by V Clifford
Viv and the guy stood for a moment. He turned to her. ‘Now what can I do for you?’
‘I was hoping to speak to someone from the house.’ She pointed with her thumb to the tower. ‘I’m not getting any answer at the door.’
‘I’m only here on a contract. Once a year this thing gits serviced whether it needs it or no.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Money fur old rope. I think their gairdner brings his ane wheels.’ He nodded to the shiny bodywork and engine in showroom condition. ‘I clean the plugs an’ that. Then they git sent a bill.’
Viv stifled a yawn. ‘So do you know if anyone’s around?’
‘Not that ah’ve saw. Although the hens are oot so ah expect someone’s been aroond.’ He gestured to a large shed surrounded by chicken wire.
Viv remembered that Brian looked after the hens and decided that he was her best bet for information about the tenants from the tower. She about turned and walked back towards the grass path to the cottages. Just before she turned out of sight the mechanic shouted, ‘A car wis drivin’ oot as ah wis comin’ in this morning. They werenae too keen to shut those big Victorian gates behind them. Ah had to go doon and do it so’s the hens wouldnae escape.’ He shook his head.
‘What kind of car was it? And what colour?’
‘Ah cannae mind. Japanese maybe, they all look the same these days. But it wis black.’ When Viv shook her head at his lack of clarity, he said, ‘Ah’m more of a trail bike man mahsel’.’
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’ And strode down to the cottage thinking why would anyone sit in their car all night when they could have taken off in the dark without being seen? It didn’t add up.
Molly unsubtly nosed her bowl around the floor. Viv scooped up the bowl, put a tiny amount of food in it, apologising for her neglect, and laid it on the floor. But instead of eating Moll started to bark and bolted through to the front door. Viv, assuming it would be Brian or the postie, was surprised to see Mac’s bulky outline silhouetted through the window to the porch.
She swung back the door, ‘How the heck did you get down here?’
He pointed a forefinger at her. ‘Ways and means, ways and means . . . hitched with the farmer to the main road. He took pity on me and asked where I was heading. He brought me along to the end of the lane. He’s got a huge piece of kit.’ Mac enthusiastically spread his arms, but his injury forced him to drop them as quickly as he’d raised them. ‘The wheels are taller than me and wider.’
Viv sniggered at his enthusiasm. ‘Am I sensing a touch of mine’s-bigger-than-yours, going on here?’ She wiped her mouth, suddenly conscious of stray bits of muesli. ‘How are the ribs?’
‘Better than they were last night. I took more painkillers and knocked myself out. I thought if I got a good night’s sleep I’d be cured. And here I am, not quite cured but much better, thanks to your ministrations.’
‘There’s coffee in the pot if you’d like some. I’d better get dressed.’ As she edged out of the kitchen door she threw over her shoulder, ‘Have I got a story or two for you!’
‘Oi, that’s not fair. I want the story before you go upstairs and spend twenty minutes on titivation.’
Viv stuck her head back round the door. ‘Since when did you know me to spend twenty minutes on anything?’
She left him in the kitchen nursing a cup of strong coffee.
Back within five minutes, she filled the kettle again and sat opposite him exposing her scuffed hands on the table.
‘What have you been up to?’
‘I was in a fight.’
Mac’s face registered shock but he kept his tone light. ‘What? I leave you for five minutes and you’re off fighting the locals.’ He smiled but it wasn’t a happy smile. He stared over the top of his cup. ‘Spill.’
‘When I got back last night I went online to do a bit of research, which always takes longer than you think. Then after too many distractions way into the wee small hours I took Moll out and she wouldn’t come back. I walked down the drive to see what she was up to and someone pushed me, and I mean really pushed me. I hit the deck, but as you do, I tried to get to my feet again. But he was on top of me, he weighed a frickin’ ton, and we scrapped on the ground for a bit . . . Thank God for Moll, ’cause she launched at him, snarling and barking until he went to kick her, when natch . . . I lost it. I managed a few serious whacks but nothing that would leave him too badly injured . . . apart from a bite.’
