“Cause?” Logan asked.
“Dunno yet. Going to be hard to determine. He’s been burned, but no saying if that was before or after he died. Problem is, there’s not a lot left of him to tell us much. The way he’s lying there, I don’t think he was alive when he was burned. Or not conscious, at least. Doesn’t look like he made any attempt to get away from the flames, or put them out in any way.”
“You think someone burned the body so we couldn’t identify it?”
Shona shrugged. “Maybe. But, they left the teeth intact.”
Palmer snorted. “Amateur. That’s the first thing I’d have done, knocked out the teeth. Smash the teeth, cut off the fingers, carve out any identifying tattoos, then burn. That’s how I’d do it.”
Logan regarded him solemnly for a moment. “Aye, well, we’ll keep that in mind, Geoff,” he said, then he turned back to Shona. “Could he just have been smoking in his tent, and set himself alight?”
“Theoretically,” the pathologist conceded.
Geoff snorted for a second time. “Aye, if he was smoking while doused in petrol. Could you not smell the accelerant?”
“Could’ve been alcohol,” Shona said.
Palmer rolled his eyes so hard they almost went all the way around. “In that case, where’s the bottle?”
Shona shrugged. “I don’t know. Have you looked for it yet? An animal could’ve carried it off a bit.”
Palmer glanced back at the tent, then around at the dense thickets of heather and brush around them. “I don’t… I’d have to check.”
“How about you do that, then?” Logan suggested. “Since you’ve come all this way, you might as well make yourself useful.”
Ten minutes later, Logan stood at the side of the single-track road with DI Forde and a ludicrously mud-slicked DC Neish, who had fallen no less than six times while on Logan’s wild goose chase.
The midges were out in force. They formed clouds around the detectives, whose hands moved in a constant cycle of scratching and swatting at the bloody things.
The Mountain Rescue helicopter had touched down on one of the wider areas of the road a few hundred yards in the direction of the coast. Shona stood at it surrounded by the rescue team, discussing how they could retrieve the body without causing it any further damage. She already had her work cut out for her, and having the corpse fall to bits while being winched into the air would not make it any easier.
“So, turns out that lad was telling the truth, right enough,” Ben said, slapping himself on the cheek to squash a midge mid-munch. “Just as well Mitchell called you in, I suppose.”
Logan gave a low grunt, but said nothing.
“Was the body a mess, boss?” Tyler asked. He gestured pointedly down at himself. “Because, you know, it gets fairly muddy out there.”
“I’m sure he’s had more glamorous days, aye.”
“Any sign of an ID?” Ben asked. “Or is that too much to hope for?”
Logan shook his head. “Anything he might’ve had on him would have been burned away. Might need to go on dental records.”
“I could take a look through the Missing Persons register, boss,” Tyler suggested. “See if we can narrow down the search a bit.”
“Nice try, son,” Logan told him. He pointed over in the direction of the SOC tent—a several hundred-yard yomp away through the boggy bracken. “I want you over there helping the Mountain Rescue boys.”
Tyler glanced furtively at the knot of men standing by the helicopter with Shona. They had the wiry frames and weathered faces of experienced Highland climbers, and the air of authority that came with knowing exactly what they were doing.
“What, me, boss? With that lot?” the DC asked. “Won’t I just, you know, get in the way?”
“Probably, aye.”
“Well, that’s not great, is it? What if I mess everything up?” Tyler asked. “What if I make an arse of it?”
“Oh, don’t worry, son,” Logan said, laying a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “We’d expect nothing less.”
He held up a finger to thwart any further protest from Tyler, then flicked the same digit towards the tent. With a sigh of resignation, Tyler set off back across the heather, dragging his muddy feet behind him.
“You think maybe you’re being a wee bit hard on him?” asked Ben, once Tyler was out of earshot.
Logan mulled this over while he watched the DC go plodding away. “Aye, maybe,” he conceded, then he cupped a hand at the side of his mouth and shouted, “Tyler!”
Tyler waved his arms in panic as he almost lost his footing, then turned back to the older detectives. “Boss?”
“Cheer up, son,” Logan told him. “It might never happen.”
Tyler’s lips moved, but whatever he was saying he had the good sense to say quietly. He gave a double thumbs-up, and set off on his way again.
“There,” Logan said, giving Ben a nod. “That should perk him up no end.”
“Bad day?” Ben asked. He knew the signs. For a man who tried so hard to be private, it was often possible to read Jack Logan like a book.
Logan breathed out slowly, then shook his head. “I was with Maddie.”
“Your Maddie? How did you manage that?”
“Shona,” Logan said. “She arranged it. I didn’t know a thing about it until today.”
Ben looked approvingly over to where Shona seemed to be wrapping up with the Mountain Rescue boys.
“And? How did it go?” he asked. “I don’t see any obvious stab wounds, so that’s encouraging.”
“We were talking,” Logan said. “It was nice. And then some bastard had to go and interrupt and—”
“Eh, is one of you Detective Chief Inspector Logan?”
It was only the near-perfect comedy timing that saved the new arrival from a colossal ear-bashing. Instead, Logan simply muttered something indecipherable below his breath then turned to find a female constable looking up at him.
She sounded… not local exactly. Somewhere near Edinburgh, maybe, or a little further south. She looked to be of Asian origin—Chinese or Japanese, probably. Logan didn’t have a trained enough eye to be able to spot the difference. She wore a high-vis jacket and a questioning expression, and stood with her hands on her hips in a way that suggested she wasn’t planning on taking any shit from anyone.
“You DCI Logan?” she asked again, clearly impatient for an answer.
“Depends who’s asking,” Logan said, and there was an automatic downturn at the corners of the constable’s mouth, like she’d heard too many similar answers from arseholes in the past, and was quite frankly sick of it. So filled with disdain was the expression, in fact, that Logan followed it up with a somewhat more professional response. “I mean, aye. That’s me. What do you need?”
“I don’t need anything,” the constable said, apparently none-too-happy with the suggestion. “I might have something you need, though.”
Logan shot Ben a sideways look and raised an eyebrow, silently questioning who the hell this woman was.
“And what might that be?” he asked.
“The body. Your man out there,” the constable said. “I think I might know who he is.”
CHAPTER SIX