Still no response from the prisoner. Only a very long, very still silence.
Hacker was about to say more when Boonzie McCulloch’s eyes slowly opened. Just hard little pinpricks in the half-light from the lantern, they fixed him with a look so cold, calm and dispassionate that it sent a frisson of genuine terror right through Hacker.
Hacker had never shrunk from anyone before. He had to use all his willpower not to shrink away now. He swallowed hard.
Boonzie McCulloch said nothing. No words were needed, because there was no promise of hellfire retribution that couldn’t have been better expressed by the terrible expression in his eyes.
‘You think about what I just told you,’ Hacker said, making an effort to keep his voice steady and menacing. Then he backed away towards the ladder and quickly exited the dungeon, leaving the prisoner sitting alone in the pitch darkness.
Chapter 35
Stuart was waiting for him upstairs. Hacker shook his head. ‘I told him what we discussed. He still isn’t talking.’
‘Then it’s time to move to the next stage,’ Stuart said. ‘I want you to go to Italy and take care of this personally. Today. Take Carter with you. He seems like the most reliable.’
‘You’re sure you want to go to that extreme?’ Hacker asked him. ‘Bluffing is one thing. Carrying it out, that’s a whole other game.’
‘I thought you people could handle anything.’
‘I’m not doubting whether my associates and I can handle it. I’m questioning whether you want that on your conscience. What we’ll do to McCulloch’s wife won’t be pretty. Plus there’ll be no way to make it look like an accident, like with Campbell. The Italian police will be all over it. And by flying me and my guy over there, you’re leaving a trail that’s connectable directly to you.’
Stuart looked dubious. ‘Who would ever make that connection?’
‘The chances are slim. But there’s still a chance. It’s possible that McCulloch’s wife has already reported her husband’s disappearance to the authorities. If so, specific locations here in Scotland will have been mentioned. Which potentially points at your involvement, if someone flags that a private aircraft just happened to travel from Scotland to Italy and back again, neatly coinciding with her murder. I’m just saying, think about it.’
‘Oh, I’m thinking about it, Hacker. I’m thinking you’re worried about incriminating yourself.’
Hacker shook his head. ‘If heat comes down on me and my people, we can just disappear. That’s what we do. What we’ve always done. But not you. You’re a respectable businessman. You’ll be fully exposed and on your own.’
‘There’s no going back now,’ Stuart replied hotly. ‘I told you I was prepared to do whatever it takes. And so will you be, if you want to go on working for me.’
‘Your choice,’ Hacker said.
At that moment, Hacker’s phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw the caller ID. ‘It’s Banks.’
‘I’m assuming this means we’re finally rid of our star witness,’ Stuart said. ‘Some good news at last.’
Hacker’s two Dishonourables associates Bobby Banks and Kev O’Donnell had been sent out earlier to finally eliminate the poacher. Their orders had been clear and simple. Kill McGlashan, dispose of the body, destroy the evidence, burn his trailer. As Hacker hit reply, like his boss he was assuming that he was about to be told that the mission was complete and they were returning to base.
But as Banks began to babble in his ear, Hacker realised that something was badly wrong. He gave his employer an anxious look and put the call on speaker so Stuart could listen in. ‘Slow down, Banks. Where are you?’
Banks’s voice sounded agitated over the phone speaker, and muffled by the noise inside his car as he drove fast. ‘On my way back. Alone.’
‘Where the hell’s O’Donnell?’
‘He’s dead. I think.’
‘You think?’
‘There was shooting. I looked back and saw Kev go down. If he ain’t dead he’s in a bad fuckin’ way. He was just lying there in the snow, all bloody.’
‘Looked back, as in, you were running away when this happened?’
‘The job was take out McGlashan,’ Banks said. ‘Just a poxy fisherman. We didn’t know we were going to meet any resistance, did we?’
‘I thought you went tooled up.’
‘Yeah, but only the one shooter, and Kev had it. What was I supposed to do? The fucker’s got a sawn-off.’
