Chapter 19
In Dante’s Divine Comedy, there are nine circles of Hell.
The first is Limbo: home to people who aren’t Christians, so they can’t get into Heaven, but weren’t dicks when they were alive so can’t be punished in Hell.
Level Two is for the lustful. Three is stuffed full of gluttons.
Four is where the avaricious are held to account.
Five is all the angry sods. Six: heretics.
Seven seethes with violent bastards – though Dante is a bit of a wanker when it comes to defining what ‘violence’ actually means.
Eight is slick with fraudsters. And the ninth circle is a frozen lake, where traitors spend eternity with only their heads poking out of the ice . . .
But what Dante didn’t know was that if you took a dirty big drill, and bored your way through the ice, down, down, down a thousand feet or more, you would eventually come to a small stuffy cavern, where lies the tenth and final circle of Hell.
Also known as the MAPPA meeting on this Saturday’s upcoming protest march.
Oh, it might’ve looked a lot like the room where Logan and Pine and Rutherford and Sweeny had grimaced their way through a post-press-conference debrief, but it was full of demons, all hell-bent on making Logan’s afterlife a sodding misery.
One of them was on his feet now – a baldy prick in black-rimmed glasses, with ‘KEITH LONGFELLOW ~ ABERDEEN CITY COUNCIL LIAISON MANAGEMENT SERVICES’ on his name badge – wanging on about key performance indicators and stakeholder engagement.
Every seat in the place was packed with some other poor sod, in their shirtsleeves and lanyards, listening to Keith drone on.
Like Jessica, from the Road Department – frizzy-haired with a splodge of ketchup on her top – who kept trying to say something, but Keith was in full monologue-mode with no intention of ceding the floor to anyone.
So they all sat there, wilting in the stale meeting-room air, with their mugs of nasty coffee and plates of disappointing biscuits.
To start with, Logan had taken down everyone’s names and which department they represented: Fire, Ambulance, Public Transport, Traffic Wardens, Licensed Premises, Waste & Recycling, the business community, etc.
etc. etc . . . Full of good intentions – planning to make detailed notes on their various flipchart and PowerPoint presentations.
But it’d been nearly an hour and a half now and he’d already started doodling skulls and kittens on his conference notepad, as Keith tried to break the World Record for Most Boring Arsehole In The World.
There weren’t even any biscuits left.
No decent ones, anyway.
Chocolate bourbons.
Which looked more like dog biscuits than people ones. Ironic, given that chocolate was poisonous to dogs and—
Logan’s phone ding-buzzed, skittering slightly on the tabletop as the caller ID flashed up: ‘IT’S TUFTY TIME!’
It wasn’t enough to distract Keith, though.
‘. . . and we have to maintain that draw factor long after all these protestors have gone away. We should be embracing this as an opportunity to showcase Aberdeen as a destination not just for protest, but for fine dining, and culture, and recreational activities . . .’
Ding-buzz.
This time, ‘MMMM . . . TUFTALICIOUS!’ glowed away in the middle of the screen.
How?
How did the little sod manage to make Logan’s phone change caller ID every time? All the texts came from the same bloody number.
‘. . . tangible benefits to key stakeholders that will remain long after the placards have been put away . . .’
Oliver, from Waste and Recycling, helped himself to the second-last bourbon.
He was one of those young go-getter types, with a slick short-back-and-sides, ratty little nose, and a mole on his cheek big as a badger.
‘This is all well and good, Frank, but have you any idea how much crap’s going to be left behind after the march?
How am I supposed to clean that up without extra funds? ’
Jessica banged the table. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to say!’
Keith smiled at them both, as if they were boisterous but well-meaning children. ‘You have to see the bigger picture, people. With all eyes on Aberdeen this is our chance to showcase the city in a positive and cooperative light. I propose setting up an engagement committee to explore—’
‘What if we just cancel it?’
Everyone turned to stare at Logan, as if he’d grown antlers.
‘Think about it:’ counting the points off on his fingers, ‘it’s going to cost a fortune, it’s going to disrupt the city for hours, it’s going to leave a massive mess, it’s going to be a nightmare to police, and it’s got several potential flashpoints for violence, public disorder, and property damage. ’
Silence.
Mouths actually fell open.
‘Look, it’s—’
Which is when his phone decided to launch into Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ as ‘BEHOLD THE MAGNIFICENT TUFTY!’ filled the screen. And the wee shite knew he was in a meeting.
Logan stabbed ‘DECLINE’.
