Chapter 43
The big fish turned around in the bathtub and looked Logan right in the eye. ‘YOU need TO do SOMETHING about THESE sausages. THEY’RE eating ALL the CARPET in THE living ROOM, and—’
Three loud knocks battered at the walls of the world.
‘Gnnnnphffff . . .?’ Logan jerked awake. Blinking.
Where the living . . .
Car.
He was in the pool car; passenger seat fully reclined.
And Sergeant Brookminster was peering in through the window at him, one eyebrow raised.
Logan scrubbed his hands across his face and sat upright, pulling the lever so the seat joined him. Then opened the car door.
Brookminster nodded. ‘Chief Inspector.’
‘Sergeant.’ A yawn popped and crackled free. ‘What time is . . .’ Squinting at the dashboard clock – 06:41. ‘Sod.’ He climbed out of the car.
The sun continued its relentless climb up the crystal-blue sky, blanketing the land in another layer of dusty heat.
Colin Miller’s red beamer had disappeared from the driveway outside Natasha Agapova’s house, replaced by another patrol car and a Mercedes Benz, black as an undertaker’s hearse.
Well, of course it was, how else would Brookminster get here? And where there was a Brookminster, Chief Superintendent Pine was never far away.
Logan straightened his rumpled black Police Scotland T-shirt. Then turned. ‘Boss.’
She’d been standing right behind him, in the full uniform, be-leafed peaked cap on her head, hands clasped, eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you still here?’
He popped his neck. ‘Supervising the search of the property, Boss. And our victim’s husband lives in Knightsbridge, so I’ve spent half the night “liaising” with the Metropolitan Police, trying to get them to send someone round to his place.
And you know what a production they make of everything.
’ Another yawn shuddered through. ‘Went to do some emails in the car, round about sun-up and . . .’ He drooped. ‘Next thing I know – here we are.’
A whole two hours’ sleep, after a twenty-one-hour shift.
Talk about living the high life.
Pine looked up at Agapova’s glass-fronted entrance hall. ‘The Chief Constable is spitting napalm over this one, Logan. We’re facing a massive cluster jobbie, soon as the press finds out.’ A sniff. ‘Surprised they’re not here already.’
‘Ah . . . About that.’ Deep breath. ‘It was a journalist on the Aberdeen Examiner who discovered she was missing, last night. He was the one who called us in. So it’ll be all over their morning edition.’ Logan checked his watch. ‘Which will be hitting the newsstands right about now.’
Her face creased. ‘Oh for—’
‘But that’s just one, local paper, right? And they’re not going to just give their exclusive away, so none of the others will know about it till it’s published.’
Pine glared off into the distance. ‘At least that buys us a little time.’
‘And I asked the Met to stress: we need Mr Shearsmith to keep all this as quiet as possible; that his ex-wife’s safety probably depends on it; and until we get a ransom demand, we don’t know what we’re dealing with.’
‘Good. The last thing we need is Natasha Agapova turning up bit-by-bit all over the city.’ Pine frowned.
‘I worked a case in Clydebank where the family couldn’t pay the ransom.
Every time the postie came, there was another chunk .
. .’ She shuddered. ‘Ever see a uterus wrapped in an episode of The Broons? Never looked at The Sunday Post the same way again. Took us weeks to—’
The rest of her sentence was drowned out by the whumping roar of a helicopter.
Only it wasn’t a Super Puma – high in the sky, on its way to an oil rig somewhere – it was a small dark-blue number, just above the treetops, with the BBC News logo on the side.
Circling the house. A gimbal camera, mounted on the nose, swivelled as it passed, giving Logan, Pine, and Brookminster a good lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng look.
Bloody hell.
The Chief Super’s mouth pinched, eyes bulging. ‘Thought you told the Met to keep this quiet!’
‘They promised they’d lean on him! Low key, under the sodding radar. How was—’
A second chopper joined the first, howling over their heads.
A big silver one this time, with ‘SKY NEWS HD’ emblazoned across it.
Gimbal camera searching for the best view of the property.
A massive, and no doubt very expensive upgrade from the drone they’d been flying at all the other crime scenes.