‘Calm down,’ Hacker said sternly. He was getting a headache from trying to figure out what the hell Banks was telling him. ‘What fucker’s got a sawn-off? McGlashan? Did he shoot Kev?’
‘No, not McGlashan. He’s fucked, okay? We did the job. I’m talking about the other fucker.’
Hacker’s mind flashed back to the man he’d tried to kill the night before, down by the loch. He’d thought he was shooting at the poacher. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe a serious new player had arrived on the scene. That might explain how the man had managed to evade him and disappear like a ghost. But who was he?
‘This man, what does he look like?’
‘Could be late thirties, maybe early forties, but fit. Six foot or a little less. Blond hair, jeans, leather jacket. Turned up in a black Mercedes SUV. There was a woman with him.’
‘Did you get the Merc’s number?’
Banks wasn’t a total idiot. He recited the registration. Hacker made a mental note of it and said, ‘Okay, describe the woman to me as well.’
‘White, I’d say mid-thirties. Good-looking. Long dark hair.’
‘How far out are you?’
‘On these roads? Maybe twenty minutes.’
‘Copy that. Get here as quick as you can.’ Hacker ended the call and heaved a sigh. ‘Shit.’
Stuart was glaring at him. ‘Well done, Hacker. Top class. All I can say is, your man O’Donnell had bloody well better be dead. If the law get hold of him and he talks—’
‘I thought you had the local cops in your pocket.’
‘Macleod and Coull are bought and paid for, but it’s not as though I control the entire Northern Constabulary. For all I know the whole of Kinlochardaich is swarming with police, as we speak. It’s exactly the kind of disaster you assured me wouldn’t happen, with your so-called professionals on board.’
‘We can fix this,’ Hacker said. ‘I just need to know who the guy in the black Mercedes SUV is. Once he goes away, the problem goes away.’
Stuart was looking at him in disgust. ‘At least I get something for my money.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, while you were wasting time with McCulloch earlier, I got a phone call from Fergus Macleod, notifying me of an interesting detail that happened to come to his attention today. It seems that one of his lower-rank officers has been digging around in the database files at police headquarters, looking for convicted poachers in the local area, coming up with the name Jamie McGlashan and cross-checking it with DVLA records to get his current address and vehicle details. Now, apparently, in this wonderful technological new world of ours, officers wishing to access the police computer files need to log in using their own personal access code. Which leaves a record of who’s been looking at what.’
‘And so?’
‘And so I believe I know the identity of the woman who was with the man in the black Mercedes,’ Stuart said. ‘The officer who was doing all this private sleuthing happens to be one PC Grace Kirk. Who also happens to have been the off-duty constable who arrested Angus Baird and his friends the other night, after a pub brawl which, according to certain eye-witnesses who fled the scene, involved an unnamed stranger from out of town. All that’s known about him is that he beat the living daylights out of three large, powerful men without hardly touching them. Does that sound like someone who could potentially get the better of your associate Kev O’Donnell in an armed confrontation?’
Stuart took a phone from his pocket and flashed up a picture. It w
as an ID photo of a female police officer, taken from some official personnel file. She was in her early thirties. Good-looking. Her hair was dark, tied back but visibly quite long. ‘Fits your man’s description of the woman at the scene of today’s incident, don’t you think? All in all, clear enough evidence that PC Grace Kirk is mixed up in this somehow.’
Hacker stared at the photo. The scale of the problem was gradually dawning on him. ‘If she’s with the police, then who’s the guy? He can’t be a copper. Coppers don’t blow people away with sawn-offs. Not in this country, anyhow.’
Stuart shook his head, putting the phone away. ‘Whoever he is, he’s just made the mistake of his life, messing with me. Your flight to Italy is now postponed, Hacker. Instead I want you to focus on finding this man before he causes us irreparable damage.’
Hacker asked, ‘What do you suppose they know?’
Stuart replied, ‘They found McGlashan. They’re getting closer. Therefore we have to assume they know everything.’
