It was still a damn sight better than working for a living, that was for sure. Jamie had never had any luck in that department, and had given up on it long ago. He wasn’t much of a people person. He loved the solitude and the silence of the remote wild places where he’d spent all of his life. This was where his heart was. Plus, nothing the outside world had to offer could possibly compare with the rush of clandestine excitement when you snagged a big juicy salmon. The thrill of forbidden fruit. Maybe that was why he kept coming back to his favourite loch, where he’d been fishing man and boy. It was kind of an addiction.
Hooked. Jamie had to chuckle at his own joke. As he sat on the edge of the tailgate to yank off his waders, he reflected more seriously that a person would have to be bloody addicted, not to mention a total daftie, to venture anywhere near the spot where, helpless and transfixed with horror, he’d seen a man being murdered. He would never forget Ross Campbell’s screams as the killers hurled him into the water. The poor bastard’s last moments of panic when they pushed him under the surface. The awful instant when the wild splashing and gurgling finally ended and he bobbed back up to the surface, face down, slimy with weeds and very obviously dead even from where Jamie had been watching it all take place.
But what troubled Jamie even more profoundly than the haunting vision of Ross Campbell’s last moments was the knowledge of who the killers were. Two of them, at any rate.
Knowing what he knew, a sensible man would have stayed away from here. Not Jamie McGlashan. Still, he had taken what he considered to be reasonable precautions. Such as giving the murder scene a wide berth by sticking to the far western end of the loch, nearly twelve miles away; and such as not returning to the shithole mobile home that his housing benefit cheques paid for, and instead living rough in the stone bothy where he’d camped with his father as a boy, when the old man had taught him the poacher’s craft.
Those were mixed memories for Jamie. His father had been a brutal and volatile tyrant whom he’d loathed as much as he’d loved. Every time he thought about him, Jamie touched his scarred lip and thought about the legacy it had left him with.
The bothy was little more than a ruin now, but he was content to stay there until all the heat died down and he could be certain that the killers had no interest in him.
He stuffed his waders into the bin bag he kept them in, chucked it into the back of the Subaru and pulled on his boots. Out of habit he took out his phone to check his Facebook page, though he had no real friends and wasn’t expecting anything. Reception was crap out here anyway. He replaced the phone in his breast pocket, then stretched and yawned, closed the tailgate lid, dragged his weary feet around to the driver’s door and hefted his bulk in behind the wheel. He was getting fatter all the time, not that it worried him that much any more, with nobody around to taunt him about it.
The Subaru’s interior light hadn’t come on when he opened the door. Which didn’t surprise Jamie, because virtually everything else about the old wreck was failing. He reached up and prodded the switch, and the car’s interior filled with a dim yellow glow.
And Jamie McGlashan let out a scream as he saw the figure sitting in the passenger seat next to him.
The apparition was more like a creature than a man. It looked like something that had crawled out of a swamp, all covered in leafy foliage and green dangling mossy fronds. For a bowel-loosening moment Jamie thought it was one of the mythical beasts that had filled his grandfather’s stories. But mythical beasts didn’t wear hi-tech night-vision goggle apparatus and go around with crossbows. This one was cradled in the swamp thing’s lap, cocked and loaded and pointing a razor-tipped arrowhead right at Jamie’s big round stomach.
Jamie instinctively made a grab for the door handle, wanting to throw himself out and bolt away in terror through the woods. That was when the creature spoke. It said in a strong Glaswegian accent, ‘Dinnae even think aboot it, son. Stay right where ye are.’
Someone had injected icy loch water into Jamie’s veins where his blood used to be. He could barely breathe, but he managed to blurt out: ‘W-who are you?’
The creature replied, ‘Never mind who I am. Let’s talk aboot who you are. What’s yer name, son?’
All kinds of terrible thoughts flashed through Jamie’s mind. The most frightening of which was that this man had been sent to murder him. His worst nightmare had come true. The killers knew about him! He stared at the crossbow and the thought of being skewered against the inside of the car door made him want to puke with terror. ‘J-J-J-Jim,’ he stammered. ‘Jim S-S-S-Smith.’
