‘I count six holes,’ she said.
‘Seven,’ he replied, pointing out the one she’d missed.
‘Hmm. Now I get why the car rental companies don’t like you.’
‘At least it’s still in one piece. That’s unusual for me.’
Ben was taping over the seventh hole when his phone went.
Chalmers still wasn’t happy to be forced into giving out free information, but he’d moved quickly. The number was a UK landline with a 01298 prefix area code for an area of the East Midlands. Ben went back inside the cottage and dialled it. The voice that replied after just one ring spoke in a very clipped upper-class accent. ‘Montgomery.’
Ben knew he was only going to get one shot at this, so he wasted no time in throwing in everything he had, including the most powerful, albeit tenuous, connections he still had in the British Army. He was even prepared to capitalise on his rank title, something he normally avoided at all cost.
‘Colonel, we’ve never met and you don’t know me, but my name is Major Benedict Hope, formerly of 22 Special Air Service. I can send you a link to my business website to verify who I am. Lieutenant-General Cedric Grumman, formerly of the Irish Guards, and Brigadier Jacko Jennings of the King’s Royal Hussars, will also vouch for me.’ Both men, now retired and in their seventies, had served at different times as Director of Special Forces, commanders-in-chief of SAS.
Ben was aware of Grace staring at him in open-mouthed astonishment, but he ignored her as he pressed on: ‘I apologise for this unorthodox method of approach, Colonel, but I’m dealing with a specific problem and I believe you’re the only person who can help me. It concerns an organisation of former servicemen who go by the name “the Dishonourables”.’
There was a drawn-out pause on the other end of the line while Montgomery evaluated whether or not to trust this stranger calling out of the blue. Finally he said, in the same plummy tones, ‘It’s certainly a pleasure to speak to you, Major. How may I be of assistance?’
At the same moment Ben was talking on the phone to Mad Colonel Monty, Charles Stuart was receiving another phone call from his payrolled underling, Fergus Macleod. The detective inspector was calling from work and speaking so low he was almost whispering, as though frightened that others might be listening at his office door.
‘You wanted Grace Kirk’s home address. She lives in Kinlochardaich.’
‘Give it to me.’ Stuart listened, and copied it down as Macleod read it from the personnel file. Stuart said, ‘I want to know everything about this bitch. What kind of car does she drive? Is there a husband or boyfriend?’
‘She drives a wreck of a ’98 Land Rover Defender,’ Macleod answered in the same furtive near-whisper. He read off the registration number. ‘As far as I know, she’s single and lives alone.’
Stuart noted down the reg, too. ‘When does she next get off work?’
‘She was scheduled for an evening shift tonight, but I’m told she called in a few minutes ago to cry off. She’s come down with the flu.’
‘And I’m a monkey’s uncle.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘What do you think I’m going to do?’
Macleod sounded nervous. ‘There’s something else. I traced the car reg you gave me earlier. It belongs to a black 2018 Mercedes GLS sports utility vehicle that was rented just days ago from a car hire outlet at Inverness airport. The customer’s name is Hope, Ben Hope. Lives in France, runs some kind of training centre.’
Stuart smiled to himself. This was excellent news. He noted down the name. ‘Are you sure this is the man we’re looking for?’
‘Aye, perfectly sure. To be certain I ran a check on him through the police computer. No criminal record. But to say there’s a bit of a military record would be an understatement. I got my brother-in-law to look into it, like you asked. By the way, he wants to know if there’s any money in this for him.’
‘You can pay him out of your share. Just tell me what you found.’
‘Well,’ Macleod said nervously, ‘it wasn’t easy. Hope’s file is so cloaked in Ministry of Defence red tape, I don’t think even the bloody Prime Minister would have the security clearance to see all of it.’
‘Stop blethering and cut to the chase,’ Stuart said urgently.
Macleod replied, ‘All right, but you’re not going to like it.’
Chapter 37
Colonel Monty was a proud Englishman, patriot and royalist who, ashamed and appalled by the slur on Her Majesty’s forces that was the ex-military mafia calling themselves ‘the Dishonourables’, had devoted the entire two decades of his retirement to tracking them down and bringing them to justice. Or so the story went. The colonel had been widely derided for his obsession with a subject that many within the armed forces believed was pure hokum.
