I’ll explain when I get home.
SEND.
That would go down well. Like a condom full of sick at a balloon-modelling party.
Rutherford still hadn’t moved.
‘You OK?’
There was a teeny whimpering sound, then a muffled, ‘Do you haveanyidea how many cases I’m juggling right now?’
One of the many joys of climbing the greasy pole – higher up you got, the more crap they made you carry.
Logan leaned back against the windowsill. ‘Assuming Charles MacGarioch made it out of the ice-cream van alive, and he swam ashore, what do we think: other side of GordonBrae bridge? Or would you tread water till Hillhead? Put a bit of distance between you and the crash?’
‘First DI Vine comes down with the lurgie, so I gethiscases. Then it’s Evans. And McPherson. And Findlay. So I gettheirstoo!’ Really pressing those hands into his face as a frustrated howl rang out. Followed by a little cough.
‘I’ve called for a search team, but we’ll be lucky if we get half a dozen bodies. Everyone’s stretched thin.’
‘Thin? I’m bloody anorexic here!’ Rutherford’s arms flopped sideways. ‘Could sleep for a week.’
‘Thought we were meant to get backup from other divisions?’
‘Ha! They’ve all got the sodding plague too.’ He levered himself forward, sagged, then smothered a couple more coughs. ‘We’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got.’ Pointing at Charles MacGarioch’s bedroom. ‘They’ve got his computer in for analysis – I want you up their arseholes like a pineapple suppository till theyfindsomething. And we need to interview all known associates. And...’ He frowned. ‘What am I forgetting?’
‘Chasing up the Fire Investigation Unit?’
Rutherford nodded. ‘OK – consider yourself volunteered.’
Great.
That’s what Logan got for being helpful.
‘And there’s the press conference at seven.’ Logan checked his watch – 18:34. ‘Better get moving.’
‘Yeah...’ Another groan as Rutherford levered himself out of the racist old lady’s couch. ‘Because apparently this crap isn’t hard enough.’
Logan finished the last sentence from his prepared statement. ‘...a full recovery, thanks to the quick actions of officers on the scene.’
‘No. No, no, no, no, no.’ PC Nigel Sweeny bustled around the media liaison office, grabbing sheets of paper from the printer and whacking staples into them. ‘Neversay someone’ll “make a full recovery”. What if he comes down with MRSA, or something? Or has a stroke?’ His mean little mouth crunched its way through yet another Gaviscon tablet as he gathered his papers into a six-inch-thick pile. The wee mouth didn’t really go with the over-generous nose and enthusiastic chin, sort ofMr Punch Joins the Police Force. He grimaced. ‘Waymyluck’s going, our ice-cream man will be dead just in time for Breakfast News.’
The office wasn’t much bigger than MacGarioch’s living room. Only instead of portraits of the King, shelves crowded in from every wall – making the room feel even smaller – jam-packed with folders and lever-arch files. Piles and piles of newspapers. There was barely room for the three desks, or the trio of flatscreen TVs. Each one tuned to a different twenty-four-hour rolling-news channel.
Two of them were covering a ‘Vision For Britain’ rally in Trafalgar Square – chinless wankers with beer guts and poorly spelled placards – while Sky News featured drone footage of the River Don as Steel’s crane lifted a waterlogged Mr FreezyWhip from the depths.
Sweeny grabbed another antacid from the pack. ‘Tell them he’s “doing well” and doctors are “pleased with his progress”. That way, if he snuffs it, it’s their fault not ours.’ Then rammed a peaked cap on his head, and stuck a manila folder on top of his stapled pile, pausing for a moment to check his own reflection in a little mirror mounted by the office door. ‘Come on, Nige – only six more months and you’re back in CID.’ Popping one last Gaviscon, before hurrying out into the corridor, leaving Logan to catch up.
He scurried across the open-plan space, with its littlewarren of cubicles and desks, checking his watch every thirty seconds on the way to the double doors at the end. ‘Late, late, late, late, late...’
A handful of cubicles were populated by wilted officers and support staff, grinding their way through a back shift. Off in the distance, someone sneezed. Someone else coughed.
‘Like a bloody ghost town in here, isn’t it?’ Sweeny fumbled with his folder. ‘What was wrong with the old place? Lots of lovely hideyholes in Queen Street. Not like this...panopticon bollocks.’
They thumped out through the doors into a bland corridor, with a smoked-glass view of Broad Street and lots of cheery motivational posters about ‘PROFESSIONALISM’ and ‘PUBLIC SERVICE’.
Sweeny checked his watch again, swore, and scurried faster. ‘If any of the buggers ask about the protest march this weekend, don’t engage, OK?’ Battering into the stairwell. ‘We’re officially on lockdown till the Boss decides what the hell we’re doing for bodies to police the bloody thing.’
Clattering down the steps, ignoring the posters demanding ‘INTEGRITY’ and ‘HONESTY’.