Rose, Adam and Mortimer are in the car with an Inspector Lennox from Inverness CID – a man near retirement age with seen-it-all eyes and a soft Highlands accent – heading through the green countryside to Dornoch. Another car holds the rest, including two officers from Lennox’s team.
Rose had one cup of weak coffee when they arrived at the station and were greeted by the officers coordinating the search locally. The little bit of sleep she managed to get in the car is enough, combined with the adrenalin, to get her through if she ignores the sharp pain in her ribs and the dull throb from her bruised face. It keeps her awake, anyway.
A cell tower registered Heather Doyle’s phone for only a few minutes last night. No call was made but data was used.
They’re about five miles from Dornoch. Staring out of the window, Rose is soothed by the incredible variations of undulating green she can see. Every now and then a little light peeks out from the heavy clouds and shadows dance playfully over the landscape, washing it in a new palette all over again.
The radio comes to life. Lennox has a conversation, which he then relays to the back of the car.
‘Seems local officers have got a sighting of the Volvo and it’s on the B9168, Poles Road, out of Dornoch. That means she’s heading towards the A9 and that means …’ He tails off.
‘… she’s heading our way?’ says Adam, leaning forward in his seat, eyes lighting up with new focus.
‘She is, right enough,’ says Lennox. ‘We’ll have to wait and see whether she goes left back to Inverness or turns right to who knows where. Thurso maybe.’ He has another brief conversation via the radio.
He turns back to them again. ‘There’s a house right near that junction. We can pull in there and then follow her as soon as she shows herself.’
‘Are we going to apprehend her here?’ says Rose, picturing a tactical pursuit and containment move. That would be very frightening for Gregory. Mortimer’s face is scrunched in thought and he doesn’t reply for a moment or two.
‘No,’ he says then. ‘We’re going to keep a low profile and follow her until we’re in a situation where she stops. Gregory’s safety remains our top priority here.’
They drive in silence for a couple more minutes amid the light flow of early morning traffic on the A9. It’s one of the major roads in the Highlands, and according to the little bit of trivia from Lennox as they left Inverness, the longest road in Scotland.
‘Here,’ says Lennox and the car abruptly slows and turns left up a short driveway to what might be a farmhouse, or a home with a couple of outbuildings. They are a little across from the junction, which is the main road down to Dornoch.
They wait. No one speaks.
Then the radio crackles and a voice says, ‘Suspect almost at the junction. Get ready.’
There’s a sudden flow of two or three cars that everyone is silently cursing as they see the red Volvo appear at the junction and turn right.
‘Here we go,’ says Mortimer as they pull out onto the main road. Officers from Golspie station a little further along are going to join them and make a formation around the car at a distance, but for now, it is only them and the officer who came from Dornoch who are in pursuit of the car, which is being driven at a careful speed, well within the limit.
They are two cars behind now. Rose cranes her neck to see if she can see Gregory. Lennox produces some binoculars and looks from the front seat.
‘I cannae see the kid,’ he says. ‘But he might be lying down on the back seat. Officers on the ground are still going door to door in Dornoch but we have to assume the boy is in that vehicle.’
‘Agreed,’ says Mortimer, drumming his fingers against his knee, seemingly unaware of the nervous gesture.
A light rain begins to fall and the windscreen wipers’ thwick-thwick sound would be almost hypnotic, were it not for the crackling tension in the car. They pass fields dotted with splashes of bright purple heather and some kind of yellow plant, stark against the green. Here and there, cows stand sentry, heads down as if in formation. A field filled with piles of bales tightly wrapped in black plastic whips past, then a long white building that looks like a bed and breakfast.
Mountains rear up in the near distance and then there is a silver expanse of sea to the left, another band of rain hanging low in the sky like a swathe of grey cloth.
‘We’re nearly at Golspie,’ says Lennox.
‘What’s at Golspie?’ says Mortimer.
Lennox rubs his face. ‘It’s just a pretty wee seaside town,’ he says. ‘Lovely castle. Lots of golf.’ He pauses. ‘A hospital.’
At this he turns and makes a see-saw motion with his head. ‘But maybe she’s going to pass straight through and keep going. There’s pretty much only mountains to the left and straight ahead you’ll go through a number of small places and maybe end up in Thurso. We’ll have to follow her and see what she does.’
