Logan tossed the paper over. ‘Journos are implying his disappearance is connected to Prof Wilson’s. All I’m getting on the PNC is that he’s missing.’
‘Pfffff …’ Rennie frowned at Edward Barwell’s article. ‘Can find out, if you like?’
‘Ta.’
‘And while we’re on the subject: you’ll never guess what I’ve managed to organise for Saturday. Go on, guess. You can’t, but try.’ Wiggling both eyebrows. ‘OK, OK, get this: Princess Unicorn’s Magic Bouncy Castle! How cool is that?’
Logan wheeled his chair back a bit, putting a little more distance between them. ‘Erm …’
‘And Mistress Fizzymiggins is doing a make-your-own-magic-wand-and-fairy-wings thing. And there’s going to be a pony!’
A pony? Why would there be a …
‘Ah, right: Lola’s birthday party!’
‘Donna’s even written a special song for her little sister that doesn’t include the words “Bumface Brain”. Can you help out with the Fairyland pony rides?’
‘Actually—’
‘Great. Right, I’ll go see what I can dig up about Matt Lansdale.’ He sauntered off towards the main doors, taking the Scottish Daily Post with him. ‘And don’t forget, it’s BYOT!’
BYOT?
Logan curled his lip. ‘What the hell is BYOT?’
But the doors thunked shut and Rennie was gone.
The man was a menace.
Logan stood to follow him … and stopped as Superintendent Bevan emerged from her office, holding a blue folder.
She gave him a smile. ‘Ah, Logan. Good.’ Then peered past him, at the desk. ‘Oh, are those your sausages? Lovely.’ Bevan marched over and picked up the Tupperware box. ‘We’ll pop these in the fridge, then you can come join me in the conference room.’
Why did that sound as if something horrible was about to happen?
Logan shifted in his squeaky leather seat. ‘I don’t know what else you want me to say.’
Detective Superintendent Young frowned back at him from the oversized TV screen mounted on the far wall. To be honest, Young was a bit intimidating in person – being a rugby-player-sized lump with big meaty fists covered in scars. Throw in the small dark squinty eyes and he looked like the kind of person who’d tear your head off for spilling his pint or looking at him funny, and being on screen didn’t really diminish that.
Jane McGrath was sitting next to him, in the boardroom at DHQ, as immaculate as ever, as if she’d been moulded from plastic. The only thing out of place was the expression on her face: as if she really wanted to scrape whatever she’d just stood in off her shoe.
Young picked up his printout of the Scottish Daily Post’s front page, or at least the one that was meant to appear today, but hadn’t. ‘Was he in a terrorist organisation, or not?’
Logan shrugged. ‘He went to a few PASL meetings.’
Jane stared at the ceiling for a beat. ‘God damn it.’ Then sat back in her seat. ‘Well, that’s that, then, isn’t it? We’re screwed: he’s got to go.’
‘Now,’ Superintendent Bevan pulled on a serious schoolteacher voice, the authority undermined a teeny bit by her Kiwi accent, ‘before we do anything rash, perhaps we should take a step back and think about this dispassionately.’
‘“Dispassionately”?’ Jane shook her head. ‘It’s a PR disaster. Forget “Fingerprintgate” or “Sex-In-The-Woods-gate”, every major news outlet will be lining up to jam spiky things up our backsides! Great big spiky—’
Young hit her with his printout. ‘All right, Jane, we get the picture.’
‘I’m talking pineapples here!’
Bevan tried the voice again. ‘That’s no reason to indulge in knee-jerk reactions.’
‘Jane’s right, Julie.’ Young held up a hand. ‘I know, I know. But DI King has become a liability. He’s a diseased limb: we have to amputate before the infection spreads and takes the whole body with it.’
‘Who’s to say a judicious dose of antibiotics couldn’t work every bit as well?’
She had a point.
Logan joined in, going for calm and reasonable: ‘DI King says he only joined the PASL to impress a girl.’
‘Hmph.’ Jane curled her lip. ‘We’ve all done strange things for love, but you should really draw the line at joining a terrorist cell. How am I supposed to spin that?’
‘He was sixteen.’
‘He was an idiot!’
‘Most sixteen-year-old boys are.’
Bevan nodded. ‘All I’m saying is that if we throw DI King to the crocodiles because he was a horny teenager, that’s it for him. The press will tear him apart. No more career. Even if he changes divisions – they’ll find him and drag it all up again.’
‘They’re going to tear him apart anyway. We got lucky today: the Scottish Daily Post bumped their exclusive, but they’re going to print it sooner or later, and when they do …’ She banged a hand down on the table. ‘This is our chance to get ahead of the story and act like we’re on the front foot for a change.’
‘But—’
Jane turned to Young. ‘Suspend him now, and it’ll look like the Post are reacting to our diligent man management. We won’t put up with this kind of thing, etc.’
‘That’s not—’
Young held up his hand again. ‘What’s the point of having a Professional Standards if we can’t use them to hack a festering limb off and cauterise the wound?’ He waved the printout at them. ‘My department’s not coming down with gangrene!’
Logan sucked a breath in through his teeth. ‘Seems a little harsh.’
‘Or, alternatively,’ Bevan pursed her lips, frowning, ‘and hear me out here: we could take a different route. What if we do full disclosure? Lay it all out for them in a frank and open interview with DI King. “How I stopped being a bigoted tosspot and learned to love the English.”’
On the screen, Jane narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m listening.’
‘We’re always telling people how racism and homophobia
