Logan McRae. Stuart MacBride

       9

      Something horrible and tinny blared out of the clock radio, followed by, ‘Goooooood Morning Aberdeeeeeeen! It’s six o’clock – I know, I know – and you’re listening to OMG it’s Early!, with me, Rachel Gray.’

      Urgh …

      Logan peeled his eyes open and blinked at the ceiling. The curtains were shut, but bright-white light glowed around the edges, as if the aliens had come to abduct everyone.

      ‘We’ve got a great show for you this sunny June morning. So wakey, wakey, hands off snakey, it’s time to rock!’

      ‘Noooo!’ Tara’s hand appeared from beneath the duvet and bashed him on the head. Voice a pained mumble, ‘Make it stop! Make it stop!’

      He fumbled with the controls. ‘Gnnn …’

       ‘Here’s the Foo Fighters with “Learning to Fly”, fight that Foo, guys, we can’t—’

      Silence.

      Tara grumbled, turned over – taking a good quantity of the duvet with her – and said something very unladylike.

      Logan lay there grimacing. Six in the morning. Who got up at six in the morning? Then he sighed, rolled out of bed, and slouched his way through to the shower.

      Sod this for a game of soldiers …

      Light spilled in through the kitchen windows, making the tabletop glow as Cthulhu sat in the middle of it washing her bum.

      Logan stuck the slice of toast in his mouth, holding it there with his teeth as he ripped open a sachet of chicken-and-liver and schloched it into the bumwasher’s favourite bowl. It lay there, in a jellied slab, like some foul internal organ. He put it next to her biscuits and dipped into the fridge for the big Tupperware box of barbecued sausages and the smaller one of leftover fried onions. Chewed on his toast as he carried both out into the hall and dumped them by the front door.

      No chance of forgetting them there.

      Brushed toast crumbs off his black Police Scotland T-shirt.

      Yawned.

      Slumped.

      Mornings used to be a lot easier.

      He fastened his inspector’s epaulettes and stared up the stairs, listening for signs of life.

      Nothing. Because they were all still asleep. Because none of them needed to be at work by seven. Jammy buggers.

      ‘God, I miss being off on the sick …’

      He tucked his box o’sausages under one arm, balanced the onions on top and bumbled his way out the front door, into the searing bright morning. The day had barely started and it was already far too hot. Like living in a deep-fat fryer. God knew what it’d be like by lunchtime.

      He plipped the locks on his Audi and hurried down the steps.

      Froze.

      Sod.

      Hurried inside again and grabbed his peaked cap off its hook at the bottom of the stairs.

      Checked his watch: six thirty-seven.

      ‘Gah!’

      No doubt about it: whoever invented mornings was a sadist.

      It wasn’t easy, limping his way up the Bucksburn station stairs, a waxed-paper cup of scalding coffee in one hand, the big box of sausages – topped with the container of onions and his flat cap – in the other. But he hadn’t dropped anything yet.

      He was halfway up when Shona burst out of the PSD office, stomping her way down towards him, face flushed and creased, teeth bared. Deep wrinkles slashed their way across her forehead, barely concealed by a sweaty brown fringe. Mid-forties, going on homicidal.

      He tried his best cheery voice, ‘Happy birthday, Shona!’

      She didn’t stop. ‘Bloody printer hates me!’

      ‘Oh fine, fine. Thanks for asking. You?’

      Shona stomped past him, the muscles bulging in her clenched jaw as she forced the words out, ‘You lot better have chipped together and bought me a sledgehammer! Cos when I get back, that printer’s dead! DEAD!’

      He stayed where he was as she growled her way down to the bottom and away through the double doors.

      ‘Yup. Great to be back.’ Logan limped up to the top and pushed through into the main office.

      It wasn’t as busy as yesterday – most of the desks were unpersoned – but Shona’s was really easy to spot. Mylar balloons bobbed in the air above it, streamers hung in rainbow-coloured drapes all over the cubicle walls, a big banner with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!” pinned to the wall.

      Subtle.

      Logan nodded to a couple of officers in the process of logging on to their computers as he made his way across to his desk. Or at least, it used to be his desk. Someone had colonised it with Lord of the Rings stuff – posters and film stills on every available vertical surface, an ‘Eye of Sauron’ mug, and a tableau of action figures Blu-Tacked in place on top of the monitor: Gandalf and Frodo facing off against Saruman, an Orc, and, for some unknowable reason, Postman Pat.

      He stared at the Tolkien shrine. ‘What happened to all my Gary Larsons?’

      Probably went in the bin the day after they signed him off on the sick. Insensitive bunch of bastards.

      Logan dumped his sausage collection on the desk, adjusted his seat, and powered up his crummy old police computer. Might as well do a bit of digging on—

      ‘Is Tufty!’

      He swivelled his office chair around and there was Tufty, hurrying across the office towards him: eyes wide and twitchy, bags underneath them, a laptop clasped to his chest and a tin of Red Bull in his other hand. Talking much faster than any normal person ought to.

      ‘Boss, Guv, Sarge! Sarge, Sarge, Sarge, Sarge …’

      OK.

      ‘I’ve been an inspector for two years, you half-baked spud. And shouldn’t you be off interviewing academics?’

      ‘Too early. Too early. They don’t start till nine and it’s only five to seven and I’ve been up all night and is that coffee?’ He squirrelled his way over to Logan’s desk and stood there, vibrating. A weird grin on his face as he stared at Logan’s latte.

      ‘How much Red Bull have you had?’

      ‘Been up all night working on the social media side of things, because I can do that in my spare time, right? Just cos I can’t do it in work time doesn’t mean I can’t do it when it’s home time, so I did it at home. Yes indeedy. Home, home, home, home, home.’ He put his laptop on top of Logan’s sausages and cracked open the Red Bull.

      ‘No, seriously, you need to stop drinking that stuff.’

      ‘But I has a success!’ The grin got even more manic. ‘There’s a dark web, lurking below the surface if you know where to look. I did run an algorithm on the first tweet about Professor Wilson and tracked the language usage across a selection of Alt-Nat accounts: Twitter, Facebook, Messageboards. FourChan, ThreeChan, TwoChan, OneChan, we have liftoff!’

      ‘Right.’ Logan took the tin of Red Bull from Tufty’s hand. ‘This is for your own good.’

      ‘But see, I did find the same person running multiple accounts!’

      ‘So you know who they are?’

      ‘Ah … Not yet. It’s always anonymous usernames and fakeity pseudonyms, and I don’t have enough resources to run through all the social media accounts