Mac looked incredulous. ‘So this puts a whole new light on the earlier attacks. Let me think this through.’ He worried at a small nick on his newly shaved chin. ‘So the toppling stone was more likely to have been for you? . . . That is, if it wasn’t a complete accident, which neither of us believes, along with the broken window of our room.’
Viv bristled at the ‘our’. ‘The only room at the inn, if you don’t mind.’
Mac raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Jeez! Touchy or what? I wasn’t accusing you of anything. I was stating a fact. Now, where was I before your paranoia jumped down my throat? Oh yes. Then you get into a brawl in the middle of the night. You said Moll ate something on the drive . . . d’you think whoever attacked you brought that something with him?’ Before she could answer he stood. ‘Let’s go and take a look.’
She hesitated. ‘I’ve already been out. I couldn’t see anything, but yes they could have.’
‘C’mon, let’s go see. Two sets of eyes are better than one.’
Once Mac was convinced that there was nothing more to see immediately outside, he suggested they check out the old mill yard on the other side of the crumbling estate wall. The mill, now a ruin, had outbuildings that were used by Historic Scotland to repair and conserve stone for Doune Castle’s curtain wall. To get access they had to walk to the bottom of the lane and turn back on themselves before climbing a post and rail gate; poor protection for the yard.
It was Saturday morning on a holiday weekend and the yard was deserted. At its entrance tarmac gave way to a sandy gravel surface. They both spotted the tyre tracks at exactly the same moment. There had been torrential rain the night before so any tracks were bound to be new.
Viv cleared a tickle in her throat. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking? They left a car in here? Get this. The padlock’s missing.’ She pulled a chain from round the gatepost and held it up. ‘But why is the gate closed at all? If they crept out of here in the middle of the night, they surely wouldn’t take the risk of stopping and closing the gate neatly behind them. It doesn’t make sense. If only I’d thought to come in here after the attack.’
‘I’m glad you didn’t. But did you hear anything like an engine start up?’
‘No. Nothing. And I lay awake for a long time, shame gnawing away at my brain.’
He frowned. ‘Shame? What have you got to be ashamed of? He attacked you, remember.’
‘Yes, but it took me too long to put into action all the self-defence I’ve learned at . . .’ Her voice tailed off. ‘It should be second nature by now.’
Mac rubbed her arm and didn’t remove his hand. ‘You don’t have to be super-woman all the time, Viv.’
Unsettled by his gentle tone and affectionate touch, she uncurled her arm and slipped through the gate. She kicked around in the grass where Molly had been, but couldn’t see anything. ‘They might have had a key to that padlock.’ Byron Ponsonby leapt to mind. ‘By the way I had a quick look at the hotel this morning.’ She turned to see him standing with his mouth open. She smiled and continued. ‘It turns out our scruffy boatman is a Byron Ponsonby.’
‘What? How do you know that?’
‘Probably best not ask too many questions, but the woman in the ticket office more or less confirmed it.’
‘Well, that puts a spin on things.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll need to have a chat with him, or get Coulson to. Let’s go inside and I’ll fill you in on what I got from her.’
Still distracted, she nibbled on her lip and nodded to herself. ‘It could have been a hybrid.’
He looked
at her in confusion. ‘What?’
‘If there was a car in that yard,’ she pointed over his shoulder, ‘I would have heard it leave. I wasn’t remotely sleepy. But I never heard anything. There’s no way a car with an ordinary engine could have moved without me hearing it. It had to be electric, a hybrid.’
‘Good call. They are totally silent. One of the guys in CID has one, and he could easily take you out while he was reversing in the car park at Fettes.’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘No probs.’
‘Well, the boatman doesn’t have a hybrid, that’s for sure. He drives a manky old pick-up. But I’ve made a mistake about him already and I wouldn’t want to go there again. He’s defo worth another check. What does he have to gain by poking about in that grave? Or, what does someone else have to gain by setting him up?’ She nodded emphatically. ‘Yep, we’d better keep an eye on him and the other guys he works with . . . So who do I know with a hybrid?’ She couldn’t imagine. One of Viv’s hair clients had one, but he, or rather, they, were on a cruise at the moment. Besides, they were so adorable, there was no way it would be them.
