‘Probably since immediately after you met him in Fort William. He’d have returned to Ewan’s place to start putting his plans together, and he’d have wanted his own transport.’
She nodded. ‘Last I saw him, he was heading back to Kinlochardaich by bus.’
‘And as far as I know, nobody’s seen or heard from him since,’ Ben said. ‘Which leaves open certain possibilities.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well, for one thing, he has a serious heart condition.’
‘Shit. I didn’t know that. He seemed in great health for a man his age.’
‘Nor did I, until yesterday.’
‘You think he might have suffered some medical issue?’
‘That’s one option. The one his wife Mirella is mostly concerned about. I’m concerned about it too. But I also think he might have got into another sort of trouble. Seems there’s a lot of that going on around here. First Ewan McCulloch’s business partner, then Ewan himself. Now his uncle.’
Grace looked pensive. She sighed. ‘I warned him not to go asking too many questions. I told him I was worried he could get hurt.’
‘Why would you tell him that?’
‘Because he was convinced that what happened to Ross Campbell and Ewan was connected. And because until we catch the men who attacked Ewan, there are some right nasty bastards out there.’
‘Is there a connection?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s a confidential police matter. I can’t discuss it with you.’
‘Do the police have any potential leads on Ewan’s attackers?’
‘Same reply. In any case it’s not my investigation. I’m out of that loop.’
‘Who’s in charge of it?’
‘My same two superiors who spoke with Boonzie, Detective Inspector Fergus Macleod and Detective Sergeant Jim Coull.’
‘You might be out of the loop, but you still have a personal interest in knowing what happened to him. You must have some idea.’
‘As far as I’m aware, no suspects have emerged yet. I’m sticking my neck out telling you even that much. Believe me, I wish I knew more.’
‘So do I,’ Ben said. ‘If only to persuade me I’m wrong. I don’t like the way this picture is coming together so far.’
‘If you have information to share, I should hear it.’
‘Even though you won’t divulge any to me?’
‘I’m the police. You’re a citizen. That’s how it works.’
‘I’ll play your game,’ Ben said. ‘The first part is just logical deduction. If Boonzie was chasing up leads and getting closer to learning what happened to Ewan, he posed a threat to the bad guys. Then they would have needed to take action before he found out too much.’
‘That’s obvious enough.’
‘The second part is less obvious, unless you know Boonzie McCulloch as well as I do. He isn’t someone you can intimidate or scare off. Heart condition or no heart condition, he’s tougher than you can imagine.’
‘I worked the beat in Glasgow. I’m familiar with what tough means.’
‘No,’ Ben said. ‘You have no idea of what he can handle. For someone to get the better of him, they’d have to be extremely skilled. That’s not an idle claim. I know what I’m talking about.’
She narrowed her eyes, thought for a moment, then said, ‘Okay, whatever you say. Go on.’
‘Therefore, assuming that all of this is connected and that whoever assaulted Ewan is the same person or group of people who would subsequently need Boonzie taken off the table to protect their interests, we’re not talking about just your regular provincial crooks. You’d need to be looking at a broader pool of suspects, someone much higher up the food chain. Organised crime gang members, or affiliated to them. Hardcore professionals from the outside.’
‘You get all of this from logical deduction?’
‘Not all.’
‘Seems pretty damned hypothetical to me,’ she said. ‘To begin with, you’ve got no motive. No reason to explain why professional criminals from the outside should have any interest whatsoever in what happens in our dull and insignificant wee community of Kinlochardaich. We’ve nothing to offer them.’
‘Actually you do,’ Ben said. ‘And this part isn’t guesswork. I think this is about money.’
Chapter 19
‘What money?’ she asked.
Ben replied, ‘It’s not what money. It’s what kind of money.’
‘All right then, what kind of money?’
Ben took out his phone, brought up the image of the gold coin that he’d showed Holly, and held it out for Grace to see. ‘The kind that looks like this.’
‘You’d better explain.’
