Constable Tanaka shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Well, I mean, we didn’t know you were looking for it until now.”
“I was going to say something about it earlier,” PC Miller interjected.
“What? No you weren’t!” his partner protested.
“Right, right, shut up!” Logan barked. “Hamza, map.”
Hamza’s fingers danced across his computer keyboard, then he turned the screen to reveal a Google Map of the area.
“Where is it?”
“Just south of Sanna Bay,” Constable Tanaka said. “A bit before you get to... I don’t know how to pronounce it. Portuairk. Portu-airik. Something like that.”
“On the map. Point!” Logan told her.
“Oh, sorry. It’s…” Her finger circled above the screen as she tried to pinpoint the location. “There. Wait, no, that’s miles away. There.”
Logan bent and studied the map. The area she had pointed to was more or less due north of Westerly Wellness. Two or three miles if you didn’t mind getting your feet wet, but far longer by road. It wasn’t all that far away from the MSP’s house, either, although in almost the opposite direction.
“What’s around there?” Logan asked.
“Not a lot, really. Nice bit of shoreline,” Constable Miller said. “Couple of houses. There’s a dog that knocks about. Collie, I think. Friendly enough.”
Logan shot the officer a disparaging look, and addressed his partner, instead. “We need to either get out there, or phone those houses. See if they’ve seen Bernie, or a girl. For all we know, he’s holed up in one of them.”
“We did that already,” Constable Tanaka said. “Everyone came out to see what the fuss was about, and we asked if anyone had seen anything unusual. Anyone leaving the van, or whatever. Nobody saw anything.”
“What about the van itself?” asked Ben. “I’m assuming you checked inside?”
“Yeah. Doors weren’t locked,” the constable confirmed. “No sign of anyone inside. Though, there was a blanket in the back. We thought maybe for a dog, but…”
Logan turned away and jabbed a finger at no one detective in particular. “Get Palmer out there. Helicopter the bastard down if necessary. I want him to comb that van from bumper to bumper. I want to know if the girl was in there, when, and what condition she was in.”
“On it, sir,” Hamza announced, reaching across the desk for the phone.
“So, eh, do you want us to cancel the recovery vehicle?” asked PC Miller.
Logan almost managed to stop himself rolling his eyes. “Yes, son. Cancel the bloody recovery vehicle.”
“It’s just… if he’s already on the way, we’ll still have to pay the call-out charge, so I wasn’t sure…” The ferocity of Logan’s glare killed the words dead in his throat. “I’ll cancel the recovery vehicle,” he announced, then he gestured to DS Khaled. “But I’ll have to wait until he’s off the phone.”
“You could go use the phone in the shop,” Constable Tanaka suggested. “We sometimes do that if this one isn’t working,” she told the detectives. “Which happens a fair bit.”
“Just get it done!” Logan ordered, and Constable Miller hurriedly scarpered out of the room.
Sinead, meanwhile, was bending over the desk, studying the map on the screen. Hamza had dropped a marker pin on the spot that Suzi had pointed to, and a quick zoom in on the area revealed nothing much of interest.
“There’s nothing else there?” she asked. “Just those few houses?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” the PC confirmed. “Most of the people who go out that way are walkers. It’s the start of a pretty popular trek along the shore. Bit strenuous for my liking, but the tourists like it.”
“Right, well, we need to focus the search around where the van was found,” Logan instructed. “I want extra manpower brought in for this. Area’s far too big for us to cover with just us lot, so—”
“This walk,” said Tyler, raising his voice to be heard above the DCI’s barked orders. “Where does it go?”
For a moment, Logan looked like he might unhinge his jaws and bite Tyler’s head clean off his shoulders, but then he snapped his head in Suzi’s direction.
“Eh, just by the shore, like I say.”
“Up or down?” Tyler asked.
“He means north or south?” Sinead translated.
“South,” Constable Tanaka said. She drew a squiggly line with her finger on the screen. “Sort of along here and down there, I think. As I say, I’ve never done it. But I think it ends at—”
“The lighthouse,” said Sinead, her gaze racing ahead of the wandering finger. “It ends at the lighthouse?”
“Yeah. Round about there.”
Sinead and Logan locked eyes, and both spoke at the same time.
“It’s locked up.”
“There’s nobody there.”
“It’s bloody perfect.”
“Mind filling us in here, Jack?” Ben asked.
Logan grabbed for his coat. “The lighthouse is covered in scaffolding. It’s meant to be having work done, but there’s some sort of industrial dispute going on. So it’s locked, and it’s empty, and it’s walking distance from where he dumped his van.”
“God. Aye. Aye, it’s perfect. He’s got to be there, surely?”
“I want a helicopter,” Logan barked.
Hamza hung up the phone, announced that Palmer’s team had been notified about the car, then immediately started dialling again just as a breathless PC Miller sidled back into the room.
“Chopper could take a while to get here, Jack,” Ben pointed out. “Even if it’s available, we’re talking over an hour, maybe two.”
Logan wheeled around to face the two Uniforms, who both drew back like vampires caught out by the sun.
“You two, how long to drive out there with the foot down and the sirens on?”
Constable Miller blew out his cheeks. He was lightly sweating from his sprint to and from the shop. “An hour and twenty, maybe.”
“Nah, less than that,” PC Tanaka said. “An hour and ten.”
“No way you’re doing it in an hour and ten. I’ve never done it in less than an hour and twenty.”
“That’s because you drive like you’re a hundred years old.”
Logan ejected a guttural, animalistic sound that silenced them both. “You two take lead. Full sirens until we’re close enough that the bastard might hear us, then cut them,” he instructed. “Tyler, Sinead, you’re with me. Hamza, keep working on that helicopter. I want it here on standby if we need to get the girl to hospital.”
Hamza gave a thumbs up and pointed to the phone earpiece to indicate that he was listening to someone on the other end.
Logan clapped his hands and ushered the Uniforms out of the room, then practically shoved Sinead and Tyler out after them.
“Be careful, Jack,” Ben urged. “Keep us posted, best you can.”
Logan acknowledged the DI’s concern with a nod, then pulled on his coat and went striding across the car park after the others.
Tyler was up front in the passenger seat of the BMW, with Sinead sitting directly behind him. When Logan climbed in and shut the door, Taggart let out an excited woof from the back.
“How the…?” Logan asked, turning to look over his shoulder. “How did the bloody dog get in?”