by Ed James
‘Well, just keep an eye on him.’ Hunter turned round and locked eyes with Jock. ‘Same with you. Stay with her and make sure she doesn’t bolt.’
‘Sure thing, son.’ He slurped coffee, oblivious to what else was going on.
Hunter got out and walked over to the corner. The tractor trundled past, belching out fumes. The hoodie-wearing lump saluted a dapper gent outside the Co-op. Hunter crossed and walked up Shug’s street. Only a couple of parked cars on the road, and nowhere near enough room for a porch let alone a drive.
Halfway up, he bent to tie shoelaces that didn’t need tying. Gave him a chance to scope the area better than the cursory glance before.
Shug’s small cottage wasn’t directly overlooked. Over the road, a side-on bungalow sat in some actual garden, surrounded by a tall wall. Looked like a clone further up.
Both neighbouring cottages looked post-war rather than two centuries old.
A silver Range Rover slid past.
Hunter couldn’t figure out if it was the one he saw in Cromarty. Unlikely. Or extremely likely. That was gunmetal grey, but then so was the sky. Now the sun was out, that could lighten to silver.
Either way, he set off again towards the cottage, but he knew there wasn’t a front garden, meaning any gnomes were round the back. A drive led to a garage behind the left-hand neighbour, with a gate into Shug’s garden.
Hunter opened it with a squeal, walking into the garden like he was here to water Shug’s plants while he was off shagging half of Thailand. He stopped by the garden hose and looked around for anyone who might’ve heard. Nobody even who cared. Over the hedge was a grand old house, maybe a manse or just a wealthier local, but no sounds of kids playing or anyone gardening. Not the season for either.
He spotted a row of gnomes. Not what he’d expected. They wore bondage gear and demonstrated sexual kinks: one was being whipped by another one; one wore a gimp suit; another was hanging from a noose, wearing fishnets, with an oversized lemon in his mouth; and the last one held a candle to his exposed genitals.
And his candle hid a key.
Thank god for vice-signalling sexual deviants.
Hunter walked over to the back door and unlocked it. Another look around, no sign or sound that he was being followed. He carefully unlocked it and nudged the door open. Again, listening hard. Inside, the walls were covered in all of the deviant artworks you’d expect. The tennis girl scratching her arse. Charlie the Seahorse smoking a spliff. A Del Amitri album cover blown up to A0.
A harsh rubbery smell he couldn’t place. Given the gnomes, he didn’t want to.
The place was an absolute midden, stuff lying everywhere: CDs lying on DVD cases; clothes on the kitchen floor; a week’s worth of dirty dishes. Hard to figure out if it was a life lived in chaos, someone who’d split in a hurry, or if someone had cased the joint before Hunter.
A few open cardboard boxes lay on the kitchen counter. Box one had packaged Funko Pop dolls, squished-down versions of Iron Man, Captain America and other Marvel superheroes. Next box was filled with more Funko Pops, this time from The Walking Dead.
The third box had a GoPro camera inside.
He knew he should go, but Hunter popped the front panel and unlocked it. He’d used a similar device in his fell running days, a birthday present from Murray, and this wasn’t so far advanced that he needed to consult a manual. The screen showed a list of video files. He opened on the last one.
Video started playing, filling the screen. Whoever wore it crept across the rig platform, without anywhere near as much wind as he’d faced that morning. The camera seemed head-mounted, but that bit lower than you’d expect. They came at the crew quarters from a different angle than Hunter and Jock had, and entered via the corridor Jock was supposed to search, where they’d found the note.
Keith—assuming it was him—ran along it, passing the room with Jock’s porn, and into the recreation area. The sound swelled, the tiny speakers nowhere near good enough to reproduce the detailed room noises. Keith chanced a look backwards and started writing the note to Murray. He left it on a bed, then slipped out and raced along the corridor. He stopped by the door and peered out. No sign of Murray now. So he walked onto the main deck. He peered down and Shug’s boat was still there, but he was leaving.
