‘Stop moaning.’ Logan pulled the car into a small lane that disappeared into a forest of identical pine trees, all laid out in a grid, and killed the engine.

Sim clambered around till she was kneeling on the back seat, looking out the rear window. ‘That’s definitely it this time.’

Sodding estate agents and their crappy directions.

Rennie checked his watch. ‘Maybe we should call for armed backup? ’

‘It’ll take them at least half an hour to get here. What if Chalmers is staked out in the kitchen being tortured right now? ’

‘Yeah, but. . .’ A shrug. ‘And it’s raining.’

Logan climbed out into the drizzle. ‘Fine. Stay here then.’

Sim clambered out after him.

Arquarthy Croft sat on a small hill in the middle distance, surrounded by billowing golden fields of rapeseed. The house itself was in a rectangular patch of weeds and rhododendron bushes, dotted with about a dozen elderly trees, their branches heavy and drooping. The place was in slightly better shape than the last one, but not by much: a dirty grey north-east farmhouse with gable ends and dormer windows in the sagging slate roof. Off to one side sat a long L-shaped steading. The chunk furthest away from the house was little more than a ruin, the roof caved in, beams showing like ribs on a rotting body.

Sim pointed. ‘Must be the chapel.’

Three stone walls, one with an arched window in it, the rest a pile of rubble.

Logan turned his jacket collar up against the rain. ‘Right, we keep to the tree-line. Sneak up on them from the back of the property.’

She nodded, then handed him the pepper-spray. ‘Just in case.’

Logan stuck it in his pocket, then hurried across the road, over a barbed-wire fence, and into a field of rapeseed bordered by gnarled beech and oak. The thigh-high crop rustled against his trouser legs, filling the air with the smell of honey as he squeezed down the narrow gap between it and the drystane dyke. Soft earth squelched and sucked at his shoes.

Halfway along he stopped and hid behind a wall.

Sim hunkered down beside him and peered between the trees. ‘Don’t see any movement.’

‘Probably inside getting stoned.’

Assuming they were even there at all.

From here the tumbledown end of the steading was directly between them and the house. Blocking the view.

‘You ready? ’

Rennie puffed and panted along the edge of the field, running hunched over as if he was in an American war film. He slithered to a halt and ducked down. ‘Phoned Control and told them we needed armed backup.’

Great. So now—

Logan’s phone bellowed out Steel’s sinister theme tune. Right on cue. He pulled it out.

‘What the sodding arseholes of cock are you playing at? ’

‘It’s a precaution, OK? Nothing more.’ He skimmed through his phone’s menu and stuck the ringer on to vibrate only.