“We can hear you,” Sinead said, and though he didn’t say anything, a smile lit up Tyler’s face at his wife’s reply.
“Right, everyone can hear everyone else. That’s a solid start,” Logan said, guiding the car around a Z-shaped series of bends in the road, before picking up speed on the straight that followed. “What’s happening?”
“Thought we’d do a quick catch-up call,” Ben explained. “A few things have come up, and I’ve set something in motion that I probably should’ve discussed with you first.”
“What have you done?” Logan asked, his fingers tightening on the wheel as he tensed.
“I’m putting Constable Dave Davidson into Westerly Wellness. André Douville’s place.”
“Is he sick?” Tyler asked, which earned him a disparaging look and a shake of the head from Logan.
“Is he sick?” the DCI muttered. “Undercover, son.”
“Oh. Aye. Aye, that makes more sense,” Tyler said, then he frowned and turned his attention back to the screen. “Wait, he’s getting to go to the sex cult? How does he get to go to the sex cult?”
Sinead loudly cleared her throat, and Tyler hurriedly moved to cover his tracks.
“I meant why isn’t it someone from CID, obviously. Not me. I wouldn’t be interested in that sort of thing.”
“Dave just felt like the right man for the job,” Ben said. “Besides, you can see most of these buggers in CID coming a mile off. They’ve practically got the word ‘polis’ stamped on their heads. Whereas, with Dave, sometimes even I forget he’s on the force, even if he’s sat there in uniform.”
Both occupants of the BMW nodded their agreement at that. There was something about Dave Davidson that made him an unlikely police officer, and it was nothing to do with his wheelchair.
It wasn’t so much that he didn’t respect authority, more that he didn’t really notice it. He didn’t bow and scrape to superior officers, but he didn’t act the big man around anyone, either. It was like he considered everyone to be on an equal footing, and no more worthy of respect or scorn than the next man.
Some officers saw the uniform as a licence to throw their weight around. An excuse for a power trip. Dave, on the other hand, saw it as a thing he had to wear for work, and he was probably a far better officer because of that.
Even if that same attitude sometimes made the others forget he was an officer at all.
“Eh… OK,” Logan said. “Did you just fancy giving him a wee holiday, or…？”
Ben gave way to Hamza then, who went over everything they’d found on the man currently calling himself André Douville. Logan sat in silence, eyes fixed on the road ahead, his jaw tightening as the man’s criminal history was read out, and all his deceptions uncovered.
“So, he’s not even French?” Tyler asked once Hamza had finished.
“No,” Ben confirmed. “And he doesn’t look like Jesus, either. Even those big blue sparkly eyes of his are contacts. He’s a bloody charlatan.”
“We should haul the bastard in by the beard and hammer the bloody truth out of him,” Logan said.
“I think we’ll all pretend we didn’t hear that, Jack, and stick with my plan for the moment,” Ben said. “Besides, I think Dave’s excited to get stuck in.”
Tyler snorted. “I bet he bloody is.”
Once Hamza had given a potted history of the MSP, Oberon Finley-Lennox, Sinead took her turn at going over what she’d found. Right now, that wasn’t much. Even with the help of the two constables, wading through the densely packed, often nonsensical newsletters was a slow process.
There were no smoking guns in any of the issues they’d gone through yet—nothing that pointed to any one individual who might be Bernie’s killer. A few trends were starting to emerge, though, which Sinead felt were worthy of note.
“He didn’t like doctors,” she said. “Well, medical professionals in general, but doctors especially. He repeatedly claimed that they’re all running tests on us.”
“Well, they are, aren’t they?” asked Tyler. “That’s sort of their job.”
“Aye, but not for our own benefit. For the government. Who are lizards.”
“Obviously,” Hamza said.
“He reckoned they were using us like lab rats to test new drugs, implants, mind control techniques… That sort of thing.”
“So he’s proper mental, then?” Tyler said. He looked from the stereo to Logan and back again. “Is that a pretty accurate summary?”