The Pretender's Gold

by Scott Mariani

  ‘Really? Who? I know most of the collectors.’

  ‘Again, not your concern. Don’t waste my time. Will you meet me, or are we done here?’

  ‘Very well. I’ll agree to your request. Keep talking.’

  ‘Needless to say, you come alone. You won’t see me when you get to the meeting place, but you can be sure I’ll be watching every move you make. Park your car out front where I can see that nobody else is inside it. Then walk inside, go to the bar and order a pint.’

  ‘I don’t drink beer.’

  ‘Then order a glass of wine.’

  ‘The wine there is paint-stripper.’

  ‘You don’t have to drink it,’ Ben said. ‘Because you won’t be staying in the pub long. Once I’m satisfied that you haven’t brought along any of your little friends to intrude on our private conversation, I’ll make myself known to you and we’ll go for a spin together in your car.’

  ‘How nice. Where will we be going?’

  ‘To the actual meeting place,’ Ben said. ‘We’ll be joined there by my associate.’

  ‘That would be Miss Kirk.’

  ‘I’m not the only one who’s been doing his homework,’ Ben said.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then we can get down to brass tacks. Or, in this instance, gold ones.’

  ‘Why should I believe any of what you’re telling me?’

  ‘You don’t have to. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.’

  ‘Only your involvement in this matter seems, well, a little perplexing to me. I can’t quite work it out.’

  Ben paused a beat. He was venturing even deeper into the realms of fiction here, and couldn’t afford for Stuart to sense the deception. ‘It’s not rocket science, Stuart. Ross Campbell was the one who made the discovery, and told his business partner Ewan McCulloch. Then Ewan’s uncle and I got involved, because of our expertise. Ewan and Ross were a little concerned about security. They had this crazy, weird idea that someone might try to hurt them and snatch the gold for themselves. Imagine that.’

  Stuart said nothing, waiting for more.

  ‘But Ross didn’t trust the McCullochs,’ Ben went on. ‘He thought Ewan was planning on running out on him. So he never told him exactly where the loot was hidden.’

  Grace had been listening intently, gleaning as much as she could of the conversation from Ben’s end. Now she frowned, not understanding why he’d said that.

  ‘Are you saying that you and Ross Campbell dug it up together?’ Stuart asked. ‘Because my sources happen to have informed me that you left your home in France for Inverness just days ago, after Campbell was already dead. Which would then point to a lie. And I don’t truck with liars.’ Charles Stuart, paragon of moral virtue.

  ‘Your bought police stooges are only half right. They can’t know that I was in London on other business the week before Ross Campbell drowned, and drove up.’ The bluff sounded pretty wild to Ben, but Stuart couldn’t disprove it, and Ben was counting on him being too fixated on the gold to pick apart the logic. ‘He took me to the forest and showed me where he’d found the first coins. We soon found the rest, and we stashed it somewhere safe before I had to return to France for a few days. Now that Ross is dead, I’m the only one who has any idea where it is.’

  Stuart mulled over Ben’s story for a few moments, and seemed to accept it as truth. ‘Then it appears I’m speaking with the right person. So let me get this straight. I view the merchandise, we agree on a cash settlement, you get your money and I don’t hear from you again?’

  ‘The money’s all I give a damn about,’ Ben said. ‘What else could possibly matter?’

  ‘I thought perhaps you might be somewhat concerned about your friend. McCulloch the elder.’

  Ben had to use all his willpower to keep his tone unemotional. ‘I told you, Ross didn’t trust the McCullochs, either Ewan or his uncle. They were too greedy for their own good. So whatever happened there, happened. No use crying over spilt milk. I don’t have a problem with it. If I choose to be unbothered, ethically or legally, then, I suppose, so do you.’

  Now Grace was staring at Ben as though he’d lost his mind. She held her arms out with her fingers splayed wide and mouthed, ‘WHAT?’

  ‘As you say, spilt milk,’ Stuart replied casually. ‘But what you tell me is interesting. It explains why the old man didn’t appear to know anything about all this, even after we pressured him a little. I have to say, I was rather disappointed by his apparent recalcitrance, at the time. Now I understand.’