Mac’s phone rang before they reached the cottage and he stopped to take the call. Once he’d finished he said, ‘That was Coulson. There’s nothing in the grave on Inchmaholme. Well, nothing that isn’t meant to be there.’
Viv didn’t get it. ‘So how could we find out what was supposed to be in there? You surely weren’t dragged over there on false pretences? . . . On purpose d’you think?’
He smiled at her. ‘Lots of questions just waiting to be answered, Viv. First thing I’ll do is find out who put the call through to ask me to go check out the island. Someone knows what’s going on. But one thing’s for sure, they were intent on getting me there. Unless it was someone at the Sheriffmuir site, they’d have had no idea you’d be with me. Which means the attack on you could be a separate incident.’
‘By the way, I had a look online for the Byron Ponsonbys. The only thing I came up with that’s current is a land dispute. But now that our skipper is in the frame things could be a whole lot different.’
‘Worth a closer look.’
Once inside, Viv noticed the answering machine blinking, and reminded to try Sal again, rang her mobile but still got no reply.
‘You couldn’t stretch to giving me a few more painkillers?’
She looked at him and noticed that the bloom he’d arrived with had faded. ‘Sure. I’ll just get them. We could still get those ribs checked out. It’s not too late.’
He brushed the suggestion away with an elegant hand. ‘No. I’d rather milk being a martyr.’ He threw her a grin. ‘Too much to do. Coulson won’t need us to do anything there, but I’ve had another message to say that they’ve managed to get what looks like another skeleton, or bits of, out of the ground. The rain yesterday washed away loads of the peat that was holding them together. So much for their tents. Anyway water rises in a peatbog. We could go back up to Sheriffmuir . . .’
She stared through him, her focus elsewhere, until he clicked his fingers. ‘Hello? Anyone home?’
She shook her head. ‘I was just thinking about Sal. She’s due back today, I thought this morning, but I can’t get hold of her. I’d like to pick her up from the airport and I wouldn’t want to keep her waiting. Suppose we could go in two cars if you’re able to drive.’
‘I’m fine to drive. You don’t have to come. I just thought . . .’
‘No, no, I’m interested.’ She interrupted him. ‘It’s just that I’ve got something niggling me about the attacker. I’m sure it was a man, because of weight and size.’ She decided against giving him any further details. ‘In the NLP world we’re encouraged to ask what else could this mean, and what someone has to believe in order to attack another person. Attacks are rarely random.’ Viv needed to find out what her attacker’s motivation was.
Mac looked intrigued. ‘Okay. Let’s take the toppling stone. What else could that mean?’
‘Well it could have been accidental and we were unlucky. Perhaps the mason just didn’t stabilize it well enough, or he forgot to. Or it was meant for someone else? Mistaken identity?’
‘Okay. Fair enough. What about the broken window at the hotel?’
She smiled at him, knowing that he’d avoided saying ‘our’ room. ‘A passing hooligan, another case of mistaken identity, or someone pissed off that we were sharing a room? My money’s on the boatman.’
‘Okay, but surely he didn’t have anything to do with the attack on you here?’
‘Perhaps we’re dealing with two different people. It can’t be same old, same old, aggrieved lover, colleague, or other. They’d have to believe that I’d done something wrong. That I’d hurt them really badly. Perhaps I’ve stolen the object of their desire. Or perhaps I’ve stopped them from getting a promotion. Whoever it is believes that I am a baddie and if I am warned off, or worse, their chances would improve.’ She rubbed her hands over her face and blew out a breath. ‘The improvement to their lives would have to be pretty damn dramatic for them to lurk about in the middle of the night in the hope that I’d take the dog out again. Remember, Brian had already taken her out. So they couldn’t be sure that I’d be out there anytime soon.’ Then something occurred to her . . . ‘Your car doesn’t have a tracker on it by any chance?’ This was a shot in the dark but worth checking now that she’d thought of it.
