he found what he was now looking for. Ewan McCulloch’s household documents, including house insurance, bills, receipts and credit card statements, had already been given the once-over by the intruders and were scattered about under the upturned drawers of his desk. Ben was more interested in vehicle papers. He supposed that anything like company car or van paperwork would be kept at Ewan’s business premises, but that anything related to a personal vehicle would have been sent to his home address. Again, his guess was right. Among the scattered documents was a registration document, expired insurance renewal letter, road tax reminders and old MOT certificate for a Ford camper van. The log book identified it as being fifteen years old, which probably explained why it had been sitting off the road for a while and had needed some work to get it going.
Now Ben felt more certain that Boonzie had borrowed the camper. However rough and ready, it would make the perfect mobile base. And now that Ben knew the vehicle’s details, he’d already taken an important step towards finding his missing friend.
He lingered a few minutes longer in the house, wondering why anyone would have wanted to ransack it, and how much of this was related to the mysterious gold coin Mirella had told him about. But he wasn’t going to learn anything more by hanging around here. He left the house the same way he’d come in, and walked back around the rear pathway to the street.
The air temperature had dropped half a degree while he was inside Ewan’s place, and though it wasn’t yet four p.m. the light was already fading fast. Dusk came early around these parts in the wintertime. The darkening sky was choked with clouds and the first wispy flakes of what threatened to become a heavier snowfall were loosely spiralling down. The scent of woodsmoke was in the air as villagers kindled their log-burning stoves in readiness for a cold night. Ben zipped up his jacket, took a black wool beanie hat from one pocket and put it on. In the other pocket was a fresh pack of Gauloises and his Zippo lighter. He drew out a cigarette and lit up as he walked past his parked Mercedes and kept walking through the village.
Smoking helped him think as he explored his unfamiliar new surroundings. His thoughts were not comfortable ones. He shared Mirella’s deep concerns about Boonzie’s state of health, and wished that his friend had stayed at home to take care of himself. But Ben’s worries went deeper. Though Kinlochardaich might appear quiet and peaceful, even quaint and romantic, his innate sixth sense warned him of menace and dark secrets lurking behind the facade, like the watchful eyes of predators hidden in the bushes.
Suspected murder. Vicious beatings. Illegal house entry. The apparent disappearance of a man who’d come to investigate. The list was growing. And now Ben, too, was venturing into the danger zone.
As he strolled along he smiled pleasantly and said good evening to a couple of villagers he met. Anyone seeing him would think he was just another visitor to the area: maybe a business traveller passing through, or an adventure tourist on a winter camping expedition into the hills. But for Ben, his casual amble through the village felt like a reconnaissance mission no different from a covert military advance force making a pathfinder sortie deep behind enemy lines. Scouting the lie of the land. Gathering intelligence. Estimating enemy strength and location. Identifying any and all potential threats. His senses were fully fired up and not a single detail of his surroundings escaped his notice as he wandered the streets.
This was his ground zero. His war zone. It didn’t appear that way, not yet. But if bad men were out there doing bad things, and if those bad men had been foolish enough to bring any harm to Ben’s friend, then it was only a question of time before war erupted here. Ben would rip this place apart until he found whoever was responsible. And they would pay for what they’d done.
The snow was beginning to fall thicker and more steadily as he sighted the warm glow emanating from pub windows further down the street. As he got closer he could see the sign above the door that said KINLOCHARDAICH ARMS. The establishment was set back from the road. A few cars were parked outside, their roofs and bonnets dusted powdery white under the amber light of the streetlamps.
In Ben’s experience, there was no better place in which to begin a recce operation than the local public house. He looked at his watch. Only four-fifteen, but the falling darkness and plummeting temperature made it feel much later.
Time for a drink.
He pushed through the pub door and walked inside.
Entering the Kinlochardaich Arms was like taking a step back into the past. Both in absolute terms, since the pub’s interior probably hadn’t been altered in any significant way since about 1850, apart from the addition of electric lighting and a jukebox, and also for Ben personally, since the interior with its ancient beams and traditional decor took him straight back to the old drinking dens that had been his haunts back in the years he’d lived on the west coast of Ireland.
The decor, though not the ambience. His favourite Irish pubs had been warm and cheery places filled with lively craic, where the conversation and laughter flowed as joyfully as the Guinness and it wasn’t unusual for fiddles, mandolins, tin whistles and bodhráns to materialise out of nowhere for an impromptu cèilidh jam session. But as Ben walked in he quickly understood from the dour atmosphere that strangers to Kinlochardaich couldn’t expect to be greeted with much in the way of good old Highland hospitality. Even the log fire crackling in the old stone fireplace felt frigid and reserved.
Most of the drinkers in the lounge bar were gathered around a single large round table near the fire. They were a group of men in their thirties to fifties, hunched over pints and talking among themselves in low, mumbly voices as though they were plotting to overthrow the government. An assortment of heavy winter jackets and fleeces were draped messily over the backs of vacant chairs. At the far end of the lounge bar, a woman with long dark hair and a reedy ginger guy were drinking mugs of something hot and steaming at a table for two by the window. The woman had her back to Ben, and the guy was gazing out at the falling snow and saying something Ben couldn’t hear.
The only other woman in the place was the young redheaded barmaid sitting behind the beer pumps, uninterestedly reading a magazine and ignoring the wolfish-looking suitor who was leaning on the bar and doing all he could to impress her with his wit. As Ben crossed the floor the barmaid’s eyes darted up from the magazine and dwelled on him for a moment, and she flashed a coy smile. No trace of any kind of a smile, though, from the group at the big table. Some of the looks that turned his way were just checking-out-the-stranger glances, others lingered into hard and overtly hostile stares. The talking died away and the place fell silent for several seconds before resuming in the same mumbly tone.
Ben thought he could probably just about manage to cope with the level of friendliness. He wasn’t here to make friends. Paying them no notice he walked up to the bar, took off his hat and pulled up one of the plain wooden stools. The barmaid put down her magazine. Up close, she was more a girl than a woman. She was wearing too much makeup, with glitter on her eyelids. With the coy smile still on her lips and her eyes giving him the once-over she sidled across and asked what he’d like.
A no-brainer of a question, since being in Scotland, the sacred homeland of his favourite tipple, it would have been heresy for him to walk in here and order a pint of ale. Ben ran his eye along the row of single malt whiskies behind the bar. It was a decent collection. Some of the names were pretty obscure, though as something of a connoisseur he’d tried them all in his time. In his book there was no such thing as a bad single malt. He made his selection and asked for a double measure. The barmaid served it with another smile. Which the guy who’d been trying to chat her up apparently didn’t like very much, giving Ben sullen eyes as Ben thanked her and paid for his drink. Ben ignored him. She did the same, and after
