Craig Hunter Books 1-3

by Ed James

  ‘Got a wee bit of a problem, Craigy boy. Sheep all over the road. Can’t get through.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Wish I was. We’re doubling back to the A9 and taking the low road. Be another fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Hunter tightened his grip on the phone, felt like snapping the bastard thing. A few deep breaths and he was calm again. ‘Can you track a number for me?’

  ‘Sure. Got my laptop primed and ready. What is it?’

  Hunter read it out.

  ‘My reception’s not the best up here in the boonies, let’s see.’ Clicky clacky sounds. ‘Aha, got it. One potato, two potato, three potato and bang. Well, it looks like it’s in Cromarty. And it’s moving. If I was a betting man, I’d say it’s near the pub. That help?’

  ‘A bit, aye. Cheers, Elvis.’ Hunter hung up. ‘Shug’s here.’

  ‘Thought you’d be able to track his phone down to the inch, son?’

  ‘Doesn’t work like that. We’re not CTU.’

  ‘CT-what?’

  ‘It’s a 24 reference. Never mind.’ Hunter got out of the car. ‘Let’s split up and find him. Jock, you stay here.’

  ‘What? I’m not—’

  ‘Last time, you fucked off with a stolen phone. Stay here and behave, okay?’

  A nod and a grunt from Jock, then the old git tugged his jacket collar up and sat back.

  Hunter locked the door this time, then followed Chantal towards Big Vennel and the high street. ‘He’s going to screw this up, isn’t he?’ He sighed. ‘Just like he’s screwed everything else up in his life.’

  On the high street, a pair of male smokers lurked outside the pub, eyeing up an office worker heading home. No sign of Shug, not that they had much to go on other than a sketchy drunk Facebook photo.

  ‘Right, you go that way.’ Chantal set off towards the pub, leaving Hunter to head towards the art centre, to where he’d tailed Fiona the previous night. The short side roads were mostly empty, just a couple of businessmen getting out of their cars in the pale streetlight glow. He called Chantal as he walked. ‘You got anything?’

  ‘Not yet. You?’

  ‘Still nothing.’ Hunter looked back the way and spotted her talking to the woman with the heels. ‘Keep me posted.’ He ended the call and dialled Elvis again. ‘Can you get me an update on that phone’s location?’

  ‘Checking… It’s not moved yet, Craig.’

  ‘Still near the pub?’

  ‘Aye, as far as the tech will let me see. You know, if I had access to the GPS…’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Ha, good one.’

  Chantal was talking to the smokers outside the pub, but their body language didn’t look encouraging.

  Hunter was outside the arts centre now. No ceilidhs tonight, not even a candlelit yoga session. Down the street to the shore, Jock sat in the car stretching out his back, the window cracked open and his sharp breath puffing in the air. No Shug. And no other possible routes. So he doubled back towards the pub, rounding the bend again.

  Chantal was hammering towards him, chasing after someone. Shug, presumably, though the light was so low he couldn’t see who.

  Hunter darted towards them, his boots clomping off the road, rattling his fragile ribs.

  Chantal caught up with Shug, but he darted away from her grasp, kicked her in the shin and pushed her over, sending her tumbling into the pub doorway, then bombed towards Hunter.

  Hunter closed on him, but Shug cut down a side street towards the shore. A stark choice—Shug or Chantal?

  Hunter raced over to help her up from the doorway, yelling, ‘You alright?’

  ‘Get him!’ Her shout echoed round the street.

  ‘Right.’ Hunter sprinted off down the vennel, his boots slapping off the cobbles now, his breath coming slow and hard, but digging into his ribs. ‘STOP!’

  Shug was fast, short and lithe, head ducked low, and outpacing Hunter, gaining half a stride with each one of Hunter’s. He spun out at the end of the street, turning right, and Hunter pushed hard, rounding off the corner, and stopped dead.

  Jock stood over Shug, now lying on the ground. Jock knelt low and grabbed Shug by the throat. ‘Right, you little shite. Where the hell is my son?’

  Shug tried kicking him away but Jock held him fast, pinned to the pavement. ‘Get to fuck!’

