Logan McRae. Stuart MacBride

McRae.’

      ‘Oh.’ Another pause. Then a touch of panic joined the accent blender. ‘Erm … Inspector, didn’t know y’ were back. Feeling better?’

      ‘Detective Constable Way?’ Logan kept lumbering downwards.

       ‘We was all worried about you, you know, after the stabbing.’

      ‘Where is he, Milky?’ Logan pushed through the doors at the bottom of the stairs, into a bland corridor lined with offices and yet more sodding motivational posters.

       ‘Where’s who?’

      ‘DI King!’

      ‘Oh, right. Yes. Erm … You know, it’s a funny thing, but he’s just this minute run out door on an urgent job.’

      What a shock. ‘And when will he be back?’

      Logan stepped outside. The car park smothered in the heat of a far too sunny day – its surface sticky beneath his boots, the air thick with the scent of hot tarmac and frying dust. He screwed his eyes half shut as the sun drove red-hot nails into them. God, it was more like Death Valley out here than Bucksburn. ‘Milky?

       ‘Erm …’

      Typical: soon as Professional Standards started asking questions, everyone developed amnesia.

      ‘OK, where’s DI King going, then?’

       ‘Erm …’

      ‘And bear in mind I can just call Control and check. Then come pay you a visit.’

      ‘Oh that DI King! Yes, course, I’ve yon address right here. You got a pen?’

      Gorse and broom lined the road, their yellow flowers boiling like flames above the reaching branches. Beyond the conflagration lay swathes of green, carved into an irregular patchwork by drystane dykes. The hills on either side thick with Scots pine, beech, and fir.

      All of it slipping past the windows of Logan’s Audi.

      A cheery voice brayed out of the radio, trampling all over the tail-end of a song. ‘How does that set you up for a sunny Tuesday? Great. We’ve got Saucy Suzy coming up at twelve, but before that here’s a quick traffic update for you: the B999 Pitmedden to Tarves road is closed following a fire at the Kipperie Burn Garden Centre. So look out for diversions.’

      A burst of drums and the howl of guitars started up in the background.

       ‘Now, here’s Savage Season with their new one, “The Wrecker”. Take it away, boys!’

      The road twisted around to the right, revealing a cluster of manky outbuildings in the process of being converted, and a manky farmhouse in the process of being managed as a crime scene.

      A throaty voice growled over the music:

       ‘Darkness deep and thoughts so wild, it’s—’

      Logan switched the radio off and pulled onto the wide gravel driveway.

      The Scene Examiners’ grubby white Transit sat right outside the farmhouse, next to an unmarked grey Vauxhall pool car, a Volvo in shades of rust and gastroenteritis brown; and a perky little red Fiat.

      He parked next to it, grabbed his hat, and climbed out into … Holy mother of fish.

      The burning air caught in his throat, wrapped itself around his Police Scotland uniform, and tried to grind him into the ground.

      Bees bumbled their way between the flowering weeds that lined the drive, hoverflies buzzing amongst the thunderheads, house martins reenacting the Battle of Britain – jinking and swooping and diving, while a clatter of jackdaws looked on from the farmhouse roof.

      Logan pulled on his hat and limped for the front door.

      It wasn’t locked. Or even guarded, come to that.

      Which was a bit lax.

      He stepped into a dusty hallway, the walls punctuated by dusty photos in dusty frames, between dusty bookshelves stuffed with dusty books. A half-dozen doors led off the hall, most of them open. A staircase leading up, with dusty piles of yet more books at the outside edge of every tread.

      The clicker-flash of cameras burst out from one of the doorways, into the hall. Logan paused at the threshold and peered inside.

      It was a kitchen, full of yet more books. Stacks and stacks of them. Newspapers too. And a manky bin-bag-left-in-the-sun kind of smell. Two figures, one short and pregnant, one tall and broad, both in full SOC get-up, busied themselves around the kitchen table, taking photos and swabs. Fingerprint powder greyed nearly every other surface.

      They’d rigged up a half-hearted barricade by stretching a line of yellow-and-black ‘CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS’ tape across the doorway.

      Logan waved at them. ‘Hello?’

      The pregnant one looked up from her DNA sampling, features obscured by a facemask and safety goggles. ‘You’re back at work then?’

      ‘Apparently. DI King about?’

      The smile vanished from her voice. ‘His Majesty is swanning about somewhere. If you find him, tell him we’re out of here in twenty. Got other, more important crime scenes to deal with.’

      ‘Thanks, Shirley.’ Logan carried on down the corridor, past the stairs, past the bookshelves and their dust-furred books – ninety percent of which seemed to be Scottish history with the occasional Mills & Boon thrown in.

      A clipped voice came from a room off to one side, as if every word was being throttled to stop it screaming, emphasising the Highland burr. ‘No, Gwen, I didn’t. And you repeating it over and over doesn’t make it true.’

      Logan stepped into the doorway of a cluttered study, lined with yet more overflowing bookshelves. One wall was devoted to a cluster of framed photos – proper full-size head-and-shoulder jobs – each one depicting a different grey-muzzled Jack Russell terrier. And crammed in, between everything else, were newspaper clippings, stuck to the wallpaper with thumbtacks. A desk sat in front of the room’s only window, piled high with papers, three monitors hovering above it on hydraulic arms. An ashtray as packed with dog-ends as the bookcases were with books.

      And in the middle of all this stood a man in his shirtsleeves. A bit overweight, his swept-back blond hair a bit higher on his forehead, the dimple in his chin a bit more squished up by the fat that gathered along his jawline. Big arms, though, as if he used to be a prizefighter who’d let himself go after one too many blows to the head. His silk tie hung at half-mast and his bright-blue shirt came with dark patches under the arms.

      His features creased, as if whoever he was on the phone with had just stabbed him in the ear. ‘No … Because I’m working, Gwen. You remember what that’s like? … Yes.’ Then a longer pause. ‘Yes.’ A from-the-bottom-of-your-socks sigh. ‘I don’t know: later. OK. Bye.’

      He hung up and ran a hand over his face.

      ‘DI King?’ Logan knocked on the door frame. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’

      King smoothed himself down, slipped his phone into his pocket, and forced a smile. ‘Inspector McRae. Thought you were still off on the sick?’

      ‘I get that a lot. So … Missing constitutional scholar?’

      ‘Can we skip the foreplay, please? You’re not here about Professor Wilson – the call only came in an hour ago, not enough time for anyone to have screwed something up.’ King popped an extra-strong mint in his mouth, crunching as he talked. ‘So come on, Mr Professional Standards, what am I supposed to have done wrong?’

      Logan wandered in, hands behind his back as he frowned his way along the articles pinned to the wall. The headlines all followed