Grace listened as Ben told her what he’d learned about Ross Campbell’s discovery. ‘These coins are hundreds of years old, which I’m guessing makes them worth much more than just their weight in gold. Not just to serious collectors, of which there are probably thousands out there, but also to anyone with the connections to fence stolen antiquities on the black market.’
‘Stolen antiquities, is that something you’re knowledgeable about?’
‘Enough to know that a lot of people in that world will pretty much do anything to make a buck. Including killing off anyone who gets in their way.’
Grace was peering thoughtfully at the picture on Ben’s phone. ‘There are old stories about hidden treasure in these parts. I never thought there was any truth in it. Where did Ross find them? How many did he have?’
Ben replied, ‘Where he found them was his little secret. As to how many, it must have been a few, or else he wouldn’t have been going around the village bragging that he was rich enough to leave Kinlochardaich and set himself up on a tropical beach for the rest of his life.’
‘You only just got here. How do you know all this?’
Ben didn’t want to get Holly mixed up in police business. ‘That’s classified, officer. I prefer not to reveal my source.’
‘Withholding information from the police is an offence.’
‘So arrest me.’
She stared at him for a moment, then sighed. ‘All right. What else do you know?’
‘That Ewan found at least one of the coins that Ross had. It probably happened by chance, because I don’t think that Ross intended to let his partner in on the secret, or that he was planning on leaving. But maybe whoever attacked Ewan didn’t know that. Maybe they assumed that he was equally involved. Maybe they beat him up to make him reveal where the rest of the gold was. Or maybe it was to force him to cough up the identity of the anonymous witness, this poacher, who claimed to have seen Ross being murdered. Except Ewan had no idea who the poacher was. He needed his uncle’s help to find out. That’s the reason Boonzie came to Scotland.’
Grace said nothing. Ben could see wheels turning inside her head, but whatever she was thinking she kept to herself.
Ben said, ‘The witness is the key that will unlock this thing. If he was telling the truth, then whoever murdered Ross Campbell was after what he’d found, and faked an accidental drowning or possible suicide to cover their tracks.’
Grace remained silent. Still thinking hard.
Ben went on, ‘You can be sure that when Boonzie went off in Ewan’s camper van, it was to track down the poacher and find out what he knew. That’s what I’d do, in his position. It’s what the police should be doing, too. Are they?’
Grace shook her head. ‘I told you, I can’t discuss confidential matters pertaining to an ongoing police investigation.’
‘Even if you knew the details, and weren’t being left out of the loop by DI Macleod and DS Coull?’
‘Correct.’
‘Fair enough. Rules are rules. I get that. Did you have any other questions for me?’
‘I was curious about what’s next for you. Where you plan on going from here.’
‘Nowhere. Not until I find Boonzie. Wherever this leads, I’m not ready to leave Kinlochardaich just yet.’
‘Do you
have a place to stay?’
‘I never got around to arranging one,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll just buy a tent.’
‘In December?’
He might have told her that three months spent living rough in the frozen Hindu Kush of northern Afghanistan while hunting terrorist insurgents had been a far more punishing experience than anything the Scottish Highlands could offer. Winter warfare training above the Arctic Circle in Norway with the Royal Marines’ Mountain Leader Training Cadre hadn’t been exactly a walk in the park, either. He just said, ‘I’ve had worse.’
‘Bad news is there’s no camping supplies shop in Kinlochardaich. In fact there’s hardly anything much at all in Kinlochardaich. No hotel, not even a guesthouse.’
‘Looks like I’ll have to kip in the car, then.’
‘But I do happen to know that old Mrs Gunn’s empty cottage is still up for rent.’
‘Mrs Gunn?’
‘The village’s most senior resident. She seemed ancient even when I was a kid. Must be a million years old now, but still as sharp as a razor. She’ll be happy to let you have it for a few days. You might have to pay her for a week up front, though. She’s like that.’
