“It’s not obvious?” the man said. “We took your son as, well, let’s say collateral. You do what we say, and we’ll return him to his mother safe and sound.”
Alec didn’t want to ask what would happen if he refused to comply.
“How can I trust you’ll keep up your end of the bargain?” he asked, voice strained.
“You deliver us the goods, we’ll bring him to you, and you can take him home,” the man promised, but Alec squinted at him disbelievingly. “Cross my heart.” He sketched an X over his heart, but Alec thought the gesture was a little sarcastic.
“What do you want me to steal?” Alec asked through gritted teeth. He couldn’t take his eyes off his boy’s face on the screen. Tear tracks ran down his cheeks, and his mouth, though ungagged, was firmly shut, lips pressed so tightly together they’d turned white.
Alec had left his family when Finn was two years old in order to protect his son from situations exactly like this. He thought he’d gotten away clean, ditching the name he’d told his wife as he had ditched so many before, mailing his child support money from locations that couldn’t be tracked back to him, severing all contact with his former life.
Well, almost all contact. Sometimes, he couldn’t help but check in on Finn from afar, but somehow, these men had still found him out. Found his son.
“It should be simple enough for a thief of your calibre,” the man said as he hung up the phone. A crack shot through Alec’s chest when his son’s face disappeared, consumed by the black screen. “We want the deed to the Castle of Old Wick. Its owner lives at 21 Crown Drive. And I’m sure this goes without saying, but keep this to yourself. If we hear you got any cops involved...” He let the threat dangle.
“Why do you want a deed to a castle?” Alec asked, but even as the words were leaving his mouth, he knew it was a mistake.
The man’s eyes flashed. “That’s none of your concern. You have until midnight on Saturday.” He stood to leave, tucking his phone away inside his long coat. The pressure on Alec’s shoulder increased for just a moment, threatening to crush him before it disappeared.
“Wait,” Alec said before the trio could walk off. “How do I get the deed to you?”
“Just come to the castle. We’ll be waiting. Just not too long.” The man winked, and then he and his two associates walked off into the night, hands stuffed casually in their pockets as if they hadn’t just upended Alec’s entire life.
Thirteen
I stared across the table at MacGowan after he finished his tale, tapping my nails against the metal table as I thought it over. What he said rang true, not just his words but his tone of voice and the nervous look on his face. The man was genuinely terrified for his son.
Yet a spot of anger still crawled in my gut. It may have been for a good reason, but MacGowan still abandoned his son. He left Finn and his mother to fend for themselves while he went gallivanting off who knew where. Finn would have been too young to remember him, but that sort of thing still left a hole. I should know. And then MacGowan’s plan failed. He still opened his son up to the dangers of his life, and his distance only meant that he hadn’t been around to stop it.
“Do you have any idea who these men are?” Fletcher asked, but MacGowan shook his head.
“I’d never seen them before.”
“Castle of Old Wick…” She looked at me. “What’s special about that?”
I shrugged. I was pretty sure it sat on the coast somewhere up north, and it definitely wasn’t one of the castles that attracted swarms of tourists, but other than that, I knew nothing about it.
“Your man with the squashed nose attacked us today,” I told MacGowan. “Whoever these people are, they’re not messing around.”
“I’m sure they’ve already heard about my arrest,” MacGowan said. He sat all the way forward in his chair and stared at me with pleading eyes. “They’ll know I told you everything. They’ll hurt my son. Please, you have to save him.”
“Of course, we’ll save him,” Fletcher said. She looked at me. “We’ll have to move fast.”
Moving fast was the last thing my battered body wanted to do, but I nodded and dragged myself from the chair. We left MacGowan in the interrogation room for Owens to move back to holding.
“Do we want to wait for Dunnel and get back up?” Fletcher asked as we walked across the station.
“If what MacGowan says is true, there’s no time. If we wait, we risk the kid getting hurt.”
