McKay stood at the top edge of the lawn, staring down at the view in the late-afternoon sunshine. The Moray Firth was a pale blue under the summer sky, partly shadowed now by the bulk of the Black Isle to the north. From here, he could see the elegant curves of the Kessock suspension bridge, the roads busy with the approach of rush hour.
He heard a shuffle of feet on the path behind him.
‘You’d be no good at playing Grandmother’s Footsteps, Josh.’
‘Guv?’
McKay turned. Josh Carlisle was looking mildly bemused as he frequently tended to when speaking to McKay.
‘How’s it going?’
‘They’ve got the site sealed off.’
‘What about the package?’
‘Been shipped off to forensics.’
McKay looked back at the house. He felt unaccountably relieved at the removal of the object in question, as if its bizarre presence had been casting some sort of ill-omened spell over the residence. ‘Are the examiners inside yet?’
‘We’re just opening up the house.’
McKay had made the executive decision to open up the Gillans’ house. They still had no definitive evidence that the Gillans’ deaths were anything other than a tragic accident. But the delivery of the strange package had further complicated the picture. There had been no marking on the package – no address or information about the sender or the delivery – and no explanation of its contents.
Why would anyone go to the trouble of sending the Gillans a dead animal? A dead hamster, for Christ’s sake? Presumably, it was intended either as some message or warning to the Gillans sent by someone unaware of their deaths, or it was intended as a message to whoever might visit the house following the discovery of the Gillans’ bodies.
Either way, he felt it was a sufficiently bizarre development to justify treating the whole house as a crime scene. Carlisle had already confessed to him that Ginny Horton had given the interior an unofficial once-over during their earlier visit, but had found little other than some evidence that the Gillans seemed to have departed in a hurry.
At that point, though, they’d had no strong reason to think that any harm might have come to the Gillans. Horton had been looking for nothing more than some possible clues to their whereabouts. Now the context was rather different.
Even so, McKay was irritated at being forced to make these decisions in isolation. He didn’t trust Brian Nightingale’s motives or good intentions, and he knew any operational decision was potentially vulnerable to retrospective criticism. Normally, that wouldn’t have troubled McKay too much – he was generally inclined to seek neither permission nor forgiveness for his actions. But at the moment he preferred to keep his backside well covered.
‘Any word back from Brian yet?’ he asked Carlisle. McKay had tried to call Nightingale earlier but the call had simply cut to voicemail. After trying a couple of times, McKay had given up in disgust, delegating the task to Carlisle. McKay didn’t fully trust himself not to express his opinions too bluntly when Nightingale finally deigned to take the call.
‘Nothing. Maybe there’s some problem with the phone.’
‘That’ll be it.’ McKay’s next move would be to try Ginny, but he knew Nightingale would find further cause to complain if he hadn’t been told about this directly. Whichever way McKay played this, he was probably on a hiding to nothing.
He made his way round to the front of the house. Jock Henderson, fully suited except for his helmet, was standing in the middle of the front lawn, apparently smoking a leisurely cigarette. ‘Afternoon, Jock. You drawn the short straw again then?’
Henderson dropped his cigarette butt on to the grass and very deliberately screwed it into the lawn with his heel. McKay could almost hear a collective tut of disapproval from the surrounding neighbours. ‘You know how we always make that joke about how we should stop meeting like this?’
‘You always make that joke, Jock. I make good ones.’
‘Aye, well. We really should stop meeting like this. Can’t you find me a nice straightforward crime? I mean, a bloody hamster, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind, Jock. At the moment, it’s all I have to offer. That and two dead people in a burned-out BMW, and a family knifed to death in their cosy holiday chalet. And the thought that they’re potentially all linked. I’m only sorry I won’t actually be able to see Brian Nightingale’s face when he finds out about the hamster.’
‘Nightingale. I saw that old bugger was back,’ Henderson commented. ‘I hope he’s changed his ways.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jock. I never listen to office tittle-tattle.’
‘You don’t need to. You generate half of it. Mostly the scurrilous half.’
‘I have to do something to stave off the boredom. As for Nightingale, we’ll see. He knows there are still a few of us around who have an idea why he left here in the first place. It was a long time ago. He may be a changed man by now.’
‘Aye,’ Henderson said. ‘And you might stop taking the piss, but I’m not going to put any money on it.’ He extinguished his cigarette under his heel as before. ‘I’d better get back in the house. If I leave it all to the youngsters, they’re bound to screw it up.’
‘And that’s your job. Anything else I should know before I go? Did you get anything from the box?’
‘Forensics will take a detailed look at it, but it was just a plain cardboard box. Not new. No identifiable markings as far as we could see. What about the delivery van?’
‘We’re getting it checked out. One of the neighbours got the registration.’
Henderson looked around them. ‘Aye, it seems like that kind of area.’
‘Never knock a good witness, Jock. My guess is that it’ll either turn out to be some local courier who took a delivery in good faith and knows nothing, or – more likely – the plates were faked. But you never know. We’ve had stupider villains.’
‘Whoever’s behind this doesn’t strike me as stupid. They’re leaving us floundering so far.’
McKay left Henderson to continue his work, and walked over to Josh Carlisle who was chatting to one of the uniforms. ‘Any word from our dear leader?’
‘I’ve tried a couple more times. Asked him to call back urgently, but no response yet.’
McKay sighed and took out his own phone. He’d been intending to break the news about the dead hamster when he spoke to Nightingale direct, if only so he could enjoy hearing Nightingale’s response. But if Nightingale was not picking up voicemails, he had no choice. He thumbed the number in his address book, and the call was answered almost immediately. ‘Alec?’
‘Hi, Ginny. I don’t suppose that boss of ours is anywhere around, is he? He seems to have been oddly elusive this afternoon, and I’ve a bit of strange news he needs to hear.’