It was there on that rocky beach that Logan had finally given voice to the thoughts that had been rattling around in his head the whole way up the road.
“You were completely out of line arranging that—with Maddie, I mean—without telling me,” he’d said. Then, before Shona could reply, he’d added, “Thank you,” and squeezed her hand as they’d stood watching the dog go bounding along the water’s edge, his ears and tail and eyes and tongue all alive with the sheer bloody joy of it.
“Getting called in like this, it’s not great,” Shona said, as they’d stood there. “But you know what I always say? You’ve got to make the best of a bad situation.”
“You never say that,” Logan told her.
“No. But I’m going to start.”
And they had made the best of it, even if only then, for those few stolen moments on the shore, with the dog running wild and free.
It was good that they had time. It had taken the edge off Logan’s anger, and very probably saved Tyler’s life when he’d tried his, “Cheer up, boss,” nonsense some twenty minutes later.
Now, the BMW thunked into a pothole in the Strontian Police Station car park, and Taggart’s tail wagged excitedly when he realised they were stopping again. It was clear that he liked the stopping part. Then again, he liked the moving part, too. He appeared to like most things in general, in fact. The wee bastard was nothing if not consistent.
Hamza’s car was parked outside the building, alongside a battered 2002 Vauxhall Astra van with an extendable ladder strapped to the roof rack. There were no marked polis cars present. They’d be up at the scene with Ben and Tyler.
That was assuming, of course, that a station this size was big enough to merit a car. For all Logan knew, the officers stationed here might ride around on horseback.
“You coming in?” Logan asked, as the BMW rolled to a stop next to Hamza’s car.
“In a bit. I’ll take the dog for a wee walk first. Maybe scope out the shop. I’ve been craving a Twix since we passed that bus outside Glasgow.”
“What bus?” Logan asked.
“The one with the big Twix advert on it. The one where I said, ‘Imagine that bus is just full of Twixes,’ then we tried to figure out how many Twixes you could fit inside it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Well, I mean, it was mostly me who tried to… Were you even listening?”
Logan blinked. “Hmm? Sorry, did you say something?”
Shona laughed, punching him playfully on the arm. “Well, guess who’s just blown their chance of getting a Twix. I’ll bring Twixes for everyone, but not you. I’ll be dishing them out like the Milkybar Kid. Except, you know, with Twixes.” She stopped talking, blinked slowly, and frowned. “I’ve said ‘Twixes’ so often I’m no longer convinced it’s a real word.”
Logan regarded her in silence for several seconds, then patted her leg. “Aye, well,” he said, opening the door. “Good luck with all that.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Logan would have thought it impossible, but the inside of the station was even less grandiose than the outside. It was made up of four rooms, one of which was a bathroom, and another a small kitchen.
The remaining two rooms, while larger than the others, seemed to have been put there with no real purpose in mind.
They each contained a table or two, some chairs, a filing cabinet, and various posters on the walls proclaiming the perils of drinking and driving, and other traffic-related offences.
One of the rooms also contained DS Hamza Khaled, DC Sinead Bell, and a manic-looking young man who wasn’t so much in need of a shower as a high-powered jet wash. He was caked in mud, black with ash, and had what appeared to be dried vomit down his front.
The red rings around his eyes suggested that either he’d been crying, or he suffered badly from hay fever. Given the look on his face, Logan was going to go with the former.
“Detective Sergeant. Detective Constable,” Logan said, nodding to the officers in turn.
“Sir,” they both replied, Hamza in his dulcet Aberdonian tones, and Sinead with her local Lochaber twang.
She insisted she didn’t have an accent, and while it was nowhere near as strong as Hamza’s, or even his own guttural Glasgow growl, it was there if you knew how to listen.
Logan laser-targeted his gaze on the man sitting at the scuffed and mug-ringed table. “And who do we have here?”
“This is Mr Herbert Gibson,” Sinead said.
“Herbert? There’s a name you don’t hear very often,” Logan said. “Fortunately for all involved.”