“We can take my car since yours is… out of commission.” She winced apologetically as she said it, and I glowered at my desk as I dug through it for my half-empty box of paracetamol, stuffing it in the pocket of my duster along with my phone charger and an extra magazine of ammunition from the bottom locked drawer. “The castle is two hours from here. If something happens…” She let the thought trail off, but I knew what she meant.
If something happened, we wouldn’t have a cat in hell’s chance.
“We’ll call Dunnel on the way, let him know where we’re going,” I suggested. He wouldn’t like it. This was exactly the sort of operation he’d want done carefully and with plenty of back-up and contingencies, but as I already said, we didn’t have time for that. A kid’s life could be on the line. Haruto Sato would have to wait. I could be mostly confident that he was safe for the night. I couldn’t say the same for Finn.
We jumped into Fletcher’s car, and she cut off three other drivers as she reversed out of her spot, earning us several honks and an annoyed shout, but she ignored them and peeled out of the parking lot, and we were on our way. I plugged my phone into the USB port to charge then dialled Dunnel, placing him on speaker so we could both hear.
“Dunnel,” he answered, sounding annoyed at being interrupted.
“It’s MacBain.”
“This is one hell of a mess you’ve left me with.”
“And it’s about to get worse,” I assured him. Fletcher cranked the wheel and burst onto the street, blending seamlessly into traffic. “We found Finn’s father. He’s being blackmailed by the same people who attacked us. We think we know where Finn is. Fletcher and I are headed there now.”
“Now?” Dunnel spluttered. “MacBain, you two were just in a car crash and a firefight. You’re in no shape to go cavorting off somewhere. Wait for backup. Do this safely.”
I shook my head, though I knew he couldn’t see me. “There’s no time. If these people, whoever they are, figure out MacGowan told us the score, then it’s bad news for the kid. We don’t have time to wait for backup. We’re headed to the Castle of Old Wick. Send a team to meet us there. If this goes well, we’ll need help with the cleanup.”
“And if this goes poorly, they’ll be cleaning you up,” Dunnel said sourly.
“Your concern is touching,” I replied. “Haruto is safe?”
“He’s got two officers outside his apartment,” Dunnel replied. “Did you find anything out about those licence plates?”
“They were rented by some company called Allraise Ventures. It’s based in Edinburgh. No answer at the phone number.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Us neither.”
“Do not get yourselves hurt tonight, do you hear me?” Dunnel ordered. I could practically hear him pointing his finger in my face. “Or I will put your ass in the hospital myself.”
“Redundant as I would already be in the hospital,” I shot back and cut off his angry reply by hanging up. I dropped my phone into a cup holder in the centre console with a sigh. “He’s going to have my badge if this goes wrong.”
Fletcher avoided the city centre and its narrow, jam-packed streets as she headed for one of the bridges over the Moray Firth. “I am so glad I transferred up here from Glasgow. I thought it would be kind of quiet and boring up north. No offence.”
“None taken.”
Her face fell, some of the cheer draining away like water over rocks. “I just wish it weren’t a kid on the line.”
“We’ll find him,�
�� I said quietly, as much to reassure myself as Fletcher.
The light in front of us switched, allowing us to trundle onto the long bridge over the water. The Moray Firth sparkled a dark blue in the sunlight, stretching its long arm out to reach the sea which turned grey as it faded into the distance.
“Have you ever worked a missing persons case before?” Fletcher asked. She signalled and changed lanes to pass the slow-moving car in front of us.
“A woman came to us about a missing husband a few years ago,” I answered. “But he had somehow forgotten his phone and wallet, gotten off the train at the wrong stop, and wound up lost in the middle of nowhere in Devon.”
“How did he manage that?” Fletcher laughed quietly.
“I honestly have no idea.”
