woman with the curly hair pulled out her phone, juggling it and the binoculars, then a wary voice – laced with that Inverness Monarch-of-the-Glen twang – sounded in Logan’s ear. ‘Hello?’
‘Detective Sergeant Chalmers? It’s Inspector McRae. Hi. Just checking that you’re remembering our appointment this lunchtime: twelve noon.’
‘What? Yes. Definitely remembering it. Couldn’t be more excited.’
Yeah, bet she was.
‘Only you’ve missed the last three appointments and I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me.’
‘Nooo. Definitely not. Well, I’d better get back to it, got lots of door-to-doors to do. So—’
‘You’re on the Ellie Morton investigation, aren’t you?’
The woman was still following the duty undertakers with her binoculars. They struggled up the hill with the coffin, fighting against the slope and wet grass. One missed step and they’d be presiding over a deeply embarrassing and unprofessional toboggan run.
‘Yup. Like I said, we’re—’
‘Any leads? Three-year-old girl goes missing, her parents must be frantic.’
‘We’re working our way through Tillydrone as I speak. Nothing so far.’
‘Tillydrone?’
‘Yup, going to be here all morning… Ah, damn it. Actually, now I think about it, I’ll probably be stuck here all afternoon too. Sorry. Can we reschedule our thing for later in the week?’
‘You’re in Tillydrone?’
‘Yup.’
‘That’s odd… Because I’m standing in a field a couple of miles West of Inverurie, and I could swear I’m looking right at you.’ He waved up the hill at her. ‘Can you see me waving?’
‘Shite…’ Chalmers ducked behind her car. ‘No, definitely in Tillydrone. Must be someone else. Er… I’ve got to go. The DI needs me. Bye.’
The line went dead. She’d hung up on him.
Those auburn curls appeared for a brief moment as she scrambled into her car, then the engine burst into life and the hatchback roared away. Disappeared around the corner.
Subtle. Really subtle.
Logan shook his head. ‘Unbelievable.’
Something rocky thumped out of the Audi’s speakers as it wound its way back down the road towards Aberdeen. Past fields of brown-grey soil, and fields of drooping grass, and fields of miserable sheep, and fields flooded with thick pewter lochans. On a good day, the view would have been lovely, but under the ashen sky and never-ending rain?
This was why people emigrated.
The music died, replaced by the car’s default ringtone.
Logan pressed the button and picked up. ‘Hello?’
‘Guv? It’s me.’ Me: AKA Detective Sergeant Simon Occasionally-Useful-When-Not-Being-A-Pain-In-The-Backside Rennie. Sounding as if he was in the middle of chewing a toffee or something. ‘I’ve been down to records and picked up all of DI Bell’s old case files. Where do you want me to start?’
‘How about the investigation into his suicide?’
‘Ah. No. One of DCI Hardie’s minions already checked it out of the archives.’
Sod.
‘OK. In that case: start with the most recent file you’ve got and work your way backwards.’
‘Two years, living it up on the sunny Costa del Somewhere and DI Bell comes home to dreich old Aberdeenshire? See if it was me? No chance.’
‘He had a pick and shovel in the boot of his car.’
‘Buried treasure?’
A tractor rumbled past, going the other way, its massive rear wheels kicking up a mountain of filthy spray.
Logan stuck on the wipers. ‘My money’s on unburied. You don’t come back from the dead to bury something in the middle of nowhere. You come back to dig it up.’
‘Ah: got you. He buries whatever it is, fakes his own death, then sods off to the Med. Two years later he thinks it’s safe to pop over and dig it up again.’
‘That or whatever he buried isn’t safe any more and he has to retrieve it before someone else does.’
‘Hmm…’ Rennie’s voice went all muffled, then came back again. ‘OK: I’ll have a look for bank jobs, or jewellery heists in the case files. Something expensive and unsolved. Something worth staging your own funeral for.’
‘And find out who he was working with. See if we can’t rattle some cages.’
A knot of TV people had set up outside Divisional Headquarters, all their cameras trained on the small group of protestors marching round and round in the rain. There were only about a dozen of them, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for with enthusiasm – waving placards with ‘JUSTICE FOR ELLIE!’, or ‘SHAME ON THE POLICE!’, or ‘FIND ELLIE NOW!’ on them. Nearly every single board had a photo of Ellie Morton: her grinning moon-shaped face surrounded by blonde curls, big green eyes crinkled up at whatever had tickled her.
Logan slowed the Audi as he drove by. Someone in a tweed jacket was doing a piece to camera, serious-faced as she probably told the world what a useless bunch of tossers Police Scotland were. Oh why hadn’t they found Ellie Morton yet? What about the poor family? Why did no one care?
As if.
The Audi bumped up the lumpy tarmac and into the rear podium car park. Pulled into the slot marked ‘RESERVED FOR PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS’. Some wag had graffitied a Grim Reaper on the wall beneath the sign. And, to be fair, it actually wasn’t a bad likeness of Superintendent Doig. Always nice to be appreciated by your colleagues…
Logan stuck his hat on his head, climbed out, and hurried across to the double doors, swerving to avoid the puddles. Along a breeze-block corridor and into the stairwell. Taking the steps two at a time.
A couple of uniformed PCs wandered downwards, chatting and smiling.
They flattened themselves against the wall as Logan approached, all talk silenced, both smiles turned into a sort of pained rictus.
The spotty one forced a little wave. ‘Inspector.’
Logan had made it as far as the third-floor landing when his phone dinged at him. Text message.
He pulled it out and frowned at the screen.
The caller ID came up as ‘HORRIBLE STEEL!’ and his shoulders
