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.
24
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.’
‘Quite right. And progress needs to be...’ Hardie’s mouth clacked shut and his eyes widened, face going an unhealthy shade of puce. ‘Wait, what?’
‘This case has become too high-profile to have a DI in charge.’
Spluttering finally gave way to, ‘But—’
‘This is now the division’s number one priority!’ Young bashed a fist down on the tabletop. ‘Clearly the Chief Superintendent has to retain a level of detachment, for the inevitable PIRC review, but if he was here,’ getting louder with every word, ‘I’m sure he would encourage me to start kicking people’s backsides until something sodding happened!’
Silence.
King cleared his throat. ‘We’re doing everything we—’
‘Oh no you don’t.’ Hardie stuck his nose in the air. ‘If you and McRae hadn’t let Haiden Lochhead escape last night, we wouldn’t be sitting here!’
King just stared at him, eyebrows pinched up in the middle. The proverbial puppy given a kicking by its master.
‘DCI Hardie, I’m authorising you to bring in a dozen officers from the rest of the division. More from other divisions if need be.’
King nodded. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Which was when Young turned to face Logan. ‘I’d expected more of you, Inspector McRae. I really had.’
Logan kept his voice as flat and level as possible. ‘I think, given the circumstances, you and I should have a wee discussion in private, Superintendent. Don’t you?’
Narrowed eyes and gritted teeth, then a forced, ‘Fine.’ Young snapped his fingers. ‘The rest of you: out.’
There were a few shared looks and raised eyebrows, then one by one Hardie, King, and Jane slunk from the room, shutting the door behind them, leaving Logan and Young alone.
Young stood, flinging his hands out to the side. ‘It’s a complete and utter bollocking disaster!’
As if somehow that was all Logan’s fault.
‘When you were in Professional Standards, what would you have said if a senior officer threatened and bullied members of his command?’
‘That’s not the point!’
‘That’s entirely the point.’ Logan put on his professional not-angry-just-disappointed voice. ‘Ranting and raving at people — you know better than that.’
‘Gah! This is what I get for letting you talk me into not firing King in the first place!’
‘I talked you into it?’
Young crumpled into his chair again. ‘The media are ripping holes in us that get bigger every day, Police Scotland are breathing down my neck, and the Scottish Tossing Government want an official briefing! And you know what that means.’
A sigh. ‘You still can’t go about bellowing at members of your team.’
‘Do you have any idea how bad this makes us look?’
Logan turned the disappointment up a notch. ‘Do you really think Police Scotland needs another bullying scandal? Have we not lost enough senior officers already?’
‘WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?’ Tiny dots of spittle flared in the sunlight.
‘A couple of deep breaths might help?’
Outside, the sound of a patrol car siren wailed into life, then faded as they drove off to whatever emergency was underway.
The seagulls cawwwwed.
Someone outside in the corridor laughed.