‘If he’s not a copper, then what’s his motive?’ Hacker said, thinking out loud.
‘He’s obviously after the same thing everyone else is. Money.’
‘Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe he’s a mate of McCulloch’s, come looking for him. An army buddy, perhaps.’
Stuart shook his head. ‘Too big an age gap, surely.’
‘Not if the guy was just starting out on his military career when McCulloch’s was coming to an end. They could still have served together, in the same regiment, at the same time.’ The more Hacker thought about it, the more the pieces of the puzzle seemed to slot together. The likes of Jamie McGlashan couldn’t have got away from him at the loch last night. But an SAS soldier was an entirely different matter. Not to mention the fact that someone of that calibre would be more than a match for a dozen Angus Bairds.
‘That’s all I needed,’ Stuart muttered. ‘What the hell do you propose to do about it, Hacker? Hacker?’
Hacker was momentarily elsewhere, staring into space, his head filled with the image of Kev O’Donnell lying there dead in the snow, covered in blood, ripped apart by a shotgun blast. Then Hacker tried to picture the man who had done this.
You kill one of the brotherhood, you face the penalty.
Hacker replied, ‘I think you need to call Macleod back right away and feed him the registration number for the black Mercedes. It’ll take him exactly two seconds to provide us with its owner’s name. Then he can get his brother-in-law, or whoever, to access the guy’s military record, like he did McCulloch’s. Then we’ll see if our theory is right, and we’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with. Once we know who this bastard is, he’ll be much easier to catch.’
‘You hope.’
‘It’s a start,’ Hacker said.
‘What about Kirk?’ Stuart asked him.
‘Your bent copper will have her home address, right? So get it. When she gets home from work tonight, we’ll be waiting for her.’
Stuart considered the new plan, then took his phone back out and dialled.
‘Macleod? It’s me again. There are two more things I need you to do for me, so listen carefully.’
Chapter 36
The snowfall was coming back with a vengeance and the early winter dusk was already beginning to descend as the Mercedes reached the lochside track, where Grace’s Land Rover was slowly disappearing under a covering of white that filtered through the pine tree canopy like flour through a sieve. As Ben pulled up behind her vehicle, Grace said, ‘You still haven’t told me who this person is you think can help us.’
Ben replied, ‘I don’t want to get our hopes up. It could be a dead end. We’ll find out soon enough, after I get back to the cottage and make a couple of calls.’
‘If you’re going back to the cottage, then I’m coming too.’
Ben knew there was no point arguing. She’d only threaten to arrest him again. He opened his door and slid out of the driver’s seat, leaving the engine running and the heat blasting. ‘You drive. I’ll take the Landy and meet you there.’
Grace clambered across the centre console and got behind the wheel. She had to adjust the mirror and rack the seat forward for her shorter legs. Then she shoved the transmission into reverse and backed away down the track. When she was out of sight, Ben ran back to the trees by the lochside where he’d left his things earlier. He carried them back to the Land Rover and tossed them in the back. The ice on the windscreen had solidified into rock-hard rime that he had to scrape away before clambering into the frigid metal box of the cab and firing up the engine. No traction control, no anti-lock brakes, no fancy onboard electronics of any kind. But there was nothing better in the world for driving in deep snow, if you knew how to handle it. He took off and followed Grace’s tracks back towards the Gunn cottage.
When he got there, he found the wood-burner already coming to life, the stovetop kettle whistling on the range, and Grace on the phone to the police headquarters, putting on a convincingly croaky and weak voice to spin them a story about having come down with a sudden case of flu. She was a fast worker, that was for sure. Finishing the call she said in her normal voice, ‘That’ll buy me a couple of days. I’m making a cup of tea. Want some?’