  A chill went through Ben’s whole body. He had the phone so tightly clamped to his ear that it hurt. He was trying very hard not to picture the kinds of things men like this would have done to make Boonzie talk. ‘I wouldn’t waste my time putting any more pressure on him, if I were you.’

  ‘I’d already come to that conclusion myself.’

  Ben closed his eyes, dreading what might be coming next. ‘So what’d you do, get rid of him?’

  ‘Oh, no, he’s still enjoying our warm hospitality here. Though after this conversation, that situation may come to a swift end. What do you think?’

  ‘Do what you like with the old git,’ Ben said nonchalantly. Inside, he was screaming. ‘Makes no difference to me. Just make sure you turn up to our meeting’ – glancing at his watch – ‘just under five hours from now. Remember, Stuart, this is strictly a one-time offer. Don’t screw it up.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘I know you will,’ Ben replied, and hung up the call.

  ‘Oh my God, Ben,’ Grace said. Still staring at him in blank incomprehension.

  Ben reeled. He doubled over, breathing hard and as badly winded as if a heavyweight boxing champion had landed the hardest knockout blow of their career to his solar plexus. Because Ben had just taken the biggest gamble he’d ever taken in his life, and put that of his friend in the balance.

  Grace said, ‘I’m seriously at a loss as to why you would play it that way.’

  Ben took a few deep breaths to clear his head. He looked at her, saw the pain and confusion in her eyes. It took him an effort to speak. ‘Because I needed to make this as easy and straightforward as possible for Stuart, if there was any chance of luring him in. He has to believe that all I care about is the money. We get him on his own, he’s ours.’

  ‘I get that part. It’s the not giving a shit about your friend that I’m not understanding. Just when you found out that Boonzie’s still alive after all, you gave Stuart the green light to kill him. What the hell were you thinking?’

  Ben said, ‘I was thinking two things. First, if I’m the only one who knows where the gold is, it takes away their incentive to torture the truth out of him. If he’s still alive after all this time, it’s because they couldn’t really be sure what he knew or not. They’ve been hedging their bets. Second, I was thinking that a man like Stuart would never trust a living soul. He’s always going to give himself a back way out.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So he won’t kill Boonzie. Not if he’s serious about meeting us alone. Because there’s no way he would just believe what I said, and he needs some leverage against me if things go bad. I try to double-cross him or back out of the deal, he has Boonzie as a bargaining chip.’

  ‘So when we meet with Stuart tonight, the plan is to grab him, right? But how does that work, if his men still have Boonzie hostage?’

  ‘I just have to trust that our hostage is worth more to them than theirs is. Stuart’s the one paying their wages.’

  ‘So they have to release Boonzie if they want their boss back. Which they’re not going to get.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And then we’ve still got the Dishonourables to deal with.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I still have the Dishonourables to deal with. That part, I’ll handle alone.’

  ‘It’s messy as hell,’ Grace said.

  ‘Those are the cards we’ve been dealt. It’s the only way to play them.’

&n
bsp; ‘And dangerous.’

  Ben nodded. ‘Yes. It is. For everyone. But especially for them.’

  Grace sighed. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Now we have until one o’clock to get to Kinlochardaich and put this in motion.’

  Chapter 48

  As the dawn eventually began to break, the reds and golds and purples of the rising sun appeared like a distant firestorm over the hills. Another mile; then another. No houses, no cottages, no farms. Ben began to wonder if he should have turned right after dumping the car. Grace was saying nothing, strolling quietly beside him with cheeks as red as apples from the cold – but he sensed she was thinking the same thing.

  They kept walking. Still nothing. The morning was crisp and beautiful. The kind of morning that should fill a person’s heart with joy and make them feel that all was well with the world. If only it had been. Time was slipping by too quickly. They now had just three hours before Ben’s rendezvous with Stuart.

  Then, just as it seemed the empty wilderness would go on for ever, they came across the farm at the bottom of its own long dirt track.

