‘Progress report would be nice.’
‘Lunchtime, you said: it’s not even twenty past nine!’
‘Have you guys not done anythingat all?’
‘Course we sodding have, but it’d go quicker without you crawling up my bumhole every five minutes.’
They nipped straight through the lights by Aberdeen Grammar School, just as they changed to amber.
‘Rennie’s not answering his phone.’
‘Then go makehislife miserable instead ofmine! Gaaaah!’And with that, she hung up. Because Steel had never really got the hang of being demoted, as if the world should just pretend she still outranked him.
‘You know,’ Logan popped his phone on the dashboard, ‘I’m beginning to regret bumping her up to acting DI again.’
Tufty took them straight across the junction with Rosemount Viaduct, past the Noose & Monkey, and on down the hill – because he clearly wasn’t wild and rebellious enough to drive down Schoolhill, violating its pedestrian-and-cycle zone. ‘Ifyou’re looking for someone to promote, I’m in the market, Sarge. Now that I’ve got a lovenest to support.’
‘Detective Inspector Stewart Quirrel...’ He pantomimed out a massive shudder. ‘That’s a bilious sack of cheese-fuelled nightmares, waiting to happen.’
‘But it would make agreatsix-part drama for BBC Two. I could play myself, on account of already being an international-film-star-celebrity-type person!’
Donotencourage him.
Logan changed the subject: ‘When we get back to the ranch, I want you to come up with a plan that’ll get me out of this stupid MAPPA meeting, OK? Some sort of breakthrough, like yesterday.’ Hang on...‘Only no more dead bodies! We’ve got enough crap to wade through as it is.’
46
Forty-five minutes in and still no sign of rescue from Tufty.
Instead, Logan was stuck in the same boring Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements meeting, with the sameboringtalking points from the sameboringpeople, the same assortment of disappointing biscuits, and the same burnt-plastic-tasting-mouldering-away-in-a-thermos coffee.
Wasn’t easy – pretending to pay attention when the air was treacle-thick, after a scant two-hours’ sleep in the passenger seat of a manky Vauxhall.
Oliver from Waste and Recycling pointed his clicker at the pull-down projection screen and yet another dull graph loomed across the wall. ‘So, we can see that the projected refuse from the event is likely to overspill all bin capacity in the designated area...’
Maybe no one would notice if Logan just shut his eyes for a minute or three. Not as if there was anything worth listening to anyway.
Jessica from the Roads Department swirled the little red dot of her laser pointer across a map of central Aberdeen. ‘...and unless we limit thescopeof the march, we’re looking at road closures on Holburn Street, Alford Place, Rose Street, Chapel Street, Bon-Accord Terrace—’
‘All right, Jessica,’ Keith from the Council waved a hand in her direction. ‘I think we can all read the slide.’
Her face pinched. ‘Excuse me, Keith, but I don’t remember interruptingyourpresentation with passive-aggressive attacks. I ammerelytrying to illustrate thescaleof the challenge presented by the proposed route.’
To be honest, even another dead body would be welcome at this point...
The air in Conference Room One was now so stale you couldn’t even sell it as a roadside-service-station sandwich.
Logan propped his head up with one hand, freeing the other to write the same five words in his notepad, over and over again: ‘KILLTHEM. KILLTHEMALL!’
Abby from the Ambulance Service scrubbed her hands across her face, making her silver bob quiver. Even the three-pipped epaulettes on her dark-green, short-sleeved shirt were beginning to wilt as she had another go: ‘Look, I’m sorry if this is inconveniencing everyone, but there’slimited capacityand we’re already looking at a restricted service due to illness. Add in the fact that we’re running out of hospital beds, and this whole thing is a major incident waiting to happen!’
Keith gave her the benefit of a patronising smile. ‘I think what Abby istryingto say is that while there arechallengesto overcome, Aberdeen can meet them – with sufficient planning and some smart resource management!’
She curled her hands into claws and bared her teeth at the ceiling tiles. ‘That’snotwhat I’m sayingat all! I’m saying this march is the worst possible thing, happening at the worst possible time!’
Logan’s pen went to work again: ‘KILLTHEM. KILLTHEMALL!’
Two and a half hours after it started, everyone filed out of the meeting room. Bustling off to make someone else’s life miserable for a change.