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“‘Address to a Haggis”. And I quote:

      “But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,

      The trembling earth resounds his tread,

      Clap in his walie nieve a blade,

      He’ll mak it whissle …”’

      She held up a hand and curled it into a fist. ‘This is my “walie nieve”.’

      King let his arms fall by his sides and stared at the ceiling again. Voice little more than a funeral dirge:

      ‘“An’ legs, an’ arms, an’ heads will sned,

      Like taps o’ thrissle.”’

      Heather nodded. ‘And 1314 was the battle of Bannockburn.’

      ‘Oh …’ Steel put her phone away. ‘In that case, no. He didn’t leave a name.’

      ‘Course he didn’t.’ King sagged a bit further. ‘H?’

      ‘I can get in touch with Twitter, but don’t hold your breath.’

      King didn’t move. ‘Thanks. And now, unless anyone else has a—’

      The door burst open, banging against the wall, and in marched a short man. A bit tubby about the middle, small round glasses and a hairline that looked as if it was planning on parting company with its host any day now. A scowl etched into his pasty face. DCI Hardie stopped in the middle of the room as King scrambled to his feet.

      ‘Boss.’

      ‘You’ve heard about the university?’

      ‘Press release.’

      ‘Which means we’re going to have to do a media briefing. And by “we” I mean “you”. Two o’clock sharp. Try to make it sound like we know what we’re doing.’

      King nodded. ‘Boss.’

      Then Hardie stared at Logan. ‘Inspector McRae, good to have you back after …’ Suspicion replaced the scowl as he looked from Logan to King. ‘Is there something here I should know about?’

      Logan put a hand on Steel’s shoulder. ‘Just popped by to see how Detective Sergeant Steel’s getting on. Make sure she’s keeping her nose clean.’

      She gave him a full dose of the evil eye. ‘Hoy!’

      ‘Good luck with that.’ Hardie turned on his heel, snapping his fingers above his head as he marched from the room. ‘Two o’clock sharp!’

      As soon as the door banged shut, King collapsed into his seat, hands over his face again. ‘Aaaargh …’

      Yeah, that pretty much summed it up.

       6

      Logan plipped the locks on his Audi and hurried across the furnace masquerading as Bucksburn station’s rear car park. Trying to avoid the stickier patches of tarmac.

      Inside, it was a bit cooler, but not a lot. He limped his way up the stairs to Professional Standards, sweat prickling between his shoulder blades. Who decided it was OK for the weather to be so bloody hot? The temperature was never meant to hit twenty-six in Aberdeen – what was the point of living nearly a degree and a half north of Moscow if it was going to be twenty-six in the shade? Might as well live in a microwave oven.

      At least the air conditioning was on in the main office.

      Someone he didn’t recognise was lowering the blinds, cutting out the glaring sun and the lunchtime ‘rush’. The traffic was barely moving – crawling along Inverurie Road and bringing most of Bucksburn to a grinding halt. Then the blinds clunked down and it was gone.

      Whoever-it-was waved at Logan and he waved back.

      Yup, no idea at all who you are, mate.

      Logan lumbered his way along the line of offices to the one marked, ‘FORENSIC I.T.’ A laminated sheet of A4 sat underneath it, covered in clipart cartoon characters depicting some sort of bloody Aztec ritual with the legend, ‘THE MIGHTY KARL CARES NOT FOR YOUR VIRGIN SACRIFICES: BRING CAKE!’

      OK, so a packet of Rice Krispie squares wasn’t quite the same thing, but it was near enough. Right?

      He shifted the pack to his other hand and knocked.

      A slightly high-pitched voice sounded on the other side of the door. ‘Abandon all hope and enter.’

      Logan let himself in.

      The Mighty Karl’s domain was an eclectic collection of IT equipment, all of it labelled and most of it stored on the floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined the room. Laptops, desktops, evidence crates full of mobile phones and tablet computers.

      More clipart cartoons were pinned up all over the walls and shelves. A halo of them made a wee shrine around a framed photo of Karl shaking hands with the First Minister. Only someone had given her a Post-it note speech balloon with, ‘OH KARL, YOU SEXY BEAST OF A MAN, YOU!’ on it.

      The ‘Sexy Beast of a man’ sat at the workbench that bisected the room.

      Perched on a high stool, with a thin grey cardigan on over his Police Scotland uniform T-shirt, thick-rimmed round glasses, and salt-and-pepper hair in desperate need of a cut, he was just a hookah pipe and a fez away from being the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland.

      He clambered down from his mushroom and beamed. ‘Logan of the Clan McRae! I heard rumours of your …’ His nostrils twitched and he curled forwards, peering at the packet in Logan’s hand. ‘Ooh, do these ancient eyes deceive me, or are you bearing votive offerings for my humble self? Hmmmmm?’

      Logan popped the Rice Krispie squares on the desk and Karl snaffled them up, sniffing the wrapper.

      ‘Ah, the delights of puffed rice and assorted sweetly sticky things …’ A sigh, long and wistful. ‘I miss Norman, don’t you? He used to prepare decadent baked treats that would tempt even the most parsimonious of souls.’ Karl ripped the pack open. ‘I remember once he baked a batch of scones with Mars Bar bits, Gummy Bears, and jelly beans, that—’

      ‘Can I beg a favour?’

      Karl tore off a sticky corner and popped it in his mouth, chewing through a big smile. ‘Mmmm … You have made sacrifice to the all-mighty, all-seeing, all-knowing Oracle, so ask away, Brave Traveller.’

      ‘I need you to track down some Twitter accounts for me.’

      ‘Names, addresses, inside-leg measurements – that kind of thing?’

      ‘As much as you can get.’

      A nod. ‘Luckily, my dear Logan, the only things I have on this afternoon are a pair of tattered pants and a second-hand bobble hat.’ He sooked his fingers clean. ‘Consider your tweetists found!’

      And with any luck they’d have whoever abducted Professor Wilson in a cell by the close of business.

      Superintendent Bevan sat behind her desk, hands busy with a ball of multicoloured wool and a crochet needle. Making something that looked disturbingly like a huge willy warmer.

      Logan tore his eyes away from it and settled in his seat. ‘I’m going to have to go over some of his cases, speak to a few of his colleagues to be sure, but I get the feeling DI King is telling the truth. It was a long time ago and he’s genuinely changed.’

      She frowned for a moment, crocheting away, then nodded. ‘Better safe than sorry, Logan. Better safe than sorry.’

      Yup, that was looking more like a willy warmer with every passing second. She’d got as far as the testicley bits … OK, no way that was appropriate for an office environment.

      Logan cleared his throat. ‘Course, it would help if we knew what the Scottish Daily

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