That was how Ben had first come to hear the mess-room chatter about Bartholomew Montgomery, years earlier when he’d still been with the regiment. Like everyone else he’d heard the rumours about the old fruitcake tilting at windmills like a modern-day Don Quixote; and like everyone else, he’d had no reason to take any of it seriously. The nickname ‘Mad Monty’ had stuck.
But now it looked as if the colonel might have been right on the money, the whole time.
Speaking to him, nothing about the elderly officer’s manner suggested to Ben that he was anything less than one hundred per cent mentally sharp and lucid. Ben laid out the facts for him, though he was careful not to say too much over the phone about his encounter that afternoon. It didn’t matter. Monty was perfectly astute enough to read between the lines.
It didn’t take long for Ben to pique the colonel’s interest, since a real-life encounter with members of the Dishonourables brotherhood was a rare and important event. Once Ben had him hooked and wanting to know more, he got down to business. ‘In my current situation it’s critically important for me to identify the individual in question. I need to know if that’s an option.’
‘As you know, I’ve spent many years collating information on the brotherhood,’ Monty replied. ‘I have dossiers on a number of men whom I suspect to have been inducted into its membership, past and present.’
‘And it’s possible that this person could be one of them?’ Ben said.
‘Certainly possible, though by no means guaranteed. I’d have to have a little more to go on. I take it that you have photographic evidence concerning this individual?’
‘Taken earlier today, immediately following the incident,’ Ben said. Which was enough to convey a clear picture for Monty to visualise: one very dead corpse, still fresh, all ripped and bloody after suffering an extremely violent demise and by no means a pretty sight. Ben added, ‘It goes without saying that this is strictly eyes-only material.’
‘Of course. I fully understand that, due to the, ah, sensitive nature of such evidence, you’re far too cautious a man to share it across digital media.’
‘Correct. Or else I’d have been happy to email it to you.’
The colonel replied, ‘Likewise, in the event that I was willing and able to provide you with information in return – again, far from guaranteed – it’s not something I’m prepared to do over the phone. Nothing is secure nowadays.’
‘For that reason, I’m hoping you’ll consent to a face-to-face meeting. Subject to your verification that I’m who I say I am. But time is an issue here, Colonel. The sooner we meet, the better.’
‘I appreciate the urgency of your situation. But I’m sure you must also understand my trepidation. This is a highly dangerous and sinister group of criminals, who may have become aware of my investigation into their activities, and I’m not in the habit of exposing myself to risk. As genuine as you sound, you could be one of them. And I’m not as capable of defending myself from attack as I was ten years ago.’
‘I understand perfectly.’
The colonel thought for a moment, then said, ‘Write down this email address, Major. Send me your credentials. I’ll speak with Lieutena
nt-General Grumman and Brigadier Jennings and get back to you within the hour.’
‘Whatever you decide, sir, it’s been a pleasure talking to you.’
But before he hung up, the canny old fox had a request. ‘Tell me one thing, Major. Something nobody else could possibly know.’
If Monty was going to use it to check with two former SAS directors to establish Ben’s veracity, then it had to be secret information to which only the inner circle of British Special Forces would be privy.
Ben said, ‘September twentieth, 2003. A combined UKSF and Delta Force unit with the codename Task Force Red deployed twenty miles west of Tikrit as part of Operation Citation, under my command. SAS suffered one KIA that day, a thirty-year-old trooper called Jon Taylor who caught an RPG round in a surprise attack by Islamic insurgents. Taylor was from Wakefield. He played the saxophone. His wife’s name was Sally and they had a little girl called Charlotte, who’d be twenty-one now, and a Yorkshire terrier called Duke who lost a leg in a road accident when he was a puppy. Jon was upset about it at the time.’
Something nobody else could possibly know. It was Ben’s best shot.
‘You think he’ll ring back?’ Grace said when the call was over.
‘Only time will tell.’
