“Jack. There you are,” Ben said when Logan reached the group. “Thought you weren’t coming.”
“Aye, well, I’m here now,” Logan said flatly, and Ben, unlike Tyler, immediately picked up on the tone and adjusted accordingly.
“Young lad out hiking came across a body. Burned down to the bones, he reckons. Bits of a metal frame around, too, suggesting he might’ve been in a tent. Silly bugger didn’t take a note of the exact location, though, so we’ve got the helicopter searching.”
“What? So, we don’t actually have a body?” Logan asked. “You called me in on my day off, and we don’t even know for sure there’s a body?”
“Well, it was Mitchell who called you in,” Ben said, his internal dashboard lighting up with warning signs. “I said to leave you be, but she wanted you brought in. To be honest, I think it was more Shona, since they’ve still not got a replacement for—”
“Jesus Christ,” Logan seethed. He held up a finger and thumb an inch apart. “I was this close to…”
Ben gave the rest of the sentence a moment to arrive, then pressed for more information when it didn’t. “To what?”
Logan sighed and let his arm fall back to his side. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter.” He looked around at the Uniforms and Mountain Rescue Team, finally acknowledged their presence with a nod, then searched the sky for the helicopter he could hear buzzing around. “No sign of anything yet?”
“Not yet, no,” one of the rescue team said. He had a walkie-talkie style radio in his hand, and was presumably the one in contact with the chopper. “Going to start getting dark in a couple of hours, so we might have to pack up then and try again in the morning.”
“In the morning?” Logan asked, his eyebrows forming a single straight line across his forehead.
“I told her not to call you in,” Ben said, interjecting before the unsuspecting Mountain Rescue man got both barrels. He looked along the row of parked polis and unmarked vehicles to where Logan’s BMW stood way at the back. “Is Shona with you?”
“She’s keeping the dog company,” Logan replied. He looked around at the wilderness, his gaze briefly lingering on DC Neish trudging forlornly across the boggy bracken. “Is there any point in me being here right now? Anything you need me for right this minute?”
“Not really,” Ben said. “Not until we’ve found the body.”
“If there even is one,” Logan added.
“Aye. Even then, that’s more Shona and Palmer’s team.”
“Christ. Palmer’s not here, is he?”
“Not yet,” Ben said, and Logan’s shoulders sunk back from where they’d risen up around his ears, like a cat getting ready to hiss. “But they’ll be on their way.”
“All the more reason for me to clear off, then,” the DCI said. “This lad who found the body. Where is he?”
“He’s at the local station with Sinead and Hamza.”
“What, up in Fort William?”
Ben shook his head. “No,” he said, a little ominously. “Nothing as grand as that…”
Logan and Shona had driven right past the police station in the village of Strontian on the way to the scene, but had both mistaken it for a toilet block.
It was a small, grey building with a triangular roof that came to a point on all four sides, so it vaguely resembled a hat.
The building sat at a junction leading to what the signage declared as ‘Strontian Village Centre,’ which comprised a shop, a small cafe, and quite a lot of grass.
Despite his mood, Logan had to admit that the drive over had been something spectacular. From the moment the BMW had driven up the ramp and onto the Corran Ferry for the short hop across Loch Linnhe, through the winding narrow roads through tiny, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hamlets, Logan felt like he had finally found the Highlands he’d always imagined.
They’d had to stop twice to shoo sheep from the road, which had excited Taggart no end. Their phone signals had dipped in and out, before giving up the ghost completely some ten miles back.
Some whining from Taggart had forced them to stop for a pee break at somewhere Google Maps identified as Sallachan stone beach. There, standing at the edge of the loch, with a breeze wafting across the water, and the mountains rising from the opposite shore, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d travelled back in time.
Logan half-expected some blue-faced bastard with a sword to turn up and try to recruit them to go fight for ‘Freeeeedom!’ And, whether it was the way the landscape stirred some ancient pride or patriotism, or the fact that his current mood meant he was itching for a scrap, he was pretty confident he’d have said yes.