“Aha. I see,” Oberon said, and he forced out a sliver of joviality. “Always a pleasure to greet members of the constabulary.”
He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with the napkin, then untucked it to—sure enough—reveal a tie the same shade and colour of his trousers. After wiping his hands on the napkin, he draped it over his breakfast plate, waved vaguely in the direction of the tray it sat on, then shook Logan’s hand while his wife withdrew from the study with what was left of the MSP’s breakfast.
“You’re clearly not the local bobbies though,” Oberon remarked, pumping Logan’s arm like he was on the campaign trail. His eyes narrowed as he studied the DCI. “Though, I recognise you from somewhere. Have you ever worked private security? You weren’t at the party conference, were you?”
“Thankfully not,” Logan said.
“Ha! Good lad!” Oberon said, and he gave Logan a hearty slap on the shoulder that might, in other circumstances, have earned him a thick ear. Or a thicker ear, anyway. “Not into politics, then?”
“Not the kind you’re thinking of, no,” Logan said.
“Then where do I know you from, I wonder?”
Logan knew it was probably from one of his all-too-regular appearances at TV press conferences, but he chose to let the other man continue suffering.
“No idea,” he said. “Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan. Police Scotland Major Investigations. This is my colleague, Detective Constable Sinead Bell.”
“Oberon Finley-Lennox. Freedom UK.”
Logan squeezed the other man’s hand just hard enough to end the handshake, then raised an eyebrow. “Sorry?”
“My party. Freedom UK. I’m sure you’ve heard of us.”
Logan had not. It was hard enough trying to keep track of what the bigger parties were up to—and they were always up to something—without worrying about the smaller groups on the fringe.
“No. It’s a new one on me,” Logan replied.
“Yes, well, we’re growing fast. We’ve got three MSPs now, myself included. We’re a firmly unionist party who believes the UK should be free.”
“From what?” Logan asked.
“Just, you know,”—Oberon waved vaguely—“in general.”
Logan firmly disagreed with that statement. In his experience, freedom was the opposite of what most of the country needed. Locking them up would be a much better approach.
Of course, it was possible that this viewpoint had been influenced by the sheer number of thieving, pillaging, murderous bastards he’d dealt with over the years, so he didn’t bother saying anything.
“So, that’s one of your policies, is it? ‘Freedom in general.’”
“Yes. More or less,” said Oberon, who didn’t seem entirely convinced. Like any true politician, he shifted the line of questioning into more comfortable territory. “Some say we’re anti-immigration, but we’re not. I think that’s important. We just think, you know, let’s be sensible about it. Sure, bring in a few hundred doctors, or scientists, or whatever. Fine. No problem. But we can stack our own supermarket shelves, can’t we? We can clean our own toilets, thank you very much!”
Logan suspected—no, Logan knew—that the man standing across from him now had never cleaned a toilet in his life. Not one of his own, and certainly not anyone else’s.
“Fuck,” Logan said. The word came out of nowhere, and caused Oberon to step back like he was afraid he was about to be mugged.
“I’m sorry?”
“Freedom UK,” Logan said. “I just realised. Your acronym. It’s fuck.”
Oberon let out a mirthless little laugh. “We pronounce it fook.”
“You can pronounce it however you like. I can guarantee that everyone else will pronounce it as fuck.”
“Haha. Yes. Well, they’d be wrong. But, anyway, enjoyable as this is, what brings you to my humble abode?” Oberon asked. He brought up an arm and checked the time on a watch that probably cost half of Logan’s yearly salary. “Though, before we get started, I must warn you that I don’t have much time. Off to Edinburgh again this morning. Big vote this afternoon. Important political business! I have precisely…” He tilted his head left and right and crinkled his nose. “Mmm, seven, maybe eight minutes, then I’m afraid I really have to set off.”
“Right, well, far be it for us to get in the way of the wheels of government. We’ll try not to keep you long,” Logan said, setting an internal timer for a minimum of fifteen minutes. “I’m sure you heard about all the drama yesterday.”
“Drama?” Oberon raised an eyebrow as he looked from Logan to Sinead and back again. “What drama? I wasn’t aware of any drama.”
“A body was found about fifteen miles from here.”
“Oh! Oh, no, I hadn’t heard a thing. Oh, how dreadful,” the MSP said. He lowered himself onto the edge of his desk, like the news had robbed his legs of their strength. “How utterly dreadful. Local? I mean, tragic either way, obvs, but… Was it somebody local?”
Logan tried not to get too hung up on the ‘obvs’ and just answered the question.
“Aye. Someone who we believe you know,” Logan said. He watched closely for the other man’s reaction. But then, he’d been studying Oberon since they’d first set foot in the room.
“Oh no. Who?”
“We believe he was known locally as Bernie the Beacon.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Terrible,” Oberon said, not skipping a beat. “Oh, such a shame. Bernie. Poor Bernie. He was a real local character.”
“Aye, we’ve been getting that impression,” Logan confirmed.
“Oh, that is awful. That poor man,” Oberon said, and he wiped the corner of his eye with the back of his hand. It was one of the most transparently fake pretences at grief that Logan had ever had the misfortune to witness. “What happened? Can I ask?”
“We’re still waiting on the results of the post-mortem,” Logan said. “But it looks like he was burned to death.”
“Burned? Good gracious. Oh, that’s horrible. Not a nice way to go, I’d imagine,” Oberon said, then a frown troubled his brow. “Wait, was burned? You mean…”
“We believe there’s a possibility that Bernie was murdered, yes.”
“Murdered?” Oberon practically shrieked. He stood, head up and shoulders back. “No. No, no. Not round here. That sort of thing simply doesn’t happen. You must be mistaken.”
“It’s possible that it was an accident. We’re not ruling anything out at this stage.”
“Aha! There we are, then. It’ll be an accident. Has to be. No less tragic, of course. Still a terrible loss for…” Oberon’s eyebrows dipped. “Did he have a family? Bernie, I mean? I’m not familiar with his background.”
Logan chose to ignore the question to pursue his own. “He seemed pretty familiar with yours. Were you aware that Bernie was spying on you?”
“Spying? Bernie? On me?” Oberon asked, each word higher in pitch than the one before it. He gave a laugh that was as false as his grief had been. “Why would he be spying on me? He wasn't freelancing for Private Eye was he?”