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Chapters (47)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-One
  22. Chapter Twenty-Two
  23. Chapter Twenty-Three
  24. Chapter Twenty-Four
  25. Chapter Twenty-Five
  26. Chapter Twenty-Six
  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-One
  32. Chapter Thirty-Two
  33. Chapter Thirty-Three
  34. Chapter Thirty-Four
  35. Chapter Thirty-Five
  36. Chapter Thirty-Six
  37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-One
  42. Chapter Forty-Two
  43. Chapter Forty-Three
  44. Chapter Forty-Four
  45. Chapter Forty-Five
  46. Chapter Forty-Six
  47. Chapter Forty-Seven

‘That makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Perez stared out to sea, but continued talking. ‘It’s not overlooked. There are cars here occasionally – it’s a place where kids come to practise driving before their parents let them out onto the roads. So a couple of vehicles wouldn’t particularly attract notice.’

‘My car might,’ Sandy said. ‘I mean, if I’m still pretending to be Jerry Markham.’

‘The red Alfa Romeo. So it would.’ And Perez smiled, so Sandy felt as if he’d passed some sort of test.

Perez strolled down the track towards the runway and the airport buildings. There was a new air-traffic control tower that looked like something from a science-fiction film. Long steel spider’s legs and a glass body. In the lounge a group of men were drinking coffee in polystyrene beakers. They all looked rough, as if they’d been out drinking the night before, celebrating a last night of freedom before a new shift on the rigs. A dark man in uniform stood behind the check-in. The track from the main road was visible through plate-glass windows.

Perez introduced himself. The oil workers, all half-asleep, slumped over the chairs, took no notice.

‘Last Friday,’ Perez said. ‘The day the body was found in Aith. Were you on duty?’

‘It was a nightmare,’ the man said. ‘The fog came down late afternoon and there was no movement for hours.’

‘Just before the fog,’ Perez said. ‘Did you notice any cars up at the old military site?’

‘You mean the red Alfa, the one that was in the news?’ The man looked up from his computer screen. ‘I was talking about that to the wife, wondering if I should mention it to you. Then she said they’d found it in the crofting museum, so there didn’t seem much point.’

Perez turned to Sandy and rolled his eyes in disbelief, and again Sandy thought this was just like old times.

‘Was that the only car up there?’

‘No.’ The man was still preoccupied and fiddled about on his keyboard. ‘John Henderson was up there too. You know him? The pilot? I waved at him as he drove past, but he didn’t seem to notice.’ He put his hands on the desk and looked up at Sandy and Perez, his face grey with shock, realizing for the first time the implication of his words. ‘And now both men are dead!’ A pause. ‘Seems a weird coincidence, huh?’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven