The Black Isle

by Ed James

  Cullen and Sharon stood in the middle of the empty room, their shouting cannoning off the bare steel surfaces.

  ‘—never loved you!’ Sharon jabbed a finger in Cullen’s face. She spotted them and shut up. Cullen jerked his eyes over to the door. Sharon wheeled off into the corner of the room, arms folded but her rage still simmering away.

  Cullen kept his gaze on her, but he was trying to smile through it. ‘Well?’

  Chantal went first. ‘I thought you’d be wanting to speak to his lawyer rather than comparing each other’s genitals.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Sharon stomped back over to them. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The lawyer wants a deal.’

  ‘A deal?’ Sharon shook her head. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘She’s happy to take a year served for the drugs.’

  ‘I’ve not driven all this way to let that bastard get off with what he’s done.’

  ‘This isn’t about you, Sharon.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  Chantal laughed out loud at that. One long breath and she looked at her new boss, ignoring the old one. ‘Scott, he’s offering juice on an international drugs ring.’

  ‘This is bullshit.’ Sharon started pacing, shaking her head. ‘Complete bullshit.’

  Hunter got in her way. ‘Look, he’s talking about getting a cell with a view, versus one where he’s the mattress, pardon my French.’

  That stopped Sharon. She looked over at Cullen, forehead twitching. ‘Scott, you can’t—’

  ‘Young Elsa’s at the hospital, doing a rape kit. The paramedics said there was semen in both—’ Cullen cut off, visibly sickened. ‘If we leave her out of the deal, would he still accept that?’

  Hunter started thinking it through. ‘Maybe.’

  Chantal didn’t look so positive. ‘The bigger problem is you’ve got half the Edinburgh drugs squad going through his caravan and finding enough coke to supply the lowlands for a month. And they’ve not even searched under the floorboards or in the walls yet. He’s looking at twenty years just for the drugs. And the rapes would be, say, thirty-five on top of that.’

  Sharon stared up at the ceiling. ‘We can stand around all day arguing about it, but really it all comes down to what he gives us.’

  Cullen eyed her nervously. ‘I’m not taking anything to Methven unless he brings this whole thing crashing down.’ He focused on Chantal. ‘But I don’t want him getting off with it. Do you think we could get this past the lawyer?’

  Chantal looked away.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Sharon clenched her fists. ‘You mentioned Elsa to her! How could you be so—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Chantal got in Sharon’s face. ‘I worked that case for a year. Me.’ She patted her chest. ‘I interviewed those women. Me and Craig. We’ve got that raping bastard. Even though it’s not my conviction any more, I’d hate to lose it over some drugs. And I didn’t mention it. Jesus, you must think I’m stupid.’

  Cullen switched his focus to Hunter. ‘Craig, what do you think?’

  ‘While he’s a rapist, he’s also a drug dealer. Standard operating procedure would be to get him to turn and give up his superiors, right?’

  ‘This isn’t a standard case. Anything but.’ Cullen seemed to make a decision. ‘Okay, if we can get him to give up what he knows on this drug-smuggling ring, and we can keep Elsa out of any deal, then we prosecute him for that. Sharon?’

  Sharon scowled at them. Out of habit, as much as anything, she looked at Chantal for her opinion.

  ‘I spoke to Elsa at the hospital. She wasn’t in this realm of existence when he was… You catch my drift?’

  ‘Sadly, I do.’ Sharon ran a hand down her face. ‘Fine, I’d settle for that prosecution. We just need to get him on tape, admitting to it.’

  Cullen stood there, thinking it through. ‘This is risky as hell. But let’s do it.’

  Patel was sitting bolt upright, like someone had given her a backbone. Her gaze brushed over Chantal, before settling on Hunter. ‘So. Have we got a deal?’

  ‘Depends.’ Chantal splayed her hands on the table. ‘What information does your client wish to provide?’

  ‘I’m sitting right here.’

  Patel raised a hand to shush him. ‘We agreed terms on a deal. Do they still pertain?’

  ‘If your client gives up useful information on this drug-smuggling ring leading to a conviction,’ Chantal raised her finger, ‘if, then we’ll charge him with possession of a class A. The highest sentence for that is one year. He’ll likely serve that, given his priors.’

  ‘I’m not doing any fucking time!’

  Patel grabbed hold of her client’s arm. ‘And the alleged rapes?’

  Chantal’s eyes narrowed and her lips twitched. ‘We’ll charge him with the current slate of investigations.’

  ‘That’s not going to wash.’

  Hunter laughed. ‘Listen to me, your client is going away for a very long time. The only way he’ll get any nice treatment in there is if he plays ball. The only deal he’s got is whether his coffee comes with or without spit.’

  ‘That’s unacceptable.’

  Farrell sat in the interview room, listening to Patel like he was completing a mortgage application. His wrists were still red raw from where Hunter had cuffed him that little bit too tight on Friday night. Hunter stared hard at Farrell. He wanted to smash his head off the desk and keeping hitting him until the little bastard stopped breathing. He was a serial rapist, a disgusting little snake who hadn’t changed his ways. Instead he got worse, pulling Elsa into his lair. Torturing her, tormenting her. To feel control over someone.

  Hunter’s gut clenched again. He wouldn’t have to formally interview Elsa, but someone else would. And he’d been in a room with her. No matter how little she remembered of what Farrell had done to her, she would remember something. And that something would follow her for the rest of her life. All because she wanted some ‘bev’ to escape teenage boredom.

  ‘I’ve spent a lot of time taking statements from the women he’s abused. Torn clothing, torn flesh. Pain, self-doubt, self-hatred. Suicide attempts. Descent into self-medication from drugs and alcohol. He’s not getting out of here.’

  Patel cleared her throat. ‘My client would accept such a deal.’

  Hunter felt a slight lurch of hope. The loophole was still open. He looked at Farrell and felt the rage burning away again. ‘Let’s hear it, then.’

  ‘Get the feeling you don’t like me, mate.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  Farrell laughed. ‘At least be honest with me.’

  ‘I’d rather you served a hundred years inside for what you’ve done.’ Hunter tried to keep his voice level. ‘I’m not a fan of the death penalty, but you push my belief in that.’

  Farrell put his hand on his heart, his lips pouting. ‘That saddens me.’

  ‘I’m not saying anything you haven’t heard before, you stoat.’

  ‘Stoat.’ Farrell burst out laughing, head back and roaring. ‘Haven’t heard that in a while. Anyway, all my partners are over-age.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ That got a kick in the shins from Chantal. ‘Okay, so who was this big Russian guy then?’

  Just like that, Farrell lost all of his humour. ‘You’ll need to be more specific, friend.’

  ‘Big lumbering guy.’ Hunter leaned across the table, elbows touching wood, and crunched his hands together. ‘The one you either tried to escape with this evening or who was trying to kill you.’

  And now it seemed Farrell couldn’t make any eye contact with Hunter. ‘I’ve no idea who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Well, this guy knows you. He drove up to your caravan. Looked like he meant business, too. And he’s got previous. In assassination.’

  Farrell’s eyes bulged. His fingers were clasping and unclasping. A bead of sweat ran down his neck.

  ‘People who you seem to know too. Keith Wilson. He was also scoping out Shug’s cottage in Fortrose.’

  ‘Christ.’ Far
rell put his head in his hands. ‘Christ.’

  ‘You’re safe with us, Derek. Nobody can harm you in here.’ Hunter let him squirm, holding the offer over his head like a sword ready to strike. ‘Now why would someone want to kill you, Derek?’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Right now, I can see six good reasons someone would want to kill you. Probably a lot more victims than that who just haven’t come forward.’ All that got was a shake of the head. ‘But this big guy?’

  Farrell looked over at his lawyer and cleared his throat. He sat back and folded his arms, staring at the tabletop, clearly avoiding their gaze. ‘He’s called Admir.’

  ‘Admir? Doesn’t sound Russian to me.’

  ‘That’s because it’s not.’

  ‘So where is he from?’

  Farrell kept quiet.

  ‘Keep talking or I walk out of here and you’re going to be inside for a long, long time.’

  ‘I don’t know his surname. But I do know he’s Albanian.’

