Where the Red Deer Roam (Chasing Shadows Book 2) by James Eden

Author:James, Eden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

SCOTLAND 2019

There was no mistaking the impressive nature of the Scottish Crime Campus. Bringing together Serious Organised Crime, Drug Enforcement and National Crime Agencies together with Forensic laboratories, HMRC and the Procurator Fiscal Service, even the very design of the structure promoted collaborative working. Based on the legs of a chromosome, four connected wings were centred around a central atrium. Far from being an expensive government white elephant however, the law enforcement agencies working inside had successfully caught hundreds of internationally most wanted criminals. Bringing back fugitives from as far away as Jamaica and Thailand to face justice for anything from stalking to sexual abuse and murder.

The Scottish Police Archives however were still struggling with so many old records coming in from the various old county forces. A police station long since closed down might be renovated and repurposed as a pub or flats. Lurking in a locked office, attic storage or basement vault would be a filing cabinet, box files or even loose folders. They would come in no particular order and have to find a home with the relevant county in the central archiving facility at the North Lanarkshire site.

Hamilton could now understand why they were struggling to answer Natalia’s request for the old police files from the Inverness-shire Constabulary. Each successive merger that had occurred since the 1960s only added extra layers of complexity. Though the Inverness-shire force had remained largely unchanged since its formation in 1840, after Cameron’s time the Constabulary had merged with the Inverness Burgh Police in 1968, essentially uniting county and city police under the new banner. Losing the shire to simply become the Inverness Constabulary.

This in turn became the Northern Constabulary after further consolidation in 1975. A merger of the Ross and Sutherland - itself the result of the Ross and Cromarty joining with Sutherland in ’63 - Argyll County and the Nairn part of the Scottish North East Counties with the aforementioned Inverness force. This all changed once again when all regional police forces were amalgamated into one national Police Service of Scotland in 2013.

If matters were not already complicated enough, at the time of the 1960s merger, the original Fort William Police Station at the top of the High Street had been taken over by the Royal Bank of Scotland. The force had taken up residence in a brand new, purpose-built three-storey construction, complete with basement level cells. With all the architectural sympathies of the era, the ugly block had been erected right behind the handsome, nineteenth century Sheriff Court. Logistically convenient. Aesthetically unforgivable.

A final move was made to a multi-service station out at Blar Mhor in more recent years and archive records were still being discovered periodically as the 1960s old police station was in the process of being transformed into an hotel. Where then would Cameron’s cases be filed? By constabulary? Which one? There were three to choose from. Inverness-shire? Inverness? Northern? What about geographically? Highlands and Islands? Fort William and environs? How would they be catalogued

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