A couple of plainclothes were on the phone, but other than them and the HOLMES team, most of King’s new seats were empty.
He was at the front of the room, drawing up some sort of roster on the smaller of the assembled whiteboards.
Logan joined him. ‘Nightshift make any progress?’
A grunt. ‘Take it you saw this morning’s papers?’
‘No mention.’
King shook his head. ‘Don’t know if I should be pleased or not. This thing’s been hanging over me that long...’ A deep breath and a frown. ‘Nah. If it’s going to come out, better it’s on our terms, not Edward Sodding Barwell’s.’ Sounding as if he was trying really hard to believe it.
Rennie slunk in, almost completely silent as he padded over to loom behind one of the plainclothes officers. The boy had definitely been practising that.
King picked up a copy of that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner and slapped it against Logan’s chest. ‘What the papers are full of is Professor Wilson.’
Logan unfolded it, smoothing out the front page. A photo of Wilson at some white-tie do sat beneath ‘WERE PROF’S MISSING HANDS DOMESTIC TERRORISM?’ Logan shuddered. ‘God, I hope not.’ Clearing his throat and reading the article out loud. ‘“Prominent Leave and Unionist campaigner Professor Nicholas Wilson, brackets sixty-eight, may have been the target of domestic terrorists, says a source close to the investigation—”’
‘Which is journo-speak for, “We made it all up, but let’s pretend the police said it.”’
Rennie leaned on the desk behind his victim. ‘Ever notice how Brexiteers always seem to be hardline Unionistas?’
‘Gah!’ The plainclothes officer nearly jumped out of his seat, turning to stare at him. ‘Where the hell did you come from?’
‘I mean, don’t get me wrong: I’m perfectly happy with us staying part of the UK, but even though Brexiteers think the European Union is undemocratic and crap, apparently the so-called United Kingdom is total peachy bananas. Scotland votes remain, England votes leave, and we all know what a gargantuan wank-shambles that turned into. How is it democracy when they don’t give a toss what we think? No wonder the Alt-Nats hate them.’
A small smile twitched at the corners of King’s mouth. ‘Don’t you have something useful to do, Sergeant?’
‘Already doing it.’ He stuck his arm out and made a big show of checking his watch, then raised his eyebrows at Logan. ‘His Holiness, the Detective Chief Inspector of Hardie, requested the delight of your company ASAP, remember?’
Logan ruffled the newspaper. ‘Look at it: they’ve got two pages of commentary on what the severed hands and “The Devil Makes Work” mean. Two pages. Everyone from a forensic psychologist to that knoblump off of Big Brother.’
‘Ooh, Scotty Meyrick? I liked him on that.’ Rennie poked Officer Jumpy. ‘What was his catchphrase again?’
King shook his head. ‘Apparently the Professor was meant to be appearing on Any Questions at the end of the week, so, as you can imagine, the BBC are taking a particular interest in the case. Hardie’s had to fend off the Today programme, the World at One, Jeremy Vine, and those shouty ones from Radio Five Live so far. I was on the receiving end of a twenty-minute rant about it after the morning briefing.’
That explained the summons.
‘So much for last night’s team-building, then.’
‘Which is exactly why Haiden Lochhead sent those hands to the BBC studio.’ King crunched his way through an extra-strong mint. ‘He’s got us under siege and eating our own young.’
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.