  Hunter looked round at Chantal, saw his fears reflected in her eyes. Albanians were the worst news around. Big gangs running a lot of illegal business in the UK. And brutal with it, too. Then back at Farrell, whose eyebrows surely couldn’t go any higher. ‘Persuade me.’

  ‘I know Admir. Or rather Big Neil does.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Big Neil. He’s a friend. That’s all you need to know. He’s involved with these Albanians, or rather he’d like to be. It’s his caravan I was staying in. He rents the caravan off someone. Could be Al Capone for all I know. Who cares?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help you, friend.’

  ‘It’s yourself you need to help. Probably worth you winding the clock back to before we found you in Edinburgh.’

  ‘Right, I heard you were looking for me. I knew Big Neil had access to a caravan in Kingussie a few miles from Cromarty, so I figured I’d stay there until the heat died down on the… on what you were investigating me for. But then he had to go to London for some Albanian shite and I was getting really fucking bored. Went to Cromarty and got chatting to some guy off the boats, Shug. That guy put this couple on to me. Like this American couple who wanted a lot of gear. Had money to burn. Coke, E, special K, bit of speed. Pair of them were up and down more than my eight-incher.’

  Patel elbowed his arm. ‘Keep it civil.’

  ‘But that was later, after I got back from Edinburgh. First was this guy Shug seemed to be mates with. Said he was a journalist or something. I thought I was in the shite, but turns out they had this block of pure heroin. Pure heroin. Not street stuff, uncut pharmaceutical-grade.’

  Hunter’s heart started racing. ‘He give you his name?’

  ‘Keith.’ Farrell’s eyes narrowed. The little shit knew he had something Hunter wanted. ‘Asked him where he got it, but he wouldn’t say. Got in touch with Big Neil, he told me to pay half up front, get the guy’s details and they’d sort it out. Turns out his Albanian friends had lost some heroin. Had to drive down to Edinburgh to hand it over to them. Part of me was hoping to get in with them, maybe get some protection from them, but you don’t mess with Albanians. And that’s when you fucking found me. Someone tipped you lot off about my presence back in Edinburgh and I had to scarper back to Kingussie.’

  ‘A stupid arsehole selling pharmaceutical-grade heroin in Edinburgh is going to ruffle a few feathers.’

  The insult bounced off Farrell. He focused on Hunter, his beady little eyes drilling into him. ‘Got away, didn’t I?’

  ‘You know what happened to Keith?’

  ‘Said he was going back home to Inverness when I bought the heroin off him.’

  ‘We found his dead body in that flat.’

  Farrell’s throat bobbed up and down. He let out a gasp. ‘What?’

  ‘You know who killed him, don’t you?’

  ‘No, this—’ He gasped and shut up.

  ‘This what, Derek?’

  ‘I can’t…’

  ‘The co-owner of Shug’s boat was found murdered in Perth too.’

  ‘Christ.’ Derek shook his head. ‘Look, when I got back from Edinburgh, this big guy came to my caravan, asking where the heroin was. I told him Keith had it.’

  ‘Admir?’

  ‘Right. He believed me, that Keith had it. Left me alone. This guy had killed people.’

  The door opened and Cullen stepped in, eyes narrowed to slits, focused on Farrell. ‘Admir believed you, just like that?’

  ‘Not just like that.’ Farrell pulled up his shirt to show his bald chest. His nipples and the surrounding flesh were dark purple, like someone had gone to town on him with electrodes and pliers. ‘Big Neil told me after, Admir’s a bit of a sadist, but I got to see it with my own eyes.’ He pulled his top back down. ‘Do you know how sore this was?’

  ‘He got the truth out of you, though?’

  ‘What he thought, anyway. If he’d have checked the cupboards, I’d have been in real trouble. Kept telling me I wasn’t the first to be hurting after messing with his operation. He’d already caught some boy at his drop point and kept him for fun.’

  Hunter leaned forward. ‘He mention a name?’

  ‘All he told me was Murray.’

  Hunter stood up, but almost toppled over. Light-headed and weak. ‘You know where I can find him?’

  ‘Not exactly, but when I went to Kingussie, Big Neil advised me to steer well clear of the Oswald estate after dark.’