Keith ran after him, sliding down the ladder like a fireman. Guy was clearly in the top percentile of physically fit. Where Hunter had been in his squaddie days.
The boat was now twenty metres or so away. Shug spotted Keith’s waving arms and seemed to think it through.
Keith looked into his hands—clutching a giant block of white powder; cocaine, maybe, or pure heroin—then at Shug coming back.
A voice called from above and he looked up. A man was up on the platform, with Murray. Looked like the same guy who’d shot at Hunter, who Jock twatted with that pipe.
‘Here, get in!’ Shug’s boat was down at the jetty. No time to dock, just rocking with the waves.
Keith gave Murray a final wave then jumped in the boat, landing on his side and looking back as they shot off around the oil rig.
A speedboat was moored at the far side of the rig, the same one that chased them, or at least the same model.
The video stopped and Hunter played it all through. The video tallied with what Shug told them over WhatsApp.
That block of drugs, though? Jesus.
Hunter played the second-last file.
Murray swung round, pointing his camera back out to sea.
‘There’s enough here for, like, ten shows.’ That voice again, peering into the crew quarters, looking exactly as Hunter had left them that morning. The ping pong table, the games machines, the copious pornography, the TVs. ‘Hello?’ He walked through the door, taking it much slower than Hunter had when they’d visited, and stopped at the pinball table. A hand reached over and pulled the lever, then let it go again. He crouched low and flicked the power but the table stayed dead. Then he walked over to the bar and fiddled with the dry taps just like Jock had. Seemed bored, if nothing else.
He walked back to the crew quarters and took the left fork. He stopped dead and crouched low. Inside the first room was a pile of cardboard boxes that hadn’t been there that morning. Keith sidled up to one and eased the packing tape off. He pried the flaps apart but the camera took a while to resolve the image.
Blocks of heroin, hundreds of them, just like the one he had on the other video. But so much of it.
‘Hot shit.’ Keith took a bag and turned it round in his hands. ‘There’s at least a hundred bags here. This is over a kilo. Smack or coke, Muz. Must be billions of quid.’
The camera pointed over at the door back to the deck, but it was shut and rattling in the wind.
Keith sighed and walked over. He stopped dead, then the camera swung round to point at a man still standing out on the oil rig platform, his features hidden in the darkness, the camera struggling to cope with the bright sunlight coming from behind.
Hunter pressed pause, his heart fluttering. He could make out the face.
Murray.
But he was holding his hands up. The trail was heating up again, but Hunter couldn’t see who was pointing the gun at him.
Hunter hit play and Keith seemed to put his head to the door, like he was listening. Heavy footsteps pounded past.
A man’s voice. Either the microphone didn’t catch it or the speakers couldn’t reproduce it accurately, but it was hard to figure out what was being said.
‘—You are not supposed to be here. As much as I would like to kill you, I have a much better plan. We are going to have so much fun.’
The video cut off. No more footage to check.
Hunter replayed the last snatch and felt like he’d been punched. It confirmed his worst fears. Murray was possibly dead.
Definitely.
Probably.
I punch Murray in the arm, harder than I meant to. It makes him cry. Murray tries hitting me back, but I’m too big and too strong for him. I
do that thing he hates, where I grab his head and he’s punching and punching but he can’t hit me, so he cries even more.
I hold him there really long, his crying getting worse and worse, then I let him go, and he scurries off inside.
Crybaby, running to Grandpa.
Hunter stared around the grotty kitchen, counting the glasses in the cupboard, the cups on the mug tree, the plates on the rack. Back in the here and now. No time to visit the pharmacy yet. He found a clean-enough glass in a cupboard and poured some water. He sipped it.
How the hell had that happened? Two idiots fucking about on an oil rig and they stumble across a shit-ton of drugs.
Did Lord Oswald know what was going on? Was he behind it?
Those rigs sat there for a long time, for months or years, waiting their turn to be refurbished or dismantled. Perfect place to hide a pile of drugs as nobody in their right mind would even consider going up there. Just a pair of idiot urbexers, or a desperate brother and father.
What the hell now?
