‘So what are we expecting to find down there?’ Carlisle was staring out at the passing landscape as they headed down the A9 towards Aviemore.
Horton had her eyes fixed on the road. ‘A burnt-out dark-grey BMW, apparently. According to Alec, it was reported by some tourists earlier this morning. Uniforms are already out there. They’ve found a burnt-out car in a patch of woodland just by the loch.’
‘The one we’re looking for?’
‘Seems likely, doesn’t it? They haven’t yet reported the reg or any other details. Alec only had the barest details from the control room.’
They passed through Coylumbridge, the large hotel to their left, heading out towards the Cairngorms. In the past, this had been a busy ski resort but it had been badly affected by a combination of global warming and changing holiday priorities. There was new investment and hopes that the resort could be revived, but for the moment, with the main summer season just ended, the area was relatively quiet, and only a couple of cars passing them on the way to the loch.
They’d been told the car was off the road in woodland, just to the east of the main car park for the loch. It had been found earlier that morning by a couple wild camping in the woodland nearby. The local operational police hadn’t initially treated the car as a priority, assuming it had been stolen and dumped by joyriders. Now, there was no mistaking the significance of the scene ahead of them, the trees pulsing with the reflected light from several marked cars, police tape stretched across the roadside. Horton flashed her ID through the window and was waved on into the woods.
It was still only late morning, the sun shining down through the dense forest of fir trees. The air was heavy with the scent of pine and through the trees Horton could see the light glittering on the surface of the loch. The examiners were already in place, and a tent was being erected over the car to protect any evidence, but she was able to see the registration. It was the vehicle they’d been looking for. As far as she could tell from the location, the car had left the road, descended a sharp incline and then struck a tree.
There was no sign of Jock Henderson today, but Pete Carrick was standing by the tent, suited up and ready. He turned as Horton approached.
‘Morning, Pete. How’s it going?’
‘Not well. Considering what we’ve found.’
‘I was told a burnt-out BMW.’ She glanced over his shoulder to where the body of the car was gradually disappearing under the protective covering.
‘A bit more than that, unfortunately. Two bodies. Driver and passenger.’
‘Shit.’
‘Quite. Not pleasant.’
‘Seems likely it’s the Gillans. The couple we’re looking for.’
‘We may have to wait on formal confirmation of that.’
‘The bodies badly damaged then?’
Carrick was silent for a second. ‘Very. I’m afraid. Not a lot left. It’s an odd one. It doesn’t make sense simply as an accident. I can’t be sure till the collision people have looked at it, but I can’t see how the car could have left the road unintentionally. You can see. It’s a dry, pretty straight road. Even at high speed, you’d struggle to lose control, particularly in something like a Beemer.’
‘People can lose control for all kinds of reasons, though. Illness, heart attack. Trying to avoid hitting a deer. We’ve seen them all.’
‘Sure. And I’m not writing off any of those possibilities. But, for what it’s worth, my impression is that that car was deliberately driven at the tree at high speed. It would need to be something like that to be consistent with the damage.’
‘And that would be enough to cause the fire?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. They’re pretty robust cars, designed to withstand a collision, but I guess there’s a limit to that. Again, there’s something about it that doesn’t quite smell right to me. We’ll have to see what the vehicle examiners have to say.’
Horton knew that Carrick wasn’t prone to offer firm views outside his area of expertise, but he’d spent enough time working on RTC scenes to have a good idea what he was looking at. ‘When do you think the collision happened?’
‘Maybe a couple of days ago.’
‘That would fit with the other timings we’ve got.’
‘I’m glad one part of this is predictable, anyway.’
‘I’m not even sure about that. The intriguing thing is that it looks as if there’s a link between this and what happened on Saturday. This seems to have been the car that visited the Dawsons on Friday afternoon.’
Carrick raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? That puts a rather different complexion on things, doesn’t it?’
‘Certainly doesn’t simplify anything. What do you reckon you’re likely to be able to get from this, once the various experts have crawled over it?’
‘Who knows? Car and the bodies are pretty badly damaged, so don’t know what’s feasible. The good news is that the weather’s been pretty kind over the last couple of nights, so with a bit of luck that’ll have helped preserve anything worth having. We’ll see what we can do.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do your usual brilliant job, Pete.’
‘That’s the difference between you and that boss of yours.’
‘What is?’
‘At least when Alec opens his mouth I can be sure he’s taking the piss.’
‘Never not sincere, me, Pete. And, to be honest, I never have much difficulty telling the difference between you and your boss.’
She went back to join Josh Carlisle who had been chatting to one of the uniforms. As she approached, Carlisle pointed towards the loch. ‘The guy who found the car was asked to stay put. He’s over near the car park. Shall we have a word?’
‘Might as well. Don’t know how much he’s likely to be able to tell us, but you never know.’
They drove around to the car park. The area had been sealed off, and the car park itself was empty except for a van at the far end. Horton and Carlisle walked past it, into the woods away from the edge of the loch.