  Hunter elbowed Jock out of the way and caught a sickly smell. Dogshit. He gripped Shug by the wrist, yanking him up to standing, and saw a smear all up his back. He let out a deep sigh, even though his breathing was still racing.

  Chantal jogged over, dabbing her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Hunter gave her a nod, still holding on to Shug. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Chantal slowed to a leisurely stroll and put her phone to her ear. ‘Thanks for the backup, Scott. We’ve got Shug.’

  Hunter turned on Jock. ‘I told you to stay.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got two pairs of keys, haven’t I?’ Jock stared at Shug. ‘And I wanted to sort this pervert out with my own two hands.’

  Shug bristled. ‘Who you calling pervert, you old cunt?’

  ‘Leading my son astray!’

  ‘Mate, they were the ones leading me astray. Pair of them, snorting amyl nitrate. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other’s cocks, kept trying it on with me. Not my scene.’

  Jock wrestled free and stomped towards Shug. ‘You fucking come here and say that!’

  Hunter grabbed Jock by the shoulders. ‘STOP!’

  And he did.

  Hunter focused on Shug, trying to ignore the reek of dog muck. ‘Tell me everything you know about Murray Hunter.’

  ‘Like I told that old cunt, you can get to fuck.’

  25

  The interview room still stank of boiled fish, but it was getting worse. Rotten, boiled fish. That could play to their advantage this time. Maybe. But it was masked by the cloying reek of dog shit. Shug sat there, in a fresh tracksuit, still somehow stinking of it.

  Hunter leaned forward, catching his shirt button on the edge of the table. ‘We’re looking for a Keith Wilson.’ He let the name settle in the air and in the interviewee’s mind. ‘You seen him recently?’

  Shug sat back, cleared his throat, then took a long sip of water, slow and careful, while he stared at Cullen, then at Hunter. Under the harsh strip lights, his weaselly features were lined with creases and cracks. Not so much a lived-in face, as a long series of stays in grotty hotels. All this time, he’d not even looked at Hunter. Didn’t seem the sort to defer to official hierarchy, so maybe there was something else in his reticence. Like knowing what happened to Murray. Shame, or guilt maybe. ‘No idea what you’re talking about, pal.’

  ‘Know anything about Keith’s death?’

  ‘Now hold on a minute!’ Shug raised his hands high in the air and shot a dark glare at Hunter. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Sure you don’t want that lawyer in here?’

  ‘Quite sure, pal, quite sure.’

  Usually it was a blessed relief to be without a snidey little bastard in a cheap suit, but when someone was this deep in trouble, a lawyer could help coax out the truth in exchange for something useful for their client. Then again, Shug didn’t seem to know how deep in the shit he was.

  ‘You know where Murray Hunter is?’

  Shug frowned, running a hand over the salt-and-pepper stubble. ‘The actor?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, the comedian boy.’ Shug started clicking his fingers. ‘In that Absolutely show. Mind it? Back in the eighties?’

  ‘Different spelling.’ Cullen leaned forward, a subtle flash of his eyebrows telling Hunter that he was taking over. ‘That was Moray as in the firth. This is Murray as in David Murray. Used to own Rangers.’

  Shug rolled his eyes. ‘I’m not a hun, pal.’

  ‘Right.’ Cullen nodded slowly. ‘So, is it Ross County or Inverness Caley Thistle?’

  ‘Aye, go
od one. Not been arsed with football in many a year. Used to be a Celtic fan, as it happens, but…’

  ‘But you gave that up for heroin.’

  Shug gave Cullen a long hard look. ‘Do you want me to help you or what?’

  ‘You know which one it is, so let’s cut to the chase. Last week, you took two people on your boat out to an oil rig in the firth.’

  A shrug. ‘So you say.’

  ‘We’ve got evidence of it, you need to—’

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘But you know who did, right?’

  ‘You seem to have the wrong idea about me, pal. I’m just a fisherman with a sideline in boat tours.’

  Hunter nodded at his bony arms, covered in tiny pinpricks. ‘Which doesn’t explain the track marks.’

  Shug started rolling down his left sleeve.

  ‘The way I see it, something happened on that oil rig.’ Hunter waited until the right sleeve covered the scabbed-over dots on Shug’s skeletal forearm. ‘Now, we have video evidence that you were on the rig with them.’

