this whole forest turned upside down. And I mean the whole forest! No skipping bits.
Rabbit holes, streams, bushes, nettles, badgers' bum holes: everything gets searched.' They yes-ma'amed their way off into the fog, leaving DI Steel and a blushing deputy procurator fiscal alone in the middle of the clearing, surrounded by sculptures that reeked of death.
'You want to start over again?' asked the inspector.
Logan walked on his own through the fog, following the squelchy path, checking up on the search teams. The whole thing was pretty much a waste of time, crawling about in the damp grass looking for clues that weren't there. Other than the victim's handbag – currently undergoing every test the IB could think of – the immediate scene had turned up empty. It didn't help that the only place they might have found something concrete, the car park, was now covered in SOC vehicles, minibuses and patrol cars. Any trace evidence ground into the mud and gravel by countless police tyres and size nine boots. The search teams might get lucky and find something else the killer had missed, but Logan doubted it: pick up the girl, park the car, force her out into the rain, beat her to death and strip her corpse. The end. Whoever it was, he didn't go traipsing about the forest in the middle of the night, scat ering clues about like some demented evidence fairy.
Logan picked his way across a slippery bridge and headed uphill. The last search team was on the south side of the forest, working their way back towards where the body was discovered. Pointless it might be, but DI Steel wanted this one done by the book. Maybe there was hope for her yet?
The team was working its way down a steep slope when he found them, prodding the undergrowth with sticks and poles, going through the motions. A familiar face scowled at him as he struggled up the track – that grumpy cow from last Monday night, the one who'd had a go at him for PC Maitland getting shot. And working next to her was someone he hadn't expected to see: WPC Jackie Watson prodding about in a holly bush, using her plaster cast to hold back a spiny-leaf-covered branch as she jabbed away with a pole.
She didn't look too happy either. He pulled her to one side.
'What the hell are you doing out here?'
'Relax,' she smiled. 'I'm not really here. Right now I'm collating the division crime statistics for the year to date: says so on the roster, so it must be true.'
'Jackie, you can't do this! You're supposed to be on light duties, not operational! If the inspector finds out you'll be for it!'
'Steel? She couldn't give a toss. Look, I just wanted to be out of the office for a bit, OK? Do some real bloody police work for a change, instead of shuffling bits of paper about.'
Jackie threw a glance over her shoulder; a goldfish-faced sergeant was coming their way, all fake suntan, puffing cheeks and ping-pong eyes. 'Now bugger off, before you get us into trouble.'
'Is there a problem?' asked the sergeant. Logan took one last look in WPC Watson's direction and said that no, there wasn't, how was the search going? Sergeant Fish-Face wrinkled his nose. 'We're miles away from the crime scene and there's no way in hell anyone would cart a body all the way through this, when he could just drag it a fraction of the distance up from the car park. It's a complete waste of everyone's time.'
Logan made soothing noises, it was important to be thorough, everyone appreciated his team's efforts, blah, blah, blah… The grumpy WPC had been hanging back as Logan and Sergeant Goldfish talked, ignoring the line as it moved slowly away into the mist. 'What the hell are we doing out here?' she demanded, her face like a skelped arse.
Logan only had time to open his mouth before the sergeant roared, 'You're here because you're supposed to be a bloody police officer. Now get your backside back to work before I kick it from here to Peterhead!'
She scowled at Logan like it was his fault she'd been yelled at, then turned on her heel and started stabbing the nearest bush with all the venom she could muster, muttering obscenities under her breath as she caught up with the rest of the search team, rejoining the line next to WPC Jackie Watson. Thirty seconds later Jackie cast a glower back in his direction and Logan sighed. The bloody woman was probably telling Jackie what an utter shit he was. And from the expression on Jackie's face it looked as if she agreed. So much for getting back on an even keel. Their curry-fuelled truce had lasted a whole day.
