“So do McDonald’s and Burger King, but you wouldn’t get them mixed up.”
“I do!” Logan insisted. “I have! That birthday party you were invited to, mind? We just thought we were there early. Turned out we were at the wrong place.”
Maddie gasped. “You told me they phoned to say it had been called off!”
Logan bit his lip. “Did I?”
“Jack.”
“Yes! You said they phoned to cancel!”
“Maybe they did. My memory’s not—”
“Jack!”
This time, there was no ignoring it. Logan and Maddie both turned to Shona, then followed her gaze to the table, where the screen of Logan’s silenced phone was illuminated, indicating an incoming call.
The name ‘Det Supt Mitchell’ filled most of the display.
They all stared at the mobile, saying nothing. It was Maddie who eventually broke the silence.
“You’d better answer it.”
Logan shook his head. “It’s probably nothing.”
The theme to The A-Team suddenly blared from somewhere in Shona’s direction, making everyone at the table jump.
“Jesus!” Logan muttered.
“Sorry, that’s mine,” Shona said, getting to her feet. She took her phone from her pocket, and her face fell when she saw the name on the screen. “I have to take this.”
She stepped away, tapped the icon to answer the call, and placed the phone to her ear. “Shona Maguire,” she said.
On the table, Logan’s phone continued ringing in silence.
“Right. Yes,” Shona said, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. She looked back over her shoulder at the gathering. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Logan closed his eyes and groaned.
“It’s fine,” Maddie told him, pushing her chair back. “We should probably get going, anyway. Beat the traffic.”
Anderson looked from the phone, to Logan, and then up to where his wife stood over them. “What? Aren’t we going for dinner?”
“No,” Maddie said, and her smile was a thing made of plaster and stone. “We aren’t.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Cheer up, boss. It might never happen!”
Logan stopped. Turned. Looked straight into the beaming face of DC Tyler Neish, who had jumped out of his car at the first sight of the DCI and was now hurrying over to intercept.
Tyler’s year had been a mixed bag of fortunes, from the high of his wedding to DC Sinead Bell, to the low of having one of his goolies removed due to testicular cancer.
His recovery had gone well, though, and what he insisted on referring to as his ‘near-death experience’ had only served to make him even more annoyingly chirpy.
“I’m sorry?” Logan asked, almost daring the DC to repeat what he’d said.
Anyone with any sense would’ve picked up on the tone of the question. Anyone with any sense would’ve swapped their glaikit grin for a more suitably sombre expression.
Tyler did neither of those things.
“I said, ‘Cheer up, boss. It might never happen!’” he clarified. “You’ve got a face like a bulldog licking pish off a nettle.”
Logan made a sound like a bough of some ancient oak tree shifting on the wind. He turned from Tyler, and looked across the low hills of heather and bracken that lined either side of the narrow road.
“What’s that over there?” he asked, pointing to a random spot in the distance.
“What’s what, boss?” Tyler asked, following the finger.
“There. About a mile that way.”
Tyler squinted, his eyes narrowing, his nose wrinkling up. “I’m not seeing anything.”
“Aye, well, go and have a look.”
Tyler’s gaze shifted left and right between Logan and the utterly unremarkable stretch of scrub a mile off on the left.
“Go and have a look? But it’s all boggy, boss.”
“Aye,” Logan said, patting the younger officer on the shoulder. “I know. Chop-chop.”
Tyler opened his mouth to object, but some deeply buried sense of self-preservation alerted him to the fact that anything he might say would only make matters worse. Instead, he zipped up his jacket, groaned inwardly, and set off in the direction the DCI had indicated.
Logan allowed himself a little nod of satisfaction, then continued on to where DI Ben Forde—the elder statesman of the team—stood gathered with a group of Uniforms and a few guys in sturdy boots and bright jackets. Some of the local Mountain Rescue Team, Logan guessed. He could hear the helicopter hovering somewhere beyond the hills.