The Black Isle

by Ed James

  ‘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 just 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.

  Not a good sign. Hunter’s stomach started rumbling. A mix of hunger from the up-chucked porridge and sheer nerves.

  He looked back down the street. No Range Rovers. No pedestrians either.

  He tried the door and it nudged open. The butterflies did somersaults. A radio played out New Order somewhere inside, thin and distant.

  ‘Hello?’

  No response.

  The butterflies flapped their wings.

  Hunter stepped into the house, straight into a living room-kitchen with an oven-hot temperature. The kind of heat he associated with assassins and torturers or, worse, stag weekends in the Algarve. Bright, the curtains open wide. Bottle-green futon, metal coffee table, beige designer armchair. Tasteful artworks. No sign of anyone, no sign anyone had been in for a few days.

  The rank smell of rotten meat hit his nose, followed by a dessert of mould spores. The kitchen was small, barely enough units to put a week’s shopping in let alone hide a body.

  He went through to the hallway. No staircase, so just a single floor. Two doors off. The first was a be
droom, a massive bed almost wall to wall. Made, though, sheets tucked in tight like a good squaddie. An iPhone charger on the bedside table, next to a blue pack of condoms and a tube of KY jelly.

  Back in the hall, Hunter caught a fresh waft of the smell. He stepped into the bathroom. Sink and toilet, ice white, dry as a bone. The shower unit was off to the side.

  Hunter opened the unit door.

  A dead body lay in a pool of blood. Naked and male, eyes wide open and staring at Hunter. One gunshot wound in the forehead, two in the chest.

  20

  Hunter stood there in the roasting hot bathroom, trying to process it. As mangled as the body was, it matched Keith’s description and the photo on the phone’s lockscreen.

  The voice on the video echoed round Hunter’s head.

  ‘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.’

  He fought through the revulsion, trying to stop slipping into old habits.

  Grandpa’s lying on the floor, gasping, clutching his chest. His face is pale like Skeletor and he’s staring right at me. ‘Please, son! Get your father!’

  Centring himself. Taps, brushed chrome. Sink, ice white. Radox shower gel, the alpine scent lingering and mixing with the rancid stench of death.

  Okay, back.

  He looked at the body again. Glass bricks stacked at the side of the shower stall, distorting the light from outside. No other way to describe it but an assassination. Someone had done this deliberately. Meaning there was a clear reason for this guy’s death. Assuming it was Keith, then it had to relate to Murray’s trip to the oil rig. Right?

  If they couldn’t kill Murray on the rig and leave his body, they felt they could do it to Keith here.

  Two questions, then.

  First, why did they kill Keith?

  An assassination was easiest behind closed doors. Lure them in, strike, leave. Some forensic traces left behind, maybe, but the most efficient method by far. They banked on the body not being found for a while. Keith and Murray worked in a strange world, as likely to be breaking into derelict buildings in the Scottish Highlands as in Germany, California or Japan. So he had no close ties, nobody who’d check in on cats or dogs, not even hens like Murray. Just an empty shell of a house in the arse end of Inverness.

  Second question—what the hell happened to Murray?

  Hunter had drawn a fresh blank. A dead body closed off intelligence avenues.

  A dead body was something he should call in. Call Cullen.

  Now.

  Do it.

  Only option here.

  Hunter got out his phone and called Chantal. Still voicemail. Then he tried Cullen, and got his voicemail again.

  So, who now? Control?

  Wait—Methven. The new boss. He still had his mobile number on there. The dial tone was harsh in his ear. Another call bounced to voicemail. But a delay, like it was a conscious decision rather than phones-off protocol

  He could picture the scene. Chantal leading the interview, Cullen sitting next to her, opposite a suspect and their lawyer. Methven all puffed up like a senior investigating officer should be, standing in the obs suite, playing pocket billiards, sipping strong coffee and wanting to jump in and tell Chantal how to do it properly.

  Hunter retried the number, but it bounced to voicemail even quicker.

  Elvis!

  Hunter hit dial and it rang and rang. Until: ‘Alright, Craigy boy, your prostate finally exploded?’ Sounded like he was in a car, driving. Slight distance meant he wasn’t behind the wheel.

  ‘No, mate. I’ve…’ Hunter took another look in the shower and got a wave of revulsion. ‘I’ve found a body.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A dead one, Paul.’ Hunter sighed. ‘Look, is Cullen there?’

  ‘No, mate. You’re on speaker and I’m with Methv—’

  ‘Constable, what the sodding hell are you talking about? A body?’

  ‘I’m in Inverness, sir, and… I’ve found a dead body. He’s been murdered, sir.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Caledonian Road.’

  The squeal of brakes and a roaring engine. ‘Two minutes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re in this infernal sodding city.’ And Methven was gone.

  Okay. They’re on their way here. Only thing worse than waiting was—

  Don’t think about that.

  Hunter tried to occupy himself. Another search of the dingy flat, but nothing obvious jumped out at him. Outside, he stood in the doorway. Watching, waiting, guarding.

  The street was quiet. A young mother pushed her baby along the street, reaching a wriggling finger in to pacify the child. At the corner, an old man stood while his dog peed against a tree.

