“Well, I’m not sure it’d stand up as a medical diagnosis,” Sinead told him. “But aye, that’s definitely the impression his newsletter gives off. There’s top tips on preventing radio signals getting inside your head, one of which involves removing all your teeth with pliers.”
Tyler instinctively rubbed his hand across his mouth at the thought of this, but said nothing. Logan shot a glance at the screen where the number was still being displayed.
“He didn’t do that to himself. The body still had teeth.”
“No, he said it’s only necessary if you have metal fillings. He says he didn’t, so there was no need,” Sinead explained. “If you don’t have fillings, you just have to rub bacon fat on your temples and the back of your neck.”
“I thought they all used tinfoil?” said Ben. “The conspiracy theory nutters, I mean.”
“That’s for the amateurs, sir. So the newsletter says,” Sinead explained. “Apparently, bacon fat is where it’s at.”
“Here, that’d be quite a good advertising slogan,” Tyler said. “Bacon fat is where it’s at!”
Logan side-eyed him. “Who’s advertising bacon fat?” he asked.
Tyler shifted in his seat. “Well… No. But, I’m just saying… If they were.”
There was a moment of silence in which everyone came to the same decision to ignore everything that Tyler had just said.
“Anyway, that’s about all we’ve got for now,” Sinead continued.
“Nothing about the MSP or the wellness centre?” Logan asked.
“Nothing specific, sir, no. But we’ll keep looking.”
Logan steered the BMW around a couple of twists in the road. They were going quite fast, so Tyler was forced to grip the handle above the door and stare straight ahead at some imagined spot on the horizon to stop his nausea from rising too far to contain.
As luck would have it, there was a queue of traffic waiting to make the turn into Urquhart Castle around the next bend, and Logan cursed below his breath as he brought the car to a stop.
“Bloody tourists, eh, boss?” Tyler said, trying hard to hide his relief.
“Aye, you can say that again,” Logan replied in a series of irritated grunts.
Sinead announced that her update was over, so Logan took his turn as they inched forward in the queue.
“We’ve got the briefcase that was in Bernie’s caravan,” he announced, drawing sounds of surprise and celebration from the speaker system. “While Ally Bally had Tyler and Hamza running around like a pair of Muppets, Dinky snuck in and took it. Someone find out their real names, by the way, I’m no’ going to keep calling them that.”
“Will do, sir,” Hamza said.
“So, this Dinky character…” Ben began. “Presumably, he also set the caravan on fire, then?”
“He says he didn’t.”
“Well, he’s hardly going to just own up to it, is he?” Ben replied.
“I actually think he might’ve,” Logan said. “Don’t ask me why, but my hunch is that he didn’t do it.”
“We actually got a report through about the fire,” Hamza said.
Ben’s voice became quieter again as he turned to the DS. “Did we? When? I didn’t see it.”
“It came in when you were out, sir,” Hamza said. “Looks like the same accelerant was used on the caravan as on the body. A turpentine, petroleum jelly mix.”
“We used to use that in my army days, when we were out in the wilds,” Ben said. “We’d mix up a jar or two, and take it with us. You could use it on cuts, to keep insects at bay, and it was one of the best firestarters around. Smear it on a bit of kindling, and away you went. Wouldn’t blow out, no matter what the wind was doing.”
“Still no’ exactly common, I’d have thought,” Logan remarked. “Hell of a coincidence if it’s not the same person responsible for both fires.”
“It’s not uncommon among campers and the like,” Ben said. “But aye, that’d be a bit of a stretch, right enough.”
The road on the right cleared enough to let three of the queuing cars turn into the castle car park, freeing the traffic behind them to continue on up the road towards Inverness.
“So, what are we saying, boss?” Tyler asked, though it wasn’t immediately clear which boss he was addressing. “The killer was there? At the caravan? Watching us?”