Keith clutched his lanyard, like a string of pearls. ‘This isn’t a police state, Chief Inspector! We don’t ban peaceful protest in this country, though God knows the previous government tried their best. It’s simply—’
‘Here we go,’ Oliver from Waste and Recycling threw his hands in the air, ‘typical nationalist bias. I think you’ll find it’s the SNP who’ve been in power for—’
‘—suggestion. How can we call ourselves a democratic nation if we curtail the public’s right to—’
‘Don’t be a prick, Oliver.’ Jessica from the Roads Department was on her feet, fists clenched. ‘You know as well as I do that the Scottish Government’s powers are restricted by Westminster’s repressive grip on—’
‘—matter of civic pride, Chief Inspector. And I insist that no move be taken to curtail those inalienable rights!’
Logan held his hands up. ‘I just asked the question, OK? It’s not as if I’m—’
Then the door clattered open and an out-of-breath Tufty stumbled into the room, bringing himself up short before he crashed into Jessica’s back. ‘Eek . . .’
Keith stuck his nose in the air. ‘Excuse me, but I think you’ll find we’ve got this meeting room booked till twelve, so—’
‘Sarge!’ Tufty pulled a face at Logan. ‘Sarge, we’ve got a hot one. On the riverbank.’ Raising his eyebrows for an ominous pause. ‘Something’s washed up . . .’
Something . . .?
That could only mean one thing: Charles MacGarioch’s body.
And an excuse to escape The Tenth Circle of Hades.
Logan grabbed his notes, and phone, and pen, and the last forlorn bourbon biscuit, definitely not grinning as he hurried for the door. ‘Sorry everyone: duty calls.’
‘But, Chief Inspector, what about our—’
He clunked the door shut behind him, and got the hell out of there . . .
The pool car skirled along Market Street, siren wailing, blue lights flashing, as Detective Sergeant Simon Rennie drove like a coked-up squirrel.
His peroxide-hedgehog hair stood to attention at the front, but was deserting its post at the back.
He’d put on a bit of weight since the third kid, but had tried to compensate for the extra chin with a little bleached Vandyke beard.
Which was a bit . . . mid-life-crisis-ish.
As if Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer had awoken one morning to discover he’d somehow turned into Guy Fieri.
Tufty sat in the back, munching away on the rescued bourbon biscuit as a reward for rescuing Logan from the MAPPA Meeting Of Doom.
Which left Logan in the passenger seat, one hand wrapped around his Airwave handset, the other around the grab handle above the door as Rennie threw them around the four-way junction at the end of the road – narrowly missing a massive articulated lorry hauling offshore containers away from the harbour – and roared off down North Esplanade West.
‘Will you slow down! Already got one corpse on the go today, don’t need another three.’ Logan pressed the Airwave’s button again, voice raised above the siren. ‘I don’t care if they found the body or not, they don’t get to film the bloody thing: keep them back. We need that scene secured!’
Offices and industrial units flashed by on the right, a line of trees and the shining ribbon of the River Dee on the left – with the granite-grey mass of Torry lurking behind it.
Steel’s voice grated through the Airwave. ‘Oh, aye, thanks for pointing that out. Here was me selling tickets and letting everyone take selfies with the remains. What a silly-billy I am!’
‘We got an ETA on the Procurator Fiscal, or the Pathologist yet?’
‘How the buggerlumping hell would I know?’
Tufty sooked air through his biscuity teeth. ‘That’s a quid in the jar.’
The pool car flashed through the lights outside the big Jewsons in a blare of angry horns.
A bunch of fish workers were out lounging on the riverbank, still dressed in their overalls, blood-and-guts aprons, hairnets, and wellies. Enjoying a tea break in the sunshine. They sat up to watch the car go by.
Tufty gave them a cheery wave.
‘No’ my job to do the managerial stuff, remember? I’m just a lowly Sergeant.’
‘Can you grow up and do your job?’
The car wheeched on, past a bunch of glass-and-concrete office blocks with their glittering modern facades, trying to kid on there weren’t fish-processing units hidden in the little side streets behind them. With big plastic bins full of fish guts, heads, and bones for the seagulls to feast upon.
Mind you, suppose they were a dying breed, these days. Back when Logan was a humble probationer, patrolling the streets with Big Annie Dunbar to stop him doing anything stupid.
Wonder what happened to her . . .
The traffic thickened up ahead – anticipating the approaching roundabout – cars and trucks and lorries creeping down the left lane, while the right was clogged by some tit in a black BMW.
The driver more interested in dawdling along, contemplating his bumhole, than getting the hell out of the way of a patrol car with its lights and siren blaring.
And still nothing back from Steel.
Logan pressed the button again. ‘Hello?’