Ben suspected that Grace Kirk was only helping him so that she could keep an eye on him, being the canny police officer she clearly was. But he was happy to play along for now. And sleeping in the car didn’t appeal much. Maybe he was getting old and too used to the soft life. Besides which, he could easily give Grace the slip anytime he wanted to. He replied, ‘Not a problem. How do I get there?’
‘Why don’t I drive you over there now and introduce you?’
‘My rental car’s over at Ewan’s place.’
‘It’s only the other end of the village. You can easily walk back and collect your car afterwards.’
They went outside into the snow and she led him to an old Land Rover that was parked a little way down the street. She noticed him smiling at it. ‘What did you expect me to drive, a little pink Fiat with eyelashes on the headlights?’
‘I like it.’
‘Boonzie liked it, too.’
They clambered inside. The doors slammed with a clang. Grace fired up the engine and lights, and flipped on the wipers to clear the snow from the windscreen. A feeble stream of cold air blew from the heater vents. Grace crunched the stick into gear and pulled out into the empty street.
As they drove through the village Ben asked, ‘So do you and your husband live here in Kinlochardaich?’
She looked at him with a blank expression.
Ben said, ‘Sorry, I thought … maybe I should say “partner”, but I hate that word. I saw you sitting together when I came into the pub.’
‘Lewis?’ She laughed. ‘Och, no. We’re not an item.’
‘My mistake.’
‘It’s okay. I know there’s talk about us, but that suits him fine. He likes to keep the fact that he’s actually gay from the village gossips. We don’t have much of an LGBT community in Kinlochardaich.’
In Ben’s world, LGBT was a military acronym for Laser-Guided Bomb Target. But he got the general idea, and nodded sagely as Grace went on: ‘You have to work hard to preserve your privacy in this place, you know? They’re all watching every move you make from behind their net curtains. As for me, I’m a single girl, if that’s what you were trying to find out.’
‘I wasn’t.’
She smiled. ‘Your driving licence says you live in France.’ Changing the subject.
‘Normandy.’
‘What do you do there?’
‘I’m in education.’
‘Teacher?’
‘Of a sort.’
‘Before that, were you in the army with Boonzie?’
‘He told you he was in the army?’ Ben was amazed. Boonzie never talked about his military past.
‘And about growing tomatoes in Italy. People tell me things. I don’t know why. Just got that kind of face, I suppose.’
‘I didn’t tell you that about myself.’
‘No, but I kind of sussed it out. Not just from the fact that I saw you take down two notorious local hard cases without breaking a sweat or even hitting anyone. It’s the way you talk, the way your mind works. You kind of have the look, too, although I imagine your hair would’ve been a bit shorter back then. How long has it been?’
‘My hair?’
She tutted. ‘No, silly. How long since you left the army to go and live in France?’
‘Your powers of observation do you credit. You should be a detective sergeant, at least.’
‘Working on it,’ she said. ‘So am I right?’
Ben said, ‘I’ve been out for a while.’
‘And that’s where you met Boonzie, in the army?’
‘He’d already been there for ever when I joined. We served together, but only for a short time before he quit. He trained me. Taught me. He was my mentor, and later my friend. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever known.’
‘I admire that you came all this way for him. We should all have friends as loyal. Someone who’d drop everything to look out for us, whatever it takes.’
Ben wasn’t sure if she was being sincere, or circuitously trying to fish for what his intentions might be. ‘I meant what I said about not leaving here until I discover what’s happened to him. Nobody’s going to stand in the way of that.’
‘You sound just like him. Like when he told my superior officers to “stay oot ma road”.’ She mimicked Boonzie’s tone and accent perfectly. ‘Frankly, I was a little concerned about him carrying out his own private inquiry. I hope we’re not going to have that kind of problem with you. Are we?’
‘I didn’t come here to cause trouble,’ Ben said.
‘Or put the local heavies in hospital.’
‘That was their choice, not mine. I’m interested in just one thing. The safety and wellbeing of my friend.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I really hope he’s okay, too.’
