Lomond hotel, fifteen miles north of the city. Walker and Fuentecilla drove up to meet them, dressed in full regalia. The local cops kept an eye and reported a meal for four in a private dining room. The drinks bill came to almost three grand. Someone liked their whisky old and overpriced.
Looking at the bill for the meal, Morrow knew she was right: the Colombians weren’t sidelining Fuentecilla and Walker. Roxanna had been sent here to do a job. The question was, what.
Her desk phone rang. She watched it for a moment, thinking swear words in a long unbroken stream.
The deputy chief constable’s PA ordered her to come into Pitt Street right now. The deputy head of the entire country’s police force was holding a meeting about a missing woman.
PINAD.
6
Tommy stopped the van on the esplanade and pulled on the handbrake. ‘So, I’ll see you at the do tomorrow?’
Iain was staring over the choppy grey estuary to a low peninsula rising out of the water. A brigade of uniform trees stood to attention, same height and shape, planted at the same time and subject to the same conditions. The Dark Wood, it was called. The foliage was a deep, warm green, a welcoming green.
‘Iain? Bud? You getting out or what?’
Move. Iain opened the cab door, pushing hard against the wind. He dropped down to the pavement, flat-footed, every part of him heavy and worn.
‘Bud? You all righ—’ Iain slammed the door before Tommy finished his sentence and stood still, his back to the van, until it moved off behind him, following the long shore road to Rhu.
He felt dead. The breeze salted his lips. He was nothing but a heavy husk standing there, hypnotised by the Dark Wood across the water, the trees outlined against a brightening sky. It looked clean, soft as a bed. Iain took a step towards the sea.
No.
That was her thought. He couldn’t walk through the water to get to the Dark Wood. If he was going to die he should still be careful. He’d draw attention to himself, walking off into the sea. He might undo the payment of the debt and that was the one good thing he had to cling to. Anyway, between the paved esplanade and the water there was a ten foot drop to a shale beach and then fifty yards to the water’s edge. Somebody would see him. It would cause a fuss and Mark would be angry.
He stood anyway, looking at the water, wondering. Maybe she wanted him to walk into the salted sea to clean the blood off.
‘Iain Fraser?’
He only half heard the woman’s voice.
‘Iain Fraser? Is that you?’
He looked. A tall woman. The wind whipped strands of wild white from her bob, hairs wiggling up like cartoon electricity. She had rich-people skin. Soft cheeks and a long, straight nose.
He looked her in the eye and saw that she was scared. Was she scared of him? She blinked it away and her face broke into a warm, masking smile. ‘Iain, you’re so tall! It’s me, Susan Grierson. Don’t you remember me?’
Susan Grierson had been an Adventure Scout. He didn’t want to make her frightened. She was nice. She had tried to get him to join the Scouts but there was too much going on. She had taken him sailing.
Sitting in a boat in Loch Long, Susan Grierson and the other cub scouts doing all the work. Iain sat in the middle, holding the sides, watching the water. It was very early in the morning. Why were they out so early? It was dark still. A chill was radiating from the deep grey. A small boat, low enough to hear the sibilant rustle of the water breaking on the bow. She excused Iain from the work of sailing because something bad had happened and it was a shame. He couldn’t recall what particular thing it was that time.
He had watched the wash from the boat breaking, soft and rhythmic. Over and again the water bulged, splitting at its peak, a knife slit in a bag of sand. It rose and split and fell back again and again as they sailed down the soft grassy coast. Iain had found hope and comfort in the rhythm of that. A swell