Стюарт Макбрайд - All That’s Dead

Silence.

It wasn’t that King was wrong, it was just depressing to hear it out loud like that.

Rennie did another checking-his-watch performance. ‘Sorry, Guv, but you know what DCI Hardie’s like. And if you’re late, he might take it out on me, and none of us want that, do we?’

Logan settled back against the wall and folded his arms. ‘It doesn’t make sense, though. There’s Haiden, apparently thick as a bricky’s hod, but he’s orchestrated all this like sodding Moriarty.’

Rennie lowered his arm. ‘Maybe he’s only been playing thick, lulling everyone into a false sense of security till... BAM!’

‘Playing?’ A snort from King. ‘You know how they caught Haiden Lochhead for that jewellery shop ram-raid? Because instead of stealing a car to crash through the front window, like a normal person, he borrowed it from his aunt. Who wasn’t best pleased when the cops turned up on her doorstep. The man’s a moron.’

Yeah, Stephen Hawking he wasn’t.

Logan puffed out a long breath. ‘Maybe the Aberdeen Examiner ’s right: this really is domestic terrorism and Haiden’s part of a cell. Maybe someone else, someone less thick, is telling him what to do?’

Rennie was mugging at his watch again. ‘Terrible though that thought is, Guv, if you don’t turn up at Hardie’s—’

‘What about known associates?’ King frowned into the middle distance. ‘Not Haiden’s, his dad’s. Say he knew them from his old man’s glory days, or he came into contact with them in prison? Someone with ties to the Alt-Nats?’

Worth a go. ‘So we send someone up to dig through HMP Grampian’s records for the three years Haiden was there.’

An evil smile took over King’s face. ‘And I know the very person.’ He pulled out his phone and dialled. Listened to it ring. Then, ‘Detective Sergeant Steel! You’ll be delighted to know that I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself for yesterday’s fiasco... Yes, I thought you’d say that.’

Rennie shoogled his watch at Logan. ‘Guv? Please?’

Suppose he’d put it off as long as he could.

‘Might as well.’ Logan slouched out through the door. ‘It’s not as if today could get any worse.’

Hardie was still banging on about Professor Wilson and the media and the top brass. Crumpled there, behind his desk, face like a wet flannel draped over an unhappy frog.

Logan did his best to look as if he was paying attention, nodding his head from time to time and throwing in the odd agreeing noise, while the self-pitying whingefest rattled on and on and on.

How could one man expend so many words on saying so little?

Then there was silence, Hardie staring at him, as if expecting an answer to whatever it was he’d been talking about.

Nope, no idea.

Only one thing for it: Logan narrowed his eyes and tilted his head a bit to the side. ‘In what way, exactly ?’

‘Oh come on, Logan, you know he’s going to—’

A tattoo of knocks rattled the office door. ‘Sarge? You in there?’

‘Why me?’ Hardie sagged even further. ‘Come!’

The door cracked open and Tufty stuck his head in, flashed his teeth at Hardie. ‘Sorry, Guv.’ Then turned to Logan. ‘Sarge, Rennie said you’d be in here and I wasn’t to disturb you, but it’s kinda urgent. Like super-duper card-carrying warp-factor-six-Mr-Sulu urgent.’

Hardie stiffened behind his desk. ‘Is this meant to be some sort of joke?’

‘Oh no, Guv, no joke here, no joke at all. Look!’ He held out his phone. ‘Someone posted a video online.’

Grainy footage filled the phone’s screen: a man cowering in the bottom of what looked like a... was that a chest freezer? The white walls were scraped and dented and smeared with what was probably blood. The man was curled up, lying on his side, because there wasn’t room in there to stretch out.

Oh crap.

Logan grabbed the phone and stared at it.

‘What?’ Hardie sat forward. ‘What is it?’

It was Professor Wilson: ankles tied together, elbows too, bloody bandages marking where his arms came to an abrupt axed end. Eyes screwed shut, as if he was afraid to see whoever it was filming him. Which would be Haiden Lochhead.

Wilson’s voice screeched out of the phone’s speakers. ‘Please! Please, I haven’t seen anything ! I can... I can just go away, forget this ever happened. Please!’

The camera moved in, till his face filled the screen.

‘You don’t have to do this! I’ll do whatever you want!’ Sobs jerked through his body, making him twitch and writhe. ‘I’m... sorry! Whatever... I did, I’m... I’m sorry!... Please... please let me... go... PLEASE!’

Professor Wilson’s face froze on the screen, streaked with tears and blood as the clip came to an end. It was replaced by a bunch of screengrabs for other videos: if you liked that, then you’ll love this! According to the stats underneath it, the Professor Wilson footage had over thirty thousand views and six thousand likes.

Logan blinked. ‘God...’

‘What is it, Inspector McRae, I demand you tell me!’

He slid the phone across the desk and Hardie picked it up. Jabbed at the screen. Face crumpling as the video started playing again.

‘Please! Please, I haven’t seen anything ! I can... I can just go away, forget this ever happened. Please!’

Tufty’s fingers curled in mid-air, as if longing for the return of his mobile. ‘Twenty-six seconds long, posted at six fifteen this morning. It’s going viral — people are sharing and reposting it everywhere .’

Because they weren’t already screwed enough as it was.

‘You don’t have to do this! I’ll do whatever you want!’

Logan scrunched his eyes closed and groaned.

He’d been wrong. Today could get worse.

Jane McGrath paced up and down the length of the meeting room table. ‘This is bad. This is very, very bad.’

It was big enough for about twenty people, if you seated them around the outside of the doughnut of desks. More, if you made them sit in the middle too. Instead of which, they had to make do with a Superintendent Young — who looked as if he’d just discovered his mother doing unspeakable things with a goat, a Detective Chief Inspector Hardie — slumped in his seat like an abandoned beanbag, a Detective Inspector King — crunching his way through a packet of extra-strong mints like a reincarnated racehorse, and Logan.

Young held out a hand as Jane made another pass, blocking her way. ‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake. Wearing a groove in the carpet tiles isn’t helping anyone.’

‘I mean, it was very bad before, but now it’s thirty thousand times worse!’ She glanced at her phone. ‘No, make that forty-two and a half thousand times. Forty-two thousand, five hundred, and eighty-nine views: how are people still “liking” this? Who the hell presses “thumbs up” on a torture video?’

Young glared at Hardie. ‘I want that footage taken off the internet and I want it taken off now .’

‘Oh, it’s too late for that.’ Jane poked at her phone. ‘Right now it’s getting shared and tweeted and posted to Alt-Nat message boards all over the sodding planet!’

Hardie straightened up a little. ‘We’re doing everything we can, but—’

‘Then do more!’ Young’s jaw tightened. ‘And this investigation requires direct supervision.’

‘Exactly what I was thinking.’ Hardie poked a finger in King’s direction. ‘I want hourly updates on your progress.’

But before King could complain, Young was giving them all the steely-eye. ‘From this point, DCI Hardie will be taking over as Senior Investigating Officer.’