  ‘Like fuck I was!’

  ‘You were on the jetty.’

  Shug slumped back in his chair and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Despite running from us, you’re here as a potential witness, not a suspect.’ Hunter screwed up his face, started tilting his head from side to side like he was weighing something up. ‘The way it’s looking, though, I think we should rethink that approach.’

  Shug picked up his water again, his hand shaking slightly. He didn’t speak.

  Hunter glanced over at Cullen. ‘What do you think, Inspector?’

  Cullen sat back and folded his arms, twisting his lips as he thought. ‘I agree with your assessment. Way I see it, he’s just a fisherman caught up in something here. Something he didn’t expect.’ His pause let Shug nod a few times, but he clearly didn’t realise he’d stepped into a trap and the snare was biting into his leg. ‘But he’s hiding something from us, isn’t he? And I’d really love to know what. Because if we found out from someone else the information he’s keeping back, then that really wouldn’t look good for him, would it?’

  Shug still kept quiet.

  ‘Of course, if that something implicates him in a murder, then—’

  ‘I wasn’t involved in anything like that!’

  Cullen nodded slowly. ‘So how about you tell us exactly how you are involved?’

  Shug gasped out a sigh. He stared up at the ceiling, the lights shining on his neck and showing a diagonal slash across his throat from his right ear. ‘Fuck it.’ He settled back in his chair and hugged his arms tight around his skinny frame. ‘I took those two loons over to that rig, okay? I waited there for them while they went up, but a boat came over. I was about to hightail it out of there when I spotted that Keith boy coming back down the ladder, absolutely shitting himself. He got in and told me to go. So we did.’

  ‘He say what happened to Murray?’

  ‘Said nothing much, pal.’

  Hunter decided not to press it now, just keep him talking. ‘Where did the boat come from?’

  ‘From the Invergordon side, but I couldn’t say exactly where. Got a few suspicions.’

  ‘Any you’d like to share with us?’

  ‘Nothing you’d find useful.’

  ‘Keith didn’t bring anything back?’

  Shug snorted.

  ‘We know he found drugs up there.’ Cullen thumbed at the door. ‘I’ve got five drugs squad guys just arrived from Edinburgh. Specialists. If you tell us something useful about what Keith found, you can walk out of here a free man.’

  Hunter nodded along with Cullen’s words. ‘Just the truth, that’s all we want.’

  Shug took a few seconds to think it through, his finger tracing the line on his neck. Then he nodded. ‘So, this Keith lad found a load of smack on the oil rig. He grabbed a couple blocks when he ran off.’

  ‘A couple?’

  ‘I saw two. He might’ve had more. I don’t know.’ Shug scratched at his right arm. ‘I helped him test the purity. This stuff was like the pure driven snow, I tell you.’

  ‘You used it?’

  Shug looked away, calculating the odds. Same as every heavy user. His freedom to inject and shorten his lifespan versus admitting his habit and doing time, even if in rehab. ‘A spoonful of sugar, pal.’

  ‘So you’re an addict?’

  Another nod, much shorter and more subtle than the others.

  ‘It’s quite common among the fishing community, but you know that. We won’t report you to anyone.’

  ‘Okay, so I’m a smackhead.’ Shug seemed to deflate as he spoke, like he was at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. ‘I injected on shore leave, then popped methadone when I was out at sea. But that work’s dried up, so…’

  ‘So you’re just taking heroin all the time?’

  ‘Apart from when I take people out on the boat.’

  Hunter tapped a shoe off Cullen’s foot, indicating he was taking over again. This wasn’t a drugs bust, it was locating a person of interest in a double murder. Probably a triple. ‘So what happened to the rest of Keith’s heroin?’

  ‘Sold it.’ Shug had the thousand-yard stare of a wine or coffee connoisseur. ‘Well, I took a chunk of it, kept it for my own supply. Shit’s so pure it’ll keep me going for months. First lot I took, I was strung out on the floor, man. Total Kurt Cobain shot. Felt just like the first time I tried smack. It’s what we’re all chasing.’

  ‘And the rest of it?’

  ‘Keith wanted nothing to do with it. Said it was covered in blood.’