We rolled off the bridge on the other side of the firth, and Fletcher began to pick up speed, weaving in and out of the passing lane as she overtook the other cars. I watched the scenery roll by out the window. The hills oozed by, their peaks worn away by the short, wild grass. Grey rocks, spotted with brown and green moss, broke up the smooth lines, rising from the earth like lost gravestones in a forgotten field. To our left, off in the distance, the mountains struggled to reach for the sky while their broad sides spilt back to the earth like poorly bound locks of hair. The road curved for a few kilometres, and then the ocean hemmed us in from the other side. The blue-grey waters glittered in the afternoon soon as it stretched itself across the world to meet the horizon. Waves crashed against the rocky shore not twenty metres from us, throwing white spray into the air.
Fletcher kept the music low, but the sombre dirge still permeated the car, sinking right into my bones, though it couldn’t quell the nerves curling in my stomach. I focused on the way the tires rumbled beneath me as they ate up the distance, on the way the sun warmed my hand where it rested by the window. A life hung in the balance, and we had no way of knowing if we would be there in time to make a difference. We didn’t even know if we were headed to the right place.
I watched a seagull alight on a scrap of driftwood on the beach for the barest of seconds before taking off again. All my cases mattered, of course, but this was the first one with tangible, fast-approaching stakes. With the others, the danger was, for the most part, in the past. A murder victim couldn’t be killed again, a burgled item couldn’t be re-stolen. There was time if it was needed. Today, we had none, and yet, we were still eating up minute after minute as the road wound lazily between the hills.
“Was that a new girl or an old girl?” I asked Fletcher because I needed something to fill the space and calm the ache within my stomach.
She glanced at me in surprise then focused back on the road. “Sort of both. We were friends in uni but lost touch because she moved up here, and I went to Glasgow. I called her up when I found out I was moving here.” An embarrassed smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “Truth be told, I always had a bit of a crush on her.”
“Did you have fun?”
“I did.” Her grin turned from embarrassed to sly as she looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “You seemed like you were having an awful lot of fun with Lena after her gig.”
“Not for long,” I grumbled, still a little bit put out that she’d left so quickly.
“Does someone have a crush?” Fletcher teased.
“I’m not twelve.”
The rise we were on grew steeper, and as the engine began to whine, Fletcher downshifted to give it more pep. “Why don’t you text her and ask her out?” she suggested. “If the case winds up tonight, it’ll no longer be a conflict of interest.”
“She’s got that whole thing with her ex.” I wasn’t sure she would even be interested in going out with me, nor was I particularly fond of opening myself up to rejection.
“Her ex.” Fletcher hit the accelerator and ducked into the oncoming lane to pass the slower car in front of her. “Look, I may not be able to tell when someone’s interested in me, but I can always see it in other people, and there was something in the way she looked at you. She’d say yes if you asked.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to.”
Fletcher’s eyes narrowed as she glanced at me through the rearview mirror. “Then I’ll put ‘Baby Shark’ on repeat until you do.”
I looked at her with mounting horror as she reached for her phone and, without taking her eyes off the road, opened up Spotify. She began to type in the search bar. I crossed my arms and glared at her. If I suffered, she suffered. She found the song and selected it, finger hovering over the play button. I remained resolute. Her thumb descended towards the screen as if in slow motion. She turned her head to look at me, and our eyes locked. She would not falter. She would play that song all the way to the castle if she had to.
“Fine!” I snapped the nanosecond before her finger hit the screen. “I’ll text Lena.”
Fletcher grinned triumphantly and put her phone down while I picked up mine and scrolled through my recent calls to find Lena’s number. I put the digits in a new text message and then stared at the blinking cursor for a long moment until Fletcher coughed menacingly.
“Fine,” I said again and got to work.
“Hi Lena, this is Callum MacBain. I’m sorry if this is too forward or weird, but my case might be wrapping up tonight, and so I was wondering if you might want to grab dinner with me tomorrow?”
I hit send.
I stuck the phone under my leg where I would still be able to hear it vibrate, but it also wouldn’t be staring me in the face while I waited for a reply that probably wasn’t going to come.
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Fletcher said a little smugly.
“I will get you back for this,” I promised.
