As always I received help from a lot of people while I was writing this book, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank: Sergeant Bruce Crawford, star of Skye and screen, who answers far more daft questions than anyone should ever have to, as does Professor Dave Barclay and the magnificent Professor Lorna Dawson; Christine Gordon, Geoff Marston, Lynda McGuigan, and Michael Strachan, who were a massive help with research (for a different story); Fiona Culbert, who helped with Social Work questions; ex-Detective Superintendent Nick Brackin, for ‘the shed’; Sarah Hodgson, Jane Johnson, Julia Wisdom, Jaime Frost, Anna Derkacz, Isabel Coburn, Charlie Redmayne, Roger Cazalet, Kate Elton, Hannah Gamon, Sarah Shea, Louis Patel, Damon Greeney, Finn Cotton, Anne O’Brien, Marie Goldie, the DC Bishopbriggs Super Squad, and everyone at HarperCollins, for doing such a stonking job; Phil Patterson and the team at Marjacq Scripts, for keeping my numerous cats in cat food; and let’s not forget Danielle Smith, Kim Fraser (née McLeod), and Andrew McManus, all of whom raised money for some very good causes in order to inspire fictionalised characters in this book.
Of course, writers, like me, wouldn’t be here without people like you (yes, YOU – the person reading this book), booksellers, and bookshops too. You’re all magnificent!
And saving the best for last – as always – Fiona and Grendel.
Duncan’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed the steering wheel, snatching the car away from the edge of the road. The headlights glittered back from the rain-slicked tarmac, sweeping past drystane dykes and hollow trees.
Don’t fall asleep.
Don’t pass out.
LIVE!
Madre de Dios, it hurt… Fire and ice, spreading deep inside his stomach, burning and freezing its way through his spine, squeezing his chest, making every breath a searing rip of barbed wire on raw flesh.
The wipers screeched back and forth across the windscreen – marking time with the thumping blood in his ears – the blowers bellowing cold air into his face.
He switched on the radio, turning it up to drown them out.
A cheesy voice blared from the speakers: ‘…continues for missing three-year-old Ellie Morton. You’re listening to Late Night Smoothness on Radio Garioch, helping you through the wee small hours on a dreich Friday morning…’
Duncan blinked. Bared his teeth. Hissed out a breath as the car swerved again. Wrestled it back from the brink. Wiped a hand across his clammy forehead.
‘We’ve got Sally’s O.M.G. it’s Early! show coming up at four, but first, let’s slow things down a bit with David Thaw and “Stones”.’
His left hand glistened – dark and sticky.
He clenched it over the burning ache in his side again. Pressing it into the damp fabric. Blood dripping from his fingers as he blinked…
Teresa walks across the town square, brown hair teased out by the warm wind. Little Marco gazes up from her arms, worshipping her for the goddess she is. The sky is blue as a saltire flag, the church golden in the summer sun.
Duncan wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in for a kiss – warm and smoky from her mother’s estofado de pollo.
She cups a hand to his cheek and smiles at him. ‘Te quiero mucho, Carlos.’
He beams back at her. ‘Te quiero mucho, Teresa!’ And he does. He loves her with every beating fibre of his heart.
The car lurched right, heading for the drystane dyke.
Duncan dragged it back. Tightened his right hand on the steering wheel. Hissed out a barbed-wire breath. Shook his head. Blinked again…
Drizzle misted down from a clay sky. It sat like a damp lid over a drab grey field at the base of a drab grey hill. The rising sun slipped between the two, washing a semi-naked oak tree with fire and blood.
Which was appropriate.
A brown Ford Focus was wrapped around its trunk, the bonnet crumpled, the windscreen spiderwebbed with cracks. A body slumped forward in the driver’s seat. Still and pale.
Crime-scene tape twitched and growled in the breeze, yellow-and-black like an angry wasp, as a handful of scene examiners in the full SOC kit picked their way around the wreck. The flurry and flash of photography and fingerprint powder. The smell of diesel and rotting leaves.
Logan pulled the hood of his own suit into place, the white Tyvek crackling like crumpled paper as he zipped the thing up with squeaky nitrile gloves. He stretched his chin out of the way, keeping his neck clear of the zip’s teeth. ‘Still don’t see what I’m doing here, Doreen.’
Detective
