Might as well.
I pulled out the photo of Peter Smith and the unidentified young woman, the paper crumpling in my hand as the wind tried to whip it from my grasp. ‘Over there?’
We went back down the ramp, out onto the putting course.
According to the flag, this was hole number seventeen, looking back towards the sea and the hills beyond, a palm tree off to one side.
‘Waste of time, of course.’
‘What is?’ Franklin dug her hands into her padded pockets, shoulders curled up around her ears.
‘All... this. Pointless. We should be out there hunting Gordon Smith, not faffing about here.’
‘You really are a ray of sunshine today, aren’t you?’ But she was smiling. ‘What about the victims’ families? Don’t they deserve to know what happened to their loved ones?’
‘Of course they do, but that’s not as important as catching the scumbag who killed them.’
Franklin gave me a half nod, half shrug. ‘Tell you what, how about I get us a couple of putters and we can play a round? Might cheer you up a bit. You can pretend it’s like a go on the “wooden horsies”.’
‘No thanks.’ I turned and hobbled across the grass, making for the road again.
‘Oh come on, Ash, I’m trying to apologise here!’ Hurrying after us. ‘What’s wrong with putting?’
‘Once upon a time, there was a man called Adam Robinson. He found out his wife was having an affair with someone at her golf club, so do you know what he did?’
‘Talk to her about it, like a rational grown-up?’
We’d reached the pavement. Stood there, waiting for a break in the traffic.
‘He started saving up his urine.’
‘OK, not so rational, then.’
A taxi drifted by and I hurpled across the road behind it, making the other side as an open-topped bus rumbled past. Kept going down a narrow street between one of the few branches Royal Bank of Scotland hadn’t shut and a carpet shop.
‘Adam collected it in two-litre bottles, you know, like Diet Coke, that kind of thing. Then once a week, he’d take the most mature samples and go up the golf course in the dead of night. Filled each and every hole, from the first to the eighteenth with his rancid piss.’
‘Why on earth would he—’
‘So that every time someone sunk a putt, they’d have to stick their hand in the hole to fish out their ball.’
Franklin’s mouth opened wide, tongue sticking out, eyes creased almost shut. ‘Oh... Yuck!’
We crossed another road, and entered another tiny street, passed yet another carpet shop.
‘He kept that up for six months, then decided the only thing left to do was march into the clubhouse with a shotgun and blow holes in every male over the age of fifteen.’
We emerged from the tiny street into a big open space, with a moat and a partially collapsed castle in the middle of it. A saltire flag snapping and crackling in the wind above.
‘Killed three people, crippled six, injured about a dozen.’ I shook my head. ‘Genuinely a terrible shot.’
‘What happened?’
A gull worried away at a discarded polystyrene container, chips spilling out into the gutter.
Henry rushed at it, firing out sharp-edged barks till the lead brought him up short.
Unimpressed, the gull stared back and kept on pecking.
‘Well, by the time an Armed Response Unit got there, Adam had barricaded himself in the golf pro’s office, with his wife and a bottle of Glenfarclas he’d liberated from the club bar.’
‘This doesn’t have a happy ending, does it?’
‘Hell no.’ We followed the road, around the castle. ‘Took the crime-scene cleaners four days to dig all the tiny bits of skull out of the wooden panelling. So, no: I’m not keen on a game of putting.’
A wet popping wheezing noise gurgled out of Franklin and she rubbed at her stomach. ‘You still owe me that sausage butty.’
I leaned on the windowsill, rolling my right ankle in small clicking circles. That’s what I got for walking all the way to Rothesay Police Station from the putting course.
Our meeting room was pretty much identical to the ones you’d find in any Police Scotland building. Someone had tried to glam it up with a series of ugly watercolours and a wilting pot plant, but it hadn’t really worked.
Pulling back the vertical blinds had revealed a view out across a twenty-foot strip of flat roof and over the road to a weird boxy building in pink granite with a sign fixed to its black front door: ‘CARPET SHOP BEHIND CHURCH 
’.
What the hell was it with Rothesay and carpet shops? How much carpet did one small town need?
Henry had found himself a spot by the radiator, curled up and dead to the world, making wheezy snoring noises as we waited. And waited. And waited.
I checked my watch: twenty past two. ‘I’m giving it five more minutes, then sod the lot of them.’
‘Absolutely starving...’ She slumped back in her chair at the empty meeting table. Stared at the ceiling. ‘How long’s it been?’
‘Over half an hour.’
‘And not so much as a biscuit.’
‘Ah, now you mention it.’ I dug into my jacket pocket and came out with the two pre-packaged slices of cake I’d bought on the ferry. Each about the size of a small remote control. Held them out. ‘You want a cranberry-and-pistachio slice, or rocky road?’
‘Yes!’ She took both. Ripped open the plastic and tore a big bite out of the knobbly chocolate slice. The words all mushy as she chewed. ‘So are you going to tell me what it was Jennifer Prentice did?’
‘No.’
More chewing. ‘She showed me a text from Nick James saying she could borrow the car whenever she liked.’
‘Probably nicked his phone and sent it to herself.’
Franklin chomped on another mouthful. ‘You really don’t like her, do you?’
‘That woman’s a complete—’
The meeting room door creaked open and in marched a stiff-backed bald bloke in the full Police Scotland black. Three pips on his epaulettes and a full-bore Highlands and Islands accent that lilted higher than expected. ‘I understand you’re...’ His face pulled in around his scrunched lips. ‘Is that a dog? We don’t allow dogs in the station.’
Henry stayed where he was, but Franklin stood to attention. Hiding the rocky road slice behind her back. ‘Sir.’
Another uniform hurpled in after him, this one a good head shorter than his boss, his official-issue T-shirt stretched over a decent-sized beer belly. A thick brown beard covering his cheeks and chin. Saggy eyes. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting...’ All smiles and handshakes.
His fingers lingered over Franklin’s.
She slid her hand free and wiped it on her trouser leg, soon as he wasn’t looking.
The Chief Inspector stuck his nose in the air. ‘Detective Sergeant Rosalind Franklin, I understand you want to search through all of our historical missing person reports?’
‘Yes, sir.’
A cold fish eye swivelled in my direction. ‘And this is?’
‘Mr Henderson. He’s with the Lateral Investigative and Review Unit. We’re—’
‘While I’m quite happy to allow police officers access to our records, I draw the line at civilians. And dogs.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Sergeant Campbell will assist you. Sergeant Campbell, please make sure you escort Mr Henderson from the premises first.’ He turned on his heel, as if it was a parade ground manoeuvre, and marched from the room, head up, shoulders back.
Prick.
Sergeant Campbell grimaced. ‘Sorry about that. The Chief can be a tad... brusque?’ He placed a hand on Franklin’s shoulder. ‘But I’m sure we’ll get on like the best of friends.’ Rounding it off with a greasy smile.