Pine jabbed a hand at the thing, going pink in the face. ‘DOES THIS LOOK LOW KEY?’
Oh, and it just got better:
From up here, on the hill, there was a good view down to the main road, and a chunk of the way back towards Peterculter. Where a convoy of grubby hatchbacks, estate cars, and Outside Broadcast Units was chuntering its way towards Natasha Agapova’s house.
No way they only just found out ten seconds ago. And how long would it take to fly a helicopter up here from London? Three hours? Two-and-a-bit with a tail wind?
Logan gritted his teeth as the BBC made another pass. ‘You don’t think Adrian Shearsmith hates his ex-wife so much he hired a publicist, do you?’
Pine scowled up at the chopper. Then out at the line of approaching media.
Took a deep breath. ‘Given the level of press interest in this, do you want to remain Senior Investigating Officer?’ She raised a hand.
‘And there’s no judgement if you don’t. This one’s going to be an absolute buggering nightmare, and I know your dance card’s full already. ’
If she was volunteering, he wasn’t going to stand in her way.
‘To be honest, Boss, I’m happy not taking the lead on this one.’
Because she was right: it was going to be a buggering nightmare; involve a shedload of meetings, briefings, blame, and recriminations; not to mention a one-hundred-percent chance of getting shredded by the media for every tiny mistake.
And once the press got into the inevitable full-on self-referential feeding frenzy, there’d be no stopping them.
Her face sagged. ‘Yeah, thought as much.’ Then she stiffened her spine. ‘Keep working your existing cases. But if I’m going to be SIO here, when I yell “Frog!” I expect you to jump, understand?’
‘Yes, Boss.’
‘Get back to the station. This is now our number one priority. I want Natasha Agapova found before the parcels start arriving!’
He hurried back towards the pool car.
Sky News made another pass, so Pine had to shout over the hammering rotors. ‘AND YOU’RE AN ACTING DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR NOW – DRESS LIKE ONE!’
Yeah . . .
This was going to be a long day.
The whole team had turned up in uniform, like a colony of rooks, gathered around the whiteboard wall at the front of the office, listening as Logan played the recording again:
‘Karma comes in like a hurricane, Bitch, and it’s going to blow your house of lies right down. See you tonight!’
Doreen clicked the remote and the projector juddered back a couple of PowerPoint slides, swapping a shot of the broken vases and bloodstains for a publicity still of their victim.
Logan looked out across his shrunken congregation. Not quite the full contingent, given another four were off on the sick, and a fifth was standing at the back of the room trying to smother a cough that wouldn’t die. ‘Smithy?’
A hand went up, attached to a stringy PC with a squint nose, squint chin, Clint-Eastwood-squinty eyes, and a brutal haircut that he must’ve cut himself. With a lawnmower. ‘Sarge.’
‘Call was from a withheld number – get on to her phone provider and see if they can help. Same goes for Captain Sleazy and the HMS Loveyacht. I want names and details, OK?’ Logan gave the nod and Doreen shut the projector down.
‘I don’t have to tell you just how much we didn’t need another massive case to work on right now, but, in the immortal words of Rabbie Burns: “God’s an evil bastard and he hates us all. ”’
There were a few nods at that.
‘But it doesn’t mean we get to abandon the hunt for Charles MacGarioch. Hands up Operation Iowa?’
About a quarter of the assembled officers put their hands up.
‘OK, I’m counting on you guys: let’s get this murdering racist wee shite found.’ Next up: ‘DI Marshall’s team?’
Another show of hands. Biohazard sat in the middle of them, bum perched against a desk, arms folded. Looking as if his underwear was eating his rectum with big pointy teeth.
‘I know our victim isn’t what you’d call a “sympathetic character”, but I don’t care if he was a rapist or a choirboy – we get justice for the missing and the dead. Whoever bashed Andrew Shaw’s brains out and chucked him in the river is a murderer. We let him get away with it: he’ll do it again.’
Determined nods rippled through the team.
‘Good.’ Logan pointed at Doreen. ‘Everyone see DI Taylor for your assignments. Only exceptions are Steel, Barrett, Lund, Harmsworth, and Quirrel: with me.’ He marched off, making for the door.
