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Death Of A Spy by M.C. Beaton Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a

born detective.

John Buchan, The Power- House

He watched the headlights sweep through swathes of darknessas he guided the car along the coast road. On this stretch there were no houses for miles around, no streetlights, and tonight the moon wouldn’t put in an appearance until well after midnight. To his right the hillside climbed steeply up toward the craggy peaks and chill waters of the many tarns nestled in the crumpled mountain skirts of the 3,000- foot Beinn Bhàn. To his left, the inky waters of the Inner Sound stretched five miles to the island of Raasay, where the hills shielded him from the even more distant lights of Portree on the Isle of Skye.

Tonight, the black night was his friend and the intrusion of his headlights made him feel almost guilty. Disturbing the still silence of the dark was not his intention, but it was a necessary transgression. He knew a spot where he could pull off the road just before Applecross Sands and enjoy an uninterrupted view of the clear, cloudless night sky. Glancing down at the binoculars and small telescope in the passenger footwell, he smiled, wondering how many stars he would be able to identify among the thousands he would see. With no competition from human- made, terrestrial light sources, the sky would be a blaze of stars.

His eyes flicked back to the route ahead and he gasped in alarm. There was a body lying in the road! He slammed on the brakes and the tires bit into the surface for a moment before

the frantic drumming of the anti- lock brakes brought the car to a halt. He peered out through the windscreen and could clearly see a man lying a few feet in front, illuminated in his

headlight beams. Beyond the fallen man stood another car, a silver Audi, facing him on the narrow, single- track road, its headlights extinguished and the driver’s door open wide.

Flinging open his own door, he rushed over to the prostrate figure, oblivious to a momentary flash of bright light from the darkness up on the hill. He crouched beside the body.

“Are you hurt?” he called, looking for injuries. “Can you hear me?”

Then the body moved, the head turning to stare up at him with vaguely familiar, half- remembered eyes.

“What . . . ?” he breathed, then heard a footstep behind him. He turned in time to see a baseball bat chopping through the air toward his head. He tried to dodge but the blow caught him on the neck and he collapsed on the ground. The powerful figure wielding the bat took another swing and knocked him senseless.

The man who had been on the ground was quickly on his feet, rolling the barely conscious driver onto a tarpaulin sheet and dragging him out of the way while the batsman swiftly jumped into his victim’s car, maneuvering it to the edge of the road. There, the headlights picked out a short stretch of boulder- strewn scrub that fell away toward the edge of a cliff. Leaving the engine running, he leapt out, sprinting over to the Audi and starting it up. With his partner directing him, he positioned the Audi with its rear bumper touching that of the other car. They then bundled the injured driver, tracks of blood now smearing his face and neck, back behind the wheel of his car and slammed the door. A moment later, they had the Audi’s engine revving before it shot backward, launching the injured man’s car toward the cliff.

The Audi shuddered to a halt at the roadside while its occupants watched the other car lurch and buck, crashing over boulders hidden in the heather, its headlight beams soaring skyward before plunging back to earth. The car slowed, seemingly desperate to cling to the safety of the slope, and stopped when its front wheels dropped over the precipice, grounding its underside. It perched there for a moment before the weight of its engine and the crumbling of the cliff edge sent it somersaulting out of sight.

The two killers remained sitting in the Audi when another man appeared from the hillside, jogging past them, lighting his way with a flashlight pointed at the ground. He approached the cliff edge and peered over. On the rocks below, the car lay upside down like a dying turtle, its doors closed, only its wheels above water. The submerged headlights spread an eerie yellow glow around the front of the vehicle for a few moments before they finally faded and died. Satisfied that their job was done, he folded the tarpaulin, taking care that no blood spilled onto the road, and slipped it inside a large, black bin liner. He then stowed it in the boot of the Audi before climbing into the back seat. Not a word was spoken as they sped off into the night.

“This will be some kind o’ joke, is it no’?” Sergeant Hamish Macbeth stared Superintendent Daviot straight in the eye. “Have you gone completely doolally?”

“Sergeant Macbeth!” Daviot barked. “You will not use that tone with me! As your senior officer, you will address me with the respect my rank demands!”

“Aye, right,” Hamish said, his stare never wavering. “So have you gone completely doolally, sir?”

Daviot pursed his lips in anger but had no time to respond before Macbeth charged ahead.

