Logan’s head snapped in Hamza’s direction. “Knocking on? Knocking on what? Sixty? Seventy? Death’s door? What exactly was he knocking on, Detective Sergeant?”
Hamza swallowed. He looked to Tyler for help, but the DC now seemed to be absolutely transfixed by a beer mat and was refusing to meet his eye. “I’d say, about… sixty-five, sir.”
“Sixty-five?!” Logan cried, loudly enough to draw looks from the handful of other punters in the bar. “You chased a sixty-five-year-old man on foot, and you let him get away?”
“There were trees, boss,” Tyler ventured.
“Well, unless he was George of the fucking Jungle, son, I don’t really see how that makes a whole lot of difference.”
“Hamza reckoned he recognised him,” Ben offered, throwing the lads a lifeline. “Didn’t you, Hamza?”
“Um, aye,” Hamza said.
“Oh?” Logan sat up a little. “From where?”
“I can’t… I can’t quite place him at the moment, sir.”
“Oh, for fu—” Logan caught himself in time, and lowered his voice before he earned them any further dirty looks from the other customers. “So, you didn’t recognise him, then? If you recognised him, you’d know who he was. That’s how recognising someone works. What you did is you saw the guy, and you thought, ‘He looks familiar,’ which doesn’t really do a lot to help us, does it?”
“No, sir,” Hamza admitted. “I’m sure it’ll come to me, though.”
“Aye, well, I bloody hope so,” Logan grunted. “What about the briefcase you found? Anything salvageable in that?”
A look flew across the table between Hamza and Tyler. It did not go unnoticed.
“What?” Logan asked. “What now?”
“It was gone, boss,” Tyler said.
“What, burned up?”
“No. No, like, gone gone. Like it wasn’t there.”
“Someone must’ve taken it,” Hamza said. “When we were out chasing the, eh…”
“Pensioner,” Logan said, finishing the sentence for him.
“Not quite, boss. I think you need to be sixty-seven to get your pension nowadays, don’t you?” Tyler said, then he wilted under the heat of Logan’s glare, and nodded. “Aye, boss. While we were chasing the pensioner.”
Logan leaned back in his chair and tapped a fingernail on the table, eyeballing both detectives. “Well, that is marvellous. That is fucking marvellous. I don’t suppose you got a photograph of the contents of that briefcase, did you? When you were snapping away at everything else?”
Hamza straightened in his chair. “Eh, no. We didn’t, sir. But Palmer’s team was in before us. Maybe they did.”
“Aye!” Tyler said, grasping this sliver of hope with both hands. “They might have looked inside. Want me to phone them?”
He produced his mobile, clocked the message on-screen alerting him to the fact that he had no signal, then returned the phone to his pocket.
“I’ll have to do it from the station,” he said. “I’ll get on it as soon as we’re back.”
“Are we doing starters and mains, or just mains?” Ben asked.
He spoke the words loudly and forcefully, making it clear that the ‘burning caravan’ part of the conversation was over, and the much more pressing part where they ordered food had now begun.
Ben studied the menu through his glasses, which were balanced near the end of his nose. “Because I’m easy.”
“Have whatever you want,” Logan said, turning his attention to the menu and scanning quickly through the available options.
“Aye, but I’m not going to be the only one to order a starter if no other bugger is having one,” the DI replied. “Then you’d all have to sit and watch me eating it. Which would be fine, but you’d all be dipping into it and helping yourselves.”
“Well, don’t have a starter then.”
“Aye, but I was fancying the haggis and goat’s cheese.”
“I’d quite like a starter, boss,” Tyler said.
This news pleased Ben immensely, judging by the smile that lit up his face. “Right. Good man. There’s a lad who can make a decision. I’ll have a starter, then. Haggis and goat’s cheese.”
“We might as well all get starters, in that case,” Hamza suggested. He looked around the table. “Unless… does anyone not want a starter?”
“I could eat a starter,” Sinead said.
Ben nodded his approval. “Good. Right. So, that’s four starters. What about yourself, Jack? You having a starter?”
“If you give me a bloody minute to look, I’ll tell you!” Logan said. “I’m still reading the menu.”
“We’re not asking you to decide what you’re having, just if you’re having a—”
“Fine! I’ll have a bloody starter!” Logan told him. “We can all have starters. Starters for everyone. Happy?”
Ben nodded to confirm that he was, then turned his attention back to the menu.
There was silence while they all read through the list of dishes that were on offer.
It didn’t last for long.
“And what about puddings?” Ben wondered. He turned the menu over, then looked around at the others. “Is it just me, or is anyone else fancying a wee pudding?”
Once the food was ordered—starters and mains for everyone, and they’d decide on the dessert options once they saw how hungry they still were at the end—the conversation began in earnest.
It wasn’t all business. Not right away. To Tyler and Hamza’s relief, it didn’t loop straight back to the whole ‘burning caravan’ situation, either.
Instead, Logan and Sinead talked about their trip the previous day—about the road, and the vomiting, and the encounter with the inimitable Kathryn Chegwin, who they all agreed sounded like an absolute belter.
“So, what, like they’re all shagging each other?” asked Tyler, his eyes wide. “In the tents? They’re all at it with each other?”
“Apparently so, aye,” Logan confirmed.
“Like everyone? Like everyone all the time?”
“I don’t know the details, son. I’ve no’ been watching them, but so the old woman claimed, aye.”
“Do not even think about suggesting you go in undercover,” Sinead warned, which earned a laugh from the others.
“I mean, I wouldn’t want to, obviously, but sometimes you’ve got to take one for the team,” Tyler replied. “It’s a hell of a job, but I suppose someone’s got to do it.”
“I can just imagine your face if old Cheggers turned up at your tent with her shotgun,” Sinead said, smirking at the thought. “Not sure you’d be up for taking that one for the team.”
Tyler shuddered. He might not have met the woman, but their description of her had been vivid enough that he felt like he had.
“Aye. Maybe best getting someone else for that job, now that I think about it.”
The drinks arrived—all non-alcoholic—and Logan waited until the barman had left before continuing with the recap.
He told them about the ‘acolytes’ gathered at the lighthouse, about his conversation with André Douville, and the contradictions that had arisen when talking to Kathryn Chegwin later.