Chapter 81
Logan stood on the sun-speckled lawn, arms spread wide as a cool breeze rippled across the back garden. Blessed relief from the relentless baking heat of the last week and a bit.
Birds sang Monteverdi in the treetops, and the moon sparkled like burnished gold, crowning an azure sky.
‘Duran Duran!’ Tara wandered out from the kitchen, carrying a pot of bubbling mince. ‘We’ve got five of Duran Duran’s greatest hits, but the song titles have all been scrambled into anagrams. And what you need to do is unscramble them.’
He bent his knees, and pushed off the green sward.
‘“Firing Molls”, “I Two Like Lava”, “Owls By Id”, “Ennui Foot Shaken”, and “Eight Flunky Howler”.’
Four feet up, Logan swooshed his arms back and his legs together, swimming the breaststroke, higher and higher.
‘You get a five-second bonus if you can recite them all in alphabetical order, or ten seconds by date of release, or a whopping twenty seconds if you can do it by chart position.’
He soared over the back fence, turning as the sun began to—
A filthy bird flew straight into his mouth, dirty and brown and Logan spluttered, thrashing upright, coughing and gagging. ‘Aaaaaaarrgh! What the . . .?’
Steel danced back a couple of steps, wiping a damp digit on her Police Scotland T-shirt. Grinning. ‘Trust me: you don’t want to know where this finger’s been.’ Still wearing her peaked cap.
‘Gagh . . . You revolting . . .’ Scrambling out of his chair, making dry spitting sounds, trying to get rid of the taste.
The Critical Care Unit’s waiting room was much nicer than the other ones in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Probably because anyone stuck in here, killing time till a doctor turned up bearing news of their loved ones, was often about to have the worst day of their lives – and someone thought a bit of soft furnishings would cushion the blow.
So instead of the usual crappy plastic seats, there were half a dozen comfortable armchairs, two couches, assorted coffee tables, a decent-looking plastic pot plant, a water cooler, a vending machine, and a wall-mounted TV screen. Where some stupid quiz show droned away to itself:
‘And remember, you can either use any seconds you win to reduce your teammates’ sentences in Temporal Prison, or bank them for extra time in the Prize Vortex!’
Logan wiped a hand across his tongue. ‘What is wrong with you?’
‘I’m going to miss our happy little workplace interactions.’
‘Bloody hell . . .’ He filled a plastic cup with water from the cooler, swilling his mouth out as the gormless-looking bloke on the telly gawped up at the quiz board.
‘Ermm . . . I think I’m gonna . . . Yeah, sorry guys: I’m going to bank it.’
‘You hear about Eddy Dunn?’ Steel thumped down into the nearest couch – feet up on a coffee table. ‘Poor old sod drowned in that weir thing, out by the Auchmill Golf Course. Full of Special Brew and jellies. Aye, Eddy, no’ the weir.’
‘Shite . . . Only saw him yesterday.’
‘He was eight the first time I arrested him.’ She grabbed the TV remote. ‘Banged-up his dad dozens of times, and his nan, and his grandad too.’ Frowning. ‘What chance did Eddy have?’
‘OK, John, it’s time to beat The Time Vault! Let’s—’
Steel ponked the button and the quiz show disappeared, replaced by some cheesy drama:
‘Oh, Emily, it’s impossible. The bridge is out and there’s no way to get—’
Another crappy quiz show:
‘. . . three more right answers and you can go for the accumulator round! So, for a blue triangle, what’s—’
Reality-TV thing:
‘But what Clive doesn’t know is that Hannah’s allergic to shellfish—’
And the wheel of mindless pap spun on . . .
Steel sniffed. ‘Any news on Agapova?’
‘You’re disgusting.’
‘And you’re an idiot.’ Pointing the finger she’d stuck in his mouth. ‘What you doing here, when you should be back at the factory, doing a lap of honour for the cameras? Perky Pine’s got the world’s press lined up to celebrate us solving the case.’
He dumped his plastic cup in the recycling and sank into his armchair again. ‘The preening-glory-hound stuff’s never really been my strong suit.’ Yawning and stretching. ‘Besides, shift’s over. This way I get to go home.’
‘Aye? And how’s that working out for you: sat here, waiting for news, like a big gype?’
‘Same as it is for you.’
She pursed her lips, frowning as an eighties biopic turned into an American sitcom, then another crappy reality-TV thing, then an ancient film with long-dead stars in it .
. . Her shoulders dipped a bit, followed by a sigh.
‘Aye. I’m no’ going to miss this bit of the job.
’ Ancient cop show, scripted reality show, American sitcom, reality show .
. . ‘Still: better than waiting in the mortuary! That formaldehyde-and-dead-people stink gets right in your crack.’
Onscreen, the wheel had come full circle. That quiz show must’ve finished, because an advert for some celebrity property show was playing now. Then the BBC News logo pulsed onto the telly like an angry haemorrhoid. Throbbing in time to a techno beat.