Ben pulled a face at the idea, and went into the kitchen to grab the jar of instant coffee. Two empty mugs stood on the kitchen counter with teabags in them. He fished one of the offensive items out, dumped three heaped spoonfuls of coffee in its place and poured the water in from the kettle. Grace joined him at the counter, and stood next to him to perform the milk-and-sugar ritual. Her shoulder brushed his arm as she stirred her tea with a clinking spoon. Her presence so close by felt comfortable to him. He could smell her perfume and a whiff of some kind of scented soap. He suddenly realised that this little moment was the closest thing to domestic cohabitation with a member of the opposite sex that he’d experienced since splitting up with his fiancée, Brooke, a long time ago. It was a strange feeling.
But the moment was soon over. They carried their drinks back into the cottage’s living room and Ben tossed a couple more logs on the wood-burner before taking out his phone. Grace perched on the edge of an armchair, sipping her tea. ‘Are you calling the person you reckon can help us?’
‘No, I’m calling a guy called Chimp Chalmers.’
‘Who the hell is Chimp Chalmers? What kind of name is that, anyway?’
‘He used to be in British Special Forces. Now he lives in the Czech Republic.’
‘Doing what?’
‘He sells stuff. Anything from an ex-Soviet tank or attack helicopter to a Scud missile, delivered to the location of your choice, anywhere in the world, for the right fee.’
Grace cocked an eyebrow. ‘I see. We’re buying a tank now?’
‘No, we’re asking a favour. Chimp has connections everywhere. I’m hoping he can help us.’
Ben dialled the number from memory. After seven rings Chimp’s familiar voice came on the line. He was called Chimp because he was built like an ape, long arms, barrel chest, bandy legs and all. He sounded like one, too. The hoarse grunt said, ‘Who’s this?’
‘Hello, Chimp.’
‘Well, fuck me if it ain’t my old chum Ben Hope. I heard you were six feet under, pushing up daisies.’
‘That’ll teach you to believe rumours. I need something from you.’
‘Music to my ears. Just got in a nice shipment of Israeli surface-to-air missile launchers, brand new in their crates. Do you a good price. Or maybe you’re after another aircraft, like last time?’
Ben remembered last time well. On that occasion, when his son Jude had got into trouble off the coast of east Africa, Ben and Jeff Dekker had ended up having to buy a Russian military seaplane to go and rescue him. It had drained most of the cash in the Le Val bank account.
‘Nothing like that this time. Just a phone number.’
‘You’re breaking my heart,’ Chimp rasped sourly. ‘Whose?’
Ben asked, ‘You remember
an SRR colonel by the name of Bartholomew Montgomery?’ SRR was the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, which had been formed many years earlier to support other UK Special Forces units in counterterrorism. ‘He retired a long time ago. Must be well over eighty now. I’m hoping he’s still alive.’
‘You don’t mean Mad Monty, do you?’
‘Mad Monty,’ Ben repeated. ‘The very man.’
‘Jesus wept. What the fuck d’you want to talk to that batty old duffer for?’
‘Can you get me the number or not?’
‘I can talk to a guy who’s mates with a guy who knows another guy who might be able to get hold of it. But it’s going out of my way, you know?’
‘Just get it, Chalmers.’ Ben ended the call.
Grace commented, ‘That’s one way to ask for a favour.’
‘He’ll call back,’ Ben said. ‘Because he knows what I’ll do to him if he doesn’t.’
‘You seem to know a lot of very strange folks,’ Grace said. ‘Do I dare to ask why they call this person Mad Monty?’
‘Because he had a habit of believing things that nobody else wanted to believe,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe because he was way ahead of the curve. Or maybe because he really was crazy.’
Only time would tell. While he was waiting for the call back, Ben unloaded, stripped, cleaned, reassembled the pistol he’d taken from the dead man, then reloaded it and put it in his bag with the shotgun. Next he grabbed the roll of black tape from inside the bag and went out to the car. Grace followed him outside and stood leaning against the open doorway, warming her hands on her mug of tea as she watched him start tearing off two-inch strips of tape and sticking them over the bullet holes in the Mercedes’ bodywork. Black on black; from a few feet away, if you squinted a little, they weren’t too noticeable. There wasn’t much he could do about the cracked screen, except hope he didn’t get pulled over for it by some overzealous traffic copper.
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