Biohazard intercepted him before he got there. ‘Guv? Nightshift say they found Andrew Shaw’s car. Peugeot Two Oh Eight, parked three streets from Duthie Park. You want Forensics to give it a once-over?’
‘Get it towed to Nelson Street first – don’t want the press finding out and making connections that aren’t there. Got enough unwanted attention as it is.’
‘Guv.’
Soon as Biohazard headed off, Rennie scuffed over. Baggy of eyes and runny of nose. He snorked into a hanky. Then blinked and winced at the light spilling in through the windows. ‘Anyone seen my sunglasses?’
Logan backed the hell away. ‘That better be hayfever, because if it’s the lurgie . . .’
The idiot stifled a cough. ‘Donna and Lola got sent home with it, yesterday. But I’m fine. Dandy. Sharp as a tack and twice as shiny.’ Giving him both thumbs up. Before frowning and patting his pockets. ‘Just need to find my shades and we can hit the road, adventure-bound.’
Nope.
‘“We” aren’t hitting anything. You’re getting yourself a pool car and going to check on the stakeout at Wallace Tower. On your own: no infecting anyone else.’
A bunged-up whine snottered out. ‘But Gu-uv, it’s just a little summer sniffle. Nothing to be—’
‘You heard the doctor:’ Logan poked a finger towards the door, ‘out! Now! Go!’
Looking like a kicked puppy, Rennie blew his nose one more time, then slouched away, muttering to himself. Coughing and spluttering. Like the diseased horror he was.
The marker pen squeaked its way through every letter as Logan printed the words ‘ADRIAN SHEARSMITH’ next to ‘NATASHA AGAPOVA’ on the whiteboard wall.
It was every inch the bland corporate space you’d expect from modern policing – lots of magnolia, with miserable carpet tiles, a flipchart, one of those central tables made up of smaller tables, and a collection of cheap blue office chairs where Lund, Barrett, Harmsworth, and Tufty sat. Taking notes and paying attention.
Steel, on the other hand, had her feet up on the desk, going for a wee rummage in her cleavage. Which wasn’t easy in a tight-fitting black T-shirt that was clearly two sizes too small, so she’d had to go in from the bottom, exposing a belly shiny-pale enough to light the fires of Gondor.
It was hard to take your eyes off it.
Like a pasty car crash.
Logan stuck the cap back on his pen. ‘Lund, Barrett: I need you to have a thorough search through Natasha’s life.
Who’s she friends with, who’s her enemies?
There’s been a lot of redundancies at the Aberdeen Examiner – is anyone’s nose far enough out of joint to justify abducting her?
’ He used the pen as a pointer. ‘Harmsworth, Steel: you’re on the ex-husband.
A media mogul like that’s bound to have people out to get him.
And given how loaded the guy is, could even be an organised crime thing – can you imagine what kind of ransom he could put together?
So, get in touch with SOCT and make a nuisance of yourselves till they tell you who Shearsmith’s involved with. ’
Harmsworth curled his top lip. ‘What’s Scene Of Crime got to do with— Ow!’
Steel gave him another thump on the back of the head. ‘“Serious Organised Crime Taskforce”, you snudging spudge-walloper.’
He rubbed at his bald patch. ‘That really hurt!’
Logan chucked his pen at them. ‘Stop arsing about. This is serious!’ He gave them all a stern look. ‘As half the station’s off with The Yuck, until we get some backup from other divisions, Davey: you’re now Acting Detective Sergeant Barrett.’
‘Sweet.’ He grinned at Steel. ‘I’m sure we’ll work together in a supportive and cooperative manner, fellow sergeant.’
‘Hey!’ Not happy.
‘And you’re now officially Acting Detective Inspector Steel.’ Logan folded his arms. ‘I’m trusting you, OK? Do not screw this up. I want progress and an interim report on my desk by lunchtime.’ He headed for the door. ‘Tufty: grab a pool car, we’re going out.’
The wee loon scrambled to his feet. ‘I has being an sidekick?’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Woot!’
Yeah. He was probably going to regret this.