“Probably, aye,” Logan confirmed. “When you two went blundering off, he must’ve seen his chance. Waited for Dinky to leave, then set the place alight.”
“So, presumably there was something in there that might have identified him,” said Sinead.
“Aye,” Logan said. He shot Tyler an accusing look. “Though fat lot of good that does us now.”
Tyler flashed a nervous smile. “Still, least we got the briefcase.”
“You had a chance to open it yet?” Ben asked.
Logan explained that they hadn’t, and his slight concerns that, even if they were able to work out the combinations for the locks, the case might explode in their faces the moment they opened it.
“Hence the visit to Shona,” he said. “Since she’s the only one I know with easy access to an X-ray machine.”
“Oh, you old charmer, sir,” Sinead said, and there was a general sense from the speakers of the others trying not to laugh.
“Less of the ‘old,’ please, Detective Constable,” Logan warned. “Oh, and there’s one other thing. Bernie borrowed money off Dinky to buy a van.”
“A van?” asked Ben. “What sort of van?”
“We don’t know. Bernie had sent Dinky a link to it on Craigslist, which Dinky has given us. But the listing has expired, or something. It’s no’ there.”
Hamza’s voice became louder again as he came closer to the microphone of the speakerphone. “Fire it over to me, sir, and I can take a look. Might be able to find it on the Wayback Machine.”
“What the hell’s a Wayback Machine?” Ben asked. “When did we get one of them?”
“It’s a website, sir,” Hamza told him. “Like an archive of webpages. If we can’t get it there, I might be able to get it from Craigslist.”
“Good. Aye. That’d be very handy,” Logan said. “Tyler’ll send it over to you.”
“Aye, but not until we get to Inverness,” the DC said. He caught the inquisitive look from Logan. “Can’t text when I’m in a moving car. Makes me sick.”
Logan tutted. “Of course it does.” He sighed.
They were heading through the village of Drumnadrochit now, and another mobile reception blackspot was looming, so Logan moved to wrap up the call.
“Right, everyone keep at it. We’ll be stopping up here overnight, then heading back in the morning,” he said. “What about Dave? Are we bringing him back with us?”
“Dave?” Ben chuckled. “You must be joking,” he said. “The bugger’s so keen he’ll have already passed you on the way down the road!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Logan’s plan to surprise Shona by turning up out of the blue was dealt a bit of a blow when he realised he had absolutely no idea where she was. If she’d pulled an all-nighter, there was a good chance she was at home sleeping the effects of that off. Then again, she might’ve already done that, and be back at the hospital now to start another late shift.
Or, unhappily, she could be literally anywhere else in the Inverness area, and potentially beyond.
The hospital was closest. After dropping Tyler off at home, he decided to start there, not least because they had flowers for sale at the shop in the foyer, and given his lack of recent phone communication, he felt it best not to turn up empty-handed.
The lights were on when he arrived at her office, but there was no sign of her through the glass. Further lights were visible beneath the double doors of the mortuary, suggesting she was in there somewhere, hard at work.
Either that, or they’d brought former pathologist Albert Rickett back out of his enforced retirement. Even with the current state of NHS Highland staffing levels, he thought that was probably unlikely, given the old bastard’s current whereabouts.
“Hello?” Logan called, easing open the outer door and stepping into the office. Music was playing from the smartspeaker that sat on one of the shelves—an acoustic cover version of what Logan guessed was a recent chart hit. And by ‘recent’ he meant ‘from some point within the last fifteen years.’
There were no sounds of dismemberment echoing out from within the mortuary. No sawing, or drilling, or cracking of bones. No anything, in fact. If it wasn’t for the music, the place would’ve been—fittingly enough—as quiet as the grave.
Still, best not to go through and disturb her. For all he knew, she’d be elbows deep in some poor bugger, and while he was no stranger to corpses and gore, he didn’t tend to seek them out.