  More correctly, it was a rural property that had once been a farm, back in the days before it had become a semi-ruin. The house’s stone walls were mossy and many of the panes in its rotted window frames were broken. It stood in a cracked concrete yard surrounded by outbuildings in an even more neglected state. The place appeared as if it had been uninhabited for the last thirty years, except for the two cars parked out front: one a rough old Mazda estate, the other a VW with one headlight missing and rust holes big enough to stick your fist through.

  ‘You think anyone’s at home?’ Grace said.

  ‘Let’s find out.’

  Ben was carrying enough cash to buy both bangers. But he needed only one, and had already set his sights on the Mazda as he went to knock on the farmhouse door. Not everyone was happy to sell a car to a total stranger, but it was amazing what a smiling face and a fat handful of crisp banknotes could do.

  Nobody answered the door, so Ben pounded harder. After about a dozen hard thumps he heard footsteps and someone yelling, ‘All right, I’m comin’, I’m comin’!’ The lock rattled and the door creaked open a few inches, and the gaunt face of a skinny middle-aged guy with a shaven head peered through the gap. He said in a slurry voice, ‘Aye? Jonesy, is that you?’

  One look at him was enough to tell Ben that the guy was blasted out of his skull on some kind of illicit substance, whose scent wafting from the open doorway only served to confirm that impression. His bleary eyes took a few instants to focus on the two unexpected visitors on the doorstep and realise that neither of them was Jonesy, before they suddenly widened in alarm and he came to life and shot panic-stricken back into the house, shouting ‘Fuck! Fuck! It’s the polis!’

  Ben called after him, ‘Hey, it’s okay. We’re not the police.’ Technically speaking, only half true. But either way, the house’s occupants weren’t interested in hanging around to find out. Several more voices were raised in panic from inside. A woman let out a raucous shriek and someone else started screaming, ‘Why the fuck d’ye open the door?’ To which the slurred voice of the shaven-headed guy yelled back, ‘I thought it wiz fuckin’ Jonesy, didna?’

  ‘Looks like we interrupted something,’ Grace said drily. A second later, they heard a back door crash open and the sound of multiple running footsteps escaping from the rear of the house.

  Ben stepped into the front hall. Dustballs the size of dead rats covered the floor and the walls were streaked with mildew. Three nails had been hammered into the plaster near the doorway, with car keys dangling from them. He selected the one with the mouldy leather Mazda fob, and plucked it from its hook.

  ‘That was easy,’ he said. ‘If the thing starts, we’re out of here without further ado.’

  ‘Thought you were going to buy it,’ Grace said.

  ‘I don’t get the impression the residents of this hippy commune, drug den, cannabis social club, or whatever it is, would spend the money wisely or responsibly,’ he replied.

  ‘Probably right about that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t feel comfortable about supporting their unhealthy lifestyle.’

  ‘It’s the moral choice,’ she agreed.

  ‘So we’ll just nick their car.’

  ‘Gets my vote.’

  They walked back outside. Four men and a woman were hurriedly scrambling away across the half-frozen slushy field adjoining the house. Staggering, in the case of two of them. Ben shook his head and tried the Mazda’s door. It wasn’t locked. He tossed his bag in the back, got behind the wheel, stuck the key in the ignition, said a quick and silent prayer, and gave it a twist. To his relief and actual surprise, the engine coughed into life instantly.

  Grace said, ‘Oh-oh. Maybe this won’t be so easy after all.’

  Ben looked where she was pointing. Two of the fleeing druggies had turned back, having apparently realised that they weren’t about to get arrested after all, and that the unexpected visitors were in the act of stealing one of their vehicles. One was the shaven-headed skinny guy. The other was larger, and angrier-looking. As they ran back towards the yard they disappeared inside a lean-to toolshed and came back out a moment later brandishing a shovel and an iron bar.

  ‘They can’t do us any harm,’ Ben said.

  ‘Maybe not, but they can get in that crappy old VW and come after us.’

  ‘If it goes.’

  ‘We cops are drawn to a good car chase like midges to a lightbulb. You want to attract more unwanted attention?’

  Ben sighed. ‘Christ. The things you have to do.’

  ‘Don’t pout. This was all your idea.’

