Page 106 of Better the Devil

Hamza nodded as he dialled. ‘I’ll, eh, I’ll be sure to pass that on.’

‘Exact words, Hamza!’ Logan reiterated.

He checked his watch and winced at what he saw. The day was getting on. It was already almost six, and the sky beyond the window was darkening. The search for Joe Robertson was going to become even more challenging over the next few hours, and childcare responsibilities meant he was going to lose Sinead, Tyler, or possibly both of them before the evening stretched on much further.

He stopped pacing just long enough to shoot a look at the door. That was a point. Sinead and Tyler. There was still nothing about their interviews.

A concern nipped away at the back of Logan’s mind. Another one to add to the list.

What if Tyler had gone too far? What if, in throwing the interview, he’d stuck a stick through the spokes of his career? What if that shower of uppity arseholes were sitting drinking teaand eating biscuits while debating DC Neish’s fitness for duty? Or his sanity in general, maybe.

Logan dismissed the thought with a shake of his head. As worries went, it was low on the list. He’d vouch for the detective constable, smooth it all over, explain the thinking behind his interview actions, if it came to it. Nobody was breaking up this team. Not while he was in charge.

‘Nothing on ANPR for Joe Robertson’s car,’ Dave announced. ‘Hasn’t been a ping on it in months.’

‘Right. OK,’ Logan said. He turned and started marching in the opposite direction again. ‘Doesn’t really tell us anything, anyway. Not like there are many cameras across the area. He’d have to have passed a police car with its camera running, so chances were always going to be slim. Doesn’t exclude him from anything.’

It was still thin, though, Logan knew. What even was the theory he was digging into? That Joe Robertson, an elderly man in a neighbourhood watch group, had driven to the home of a drug dealer in Forres, blown his head off, then returned home to Aviemore and happened upon a second closely related drug dealer parked in a lay-by near his home, before slitting his throat and calling it in?

Laying it out like that, the theory wasn’t just thin, it was nonsense. Unless they could establish an existing relationship between all three men, then it was all too coincidental.

Besides, Joe had been on the brink of a nervous breakdown while being questioned over a handbag full of cash. No matter how much Logan tried to imagine that man committing a double homicide of two potentially dangerous criminals, he just couldn’t make it work.

But he was out there roaming around somewhere, potentially armed, so that was something. Wasn’t it?

The words jumped out at him from the Big Board again as he passed it.

Young woman seen walking.

Hostile.

Aggressive.

Fearless.

‘It could have been anyone,’ he muttered.

‘Sir?’ Sinead asked.

Logan shook his head. ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’

A phone rang. Tyler reached for it. Logan was already pointing, already hoping.

‘Tell me that’s something. Tell me you’ve got something.’

Tyler took the call. Listened, nodding along, then hung up.

‘It, eh, it was for you, boss,’ Tyler said. ‘Message from downstairs. There’s, um, there’s someone at reception for you.’

‘For me? Who?’

Tyler shot a look around the room, as if checking for an escape route, should he need one.

‘It’s, eh, it’s Olivia, boss,’ he said. ‘And, by the sounds of things, she’s pretty worked up.’

She flewat him almost the moment he stepped out of the lift, like she was going to vault the security gate that drew a line between the general public and the police business going on upstairs.

Shona was with her, trying to calm her down, trying to hold her back, but Olivia shrugged her way free of the pathologist’s grip, finger raising, pointing, stabbing in Jack’s face.