‘For goodness’ sake, it’s been twenty years! If Colin can get over the fact you and I used to be sexually intimate, surely you can too.’
Wow.
OK.
He tried again. ‘Itmightnot be appropriate, because half the guests arepolice officersand your Colin spends most of his time writing articles about how useless we are!’
‘Oh. I see.’ Isobel didn’t even blush. ‘Well, I want you to invite him anyway. All his work friends have been made redundant, and he needs some sort of outside interest.’ She rustled off, without so much as a ‘thank you’.
‘Fine. But I want those DNA results ASAP!’
If she heard that, it didn’t show. Instead she climbed into the Range Rover, started the engine, and growled away into the scorching afternoon.
‘Sa-arge,’ Tufty fluttered his eyelashes, ‘about that barbecue...?’
‘No. Now go find me some rapists.’
21
‘...denies all involvement and says he looks forward to clearing his name when the case comes to court in September.’
The pool car puttered up Holburn Street, stuck behind an extremely large man on a bicycle, doing five miles per hour in a drench of sweat and soggy Lycra cycling shorts.
Silly sod.
Had to be thirty degrees out there. And everyone knew Scottish people started melting if it got above eighteen.
Rennie’s hand kept twitching towards the horn, as if that would make their rolling roadblock go any faster. But then he’d been in a grump since they’d left the lay-by. What with doing all the driving while Tufty lounged in the back. Making him little more than a bleached-blond chauffeur.
‘...revelations that NHS trusts across Scotland are declaring a state of emergency, as admissions hit an all-time high for the year...’
Logan went back to gazing out the window.
This bit of Holburn Street was a bit on the shabby side, to be honest. But it could’ve been worse. At least it wasn’t all charity shops, vape shops, phone shops, bookies, and boarded-up units, like Union Street.
Tufty leaned through from the back. ‘Do you know whatIthink?’
‘Hmmph.’ Rennie glowered across the car at Logan. ‘Did youhaveto bring him?’
‘Couldn’t exactly leave the wee loon behind. Imagine the trouble he’d get into.’
‘...struggling to keep up with the number of patients. Joanna Parkinson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has blamed “decades of SNP underinvestment” for the situation...’
‘Yeah, but he should beBiohazard’sproblem, now. Not ours.’
‘No, but listen,’ Tufty tapped both headrests, ‘Ithink we should go back to the station, because it’ll bewayeasier to cross-reference sexual assaults and offender profiles within geographically specific parameters.’ He bit his bottom lip and grinned at the same time, making him look like a demented hamster. ‘And I does has leftover Chicken Jalfrezi and naan bread in the CID fridge for lunch. We did get a celebratory curry last night, because Kate said...yes!’ Bouncing up and down in his seat. ‘I does has a bidie-in! How cool is that?’ Serious face. ‘But mostly the sexual assaults thing.’
‘...Fordyce, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine invited her to “awa and bile her heid”.’
Logan smiled. ‘Congratulations.’
Rennie just humphed again.
The lights were with them, for a change, and they crawled across the three-way junction where Holburn Street crashed into the tail end of Alford Place and the start of Union Street.
Back in the day, Aberdeen’s main thoroughfare was vibrant and alive, now it was all grey and moribund. Seemed as if every day there was something else closing down, or ‘TOLET,MAYSELL’.
‘...following a riot at her concert in Glasgow. The American pop star, and vocal Trump critic, has received numerous death threats...’
