The dirty hippie bastards in question were not difficult to find. It would’ve been almost impossible to miss them, in fact, the way they all stood in a line just beyond the off-limits lighthouse, their fingers interlocked as they joined together to face down the setting sun.
It was the chanting that had first drawn the detectives’ attention. They were all at it, though none of them seemed to be chanting the same thing, or at the same speed or volume. The effect was like trying to listen to ten different radio stations at once, none of which were playing anything worth listening to.
One man stood apart from the others, facing out to sea. He was giving it laldy on the chanting front. Both his arms were raised above his head, and he was touching various fingers together to form shapes with his hands that presumably meant something to him and his followers, but told Logan nothing aside from the fact that this man was clearly a twat.
The members of the group were all dressed in loose-fitting white cotton garments that looked a size too large for all of them. They swayed, completely out of time with each other, as they each recited their own individual chants.
The leader was dressed similarly, but on a grander scale. He wore a long white robe that was tied around the waist with a length of rope. A gold-coloured satin sash was draped diagonally across his body, making it look like he’d just placed highly in a beauty pageant.
He had the stance and the frame of a young man, and long, flowing brown hair that tumbled over his shoulders and stopped just above the middle of his back. His feet, which were just visible below the hem of his robe, were bare. Presumably, though, he had a pair of shoes he slipped on when he drove the ‘Westerly Wellness’ minibus that was currently taking up two spaces in the lighthouse car park.
The light at the top of the tower was blinking its warnings out to sea through gaps in the scaffolding. The door at the base was heavily padlocked, though, and warning signs promised both possible death, and likely prosecution for anyone mucking about.
“Your man who found the body would’ve had some job painting this,” Logan remarked. “I take it he didn’t know it was under renovation?”
“Presumably not, no,’ Sinead said, then she gestured to the chanting crowd on the rocks beyond the tower. “What should we do? Should we wait? I’m not sure how you’re meant to handle… whatever this is.”
“It’s alright, Detective Constable, I know the correct etiquette,” Logan assured her, then he stabbed a finger in the direction of the group’s leader and bellowed, “Oi. You. Sexy Jesus. A word.”
Some of the chanting by the group members faltered. A couple of eyes opened and looked Logan’s way.
If the leader had heard, though, he wasn’t letting on. He continued with his hand gestures and his gibberish, as the sun ducked further behind the distant horizon. The sea was ablaze with colour now, the Isle of Coll off on the left the only dark spot on the reflected rainbow of the sky.
“Did he just…? Did he just bloody ignore me?” Logan asked Sinead.
“Maybe he didn’t hear you, sir.”
“Bollocks. He heard me, alright,” Logan said, thrusting a hand into the inside pocket of his coat. “I didn’t drive ten hours along the Highway to bloody Hell to be ignored by some prick in a dress.” He held up his warrant card and set off at a march. “Police. Stop what you’re doing right now.”
The leader didn’t open his eyes or turn, but stopped chanting long enough to respond in a French accent. “We have committed no crime. You have no authority over us,” he said, before picking up where he’d left off.
The rest of his group didn’t share his confidence, though, and most of them had stopped their cryptic utterings, opened their eyes, and now looked a bit self-conscious about the whole thing.
“I’ll be the judge of whether you’ve committed a crime or not, son,” Logan said. He stomped right through the group, scattering them, then stepped in front of the leader, blocking out the fading light from the sun, and casting the younger man into shadow.
‘Sexy Jesus,’ had been a good call. The man who now opened his eyes to look up at Logan was in his late twenties, with chiselled cheekbones and a close-cropped beard that didn’t so much hide his square jaw as emphasise it.
His eyes were a brilliant shade of blue, that seemed to sparkle despite Logan’s bulk preventing the dying evening light from reaching them.
Logan had expected the man to be irritated by this interruption, but instead, he just smiled, and Logan—a man for whom ‘self-doubt’ was something that happened to other people—suddenly couldn’t shake the feeling that the other man knew something he didn’t.
“My apologies, Detective Chief Inspector Logan,” the man in the robe said, his French accent soft and quiet, almost like a purr. “Clearly, this must be more urgent than I thought, for you to interrupt our meditative moment.”
Logan frowned. “How did you know…?” he began, before remembering he was still holding up his warrant card. “Oh, right, aye.”
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Logan. How may we help you?”
“What’s your name, son?”
“Ah, yes. I have the unfair advantage, non? My name is André Douville.”
“And you’re the leader of this lot, are you?” Logan asked, indicating the rest of the group with a derisory glance.
“We, ah… There is no leader at Westerly Wellness. I am, how you might say, a guide. I am the chaperone. It is my role to lead others by the hand, each on their own journeys.”
“Lead them by the hand? So, literally a leader, then.”
André smirked, showing his polished pearly whites. “As you wish, Monsieur Logan.”
“Oh now, please. There’s no need for ‘Monsieur Logan.’ Let’s not stand on formality here,” Logan urged. “Call me ‘Detective Chief Inspector.’”
The smirk raised higher. André bowed his head in a nod of respect. “As you wish, Detective Chief Inspector. Now, whatever this is, perhaps we can retire to our vehicle, and discuss it over some tea? The acolytes may still be able to channel some solar energy from the last of the sun’s rays.”
Logan made no attempt to hide his contempt for that sentence. He looked past André to the now mostly scattered line of ‘acolytes.’ They were a range of ages, from twenties to fifties, he guessed. A pretty even mix of men and women, although the lineup was notably lacking any of the ‘strapping big boys’ Kathryn Chegwin had been so keen on.
There was nothing strapping about any of this lot. They looked like frightened mice who might throw themselves headfirst off the rocks and into the sea at any moment, rather than get involved in any sort of confrontation with the detectives.
He looked past them, too, to where Sinead stood by the lighthouse itself, watching expectantly to see what Logan was going to do next.
It was at this point that something occurred to the DCI.
He had absolutely no idea why they were there. Not really.