“She’s excellent too. And Sarah?”
“She thinks it will be fun to meet Angela. I’ve told her so much about her.”
“You have?”
Macdonald laughed again and hung up.
The lobby of the Royal Highland was large and grand, which wasn’t surprising since the hotel had opened in 1854. The place had obviously been renovated recently, but everything still seemed to be a hundred fifty years old, from a century that had apparently been as showy as everything they could see in there. Angela let out a whistle, and Winter felt the same.
Macdonald got up from a table in the open cocktail bar to the right. He wasn’t wearing a kilt, but Winter recognized him anyway. He hadn’t changed that Winter could see. The same villainous, swarthy looks, the same long, bony body that seemed as strong as hemp. Macdonald raised his hand and said something to the woman who had also stood up, and then Winter saw that Macdonald’s ponytail was gone.
It was a pleasant lunch. Macdonald had suggested fish and chips in all seriousness, because it was the bar’s famous specialty, with tartar sauce.
“I’ve never eaten fish and chips,” said Angela.
“Jeez, then it’s about time,” said Macdonald.
“Some things are worth not trying,” Sarah Macdonald said, placing her hand on Angela’s arm, “and this may be one of them.”
Angela laughed. She thought she would get along well with Sarah Macdonald. Steve’s wife was taller than average and thin, but in a strong way like her husband. She looked like Steve, including her face, almost as though they were siblings. The two had met when he started working as a green constable in Inverness.
“I s’pose this is the time and place for my first fish and chips,” said Angela, in response to Sarah.
“One should try everything once, except incest and folk dancing,” Macdonald said, and he looked around and called the waiter and ordered food and drinks. Winter had declined a glass of malt whisky-later, later-but said yes to a pint of Scotch ale whose name he didn’t recognize.
The food was good. To be sure, it was only fish and chips, but this was the place.
It was a good reunion. Winter had missed Macdonald, and maybe Macdonald had felt the same. Angela had met him when he came over to Gothenburg during the resolution of a painful case he and Winter had worked on together, in Gothenburg and London. They had become close. They had supported each other emotionally, because it was a matter of keeping one’s head during the almost unmentionable incidents that they had not only been forced to witness, but also to be involved in. That was the worst part of their respective jobs on either side of the water: to be forced to witness and to be forced to be involved.
“What do you say?” he heard Sarah ask.
“Suits me fine,” Angela said, and turned to Winter: “Sarah has offered to show me the city.”
“Then perhaps I may treat you to dinner this evening?” asked Winter.
“You may,” said Macdonald.
“May I suggest the Italian restaurant in the Glenmoriston?” asked Winter.
“You may do that too,” said Macdonald, and Sarah nodded.
The sun was out again as they stood outside the hotel, but the sky was still veiled by low clouds. Angela and Sarah went to the left and Macdonald showed Winter toward the station building.
“We can walk through it and out the other side, to the car rental place,” he said.
They walked through the departure hall, which was smaller than Winter remembered. He had sat here for an hour or two, waiting for his departure for Edinburgh via Perth. The train had gone straight over the Highlands, with a certain amount of effort, and he still remembered the odd landscape. It had been like an ocean floor a thousand meters above the sea. And it had suddenly become very cold in the train car. He still remembered some of the towns up there, not so far from here, Aviemore, Kingussie, Newtonmore, and Dalwhinnie at the northern point of Loch Ericht, Lake Eric you could say. There was a decent malt whisky from the distillery in Dalwhinnie, but he wasn’t sure that Macdonald would agree with him.
They walked past the tracks and out on Strothers Lane and directly onto Railway Terrace. Winter could see the Budget sign and the shining rental cars in the parking lot behind the office.
“Not a trace,” said the man behind the counter, who said his name was Frank Cameron, and he got up and followed them out. “It’s damn strange.” He had been the one who helped Axel Osvald.
“Customers must have their cars stolen sometimes, right?” asked Macdonald. Winter thought that Macdonald’s Scots accent became stronger when he spoke with this man, whose accent was quite strongly pronounced.
“Yes, yes, but the car is just gone now. In other cases we always find them. Or the cop… police find them sooner or later. Often sooner.” He looked around and pointed at a metallic green three-door Toyota Corolla, which a younger man was in the process of washing in the courtyard. “It was the twin of that one, this year’s model, same color.”
“Do you remember the customer?” Winter asked.
“No,” said Cameron. “I didn’t remember him when your colleague asked me last week and I didn’t remember him the week before either, when we reported the car missing, and I don’t remember this Swede now.”
“Are there that many Swedes?” asked Macdonald.
“Some,” said Cameron. He gave Macdonald a sharp look. Cameron had a prominent hawk nose. He seemed irritated that he didn’t remember. “What about it? We probably had a lot to do that day. I don’t remember him, okay? I have some weak memory of a slightly older fellow but that’s all.”
“That’s good,” said Macdonald.
“If that was him, he didn’t say anything,” said Cameron, “if he’s the one I… well, hardly remember, he was quiet as an Orkneyman and that doesn’t do much for the memory.”
“Maybe that’s why you remember him,” said Macdonald.
“But I don’t remember him, I’ve said.”
Macdonald nodded as if to say “What’s that got to do with it?” and asked for copies of the contract.
“Your friend from the police has them.”
“Craig?”
“Yes, maybe that’s his name. A stuck-up Englishman.”
“That’s Craig,” said Macdonald. “I’m sure he’s told you to sound the alarm if the car shows up.”
“How would that happen?” said Cameron. “The fellow who rented it is dead, right? He can’t drive it here. Is whoever stole it supposed to drive it here?”
“Someone might find it,” said Macdonald.
“It would probably be the police, in that case,” said Cameron. “But I doubt it.” He let out a laugh that was mostly a snort.
“Well, that’s all for now,” said Macdonald. He turned to Winter. “Wasn’t your wife going to rent a car this afternoon?”
“Yes, right,” said Winter.
Cameron’s face changed. His eyes became soft and merry.
“You know the place, lads!”
They said good-bye and continued along Railway Terrace toward the police station, which was only a few hundred yards away.
“Cameron!” said Macdonald, and it mostly sounded like a snort.
“What?” said Winter.
“Cameron is a strange clan,” said Macdonald. “They’re from up in northern Argyll, in the isolated central Highlands, and that’s where they belong.”
Winter smiled. Macdonald stopped and turned to him.
“You saw that character, right? He was a perfect example of a Cameron, perfect. Did you see his nose? Do you know what the name Cameron means? In Gaelic it’s
“Are you racist, Steve?”
“Ha ha.”
“Do you know a lot about different clans?” asked Winter.
“Mostly about my own,” said Macdonald.
