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“They looked like the kind of cameras the paparazzi use. We googled some of the names, and it was high-end stuff. Very expensive new.”
The wistful tone she used when mentioning its worth made Callum add the pawnbroker to his list of people to have a chat with. From the look on Isobel’s face, she’d been ripped off when she’d sold the stuff. He stilled as the thought registered. What the hell? He was annoyed because the woman he’d had sex with didn’t get a fair deal selling her stolen goods? He was losing his bloody mind. He told himself to keep out of her business, to let the issue of her needing money drop. It was a sensible plan. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one his mouth agreed with.
“You stole to pay the loan shark, didn’t you?”
She winced. “How do you know that?”
“You mentioned him when you were ranting about being a guest on Jerry Springer.”
There was silence. Isobel looked everywhere except at him.
“Have you paid him in full now?” It was obvious that Isobel Sinclair was swimming in trouble and barely keeping afloat.
Her back went straight at the question. “That isn’t any of your business. All I need from you is advice on what to do with the body.” She sounded so prissy that it almost made him smile. Which shocked the life out of him, as it’d been months since he’d felt the urge. Knowing that the subject of her debt would only lead to an argument, Callum returned to the more pressing issue—the criminal in the freezer, and the contents of the bag she’d found.
“Was there anything in the bag that looked like a two-way radio?”
“Walkie-talkie?”
He gave her a terse nod.
“Yes, but there was only one of them, and we thought the pawnbroker wouldn’t buy it if it wasn’t part of a set. So we threw it out.”
Callum pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. This kept getting worse. The equipment in the bag was most likely surveillance gear, and the radio was the owner’s way of keeping in touch with his team. Callum wouldn’t have been surprised if the stuff Isobel threw out turned out to be listening devices or equipment to infiltrate security feeds.
“This is much worse that I thought it was, isn’t it, Callum?”
Callum stilled. He knew he should tell her that it was far worse than she imagined. He should scare her into calling the police. He should hand her over to the authorities and step back. But the sight of her sitting there, wide-eyed and desperate, made all of his protective instincts roar to life. He couldn’t hand her over to someone else to protect. His eyes flicked to her stomach. Whether he liked it or not, for the time being, she was his to protect.
“Was there anything on the beach beside the body?” he asked, instead of answering her question.
She bit that bottom lip again, making him want to soothe her. He actually broke out in a sweat with the effort it took to stay in place.
“We didn’t see anything,” she said. “But we weren’t looking. It was dark and we were too shocked and worried about the…” She gestured to the freezer.
“I need to look at the spot where you found the body, before the tide comes in and wipes the area clean.”
Isobel stood, wrapping her cardigan tightly around her, in a gesture that suggested it was more for comfort than warmth. “There’s a path at the back of the garden that leads down to the beach.” She looked back at him as she headed out of the garage. “Nobody uses this beach. The public path is overgrown and in need of repair. I haven’t seen anyone else in this cove since we moved into this house. Most folk in Arness hang out at the beach farther down the coast. It’s easier to access and much prettier.”
She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but he let her chat as she led him to the end of the garden. She produced a key to remove the padlock from the gate. “I had to lock it to keep Sophie from escaping and falling off the cliff. She’s just turned three and has a tendency to wander into trouble.”
She seemed proud at that statement, so Callum didn’t bother pointing out that Sophie’s mother had exactly the same tendency.
They went through the gate and turned into the narrow path that ran along the top of the cliff until it met the public trail leading down to the cove below. The road lay beyond the path at the top of the bluff, with an overgrown parking bay nestled behind some fairly tall bushes. The whole area screamed abandonment. It was the perfect setup for anyone wanting to come in from the sea unseen. They could have a car waiting to pick them up and no one from town would be any the wiser. The only house near the path was Isobel’s, and even she couldn’t see the parking bay from any of her windows. Callum felt his jaw clench. What the hell was a woman with two young kids doing living somewhere so isolated? Scratch that. He already knew the answer. Isobel Sinclair seemed to be lacking in the common sense department.
Callum turned and looked back at the house. The small two-storey cottage was one of the generic houses thrown up quickly in the fifties and sixties. With its grey stucco walls, small windows and, most likely, equally small rooms, the homes had been built with function rather than luxury in mind.
“You can see into the cove from that window, can’t you?” He pointed to the one on the top left of the building.
“My bedroom,” Isobel confirmed. “I can see the water, part of the path and a tiny bit of the beach.”
“If you can’t see all of the cove’s beach, how did you know about the body?”
Isobel gave her answer to her feet. “I saw the boat come in, and saw them offload something into their dinghy. It was a clear night; plenty of moonlight. I was suspicious, so I crept out to the point where I could see the beach.”
Callum knew what was coming. He was right. The woman was genetically deficient—her common sense gene was missing. “Which point would that be?” He kept his voice even, a sure sign for anyone who knew him, that there was a good chance he was going to blow.
Isobel pointed along the fence line of her garden. About halfway along there was a flat ridge outside the boundary of her property. The narrow ledge fell into a sharp drop at the cliff’s edge—the crumbling sandstone cliff. For a second, Callum actually felt lightheaded at the thought of her being out there in the dark. She could have slip
