Where the Bodies are Buried by Christopher Brookmyre, Brookmyre Page A

put the tin lid on it. Jasmine broke down into sobs, her face in her hands. Sergeant Collins put an arm around her shoulders
     and offered her a paper hanky.
    ‘Don’t upset yourself,’ he intoned calmly. ‘Like I said, it’s early days. I only mentioned private investigators as something
     hypothetical for the future.’
    Jasmine lifted her head and fixed him with a red-eyed but determined glare.
    ‘You don’t understand. My uncle
is
a private investigator. He’s an ex-cop: detective sergeant, retired, after thirty years’ service. If you can’t push the boat
     out for him, then who the hell
can
you help?’
    Sergeant Collins bridled a little in surprise, then straightened his posture as though standing to attention. His tone remained
     professional, but there was now a softness to it. Sadly for Jasmine, it spoke more of regret than intention.
    ‘As far as missing persons go, our hands are very much tied by law and policy, but you’re right: this is a wee bit different.
     I’ll flag it up on the system that he’s a retired officer and we’ll see what we can do.’

The Long View
    Catherine was eating a sandwich at her desk when she saw Abercorn through the glass partition. He was talking to Sunderland,
     but she had little doubt that he was here to see her. She hadn’t officially informed Locust of the murder investigation (though
     it was genuinely on her to-do list – albeit quite far down) but there was no doubt Abercorn would have become aware of it
     first thing that morning. That he was equally aware that nobody directly involved in the investigation had bothered to contact
     him was a given too. How he would choose to react to that was anybody’s guess, but guilt trip, tantrum, humility or trade-off,
     it would be a precisely calculated response.
    She brushed some crumbs from the sheet of paper she’d been writing on. It was a list of names: Frankie Callahan, Stevie Fullerton,
     Grant Cassidy and Craig McLennan. She told herself she was contemplating which one had really popped into Paddy Steel’s mind
     when he first heard about Jai McDiarmid, but in reality she knew an interruption was imminent and was trying to compose herself
     so that it wasn’t obvious to Abercorn that she had seen him coming.
    She moved the sheet of paper to one side with a tut, annoyed at herself for acting like a daft wee lassie. She always slapped
     on a fake smile and played nice for Abercorn with the same politic insincerity she did for the likes of Paddy Steel. Unlike
     with the crooks, it wasn’t calculated. She couldn’t help it. It felt stupidly imperative that she not give off any sense of
     grudge or bitterness regarding the fact that he had been preferred for the job of heading the task force; doubly stupid given
     how it had subsequently worked out for their respective stock. The problem was, she was trying to kid a ninth-dan black-belt
     kidder, and feared that her attempts to appear magnanimous merely enhanced his impression that she had an even lower professional
     opinion of him than did her colleagues.
    In the immediate aftermath of the decision to appoint Abercorn, unable to challenge her superiors for an explanation lest
     she look even more of a clown, Catherine had gone to Moira Clark instead. Moirahad retired by this point, but was on so many panels and committees that she knew more about what was going on now than when
     she was still serving.
    ‘You’re too useful at bringing in bodies,’ Moira told her, over morning cappuccinos in a noisy café just off Byres Road in
     the West End. ‘There’s no greater impediment to career mobility in this line than making yourself invaluable at a particular
     task. If I was in Sunderland’s shoes, I must confess, I wouldn’t have given you my vote for this either. Your conviction rate
     has an impact on the stats that no chief super is going to be selfless enough to sacrifice. Catherine, believe me, the brass
     know your worth. In fact, among the senior