He looked back at the debris stashed on the other side of the glass. He’d been here recently, and for a while, too. And now, he wasn’t. Just before they’d arrived, he’d left.
Hell of a coincidence.
Logan gazed out at the islands nestled on the horizon, shafts of sunlight cutting through the clouds like the fingers of God. On another day, at another time, he could stand up there for hours, just savouring that view.
Not today, though. Not now.
He had just turned away when he caught a glimpse of movement down beside the big red foghorn that stood on the shore. It was attached to the top of a white stone box about the size of a large shed, and for a moment, Logan had thought he’d seen something darting out of sight around the front, where it faced the water.
Keeping watch for any other sign of movement, he reached into his pocket and took out his phone to call Tyler, then cursed when he saw the ‘No Signal’ warning.
Feeling for the door, he backed up as far as he could go while keeping the foghorn in sight. Then, when he couldn’t watch it any longer, he all-but jumped down the ladder and launched himself down the spiralling staircase towards the ground far below.
Tyler almost dropped the shotgun when Logan came barrelling out through the door of the lighthouse, panting and red of face.
“Alright, boss?” he asked, but the question bounced off Logan’s broad back as the DCI set off around the lighthouse building in an unsteady, lumbering jog.
Tyler followed Logan as he slowed, then went creeping over to the foghorn building and pressed himself in against the side. The DCI beckoned for the younger officer to follow, but placed a finger to his lips, urging him to keep quiet.
Here, so close to the water, the sound of the wind had been replaced by the thunder of the waves on the rocks as the tide raged against the shore.
Logan inched his way to the front of the building, hidden by the shadow of the foghorn on the roof. He peeked around the corner, and saw a glass and metal frontage with its windows obscured by newspaper on the inside. A handwritten sign taped to the front announced that the building was currently off-limits to visitors.
This did not, Logan decided, apply to him.
“Mr Rigg, this is the police. We’re coming in,” he announced. Then, without waiting for a response, he pulled the door open and found an empty room. A museum of some sort, by the looks of it. But no Bernie the Beacon. No Jameelah Oboko.
“Boss!”
The urgency in Tyler’s voice spun Logan around. There, half-hidden by a jagged outcrop along the shore, a bearded man in tattered clothing was dragging a hooded female figure along by the arm.
“Shite!” Logan spat, then he and Tyler both set off running again.
Bernie saw them coming, and searched frantically for a way to escape. Finding no safe passage between the rocks, he pushed Jameelah towards the edge, keeping a hold of her as she stumbled closer to the drop into the crashing water below.
“Stay where you are!” Bernie roared, eyeballing the approaching detectives.
Momentum carried Logan on a few paces before he managed to stop. A second or two later, Tyler thudded against his back, muttered an apology, then stepped forward so they were standing side by side.
Spotting the gun, Bernie tucked himself in behind Jameelah. She was alive, and apparently unhurt. She wasn’t making any sound, though. None that they could hear above the waves, at least.
“Let her go, Alan,” Logan said. “It is Alan, isn’t it? We know all about you, Mr Rigg. We know why you’re doing this.”
“You have no idea why I’m doing this!” the other man seethed. He pointed to Tyler. “Unload the shotgun and throw it to me.”
Tyler looked down at the gun he was holding. “What?”
Alan Rigg gave the girl a shake, drawing a scream that sounded hoarse and exhausted. “Unload the fucking shotgun and throw it to me!”
“I don’t know how to unload it!” Tyler yelped. Then, in a panic, he hurled the gun into the water and held his hands up like he was surrendering. “I threw it in the sea!”
“Why’d you throw it in the sea? I didn’t tell you to throw it in the fucking sea!” Alan screeched.
“I don’t know, I just panicked!” Tyler said.
This wasn’t entirely true. Better for the weapon to be underwater than in enemy hands. At least, that was the excuse he planned to give Logan should it come up in conversation later.
“You’d better start doing as I say, or it’s this little bitch who’ll end up in the sea!” Alan warned, and he gave her another shake that almost sent her tumbling over the edge.
Bernie the Beacon, Alan Rigg, call him what you liked, was not much to write home about physically. He was probably average height, but with a scrawny build and weathered features. His hair and beard were greying and unkempt.
His clothes were little more than rags, and he wore plastic carrier bags inside his tatty boots to keep his feet dry. Logan knew that last part because he could see the tops of the bag taped to the man’s trousers, just below his knees.
The outer appearance matched what Logan knew of the man’s mind. It was not a stretch of the imagination to think that this was someone who believed he was being tormented by lizard people, or tested on by shady government agencies. This was a man who had side-stepped out of both society and reality some time ago, and currently had no intentions of stepping back into either.
This was a dangerous man with nothing left to lose.
“We know what happened to your daughter, Alan,” Logan told him.
“Shut up.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Shut up!”
“But none of that is Jameelah’s fault,” Logan continued. “None of what happened is down to her.”
“He killed my little girl! Why should he get to keep his?! How is that fair?”
“Fair? It’s not. God. No, nothing’s fair about any of this, Alan,” Logan replied. “Nothing’s fair about losing a child. Nothing’s fair about losing any loved one. But… your daughter?”
He shook his head, and risked a tiny step closer. They were maybe twenty feet apart. No chance either Logan or Tyler could rush in fast enough to catch her before she fell.
“I’ve got a daughter. She’s older now. Married. But the thought of something happening to her? The thought of losing her? No. No, that would not feel fair,” he agreed. “But just because something isn’t fair, doesn’t mean it’s some other bugger’s fault, Alan.”
“It was his fault. It was all his fault!” Alan spat. His eyes searched the sky, like they were being watched. “And them! His fault, and theirs!”
“We spoke to your wife, Alan. She told us what happened. To Lucy. How she got sick. How you did everything you could.”
“They made her sick!”