Free Wilderness (Arbogast trilogy) by Campbell Hart

alone and with no need for the high life. Linda could feel that a deep depression was starting to take hold and she sat and wept at the unfortunate string of events which seemed to have dogged her son through the years. Linda stood by her fire place looking at aged and weathered pictures of her family that now seemed lost to her, when the silence exploded into a wall of sound. She was aware of a crash which sounded like glass. Cursing her haphazard cat she made her way into the hallway where she found a brick lying on the carpet. She stared at it not really knowing what to do. Turning to face the door another brick came smashing through the living room window, shards of glass tearing through her life and bringing Linda back to life, as fear gripped her to the spot.
     
    News of a disturbance at Maplin Drive in Motherwell came not from the police but through the internet. Sandy Stirrit had been looking to find new lines on the deserted coach case when he turned his attention to his Twitter account. He had been sceptical about using social media as recently as six months ago but he could see the medium had obvious merits. He often gleaned leads from tweets and online discussions while he had been given more than one story through direct messages to his own account. People were now videoing incidents and posting them online immediately. Even though a lot of content tended towards the libellous you could still find interesting and immediate reaction to all manner of stories within seconds. Today he was surprised. Someone calling themselves @HotGossip had made a number of interesting entries under the trend topic #snowpaedo which, if there were anything to them, threatened to blow the case wide open. He had struggled to get any information from Arbogast but this might force his hand. A story is a story after all. @HotGossip had made a number of tweets over the last three hours including:
    #snowpaedo bus driver is known sex offender Stevie Davidson from Dales Travel 
    Justice 4 #snowpaedo Stevie Davidson police do nothing then we will demonstr8
    #snowpaedo Stevie Davidson @ Motherwell Maplin Drive 2:30 4 justice DM me for details
    Sandy was intrigued. He phoned Dales Travel and asked to speak to Stevie Davidson anonymously. He had spoken to the owner earlier who had nothing to say but it would be interesting to see the reaction. John Dale answered again and said Stevie Davidson was not working today and the depot was closed. He could pass on a message . ‘Well Stevie seems to exist.’ Sandy phonedArbogast to sound him out.
    “Alright JJ how’s the case going?”
    “I can’t speak now Sandy.”
    “You’ll want to know this. Does the name Stevie Davidson mean anything to you?” The brief silence meant that it did.
    “Thanks JJ, you might want to check up snow paedo on Twitter. Looks like there’s a storm heading your way,” and hung up.
    With a cameraman in tow he headed over to Motherwell. Something was happening there and he might just get there first.
     
    Arbogast was still driving but he wasn’t happy. DS Reid had checked the social media sites on her personal mobile and when he heard the information being posted online he blew up. 
    “What are these people thinking – what are they thinking? Just sit back and wait for the backlash Mhairi – this isn’t going to be pleasant.”
    This was a tricky case and the last thing they needed was vigilante attacks. If they didn’t make progress soon they would need to put some kind of ID out for Stevie. At least that had been the plan. Messages about Stevie’s identity in relation to the case were now being freely distributed online with some messages having been re-tweeted more than 1000 times. Someone had even made the leap and connected Stevie to his previous conviction. Nothing yet on his childhood but it was now only a matter of time before that came. ‘Fuck.’ He knew they’d have to bring forward a press conference and update the media if they were to keep on