‘Six addresses? You want me to get six addresses raided? What part of “Shotgun Hostage Drama in Suburban Cul-de-sac” did you no’ understand? ’

‘And you better get the SEB to go over them too, see if we can find anything else linking Agnes Garfield to—’

‘Pin back your lugs: I – don’t – have – the – men. Got a sodding crisis going on here. If it’s no’ life or death, it’ll have to wait.’

‘They might have DS Chalmers.’

Silence.

‘Hello? Can you hear—’

‘You better be joking, Laz.’

‘She got the list yesterday afternoon and didn’t tell anyone. For all we know, Agnes has her staked out on someone’s floor right now.’

A barrage of foul language erupted from the earpiece. Then more wasp-chewing. ‘Fine, I’ll magic firearms teams up out of nowhere. Get them going round the properties. You happy now? ’

Ecstatic.

He gave her the addresses, then she slammed the phone down on him. Like it was his fault Chalmers was a glory-hungry overachiever.

Sim appeared on the other side of the car, her Airwave handset blinking away on her shoulder. ‘Guv? Got Control on the line. They say there’s an NPR hit on Chalmers’s Mini going north on the Inverurie road at half nine last night.’

‘Do they have her going back again? ’

‘Hold on. . .’ Sim clicked the button on her handset and repeated the question. Then shook her head. ‘She might have taken one of the back roads? ’

Chalmers would still have come down King Street, or West North Street, or the beach Esplanade to get home, and the Number Plate Recognition system would have picked her up. And, more importantly, she would’ve fed her cat.

‘What about the GSM trace? ’

Sim checked. ‘They say her mobile’s not switched on.’

Logan drummed his fingers on the car roof. Heading north on the Inverurie road. That meant they wanted addresses on the list to the north-west of the city. . . And only three fit the bill.

‘Guv? ’

‘Get in.’

They’d just have to do without a firearms team.

The Fiat bumped and ground its way down a dirt track, lined on either side with barbed-wire fences and thick knots of brambles, the ridge of grass in the middle scraping along the bottom of the car every time Sim hit a pothole. And as the track was pretty much all pothole, Logan had to stick his finger in his other ear to hear Rennie at all.

‘What? ’

The radio wasn’t helping: ‘—siege enters its second hour, Grampian Police have cordoned off Fintray Road, and are asking Blackburn residents to remain indoors. We spoke to Mrs Gilmore, who lives next door. . .’

Mrs Gilmore sounded as if she’d just French-kissed a set of bagpipes. ‘Aye, and then there was this big bang and a policeman went flying over the hedge into our roses. It’s—’

Logan switched it off. ‘I didn’t hear a word of that.’