Mac looked alarmed. ‘Not that I know of. But we could take a look.’
She also wondered about her own car but didn’t say. ‘You sit where you are and I’ll go check. Are those painkillers kicking in again?’
Mac was in no fit state to roll about on the ground just yet. ‘Yes they have . . . b . . .’
‘No buts.’
Viv skipped back out to Mac’s car and slid beneath it on the damp gravel. The microchips that they used for tracking these days were much smaller than they used to be. Like the mobile phone everything was shrinking. She focused her torch into the crevices and corners, as her training had taught her, but she couldn’t see anything. As a second thought she opened the bonnet and scanned around the obsessively clean engine. There was something behind the battery but she couldn’t reach it. There was also a strange smell, not oil or brake fluid but something odd. Probably just newness.
‘Mac!’ She shouted, but she needn’t have as he was standing in the doorway chuckling at the sight of her struggling over the edge of the bonnet. ‘Get over here. I think there’s something.’ Mac stood six feet four inches with arms in proportion, but his hands were unusually slim. He stretched down the side of the engine and fiddled with whatever was there, but couldn’t get his forearm far enough down. He slipped his jacket off, handed it to Viv, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and tried again, first with one arm, then the other.
Eventually, as Viv’s patience was waning, he pulled out a small cube with a tiny but powerful magnet on one side and inspected it carefully, wiping its surfaces. ‘I don’t think it’s one of ours . . . But I’ll check, find out who produces this, and hopefully who buys from them. Interesting, though. We, you or I are certainly the subject of someone’s attention.’
‘Is there any way you can disarm it so that they can’t continue to locate us?’
‘There is, but it might be useful if we let them carry on following us. We could trace the source, but we can only do that if the tracker is live. Let’s get a quick look under your bonnet.’
Nothing there.
Viv pushed her hands into her trouser pockets, amazed that someone had been tampering with his car. ‘You’d better get washed up. I’ve got Swarfega in my car.’
‘It’s not that bad. I’ll be fine with soap and water.’ He shook his hands as if they were already wet.
Mac wandered into the conservatory and spoke to someone on the phone. Viv heard him describe the cube, then say he’d send a photograph and ask them to do a check on any like it. He gave them details that she hadn’t noticed and ticked herself off for not paying enough attention. She mused at
how easy it was to forget that Mac did a tricky job because he had the nous to, not because he was a nice guy.
Mac returned to the kitchen. ‘Okay. That’s that done. They’ll get a list from the suppliers.’
The ubiquitous ‘they’ reminded Viv that although she was now his colleague, there were still areas that she didn’t have clearance for. She had no idea who he’d spoken to, but imagined a department somewhere in the bunker-like basement at Fettes whose job it was to find out stuff like that.
Mac attempted to rest his hands on his hips but grimaced and let them fall to his sides. ‘Look, Viv, I’m happy to go back to Sheriffmuir on my own. You want to get things sorted for Sal. I’ll ring you later and fill you in.’
‘You not worried for my safety then?’
‘Yeah, actually I am. I’ll get hold of Mike Coates’ lot. In fact I’ll see him at the site and tell him. He’ll get a presence down this way.’
‘I’m not worried about them coming back. While I’m indoors Moll is as good an early warning system as any.’
‘She wasn’t last night.’ Viv watched as Mac digested his own words. ‘They must have given her raw meat. There’s no way she’d ignore someone’s presence on the drive, or along the wall, and certainly not in the middle of the night.’
‘But after the attack she’ll see them as foes, smell them a mile off. Don’t fret, Mac. I’ll be fine.’ But he was fretting. She continued. ‘Look, I have things to do. There’s no food in the house, I’d like to comb through my laptop, check my mail for the last couple of months. I could have missed something that’s gone into spam. In fact, we should both be vigilant about all our recent correspondence. If there’s an identifiable enemy out there . . . No. They’d do everything possible to surprise us . . . I wonder how much actual mail is gathering behind the door of my flat? When I’m away Ronnie takes it up and puts it through the letterbox. Never mind me. I’m thinking out loud.’