Enough was enough: Logan was going to- A sudden scream pierced the fog, before being quickly swallowed by the trees and mist. There was silence for a heartbeat and then everyone exploded into action. Logan scrambled down the hill, towards the search team, Sergeant Goldfish hot on his heels, making for the source of the scream. They slithered to a halt at the top of a nearly vertical slope punctuated with deep beds of stinging nettle and spiky gorse.
Halfway down, just visible through the swirling fog, was a WPC, lying on her back in the middle of a massive clump of nettles. Her shirt and jumper had been pulled up to her shoulders as she'd careered down the slope, exposing white skin already starting to go red with nettle stings. She was swearing a blue streak. 'Are you OK?' called Sergeant Fish-Face.
More swearing.
With a start Logan realized Jackie was standing at the lip of the slope, looking down at the thrashing figure as the woman stung herself more and more thoroughly with every flailing attempt to rise. 'WPC Buchan,' said Jackie, pointing.
'Guess she must've slipped…' She smiled.
Five minutes later they'd extricated Buchan from the nettle-infested slope. Puffing, wheezing, scratching and swearing, she clambered back up, looking daggers at WPC Watson the whole way. She was lurid-red from the under wire of her bra right down to the waistband of her trousers.
Everything in between was swollen and lumpy and itchy and stinging and she couldn't even pull down her blouse and jumper because it just made it hurt more and… and … Sergeant Fish-Face sent her home. As she limped down the trail, arms out to the sides so as not to touch the painful red rash that circled her torso, the sergeant confided in Logan that it couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Jackie just winked at him.
'You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?' he asked when they were alone again.
She grinned. 'Nobody calls my man names and gets away with it.'
Logan left them to it, smiling all the way down the hill, back to the main path. It was ten to one, according to his watch. If he and DI Steel hurried they could get back to FHQ and grab a bite to eat before Isobel launched into the post mortem at half past. He took a shortcut, labouring up the hill at the side of the track, making for the clearing and its menacing sculptures. As he crested the rise the fog took on a golden glow. A single shaft of sunlight had pierced the white gloom, spotlighting the edge of the clearing where two men in black suits were manhandling a blue plastic body bag into a brushed metal coffin, ready for its trip to the morgue. DI Steel was talking to the Procurator Fiscal, pointing at things and nodding seriously as the Fiscal replied. Logan waited on the periphery while they went over the details of the crime scene. Someone coughed beside him and Logan turned to see the new deputy PF standing in full SOC costume, her curly hair escaping from the elastic around the hood, framing her face. Her green eyes glittered above the mask. 'How's the search coming?' she asked. Logan told her, leaving out the bad language and WPC Buchan's fall. Rachael nodded as he finished, as if she'd been expecting this all along. 'I see…' A long pause to convey deep thought. 'What did you make of the handbag?'
'Why did he leave it behind you mean?' He paused, thinking about it. 'Two options: one, he's leaving us a message – something in the bag, or removed from the bag, is supposed to tell us something; option two – it was a mistake. Maybe she threw it at him and he couldn't find it again in the dark, after he'd finished with her. Or she dropped it running away…' He shrugged. 'Difficult to tell with only two bodies what is and isn't part of the pattern.'
'Only two bodies? Jesus.' Rachael looked out at the crime scene, the rotting bison, the little metal walkway, the cordons of Police tape. 'How many more of these do we need?' He was about to answer that when DI Steel beckoned him over and he had to go through the whole search update all over again: no one had found anything.
It was always a long shot,' Steel told the Fiscal, 'after all this time out in the open and the rain, but I'm not taking any chances.' She squared her shoulders and raised her pointy chin, stretching out the sagging skin beneath it.
'There's a killer out there and we're going to catch the bastard.'
Logan tried not to gag. That was the cheesiest thing he'd heard all week. But the PF seemed impressed. She too struck a determined pose, asked them to keep her posted – if there was anything she could do, etc. – and left them to it, taking her deputy with her. Rachael looking back over her shoulder, her emerald-green eyes meeting
