He had just stepped through the gate when he heard the clack of something behind him that he knew, instinctively, was a weapon.
Pulling Sinead behind him, he turned to find a stout woman with severe hair cradling an over and under shotgun in a way that suggested it wouldn’t take much for her to use it.
“You shouldn’t be letting your dog run like that,” the woman said, and her accent caught Logan off guard far more than the gun had. It was Devon, or Cornwall. Somewhere in that neck of the woods, anyway. Whoever she was, she was a long way from home. “It could worry my sheep.”
Logan side-eyed their surroundings, still keeping most of his focus on the gun. “What sheep?” he asked, then he followed the tilt of her head up the hill behind her, to where a handful of microscopic white dots were visible near the distant peak.
“Them sheep.”
“They don’t look overly concerned at the moment,” Logan said. “Though, maybe I could get a better look at them if I had access to the Hubble telescope.”
“I could shoot it, you know? The dog. I’d be within my rights. The law’s on my side.”
“Is that the Protection of Livestock Act, nineteen-fifty-three?” asked Sinead, which drew a lowering of eyebrows from the woman, and a raising of them from Logan. “Because if that’s the law you’re referring to, then it doesn’t apply. There are no sheep in this field.”
The woman with the gun sniffed. “I was referring, I’ll have you know, to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which gives permission for farmers to shoot dogs. I’m a farmer, and that, unless I’m very much mistaken, is a fucking dog.”
“If it’s attacking livestock,” Sinead added.
“Excuse me?”
“It doesn’t give you the right to just randomly shoot dogs,” Sinead explained. “Only dogs that are attacking livestock.” She looked round to where Taggart was joyfully dragging his arse across the grass. “And he clearly isn’t.”
Logan felt that this was a good time to produce his ID. “Detective Chief Inspector Jack Logan. Police Scotland Major Investigations,” he said, hoping this would get some sort of reaction from the gun-toting old crone.
It did not.
“Have you got a licence for that firearm?” he asked, returning the warrant card to his pocket.
“Course I bleedin’ do. What do you take me for? One of them gang-bangers, or what haves you?” She patted the gun. “You wouldn’t catch Barbara breaking no laws. Not on your life.”
“Right,” Logan said, making a mental note to have someone check the paperwork later. “Well, Barbara, I wonder—”
“Sorry?” the woman said, interrupting. “Are you talking to me or are you talking to the gun?”
“Why would I be…? Obviously, I’m talking to you.”
“I’m not Barbara.” She waggled the shotgun, making both detectives tense. “She’s Barbara.”
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He really wasn’t in the mood for this. “I see. And your name is?”
“None of your bleedin’ business, that’s what. I don’t need to tell you nothing, I don’t. Not on your Nelly. I know my rights, see? Filth or not, you can’t go demanding to know nothing of me.”
“Filth?” Logan muttered.
“Well, filth, pigs, whatever you want to call yourselves.”
“Ideally, neither of those,” Logan replied.
“Well, whatever. I don’t have to tell you nothin’. Not a bleedin’ word, and you can’t make me.”
“Actually, you do, and we can,” Sinead said. “Failing to provide your name, address, date and place of birth, and nationality, when asked, is a criminal offence.”
The old woman’s eyes narrowed. “Since when?”
“Since you turned up waving a shotgun and threatening to shoot my dog,” Logan said. “Until such time as we know for sure that thing’s licensed, you’re a suspect in a potential criminal investigation. So, how about you stop pissing about and tell us your name? We’ve no’ got all bloody night.”
The old woman ran a hand along the back of her shotgun like she was stroking a pet cat, then gave in with a shrug and a grunt. “Fine. If you must know, it’s Kathryn.”
“Kathryn what?” Logan asked.
“Chegwin. Yes, before you ask, like that smirking little loudmouthed bastard off the telly. Date of birth, twelfth of January, nineteen thirty-eight. You want my bleedin’ address? It’s there,” she said, pointing to a ramshackle old croft house set back from the track a few hundred yards past the end of the field, on the opposite side of the road. “Figure it out yourself. Alright? Alright.”
She gestured past them with the end of the gun, to where Taggart was sniffing around the sealed entrance of one of the smaller tents.
“I knew you filth were getting younger and younger, but I didn’t realise it applied to your bleedin’ dogs, too. That one’s barely got its mothers teat out of his mouth, and you’ve got it sniffing around, looking for clues. Another mindless bleedin’ drone of the state. Just what we need. And he won’t find nothin’, neither.”
“Why not?” asked Sinead.
“Well, because there’s no bugger there, is there? It’s obvious. You can tell just by looking at the place.” Kathryn shook her head. “Bunch of weirdo bastards, the lot of them, mind you. God, if I have to listen to any more chanting at all the bleedin’ hours, I don’t know what I’ll do. But I wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of whatever it is, I’ll tell you that much for free.”
“Chanting?” Logan asked.
“Chanting, if you bloody well please!” Kathryn confirmed. “Hippies, they are. Humming and bleedin’ hawing, dancing around in their skimpies with their arses hanging out for all the world to see.” She rolled her eyes. “And the sex. Oh, Lord Jesus and Mary, the sex. Like fucking rabbits, some of them. In their tents. Two together. Three on one. Swapping around, and all sorts. Orgies. That’s what they’re up to. Orgies of all bleedin’ things.”
“And you’ve seen this?” Sinead asked.
“Well, I don’t have to see it, do I, dear? Not for want of trying sometimes, mind you. They’ve had some big strapping lads in there I wouldn’t mind getting a right good rogering off. I’d have a right good bleedin’ go on some of them, if I had my way, let me tell you. Great big meaty fellas, so’s they are. Big, healthy lads.”
“Jesus,” Logan muttered, pushing that unwelcome mental image away.
“But I hears them, don’t I? Hammering away. Pawing and pounding on each other. Moaning, and groaning. ‘Yes, yes, yes. Ooh, do it like that! Careful, or you’ll have me bleedin’ eye out,’ and all sorts. You don’t need to see it when you’ve got it going on in surround sound at all hours of the day and night.” She sniffed and shrugged her rounded shoulders. “I mean, give me that over the chanting, right enough. I’ll take the shagging over the chanting any day of the week, and that’s not a word of a lie.”
Logan and Sinead stood in stunned silence for several seconds. Even Taggart, who had been busily exploring the tents, now just sat on the grass like he needed a moment to come to terms with everything he’d just heard.