“You can’t seriously expect me to police my beat wi’ somebody looking like that!” he growled, pointing at the third man in the superintendent’s office. The man was wearing a pale blue shirt with a silver star badge above the left breast pocket and sergeant’s chevrons on the sleeves. Above the chevrons were neat octagonal shoulder patches with the words “Chicago Police” embracing a representation of the city’s seal. “The folk around Lochdubh will never take me seriously ever again.”

“Macbeth, I expect you to follow orders!” Daviot fumed. “I expect you to . . .”

“Maybe I could jump in at this point, sir,” said Chicago Police Sergeant James Bland with a calm, pacifying smile. “Hamish, you know I’ve been to Lochdubh, so I know a little about your people there and I don’t want to make any waves.”

Hamish looked at Bland. The man had always been a mystery— part golfing gambler, part stock- market investor, part globetrotting playboy, and now part cop. What else was he into? Why was he now standing beside him in front of Daviot’s desk? Why was he back in Scotland?

“How about this?” Bland detached the metal star from his shirt. “I’m happy to wear something less conspicuous— maybe one of your Police Scotland black shirts— I’ll just pin my star to it to help explain who I am and why I’m here.”

“And just why are you here?” Hamish narrowed his eyes, delivering the question like a challenge.

“Officially, Sergeant Bland is here as part of an exchange scheme, learning about the policing methods employed in Scotland,” Daviot explained, holding out a document with a Police Scotland letterhead. “Our orders are that he is to be afforded every hospitality and that he is to accompany you as you go about your normal day‑to‑day duties.”

“And unofficially?” Hamish asked, having scanned the document.

“Actually, Hamish,” Bland said, still smiling, his American drawl far more relaxed than Daviot’s nervous, tense delivery, “the unofficial part’s pretty official, too.”

He offered Hamish a document with a UK Government Home Office heading. Hamish read the text, skipping the preamble to focus on what he immediately recognized as the heart of the matter.

“It says here that you’re working ‘covertly’ and I’m to give you ‘every possible assistance in pursuit of the investigation.’ ” Hamish glowered at Bland. “What investigation?”

“You recognize this?” Bland took back the Home Office document, exchanging it for another piece of paper. It was a printout of a computer spreadsheet showing columns of numbers and, at the bottom of the first column, three names— Vadoit, Serdonna and Ralbi.

“Aye, I mind o’ this,” Hamish said with a resigned sigh. He now knew exactly why Bland was back in Scotland. “Four people died on account o’ this,” he added, shaking the spreadsheet. “It damn near got me killed as well!”

“Then you have a vested interest in finding out what it was all about,” Bland reasoned.

“I know fine what it was all about!” Hamish could feel another flush of anger spreading from the back of his neck. He could also feel himself being corralled into a situation that was about as far from the simple, peaceful life he enjoyed in Lochdubh as you could get. He felt the problems of the world outside his Highland haven weighing heavy on his shoulders and slumped into a chair, running a hand through his fiery red hair, steadying his temper with a heavy sigh. “It was about secrets, traitors and spies. A coded list o’ names and payments— spies paying for secrets from traitors— and the names Daviot, Anderson and Blair as anagrams at the bottom.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting that myself, DCI Anderson or DCI Blair had anything to do with illicit payments!” spluttered Daviot.

“I don’t think that’s what Hamish meant at all, sir,” said Bland, also taking a seat. “We know the three of you were listed as targets should you have gotten too close to the spy ring. We’ve no reason to suspect anyone ever paid you a nickel.”

“Aye,” Hamish agreed. “The traitor Morgan Mackay admitted as much just afore he died.”

“I see,” Daviot said, stiffly lowering himself into his own chair, slightly galled that, with neither invitation nor permission, two men of inferior rank had seated themselves in his presence— in his own office, for goodness’ sakes!

“But others were paid, Hamish,” Bland went on, “and some of them are still out there.”

“What does it matter?” Hamish argued. “It’s all ancient history now.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Bland said, retrieving the spreadsheet from Hamish. “You see, we cracked the code. We turned the numbers into names— the whole spy ring— we know who they are.”

“So why don’t you just round them up?”

“It’s not that simple. We need help tracking some of them down and we need to do it without anyone knowing we’re onto them. You know what these people are capable of when they

think they’ve been cornered.”