  The shaven-headed skinny guy and his angry pal were still about thirty yards away and closing fast when Ben stepped out of the Mazda with the sawn-off shotgun in one hand and two spare shells in the other. The two druggies skidded to a halt at the sight of the weapon. Ben kept his finger deliberately off the trigger as he pointed it their way, purely for effect. Then he swung it in a big dramatic arc to aim at the old Volkswagen. With a noise like a thunderclap that echoed around the farmyard he discharged one barrel into the old car’s bonnet lid. The heavy buckshot round perforated the rusty metal and turned it into a colander. Then he lowered his aim a few inches and squeezed off the other barrel.

  BOOM. The car’s front grille dematerialised and bits of twisted plastic flew in all directions. Fluid gushed from a ragged hole in the radiator.

  Ben broke open the shotgun and the smoking cartridges ejected. He loaded the two fresh rounds into the chambers and snapped the gun shut. By now, the two druggies had dropped their improvised weapons and were stumbling off as fast as they could in the opposite direction. Just to reinforce the point Ben blasted one front wheel of the VW, then the rear. The car sank lopsidedly down on its shredded tyres. A shattered wheel trim rolled away across the yard. The echo of the gunshots drifted away in the cold morning air, and would sound like crow bangers to a distant ear. Just another day in the countryside.

  He got back in the car and stuck the gun under the driver’s seat. ‘Happy now?’

  ‘Whatever gets the job done,’ she said.

  ‘What kind of police officer are you, anyway?’

  ‘Hanging out with a guy like you changes a girl.’

  Chapter 49

  Ben drove fast away from the farm, and within minutes they were twisting through the maze of country lanes as they worked out the rest of the route northwards. By Ben’s reckoning Kinlochardaich was still at least fifty miles away, which meant they had little time to waste.

  Their stolen car was functional enough, but handled evilly after the modern sophistication of the Mercedes, its worn tyres pattering and slithering on the bad roads and the tired suspension creaking and groaning as he ploughed ahead with his foot hard on the gas. With the fuel gauge deep down in the red they had to stop for petrol before hitting the A82 highway, the main route from the south, near a place called Black Mount. An hou
r later they were racing through the spectacular scenery of Glencoe, climbing to over a thousand feet over the great wilderness of Rannoch Moor before slowly descending through the glen itself.

  ‘To live in such a beautiful country,’ Grace murmured, more to herself than to Ben, ‘where so many terrible and ugly things happen.’ Snapping out of her reflective moment she turned to him and said, ‘There’s one thing we haven’t talked about. We need to think of an alternative meeting place to bring Stuart to. Assuming we even get to that stage.’

  ‘It has to be somewhere out of the way,’ Ben said. ‘Very private, and not too far to drive to. Any ideas?’

  ‘I was thinking, there’s an abandoned sanatorium about six miles north of the village. At the turn of the last century they treated tuberculosis patients there. Then it was used as a billet for troops in World War Two, and that was the last time it was ever used for anything. Supposed to be haunted, according to some. If you believe in all that ghostly crap.’

  Ben nodded. ‘That could work.’

  ‘So let’s say Stuart goes along, and you get him out there. How do we deal with it?’

  ‘We lead him to the secret room where we tell him we stashed all the gold,’ Ben said. ‘We throw open the door. He’s distracted for a second, seeing nothing but an empty space, and before he knows what’s happening he’s waking up strapped in a chair, gagged and bound with a hell of a headache, where none of his men could ever find him.’

  ‘Okay. And what then?’

  ‘Still working on that one,’ he replied. ‘I’m kind of making this up as I go along. But I’ll think of something.’

  ‘I wish I had your confidence.’

  At that moment, Ben could have used some of that himself. But he didn’t admit it to Grace.

  Soon after, the iron Ballachulish Bridge carried them across the narrows of Loch Leven. From there, the gently undulating highway hugged the shores of Loch Linnhe, miles of white-capped forest on one side of the road and the slate-grey waters on the other, all the way north to Fort William. The winter traffic was ponderous but steady. Ben had been closely watching the clock throughout the journey, and to his relief they were still an hour ahead of schedule as they approached Kinlochardaich.