Ahead of them was a small tent and a man seated in a folding chair. He climbed to his feet as Horton and Carlisle approached and introduced himself.
‘I hope we’re not in any trouble. I’ve been wild camping here with my girlfriend,’ the man said. ‘We understood it was legal up here, but some people don’t seem to like us doing it.’
‘Wild camping’s legal in Scotland. All we’re ever concerned about is that people behave responsibly, especially with regard to fires and cleaning up after themselves. As long as you do that, most people won’t mind.’
‘We’re always scrupulous about that. Sorry, I’m Jake Albert.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Albert. Where’s your girlfriend this morning?’
‘I drove her up to Aviemore earlier. The plan was for her to do a bit of shopping for us while I went for a walk. I was due to pick her up, but I’ve just called her to say I might be a little late.’
‘Thank you for waiting.’
‘No problem. Chloe’s no doubt getting her revenge by knocking back a full English in the café.’
‘We just wanted to have a quick chat about your discovery this morning.’
‘Sure. Don’t know how much I can tell you, though.’
‘How long have you been here? Just overnight?’
‘We’ve been here a few nights, actually. We were planning to move on but it’s such a lovely spot. We arrived on Friday.’
‘So you were here on Friday evening?’
‘We arrived here about five. We parked up in the car park by the loch and then came to find somewhere to set up the tent.’ He gestured back through the woods in the direction of the car park. ‘We’ve a van we use. Means we can doss down in the back of it if the weather should turn really bad, but we prefer to be out here. Anyway, we found this spot, which seemed ideal. There’s even a stream running down through the woods over there. We got ourselves set up and prepared dinner.’
‘Did you see or hear anything unusual on Friday evening?’
‘That’s what I’ve been thinking about. We did actually, though we didn’t think anything of it at the time.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Maybe about nine. We’d actually just got into the tent. We tend to sleep with the daylight when we’re camping. There’s rather a lot of that up here in the summer, so we try to take advantage of the short period when it is dark. We’d eaten and had a couple of glasses of wine, and then we were ready for sleep.’
‘And what happened?’
‘We heard a car. It was so quiet that we could hear it coming from some distance. We expected it would just pass by. But then we heard a noise that puzzled us. I suppose, knowing what I know now, it must have been the noise of the collision, but it didn’t really sound like that. Afterwards, there was just silence. We kept our heads down, to be honest. Probably a bit cowardly in retrospect, but you never know what might be going on in places like this.’
‘And you didn’t see or hear anything else? No sign of the fire, for example.’
‘Sounds daft, doesn’t it? But, no, we didn’t. We were inside the tent and we slept pretty soundly till well after it was light. I imagine if we’d gone out in the darkness we’d probably have seen it through the trees, but we didn’t. I remember commenting to Chloe the following morning that there was an odd burnt chemical smell in the air, but we didn’t know what might be nearby and it soon dispersed.’
‘You didn’t discover the car till this morning?’ There was a note of scepticism in Carlisle’s voice.
‘We just didn’t happen to walk that way,’ Albert said. ‘There was no particular reason why we should. We’ve been for a number of long walks over the last couple of days – that’s one of our reasons for being here – but we walked around the mountains or round the loch. It was only this morning, when I was on my own, that I decided to walk the opposite way, just to see if there was anything worth seeing.’
‘Which turned out to be a crashed and burnt-out car,’ Horton said.
‘Exactly. So then I called the police. I didn’t really go near it, and I assumed it was probably stolen. Expensive car. Someone will be missing that.’
‘Have you seen anyone else in the woods since Friday?’
‘A few people,’ Albert said. ‘Mainly just tourists going for a walk. Though most of those tend to stick by the loch. One or two more serious walkers. But nobody suspicious, if that’s what you mean.’
‘And you’ve not seen or heard anything else unusual since Friday?’
‘Nothing at all. It’s just deathly quiet here at night. No traffic, no houses nearby. Nothing. Apart from a few noisy owls and other creatures of the night. That’s why we decided to stay longer.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Do you need anything else from me? I’d better go and get Chloe before long. We’re planning to press on today. Head further north.’
‘That’s fine. I’d be grateful if you could leave us contact details, just in case any further questions arise once we’ve carried out a detailed examination of the car. Otherwise, thanks for your time and enjoy your holiday.’
She left Carlisle to take details from the young man and walked further into the woods, heading in the direction of the burnt-out car. She’d initially felt slightly sceptical that the couple had seen and heard so little of the events on the Friday evening, and she’d wondered if there was something they weren’t saying. But if they’d wanted to avoid getting involved they could simply have left without reporting their find. And, given the density of the woodland and their distance from the car, it was probably unsurprising that they’d witnessed nothing of significance. It was fortunate that they’d seen or heard anything at all.
Horton’s unease was less about Jake Albert’s account than about the whole scenario. None of this seemed to make any sense. What would have brought the Gillans to this remote spot? What would have caused them to crash the car in that way?
Which brought Horton round to the really key question.
What the hell did this have to do with what had happened to the Dawsons?