Steel hit mute.
A pug-faced newsreader appeared, doing her serious-look-to-camera as she delivered The Headlines, while an inset graphic showed a train crash somewhere down south.
Logan stretched out a bit. ‘Can’t believe you’re actually retiring.’
The inset changed to an arson attack on a community library.
‘Wee birdy tells me you got a result on the hotel fire?’
He groaned. ‘Human beings are bloody awful.’
‘Shock, horror. No. Please: say it ain’t so.’
‘I mean, I used to think people were basically OK, you know? They meant well. Now they’re just . . . getting stupider and nastier and more and more selfish. “Screw the rest of the world, long as I get what I want – right – sodding – now!”’
The fire got swapped for a greasy politician, no doubt caught doing greasy politician things in a greasy political way.
Logan grimaced at the screen. ‘Craig Murray’s going bankrupt, so he hits on the great idea of burning his hotel down, blaming racist tosspots, and claiming on the insurance.
He bumps into Spencer Findlater down the local off-licence, they get chatting, and Spencer agrees to torch the place with a mate of his, for the princely sum of three hundred pounds.
And that’s not each, that’s between the two of them.
’ Logan’s head fell back to stare at the ceiling tiles.
‘That’s what Soban Yūsuf’s life was worth. One-fifty a piece. Jesus . . .’
Steel shook her head. ‘Gotta love people.’
The inset changed to mass protests in some former Soviet country, not keen on the Kremlin wanking about with their elections.
She stuffed a bit of jollity into her voice. ‘Can you imagine what my leaving do’s going to be like? Booze and strippers everywhere.’
‘Yeah, but after that it’s just golf and gardening and taking the kids to various whatnots for the rest of your days. Sounds . . .’
Then an aerial shot of Gorseburn Croft filled the screen.
‘Hold on.’ Waving a hand at her. ‘Turn it up, turn it up!’
Steel fiddled with the remote and the newsreader’s voice swelled through the speakers:
‘. . . an isolated farmhouse, twelve miles from the city centre.’
The picture jumped to the big conference room, where Chief Superintendent Pine and PC Sweeny shared the briefing table with a tanned, tailored, coiffured, middle-aged man. Sort of Indiana Jones meets Crocodile Dundee, in a very expensive suit. Adrian Shearsmith: Natasha Agapova’s ex-husband.
Bet the chunky gold watch on his wrist cost more than Logan’s house.
‘Aye, you can tell by looking at him: the boy’s an utter bawbag.’
Pine leaned into the nest of microphones.
‘Thank you. I can confirm that following an extensive investigation, officers raided a croft in the Durris area and rescued Natasha Agapova at noon today. Ms Agapova was severely dehydrated and had sustained multiple injuries; she was rushed to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in an Air Ambulance . . .’
‘Hello?’ There was a knock at the waiting-room door. A baggy-eyed doctor in pale pink scrubs and purple Crocs slouched across the threshold, most of his face hidden behind an N95 mask. ‘You here about Natasha?’
Steel hit mute again and stood, whipping her peaked cap off. Only instead of a carefully styled and curled coiffure, today’s hairdo was a flattened mop of hingin’ mince. She must’ve felt him staring. ‘What? I couldn’t get it to sit right this morning, OK?’
Dr Pink checked his clipboard. ‘The bruising and contusions are fairly superficial, but she’s got three broken ribs, and her knee is – please excuse the complicated medical terminology – what our orthopaedic specialists like to call “buggered”.
If she pulls through, she’ll probably want to have her nose reset at some point.
’ He clutched the clipboard to his chest, like a thin, flat teddy bear.
‘The bigger problem is dehydration. Go without water for long enough and your body starts to, basically, steal moisture from your internal organs. Leading to kidney damage, multiple organ failure, brain damage, and ultimately: death.’
Logan cleared his throat. ‘“If she pulls through” . . .?’
‘The next forty-eight hours will be extremely critical, but with a bit of luck?’ Dr Pink stopped cuddling his clipboard.
‘We’re pushing fluids as hard as we can .
. . however: it’s going to be a long road.
If she can make it to Monday, I’d say we’re in with a fighting chance.
It’s—’ A bleeping noise came from his pocket.
He pulled out a pager, and squinted at the screen. ‘Bugger-fudge. Sorry, got to go.’
And off he clomped, fast as his Crocs would carry him.
Logan slouched back to the seat and retrieved his hat.
On the TV, Pine shuffled her notes and sat down again.
Then Adrian Shearsmith, rose to his feet, pulled his chin up, buttoned his suit jacket, and launched into what looked like a very angry rant. Jabbing his finger at Chief Superintendent Pine while she sat there, stony-faced and immobile.
The cameras flashed and flickered as pain crawled its way across Sweeny’s face.
And the feeding frenzy began . . .