Brodie switched applications and googled M-Pact. He found the glove in seconds. Impact Guard™ for shock protection. And TrekDry® material to keep hands dry. The reinforcement was provided by thermoplastic rubber, and something called EVA foam protected all the joints. Ideal for heavy mechanical work. Or mountaineering.
He switched back to the video and set it to play. The wearer of the gloves simply walked away, moving quickly out of shot. The cameras recorded for another thirty seconds, then stopped, and the image went black. There had to be more. Brodie waited.
When the recording restarted, an hour had passed, and the light had faded. The picture was grainy now. The movement which had triggered the recording was the arrival of another vehicle, which immediately doused its headlights. It swung quickly into position directly behind Younger’s car, and it was impossible to tell whether this was an SUV or a pickup. Even the colour of it was difficult to determine. Dark blue or green. Maybe even grey. Its driver had taken the precaution of covering the licence plate, but there were bull bars on the front.
Younger’s car juddered as the vehicle behind it engaged, then began inching it forward. The wheels would have been locked, but the superior power of the other vehicle easily pushed them across the gravel.
Suddenly the view from the rear cameras angled towards the sky, and all the images recording on to the SD card became blurred as the vehicle tipped down the slope, gathering momentum, and jarring as it struck several trees on the way down. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the bottom of the drop, but in fact was recorded as being fewer than five seconds. The downward progress of the car ended suddenly as the nose buried itself in the stream. The front cameras registered underwater pebbles worn smooth by eons as the cloudiness of the impact quickly washed away in the flow of the stream. The view back to the top of the slope revealed the distant silhouette of a man standing against the light of the stars. He waited for only a moment before turning away out of shot, and less than half a minute later, the recording stopped and the picture went black. There was no further video on the card.
Brodie was startled by a knock at the door. ‘Yes?’
It opened, and a hesitant Brannan took a couple of steps into the room. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Brodie.’ And Brodie realised for the first time how quickly the light was fading. The cloud was almost black beyond his window, the afternoon light sulphurous, the wind rattling the window frame.
‘You spoke to Jackson?’
Brannan nodded. ‘He’s agreed to meet you on the proviso that you’ll keep his name out of it.’
‘There’s no way I can guarantee that, Brannan.’
Brannan made a face. ‘I thought that. But I’ll let you tell him.’
‘Is he coming here?’
Brannan shook his head vigorously. ‘No. He’ll meet you tonight. 8 p.m. On the north side of the loch. A couple of miles short of the power plant. Down off the road there’s a concrete bunker which provides an emergency escape from the storage tunnels below. I can show you on the map.’
Brodie sighed. ‘I’d rather he just came here.’
‘He won’t do that, Mr Brodie. Whatever it is he knows, whatever he told Younger, he’s scared. I mean, really scared.’
‘And how am I supposed to get there?’
‘I’ll lend you my SUV.’
‘You could just drive me.’
Brannan shook his head. ‘I have a large party booking in for Christmas this year, Mr Brodie. The organiser is calling tonight with details. I need to be here to take the call.’ He added quickly, ‘It’s only about a ten- or fifteen-minute drive.’
When Brannan had gone, Brodie sat in the gloom of his bedroom for several minutes, turning everything over in his mind. The autopsy, the gloves, the car in the ravine. Sita’s murder. It pained him every time he recalled the image of the pathologist folded into the cake chiller. Something she had found during the post-mortem had made her a target for the killer. Something that might reveal his identity, or the motive for Younger’s murder. But whatever it was she’d found, it was lost now. All her samples vanished, along with Younger’s body.
He checked that he still had internet and slipped on his iCom glasses. He would record his report and send it to Pacific Quay so that he didn’t have to engage. That way he could register every detail without interruption, right down to and including his rendezvous later with Joe Jackson. If Storm Idriss brought down power lines again, as Brannan predicted, it might be the last chance he had to report in before sometime tomorrow, or later.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lights blazed in most of the windows of the police house, shining into the gloom of the dwindling afternoon. Brodie had not seen a soul on his trudge round to the village from the hotel, apart from the occasional vehicle passing on the road. Where cars had travelled and people had walked, wet snow had turned to ice in the plummeting temperatures, and was treacherous underfoot.
He pushed open the gate and walked up to the door of the annexe with a sense of trepidation. If Addie was determined not to listen, then how could he tell her anything? And certainly not in the presence of her husband or her son. He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. There were other things that took precedence. He needed to focus.
He opened the door into the warmth of the little police office and saw that it was empty. The computer screen was illuminated by a screen saver, and an anglepoise lay a circle of light on the desk. He closed the door behind him, shutting out the howl of the wind, and immediately heard raised voices coming from the house.
A man’s voice, which must have been Robbie’s. And Addie. Shrill and accusatory. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, or anything that might provide a clue to the cause of the argument. The plaintive wailing of young Cameron, distressed by the raising of his parents’ voices, made it difficult to hear them clearly.
He stood for a little while, wondering what to do, before opening the door to the house and calling, ‘Hello?’ The voices of the adults immediately subsided, but Cameron’s wailing provided the continuity of the argument in its aftermath. After a furious exchange of stage whispers, Robbie emerged into the darkness of the hall from a lit room behind him, and hurried through to the police station. He was flushed with embarrassment as he came in, quickly closing the door behind him. And the sound of Addie comforting her son was reduced to a distant murmur.
‘Sorry, Mr Brodie,’ Robbie said, attempting a smile that didn’t quite come off. ‘Domestic bliss.’ And he could only have been too acutely aware of the irony in his addressing this to the father of the woman he’d been fighting with.
Brodie said, ‘Tell me about it.’ Then, ‘I want to have a look at that CCTV footage.’
‘Oh, yeah, of course.’ Robbie rounded the counter and sat down at the computer. A swipe of his mouse banished the screen saver, and he accessed the hard drive to search for the archive footage.
Brodie came around to stand behind him. He said, ‘I have a meeting tonight with a guy from Ballachulish A who seems to have been some kind of contact of Younger’s.’
Robbie swivelled round in his seat. ‘A contact?’
Brodie shrugged. ‘Brannan seems to think the guy might have been a whistle-blower of some sort.’
Robbie looked nonplussed. ‘Blowing the whistle on what?’
‘Hopefully that’s what I’ll find out tonight.’ He paused. ‘But it might explain why Younger had a Geiger counter in his car.’