand – out of biting range – and ruffled the fluff between Cthulhu’s ears.
More purring.
Suppose there was no point pretending this would all go away: someone had to take charge.
He let a big sigh rattle free. ‘Better put her on: The Evil Empress Of Poopland.’
‘Thanks, Sarge.’ There was a scrunching noise, and Tufty went all muffled. ‘Sarge? It’s the sarge, for you.’
Steel groaned in the background. ‘Oh aye? What’s that lazy buntfumper want now?’
‘He’s in bed.’
‘Give.’ More scrunching, then Steel came through loud and sleazy. ‘You having a breakfast knee-trembler, and need some advice how to satisfy Ginger McHotpants, there?’
‘Where’s DCI McCulloch?’
‘I generally find nibbling the inside of a thigh to be a good starting point, especially if—’
‘McCulloch: where is he?’
‘What am I, his mum?’ Something on her end went hisssssss, then whooomph.
Which probably meant she was puffing away on that stupid vape again.
‘Got to say, it’s pretty unprofessional: skiving off Morning Prayers for whatever squelchy deviance you heterosexuals get up to of a morning. Some of us have been here for hours.’
Cthulhu jumped down from his chest and did a bit of cat yoga – showing everyone her bumhole in Downward Dog.
Logan swung his legs out of bed, then sat there, yawning.
Ratcheting the heel of his free hand into one eye socket.
‘Get someone round Rutherford’s house and make sure he’s OK.
Then I want everyone doing something useful: search teams back out there; door-to-doors in Bridge of Don, Tillydrone and Hillhead; and someone needs to canvass every A-and-E and minor-injuries unit in the northeast. See if Charles MacGarioch’s turned up looking for treatment.
’ He blinked at the bedside clock – 07:08 – then yawned again. ‘I’ll be there in fifteen.’
‘Yes, your Majesty, three bags full.’ Hisssssss . . . whooomph. ‘Anything else? Want me to polish your bumhole while I’m at it?’
‘And no vaping in the office!’
He hung up and sagged for a moment.
Before hauling his naked, unpolished, arse out of bed.
Nearly half an hour later, Logan marched into the office, with a takeaway coffee in one hand and a rowie in the other.
Tufty had been right – it was like a ghost ship in here, only with fewer parrots and no rum. And more in the way of desks and cubicles and whiteboards and filing cabinets and office chairs. So maybe not quite so piratey after all.
A small knot of support staff crewed the phones and HOLMES suite, but one of them sounded as if she was trying to expel a lung. But that was it as far as the dayshift was concerned. Everyone else was out.
Logan picked his way between the desks to the corner where DCI Rutherford and his team usually sat – the snotty heart of Operation Iowa.
No one there, of course.
He took a bite of rowie, chewing on salty-fatty-stodgy goodness as he picked through Rutherford’s in-box. Which seemed to be the usual depressing mix of memos and circulars and reports and—
‘DI McRae.’ A hard voice, right behind him. Pronouncing his name like some form of venereal disease.
Logan turned, nice and slow, not making any sudden movements, and there was Chief Superintendent Pine with her arms folded, and jaw set. Eyes pinched.
Oh joy.
He swallowed. ‘Boss.’
She made a big thing of checking the office clock. ‘Morning Prayers?’
‘DCI Rutherford told me to skip them and come in at nine. It’d been a long day.’
‘I see.’ Pine unfolded her arms as a bit of the chill seeped away. But only a bit. ‘We need a result on this one by close of play, Logan.’
You never knew your luck.
‘Do our best, ma-am.’
‘Especially after yesterday’s fiasco.’ She jerked her head towards Rutherford’s desk. ‘I take it you’ve seen the papers?’
A copy of the Aberdeen Examiner sat in front of the monitor, unfolded so the front page was on full view: ‘SUNDAE DRIVER IN CITY CENTRE CAR CHASE CARNAGE’ with a big photo of Mr FreezyWhip being hauled out of the river by that crane.
Then two small pics from someone’s mobile phone showing the chase, and a map illustrating the route.
Logan puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well . . . I’d hardly call Tillydrone the “city centre”, but—’
‘You’ll be pleased to hear that I’ve arranged for another eight officers to join us from P and Q Divisions – for the protest this weekend.’ Parking her bum against the desk and smiling at him as if they were the best of chums.
Which was suspicious.
‘Will I?’ He pulled his chin in. ‘In a general sense or . . .?’
‘With Rutherford off on the sick, I’ll need someone to take the reins.’
Aristotle strikes again.
‘Yeah . . . With respect, Boss, that kind of public-order operation is way above my pay grade, so—’
‘You’ll be equally pleased to hear that you’re now officially acting up: Detective Chief Inspector McRae.’
Oh God, it got worse.
He forced a smile. ‘I see.’
‘Given the rate of attrition round here, you’d better select a couple of acting DIs as well. Delegation is the key to a healthy work–life balance, after all.’