“That I do.” Hamish nodded, thinking of Kate Hibbert, a petty blackmailer who had picked on the wrong victim— Morgan Mackay— and had ended up in a watery grave at the bottom of The Corloch. Then the image of Hannah Thomson ghosted into his mind. The old lady had died of a heart attack— literally frightened to death in her own home by Mackay and a Russian thug. Neither of the women had been involved in the so‑called spy ring. “Two women were murdered.” Hamish let out a sigh. “I suppose they’re what you folk would call ‘collateral damage.’ ”

“Not me, Hamish. I’m not one of them. I’m one of the good guys, remember?”

“Spy or spy catcher, you’re all playing the same game and none o’ it is any o’ my business.”

“Protecting the people on your patch— people who have faith in you— is your business, though, isn’t it? We believe something’s happening within the spy ring. We need to find out exactly what’s going on to make sure that no more innocent people get hurt.”

“I’ve enough to do as it is without all o’ this cloak- and- dagger malarkey.”

“We all have our jobs to do, Sergeant,” Daviot said, sounding irritated and impatient. “We all have orders to follow. You, more than any other officer under my command, have to make sure that you follow your orders with as little fuss as possible. Need I remind you how precarious your position is in Lochdubh?”

“Precarious?” Hamish raised an eyebrow. “It’s the police station closures you’re on about, is it? We had a deal . . .”

“I agreed to do my utmost to keep you and your home in Lochdubh off the list,” Daviot said, pointing a finger at Hamish, “and I will continue to do so, but don’t imagine the pressure from above to cut costs ever diminishes.”

“Are you threatening me?” Hamish bristled.

“It’s not a threat, Macbeth,” Daviot said, letting his hand fall to the desk. “We’re on the same side. You can rely on me to look after your best interests but if you cause problems, you attract the wrong kind of attention from the powers that be. Life then becomes difficult for both of us. Work with Sergeant Bland to resolve his investigation and we can get back to normal again.”

“Sergeant Bland,” Hamish said, slowly. “Why you? Why no’ a secret service team? Why would a police sergeant be sent all this way to track down a bunch o’ spies?”

“I’m a cop all right,” Bland replied, “or, at least, it’s one of the things I have been. Putting me back in a uniform keeps this all as low- key as possible.”

Hamish looked from Daviot to Bland and slowly nodded his head. He knew he had no real choice in the matter but had at least made his feelings clear. Like it or not, he was now lumbered with a partner he didn’t want and an assignment that would doubtless drag on through the autumn and beyond. At least this wasn’t happening at his busiest time, the height of the Highland tourist season. He got to his feet.

“Aye, well,” he said with a resigned shrug, “I suppose we’d better get on wi’ it, then.”

“We’ll need to interview you, sir,” said Bland, also standing, “as well as Mr. Anderson and Mr. Blair.”

“DCI Anderson and I will put ourselves at your disposal here in Strathbane,” said Daviot. “DCI Blair is down in Glasgow. He will be under orders to do the same.”

Hamish and Bland then left Daviot at his desk, Bland picking up a large, black holdall from Daviot’s outer office. Helen, Daviot’s secretary, looked up from her keyboard as they strode past. She expected some insolent quip from Hamish and had been composing a particularly vicious “put-down” ever since she’d booked today’s appointment with her boss. He left without a word and, disappointed, she shelved her unused retort in her memory for future use.

Not a word was spoken between Hamish and Bland until they had made their way down into the car park. Hamish pressed a button on his key fob to unlock his Land Rover, then paused, leaning against its side.

“I suppose,” he said slowly, “you thought I was being a wee bit unhelpful back there.”

“I know you have your reasons,” Bland said calmly. “You want a nice, quiet life in Lochdubh and you see me as a threat to that.”

“Aye, you’re right, but I know you’ll do what you have to do whether I’m playing along or not.”

“And I know you’ll play along because, working alongside me, you can keep an eye on what I’m up to.”

“I think we understand each other,” Hamish said, with a quiet laugh.

“We do,” Bland said, smiling and offering Hamish his hand.

“When I was last here we parted as friends. Still friends?”

“Still friends,” Hamish confirmed, shaking hands. “And I’ve no’ forgotten that I’m in your debt. When Blair went mad and pointed that gun at me, he might have shot me if you’d no’ disarmed him.”

