Free Written in Bone by Simon Beckett

from a car passing on the road, its lights would have been visible. Which meant he’d either imagined hearing an engine…
    Or someone had turned off their headlights to conceal their approach.
    Bit of fresh air will do me good, anyway.
He pulled on his coat, then picked up his heavy Maglite and climbed out of the camper van. He nearly switched on the torch, but at the last second decided against it. If there was anyone creeping around here, that would only warn them he was coming. He made his way slowly towards the cottage, depending on the fleeting breaks in the cloud cover to see where he was going. The Maglite’s weight was comforting as the black outline of the cottage loomed in front of him. At a foot long, the torch could also double as a substantial club. Not that he’d need it, he told himself, and as he did so there was a flash of light from behind the cottage.
    Duncan froze, heart thumping. He reached for his radio to call Fraser, then stopped. There was too much chance that the trespasser would hear him. He started forward again. He could see that the tape sealing the door hadn’t been tampered with. Staying close to the wall, he made his way to the corner of the cottage.
    He paused, listening. There was a scrape of something brushing against stone, then a swish of movement through the long grass. No two ways about it.
    Someone was definitely there.
    Duncan gripped the Maglite, tensing himself.
Stay calm.
He took a deep breath, then another.
OK, get ready
…
    Flinging himself round the corner, he turned the torch full on.
    ‘Police! Stay where you are!’
    There was a startled curse, then a figure was sprinting away. Duncan set off after it, the wet grass threatening to snag his legs. He hadn’t gone far when the figure suddenly tripped and fell headlong. Seizing it by the shoulder, he pulled it over and shone the torch beam on its face.
    Maggie Cassidy glared up at him, squinting against the bright light.
    ‘Get off me!
O mo chreach
, I think I’ve broken my leg!’
    Duncan felt a mix of relief and anticlimax. And guilt. As he helped the reporter to her feet, he realized she barely reached his shoulder.
    ‘You frightened me to death, yelling like that!’ she grumbled. ‘You’d just better hope my leg’s not broken, or I’m suing.’
    ‘What are you doing here?’ Duncan asked, trying not to sound defensive.
    There was only a second’s pause. ‘I thought I’d come and see how you were getting on.’ Maggie gave him a smile. ‘Can’t be much fun being stuck out here in this.’
    ‘So why were you looking through the cottage window?’
    ‘There wasn’t a light on in the camper van. I thought you might be in there.’
    ‘Aye, course you did.’ He noticed her trying to slip something into her pocket. ‘What have you got there?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    But he was shining his torch on to it, revealing a mobile phone clasped in her hand.
    ‘You’ll not have much luck calling anyone from here,’ he said. ‘You weren’t planning on taking any pictures with that, now were you?’
    ‘No, of course not…’
    He held out his hand.
    ‘Look, I wasn’t able to get anything, all right?’ she protested.
    ‘Then you won’t mind showing me, will you?’
    Maggie’s shoulders slumped. She let him see the screen.
    ‘They were rubbish anyway,’ she muttered, bringing up two blurred and bleached-out images.
    As he would explain later, Duncan didn’t think they would be any use. Even he couldn’t make out what they were. But he made her delete them anyway.
    ‘And the rest.’
    ‘That’s it, I told you.’
    He just looked at her. With an irritated sigh she showed him the other pictures in the memory.
    ‘Must have forgotten about that one, hey?’ he said, cheerfully, as another blurred shot of the cottage appeared.
    ‘Happy now?’ she demanded, deleting it. ‘So now what are you going to do? Arrest me?’
    Duncan had been asking himself the same question. Offhand, he wasn’t even sure she’d