Hunter looked around the empty cottage. Nothing more to see here. That video camera was the only connection between Shug and Murray. He needed to find Keith. Assuming he was still alive, he’d know more.
Big if.
A shadow passed under the front door. Someone outside.
The handle rattled and the goon from the oil rig stood there, peering in.
19
Hunter sneaked over to the back door and tried to open it without making a sound. Almost succeeded, just a slight click. He pushed himself against the side wall, clutching the GoPro to his chest, and peered back inside.
The goon was now snooping around Shug’s kitchen. Gloves on, a mask covering his mouth. An expert. How the hell had he found Hunter?
Hunter set off across the garden but the GoPro slipped out of his grasp. He reached down to pick it up. Caked in mud.
Shite and shite again.
He crept through the gate, then darted down the path onto the street. A mid-grey Range Rover was parked a few spaces down. So it was the goon who had been following Hunter and staking out the hotel.
Hunter settled into a casual walk, just a normal guy out for a stroll, carrying a muddy head-mounted camera. Back to the crossing by the Co-op and the Range Rover still hadn’t moved.
He didn’t even take a knife and jab it in the tyres.
Fiona was leaning against Jock’s Passat, sucking deep on a cigarette and messing about on her phone.
‘Get in.’
She looked up. ‘Huh?’
‘In!’ Hunter got behind the wheel, and dropped the camera on Jock’s lap.
‘Well?’ Jock didn’t look up from his paper.
‘I’ll show you later.’ Hunter jabbed the ignition and put it in drive. Fiona was taking an age of man to buckle up. ‘Right now, I need to get away from that guy.’ He pulled off into the slipstream of a tractor, heading towards Cromarty on the road to Rosemarkie.
And he spotted the Range Rover in the rear-view, indicating left at the Co-op.
‘We’re being followed. Buckle up.’ Hunter stuck the Passat into sports mode and floored it, whizzing round the tractor. Another one rumbled towards him and he sneaked in just before it hit. The speedo kept climbing, hitting eighty, ninety.
‘Christ, son, this is overdue a service!’
‘Well, I’m putting it through its paces now.’ Hunter spotted an opportunity up ahead—a walled garden selling plants, followed by a lane signposted towards a brewery. Last place Jock should go, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
The Range Rover was stuck back in the convoy, weaving out, but the oncoming traffic stopped it closing.
Hunter swung round a bend and lost it. He took another left and shot down the lane without losing much speed. Seventy, eighty. Another lane at the back of the walled garden. He pulled into it and hit a three-pointer, aiming back onto the road.
Then he waited, window down, listening for a roaring engine.
‘What’s going on, Craig?’
‘Shhh.’
‘Don’t you—’
Hunter reached round and covered Jock’s lips with a hand. ‘Just two minutes’ silence, that’s all I need.’
Jock shook his head.
And there it was, the roar of a heavy diesel engine. The Range Rover shot past, a scream of silver and diesel.
Hadn’t spotted them.
Hunter listened to it disappear, the sound becoming thinner and more diffuse.
‘Who was that?’
‘The arsehole on the oil platform. He was in Shug’s cottage.’
Hunter snatched Fiona’s phone from her.
‘What the hell?’ She clawed at the air. ‘I need to tell Shug—’
‘You’re telling him nothing. Radio silence, okay?’ Hunter checked the messages on the screen. Still showed the last one he’d sent to Shug. So either they’d kept quiet, or Fiona had deleted any subsequent exchanges. ‘There’s something going on here. He’s been staking out the hotel and now he’s rooting around Shug’s. Are you leaking to him?’
Fiona just shook her head.
Jock was dicking about with the GoPro. ‘These things are those fancy ones you put on your head?’ He stuck it on and started adjusting the camera. ‘Like in those pornos?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘What do they call it? Point of view.’
Hunter grabbed the box and spotted a tag inside.
Keith Wilson, Inverness.
Mobile number below. He got out his own phone and checked it. The same number Hunter had dialled earlier.
He called Cullen. Voicemail. Probably in an interview or just avoiding him now.