“Yeah, I reckon you owe me for that, buddy!” Bland grinned, slinging his bag into the back of the car. “But I’m in no hurry to stand in front of any gunmen, so don’t expect me to call in that marker any time soon!”

“Aye, but neither will I forget,” Hamish assured him, swinging open the driver’s door. “Now let’s get the hell out of Strathbane and back home to Lochdubh.”

The route from police headquarters to the Lochdubh road took them out of Strathbane’s drab city center through an area of shabby low- rise factory buildings made to look all the more dilapidated in the flat light, dulled by the heavy gray clouds lumbering in from the Atlantic.

“Strathbane’s not exactly the jewel of the Highlands, is it?” commented Bland, staring out the window at the litter- strewn car park of a disused industrial unit, its few windows boarded up and its gate chained shut.

“It’s no’ all as bad as this,” Hamish replied, shaking his head when he heard his own words. Was he really defending Strathbane? He hated the place. He hated the run- down shopping area, the concrete tower blocks and the seedy backstreets haunted by drug dealers and their prey. Yet it was still part of the Highlands. It was still like a member of the family and families can bicker, quarrel and criticize among themselves, with their own, but when anyone from outside the family has a bad word to say, it’s a different story. The family stands together. “There are some nice parts. Superintendent Daviot bides here and he has a nice house. Strathbane suffered when the fishing industry collapsed and nothing new they’ve tried to get up and running here has ever really worked.”

“So, ripe for regeneration, eh? But never a patch on Lochdubh.”

“That it’s not,” Hamish agreed, “and never will be.”

The road climbed up out of the town and through a belt of pine trees, emerging onto an area of high moorland where Hamish turned onto the A835 heading toward Inchnadamph.

“This is more the kind of scenery I remember from my last trip to Scotland,” Bland said, waving a hand at the steep, rocky hillside on their right and the boggy ground on their left that rose more slowly through countless ponds and lochans to mountain peaks smothered with cloud. The sinister dark blues and grays of the clouds made it look as though scraping the summits had bruised their underbellies. “What’s over there, Hamish?”

“That’s the Drumrunie Forest wi’ the twin peaks o’ Cùl Mòr yonder. It’s no’ the highest hereabouts, under three thousand feet, but on a good day you can see all the way out to the Isle of Lewis from the top, and Lewis is near forty miles offshore.”

“Did you say Drumrunie Forest? I’m not seeing a whole lot of trees out there, bud.”

“Aye, well at one time, and we’re talking about thousands of years ago, the whole o’ Scotland was one massive forest. Here in the northwest there were oak, birch, rowan— all sorts, including the Scots pine, of course.”

“Really? The only trees we’ve come through looked like well- managed forest, like the countryside had been tamed. Up here it’s really dramatic— really wild.”

“It’s wild, right enough, but there are still plenty who live here, crofters and the like. When this was all forest it was properly wild. There were wolves, bears, elk, boar and even big cats like lynx. All o’ those are long gone.”

“What happened?”

“People. Around six thousand years ago people began burning the forests to create grazing land. Then there was a spot o’ what’s nowadays called climate change that didn’t fare well for some o’ the trees. What was left was hacked down over the next three thousand years to build houses and ships, and for fuel.”

“All of the original forest is gone?”

“There are massive areas o’ new forest but only patches o’ the ancient Caledonian Forest still exist. Down south in Fortingall there’s a yew tree they say is over five thousand years old.”

“Wow. I’d like to go take a look at that.”

“Fortingall’s down near Aberfeldy,” Hamish said, shooting a glance at Bland. “That’s near a four- hour drive from here. I thought you were here to catch spies, no’ to hit the tourist trail.”

“I’ve never been against combining business with pleasure,” Bland said, grinning, “but the old yew tree might have to wait a while longer. I need to fill you in on what we now know about the guys we’re looking for.”

“Aye, and maybe we can try a bit o’ business and pleasure on that front,” Hamish responded, peering out through a windscreen now spattered with raindrops at an ever- darkening sky threatening to deliver a deluge. “Once we’re back in Lochdubh this evening and I’ve fed my dog and cat, we can head out to the Italian for a bite to eat. The food there’s top notch.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Bland and the automatic windscreen wipers kicked in, working desperately to clear the mix of giant raindrops and hailstones now battering the car.

