The Pretender’s Gold - Scott Mariani Ben Hope

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hung around for a while, ambling up and down the bank in the vague hope of spotting the mysterious poacher. Which was a silly bit of wishful thinking, at best. The loch was twelve miles from end to end and it occurred to him that, of course, the spot where Ross was found wasn’t necessarily the same place where the witness claimed to have seen him being killed. The body could easily have floated some distance. To make matters worse, it was unlikely that the poacher would visit the same location twice in such a short time, even under normal circumstances. The fishing rights on the loch were tightly controlled by the Fisheries Board, whose tough bailiffs were known to patrol the shores regularly.

      In short, Ewan knew all too well that he was wasting his time here. Utterly demoralised, he trudged back through the woods and reached the van just as it started to rain again. He slumped in behind the wheel and drove off.

      He hadn’t gone far when he noticed a car in his mirror, following him along the twisty, otherwise empty road. The chunky Audi four-wheel-drive seemed to have appeared out of nowhere – but then Ewan hadn’t been paying a lot of attention. Now that it had caught his eye, he watched it in the mirror and thought it was following him much too closely, like fifty miles an hour on these tricky little roads wasn’t fast enough for this guy, and he was aggressively trying to get past. Okay, okay, you pushy bastard, Ewan thought, slowing to forty and edging a little to the side to let the guy overtake.

      But instead of passing him, the big Audi slowed down too, matching his speed and remaining right on his tail, almost bumper to bumper. What was this clown playing at? Not liking this one bit, Ewan sped up again to widen the gap between them. Like before, the Audi stayed right with him, accelerating at the same rate he did. Ewan didn’t want to take his eyes off the twisty road for too long, but kept glancing in the mirror. All he could see were two vague shapes behind the Audi’s rainy windscreen. ‘Come on, then, do you want to overtake me or not?’ he yelled.

      Then, suddenly, the Audi swerved out to one side and came surging by him with a roar. Just as he was feeling glad to be shot of this tailgating hooligan, the Audi abruptly sliced across his path and its brake lights flared crimson through the rain.

      With his heart in his mouth Ewan stamped on his own brakes and twisted the steering wheel to avoid a rear-end collision. But the road was slippery, he was travelling too fast and he felt his wheels lose traction. He cried out in panic as the van went into a skid. The verge flashed towards him. His front wheels hit the grass with a thud and the nose of the van ploughed through several feet of dirt before smashing hard into the drystone wall that divided the verge from the neighbouring field.

      The force of the impact threw Ewan violently forwards in his seat and the exploding airbag punched him in the face. Dazed, he saw stars. He was only dimly aware that his engine had stalled and the front end of the van was a buckled mess embedded in the remains of the drystone wall. Through a mist of confusion, he sensed someone approaching; then his driver’s door being wrenched open and the cold air flooding into the cab. The shape of a large man leaned down towards him and reached inside the car. Ewan heard the clunking sound of his seatbelt clasp being released. Next thing he knew, two strong hands grabbed him by the collar and he felt himself being hauled roughly out of his seat.

      Ewan did what he could to resist but he was disorientated and still in shock from the accident, and the man was much bigger and stronger than he was. Ewan felt himself being bodily dragged along the wet grass, then dumped hard on the ground at the roadside. He heard car doors opening and shutting, and became aware of more men gathering around where he lay gasping and blinking.

      All he could do was gape helplessly up at them. Four unsmiling faces stared back. The men were each wearing bulky quilted jackets, black woollen beanie hats and black gloves. Two of them, including the man who had dragged him from the car, were total strangers.

      The other two, he realised with a jolt of paralysing terror, were not.

      One of the men he recognised grinned down at him and said, ‘Hello, Ewan.’

       Chapter 6

      It was later that morning that a taxicab driven by a local man called Duncan Laurie picked up a traveller at the tiny Spean Bridge railway station on the West Highland Line. The passenger was an older man, lean and grizzled with a salt-and-pepper beard and white hair buzzed so short it looked like a military crew cut. He gave Duncan an address in the village of Kinlochardaich, a few miles away, loaded his own single travel bag in the boot of the car and sat in the back.

      Duncan had been driving cabs for a long time and he was pretty good at sizing people up. His passenger had the look of a tough customer. Not a particularly tall or large man, but he was one of those work-hardened gruff little guys who seemed to be made out of wood and leather. Not someone to be messed with, Duncan thought. But there was nothing menacing or threatening about him. He had an air of stillness and calm. A man who meant business. Though he was obviously a Scotsman – from Glasgow or thereabouts, judging by his accent – he looked more as though he’d spent the last several years in a warmer climate, like Greece or Spain. At first glance he could even have passed for a native of the Mediterranean region, except for those flinty, hooded grey eyes, the colour of a battleship. Eyes that seemed to watch everything, drinking in his surroundings and missing no detail as they set off north-westwards along the scenic glen road towards Kinlochardaich.

      ‘You’re no from around here, I’m guessing,’ Duncan said by way of initiating conversation.

      The flinty eyes connected with his in the rear-view mirror and the passenger replied with a monosyllabic ‘Nope.’

      ‘Here to visit, then, aye? Got friends and family in Kinlochardaich?’

      The passenger gave only a slight nod in response. Not much given to small talk, seemingly. Maybe he was tired after his long journey from wherever. Or maybe he just wasn’t keen on questions. But it would take more than a bit of dourness to quell Duncan’s sociable nature.

      ‘Name’s Duncan. Duncan Laurie. I live over in Gairlochy.’

      ‘McCulloch,’ the passenger said quietly. ‘Boonzie McCulloch.’

      ‘Good to meet ye, Boonzie. If you need a taxi ride during your stay, give me a call, okay?’ Duncan plucked out a business card and handed it back over his shoulder.

      ‘I’ll do that,’ Boonzie replied, taking the card. Then he said no more until they reached the quiet streets of tiny Kinlochardaich.

      The taxi pulled up at the address. Boonzie retrieved his bag from the boot, paid his fare and thanked Duncan for the ride. The taxi sped off. Boonzie glanced around at the empty village street, which looked as if it hadn’t changed much in the last century or so, and reminded him of the Scotland of his youth. Misty mountains were visible in the background and the air was tinged with the scent of woodsmoke from chimneys.

      He checked the address his nephew had given him over the phone. This was it: 8 Wallace Street. A modest grey stone terraced house, a far cry from the rambling old farmstead Boonzie and his wife Mirella called home, but not a bad wee place. He was happy that his nephew had made something of himself. The boy had been dealt a rough hand, what with losing his mother at such a young age and the death of his father not many years afterwards. There wasn’t a day that Boonzie didn’t think about his late brother Gordon. Though he’d never spoken a word of it to a living soul. Boonzie was like that.

      He rang the front doorbell and waited, smiling to himself in anticipation of meeting Ewan again. It had been a while.

      No reply. Boonzie tried again a couple of times, then noticed that the parking space in front of the house was vacant and wondered if Ewan had gone off somewhere. Which was a little vexing. Boonzie had called from a payphone at Inverness airport earlier, and left a message to tell Ewan when he’d be arriving. If Boonzie had been carrying a mobile he’d have tried calling him on it again now, but he detested the damn things and prided himself on being the last man on the planet who didn’t own one.

      His

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