A grimace. ‘Oh, thanks a sodding heap.’
They left him to it – marching across the sticky tarmac to the pool car.
Rennie had all the doors wide open, but the thing was still hot as a crematorium as Logan thumped into the passenger seat.
The peroxide twit looked up from his phone. ‘Emma saysshe’lldo tattie salad if Tara makes whatever-it-is: with the little bits of pasta that look like maggots?’
And didn’tthatsound delicious...
Logan clunked his door shut. ‘Buckle up: we’ve got a sozzled hotel owner to rescue from a Peterheadcase!’
Trees lined North Anderson Drive, their leaves: muted green, beneath a layer of summer dust. Set too far back from the dual carriageway to cast any shade.
The pool car cruised up the hill, past the fire station and some sort of council art installation featuring an endless line of orange traffic cones. Probably making a statement about the futility of human existence.
A parpy-trumpet indie-rock number tootled out of the radio, upbeat and jolly. Tufty nodding along in the back with a vacant smile on his face. Rennie tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Logan’s shoe marking time in the footwell.
Then three-beeps blared across the beat – announcing an incoming call on Logan’s Airwave as they slowed for the semi-organised chaos that was the King’s Cross Roundabout. He clicked off the radio, prompting disappointed noises from the idiots. ‘Grow up.’ And answered the call. ‘Safe to talk.’
‘Guv? It’s Doreen.’
He checked the handset’s screen: it was indeed.
‘If you’re calling to complain about the search: tough. There’s no point—’
‘We’ve found something.’
And with that, everyone sat up straighter.
‘Brig of Balgownie. Charles MacGarioch was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, right?’
‘Four Mechanical Mice.’
‘That’s what I thought.’There were some rustling noises, then:‘Found it caught in a shopping trolley, wedged against the bank. Ripped down the back, so looks like it was torn off.’
That didn’t sound good.
Rennie eased them closer to the roundabout, hunched over the wheel, rocking back and forward, looking for a gap in the traffic.
‘Sure he didn’t justtakeit off?’
‘Not unless he’s Edward Scissorhands. I’ve called Scenes – see if we can get DNA or something – but the only working van’s sodding about somewhere in Stoneywood. Any chance you can light an acting-chief-inspector-sized fire under their arses?’
‘Not really. They’ve got a serial rapist’s house to process.’
Over on the pavement, a leathery couple were out walking a sausage dog – her in a bikini, him in budgie-smugglers, both in sun hats and flip-flops. Grey haired and saggy. So it wasn’t just their feet going flip and flop.
What the hell waswrongwith people?
No one wanted to see—
‘Guv?’
Logan snapped back. ‘Erm...Who’s doing door-to-doors in Hillhead?’
‘Spudgun’s team.’
Rennie flickered the car’s police lights, whooping the siren a couple of times to cheat his way into the swirl of vehicles and straight across the roundabout. Bit naughty, but at least Logan didn’t have to look at Mr and Mrs Baggy-Wrinkles any more.
