Logan gritted his teeth, holding onto the seatbelt with one hand and the seat with the other as she threw the car into a warren of tight bends at ludicrous speed. He closed his eyes. Maybe the inevitable crash would hurt less that way?
She shouted at him, over the roar of the engine. ‘Don’t be such a Jessie!’
OK. OK...
He forced his eyes open, dragged out his phone, brought up his contacts list, and called King.
It rang twice, then: ‘What?’
‘What the hell are you playing at? You stole my bloody car!’
‘I’m doing my best, OK? You heard Hardie — I’m treading water with sharks here. I can’t afford to screw this up!’
‘Then don’t be stupid! We’ll—’
‘This is my last chance, Logan. I need this.’
‘You can’t charge off without...’ Logan pulled the phone from his ear and frowned at the screen: ‘CALL ENDED’. Oh no you sodding don’t. He poked the icon to redial.
The MX-5 slithered around a hard right, shoving Logan against the door as the phone rang.
‘Dear God, what now?’
‘What did Haiden tell you? Where are Matt Lansdale and—’
What sounded like a horn blared out from King’s end. ‘Jesus!’
‘Where are—’
A screeching noise.
‘Do you want me to crash your car? Is that what you want?’
‘No!’
‘Then stop calling while I’m driving!’
The MX-5 fishtailed as Steel wrenched them into a sharp left, leaving the tarmac for a moment as they flew over a bump.
Logan jammed his legs against the walls of the footwell, holding himself in place. ‘Don’t be a...’ Complete silence from the other end. When he checked the screen, there it was again: ‘CALL ENDED’. He scowled across the car at Steel. ‘Bloody King keeps hanging up on me.’
She hurled the car around the next bend. The road stretched ahead of them, long and straight. No sign of Logan’s Audi. ‘Ah...’
‘Please don’t tell me you’ve lost him!’
‘I’ve no’ lost-lost him, I just... don’t know where he is. A wee bit.’ Steel hammered it along the straight, worrying at her bottom lip, her frown growing deeper with every small side road they passed. Whin and broom crowded in on either side of the MX-5, blocking out the world.
‘We’re slowing down.’ Logan turned in his seat. ‘Why are we slowing down?’
‘Could’ve turned off anywhere.’
‘Oh for God’s sake!’
She raised herself in her seat, peering over the top of the windscreen. ‘Can you see him? I can’t see him.’
‘AAAAAAARRRGH!’ Logan stabbed a finger down on the redial button.
It rang as the MX-5 drifted to a halt. Then, ‘You’ve reached Detective Inspector King. I can’t answer the phone right now, so please leave a message.’ Followed by a hard electronic bleeeeeep.
‘WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU?’ He hung up and sat there, seething at the gorse-flamed drystane dyke sitting next to the passenger door.
Steel poked him in the shoulder. ‘Do we feel better now, after our little outburst?’
‘No.’ Difficult to imagine what would make him feel better at this point, though forcibly inserting his size nine boot up DI King’s rectum was probably a good start.
‘Out.’ She pulled on the handbrake. ‘Go stand on a wall and see if you can see him.’
Maybe both boots.
Logan climbed out of her car.
The roadside verge was a narrow strip of dry yellow grass, followed by a deep ditch, then the drystane dyke with its crown of Day-Glo-yellow flowers and spiky thorns. About ten foot down the road was a patch of bare stone and he scrambled up onto it.
Fields stretched away on either side of the road, irregular shapes and sizes that followed the features and contours of the land, instead of some ordered grid. On the right, the land fell away to the sea; a thin line of woods to the left; the little granite houses of Cruden Bay, straight ahead. Could see for miles from up here... But there was still no sign of Sodding King and Logan’s Sodding Audi.
Lots of whin and broom, though, the thieving git could be parked up almost anywhere, hidden behind a clump of it. They’d have to search every single road and track to be sure.
Deep breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGH!’
All emptied out, Logan slumped. He clambered his way over to the car and crumpled into the passenger seat.
Steel patted him on the leg. ‘Look on the bright side, Laz: maybe Kingy’s wrapped your car around the arse-end of some teuchter’s tractor and right now he’s little more than a big blubbering sack of bloody mince in a fancy-pants suit.’
He glowered at her. ‘You’re not funny.’
‘No’ my fault the man’s a dick.’ She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, frowning. ‘Honestly: sodding off like the Lone Ranger. Supposed to be a team, here.’ As if that had ever stopped her from doing all the crap she’d got up to over the years. A sigh, then she released the handbrake and set off down the long straight road again at a less hell-for-leather pace. ‘Come on, we’ll have a wee search for him. He’s got to be somewhere.’ Steel shook her head. ‘But between you and me: see operation King-Logan? It’s a sodding disaster.’
Yeah, he was well aware of that.
Logan got his phone out again and called Control.
‘Air Ambulance ETA is five minutes.’
‘You can cancel that — victim’s dead. Better get the Pathologist, Procurator Fiscal, and duty undertakers out instead.’
‘Oooh, OK. Will do.’
‘And while you’re at it, ping the GPS on DI King’s Airwave handset. I need to know where he is, and I need to know now.’
Steel slowed at the next side road, peering off down the track, then speeding up again.
‘OK, system says DI King is at Divisional Headquarters. Do you want me to patch you through?’
Logan covered his eyes. ‘Oh for God’s sake.’ The silly sod had left it behind, at the station.
‘If you need DI King, we can probably still find him through GPS. Which pool car does he have?’
Gah...
‘He’s not in a pool car, he’s in my car.’
Bloody Detective Bloody Inspector Frank Bloody King.
‘Sorry. If he calls in, I’ll tell him to give you a shout.’
It wasn’t easy forcing the words out between gritted teeth, but Logan did it anyway. ‘Thank you.’ Then he hung up and put his phone in his pocket. Straightened the seam in his police-issue itchy trousers. Took a nice deep breath. And bellowed a scream into the passenger footwell.
Steel sniffed. ‘Yeah... Kingy has that effect on me too.’
40
Frank parked halfway down a narrow lane. Brambles loomed on both sides, hemming the car in. He opened the door and clambered out.
Yeah... Logan wasn’t going to be very happy when he saw what had happened to his beloved Audi. A deep gouge wormed its way along the driver’s-side wing, through the door, and off to the rear wheel arch and panels, ringed with bright scrapes of raw metal where large chunks of the paintwork had come off. Dents in the wheel arches. A big one in the bonnet. And, let’s be honest, the exhaust sounded like a smoker’s lung and the engine wasn’t much better.