And worse.
He tried not to wince, he really did. ‘Ma-am.’
Her voice softened. ‘I know. But what choice do we have? I’m trying to find us more officers, but everyone’s got the same problem.
And while I’d love to issue a statement asking members of the public to stop breaking the law till we’re all feeling better, I worry the criminal element might take that as an invitation to go on a spree.
’ Pine gave his fighting suit the once-over with a critical eye.
‘Which reminds me – I want everyone in uniform till the staffing crisis is over. Let’s at least pretend we’ve got more officers out there than we do.
’ Pointing. ‘That includes you and your team.’
And even worse again.
‘Ma-am.’
‘Excellent.’ She hopped down from the desk. ‘Now, I’m away to bully Dumfries-and-Galloway into giving us a few bodies. Till then, try to find Charles Sodding MacGarioch.’ And away she marched. ‘And for Christ’s sake, don’t let anyone else get sick!’
He waited till she was gone, before folding over, covering his face with his hands, and boinking his head off the desk.
Should’ve stayed in bloody bed . . .
Abandoning DCI Rutherford’s plague pit of bad news and extra responsibility, Logan sat at his own desk, with his own cartoons and holiday-planner pinned to his cubicle walls, and a photo of Tara and Elizabeth in a wee Lego frame, and mountains and mountains of paperwork – liberated from Rutherford’s so-called filing system.
Only instead of working his way diligently through it, like a responsible acting detective chief inspector, Logan was frowning away at that copy of the Aberdeen Examiner Pine had been nodding at.
Which wasn’t exactly making his morning any happier.
A familiar voice gravelled its way over the cubicle wall. ‘Oh aye? This what they call working now, is it?’ Steel.
Logan didn’t bother looking up, just turned the page. ‘It is when they’re writing about my case, yes.’
In addition to that horrible front page, the Examiner had devoted an entire centre-page spread to ‘ARE OUR COPS OUT OF CONTROL?’ with a photo of the police van being towed away from yesterday’s crash site, and a blurred snap of Mr FreezyWhip swerving to avoid the kids on bikes.
Another section screamed ‘POLICE PURSUIT “COULD HAVE KILLED US” SAY PANICKED PENSIONERS’ above a group-shot of the oldies in their tinfoil blankets.
While a third went with, ‘“INNOCENT BOY” HUNTED BY “CRUEL COPS” CLAIMS GRANDMOTHER’ featuring a picture of Charles MacGarioch, standing outside the flat on Gort Lane, with his arm around his much smaller nan.
Which was such a load of bollocks.
Steel peered at the article, lip curled like she’d accidentally eaten something nasty. ‘Surprised they ID’d the racist wee shite.’
‘Hard not to – every bugger for three miles saw us chasing him.’
Logan turned the page.
And there, nestled between articles on a council scandal and a local ‘business tycoon’ being done for historical sex offences, was ‘POLICE APPEAL FOR HELP FINDING MISSING TEENAGER’. And there was Charles MacGarioch again, this time looking angelic in his school uniform.
The text that went with it didn’t help.
Logan gave the paper a wee shake, then read out loud: ‘“The popular teenager from Tillydrone, who regularly volunteers at his local foodbank,” of course he sodding does, “took a job at Gillmore’s Fish and Chips, on Tillydrone Avenue, to support his disabled grandmother after her benefits were cruelly cut during the first round of austerity . . .”’ A snort.
‘He sets fire to a hotel with people in it, and they’re trying to make out he’s some sort of Mother Teresa!
They’re going to look bloody silly when we charge the bastard. ’
Steel snatched the paper from Logan’s hands, elbows propped on the cubicle wall as she skimmed it.
‘So, tell them. Put out a statement – “Dear Journalist Morons: Charles MacGarioch is a rancid, bigoted, arsonist pish-wank, who tried to murder a bunch of asylum seekers. Stop chrome-plating his bumhole and tell the sodding truth for a change, you pricks.”’
He tried to grab the paper back. ‘Have you not got work to do?’
But she danced backwards clear of his hands.
‘Blah, blah, blah.’ Still reading. ‘I hear Chief Soupy Perky-Pine wants a couple of acting DIs.’ Steel gazed nobly at the ceiling.
‘Just saying: while I do not seek office, if my country needs me, I am prepared to put my personal wishes aside and accept this great responsibility.’
Bet she was. It . . .
Hang on.
‘How did you know? Only told me five minutes ago.’
‘I have my sources.’ Smiling like a Cheshire cat full of cream. And sparrows.
‘Good for you.’ Logan gathered up a bunch of Rutherford’s Operation Iowa files and plonked them on the paper in Steel’s hands.
‘Meanwhile: you can go through the HOLMES actions and get some of your lazy buggers to start ticking them off.’ Then made himself scarce, before she could say anything . . .