The creature said nothing, contemplating him for a moment. Then a mossy hand flashed out as quick as a snake and plucked the mobile phone from Jamie’s coat pocket. The crossbow stayed trained on Jamie’s vitals as the creature swiped the screen to unlock the phone, and spent a moment glancing through it. Jamie swallowed as he remembered his still-open Facebook page.
The creature had already found it. And seen his real name.
‘Lie tae me again, Jamie McGlashan, and ye’re a dead man.’
Jamie’s heart lit up with hope. Maybe that meant the creature wasn’t an assassin sent to murder him, after all. ‘A-all right! I’m sorry. I’m Jamie McGlashan.’ As a glimmer of courage returned he repeated, ‘Who are you?’
The creature reached up and removed its leafy hood, and Jamie could see the face of the man inside the ghillie suit. His features were lined and his hair and beard were white. The stranger’s eyes were as cold as Loch Ardaich in January and as inscrutable as a dead salmon’s.
‘The name’s McCulloch. I’m Ewan’s uncle.’
Jamie was totally confused. All he could mutter was ‘Shite.’ An instant later, he knew that his expression had betrayed him.
Ewan McCulloch’s uncle said, ‘Ye spoke tae my nephew. The night of the murder. Before Ewan was attacked.’
‘I—’
‘Nae mair bullshit, Jamie. I can see it in yer eyes. It’s you. Ye’re the one who saw Ross Campbell killed.’
There no longer seemed any point in denying it. And in the strangest way, it felt good to talk about it. ‘Yes! I watched the fuckers drown the poor guy. I won’t forget it as long as I live.’
‘I didnae come here tae hurt ye, Jamie. But hurt ye I will, if I havtae. Ye’ll disappear in these woods and no trace o’ ye will ever be seen again. If I’m makin’ that extra clear, it’s because I dinnae want it tae happen.’
Jamie tried to shrink away, but there was nowhere to go. He quavered, ‘Then what do you want?’
‘Information. Details. Descriptions. Faces. Names. All that ye know. You do that for me, I’ll let ye go. Okay?’
‘And if I don’t?’
The dead fish eyes gave the slightest of twinkles. ‘I think you’re gonnae talk tae me, son.’
And Ewan’s uncle was right. Jamie told him everything.
Jamie McGlashan had an old scar on his upper lip that looked like a twisted worm. It gave him a slight speech impediment. In his lispy voice he described how he had witnessed four men murder Ross Campbell. Boonzie didn’t want to know the details of how, only the names of who. Two of the names, he’d never heard before. But McGlashan was keeping the best for last. When he heard the other two names, Boonzie understood why the poacher was so afraid.
Those two names were Detective Inspector Macleod and Detective Sergeant Coull.
Their mention was enough to make Boonzie lose his famous steely composure. ‘Ye’d better be tellin’ me the truth,’ he growled at McGlashan with such ferocity that the poacher turned ghastly pale in the dim light of the car. ‘Or I swear tae God, ye’ll be sorry. I found ye once. I can find ye again. And next time I’ll kill ye.’
‘I’m not bullshittin’ you! That’s who I saw!’
Boonzie eyed him with suspicion. ‘How did ye know them?’
‘I’ve been arrested four times for poachin’. I know every pig in the region. Trust me. I’m no gettin’ this wrong. It was Coull and Macleod.’
&n
bsp; ‘Swear?’
‘On my mother’s grave, man!’
Boonzie stared deep into Jamie McGlashan’s eyes and believed him. ‘All right.’ He leaned back into the car seat and fell into a long silence. He had sat face to face with these same bastards and listened to their assurances that they would catch the attackers who’d beaten his nephew almost to death. If McGlashan was right and Coull and Macleod were the very same men who’d helped to murder Ewan’s friend, then they were almost certainly deeply involved in what had happened to Ewan himself.
