‘Moan, moan, bloody moan.’ She sipped her tea; had a bite of cake, crumbs going the same way as the steam. ‘Now: where’s my fingerprint stuff?’
‘Not till you tell me why I drove all the way across the bloody country, slept in a car, took two ferries, tromped half a mile in the hammering rain, then sat in a bus for half an hour to watch you stuff your face with tea and cake.’ He grabbed the brownie and ripped a bite out of it, chewing and scowling. ‘I’m cold, I’m wet, and I’m
‘Jasmine doesn’t moan this much, and she’s no’ even two yet.’ Another bite of lemon drizzle. ‘We’re sitting here in a howling gale, because we’re watching someone.’ She pointed out into the storm, where a small white fishing boat with a red wheelhouse roller-coastered up-and-down and side-to-side on the angry water.
‘Wouldn’t have been so bad if I could’ve got the car on the Islay ferry, but every idiot in the whole-’
‘Can you no’ give it a rest for five minutes?
Logan wrapped his hands around the mug, leaching the heat. ‘At what?’
Sigh. Her voice took on the kind of high-pitched sing-song tone usually reserved for small children. ‘At the wee fishing boat, bobbity-bobbing on the ocean blue.’
‘I was right: you
She hit him on the arm. ‘Don’t be a dick.’ Then passed him a pair of heavy black binoculars. ‘Less whinging, more looking.’
The eyepieces were cold against his skin, the focussing knob rough beneath his fingertips as he unblurred the little boat. The wheelhouse was just big enough for a grown man to stand up in, but whoever was in charge of the boat was hunched over, wearing one of those waistcoat-style life jackets, holding a Spar carrier-bag to their mouth, shoulders heaving in time with the sea.
Finally the man straightened and wiped a hand across his purple slash of a mouth. His skin was pale, tinged with yellow and green. Sticky-out ears, woolly hat, pug nose, puffed out cheeks… And he was vomiting again.
‘Not exactly the best sailor in the world.’
‘If you spent more time reading our beloved leader’s inter-force memos and less time moaning about everything, you’d know that was Jimmy Weasdale.’
Logan squinted through the binoculars again. ‘Jimmy the Weasel? Thought he retired to the Costa Del Sol. Did a runner when Strathclyde CID fingered him for cutting Barney McGlashin into bite-sized chunks…’ More squinting. ‘You sure it’s him?’
‘What do you think the fingerprint stuff’s for? Saw him in the hotel bar last night drinking with this hairy wee bastard wearing a number seven Dundee United football shirt…’
Logan lowered the binoculars, leaving Jimmy to puke in peace. ‘Not Badger McLean?’
‘The very man. Jimmy the Weasel and Badger the Tadger: together again. No’ exactly Mother Nature’s finest hour.’
‘So where’s Badger?’
‘Squeezed himself into a rubber drysuit half an hour ago. Thought he was going to get his kinky on, but nope — scuba gear. He’s down there now.’
Logan went back to the binoculars. ‘What are they after?’
A gust of wind rattled the stainless steel teapot on the little table.
Steel made slurping noises. ‘Tell you what, I’ll activate my X-ray vision and take a peek below the waves, shall I? Then we can all sod off down the pub for a game of Twister and some chocolate cake.’ She hit him again. ‘How the hell am I supposed to know? That’s why we’re here —
Fifteen minutes later an ungainly deformed seal surfaced next to the fishing boat. It thrashed its arms for a moment, before a hump of charcoal-coloured water slammed it into the hull. More thrashing.
Logan shifted his grip on the binoculars. ‘Silly sod’s going to get himself killed.’
Jimmy the Weasel lurched out of the wheelhouse and threw a line to the diver. More thrashing. Then some hauling — and what looked through the binoculars like swearing — and finally the seal was dragged over the boat’s railing, bum in the air, little legs kicking out. Then gone: hidden from sight by the bulwark.
Steel poked Logan in the shoulder. ‘What’s happening? He drowned?’
‘Almost.’
A couple of minutes passed, then a cloud of exhaust fumes burst from the back end of the boat before being torn away by the wind. The tiny vessel swung around and puttered away into the heaving sea, leaving behind a bright-orange buoy bobbing in the angry water.
Logan passed the binoculars back to Steel. ‘Before you ask: no. I am
She puffed out her cheeks, then tipped the dregs of tea from her mug. ‘Fancy a wee walk down by the beach?’
‘No.’
‘That’s the spirit.’ Steel stood, stuck her hands in her pockets and lurch-staggered through the storm along the edge of the grass verge.
A quick shove and she probably wouldn’t wash ashore till she reached Ireland… Logan sighed, swallowed the last of his tea, and hurried after her, shivering as the gale snatched away the little body heat he had left. Hypothermia was bloody overrated.
By the time he’d caught up she was standing beside a large rock, frowning down at a knot of liquorish- coloured seaweed — the kind that looked as if it had boils. Steel nudged it with her toe. ‘What’s that look like to you?’
‘Seaweed. Can we just…’ Something was tangled up in the glistening coils, something rectangular — about the size of a house brick, only wrapped in clear plastic and brown parcel tape. He squatted down, damp trousers clinging to his legs, and levered the package out of the seaweed. ‘About a kilo.’ There was another one, three or four feet further down the thin strip of sand, and another just past it. ‘Bloody hell.’
She patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t know about you, but I’m gasping for a pint.’
DI Steel froze in the doorway. Her eyes bugged, mouth pinched into a chicken’s-bum-pout as she stomped towards Logan. ‘I told you to wait outside!’
The Jura Hotel’s bar was a sort of elongated bay-window-shape. A handful of people sat around small circular tables, eating crisps and drinking beer, while an old woman in a grey twinset hustled her grandson at pool.
Logan paid for his pint of Eighty Shilling. ‘It’s raining.’
‘Go!’ She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the exit. ‘Out: before Susan sees you.’
‘I’ve ordered food!’
‘I don’t care if you’ve ordered three strippers and a tub of cottage cheese — if Susan sees you she’ll chew me a new hole. Aye, and no’ in a good way. Supposed to be here on a jolly, no’ police business.’ She gave him a shove. ‘Out, out. Go sit in the car.’
‘I’m bloody freezing, and there’s-’
‘Laz: it’s her work’s team-building, OK? She thinks I’m off reading books and scratching my bumhole in quiet contemplation of nature’s island splendour. You want to upset her? That what you want? You want to ruin the only time we’ve had off together since Jasmine was born?’
‘You dragged me all the way across the bloody country! I’m cold, I’m wet, I’m hungry, and I’m having my bloody lunch inside in the
DI Steel knocked on the steamed-up car window.
Logan scowled at her from the passenger seat, then took a mouthful of Eighty from his half-empty glass. The MX-5’s cloth roof buckled and groaned, rain bouncing off the bonnet, making a noise like a thousand angry ants playing a thousand angry drums, fighting against the background drone of the engine and the roar of the blow heaters.
Craighouse was a tiny village, strung out along a single-track road. A mini stone-walled harbour, a community hall, a restaurant, a wee Spar shop, and an old-fashioned red telephone box. A collection of whitewashed buildings loomed in the rain — opposite the hotel — ‘ISLE OF JURA’ painted in big black letters on the distillery wall. Steel’s MX-5 sat in a roped off car park marked ‘STAFF ONLY’.
She clambered in behind the wheel and handed Logan a plate piled high with langoustines, some salad, and little curled red things that looked worryingly like oversized boiled woodlice.