But time wasn’t something Ben had in spades, and every minute spent waiting was painful to him. He stood watching the darkness fall outside the cottage window and chain-smoking Gauloises, unable to silence the clock that was ticking loudly in his head. He was betting the farm on Mad Monty. If this went nowhere, he had no other leads to follow.
‘Isn’t there some other way?’ Grace asked.
‘Unless I break into jail and kidnap Angus Baird and his cronies on the off-chance that one of them might be able to tell us something useful,’ Ben replied, ‘then yes, right now, this is the only way.’
Grace had nothing better to offer. She fell back into her own brooding silence, twiddling her thumbs by the fire. When she spoke again, one hour and five minutes had passed since the end of Ben’s conversation with Mad Monty. ‘He’s not calling back, is he?’ she said glumly.
Ben said nothing. One hour and ten minutes. One hour and fifteen.
Grace said, ‘He’s definitely not calling back.’
Ben still said nothing.
‘I can’t believe I’m running around with an SAS major.’
‘Retired.’
One hour and twenty-one minutes after the call had ended, the phone rang and Ben snatched it up.
Mad Monty said, ‘Make your way towards Buxton, Derbyshire. Call me when you get within ten miles and I’ll supply you with further instructions.’
‘This is much appreciated, Colonel.’
‘I look forward to making your acquaintance, Major Hope.’
Operation Citation and Duke, the three-legged pup, seemed to have done the trick. Monty hung up the phone.
‘How far away is Buxton?’ Grace asked, echoing Ben’s own thoughts. So late in the afternoon, there was little chance of grabbing a last-minute flight from Inverness to Manchester. The only alternative was a long drive south.
‘Over six hours by car,’ he replied. ‘I’ll go on my own.’
She jutted out her chin in defiance. ‘Not on your life, pal.’
‘Fine. Do you want to swing by your place and pick up a change of clothes or whatever else you need? We’ll be away all night long.’
Grace shook her head. ‘Nope. I’m good.’
‘Then let’s get moving.’
It was 4.52 in the afternoon.
Chapter 38
At 4.55, Carl Hacker was returning upstairs from checking on the prisoner when his phone burred and he saw the call was from his guy Mitch Graham. Over an hour had passed since Graham and Carter had been despatched back to Kinlochardaich in the same fast 4x4 their associates had used earlier in the day, to perform a couple of important tasks. The first of which was to revisit Jamie McGlashan’s trailer site, check whether the place was crawling with police, and if not, then to remove O’Donnell’s body from the scene.
Once that was taken care of, their second task was to pay an unannounced home visit to the Kirk woman. Their orders were different from those issued to O’Donnell and Banks earlier that day. Rather than be simply slaughtered and left where they found her, Kirk was to be taken alive and brought to the castle for interrogation.
‘Well?’ Hacker asked. ‘How’d it go?’
‘We took care of Kev. Cops were nowhere near the place.’
‘Good. Where is he now?’
‘Boot of the car. Or what’s left of him. He was so frozen solid we had to break the poor sod into pieces to get him inside a bin liner. If he starts to thaw, it’s gonna make a hell of a stink.’
‘What about the woman?’
‘No sign,’ Graham said. ‘Place is empty. Lights are off, no sign of life. Her car’s not there either. And it ain’t been there any time recently, either. There’d be tyre tracks.’
‘You definitely got the right address?’
‘Come on, mate. We ain’t the local spastics who work for Stuart.’
‘All right, all right.’
‘Good news is, we found the Land Rover parked outside a cottage at the other end of the village. It’s a one-horse town. Didn’t take long to scope the place out.’
‘Are you at the cottage now?’ Hacker asked hopefully.
‘Yeah, but don’t get your knickers in a twist. Whoever was here, looks like we just missed them. Two sets of fresh footprints in the snow, from the front door to where a car was parked. One set of prints is bigger, tread looks like your typical sort of combat boot. The other smaller, could be a woman’s. Tyre tracks are wide apart and have a pretty fat tread. Looking at a big car.’
‘Like a Mercedes GLS?’