By the time they reached Lochdubh, dense curtains of rain were scouring the road and, crossing the stone humpbacked bridge that was the only way into the village, Hamish could see the waters of the River Anstey running fast and black down to the loch. The rocks over which the river usually tumbled, creating lacy white frills, were now completely submerged and the Anstey was threatening to burst its banks.

“River’s running pretty high,” said Bland, peering down through the gloom.

“Aye,” Hamish agreed. “I’ve no’ seen it swell so quickly in a long while.”

They drove on into the village, the whitewashed cottages on the lochside road looming like ghosts in the gloom. When they reached the police station, they made a dash through the rain to the side of the building and the kitchen door. Hamish’s dog, Lugs, a large, joyous creature of several colors and numerous breeds, provided his usual, manically enthusiastic welcome, tail waving like a flag, ears flapping like wings as he bounced around their legs. He seemed every bit as happy to welcome Bland, a stranger, as he was to see Hamish. Sonsie, Hamish’s cat, was far less generous with her affection. She rubbed herself against Hamish’s legs, her purring rumbling like pebbles on a drum. Then she gave Bland a look of pure disdain, turning her back on him with divine indifference and strutting over to sit by her food bowl. She stared at Hamish, blinking twice as though issuing an instruction for him to do his duty.

“I’ve a bit o’ pollack for you, Sonsie, and some venison sausages for you, Lugs,” Hamish said, opening the fridge. Lugs barked joyously on hearing the words “venison sausages.”

“That’s a real big cat,” Bland said, leaning against the kitchen sink. “I can understand why there are rumors about her.”

“Rumors?” Hamish raised an eyebrow. “Those would be rumors about her being a wildcat, would they?”

“Just what I heard.” Bland shrugged.

“It would be illegal to keep a wildcat without a special license and, in any case, no wildcat has ever been tamed.” Hamish offered the two undeniable facts to smooth the way

for something that was much farther from the truth. “Sonsie’s just a big tabby.”

“Whatever you say, Hamish.” Bland grinned, picking up his bag. “Can I stow this somewhere, then maybe we can grab that bite to eat at your Italian place.”

“Upstairs on the left. We’ll drive to the restaurant. Willie will have a table for us.” He glanced out the window. “Any table we like, I should think. Nobody else will be out on a night like this.”

Half an hour later they burst in through the door of the Napoli restaurant, shaking rainwater from their fluorescent, hi‑vis Police Scotland rain jackets, although both had changed into casual clothes rather than their uniforms. Willie Lamont looked up from where he was polishing one of the establishment’s complement of empty tables.

“Hamish, come away in. Good to see you!” Willie called cheerfully.

“Willie, this is Sergeant James Bland from Chicago,” Hamish said, hanging his jacket on a coat stand near the door.

“He’s going to be working wi’ me for a bit.”

“Benvenuto,” Willie said, shaking Bland’s hand.

“È un piacere conoscervi,” Bland replied smoothly in Italian.

Momentarily paralyzed by a mix of panic and confusion, Willie gave him the fixed, frozen smile of a cartoon character who’s just been whacked with a frying pan but isn’t yet feeling the effect.

“Okay if we sit here?” Hamish said, parking himself at a table by the window.

“I’ll bring you the menu,” Willie said, recovering sufficiently to scurry off to the bar area.

“Willie’s no’ very good at talking Italian,” Hamish said in a low voice. “In fact, he gets his English words mixed up as well, but he tries hard.”

“I can help him practice a bit,” Bland said with a smile. “I’ve spent some time in Italy.”

Willie returned and offered Hamish a menu, recommending the starter of “proscoosho di Parma.”

“I think that’s prosciutto di Parma,” Bland pointed out.

“Aye, that’ll be it,” Willie agreed, handing Bland a menu.

“We’ll have a bottle o’ your Valpolicella, Willie,” Hamish said, looking to Bland who gave an approving nod.

“Excellent choice!” Willie congratulated Hamish on choosing exactly the same wine that he always chose, while scribbling unnecessarily on a pad. “Una bottickleyo.”

“A bottle is una bottiglia,” said Bland, and Willie nodded an acknowledgment, although looking slightly peeved at having been corrected again.

“And I’ll have the spaghetti wi’ meatballs,” Hamish announced, once again ordering his usual. Bland opted for that as well, holding out his menu for Willie to take.

Grazie,” said Bland.

Pricko,” Willie responded.

“I think you mean prego,” said Bland.

