“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home, does it?” Sinead said, clearly sharing the same concerns as him. That drive had been quite an ordeal, if it had all been for nothing. Never mind PTSD over Sinead’s abduction, that road would likely haunt both their dreams for months.
“No,” Logan admitted. “But you never know. There might be someone about.”
He had just stepped through the gate when he heard the clack of something behind him that he knew, instinctively, was a weapon.
Pulling Sinead behind him, he turned to find a stout woman with severe hair cradling an over and under shotgun in a way that suggested it wouldn’t take much for her to use it.
“You shouldn’t be letting your dog run like that,” the woman said, and her accent caught Logan off guard far more than the gun had. It was Devon, or Cornwall. Somewhere in that neck of the woods, anyway. Whoever she was, she was a long way from home. “It could worry my sheep.”
Logan side-eyed their surroundings, still keeping most of his focus on the gun. “What sheep?” he asked, then he followed the tilt of her head up the hill behind her, to where a handful of microscopic white dots were visible near the distant peak.
“Them sheep.”
“They don’t look overly concerned at the moment,” Logan said. “Though, maybe I could get a better look at them if I had access to the Hubble telescope.”
“I could shoot it, you know? The dog. I’d be within my rights. The law’s on my side.”
“Is that the Protection of Livestock Act, nineteen-fifty-three?” asked Sinead, which drew a lowering of eyebrows from the woman, and a raising of them from Logan. “Because if that’s the law you’re referring to, then it doesn’t apply. There are no sheep in this field.”
The woman with the gun sniffed. “I was referring, I’ll have you know, to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which gives permission for farmers to shoot dogs. I’m a farmer, and that, unless I’m very much mistaken, is a fucking dog.”
“If it’s attacking livestock,” Sinead added.
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t give you the right to just randomly shoot dogs,” Sinead explained. “Only dogs that are attacking livestock.” She looked round to where Taggart was joyfully dragging his arse across the grass. “And he clearly isn’t.”
Logan felt that this was a good time to produce his ID. “Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan. Police Scotland Major Investigations,” he said, hoping this would get some sort of reaction from the gun-toting old crone.
It did not.
“Have you got a licence for that firearm?” he asked, returning the warrant card to his pocket.
“Course I bleedin’ do. What do you take me for? One of them gang-bangers, or what haves you?” She patted the gun. “You wouldn’t catch Barbara breaking no laws. Not on your life.”
“Right,” Logan said, making a mental note to have someone check the paperwork later. “Well, Barbara, I wonder—”
“Sorry?” the woman said, interrupting. “Are you talking to me or are you talking to the gun?”
“Why would I be…？ Obviously, I’m talking to you.”
“I’m not Barbara.” She waggled the shotgun, making both detectives tense. “She’s Barbara.”
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He really wasn’t in the mood for this. “I see. And your name is?”
“None of your bleedin’ business, that’s what. I don’t need to tell you nothing, I don’t. Not on your Nelly. I know my rights, see? Filth or not, you can’t go demanding to know nothing of me.”
“Filth?” Logan muttered.
“Well, filth, pigs, whatever you want to call yourselves.”
“Ideally, neither of those,” Logan replied.
“Well, whatever. I don’t have to tell you nothin’。 Not a bleedin’ word, and you can’t make me.”
“Actually, you do, and we can,” Sinead said. “Failing to provide your name, address, date and place of birth, and nationality, when asked, is a criminal offence.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Since when?”
“Since you turned up waving a shotgun and threatening to shoot my dog,” Logan said. “Until such time as we know for sure that thing’s licensed, you’re a suspect in a potential criminal investigation. So, how about you stop pissing about and tell us your name? We’ve no’ got all bloody night.”