‘Acting Detective Chief Inspector McRae, to you.’
‘That’s what I wanted to ask, Sarge. See, I know you’ve had this big promotion and you does therefore has need of: An Sidekick!’
Now that he was closer, those tower blocks looked more like stacked electronic components than an upturned plug. Part of some vast crackling impersonal machine.
Up ahead, the bridge ended at the junction where Charles MacGarioch almost smashed through those gormless boys on their bikes. The road now bore two sets of tyre marks, tattooed in black across the greying tarmac, where Mr FreezyWhip and the police van screeched around the corner and up the hill.
‘Sarge? You still there?’
‘Thought you were DS Steel’s sidekick.’
‘Please, Sarge. You know what she’s like. And I’d make a perfect Dr Watson! I could drive the car and get you coffee and be all impressed by your detective-ing.’He swapped the wheedling whine for on an old-man doctor voice:‘“Good grief, Chief Inspector,” I ejaculated, “how thedevildid you deduce that?”’
‘Abso-sodding-lutely not.’
‘But you doeshasto has a sidekick: it’s the law! And—’
‘Go do something useful. Like chase up Sweeny in the Media Office – we need a press-release drafted on the search for MacGarioch before the buggers start screaming for one.’What else? ‘And then go poke Forensic IT: I want Charles MacGarioch’s digital world gone through with a rotary cultivator. Oh, and while you’re at it: call Tayside. What’s happened to the drone operator they promised us?’ That should keep Tufty busy for a while. ‘Well? Off you trot.’
Then Logan hung up on him, before he could complain or whinge some more.
Bluetooth-connection-thingy over, the radio faded up again, on a whanging-guitar chorus:
‘...with my Lovehammer. Lovehammer!
Gonna fill you up with my love!
My Lovehammer! Lovehammer!
Baby gonna give you my Lovehammer!’
The entrance to Gort Lane was just up ahead, and Logan nipped through a gap in the traffic onto the road where Charles MacGarioch grew up – apparently friendless. Somehow, without all the rushing about and police dogs and sirens, it looked a bit...smaller than yesterday.
‘Baby, Baby, you know that it’s true,
My Love-love-love-lovehammer,
Hammers...only for you!’
Which was the drummer’s cue to launch into a bang-and-crash-wallop solo. Which was a bit of a relief after all the screechy nasal roaring, to be honest.
Logan headed up the road, to Block Four, where the ‘RESIDENTS PARKING ONLY’ still lay bent flat against the sun-bleached grass, as Captain Adenoidal started up again:
‘Baby! Baby, can you handle my love?
All this love, it’s all of my love!
Wanna show you my love, gonna give you my—’
‘Nope.’ Logan killed the engine and blessed silence returned.
He climbed out into the dusty heat, clunked the car door shut, plipped the locks, and headed into the relative cool of the stairwell.
The rear door was propped open, letting a tiny hint of a breeze waft in, bringing with it the shriek-and-giggle of happy wee kids, and the ‘thud-adudadududa...’ of that life-saving trampoline.
He was halfway up the first flight of stairs when his phoneding-buzzed with an incoming text.
COLINMILLER: