The Pretender’s Gold - Scott Mariani Ben Hope

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had your reasons. Hacker works for you personally. You didn’t want to be too closely connected with it.’

      ‘Evidently, that was my mistake, trusting a bunch of useless fools on the outside with the simplest of tasks. Did I not pay you enough, perhaps?’

      ‘Give us a break, will you? We didn’t do a bad job of searching McCulloch’s house. In and out, twenty minutes, nobody any the wiser. If he’d had any more coins stashed away, we’d have found them. And as for him, you don’t have anything to worry about. He’s in a coma. People in comas don’t say much.’

      ‘They’re also known to come out of them.’

      ‘I don’t think that’s likely. We hit him pretty hard. He’s got something called an epidural haematoma. Bleeding on the brain. They’re operating on him even as we speak. Chances are, if he ever does wake up he’ll be a drooling vegetable, sucking on a tube for the rest of his life.’

      ‘You’d better hope you’re right about that. Because you’ve got just as much to lose as I have if he suddenly remembers who worked him over and starts blabbing. Next thing the trail leads back to me.’

      ‘That would never happen.’

      ‘Damn right it won’t. I want you to keep a close watch on things there at the hospital. If Ewan McCulloch so much as bats an eyelid or twitches a finger, I want to know about it. And then I’ll expect you to finish what you started. We’re not taking any chances here.’

      ‘Killing a man inside a hospital, that won’t be easy. Not with doctors and nurses coming and going twenty-four-seven.’

      ‘Don’t you watch the news? Medical staff kill patients all the time. If the National Health Service’s finest can do it, you can do it. I don’t care how it’s done. I just want him permanently out of the picture. Whatever it takes. Understand?’

      ‘I understand.’

      ‘That’s wonderful to hear. Now stop wasting my time, and don’t ever screw things up again. Not while you’re working for me. Or you’ll end up in a lot worse state than Ewan bloody McCulloch.’

       Chapter 8

      Boonzie left Belford Hospital with the dreadful image of Ewan, lying crumpled and shrivelled in bed covered with tubes and hooked up to machines, deeply imprinted on his mind. Dr Fraser hadn’t permitted him into the intensive care isolation unit and strictly allowed him only a few moments to peer through the thick glass window at his nephew inside.

      A few moments were enough. He contained his rage as he walked outside into the windy, rain-slicked car park. Looking around for Duncan Laurie’s taxicab, he saw it was gone. The guy had obviously got tired of waiting.

      The time was approaching midday. Boonzie’s body told him he was hungry but he wasn’t interested. He was thinking about his next move, and that he’d need to rustle up some form of transport of his own, when someone called his name from behind. ‘Mr McCulloch? Hold on a minute. Can I talk to you?’

      He turned to see a woman emerge from the hospital entrance and hurry over to him. He guessed she was in her early or mid-thirties. She was wearing jeans and a rain jacket, and the cold wind blew her long dark hair in streams across her face as she approached. She brushed it away. Boonzie could see she was upset. He had no idea who she was, or how she knew his name.

      ‘I’m Boonzie McCulloch,’ he said. ‘How can I help ye, lassie?’ When you got to Boonzie’s age, everyone younger than forty-five was a lassie or a laddie.

      She introduced herself as Grace Kirk and said she was a friend of Ewan’s. ‘I came to see him, but they wouldn’t let me. They told me his uncle was here visiting. Family members only.’

      ‘There’s nae much tae see, lassie,’ Boonzie said gravely. ‘He’s in a bad way.’

      ‘Is he … will he …?’

      ‘He’s alive. Whether he stays that way, or whether he’ll have any kind of a life after this, is anybody’s guess. Dr Fraser seems tae know what she’s doing. I trust her.’ That was a big thing to say, coming from Boonzie McCulloch.

      Grace buried her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God.’ She fought with her emotions for a moment or two. When she looked up, her eyes were moist and pink. ‘I can’t believe something like this could happen to him.’

      ‘I need tae go and talk tae the police,’ Boonzie said. ‘Do ye know where the station is?’

      ‘I do. I work there.’

      ‘Ye’re a policewoman?’ Boonzie thought she didn’t look the type, but then again, what did he know?

      She nodded. ‘I’m off duty at the moment, but my shift starts in an hour. Now they won’t let me see Ewan, I was about to head back there. You could follow me in your car.’

      ‘If I had one, I would.’

      ‘Then why don’t I give you a lift?’

      Grace drove an ancient green Land Rover that was speckled with mud on the outside and as crudely minimalistic as a motor vehicle could be on the inside. ‘I’m afraid it’s not exactly luxury,’ she said as they climbed aboard.

      Boonzie liked it. ‘The hours I’ve spent in these things. Takes me back, I can tell ye.’

      She understood. ‘Military?’

      ‘Aye, long time ago. I live in Italy noo.’

      ‘Nice place to retire to.’

      ‘Retire? Me? Not on yer life.’

      ‘I’m sorry, I thought—’

      ‘Ye thought I was old.’ Maybe I am, he reflected.

      ‘I apologise. What do you do?’

      ‘Grow tomatoes,’ he replied, then changed the subject. ‘So I take it ye’re no one of the officers looking intae what happened to Ewan?’

      ‘I’m too close to it,’ she replied wistfully. ‘They wouldn’t have me on the case, knowing we were friends. Plus, I’m only a constable. DI Macleod and DS Coull are leading the investigation.’

      ‘That’d be who I need tae talk tae, then.’ He looked at her. ‘So you and Ewan must know each other pretty well?’

      ‘Once upon a time,’ she replied, a little evasively. ‘I’ve only just come back to this area after working away down in Glasgow for a few years.’

      ‘That’s where I’m from. Born and bred.’

      She flashed a sad smile. ‘No kidding? I never would’ve guessed.’ Then the smile was gone again, like a ray of sunshine swallowed up behind fast-moving clouds. ‘This place is heaven to me. I can’t believe something like this could happen here. Especially not to someone like Ewan.’

      ‘Aye, well, it did.’

      When they got to the police station, Grace led Boonzie inside and before long he was being shown into an interview room with the two officers in charge of the investigation, who introduced themselves as DI Fergus Macleod and DS Jim Coull. Boonzie thought that a Detective Inspector and a Detective Sergeant were a lot of horsepower to allocate to a simple assault and battery case, albeit a serious one. They invited him to sit, but Boonzie had done enough sitting on his journey to Scotland to last him a while, and remained standing. Grace hovered in the background, still out of uniform, while the detectives ran through their standard patter with Boonzie, designed to placate and reassure and instil trust, using phrases like ‘bring to justice’ and ‘leave no stone unturned’.

      Boonzie cut to the chase with, ‘So do ye have any suspects yet?’

      ‘Not at this time,

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