Logan McRae. Stuart MacBride

STANDARDS’, straightened his epaulettes, took a deep breath and—

      The door banged open and a chunky bloke with sergeant’s stripes burst out, lurching to a halt about six inches from a collision. He flashed a wide grin, showing off a golden tooth, then stuck out a signet-ringed hand for shaking, the other signet-ringed hand holding the door open behind him. ‘The prodigal inspector returns! How’s the …’ He mimed stabbing someone. ‘You know?’

      Logan shook the hand and did his best to smile. ‘Leonard. Your kids well?’

      ‘Rabid weasels would make less mess.’ A sniff. ‘Need a hand with that?’ He reached out and took Logan’s box off him, gesturing with it towards the open door. ‘Looking forward to your first day back at the Fun Factory?’

      Not even vaguely.

      ‘Yeah … Something like that.’

      Another grin. ‘Deep breath.’

      Logan did just that, then stepped through into the main office. Sunlight flooded the open-plan room. Meeting rooms and cupboards took up one side, with cubicled workstations filling the remaining space. A squealing laser printer, more of those motivational posters, only this lot were ‘personalised’ with sarcastic speech balloons cut from Post-it notes.

      Every desk was populated, more officers bustling about, the muted sound of telephone conversations.

      Wow. ‘OK …’

      Ballantine’s mouth pulled wide and down, keeping his voice low. ‘I know, right? We’re helping our beloved Police Investigations and Review Commissioner look into a couple of Strathclyde’s more recent high-profile cock-ups. And on top of that we’ve got a home-grown botched raid in Ellon that ended up with a geography teacher having a heart attack; and a fatal RTC in Tillydrone last night.’ A grimace. ‘High-speed pursuit between an unmarked car and a drug dealer on a moped. Wasn’t wearing a helmet, so you can guess what’s left of his head.’ Then Ballantine boomed it out to the whole room: ‘Guys, look who it is!’

      They all turned and stared. Smiling broke out in the ranks, accompanied by shouted greetings, ‘Guv!’, ‘Logan!’, ‘Heeeero! Heeeero!’, ‘McRae!’, ‘Welcome back!’, and ‘You owe me a fiver!’

      Logan gave them a small wave. ‘Morning.’

      A matronly woman marched out of a side office, her superintendent’s pips shining in the sunlight. Her chin-length grey bob wasn’t quite long enough to hide the handcuff earrings dangling from her lobes. A warm smile. Twinkly eyes, lurking behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. She popped her fists onto her hips. ‘All right!’ Her full-strength Kiwi accent cut through the chatter like a chainsaw. ‘That’s enough rowdiness for one day. Back to work, you lot.’

      Her smile widened as she raised a hand. ‘Inspector McRae, can I see you in my office please?’

      Great. Didn’t even get to unpack his box.

      Logan followed her inside, past the little brass sign on the door with ‘SUPT. JULIE BEVAN’ on it.

      The room was surprisingly homey, with framed pictures of an orange stripy cat; photos of Bevan and what were probably her children, going by the resemblance, in front of London and Sydney landmarks. But pride of place was given to a big frame containing a faded photo of an ancient green-and-white car and what looked like a speeding ticket. The usual assortment of beige filing cabinets played home to a variety of pot plants and a grubby crocheted elephant with its button eyes hanging off.

      Bevan settled behind her desk. She was probably aiming for encouraging, but there was no disguising the note of disappointment in her voice: ‘Inspector McRae, I appreciate that it must be a shock to the system, having to get up in the morning after a year recuperating at home, but I really need all my officers to be here at the start of the working day.

      Yeah …

      Logan eased himself into one of the two visitors’ chairs. ‘You emailed me yesterday and told me not to come in till twelve. It’s eleven fifteen, so I’m actually forty-five minutes early.’

      Bevan raised her eyebrows. ‘Did I? Oh …’ Another smile, then she set her grey bob wobbling with a shake of her head. ‘Right, well, let’s say no more about it, then.’ She sat back, watching him. ‘I know we’ve not worked together before, Logan, but I’m sure we’ll get along famously. Superintendent Doig spoke very highly of you in his handover notes.’

      ‘That was nice of him.’

      ‘Lovely man.’ She pursed her lips and did a bit more Logan watching. ‘As you can see, this is a very busy time for us. I’ve had to draft in support from N Division, so I’m afraid your desk is currently unavailable. Sorry.’

      It wasn’t easy not to sigh at that.

      Her smile reappeared. ‘But not to worry! I have something nice and straightforward to ease you back into the swing of things.’ Bevan reached for her Pending tray and pulled out a file. ‘I believe Sergeant Rennie used to be your assistant before you were … injured?’

      ‘Only if I didn’t move fast enough to—’

      ‘A fine officer. Credit to the team. I can’t spare Rennie from his ongoing cases at the moment, so you’ll be flying solo on this one.’ She slid the file across the table towards him. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine. After all, you didn’t win a Queen’s Medal for being the station cat, did you?’

      Nope, he got it for being an idiot.

      Logan accepted the folder with a nod. ‘Thank you, … Boss?’

      ‘Julie. Please.’

      Oh, great: she was one of those.

      ‘Right.’

      ‘One more thing.’ Bevan dipped into her Pending tray again, only this time it produced a biro and a birthday card with a teddy bear on it. ‘It’s Shona’s birthday tomorrow, so if you can write something nice in there and don’t forget to bring a plate.’

      Logan opened the card. The inside was liberally scrawled with various ball-point wishes and indecipherable signatures. ‘A plate?’

      ‘I’m making my famous lemon drizzle cake; Karl’s doing his Thai fishcakes, which are super yummy; Rennie’s bringing doughnuts; I think Marlon’s doing devilled eggs. What’s your speciality?’

      ‘Erm …’ Phoning for takeaway probably didn’t count. ‘I burn a lot of sausages on the barbecue?’

      ‘Excellent. Then you can bring a plate of those.’

      ‘OK …’ The pen had ‘BOFFA MISKELL’ printed on it, which sounded like some obscene sexual practice. He clicked out the end, wrote ‘ONE DAY, YOU’LL BEAT THAT PRINTER INTO SUBMISSION!’ and signed it.

      ‘Thanks.’ Bevan took the card and pen back and consigned them to ‘Pending’ again. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got review boards to organise.’ She pulled her keyboard over and poked at it, frowning at the screen.

      ‘Right.’ Logan stood. Picked up the file. ‘I’ll go and …’ He pointed over his shoulder, but she didn’t look up. ‘OK.’

      You are dismissed.

      Bloody stairs. Again.

      Logan limped down them, phone pressed to his ear, trying not to be too overwhelmed with the view out the stairwell windows. It would take a hardy soul not to be moved by the arse-end of Bucksburn station and the car park hiding behind it. A faint heat haze lifting off the vehicles as they slowly roasted in the sun.

      Ringing, and ringing, and finally someone picked up: ‘Operation Overcharge?’

      Overcharge? Whoever was running the random word generator for naming investigations needed a kick up the bumhole.

      ‘Hi, I need to speak to DI King.’

      There