Hamza and Ben hadn’t been given a full Incident Room to use during their visit, and had instead been shunted into a small side office that overlooked the building site at the back of the Fort William station.
The large Tesco superstore that had been promised for out the front of the building had long-since been cancelled, although the road sign on the approach to the junction outside still insisted it was there somewhere.
Once that project had been called off, the land had been earmarked as the site for the new local hospital—a state-of-the-art jewel in the crown of the Highland NHS, which had similarly failed to materialise. It was definitely coming, the powers that be insisted, there was just no saying if it was coming this year, this decade, or indeed, this century.
The land out the back had seen some serious development in the past few months, though. What had been a big patch of waste ground between the polis station and the medical centre was now home to houses and blocks of flats, all at various stages of construction.
They’d sprung up quickly. Looked quite nice, too.
Ben sat at a seat by the window, watching a couple of guys strolling around on the scaffolding of one of the taller blocks of flats. One of them was clearly the gaffer. You could tell by the way he pointed at things and gave instructions, rather than doing any of the actual work himself.
“What a lazy bastard,” Ben mumbled, then he turned away from the window, took a sip of his tea, and indicated the computer Hamza was typing away at. “You got that thing going yet?”
“Eh, aye. Well, yes and no. I’m into HOLMES, but it’s slow.”
“It’s always slow.”
“Aye, but it’s even slower than usual. Might be a network problem.”
Ben took another swig of his tea, swallowed, then set the mug down. “I could go and ask Moira if she knows what’s going on.” He caught Hamza’s puzzled look, and quickly corrected. “Ask at reception, I mean. If anyone should know, then it’s—”
“Got it,” Hamza announced. “It’s kicking in now. Must’ve just been congestion, or something.”
“Oh. Good. Aye,” Ben said, relaxing back into his chair and trying not to hide his disappointment. “Must’ve been that, right enough.”
He picked up his mug again, and nursed it in his hands as he watched Hamza tapping away at the keyboard.
“How you doing, son?” he asked, which drew a confused look from Hamza.
“Eh, just getting set up.”
“No, I mean… in general. How are you doing?” Ben said. “You seemed a bit… down for a while there.”
Hamza gave a little nod. “You were talking to DCI Logan.”
Ben tried very hard to look innocent, but made a bit of a meal of it. “I mean, he may have mentioned that you were feeling a bit… out of sorts.”
“I was,” Hamza confirmed. “But I’m fine now. I was feeling a bit… I don’t know. Useless. Like the stuff we do—that I was doing—didn’t matter.”
“It matters, son,” Ben assured him.
“Oh, I know. I know. We found Sinead. We got Shona back,” Hamza replied. “We might not win them all, but we win some. And that counts for something.”
Ben raised his mug in toast. “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” he said, then he nodded at the computer. “Now, what’s the plan?”
“Right, so, here’s what I’m thinking,” the DS declared. “We want background on André Douville and his weird cult thing, same on…” He checked his notes. “…Oberon Finley-Lennox, that MSP.”
“Yes to both of those,” Ben said. He pointed to the screen. “Maybe go through missing persons around the time that Bernie turned up. See if there’s anything that’ll give us a better idea of who he actually is.”
“Aye, good call, sir,” Hamza said.
Ben slapped his thighs, then stood up. “Right, well, that’ll keep you busy for a while. No point in me sitting here twiddling my thumbs, is there?”
Hamza raised his eyebrows. “Um, no. Suppose not. What will you do?”
Ben put his hands on his lower back and stretched. “Och, I think I’ll just get a few steps in.” He tapped the centre of his chest. “Doctor’s orders for the old ticker. You be alright here on your own?”
“I’m sure I’ll cope, sir. You go get… your steps in. The heart needs what the heart needs.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed a fraction as he tried to suss out if there was any meaning behind the Detective Sergeant’s response. Hamza had already turned his attention back to the computer now, though, and was giving nothing away.