Sergeant Moore did his throat-clearing thing again. ‘Can we go now? Or do you two want to get a room?’
The forest track squelched beneath her feet; wellington boots making wub-wonk noises as they flapped about. Should’ve worn her trainers. OK, so her feet would be drowned puddings by now, but see if she needed to run away from a gun-totin’ redneck taxidermist? These bloody wellies would be the death of her.
Wub-wonk,wub-wonk,wub-wonk...
Up at the front of their little high-vis expedition, Moore checked Gérard/Tony’s hand-drawn map from yesterday. Nodding as if he could tell the difference between one soggy tree and another soggy tree in this massive collection of soggy bloody trees, as they slogged through the rain-drenched gloom of a Scottish summer.
But, on the bright side: at least this pishy weather was keeping the midges at home.
From the tail end of their caterpillar, PC McKinnon sniffed and shuffled – keeping his voice low. ‘What do we do if Nairn won’t come quietly?’
‘Course he’ll come quietly.’Wub-wonk,wub-wonk,wub-wonk...
‘But he’s got a gun! Nothing we’ve got will stop a bullet. Or a shotgun cartridge. We’ve not even done a risk assessment!’
‘Aye, we did. While you were off getting the stuff, Sergeant Moore and me did one, didn’t we, Sergeant Moore?’
Moore glanced back at them, a row of creases between his eyebrows. ‘Not really.’ He looked over her head at McKinnon.‘We decided that if Albert Nairn comes at us with a gun: we throw you at him and run away.’
The constable’s eyes bulged. ‘That’s not—’
‘He won’t come out shooting.’Wub-wonk,wub-wonk,wub-wonk... ‘It’s the Scottish Highlands, no’ Bonny and Clydeside. We’ll talk to him, he’ll come quietly, we’ll cuff him and take him back to the hotel for a bit of being-locked-in-a-room-till-Inverness-gets-here. End of.’
‘Aye, but what if he—’
‘First sign of him kicking off, we go back to the hotel and wait him out. No taking risks, no buggering about. There, you happy now?’
McKinnon curled his top lip and kept on shuffling. Looking like he was about to pee himself. ‘Kinda...?’
Roberta shook her head at Sergeant Moore. ‘They always grow PCs this wet up here?’
Moore grimaced back at her. ‘Just try not to get us all killed, OK?’
She gave him a grin. ‘Do my best, but I’m not promising anything.’
Roberta hunkered down and peered over the same knot of brambles they’d hidden behind yesterday. The bone-riddled clearing that surrounded Albert Nairn’s personal haunted-house-of-creepiness was every bit as uninviting as last time. Only wetter.
PC McKinnon’s eyes widened as he took it all in. ‘Good God... It’s like something out of ahorrormovie.’ Never let it be said the boy didn’t pay attention.
Sergeant Moore flexed his hands in his MOE gloves. ‘So, do we split up, or stick together?’
‘Easier target if we stick together, Sarge. Split up and we can surround the place.’
Roberta thumped him one. ‘No one’s splitting up till we see what’s what.’ She stuck out her hand. ‘Give us the binoculars.’
McKinnon handed them over and she had a good squint at the cottage.
Didn’t look any less spooky in close-up. Could see the little parade of dead things lined up along the inside of the windowsills, the drawn curtains acting as a backdrop for their Passion Play. And that wasn’t a euphemism, either – it was a bunch of stuffed mice re-enacting the crucifixion with a stoat Jesus. Which had to be an instant Go-Straight-To-Hell card. The curtains on the left-hand side of the door were closed too. An empty bottle of Grouse sat on the porch, next to the rocking chair.
That would be Albert Nairn – sitting there last night, plotting his revenge, drinking up his nerve to storm the hotel and murder some other poor bugger. Not that Sir Reginald Bradbury-Scott counted as a poor bugger...
PC McKinnon tapped her on the shoulder. ‘What if he’s gone out?’
‘In this weather?’
‘Could be hunting.’
She swept the binoculars across the front of the property again. ‘Then we can sneak inside and surprise him when he gets home, can’t we?’