A tractor pulls out ahead, with a blasé regard for the speed of passing traffic, causing a groan from everyone in the car.
‘Bugger,’ says Mortimer. Heather’s car is now three ahead of them. The other police car is behind. There have been no stretches of dual carriageway so far; the road entirely two lanes all the way.
Majestic pines surround the car on both sides of the road now and in the thrumming rain, it’s like being in a tunnel – almost claustrophobically so – until the road opens up a little again.
When they finally get to a big junction, the tractor chugs off to the left and there’s an almost simultaneous letting out of breath in the car. They’re now only two behind Heather. Rose can make out the back of her head and her round shoulders.
So close …
As they get to the outskirts of the town, they begin to see a smattering of houses with their distinctive drystone walls, and pass a sign for the council offices. A band of glinting sea appears again on the right as they enter the town. And then they see Heather’s indicator blink on and off.
‘She’s heading to Lawson Memorial Hospital right enough,’ says Lennox as they approach the entrance. Wrought-iron fences top a low wall with ornate pillars.
Lennox is on the radio now, calling for the back-up vehicles.
Please let Gregory be all right, Rose thinks, her palms sweating as they pull up a short distance from where the Volvo backs clumsily into a parking space, so it’s facing the larger of the three buildings of the hospital. There’s one new building and two much older ones, but it’s clearly a small hospital befitting small health crises.
Is that what this is? Or something more serious?
Heather gets out of the car, painstakingly slowly, like a woman much older.
‘Everyone wait,’ says Mortimer, hand raised. ‘Let’s see where the boy is before we act.’
Heather goes to the back of the car and opens the door. She leans in and then, with a frustrated look around, reaches inside.
Then the small, crumpled form of the boy gets out of the car, inch by inch. He seems barely able to stand. He has a coat around his shoulders that’s far too big and looks about himself for a moment, bewildered, before Heather ushers him through the doors of the nearest building. She’s evidently going to leave him there because here she is now, alone, hurrying back towards her car.
‘Now!’ barks Mortimer and they jump out of the vehicle at once.
‘Heather Doyle, stop!’ he shouts. Sirens fill the air and two more police cars career at speed up the hospital driveway, headlights swirling in the soft, grey light as they park near the buildings, blocking the way forward.
Heather’s face is a picture of shock as they all surge towards her.
‘Get back!’ she yells and draws something out of her pocket. A kitchen knife. She waves it around.
‘Heather!’ calls Rose, pushing ahead, despite the jolting pain that travels up her feet and encases her sides. ‘We can help you. Put the knife down and we can talk.’
‘What’s wrong with Gregory?’ says Mortimer. ‘Why is he needing hospital? Is he hurt?’
‘Like you care!’ shouts Heather. ‘You didn’t give a shit about him before!’
Rose holds up her hands and steps forward, a little closer. ‘Heather, please listen,’ she calls as the woman takes a step back, knife held up. ‘We do care. We want to find out what happened in that house. We’re close to getting to the bottom of it. Will you help us?’
There’s a moment when Heather seems to hesitate and then her expression shifts again. ‘None of you lot will ever understand.’ She wrenches open the car door and gets inside with surprising speed. Rose shouts her name and runs closer. The car engine roars into life and it surges forwards, towards the road that runs around the back of the hospital.
But she must see that now one of the police cars has skidded around the other way, blocking her route.
There’s a painful sound of gears crunching in the elderly car, the engine screaming in protest.
Heather reverses and comes back the other way. Two uniformed officers have laid a ‘stinger’ – a jagged line of metal designed to rip car tyres and immobilize vehicles – and there’s another police car now at the end of the driveway.
No way out.
She’s trapped.
Heather’s face scrunches into tearful fury through the windscreen and Rose thinks, This is it, nowhere to go now.
But the engine bursts into life like a growling beast. Heather drives straight across the tidy lawn, bumping and scraping on the small hills of it, right towards the fence that separates the hospital from the busy A9.
The car smashes straight through it and onto the road.
The blaring of horns is brief but the sickening sound of metal crunching into metal seems to go on and on.