“Of course,” Willie said, smiling politely then hurrying to the kitchen muttering softly to himself, “I ken fine what I meant . . . Pricko.”

“Willie used to be my constable,” Hamish said. “Then he married Lucia, whose parents own this place, and came to work here.”

“She must be quite a woman for him to give up his career.”

“She is that,” Hamish said, nodding, “but, truth be told, Willie’s heart was never in being a police officer. He’s far happier here.”

“I seem to recall that another two of your guys work at the big hotel that I stayed in on the edge of the village.”

“Aye, Freddy’s the chef at the Tommel Castle and Silas works security. Both o’ them were my constables at one time. I’ve another one, Dick Fraser, now runs a bakery business in Braikie wi’ his wife, Anka.”

“Yeah, I met Dick on my last visit, too. It’s good to know that you have people in the area that you can trust. We might need them.”

“No!” Hamish waved a hand across the table as though pushing that thought straight through the window, out into the storm. “I’ve seen what these people you’re after are like, and there’s no way I’m putting any of my friends in any kind o’ danger.”

“I’m with you there, buddy. We don’t want that. All I meant was that it will be useful to have eyes and ears around the area while we’re tracking down the bad guys. You know people around here. They trust you. That’s why I need you to help me find the men on our list.”

“So who are they?”

Bland fell silent when Willie appeared with the wine and made a show of opening the bottle and offering a taste before pouring two glasses.

Grazie, Willie,” said Bland, smiling.

Willie looked at him for an instant, finally deciding that Bland was trying to be friendly rather than patronizing, and gave a slight nod.

Prego,” he said, taking care to pronounce the word just as Bland had done, before returning to the kitchen.

“We’ve identified a dozen names on the spreadsheet,” Bland explained. “Over the years, four have died of natural causes— some of these people are getting on a bit, you know? Of the remaining eight, two have died very recently— quite soon after you got your hands on the spreadsheet— in circumstances that can only be described as highly suspicious. I think it’s a bit of a coincidence to have two such deaths just when it looked like the spy ring was about to be exposed.”

“The only really believable thing I ever heard any TV detective say was that, when it comes to murder, there’s no such thing as coincidence.”

“Too true,” Bland said, laughing. “Proving they were murdered isn’t really what I’m here for, but taking a look at the deaths, talking to known associates, might help us to track down the rest of the outfit.”

“Who were the dead pair?”

“The guy down in Glasgow was Edward Chalmers. He used to work at the Royal Navy’s submarine base at Faslane. He apparently committed suicide at his home in Glasgow by

setting fire to himself.”

“That’s a hellish way to die,” Hamish said with a grimace. “No’ the way most folk would choose to end their lives, but a braw way to destroy any evidence of foul play.”

“Exactly. The second dead guy was Callum Graham, who seems to have driven his car off a cliff somewhere south of here, near Lochcarron.”

“Aye, I heard about that,” Hamish said, rubbing his chin. “It was at Applecross only a few days ago, was it no’? I’ve a pal, Lachlan, works at the police station in Lochcarron. We can ask him about yon car crash.”

“That could be a good place to start.”

Willie arrived bearing two huge plates piled high with steaming pasta, glistening in a rich tomato sauce, tempting meatballs peeking out from behind a veil of spaghetti strands. He made a great show of offering them grated “Parmigiano” from a small bowl and “pepe nero” from a large, phallic- looking pepper grinder, then retreated to the kitchen again, pleased that Bland appeared to approve of his pronunciation.

“So what about the final six?” Hamish asked, once they were alone. “Surely they’re no’ that hard to find if you have their names.”

“I think I’ve traced one of them,” Bland said, tucking into his meal. “Hey, this is real good . . . but we need to approach him in a way that won’t alert the others. Trouble is, I don’t really know who the others are. I have names but that’s about it. One of them has gone to ground— dropped off the radar completely. The others— well, the names we have could be phony because there’s no trace of them at all.”

“I can probably come up wi’ some way o’ getting to talk to the one you’ve traced,” Hamish said, twirling pasta on his fork. “I’ll see if I recognize any o’ the others. You can show me the list when we’re back at the station.”

“Your station’s also your home,” Bland said, and Hamish nodded, his cheek bulging with a mouthful of meatball. “What was all that between you and Daviot about stations

being shut down?”

