Read Online Candles and Roses by Alex Walters - Free Book Online

was fiddling with his phone, checking e-mails and texts. ‘Oh, Christ.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You should stop off back at the Scotts so I can ask him just what the fuck his God thinks he’s up to.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘You need to head back out to the Black Isle. We’ve another one.’
     

CHAPTER NINE
    ‘How the fuck did she get out here?’
    Even the police had had problems reaching the spot. In the end, they’d brought a 4x4 down through the farmland at the rear of the beach. Even so, they could get only to within fifty or so metres of the cave itself. A couple of officers would have to carry the body back up in due course
    ‘We think pretty much the same way we got down here,’ DC Mary Graham said. She’d been delegated down here by Grant to hold the fort for CID until McKay and Horton arrived. Graham cut an imposing figure, tall and with a main of thick blonde hair around an angular face that suggested a Viking ancestry. McKay knew she’d have taken no nonsense, ensuring the scene was properly protected until the examiners arrived and organising one of the uniforms to keep people away from this part of the beach.
    ‘They wouldn’t have come through the farm, though?’
    ‘There’s another entrance to the fields a quarter of a mile or so before then. I haven’t had chance to check it yet but the most likely route would be through there and across the fields. You can get pretty close to the beach.’ Graham was a local, who’d spent her early years in Fortrose.
    ‘Still be conspicuous to bring a vehicle over there at night, wouldn’t it?’ Horton asked. ‘Not exactly a bustling metropolis here.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ McKay said. ‘Modern 4x4s are pretty quiet. These farmers tend to be early to bed and early to rise types. It would be a risk, but not a huge one.’
    ‘But why take it at all? Why bring a body down here, of all places?’
    ‘Christ knows,’ McKay said.
    The three of them were standing outside the cordon that had been erected around the cave. Two white-suited examiners were busy inside. ‘How long’s old Jock Henderson going to be?’ McKay asked.
    ‘Not long, he reckoned. Fifteen, twenty minutes.’
    Across the firth, they could see the orange walls of the fortress at Fort George. A couple of boats were heading out towards the open sea. ‘What the fuck is this?’ McKay asked, after a pause. He sounded as if he genuinely wanted an answer. ‘Who the fuck kills two young lasses, and then lays the bodies out like some kind of sodding state funeral?’
    ‘A lunatic?’ Horton offered. She turned to Graham. ‘Who was it found the body?’
    ‘A bloke and his young son. They’d walked out here so he could show the son the cave. I took a statement from them and got their details.’
    ‘You didn’t hold on to them?’ McKay asked.
    ‘Well, no,’ Graham said. ‘He looked shaken and the boy was upset. They’d been intending to grab some lunch so I let them go. Sorry. ‘
    McKay had felt a momentary irritation at Graham’s actions but knew he was being unreasonable. Graham was a good reliable copper. She’d have taken a decent statement. She’d have got the man’s contact details and made sure his footprints could be eliminated from any others that might be found outside the cave. There was probably nothing more the man could tell them. ‘Ignore me. Ginny will tell you I’m not in the best of the moods.’
    ‘It’s his time of the month,’ Horton said. ‘Runs from the first through to the thirtieth or thirty-first. Shorter in February, for which we’re all grateful.’
    ‘Very funny,’ McKay growled. ‘No, you did good,’ he said to Graham.
    She shuffled uncomfortably on the damp sand. ‘I’ll go and see how the examiners are getting along,’ she said.
    ‘What is it, Alec?’ Horton said when Graham had walked off.
    ‘What’s what?’
    ‘You’ve been like a bear with a sore arse ever since we left Culbokie.’
    ‘Ach, I don’t know. That bastard Scott, I