He kisses her forehead. ‘We’re going to get Aiden back.’
Something curdles in her lungs, making it hard to breathe. ‘What if—’
‘Hey, it’s OK.’ He kisses her again: frowning, serious. ‘You do whatever they tell you, follow all their rules... and leave everything else to me and the gang.’ Then that grin spreads again. ‘This is it!’
After all this time.
She hugs him. ‘I can’t believe it’s finally happening...’
A sliver of sky glowed a pale shimmering blue, the clouds above it painted in violent shades of pink and orange. Everything else was a dark heavy grey.
‘Don’t lose her!’
Danielle Smith’s tail-lights burned red, disappearing as the road twisted along the flank of Bennachie. Trees loomed over them, turned into scratchy inkblots by the pool car’s headlights. Dark fields. The shining windows of a farmhouse in the distance.
Tufty shifted his hands on the wheel. ‘I’m not going to lose her. I didn’t lose her on the dual carriageway, did I? Or all the way out here? No, brave Sir Tufty stuck to her like a secret sneaky sticky... stain?’
‘Be careful, OK? Can’t afford to screw this one up.’
‘How am I screwing it up? I’m doing everything it says in the manual! Regulation distance for following a vehicle on quiet roads at night is—’
‘Oh shut up.’ Logan pulled out his phone and called Steel. ‘We’ve pulled off the A96 at Port Elphinstone. Heading west on the B993. I repeat—’
‘Heard you the first time. I’m irascibly sexy, no’ deaf.’
‘Where’s Rennie?’
The sound grew echoes, the clatter of Cuban heels on stairs reverberating underneath. ‘Getting himself a pool car and hopefully some Tic Tacs. Boy’s got breath you could strip paint off the Forth Bridge with.’
‘What about my firearms team?’
‘I’ve got two words for you: “awa” and “shite”.’ More clattering.
‘Oh you’re kidding me!’
The clattering quietened down a bit, followed by the thump of a door and louder echoes. ‘Well, what did you expect? We’ve got no actual intel, we’ve got no corroboration, we’ve got no proof. We haven’t even got a sodding location. All we’ve got is your scar-puckered gut to go on.’
‘But—’
‘Course they’re no’ giving us a firearms team.’ Another thump, and the sound opened up — no more echoes. ‘So we follow this private investigator woman of yours till she leads us to the Livestock Mart, we call it in, and then we get a firearms team.’ A shrill whistle ripped out of the earpiece.
‘Aaargh!’ Logan yanked the phone away from his ear.
‘RENNIE, YOU USELESS LUMP OF BADGER SPUTUM, WHERE THE MOTHERFUNKING...’ A car horn blared in the background. ‘Oh. About time too!’
‘You nearly deafened me!’
‘Oh, boo-hoo.’ Some rustling and clunking was followed by a loud thunk and the sound of an engine starting. ‘Don’t just sit there: drive!’
Logan hung up. Stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it as he frowned out through the windscreen.
Dark. No rear lights.
‘Tufty?’ His eyes widened. ‘Where’s Danielle Smith’s car?’
‘Ah... Funny you should mention that...’
Logan crumpled forward in his seat, until the seatbelt stopped him, and covered his head with his arms. ‘Aaaaaaargh!’
‘Sorry?’
‘For God’s sake, Constable. Why didn’t you—’
‘I’m sorry! You were shouting and there was all this...’ He grabbed Logan’s arm. ‘There! Look, thar she blows! Woot! Jodrell Bank, we does has a liftoff!’
Danielle’s tail-lights snaked through the darkness up ahead, headlights casting the trees into sharp relief as she passed them.
Logan slumped back. ‘Don’t do that.’
Tufty pulled on a sickly smile. ‘Anyone can make a mistake...’
Raymond paces up and down the kitchen, hands clenching and spreading and clenching and spreading.
Sally’s mobile sits on the table in front of her, the dark screen reflecting her face: thin, bags under her eyes, the bruise on her forehead spreading out from beneath its skin-coloured sticking plaster — already starting to go green and yellow at the edges.
She clears her throat. ‘Maybe they—’
Her phone buzzes and she snatches it up, unlocking it with shaking fingers.
A text message.
NUMBER WITHHELD:
57°18’43.1”N 2°29’34.7”W — No later than 19:45
Watchword: ”Foxglove”
Raymond hurries over. ‘Is it them?’
‘Map coordinates.’
She copies and pastes them into the phone’s map app which churns and churns and finally fills with an unnamed road northwest of Inverurie. Pressing ‘GET DIRECTIONS’ sets it churning again. Then brings up a blue line from the croft to the designated spot with an estimated journey time of twenty-two minutes.
Sally stares at the microwave clock — ‘19:10’ — then scrambles to her feet, grabbing the rucksack and her jacket. ‘I have to go!’ Rushing into the hall.
Raymond blocks the front door. ‘Wig!’
The bloody wig! She snatches it off the coatrack and jams it on her head as she rushes out through the front door, wrenches open the Shogun’s door and throws herself in behind the wheel. Slamming the door shut as Raymond runs down the track towards the gate.
Sally dumps the rucksack in the passenger footwell, jams the key in the ignition and twists it: the engine roars into life.
She can do this. For Aiden.
Her hands shake on the steering wheel as she accelerates down the drive.
Raymond’s waiting for her, right in the middle of the track, the gate lying wide open behind him.
Get out of the bloody way!
She slams on the brakes and buzzes her window down. ‘Raymond, I—’
‘It’s going to be OK. Deep breaths. You can do this.’
‘I have to go.’
He steps up onto the running board and leans in through the window. ‘You know I’d come with you if I could.’
She nods. Blah, blah, blah.
‘We’re going to bring Aiden home tonight, Sally. That’s all that matters.’
She stares at him. ‘That’s all that’s ever mattered.’
He wraps a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her into a kiss. His lips taste of bitter coffee and Extra Strong Mints. Then he lets her go and hops back to the ground again. ‘You can do this!’
For Aiden.
She puts her foot down.
Raymond jumped away from the puddle as Sally’s four-by-four hammered out through the open gate, sending up twin walls of dirty brown spray. This was it. Succeed or fail, it was all down to her.
He pulled out his phone, dialling as he picked his way over to the side of the track, steering clear of the puddles. ‘Andy?’
Andy’s voice crackled from the earpiece, distorted and broken. ‘Guv? I can barely hear you.’
‘Are you on?’
‘Guv? Hello?... Hello?... Can you— me? Gu—’
Oh in the name of Christ. Not now. Not tonight!
‘Andy? Andy!’
Damn it. He hung up and tried again.
Straight to voicemail. ‘Hi, this is Andrew Harris. Leave a message after the bleep.’