Finding your best friend was the hardest job ever. He knew Blaine lay six feet under, but where was the body?
Squish.
He doubled over as the mud sucked at his Wellingtons.
Autumn in Scotland meant rain, the least ideal weather for treading through the peatlands.
On a freezing, rainy morning, all Detective Inspector Callan Cameron wanted was to stay warm, snuggled next to his girlfriend. But the job came before comfort.
His watch indicated the tenth hour, yet the sky didn’t agree. Grey clouds hovered threateningly, blocking out all the sunlight.
Callan ducked to enter the tent and tuned into the crackle of the radio.
This vast peatland hadn’t seen another soul for decades and now scrub-wearing officials littered the virgin land. Police constables from the other town, a team of forensic anthropologists and pathologists, and Callan all huddled under the tent. A few poor police constables stood guard outside, dripping from head to toe, teeth almost chattering, as they flanked the white-and-blue police tape.
‘Dr Brown.’
The scrub-wearing pathologist turned to him, her face grim. He’d known her for years but had never called her anything but ‘doctor’. The new Callan let people in.
She crooked a finger. ‘Inspector, follow me.’
Callan huffed. Guess he was in for a shower too. He bundled into the scrubs and set off behind the doctor.
Goosebumps-inducing drops of rain smacked against his numb face.
His heart contracted.
How could he be so desperate to find Blaine’s body yet not want to find him?
Aileen Mackinnon had suggested that finding Blaine would put a lid on the past. It would make Callan acknowledge the end of hope he’d held on to for fifteen years.
Dr Brown entered a barricaded area where brownish-red mud lay in a heap, along with bright yellow markers cautioning them to tread steadily. The smell of fresh earth entrapped them.
Callan drew in his wet lip and sucked on it like an ice lolly. He took a moment, bracing himself for what lay in that ditch.
His best friend.
Dressed in all black, his soot-coloured hair in a military cut, Callan fit in with the roiling clouds. A lone figure amongst the flashing red and blue lights.
Callan squished his way beside the doctor and crouched.
She carefully folded back the sheet covering the ditch. ‘The bloody rain’s slowing us down. We need to remove him now. It would damage the body otherwise.’
Callan grunted, unable to form words, craning his neck to see the corpse.
Fifteen years it might’ve been, but the peat never let anything rot away. Blaine Macgregor would look the same, all these years later, like Sleeping Beauty – unaged.
Fists clenched until his knuckles turned white, jaw clamped so hard he worried his teeth might splinter, Callan dared a peek.
A body lay, clothes covered in granules of mud. Baggy jeans and a red sweatshirt contrasted with the grey light. Curls of short strawberry-blond hair tickled his forehead. And the face…
Cold tingles zinged through Callan. The rain, coupled with the breeze, had nothing to do with it.
This couldn’t be.
‘That’s… that’s not Blaine, Dr Brown.’
Dr Brown swivelled towards Callan. She’d narrowed her bottle-green eyes, and the faint wrinkles beside them stretched into tight lines. ‘I thought as much. Those baggy jeans are typical 1980s. My mum loved those.’
Callan ran a hand through his hair, displacing a few raindrops.
Oh crap! If this wasn’t Blaine, they had a new body on their hands.
‘Do we ken who it is?’
Dr Brown sighed. ‘I called you as soon as we cleared out the peat. I got some preliminary pictures before you arrived, but I’ll need time to examine him to give you any information.’
This man needed to be in the system already for his fingerprints to tell them anything.
The temperature dropped a notch, making Callan want to draw his arms in.
Not Blaine. He still hadn’t found Blaine.
