Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

‘And I don’t mean, like, therapy councillor, I mean town. Tory. Divorced last May, lives alone, one-bedroom flat in Kittybrewster.’

Logan handed the photo back. ‘What’s his connection with Professor Wilson?’

‘When Lansdale didn’t come in on Monday, they thought he was just having “one of those whisky-and-pity-party weekends”. The head of a committee he’s on tried calling him Tuesday, cos he’d missed a vote, but it went to voicemail.’

So far, so boring.

‘Still waiting for a connection.’

They turned left at the next landing, making for the canteen doors.

‘So the chairperson calls Lansdale’s ex-wife. Turns out he was meant to pick up their kid for his regular every-other-weekend, but he was a no-show.’

A handful of officers were in, sitting in a clump at one of the tables, curled over plates piled high with stovies and mince and tatties and deep-fried things with chips. None of your salad nonsense here, thank you very much.

Wee Hairy Davie stood behind the counter in his tabard, wiping the surfaces with a blue cloth. Whatever nature had intended for Wee Hairy Davie, it probably should have quit while it was behind. The unfortunate results made a very convincing argument for birth control and spaying your pets.

Rennie wandered into Wee Hairy Davie’s domain. ‘See, Lansdale kinda disgraced himself with a sext scandal last year. Sent pictures of his “electoral mandate” to someone on the Accounts Oversight Committee. Hence the divorce and the whisky-and-pity-parties.’

‘I’m not kidding, Rennie.’ Logan pointed at the array of stainless-steel cutlery poking out of a grey plastic tray, sitting next to the cash register. ‘I’m going to grab a fork and stab you with it, if you don’t get to the point.’

‘Oh, yeah, right: the connection.’ He waved at Wee Hairy Davie. ‘Large cappuccino with a shot of hazelnut, chocolate sprinkles, and semi-skimmed, please, Davie.’ Then turned to Logan. ‘Guv?’

Logan grabbed a fork and brandished it. ‘You were warned!’

‘Eek! Give him something decaf!’

‘The connection .’

Hands up. ‘Lansdale was chairman of “No To Independence” and a big pro-Brexit campaigner. Massive.’

‘Is that it?’ He lowered the fork.

‘I’m not the one saying their disappearances are linked, am I? You know what the press are like: someone farts on a Tuesday, by Thursday it’s “Ebola panic grips nation!”’

‘What about his house: any sign of forced entry? Blood?’

‘Don’t think anyone looked.’ Rennie shrugged. ‘I can probably get the keys if you want? You know, if we’re after an excuse to make ourselves scarce before Hardie comes looking for us?’

Ah... Yes, the happy DCI Hardie.

‘Not a bad idea. And I’ll have a macchiato.’

‘Kinda thought it’d be grander than this.’ Rennie curled his lip and turned on the spot, no doubt taking in the glory of Councillor Matt Lansdale’s living room.

It was nearly all taken up by a single black leather couch, a glass coffee table, and a huge wall-mounted TV. No bookshelves. No pictures. Only one thing stopped it being the perfect bachelor pad: it didn’t have a poster of that tennis player scratching her bum. Lansdale had missed a trick there.

Logan peered out through the blinds at the block of flat’s car park, two storeys below. It was the usual collection of Aberdeen hatchbacks and 4x4s, with an identical Monopoly-hotel-inspired block of flats on the other side. ‘Just because he’s pro-Brexit and pro-union, doesn’t mean he’s been snatched.’

‘To be honest, after the sext scandal, no one’s really all that surprised he did a runner. Probably embezzled a heap of cash too. You know what politicians are like.’

True.

Logan stepped out into the tiny hallway — barely big enough to hold the five doors leading off it: living room; bedroom; kitchen; bathroom; and a small coatrack, festooned with jackets, next to the front door.

There weren’t any scratches around the Yale lock, the glass panel was intact, and the door frame wasn’t splintered. ‘No sign of forced entry.’

Rennie shrugged. ‘Ah, but there wasn’t at Professor Wilson’s, was there?’

Also true.

Logan snapped on a pair of gloves and went through one of the jackets’ pockets. ‘Imagine living the kind of life where no one cares if you disappear or not.’

‘You know,’ Rennie leaned against the wall, a big sappy smile on his face, ‘I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really enjoying PSD.’

Aha...

Logan pulled a set of keys out of the pocket and held them up. ‘Car keys.’

‘I always thought Professional Standards were a bunch of sinister bastards — same as everyone else does — but it’s really cool, isn’t it?’

‘Course he might have a spare set...’ Next up was a patched leather jacket that smelled of fried onions. ‘Maybe not a spare wallet, though.’

It was a small brown leather job, scuffed and battered. Logan opened it and flicked through the contents: sixty quid in cash, two credit cards, a debit card, some receipts, and a handful of business cards.

Rennie nodded. ‘Let’s face it, we, we brave few, we band of sinister bastards, we keep the whole thing going, don’t we?’

So wherever Lansdale went, he went without any cash.

‘I mean, if you don’t have PSD, you’ve got no one keeping the system honest.’

Logan dug into the next coat.

Frowned. ‘More car keys.’

So no cash, and no car.

Rennie followed him into the flat’s bathroom. ‘Cos if the system isn’t honest, then everything falls apart, doesn’t it?’

No way that bath was big enough for a grown man to lie down in, but there was a shower mounted on the wall above the taps... No shower curtain, though. A rail , but no curtain.

Mind you, that was the least of the room’s problems. A thick layer of grey fur coated the top of the cistern, and the back of the pan, where the hinges were. More dust on pretty much every other surface. The carcasses of shampoo bottles littered the edge of the bath, empty boxes of paracetamol and effervescent powders, empty toothpaste tubes, and a squirrel’s nest of used dental floss heaped up by the overflowing bin.

But there should’ve been mould, shouldn’t there? You can’t fit in the bath, but there’s no shower curtain so if you have a shower the water would spray everywhere. Soak things. And those things would go mouldy...

Logan stared up at the dust-free stainless-steel rail that went from wall-to-wall above the bath. ‘What happened to the shower curtain?’

‘Maybe he didn’t get around to putting one up? These crazy bachelors and their lack of personal hygiene, eh?’

‘He got the curtain hooks up.’ A whole row of them: plastic circles with nothing held in their grasp.

‘I went a whole term at university eating every single meal out of a cereal bowl with Tony the Tiger on it. Only bit of crockery I owned.’

‘Kitchen.’ Logan led the way, but there wasn’t room for Rennie to follow.

It was even smaller than the bathroom. Not so much a galley kitchen as a dinghy. Everything was crammed in. No room to eat. Barely room to turn around. It had the funky, gritty smell of mould that had been missing in the bathroom... And a quick glance into the sink showed why: a couple of plates, a bowl, and a mug sat in the bottom, crawling with furry black and green growths.

The only concession to washing up was the single whisky tumbler on the draining board.

A trio of hairy takeaway containers lurked beside the microwave — what was left inside all green and sprawling. As if Lansdale had got a curry in, woke up the next day, and decided to walk away from his flat and his life.