Partners in Crime

Allan peered between two of the boards that made up the fence. There was a pair of legs sticking out of a drift of glistening snow: black boots; red trousers trimmed with white fur. An electrical cable was wrapped around one leg, studded with large multicoloured light bulbs. ‘Ouch. You think he’s…?’

Steel hit him. ‘Course he’s dead. Been lying upside down in a snowdrift for a week. It’s no’ like he’s hibernating in there, is it?’

The end of a ladder was just visible on the other side of the mound. ‘On the bright side, at least he’s not missing any more.’

Steel sat in the passenger seat, clutching that fragile cardboard box to her chest. Allan turned up the heater, then peered through the windscreen up at the house. Mrs Griffith was standing in the bay window of the lounge, staring as the duty undertakers wrestled her husband’s remains into the back of their unmarked grey van. It wasn’t easy — he’d frozen in a pretty awkward shape, like a Santa-Claus-themed swastika… Wee Free McFee had his arms wrapped nearly all the way around her shoulders, holding her tight as she sobbed.

Allan sniffed. ‘Still think they did it?’

‘The lovebirds? Nah. Silly sod was clambering about on the roof practicing his Father Christmas in the snow. Deserved all he got.’

The funeral directors finally forced the last bit of Charles Griffith into the van, then slammed the doors shut and slithered off into the defrosting afternoon.

Allan put the pool car in gear. ‘Back to the ranch?’

‘Nope. You can drop me off at home, I’m copping a sicky.’ Steel opened the top of the cardboard box and hauled out a brass urn that looked like a cross between a cocktail shaker and a thermos flask. A plaque was stuck to the dark wooden base: ‘DOUGLAS KENNEDY MACDUFF — IN LOVING MEMORY’. She opened the top and peered inside. ‘Hello again, Doug, you rancid wee scumbag. Your mate the solicitor says I’ve got to give you a dignified farewell. Something befitting your standing in the community.’

‘Fifty-four grand… Knew you’d see sense.’ Allan eased the car out onto the road. ‘So where you going to scatter him: Pittodrie? North Sea? Maybe out Tyrebagger or something?’

‘Litter tray.’ Steel grinned and screwed the top back on. ‘If we just use a little bit at a time, he should last for months.’

Stramash

stramash / noun

an uproar; a disturbance; a row; a brawl: Strong drink having been taken, the police were called to break up the stramash outside the pub.

‘Sodding hell.’ Logan peered out through the rain-slicked glass of what passed for a passenger lounge — a bus-stop-style shelter squeezed in at the side of the car deck. Just big enough for Logan, his wheelie case, and a stack of vegetables in wooden boxes — their paper labels bloated and peeling off in the downpour.

The dock looked as if it’d been hacked out of a quarry: a bowl of slate-grey rock with a couple of dented pick-up trucks huddling together for warmth. No sign of an MX-5.

Typical.

The tiny ferry shook and rattled, lurched … then clanged against the concrete slipway. Another gust of frigid water rattled the glass.

She was late.

‘You bloody promised.’

The ramp groaned down and a dripping wee man in a high-viz jacket waved at the rust-flecked blue Transit van taking up most of the car deck. It spluttered into life and inched forwards.

Logan stuck out his thumb and smiled at the driver… He looked familiar. That was good right? Made him more likely to give Logan a lift? But the rotten sod didn’t even glance at him, just drove off the Port Askaig ferry and away onto Jura.

Logan yanked out the wheelie case’s handle. ‘Thanks, mate. Thanks a bloody heap!’ And stomped off into the rain.

The minibus bounced through yet another minefield of potholes, then purred to a halt on the grass at the side of the track.

‘Here we go: Inverlussa.’ The driver coughed, peering out through the windscreen as the wipers squealed across the glass. ‘Are you sure?’

No. Not even vaguely.

The sea was a heaving mass of granite-coloured water, white spray sparking like fireworks in the wind. A thin curve of yellow-brown sand separated the crashing waves from the land. A wee house squatted on the other side of a bridge over a river, the hills rising behind it, dark and glistening.

The minibus rocked and whistled with each gale-force blast.

A small table sat on the sliver of grass overhanging the beach, with a couple of chairs facing out to sea. Someone was sitting in one of them, bundled up in a heavy red padded jacket, a blue bobble hat pulled down low over their ears, a yellow Rupert-the-Bear scarf whipping out behind them.

Logan hauled his case out into the storm, dragging the thing through the wet grass towards the table. The rain had faded to a stinging drizzle and the air had that salt-and-iron smell of the sea, the dirty-iodine whiff of churned seaweed.

Christ it was cold, leaching through his damp trousers, making his legs ache.

He stopped at the table. Loomed over the sod responsible.

DI Steel sniffed. ‘About time you got here.’ She was only visible from the nose up — the bottom half of her face wrapped in the scarf, wrinkles making eagle’s feet around her narrow eyes, grey hair poking out from beneath her woolly hat. ‘Park your arse.’

Logan stared down at her, put on a throaty cigarette-growl. ‘“Don’t worry Laz, I’ll pick you up at the ferry terminal.”’

She shrugged. ‘Someone got out the bed on the wrong side.’

‘Wrong side of the…? I had to sleep in the bloody car last night!’

A figure in bright-orange waterproofs lurched along the path towards them, carrying a tray of tea things, struggling to keep it level in the wind.

Logan dumped his case under the table. ‘Took me six bastarding hours to drive to Tarbert yesterday: all the hotels and B amp;Bs were full. You got any idea what it’s like sleeping in a car in the middle of a bloody hurricane? Bloody freezing, that’s what it’s like.’

‘Oh don’t be so wet.’

The figure in the waterproofs leaned into a gust of wind, took two steps to the side, then made a final dash for the table. She smiled at them from beneath the dripping brim of her sou-wester. She couldn’t have been much over eighteen. ‘Right, that’s a pot of tea for two, one lemon drizzle cake…’ She placed them on the tabletop. ‘And a toffee brownie. If you want a refill,’ she pointed at a little walkie-talkie in a clear Tupperware box, ‘just give me a buzz.’

‘Ta.’ Steel poured herself a china mug of tea from the stainless steel teapot as the girl headed back towards the house and sanity.

Logan looked out at the bay — the howling wind, the breakers, the heaving dark sea, the heavy clouds. ‘You’ve gone mental, that’s it, isn’t it? You’ve finally gone stark-’

‘Just park your arse and have some cake.’

He lowered himself into the folding wooden chair. Clenched his knees together. Hunched his shoulders up around his ears, stuck his dead-fish hands into his armpits. ‘Bloody freezing…’

Steel clunked a mug down in front of him, steam whipping off the beige surface. ‘You bring that fancy fingerprint stuff?’

‘Catch my death. And then what? Sitting out here in the wind and the rain like a pair of idiots.’