What now?
Got it.
He spotted Keith’s phone in the tray under the car stereo. Still unlocked. But Keith’s.
He called PC Davie Robertson again, tapping his fingers off the wheel.
It was answered with a mumbled, ‘What?’
‘It’s Craig Hunter. Need your—’
‘You know what time it is?’
‘Sorry if I’ve just got you out of your bed, but—’
‘Aye, you have. Mate, you never done nights?’
‘Too many to count.’ Hunter sighed. ‘Look, I need to know everything about the case.’
‘Why, what have you done?’
‘Nothing yet. But my brother… Listen, did the name Keith come up?’
‘Keith?’ A long yawn. ‘Well, had a few calls from a Keith Wilson in Inverness, looking for someone called Murray.’
‘You didn’t think to add this to the file?’
‘Hold your horses. Not my fault. We get these calls all the time, sure you’ve had your share?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘Besides, you don’t know if this is the same one.’ Another yawn. ‘Lad kept calling the station, saying he was tracking down who’d taken Murray. He said he’s onto something. Asking us to look into Albanians in the area.’
‘Albanians?’
Fiona looked round, frowning.
‘Right. Guy was obsessed. Dunno. He was supposed to come into the station with some evidence he’d found, but he never showed up.’
‘You got an address for him?’
Hunter drove through Inverness, one dual carriageway leading to a roundabout and on to another dual carriageway.
‘Tell you, this used to be a nice town.’ Jock sat in the passenger seat, gripping the oh-shit handle above the door, shaking his head. ‘Now it’s like Stirling.’
‘What’s wrong with Stirling?’ Fiona was in the back seat, arms folded like she had no idea what to do without her phone.
‘If I need to explain it…’
Hunter locked eyes with Fiona. ‘Jock’s just hangry.’
‘Hangry? What the fu—’
‘It’s a portmanteau of—’
‘I know what it is! I’m not hangry!’
‘So why are you shouting, bud?’
Jock turned his ire to Fiona. ‘You try fasting!’
‘Rather ju
st not eat shite the other five days of the week.’
‘Enough!’ Hunter pulled onto Caledonian Road. ‘Have a look for the house.’
Fiona pointed over the road. ‘That’s it there.’
‘You been here before?’
‘No. Well. Got a buddy in number forty. Lives in Fort William now.’
Hunter got out onto the street and leaned back in as cars whistled past. ‘Stay with him. Call me if you see a grey Range Rover.’
‘You’ve got my phone.’
‘Jock can call.’
Jock looked at him, pleading. ‘Come on, Craig, let me come with you.’
‘If the worst’s happened, I need to preserve evidence.’
‘Sod this for a game of fucking soldiers.’ Jock got out of the car. ‘I’m coming!’
‘No, you’re not.’ Hunter blocked his path. ‘I’ve joked about you being hangry, but you’re acting like a cock. Get some fucking food in you and then you can maybe come with me. Corner shop, now.’
‘Right.’ Jock staggered up the street, dragging his right leg behind him.
Hunter shifted his focus to the back seat. ‘You okay?’
Fiona gave a shrug. ‘Bit spooked, like.’ She sat there like a stroppy teenager, arms still folded. ‘Can I get my phone back?’
‘I don’t trust you.’
‘Man… I’ve helped you, haven’t I?’
‘Let’s just say the jury’s out. After this, I’ll drop you in Cromarty.’ Hunter passed over her phone.
‘Thanks.’ She bit her fingernail. ‘I’d rather take my chances with you and the GILF.’
‘GILF?’
‘Grandfather I’d Like to Fu—’
‘Behave yourselves, right?’ Hunter grabbed the keys then set off down the street.
Number fifty-six was a small semi-detached house in a street of similar houses. Some had swipes of paint, others had stayed in the same default seventies roughcast job. Keith’s home was better tended than the rest. Instead of a feral garden, the front yard was covered in decking, with wild bushes growing among pot plants thriving in the sun. He walked up the path and tried the doorbell.
Nothing. No sounds, no lights.