And with that, they had arrived at old Mrs Gunn’s place.
Chapter 20
The most senior resident of Kinlochardaich was as wrinkled as a Galapagos tortoise, deafer than a rock, and a nail-hard negotiator with a very definite sense of the worth of her empty cottage next door. The converted mews was attached to the large stone-built house in which Mrs Gunn lived alone on the edge of the village. As a temporary base it suited Ben’s needs just fine. The single bedroom was small and basic, the tiny living room had a wood-burner and there was a log pile and a splitting axe in the shed. He always travelled with enough cash to meet unforeseen expenditures, and once the deal had been thrashed out at maximum volume, Ben shelled out a week’s rent in advance. Clutching the cash in her bony fist she handed over an iron key the size of a soup spoon, and the cottage was his.
‘Welcome to Kinlochardaich,’ Grace said when Mrs Gunn had retreated to her house and the two of them were alone. They stepped out into the amber glow of the streetlamp. She asked, ‘You want a lift back to your car?’
The snow had stopped and the clouds had cleared to unmask a billion stars twinkling beneath the infinite dome of the inky-black sky. Looking up at the immensity of it made north-western Scotland feel like just another pinprick slowly wheeling around the outer fringes of the Milky Way. Ben couldn’t remember the last time he’d breathed air so pure and invigorating. ‘I think I’ll walk it, thanks.’
‘Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Mr Ben Hope. Try not to get into any more trouble, will you?’
‘You keep saying that like I’m a disreputable character.’
‘No, I’m sure you’re really the perfect gentleman. Mr Charm himself.’
He feigned surprise. ‘That’s what they call me. How did you know?’
‘Och, get out of here.’
‘I love the way you Scottish ladies say “och”.’
She smiled. ‘I could still arrest you, you know.’
‘It was nice meeting you, Grace.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Then with a
last crooked smile that Ben liked a very great deal, she jumped back into her Land Rover and took off with a puff of smoke and tyres crunching on the snow.
Ben watched her tail-lights disappear up the empty street. Mrs Gunn’s curtains were shut, a chink of light peeking through the gap and the blare of the television audible outside. He locked up the cottage, slipped the massive key in his pocket and set off at a slow walk. The temperature had fallen to well below zero and the freezing air was turning the snow on the pavements to a slippery rime of ice. It was only just gone seven in the evening but the village was already settling in for the night, soft lights in the upstairs windows and the smell of woodsmoke on the breeze. He was the only one out walking. He enjoyed the solitude, as he relished the coldness of the night. Taking his time, he passed the old stone church and the graveyard where he supposed Ross Campbell must have been laid to rest not long ago; then a few hundred yards further on, across the street, he saw a pool of yellow light that was the village’s only shop, open late.
Ben hadn’t eaten since he’d landed in Scotland, and felt suddenly hollow with hunger. He crossed the street and walked into the shop. The sign above the door said KINLOCHARDAICH STORES. An old guy with a bushy white moustache, though probably only about half Mrs Gunn’s age, was tending the counter and greeted Ben with a friendly ‘Good evening’ as he entered.
It was the kind of village general store that sold everything from groceries to hardware and farm supplies. Ben perused the shelves, tossed a few tins of meat stew and a bag of rice into a basket along with a jar of instant coffee, the real thing being too much to hope for. Living in France had given him a taste for red wine, but he was also wary of the plonk on sale in Kinlochardaich Stores. The beer selection was more promising, if a little offbeat. The bottles of local ale were labelled with fetching names like Sheepshagger, Kilt Lifter and Skull Splitter. He took one of each, and a bottle of single malt whisky. Something to keep him warm on the cold nights to come. Hopefully not too many of them.
As he paid for his purchases he took out his phone and pulled up the photo of Boonzie to show the old guy. ‘This is a friend of mine. He’s visiting the area and might have been in here. Wondered if you’d seen him?’
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