‘Or something like that. It’s snowing like a bugger here and the tracks ain’t got more than a sprinkling on them. I’d say they were made less than twenty minutes before we showed up.’
‘Can you follow them?’
‘No point,’ Graham said. ‘Easy enough to see which way they headed out of the village. But by the time you get onto the main road you ain’t gonna see shit.’
The picture was clear to Hacker. The cottage must be Hope’s local base, most likely rented like the Mercedes he was driving. Kirk was with him, and the two of them were obviously up to something. More bad news for the boss, on top of what Macleod had revealed about Hope’s military background.
‘What do we do now?’ Graham asked.
‘Get inside the cottage. If there’s anything more you can find out, call me. Then I need you to stay there until he comes back.’
‘And when he does?’
‘The boss wants him alive.’
‘Not going to be easy.’
‘Are you scared of one guy on his own?’
‘One SAS guy.’
Hacker snorted. ‘Fuck the SAS. The Pathfinders could eat them for breakfast.’
‘Then maybe you ought to be here, instead of us mere fucking rear-echelon mortals,’ Graham said.
‘Get in the damn house and call me back if you find anything.’
Hacker got off the phone and steeled himself for the prospect of breaking the latest news to the boss. Stuart had stormed off in a rage after Macleod’s call earlier on, and Hacker hadn’t seen him since, presuming he was somewhere within the castle.
Hacker dialled the mobile number, but there was no answer. He wondered where the boss might have gone off to.
Right at that moment, the boss was speeding towards Fort William. The roads were terrible, but the Rolls Royce Cullinan with its four-wheel-drive transmission could munch up the most difficult conditions with ridiculous ease, its engine as smooth and quiet as an electric turbine.
He’d just had to turn off his phone and get out of the house before the frustration drove him insane. Nothing seemed to be going his way. The prisoner still wasn’t talking. The sizeable investment he’d made into hiring Hacker’s associat
es wasn’t producing the returns he’d hoped for. And now he’d had the aggravating confirmation that this maniac Ben Hope was not only a former military comrade of Boonzie McCulloch’s but some kind of super-soldier with a war record apparently so extensive and classified that even regular Ministry officials could only view a fraction of it. How much more bad luck could a man bear?
Worst of all, he, Charles Stuart, was not the tiniest step closer to recovering his natural inheritance. His birthright. His family treasure. All he’d managed to obtain until now were the measly couple of coins that Ross Campbell had been carrying the day of his death, plus the one that Macleod had taken from Ewan McCulloch. The location of all the rest was still a mystery.
Hardly a minute went by that he didn’t want to gnash his teeth in fury at what was being withheld from him. He could hardly sleep at night any longer, because every time he closed his eyes he could see the masses of his ancestor’s buried treasure lurking beneath the dirt and leaves of the ancient forest. In his fevered dreams he found himself wandering lost among an endless wilderness of mossy pine trees, repeatedly falling to his knees and digging like a wild man, only to find nothing but fistfuls of filth and rot.
He knew he was slowly going crazy. And crazy men sometimes did crazy things. On the Rolls Royce’s passenger seat was a briefcase containing the largest knife Stuart had been able to find in the castle’s kitchen. He was prepared to use it.
His destination that evening was the Belford Hospital. On arrival he marched up to the main desk clutching his briefcase and told the receptionist that he was here to visit the patient Ewan McCulloch.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the receptionist politely replied, ‘but visiting times are by arrangement only. I’d have to check with Dr Fraser first.’
Stuart muttered a reply and slipped away from the desk. When the receptionist turned her back to answer a ringing phone, he darted through a doorway and headed down a long, brightly lit corridor. He wandered about the hospital, peering through doorways and following signs. The Belford wasn’t very big, and so it didn’t take him long to find the room he was looking for. Through a window he could see the inert form of Ewan McCulloch in his bed, all wires and tubes hooking him up to bleeping machines. Stuart lingered outside the door. Nurses and orderlies crisscrossed past him in the corridor, all too preoccupied to pay him any notice. The instant the coast was clear, Stuart slipped inside the room and softly closed the door behind him. He turned off the light so that he couldn’t be seen through the window.
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