She laughed, and I settled back in my seat. Reilly and I had a similar easy rapport, and I found, though I would never admit this to Dunnel or anyone else, that I’d rather missed it. An empty car could swallow one whole, but having another person inside, even if they were silent, carried the ride along.
The further north we drove, the more rugged the terrain grew. The green-brown grass gave way to a dense, reddish plant that sat thick upon the ground, and the rough, tumbled rocks became larger and more populous. Some of the stones were flat enough to form shelves that could fit an entire car, marching up the hills like huge, mostly eroded steps. The sea became greyer and rougher, but it receded from us as we began to climb. The waves crashed against the softened, green and black cliffside below us.
I checked my watch as the sun began to droop towards the horizon. We were getting close. “We need a plan,” I said.
“I was hoping we would get to that,” Fletcher said, but the joke was strained and weak. I could hear her nerves in her voice as the Castle of Old Wick drew ever closer. “Please don’t say ‘let’s split up’ because I don’t think I can handle that.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” I promised. “Since we don’t know what we’re getting into, we should stick together.”
“Do you want to go in hard or quiet?”
“I don’t think the castle is very large. There might not be a lot of cover to sneak in, but we also don’t know how many people we’ll be up against, so we could get ourselves in a lot of trouble if we go in hard. How do you feel about playing it by ear?”
“Not great,” Fletcher admitted in a slightly high-pitched voice. “I’d really rather have a plan.”
Before I could answer, she slammed on the brakes, and we skidded to an abrupt stop in the gathering dusk, the backend of the car fishtailing. I braced a hand against the glove compartment as my butt threatened to slide right off the chair even with the seatbelt.
“Shit!” Fletcher yelped and hammered on her horn.
There was a flock of sheep trundling across the road. They paid absolutely no attention to Fletcher’s angry honk, just wagged their shaggy hindquarters at us as they went on their merry, unconcerned way. They all had blue dots spray-painted on their dirty, white fleece to differentiate them from
the rest of the flocks roaming the Highlands. Fletcher laid on the horn again, but it made no difference. A few of the sheep simply stopped in the middle of the road, nudging each other with their snouts until Fletcher looked ready to scream.
“We don’t have time for this!” she yelled out her window. One of the sheep turned its black face to look at us and bleated dispassionately. “We’re so close. Get out there and point your gun at them.”
“They’re sheep. They don’t know what a gun is,” I said, but I climbed out of the car anyway, wincing as I awoke all of the day’s bruises. The evening air was cool on my face, sharp with the scent of salt and brine coming off the ocean. I approached the sheep and began to wave my hands to try to shoo them to the other side of the road. I’d never liked sheep. There was something in the face, a kind of blankness somehow paired with the unfathomable knowledge of the universe and a desire to bite whatever came in reach.
“You have to yell at them,” Fletcher suggested with her head hanging out the window. She honked at them again. It was a good thing we were still twenty minutes from the castle, or else the entire brigade would know that we were there.
Feeling a little ridiculous, I clapped my hands and shouted at three sheep, urging them to cross the road and rejoin the rest of the flock. I practically had to kick one before they finally decided to move, but it took five precious minutes to clear the road before we could continue.
I jogged back to the car, and as soon as I buckled in, Fletcher popped the clutch, and we took off, stretching our speed well above the speed limit.
I swallowed two painkillers dry in preparation for the upcoming altercation. There was not much else I could do after that except drum my fingers against my leg and wait. When we were a kilometre out, I told Fletcher to pull off to the side of the road and kill the lights.
“We’ll go on foot from here,” I said. “Maybe we can catch them off guard.”
Fletcher and I climbed out of the car into the grey landscape. The light was almost gone now. Out here, once the sun began to set, it fell fast, night arriving before you knew it. That would help mask our approach… I hoped. I checked the map on my phone before we set off so that the white light wouldn’t give us away later on. The road led right up to the castle grounds, so we didn’t have to worry about getting lost on foot.
Buried Secrets (DCI MacBain Scottish Crimes Book 1) Page 10