  31

  The car rumbled along the road, cutting through the early morning darkness. Hunter peered out of the passenger window into the pitch black as Cullen climbed a hill. To the south, light crawled out of Inverness like a yellow-and-white-neon spider, scuttling across the Moray Firth and up through the Black Isle, just a few isolated pockets with Cromarty over by the black ink of the sea.

  Hunter’s watch read midnight. Bang on, Hunter’s step counter refreshed to zero. His heart rate was in the hundred-and-tens, like he’d been drinking hard. Cullen-level drinking.

  ‘Wonder how we prove any of that.’

  Hunter looked over at Cullen, then back out into the blackness, struggling to see anything. ‘We get in there and see what’s what.’

  ‘You know I have a reputation of being a cowboy?’

  Hunter rolled his eyes. ‘Really, I hadn’t heard.’

  ‘We can’t just raid the place based on the statement of one man.’

  ‘We surely have enough to get a warrant.’

  The tang of salt air blew through the cracked-open window.

  ‘As far as I see, Scott, our only play here is to get in there and search for my brother. If anyone gets a wind of it, then…’

  There’s a low moaning, like there’s a big monster in there. Has the monster got Grandpa? Has Grandpa turned into the monster? I take Murray’s hand and squeeze it, trying to make him feel better. Then I sneak past him into the kitchen, taking it very, very slowly, like Prince Adam and not He-Man.

  Ahead, the road led to Cromarty, cones of light illuminating the tarmac.

  Cullen looked over, his face glowing in the red light. ‘You think Lord Oswald’s involved in this?’

  ‘I’ve considered it. He was all full of shame and surprise and indignation. Meaning he’s hiding something, but none of it made sense. Now, things are slotting into place. Farrell’s story checks out with the video footage of boxes of heroin.’

  ‘But smuggling heroin? Torturing your brother? That’s a hell of a stretch.’

  Good point, but it fitted together enough in Hunter’s head to warrant serious investigation. ‘Have you got a better plan?’

  Cullen shrugged. ‘I’ve spoken to the guy and you’re right, he has the look of a man trying to hide something.’

  They passed over the ridge and descended down towards the Oswald estate. Faint night-lights glowed red in the office building. Cullen slowed as they approached the front gate. Beyond, the house was mostly dark, just a light on up in the belfry.
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  Hunter blinked through his tiredness, but still saw two or three of everything. Looked like the gatehouse was unmanned. He got out into the cold air and hauled the gate up, the screech howling in the night, just enough for Cullen to squeeze the car through. He hopped back in and Cullen trundled along a rough old road through mature woods, only lit up briefly by the headlights.

  Hunter leaned between the seats. ‘Kill the lights.’

  With a deep sigh, Cullen cut them and his speed, easing the car through almost pitch darkness as the road wound round to the right, and the office surrounded by trees.

  Cullen pulled up outside it and they got out. ‘Right, let’s see what we can find.’ He led them slowly and carefully along the path around the structure. Halfway along, he clenched his fist. ‘Stop.’

  Hunter tasted bitter cigar smoke, harsh and rubbery. Up ahead, a man was lit up by a red dot glowing in front of him.

  Hunter pulled Cullen into a thick leylandii hedge and put a finger to his lips.

  The guard came over to their position, his smoke lingering in the air. He seemed to be looking right at them. Then his radio crackled, and some indecipherable words hissed out. He put it to his lips. ‘I smell something.’

  ‘Probably the chicken farm.’

  ‘Smells man-made.’ The guy was peering right at them. Surely he had to have seen them. The guard turned away, still holding up his radio. ‘I don’t like this.’

  They were here to assess things. But this was a threat to the whole process. Cops should announce themselves. But if Murray was inside? These guys looked like they meant business.

  Then the guard was back, a pistol in his hand, prodding at the foliage near Cullen.

  Hunter jumped out at him, smothering his mouth and taking him down, wrapping an arm around his throat. Within seconds, the guy was out like a light.

  ‘Christ!’ Cullen raised his hands. ‘What are you playing at?’

  ‘He was going to spot you, Scott.’ Hunter picked up the guy’s gun and checked it. Didn’t recognise the make or model but it seemed to be working. He scanned the area. Looked like the rear entrance was a hulking steel door lit up from above. He found a ring of keys—about ten, identical. ‘I’m going in there.’