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 that aren’t Alt-Naty so I can’t find linguistic markers in the outside real world cos that’ll take a lot of very big computers and all I’ve got’s a laptop and can I have my Red Bull back?’ Reaching for it.
‘Definitely not. You’re wired enough as it—’
‘Course if they’ve geotagged their posts I could use that to cross-reference their location with the nearest cell-towers and did you know you only need four tagged posts to identify an anonymous account with ninety-five percent accuracy?’
‘Great! So, get online and—’
‘You’d have to access the customer dataset of every mobile-phone company in the UK to do it, but you could maybe get a warrant …’ Tufty stuck his bottom lip out, showing off his teeth in some sort of weird bulldog impersonation. ‘Ooh! Or I could try hacking in and—’
‘No! No hacking things!’
He sagged, going from bulldog to dewy-eyed puppy. ‘But Saaa-arge!’
Logan stood and hooked a finger at him. ‘Follow me, Caffeine Boy.’ Marching across the open-plan office with Tufty scampering alongside – laptop clasped to his chest again.
‘Not Caffeine Boy. Caffeine Boy’s a sidekick’s name, I’m … SUPERTUFTY!’
Everyone turned to watch as he did the pose in the middle of the room.
‘Fighting crime, one bad guy at a time!’ Shadowboxing, one-handed. ‘Biff! Pow! Kerrrunk!’
Yeah, there was no way Tufty was ever making sergeant. The top brass had a strict no-weirdos policy. Mind you, Karl had made it all the way to Inspector, so maybe it was more of a guideline?
Logan knocked on Karl’s door, not waiting for an answer before opening it and ushering Supertufty inside.
Karl was perched on his mushroom again, wearing a pair of big magnifying spectacles that made him look like a character in a sci-fi film. ‘Well, well, who’s this invading my sanctuary at this early hour? Hmmmmm?’
‘Oooh …’ Tufty stared at the collected computer kit in its racks and boxes. ‘Cool!’
Logan thumped a hand down on his shoulder. ‘Tufty, this is Inspector Montgomery. Karl, this is Constable Quirrel. He’s weird, but harmless, so you’ve got a lot in common.’
A wave from Tufty. ‘Hello, Boss. Or do you like “Guv” better? We can stick with “Inspector”, if that works? Ooh, Ooh, or how about, “Maz Kanata”?’
Karl peered at him over the top of his big glasses. ‘I have no idea who that is.’
‘It’s this really, really wise old character from Star Wars: The Force—’
Logan hit him.
‘Ow!’
Idiot.
‘Tufty’s been looking into the Professor Wilson social-media thing, and he’s found something, haven’t you, Tufty?’
‘I have, Tufty.’
‘Intriguing.’ Karl patted the worktop beside him. ‘Pull up a stool, kind Sir Tufty, and let us break bread. Well, we can share a Tunnock’s teacake, but symbolically it’s the same thing.’
‘Aye, aye, Inspector!’
Logan shook his head. ‘Don’t let him have any more caffeine. And if you need to put him down for a nap, do it somewhere no one’s going to fall over him.’
Tufty hopped up onto a spare stool and beamed at Karl. ‘Have you heard about using geotagged posts to identify anonymous accounts from mobile-phone-cell-tower records?’
Light the geek touchpaper and stand well back.
Logan reversed from the room. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Closed the door. ‘God, imagine what would happen if they bred …’
A shudder.
Some things were too horrible to contemplate.
Ah well, back to work.
He’d nearly made it as far as his desk, when the main doors opened and someone backed in, arms full: Rennie, getting a bit on the chunky side, with a deep tan and bleached blond hair waxed into spiky curls.
Rennie turned, slow and careful. A big box of doughnuts acted as a tray, heaped up with tinfoil parcels and greasy paper bags and two of those cardboard things designed for carrying six take-out coffees at one time.
Logan nodded at the vast collection. ‘On a diet again?’
‘And I got you a Poseidon’s Surprise too, you ungrateful spudge.’
What the hell was a Poseidon’s Surprise?
Rennie winked at him. ‘How did you enjoy getting up at a proper time this morning? Bit of a strain after twelve months off?’
‘Like riding a bike. Barely even noticed the difference.’
Liar.
‘Aye, right.’ Rennie raised his burden an inch, then lowered it again. ‘Little help?’
Logan unloaded the tinfoil packages, bags, and hot drinks onto the nearest vacant desk. ‘Do me a favour and call DI King. Tell him I’ve commandeered Tufty for the morning. I don’t know if the silly wee sod’s even checked in for work yet.’
‘Tsk …’ Rennie sighed. ‘That’s what you get for recruiting an inferior sidekick. Look what happened last