The rage made Boonzie’s heart thump dangerously fast and heavily. Even in the subzero temperatures of the winter night he felt as though he was on fire inside. A wave of nausea washed over him. He had the urge to swallow one of his pills, but resisted it.
‘What are you goin’ to do?’ McGlashan asked tentatively.
Boonzie did not hesitate in his reply. ‘I’m goantae find them. Make them confess. Hurt them back for what they’ve done. And then I’m goantae put them six feet below the groond, where they belong.’
McGlashan swallowed hard and glanced at the crossbow. ‘No, I meant, what aboot me?’
Boonzie shook his head. ‘I’m not an animal, son. Ye’ve played fair wi’ me an’ I willnae hurt ye. Go home.’
The poacher’s eyes filled with tears of relief and he looked as though he was about to cry. ‘Mr McCulloch?’
‘Aye?’
‘I’m so sorry aboot what happened to Ewan. I tried to warn him.’
‘I ken ye did, son. And I appreciate it.’
‘I hope he’s goin’ to be okay.’
Boonzie nodded gravely. ‘Thanks, son. You take care, noo.’
‘I will.’
‘But if ye want my advice, get as far away frae this place as ye can. All hell’s aboot tae break loose.’
And then Boonzie pushed open the car door, stepped out into the night and was gone.
Chapter 24
Just a few hours after Boonzie McCulloch had talked to the poacher, another face-to-face conversation was about to take place.
The man who had been summoned to the big house was called Carl Hacker. He hadn’t been given a lot of notice and had been over 5,000 miles away when he’d received his instructions that his employer’s personal G5 jet was waiting to fly him back to Scotland immediately. The silver Rolls Royce Cullinan had picked him up from Glasgow International just after dawn and whisked him, smooth and fast, to the magnificent two-thousand-acre property 150 miles north of the city.
The splendid castle was in fact a relatively modern construction, built in mock-eighteenth-century style to the exact specifications of its owner. It stood majestically nestled at the foot of a mountain, with panoramic south-facing views of a country estate that stretched as far as the eye could see. Hacker’s employer had various other residences, including a villa in the Bahamas, a luxury apartment in Monte Carlo and a small chateau in Brittany, where he believed his family to have originated; but he considered the castle his home and spent nearly all his time there. It comprised more than enough bedrooms for Hacker to have been allocated his own personal quarters on the first floor, though his international travel commitments gave him little chance to use them.
Hacker made his way through the stately corridors and up a sweeping staircase to the third-floor study. If he was jetlagged from his long journey, he didn’t show it. He was a man of great composure, whose face never betrayed what was going on in his mind. Physically he was tall and lean and looked younger than his forty-one years, his buzz-cut brown hair just beginning to silver at the temples. He wore an immaculate dark suit whose cut accentuated his broad shoulders, tapered torso and narrow waist.
Hacker knocked, stepped into the study and quietly closed the double doors behind him. The walls were rich with ornately carved oak panels and the golden early-morning light from the east-facing leaded windows reflected off shiny dark green buttoned leather and the arrays of antique weaponry displayed around the room. A pair of enormous claymore two-handed swords hung crossed against a banner of his employer’s family tartan and the clan crest with the motto VIRECIT VULNERE VIRTUS. Courage grows strong at a wound. Hacker knew a little about courage, and wounds too.
Outlined against the window was the back of a large leather swivel chair, turned away from the desk to face the view of the estate. Hacker walked up to the desk and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He said in his calm, soft voice, ‘You wanted to see me.’
The chair slowly swivelled back around. Hacker’s employer looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes as though he hadn’t slept. He didn’t thank Hacker for having dropped everything and travelled halfway round the world at such short notice. That wasn’t the kind of relationship he had with anyone.
‘Yes, Hacker. I called you back from Korea because your skills are needed here in Scotland. There’s some urgent business that has to be attended to.’
Hacker replied levelly, ‘I thought I was already attending to business. You sent me to Seoul to stop Kang’s people taking over our interests there. Which, as your international head of security, I was in the process of dealing with when I received your message.’