  Then sirens, blaring not too far away. A flash of blue as Methven’s Range Rover swung round the corner and hurtled towards them. The one Range Rover Hunter was glad to see. He ran down to the kerb, waving his arms.

  Methven pulled up on the road, two-thirds in a space, the rest sticking out onto the street. Methven hopped out, flanked by Elvis and Bain.

  Hunter couldn’t look at the house, his stomach churning. ‘I’ve secured the property, sir. Only one entrance.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Methven opened the boot and tossed a crime scene suit to Bain.

  The numpty dropped it on the pavement and nodded at Elvis. ‘Pick it up, Constable.’

  ‘Sergeant!’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’ Bain reached down for it himself, snarling at Elvis.

  Methven tore on his suit like the inverse of him tearing off a wetsuit at the triathlon Hunter had competed against him in. ‘Have you got an ID for the victim?’

  ‘I think it’s probably Keith Wilson, the owner.’

  ‘Only probably?’

  ‘Need someone to ID him.’

  ‘Can I ask what you’re doing here, Constable?’

  ‘Working?’

  ‘DI Cullen said you were back in Edinburgh.’

  Hunter looked around but couldn’t see Cullen. He hated winging it at the best of times. ‘Following a lead, sir.’

  ‘You were supposed to be in sodding Perth, but you’ve been keeping DI Cullen in the sodding dark, haven’t you?’

  ‘No, sir, I’ve—’

  ‘Purple sodding buggery, Hunter!’ Methven jabbed a finger at him, tapping the end of his nose. ‘You’ve gone rogue on me for the last time.’

  ‘Sir, I’ve operated under DI Cullen’s instructions. Check with him.’

  ‘I sodding will.’ Methven was suited up first. ‘Okay, I’m going in.’ He snapped on his mask, but it didn’t cover the glower he directed at Bain. ‘Sergeant, hurry up.’ Then he trained his ire on Elvis. ‘Constable, you’re on crime scene management.’

  ‘Gaffer.’

  Methven gave a firm nod, then set off inside the house.

  Bain was taking his time suiting up, eyeing Hunter. Creepy little bastard was completely bald now, his ill-advised beard now trimmed away to a shiny smoothness. God knows where he’d stopped shaving, probably like a baby all over. ‘Could fuckin’ do without this shite.’

  Hunter was barely aware of the sound of another car parking. A hand gripped Hunter’s arm and pulled him away.

  ‘Come on, Craig.’ Cullen, jaw clenched tight. ‘Need a word.’

  Hunter stepped away from the bollocking. ‘I tried to cover for you with Crystal, but I think you better ’fess up.’

  ‘Shite.’ Cullen ran a hand through his hair, upsetting the pristine gelwork. ‘We could lie and—’

  ‘No, Scott, we can’t. You’re a DI. Tell him the truth. Besides, you’re allowed to manage a caseload. Just say this is part of it. It’s not a million miles from the truth. You got Buchan to log it.’

  ‘Fine. You’re not as daft as you look.’

  ‘Mate, I’m not in the mood for this.’ Hunter couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Why are you here, anyway? Where’s Chantal?’

&n
bsp; ‘She’s still in Perth.’ Cullen took his arm and led him away from the gate.

  Bain entered Keith Wilson’s home, leaving Elvis standing outside the house, arms folded, trying to look intimidating but… Looking like Paul ‘Elvis’ Gordon.

  ‘And why are you in Inverness?’

  ‘We’re investigating a murder.’

  ‘I know that. I’m on the case as well.’

  ‘Following a lead.’ Cullen sighed. ‘The victim has connections here.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Alistair McCoull.’

  Hunter frowned. it rang a bell. So much noise in his head from the case and the still-rattling ribs and his missing brother and a dead fucking body. But that name… Wee Ally? ‘Wait, does he co-own the Pride of Cromarty.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a boat. Co-owns it with a guy called Shug.’

  ‘Hugh “Shug” Mowat, right.’ Elvis yawned into his fist. ‘A person of interest on our case. We’re heading up to Fortrose to pick him up, then you called.’

  ‘Good luck. He’s gone to ground.’

  ‘Let’s take a step back here.’ Cullen leaned back against his Golf. Newer model and a GTI this time, but the same manufacturer as ever. ‘How do you know Shug?’

  ‘He took Murray out to an oil rig.’ Hunter bit at his thumbnail, then pointed at the house. ‘Murray and the owner of that flat. Probably the body in the shower. Guy’s disappeared, but left behind a GoPro.’ He struggled for breath. Saying it out loud made it seem all the more real. ‘Scott, I think that’s my brother’s boyfriend in there.’

  Cullen just nodded like he knew Murray was gay. ‘I don’t like your brother’s disappearance intersecting my case.’

  ‘Ally McCoull is only a tangent. Co-owned a boat. He was an assassination, right?’

  ‘Shot through the head, mouth and heart.’

  Hunter frowned. ‘Same here.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Cullen swallowed. ‘Not so much an intersection, then. Christ.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘Guy lives in Perth, worked at General Accident, then when it became Aviva or whatever. Retired five years back and bought a boat up here with Shug Mowat. Shug is our chief suspect.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s your guy, Scott.’ Hunter huffed out a breath and nodded at Keith Wilson’s house. ‘In there, that’s not a fisherman’s work.’