  ‘But you wanted everything to do with it, right?’

  ‘Right. Met this geezer in the pub one night. Kid was from Edinburgh but laying low in Cromarty. Daft cunt was giving it the chat, trying to impress people. Not sure how low you can lie when you’re telling complete strangers you’re a dealer, but he was. And he was keen to get hold of all that gear and had the money to hand, so…’

  ‘How much did you get?’

  ‘Twenty grand. Know it’s worth a lot more, but it’s nice to have the cash now. Pay off some debts, get some work done to the Pride of Crom. Maybe let me buy the other half off Wee Ally.’

  Hunter decided to keep the news of Ally’s death away from Shug just now. ‘And he just happened to have twenty grand on him?’

  ‘Well, it was in his caravan. Drove us down there. Boy had it in an Adidas sports bag. Dude like that, he’ll have an emergency slush fund, won’t he? Enough to keep him going long enough that the heat dies away.’

  ‘He give you his name?’

  ‘Nope. Just took his cash and fucked off.’

  ‘He say where he was taking the heroin?’

  ‘You fucking with me? I barely ask my punters where they want to go on my boat, let alone where a dealer’s taking a load of smack I don’t want to know anything about.’

  Hunter decided to hit him with it. ‘Any idea why someone would murder Alistair McCoull?’

  ‘What?’ Shug’s pale face lost a few more shades. ‘Ally?’ His gaze shot between them. ‘Ally’s dead?’

  ‘Murdered. At his home.’

  ‘Christ.’ Shug huffed out a sigh and started crying. ‘Man…’

  And they weren’t getting any more out of him.

  Hunter stood in the obs suite and sipped the machine coffee, black with three sugars. Felt his teeth lose a few layers of enamel. He looked over at Cullen, sipping his own coffee, but staring at Shug on the monitor. ‘So my brother’s dead?’

  Cullen clamped his shoulder. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I just want to find who did this.’

  ‘Well, that confirmed the drugs were real and now we know what happened to them.’ Cullen rested his cup on the table. ‘And we played well together in there. Just like old days, but more effective.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What are our options here?’

  Hunter took another sip. ‘Find the dealer, find the smack.’

>   ‘And what does that give us?’

  Good question. Hunter needed to find Murray. Was chasing down a heroin deal likely to do that? ‘The pharmacology could be interesting, could tie it to a known dealer, someone we could shake down.’

  ‘That’s one for the drugs squad and it’ll take days.’ Cullen tossed his empty cup in the bin, leaving a trail of black dots on the inside. ‘You really think your brother’s caught up in this narcotics operation?’

  ‘Caught up, aye, but involved? No. All we’ve got is a smackhead fisherman’s word for what happened. That GoPro gives a part of the story, but who knows where it leads.’ Hunter rested the cup on the table. ‘We need to speak to this dealer. If we can tie the drugs to an ongoing operation, that might give us a lead.’

  ‘Let’s back up a bit here.’ Cullen picked up his cup and took a long slug. ‘What have you got so far?’

  ‘Well, my brother’s boyfriend’s dead, murdered in his flat in Inverness. Shug took them out to that rig, where they found a ton of heroin. Keith swiped a couple of blocks and escaped. Shug sold some to a mystery dealer and went to ground. We were really lucky to catch him.’

  ‘Two deaths in such a short space of time has to be linked, right?’

  ‘I’d say so. Shug was hiding out. We thought he was abroad, but he was somewhere local. Say whoever killed Murray identified Shug’s boat. They’ve got a name, so they murder the co-owner in Perth. I saw someone at Shug’s cottage in Fortrose looking for him.’

  Cullen focused on the screen again, on Shug scratching at his arms.

  The door swung open and Elvis stepped in, crowding an already full room. ‘Ah, Craig, there you are.’

  ‘Alright, Elvis. What’s up?’

  ‘See your old man? There’s a missing persons report on him.’

  26

  Jock was in the station canteen, chewing hard and noisily, his lips slapping together. A plate of six sausages sat in front of him, artfully drizzled with brown sauce. He looked up at Hunter and said something, but it was just meaty mush.

  Hunter took the seat opposite, leaving Elvis standing like an idiot. ‘Thought this was a fasting day.’