‘Yes, yes. But never mind Kang for now. I need this poacher person found and dealt with instead. Plus this old fool McCulloch is turning into a real headache, poking his nose in where it’s not wanted.’
Hacker was already fully briefed on the events that had been taking place here during his absence. He replied, ‘With all due respect, need I remind you that McCulloch and the poacher are scarcely in a position to cut you out of a multi-million-dollar property investment deal? While I can assure you that Kang and his gangsters are busy doing just that, now that my back is turned.’
His employer waved that irritating distraction away, like swatting a fly. ‘It’s all a matter of priorities, Hacker. My current ones are closer to home.’
‘You don’t have to worry about the poacher,’ Hacker said. ‘He’ll be found and taken care of, just as you wish. Easy meat.’
‘Good. As for Ewan McCulloch’s uncle, this “Boonzie” person, I’m concerned that we may have a real problem here. The poacher is just some local idiot who saw too much. But McCulloch is a professional. I never bargained for someone like this getting involved in our affairs.’
‘I thought you had local muscle keeping tabs on him,’ Hacker replied. ‘Baird and his cronies.’
‘I pulled Baird off the job. Perhaps a little rashly, I’ll confess. But I didn’t trust him. The man’s an inbred cretin. And knowing what we now know about McCulloch thanks to our sources in local law enforcement, I was worried that he might spot Baird, catch him and make him talk. That would have been an unmitigated bloody disaster.’
Hacker nodded in agreement. ‘If you recall, I did advise you not to hire Baird in the first place. That goes for all these local yokel morons you’ve picked up. What did you do, put an ad in the paper saying “Henchmen wanted”?’
‘All right, all right, I get the point.’
‘More than just a moron, Baird’s also a coward with a big mouth. You’re right – McCulloch would probably have made mincemeat out of him, if he’d got too close. But it would still have been worthwhile letting Baird stay on his tail, at a discreet distance. Do we have any idea where McCulloch is now?’
Hacker’s employer threw up his hands with a sigh of exasperation. ‘None. He’s dropped completely off our radar. If he’d given up and gone back home to bloody Italy, we’d have known about it. All we know is that he’s driving the nephew’s camper van, because Baird saw him leaving the house in it. But there’s been no trace of him since. It’s as though the wily old bugger has disappeared into thin air.’
‘It’s not entirely surprising. Men like him are trained to do just that.’
‘And men like you. You’re one of their kind. You know how they operate, how their minds work.’
Hacker’s own past history was known to very few people outside of this room. ‘Was one of
their kind,’ he corrected his employer. ‘Only I was better. Still am.’
‘Exactly. Why else would I have brought you all the way back here and risked letting a third-rate bandit like Kang shaft a property deal I spent months setting up? Just tell me you can deal with my problem.’
Hacker considered for a long moment, watching his employer’s eyes and seeing that he was serious. Hacker’s boss was not the wealthiest business tycoon in the world, but his net worth nonetheless extended comfortably into nine figures and he was the kind of person who would pay whatever it took to get things done. He was also not someone to be trifled with by refusing his wishes. Not even for Hacker, who was more direct with him than any other man in his employ.
Hacker nodded. ‘I can deal with it.’
‘Excellent.’
‘But we have to catch him first. From what you tell me, McCulloch could be anywhere in the western Highlands. We don’t have the resources to track a tough target like him over thousands of square miles of wilderness. Unless …’
His employer looked at him with penetrating eyes. ‘Unless?’
‘It all depends on how badly you want to locate this man.’
‘I said it was an urgent matter. That’s what it is, Hacker. I want him found yesterday.’
‘In which case, it’s simply a matter of expanding our resources. Money and manpower, plus the usual ancillaries, such as equipment and transportation.’
‘Money’s not a problem,’ Hacker’s employer said, with a note of irritation. ‘As for the rest, that’s your department.’
Hacker nodded. ‘I have certain contacts, yes. I can make the necessary calls.’
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