Sinead was pacing in the foyer, chewing on a thumbnail, her eyes fixed on the car park at the front door.

“He should be here by now,” she said, for the fourth or fifth time. “What’s keeping them?”

“Traffic could be bad,” Hamza reasoned. He was standing over by the front desk, trying to look busy with paperwork. The last thing they wanted was for the driver to smell a rat and go tearing off before they could catch him.

Yes, they had Uniform on standby around the back of the building, ready to give chase, but a chase meant a risk of injury, or worse. Better to contain the situation here.

“It’s not summer. Traffic’s fine.”

“He’ll be OK,” Ben promised. The DI was lurking off to the side of the front door, his phone held loosely to his ear. “No, Jack, I was talking to Sinead,” he said into the mobile. “No. No sign yet.”

Halfway across the foyer, Sinead heard the DCI swear.

“Maybe we should phone him,” she suggested. “Just to check up.”

“Best to wait,” Ben said. “We’ve got a couple of cars moving to find and follow. They’ll report in as soon as they’ve got eyes on the taxi.”

“I should’ve seen it,” Hamza said. “The driver, I mean. I should’ve clocked it was him.”

“Not your fault, son,” Ben assured him. “We all should’ve considered the possibility.”

“But I was there with him. I spoke to him. I knew he’d taken the family to the house. He helped with their bags. He told me that himself, so unless he was blind, he’d have known about the money. He said took his fishing rods in the car. The knife that killed them was used for filleting fish.” Hamza wrung his hands. “I should’ve seen it.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sinead said, her gaze still trained on the door. She tore her eyes away just long enough to check her watch. It was twenty minutes now since Logan’s call. Tyler should’ve been here by now. Long before now, in fact. “Where is he?”

“Eh, excuse me?”

They all turned to find the temporary caretaker of the front desk emerging from the room behind reception. “Just got a call in,” she announced, holding up a notepad. “Car in the river up the glen.” She looked across their worried faces. “It’s a taxi.”

“Right!” Ben clapped his hands together and pulled open the door. “What are we standing around here for? Let’s get a bloody move on!”

Chapter Forty-Five

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Tyler ran, breath jerking out of him with every step, as he forced his way through a tangle of trees and raced on up a steepening brae.