“There’s ay a list sitting on somebody’s desk,” Hamish said, having swallowed hard to clear his mouth. “There’s ay somebody wi’ one o’ the top police jobs, trying to balance his books. There’s ay a plan to save money by shutting down what some see as wasteful rural stations. No’ so long ago there were police stations all around the north coast. Folk could go there when they had a problem and somebody was ay there for them— they could rely on their local police. Now a police station’s a rare sight, heading for extinction like the lynx and the elk, and those that are left aren’t all permanently manned. Ower at Dornoch, the police station used to have an inspector, a sergeant and a dozen constables. Now it’s gone.”

“So you do whatever you have to, to keep Lochdubh open, to keep policing at the heart of your community.”

“I suppose so,” Hamish agreed, “but more than anything, it’s my home.”

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Hamish reached for the bottle to top them up with a second glass of wine, and his phone rang.

“Hamish! We’re on the bridge!” a voice cried through the thrash of torrential rain and the heavy boom of fast- moving water. “It’s broke! The bridge is broke!”

“Mrs. Patel?” Hamish said, getting to his feet. “You mean the bridge over the Anstey?”

“Aye, the van’s stuck and the bridge is going . . . !”

“We’ll be right there!” Hamish called, reaching for his jacket and heading for the door.

“I’ll keep this warm for you!” Willie shouted, appearing as if by magic to spirit their plates away just as his only two customers ran out into the rain.

Hamish raced along the lochside road in the Land Rover, blue lights flashing and siren wailing.

“Had trouble with the bridge before?” Bland asked.

“No’ as far as I can remember, but there’s no’ been any kind o’ maintenance on that auld bridge for years, so maybe this was just a matter o’ time.”

They slammed to a halt just short of the river where Mrs. Patel stood at the side of the road, waving and pointing to the bridge. Somewhere behind the dazzling glare of its headlights, Hamish could make out the shape of a van slouched sideways at an unnatural angle. He jumped out and strode over to Mrs. Patel.

“Mrs. Patel— is Mr. Patel in the van?” he said, raising his voice above the howl of the storm.

“Aye! Please get him out o’ there, Hamish!” she wailed. “The van’s stuck but he won’t leave it. We’ve been to the cashand- carry in Strathbane and we’ve near a fortnight’s worth o’ stock in it!”

“Get in the Land Rover, Mrs. Patel,” Hamish said. “We’ll get him off the bridge.”

With Bland at his side, he ran the few short yards to the bridge, hauling a flashlight from the pocket of his rain jacket. He could hear the frantic revving of the van’s engine accompanied by the useless spinning of its rear wheels.

“Take it easy, Mr. Patel!” Hamish yelled through the driver’s window. “Let us have a wee look!”

Bland was already at the rear of the van with his own flashlight and grabbed Hamish’s arm as he approached to stop him going any further.

“Half the middle section of the bridge has vanished!” he shouted above the noise of the rain and the rushing water. He played his torch beam across a dark gap, below which they could see a massive tree trunk wedged under the bridge. “That thing must have hit the bridge like a battering ram!”

The van’s rear wheels were floundering in the gap, spinning in the air. A couple of stones from the side wall detached themselves and disappeared into the water.

“The whole bridge is starting to crumble under its own weight!” Hamish shouted, turning toward the van again. He yanked open the door and dragged a protesting Mr. Patel out into the rain. “It’s no’ safe here!” he warned and, each taking an arm, he and Bland half- ran, half- carried Mr. Patel down to the Land Rover, bundling him into the back seat, where his wife threw her arms around him.

“We can use the Land Rover’s winch to haul the van clear o’ the bridge,” Hamish said, grabbing a remote- control handset from the glove box. “James, stay here wi’ the car just in case.”

Moving to the front of the car, he released the winch hook, using the handset to start the motor reeling out the cable. Carrying the cable back through the rain toward the bridge, he hooked it securely to a towing point beneath the van’s front bumper. He then pressed a button on the handset to reverse the winch motor and it began slowly dragging the van forward, heaving its rear wheels out of the gap. With the wheels back on a solid surface, the van began slithering toward the bridge’s side wall. Hamish jumped into the cab. He tried starting the engine, but it wouldn’t fire. Then, coming from behind him, he heard the ominous rumble of falling masonry.

“Hamish!” Bland roared. “Get out of there! The whole bridge is going!”